Stars of Mithra Box Set: Captive Star\Hidden Star\Secret Star (31 page)

“Yes. Cade, I—”

“You'll do what you want.” He interrupted her in a voice that was both cool and clipped. “And so will I. I apologize again for treating you that way.”

She felt her stomach sink to her knees. “You're angry with me.”

“With both of us. I can deal with myself, but first I have to deal with you. You want to walk out.”

“It's not what I want.” There was a plea for understanding in her voice. “It's what's right. I've made you an accessory to God knows what.”

“You hired me.”

She let out an impatient breath. How could he be so blind and stubborn? “It hasn't been a professional relationship, Cade. It barely started as one.”

“That's right. It's personal, and you're not walking out on me out of some misguided sense of guilt. You want to walk for other reasons, we'll get into them after this is done. I love you.” There was chilly fury over the words that only deepened the emotion behind them. “If you don't, can't or won't love me, I'll have to live with it. But walking out at this point's just not an option.”

“I only want—”

“You want to go to the cops.” He paused a moment, hooked his thumbs in his front pockets to keep his hands from reaching for her. “That's fine, it's your choice. But meanwhile, you hired me to do a job, and I'm not finished. Whatever your personal feelings, or mine, I intend to finish. Get your purse.”

She wasn't sure how to handle him now. Then again, she realized, had she ever known? Still, this cold, angry man standing in front of her was much more of a stranger than the one she had first seen in a cluttered, messy office only days before.

“The appointment at the Smithsonian,” she began.

“I've postponed it. We have somewhere else to go first.”

“Where?”

“Get your purse,” he repeated. “We're taking this next step my way.”

 

He didn't speak on the drive. She recognized some of the buildings. They'd ridden past them before. But when he drove out of D.C. and into Maryland, her nerves began to jump.

“I wish you'd tell me where we're going.” The trees were too close to the road, she thought, panicky. Too green, too big.

“Back,” he said. “Sometimes you've just got to open the door and look at what's on the other side.”

“We need to talk to the curator at the museum.” Her throat was closing. She'd have bartered her soul for a glass of water. “We should turn around and go back to the city.”

“You know where we're going?”

“No.” The denial was sharp, desperate. “No, I don't.”

He only flicked a glance at her out of sharp green eyes. “The pieces are there, Bailey.”

He turned left, off the main drag, listening to her breathing coming short and labored. Ruthlessly he repressed his instinct to soothe. She was stronger than he'd pretended she was. He could admit that. And she would get through this. He'd help her get through it.

If the place was being watched, he was bringing her out in the open. He had to weigh the possibility of that against doing his job. She'd hired him to solve the puzzle, he reminded himself. And this, he was sure, was the last piece.

She couldn't continue to live in the safe little world he'd provided for her. It was time, for both of them, to move forward.

Setting his jaw, he pulled into the lot at Salvini.

“You know where we are.”

Her skin was clammy. In long, restless strokes, she rubbed her damp palms over the knees of her slacks. “No, I don't.”

The building was brick, two stories. Old, rather lovely, with tall display windows flanked by well established azaleas that would bloom beautifully
in the spring. There was an elegance to the place that shouldn't have made her shudder.

There was a single car in the lot. A BMW sedan, dark blue. Its finish gleamed in the sunlight.

The building stood alone, taking up the corner, while behind it, across a vast parking lot, a trendy strip mall seemed to be doing a brisk holiday business.

“I don't want to be here.” Bailey turned her head, refusing to look at the sign that topped the building in large, clear letters.

 

SALVINI

 

“They're closed,” she continued. “There's no one here. We should go.”

“There's a car in the lot,” Cade pointed out. “It won't hurt to see.”

“No.” She snatched her hand away from his, tried to bury herself in the corner of the seat. “I'm not going in there. I'm not.”

“What's in there, Bailey?”

“I don't know.” Terror. Just terror. “I'm not going in.”

He would rather have cut out his heart than force her to do what he intended. But, thinking of her, he got out of the car, came around to her side, opened the door. “I'll be with you. Let's go.”

“I said I'm not going in there.”

“Coward.” He said it with a sneer in his voice. “Do you want to hide the rest of your life?”

Fury sparkled off the tears in her eyes as she ripped the seat belt free. “I hate you for this.”

“I know,” he murmured, but took her arm firmly and led her to the building's front entrance.

It was dark inside. Through the window he could see little but thick carpet and glass displays where gold and stones gleamed dully. It was a small showroom, again elegant, with a few upholstered stools and countertop mirrors where customers might sit and admire their choices.

Beside him, Bailey was shaking like a leaf.

“Let's try the back.”

The rear faced the strip mall, and boasted delivery and employee entrances. Cade studied the lock on the employee door and decided he could handle it. From his pocket he took out a leather roll of tools.

“What are you doing?” Bailey stepped back as he chose a pick and bent to his work. “Are you breaking in? You can't do that.”

“I think I can manage it. I practice picking locks at least four hours a week. Quiet a minute.”

It took concentration, a good touch, and several sweaty minutes. If the alarm was set, he figured,
it would go off when he disengaged the first lock. It didn't, and he changed tools and started on the second.

A silent alarm wasn't out of the question, he mused as he jiggled tumblers. If the cops came, he was going to have a lot of explaining to do.

“This is insane.” Bailey took another step in retreat. “You're breaking into a store in broad daylight. You can't do this, Cade.”

“Did it,” he said with some satisfaction as the last tumbler fell. Fastidiously he replaced his tools in the roll, pocketed them. “An outfit like this ought to have a motion alarm in place, as well.”

He stepped through the door. In the dim light, he saw the alarm box beside the doorway. Disengaged.

He could almost hear another piece fall into place.

“Careless of them,” he murmured. “With the way crime pays.”

He took Bailey's hand and pulled her inside. “Nobody's going to hurt you while I'm around. Not even me.”

“I can't do this.”

“You're doing it.” Keeping her hand firm in his, he hit the lights.

It was a narrow room, more of an entranceway
with a worn wooden floor and plain white walls. Against the left wall were a watercooler and a brass coatrack. A woman's gray raincoat hung on one of the hooks.

It had called for thunderstorms the previous Thursday, he thought. A practical woman such as Bailey wouldn't have gone to work without her raincoat. “It's yours, isn't it?”

“I don't know.”

“Coat's your style. Quality, expensive, subtle.” He checked the pockets, found a roll of breath mints, a short grocery list, a pack of tissues. “It's your handwriting,” he said, offering her the list.

“I don't know.” She refused to look at it. “I don't remember.”

He pocketed the list himself, and led her into the next room.

It was a workroom, a smaller version of the one at Westlake. He recognized the equipment now, and deduced that if he took the time to pick the locks on the drawers of a tall wooden cabinet, he would find loose stones. The flood of gems Bailey had described from her dreams. Stones that made her happy, challenged her creativity, soothed her soul.

The worktable was wiped spotlessly clean.
Nothing, not the thinnest chain of gold links, was out of place.

It was, he thought, just like her.

“Someone keeps their area clean,” he said mildly. Her hand was icy in his as he turned. There were stairs leading up. “Let's see what's behind door number two.”

She didn't protest this time. She was too locked in terror to form the words. She winced as he flooded the stairway with light and drew her up with him.

On the second level, the floors were carpeted in pewter gray. Nausea swam in her stomach. The hallway was wide enough for them to walk abreast, and there were gleaming antique tables set at well-arranged spots. Red roses were fading in a silver vase. And the scent of their dying sickened her.

He opened a door, nudged it wider. And knew at first glance that it was her office.

Nothing was out of place. The desk, a pretty, feminine Queen Anne gleamed with polish and care under the light coating of weekend dust. On it was a long, milky crystal, jagged at one end, like a broken blade of a sword. She'd called it chalcedony, he remembered. And the smooth
multiangled rock nearby must be the rutilated quartz.

On the walls were dreamy watercolors in thin wooden frames. There was a small table beside a love seat that was thickly upholstered in rose-toned fabric and set off with pale green pillows. On the table stood a small glass vase with drooping violets and pictures framed in polished silver.

He picked up the first. She was about ten, he judged, a little gangly and unformed, but there was no mistaking those eyes. And she'd grown to closely resemble the woman who sat beside her in a porch glider, smiling into the camera.

“It's your past, Bailey.” He picked up another photo. Three woman, arms linked, laughing. “You, M.J. and Grace. Your present.” He set the picture down, picked up another. The man was golden, handsome, his smile assured and warm.

Her future? he wondered.

“He's dead.” The words choked out of her, slicing her heart on the journey. “My father. He's dead. The plane went down in Dorset. He's dead.”

“I'm sorry.” Cade set the photo down.

“He never came home.” She was leaning against the desk, her legs trembling, her heart reeling as too many images crowded their way
inside. “He left on a buying trip and never came back. We used to eat ice cream on the porch. He'd show me all the treasures. I wanted to learn. Lovely old things. He smelled of pine soap and beeswax. He liked to polish the pieces himself sometimes.”

“He had antiques,” Cade said quietly.

“It was a legacy. His father to him, my father to me. Time and Again. The shop. Time and Again. It was so full of beautiful things. He died, he died in England, thousands of miles away. My mother had to sell the business. She had to sell it when…”

“Take it slow, and easy. Just let it come.”

“She got married again. I was fourteen. She was still young, she was lonely. She didn't know how to run a business. That's what he said. She didn't know how. He'd take care of things. Not to worry.”

She staggered, caught herself. Then her gaze landed on the soapstone elephant with the jeweled blanket on her desk. “M.J. She gave it to me for my birthday. I like foolish things. I collect elephants. Isn't that odd? You picked an elephant for me at the carnival, and I collect them.”

She passed a hand over her eyes, tried to hang on. “We laughed when I opened it. Just the three
of us. M.J. and Grace and I, just a few weeks ago. My birthday's in June. June nineteenth. I'm twenty-five.”

Her head spun as she struggled to focus on Cade. “I'm twenty-five. I'm Bailey James. My name's Bailey Anne James.”

Gently Cade eased her into a chair, laid his hand on hers. “Nice to meet you.”

“I
t's mixed up in my head.” Bailey pressed her fingers to her eyes. Visions were rocketing in, zooming through, overlapping and fading before she could gain a firm hold.

“Tell me about your father.”

“My father. He's dead.”

“I know, sweetheart. Tell me about him.”

“He—he bought and sold antiques. It was a family business. Family was everything. We lived in Connecticut. The business started there. Our house was there. He—he expanded. Another branch in New York, one in D.C. His father had
established the first one, then my father had expanded. His name was Matthew.”

Now she pressed her hand to her heart as it swelled and broke. “It's like losing him all over again. He was the center of the world to me, he and my mother. She couldn't have any more children. I suppose they spoiled me. I loved them so much. We had a willow tree in the backyard. That's where I went when my mother told me about the crash. I went out and sat under the willow tree and tried to make him come back.”

“Your mother came and found you?” He was guessing now, prompting her gently through her grief.

“Yes, she came out, and we sat there together for a long time. The sun went down, and we just sat there together. We were lost without him, Cade. She tried, she tried so hard to hold the business together, to take care of me, the house. It was just too much. She didn't know how. She met—she met Charles Salvini.”

“This is his building.”

“It was.” She rubbed her mouth with the back of her hand. “He was a jeweler, specialized in estate and antique pieces. She consulted with him on some of our stock. That's how it started. She was lonely, and he treated her very well. He
treated me very well. I admired him. I think he loved her very much, I really do. I don't know if she loved him, but she needed him. I suppose I did, too. She sold what was left of the antique business and married him.”

“Was he good to you?”

“Yes, he was. He was a kind man. And like my father, he was scrupulously honest. Honesty in business, in personal matters, was vital. It was my mother he wanted, but I came with the package, and he was always good to me.”

“You loved him.”

“Yes, it was easy to love him, to be grateful for what he did for me and my mother. He was very proud of the business he'd built up. When I developed an interest in gems, he encouraged it. I apprenticed here, in the summers, and after school. He sent me to college to study. My mother died while I was away in college. I wasn't here. I was away when she died.”

“Honey.” He gathered her close, tried to soothe. “I'm sorry.”

“It was an accident. It happened very fast. A drunk driver, crossed the center line. Hit her head on. That was it.” Grief was fresh again, raw and fresh. “Charles was devastated. He never really recovered. He was older than she by about fifteen
years, and when she died, he lost interest in everything. He retired, went into seclusion. He died less than a year later.”

“And you were all alone?”

“I had my brothers.” She shuddered, gripped Cade's hands. “Timothy and Thomas. Charles's sons. My stepbrothers.” She let out a broken sob. “Twins.” Her hands jerked in his. “I want to go now. I want to leave here.”

“Tell me about your brothers,” he said calmly. “They're older than you.”

“I want to go. I have to get out.”

“They worked here,” Cade continued. “They took over the business from your stepfather. You worked here with them.”

“Yes, yes. They took over the business. I came to work here when I graduated from Radcliffe. We're family. They're my brothers. They were twenty when their father married my mother. We lived in the same house, we're family.”

“One of them tried to kill you.”

“No. No.” She covered her face again, refused to see it. “It's a mistake. I told you, they're my brothers. My family. We lived together. We work together. Our parents are dead, and we're all that's left. They're impatient or brusque some
times, but they'd never hurt me. They'd never hurt one another. They couldn't.”

“They have offices here? In this building, on this floor?” She shook her head, but her gaze shifted to the left. “I want you to sit right here. Stay right here, Bailey.”

“Where are you going?”

“I need to look.” He cupped her face, kept his eyes level with hers. “You know I have to look. Stay here.”

She let her head fall back against the cushion, closed her eyes. She would stay. There was nothing she needed to see. Nothing she needed to know. She knew her name now, her family. Wasn't that enough?

But it played back in her head, with an echoing crack of lightning that made her moan.

She hadn't moved when Cade came back into the room, but she opened her eyes. And when she did, she saw it on his face.

“It's Thomas,” she said hollowly. “It's Thomas who's dead in his office down the hall.”

He didn't wonder that she had blocked out what she'd seen. The attack had been vicious and violent. To witness the cause of the effect in the room he'd just left would have been horrifying. But to watch, from a few feet away, knowing it was one
brother savagely slaying another, would have been unspeakable.

“Thomas,” she repeated, and let tears fall. “Poor Thomas. He wanted to be the best in everything. He often was. They were never unkind to me. They ignored me a great deal of the time, as older brothers would, I suppose. I know they resented that Charles left me a part of the business, but they tolerated it. And me.”

She paused, looked down at her hands. “There's nothing we can do for him, is there?”

“No. I'll get you out of here.” He took her hand, helped her to her feet. “We'll call this in.”

“They planned to steal the Three Stars of Mithra.”

She stood her ground. She could bear it, she promised herself, and she needed to say it all. “We'd been commissioned to verify and assess the three diamonds. Or I had, actually, since that's my field. I often do consults with the Smithsonian. The stars were going to be part of their gem display. They're originally from Persia. They're very old and were once set in a triangle of gold, held in the open hands of a statue of Mithra.”

She cleared her throat, spoke calmly now, focused practical. “He was the ancient Persian god of light and wisdom. Mithraism became one of
the major religions of the Roman Empire. He was supposed to have slain the divine bull, and from the bull's dying body sprang all the plants and animals.”

“You can tell me in the car.”

He urged her to the door, but she simply couldn't move until she'd said it all. “The religion wasn't brought to Rome until 68 B.C., and it spread rapidly. It's similar to Christianity in many respects. The ideals of brotherly love.” Her voice broke, forced her to swallow. “The Three Stars were thought to be a myth, a legend spawned by the Trinity, though some scholars believed firmly in their existence, and described them as symbols of love, knowledge and generosity. It's said if one possesses all three, the combination of these elements will bring power and immortality.”

“You don't believe that.”

“I believe they're powerful enough to bring about great love, great hate, great greed. I found out what my brothers were doing. I realized Timothy was creating duplicates in the lab.” She scrubbed at her eyes. “Maybe he could have hidden something like that from me if he'd been more methodical, more careful, but he was always the more impatient of the two, the more reckless.” Now her shoulders slumped as she remem
bered. “He's been in trouble a few times, for assault. His temper is very quick.”

“He never hurt you?”

“No, never. He may have hurt my feelings from time to time.” She tried a smile, but it faded quickly. “He seemed to feel that my mother had only married his father so that the two of us could be taken care of. It was partially true, I suppose. So it was always important to me to prove myself.”

“You proved yourself here,” Cade said.

“Not to him. Timothy was never one to praise. But he was never overly harsh, not really. And I never thought he or Thomas would be dishonest. Until we were commissioned to assess the Stars.”

“And that was more than they could resist.”

“Apparently. The fakes wouldn't fool anyone for very long, but by the time the stones were found out, my brothers would have the money and be gone. I don't know who was paying them, but they were working for someone.”

She stopped on the stairs, stared down. “He chased me down here. I was running. It was pitch-dark. I nearly fell down these stairs. I could hear him coming after me. And I knew he'd kill me. We'd shared Christmas dinner every year of my life since I was fourteen. And he would kill me,
the same horrible way he'd killed Thomas. For money.”

She clutched the railing as she slowly walked down to the lower level. “I loved him, Cade. I loved both of them.” At the base of the steps, she turned, gestured to a narrow door. “There's a basement down there. It's very small and cramped. There's where I ran. There's a little nook under the steps, with a lattice door. I used to explore the building when I was young, and I liked sitting in that nook, where it was quiet. I'd study the gem books Charles gave me. I don't suppose Timothy knew it was there. If he'd known, I'd be dead.”

She walked into the sunlight.

“I honestly don't remember how long I stayed in there, in the dark, waiting for him to find me and kill me. I don't know how I got to the hotel. I must have walked part of the way, at least. I don't drive to work. I live only a few blocks from here.”

He wanted to tell her it was done now, but it wasn't. He wanted to let her rest her head on his shoulder and put it behind her. But he couldn't. Instead, he took her hands, turned her to face him.

“Bailey. Where are the other two stars?”

“The—” She went dead pale, so quickly he
grabbed her certain she would faint. But her eyes stayed open, wide and shocked.

“Oh, my God. Oh, my God, Cade, what have I done? He knows where they live. He knows.”

“You gave them to M.J. and Grace.” Moving fast, he wrenched open the car door. The cops would have to wait. “Tell me where.”

 

“I was so angry,” she told him as they sped through afternoon traffic. “I realized they were using me, my name, my knowledge, my reputation, to authenticate the gems. Then they would switch them and leave me—leave the business my stepfather had built—holding the bag. Salvini would have been ruined, after all Charles had done to build it. I owed him loyalty. And, damn it, so did they.”

“So you beat them to it.”

“It was impulse. I was going to face them down with it, but I wanted the Stars out of reach. At least I thought they shouldn't all be in one place. As long as they were, they could be taken. So I sent one to M.J. and one to Grace, by different overnight couriers.”

“Dear Lord, Bailey, you put priceless diamonds in the mail?”

She squeezed her eyes shut. “We use special
couriers regularly for delivering gems.” Her voice was prim, vaguely insulted. She'd already told herself she'd been unbelievably rash. “All I could think was that there were two people in the world I could trust with anything. I didn't consider they'd be put in danger. I never realized how far it could go. I was certain that when I confronted my brothers, told them I'd separated the diamonds for safe-keeping and would be making arrangements to have the diamonds delivered to the museum, that would have to be the end of it.”

She hung onto the door as his tires spun around a corner. “It's this building. We're on the third floor. M.J. and I have apartments across from each other.”

She was out of the car before he'd fully stopped, and racing toward the entrance. Cursing, he snatched his keys out of the ignition and sprinted after her. He caught her on the stairs. “Stay behind me,” he ordered. “I mean it.”

Both the lock and the jamb on apartment 324 were broken. Police tape was slashed across it. “M.J.” was all she could manage as she pushed at Cade and reached for the knob to M.J.'s apartment.

“There you are, dearie.” A woman in pink
stretch pants and fluffy slippers scuffed down the hall. “I was getting worried about you.”

“Mrs. Weathers.” Bailey's knuckles turned white on the knob as she turned. “M.J. What's happened to M.J?”

“Such a hullabaloo.” Mrs. Weathers fluffed her helmet of blond hair and gave Cade a measuring smile. “You don't expect such things in a nice neighborhood like this. The world is going to hell in a handbasket, I swear.”

“Where's M.J.?”

“Last I saw, she was running off with some man. Clattering down the steps, swearing at each other. That was after all the commotion. Glass breaking, furniture smashing. Gunshots.” She nodded briskly several times, like a bird bobbing for juicy worms.

“Shot? Was M.J. shot?”

“Didn't look shot to me. Mad as a wet hen, and fired up.”

“My brother. Was she with my brother?”

“No, indeed. Hadn't even seen this young man before. I'da remembered, I can tell you. He was one tall drink of water, had his hair back in one of those cute little ponytails, and had eyes like steel. Dent in his chin, just like a movie star. I got
a good look at him, seeing as he nearly knocked me over.”

“When did this happen, Mrs. Weathers?”

She fastened her gaze on Cade's face at the question, beamed and offered a hand. “I don't believe we've been introduced.”

“I'm Cade, a friend of Bailey's.” He flashed a grin back at her while impatience twisted his stomach. “We've been away for a few days and wanted to catch up with M.J.”

“Well, I haven't seen hide nor hair of her since Saturday, when she went running out. Left the door of her apartment wide open—or I thought she had till I saw it was broken. So I peeked in. Her place was a wreck. I know she's not the housekeeper you are, Bailey, but it was upside down and sideways, and…” She paused dramatically. “There was a man laid out cold on the floor. Big bruiser of a man, too. So I skedaddled back to my apartment and called the police. What else could I do? I guess he'd come to and cleared out by the time they got here. Lord knows I didn't put a toe out the door until the cops came knocking, and they said he was gone.”