Midnight Jewels (43 page)

"I'm not doing anything until I speak to him."

"You have my word your lover is alive and well, if not particularly happy."

"Your word isn't worth much."

"I'm sorry you feel that way," Isobel said. "But my word is all you have right now."

"What exactly do you want from me?" Mercy asked cautiously, staring at the strip of film in front of her.

"We want you to join us, of course. Our house party came to a somewhat abrupt end and Erasmus is afraid
that we might have made you and Mr. Falconer feel unwelcome. We'd like to make up for that."

"You want me to come back to the estate?"

"I assumed you'd want to under the circumstances. You and Mr. Falconer being so close and all."

They were threatening to kill Croft unless she came back. "It will take me several hours to get there."

"We wouldn't think of asking you to drive all that way," Isobel assured her. "I'll meet you en route. Give me a point where you can be within an hour. That will still give us an hour of daylight to get back here. Choose an isolated place and don't bring anyone along, is that clear? I won't land if I see
that you're not alone or if I think you're being followed."

Isobel was going to meet her with the helicopter. Mercy cringed at the thought. Reluctantly she reached out to pull a map toward her. "There's a resort area a few miles from the motel Croft and I stayed in the first night."

"I know it. A little too busy. But there's a meadow five miles east of the motel. Be there within an hour."

"It will take me longer than that. Probably an hour and a half."

"Then you'd better get moving."

"Damn it, it's not that simple. I don't have a car." Mercy realized she was getting angry. It had the therapeutic effect of driving off some of the fear.

"Then you'll have to rent one. You'd better get going, hadn't you? When you reach the meadow park the car out of sight. There's a stand of fir behind a bend in the road. You should be able to conceal the car there."

"I suppose you want me to bring the book with me?" Mercy asked grimly.

There was a pause on the other end of the line. "Most definitely," Isobel finally said with a new note of urgency. "You are to bring us the book. That's the whole point of this little exercise, isn't it?" She hung up the phone in Mercy's ear.

Mercy frowned at the receiver. She could have sworn Isobel sounded almost surprised, as if she hadn't known Mercy had the book. But if Isobel and Gladstone had Croft, they would know by now that he hadn't taken the book with him.

A new horror washed over her as Mercy forced herself to consider the possibilities. If there had been a fight when Isobel and Gladstone had tried to intercept Croft, it was possible Croft had been hurt, or even, God help her, killed. Or they might have assumed he had hidden the book before he was taken prisoner.

In which case Isobel and Gladstone might not know what had happened to the book. That would account for Isobel's surprise at hearing Mercy offer to bring
Valley
with her.

Mercy reached out and picked up
Valley
. Experimentally she closed the book. In that position the fine crack inside the spine was sealed shut again and hidden from view. Isobel and Gladstone had no reason to believe
that their secret had been discovered.

The microfilm was the only real bargaining chip in this dangerous game.

If Croft were alive—and for her own sanity Mercy had to believe he was—then all he would need would be an opportunity. It was up to Mercy to provide that opportunity. Once she turned the microfilm over to Gladstone she would have nothing left with which to negotiate.

Somehow she was certain Croft was still alive. She would know if he were dead. The new sense that seemed to have been awakened by his presence in her life would also be dead.

Her mind made up, Mercy set the book down on the table and picked up the film. She needed a hiding place for the dangerous strip of microfilm.

After a few minutes of thought during which she considered and discarded most of the obvious places in the small room, Mercy took a motel envelope out of the desk drawer and addressed it to herself in Ignatius Cove. If she didn't return
to Ignatius Cove within a few days, Dome would check Mercy's mailbox and see the envelope. Eventually the envelope would be opened by someone, hopefully someone in authority who would know what to do about such a bizarre situation.

Following a few more minutes of consideration, Mercy wrote a carefully worded note listing everything she knew or suspected about Gladstone. If she were making a mistake by going into the lion's den, then this note and the film might conceivably still be used to expand the options for her survival as well as Croft's.

When she was finished, she took it down to the motel lobby, bought a stamp and dropped the envelope into a mailbox. One could only hope that the U.S. mail was still relatively sacrosanct. Then she inquired about renting a car.

After filling out the paperwork on the car, Mercy bought a small bottle of glue at an old-fashioned general store a few blocks from the motel. She spent several precious minutes regluing the tear in the leather spine of
Valley
. When she was done she looked at it critically and decided the quick fix would probably pass inspection as long as someone wasn't looking too thoroughly. The glue dried quickly.

A few minutes later she was on her way to meet Isobel Ascanius in an isolated mountain meadow.

It was unfortunate, Mercy thought, that she really disliked small aircraft. But she was learning that one terror could counter another. Her fears about what might be planned for Croft were more than enough to control her fears about flying in the helicopter.

Mercy heard the relentless chopping sound of the rotor blades within minutes after she parked her car amid the trees as Isobel had stipulated. She got out slowly and watched as Isobel set the helicopter down in the middle of the meadow with absolutely no regard for the wildflowers.

Croft would not have approved.

Clutching
Valley
, Mercy moved toward the idling helicopter. Isobel sat inside, signaling imperiously for Mercy to hurry. The cabin door on the passenger side was open. The blades created a wild, violent wash of air that caught at Mercy's hair as she ducked instinctively and climbed into the cockpit.

"You have the book?" Isobel said loudly, eyeing the packing in Mercy's arm.

Mercy nodded and reached for the seat belt. Her stomach twisted abruptly as Isobel lifted the helicopter back into the air. The meadow fell away beneath Mercy's feet and the peaks of the mountains stood out like teeth against the sunset. It would be so easy for those teeth to snag the small craft and drag it down from the sky.

The trick was to focus on something else, Mercy thought. She tried to remember what Croft had said about meditation. You had to clear your mind, concentrate on a centered, focused image—

"Is Croft all right?" Mercy asked, wrenching her mind away from images of shattered aircraft.

"You will soon see for yourself." Isobel's classical profile was not marred in the least by her reflective sunglasses. They just served to give her an added touch of exotic mystery. Her hair was in a chignon and somehow the khaki jumpsuit she wore seemed to be the height of fashion.

"You'll never get away with this, you know," Mercy called above the noise of the rotor. "I know that probably sounds trite under the circumstances, but it's true."

"Get away with what? The book is ours. We are merely retrieving it."

"You tried to kill us!"

"Nonsense. You both got drunk and went for a joyride down the mountain at midnight. You're lucky you both survived."

"Tell me something, Isobel. Do you like doing this kind of thing for a living?"

"You tell me something, Miss Pennington. Have you ever been so dirt poor that you had to sell your body to a man for the night in order to have enough to eat?"

"No, and I don't believe you've ever been that poor either. There are always alternatives."

"You don't know what you're talking about. You're a sheltered, naive little creature. Well, I have been that poor and I am very determined never to be that poor again. I am determined
that no man will ever use me again. I am the one who will use them. One of these days I will be controlling people like Erasmus Gladstone and his kind. I will do whatever I must to achieve my goals."

Mercy heard the conviction in her voice and decided there was nothing more to be said. She sat back in her seat and concentrated on keeping her stomach under control. In the end she had to close her eyes against the images of deep ravines and clawing peaks. Once more she sought for the calm circle of light within herself.

The trip wasn't quite as bad as she had anticipated, but the faint relief she felt on that score was wiped out by her fear of what awaited her at the other end of the trip.

When she opened her eyes twenty minutes later, Mercy saw that Isobel was making her descent into the compound of Gladstone's estate. The sun had set and the last of the twilight was rapidly turning into darkness.

"Inside," Isobel ordered as she shut down the helicopter. "Erasmus is waiting for you."

"Geez, if I'd known that I would have hurried." Mercy slowly unbuckled the belt. She half expected Isobel to snatch
Valley
from her grasp, but the other woman made no move to do so. Instead she walked beside Mercy toward the main entrance of the house. The dogs barked from inside their wire pen.

The door opened as the two women approached. Gladstone stood on the threshold, looking very much as he had the day he had welcomed Mercy and Croft to his luxurious mountain fortress. The difference this time was
that he held a gun in his right hand.

"Come in, my dear, I am relieved to see you again. You have given us a great deal of trouble."

Mercy wrinkled her nose and glanced at Isobel, who was silently escorting her toward the door. "Do you really like taking orders from this bozo? You could do better than him, you know. I don't think Gladstone is the world's most reliable employer."

"If you are wise, you will watch your tongue," Isobel advised coolly. "You are nothing but a nuisance in
this affair. Now that we have the book, there is not much reason to keep a nuisance around."

Mercy wondered when she should mention that the microfilm was no longer inside the spine of
Valley
. She decided to wait until she saw Croft. Perhaps he would have an idea of how best to play their last ace.

Gladstone saw the book in Mercy's grasp and nodded approvingly at Isobel. "I see you have made up for some of your recent incompetence, Isobel. We now have the book and soon we will have this entire affair under wraps. Here," he handed the gun to Isobel. "You can take care of this. You know how much I dislike weapons. They are your responsibility. Give me the book."

Isobel inclined her head in acknowledgement as she accepted the gun. She held the weapon with the ease of long familiarity as she motioned Mercy inside the house.

Mercy held her breath as she saw Erasmus give
Valley
a cursory glance. He didn't seem concerned with what he saw. Probably because he didn't think she had the brains to have uncovered his secret, Mercy decided grimly.

"You certainly are handy to have around the place, Isobel," Mercy remarked as she stepped into the marble hall.

Gladstone chuckled. "Most useful, except when she makes a mistake as she did last night. Isobel is my bodyguard and my personal servant, Mercy. My safety is her responsibility. She is also in charge of making sure I get what I want. She knows that if she fails in either capacity she will no longer be of any use to me. You made her quite nervous last night, my dear, when you managed to pull your lover out of the swimming pool."

Mercy stopped and turned to stare at Isobel. "What about Dallas and Lance? Just a couple of extra servants?"

"Dallas and Lance reported to me," Isobel answered. "I made certain when I hired them
that they could do no lasting damage to Erasmus in the event they screwed up and got picked up by the police. Their records are against them, you see. And we knew things about them that were not on their prison records, things
that would have sent them back to jail for life."

"So you kept them under control with blackmail?"

Gladstone smiled. "I also paid them very well. They were reasonably content, I think, until recently."

"You sent them to get
Valley
that night at the motel, didn't you?" Mercy asked.

"When we learned you had brought someone with you Isobel became worried," Gladstone explained genially. "Falconer's presence raised several disturbing questions. She decided to find out what she could about your little surprise by sending Dallas and Lance to the motel to have a look through his room. She also decided that we might as well pick up
Valley
in the process just to make certain some elaborate switch hadn't been executed. If matters were falling apart unexpectedly, we would at least have our hands on the book."

"But you didn't get hold of it."

"Unfortunately we were forced to go back to the original plan, which meant letting both of you into the estate," Gladstone said. "We felt the situation was controllable and we had to get the book. You didn't particularly concern us, of course. We were almost certain you were exactly what you appeared to be, an innocent little bookseller who had lucked into an important find and who wanted nothing more than to make a legitimate deal. We invited you to deliver
Valley
in person because we wanted to make absolutely certain you didn't know the true secrets of the book. We thought we could tell that by having you under our roof for a few days. Genuine naivete and stupidity are not hard to diagnose. But Mr. Falconer was something else. We could learn nothing about him in the short span of time we had available, and that struck us as dangerous."

Mercy swallowed. She must not let her imagination drive her crazy, she told herself. She must stay calm and controlled. "How did you know I'd put
Valley
in the motel safe that night?"