Green Fire (18 page)

"Do your trade rumors indicate who might have been responsible for my uncle's accident, Mr. Dewhurst?" Rani was surprised by the steadiness of her own voice.

"No. There is only some speculative talk about a man who has been on the trail of the ring for years. Someone your uncle apparently dealt with at one time. I'm afraid I know nothing more about him. Please try not to worry, Miss Garroway. Perhaps I shouldn't have called."

"No," she interrupted quietly, "I'm glad you called. I appreciate your warning."

"I will do what I can to make certain everyone who might be interested in this affair is aware that I have ascertained the ring is a fake. If there is someone out looking for the ring, he is sure to hear of my assessment. That's probably the best defense under the circumstances. Surely no one would spend time and money continuing to pursue green glass."

"Thank you, Mr. Dewhurst."

"You will take care, my dear?"

"Oh, yes," Rani whispered. "I'll take care." She hung up the phone, not moving. Blindly, she continued to stare down into the green depths of the ring.

Rani didn't know quite when she realized she wasn't alone in the living room. She only knew that, when she turned slowly to find Flint watching her from the doorway, she experienced no real sense of surprise. She also knew from the look in his eyes that he had overheard her conversation with Dewhurst.

"Mr. Dewhurst says there is a possibility that someone killed my uncle because of this ring." She felt as if she were speaking in a dream. There was a sense of unreality pervading the room. She was trapped.

Flint slowly dried his hands on the towel he was holding. "He's right."

It was Zipp who broke the stillness. He ambled in from the kitchen and meowed loudly. Rani reached down to pick him up, holding him protectively. Then her eyes went back to Flint's face. She didn't say a word. Mint swore softly.

"I didn't want you to find out this way," he said.

"1 imagine you didn't." Her voice was even but very remote. "Who are you?"

His gaze narrowed as he realized what she was thinking. "I'm not the man who killed your uncle." But he twisted the dish towel savagely, and the small violence drew Rani's attention. She stared at his hand as if he were holding a gun. "Did you hear me, Rani? I'm not the one who killed Ambrose."

"Then who are you?"

"I've told you the truth. I was a friend of your uncle's. I helped him trace the history of the ring."

"And now you want it for yourself." She looked down at her hand. The ring was partially hidden by Zipp's fur. "I don't understand any of this. It's just junk."

"Someone thinks it's real."

"The same someone who killed Uncle Ambrose."

"Rani, for God's sake, stop talking as if you were waiting for me to pull a gun on you."

"Where is your gun, Flint? It was certainly very convenient the other day in the woods when you scared off that stupid hunter." Clutching Zipp so tightly that he squawked mildly in protest, Rani edged back a couple of steps. There was an outside chance she could make it through the door before Flint caught her. He wasn't armed at the moment. She might be able to disappear into the woods before he could get his ugly handgun. It wasn't much of a chance, but in that moment she couldn't think of anything else.

"Please don't run away from me, Rani." His voice was low and harsh.

"You can have the ring," she said, struggling to remove it from her finger without letting go of the cat. "I can't imagine why anyone would want it. Believe me, I don't. Not after all this. Take it, Flint. You've worked hard enough to get it."

"The ring is yours."

It came free of her hand, and she tossed it toward him. Flint made no move to catch it, and it clattered to the floor. "Take it," Rani commanded softly. "Take it and get out."

"I don't want the damned ring. Are you going to sit down and listen while I explain this mess, or are you going to make some idiotic dash into the woods? Make up your mind, Rani. If you're going to run, go ahead and try it. Let's get that part over so we can start talking."

He was reading her mind, Rani decided. Flint knew exactly what she was thinking. But then perhaps he'd seen more than one person in this situation. She was shivering, she realized. Faint ripples of fear and anger flowed through her. She had to control both the fear and the anger or she wouldn't stand a chance. Zipp meowed again.

"You must think me a complete fool," she whispered. "I made it all so easy for you, didn't I? I gave you shelter, fed you and, to top it all off, let you into my bed."

He took a step forward but stopped when she instinctively retreated. Flint's expression hardened. "Do you really think I'd hurt you, Rani?"

She stared at him. She was feeling so disoriented that she couldn't seem to think properly. "You're here because of the ring."

"I'm here because your uncle was killed. He owned that ring and now you own it. I don't want the same thing happening to you that happened to Ambrose. Listen to me, Rani. I'm here to protect you, not hurt you."

"I don't understand."

"I know you don't. Stop figuring out how you're going to make it through the door and start listening to what I'm saying. I did not kill Ambrose, I had nothing to do with his death. But when I heard about the circumstances of his so-called accident, I realized it might have been an act of murder. And if he had been killed, I had to assume it was because of the ring."

"Why should you assume that?"

Flint slung the dish towel over the back of a nearby chair. "Because I knew the ring wasn't fake."

Rani caught her breath. "What are you talking about."

His mouth twisted wryly. "Oh, the stone you've got there could easily be paste. Most likely is, judging from what your uncle's jeweler friend has told you. I'm no authority on gems. But when Ambrose first came into possession of the ring, he told me it was the real thing. He also told me that he intended to keep it, not copy it. He said it was going to be the one perfect stone in his collection. It was too beautiful, too valuable and contained too much history to be cut up and sold on the black market. The Clayborne ring was the one genuine piece in his collection. Don't you see, Rani? If I knew the emerald was for real, so did any number of other people. Ambrose sent me a letter shortly before his death telling me he was worried. Someone else was on the trail of the ring, and he planned to take precautions. He didn't spell out the precautions. I didn't get the letter for several weeks because I was in North Africa. By the time I picked up my mail your uncle was dead."

"So you immediately came looking for the ring?" Rani challenged.

"I learned that whoever had arranged your uncle's accident hadn't gotten his hands on the ring. Your uncle's collection of fakes was being held by his lawyer, and according to the itemized list, a ring matching the description of the Clayborne ring was still with the rest of the stuff Ambrose had created when he died. The police went under the assumption the accident was for real. They didn't suspect murder. I might not have either if I hadn't had your uncle's letter and if I hadn't known that one item in Ambrose's collection wasn't a fake. I decided that if Ambrose had been killed whoever had done it might still be following the ring. I went looking for the person who had inherited Ambrose's collection of fakes."

"I see. What exactly did you intend to do when you found me?"

"Keep an eye on you for a while. I wasn't sure if anyone would make another try for the ring, but I wanted to be around if it happened. I felt I owed it to Ambrose."

She closed her eyes in brief anguish. "I certainly made it easy for you to keep an eye on the ring, didn't I? Why didn't you tell me all this when you arrived on my doorstep?"

"Because I wasn't even sure if Ambrose had been killed. I only suspected it. I didn't know at first where you fitted in. You seemed to be an innocent bystander in all this. I didn't want to alarm you. I just wanted to keep tabs on you until I knew for sure what was going on. I didn't even know if the stone in the ring was still the genuine emerald. Ambrose had said he was going to take precautions. He might have made a duplicate before he died and hidden the real emerald. Making copies was his profession. It would have been natural for him to attempt to protect the ring by creating a fake."

"Since this is a fake, where's the real one?"

Flint ran a hand through his hair. "I don't know. There's no telling where Ambrose might have stashed it. My concern was that whoever was after it wouldn't know he was following a piece of glass. He still might be willing to kill to get hold of the ring."

Rani shook her head in mute denial. "Why should you have felt obliged to protect me? You didn't know me. Why-go through all this trouble just to keep an eye on whoever inherited the ring?"

"I told you, Rani, your uncle was my friend."

"The way you move around, you've probably got a lot of acquaintances. Do you feel this sort of obligation toward all of them?"

His mouth thinned at her skeptical tone. "I said Ambrose was a friend. I may know a lot of people, Rani, but I don't have a lot of friends. Ambrose was one."

"So you looked me up out of some noble sense of friendship?"

"Damn it, Rani, it
was
a sense of friendship that brought me here. If you want to know the truth, it was more than that. Maybe if I'd had that letter from Ambrose earlier, I could have kept him from getting killed."

"It was guilt that brought you here then?" She knew she was pushing him, but she couldn't help it. She felt hurt and angry and still somewhat afraid.

"I only knew I had to check up on whoever had inherited the ring. When I traced it to you I wasn't sure how to handle things. I thought it would be easier just to hang around for a while and see what developed. I told you I didn't want to scare you unless it was absolutely necessary. Like Dewhurst, I was hoping that word would spread the ring had been duplicated and the stone in this one was fake. That information should have kept you from being interesting to whoever had killed Ambrose."

"All that talk of tracking down the ring because you were writing an article on it was just a convenient lie? You must have lied to the Andersons, too, to convince them to give you the job. Were all those lies and fabrications simpler than telling me the truth?"

"I've never lied to you. I am writing an article on thai ring. I would have wanted to know what became of it even if I hadn't been concerned that someone might be after it. I never lied to the Andersons, either. I asked for a job and I'm doing the work."

Zipp wriggled in Rani's grasp, demanding to be released. She hesitated because there was a vague element of comfort to be found in clutching him in front of her like a shield. But when he growled to show he was serious she slowly lowered him to the floor. Zipp trotted over to Flint, stroked his tail once or twice against Flint's jeans and then headed back toward the kitchen. The cat was clearly unconcerned about the small drama taking place in the living room. Rani watched him disappear, her mind whirling with confusion and hurt.

"I'll admit you're a hard worker, Flint," she said at last. "The Andersons, at least, are getting their money's worth. All in all this probably rates as one of your better gardening jobs, doesn't it? Or is sleeping with the lady of the house a common fringe benefit in your line of work?"