psychic crystal 03 - killer cruise

by Marilyn Baron

  “He was twice your age, married, and he took advantage of you.” Will removed one of his hands from Juliette’s and flexed his fist. “And many other women, from what I’ve read. The bastard got what he deserved. Carter Coulter was evil, just as the count of that castle was evil and the man in the gallery, the man on this ship, is evil.”

  Juliette started to shake, and Will held her close.

  “You’re not alone anymore, and you’re not that same young, naïve girl.” Will placed a kiss on Juliette’s forehead. “You have Kate and Jack, and now you have me. And you are a strong woman, Juliette. I’m glad you feel like you can confide in me, that you can trust me.”

  Juliette looked at Will hopefully, and the wall she’d erected between them began to crumble.

  “I’ve been fooled by love before,” Juliette said. Maybe this time will be different.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The resemblance was uncanny. Ilona was the picture of her mother, Marika. A picture Gedeon had stared at and salivated over for the past two decades. A picture of the woman he had yearned for ever since Marika’s beautiful soul had deserted him, fled this world and left him miserable and alone in his castle. The castle, massive and rich, was situated on a large, placid lake. There were a hundred castles and ruins in Hungary. His was one of the most magnificent. Built on a rocky hill near the eastern border of Transylvania, the residence was difficult to get to but offered a panoramic view of the region. Inside, the Gothic-Renaissance structure boasted a tower, wine cellars, and an underground prison.

  In his opinion, the painting he had commissioned of her mother was more mystifying than the Mona Lisa, more compelling than the Girl with a Pearl Earring. Once you saw it, you couldn’t look away. It was entrancing. She was entrancing. The painting didn’t do her justice. And this girl must be her daughter. Had to be. So strange to see Ilona roaming this far from home.

  Marika. Dark and beautiful, just like this woman below him on the Lido deck. Marika’s daughter. All grown up. And who was the beauty that she so resembled, asleep in the next lounge chair?

  His eyes bored into Ilona’s soul, observing her, studying her face from his dark hiding place behind a post on the deck above. A face he thought he’d never see again. Gedeon’s pulse raced. Although he was out of the sun, sweat glistened on his brow. He throbbed under his pants.

  Marika’s daughter had run away. Vanished in the night. He had been furious. He’d wanted her to join in the wedding festivities. He had special plans for her. He had punished Marika mercilessly to find out where she had gone, but Marika wouldn’t talk.

  Then he had healed her and brought in a famous Hungarian artist to paint her—a full portrait—that immortalized her but barely captured her magic—her beauty, fire, and power. He would sit for hours pining away before the picture, while the flesh-and-blood subject rotted away in chains in his castle’s dank prison. Every time he’d summoned her, she’d refused him. When she was completely submissive, starving, with no fight left, he would free her, have her brought to his bed, and when he was done with her, have her returned to the dungeon in chains. Until one day, when his slap to awaken her brought no response. She had taken her last traitorous breath. His beloved Marika—his butterfly—was dead. Gone from him forever—until now.

  The screams that echoed off the castle walls that night after Marika died bled through the limestone. How dare she escape from him? He had left her body there to rot, in the billowing wedding gown, until she was nothing but bones. Where was her power and glory now?

  So it became more important than ever to find her daughter, Ilona, who would be offered up to him in her place, to Gedeon, whose name meant Warrior, Devastater. He had hungered for her that night Marika’s spirit left this earth. He couldn’t wait to taste Ilona and have her in his bed. He had sent out messengers all over Europe to find her. The room at the castle had been carefully prepared. Candles, wine, flowers, everything to please his new bride-to-be. He had watched her from his window for months while he was entertaining Marika. She was young and ripe, only fifteen, but already so beautiful and womanly. And he would be the first to deflower her.

  When he’d placed Marika in the dungeon he had sent for Ilona, and when his guards reported that Ilona had disappeared, escaped with a man in a wagon in the middle of the night like a thief, he had raged against fate and destroyed the bedroom. Ripped the gold-threaded white sheets to tatters, smashed the heavy silver candlesticks to the floor, swept the sweetmeats and other delicacies across the table with a broad sweep of his hands. Broke against the wall the bottle of the best sparkling wine, a sweet aphrodisiac he’d ordered to drug her and put her in the mood, and backhanded the messenger.

  “There will be other girls,” his chief advisor had assured him. “Even more desirable. She was only a gypsy, like her mother, a plaything to be used, nothing of consequence, not worthy of a man of your position.”

  Gedeon rose up to his full height and bellowed, “I will not be denied. She was promised to me. She was mine. I want her back. I want no other man to have her.”

  “Too bad you can’t ask your whore where her daughter went. I could bring her to you, but she’s a little ripe.”

  Gedeon slapped the arrogant man across his face like an angry bear.

  “Don’t touch Marika. She was mine to pleasure and to punish as I wished.”

  And, for his insolence, Gedeon gutted him where he stood and took great pleasure in watching him bleed out.

  Drunk, angry, and eager for vengeance, Gedeon roamed the hills that night, taking by force what he felt should have been provided as his due. Mothers in the town learned to lock up their daughters for their own protection when Gedeon was on his rampage.

  Gedeon suffered a hereditary condition. He was allergic to sunlight. He couldn’t travel during the day. So as he roamed, restless, through the cobblestone streets of the town in darkness, the locals began to fear the dreaded night prowler.

  When he returned, inebriated, he would make his way cautiously down to the castle dungeon where the paintings were stored. One evening, in an amorous mood, he selected a large canvas, a particularly sensual depiction of a mythological scene by Titian, commissioned by some corrupt, womanizing cardinal or another back in the 1500s. It was one of the painter’s erotic mythologies of a beautiful maiden reclining in the nude, with the face of the cardinal’s mistress, about to receive one of the gods. Piety was overrated in the sixteenth century.

  Enthralled, he propped it up against a stack of similar paintings. Spent from carousing all night, he collapsed onto a huge chair, looked over at Marika’s body, still clothed in her bridal gown, hanging in chains, and fell into a slumberous trance of ecstasy. He imagined the reclining nude was Marika’s body and the striking face of the courtesan was Marika’s face. And that he could still taste and touch her beautiful curves and crevasses. He had confined her. She had resisted. And, in the end, Gedeon had triumphed. Now she was his for all eternity.

  But what good does it do to survive multiple lifetimes with no one by your side? All his riches couldn’t compensate for the devastating tsunami of loneliness. Loneliness that could only be eased with Marika, his soulmate. He and Marika were destined to be together. And now that she was gone, Ilona must be his consolation. But even with all his wealth and power he couldn’t find Ilona. Until now.

  Gedeon had rubbed his beard thoughtfully and slowly licked his lips. The painting was splendid—extraordinary, really. Female nudity and erotic subject matter were Titian’s specialties, particular themes of his. In the Michelangelos, the nudes were draped with white sheets for propriety’s sake. He much preferred the Titians that had been commissioned by monarchs and hidden in churches or personal collections across Europe but were now his. He was more powerful than any pope or king. Their royal bones were buried in vaults somewhere, while Gedeon was still flourishing.

  Selling the paintings in his extensive collection, one canvas at time, provided Gedeon with a steady income. He was already rich
when German forces occupied Hungary during World War II and appropriated his castle. When the last of the Fascist Arrow Cross Party vacated the country in 1945, they left in haste, with the vengeful Russians hot on their trail, leaving thousands of framed and unframed artworks, paintings and tapestries stolen from the homes of fleeing or captured Jews, a priceless collection, a treasure trove of masterpieces of incalculable worth that they had crated and stored in the castle’s cellar. His castle was one of many Nazi storage depots scattered throughout Europe.

  Masterpieces by Monet, van Gogh, Cézanne, Picasso, Matisse, Renoir, and Chagall, and a collection of forbidden or so-called degenerate art by controversial modern artists, even Impressionists and Old Masters. Treasures thought to be lost forever. Treasures that remained out of sight for decades. Treasures that had increased in value.

  For years, the paintings stayed hidden, until the world had forgotten them. Gedeon had hired trusted intermediaries, releasing some works periodically to private collectors, public museums, gallery owners, and dealers, timed to get the maximum profit. The looted Nazi art served as an unlimited source of his wealth for decades, and the fortune offered protection from the Soviets or whatever current force was in power. And he had kept meticulous records in his diary regarding where the paintings were sold, to whom, and for what amount. He also kept the Nazi records of where the paintings and other works of art had come from. It never hurt to have insurance.

  Sometimes Gedeon himself traveled the continent and abroad, selling the paintings to the highest bidder, falsifying provenances, enriching his coffers. In all that time, he had never found another woman he could love. Never found another woman like Marika. Never stopped wanting Ilona to take her place.

  But now, here she was. Fate had delivered Ilona to him. He could have her, and he would have her. Soon. He and Ilona were kindred spirits. Soulmates. They had a history. Of course, she would have to be punished for running away. But the naughty child had grown to be a desirable woman, very much like her mother in form and feature.

  He wouldn’t make the same mistake he’d made with Marika. Leaving her in chains to rot. He would bring Ilona back to the castle. In chains, yes, at first, to break her spirit. But if she behaved, and submitted to him, he would forgive her, and then they could live together forever. But first, there was the matter of the paintings. He would deliver them to the buyer in Bermuda. He would have to delay his plans to deliver the rest of the artwork to the collectors in the States. First, he would deal with Ilona. He was eager to bring her back to the castle, where she belonged. Where they belonged. It was her home.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Juliette and Kate sat on chairs out on the balcony of Kate’s suite, watching the waves created by the ship’s wake. Juliette had hardly slept last night. Dark restless thoughts of the past had invaded her mind. No wonder she was exhausted.

  Kate closed the bestseller she was reading, marked her place, and balanced the book on her lap.

  “The view is amazing, but I feel like a prisoner,” lamented Kate. “We’re trapped on this ship, and Jack and Will won’t let us out of their sight.”

  “How do you think I feel, being trapped in my cabin with the oversexed police chief? He won’t stop touching me. I know this togetherness is for our own protection, but any minute now I’m going to jump out of my skin.”

  “I thought he might grow on you, being in such close quarters.”

  “Too close. Of course they gave us a king-sized bed, since we’re on our ‘honeymoon.’ That is more than awkward. And he is plying me with bottles of wine in our cabin, compliments of the captain. It’s not that I don’t find him attractive. I find him too attractive. But he tries to take liberties every chance he gets.”

  “Jack told me he finds you irresistible. That it was a curse. What did he mean by that?”

  “Oh, nothing. Just men talking.”

  “They think we’re helpless,” objected Kate, who held on to her hat to keep it from blowing away in the breeze.

  “We’re far from it,” Juliette stated. “In fact, if we wanted to, we could easily get away from them.”

  “What do you have in mind, jumping overboard?”

  “Nothing that drastic. A simple slipaway spell. We’d be gone and they’d never even realize it.”

  “Can you really do that?”

  “Yes, and so can you.”

  “It won’t hurt them, will it? I’m kind of attached to my husband.”

  “I wish I weren’t attached to mine, but no, it’ll knock them out for a while, but they won’t remember a thing.”

  Juliette reached into her beach bag and brought out a small pouch. From it she took a handful of tiny square crystals resembling sugar cubes. She placed them on top of Kate’s book in a circular pattern and recited a chant, which she asked Kate to repeat. Gathering up the crystals, she opened the glass door into the cabin, walked to the coffeepot, and chirped sweetly, “Would you gentlemen like some coffee?”

  Jack and Will, seated in chairs across from the bed, turned to her eagerly.

  “I’d love some, Juliette,” Jack said.

  “Me too, angel face.”

  Juliette cringed.

  “Coming right up.” Juliette prepared two cups of coffee and slipped a pinch of the crystals into each man’s cup. She brought the cups and saucers over to where Will and Jack were seated.

  “Fair warning,” she said. “It’s pretty strong.”

  “Just like I like it, sugar.” Will swatted her behind.

  Juliette smiled sweetly. “Exactly.”

  Kate followed Juliette into the cabin.

  Jack raised his coffee cup and drank it. Will did the same.

  “Delicious,” Jack said. “Juliette, you make the best coffee. We’ll have to find out the brand and get it at home.”

  “Thank you, Jack. I think everything just tastes better on the open ocean. The sea increases your appetite.”

  Will winked at her. Then his jaw went slack and the empty cup slipped out of his hands and into Juliette’s waiting ones.

  Jack stared at Kate through vacant eyes. He held the cup, but he was barely conscious.

  Juliette removed Jack’s cup and placed the china on the table by the sink.

  Jack’s head lolled listlessly and came to rest on the back of the chair. Will was slumped over.

  “Juliette, are you sure they’re all right?”

  “They’re in la-la land, and when they wake up, we’ll be back. For them, no time will have passed at all. Let’s get out while we have a chance.”

  “How long do we have?”

  “Oh, several hours, at least,” Juliette said. “Let’s make the most of it.”

  Juliette and Kate picked up their handbags and walked out of the room like the two co-conspirators they were. They walked down the hall and got on the elevator.

  “Where to?” Kate asked.

  Juliette pushed the button for the fifth floor. “Back to the scene of the crime.”

  When they arrived at the gallery, yellow crime scene tape still crisscrossed the opening, but Juliette managed to get around it and held the tape up for her daughter.

  “Didn’t you say Jack received a report that all of the paintings we saw were stolen?”

  “Yes, I was right. None of the heists was recent, though, so our thief and probable murderer sat on them for a long time. And he circulated the picture I drew of Wade Randall and didn’t get a hit. We thought maybe the killer was an established art dealer, but that turned out to be a dead end.”

  The women returned to the spot where they had first met “Wade Randall.”

  “I still can’t understand how he got these paintings on board and how he thinks he’s going to offload them. The whole crew is looking for him.”

  “Perhaps he had some help,” Juliette suggested. “Maybe the gallery manager, Pierre Dumas, is cooperating with our thief. I didn’t like the look of him.”

  “That makes perfect sense,” Kate reasoned. “Or it could
be one of the crew. Wade could have bribed someone to help him. The captain is checking the crew and passenger manifests. Pierre Dumas claims there were no paintings hidden behind the paintings in the frames, but I think we need to recheck them ourselves, right now.”

  “I wouldn’t have any idea how to do that,” Juliette said.

  “I do. In the gallery where I used to work, we were called on to do everything from framing to sales.”

  Kate began the tedious process of checking, painting by painting, to see if anyone had tampered with the frames. “I have a feeling we’re overlooking the obvious. That the answer is right in front of us.”

  “Aren’t we docking in Bermuda tomorrow?” Juliette wondered.

  “Yes, and you know the killer will be disembarking, too. He won’t want to stay on the ship. We’re on the island for two nights. If he does decide to stay on the ship after it leaves Bermuda, then he’ll offload the paintings on the island and have them mailed somewhere. Jack has alerted the police in Bermuda. I don’t see how this man can get away.”

  “He’ll only become more dangerous and enraged if he’s cornered, like a wild animal that’s trapped,” Juliette predicted. “We really shouldn’t be here alone. No one knows we’re here, and he could return at any moment.”

  “I’m not finished checking these canvases,” Kate said, working furiously, moving from painting to painting. “So far, I don’t see anything out of the ordinary.”

  “I doubt he left something so valuable here,” Juliette said. “Not at a crime scene. But he may be planning to come back during the auction.”

  “That would be very risky.”

  “I have known many evil men, and to them, risk is thrilling, part of the game.”

  Juliette checked her watch. “It’s been several hours. We’d better be getting back to the cabin. Jack and Will may be waking up soon.”