Gift of Gold (44 page)

“At any rate,” Caitlin continued softly, “when I realized Kincaid was avidly collecting Caitlin Evanger paintings, I began thinking of ways to use one of the paintings as bait. I had always dreamed of seeing Kincaid killed with the rapier he had used on me. I dreamed about it constantly, night after night.” She touched the side of her face, then dropped her hand. “It was an obsession with me. But I didn’t know how to use a rapier, and with this weak leg of mine, there was little chance I could become proficient.”

Jonas took another mouthful of whiskey and thought that even with two good legs few people could have become skilled enough to take Kincaid in a fencing match. The man had been a brilliant fencer.

“But somewhere along the line you remembered that you had once seen me use a rapier,” he said musingly. “In fact, I had nearly killed a man with it. Would have killed him if half a dozen lab workers hadn’t found a way to knock me unconscious.”

Caitlin looked at him. “I knew more about that experiment than you did, Jonas, because I read all the final reports. You didn’t stick around to see what the analysis was.”

“I knew what had happened,” he told her harshly. “I didn’t need any scientific analysis to tell me I’d nearly lost whatever passes for my soul that day in the lab.”

Caitlin closed her eyes. “I’m sure you didn’t. It must have been quite a terrifying experience.”

“One I planned never to repeat,” he assured her coldly. Verity shivered again under his hand.

“What you didn’t learn that day in the lab was the conclusion the researchers came to afterward,” Caitlin went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “They decided their hypothesis was correct—that the more closely related your current environment or experience was to the past experience connected to the object you were holding, the more likely you were to be overwhelmed by those past emotions. That day in the lab, you nearly killed the lab tech because he was coming toward you with a hypodermic needle. It was only a sedative. You seemed very agitated that day when you picked up the rapier you were using for the tests. He wanted to calm you down.”

“Those damn lab techs were always trying to use drugs to manipulate my responses,” Jonas growled. “They knew I didn’t want anything. I’d told them a thousand times I refused to mess up an already complicated situation with their medications. The lab tech made a mistake coming at me with that needle. I was already trying to handle a whole tunnel full of emotions left over from a time when men routinely worried about being poisoned.”

Verity looked up from her position at his knee, her eyes full of understanding. “So when you saw the needle the lab tech was holding, you responded as if you were about to be poisoned by him. You reacted as the man who originally used that rapier would have reacted.”

Jonas nodded grimly, his attention on Caitlin. “But you learned something else from those reports, didn’t you? You discovered the real secret buried in them. You found out that in some cases, I don’t just sense the emotions of the past, I can pick up other things as well.”

Verity’s fingers tightened on his leg. “What are you talking about?”

Caitlin looked at her. “I knew that he could not only tap in to the emotions of the man who had originally used that rapier, but that he could also tap that other man’s skill with it.

Verity searched Jonas’s face. “What does she mean, Jonas?”

Jonas finished the last of the whiskey. “I don’t know much about fencing, Verity.”

“Oh, my God,” she whispered. The full impact of what he was saying widened her eyes.

“I know a few basic positions and moves, stuff I picked up because of my interest in old weaponry, but that’s all. I’ve learned to use a knife over the years and I can handle a gun if I have to, but let’s face it, a man doesn’t have a lot of use for a sword or a rapier in this day and age. My interest in them was purely academic.”

“You fought like an expert tonight,” she whispered.

“As he did that day in the lab when he nearly killed the technician,” Caitlin added. “That was the most significant conclusion the final lab report held. Somehow you have the capability of picking up the skills as well as the emotions connected with the man who used whatever object of violence you’re handling.”

Jonas lifted his head to look at Caitlin. “It’s not that simple, Caitlin. It never was. That’s what I tried to explain to the researchers. They wouldn’t listen to me. They didn’t understand what could happen in a situation where I deliberately tried to do that. I’m not sure I knew myself. I only know I didn’t want to find out. Until tonight, that is, when I had no choice.”

“You could have died.” Verity clutched his leg so tightly that Jonas thought she would leave marks. “I sensed it. That’s why I wouldn’t let you kill Kincaid. I knew that if you took that final step, whatever lay in the past would somehow gain control of you. No one could survive that kind of takeover.”

She knew, he realized. She understood all of what had happened back there in that corridor.

Caitlin frowned. “Why would he have died? All he was doing was tapping in to skills in addition to emotions. What’s the difference?”

Verity shook her head. “You don’t know what you asked of him when you set him up to kill Kincaid for you. If Jonas had killed a man while under the influence of those powerful…

Jonas tugged warningly at the fistful of red hair he had been toying with. “Never mind, Verity,” he said softly. “She doesn’t understand. No one understands except you and me. No one else knows what happens when we’re together in that corridor.”

Caitlin stared from one to the other. “What are you saying? That Verity is somehow involved in the process? Does she have a talent for psychometry, too?”

Jonas shook his head, annoyed with the woman. “No. She has another kind of talent altogether. One I’m not going to try to explain to you. It doesn’t concern you.”

Caitlin read the cold dismissal in his eyes and sighed. She looked at Verity. “I want you to know something, Verity. I never meant for you to be in any real danger tonight. Please believe me. I had a plan, but everything went wrong. Kincaid must have second-guessed me somehow and come up with his own plan.”

“What was your plan, Caitlin?” Verity demanded softly.

Caitlin looked at Tavi and then back at Verity. “It was simple enough. You’ve been bait all along. I intended to use you as bait again after the ball tonight.”

“Bait!”

Jonas felt murderous all over again but he held on to his temper. It was the only way he could get the whole story. “Let’s have it, Caitlin.”

“Very well. You have a right to know. The pieces of my plan for revenge came together very slowly over a long period of time. I wanted Kincaid to die on that rapier. I needed him to die that way. But there was a problem. I knew no one who could or would kill a man in that way.”

“Except me when I was under the influence of the past.”

She nodded. “About a year ago I remembered you and your abilities and I got the first glimmer of a plan. But by then you had disappeared. You’d been gone from Vincent for four years and no one there knew what had happened to you. I finally found you down in Mexico. Money will buy anything, including very good private investigation services. But before I could think of a way to approach you and ask for your assistance, you came north on your own and went to work for Verity. Tavi and I went to the Sequence Springs Spa to meet you and to determine what the relationship was between you and Verity. I realized when I met you that you would never willingly help me, regardless of how much money I offered. You had the makings of a
condot
ti
ere
but you weren’t a true mercenary. Money alone would not buy you. And I soon realized you didn’t particularly like me.”

“But there was Verity,” Jonas supplied harshly.

Caitlin nodded sadly. “There was Verity. I realized almost immediately that the key to using you was Verity.”

“That’s why you were so eager to make me into your only friend in the world other than Tavi,” Verity said bitterly.

Caitlin looked at her. “I want you to know that for me the friendship became real. I know you will never feel that way toward me now, but I will always remember your kindness and your generosity to me.”

“Forget that bull and finish the story,” Verity ordered.

“I think you can guess the conclusion. I came up with a plan after I saw you and Jonas together. I asked you here the first time so that Tavi and I could run a small experiment to make certain the rapier we had found would have the desired effect on Jonas. The rapier cost me a fortune. It was not one of the swords that came with this house. It was in the hands of a private collector and supposedly was associated with an old tale of rape and murder. There was a camera in Jonas’s room that first night. We saw the strong effect the blade had on him. I knew then he still had the talent.”

“Dammit to hell,” Jonas muttered.

Caitlin ignored him, speaking earnestly to Verity. It was obvious she was weighted down with a dull guilt now that it was all over. Jonas could find no charity in his heart, however. He hoped the woman felt guilty for the rest of her life for having jeopardized Verity. He would have liked to take a little vengeance of his own right then, but he knew Verity would be furious if he tried.

“I made my plans for the Renaissance ball, knowing from what I had read in the research reports that the more closely the present resembled the past, the stronger the weapon’s effect would be on Jonas. That rapier dates from the Renaissance, the era to which Jonas is most sensitive, and had been carried by a high-ranking nobleman who would have attended such affairs as the one I tried to reconstruct tonight.”

“So the ball and the costumes and everything else were designed more or less to put Jonas in the mood for killing, is that it?” Verity asked tightly.

“I had intended Jonas to find Kincaid in your room after the ball tonight. I knew that if I put the blade in Quarrel’s hand then, he would be swamped with the desire to kill Kincaid. That blade had once been used to avenge a rape. I was certain that when Jonas encountered a similar situation tonight, the past and the present would blend in his mind to the point where he could think of nothing else except killing Kincaid.”

“How did you plan to get Kincaid to come to my room?” Verity asked coolly. “I’m hardly his type.”

“Don’t be a fool, Verity,” Jonas growled.

She shot him a disturbed glance. “Well, it’s true. I’m not his type at all. You saw the kind of women who work for him.”

“They were camouflage,” Jonas said bluntly. “Socially acceptable. And not nearly as tempting to him as you would have been. I saw the way he looked at you that day when we went to his office.”

“Jonas is right,” Caitlin said heavily. “The moment I met you I knew you would be the perfect lure for Kincaid. He always had a lust for destroying innocence.”

“I’m not exactly innocent,” Verity exploded.

“Stop bragging,” Jonas muttered.

“Well, I’m not innocent! Why does everyone keep acting as though I am?”

So much for the sweet-natured cosseting he had been receiving, Jonas thought with a flash of amusement. Verity was clearly annoyed now. The little tyrant did not like the accusation of naïveté. She failed to understand that the air of innocence about her was related to her genuineness, her integrity, her willingness to take people like Caitlin Evanger at face value. It had nothing to do with her sexual status.

For all her much-vaunted education and unusual upbringing, Verity Ames needed a keeper, Jonas decided.

“You and Kincaid would not have agreed on what constitutes innocence,” Caitlin said gently. “I was certain he would find you quite interesting. I remembered his tastes all too well. I was once very much like you in some respects. I took people at face value. I believed in them. I dealt honestly with the world and expected the same in return. My sympathies were easily aroused. I could go on, but I’m sure you get the point. There is a freshness about you that Kincaid found deeply intriguing. Did you know that you were one of the first things he inquired about tonight when he was introduced to me?”

“No,” Verity breathed. “No, I didn’t know that.” She looked dazed. Jonas stroked her hair soothingly while he stifled the remnants of his own
murderous emotions. There was no point in getting all worked up about Kincaid again. The man was dead.

Caitlin looked at Verity. “I went to Sequence Springs without a clear-cut plan of action. I just wanted to check out Quarrel and his current situation. But once I met you, I knew I had all the elements for my little drama. You were the key that brought everything together.”

“You mean,” Jonas corrected roughly, “that you knew Verity was the key you could use to force Kincaid and me into a confrontation.”

“With a little help from some stage props.” Caitlin gestured wearily around at the shambles of the Renaissance ball. “You know, at first I thought it was merely a coincidence that you had fallen for exactly the type of woman I knew I could use to lure Kincaid. But now I’m not so sure. You and Kincaid were opposites in many ways. It’s as if you, Jonas, represent the positive side of much that is considered masculine, while Kincaid represented the darkest elements in the male soul.”

Tavi spoke up. “It makes a strange kind of sense that they would both be attracted to Verity. Jonas would instinctively want to protect her and Kincaid would instinctively want to defile her.”

“What if I hadn’t been the kind of woman you thought you could use to manipulate Kincaid?” Verity demanded.

“I would have had to find another way to throw Kincaid into battle with Jonas,” Caitlin said quietly. “I was willing to wait until I had the perfect scenario.”

“Since you did have me,” Verity persisted grimly, “how did you plan to use me?”

Caitlin explained patiently. “It was only necessary that Jonas find you and Kincaid in a compromising position sometime during the evening. That was easy to plan. The bedroom you’re in, the one in which I was tortured and raped, has a door that connects to the room Kincaid was assigned. He would remember that, of course. And I knew that he would not be able to resist trying the lock, knowing you were on the other side. He would have found it unlocked. It was alarmed so that I would know the instant it had been opened. Tavi would then have fetched Jonas and told him she was worried about you.”