A high, keening wail echoed through the study door. Gage turned toward it, then glanced at Eslin.
“I’d better go help Ethan,” he said. “Josefina’s taking it about as well as my mother.”
He gave her a thin smile then strode out of the room, his boot heels thudding hollowly on the red tile floor.
Chapter 18
Once they’d calmed and quieted Josefina, Ethan retreated to the study with Doc to make the necessary arrangements for their trip, while Gage headed for the Stables to do the same with his assistant trainer, Malachi, and the rest of his staff. With Rachel sedated in her room and Ramón nowhere to be found, Eslin was left to her own devices. She wandered around the huge, silent house, found a library on the second floor, but felt too restive to read. She went downstairs again, stuck her head in the study door long enough to ask Doc if she could borrow the BMW, then took the keys from him and drove down to Ganymede’s barn.
Gage wasn’t there, and though she really hadn’t expected him to be, she felt disappointed nonetheless. She finished mucking Meringue’s stall, found the mare’s tack on a rack in the rear corner, and, once she’d saddled and led her outside, found a security guard who gave her a leg up and told her sure, she could ride, so long as she stayed near the barns.
While she walked, trotted, and cantered Meringue along the curving, tree-lined road connecting the far-flung sections of the Stables, she kept listening to Ethan read Marco Byrne’s letter inside her head. The passages directed at her—I hope the demonstration given at the home of Miss Eslin Hillary has convinced you that I mean what I say and Remember the warning left at Miss Hillary’s home and do exactly as I say—kept replaying themselves. They brought her headache back full force, turned her hands cold and clammy on Meringue’s reins, and transmitted her mood to the mare, who began to sweat and shy and dance uneasily beneath her.
Pushing any and all thoughts of Marco Byrne and his letter out of her mind, Eslin dismounted and led Meringue back to Ganymede’s barn. Once she’d curried the mare with brushes she found in the tack room, cleaned them, fed Meringue from the well-stocked feed bins and gave her water, she sat for a while in a back corner of Ganymede’s stall.
Leaning her head against the paneled wall, Eslin closed her eyes and meditated, but there was nothing here. Not the faintest hint, not the vaguest trace of Ganymede. The stall felt cold and dead, as if nothing made of flesh and blood had ever dwelt here. It hadn’t felt this way when she’d stepped into it last Saturday. There’d been a vibrancy here, an electricity she’d felt as a kinetic tingle in her spine that had led her to the corner where she sat now, the corner where she’d found Gage’s neck chain.
Perhaps too much time has passed, she thought, as she opened her eyes, raised her knees, and wrapped her arms around them, but she didn’t really think so. She’d followed tracers a hell of a lot older than six weeks, and she simply couldn’t believe that a pulse that strong could evaporate in four days. No, something was missing, something that had been here then was gone—and the only thing she could think of was the neck chain.
Closing her eyes again, Eslin tried to visualize the horseshoe nail. It was difficult to picture it without Gage, to see it anywhere but on its chain lying against the sun-browned skin of his upper chest. The havoc that played with her physical senses made the image making more difficult, but at last she achieved it, and almost instantly her right palm began to itch madly.
Scratching furiously at her hand, Eslin let the image go and opened her eyes. The itch receded, went away, and she smiled as she rose and brushed straw off her jeans. She left the stall, said good-night to Meringue, and walked out of the barn.
“The horseshoe nail is a link,” she murmured wonderingly to herself, as she slid behind the wheel of the BMW and started the engine, “a direct line to Ganymede.”
She’d never run across such a thing before, and though she wasn’t yet sure what she was going to do about it, she knew what she wasn’t going to do—and that was to tell Doc. Talk about a kid with a new toy. He wouldn’t be able to stand it, wouldn’t be able to keep his hands off the neck chain—or Gage. And that, Eslin knew, without benefit of her ESP, would be disastrous.
Now that she’d realized what the neck chain was, perhaps she could use it to their advantage against Marco Byrne. How, she wasn’t sure, and the only thing she made up her mind to do, as she drove back to the house, was make sure that Gage had fixed the faulty clasp she’d found when she’d plucked the neck chain out of the straw. She’d pinched the separated links back together with her fingers before she’d tucked it in her pocket, but heaven only knew how long it would hold, and the last thing she wanted was for him to lose it again.
At five-twenty Eslin parked the BMW at the hitching post and walked through the garden. She heard Ethan’s and Doc’s voices behind the closed study door as she entered the sun-room, but they didn’t hear her. She was glad. Pocketing Doc’s keys to give back to him later, she went upstairs to savor her discovery about the neck chain while she showered and changed her clothes.
The only thing Eslin couldn’t figure out, the one thing that made her yearn to confide in Doc, was how and why the damn thing worked the way it did. The only rationale that made sense —if you could call such a thing rational—was based on telepathy. Gage was telepathic, and so were horses. That was why there wasn’t a high-strung thoroughbred anywhere that Gage couldn’t handle, that’s why Meringue had become agitated and upset when Eslin had thought about Marco Byrne.
If she was right, if the horseshoe nail was a direct telepathic link to Ganymede, then Eslin decided she no longer regretted having given it back to Gage as she had for a moment or so when she’d realized its significance. No, Gage was the telepath, Gage was closer to Ganymede than anyone else. The neck chain was best left with him—providing she could figure out how to make use of it through him. If she couldn’t—well, she’d cross that bridge when she came to it.
Eslin wasn’t sure what the Roundtree dinner dress code was, or even if there was one, but felt reasonably comfortable—except for her headache—in the pink silk blouse and maroon print skirt she’d worn last Monday to Gage’s hospital room. When she went downstairs again at six thirty-five, only Ethan and Doc, helping themselves to a cold supper laid out on an ornately carved sideboard, were in the dining room. She wasn’t at all hungry, but chose to feed her headache, and half filled a plate with roast beef, fruit, and cheese.
“I’ve arranged for the money to be wired,” Ethan told her, once the three of them had taken chairs at the table. “It’ll be there late tomorrow afternoon. I’ve also spoken to the Mexican consulate about our visas. He was most cooperative, but even so, the earliest we can have them is Friday morning. Certain precautionary innoculations are suggested—typhoid and a smallpox booster. We’ve an appointment for those at ten o’clock in the morning. Then we’ll see the consulate. You’ll need your birth certificate.”
“It’s at home,” Eslin replied.
“No problem. We’ll swing by your house and pick it up.”
“How’s Rachel?”
“Calmer,” Doc answered, as he swallowed a mouthful of Burgundy from a crystal wineglass. “She’s having soup in her room.”
Eslin nodded, and the rest of the meal passed in pensive silence. Once they’d finished, Doc drained his goblet, and sighed as he wiped his mouth on his linen napkin and rose.
“I need a breath of air,” he said. “We could pick up your birth certificate now and save time tomorrow.”
“If I tell you where it is,” Eslin asked, “do you think you can find it without me? I really am bushed. I overdid it this afternoon.”
“I suppose so,” he said, but he sounded disappointed.
“It’s in the right-hand cubbyhole of the Governor Winthrop desk in the living room,” Eslin told him, as she fished his keys out of her skirt pocket and handed them to him over the table.
“Thanks. I’ll be back soon.”
Once he’d left the dining room, Ethan le
aned tiredly back in his chair, his elbows bent on the carved wooden arms. He stifled a yawn as he looked at Eslin, then smiled.
“Sorry, it’s been a long day. I’m pooped, too, and I haven’t a fraction as much to do as Gage. He’ll be lucky if he’s ready by ten o’clock Friday morning. That’s our tentative takeoff time for Monterrey, by the way. We have our own airstrip and a Learjet. Our crew’s getting it ready even as we speak.”
Well, there went one of her reasons—hoping Gage would make an appearance—for not going with Doc. The other two, however—her fear that she’d spill the beans to him about the neck chain and her headache—were still intact. The latter especially, as a dull, achey throb in her temples.
“Thank you for bringing Meringue, Ethan,” she said. “It was a very lovely, very thoughtful thing for you to do.”
“You’re welcome. It seemed the least we could do.”
“Señor?” Josefina said quietly from the dining room doorway. “There is a telephone call—the detective in Monterrey.”
“Would you like to hear this?” Ethan asked, as he threw his napkin on the table and all but leaped to his feet. “I can put the study phone on the speaker.”
“No, thank you. I’ll wait here.”
He nodded, and raced out of the dining room.
Caffeine was one of the worst things in the world for a headache, but Eslin poured herself a second cup of tea from a silver service on the sideboard and carried it back to the table. She’d sipped nearly half of it with shaky fingers when Ethan came back and sat down.
“Kroenke found our horse trailer parked in the back of a U-Haul lot,” he told her. “He says it’s cleaner than a whistle.”
“At least he found it,” Eslin said.
“At least indeed,” Ethan smiled. “This is the first concrete lead we’ve had. It makes me feel a whole lot better about following Byrne’s directions—at least we know we’re on the right track.”
Hopefully, Eslin thought, but didn’t say so. Ethan was radiating gratitude again and making her feel uncomfortable.
“Well, I think I’ll turn in. Tomorrow sounds like it’s going to be pretty hectic.”
“Thank you, Eslin.” Ethan said, rising to hold her chair for her. “Sleep well.”
She would’ve loved to, but found it impossible once she’d changed into pajamas and lain down on the four-poster. Even the cool cloth she’d dampened in the bathroom for her headache didn’t help. Sleep would never come so long as she lay stone-cold awake in the darkness, so she got up at nine-thirty, put on her robe and her loafers without socks, and went down the hall to the library.
Doc was there, sitting in an armchair. He wasn’t reading, just staring at the French doors with his ankles crossed in front of him and his fingers laced over his stomach. He heard her heels on the tile floor and smiled as she crossed the room and sat down next to him.
“Is all forgiven between you and Rachel?”
“Looks like it.”
“I’m glad.” “
“So am I. Both Ethan and Rachel have asked me to stay here while you’re gone. My patients are covered, so I’ll only be a long distance phone call away if you need me.”
“I think I’ve figured out how Ganymede fits into this—I think he’s the lure. I think that’s all he’s ever been. I think Byrne asked for the six million dollars just to keep up his ransom ruse.”
“I agree.” Doc’s laced fingers tightened across his abdomen. “Byrne never wanted the stallion—he wants Gage and Ethan.”
“And a life for a life?”
“I don’t know.” He looked away from her. “That phrase in his letter—’the revenge my father’s memory cries out for’—could mean damn near anything.”
“You’re lying, Doc,” Eslin told him gently. “I can always tell.”
“All right, here’s the truth,” he said, as he looked back at her. “I think he intends to kill one of them, perhaps both of them, and quite possibly anybody who tries to stop him. Make you feel any better?”
“Doc, I’m sorry—”
“No, no, I’m sorry.” He sighed heavily. “You’re in love with Gage, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know.” Eslin flushed a little and looked down. “I’m very attracted to him.”
“I think the attraction is mutual.”
“It’s occurred to me, though,” she said, as she raised just her eyes to his face, “that maybe it’s just psychical.”
“Like a moth and a flame?”
Eslin nodded.
“I may be old, but I’m still a man,” he told her, smiling, “and though I’ll grant you that could be part of it, I don’t think it’s all of it. I think he’s crazy about you.”
“We’ll see.” Eslin shrugged.
“I hope I didn’t frighten you with what I said about Byrne’s intentions.”
“Not too much,” she lied with a weak smile.
“Ethan and I have hatched a backup plan. As soon as you land in Monterrey, the pilot’s going to phone me and I’m going to call the FBI. Once you’re in Mexico, they can’t keep you from going, and they’ll be stuck with doing their damndest to protect you while you’re there.”
“Oooh.” Eslin winced. “They aren’t going to like that.”
“True,” Doc granted, “but subtle as undercover agents are, there’s just too big a risk that if they follow on your heels Byrne’s watchdogs will spot them. Realistically, they won’t be able to mobilize and put a tail on you much before Sunday when you reach Mexico City. It’s a lot easier to look inconspicuous in a city with a population of eleven million.”
It would also, Eslin thought, be a lot easier to lose track of four tourists, but she didn’t say so. She didn’t have to, she could see the same worry heavily etched in the fatigue lines around Doc’s eyes.
“How’s your head feel?” he asked.
“It hurts,” she admitted, “but I’ll live. I think I’ll try to go to sleep now. Good night, Doc.”
“Good night, Eslin.”
Back in the four-poster with the lights on, she lay on her back and gazed at the ceiling she really couldn’t see. The one part of Byrne’s letter she hadn’t thought much about was his intention to test her. It was the one thing that didn’t frighten her.
“Go ahead, Marco, do your damndest,” she muttered confidently in the darkness. “But understand this—the only way you’ll get your hands on Ganymede or Ramón or Ethan and Gage is over my dead body.”
It was only an expression, a figure of speech, yet it made her shiver a little as she rolled over on her side and fell asleep.
Chapter 19
Besides the typhoid shot required for their tourist visas, the worst part of Thursday for Eslin was spending so much of it in the Lincoln with Gage. The confines of the big gray car certainly couldn’t be called close, and though she sat in the front seat with Ethan and Gage was in the back with Ramón, she could feel him watching her—and fiddling with the neck chain.
First she tried ignoring it; second, when she could no longer stand the crawl up her spine and the mutter in her stomach whenever he lifted his fingers to the gold-plated horseshoe nail, she tried catching his eye and glaring at him in the rearview mirror. She managed neither, and when they returned to the Stables a little before one o’clock that afternoon, Eslin felt as if her flesh were about to crawl off her bones.
It wasn’t just the neck chain that made her feel so jumpy, though she’d forgotten the power of its effect on her; it was the blankness in Gage’s aura. There was absolutely nothing there to read, no anger, no grief—nothing. With a little stab of dread between her ribs, Eslin realized, as Ethan stopped the Lincoln beneath the front portico, what that meant—that Gage had totally shut himself down psychically.
“I need you to go over some things down at the office,” he said to his brother, as he and Ethan opened their doors and got out of the car.
“Fine, let’s grab some lunch.”
“None for me, I’m not hungry. I’ll see
you there.”
Through the windshield and then her side window Eslin watched Gage walk around the front of the car and disappear into the house. He didn’t so much as glance at her. In the front door and out the back, she thought, taking Ethan’s hand as he opened her door and helped her out of the Lincoln.
“He came in from the stables at twelve-thirty last night,” he said to her, frowning, as they entered the atrium, “and went back at five this morning with no breakfast. Not that I think he’ll eat it, but I’ll take him a sandwich anyway.”
“Is he like this often?” Eslin asked, letting Ethan help her out of her stadium coat. “So compulsive?”
“He is when he’s got something on his mind.”
Hmmm, she thought, trailing Ethan toward the dining room. Maybe if she could talk to him and find out what that something was, she could open him up again. And open him up she must. If she needed to use the horseshoe nail, she needed Gage to do it.
At the table Doc and Rachel were holding hands. Their concentration on each other was so intense that they didn’t hear Ethan and Eslin until they’d stepped up to the sideboard to help themselves. They both started visibly then, loosed their clasped fingers, and tucked their hands in their laps.
“Ain’t love grand,” Ethan whispered to Eslin and winked.
“You look pale,” Rachel said to her, as she carried her plate to the table and sat down.
“I feel pale,” she admitted, then turned to Doc. “The headache you said would start to taper off hasn’t.”
“I can give you something mild for it,” he answered. “I should look at your stitches this afternoon, too, and change the bandage.”
“Rest is the best cure for a bump on the head,” Rachel advised. “Ask me, I had two sons who were always falling off horses.”
Eslin smiled, so did Doc and Ethan, and that was the sum total of their luncheon conversation. Afterward, Doc followed her upstairs with his bag, and gave her a vial of very mild pain pills for her headache. Then he peeled off the gauze, dabbed hydrogen peroxide on her stitches, and replaced the bandage with a Band-Aid.
Lynn Michaels Page 16
