by Nora Roberts
Alone.” Though it was humiliating, she tried one last time. “Once, just once, couldn’t you take my side?”
“This isn’t a matter of sides, Miranda. And it’s not a personal attack. This is what’s best for everyone involved, and for both the Institute and Standjo.”
“It hurts me.”
He cleared his throat, and avoided her eyes. “I’m sure once you have time to think it through, you’ll agree this is the most logical course to take. I’ll be at the Regency until tomorrow if you need to reach me.”
“I’ve never been able to reach you,” she said quietly. “I’ll get your coat.”
Because he felt some regret, he followed her into the foyer. “You should take this time, do a little traveling. Get some sun. Perhaps your, ah, young man would join you.”
“My what?” She took his coat out of the closet, then glanced up the stairs. And began to laugh. “Oh sure.” She had to wipe at her eyes, even as she recognized the jittery onset of hysteria. “I bet old Rodney would just love to go traveling with me.”
She waved her father out of the house, then sat on the bottom step and laughed like a loon—until she started to weep.
thirteen
A man who had three sisters knew all about women’s tears. There were the slow, rather lovely ones that could slide down a female cheek like small, liquid diamonds and reduce a man to begging. There were hot, angry ones that spurted out of a woman’s eyes like clear fire and induced a wise man to run for cover.
And there were those that were hidden so deep in the heart that when they broke loose and stormed free they were a deluge of pain beyond any man’s comfort.
So he let her be, let her curl into herself on the bottom step while those heart-born tears raged. He knew that the hurt that spawned such a flood closed her off. All he could do was give her privacy, and wait.
When those harsh, ripping sobs quieted, he walked down the hall, opened the closet, and pushed through until he found a jacket. “Here.” He held it out to her. “Let’s get some air.”
She stared at him out of swollen and confused eyes. She’d simply forgotten he was there. “What?”
“Let’s get some air,” he repeated, and because she was still largely helpless, he pulled her to her feet. He slid the jacket over her arms, turned her, and efficiently fastened the buttons.
“I’d prefer to be alone.” She tried for coolness, but her throat was still raw, and she fell far short.
“You’ve been alone long enough.” He grabbed his own jacket, shrugged it on, then pulled her out the front door.
The air was bracing, the sun strong enough to sting her sore eyes. Humiliation was beginning to seep through. Tears were useless enough, she thought, but at least when they were private no one saw your control fail.
“This is a great spot,” he said conversationally. He kept her hand in his even when her fingers flexed for release. “Privacy, a kick-ass view, the smell of the sea just outside the door. Grounds could use some work.”
The Joneses, he concluded, didn’t spend enough time outside. Across the tumbling lawn there were a pair of grand old trees that begged to have a hammock stretched between them. He doubted Miranda had ever explored the miracles of a hammock in the shade on a summer afternoon.
There were shrubs, ragged from winter, that he imagined bloomed beautifully—and without any care—in the spring. There were bare patches in the lawn, crying out to be reseeded and fed.
But the fact that there was grass, shrubs, old trees, and an impressive windbreak of pines on the north side indicated that someone had cared enough once to plant—or at least to hire a staff to plant.
He might have been an urbanite through and through, but he appreciated rural atmosphere.
“You’re not taking care of what you have here. You surprise me, Miranda. I’d think a woman with your practical nature would insist on maintaining her property and guarding a legacy like this.”
“It’s a house.”
“Yeah, it is. It should be a home. Did you grow up here?”
“No.” Her head felt stuffy and thick from the weeping. She wanted to go back inside, take some aspirin, lie down in a dark room. But she didn’t have quite enough strength worked up to resist when he pulled her along the cliff path. “It was my grandmother’s.”
“Makes more sense. I couldn’t see your father choosing to live here as an adult. Wouldn’t suit him at all.”
“You don’t know my father.”
“Sure I do.” The wind whipped, circling them as they climbed. Centuries of its constant stroking had worn the rocks here, made them smooth, rounded. They glowed like pewter in the sunlight. “He’s pompous, he’s arrogant. He has the kind of narrow focus that likely makes him brilliant in his field, and an inconsiderate human being. He didn’t hear you,” he added when they’d reached the flattened ledge that speared out over the sea. “Because he doesn’t know how to listen.”
“Obviously you do.” Now she jerked her hand from his and defensively wrapped her arms around her body. “I don’t know why it should surprise me that someone who steals other people’s property for a living should stoop to eavesdropping on private conversations.”
“I don’t know either. But the real point is you’ve been left to twist in the wind. Now what are you going to do about it?”
“What can I do? Whatever authority I might have at the Institute, it still comes down to the fact that I work for them. I’ve been temporarily relieved of my duties, and that’s that.”
“That, if you have any spine, is never that until it’s the way you want it.”
“You don’t know anything about it.” She whirled on him, and the self-pity that had been in her eyes flashed away into fury. “They run the show, and they always have. Whatever gloss you put on it, I do what I’m told. I manage the Institute with Andrew because neither of them wanted to bother with the day-to-day business of it. And we’ve always known that they could pull that particular rug out from under us whenever they chose. Now they have.”
“And you’re going to tolerate being dumped on your ass this way? Kick back, Miranda.” He grabbed a handful of her hair while the wind tossed the rest of the hot red curls madly. “Show them what you’re made of. The Institute isn’t the only place you can shine.”
“Do you think there’s any major museum or lab that would have me after this? The Fiesole bronze has ruined me. I wish to God I’d never seen it.”
Defeated, she sat on the rocks, staring out at the point where the lighthouse stood like white marble against a hard blue sky.
“So, start your own lab.”
“That’s a pipe dream.”
“A lot of people said the same thing to me when I wanted to open the gallery in New York.” He sat beside her, cross-legged.
She let out a short laugh. “The difference here might just be that I don’t intend to steal to outfit a business.”
“We all do what we do best,” he said lightly. He took out a cigar, cupped his hands around the tip as he lighted it. “You have contacts, don’t you? You’ve got a brain. You’ve got money.”
“I’ve got a brain and money. The contacts. . .” She moved her shoulders. “I can’t count on them now. I love my work,” she heard herself say. “I love the structure of it, the discovery. Most people think of science as a series of steps forged in concrete, but it’s not. It’s a puzzle, and not all of the pieces will ever be firmly in place. When you’re able to fit some of them together, to see an answer, it’s thrilling. I don’t want to lose that.”
“You won’t, unless you give up.”
“The minute I saw the Fiesole bronze, understood what the project was, I was totally entranced in the possibilities. I knew it was part ego, but who cared? I’d authenticate it, I’d prove how smart and clever I was, and my mother would applaud. The way mothers do watching their children on stage at a school play. With sentimental enthusiasm and pride.” She dropped her head on her knees. “That’s pathetic.”
She turned her head to study him. “Do you?”
“I still remember the opening of my New York gallery. The moment my parents walked inside. My father in his good suit—the one he always wore to weddings and funerals—and my mother in a new blue dress, and her hair ruthlessly styled from a trip to Betty’s Salon. I remember the look on their faces. Sentimental enthusiasm and pride.” He laughed a little. “And not a little bit of shock. It mattered to me.”
Turning her head, she rested her chin on her hands and looked out to sea again where the waves broke strong and white and cold. “I remember the look on my mother’s face when she fired me from the Fiesole project.” She sighed. “I would have handled disappointment or regret better than that ice-edged disdain.”
“Forget the bronze.”
“How can I? It’s what started this whole downhill slide. If I could just go back and see where I went wrong . . .” She pressed her fingers to her eyes. “Test it again like I did the David.”
Slowly, she lowered her hands. Her palms had gone damp. “Like the David,” she murmured. “Oh my God.” She sprang to her feet so quickly, for one wild moment Ryan feared she meant to jump.
“Hold on.” He took a firm hold of her hand as he got to his feet. “You’re a little too close to the edge to suit me.”
“It’s like the David.” She shoved away from him, then grabbed his jacket. “I followed procedure, step by step. I know what I had in my hands. I know it.” She pushed him again, spun away with a clatter of boots on rock. “I did everything right. I detailed everything. The measurements, the formulas, the corrosion levels. I had all the facts, all the answers. Someone switched it.”
“Switched it?”
“Like the David.” She rapped a fist on his chest as if to knock the truth into him. “Just like the David. What Ponti’s lab had was a forgery, but it wasn’t the same bronze. It was a copy. It had to be a copy.”
“That’s a pretty big leap, Dr. Jones.” And the possibilities swam like fine wine in his head. “Interesting.”
“It fits. It makes sense. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
“Why?” He lifted his eyebrows. “Why isn’t it more logical that you made a mistake?”
“Because I didn’t. Oh, I can’t believe I let this cloud what I know.” She pulled her hands through her hair, pressing her fists to the side of her head. “I wasn’t thinking clearly. When you’re told you’re wrong often enough, strongly enough, you believe it. Even when you aren’t wrong.”
She began to walk, in those long, purposeful strides, letting the wind clear her head, letting her blood bubble. “I’d have gone on believing it, if it hadn’t been for the David.”
“Good thing I stole it.”
She slanted a look at him. He was matching his pace to hers, and appeared to be enjoying a casual walk on a breezy afternoon. “Apparently,” she muttered. “Why that piece? Why did you steal that particular piece?”
“I told you, I had a client.”
“Who?”
His lips curved. “Really, Miranda, some things are sacred.”
“They could be connected.”
“My David and your lady? That’s reaching.”
“My David and my lady—and it’s not that long a reach. They’re both bronzes, both Renaissance works, Standjo and the Institute are connected, and I worked on both. Those are facts. Both were genuine, both were replaced by copies.”
“And those are speculations, not facts.”
“It’s an educated and logical theory,” she corrected, “and the basis for a preliminary conclusion.”
“I’ve known this client for several years. Believe me, he isn’t interested in complicated plots and schemes. He simply sees something he wants, puts in an order. If I think it’s doable, I do it. We keep it simple.”
“Simple.” It was an attitude she was grateful she would never understand.
“And,” he added, “he would hardly have commissioned me to steal a forgery.”
Her brow creased at that. “I still believe whoever replaced the David replaced The Dark Lady.”
“I’ll agree it’s a definite, and intriguing, possibility.”
“I’d be able to solidify that conclusion if I was able to examine both pieces and compare them.”
“Okay.”
“Okay, what?”
“Let’s do it.”
She stopped at the base of the lighthouse, where the shale crunched under her feet. “Do what?”
“Compare them. We have one. It’s just a matter of getting the other.”
“Stealing it? Don’t be ridiculous.”
He grabbed her arm as she turned away. “You want to know the truth, don’t you?”
“Yes, I want the truth, but I’m not flying to Italy, breaking into a government facility, and stealing a worthless copy.”
“No reason we can’t take something worthwhile while we’re there. Just a thought,” he added when her mouth dropped open. “If you’re right, and we prove it, you’ll more than salvage your reputation. You’ll make it.”
It was impossible, insane. It couldn’t be done. But she saw the gleam in his eye and wondered. “Why would you bother? What would you get out of it?”
“If you’re right, it brings me a step closer to the original David. I have my reputation to salvage too.”
And if she was right, he thought, and The Dark Lady was real, he’d be a step closer to that as well. He’d find her. What a marvelous addition she would make to his private collection.
“I’m not breaking the law.”
“You already are. You’re standing here with me, aren’t you? You’re an accessory after the fact, Dr. Jones.” He swung his arm companionably over her shoulder. “I didn’t hold a gun to your head or a knife to your back. You took me in past your security,” he continued, walking back toward the house. “You’ve spent the day with me, fully aware I’m holding stolen property. You’re already in.” He gave her a friendly kiss on top of the head. “Might as well see it through.”
He checked his watch, calculated. “You go up and pack. We’ll need to swing through New York first. I have some things to tidy up there, and I need to pick up some clothes and tools.”
“Tools?” She pushed her hair away from her face. Better not to know, she decided. “I can’t just fly off to Italy. I have to talk to Andrew. I have to explain.”
“Leave him a note,” Ryan suggested, and pulled open the back door. “Make it brief, and tell him you’re going away for a couple of weeks. Leave it at that, and you leave him out of it if the cops get too nosey.”
“The police. If I leave this way before the investigation is complete, they might think I was involved.”
“Adds to the excitement, doesn’t it? Better not use your phone,” he murmured. “Always a possibility of the records being checked. I’ll get mine out of my bag. I need to call my cousin Joey.”
Her head was reeling. “Your cousin Joey?”
“He’s a travel agent. Go pack,” he repeated. “He’ll get us on the first flight out. Don’t forget your passport—and your laptop. We’ll want to finish going through those personnel files.”
She tried a deep breath. “Anything else I should bring along?”
“An appetite.” He pulled his phone out of his bag. “We should be in New York in time for dinner. You’re going to love my mother’s linguine.”
It was nearly six before Andrew managed to get home. He’d tried to call Miranda half a dozen times, but had only reached their answering machine. He wasn’t certain what shape he’d find her in—manic with temper or desolate with hurt. He hoped he was prepared to deal with either, or both.
But all he found was a note on the refrigerator.
Andrew, I’m sure you’re aware I’ve been ordered to take a leave of absence from the Institute. I’m sorry to leave you in the lurch at
a time like this. I don’t want to say I don’t have a choice, so I’ll say I’m making the only one that works for me. I’ll be gone for a couple of weeks. Please, don’t worry. I’ll be in touch when I can.
Don’t forget to take out the trash. There’s enough roast left over from Sunday to keep you going for another meal or two. See that you eat.
Love,
Miranda
