Gift of Fire

  “You’ve got a strange notion of friendship.”

  “If you think my friends are strange,” Verity shot back, “you should meet my lover.”

  For an instant she thought he was going to lose his temper. But he shocked her by taking the remark seriously. “Do you really think I’m strange, Verity?” Jonas asked roughly. “is that what’s been bothering you lately? You’ve come to the conclusion that I’m some kind of freak?”

  She wished she’d kept her mouth shut. “Don’t be a total ass,” she scolded. “Of course I don’t think you’re a freak. I think of you as the sexiest thing to come along since black lace underwear. Now stop talking nonsense and get dressed. It’s almost dinnertime, and I’ve found a nifty place in the guidebook.”

  Jonas smiled slightly, but his eyes were still watchful. “Cute and quaint?”

  “I believe it has a nautical theme,” Verity remarked serenely.

  “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

  She handed him a strip of silk. “Here.”

  “What’s this?”

  “Very funny. You know perfectly well it’s a tie.”

  “Is this a hint that I’m supposed to dress tonight?”

  “It is.” She collected her silk dress from the closet. “Wear something besides jeans with that tie.”

  “Right, boss.”

  ***

  An hour later, Verity confronted Jonas over her salad. This time the guidebook had not been misleading. The restaurant theme was painfully nautical. There were stuffed fish displayed on the walls, a display of ropes tied in intricate knots, and a variety of sailing apparatus strewn about in what Verity assumed was an artistic fashion. The menu featured fish cooked in every conceivable style. Fortunately there were also a few meatless pasta selections.

  “Cute place, isn’t it?” Verity spoke determinedly.

  “Nobody else in the whole damn place is wearing a tie.”

  “So the locals don’t dress for dinner. That’s their problem. You look terrific.” Which was the truth, Verity thought with a sudden pang. But then, Jonas always looked good to her—strong, lean, and hard, with that unconscious masculine grace that always fascinated her. His midnight-dark hair was still damp from the light mist that had been falling outside, and his eyes glinted softly in the dim restaurant light.

  Jonas gave her an oddly speculative look. “You know something, you look pretty good yourself.” He leaned forward and caught her hand

  “My mistress glows by candlelight.

  She leaves me breathless; I am undone.

  Her hair like fire, her eyes like gems,

  Then she smiles at me; She is my sun.”

  “Another four-hundred-year-old, loosely translated Renaissance love poem that you just made up on the spot?” Verity said lightly. But in truth, she was warmed to her soul.

  “What can I say? You inspire me,” he explained modestly.

  Her love for him tugged at her heart, and she almost let herself get sidetracked. But this restaurant wasn’t the place to tell him about the baby. She wanted privacy for that. She had no way of knowing how Jonas would react.

  “First, let’s talk about the case,” Verity said briskly. She pulled her hand out from under his and picked up her salad fork.

  Jonas studied her through narrowed eyes for a few seconds. Then he shrugged and picked up his own fork. He began poking through the salad to find the mushrooms. “Okay. First we’ll talk about the case. Then what are we going to talk about?”

  “Us.”

  His head came up abruptly, his eyes very golden in the shadows. “Us?” he repeated softly.

  “Later,” Verity said. She felt more nervous than she had anticipated.

  “Verity…”

  “Please,” she begged softly.

  Jonas started to argue, but something about her expression stopped him. “All right,” he finally agreed. “Later.”

  Verity smiled gratefully. “Tell me, in your professional opinion, what exactly do you think is going on out there on that island?”

  “My professional opinion is that the whole situation sucks.”

  “You academic types have such a way with words.”

  “It’s a professional requirement. It’s been a few years, but when called upon I can, as I’ve explained, still bullshit with the best of them. Have you noticed?”

  “I’ve noticed,” she said dryly. “You know something? You can sound awfully impressive when you try. When you gave that little dissertation at breakfast on the differences between Milanese and Florentine construction techniques, everyone was fascinated. Architecture wasn’t even your specialty when you taught Renaissance history. How come you know so much about it?”

  “Goes with the territory,” he explained. “When you’re studying the various Renaissance war machines designed to knock down walls and buildings, you find yourself learning a little something about how the walls and buildings were constructed in the first place. And don’t get any ideas about nagging me to write an article about Hazelhurst’s Horror for some obscure little history journal. The report I’m doing for Doug is all I’m interested in turning out.”

  “Now, Jonas, if you’re going to establish a career as a historical consultant you’ll need to have your name appear in print occasionally. It’s good advertising. Speaking of Hazelhurst’s Horror, let’s get back to the case.”

  “I love the way you call it ‘the case.’ Makes us sound like a couple of amateur detectives.”

  “Well, maybe that’s what we are. We’ve already found one body, haven’t we? Poor Hazelhurst. What do you think happened to him?”

  “My professional opinion is that he got a stiletto in the back,” Jonas said, munching his salad.

  “Not an uncommon fate during the Renaissance,” Verity pointed out. “Jonas, that ruby ring on the hand that stabbed Hazelhurst appeared in the first vision. I know I saw it, either in the chest or on the man’s hand.”

  “Maybe.”

  “There’s no maybe about it. I saw it.”

  “There is no way the guy in the vision came alive and killed Hazelhurst,” Jonas said forcefully. “Forget it.”

  “All right, if that’s an impossibility, what does it leave us with?”

  Jonas ate the last of his mushrooms. “It leaves us,” he stated slowly, “with the possibility that Hazelhurst and somebody else found the treasure, or at least the ruby ring, and the guy with the stiletto didn’t want to go halvesies.”

  Verity put down her fork and stared at Jonas. “Good grief, you’re right. That’s a perfectly plausible explanation. That ring alone is probably worth killing for, which means that two years ago Hazelhurst involved someone else in the treasure hunt. But Maggie said that he never had any luck getting his academic buddies to help.”

  “She also mentioned a guy who claimed he was a grad student in Renaissance history showing up a few months before Hazelhurst disappeared.”

  Verity nodded. “But she said Hazelhurst didn’t work with him long. Claimed the man wasn’t a real student, just a treasure hunter.”

  “It’s possible the guy sneaked back into the villa after he was kicked out. If he was reasonably discreet, he could wander around a long time in that pile of rocks before anyone caught him.”

  “But maybe Hazelhurst did catch him. Maybe he ran into him in that hidden passage. And maybe one of them had found that ring along with a few others items, like the old stiletto.”

  “And maybe there was an argument. A fight.” Jonas nodded thoughtfully. “It’s possible.”

  “Which means that whoever was hanging around two and a half years ago has long since taken the treasure and vanished.”

  “Also possible. Probable, in fact.”

  “Which means we’re wasting our time,” Verity concluded with a sigh. “The treasure’s gone.”

&
nbsp; “Not necessarily.”

  She looked at him in surprise. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Jonas shook his head. “I don’t think the real treasure was found. Or if it was, I don’t think the thief got away with it.”

  “Why not?”

  Jonas looked at her, his eyes shadowed. “Because the treasure, whatever it is, will be very well guarded, Verity. No casual treasure hunter could have stolen it, not easily. Precautions were taken. I felt the echoes of them.”

  “Booby traps, you mean? But they might all have rusted by now, like the one that guarded the crystal.”

  “I’m not sure that all the traps are mechanical.” Jonas became very busy buttering a chunk of sourdough bread.

  “Jonas, for crying out loud, what are you trying to tell me?”

  He hesitated, then said quietly, “I don’t know. But I got a strong sense of warning, a feeling of real threat from the room where the crystal was found. I got an even heavier dose of it from that vision of the man seated at the desk. I’ve felt a lot of things in that psychic corridor, but what I felt this last time was different.”

  “Different how?”

  “If I understood that part, I’d have this case solved.” Jonas bit off a large piece of the chewy bread. “There’s just this faint sense of impending action or violence. Like something’s waiting to happen.”

  “I don’t like the sound of this.” Verity had been hungry, but she was rapidly losing her appetite. “Do you think we should drop the whole thing and go home?”

  “Are you kidding? I wouldn’t leave now if you paid me.”

  “Dammit, Jonas, you just said it was dangerous.”

  “I’ll be careful.” He grew thoughtful. “I could try exploring the passageway alone. You can stay behind in the bedroom. Apparently the link between us is strong enough now to permit some distance. I can get hold of you mentally if I need you.”

  “Now you listen to me, Jonas Quarrel. You are not going to go off merrily exploring that hidden passage on your own while I sit and wait in the bedroom. You take me with you, or you don’t go at all.”

  “Now, Verity,” he began soothingly.

  “Don’t even try to talk me out of it. You don’t know what you’re getting into. You don’t know how strong the link between us would be in a real emergency if we were separated by a long distance. This whole consulting job was my idea, remember? I’m the one who got you the project, and the agreement was that I go along as part of the package. If you stay, I stay. And if you go into that secret passage again, I go with you.”

  “You are one stubborn woman, Verity Ames.”

  “It’s part of my charm.”

  “I’ll try to keep that in mind.”

  “Jonas,” Verity said warningly, “don’t get any ideas about sneaking off to explore that passage while I’m asleep. Try anything tricky and I’ll never forgive you. I mean it.”

  “I hear you.”

  She wished she could read his mind. Unfortunately, the link between them did not include telepathy.

  Chapter Nine

  “It will be interesting to see if Caitlin turns up any information on the Warwicks and their friends. Personally, I’m betting against it,” Verity said later as they walked back to the inn.

  The light mist was still falling, but Verity was dry. Jonas was holding the umbrella and he had most of it over her. They were walking through the small shopping district of the town. Everything was closed for the evening, but there were lights on in most of the store windows. A surprising variety of chic art galleries and sophisticated craft shops were scattered amid the standard small-town collection of old-fashioned hardware stores, insurance offices, and real estate firms.

  “Worth a shot,” Jonas said mildly.

  “Maybe. What do you think of each of them, Jonas?”

  “I think Doug Warwick is just a hardworking stockbroker who wants to sell that white elephant he inherited as quickly as possible. He’s humoring his sister in the process by letting me do some treasure hunting.”

  “And Elyssa?”

  “Elyssa is the fluff-headed enthusiastic type who gets carried away with every trendy fad that comes along—harmless. Preston Yarwood is a con man who’s cashing in on the New Age craze. Oliver Crump is the earnest, well-meaning sort who just got sucked into the psychic stuff because he’s genuinely interested in offbeat things. He probably means well.”

  “And Slade Spencer?”

  “Spencer is the kind who will join anything that looks like it might offer free sex and drugs. In another time and place, he would have been a hippie or a beatnik.”

  Verity bit her lip. “Slade did mention that he and Elyssa had had a brief affair. At least he claims he slept with her once or twice. He also says she’s now having an affair with Yarwood. Slade even says she tried to get it on with Oliver, but he declined. Smart man. Apparently Elyssa is into psychics.”

  “Or likes to get psychics into her. Sounds like you found out a lot about Little Miss Sunshine.”

  “Either that, or Spencer told me a pack of lies about her. Which is possible.”

  Jonas put an arm around Verity’s shoulders. “I don’t know. Personally, I’m inclined to believe it.”

  “That Elyssa likes sleeping with psychics?”

  “Some women get the hots for race-car drivers, some like policemen. Some go for gurus. Elyssa goes for psychics.”

  “Can’t imagine why,” Verity said innocently.

  “I’m crushed.”

  “You’ll bear up nobly. You always do.” Verity thought about what he’d said. “What it all comes down to is that you think there really is a treasure buried in that villa, and you want to go after it.”

  “This is going to sound crazy, but I feel like I’ve been challenged, Verity. It isn’t just the damn treasure I’m after. I want to know how that frozen vision works. I want to know why it’s different from anything else we’ve ever seen in the time corridor. I feel there’s something really important about all this.”

  “Something more important than a treasure chest full of gold and jewels?”

  “Yes.” He hesitated, then admitted softly, “I won’t be able to rest until I figure out what that vision and that hidden passageway are hiding.”

  Verity hugged her down parka more tightly around her. It was cold tonight. “I think we should be very careful, Jonas.”

  “I agree.”

  “And whatever happens, we stick together. Understood?”

  “Speaking of sticking together,” Jonas said smoothly, “what about that discussion you and I were going to have? The one about us?”

  “Let’s wait until we get back to the room. Oh, Jonas, look.” Verity stopped in front of a shop window and stood gazing down at a pair of reddish orange earrings. The translucent stones were faceted, and reflected the display-case lighting. Fiery sparks danced in the core of the stones.

  Verity fell in love with them instantly. “Aren’t they beautiful?”

  Jonas peered into the case. “They’re okay, I guess. Same color as your hair. You should get something to go with your eyes, not your hair.”

  “I like those red earrings,” she insisted. “Maybe we could stop by this shop in the morning before we leave?”

  “You’re stalling, Verity. It’s time for that discussion you promised me.” He took her arm and guided her firmly away from the shop window.

  Perhaps she’d been a little hasty, Verity thought uneasily as they climbed the steps of the Harbor Watch Inn. Perhaps she should wait until she’d seen a doctor or at least used one of those home pregnancy-test kits. All she really had to go on was the calendar, and Oliver Cramp’s professional opinion—for what that was worth.

  But Verity knew deep in her heart she couldn’t put off telling Jonas any longer. She summoned her courage as she and Jonas walked
through the quiet parlor and up the stairs to the second floor. Jonas unlocked the door, followed her inside, and watched her walk to the window.

  “Well, Verity?”

  She glanced over her shoulder and saw that he was unknotting his tie. His eyes were watchful.

  “Jonas, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately.”

  “I’ve noticed.” He slung the tie aside and unbuttoned his shirt. His eyes were narrowed. “In fact, I’ve about had it with your weird behavior lately. It’s as if you’re spending part of your time in another world or something. Or like you’re making big plans that you won’t tell me about. I’m warning you, Verity, I put up with a lot of your temperamental nonsense, but there are some things I won’t tolerate. I’ve been very patient with you, but I’ve just about reached my limit. I’d like an explanation, and I don’t want to be told it’s my imagination.”

  Verity moved restlessly to stare at a nautical print on the wall. The ship was foundering, men were overboard, and shark fins cut through the churning water. She knew exactly how they felt. She cleared her throat nervously.

  “Sometimes things happen that aren’t exactly planned,” she began cautiously, her back toward him. “Sometimes a person’s timing isn’t quite right. It’s nobody’s fault, it just happens.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Verity, will you stop beating around the bush and just say what you have to say?”

  “All right. How would you feel about becoming a father, Jonas?”

  “What? Holy shit!”

  There was a scrabbling sound, some thumping, and another muttered curse. Verity whirled around and saw Jonas staggering wildly, his arms flailing. His pants were tangled around his knees and he had lost his balance. He clutched wildly for the nearest bedpost, hopping around on one foot. The expression on his face was one of incredulous disbelief.

  Verity watched in amazement as Jonas landed heavily on the edge of the bed and slid down to the floor.

  She’d never seen him lose his balance before. All the effortless physical grace that characterized his movements had suddenly deserted him.

  There was a solid thud as Jonas landed on his rear end, his ankles trapped inside his half-lowered pants. He sat looking up at her, his eyes filled with amazement.