Gift of Gold (37 page)

Verity froze. “The bed? You’re picking up a sensation from the bed? Something that leads to that damned corridor? I thought you only responded to weapons.”

“Or something that has a close association with violence. Anything can be used as a weapon or have an association with violence,” he explained absently.

“But a bed?”

“Let’s see what happens.”

Belatedly Verity’s alarm bell started ringing. “Wait! Jonas, I don’t think this is a good idea. Maybe you’d better not touch it.”

But she was too late. He had already curved his fingers around the steel bedpost and the instant he touched the metal, Verity was disconcerted to find herself inside a fuzzy version of the now-familiar psychic corridor.

“
Jonas.
”

“I’m here.” He came up behind her in the corridor and his hand closed over her shoulder. “Look.”

He spun her around and Verity found herself staring at an insubstantial dream image of the bed. It floated in the corridor, vague and indistinct. But in this image the bed was wildly rumpled. The sheets were bloodstained and the nude figure of a woman was lying obscenely spread-eagled across the mattress. There was blood between the woman’s legs and in her dark hair. She had her head turned away. The woman appeared to be either dead or unconscious.

Verity reacted with more horror than she had felt toward any of the other images she had encountered in the corridor. She was paralyzed with it. She knew without further examination that she was staring at the scene of a violent rape. Even as she watched, savage red emotions unfurled from under the bed and twisted blindly toward Jonas.

They got sidetracked when they sensed Verity’s presence and reluctantly swerved to curl around her feet in obedience to the invisible pull she had on them.

Verity cried out and found some control over her muscles, enough to enable her to flee. She whirled to run, afraid she would vomit before she could get out of the corridor. Her stomach was churning.

“Jonas, help me.
Help me.
”
It was the first time she had ever called out to him. Always before he was the one who had demanded help in the corridor. He caught hold of her, his fingers like iron on her shoulders.

“I’m here, Verity.” He held her tightly, refusing to let her flee. “It’s all right. Everything’s under control. I want to see if I can handle a couple of those ribbons. I’ve definitely been getting stronger lately and I may be at a point where I can manage some of the emotions instead of being overwhelmed by them. Should be an interesting experiment.”

Verity was trantic with her horror. She grabbed the front of his shirt with two small fists and shouted in his face, “No. Absolutely not. Get us out of here. Now.”

Something of her terror must have gotten through to him. He looked down at her and in real time he released his hold on the bedpost.

An instant later they were both standing safely in the bedroom. Verity was trembling so badly she had to sit down. Automatically she started to sink onto the bed and then she remembered the scene she had just witnessed. She jumped up again and went across the room to the chair, taking deep breaths to steady herself.

“Oh, God, Jonas, that was the worst one yet,” she whispered. Her hands twisted together in her lap. She tried to still them between her jeaned legs.

Jonas went over to stand beside her, his hand moving soothingly in her hair. “Maybe it was bad for you because there was a woman in it,” he suggested. “You’ve never seen a woman in one of those images before.”

Verity shook her head desperately. “It wasn’t just that there was a woman. It was the fact that I know her.”

“What?” Jonas’s hand stopped making gentling movements in her hair. He caught her chin and lifted her face so that he could look at her. “You think you know her? Verity, I’ve never seen anyone I know in those images.”

“Since you’ve only recently started seeing contemporary images, that’s hardly surprising,” she muttered.

“Well? Don’t keep me in suspense. Who is she? Or should I say who was she?”

“I’m not sure. There was just something about her I recognized. I just had a feeling I knew her, that’s all.”

“Honey,” he said gently. “I don’t think that’s possible. She may have resembled someone you’ve met at some point in your life, but that’s all.”

Verity surged to her feet. “I know what I saw. Jonas, this is awful. How can I sleep here tonight? I won’t be able to close my eyes without seeing that horrible picture of that poor woman. She’d been raped. She might have been dead. I couldn’t tell for sure. I can’t possibly sleep in this room.”

“That problem is easily solved,” he said firmly. “You’ll sleep with me. Now come on. Get your jacket. We’re going for a walk down on the beach. It will clear your head. Exercise is good for stress.”

For once she was grateful to have Jonas take charge. Verity didn’t argue. She got her jacket and meekly allowed him to lead her down to the sea. On the way down the steep trail that led to the beach she decided he was right. She would be the one sneaking down the hall tonight. The hell with social niceties. She was not going to sleep alone in that terrible bed.

“Jonas?”

“Yes.”

“Remember what Caitlin said about her house having once had a reputation for wild orgies?”

“I remember.”

“Everyone has a different definition of what constitutes an orgy. It’s easy to see where the locals might have exaggerated things for the sake of a good story.”

“True,” Jonas agreed neutrally.

“But now I wonder.”

“Yes.”

Neither of them said anything else for a long time.

Verity could not get either the rape scene or Tavi’s demands out of her mind after lunch. Caitlin seemed not to notice her guest’s uneasiness. Throughout the midday meal, which was served by a grimly silent Tavi, the artist talked incessantly about her plans for the evening and about the auction she intended to hold the next day.

Lunch was served in an alcove off the kitchen because the rest of the bottom floor of the house had been taken over by caterers and decorators. Caitlin was sparing no expense to recreate her Renaissance salon scene in the huge room that fronted the house on the ground floor.

Verity covertly studied her friend’s too-brilliant eyes while she ate. As she listened to the unrelenting excitement in Caitlin’s voice, she wondered for the first time if Jonas might have been right when he implied that the woman was into drugs. Verity had never seen Caitlin like this. She was simmering with a barely restrained tension. Her movements were too quick at times and she radiated a strange, hungry sense of anticipation.

Verity sliced into a ripe, red tomato on her plate, watched the juice run, and thought of vampires preparing to feed.

“I have specifically told all the guests to arrive after seven this evening,” Caitlin was saying. “No one will be admitted without an authentic-looking costume. The six people who will bid on the painting are the only exception. They will be staying the night in the house and they have been given permission to arrive a bit earlier, if they wish. The bedrooms have all been prepared. One thing this ugly old house has is plenty of bedrooms. Sandquist must have had an active social life.”

“I’ll be glad to help Tavi with the buffet,” Verity said quickly. The silent woman gave her a sharp glance but said nothing.

“That’s very kind of you, but Tavi and the caterers can manage things,” Caitlin said, dismissing the matter. “By seven you will be in your costume, Verity, playing the part of a lady of the court. I wouldn’t want to see you spill mustard down the front of your gown. Did you have any trouble finding something suitable?”

Verity shook her head. “Jonas helped me choose a gown. Nothing like having an expert to call on.”

Caitlin looked at Jonas who, as usual, was not participating wholeheartedly in the conversation. “Yes, I imagine his advice would have been invaluable. For all their fine brocades and velvets and satins, though, the women of the Renaissance had very little freedom, did they, Jonas? They were still, by and large, victims. The best they could hope for was a marriage based on business or political ties, or perhaps a place in a convent. If they lacked the protection of a strong family, they were vulnerable to any man who wanted to use them. Not a good era for women, but then, what time period has been good for us? All women are potentially victims and all men are potentially dangerous to us. Some men are more superficially civilized about it than others, but sooner or later they find ways to use us, don’t they, Verity?”

The uncomfortable thought that Jones had sought her out with the sole purpose of using her to anchor his psychic talent flickered through Verity’s mind. Her head came up and she saw Jonas looking at her, his gold eyes blazing with anger. Neither of them was telepathic but Verity knew they didn’t need any psychic ability to communicate silently in that moment. Jonas knew
what she was thinking and she was equally aware of his frustrated fury. She turned to Caitlin.

“I have a hunch that women use men just as much as men use women,” Verity said calmly.

“Ah, but there is a distinct difference in that women, even women who are good at using men, seldom resort to violence, do they?”

It was then that Verity decided she wanted an advance peek at
Bloodlust.
Something was happening here in this ugly house, something that was going to culminate in the sale of the painting tomorrow. She was suddenly consumed with curiosity about Caitlin’s last work.

She waited until after Tavi had cleared away the luncheon plates before saying politely, “I hope no one minds if I take a nap? I’d like to rest up for this evening.”

“By all means.” Caitlin nodded. “I think I will do the same. Jonas, will you be able to amuse yourself for a few hours?”

Jonas’s eyes were on Verity and again she knew what he was thinking even though she couldn’t read his mind. He was wondering how the hell she was going to nap in that terrible bed.

“I have a phone call to make. After that I think I’ll take another walk on the beach. I’ll see you both later,” he said.

In the end, it was easy to sneak upstairs to the white-on-white studio. Verity simply waited until Caitlin had retired to her own room, ascertained that Tavi was busy in the kitchen, and made sure Jonas was on the phone in his bedroom. Then she hurried up the steel staircase.

The door to the white room was unlocked. Verity slipped inside and shut it behind her. She stood for a moment, surveying the stacked canvases, easels, and odds and ends that comprised an artist’s working materials, and then she walked purposefully to the large shrouded canvas on the other side of the room.

At the last moment she hesitated, her hand on the sheet. She was uncomfortably aware that she had no right to do what she was about to do. But too many disturbing nuances were in the air, and Caitlin’s whole future seemed to be linked to whatever was on this canvas.

Verity’s mouth tightened as she made up her mind and yanked aside the white sheet.

A dark nightmare of intense, violent colors met her shocked gaze. The picture was a fiercely abstract version of the rape scene Verity had glimpsed that morning in Jonas’s psychic corridor. There was one horrifying difference. In Caitlin’s painting the rapist was still present. He stood over his victim, his body that of a demon, his eyes windows into hell. There was a rapier in his hand.

Verity shuddered and grasped the edge of the steel frame more tightly in order to steady herself. She recognized the woman on the bed now. The features were highly abstract and the hair was a different color, but the still-bleeding scar on the cheek was all too familiar. Verity knew it was a younger version of Caitlin Evanger.

The man with the grotesque body and the view into hell was Damon Marcus Kincaid.

“So you’ve discovered my little secret,” Caitlin said behind her. “Not a pretty picture, is it?” she added mockingly. “I like to think that good art is not pretty.”

Verity swung around to face her. Caitlin’s eyes were still too bright and her expression too intense but she didn’t look quite as hyper as she had earlier. Slowly Verity redraped the canvas, buying time in which to compose herself.

“No, Caitlin. It’s not a pretty picture. That’s you on that awful bed, isn’t it?”

“It’s me.”

“Oh, Caitlin.” Verity found no words. Sometimes there were no words. Impulsively she walked forward and put her arms around the taller woman, hugging her in the way women have always hugged each other when they sought to give consolation for great grief. “Caitlin, Caitlin, I’m so sorry.”

Caitlin stood unmoving and unresponsive. “Don’t feel sorry for me, Verity. I will have my revenge. And then it will all be over.”

Verity released her and stood back, searching Caitlin’s taut, ravaged face. “Revenge against Kincaid? He’s the man in that painting, isn’t he?”

Kineaid’s name startled Caitlin. “You know Damon Kincaid?” she gasped.

“He’s a collector of old weapons, among other things,” Verity explained slowly, not wanting to say too much about the pistols. “Jonas had business dealings with him a few days ago.”

Caitlin’s expression was frozen with shock. “Business dealings?”

“Jonas brokered a sale of some old guns he had authenticated. It was nothing, really. We weren’t in Kincaid’s office for more than a few minutes. Kincaid didn’t buy the guns and Jonas sold them to another collector.”

Caitlin closed her eyes. “The world of high-flying collectors such as Kincaid is a small one, I’ll grant you. But the odds of Kincaid coincidentally running into you and Quarrel must be staggeringly high. I can’t believe it.” Her eyes snapped open. “Quarrel knows Kincaid?”

Verity shook her head quickly. “Jonas doesn’t know Kincaid any better than I do. I told you, we were only in his office a few minutes while he looked at the pistols. It’s just a ghastly coincidence, Caitlin. As you said, the world of big-time collecting is a small one. When Jonas started fishing around for someone who would be interested in the pistols, who lived within a reasonable radius of Sequence Springs, and who could afford them, he came up with a very short list.”