Gift of Fire

  Only one person at the villa smoked.

  Verity started to pull her hand away from Maggie’s throat. She had to get out of here—she had to find Jonas. Her fingers brushed the chain that Maggie had always worn around her neck and her red crystal earrings suddenly burned.

  Guided by pure instinct and a growing suspicion, Verity gently tugged the chain from under the collar of the faded housedress.

  A green crystal glittered at the end of the chain.

  Verity stared at it, mesmerized by the reality of what, until now, had been only an image trapped in time. She was trying to make sense of what she’d discovered when she heard quick, heavy footsteps in the hall.

  Terror surged through her. The man who had done this to Maggie was coming back to finish his grim business. Verity knew it as surely as she knew her own name—and his.

  She leaped to her feet, holding the green crystal tightly.

  The metal chain snapped, but Verity didn’t even notice. She turned and darted toward the only possible escape—the open corridor door.

  She plunged into an endless tunnel of darkness. Where was Jonas and his industrial-strength flashlight when she needed him? Trying not to make any noise. Verity inched cautiously along the tunnel wall. She had to get away from the shaft of light that poured into the passageway from the torture chamber.

  She was several feet away from the opening when she heard a scraping sound, the unmistakable noise of a body being dragged. Verity had never heard such a sound before in her life, but she recognized it immediately.

  Maggie Frampton’s unconscious, bulky frame was thrust unceremoniously through the opening and dumped in the corridor. A dark figure stepped in behind her and shone a flashlight beam quickly in both directions.

  The beam just hit the heel of Verity’s shoe as she turned and fled into the impenetrable darkness of the hidden passageway.

  Chapter Sixteen

  He’d seen her! She was certain the flashlight had caught her. Verity ran recklessly into the darkness, one palm scraping along the wall as a guide. How much farther to the stairs? Adrenaline was pounding through her veins as she listened for the sound of Slade Spencer’s pursuing footsteps.

  But a few seconds later Verity realized she heard nothing behind her. There was not even the glare of a flashlight bearing down on her. She cast an anxious glance back over her shoulder and saw the shaft of light from the corridor exit starting to narrow.

  Slade wasn’t going to pursue her through the passageway—he was sealing her inside!

  Her momentary relief gave way to a mounting horror as the last of the light disappeared from the stone passage. The tunnel door slammed shut with a resounding thud. The silence of a tomb descended and utter darkness engulfed her.

  Verity felt the cold stone under her palm. Her eyes were wide open but she might as well have been blind. There was simply no light, no light at all.

  She fought a severe attack of claustrophobia as she stated to slowly, cautiously retrace her steps. Maggie was trapped in here with her, and the poor woman might very well be dying. It seemed to take forever before she stumbled over Maggie’s inert frame.

  “I’m sorry, Maggie.” Her apology went unheard. The housekeeper was still unconscious. Verity fumbled in the darkness and located her head wound. It was hard to tell but it seemed to Verity that it wasn’t leaking blood at a rapid rate. Just a slow oozing.

  Verity eased the woman’s head back down on the cold stone and straightened in the darkness. She had to get them out of here. She could only pray that when she finally got the stone door open, Slade Spencer would not be waiting in the torture chamber.

  But it seemed most likely that he would have fled after sealing his victims inside the tunnel. He probably assumed that Maggie was dead and that Verity wouldn’t know how to unlock the door.

  As a matter of fact, Verity realized she didn’t know how to unlock the door. She struggled to control the fear that threatened to swamp her there in the darkness. Closing her eyes, she tried to envision the movements Jonas had made when he’d opened this door.

  The joyous relief Verity experienced when her searching fingers found the mechanism was instantly shattered when she tried to operate it. Nothing happened, nothing at all.

  After several minutes of futile effort, Verity had to face the fact that she was either doing something wrong with the ancient mechanism, or Slade had jammed the lock from the other side.

  Verity’s palms were damp and she began to shiver. The passageway had never felt so cold. She forced herself to think logically.

  If she couldn’t escape through this entrance, she would have to try the one that opened onto the bedroom.

  Verity knelt beside Maggie. “Maggie? Can you hear me?” There was no response. Verity kept talking in a reassuring voice. “I know of another way out. It will take me a while, but I’ll find it. When I do I’ll get help. Hold on, Maggie. Just hang in there until I get back, okay?”

  Verity got to her feet again and started resolutely down the passageway. It was going to be a very long walk. When she stumbled across Digby Hazelhurst’s bones, she would know she was in the right vicinity.

  Verity wished that the mental link she shared with Jonas was useful, like telepathy, instead of the more esoteric connection they shared. She would do anything to be able to contact him right this minute to warn him about Spencer.

  She would also have taken the opportunity to inform him that he’d been right in the beginning—the psychic-consulting business definitely sucked.

  The boat was gone. Jonas stood on the edge of the cliff looking down into the cove where Verity had found Elyssa. He had his hands thrust deep in his pockets as a defense against the cold, driving wind. There were serious whitecaps on the water and the rain came in whiplike gusts. There was just enough gray light to see the rough beach.

  There was no way that any sane boater would have risked taking a small craft into the teeth of this storm. Not unless it was a matter of life and death. And even then, Jonas thought grimly, if he were the guy with the boat, he would have looked for other alternatives.

  He was willing to bet that the boat and its owner were still somewhere on the island.

  Jonas raised his head and studied the cliffs. There were plenty of nooks and crannies around the island shoreline where a small craft could be hidden. If someone had simply wanted to get the boat out of sight, the obvious thing would be to move the craft to another location.

  Given the ferocious weather, a man wouldn’t have wanted to spend too long at the task of moving the boat. He would have made the move quickly and then gotten back to the shelter of the villa.

  Which meant that, logically, the boat had to be nearby.

  Jonas started pacing along the top of the cliffs, studying the shoreline carefully. In this pale dawn light it would be easy to miss a small gray boat.

  Fifteen minutes later he found it in a tiny cove that was even smaller than the first. The boat had been hurriedly tied to an overhanging fir branch. It was tossing wildly about on the angry, choppy waves that lapped the rocky shore.

  It didn’t take long to scramble down the short cliff to the beach. Jonas climbed over a pile of rocks to grab the line that held the boat, a moment later stepping into the violently bobbing craft. A spray of cold water caught him as he leaned down to open a locker.

  As Verity had said, there was nothing useful in the way of identification in the first locker. Hunched into his fleece-lined jacket, Jonas quickly opened another.

  He found a life vest stamped PROPERTY OF DREAM HARBOR MARINA. A set of boating instructions was crumpled up next to the life vest.

  So much for easy identification. The boat had been rented. There was no way to trace it until the storm cleared and he could get off the island. Even if he tracked down the owner of Dream Harbor Marina, it might lead nowhere. It was easy enough to lie on a ren
tal application.

  Jonas closed the lid of the locker and studied the bottom of the boat. There was a fair amount of rainwater slopping back and forth around his feet. He spotted a small, crumpled bag floating in one corner. On a hunch he picked it up and glanced inside. A wet piece of paper lay on the bottom of the sack, a receipt from a California pharmacy.

  Jonas suddenly remembered Slade Spencer popping pills from a small bottle with a prescription label on it.

  “Jesus H. Christ, talk about stupid.” Jonas leaped out of the boat. He balanced on the slippery rocks with unconscious ease; jumping from one to another until he was on the beach. Then he loped up the short cliff and headed back toward the villa at a run.

  He had not used the flashlight except to explore the interior of the boat locker. No need to take a chance that someone looking out a window might spot him leaving or returning to the villa.

  But someone else leaving the villa was not being nearly as cautious.

  A narrow beam of light bounced through the trees, moving in Jonas’s direction. The erratic movement of the light indicated that whoever was holding the flashlight was running at a breakneck pace.

  Jonas stopped and moved out of the way. The weak dawn light had not yet penetrated the heavy branches overhead. It would be easy to stay hidden in the shelter of the trees until he caught a glimpse of whoever was running toward the cliffs.

  It had to be Spencer, Jonas thought. No one else would know where the boat was now except the man who had moved it last night. But why the sudden rush? Spencer had been lolling around in what had appeared to be an alcoholic haze for days.

  Jonas didn’t like the question, and he liked the possible answers even less. His stomach clenched as he thought of Verity. As long as she stayed in the bedroom she would be all right, he told himself. There was no reason why she and Spencer should have encountered each other this morning.

  The flashlight darted past, accompanied by a lot of heavy breathing. Spencer was in a state of panic—Jonas could literally smell the fear on the man.

  Jonas stepped out from behind a fir and threw himself forward.

  “No!” Spencer shrieked as he was toppled to the ground. “No, goddammit, no. Let me go, you frigging bastard. Take your damned hands off me. Let me go!” He lurched beneath Jonas’s weight, swinging wildly with the flashlight and something else—a gun.

  Jonas slashed at the flailing arm holding the pistol. Spencer fought back with an unnatural strength. The man was clearly hysterical and he struggled with frantic energy.

  The flashlight caught Jonas on his jaw. He reeled backward, seeing a few bright lights in his head. But he had a grip on Spencer’s gun arm and he hung on with grim determination, squeezing until he was sure the small bones in Spencer’s wrist had to crack.

  Spencer screamed, a high, thin wail of despair and fury, and then the gun tumbled to the soggy ground.

  Jonas drew back his arm for a solid blow, then abandoned the effort in disgust. There was no point in hitting his victim again. Spencer was racked with heavy sobs, totally incapacitated by his emotions.

  “It was an accident,” Slade gasped between gulping sobs. He lay in the mud, one arm over his face. “A damned accident. I didn’t plan it. She just showed up at the wrong time. Started yelling at me, saying she knew all about me. I had to do something, don’t you see? I had to shut her up.”

  Cold terror swept over Jonas. He grabbed a fistful of Slade’s shirt and jerked him to a sitting position. “Who did you shut up, Spencer? Who?”

  Spencer blinked, his gaze oddly vague. “That old bag Frampton. What else could I do? She knew, I tell you. Somehow she figured out who I was.” Spencer swallowed more sobs. “Shit, I didn’t think she’d recognize me. I lost a lot of weight in the clinic—got contacts—shaved my beard. I was so damn sure. But she knew me, the old bitch. She knew me. So I hit her and she fell, like a sack of laundry. She just fell, I tell you. I didn’t mean to kill her.”

  In spite of what he was hearing, a sickening sense of relief swept through Jonas. His first thought had been that it was Verity whom Spencer had killed.

  “You killed Maggie? This morning?” He shook Spencer. “Answer me, dammit!”

  “Have to get away. Everything’s gone wrong.” Spencer gazed wildly about, his eyes glazed. “Hazelhurst said it would. He always claimed the treasure was protected with a curse or something. Stupid old man—crazy. He was crazy, you know. I mean, those assholes in the clinic said I had a few screws loose, but Hazelhurst was downright insane.”

  Jonas had his doubts about who was crazy and who wasn’t, but this wasn’t the time to explore them. It sounded as if Verity was all right, but he had to get back to the villa and make certain. Then he had to find poor Maggie Frampton.

  “You crazy son of a bitch,” Jonas said. “You killed Hazelhurst, didn’t you?” He unbuckled Spencer’s belt as he spoke. “You were the student who showed up two years ago to help him look for the treasure. Maggie finally recognized you this morning, didn’t she? Is that what happened? She said she knew who you were?”

  “I had to kill Hazelhurst,” Spencer explained, his expression suddenly, chillingly sane. “He was afraid, you see. Lost his nerve. Wouldn’t tell me what he’d done with the treasure, said no one must ever touch it. All that was left in the chest was a ring, a scrap of metal, and a stiletto. I knew Hazelhurst had gotten there first and found the rest. I tried to make him tell me, but he wouldn’t. The old bastard just kept saying the chest was empty when he found it. But I knew better.”

  “So you killed him with the stiletto you found in the chest, right?” Jonas dragged Spencer to his feet and secured his wrists behind his back with the belt.

  “I had to kill him. He was so freakin’ scared. The old fool wouldn’t tell me a thing, but I knew I could find it on my own. It had to be there in the villa. I didn’t need him to tell me where it was.”

  “But you never found the treasure, did you?” Jonas asked as he jerked Spencer back toward the villa. “You’ve killed two people but all you ever got was a ring, a drug and alcohol problem, and a few loose screws. Maybe Hazelhurst was right. Maybe the treasure is cursed. You should have left well enough alone. Tell me something, how did you get that rental boat over here? Doug brought you here in his launch, didn’t he?”

  “That was easy. As soon as I knew about the plans to spend a week at the villa, I rented the boat. Then I hired a kid who had his own boat to follow me here. I hid the boat in that first cove and the kid gave me a lift back to the other island. I told him I planned to use the skiff for a fishing party this week.”

  “Why did you think you’d need a boat?”

  Spencer looked at Jonas as if he were the crazy one. “To get off this damned island in case things went wrong.”

  “The way they did this morning?” Jonas asked harshly.

  “I got scared after I had to hit that old busybody. But you know, now that I think about it, there’s no need to be afraid, is there? Nobody can prove I killed Hazelhurst, even if someone does find his body. Except the old bag. When she recognized me, she started getting suspicious. Told me she’d been watching me, even went through my things one night. She found me in that torture chamber this morning.”

  “What were you doing in the torture chamber at this hour?”

  Slade wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, his eyes haunted. “I finally decided I had to have another look at that goddamned treasure room. I didn’t want to go back into that horrible tunnel but I had to. The secret’s in there somewhere, I’m sure of it. I was awake all night thinking about it. I’ve been afraid you might stumble onto the tunnel somehow, even though I tore the last pages out of Hazelhurst’s diary. I finally figured out that I had no choice but to go back inside. Jesus, I hate that tunnel. So much darkness.”

  “And Maggie found you there?”

  “She must have been watchin
g me all night, waiting for me, the bitch. Accused me of having done something to Hazelhurst a couple of years ago. Started screaming like a madwoman, wouldn’t shut up. The damn bitch would not shut her goddamned mouth.”

  “So you hit her.”

  “Had to.” A twisted craftiness appeared in Slade’s eyes. “I got scared. There was so much blood. Knew I had to get out of there, so I ran back to my room to pack my things and get out. Then I realized I could just hide the body in the tunnel—no one would ever know. I went back down to the torture chamber but I was too late. The light was on and I knew someone had found her. Verity was in there. I saw her when I dumped Maggie’s body in the tunnel. She must have run in there to hide when she heard me coming.”

  Jonas froze. He swung around, his eyes threatening violence. “What have you done with Verity?”

  Spencer peered at him, blinking rain out of his eyes. An insane intelligence blazed in his eyes. He grinned slowly. “I left her in the tunnel with the old bitch, naturally. You don’t know about the tunnel, do you? That was Hazelhurst’s big secret. Verity’s in there now and you’ll never find her. No one will ever find any of them. But that’s the best way, you see. There’s no proof. As long as all of them are buried in that tunnel, there’s no proof.”

  “Did you hurt Verity or just leave her in the tunnel?” Jonas’s hands tightened around Spencer’s neck. His fury and despair made him oblivious to everything except finding the truth in Spencer’s mad eyes. “Answer me, you crazy bastard. What did you do to Verity?”

  “You’ll never find her or Frampton’s body. Just like no one ever found Hazelhurst. I’ll bet Verity thought she was hiding from me when she ran in there. She thought she’d be safe in that tunnel. But now she’s locked in there forever. No proof. No proof.” Spencer started to giggle. Then he looked frightened. “My pills. It’s time for my pills.”

  “You don’t get your pills until you tell me if you hurt Verity.” Jonas tried to keep his voice calm; tried to remind himself that he was dealing with a certifiable lunatic.