Tell Me No Lies

by Elizabeth Lowell

  "I collect Warring States and Qin dynasty bronzes, or Huai style, if you prefer that description," he said, acknowledging with a smile the fact that every expert seemed to divide Chinese bronzes differently. "Third century B.C. bronzes, particularly those of Qin's time, are my passion, but – " he shrugged " – of course they're very rare. I've collected some early Han, as well, but it has to be spectacular to interest me."

  Instantly Lindsay thought of the hill-censer. O'Donnel had called an hour before to tell her that the bowl and incense burner were both for sale. Mr. White had approved the purchase of the bowl, but had refused to even consider the hill-censer. Nor would he give any reason, although he had assured her that he had no personal doubt as to the piece's authenticity.

  "Mr. White didn't mention what price range you were looking in."

  Catlin turned toward Lindsay. "There's no limit on a piece that I like."

  She listened to the faint roughness underlying the deep male voice. Like his callused palm, his strength and his nearly gold eyes, Catlin's voice was unusual. Combined with the thick, sleek pelt of black hair, and the mustache that contrasted with the white curve of his occasional smile, Mr. Jacob Catlin was a definite change from the slim-hipped, vaguely male curators and white-haired collectors who were the museum's usual clients. No wonder Sherry had walked him down the hall, doubtless watching hungrily the whole way.

  "Have you known Mr. White long?" asked Lindsay.

  "Senior, junior or very junior?" Before she could answer, Catlin continued, "I haven't been collecting for a while. I was told that you would be an excellent adviser on any acquisitions I make. I'll pay the usual fee, of course, plus a bonus for any Qin bronzes you find for me."

  Lindsay's previous question was forgotten in her sudden curiosity about the man who had stopped collecting and wanted to begin again. Like everything else about Catlin, that was unusual. Collectors were noted for their obsessiveness. A collector didn't simply abandon collecting unless his heart stopped or he ran out of money.

  "You realize," Lindsay said carefully, "that the museum gets first refusal on everything I find, whether in or out of business hours."

  Catlin nodded, wondering if it were true. There was a built-in conflict of interest between Lindsay's work as a private consultant to collectors and her job at the museum. It would take an unusual degree of scrupulousness to avoid the temptation of pleasing one of her private – and fee-paying – clients at the cost of her employer's interest. On the other hand, the combination of museum work and self-employment as an expert was common. It often benefited the museums, which as a result had a direct pipeline to serious collectors and thus knew instantly when a private collection was up for sale. The cream could be skimmed long before the collection as a whole went to auction. There were other, more subtle benefits, too, involving tax write-offs and untaxable trades for existing, surplus museum stock.

  Catlin was sure that Lindsay would be glad to point out all the benefits to him.

  "You're in luck," said Lindsay, smiling at Catlin. "Follow me to the workroom. My boss has just turned down an absolutely exquisite bronze hill-censer."

  "Why?" Catlin asked as he fell into step alongside her.

  "You'll have to ask him," said Lindsay, unable to conceal her irritation. "I still don't believe it."

  Catlin smiled slightly. He believed it. He had been there when Yi gave the order.

  Lindsay watched Catlin's small, hard smile and decided that wherever White senior or junior or "very junior" had met Catlin, it hadn't been on the lawn bowling circuit. Yet despite his dissimilarity to most of the men she was accustomed to meeting in Washington, Catlin was oddly familiar to Lindsay. She hadn't really realized it until she saw his cool, private smile. He reminded her of the men who years ago had slipped into her uncle's house while she lay awake, men who spoke in low voices of things she was too young to understand, men who moved like beautiful, hungry tigers through the darkness. Like Catlin, beside her. Lean and powerful beneath a deceptively silky hide.

  She wondered if, like the long-ago men, Catlin would bring terror and death in his wake.

  Even as her skin tightened and moved, sending a tiny ripple over her arms, Lindsay put aside the unwelcome thought. There were parts of her childhood she had forgotten how to remember. There were other parts that she remembered only in dreams and woke up screaming and wondering why.

  Lindsay took a slow, careful breath and tried to control her unruly thoughts. Shaanxi had been a long time ago. Surely it should stop haunting her. Surely she could look at a strong, self-confident man without waiting to hear gunfire and screams.

  Surely that wasn't blood naming between her fingers.

  "Lindsay?"

  The quiet, deep voice lured her out of the past's paralyzing fears. She realized that she was standing in front of the stairway, her hand gripping the railing as though she were afraid of falling.

  "Is something wrong?" asked Catlin.

  He steadied Lindsay with his left hand even as he reflexively unbuttoned his suit coat with the right, making it possible to reach his gun quickly. He didn't know what was wrong, but he had seen raw fear too many times to mistake it in her eyes now.

  "I – " Lindsay cleared her throat, loosening muscles constricted by a need to scream. "I'm sorry. I was thinking of something else." She let out her breath and forced herself to ignore the irrational fear sweeping over her, as though nightmares pursued her even when she was awake. "Watch your footing," she said briskly, starting down the stairs. "This house is almost a century old. When we took it over, nothing but rats had lived in it for years. We've done a lot of repair work since then, of course, but we've tried to keep the Victorian features intact. That means steep, narrow steps to the basement."

  Catlin followed very closely, ready to reach for Lindsay if she stumbled. She didn't. She recovered her composure with a quickness that made him wonder if he had imagined the instant when fear had tightened her features into a mask. Then he saw the fine trembling of her hand as it slid down the oak rail. Adrenaline still coursed through her, primal response to terror. He wondered what had triggered it. The shadows pooled at the bottom of the stair? The musty scent rising out of the basement? A word? A sound?

  Lindsay's fingers fumbled, then found the wall switch. Very bright, un-Victorian work lights glared down. Throughout the basement, long tables were covered with artifacts in various stages of being unpacked, cataloged and, if necessary, repaired or restored. The unusual Shang bowl shared one end of a table with the Han incense burner. A discarded packing carton and scattered Styrofoam chips gave silent testimony to Lindsay's eagerness as she had unpacked the bronzes.

  "Both of these bronzes are very unusual," said Lindsay, touching the bowl possessively as she turned to face Catlin. "They-"

  Her voice died. Catlin's face was hard, intent, and in the relentless light his eyes glittered like yellow crystal. The back of his right hand was resting lightly just behind his hip. He was examining every part of the basement as though he expected something to explode out of the black shadows beneath the tables. His stance radiated danger as surely as the metal-topped table reflected light.

  "Yes?" he asked encouragingly, turning to face her fully. "They ?"

  Lindsay took a grip on her overactive imagination. There was nothing dangerous about Catlin except his effect on her mind. Or perhaps it was simply the humid air and heat that were playing tricks with her memories, calling up Hong Kong and with it a host of older, more frightening memories. Or near-memories. She would never know, now. The last person who could have told her was dead. She would never know why in her nightmare last night she had run with her hands covered by blood.

  "These – " Lindsay's hands clenched as she reassured herself that they were clean, dry, not bloody at all. "These two bronzes are nearly unique among their own kind," she said, her voice husky. "The bowl is a Shang precursor to the more familiar Chou p'an."

  Even as Lindsay spoke, she r
ealized that Catlin was like the bowl, an enigma, showing the stamp of no single time or culture.

  And like the bowl, he was genuine.

  The realization calmed her at the same irrational level where fear had bloomed. She let out a slow, silent breath. Whatever danger there was in this man, he wasn't dangerous to her. Only lies and deceit were.

  Catlin walked over to the table. The silence of his stride struck Lindsay. Not once since she had met him had she heard the sound of his shoes against the floor. Yet he was hardly a dainty man. She was five feet six inches in her high heels, and he still had at least six inches on her.

  "May I?" asked Catlin, his hands poised over the bowl.

  "Of course," answered Lindsay, curious to see how he would handle the bronze. She had discovered that it was possible to tell a lot about a man from the way he handled objects.

  Catlin's hands were both careful and confident as he picked up the bowl. He turned and tilted it slowly, letting the basement's unforgiving illumination pick out every potential flaw. His eye followed the discrete line of each design. There was no overlap of decoration from foot to bowl or from interior to exterior. The symbols were appropriate to the time and to their placement on the p'an itself.

  There was no inscription.

  "Amazing," said Catlin, meaning it.

  "Genuine, too," Lindsay said dryly.

  He nodded, his eyes intent upon the bronze resting coolly, heavily, in his hands.

  "There's no doubt of that," Catlin said, his mind utterly involved with the smooth, green-gray bronze. "Only on forgeries do the designs overlap the functions. Shang artists saw life as an assembly of individual pieces. One animal symbol for the foot. One for the outer bowl, and so on. The symbols themselves are quite openly savage," he continued, looking into the bowl as though it were a crystal ball. "The Shang world was one of terrifying demons and human sacrifices to appease the unknown. Shang art reflects that, as does the art of the Maya and the Inca. Quite similar, as a matter of fact."

  Then Catlin heard the echo of his own musings and remembered that he was talking to an expert in the field. With a soft laugh he shook his head ruefully. "Sorry. It's been a long time since I held a Shang bronze in my hands. It went to my head."

  Lindsay smiled at Catlin with genuine pleasure. It was rare for her to meet someone who shared her complex appreciation of ancient bronzes. And she had no doubt that Catlin did. It was there in his voice when he spoke and in his hands as he held the bowl. He loved ancient bronzes, not because they were rare or valuable or fashionable, but because they whispered to him across an immense bridge of time, telling of people who had lived and laughed, wept and died. And if the people had been lucky, very lucky, they had a genius among them who could preserve their fears and dreams in art, passing on to the future the very soul of the past.

  "Don't apologize," she said, her voice husky. "It's a pleasure to meet someone who appreciates art for more than its investment value."

  For a moment Catlin didn't know whether Lindsay's perceptivity or her honesty was more startling. Then he decided it didn't matter. Both were as unusual and evocative as the bronze in his hands. He looked into Lindsay's indigo eyes and heard Yi's words again: To be near her was to know the serenity of the lotus blooming beneath the summer moon.

  Grimly Catlin wondered if he were going to redeem the mistakes of his past only at the cost of Lindsay Banner's future.

  Chapter 5

  Lindsay stood in front of the mirror, brushing her smooth cap of hair into place, wondering if Catlin had meant what he had said about her when they first met. Elegant and restrained. His casual compliment had wedged in her thoughts where the more pointed compliments of other men had not. Perhaps it was just that he had responded to the bronzes as she herself did, but she had the feeling that Catlin had been honest in his words. Nor had he tried to follow up the compliment immediately with a pass, subtle or otherwise.

  That, too, was unusual. Washington, D.C. was a city where political power was king and sex was queen. If Hollywood was a magnet for girls of flamboyant looks and lackluster minds, Washington was a magnet for girls of high polish, both mind and body. The competition for dates with politicians and power brokers was unrelenting. Nearly all the bright, eager secretaries and shopgirls who poured into the city from the South and Midwest soon learned to settle for lovers instead of fiances and serial relationships instead of lifetime commitments.

  If the girls were lucky, they eventually found a rising young lawyer and settled into motherhood in suburban Virginia or in Georgetown. If they were unlucky, they grew too old for the mating-go-round and were forced to retreat to their less sexually competitive hometowns. Once home, they also settled into motherhood, raising another generation of the nubile and the ambitious who would in their own turn be drawn by power's cruel magnet to Washington, D.C.

  Lindsay had never really fitted into the D.C. cycle. She had come late, at twenty-nine. By then she had already discovered the limitations of marriage and the self-recriminations of divorce. She also had discovered that those same limitations and self-recriminations applied to an extended affair as well as to marriage. At thirty, she had finally accepted the fact that the concept of fidelity simply was foreign to men, and to many women as well. Her aunt had been the first to point that out to her, but Lindsay had had a hard time believing. The example of her parents' marriage had remained, silently proclaiming that anything was possible, even enduring love.

  Possible, yes. Probable? Well, not really.

  Ultimately, Lindsay had decided that lasting love wasn't necessary for emotional survival. There were other beautiful, enduring things to be enjoyed, things that didn't require the passionate commitment of two people in order to work. For some people that life focus was politics, especially in Washington. For others it was gambling or sex, religion or law, dog breeding or duplicate bridge. For Lindsay, it was art.

  She glanced at her watch, wondering if she would have time to dip into one of the auction catalogs piled on the table. Although she rarely found any ancient bronzes of museum quality in the big public auction houses, the catalogs provided good indicators of the changing fashions in public taste that inevitably had an impact on museum acquisition and display. No matter how excellent a museum's collection of Aztec war axes, if Polynesian feather capes were in vogue, then the museum had better have something bright and colorful and plucked from birds to attract the public.

  Trends often went the other way, too, from museum to general public. After the King Tut exhibit, every curio importer on two continents had dusted off scarabs and sold them all, no matter how ugly or obviously fraudulent. The museums that lacked the prestige to attract the traveling Tut exhibit had been forced to rummage in their basements amid turn-of-the-century boxes and dig out overlooked and often mundane Egyptian artifacts. These had been cobbled together into displays whose only redeeming grace had been that they had brought money into often starved museum accounts.

  At the moment, all things Chinese were in vogue, a reflection of the increasing trade ties between the two nations. In less than a decade Lindsay had seen the value of even the most ordinary Chinese objects d'art double, triple, quadruple and then simply soar. A decent bronze that would have brought several thousand dollars at auction ten years ago would now sell for ten times that much. There simply were not enough artifacts to supply the needs of American decorators, much less enough art for the discriminating collector.

  Which was why the catalog held so little lure for Lindsay at the moment. She knew she would see item after item that was artifact, not art. Even worse, some of the items would be artifice – three-dimensional lies created to fill the gap between demand and supply. She frowned at the slick catalog, but in the end she picked it up. Perhaps a truly rare, truly superb ob-jet d'art had eluded collectors and museums alike and had found its way into this catalog. Like love, such a thing was possible, if not particularly probable.

  In any case, looking at t
he catalog would prevent her mind from spiraling uneasily down and down into the past, where unanswered questions waited, questions whose very existence she had ignored for years. That wasn't possible any longer. Somehow the death of her mother had released the chains holding down the past. Now the nightmare came to Lindsay nearly every night, and she awoke shaking, remembering the sound of screams and the color of blood.

  But now it was too late to ask her mother why the dream came, why it would not go away, why Lindsay had the cold feeling that she had forgotten something crucial. Something cruel.

  "Stop it," she told herself sharply, suppressing a shudder. "Most of what's bothering you is just a lack of sleep. Frightened people sleep badly, which is something you learned a long time ago."

  With a grimace, Lindsay opened the catalog. Chimes sounded a moment later. She rucked the catalog under her arm and went to the front door of her apartment.

  "Who is it?"

  "Catlin."

  The voice identified Catlin to Lindsay even more than the name. Reflexively she peeked through the spy hole. As though expecting it, he was thoughtfully standing far enough back from the door to be fully encompassed by the tiny lens.

  With the catalog held precariously under one arm, Lindsay began opening the various locks that were de rigeur for modern city living. Even if she had been living in a cornfield, she would have locked her house in exactly the same way. The uncertainty and fear of her childhood had taught her that locks could be a definite aid to peaceful sleep. Lately, though, locks hadn't been enough. She was thinking of getting a dog or a cat, something that would be warm and real in the small hours of the morning when nightmares pursued her.

  As Lindsay opened the door, the catalog slithered out from under her arm. Catlin's hand shot out with startling speed, grabbing the catalog before it fell farther than her hip.

  "Window-shopping?" he asked, glancing at the cover.