She pulled the box off the shelf, handling it with care. The heft of the item assured her that at least one artifact resided inside.
Finally, she’d located the Rain Dragon.
“Guys, I found it,” she said as she cracked open the lid.
Damon set down a dainty-looking cup and glanced at Madalina. Sam withdrew his hands from a glass case and moved to stand behind her.
“That looks like a good bet, yes,” Damon said, stepping up to Madalina’s side.
“The first dragon we had, the Treasure Dragon, had a red eye. Like this carving on top,” Madalina said. Inside, nestled on a bed of layered red silk, lay the Rain Dragon. Made of stone, its dimensions were similar to the Treasure Dragon, able to fill the palm of her hand, but no more. It was bulky, with the dragon positioned on four feet with its scaled tail wrapped around its flank. The cerulean eye stared out at the world, its talons still visible despite the obvious wear on the stone.
Damon and Sam made quiet noises as they inspected the artifact. Pulling out his phone, Sam stepped aside to make a call.
“What do you think, Madalina?” Damon asked. “Is this the real thing?”
“It has to be. It has the same kind of patina as the last one, and the wear on the talons, teeth, and scales match. I’m no expert, of course, but the fact that my grandfather described this box and described the dragon makes me ninety-nine percent sure this is the real deal,” she said. Lifting the carving out of the box, she carefully set the dragon on the shelf. She could tell that if she moved the piece of silk, the first section would lift out and expose whatever was beneath. More compartments, maybe another dragon.
“Thad, yeah. She found the dragon,” Sam said into the phone. “I—what?”
Startled by Sam’s incredulous tone, Madalina paused in her efforts to pull up the divider in the box to twist and look over her shoulder. Damon frowned and stared at Sam, clearly waiting for an explanation.
Sam’s expression shifted into unhappy lines. “I’ll tell him. Yes, we’ll call back.”
“What?” Damon asked in a curt voice.
“The agents sent Thaddeus a video. Of Brandon. He was being beaten or something; Thaddeus isn’t sure. Only that Brandon looked to be in serious trouble.” Sam’s voice had taken on a gravity that matched his quiet, outward demeanor. “The agents sent it with a message prodding Cole and Madalina to work faster. We’ve got to get this dragon to the agents as soon as possible and get Brandon out of there.”
“Beaten?” Madalina recoiled inwardly at the thought of Brandon being beaten. She set the box down, picked up the dragon, and pushed it against Damon’s chest. Forcing him to take it. “Here. Go. You get this back to the agents as soon as possible.” When she remembered that the other two dragons might be in the bottom of the box, under the divider, she said, “Wait. We might be able to end this once and for all.”
Damon caught the dragon and cradled it against his chest. “Madalina—”
“No, see. The other dragons might be in here. My grandfather suggested he might have them all. Mentioned that his friend used plural language to describe them.” Lifting the divider again, she exposed two different compartments in the bottom of the box. Both were empty.
No more dragons.
Madalina groaned. What had Walcot done with them now? Or had his friend used the plural to mean the Treasure Dragon and the Rain Dragon only? Walcot may have never had all four dragons to start with. “They’re not here. But you have one, and that’s what the agents want. They can’t complain, since they haven’t found them at all in the last several centuries,” she retorted, suddenly annoyed at the situation. “Take that and free Brandon.”
Damon glanced into the box, as did Sam. Then he eased the box from her hands, replaced the dragon, and closed the lid. “We’re not leaving you here, if that’s what you’re suggesting,” he said. “I’ll have Thaddeus book us flights, since Cole has the jet, and we’ll all fly back to the States.”
“Except those men that attacked us earlier are looking for me. I’m more of a liability if I’m with you—”
“There’s no discussion, no argument here. We’re not leaving you alone, period,” Damon said, interrupting in a matter-of-fact tone. “I don’t care if that group has doubled in size and is marching through every street in Rio—we’re not leaving you behind.”
“He’s right. You’re safer with us.” Sam rubbed his clean-shaven jaw, then said to Damon, “Or I’ll stay with her and you can take the dragon back on your own.”
Madalina hadn’t expected Sam to offer himself as protector. She wasn’t sure how capable he was, but something was better than nothing.
Damon looked like he was about to denounce the idea out of hand.
Sam added, “We’ll probably be safe here for at least another twenty-four hours. And if worse comes to worst, we can hide in this room if those guys storm the house. They won’t find us. When they leave, we’ll come out and depart under cover of darkness.”
“I don’t like it. We’ll all go together,” Damon said and, after a second of direct eye contact with Sam and Madalina, turned for the door.
Madalina couldn’t argue with Damon’s wariness. Not after three security men had paid the price with their lives. She surely didn’t want to fight the attackers off alone should they discover her connection to the house, but she would if she had to.
Sam looked doubtful but didn’t argue.
Madalina took a final look around the room, promising herself she would come back and examine everything more thoroughly. When she had time, when she could discover the secrets harbored here at her own pace. When Brandon’s and Cole’s lives weren’t at stake. She exited the room with Sam at her heels.
Closing the secret-room door, Damon slid the keypad cover back into place and guided them all up the stairs.
Madalina prepared herself to face the world at large and hoped, with every breath she drew, that Westrich’s men wouldn’t find them on the way to the airport.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Brandon hung up the phone from Cole’s call and fished a few more coins from his pocket. Although he’d chosen the most out-of-the-way phone booth possible, he still felt exposed, even under the cover of night. A bright light shone down from above, a streetlamp situated perfectly to illuminate the booth sitting at the side of the street. On the run and in hiding most of the day, he’d waited until dusk to make his move, taking all the backstreets and alleyways through the city.
He punched in Thaddeus’s number, darting looks past the clear glass shield around the phone. This was the last time he was going to try. If he failed to raise Thaddeus again, he’d decided he would go straight to the airport and get a flight himself. It would be risky either way. The agents would expect him to try and get out of the state, most likely, and would put a watch on the terminal. Not just the airport, but bus stations and trains.
The flash of headlights veering across lanes of traffic, blinding him in the booth, forced Brandon into action. He didn’t need to see the sedan making a reckless cut toward the curb to know that the agents had found him.
Slamming the receiver into the holder, he fled the booth, feet pounding the pavement in the other direction. He cursed under his breath, passing into a gloomy alley between buildings.
Now he had to lose the agents all over again. Those bastards were everywhere.
So much for catching the next flight out to Pennsylvania.
Roughly fourteen miles outside State College, Pennsylvania, Cole turned onto a small dirt road barely visible in the darkness. Trees loomed on either side, their heavy boughs drooping high over the lane. During the daytime the leaves provided shelter and shade; at night the gnarled silhouettes appeared somewhat creepy and foreboding. A few minutes and two chuckholes later, a broad meadow opened up to the left and to the right, and that was Cole’s cue to kill the headlights.
Cole slowed the car, crawling along the hard-packed road until he came to a metal gate. Barbed-wire fencing enclosed the meadow to the left, which was acreage belonging to one Mr. Norman Westrich.
Parking adjacent to the gate, Cole cut the engine and left the keys in the ignition. He didn’t have to worry about anyone stealing the car way out here. He slid on a shoulder holster obtained from the duffel bag, fingers deft on the clasps. Two handguns went into the holsters, as well as two extra magazines that he slid into his pockets. The private jet was perpetually stocked with weaponry and ammunition for just these kinds of occasions, and he’d made sure to load up before leaving.
Exiting the vehicle he closed the door with a soft thump and vaulted the metal gate with little trouble. While brambles choked the perimeter fencing from the outside, the interior pasture was flat grass, mowed regularly if not chewed down by horses and goats. No weeds or bramble patches were allowed to flourish within Westrich’s property line.
Breaking into a jog, he paced himself and aimed for a stand of trees in the near distance that he knew surrounded Westrich’s mansion. He detected glimmering lights through the leaves as he drew closer, indicating lit windows in the expansive home. Not just one or two windows, but every single pane in the house glowed brightly. Westrich preferred to have his entire manse illuminated at every hour of every day, whether the rooms were in use or not. Cole had always privately thought Westrich was afraid of the dark.
It wouldn’t work in Cole’s favor tonight, considering he needed to make an unobtrusive entrance, and that was more difficult to do under the proverbial spotlight.
Cole dashed from the last tree to the large back porch—on alert for attack dogs, motion detectors, and employees. Westrich had no fewer than five staff members working at any given time, from butlers to valets to chefs. Creeping along the back porch, which was, thankfully, not bathed in light, Cole approached the double set of French doors and stopped just to the side. He peered in through a pane, glimpsing an empty informal sitting room and an empty hallway. Reaching up he tried the door. To his surprise it came open under his hand. One of the staff must have gone outside and forgotten to lock up for the evening. A new hire, probably, someone who hadn’t yet been chastised for the lapse.
Easing inside he closed the door behind him, scanning the informal living room in quick sweeps. The three-story mansion, done in gray stone with a traditional interior, couldn’t have been more stuffed to the gills with furniture than it already was. Sofas jutted up against overstuffed chairs, with bookcases lining the wall behind. End tables and coffee tables and souvenir cabinets in maple made the room homey and inviting, yet it was almost too much for Cole. The sheer amount of objects overloaded his mind. It was all elegant and tastefully done; there was just so much of it.
Seeing no one he crept through the large room into a hallway, diverting left into another hall when he heard voices ahead. Taking a roundabout route, he jogged on stealthy feet to the far end, took a right turn into yet another hall, and picked up speed until he arrived at the immense front foyer. Instead of barging into the open, he paused alongside the sweeping staircase, crouched low to keep hidden from anyone lingering near the double front doors. Glittering lights decorated the slick marble floor from a crystal chandelier dangling from the ceiling. Cole didn’t see the butler or any other staff, and rounded the end of the staircase. Lunging up the steps in pairs, he ascended to the second floor, then the third.
Ducking into a side room, he flattened his back against the wall when he heard two women’s voices echo down a nearby corridor. After the voices faded, he exited the room, keeping close to the wall, and advanced on a set of doors separate from all other doors and doorways. He knew this room because he’d been here before.
He called it the throne chamber.
Cole opened one of the doors, stepped inside, and closed it behind him. The throne chamber was as eccentric as Westrich, with a high-back tapestry chair situated at the end of the chamber, floor-to-ceiling collectors’ cases lining every wall, and a domed ceiling that would have been better suited to a museum. Flanking the “throne” were several tables and desks—all covered with books, magazines, a laptop, artifacts encased in glass, and several maps. Two chandeliers hung from the high ceiling, and more inset lighting near the cases gave the room an otherworldly glow. It was like standing under a bright midday sun, without a shadow in sight.
Westrich was right where Cole thought he would be—immersed in a book on a table, glasses perched low on the bridge of his nose. Norman hadn’t detected Cole’s presence yet. Tall and slim, with receding salt-and-pepper hair, Westrich faced a table to the side, one hand skimming text on a page. Soft classical music spilled from hidden speakers, volume low and unobtrusive.
Withdrawing a handgun, Cole inched forward, careful to remain silent on approach. He knew how to stay out of Westrich’s periphery until he wanted to be seen.
“You need to get on the phone, right now, and call off your men,” Cole said.
Westrich twitched in shock and snapped a look sideways. He straightened, frowning, one hand shaking as he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his aristocratic nose.
“Cole? Cole West? What are—why are you pointing a gun at me?” Westrich demanded.
Even now, after everything he’d learned, Cole’s gut instinct rebelled at the idea that this soft-spoken, nonviolent man would condone violence just to acquire a collectible—no matter how sought after. Thaddeus had proof, Cole reminded himself, and took another step closer. He said, “You know why. Call your men off. I don’t appreciate you using me and putting me in danger.” Him and Madalina, but he didn’t want to bring up her name.
Westrich drew himself up, bushy white eyebrows creased in a frown. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Cole. I haven’t set men on you. I certainly haven’t used you.”
“Playing stupid doesn’t suit you, Westrich. Pick up the phone and call them off. Now.”
Westrich glanced at the gun, then Cole’s eyes. “I swear to you. I hired a team to go after the dragons, yes, in hopes that between you, you might turn up a hit. But I certainly did not send anyone after you personally.”
Cole came to a stop five feet from the edge of the adjacent table. Westrich sounded and looked convincing. “You didn’t order the team to attack me? To follow me to Brazil?”
Westrich’s frown deepened. “What? No. They’re in Brazil? I thought the team was in Croatia.”
“No, Westrich, they’re in Rio, terrorizing me. Or they were until I left.” Cole tightened his grip on the gun. “Now tell me the truth. Tell me why you’ve done what you’ve done.”
“Cole, I swear to you on my mother’s grave that I did not, I repeat not, send men to harm you.” Westrich glanced at the barrel of the gun, then met Cole’s gaze. “I would never do such a thing.”
“Really.”
“Really, Cole. You must believe me. We’ve had an understanding, you and I, for a very long time.”
Cole narrowed his eyes. He didn’t understand why Westrich’s men had attacked him and Madalina if Westrich hadn’t sent them to. Something was wrong. “And you should know, your men killed three of my father’s security agents. Gunned them down in broad daylight.”
Westrich flinched as if he’d been struck. “No.”
“Yes. They were after me at the time. These are the same men I fought off before. The proof is right here.” He gestured to the faint marks on his face, still visible from the confrontation. “So you see, with you admitting that you did hire a team, I have no other choice than to think you sent them. How else would they know I was on your payroll, so to speak, searching for the dragons?”
Westrich pushed his glasses higher on his nose. He drew in a slow breath. “When I hired them, they asked if anyone else was searching for the dragons, if anyone else knew about them. So that the team would be aware if they crossed paths. I thought it was a court
esy thing, Cole. I explained you were the only other man I’d hired and that you’d been searching for quite a long time, so far to no avail.”
Westrich hadn’t discovered, then, that he’d given the last dragon to the Chinese agents. Cole had thought revenge was Westrich’s main motivation. If not that, if he really hadn’t hired the men to attack him, then what the hell had happened? He came to the conclusion at the same time Westrich did.
“They’ve gone rogue. Maybe they never meant to give the dragon back to me at all,” Westrich said, looking more distressed by the moment.
Cole had to make a snap judgment. He had to decide whether Westrich was telling the truth and whether to believe that the only enemy here was the rogue band of men he’d met in Brazil. The group had probably taken the job with the sole intent of getting information and finding the dragon to keep for themselves. It made sense, so long as Westrich wasn’t lying. Cole’s instinct all along had insisted that Westrich wasn’t the type of man to commit such an act, and combined with seeing Westrich’s denial in person, Cole came to the conclusion that Westrich had not sent the band of men to rob and attack him.
He muttered a curse and holstered his weapon. “Even if you called the leader and recanted the offer of money for the dragon, it doesn’t matter. They’re acting on their own, and they think they can get more for the damned thing somewhere else.”
“That is as it appears, Cole. I’m truly sorry. If I’d had any idea the men were using me, too, and would go rogue once they’d found out about you, I would never have hired them in the first place,” Westrich said. “What’s worse is that they asked for traveling and businesses expenses, and I gave them a little money before they left. Undoubtedly, that was what they used to fly to Brazil.” Despite the absence of a gun aimed his way, Westrich didn’t look any more relaxed. If anything, he appeared stricken at the turn of events. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
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