Factoid’s face talked down from a central screen and his surly voice came out of a speaker. He was in the computer command center of Rarities. Other than a sticky hairdo and a streak of chocolate on his chin, he looked normal—for Factoid.
“Okay,” he snarled. “One through seventeen. Earliest known provenance. Starting at screen one and working up: 1963 . . . 1959 . . . 1944.”
“Who first owned the page on screen three?” Erik asked quickly.
“Derrick James Rubin.”
“Go on. But give me names as well as dates.”
Factoid said something everyone ignored as irrelevant. Even worse, uninspired. Then he started over. “One—1963, Christie’s, bought from private individual now deceased, dead end; 1959, Sotheby’s, brokered for private individual, page was a birthday present from father, now deceased, dead end; 1944, Rubin estate, no catalogue, dead end; 1956, Sotheby’s, they’re still looking for origin on microfilm; 1958, Christie’s, checking microfilms; 1944, Rubin estate, no catalogue, dead end; 1948, brokered by Warrick’s, they’re checking for origin; 1962, Mirabeau Auctions via private individual, now deceased, said to have been in family for generations, dead end.”
Erik sat motionless while the irritated computer tech ran through the screens. Erik let the names and dates roll through his mind while he searched for a pattern. By the time Serena’s pages were up for discussion, all that was certain was that searching microfilm files was a hell of a lot slower than searching computerized databases.
“The last eight screens belong to Serena Charters, inherited from grandmother, now deceased, dead end. Claimed to have been in family for generations.”
Everyone stared at the screens in silence.
“Except for screen eight,” Erik said, “Serena’s are the only sheets that aren’t palimpsests.”
“Say what?” Niall asked.
“Written over. Show him, Factoid.”
Muttering came from the speakers, but the rest of the screens split to show the sheet under normal light and under UV. The writing beneath was ghostly yet unmistakable in the UV panel.
“Give me everything you have on screen eight,” Erik said.
“Looking . . .” Factoid said. “According to family legend, the Blackthorns bought it from one of the poor Scots immigrants who were shoved out during the Highland Clearances and Improvements.” He yawned. “That could take it all the way back to the Battle of Culloden, or 1746 for the historically impaired among us. Since the Blackthorns are descended from a Scots soldier in the British army—who spelled thorn with an e—they’ve been in the U.S. since before it was the U.S. So has the page.”
“Show us the other side.”
“It’s blank.”
“I know. Show it. You get better resolution here than I do at home.”
Factoid muttered and said, “Screen nineteen.”
“There. In the corner. See the gather mark?”
“Yeah. So what?”
“Put the gather marks from Serena’s pages up with it.”
Factoid shut up, zoomed in, cut, pasted, and had gather marks up for comparison.
“Good,” Erik said. “I thought so. This page was cut from the gather on screen three.”
“So?” Dana asked.
Erik shrugged. “So it looks like whoever had the book cut out a fancy illuminated page from the front of the book and sold it. Probably for food or to pay a debt.”
“Does that mean that Rubin’s pages go back to the Blackthorn family?” Serena asked.
“No. All of Rubin’s pages are palimpsests. This one hasn’t been erased.”
“Where does that leave us?” Dana asked.
“With the good probability that the Book of the Learned came to America in the eighteenth century, was passed down through the generations, and the occasional leaf was snipped out when the going got really tough.”
Serena closed her eyes and saw her grandmother’s note. We’ve lost some pages through the centuries, but damned few. Until my generation.
She didn’t realize she had spoken aloud until she opened her eyes and saw Dana and Niall staring at her.
“Don’t stop,” Dana said.
A wave of sadness mixed with exhaustion swept through Serena. The adrenaline that had kept her going after the fire was ebbing fast, leaving her stranded and flat. “It was my grandmother’s note to me, part of her will.”
“Tell them the rest of it,” Erik said.
“Haven’t you already?” Serena asked wearily. “They employ you. I don’t. You’re theirs.”
“Wrong. I’m my own man.”
“He’s got that right,” Niall said curtly. “If he was mine, he’d take orders better.”
“If he was mine,” Dana said, “he’d live in L.A. and work for us fulltime. But he lives in Palm Springs and chases mountain goats.”
“Sheep,” Erik said.
“Whatever.”
Serena looked at Erik with shadowed violet eyes, wanting to believe, wanting to trust.
Afraid to.
Trust no man with your heritage. Your life depends on it.
If she didn’t follow her grandmother’s advice, would she be wise or just as foolish as all the firstborn of her generation?
Don’t repeat our mistakes!
Serena groaned. Now she was getting advice from her imagination. Soon she would be as wild-eyed as her grandmother. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “G’mom was paranoid. After tonight, I know why.”
Dana and Niall looked at each other.
“Please,” Serena said bitterly, “I may look soft and slow, but I’m not. It’s damn clear that whoever Bert’s mystery bidder was murdered my grandmother when she tried to track down the missing pages. This same person murdered Bert before he could tell us the original source of a page. Then this person did their best to murder me. Someone really doesn’t want the Book of the Learned to be whole again.”
“What worries me,” Erik said roughly, “is that this person is ready, willing, and damned able to murder. That’s been proved at least four times in the last year.”
Niall said sharply, “What?”
Erik ticked off the murders on his fingers. “A woman in Florida. A New Age monk. Serena’s grandmother. Bert. They have two things in common. Each died by fire. Each was the last known link in a chain leading to pages taken from the Book of the Learned.”
“But I don’t know anything about the missing pages,” Serena said quickly.
“Not yet,” Erik agreed. “But after four murders, do you really think this person—or persons—will take the chance that you might?”
Chapter 59
Dana’s calm voice cut through the silence that followed Erik’s words. “Tell us what you do know, Serena. Maybe we can help, if only by offering more, and more difficult, targets.”
Serena put her elbows on the table, saw the scratches on her arms from the wild scramble over a dead man’s fence, and grimaced. Absently she rearranged the scarf that had protected her hair from a fiery rain. In a gesture that had become a habit, she stroked the textile with her fingertips and felt as though she was being stroked in turn. The cloth soothed her. Perhaps it was simply the tangible connection to the past, the textured assurance that something outlived even a murderer’s brutality.
“Grandmother was the firstborn female—as far as I know, the only child of either sex—in her generation,” Serena said slowly. “She had custody of the Book of the Learned. Somehow she lost it. Or, at the very least, parts of it. Erik thinks she had most of the manuscript and left it for me.” Serena sighed wearily. “If she did, she left it in such a way that I can’t figure out how to find it.”
Silently Dana’s fingers played an intricate Renaissance piece on the modern steel of the clean room table. “Do you think that any of the murder victims knew where the whole book was?”
“No,” Serena said.
“Erik?” Dana asked.
He thought about it, tested various patterns, and shook his h
ead. “No.”
“All right. We’ll table the location of the whole book for now,” Dana said. “For some reason, the murderer—I tend to believe there is one, for the simple reason that anything conspiratorial that two or more people know is on the six o’clock news within a week.” She glanced at Niall.
Niall hesitated, then nodded. “I’ll go with that. For now.”
Erik nodded.
“I’m a weaver, not an investigator” was all Serena said.
Dana turned to Erik. “You mentioned four murders in the last year. Who was first?”
“Ellis Weaver.”
Serena cleared her throat. It probably didn’t matter, but it might. She couldn’t take the chance. With a mental apology to her dead grandmother, she said, “The name I knew her by was Lisbeth Serena Charters.”
All three people stared at her.
The speaker that carried Factoid’s voice said, “Fuck. Minute.”
“When she decided to make a new life for herself, she chose the name Ellis—which is a run together form of L. S.—and the last name Weaver because that’s what she did,” Serena said.
“What about the name Charters?” Erik asked. “Was it hers by law or by choice?”
“The one time I pinned her down, she said it was her grandmother’s maiden name.”
“What was your grandmother’s third name?” Erik asked coolly.
Serena looked blank.
“The name before she chose Charters,” he explained.
His eyes were as distant as his voice. He was furious. Just when he thought he had won her trust, she proved that she had barely trusted him at all. She would have sex with him, trust him not to kill her while she slept in his bed, hell, in his arms, but the rest of it, the day in and day out ordinary kind of trust that builds true intimacy . . . no, so sorry, the lady just wasn’t buying into that.
Serena’s chin came up. She met his anger with level eyes. “I don’t know.”
“Don’t know or won’t say?” he shot back.
“I. Don’t. Know.”
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. His disbelief was as plain as his narrowed, glittering amber eyes. “Factoid?”
“. . . minute.”
“While he searches databases,” Dana said, “let’s pursue the possibilities of four murders in one year.”
Erik’s glance cut sideways to Dana.
Her dark eyebrows rose. He looked positively baleful. How like a man. It was fine for him to keep secrets, but not for his lover. “I’ve never seen you in non-Fuzzy mode. Impressively male. Full testosterone rush. No wonder Niall wants you back.”
With an effort, Erik throttled his temper. He closed his eyes, thought of all the times his sisters had driven him to the wall, and reminded himself that this, too, shall pass. When his eyes opened, they were still cold but they were no longer furious.
“Where do you want to start?” he asked Dana.
“Ellis Weaver’s death note suggests several things,” Dana said blandly.
Serena looked startled. “How did you know about—oh, of course. Erik.”
“Yes. Erik.” Dana looked at him. “I guess you didn’t mention it to her, hmmm?”
“I didn’t know you wanted me to keep Serena posted on every little thing I told you,” he said. His voice was as tight as the line of his mouth.
Dana’s left hand waved gracefully. “It is the nature of businesses and families to have secrets. I’m sure Serena didn’t take your keeping business secrets any more personally than you took her keeping her family secrets.”
Niall strangled a laugh into a cough and studied his hands as though they had just grown fur.
Erik looked at the other man. “Such sweet reason. How have you avoided strangling her?”
“Clean living and constant prayer,” Niall said dryly.
Dana ignored them and glanced at Serena. “Did your grandmother ever say anything about when the leaves first went missing?”
“No.”
“You sound quite certain.”
“I am. Until her death note, she never mentioned the Book of the Learned to me. Not by name. She talked about my heritage, and how my mother had forfeited the right to so much as look at it.”
“By running away?” Dana asked.
“No. By taking the name Charters. Grandmother was afraid that it might lead back to her.”
“Even though she used the name Weaver?” Erik asked.
“Yes.”
“What was she afraid of?” Niall asked.
“She never said. She just spent her life hiding.”
“And one of the things she was hiding was the Book of the Learned,” Niall said. “The name Charters must be tied to it somehow.”
“I’ll bet the book descended through the grandmother whose maiden name was Charters,” Erik said.
“Interesting,” Niall said, “but not particularly useful except as a measure of Ellis Weaver’s paranoia.”
“Fear,” Serena corrected softly, rubbing her palm against her scarf. “When she was discovered, she was murdered.”
Niall grunted. “All right. So what gave her away?”
“Probably the questions she asked when she decided to go after the missing pages of the Book of the Learned,” Erik said. “It’s the only thing that fits the pattern of the murders.”
“It does?” Dana asked. “How?”
“Think about it. She must have known where the missing pages went. Or she hired someone who found them.”
“Wallace?” Niall asked.
“He has my vote so far,” Erik agreed. “Put Shel on it. Check Morton Hingham’s records. She would have hired an investigator through him, the same way she kept her truck registered in his name and her taxes paid on her property in her assumed name.”
Dana reached for one of the portable phones that were scattered throughout Rarities. Very quickly she was talking to Shel.
“Why do you think it’s Wallace?” Serena asked.
“He’s still alive,” Erik said bluntly. “He has the background to make homemade fuel bombs and lure law-enforcement types down blind alleys when they investigate a murder. And three out of four of those murders were written off as random or suicide.”
“What about Bert?” she asked with a shudder.
“I’ll bet it’s written off to a meth lab or a drug war,” Erik said. “Or simply kept open and never solved, because the cops don’t connect it to the other murders.”
“Aren’t we going to tell the police?”
“No hurry,” Niall said. “You and Erik are the only obvious targets left, and you’ll be well covered.”
“Erik?” Serena said unhappily. “Why would he be a target?”
“Same reason Bert was,” Niall said easily. “Bert knew something. Whoever chucked those bombs can’t be certain that Bert didn’t tell us before he cooked.”
Serena flinched. Erik put his hand over hers and gave Niall a hard look. Erik might be pissed off at Serena, but he was damned if he would let Niall upset her.
Niall smiled widely. Gotcha, boyo. Or rather, she has you.
“But Wallace said he was working for someone else,” Serena objected. Then she said quickly, “Forget it. I’m not thinking very well. Of course he would say that, even though he was clinging to the cliff and Erik was firing rocks at him.”
Dana smiled like a cat. “You didn’t mention that part, dear boy.”
Erik ignored her.
“Like I said, you’re wasted as a Fuzzy,” Niall said.
Erik ignored that, too. “At least now we know how to draw him out into the open without putting Serena at risk.”
Serena blinked. “We do?”
Niall nodded and said to Erik, “Good. Because that was my next suggestion and I knew you wouldn’t go for it when I asked her.”
“What was?” Serena demanded. “What are you talking about?”
“Bait,” Niall said succinctly. “Erik just volunteered.”
Chapter 60
Only if there’s no other way,” Dana cut in quickly. “You know how I feel about putting non-security types in the line of fire.”
“We don’t have enough time to put Fuzzy boy through a brushup course,” Niall said, his voice impatient.
“I’m not suggesting that,” Dana said with deadly clarity. “I am simply saying that we will try all other avenues first.” She looked from Niall to Serena. “The most obvious course is to find the Book of the Learned and use it as bait. From what Erik told me, your grandmother believed she had left enough clues that if you followed her instructions, ‘the Book of the Learned will follow.’ “
“I’ve tried,” Serena said, rubbing her aching scalp. “I simply don’t get the point she was trying to make. Or points.”
“Was your grandmother always paranoid?” Niall asked.
“Cautious,” Serena corrected. “Yes. As long as I can remember.”
“And longer,” Erik said. “She refused to speak to your mother after your mother ran off and changed her name to Charters.”
Slowly Serena nodded.
“That suggests to me that the name Charters was closer to her than she admitted to you,” Erik continued. “Her own maiden name, perhaps. That would be the only reason she would get so angry when her daughter used it, putting it into the public records where anybody who was persistent enough could find it.”
“Factoid?” Dana said sharply. “Did you hear that?”
Silence, then “How long ago did she last use the name Charters?” came out of the speakers.
Three people looked at Serena.
“No more recently than forty-five years ago, certainly,” Serena said. “She would have been about thirty-five years old, give or take.”
“Give or take what?” Factoid said sharply.
“I . . . five years?”
“I’m asking you,” Factoid muttered.
“I don’t know. She was approximately eighty when she died. At least, I think she was. Maybe it was just something I assumed.”
“What was her birth date?” Factoid asked.
“I don’t know. We didn’t celebrate it. We barely celebrated mine. In fact . . .” Serena frowned. “I remember arguing about it. Awful. A real screamer on both sides. I wanted my birthday on its real day. She tried to get me to change my birthday and last name just after I came to her, but I wouldn’t. It was the only thing I had of my own mother. I refused to let it go.”
Moving Target Page 32
