Gift of Fire (40 page)

“Behold, I come bearing gifts and the U.S. mail. How’s little Nicholas Emerson?”

“Sleepy,” Jonas said. “Keep your voice down, Emerson.”

“Kid might as well get used to the fact that he’s got a mouthy mother, a loud grandfather, and a daddy who’s good with a knife. Here you go, Jonas. A letter from some magazine. Looks like a check.”

“Wonderful,” Verity exclaimed. “I told you they’d love your piece on Digby Hazelhurst’s contributions to Renaissance scholarship.”

Jonas raised beseeching eyes toward the ceiling. “Done in by success. Now I suppose I won’t get any peace until I write that follow-up article for the editor who got me into that mess to begin with.” But he was smiling with satisfaction as he ripped open the envelope and removed the check inside.

Verity knew the source of that satisfaction. During the past few months Jonas had come to the realization that his knowledge of Renaissance history and his feel for the period had not vanished along with his talent. The things he had learned in the academic world and in the time corridor were his for a lifetime.

“And more baby presents,” Emerson continued as he placed gaily wrapped packages on the bed. The kid is
really raking it in. A package from the Griswalds, one from that Crump fellow, and one from Sam Lehigh.”

Verity pulled off ribbons and tore paper with enthusiasm. Rick and Laura Griswald’s gift was an adorable little yellow playsuit. She held it up with delight. “Isn’t it cute? It’s perfect for him.”

“Looks a few sizes too big, if you ask me,” Jonas said, examining the outfit with a critical eye.

“Don’t worry,” Emerson advised. “Babies grow. Fast.”

“Let’s see what Oliver sent,” Verity said. She shredded more paper, lifted off the top of a white box, and revealed a beautiful chunk of amethyst crystal. “It’s lovely,” she said, turning the glittering crystal in her hands.

“What the hell’s the kid going to do with that?” Emerson demanded.

“It’s not for Nicholas,” Verity announced, belatedly reading the small card. “It’s for me. To help me get my strength back quickly.”

“How the heck is a hunk of crystal going to do that?” Emerson growled.

“Who knows?” Jonas gave his wife a secret grin. “Look at it this way—it can’t do any harm.”

“Let’s see what Lehigh sent,” Emerson said encouragingly.

Verity obediently tore the paper off the last package. When she raised the lid on the long thin box her eyes widened in amazement. Inside lay a dagger with a jeweled handle. “Lehigh certainly has an odd notion of what to give a newborn.”

Emerson chuckled and came around the side of the bed to get a closer look. “Probably expects the kid to take after his dad. Hell of a dagger though, isn’t it? Look at that handle. Knowing Lehigh, those stones are real. Take a look, Jonas.” Emerson stood back.

Jonas frowned as he glanced at the dagger. “Looks genuine, all right. Fifteenth- or sixteenth-century Italian.”

“Probably from his collection,” Emerson remarked. Jonas reached into the box. His fingers closed around the hilt of the dagger.

Verity sucked in her breath as the walls of the hospital room began to curve around her.

“
Jonas.
”

“Right here, honey.”

She turned in the psychic corridor, searching for him. He smiled at her from the other side of the mysterious tunnel. His golden eyes were gleaming. He held the jeweled dagger in his hand.

“Your talent,” she whispered. “It’s back.”

“Strong as ever,” he said with laughing satisfaction. “Guess it just needed a little time to heal.”

He tossed the jeweled dagger into the air. It spun end over end, the stones in the handle flashing brilliantly. The corridor wavered and vanished.

Jonas caught the dagger with easy grace and quickly dropped it back into its box.

“Hey, you two okay?” Emerson demanded. “You’ve both got funny expressions on your faces.”

“Everything’s just fine,” Jonas said as he leaned down to kiss his wife. “Isn’t it, my love?”

“Perfect,” Verity agreed with a smile that was more beautiful than the crystal and the gems around her. It was a smile as brilliant as the gold in her husband’s eyes.

The End

Excerpt from
Midnight Jewels

by Jayne Ann Krentz

Chapter 1

The advertisement on the last page of the bookseller’s catalog was small and discreet. Only a knowledgeable collector of rare books would know that the volume offered for sale was a unique example of eighteenth-century erotica.

FOR SALE: Burleigh’s Valley of Secret Jewels. First edition, 1795. Plates. Exc. cond. Contact Mercy Pen
­
nington, Pennington’s Second Chance Bookshop, Ignatius Cove, Washington. (206) 555-1297.

Croft Falconer had already spent a great deal of time studying those tiny lines but he read the ad once more as if he might somehow find a clue to the re
­
markable fact of the book’s appearance after so many years.

Croft ignored the phone number offered. He didn’t have a phone at his house on the coast, just as he didn’t have a television, radio or microwave. And, while he
could have driven into town to use a pay phone, he knew that effort would be futile.

He would have to see the book himself to be sure if it was the right one and he wanted to see this Mercy Pennington in person. He had to find out who she was, how much she knew and how she had acquired the vol
­
ume.

The only thing he was certain of at this point was the most disturbing fact of all: The book should not exist.

Valley
should have been destroyed along with every
­
thing else in the fire that had swept through Egan Graves’s island fortress three years before. Croft had witnessed that fire firsthand. He had felt its hellish heat, seen the all-consuming flames and heard the shattering screams of its victims.

How could something that should have been eaten by those flames resurface in an insignificant bookseller’s catalog? The existence of the book opened a gaping hole in a case Croft thought he had closed for all time. If the book had survived the fire, then Croft had to face another possibility: Its owner, Egan Graves, might have also escaped and survived.

And that meant Croft had failed.

The ad for
Valley
raised questions that had to be an
­
swered. It indicated a trail that had to be followed.

And that trail began with a Miss Mercy Pennington of Ignatius Cove, Washington.

Croft gazed at the dawn-lit Pacific outside his study window and wondered about Miss Mercy Pennington. Before he could come to any conclusions the Rottweiler whined softly behind him. Croft glanced at the heavily built dog. The animal gazed back expectantly.

“You’re right, it’s time to run” Croft said. “Let’s go down to the beach. It’s a cinch I’m not going to get any meditation done this morning.”

The dog silently accepted the response and padded to the door.

If anyone were to ask him about his affinity for the Rottweiler, Croft would have said simply that he was one of those people who got along well with dogs. In truth, he had much in common with the creature who paced at his heels. The ancient, wild, hunting instincts still ran in the veins
of the Rottweiler, even though the animal generally behaved with the good manners ac
­
ceptable to the civilized world. But under the right provocation, the facade of politeness in both man and dog could vanish in an instant, leaving bare the preda
­
tor underneath.

Croft slid aside the shoji screen panel and stepped out into the hall. The room on the opposite side of the tiled corridor beckoned. He looked into it, feeling the pull of its stark simplicity: The bleached wood floor, the woven mat and the elegantly austere flower arrange
­
ment in the low black ceramic bowl all promised a haven. Croft’s period of quiet morning contemplation was as much a part of his daily life as running and the demanding workouts that kept his exceptional martial arts skills well honed.

Croft’s rituals were important to him. All of them, from his morning meditation to the cup of perfectly brewed tea he would enjoy later, were part and parcel of his carefully organized, neatly self-contained world. He did not like to forego even the slightest of his chosen routines.

But he had little hope this morning of stilling his mind to the point where he could slip into a meditative trance. Too many questions were swirling in his head; too many dangerous possibilities were materializing.

The morning run would have to do, he decided. He went out through the back door of his beachfront cot
­
tage, the Rottweiler at his heels.

Croft was wearing only a pair of jeans, and if there had been a woman watching she would have found the subtle shift and glide of his shoulder muscles fascinating. A healthy, trained and controlled power radiated from the man. But there was no one to see the easy masculine grace with which Croft moved. Croft had never brought a woman to his isolated home on the Oregon coast.

Five minutes later man and dog were loping easily across the glistening sand at the water’s edge. The light and energy of a new day filled the air and Croft and the dog drank in the essence of both as they covered the ground toward the distant point of land at the end of the beach.

As his body fell into a strong, easy rhythm, Croft found his mind wandering to the one totally unknown and unpredictable piece in this new puzzle—Miss Mercy Pennington.

Mercy eyed the huge stack of romance novels and mysteries that had just been plunked down on the counter near the cash register. She tried to keep all hint of mercenary satisfaction out of her eyes as she smiled at the woman on the other side of the counter. Christina Seaton was an excellent customer. She could be counted on for a minimum purchase of twenty paperbacks a month. Mercy experienced a pleasant tingle of antici
­
pation whenever Christina came through the door of Pennington’s Second Chance. She told herself that only another small business person could fully understand the nature of her fondness for this particular client.

“Will that be all today, Christina?”

Christina grinned. At thirty she was a couple of years older than Mercy and had a freshly scrubbed attractive
­
ness that perfectly suited her designer jeans, loose knit sweater and expensive loafers. “Are you kidding? My kids will have to go without shoes this month as it is.”

Mercy laughed. Very few children in Ignatius Cove were in danger of going without shoes or anything else their little hearts desired. The small town north of Seattle was an enclave of prosperous, upwardly mobile types, most of whom worked in the city but preferred to raise their families in a small town environment. Ignatius Cove had the best of both worlds. They were close enough to Seattle to enjoy its urban benefits, but they had all the fun and ad
­
vantages of living in a self-consciously quaint village at the water’s edge.

Mercy had been well aware of the distinctive quali
­
ties of Ignatius Cove from the moment she
had discov
­
ered it. When she had begun searching for a place to open a bookstore two years before she had known ex
­
actly what she wanted: a community of the affluent and educated, potential book buyers who had the cash to in
­
dulge their interests. Ignatius Cove fit the bill perfectly.

Mercy didn’t attempt to compete head on with the one other bookstore in town which specialized in newly released hardcover bestsellers and art books. Instead, she had gone for the thriving secondhand market, sup
­
plementing her large, well organized stock with popular, new paperback releases.

The mix had proven satisfyingly profitable. By the end of the first year Pennington’s Second Chance had earned enough to ensure its survival. By the end of the second year of business, the shop was well established with a solid customer base. Mercy measured her success by the fact that she was now removing the corks instead of unscrewing the caps of the wine bottles she opened at home.

“Dorrie says you’re finally going to take a vacation next week,” Christina observed as Mercy rang up her purchases. “It’s about time.”

Mercy smiled and her slightly tilted green eyes lit with pleasure. Automatically she lifted a hand to push an errant tendril of golden brown hair back behind her ear. “Part business and part vacation. I’m very excited about it. I came across an interesting old book in a box of junk I bought at the flea market last month. Turned out it had some value. I advertised it in a little antiquar
­
ian booksellers’ catalog and within a few days a man in Colorado phoned to say he wanted to buy it. I’m going to deliver it to him next week while I’m on vacation.”

“You’re going to take it to Colorado yourself? Isn’t that service above and beyond the call of duty? Why can’t you just mail it to the man?”

“He wants it hand delivered. He told me he doesn’t trust the mail and this book is very important to his col
­
lection. He’s been looking for it for some time, Ι gather. At any rate, he considers my trip expenses to Denver part of the purchase price of the book. He says he prefers not to travel.”