The Key Trilogy

by Nora Roberts

  But he still couldn’t visualize how it could, or would, look when Malory got done with it. No more than he could understand why the prospect of ripping it apart and putting it back together made her so happy.

  “The guys are coming in Monday to bomb this place.”

  “Not a moment too soon,” Jordan commented.

  “I was going to get around to it, sooner or later. It wasn’t like I was using it. But since Malory, stuff actually gets cooked in here.” He bumped the stove with his foot. “She has a deep and violent hatred for this appliance. It’s kind of scary.”

  “You brought me back here to talk about Malory’s obsession with kitchen appliances?”

  “No. I wanted cookies. Malory has this rule against eating them in bed. This is something else I can’t figure,” he continued as he got a bag of Chips Ahoy out of the cupboard. “But I’m an easygoing guy. You want milk?”

  “No.”

  His friend was wearing gray sweats and a T-shirt that might have been new during his sophomore year of college. His feet were bare, his expression easy.

  Looks, Jordan knew, could be very deceiving.

  “And you’re not easygoing, Hennessy. You pretend to be easygoing so you can get your own way.”

  “I’m not eating these in bed, am I?”

  “Small potatoes, son. You got the woman in your bed.”

  “Yeah.” Grinning, Flynn poured a glass of milk, then sat down, stretched out his legs. “I do. Of course, she’s up there reading instead of offering me intriguing and varied sexual favors, but I can bide my time.”

  Jordan sat. Flynn, he knew from long experience, would get to his point eventually. “So, you want to talk about your sex life? Is this going to be a bragging session, or are you looking for advice?”

  “I’d rather do it than brag about it, and I’m doing just fine on my own. But thanks for the offer.” He dunked a cookie. “So, how’s Dana?”

  And there would be the point, Jordan thought. “A little anxious about the task at hand, I’d say, but diving in headfirst. You must have seen the mountain range of books she’s hiking through when you dropped off Moe.”

  “Yeah, I got eyestrain just thinking about reading half of them. And otherwise?”

  “It looks like she’s steadied herself after what happened to her the other night. She may be spooked by it, but she’s just as curious. You know how she is.”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “Why don’t you just ask me how things are with us?”

  “And pry into your private and personal lives? Me?”

  “Up yours, Hennessy.”

  “Wow, that was so creative, so succinct. I immediately see why you’re a successful novelist.”

  “Sideways.” And though he had absolutely no desire for one, Jordan pulled a cookie from the bag. “I screwed up with her, all those years ago. ‘I’m going, it’s been fun, see you around.’ ”

  It caused a low burn in his gut to remember it now.

  “Maybe not that cut and dried, but close enough.” He bit into the cookie as he studied his friend’s face. “Did I screw up with you, too?”

  “Maybe some.” Flynn nudged Malory’s pretty candle aside so he could move the cookie bag between them. “I can’t say I didn’t feel a little deserted when you took off, but I got why you had to leave. Hell, I was planning on doing the same myself.”

  “The business exec, the struggling writer, and the dedicated reporter. Hell of a trio.”

  “Yeah, we all got there, too, didn’t we? One way or the other. I never left the Valley to do it, but I thought I was going to, so I could look at you, and Brad, as sort of the advance guard. But then again, I wasn’t sleeping with you.”

  “She was in love with me.”

  Flynn waited a beat, absorbed the baffled frustration on Jordan’s face. “What, did that lightbulb just go off? You’ve got some faulty wiring in there, pal.”

  “I knew she loved me.” Disgusted, Jordan shoved up to get a glass of milk after all. “Hell, Flynn, we all loved each other. We were as much family as any who share blood. I didn’t know it was the big L for her. How the hell is a guy supposed to know that sort of thing unless the woman looks him in the eye and says, ‘I’m in love with you, you asshole.’ Which would,” he continued, working up to fury, “have been something you’d expect from Dana. That’s just how she does things. But she didn’t, so I didn’t know. And I’m the slug because of it.”

  Because he’d been concerned by Jordan’s steady cool, the spike of temper relieved him. “Yeah, but you’re a slug for a lot of reasons. I could write up a list.”

  “The one I’d write up on you would be longer,” Jordan muttered.

  “Great, a contest.” Not just angry, Flynn noted as he studied Jordan’s face, but unhappy. Still, it had to be finished out, had to be said.

  “Look, when Lily dumped me and took off for fame and fortune in the big bad city, it hurt. And I wasn’t in love with her. You and Brad had that one right. But I thought I was, I was ready to be, and her brushing me off messed me up. Dana was in love with you. You’ve got to expect that your going, whatever your reasons, messed her up.”

  Jordan sat again, thoughtfully broke a cookie in two. “You’re telling me not to mess her up again.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I’m telling you.”

  Chapter Nine

  DANA tried working off her sexual and emotional frustration with the books. She focused on the goal, and spent half the night sifting through data, words, notes, and her own speculations about the location of the key.

  Her primary reward was a massive headache.

  What little sleep she managed to get was restless and unsatisfying. When even Moe failed to perk up her morning mood, she decided to give physical labor a try.

  She dropped Moe back at Flynn’s by simply opening the front door with her key and letting him bullet inside. Since it was still short of nine of a Sunday morning, she imagined the household was sleeping.

  In her current mood, the machine-gun barking that sprayed through the quiet as Moe charged up the stairs made her lips curve in a dark, wicked smile.

  “You go, Moe,” she cheered, shut the door, and strolled back to her car.

  She drove directly to the building. Indulgence, she corrected herself as she parked. It was going to be Indulgence, so she needed to start thinking of it that way instead of as “the house” or “the building.”

  When she unlocked the door and stepped inside, the strong smell of fresh paint hit her. It was a good smell, she decided. The smell of progress, of newness, of accomplishment.

  Maybe the white primer wasn’t pretty, but it was sure as hell bright, and looking at it, she could see just how far they’d come already.

  “So let’s keep going.”

  She pushed up her sleeves and headed to the supplies and tools.

  It occurred to her that this was the first time, the only time, she’d been alone here. On the heels of that came the thought that maybe she was asking for trouble being alone in a place where Kane had already wielded his sorcery.

  She glanced uneasily up the steps. And thought of cold blue mist. As if the chill of it crept over her skin, she shuddered.

  “I can’t be afraid to be here.” The way her voice echoed made her wish she’d brought along a radio. Anything to fill the silence with normal sound.

  Won’t be afraid to be here, she corrected herself as she opened a can of paint. How could she, or any of them, make this place their own if they were afraid to come into it alone?

  There were bound to be times when one of them came in early or stayed late. The three of them couldn’t be attached at the hip. She—all of them—would have to get used to the quiet of the place, and the settling noises. Normal quiet, normal noises, she assured herself. Hell, she liked being alone and having a big, empty house all to herself. It was tailor-made Dana time.

  The memory of Kane’s nasty games wasn’t going to scare her off.

  And since she
was alone, she didn’t have to compete for the super paint machine.

  Still, as she began to work she wished she could hear Malory’s and Zoe’s voices, as she had before, turning all those empty rooms into something bright and cheerful.

  She comforted herself that they’d finished priming Malory’s section and had a good start on hers. It would be a kick to finish her own space with her own hands.

  She could begin to play with different setups in her head. Should she shelve mysteries here, or was this a better spot for nonfiction? Local interest?

  Wouldn’t it be fun to display coffee-table books on, ha ha, a coffee table?

  Maybe she could find an old breakfront somewhere for the café section. She could display tins of tea, mugs, books. Should she go with those cute round tables that reminded her of an ice cream parlor, or the more substantial square ones? Wouldn’t this room be the perfect place to set up a cozy reading corner, or would it be smarter to use that space for a small children’s play area?

  It was therapeutic to watch the clean white paint cover the dull beige, stroke by stroke marking the room as her own. No one could push her out of here as she’d been pushed out of the library. She was working for herself this time, and setting the rules herself.

  No one could cut her off from this dream, from this love, as she’d been cut off from other dreams. From other loves.

  “Do you think it matters? A little shop in a little town? Will you work, struggle, worry, pour your mind and your heart into something so meaningless? And why? Because you have nothing else.

  “But you could.”

  She felt the cold shiver over her skin. It made her breath come too fast, tightened the muscles of her stomach toward pain. She continued to paint, guiding the roller over the wall, listening to the faint hum of the motor. She couldn’t seem to stop.

  “It matters to me. I know what I want.”

  “Do you?”

  He was there, somehow there. She could sense him in the chill. Perhaps he was the chill.

  “A place of your own. You thought you had one before, all those years of work, of serving others. Yet does anyone care that you’re gone?”

  It was a well-aimed arrow. Had anyone even noticed she was no longer at the library? All the people she’d worked with, worked for? All the patrons she’d helped? Had she been so replaceable that her absence hadn’t caused a single ripple?

  Hadn’t she mattered at all?

  “You gave the man your heart, your loyalty, but he cast you off without a thought. How much did you matter to him?”

  Not enough, she thought.

  “I can change that. I can give him to you. I could give you a great many things. Success?”

  The shop was full of people. The shelves were filled with books. The pretty tables were crowded with customers sipping tea, having conversations. She saw a little boy sitting cross-legged on the floor in the corner with a copy of Where the Wild Things Are open in his lap.

  Everything about the scene spoke of pleasure—the combination of relaxation and brisk business.

  The walls were exactly the right shade, she thought. Malory had been on the money there. The light was good, made everything friendly, and all those wonderful books temptingly arranged, on shelves, on displays.

  She wandered like a ghost, passing through the bodies of people who browsed or bought, who sat or stood. She saw familiar faces, the faces of strangers, heard the voices, smelled the scents.

  Attractive and intriguing sidelines were set up here and there. Yes, yes, those were the note cards she’d decided to carry. And the bookmarks, the bookends. Wasn’t that the perfect reading chair? Roomy, broken in, welcoming.

  It was very clever to use the kitchen as the hub of the three enterprises, with books, candles, lotions, and art all together to illustrate how nicely each complemented the others.

  It was her vision, she realized. Everything she was hoping for.

  “You’ll enjoy it, of course, but it won’t be enough.”

  She turned. He was there. It didn’t surprise her in the least to see Kane standing beside her as people moved around them, through them.

  Who were the ghosts? she wondered distantly.

  He was dark and handsome, almost romantically so. The black hair framed a strong and compelling face. His eyes smiled into hers, but even now she could see something frightening lurking behind them.

  “Why won’t it be enough?”

  “What will you do at the end of the day? Sit alone with only your books for company? Alone when everyone else gathers with their families? Will any of them give you a single thought after they walk out the door?”

  “I have friends. I have family.”

  “Your brother has a woman, and the woman has him. You’re not part of that, are you? The other has a son, and you’ll never be inside what they have. They’ll leave you, as everyone else has done.”

  His words were like darts in the heart, and as she bled from them she saw him smile again. Almost kindly.

  “I can make him stay.” He spoke gently now, as one did to the wounded. “I can make him pay for what he did to you, for his carelessness, for his refusal to know what you needed from him. Wouldn’t you like him to love you as he has loved no other? Then, at your whim, you can keep him or discard him?”

  She was in a room she didn’t recognize, yet somehow knew. A large bedroom, saturated with color. Deep blue walls, an enormous bed covered in a ruby comforter, mounded with jewel-toned pillows. There was a generous sitting area, with two wing chairs facing a snapping fire. It was here that she sat, with Jordan kneeling at her feet. Her hands were clutched in his.

  And his trembled.

  “I love you, Dana. I never knew I could feel like this, as if there’s no point in taking the next breath unless you’re with me.”

  It was wrong. Wrong. His face never looked weak and pleading. “Stop it.”

  “You have to listen.” His voice urgent, he buried his head in her lap. “You have to give me a chance to show you, to prove to you how much I love you. The biggest mistake of my life was leaving you. Nothing I’ve done, nothing I’ve touched since has meant anything. I’ll do anything you want.” He lifted his head and with some horror, she caught the gleam of tears in his eyes. “Be anything you want. If you’ll only forgive me, let me spend every minute of every day for the rest of my life worshiping you.”

  “Get the hell away from me!” Shocked, panicked, she shoved at Jordan, knocking him back as she scrambled to her feet.

  “Kick me. Beat me. I deserve it. Just let me stay with you.”

  “Do you think this is what I want?” She shouted it as she spun in a circle. “Do you think you can control me by making pictures out of my thoughts? You don’t understand what I want, and that’s why I’ll beat you. No deal, asshole. And this is not only a lie, it’s pathetic.”

  The fury in her voice echoed even when she found herself standing in the empty room with the paint roller on the floor at her feet.

  Scrawled on the white wall in oily black was the message:

  Drown thyself!

  “Fat chance, you bastard.” Though her hands shook, she picked up the roller and covered the black with fresh white primer.

  Then they steadied, and her fingers dug in on the handle of the roller. “Wait a minute, wait a minute!”

  Her mind whirling, she dropped the roller with a splatter of paint, grabbed her bag and ran as though the gods were chasing her.

  Minutes later, she charged into her apartment. She tossed her purse aside and grabbed the library copy of Othello.

  “ ‘Drown thyself, drown thyself.’ It’s in here.” She flipped pages, frantically pulling the scene and context into her mind as she searched for the quote.

  It was one of Iago’s lines, when he was doing one of his numbers on Roderigo. She knew that line.

  When she found it, she sat down on the floor. “ ‘It is a lust of the blood and a permission of the will,’ ” she read aloud. “ ‘Come, b
e a man. Drown thyself! drown cats and blind puppies.’ ”

  She fought for calm.

  A lust of the blood and a permission of the will. Yes, that described Kane’s vicious acts.

  Jealousy, guile, betrayal, and ambition. What Iago knew, what Othello was ignorant of. Kane as Iago? The god-king as Othello. The king hadn’t killed, but still the daughters—those he loved—were lost to him through lies and ambition.

  And the play—surely this play had beauty, truth, courage. Was it the key?

  Ordering herself to be methodical, she paged through the book, searched its binding. Setting it aside, she found her own copy and did the same. She forced herself to sit again, to read through the entire scene.

  There were other copies of the play. She would go to the mall bookstore, search through those. She could hit the library again on Monday. Rising, she began to pace.

  There were probably dozens of copies of Othello in various forms around the Valley. She would go to the schools, the college. She’d knock on damn doors if she had to.

  “ ‘Drown thyself,’ my ass,” she repeated and scooped up her purse. She would drive to the mall right now.

  She’d already wrenched open the door when it struck her. Her own fury knocked her two steps back before she slammed the door shut again.

  She was being a fool, a mark. An idiot. Who had written the words on the wall? Kane. A liar quoting a liar. It wasn’t a clue. It was misdirection. Something to have her running off on a tangent. Exactly as she had done.

  “Goddamn it!” She flung her purse across the room. “Outright lies or twisted truth? Which is it?”

  Resigned, she marched across the room to retrieve her purse. She had to find out, so it looked like she was taking that trip to the mall after all.

  SHE was, Dana thought when she arrived home, probably as calm as she was going to get after spending the morning on what she was certain was a wild-goose chase. Still, she’d be happier when Malory and Zoe arrived. If nothing else, a girlfriend afternoon would cheer her up.