Amarillo spotted three of his men converging on them and gave them a sign that had them disappearing into the shadows. Then he saw Peter and motioned him over. He put his hand on the young man’s shoulder. “I have a very important job that I need you to do for me, and the job calls for the utmost discretion. Can I depend on you for this?”
“Yes, sir!"
“Good. Now, listen very carefully. The box you gave Miss DiFrenza exploded—”
“Oh, no!”
Amarillo’s hand tightened on his shoulder. “It’s all right. She wasn’t hurt. But I want you to get one other person, a friend of yours you can trust, and comb this area”—a sweep of his hand included the veranda and the grounds in front of it—“for pieces of the clock and any other thing that looks odd or out of place. Can you do that?”
Peter nodded solemnly. “Yes, sir. I won’t let you down.”
“I knew I could depend on you.” He turned to Angelica, slid his arm around her, and began walking with her back into the house. “How does a hot bath sound?”
She tilted her head to his shoulder. “With or without you?”
“Without this time. I want to come back down here, but first I want to make sure you're all right.”
“Oh, I’m fine.”
“Don't lie to me, Angelica,” he said gently. “I know your legs must be about to give way on you.”
Her laugh was shaky. “How did you get so smart?”
“I fell in love with you.”
Outwardly she smiled; inwardly she agonized. Why did she keep hearing the explosion over and over in her mind? She would like to think that under the circumstances it was a normal thing to happen. But she was very much afraid it was another sign of her diminishing sanity.
Amarillo closed and locked Angelica’s door and nodded to the man standing just outside it. “I shouldn’t be gone long. But until I get back, no one is to be let in unless I okay it. And if for some reason that I can’t think of Angelica leaves the room, follow her, but try not to be obvious.”
The man grimaced. “Blending into the woodwork is going to be pretty hard to do, seeing as how I’m the only other person on this floor at the moment.”
He lightly slapped the man’s arm. “You’re one of the best. That’s why I sent for you.”
Too impatient to wait for the private elevator, Amarillo headed for the back stairway.
As he made short work of the four flights of stairs, he reflected that he had tried hard to respect Angelica’s wishes and not assign bodyguards to her, but in the end, protecting her life had come first. This was the first time he had asked one of the men specifically to watch her. But even if she never spoke to him again because of it, he had had no choice. As much as he had loved his wife, he had survived her death. He wouldn’t be able to survive Angelica’s.
He exited a side door of the house, his intent to find out if one of his men who had been outside at the time of the explosion might have seen someone watching Angelica as she had sat on the veranda. He was sure that whoever had sent her the clock would have wanted to see the results.
Out of the corner of his eye he sensed movement. He turned and saw William Breckinridge walking fast toward the parking area. Frowning, Amarillo glanced at his watch. It was very near the time when the women would be wanting the jewelry they had chosen to wear for the evening. His eyes narrowed, and he set out after the man.
“Breckinridge! Hold up!”
The jeweler whirled around, startled and wary. Studying him, Amarillo thought Breckinridge’s expression resembled that of a wild animal who had just realized he’s in danger. But Breckinridge wasn’t looking down the barrel of a high-powered rifle as a wild animal might. So why was he so wary?
“Where are you going?” Amarillo asked, walking up to him.
An intended nonchalant gesture was hampered by the fact that he carried a suitcase. “Nowhere. Just to my car.”
“You wouldn’t by any chance be leaving, would you?”
“No, no. I was just going to put my suitcase in my car so that I would be ready to leave first thing in the morning.”
“That’s very efficient. I wonder why I’m bothered? Maybe because I don't think a three-day visit requires that much organization, suitcase-wise. Maybe because I have a strange feeling you’re leaving now.”
“Now? Oh, no." He shook his head vehemently. “No, no."
“Good. Then I'll stay here while you put your suitcase in the car, and then we'll go back to your room together. I’d like to have a look at the jewelry."
“I assure you that’s not necessary. The jewelry is completely safe.”
Amarillo smiled thinly. “Then it will all be there, won’t it?”
Angelica walked across the room to the ringing phone, the silk of her black ballgown rustling, a cloud of perfume following her. For a moment her hand hovered over the phone, then she chided herself. She hadn’t received one of those weird phone calls in days. She had just had a bomb delivered to her, that was all. “Hello?"
“Hi,” Amarillo said. “What took you so long? Were you still in the bath?”
“No. I decided I wasn’t in the mood for a long soak. In fact, I’m already dressed."
“Good, because I'd like you to come down to William Breckinridge’s room.”
“Why? Is there something wrong?” Her hand flew to her heart. “Oh, my Lord, the jewelry hasn’t been stolen, has it?”
“No, it’s all here. Just come down, will you? Oh, and—now, Angelica, don’t get upset—but you’re going to find a man outside your door. He works for Nico and me. Have him escort you."
She glanced at the door and felt something cold slide down her spine. Someone was out there, and he was gong to hurt her.
She closed her eyes. What was wrong with her? Assigning a man to guard her was a perfectly natural thing for Amarillo to do, and the man wouldn’t hurt her.
“Angelica?”
“All right. I need to get the jewelry I’m going to wear tonight anyway. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
The walk down the hall to the private elevator, and then the elevator ride from the fourth floor to the third, seemed to take forever. Her nerves were strung tighter than they’d ever been before, her stomach was in knots. Someone had actually tried to kill her. She had never had an enemy in her life that she knew of.
She was still hearing the explosion in her mind, and every time she did, it terrified her. And somehow she felt her fear went beyond what had happened that afternoon. In the folds of her black silk gown her hands balled into fists.
Don’t let it get to you, she cautioned herself. You have to quit thinking about it. Just get through the evening ahead.
At William Breckinridge’s room she found another guard. He nodded at her, knocked on the door, then opened it for her. When she walked in, she saw a grim-faced Amarillo standing across the room from an ashen William Breckinridge.
Amarillo motioned his two men inside and pointed toward the stack of jewelry cases on the bed. “Take the cases down by the elevator. There are chairs and a table there.” He paused to draw a list out of his pocket. “This is a list of names of who will be coming for the jewelry, plus what sets they are to have. Be sure to check them off.” The men nodded, took the cases and the list, and left. Amarillo shut the door and turned to Angelica.
“What’s going on?” she asked. “Are you ill, Mr. Breckinridge?”
“He may need hospital care after I get through with him,” Amarillo muttered. “Take a look at this, Angelica..”
He picked up a large black case from the dresser, flipped the lid up, and handed it to her.
Puzzled, she stared down at the necklace, bracelet, and earring set that lay on the black velvet. The necklace was made up of three intricately worked, gold, vinelike tiers, interspersed with large, perfectly matched rubies. The earrings were a waterfall of vines and rubies. The bracelet, a wide gold cuff, was again set with the rubies. The stones were red—like the color in her dream.
/> “I don’t understand,” she said when she could. “This looks like the setting for the Deverell rubies, but these are not the rubies." She sent the jeweler a bewildered glance. “The stones look like red glass.”
“That’s what I thought too,” Amarillo said. “I was waiting for you to confirm it.” He turned to Breckinridge. “Start explaining.”
William Breckinridge sank into a chair and buried his face in his hands. “I never wanted to hurt her. I meant only to scare her.”
“Why?”
Breckinridge lowered his hands to his lap but couldn’t bring himself to meet Amarillo’s hard gaze, so he stared unseeingly across the room. “I knew that at one time she had received a series of crank calls, and that she had been sequestered in her home. Most everyone who worked in the store on an executive level at that time knew. That’s what I wanted to happen this time too.”
“You wanted her sequestered in her home?”
“Yes. That way she would be forced to stay home and not attend the ball.”
Angelica was hearing his words, but their meaning was eluding her. “What are you saying?” She glanced at Amarillo. “What is he saying?"
Amarillo’s lips thinned as he continued watching Breckinridge. “He's saying that he’s the one who made those strange calls to you, sent the note, slashed your dress, and today sent you the lovely clock that was intended to blow you to smithereens."
Her gaze flew back to Breckinridge. “My God!” He looked at her then. “That’s not entirely true, Miss DiFrenza. I mean, I did all those things, but you must know I regarded Elena DIFrenza as a queen. I would never have Intentionally set out to harm you, her great-granddaughter, If there had been any other way.”
“I caught him trying to leave SwanSea,” Amarillo said. “We came back up here and I found the safe combination on the bed. At least he is conscientious when it comes to the jewelry owned by the store."
“I value my job, and I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he said again to Angelica. “In fact, I told the person who made the bomb for me to make it as light as possible. But I knew the red glass I’d put into the necklace to get it past the bankers would never fool you. So I had to keep you from the ball until I could get the real rubies back.”
Angelica’s legs gave out and she sank onto the bed.
“Tell us the whole story,” Amarillo said.
Breckinridge nodded sullenly. “The last couple of years I’ve become heavily involved in investing as a sideline. I did well at it too. I seem to have a certain knack for it. I was really quite good at knowing how far to let a stock climb before I bailed out. But I was making money too slowly for my taste. Then recently I found a stock I thought was the one that would set me up for life. I cashed in everything I had, plus I borrowed money from people who weren’t exactly on the up and up.”
“That’s wasn’t very smart of you,” Amarillo said.
“Oh, I wasn’t worried. I knew I’d be able to pay them back. The stock climbed nicely, as I had predicted. But suddenly the company was found to be guilty of serious environmental hazards and the stock plummeted. I lost everything, plus there was the money I owed. They wanted it back. I had no option but to quickly recoup my losses. I knew I could do it if I could get back into the market, but I had to have money.” His expression was defensive as he glanced at Angelica. “Then you asked me to oversee the cleaning and repair of the Deverell jewelry in the vault. Well, you can see, can't you, that it was a perfect opportunity? Those jewels were never worn. They were just sitting there, gathering dust. I decided to use them to help me. So I took the rubies out and reset the necklace with glass, knowing that should there be a random check by a bank official, he probably wouldn’t know the difference. Not many people do.”
Angelica looked down at the fake jewels. They were very good fakes, only the color was wrong. The color was red, bloodred.
“You and Caitlin Deverell-DiFrenza were the only two people I was concerned about,” he said, continuing, “and I had never seen either of you wear any of the jeweliy from the vault. And the idea of a charity ball suddenly appearing on the social calendar certainly never entered my mind. At any rate, my aim was only to borrow the jewels. I wasn’t stealing them.”
Amarillo cut in. “What did you do with them?”
“I put them with the same people I had borrowed from before. They gave me fifty thousand dollars with the understanding that if I didn’t pay them back the money within ninety days, the rubies would be theirs. ” His face took on a pained expression. “I nearly had the money together. I needed only another couple of weeks. If you had cooperated and stayed home, the rubies would have been back in their settings, I would have repaid my debt, and I would have had my money.”
She barely heard him. She was mesmerized by the red glass stones. And everything was hazing over, red, like it had in her dream.
“Angelica?”
It was Amarillo’s voice. And it was the last thing she heard before eveiything turned dark.
Ten
“Angelica.” Amarillo stared down at her, the lines of his face deepened by worry. “Angelica honey, wake up.”
Hearing him, she found his voice compelling. Her eyelids fluttered, then rose.
Relief hit him with such force, he felt weakened. “Don’t move, sweetheart. I’ve called for the doctor.”
She ran her tongue around her lips, moistening them. “Where am I?”
“I carried you back to your room. You’re lying on your bed."
“Breckinridge?”
His tone took on an edge. “My men are watching him until the police arrive. You have nothing more to fear from him. I’m going to make it my personal goal to see that the United States justice system gives him everything he deserves. It’s all over.”
If only that were true, she thought. But the color red— She heard a knock on the door.
“That’s probably the doctor,” he said, rising from the bed and striding toward the door. “Send him away.”
He stopped halfway between the bed and the door.“No way, Angelica.”
Her ballgown whispered and rustled as she struggled to sit up. “Send him away. I’m not up to being poked and prodded. There’s nothing wrong with me that he can fix.”
“It wouldn’t hurt to let him look you over. Why are you being so stubborn?”
“Because I know what’s wrong with me.”
His face hardened. “Then you’ve got a choice, sweetheart. Ill send him away if as soon as I do you 11 tell me what the hell is the matter.”
“Amarillo—”
“Either that or the doctor is coming in.” Reluctantly she nodded and saw him open the door and say to someone she couldn’t see, “I appreciate your coming, but she’s much better and won’t be needing you to look at her after all. I’m sorry if we’ve inconvenienced you.”
“Not at all,” she heard the doctor say. “Don’t hesitate to call if you need me.”
Amarillo nodded and closed the door again. “Okay, Angelica,” he said, coming back to her side, “it’s time you and I had a talk. You scared me to death by passing out like you did, and if you know what’s wrong, I want you to tell me.”
She glanced around the room. “Where is the Deverell jewelry?”
“On the table to your left.”
She reached for the large case, and he came down on the bed so that he was facing her.
“Okay, Angelica, tell me what happened back in Breckinridge’s room. Do you know why you passed out?”
It had been the red stones, she thought, gazing down at the top of the black velvet case she held in her hands. They had caused the red haze. The red haze just like in the dream. But that didn’t make sense. It didn’t, that is, unless she was, at last, certifiably crazy.
“Had you gone too long without eating?” he was saying. “What was it?”
“Amarillo, this is very hard for me to talk about. ”
Very gently he clasped her arms. “I’ve never pushed you, but I’m not goin
g to let the matter drop this time. I’m not angry, but I want to know.” He paused. "Why are you staring at the jewelry case? You’re not worried about the real rubies, are you? I’ve already dispatched several of my men to an address I got from Breckinridge. We'll have them back before the night is over.”
“That’s good.”
“Angelica, talk to me. Now. I love you, but I won’t be shut out any longer. You talk to me now, or I’m calling the doctor back, and that’s a promise.”
She raised her gaze to his face. She couldn’t doubt the love she saw there. Or the frustration, or the determination. “It’s just that I don’t know, Amarillo. The necklace ... the red glass stones ... I saw blood, and then they made this haze appear.”
She was scaring him again, this time for an entirely different reason. But he couldn’t let her see the fear he felt for her. He drew a slow, deep breath. “Okay, let’s take one thing at a time. Where was the blood?”
“I—it was on the necklace.” She shook her head. “No, that can’t be.”
“Lift the lid and look at the necklace.”
“No—” She stopped herself in mid-objection. He was right. If she looked at the necklace again, maybe she could figure out what it was that was making her lose her mind. She had to be brave and look.
Slowly, carefully, she lifted the lid and gazed down at the three pieces of jewelry. Even with the fake stones in them, the intricate workmanship of the settings made each piece beautiful in its own way. But it was the necklace that drew her interest.
“Tell me what you see,” Amarillo said, watching her closely.
Through the open French doors she heard the orchestra strike up downstairs. “Music,” she said. “You see music?”
“No, I hear music. There’s a party.” Her gaze was fixed intently on the necklace so she didn’t see him frown. “And I see red . . . red.”
“You mean the stones? You see the red stones?” “No. I see blood. She’s wearing blood around her neck.”
Amarillo stilled. “Who, Angelica? Who’s wearing blood around her neck?”
Jeopardy Page 13
