Wood, Fire, & Gold

by Jackson, Pam

  She was thankful that Clay continued his interrogation using a softer tone. “Why don’t you just tell me the truth? You are evidently in some kind of trouble with at least one mentally unstable man. And you seem to need my uncle’s map so badly that you stole it—not to mention attempting grand larceny with the snowmobile. C’mon, darlin’ ... it’s either the truth or jail. What’s it gonna be?”

  All Andie could do was look down at the snow that covered the wooden deck. She was tired of being a liar, and she remembered a vow she had made to herself to stop her deceitful ways. She felt a hot tear running down her cheek and was suddenly shocked as well as relieved to feel the release of the anxiety and pain that filled her heart. But what surprised her more than her own girly emotions was the touch of Clay’s cool, long fingers gingerly caressing her chin and tilting it upward so her glistening eyes met his.

  He smiled and stared deeply into her gemstone eyes for just a moment before he spoke. “Listen, you don’t have to tell me everything, just enough so that I can help you. The truth. Just tell me the truth.”

  She gently broke away from Clay’s tender touch and walked to the far end of the snow-covered deck. She was struggling; her gut wrenched as she thought about sharing her deep secret with this perfect stranger, and she wondered how she was even going to begin her story without sounding like a complete lunatic.

  “First of all, call me Andie. Andrea never quite fit me. It’s more for a woman with a husband and kids who grocery shops and attends PTA meetings.” She realized for the first time that type of lifestyle sounded pretty damn good, and she wouldn’t mind carpooling instead of dealing with the bottom feeders who plagued the black market antiquities trade.

  She wiped a tear away and continued, “Second, I don’t know if the truth of this story is even the truth. A downright unbelievable lie would sound better than what I can tell you.”

  “Try me, Andie. I’m a pretty good listener, and I’ve witnessed some strange things all over the world. If I were to tell anyone half of what I’ve experienced, they would lock my ass up and shock therapy would be a daily routine for me.”

  She turned and faced him, still tormented about whether to trust him.

  Her gut clenched so hard she thought she might get ill as she spoke. She hoped this decision wouldn’t get them both killed. “Okay, I’ll tell you what’s going on, but I think I might need another cup of that Kona coffee to help release some of my anxiety.” She smiled. Time was running out, and she needed to trust someone in order to move forward and get out of this mess without losing her life. And it was evident that Clay was not going to let her leave here on her own.

  “Yeah, I think I can whip that up for you. Besides, I’m freezing my ass off out here. You slept a helluva long time.” He flashed a fabulous, wide grin as he arched a dark eyebrow—the same sexy way a confident man does before he beds a beautiful woman.

  Chapter 5

  The soles of his fawn-brown leather loafers squeaked sharply against the high gloss of the parquet floor. A drop of sweat ran down his broad forehead, settling at the deep age lines that surrounded his beady eyes. He removed his wire-rimmed glasses to wipe away the moisture rising on his brow. As he fidgeted with a flash drive from Andie’s computer, Duke Henson wondered how he was going to break this news to his boss. He had been a loyal assistant to Giovanni Tivoli for ten years. Duke, a wormy, lying cheat with perverted after-hours habits that he often indulged at the less-reputable strip clubs, never mixed business with pleasure. But his unscrupulous behavior and his ability to fit in with cretins as well as the upper crust made him a perfect fit as Tivoli’s manservant.

  Duke lightly knocked against the oversized wooden double doors of Tivoli’s personal office. He didn’t use the enormous, ancient iron knockers that were pitted from centuries of exposure to the elements—Tivoli would surely have his head served on a platter if they cracked against the splitting wood. These doors had once served as an entrance to an ancient temple of Cybele that was excavated in Bulgaria. Tivoli himself took part in this archaeological dig; he never once laid his supple hands on a hand trowel or shovel, but since his money had funded the majority of the project, he had felt it was his right to pilfer any relics that he fancied. The museums and his cash-flush clients could rummage as they wished through the remnants. As long as Tivoli was paid up with certain corrupt government officials, business was steady and lucrative. His antiquities auction house was flush with cash and could compete with any of the veteran houses that had more publicity and better reputations.

  “Yes, enter.” Tivoli’s command echoed through his gold leaf and mahogany trimmed chamber.

  His sweaty and nervous servant peeked his horse-like face around one of the heavy doors.

  “Ah, Duke. Come in, come in.” Tivoli’s British accent endured, though he had lived in New York for some thirty years. He practiced his elocution daily.

  Giovanni Tivoli’s father, Angelo, was an Italian shipping mogul, and his mother an English-born opera singer. He had inherited his father’s drive for power and his mother’s Anglo features. Tivoli had grown up among the bluest of blood, attending the finest boarding schools in England. His father had chosen to raise him in his mother’s native land only to discontinue his fine British education and send him to a private college in the United States. England was good enough to teach his son about history, literature and social grace, but America was where you learned to make a buck—and that he did.

  When Angelo Tivoli passed away several years after Giovanni graduated from college, Giovanni took his father’s fortune, quadrupled it, and sent his mother to live the rest of her years on a private Caribbean island so that she would not meddle in his affairs. He created the Tivoli Gallery of Treasure and Fine Art and began collecting rare objects and books for clients who were willing to pay his extravagant fees without the hassle of government officials and customs agents. He did have legitimate business dealings, too—of course, they existed to keep the IRS and the feds out of his perfectly styled hair and fat bank accounts. The real money was made quietly and discreetly behind closed doors, and only his most trusted employees shared the spoils of his pillaging and plundering.

  “So, Duke, did you find our little lost lamb?” Tivoli asked, swiveling in his supple ostrich leather chair. He placed his hands flat against the blackened wood of his desk as if trying to pick up a psychic vibration from its previous owner.

  The simple nineteenth century desk seemed out of place in Tivoli’s magnificent office, which was adorned with gold leaf and vaulted ceilings. The hickory desk had darkened with age, and the small drawers that flanked its corners were much too small for storage by today’s standards. He cherished this desk more than any other relic that embellished his private space. He had purchased it during a private auction and paid a considerable amount for the modest desk where Edgar Allan Poe was said to have written some of his most famous short stories. Tivoli once told Duke that he could feel Poe’s torment and pain permeating its surface. The mottled wood was still rough to the touch where Poe had pressed the nib of his quill pen against the paper.

  “She’s not at her apartment, her office has been cleaned out, and as you know, she’s not picking up her cell phone. There is no trace of the diary or any of the maps. She even deleted the files about Claudius Smith from her computer. I managed to get the geeks down in the IT department to try to restore them, but Andie is crafty. The boys told me that she installed a firewall and virus that corrupted the hard drive when someone meddled with her password. They worked on it all night and did their best to retrieve what was left.”

  Tivoli squinted, his steely blue eyes boring an imaginary hole into the thick mahogany paneling that covered the walls of his personal temple to himself. “Hmm. She deleted her files? Andie never deletes any information, especially when it concerns antiquities. It seems that our girl has something to hide, especially from me.”

  “Sir, she can’t hide forever. Eventually she’ll show up at her apartme
nt, and then we’ll retrieve her there.” Duke sneered, his self-confidence blooming at his elementary plan, but Tivoli cut his ego to shreds with a cold glare.

  “Don’t underestimate our Andie, she’s cunning and resourceful.” He stood and paced the length of his quarters, his heels clicking on the polished floor with the cadence of a snare drum. He stopped and stared out the floor-to-ceiling window. His office and home were in the penthouse of the beautifully restored Donovan building on Madison Avenue. The business consumed most of the fourteen floors of this exquisite Gothic style building that was adorned with perching gargoyles and other mythical creatures, but the penthouse was off limits to low-level employees, and only a few within the company had access—including Andie.

  Tivoli noticed that yesterday’s ominous storm clouds were gone; most likely, by now, they were well out over the ocean. On the horizon, a deep orange sunrise was lighting a vivid blue sky—not a cloud to be seen for miles. “Where, oh where, can you be, my love?” he asked, clenching his teeth, expecting no answer from Duke.

  Tivoli’s left eye twitched with contempt for Andie’s disrespect toward him.

  “Well, I’m sure you’ve already seen the remnants of her files, and you’ve also managed to neatly preserve them on that flash drive you’ve been nervously fumbling with for the past several minutes. Duke, please don’t waste my time trying to placate my anger. Just tell me what was found.”

  “All right, sir. It seems she might have located the lost cave that contains the book.”

  “Atros Fallis, you bloody fool!” Tivoli cried out across his vast chamber as he turned to Duke with a furious glare. “If you are to relay information to me, Duke, make sure you speak like a professional. We are not discussing a first edition of Alice in Wonderland. This is a magnificent tome that contains secrets that only the richest and noblest men of the past were privy to, so therefore, it deserves to be called by its proper name. The Atros Fallis.” The name purred from Tivoli’s throat like he was whispering to a lover.

  “Sorry, sir, it will not happen again.” Duke hung his head low in his usual subservient manner. He then continued his report. “The last two searches she made on the Internet were directions to Harriman, New York, and to an outdoors store that specializes in climbing gear and hiking equipment.”

  Tivoli sat back down behind his beloved desk and began to click the keys on his laptop computer. Quiet and focused, he scrolled down the list of his files and opened the text document named “Notations on the Diary of Katherine Onderdonk.” He smirked, amused with himself that his instinct to acquire Andie’s password and a copy of her computer files had been right on the money. He didn’t need the techs in IT deciphering fragments of information on Andie’s hard drive; he already had the file. It was nice to see Duke jump through hoops for the sake of the company.

  Lately, Andie hadn’t been the same hard-edged investigator he’d proudly molded from a piece of clay. He’d noticed that she was more emotional and was always on the edge of tears. He had no patience for benevolence and good will toward man. A conscience didn’t pay for his extravagant lifestyle.

  Tivoli began reading the text before him, ignoring the fact that Duke was still waiting on edge for a response to his findings. Several minutes passed before Tivoli lifted his ice blue eyes from the screen. He ran his fingers through his short blond hair and sighed with dissatisfaction. The diary was that of a young girl from the eighteenth century who was reportedly kidnapped by Claudius Smith. The girl was one of only a few to see the Atros Fallis in Claudius’s hands before his execution.

  “The diary only mentions an underground shaft, ‘well lit by candlelight and magnificently furnished.’ It does not mention an exact location. The poor wretch was blindfolded when she was abducted. She mentions her holding cell being underground. When she was finally rescued she realized she was being held in a cave on a hilltop. She originally thought she was being held in a cellar hole due to the smell of dank earth.”

  “Well, sir, I was getting to that point, but I didn’t want to interrupt you. And I didn’t know you had a file copy of the diary,” Duke said, adjusting his green paisley bow tie and clearing the rock-sized lump in his throat.

  Tivoli shot the horse-faced man a look of resentment and rose from his seat to turn again toward the window to stare at the morning sky. Tivoli’s usual playboy features seemed to pale with the conflict of serious thought, and he took a moment to regain his composure. “Duke, if you enjoy torturing me, that’s fabulous,” he said, feigning a soft smile. “In fact, I somewhat enjoy torture under the right circumstances. But mark my words, my sniveling friend, I will do the same to you.” His soft smile turned to an evil glare, his perfect complexion ticking with hostility at Duke. “Remember, I have a complete set of Civil War era surgical instruments that I am just dying to try out. Now, you extreme ass, will you please finish conveying your findings, and don’t pause for one goddamned moment until you have exhausted all your information.”

  “All right, then. I was searching through some of the miscellaneous papers that she left behind and came across a telephone number to a historical society based in northern New Jersey. I called the number pretending to be Miss Andrea Brown’s associate, under the ruse that the information that was sent to her was never received. The kind old fellow running the organization faxed me the information that Andie requested. Among the material was a Jersey Dutch ancestry and Mohawk Indian translation keys. But the shining gem was a map, dating back to the mid to late eighteenth century. It wasn’t intact, unfortunately, but at the very edge of the relief was a series of elevation lines and a name given to this area, Den of Claudius Smith.”

  “Were you able to compare this vintage map to a modern and current map?”

  “Yes, sir, and it matches the location of Andie’s last search for directions on the border of New Jersey and upstate New York. Harriman is its name. It is composed of state park land and older hamlets and villages.”

  “Duke, see if you can get in touch with Dr. Samuel Nassir. That’s Andie’s archaeological contact. She usually runs historical information past him before she makes any decisions regarding artifacts. Especially one as ancient as the Atros Fallis.”

  “I have already tried that, sir.” Duke shifted his weight uneasily, trying to relieve a cramp starting in his right leg and praying Tivoli would not catch his awkward stance. “He ... he hasn’t been in his office since last week. His assistant told me that the museum has just filed a missing persons report with the New York City Police Department. He lives alone, no family, except some relatives back in Egypt, so the museum was afraid something sinister might’ve happened to him. All leads are cold.”

  Tivoli was silent. He suddenly threw his broad shoulders back, followed by a twist of his neck that produced the audible crack of his vertebrae aligning properly down the length of his back. He pulled abruptly at the stark white French cuffs of his tailored silk shirt so that his ruby and gold cuff links sparkled. He took his seat again and stared through Duke. With a flash of rage he swept his laptop computer off his desk, and it crashed to the floor. Bits of plastic and lettered keys lay strewn across the wood floor, and the screen flashed blue before going dark.

  “I hate deception from people I keep nearest to me! She’ll pay for this,” Tivoli screeched, his lower lip quivering with anger. “I gave her everything, Duke. I made her. I created the perfect woman, and now she has to be put down like a rabid dog.”

  Duke could see Tivoli’s eyes moistening with tears, whether from anger or sadness only Tivoli knew. Duke interrupted Tivoli’s moment of anguish with a muffled clearing of his throat. Anyone who was close to Tivoli knew how he felt about Andie. He desired her like no other object that he could excavate and add to his collection, but she was always professional, and she never let him into her personal space. It was rumored that he had her apartment wired with video surveillance so he could watch her as she slept—or as she did anything else that was truly personal.

  “R
ight,” Tivoli said. “Well, we will need to fetch our little lamb and bring her back home. I need that tome. I have an impatient client with a thirst for blood and vengeance. He has already paid in full, and I’m not going to disappoint.” Tivoli loosened his rigid collar as he thought about his Venezuelan patron, who had recently expressed his growing displeasure with Tivoli and the dragging pace of this project.

  “What do you think we should do, sir? This storm has crippled the city and up the coast, as well. It might be days before we can reach her, especially if she was stupid enough to look for the boo ... I ... I mean, the Atros Fallis in the mountains by herself.” Duke sighed, relieved that he’d caught himself before calling the Atros Fallis a mere book again.

  A wide and diabolical grin appeared on Tivoli’s face. He chuckled and snorted. “Duke, my loyal subject, I’m already a step ahead of my little she-devil. But just in case, get me Luca Eberstark on the phone. He is just the man for this type of situation. Apprise him of our latest dilemma and remind him to be reserved. We don’t want this public. I have a legitimate business to operate,” Tivoli said, his ice blue eyes mere slits. “And Duke, you can tell him it’s all right to hurt her, but I want her returned to me alive.” A sadistic smile curled the right side of his perfect, pouty lips. “We can’t have Luca enjoying all the fun, now can we? Now go, quickly.” Tivoli dismissed Duke with a wave of his hand. “Duke. Don’t fail me.”

  Duke left the room and scurried down the corridor. Tivoli sat behind his desk with palms facing downward against the scarred wood. A tear ran down his face as he let out a terrible, rageful roar that vibrated off the walls. Surely, all his demons in hell screamed along with him. “ANDIE!”

  Chapter 6

  Clay walked to the upright piano that sat against the wall next to the front door. He quietly slid the small bench out from under it and opened the lid. With deliberate ease, he placed the handgun inside the piano bench among the sheet music. Andie glared nervously, feeling uneasy about invading his personal space. Clay evidently expected danger if he was strategically planting firearms around his house. One does not place a 9mm in a piano bench close to the front door if one does not wish to have easy access to it. Her anxiety was ratcheting up, since she didn’t believe for a second that malevolent Girl Scouts were up here in the hinterlands selling Thin Mints.