Three Fates Read online

  We get to the other two first, then we negotiate.”

  “So, there’s no client. It’s your brother.”

  “My family,” he corrected. “Malachi, my brother, is working on another angle, and my sister’s researching a third. The trouble we’re having is, whatever route we take, Anita Gaye’s right there. A step ahead, a step behind, but always close. She’s anticipated us, or she has another source of information. Or, more troubling, she’s got a way of keeping tabs on us.”

  “Which is why you and I have been staying at crappy hotels, paying cash, and you’ve been using a bogus name.”

  “Which can’t go on much longer.” He sipped his own beer while scanning the crowded, noisy pub. “I’m reasonably sure we’ve lost her, for now. It’s time you got to work.” His lips twitched, then curved. “Partner.”

  “Doing what?”

  “You said you recalled seeing the Fate, which means it’s still in your family. So I think the best approach is to start off with a phone call, a nice daughterly call, I think, with just a hint of contrition and apology.”

  She stabbed one of his chips with her fork. “That’s not even funny.”

  “Wasn’t meant to be.”

  “I’m not calling home like some repentant prodigal.”

  He only smiled at her.

  “I’m not.”

  “After your story, I’m no fonder of your mother than you are. But you’ll call her if you want a fifth of the take.”

  “A fifth? Check your math, Slick.”

  “Nothing wrong with my figures. There are four of us, and one of you.”

  “I want half.”

  “Well, you can want the world on a string, but you won’t get it. A fifth of potentially millions of pounds should be enough to hold you until you reach the ripe age of thirty-five. Are things so strained between you she’d refuse a collect call? Or perhaps you’d do better with your father.”

  “Neither of them would accept charges if I were calling from the third level of hell. But I’m not making the call anyway.”

  “You are. We’ll just have to put the call on a credit card. How’s yours holding up?” When she folded her arms over her chest, stared stonily, he shrugged. “We’ll put it on mine, then.”

  “I’m not doing it.”

  “Best to find a phone box,” he decided. “If Anita has some way of tracking my card, I’d as soon not put a target on my back. Hopefully, we’ll be out of London by tomorrow in any case. You need to work in the statue, so I’m thinking a bit of sentiment there. Missing the familiar things of home, that kind of thing. You play it right, maybe one of them’ll wire you some money.”

  “Listen to me. I’ll speak very slowly and in short syllables. They wouldn’t give me a dime, and I’d slit my own throat before I asked them to.”

  “Don’t know till you try, do you?” He tossed some money on the table. “Let’s find a phone box.”

  How did you argue with someone who didn’t argue back but simply kept moving forward like a big, shiny steamroller?

  Now she was in a real fix and had very little time to wheedle her way out of it.

  She didn’t waste her time talking to him as they walked through the light rain that turned the streets glossy black. She had to use her head, calculate her choices.

  She could hardly tell him, Gee, no point in calling Mom or Dad because—ha ha—I happen to have the statue right here in my purse!

  And if she called—and she’d rather be staked to an anthill than do so—her parents would probably speak to her. Coldly, dutifully, which would only piss her off. If she maintained her temper and asked about the statue, they’d ask her if she was doing drugs. A common inquiry. And she’d be reminded, stiffly, that the little silver statue had stood in her room at home for years. A fact they would know, as her room had been searched weekly for those drugs, which she’d never done, or any sign of immoral, illegal or socially unacceptable behavior.

  Since neither of those choices appealed to her, she had to come up with a third.

  She was still calculating when he pulled her out of the rain and into a shiny red phone booth. “Take a minute to think about what you’re going to say,” he advised. “Which one do you think might be best? Mum in Los Angeles? Da in New York?”

  “I don’t have to decide because I’m not going to call either of them or say anything.”

  “Cleo.” He tucked her wet hair behind her ear. “They really hurt you, didn’t they?”

  He said it so quietly, so sweetly, she had to elbow her way around and stare out into the rain. “I don’t need to call them. I know where it is.”

  He leaned down, brushed his lips over her hair. “I’m sorry this is hard for you, but we can’t keep knocking around from place to place this way.”

  “I said I know where it is. Get me to New York.”

  “Cleo—”

  “Damn it, stop patting me on the head like I’m a puppy. Give me some goddamn room in here.” She used her elbow again to shove him back, then dug into her purse. “Here.” She pushed the scanned photograph into his hands.

  He stared at it, then lifted his gaze and stared at her. “What the hell is this?”

  “The wonders of technology. I made a call from Down Under after our little sight-seeing jaunt. Had a picture taken of it and sent to me on Marcella’s computer. I figured you’d cough up the money I wanted, and the ticket, once you had proof I could get my hands on it. The chase scene changed things. Having a couple of goons come after me upped the stakes.”

  “You didn’t bother to show it to me until now.”

  “A girl needs an edge, Slick.” She could hear the temper—the cold fire of it—licking at the edges of his voice. She didn’t mind it. “I didn’t know you from Jack the Ripper when we drove out of Prague. I’d have to be pretty stupid to toss all my cards on the table until I had a handle on you.”

  “Got one now?” he said softly.

  “Enough of one to know you’re supremely pissed, but you’ll choke it back. First, because your mother raised you not to hit girls. Second, because you need me if you want to hold that thing in three dimensions instead of in a picture.”

  “Where is it?”

  She shook her head. “Get me to New York.”

  “How much money do you have?”

  “I’m not paying—”

  He simply grabbed her purse. She dug her fingers into it like talons and yanked back.

  “All right, all right. I’ve got about a thousand.”

  “Koruna?”

  “Dollars, once they’re exchanged.”

  “You’ve got a thousand fucking dollars in here, and you haven’t parted with a single flipping cent since we started?”

  “Twenty-five pounds,” she corrected. “Earrings.”

  He shoved out of the phone booth. “You’ve just upped your investment, Cleo. You’re paying to get us to New York.”

  WHEN ANITA GAYE wined and dined a client, she did so superbly. In general, she considered such matters a business investment. When the client was an attractive, desirable man she’d yet to lure into bed, she considered it a challenge.

  Jack Burdett intrigued her on a number of levels. He wasn’t as polished, as smooth, nor was his pedigree as sterling as the men she normally chose for her escorts.

  But he was, precisely, the type she often preferred as a lover.

  Dark blond hair fell as it chose around a strong, roughly hewn face that was more compelling than handsome. There was a faint scar running along the side of his mouth, a kind of crescent rumor said he’d gotten from flying glass during a bar fight in Cairo. The mouth itself had a sensual, almost hedonistic curve that told her he’d be demanding in bed once she got him there.

  He had a tough build to go with that tough face. Broad shoulders and long arms. She knew he boxed as a hobby, and thought he would strip down to his trunks very nicely.

  His family had had money once—a few generations back, on his mother’s side. Lost, Anita
knew, in the stock market crash of ’29. Jack hadn’t been raised in luxury, and had built his own tidy fortune with his electronics and security firm.

  A self-made man, she thought, sipping her wine. Who at the age of thirty-four earned a sturdy seven figures a year. Enough to indulge his other hobby. Collecting.

  He’d been married once, and divorced. He owned, among other things, a rehabbed warehouse in SoHo, and lived alone in one of the lofts when he was in the city. He traveled extensively, for both business and pleasure.

  He collected, most particularly, antique art pieces with a clearly documented history.

  With the first Fate tucked in her safe, Anita hoped Jack Burdett could offer her a path to the others.

  “So, tell me all about Madrid.” Her voice purred out just over the quiet strains of Mozart. She’d had her staff set up the table for two on the little garden terrace off the third-floor drawing room of her town house. “I’ve never been, and always wanted to go.”

  “It was hot.” He sampled another bite of the Chateaubriand. It was perfect, of course, as was the wine, the level of the music, the light scent of verbena and roses. And the face and form of the woman across from him.

  Jack never trusted perfection.

  “I didn’t have much time for recreation. The client kept me busy. A few more that paranoid and I can retire.”

  “Who was it?” When he only smiled and continued to eat, she pouted. “You’re so frustratingly discreet, Jack. I’m hardly going to race off to Spain and try to get through your security and rob the man.”

  “My clients pay me for discretion. They get what they pay for,” he added. “You should know.”

  “It’s just that I find your work so fascinating. All those complicated alarm systems, infrared this and motion-detecting that. Come to think of it, with your expertise, you’d make a hell of a burglar, wouldn’t you?”

  “Crime pays, but not nearly well enough.” She wanted something from him, he decided. The intimate meal at home was the first tip-off. Anita liked to go out, where she could see and be seen.

  If he’d let ego rule him, he might have convinced himself what she had on her mind was sex. Though he had no doubt she’d enjoy sex, nearly as much as she’d enjoy using it, he imagined there was more here.

  The woman was a ruthless operator. It wasn’t something he held against her. But neither did he intend to become another trophy on her very crowded shelf, or another tool in her formidable arsenal.

  He let her guide the conversation. He was in no hurry for her to get to whatever point she had. She was an attractive companion, and an interesting one who was knowledgeable about art, literature, music. Though he didn’t share a great many of her tastes, he appreciated them.

  In any case, he liked the house. He’d liked it more when Paul Morningside had been alive, but a house was a house. And this one was a jewel.

  A jewel that maintained its dignity and its style decade after decade. And could, he assumed, continue to maintain that dignity regardless of its mistress. The Adam fireplaces would always be stunning frames for simmering fires. The Water-ford chandeliers would continue to drip sparkling light on gleaming wood, glinting glass and hand-painted china no matter who warmed themselves by the flame or turned the switch for the lamp.

  The Venetian side chairs would be just as lovely no matter who sat in them.

  It was one of the aspects he most appreciated about the continuity of the old and the rare.

  Not that he could fault Anita’s taste. The rooms were still elegantly furnished with the art, the antiques, the flowers placed just so.

  No one would ever call it homey, he supposed, but as livable galleries went, it was one of the finest in the city.

  As he’d designed and installed the security, he knew every inch of it. As a collector, he approved of how that space was used to display the beautiful and the precious, and rarely refused an invitation.

  Still, by the time they’d reached the dessert and coffee stage, his mind was beginning to drift toward home. He wanted to plop down in his underwear and catch a little ESPN.

  “I had an inquiry from a client a few weeks ago that might interest you.”

  “Yeah?”

  She knew she was losing him. It was frustrating, infuriating and strangely arousing to have to work so hard to keep a man’s attention. “It was about the Three Fates. Do you know the story?”

  He stirred his coffee, slow, circular motions. “The Three Fates?”

  “I thought you might have heard of them, since your collection runs to that type of art. Legendary, so to speak. Three small silver statues, depicting the Three Fates of Greek mythology.” When he only watched her politely, Anita told him the story, carefully picking her way through fact and fantasy in the hope of whetting his appetite.

  Jack ate his lemon torte, made appropriate noises, asked the occasional question. But his mind had jumped very far ahead.

  She wanted him to help her find the Fates, he mused. He knew of them, of course. Tales of them had been among his bedtime stories as a child.

  If Anita was interested enough to hunt them down, it meant she believed all three were still accessible.

  He finished off his coffee. She was going to be very disappointed.

  “Naturally,” she continued, “I explained to my client that if they ever existed, one was lost with Henry Wyley, which negates the possibility of a complete set. The other two seem to be lost in the maze of history, so even the satisfaction of locating two-thirds of the set would take considerable effort. It’s a pity when you think what a find they would be. Not just in financial worth, but artistically, historically.”

  “Yeah, it’s a shame all right. No line on the other two?”

  “Oh, hints now and then.” She moved her bare shoulders, swirled her after-dinner brandy. “As I said, they’re legendary, at least among high-end dealers and serious collectors, so rumors about their whereabouts pop up occasionally. The way you travel, and the contacts you’ve made around the world, I thought you might have heard about them.”

  “Maybe I haven’t asked the right people the right questions.”

  She leaned forward. Some men might have thought the candlelight flickering in her eyes made them dreamy, romantic. To Jack they were avaricious.

  “Maybe you haven’t,” she agreed. “If you do, I’d love to hear the answers.”

  “You’ll be the first,” he assured her.

  WHEN HE GOT back to his loft, he stripped off his shirt, turned on the TV and caught the last ten minutes of the Braves crushing the Mets. It was a keen disappointment, as he’d had twenty on the Mets, which just went to show you what happens when you bet on sentiment.

  He muted the screen, then picked up the phone and made a call. He asked the right person the right questions, and had no intention of sharing the answers.

  Nine

  HENRY W. Wyley, Tia discovered, had been a man of diverse interests with a great lust for life. He had, she supposed, due to his working-class background, put a great deal of stock in status and appearances.

  He hadn’t been a man to pinch pennies, and though by his own admission had enjoyed the attributes of young, comely females, had remained faithful to his wife throughout their more than three decades of marriage.

  That, too, she imagined, stemmed from his working-class roots and mores.

  As a writer, however, he could have used a good editor.

  He would ramble on about some dinner party, describing the food—of which he seemed inordinately fond—in such detail she could