Homeport

by Nora Roberts

  When he turned back, his eyes very blue and level on hers, she shook her head. “It’s not a fair question just now. I’m not going to start something with you that’s based on what was.”

  “Then maybe we’d better take a look at where we are, and start from there.”

  twenty-one

  M iranda went back to work on the computer, revising charts, making new ones. It kept her mind occupied, except for the times she caught herself looking out the window, willing Andrew’s car to come up the hill.

  Ryan had settled in the bedroom with his cell phone. She imagined he didn’t want several of the calls he was making to pop up on her records. That was something she wasn’t going to worry about.

  He’d given her a whole new line of worry. If he was right, the quick and rough daylight robbery hadn’t simply been a matter of chance, hadn’t been some itinerant thief looking for fast cash. It had been a well-planned, carefully orchestrated part of the whole. She’d been a specific target, the motive behind it nothing more than delaying her trip to Italy and her work on the bronze.

  Whoever had stolen it, copied it, had already decided to discredit her. Had that been personal, or the luck of the draw? she wondered. She believed, as she had few genuine friends, she had few genuine enemies. She’d simply avoided becoming close enough to anyone to create them.

  But the messages coming over her fax were very personal.

  The attack had been personal, she thought, designed to terrify. The silence, the little nick at the throat with the knife. Had that all been routine for the attacker, or had he been given instructions to leave his victim frozen in shock and fear?

  It had cost her a large slice of her confidence, her sense of safety, certainly her dignity. And it had delayed her trip by almost a week. The delay had put her at odds with her mother before the project even began.

  Layers, she mused, very cleverly applied layers that coated the core. Yet it hadn’t begun with the attack, but with the forgery and theft of the David.

  What had been going on in her life then? What was she missing that tied the one to the other?

  She’d been working on her doctorate, she remembered. Splitting her time between the Institute, her studies, her thesis. Her social life, never a glitter ball of events, had been nil.

  What had been going on around her? That, she realized, was harder to pin down. Paying attention to the people around her wasn’t her strong suit. That was something she intended to change.

  For now, she closed her eyes and tried to bring the time span, and the people in it, into focus.

  Elise and Andrew had been married, and still by all appearances deeply in love. She could remember no fights or squabbles. Andrew’s drinking had been routine, but nothing she’d worried about.

  Then again, she’d done her best to give him and Elise as much privacy as possible.

  Giovanni and Lori had entertained each other with a brisk, friendly affair. She’d known they were sleeping together, but since it hadn’t interfered with the quality or quantity of their work, Miranda had kept out of that as well.

  Her mother had come into the Institute briefly. A day or two, Miranda thought now. No longer. They’d had a handful of meetings, one stiff family dinner, and had parted ways.

  Her father had stayed only long enough to see the bronze through initial testing. He’d only sat in on a portion of the meetings and had made some excuse to avoid attending the family meal.

  Vincente and his wife had come in her father’s place, but even their vivid personalities hadn’t brightened the event. If memory served, Gina had come into the lab only once.

  Richard Hawthorne she remembered only as a vague presence buried in books or hunched over a computer.

  John Carter had been a constant presence, overseeing projects, worrying over reports. Miranda rubbed her temples as she struggled to pull in details. Had he been a little off his stride, sluggish, out of sorts? A touch of the flu, she remembered. He’d had a touch of the flu, but had worked through it.

  How was she supposed to remember? In disgust, she dropped her hands. It had been routine, simply routine with her work as the driving force. Everything else was blips once she had that small, lovely statue in her hands.

  She’d seen the acquisition of the David as another step in her career, and had used the authentication as the basis for one of her papers. She’d gotten quite a bit of attention for that, she recalled, in the academic and scientific worlds. She’d been invited to lecture on it and had won a considerable amount of acclaim.

  It had, she supposed, been the true beginning of her rise in her career. That little bronze had lifted her out of the pack and put her solidly in the lead.

  She stared blindly at the words on her screen, heard a dim buzzing in her ears.

  The Fiesole Bronze would have sent her reputation rocketing. It would have cemented her as one of the top archeometrists in the world. Not just academic acclaim this time, but the lay press as well. We were talking Michelangelo here, romance, mystery, money. She shut her eyes and struggled to think it through.

  Both pieces were hers. Both pieces had offered her a solid boost up the reputational ladder. And both pieces had been forged. What if they hadn’t been the target at all?

  What if she was?

  She folded her hands, waited for her insides to settle. It had logic, it had reason. It was more than plausible.

  But where was the motive?

  What other pieces had she authenticated that could be retested without too much speculation or comment within the Institute? The Cellini. Her stomach twisted painfully at the thought of it. The statue of Nike, she thought, forcing herself to be calm and thorough. There was the paperweight-sized bronze of Romulus and Remus nursing at the she-wolf.

  She would have to get back into the lab. She would have to be sure none of those had been replaced with forgeries.

  She jerked as the phone rang, stared at it for several long seconds before she picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

  “Miranda. I have some difficult news.”

  “Mother.” She rubbed a hand over her heart. I think someone’s trying to hurt me. I think they’re trying to destroy me. It was real, the bronze was real. You have to listen. But the words only raced in her head. “What is it?”

  “Sometime on Thursday night the lab was broken into. Equipment, records, data were destroyed.”

  “Destroyed?” she said dully. Yes, I’m being destroyed.

  “Giovanni . . .” The pause was long, and for the first time in too long to remember, Miranda heard raw emotion in her mother’s voice. “Giovanni was killed.”

  “Giovanni.” You cared. Oh God, you cared. She shut her eyes as tears began to swim. “Giovanni,” she said again.

  “From all appearances, he must have decided to come in and take advantage of the holiday quiet in the lab to work. We’ve been unable to tell what project he was dealing with. The police—”

  Again that hitch in rhythm, and though the voice was stronger, it remained uneven. “The police are investigating, but they have no leads to date. I’ve been attempting to assist them for the last two days. The funeral is tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “I thought it best that you hear it from me. I trust you’ll inform Andrew. I realize you were fond of Giovanni. I believe we all were. There’s no need for you to fly in for the services. They’re to be simple and private.”

  “His family.”

  “I’ve spoken with his family. Though we’ve made arrangements to have donations to charity made in his name, I believe they would appreciate flowers. This is a very difficult time for all of us. I hope that you and I can put our professional differences aside and agree to send an arrangement as a family.”

  “Yes, of course. I could fly out tonight.”

  “That’s neither necessary nor wise.” Elizabeth’s voice was brisk again. “The press is well aware that you worked together on the Fiesole Bronze. This has already been rehashed in the media
. Your presence here would only stir it all up again. For Giovanni’s family’s sake, the services should be kept quiet and dignified.”

  She remembered the words of the last fax again: His blood’s on your hands. Can you see it? “You’re right. There’s nothing I can do there but make matters worse.” She closed her eyes, the better to concentrate on keeping her tone even. “Do the police know why the lab was broken into? Was anything stolen?”

  “It’s difficult to tell, but it doesn’t appear that anything was taken. A great deal was destroyed. The alarm was shut off, from inside. The authorities believe it’s possible he knew his assailant.”

  “I’d like you to keep me informed of the progress. He mattered very much to me.”

  “I know you had a personal relationship.”

  “We weren’t lovers, Mother.” Miranda nearly sighed it. “We were friends.”

  “I didn’t intend to—” Elizabeth stopped, remained silent for several seconds. “I’ll see that you’re kept up-to-date. If you go out of town, you might see that Andrew has your location this time.”

  “I plan to stay home,” Miranda said. “And garden.” She smiled a little as there was no response. “An enforced leave of absence gives me time to develop a hobby. They’re supposed to be good for the soul.”

  “So I’m told. I’m glad you’re making productive use of your time rather than brooding. Tell Andrew I want an update on the investigation there as soon as possible. I may be coming in for a short time, and would appreciate having everything dealing with the matter of the David recorded in a cohesive fashion.”

  I’ll warn him. “I’ll be sure he understands.”

  “Good. Goodbye, Miranda.”

  “Goodbye, Mother.”

  She replaced the receiver neatly, then sat staring at it until she realized Ryan had come in and stood behind her. “She had me fooled for a minute. I started to believe she was human. She sounded genuinely grieved when she told me about Giovanni. But before it was over, she reverted to her usual self. I’m to stay away because my presence at Giovanni’s funeral would be disruptive.”

  Her instinct was to stiffen when his hands came to her shoulders. That alone infuriated her. She shut her eyes and willed herself to relax under his hands. “I’m instructed to inform Andrew of my location, should I choose to leave town again, and to tell him to give her an update, at the soonest opportunity, of the burglary investigation.”

  “She’s got a lot on her mind, Miranda. Everyone in your family does just now.”

  “And when your family has a crisis, what do they do?”

  He crouched, turned her swivel chair around until she faced him. “Your family and mine aren’t the same, and can’t be expected to react in the same way.”

  “No. My mother remains, at all times, the director. My father maintains his distance and general apathy, and Andrew drowns himself in a bottle. And what do I do? I ignore all of it as long as it’s humanly possible so it won’t interfere with my routine.”

  “That’s not what I’ve seen.”

  “You’ve seen a blip on the screen, not the usual sweep.” She nudged him aside so she could stand. “I’m going for a run.”

  “Miranda.” He caught her arm before she could hurry out of the room. “If you didn’t care, if they didn’t matter to you, you wouldn’t be so sad.”

  “I’m not sad, Ryan. I’m resigned.” She shook free and walked out to change her clothes.

  She didn’t often run. She considered walking a more efficient and certainly more dignified method of exercise. But when events and emotions built up to a high inside her, she ran.

  She chose the beach below the cliffs because the water was close and the air fresh. She headed north, digging into the shale while the waves gleefully attacked the rocky shore and spewed droplets of water into the sunlight. Gulls swooped, letting out their eerily feminine screams.

  As her muscles warmed, she tugged off the light jacket and tossed it aside. No one would steal it. Crime, she thought with a giddy lurch in her stomach, was low in Jones Point.

  Orange buoys bobbed on the surface of the dark blue water. Others, tall, gray, and weathered, swayed and spoke in hollow, mournful bongs. A short pier lay drunkenly askew in the water, ignored because neither she nor Andrew sailed. Farther out, boats skimmed and sailed as people took advantage of the hint of spring and a Sunday holiday.

  She followed the curve of the beach, ignoring the burning in her calves and chest, the trickle of sweat between her breasts.

  A lobster boat swayed on the current while the waterman in his bright red cap checked his pots. He lifted a hand and waved, and the simple gesture from a stranger made her eyes burn. While her vision blurred, she waved in return, then stopped, bending over, hands on knees, while her breath screamed out of her laboring lungs.

  She hadn’t run far, she thought, but she’d run too fast. She hadn’t paced herself. Everything was happening too fast. She couldn’t quite keep up, yet she didn’t dare slow down.

  And sweet God, she didn’t even know where she was going.

  There was a man in her house, a man she’d known for only a matter of weeks. A man who was a thief, likely a liar, and undoubtedly dangerous. Yet she’d put a part of her life in his hands. She’d become intimate with him, more intimate than she’d ever allowed herself to become with anyone.

  She looked back and up and studied the moon-white spear of the lighthouse. She’d fallen in love with him inside that tower. It didn’t matter if she’d been sliding toward it all along, it was there she’d fallen. And she had yet to be certain she would land on her feet.

  He’d walk away when he finished what he had come to do. He’d be charming about it, and clever. Not cruel. But he would go back to his life. Hers, she realized, would still be in shambles.

  They could find the bronzes, shore up their reputations, solve the puzzle, and even catch a killer. But her life would remain in shambles.

  And with no precedent, no formula, no data, she couldn’t make an educated guess on how long it would take her to rebuild it.

  At the tips of her feet was the edge of a tidepool, the water calm and clear. Life scurried under it, in otherworldly colors and shapes.

  When she was a child her grandmother had walked this beach with her—or with both her and Andrew. They’d studied the tidepools together, but it hadn’t been like a lesson, some sneaky education ploy of adult to child.

  No, she remembered, they had crouched down and looked for the pleasure of it. Had laughed when what appeared to be a rock squirted at them in annoyance.

  Little worlds, her grandmother had called them. Ripe with passion, sex, violence, and politics—and often more sensible than the life that’s led on the dry part of the planet.

  “I wish you were here,” Miranda murmured. “I wish I still had you to talk to.”

  She looked away from the busy world at her feet, out to sea again, let the wind rage through her hair, over her face. What was she to do now? she wondered. Now that she knew what it was to love someone until it hurt, to prefer the pain to the emptiness that had been so familiar it was rarely noticed?

  She sat on the smooth dome of a rock, brought her knees up to rest her head on them. This, she supposed, was what happened when the heart was allowed to control the mind, the actions, the decisions. With everything else in tatters around her, she was sitting on a rock, looking out to sea and brooding over a love affair that was destined to end.

  An oystercatcher landed near the shoreline, then stalked up and down the verge looking important. It made her smile a little. Apparently even birds worry about appearances. Look at me, he seemed to say, I’m very cool.

  “We’d see how cool you are if I’d brought some bread crumbs,” she told him. “You’d be scrambling to gulp them all down before your buddies got wind of it and swooped down to fight you for them.”

  “I’ve heard that people who drink too much start believing in talking birds.” Andrew saw her shoulders stiffen, but kep
t walking toward her. “You dropped this.” He laid her jacket in her lap.

  “I got too warm.”

  “You sit here without it after a run, you’ll get chilled.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Suit yourself.” It took a great deal of courage for him to sit on the rock beside her. “Miranda, I’m sorry.”

  “I believe we’ve covered that ground.”

  “Miranda.” He knew just how far he’d pushed her away when she wouldn’t let him take her hand.

  “I came down here to be alone for a while.”

  And he knew just how stubborn she could be when she’d been crossed. “I’ve got a few things to say. When I’m done, you can hit me again if you want. I was way over the line this morning. There’s no excuse for what I said to you. I didn’t want to hear what you were saying to me, so I hit hard and low.”

  “Understood. We’ll agree that we’re better off staying out of