“I could be awhile,” Cole said to the driver.
“I’m yours for the duration. I’ll be here whenever you’re ready.”
Cole didn’t doubt it. The Chens would keep an eye on their ten-million-dollar gamble.
6
Beverly Hills Late afternoon
At one corner of the Beverly Wilshire’s crowded lobby, Erin Windsor lounged unhappily in a brocaded armchair, watching the jet-setters and the Hollywood groupies pouring into the stately hotel. She would have preferred some place less grand than the Beverly Wilshire, and some location less ostentatious than Beverly Hills, but the law firm had booked the suite. Apparently they hoped to impress her.
What a waste of time, she thought.
Even though she’d decided to leave the arctic, she still found civilized pretensions more boring than amusing and more irritating than either.
To help the time pass, she tried to imagine herself as the owner of a remote ranch in Australia. Although she was fascinated by the Pacific Rim, she’d never visited Australia. Now James Rosen, the family lawyer who owned a lucrative practice in Century City, had informed her that she was the owner of a “station” and a set of mineral claims. All this a gift from a man named Abelard Windsor, a great-uncle she hadn’t even known existed.
Rosen had been able to show her the location of the Windsor holdings on maps and had even managed to dredge up some travel-guide photos of the state of Western Australia. The photos made it clear that the Kimberley Plateau wasn’t a lush, friendly kind of place. It was home to a rack-of-bones breed of beef cattle called Kimberley shorthorns, and to exotic animals that included kangaroos, long-tailed birds of prey called kites, and highly poisonous snakes called mulgas.
Erin had been fascinated. The primitive landscape appealed to her, especially because she was on the edge of condemning herself to an indeterminate sentence in very civilized Europe.
Other than the fact of the bequest, Rosen’s information had been sketchy. When he’d gotten tired of her questions, he’d told her that Cole Blackburn, the courier who was delivering Abelard Windsor’s will, would answer all her questions.
Idly Erin scanned the crowd again, wondering what Cole would look like. All Rosen knew about Cole was that he was a geologist who represented the law firm involved in the administration of the Windsor estate. The law firm was well known in Australia and in Hong Kong. When pressed, Rosen admitted that the situation was unusual but hardly a cause for alarm. The law firm had excellent credentials.
Even so, Erin had chosen a vantage point screened by the crowds in the lobby so that she might be able to pick Cole out before he spotted her. Her decision wasn’t entirely conscious. She always arranged encounters with male strangers, so that she wasn’t taken by surprise. Part of the reason was her natural reserve. Part was a caution learned at the slicing edge of a knife.
The lobby was full of travelers with luggage and business types with expensive leather briefcases. Many of the men were tanned and appeared wealthy, but none of them stood around looking from face to passing face, hoping to find someone they had never met in the hotel lobby.
For a moment Erin thought the casually dressed, longhaired blond male with the oversized leather rucksack might be Cole. The man had the tanned, outdoorsy look that field geologists in Alaska had. He was handsome, with fine features and a gentle smile, and it all added up to a quiet modern male who understated his masculinity. He was the sort of man Erin found herself with much of the time when she was in the world of NewYork and Europe.
The young man had been standing near the reception desk for a few minutes, scanning the crowd, waiting for someone. Erin was about to leave her blind and introduce herself when a dazzling middle-aged woman in evening clothes threw herself into the young man’s arms. Erin saw little television in Alaska, but she immediately recognized the woman as the bitch star of an enormously popular weekly series. In person, she looked at least a decade older than her escort.
The couple chatted for a moment, then walked arm in arm toward the lobby bar where a party was already under way. Erin thought the actress clung to the young man in a peculiarly possessive way, displaying him like a woman leading a small dog in a show. If the young man disliked it, he kept it under wraps.
Lapdogs aren’t noted for their teeth.
Erin’s wry thought didn’t show on her face. As the couple passed, she realized that the young man’s tan was salon perfect, not a squint line on his whole smooth face. The leather rucksack was also an affectation. No bulges or scuffs marred its expensive lines. He walked like a man used to getting in and out of taxis.
As soon as the couple vanished, Erin’s eye was caught by a striking slash of darkness in the midst of all the glitter and gilt—a black-haired man in a black silk jacket and open-collared white shirt. His skin had been changed by sun and weather rather than by carefully applied artificial light. He walked with the unconscious grace of a healthy animal. A black leather case was handcuffed to his wrist.
He was looking right at her.
For an instant Erin’s pulse accelerated with a purely female response. Then her elemental awareness gave way to an irritation that was close to anger and even closer to fear. This easy-walking man with his knowing eyes and his powerful body was exactly the sort of man she’d learned at such cost not to trust. He was a predator. Like her father. Like her brother.
Like Hans.
Because she knew she was reacting irrationally, Erin fought to cover her response to the tall stranger. The man was nothing more to her than a business appointment, a courier, an errand boy.
He walked to the place where she sat screened by foliage from the bustle of the lobby. Screened, but obviously not hidden. Not from Cole Blackburn.
There was no hesitation in Cole’s stride when Erin came to her feet and stood waiting for him. He’d had no trouble picking her out of the crowd. Her natural auburn hair burned like a campfire amid the pale candles of the rinsed, bleached, and dyed jet-set women. She was dressed in a black cotton blouse and slacks that had the relaxed appearance of clothes just taken from a suitcase. The contrast of black cloth with red hair and pale, smooth skin was arresting, but Cole would have bet good money that the clothes had been chosen for their ability to travel rather than for how they looked.
Erin nodded as though to confirm that she was his appointment. Then she walked toward him and Cole cursed silently, feeling like he’d just walked into an ambush.
The still photo of Erin had told only a tiny portion of the truth. There was a quality to her movements that put Cole’s body on full sexual alert. He’d felt nothing like it since Chen Lai, with her black eyes and golden skin and hidden laughter. Chen Lai, the honeyed snare he’d barely escaped intact, because he’d given Lai more of himself than he should have, mistaking simple lust for the complex emotion of love. It was a mistake he would never make again.
As they approached each other, Cole studied Erin, looking for some sign that she was conscious of the elemental sexuality in her movements. If she was, she didn’t show it. There were no sidelong looks to see how the men around her were reacting. There was no careful polish of the female surface—no artful makeup, no gleaming-red nails, no tousled hair or undone buttons.
Lai’s sexuality had been calculated to the last fraction. Erin’s wasn’t, which only increased its allure. And her eyes were the same incredible green of the diamond that men had died for in the past and would doubtless die for in the future.
The idea made Cole smile crookedly. He’d seen men die for much less tangible, much less beautiful things than a diamond that was the color of every summer God ever made. Ideology, theology, philosophy—none of them could be cut and polished and set to shimmering and dreaming in shades of green on a man’s palm.
“Erin Windsor? I’m Cole Blackburn.”
Her eyes widened as she realized how big he was, like an oak taking root in front of her.
Cole was used to the reaction. He kept his hand extended until
she recovered enough to take it.
“Mr. Blackburn,” Erin said, releasing his hand immediately. “I was expecting someone—er, different. Mr. Rosen, my lawyer, called you a courier.”
“I’ve been called worse. Is there a place where we can talk privately?”
“Is it necessary to be private?”
He shrugged. “Not to me. I just thought you’d like to be alone when I hand more than a million dollars in rough diamonds to you.”
“You’re joking,” she said, startled.
“Do I look like a stand-up comic?” He lifted the hand that held the briefcase, showing her the chain and handcuff that leashed it to him. “You can see the diamonds right here if you prefer, but I’d advise less witnesses.”
Erin made her decision quickly, on the basis of survival instincts she’d developed in the arctic. Considering who and what Cole Blackburn was, the risk involved in being alone with him in her hotel room was less than taking possession of a fortune in rough diamonds in a very public lobby.
“My room is on the ninth floor,” she said, turning and walking toward the elevators.
Cole followed, telling himself he was past the age to get aroused by something as trivial as the arc of a woman’s hips. His body silently, violently, disagreed.
The elevator doors thumped softly closed, shutting out the hushed seething of the lobby. Erin gave the machine a destination. Instantly it began to rise.
“What did your lawyer tell you?” Cole asked.
“That he’d been contacted by a highly reputable international law firm, which informed him that I was the sole heir of a great-uncle whose name I’d never heard. I was told that a Mr. Cole Blackburn would arrive at five p.m. in the lobby of the Beverly Wilshire. He would deliver the will and answer all my questions.”
“Your lawyer was half right.”
“Which half?”
“I’ll give you the will. But you’ll have more questions than I’ll have answers.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Any woman who can take a picture like ‘Uncertain Spring’ asks the kind of questions that have no answers.”
Surprise showed clearly in her green eyes. “You called me Windsor. How did you know I’m Erin Shane?”
“The photo on the jacket of Arctic Odyssey.”
The elevator stopped and the doors whisked aside. Erin looked warily at Cole, as though changing her mind about taking him to her room.
“Your first instinct was correct,” he said matter-offactly. “I’m not going to touch you unless you extend a platinum invitation.” The elevator door started to close automatically. Cole caught it with his big hand and held it open, looking directly at Erin as he added, “And you’re not in the business of extending invitations, are you?”
“No. Are you always this blunt?”
“It saves time. You have about four seconds before the elevator door starts buzzing. Your room, my limousine, or some neutral third choice?”
Erin looked at the man whose gray eyes were as clear as ice and infinitely more alive. She had the feeling of being pressed to make a decision whose consequences were totally unknown.
A few years ago she would have refused all choices and gone back to the known dangers of the arctic, but a few years ago she hadn’t been restless, feeling as though something vital was missing from her life, from herself.
A year ago she would have been frightened by a man like Cole. Now she wasn’t, not entirely. The realization gave her a heady sensation of being freed from a cage of her own making.
It was like watching dawn after a long arctic night.
“My room,” she said, walking past him.
When they were inside she closed the door, tossed her purse on a nearby chair, and turned toward him. He looked at her for a long moment, then bent and worked over the combination lock on the briefcase until it opened. Using a key that had been left inside the briefcase, he unlocked the heavy steel cuff. A moment later he pulled out a tin box, removed a worn velvet bag, and handed the box over to Erin.
“Abe’s will was holographic,” Cole said, “written in his own hand without benefit of lawyers. It’s pretty simple. It leaves everything he owned to you. Most of the rest of the papers are covered with doggerel.”
Erin blinked. “Poetry?”
“Not as far as I’m concerned.”
She smiled slightly. “Not much good, huh?”
“I don’t want to prejudice you,” he said, returning her almost hidden smile. “You might like it. After all, some people like goanna charred whole in a campfire.”
“Goanna?”
“Lizard.”
Erin’s smile widened. “You’d be amazed at some of the things I ate in the arctic.”
She took the will and began to read it, frowning over the spidery, faded writing.
I, Abelard Jackson Windsor, being of sound mind and body, do hereby bequeath all my worldly possessions and mining claims to Erin Shane Windsor, who is the daughter of Matthew McQueen Windsor, who is the legal son of my brother, Nathan Joseph Windsor.
With the exception of thirteen rough diamonds and the papers in this box, all my possessions and claims are to be held in trust for Erin Shane Windsor until (1) she has been physically present on theWindsor station for a minimum of eleven months of every year for five years or (2) until she finds the mine these diamonds came from, whichever occurs sooner.
In the event that neither (1) nor (2) occurs, my possessions are to be given to charity (with the exception of the thirteen diamonds, which in any case belong to Erin Shane Windsor), and my mining claims are to be forfeited.
Signed Abelard Jackson Windsor
Witnessed by Father Michael Conroy
Erin: Trust no man who deals with ConMin,
He’ll sell your soul for a handful of tin.
Your heritage is a jewel box
Kept beneath stone locks.
Poetry will show the ties.
Goodbye, my Queen of Lies.
And I am the King.
Erin read the document again, then gave Cole an odd look.
“Questions?” he said.
“ConMin? Is that what I think it is?”
“Consolidated Minerals, Inc.”
“Diamonds,” she said tersely. Her gaze went to Cole’s briefcase for a moment.
“That’s the most famous aspect of ConMin’s holdings,” he said. “But diamonds are only part of it. ConMin also deals in everything from iron ore to rare earth elements. Their specialty is strategic minerals. ConMin is the most powerful, most lucrative, and most discreet cartel on the planet.”
Erin flipped through the poetry quickly, then returned to the will and read aloud, “‘Trust no man who deals with ConMin,/He’ll sell your soul for a handful of tin.’”
Cole didn’t react.
“Are you employed by ConMin?” she asked.
“No. I don’t like working for anyone.”
She considered that for a few seconds, then smiled slightly. It was a point of view she shared. “Is that why Abe sent you?”
“Your great-uncle didn’t send me. I haven’t seen him in years.”
Silence, then the sound of papers being shifted while Erin scanned the sheets of doggerel again.
“Are you a lawyer?” she asked without glancing up from the papers.
“I’m a diamond prospector. Do you know anything about diamonds, Ms. Windsor?”
“They’re hard, they’re expensive, and they’re rare.”
“And some of them are extraordinary,” he said softly. “Some of them are well worth killing for.”
She measured him for a long moment. “Are my great-uncle’s diamonds extraordinary?”
“All the stones I saw of his were bort, which is the lowest grade of industrial diamond, which is the lowest grade of diamond, period.”
“Worthless?”
“Not quite. But nothing to make my pulse leap, either.”
Wryly, she wondered just what it would take to distu
rb this very controlled stranger. “Then my great-uncle’s diamonds aren’t extraordinary at all, are they?”
“Hold out your hand.”
“What?”
“Hold out your hand.”
“Why?”
“Just do it, Ms. Windsor.”
“Go to hell, Mr. Blackburn.”
His expression didn’t change.
Erin had the feeling she’d been tested in some way she didn’t understand. She had no sense of whether she’d passed or failed or would be tested again.
Moving with a deftness surprising in such a big man, Cole opened the worn velvet bag and poured the contents out on his own palm. Erin watched while light slid and shimmered over the marble-size objects, as though they were wet or oiled. Most of the stones were colorless. Several were a deep, lovely pink. One was a green so pure it looked like condensed, concentrated light.
Automatically she reached for the green stone, then stopped, looking up at Cole’s eyes. For the first time she realized that his eyes weren’t a colorless gray. Tiny shards of pale blue and green and silver radiated out from the pupils in a subtle display of color that was hypnotic.
“Hold out your hand,” he said softly.
This time she didn’t hesitate.
Cupping Erin’s smaller hand in his own, Cole poured the stones into her waiting palm. They made muted crystal sounds when they moved against one another.
“These can’t be diamonds,” she said, her mouth dry.
“Uncut, unpolished, extraordinary. They’re diamonds. And they’re yours, for better or for worse.”
Silently she picked up diamonds at random, as though to assure herself of their reality. She held up first one, then another, toward the overhead light. The stones were transparent. They drew light the way a magnet draws iron.
Death is Forever Page 6
