“Which state was your grandmother married in?” Factoid asked.
“She never said.”
Factoid said something that sounded like fuck.
“That’s two,” Niall said.
Silence.
Erik said, “Serena is thirty-four. Her mother ran off when she was seventeen. Assuming she got pregnant pretty quick, she was eighteen when she had Serena. Serena was thirty-three when her grandmother died. Assume Ellis—Lisbeth—was eighty when she died. That makes her, at most, twenty-nine when she switched identities. She could have been as young as nineteen. Look for marriage licenses featuring a maiden name of Charters in that time span.”
“A joke, right?” the speaker snarled.
“No.”
“Well, suck, man! That puts me lip-deep in microfilm again! None of the states have computerized dick from the old days.”
“Pull in every researcher we have except the ones working with April Joy on the Singapore project,” Dana said instantly. “If that’s not enough, hire more.”
Factoid flipped the switch off and yelled obscenities until he ran out of breath. Then he flipped the switch on again and said, “Working.”
“While he tears his retro lime-green hair out,” Niall said, “let’s explore another route to the truth.”
“Such as?” Dana asked.
“Such as when did Ellis-Lisbeth start after the missing leaves?” Niall looked at Serena.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Her note didn’t say anything about it, but if I had to bet, I’d guess it was a few months before she was murdered.”
“I agree,” Erik said. “That’s how the murderer found her after all those years. She had to come out of hiding to reclaim the pages.”
Niall grunted. “Does that get us anywhere new?”
“Not me,” Erik said. “Dana?”
She shook her head. Her fingers were doing the flute thing again.
“Serena?”
“No.”
Silence.
“Did you ever see the Book of the Learned?” Dana asked Serena finally.
“Yes, I think I did. Or did I dream it?” She frowned, wondering how she could sort out dream and memory. Or if it was even possible.
“When?” Dana asked.
“I . . . sometimes I can almost . . .” Slowly Serena pulled the stretchy band off her thick braid, shook it out, put her face in her hands, and rubbed her aching head. Hair the color of fire tumbled down and piled like burning coals on the steel table.
“What do you remember?” Erik asked softly.
“The initials intertwined. Grandmother’s hair a tarnished silver with a halo of lantern light. Something whispering like dry hands rubbing. Gold gleaming and running and sliding and flashing when she turned pages in a thick, old book. A book whose cover was an etched gold plate studded with gems. A book whose marker was a piece of uncanny cloth woven by a sorceress long dead. It looked just like the scarf . . .” Serena tilted her head up and saw Erik watching her with eyes like hammered gold. “A dream. That’s all. Just a dream.”
“The cloth isn’t a dream,” Erik said.
“What cloth?” Dana asked.
Sighing, Serena reached beneath her hair. The cloth, as it often did, had somehow wound itself securely around her neck. Not tightly. Just not so loose that it got in the way. “I couldn’t bear to leave the scarf behind once I’d touched it,” she said, unwinding the old cloth from around her neck, “so I’m telling myself it looks better for being worn.”
Erik glanced at the cloth and smiled at the complex play of color, texture, and design. The fabric was radiant, almost incandescent, as though it brimmed with life. “If it looked any better, it would glow in the dark.” He held out his hand. “May I?”
She draped the textile over his hand, but didn’t completely let go of it herself. “You’re right. It looks richer now than it did before I wore it.”
“Maybe it’s like vellum. Maybe it needs to be touched to retain its highest gloss.” He stroked the fabric with his fingertips, then rubbed it against his cheek. If he noticed that Serena hadn’t let go of the scarf, he didn’t say anything. “Incredible texture. Soft but not filmy, solid but not harsh, velvety but with no direction to the nap.”
And it had never felt better than last night, wrapped around both of them like a vibrant colored shadow, caressing their naked skin. But there was no need to talk about that. Like the lovemaking itself, it was private.
He spread the cloth over his palm and admired the ripple of light across the unusual surface. “Like holding a rainbow.”
Dana and Niall looked at each other. Neither of them saw anything particularly spectacular in the piece of fabric Erik was admiring. It was interesting, but hardly deserved the reverence in his words and expression.
Niall leaned closer, started to pick up the fabric, and promptly dropped it. “Don’t know what you’re raving about, boyo. Feels like scratchy English tweed to me. About as flashy, too.”
At first Erik thought the other man was kidding. Then he realized that Niall was quite serious. Erik held the cloth out to Dana. After a slight, reluctant tug, Serena let go.
“What about you?” Erik asked Dana.
She picked up an edge of the fabric, ran it between her fingers, and said, “I’m with Niall. Factoid?”
“From here it looks like a piece of burlap.”
Serena looked at Dana and Niall, then at Erik. “I don’t get it.”
“ ‘ . . . the cloth a guardian stronger than armor and a lure to just one man. Uncanny cloth woven by the sorceress Serena of Silverfells,’ “ Erik quoted softly.
“Is that from the Book of the Learned?” Serena asked.
“The book, Erik the Learned’s memory, a dream.” Erik’s mouth twisted into a wry line. “I’m not sure it matters. Nearly a thousand years ago this was woven by Serena of Silverfells.” He laid the cloth over Serena’s hands but didn’t let go of it himself. “Now it belongs to another Serena, also a weaver. And so does the Book of the Learned. All she has to do is remember.”
Unease rippled over her like a cool breath. He was so certain, his eyes so clear, as deep as time, waiting . . .
Her fingers clenched in the fey cloth. “I can’t remember what I never knew!”
“You will.”
Her chin tilted. “You lost me on that last one.”
“Then you’ll just have to trust me, won’t you?”
She bit the inside of her lip, then realized that they both were holding the ancient, extraordinary cloth, their fingers touching, overlapping, locking together. Slowly she let out a long breath that was almost a sigh of surrender. “I don’t have much choice, do I?”
“You always have a choice,” Erik said roughly. “That’s what scares the hell out of me. If you choose wrong, you die.”
Chapter 61
LOS ANGELES
LATE SATURDAY NIGHT
Cleary Warrick Montclair paced one of the Retreat’s spacious suites and looked at her watch.
“Shit,” she hissed between her teeth.
“What?” Garrison asked.
“It’s too late to talk to them tonight.”
Her son sighed. “Then relax, Cleary,” he said patiently. He had learned at a young age that she preferred to be called that name rather than the more generic “mother,” especially when she was stressed and impatient. Lately, that had been one hundred percent of the time.
“How can I relax when Daddy is so upset?” Abruptly she realized she was almost shouting. She took a slow breath. “Where’s Paul?”
“Through the connecting door, like always,” Garrison muttered, but not loud enough that his mother could hear. If she wanted to pretend she was the virgin Sister Cleary, it was no skin off his butt. At least Paul took some of the hysterical edges off Cleary. Garrison supposed that was a good enough reason to tolerate the older man, even though Paul often acted like he was in charge. Yet Garrison admired Paul as much as he resented his unswerving
business sense. Personalities never made Paul lose his temper. “Want me to get him?”
“Yes.”
Garrison made a show of going out the hall door, walking down forty feet to the left, and knocking on the door of the room next to Cleary’s. The door opened quickly. Paul looked surprisingly fit and youthful in sweatshirt and jeans.
“Is something wrong?” he asked Garrison.
“Cleary is upset. She wants you.”
Impatience flitted across Paul’s face. Then he went back into his room, picked up his key card, and stepped into the hall.
Cleary was waiting by the door. She opened it before Paul could knock. “You’ve got to do something! Daddy can’t take much more of this waiting and the negotiations with the other houses have stalled and we’re going to lose everything unless we get going but they’re not back in their rooms and our man in the lobby hasn’t seen them and—”
As soon as Paul stepped into the suite, the hall door shut abruptly in Garrison’s face. He looked from the blank door to his empty highball glass and decided that another drink was just what the doctor ordered. In his own room. There weren’t any women in the lobby bar that were worth the effort to screw.
As far as he was concerned, the only good news of the day was that his dear sweet granddaddy had refused to leave Palm Desert. For that, Garrison was very grateful; if he had been forced to put up with Warrick on top of flying out from Manhattan to be at his mother’s beck and call, he would have undoubtedly killed someone.
As he stalked down the hall, Garrison wondered how much Serena Charters was going to cost the House of Warrick before she got what she wanted.
Or better yet, what she deserved.
Chapter 62
The Retreat’s ventilation system was so efficient that only a trace of fresh-paint smell made it into the two-bedroom suite Erik and Serena shared. They didn’t get a chance to enjoy the privacy. No sooner did they walk over the threshold into the room than Lapstrake stepped out from behind the door and shut it.
“Hello, Ian,” Erik said. “Have you met Serena?”
“No.” Lapstrake smiled down at the tousled redhead who had the kind of sultry eyes that set a man to dreaming. “Hi, Serena. I’m Ian.”
“Good-bye,” Erik said to Lapstrake, opening the door before Serena could say anything. “Niall wants to talk to you.”
“You sure?” Lapstrake asked, looking over his shoulder at Serena.
“Yeah.” With an ungentle nudge, Erik got Lapstrake out the door, shut it, and threw the dead bolt.
She raked hair back from her face. “That was remarkably rude.”
“He’s too handsome by half.”
“Is he?” She yawned. “I didn’t notice.”
“Yeah? What color were his eyes?”
“Hmmm. Let’s see. I’ve got a fifty-fifty chance on this one. Light?”
“Dark.” Erik looked at her oddly. “You really didn’t notice, did you?”
“One handsome blond is all I can handle at a time.”
“Ian is dark-haired.”
“Gosh, you know him so well. Maybe I’m the one who should be jealous.”
Erik laughed out loud in surprise. Then he tugged her into his arms and simply held her. “You’re good for me,” he said softly. “After tonight, I wasn’t sure I’d be really laughing anytime soon.”
Her arms tightened and her heart turned over as she remembered him running back toward Bert’s kitchen while fire rained down all around.
“You could have been killed,” she said huskily, kissing his warm, bare skin beneath Niall’s jacket. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
His breath hesitated, thickened. He pulled her closer and buried his face against her neck. The soft scarf caressed his lips before he nosed it aside to taste the tantalizing skin beneath. “Getting better every second.”
She pulled away and looked at him. “I meant the fire. Are you burned anywhere?”
“Yeah. It’s terrible. Wanna see?”
She laughed at his rakish expression. Then she forgot to breathe as his mouth closed over hers. He tasted of hunger and time, darkness and need. Despite the unanswered questions between them, everything female in her responded. Whatever happened in the future, at the moment it was enough that they both were together now, both alive.
“Serena?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Oh, yes.”
It was the last coherent word either one of them said for a long time as they rediscovered how well they fit together, how deep, how right. The fire they found together was the fire of the phoenix, healing rather than murderous, generous rather than deadly.
When she finally lay more asleep than awake, smiling, her lips against the slow beat of his pulse, he gently eased his wrist free of the clinging scarf. Slowly, trying not to wake her, he slipped from her and went to the heavily draped window. His laptop computer on the bedside table gave enough light for him to avoid furniture.
One of Serena’s pages took up the whole screen. The background of gold foil on the page shimmered. The colors applied to the complexly intertwined initials shone like intricate gems.
None of the beautiful light was enough to soften the curve of his lips as he stood naked by the bedroom window and nudged the drape aside just enough to allow him a one-eyed view of the world.
“That’s not a very nice smile,” she said lazily from the bed. Under the sheet she was as naked as he was, except for the scarf, which had ended up wound around one of her wrists. And his, too, now that she thought about it.
He let the curtain fall back the bare half inch he had opened it. Turning, he came back to the bed. The hard line of his mouth shifted into a true smile as he caught the red-gold shimmer of Serena’s hair against the pale wood of the headboard. He lifted the covers, inhaled the heady scent of Serena and intimacy, and slid in beside her.
“It just started to rain,” he said quietly. “Heller is going to be cold, damp, and pissed off sleeping outside in his baby pickup. I, on the other hand, am going to be warm, comfortable, and very satisfied in here with you.”
She wasn’t nearly as amused as he was. The idea of being followed just wasn’t something she could smile over, even a smile as nasty as his had been. “Where do you suppose Wallace is?”
“Nursing a headache.” And, if God was kind, some broken bones in his hand.
But Erik didn’t say anything aloud about his hope. Despite Serena’s willingness to use his gun when they were threatened, she had a softer heart than he did. It must have been her mother’s contribution to the genetic mix. From everything he had found out, it sure hadn’t been her grandmother’s.
He cuddled Serena against him, savoring the feel of her body while it fitted to him as easily as though they had always been lovers. “You have any more flashes about designs or gold covers set with gems or anything else about the Book of the Learned?” he asked.
She put her arms around him, enjoying the strength and resilience of his shoulders. Then she sighed. Flashes were a good description of what those memories were like . . . sudden lightning against the dark backdrop of forgotten years.
“It was so long ago.” Hearing her own words, she almost smiled. “In kid terms, anyway. For me, the years between one and five are a lifetime lived by someone else, someone I don’t really know. Five to ten isn’t much better. Ten to fifteen is a blur, sixteen to twenty is somewhat better, and I’m prepared to discuss intelligently the years between twenty-one and today.”
“When did you move out of the cabin?”
“On my eighteenth birthday. G’mom encouraged me. She said I never would amount to anything if I hung around the cabin waiting for her to die.”
He whistled silently. “Not your average loving granny.”
“She was a realist who didn’t have much patience with people who couldn’t pull up their socks and get on with life. She might have been short on hugs, but she didn’t abuse me. Never so much as raised her voice. She did her duty. Always.”
He kissed the subdued fire of Serena’s hair as he said, “And it was always a duty, never a pleasure.”
“Her only pleasure was in weaving and . . .” Serena’s voice died as a ghostly lightning flickered against the lost years of childhood.
“And?” Erik asked quietly.
“Reading, I think.”
“Did she have a lot of books?”
“No. None.”
“Yet you remember her reading?”
“Yes.”
Erik waited. He knew memory could be elusive and yet as solid as the San Jacinto Mountains rising out of the desert. When Serena didn’t say anything more, he nuzzled her hair and said quietly, “Can you describe the memory?”
She let out a long, sighing breath. “I woke up and saw her face lit by lantern light. She was looking down at the table and smiling. That’s why I thought I was dreaming. She never smiled in daylight, except sometimes when she was weaving. But she wasn’t weaving. She was just sitting. That was odd, too. Her hands were never still. Weaving, sewing, drawing water from the well, tanning rabbit skins for a downscale trading post in Palm Springs that sold junk to tourists . . . she was always busy at some task or another, even at night.”
He made a low sound of surprise. With every word Serena portrayed a lifestyle that could have existed one hundred years before, or two hundred, or a thousand; lifetimes when night was relieved only by fire.
“What was she looking at when she smiled?” he asked. “What was on the table in front of her?”
“Something beautiful. Something that was like a ripple of light whenever she . . .” Serena’s voice died.
“Turned a page?” he suggested.
She closed her eyes. It didn’t help. Memories of clots of fire exploding and Bert screaming poured through her like molten glass. “I don’t know. I can’t see it.” She drew a steadying breath. “But that must be it. Or am I simply manufacturing something to fill a gap in memory and none of it is true?”
Moving Target Page 33
