Sharp Edges (39 page)

"Yes, I know. I wonder why she did that?"

"She was very young," Cyrus reminded him. "She wanted to protect you."

"From whom?"

"My grandfather. He was the old-fashioned kind. He'd have gone after you with a shotgun. She probably would have broken down and told him the truth eventually, but she died in a car crash when I was a few months old."

Zackery's hands tightened on the edge of the desk behind him. "I recently learned of her death. I'm sorry. More sorry than I can say."

"There are others who know. I can vouch for the people I've told. They can be trusted to keep the secret. You'll have to worry about the ones on your end. But if you think they'll keep quiet, we should be okay."

Zackery narrowed his eyes slightly. "Are you telling me that you intend to keep quiet about this?"

"I have no reason to tell anyone."

Zackery did not respond directly to that. "You said this March was a murderer?"

"He confessed to it in front of me and two other witnesses."

"Whom did he kill?"

Cyrus hesitated. "My wife. Her name was Katy."

There was a long pause.

"Christ." Zackery ran a hand through his hair. "I hadn't realized."

"Yeah, I know."

"Did he kill anyone else?"

"It wouldn't surprise me. Two days ago he set up a scenario in which he tried to kill me and two other people."

Zackery studied him with deep curiosity. "You're alive."

"Things worked out okay."

"What's wrong with your arm?"

Cyrus glanced down at the slight bulge of the bandage beneath his shirtsleeve. "March got off a shot before I got control of the situation."

"I see." Zackery eyed him thoughtfully. "What is it, exactly, that you do for a living?"

"Why?"

"I'm interested. You know much more about me than I know about you."

Cyrus looked at him. "Well, I didn't go into politics."

"All right, all right, you win." Tabitha flung her glasses down onto the polished surface of the desk. "The Leabrook has an unblemished reputation for integrity. If you feel that reputation will be forever tarnished if we maintain possession of the Hades cup, we have no choice but to relinquish our claim."

Eugenia flopped down into the nearest chair, exhausted from the argument. She gave Tabitha a misty smile. "Thanks. I owe you one."

"Yes, you do. But sooner or later, I expect you'll repay me." Tabitha grinned. "You always do."

"I don't suppose you'll believe me when I tell you that until those blackmail notes started arriving on my computer, I never knew you existed," Zackery said.

"Doesn't really matter, one way or the other."

"You're wrong. It matters." Zackery leaned back against the desk and folded his arms. "How long have you known the truth?"

"Since I was twenty-one."

"Who told you?"

"There was no one around who could tell me. I found out on my own."

Zackery's mouth tightened. "Why didn't you contact me?"

"Didn't seem to be much point."

"But now you claim that you've come to rescue me from a potential campaign nightmare. In my business, no one ever does anything without expecting something in return."

Shit. He's going to try to buy me off.

Cyrus could feel the anger gathering inside, a great, roiling storm that, if not controlled, would wreak unknown damage. He had to get out of there. Now.

"I think that's about all there is to say." He turned toward the door.

It opened just as he reached for the knob. An attractive woman in a tasteful pastel suit smiled curiously at him.

"Excuse me." She glanced at Zackery. "Bernice isn't at her desk. I didn't know you were with someone, dear. I'll wait outside."

"Come on in, Mary." Zackery smiled. "I want you to meet my eldest son."

"How do you do?" Mary offered Cyrus her hand. "I've been looking forward to meeting you. So have Jason and Sarah. Zackery has told us all about you. Or at least as much as he's been able to discover. You know, the resemblance is amazing."

Twenty-four

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^

E
ugenia was waiting for him at the airport. It only took him a second to pick her out of the crowd at the gate. She was dressed in a black calf-length skirt and a snug black knit top. She wore a turquoise blue silk scarf around her throat. Her hair was pulled back in the familiar sleek knot.

She looked sophisticated, rakish, and terribly arty.

She gave him a radiant smile when she saw him. Cyrus came to a full stop, blocking the flow of deplaning passengers. He ignored the grumbling and the mutters behind him. He could not take his eyes off Eugenia.

No one and nothing in his life had ever looked as good as she did waiting for him tonight, he thought. Ignoring the crowd that swarmed around them, he dropped his duffel bag at his feet and pulled her into his arms.

It was a long time before he raised his head. "Did I ever tell you that the first time I saw you I thought you looked like a lady cat burglar?"

She tilted her head back. Her eyes gleamed. "Funny you should say that. The first time I saw you, I thought you looked like the tough, relentless marshall in an old-fashioned western. The kind who met the train at high noon and shot it out with the bad guys."

"In spite of the shirt?"

She fiddled with one of the buttons of his color-splashed shirt. "You can't hide behind a shirt, Colfax. Come on, let's go home. The cleaning company did an incredible job. There's still a hole in my wall, but I can live with that. The blood is gone and so is the crime scene tape."

Home
. The word fused several circuits in his brain for a few seconds. Take it easy, he thought. She was speaking casually. Lightly.

She took his hand as they walked through the terminal. "How did it go?"

"Chandler called a press conference late this afternoon. Announced he had a son he had never known existed. Said he was delighted to welcome me into the family. Even told the reporters that I had thwarted a blackmail attempt."

"Thwarted?"

"It's the sort of word politicians use."

"I see."

"It'll be a two-day wonder in the California papers, at best. Got to hand it to Chandler. Guy knows how to do damage control. I have a hunch he'll win the election."

"What else did he tell the reporters?" Eugenia asked.

"He claimed full responsibility for the affair with my mother. Says he wishes she had tracked him down and told him that she was pregnant. Said he would have done the right thing by her because his parents would have insisted on it."

"How did it go over?"

"The press ate it up. The potential for rumors and scandal was nipped in the bud."

"Don't be so cynical," she said. "It's a very touching story. Do you believe him?"

"Are you kidding?" Cyrus grimaced. "Old Z. E. Chandler, senior, would have gone ballistic if there was any suggestion that his son marry a nobody from Second Chance Springs. At the very least, he would have tried to buy my mother off or coerce her into getting an abortion. The real problem for Chandler would have been my grandfather."

She smiled. "I can imagine that Grandpappy Beau would have had a few things to say about the situation."

Cyrus nodded. "But the public will buy the story. Chandler's a politician, Eugenia. He's good at looking you in the eye and getting you to believe him."

"He's your father. Cut him some slack."

He tightened his hand around hers. "One thing I'll say in his favor."

"What's that?"

"When crunch time came, he refused to pay blackmail. You have to respect that in a man."

"Yes." She slanted him a knowing glance. "You do."

Cyrus had left Los Angeles one step ahead of several reporters seeking interviews. On the flight back to Seattle, he had called Quint and issued instructions to his staff to ignore all inquiries from journalists. Now that everything was out in the open, he knew the story would fade quickly.

In the meantime, he had other problems. Like his entire future hanging in the balance, for example. What the hell was he going to do if he could not convince Eugenia that they belonged together?

Her car was waiting in the short-term parking lot. Cyrus tossed his duffel bag into the back of the Toyota and looked at her across the roof.

"Want me to drive?" he asked.

"No, thanks. You've been through a traumatic experience. It's not every day a man meets his long-lost father. The least I can do is drive you home from the airport and pour you a beer." She opened the door and got behind the wheel.

He got in beside her, buckled his seat belt, and concentrated on the novelty of being coddled. It had been a long couple of days, he thought. He was tired. More so than he had realized.

"I had a long talk with Tabitha while you were gone," Eugenia said as she drove out of the airport parking garage. "She agreed to relinquish the Leabrook's claim to the Hades cup. You can return it to its rightful owner."

Cyrus tried unsuccessfully to stretch out his legs. "Talked her into it, huh?" He stifled a yawn.

"Yes." She shot him a quick, searching look. "You don't sound surprised, thrilled, or even very grateful."

He shrugged. "I wasn't worried about a battle over the Hades cup. I knew that, in the end, you'd do the right thing."

"
What?
" Her voice rose on a note of outraged incredulity. "You think I went to bat for you just because I thought your client had a better claim to that damn cup than the Leabrook does?"

He slouched down, leaned his head against the back of the seat, and closed his eyes. "Yeah."

"That is pure, unadulterated
crap
. I did it because I love you. Do you hear me, Colfax? I gave up the Hades cup for you. I would not have done that for any other man on the face of the earth. It seems to me that you could at least show a little appreciation."

For a split second he thought he had fallen asleep and slipped into a dream. He opened his eyes and saw the red glare of the taillights on the car ahead.

Not a dream.

He turned his head to look at Eugenia. She was staring grimly through the windshield, gripping the wheel as if she wished it was his throat.

"Are you by any chance trying to tell me that our relationship has progressed beyond the point of sexual obsession?" he asked.

"What if it has?" she snapped.

"Be a major relief to me," he admitted. "Means I can tell you that I'm in love with you, too."

An acute silence descended. For several miles Eugenia appeared to be concentrating fiercely on her driving. They were nearing the Western Avenue off-ramp before she spoke again.

"Where does this leave us?" she asked.

He smiled at the tension in her voice. "We make plans."

She switched on the turn signal. "Plans? What kind of plans?"

"Nothing you have to worry about. I shift the headquarters of Colfax Security to the new Seattle office, and I move in with you."

Her mouth opened and closed and then opened again. "Just like that?"

"I'm a simple kind of guy. I don't believe in complicating things any more than absolutely necessary."

She smiled at the windshield. "Okay."

Two weeks later the only thing missing on the night of the Leabrook Foundation reception was Cyrus.

Other than that, Eugenia thought as she strolled among the guests, everything had come off perfectly. The Leabrook had been decorated in an Art Deco motif that perfectly suited the magnificent glass collection it housed. The masses of flowers were arranged in several highly sculptural vases that dated from the early 1930s. A small quartet filled the air with the sounds of
Le Jazz Hot
. Waiters, most of them part-time actors in local fringe theaters, carried trays of champagne. In their sleek black and white costumes, they looked as if they could have been working on board the
Aquitania
during an Atlantic crossing between the wars.

As always, the Leabrook collection of rare and spectacular glass was the main attraction. It glowed in the carefully lit display cases, fragile but powerful links to the past that never failed to enthrall Eugenia.

There were third-century
B.C.
Hellenistic bowls that had once held exotic unguents for an Egyptian priest. Across the room was a fourth-century bottle that a Roman matron had used for her perfumes. In another wing there were exquisite twelfth-century beakers and flasks that had once belonged in a medieval nobleman's household.

Brilliantly decorated fifteenth-century Venetian glassware gleamed inside other cases. Eighteenth-century English and Irish crystal blazed in still others. In the new wing, the one that had been constructed after Eugenia became the museum's director, was an array of contemporary studio glass that took the ancient craft into the realm of art.

In keeping with the theme, Eugenia had chosen a slim, emerald green 1930s-style satin gown. It was cut to expose a great deal of her back. Her only regret was that Cyrus was not around to appreciate it.

He had left two days ago to return the Hades cup to its reclusive owner. He had phoned yesterday to say that he expected to make it back in time for the reception, but two hours before she was due to leave the condo, Quint Yates had called.

"He asked me to tell you that he's going to be a little late," Quint said.

"Is something wrong?"

"Nope."

"Then why is he going to be late?" Eugenia asked patiently.

"Didn't say." Having delivered his message, Quint apparently saw no reason to dawdle on the phone. He hung up in Eugenia's ear.

"A wonderful turnout." Tabitha paused beside Eugenia and surveyed the crowd with satisfaction. "You were right about the publicity, my dear. The timing was perfect. I admit it will take me a while to get over the loss of the Hades cup, but I suppose the excellent public relations will comfort me."

"It's bound to ensure good ticket sales for the Cutting Edge exhibition next month," Eugenia said.

"Indeed. I must say, that Jacob Houston piece you brought back from Frog Cove Island is amazing. I'm delighted that the Leabrook will be the first museum to display his work. Can we get any more for the exhibition?"