Firebird (35 page)

“How would you paint her?” he asked suddenly.

“I don’t
want
to paint her!”

“Because you would see the truth?”

“Because I don’t know what makes a
family
anymore!  Does love ever end?  Or should it last forever?”

“Love doesn’t end, Chica.  It resonates.” 

She tried to turn away but he reached out.  “You can’t stop the feelings, Red, I see it in those eyes.  Aren’t you the woman who told me that when someone hurts your child, your heart gets fierce?  You won’t give up on her.  You’ll be there for her, whatever it takes.”  He smiled.  “And who knows what the life you save will go on to do?”

The mirrored eyes searched his face.  For a brief moment, he saw something flicker, like lightening trapped in a silvered glass.  “What makes you so sure I can do it, damn you?”

“Because there’s just something about you, Alexandra.”  He met her eyes, unable to stop the words.  “Most people back off when they come up against a brick wall.  Not you.  You keep going, you don’t give up, you just keep flinging yourself against the damned bricks.  Hard.  You pushed your way into this investigation, dragged me here tonight, put yourself in harm’s way with no thought for your own safety.  You go after the truth, even if you know it’s going to hurt you.”

“Now
you’re
confusing me with Ingrid Bergman.”

“Look at you, standing here in a cold dark garden in your sister’s dress - because you want to protect your kids, make something right.  It’s what makes you… remarkable.”  

The mirrors shimmered.  He could see the emotions welling inside her.  

“You’re wrong,” she murmured finally.  “Juliet knows that I gave up on her a long time ago. The universe loves irony.”  Dark lashes came down, shutting him out.  She tossed his tuxedo jacket at him in frustration, then flung an arm toward the empty gardens. “Nothing’s going to be made right here tonight.  You’ve succeeded in scaring off Ivan, Garcia.  Congratulations.  I’m going back inside.”

He reached out to stop her.  “Wait.  The Lions - did you learn anything useful?”

“I was so close.  I told everyone that I had the brooch, that Eve had given it to me.”

His eyes narrowed on her.

“No one approached me, but I received a text to meet in the Topiary Garden.”

Dios
.  “Too damned close.  Go home, Red.  You’ve done everything you can do.  Go home to your kid.”

“No, Garcia, I haven’t finished –”

“It’s over, Alexandra.  I’m letting you off the hook.” 
And to hell with his Chief, he’d find another way.
  “I should never have involved you in this.  Now it’s
my
turn to make this right.”

A shadow, moving quickly down the path.  Garcia stepped in front of Alexandra as she spun around.  Anthony Rhodes emerged from the darkness.  As the wind scraped the long hair back from his face, a scar that slashed like a scimitar above his left eye glowed whitely in the moonlight.

Garcia’s breath came out and he stepped forward.  “Jon Garcia.  Nice to see you again, Ambassador Rhodes.”

“Garcia.”  Rhodes barely acknowledged him as he peered into the darkness.  “I need to find…”

Alexandra tensed, stepped into the light.  “Something’s happened!  Where’s Juliet, Anthony?  I thought she was with you.”

“No, she’s disappeared again.  I was hoping I’d find her with you.”

“Oh, God.  I’ve been out here for the last half hour.  We’ve got to find her, Anthony, now!  She seemed so alone, so troubled, tonight.” 

Garcia watched as her eyes searched the hills, fell on the distant barns and stables, white-washed and gleaming in the moonlight.  And he saw the sudden light of recognition.  “The stables!” she cried.  “Eve promised Juliet a birthday gift.  She’s gone to see Lady Falcon!’

“Of course.”  Anthony Rhodes took her hand with easy familiarity and turned to Garcia.  “You’ll excuse us, won’t you?” said Rhodes with impatience, drawing her away.  “I need her with me.”

Garcia stood very still as Alexandra ran across the dark lawn with her brother-in-law toward the stables.

CHAPTER 36

“Death... on his pale horse”

Milton,
Paradise Lost

FOXWOOD STABLES

“Juliet!”

They could hear the muffled sound of horses shifting in stalls and, from the far darkness, the impatient stamp of hooves.

“Juliet!” Alexandra called again.  She shook her head at Anthony Rhodes and together they moved past the watchful horses down the long shadowed hallway of the stable.

Hay, liniment, manure, leather, horse - the scents enveloped them.  They heard the sound at the same moment - a soft, crooning lullaby - coming from a stall on the right.

Alexandra reached the gate first.  There, curled atop a bag of horse feed, sat Juliet, short skirt bunched around her hips, eyes shining, holding a garnet foal’s smooth head against her chest.  The foal’s ears pricked forward, brown eyes soft and shining in the dim light.

A low wall separated the stall from Lady Falcon, her sleek head bent over the wall nervously watching Juliet with her foal.

Juliet looked up, kissed the foal loudly on the neck and scrambled to her feet as Lady Falcon twisted her head to stare at the newcomers.

The girl rushed past Alexandra without a glance and threw her arms around Rhodes’s neck with such fierce energy that he staggered backward into the dim hallway.  “Whoa, Princess.”

“Look,” breathed Juliet, sounding for a moment like the sweet young girl Alexandra remembered.  “Mom didn’t forget my birthday.”  She turned to Alexandra.  “I
told
you she’d keep her promise!”

Juliet stepped away from Anthony, bent to the straw, and gathered some folded papers and a small wooden plaque.  She thrust them at her aunt.

Alexandra read the words on the plaque. 
Falcon’s Jewel
.  “The foal?  She gave you Lady Falcon’s foal?”

“Just read the note, Aunt Zan!”

Rhodes came to lean over her shoulder, making a sound deep in his throat as he saw his wife’s dramatic scrawl spill across the pale pink stationery. 

Happy Birthday, Jewel!  Lady Falcon foaled in May.  I named her Falcon’s Jewel, after you, and swore everyone here to secrecy.  She’ll need lots of love and attention, my darling.  Anthony has her papers - they’re all in your name.  Take good care of her.  I love you.  Mom.

Throat closed by tears, Alexandra swallowed and looked at her niece.  “Now I know what you’ll be doing every vacation,” she said softly.  She looked down at the note again.  No message for her this time.  Nothing at all.

Her eyes searched the twelve foot square stall.  “Where did you find this, Jules?”

Juliet gestured toward the rear of the stall.  “Back there - the tack box.  Remember what mom wrote in her letter to me?  ‘There’s a special gift waiting in Lady Falcon’s stall.’  Lady was her favorite mare.  Mom always left surprises for me here.  Another one of her hiding places…”

Oh, God!  Hiding place. 
The tack box
.  That was it.  Alexandra closed her eyes.  Eve had asked the cab driver to bring her to Foxwood the night of her death.   The oil painting of Eve in the study, she thought suddenly.  Astride Lady Falcon.  And the foal’s name was Falcon’s
Jewel
!

My God,
Eve.  You hid the brooch here, in the stall.
 

Trust Eve to recognize the drama of hiding her own precious jewel here, in Jewel’s tack box.  Her special hiding place...

At the far end of the shadowed hallway, the new stallion, Dark Victory, began to move restlessly in his stall.  Rhodes slipped an arm around his stepdaughter’s shoulders.  “Come with me, Princess.  We have caviar and birthday cake waiting for you up at the house.  I’ll bring you back later so that you can say goodnight to Jewel.”

Juliet covered the foal with a striped horse blanket and kissed the soft nose one more time, then joined her step-father.  Rhodes stopped and turned.  “Are you coming, Alexandra?”

She took a step back, lingering, held up her bare wrist.  “You two go ahead.  I think I may have dropped my bracelet somewhere in the straw.”

Rhodes raised a spiky white brow.  “We’ll wait for you.”

“No need, really.  I’ll find my way, the moon’s come out.  Go, you should be at the party.  The groom will be back any moment.”

“C’mon, Anthony, Auntie Zan prefers being alone.”  Juliet ran off into the night.  With a last questioning glance, Rhodes shrugged and followed his stepdaughter.

“I
like
being alone?”  Alexandra turned and walked carefully inside Falcon Jewel’s stall, smoothing the garnet neck with a gentle hand.

A short, sharp whinny from Dark Victory’s stall jolted through her, and she made her way quickly past the foal to the tackle box.

She dropped to her knees in front of the old wooden box, raising the squeaking lid slowly.  Her hands felt, rather than saw, the tumbled items.  Hemp, a worn blanket smelling of hay and horse sweat, jingling bridle, eye shields, a forgotten horseshoe, a half-tube of liniment. 

Nothing. 
Bloody hell, Eve, I was so sure
.

One last time Alexandra’s fingers felt deep into the black corners of the box, suddenly felt the wisp of velvet.  Her fingers closed over the small pouch, drew it from the tackle box, fumbled with the silken cord.

A brilliant jeweled brooch tumbled into her palm. 
The Firebird
.  “Oh, Eve,” breathed Alexandra.

A sharp, alarmed whinny from Dark Victory pierced the darkness.  Alexandra froze.  Was that the sound of the door shutting?

She heard the footsteps, very soft, in the long hallway.

Alexandra pushed the heavy brooch into her evening bag as she spun around.

“Aunt Zan.”

“Jules?  You scared me -”

“I came back to feed Jewel,” said Juliet, holding out an apple.  The foal moved forward, curious, blowing softly.

“Does Anthony know where you are?”

“He was talking to some old geezer.  I’ll be back before he knows I’m gone.”

Good Lord.  “Not true, Juliet.  We worry about you.  If only you would –”

“I don’t need any more of your damned therapy!” muttered the girl.  She flung a contemptuous look over her shoulder.

“Just talk to me.”

“Talk doesn’t solve everything!”

Somewhere in the far reaches of the stable, a door closed softly.  A restless thump of hooves began in Dark Victory’s stall.  Both women looked up.  Another sound, closer.  The jingle of a bridle in the shadows.

Something not right.  “Jules, I think we need to leave.”

Footsteps.  Whispery in the darkness.

“Jules, quickly - ”  Alexandra reached to thrust her niece out of the stall.  “Get out of here.  Now!”

The sharp clang of a steel bolt, pushed open, then the metal creak of a swinging stall door.

The lights went out.

Juliet shrieked in the pitch blackness.  Dark Victory’s shrill cry tore through the stable.

“Run!” cried Alexandra, pushing her niece once more toward the exit.

From the far end of the stable, pounding hooves raced toward them. 

She lunged for Juliet and swung her hard to the right.

She heard a shout just as something struck her shoulder with the force of a hammer, tumbling her to the hard earth.

Searing pain.

Blackness.

* * * *

She was swimming
.  On the beach, Ruby and Juliet were waiting for her.  So far away.  Swim to the girls.  But the pain was too sharp.  She was sinking, she couldn’t get to the beach!  Ruby…

“Alexandra.”  The voice came from a murky distance.  She kept swimming, one arm in front of the other.  Get to Ruby.

“Alexandra!”  Louder now, more insistent.  A man’s voice, deep.  More voices, whispers, an exclamation.  Where was she?  Now she became aware of the machine sounds – bleeps, buzzes, dripping.  Pain.

“I need you to open your eyes, Red.”

Leave me alone.

“I’m not leaving you.”  As if he’d heard her.

The blackness was taking her.

“
Stay with me, Chica
!”

Bloody hell.  She forced her eyes open.  “Garcia.”

“Welcome back.”  Bending over her, too close.  Serious eyes too bright.

“From where?”

“You’ve been out cold for more than an hour, Red.  You’re in the emergency room at Middleburg Hospital.”

Middleburg?  She tried to move her right arm and sickening pain jolted her once more.  “Ahhh!  I feel as if I’ve been trampled by an elephant.”

“Horse.  You were clipped by Dark Victory.”

A horse…  The cry of a stallion in the night, the terrifying sound of crashing hooves.  “Oh, God, the stables!  Juliet!”  Panic surged through her.  She struggled to sit up.

A gentle hand, holding her down.  “She’s okay.  Shaken, but not a mark on her, thanks to you.  She’s at Foxwood.  Rhodes assured me that he’d shepherd her safely back to New York in time for tomorrow’s rehearsal.  And I’ve called in a retired female Secret Service agent, just in case.  No way she’ll disappear again.”  He cocked a spiky brow at her.  “Your brother-in-law was quite concerned for you.”

She tried to focus.  “What happened?”

“Damned stallion got loose.  I went looking for you, heard a scream, the sound of stampeding hooves.  Then that huge monster rushed by me in the darkness.  Dios!”  He shook his head.  “But somehow you got Juliet out of harm’s way, took on the stallion yourself.  You are something, you know that, Chica?  You never back down.”

“Garcia, I heard a noise.  Footsteps, a bolt sliding.  And then - the lights went out.”

“It wasn’t an accident.  The groom was found unconscious.  He was just stirring when the ambulance left to come here.” 

A white coated figure appeared.  “And how are we feeling?”

“
I’ll
feel fine,” said Garcia with blunt impatience, “when I can take this woman home.”

“Back to Foxwood,” she whispered.

“Not on your life, Red.  You’re coming home with me.”