The Key Trilogy

by Nora Roberts

  He called out, and his voice echoed. On and on, like a rolling wave. There was no one to answer. And yet he knew he wasn’t alone.

  Something walked those halls with him. Lurking just behind. Out of sight, out of reach. Something dark that pushed him on, up the stairs.

  Fear tripped into his heart.

  Doors lined the corridor, but all of them were locked. He tried each one, turning, tugging the knob with fingers gone stiff with cold.

  Whatever stalked him crept closer. He could hear it breathe now, horrible, somehow liquid pulls on the air that merged with his own rapid panting.

  He had to get out, get away. So he began to run, loping through the storm-slashed dark while what pursued him followed, with rapid clicks on the wood like eager claws.

  He burst out onto a parapet, into the storm where lightning speared down and set the stone to smoking. The air burned and froze, and the rain pelted him like shards of glass.

  With nowhere left to run, with fear a cold snake crawling in his belly, he turned to fight.

  But the shadow was so huge, so close. It covered him before he could raise his fists. The cold tore through him, drove him to his knees.

  He felt something ripped from him—wild, unspeakable pain, dull, shocking horror. And knew it was his soul.

  FLYNN woke, shuddering with cold, clammy with the dregs of terror, and with the sun pouring in onto his face.

  Struggling for breath, he sat up. He’d had his share of nightmares, but never one this intense. Never one where he’d actually felt pain.

  Could still feel it, he thought as he gritted his teeth against the sharp stabs in his chest and belly.

  He tried to tell himself it was the combination of pizza and whiskey and late night. But he didn’t believe it.

  As the pain dulled, he slid gingerly out of bed, walked as cautiously as an old man to the bathroom, and turned the shower on hot. He was freezing.

  He reached up to swing open the mirrored medicine cabinet for aspirin and caught a glimpse of his face.

  The pallor of his skin, the glassy edge of shock in his eyes, were bad enough. But they were nothing compared to the rest.

  He was soaking wet. His hair was drenched, his skin beaded with water. Like a man who’d been out in a storm, he thought, and lowered himself to the seat of the toilet as his legs gave way.

  Not just a nightmare. He’d been inside Warrior’s Peak. He’d been out on the parapet. And he hadn’t been alone.

  This was more than a quest for magic keys. More than a puzzle to be solved with the promise of a pot of gold at the end.

  There was something else here. Something powerful. Dark and powerful.

  He was going to find out what the hell was going on before any of them got in any deeper.

  He stepped into the shower and let the hot water beat on him until it penetrated the chill in his bones. Then, calmer, he downed some aspirin, pulled his sweatpants on.

  He would go down and make coffee, then he’d be able to think. Once his head was clear, he would roust both of his friends and get their take.

  Maybe it was time for the three of them to go up to Warrior’s Peak and get the truth out of Rowena and Pitte.

  He was halfway down when the bell rang, and Moe raced out barking like the hounds of hell on speed.

  “Okay, okay. Shut up.” Johnnie Walker hadn’t given Flynn a hangover, but the nightmare had stepped up to the plate and knocked one home. He grabbed Moe by the collar, yanked back as he pulled the door open with his other hand.

  She looked like a sunbeam. It was his only clear thought as he stared at Malory. Dressed in a pretty blue suit that showed off her legs, she smiled at him. Then stepped forward, wrapped her arms around him.

  “Good morning,” she said, and by pressing her lips to his drained even that single thought out of his mind.

  His fingers went limp on Moe’s collar, then fell away from it to lift up, dive into her hair. The aches and dread he’d awakened with fell away as well.

  In that one moment he felt as if nothing would ever be beyond his reach again.

  Moe gave up trying to shoehorn himself between them, and settled on leaping and barking for attention.

  “Christ Jesus, Hennessy, can’t you get your dog to . . .” At the top of the stairs, Jordan trailed off. Below him stood his friend and the woman, bathed in morning sunlight. And drowning in each other.

  The fact was, even when Flynn eased back from the embrace and glanced up, he had the look of a man going under for the third time. Blissfully.

  “Morning. Sorry to interrupt. You must be Malory.”

  “Yes, I must be.” Her brain was a bit muddled from the kiss, but she was pretty sure she was staring up at a great-looking guy wearing nothing but black boxer shorts. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize Flynn had company . . . oh.” Her brain cleared. “You’re Jordan Hawke. I’m a big fan.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Hold it.” Flynn held up a hand as Jordan started down. “Maybe you could go put some pants on.”

  “Sure.”

  “Come on back. I need to let Moe out.” Giving her hand a tug, Flynn managed to dislodge her from the spot she’d frozen in to stare at Jordan. But she dug in again at the living room entrance.

  Brad was facedown on the couch, with one arm and one leg drooping off. He was dressed like Jordan, though his boxers were white.

  It was interesting to note, Malory thought, that the scion of the Vane empire had an excellent butt.

  “Slumber party?” she ventured.

  “Guys don’t have slumber parties. We just hang out. Moe!” Flynn called the dog, who’d wandered in to lick the portion of Brad’s face that wasn’t smashed into the cushions. “Brad’s always been able to sleep through anything.”

  “So it would seem. It’s nice to have your friends back in town.”

  “Yeah.” He pulled her back to the kitchen. Moe beat them to it, and stood dancing at the back door as if he’d been waiting for hours. He streaked out the instant Flynn opened it.

  “Why don’t I make some coffee?” Malory offered.

  “Yeah? You’ll make it?”

  “Just part of the service.” Since the coffee can was already on the counter, she measured enough for a full pot. “If you marry me, I’d make the coffee every morning. Of course, I’d expect you to take out the trash every day.” She tossed a grin over her shoulder. “I believe in sharing household chores.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And there’s the unlimited access to sex.”

  “That’s a big plus.”

  She laughed as she measured the water. “I like making you nervous. I don’t think I’ve ever made a man nervous before. Then again . . .” She switched the pot on, turned around. “I’ve never been in love with one before. Not like this.”

  “Malory—”

  “I’m a very determined woman, Flynn.”

  “Oh, yeah, that’s coming through loud and clear.” He stepped back even as she moved in on him. “I just think we should . . .”

  “What?” She trailed her hands up his chest.

  “See? I can’t remember once you start looking at me.”

  “I take that as a good sign.” She touched her lips lightly to his.

  “I’m already making a habit of this,” Jordan said as he came in. “Sorry.”

  “It’s all right.” Malory brushed her hair back as she turned away to find clean coffee mugs. “I just stopped in to ask Flynn to marry me. It’s nice to meet another of his friends. Are you in town for long?”

  “Depends. What did he say when you asked him?”

  “Oh, he has trouble making complete sentences when I bring up love and marriage. Odd, isn’t it, seeing as he’s a journalist.”

  “You know, I’m standing right here,” Flynn pointed out.

  “Is that coffee?” Brad stumbled in, blinked when he spotted Malory, then stumbled back out again. “Sorry.”

  Amused, she wiped out the mugs. “This house is ful
l of attractive men, and I’ve seen all of them without their clothes on. My life has certainly changed. How do you take your coffee, Jordan?”

  “Black’s fine.” He leaned a hip on the counter while she poured. “Flynn said you were smart, funny, and sexy. He was right.”

  “Thanks. I’ve got to run. I’ve got an appointment to sign papers.”

  “For what?” Flynn asked.

  “The partnership papers with Dana and Zoe. I thought Dana told you.”

  “Told me what?”

  “That we’re buying the house, going into business.”

  “What house? What business?”

  “The house on Oak Leaf. And our business. Businesses, I suppose. My gallery, Dana’s bookstore, Zoe’s salon. We’re calling it Indulgence.”

  “Catchy,” Jordan decided.

  “I can’t believe I’m jumping in like this.” She pressed a hand to her stomach. “So unlike me. I’m terrified. Well, I don’t want to be late.” She stepped over, caught Flynn’s baffled face in her hands and kissed him again. “I’ll call you later. We’re hoping you’ll do a story on our new enterprise. Nice meeting you, Jordan.”

  “Really nice meeting you.” He watched her walk down the hall. “Nice legs, killer eyes, and bright enough to light up a cave. You got yourself a live wire there, buddy.”

  His lips were still vibrating from hers. “Now that I’ve got her, what am I going to do with her?”

  “You’ll figure it out.” He moved over to top off his coffee. “Or she will.”

  “Yeah.” Flynn rubbed a hand over his heart. There was a flutter in it. Maybe that’s what came from handling a live wire. “I need more coffee, then I need to talk to you and Brad. You guys aren’t going to believe the dream I had last night.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “I can’t believe they didn’t show it to you.” Dana dug the key to Flynn’s house out of her purse.

  “Neither can I. I didn’t even think,” Malory added, as annoyance propelled her from the car to Flynn’s front door. “I just assumed Jordan was having it shipped. Plus the three of them were half naked. It was distracting.”

  “Don’t blame yourself.” Zoe gave her a bolstering pat on the back. “And anyway, you’ll get to see it now.”

  “They’re up to something,” Dana muttered. “I can just feel it. When the three of them get together, they’re always up to something.” She unlocked the door, pushed it open. Waited a beat.

  “Nobody’s home.”

  “They were just getting up when I was here a couple of hours ago.” Malory walked inside without a qualm. “And now that I think about it, Flynn did look like he was up to something.”

  “They’ll try to cut us out.” Ready and willing to work herself into a rant on men in general, Dana tossed her keys back in her purse. “It’s typical behavior for their species. Oh, we know better, don’t you worry your pretty head, little lady.”

  “I hate that.” Firing up, Zoe hissed a breath between her teeth. “You know how an auto mechanic always gives you that smirk and says he’ll explain the problem to your husband?”

  Dana sucked air through her nose. “That burns my ass.”

  “If you ask me, that Bradley Vane’s at the bottom of it.” Zoe set her fists on her hips. “He’s just the type to try to run everything and everyone. I pegged him from the get-go.”

  “No, it’ll be Jordan.” Dana kicked a shoe out of her way. “He’s an instigator.”

  “It’s Flynn’s responsibility,” Malory disagreed. “It’s his house, they’re his friends, and . . . oh, my God.”

  Light slanted across both paintings as they stood propped carelessly against the wall just where Flynn had left them. Her heart squeezed with admiration and envy at the sight.

  She walked toward them slowly, as she might a lover who both dazzled and titillated. Her throat ached as she knelt on the floor in front of them.

  “They’re beautiful,” Zoe said from behind her.

  “They’re more.” Gently, Malory lifted the portrait of Arthur, tilting it toward the light. “It’s not just talent. Talent can be technical, achieve a kind of perfection of balance and proportion.”

  She came close to that, she thought, when she painted. Fell just short of technical perfection. And miles away from the magic that made an image art.

  “It’s genius when you’re able to take that talent beyond technique and into emotion,” she continued. “To message, or just to simple beauty. When you have that, you light up the world. Can’t you feel his heart pounding?” she asked as she studied the young Arthur. “His muscles quivering as he takes the hilt? That’s the power of the artist. I’d give anything—anything—to be able to create like this.”

  A shiver ran through her, twin snakes of hot and cold. For a heartbeat her fingers seemed to burn. And for that heartbeat something inside her opened, and lit, and she saw how it could be done. Must be done. How she could explode on canvas into art.

  The knowledge filled her to bursting, left her breathless.

  Then was gone in an instant.

  “Mal? Malory?” Zoe crouched down, took her shoulders. “What’s wrong?”

  “What? Nothing. I got dizzy for a second.”

  “Your eyes went funny. They went huge and dark.”

  “It must’ve been the light.” But she felt strangely queasy as she pulled her purse over and took out her magnifying glass.

  Using the natural light, she began a slow, careful study of each painting.

  There was the shadow, just the hint of a form lurking deep, deep in the green of the forest. And two figures—a man and a woman—watching the boy, the sword, the stone, from the far background. From a chain at the woman’s waist hung three gold keys.

  “What do you think?” Dana demanded.

  “I think we’ve got a couple of choices.” Considering them, Malory sat back, rolled her shoulders. “We can convince Brad and Jordan to have these sent to experts for verification of whether or not it’s the same artist. And by doing so, we risk this entire business getting out.”

  “What’s the other choice?” Zoe asked her.

  “We can take my word for it. Everything I know, everything I’ve studied and learned tells me the same person painted both of these. The same person who painted the portrait at Warrior’s Peak.”

  “If we go with that, what do we do with it?” Dana demanded.

  “We figure out what the paintings are telling us. And we go back up to Warrior’s Peak. We ask Rowena and Pitte how at least two of these works were done more than a century apart.”

  “There’s another part that goes with that,” Zoe said quietly. “We accept the magic. We believe.”

  “I always have time to entertain three handsome men.” Rowena all but purred it as she showed Flynn, Brad, and Jordan into the parlor where the portrait of the Daughters of Glass dominated.

  She paused, waiting until all attention was focused on it. “I assume the painting interests you, Mr. Vane. Your family has quite an extensive and eclectic art collection, I’m told.”

  He stared at the portrait, at the figure carrying both a short sword and a little dog. Zoe’s eyes stared back at him. “Yes, we do.”

  “And has the interest passed down to you?”

  “It has. As a matter of fact, I believe I own another painting by this artist.”

  She sat, a secret smile playing around her mouth as she spread the long skirts of her white dress. “Is that so? What a small world.”

  “It gets smaller,” Jordan put in. “I seem to have another painting that may be by this artist.”

  “Fascinating. Ah.” She gestured as a servant rolled a cart in. “Coffee? I assumed you’d prefer it to tea. American men aren’t much on tea, are they?”

  “You don’t ask about the subject of the other paintings.” Flynn sat beside her.

  “I’m sure you’ll tell me. Cream, sugar?”

  “Black. Seems a waste of time when I’m pretty sure you already know. Who�
��s the artist, Rowena?”

  She poured the coffee with a steady hand, taking the liquid to within a half inch of the rim while her gaze stayed level with Flynn’s. “Did Malory ask you to come here today?”

  “No. Why?”

  “The quest is hers, as are the questions. Such matters have rules. If she asked you to represent her, that’s a different thing altogether. Did you bring your dog?”

  “Yeah, he’s outside.”

  Her face went wistful. “I don’t mind if he comes in.”

  “White dress, big black dog. You might want to rethink that. Rowena, Malory didn’t ask us to come, but she and the others know we’re helping them look into things. It’s okay with them.”

  “But you didn’t tell them you were coming to speak with me. Men often make the mistake of assuming that a woman wishes to be relieved of responsibilities and details.” Her face was open and friendly, her voice carrying the lilt of a laugh. “Why is that?”

  “We didn’t come here to discuss male-female dynamics,” Jordan began.

  “What else is there, really? Man to man, woman to woman, certainly,” Rowena continued with an elegant spread of her hands. “But it all comes down to people, what they are to each other. What they’ll do for and to one another. Even art is only a representation of that, in one form or another. If Malory has concerns or questions about the painting or paintings she must ask. You won’t find the key for her, Flynn. It’s not for you.”

  “I dreamed I was in this house last night. Only it wasn’t a dream. It was more.”

  He watched her eyes change, go dark with shock. Or something else, something bigger.

  “Such a dream isn’t unusual under the circumstances.”

  “I’ve only been in the foyer and in two rooms in this place. Or had been until last night. I can tell you how many rooms are on the second floor, and that there’s a staircase on the east side leading to the third that has a newel post carved like a dragon. I couldn’t see it well in the dark, but I felt it.”

  “Wait. Please.”

  She rose quickly and hurried from the room.

  “This is some strange deal you’ve got going here, Flynn.” Jordan poked at the pretty cookies arranged on a glass plate. “There’s something familiar about that woman. I’ve seen her somewhere before.”