The Novels of Nora Roberts, Volume 2

by Nora Roberts

  They looked happy, she thought. Unified, and not at all stiff the way people often appeared in posed photos. She found herself lingering over them, studying another of Ryan kissing the hand of his sister, who wore a princess-in-a-fairy-tale wedding gown, and the glow that matched it.

  Envy moved through her before she could stop it. There were no sentimental photographs arranged in her home to capture family moments.

  She wished, foolishly, that she could slide into one of those photographs, snuggle under one of those casually welcoming arms and feel what they felt.

  Feel love.

  She shook the thought off, turned determinedly away from the shelves. It wasn’t the time to speculate on why the Boldari family was so warm, and her own so cold. She needed to find Ryan and give him a piece of her mind while her annoyance was still fresh.

  She headed downstairs, biting her tongue to keep from calling his name. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. He wasn’t in the living room, nor in the somewhat hedonistic den with its big screen TV, complicated stereo, and full-sized pinball machine—appropriately titled “Cops and Robbers.”

  She imagined he thought that ironic.

  Nor was he in the kitchen. But there was a half-pot of coffee left on warm.

  He wasn’t in the apartment at all.

  She snatched up the phone with some wild idea of calling Andrew and telling him everything. There was no dial tone. Cursing viciously, she dashed back out into the living room and jabbed the button on the elevator. It didn’t make a sound. Snarling, she turned to the door, found it locked.

  Eyes narrowed, she flicked on the intercom and heard nothing but static.

  The son of a bitch had unlocked the bedroom, but he’d simply expanded the perimeters of her cage.

  It was after one before she heard the quiet hum of the elevator. She hadn’t whiled away the morning. She’d taken the opportunity to go over every inch of his living quarters. She’d pawed through his closet without guilt. He definitely leaned toward Italian designers. She’d riffled through his drawers. He preferred sexy silk boxers, and shirts and sweaters of natural fibers.

  The desks—bedroom, library, and office—had all been annoyingly locked. She’d wasted quite a bit of time attacking the locks with hairpins. The passwords on his computers had blocked her, the stone terrace off the living room had charmed her, and the caffeine she’d continued to drink as she pried had her system jumping.

  She was more than ready for him when he walked through the elevator door.

  “How dare you lock me in this way. I’m not a prisoner.”

  “Just a precaution.” He set aside the briefcase and shopping bags he carried.

  “What’s next? Handcuffs?”

  “Not until we know each other better. How was your day?”

  “I—”

  “Hate, loathe, and despise me,” he finished as he took off his coat. “Yes, we’ve covered that.” He hung it up neatly. She’d been right, his mother had trained him well. “I had a few errands I had to run. I hope you made yourself at home while I was out.”

  “I’m leaving. I must have been temporarily insane when I thought we could work together.”

  He waited until she was at the base of the stairs. “The Dark Lady is being held in a storeroom at the Bargello until it can be decided where she came from, and who cast her.”

  She stopped, as he’d known she would, and turned slowly back. “How do you know?”

  “It’s my business to know. Now, with or without you, I’m going to Italy and liberating her. I can, with little trouble, find another archeometrist, and will eventually figure out just what happened and why. You walk out, you’re all the way out.”

  “You’ll never get it out of the Bargello.”

  “Oh yes.” His smile was quick and wolfish. “I will. You can have a pass at her once I do, or you can run along back to Maine and wait for your parents to decide you’re not grounded anymore.”

  She let the last comment pass. She supposed it was close enough to the truth. “How will you get it out?”

  “That’s my problem.”

  “If I’m going to agree with this moronic plan, I have to have details.”

  “I’ll fill you in on what you need to know as we go along. That’s the deal. In or out, Dr. Jones. Time’s wasting.”

  It was here, she realized, where she crossed the line, passed the point of no return. He was watching her, waiting, with just enough arrogance in his eyes to scrape at her pride.

  “If you manage to perform a miracle and actually get inside the Bargello, you take nothing but the bronze. It isn’t a shopping spree.”

  “Agreed.”

  “If we do end up in possession of the bronze, I’m in full charge of it.”

  “You’re the scientist,” he added with a smile. She was welcome to the copy, he thought. He wanted the original. “That’s the deal,” he repeated. “In or out?”

  “In.” Her breath exploded out. “God help me.”

  “Good. Now.” He opened the briefcase, tossed items onto the table. “These are for you.”

  She picked up the dark blue book. “This isn’t my passport.”

  “It is now.”

  “This isn’t my name—how did you get this picture?” She stared down at the image of herself. “This is the photo in my passport.”

  “Exactly.”

  “No, my passport. And my driver’s license,” she continued, snatching it up. “You stole my wallet.”

  “Borrowed certain items in your wallet,” he corrected.

  She vibrated. There was no other word for it. “You came in my room while I was sleeping and took my things.”

  “You were restless,” he remembered. “Lots of tossing and turning. Maybe you should try meditation to release some of that tension.”

  “That’s despicable.”

  “No, it was necessary. It would have been despicable if I’d climbed into bed with you. Fun, but despicable.”

  She drew air in through her nose, looked down it. “What have you done with my proper identification?”

  “It’s safe. You won’t need it until we get back. Just playing it on the side of caution, darling. If the cops are snooping around, better that they don’t know you’ve left the country.”

  She tossed the passport down again. “I’m not Abigail O’Connell.”

  “Mrs. Abigail O’Connell—we’re on our second honeymoon. And I think I’ll call you Abby. It’s friendly.”

  “I’m not pretending I’m married to you. I’d rather be married to a sociopath.”

  She was green, after all, he reminded himself. A little patience was in order. “Miranda, we’re traveling together. We’ll share a hotel suite. A married couple isn’t going to raise eyebrows or cause questions to be asked. All this does is keep things simple. For the next several days, I’m Kevin O’Connell, your devoted spouse. I’m a stockbroker, you’re in advertising. We’ve been married for five years, live on the Upper West Side, and we’re considering starting a family.”

  “So now we’re Yuppies.”

  “No one uses that term anymore, but basically yes. I got you a couple of credit cards there.”

  She glanced down at the table. “How did you get this identification?”

  “Contacts,” he said easily.

  She imagined him in a dark, smelly room with an enormous man with a snake tattoo and bad breath who sold forged IDs and assault weapons.

  It was nowhere close to the split-level town house in New Rochelle where Ryan’s accountant cousin—second, once removed—created documents in his basement.

  “It’s illegal to enter a foreign country with false identification.”

  He stared at her for ten full seconds, then roared with laughter. “You’re wonderful. Seriously. Now, I need a detailed description of the bronze. I need to be able to recognize her quickly.”

  She studied him, wondering how anyone could keep up with a man who flipped from hilarity to brisk busines
s in the blink of an eye. “Ninety point four centimeters in height, twenty-four point sixty-eight kilograms in weight, a nude female with the blue-green patina typical of a bronze more than five hundred years old.”

  As she spoke, the image of it flashed brilliantly in her head. “She’s standing on the balls of her feet, her arms lifted—it would be easier if I just sketched it for you.”

  “Great.” He walked over to a cabinet, took a pad and pencil from a drawer. “As precise as you can. I hate to make mistakes.”

  She sat, and with a speed and skill that had his brows lifted, put the image in her mind on paper. The face, that sly and sensuous smile, the seeking, spread fingers lifted high, the fluid arch of the body.

  “Gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous,” he murmured, struck by the power of the image as he leaned over Miranda’s shoulder. “You’re good. Do you paint?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t.” She had to struggle not to jerk her shoulder. His cheek nearly rested against her as she sketched in the last details.

  “You have real talent. Why waste it?”

  “I don’t. A skilled sketch can be very helpful in my work.”

  “A gift for art should give you pleasure in your life.” He took the sketch, studied it another moment. “You’ve got a gift.”

  She set her pencil down and rose. “The drawing’s accurate. If you’re lucky enough to stumble across it, you’ll recognize the bronze.”

  “Luck has very little to do with it.” Idly, he flicked a fingertip down her cheek. “You look a bit like her—the shape of the face, the strong bone structure. It would be interesting to see you with that cagey, self-aware smile on your face. You don’t smile very often, Miranda.”

  “I haven’t had much to smile about lately.”

  “I think we can change that. The car will be here in about an hour—Abby. Take some time and get used to your new name. And if you don’t think you can remember to call me Kevin . . .” He winked at her. “Just call me sweetheart.”

  “I will not.”

  “Oh, one last thing.” He pulled a small jeweler’s box out of his pocket. When he flipped the lid the flash of diamonds made her blink. “By the power invested in me, and so forth,” he said, plucking it out of the box and taking her hand.

  “No.”

  “Don’t be such an idiot. It’s window dressing.”

  It wasn’t possible not to look down and be dazzled when he shoved it on her finger. The wedding band was studded with brilliant square-cut diamonds, four in all, that sparkled like ice. “Some window. I suppose it’s stolen.”

  “You wound me. I’ve got a friend who runs a place in the diamond district. I got it wholesale. I need to pack.”

  She worried the ring on her finger while he started up the stairs. It was absurd, but she wished the ring hadn’t fit quite so perfectly. “Ryan? Can you really do this?”

  He sent her a wink over his shoulder. “Watch me.”

  He knew immediately she’d been into his things. She’d been neat, but not quite neat enough. In any case, she wouldn’t have seen the small telltales he left scattered through his room—the single strand of hair placed over the knobs of his double closet doors, the slim bit of invisible tape over the top of his dresser drawer. It was an old habit, and one he’d never broken even with the high security in his building.

  He only shook his head. She wouldn’t have found anything he hadn’t wanted her to find.

  He opened his closet, pressed a mechanism hidden under a portion of the chair rail, and stepped into his private room. Selecting what he needed didn’t take much time. He’d already thought it through. He would need his picks, the pocket electronics of his trade. The coil of thin, flexible rope, surgical gloves.

  Spirit gum, hair color, a couple of scars, two pairs of glasses. He doubted the job would call for disguises, and if it went correctly, it wouldn’t call for anything but the most basic of tools. Still, he preferred to be prepared for anything.

  These he packed carefully in the false bottom of his suitcase. He added the expected choices a man on a romantic vacation to Italy would take, filling the case and a garment bag.

  In his office he outfitted his own laptop, chose the disks he wanted. He clicked off his mental list as he packed, adding a few items he’d picked up at Spy 2000 downtown and had beefed up himself.

  Satisfied, he locked his current identification in the safe behind the complete volumes of Edgar Allan Poe—the father of the locked-door mystery—and on impulse took out the plain gold band he kept there.

  It had been his grandfather’s wedding ring. His mother had given it to him at the wake two years ago. Though he’d had occasion to wear a wedding ring as cover before, he’d never used this one.

  Without questioning why he wanted to this time, he slipped it on, locked up, and went back for his suitcases.

  The intercom buzzed, announcing the car, as he carried them downstairs. Miranda had already brought her things down. Her suitcases, laptop, and briefcase were stacked neatly. Ryan lifted his brows.

  “I like a woman who knows how to be ready on time. All set?”

  She drew a deep breath. This, she thought, was it. “Let’s get going. I hate to rush at the airport.”

  He smiled at her. “That’s my girl,” he said, and bent down to pick up one of her cases.

  “I can carry my own things.” She pushed his hand away and picked it up herself. “And I’m not your girl.”

  With a shrug he stepped back, waiting until she’d managed to sling straps over her shoulders, heft the cases. “After you, Dr. Jones.”

  It shouldn’t have surprised her that he’d managed to book two first-class seats on ridiculously short notice. Because she jolted every time the flight attendant addressed her as Mrs. O’Connell, Miranda buried herself in the pages of Kafka immediately after takeoff.

  Ryan passed some time with the latest Lawrence Block burglar novel. Then sipped champagne and watched Arnold Schwarzenegger kick big-time ass on his video screen. Miranda drank mineral water and tried to concentrate on a nature documentary.

  Midway over the Atlantic, the restless night caught up with her. Doing her best to ignore her seat companion, she took her seat back down, stretched out, and ordered her brain to sleep.

  She dreamed of Maine, of the cliffs with the sea thrashing below, and a thick gray fog that smothered shapes. The light flicked in a blurry swath, and she used it to guide her toward the lighthouse.

  She was alone, so completely alone.

  And she was afraid, terribly afraid.

  Stumbling, groping, fighting not to let her breath sob out no matter how it burned her lungs. A woman’s laughter, soft and menacing, taunted her so that she ran.

  And running, found herself on the edge of the cliff over a boiling sea.

  When a hand gripped hers, she held on tight. Don’t leave me alone.

  Beside her, Ryan looked down at their joined hands. Hers were white-knuckled even in sleep. What chased her there, he wondered, and what kept her from reaching out?

  He soothed her fingers with his thumb until they relaxed. But he kept her hand in his, finding it curiously comforting as he closed his own eyes and slept.

  sixteen

  “T here’s only one bedroom.” Miranda saw nothing of the lovely suite but the single bedroom with its gracious king-sized bed and elegant white coverlet.

  In the parlor, Ryan opened the double doors and stepped out on an enormous terrace where the air was ripe with spring and the Italian sun shone cheerfully on the soft red rooftops.

  “Check this view. This terrace is one of the reasons I wanted to book this room again. You could live out here.”

  “Good.” She pushed open the doors from the bedroom and stepped out. “Why don’t you plan to do just that?” She would not be charmed by the throat-aching view of the city, nor the cheerful geraniums that lined the boxes just under the stone parapet. Nor the man who leaned over them, l
ooking as though he’d been born to stand in precisely that spot.

  “There’s only one bedroom,” she repeated.

  “We’re married. Which reminds me, how about getting me a beer?”

  “I’m sure there’s a certain kind of woman who finds you irresistibly amusing, Boldari. I don’t happen to be that certain kind.” She stepped up to the rail. “There is only one bed in the only one bedroom.”

  “If you’re shy, we can take turns on the parlor sofa. You first.” He draped an arm over her shoulders and added a friendly squeeze. “Relax, Miranda. Getting you in the sack would be fun, but it’s not my first priority. A view like this makes up for a long plane flight, doesn’t it?”

  “The view isn’t my first priority.”

  “It’s here, might as well appreciate it. There’s a young couple who lives in that flat, there.” He steered her over a bit and pointed to a top-floor window on a soft yellow building just to the left. “They’d work on the rooftop garden on Saturday mornings together. And one night they came out and made love there.”

  “You watched them?”

  “Only until the intent was unmistakable. I’m not a pervert.”

  “The jury’s still out on that one. You’ve been here before, then.”

  “Kevin O’Connell stayed here for a few days last year. Which is why we’re using him again. In a well-run hotel like this, the staff tends to remember guests—more so if they tip well, and Kevin’s a generous soul.”

  “Why were you here as Kevin O’Connell?”

  “A little matter of a reliquary with a bone fragment of Giovanni Battista.”

  “You stole a relic? A relic? John the Baptist’s bone?”

  “A fragment thereof. Hell, pieces of him are scattered all over Italy—especially here, where he’s patron saint.” He couldn’t help himself, he got a huge kick out of her staggered shock. “Very popular guy, old Johnny. Nobody’s going to miss a splinter or two of bone.”

  “I don’t have words,” Miranda murmured.