Countdown (4 page)

Y
ou can’t go, Trevor,” Venable said sharply. “You don’t even know that it was Grozak.”

“It was Grozak.”

“You can’t be sure of that.”

“I’m not asking your permission, Venable. I told you what you had to do and gave you the courtesy of informing you that there’s a problem. If I decide it’s best, I’m gone.”

“What you’re doing there is more essential. Why go off on the chance that Grozak was involved? Sometimes I think Sabot is right and Grozak isn’t going to be able to pull this off anyway. He’s vicious but definitely small potatoes.”

“I told you that I believe Thomas Reilly may be involved. That changes the whole complexion of the situation.”

“And you’re relying on pure deduction. There’s no proof. And she’s
not
important. You can’t risk endangering the—”

“You do your job. I’ll decide what’s important.” He hung up.

Christ, Venable could be difficult. Trevor would have preferred to just leave him in the dark about Jane. He couldn’t do that. In an operation this delicate, to have any player stumbling around in ignorance would be foolhardy, if not actually suicidal. Even if he hadn’t made a decision about whether to leave the work here at MacDuff’s Run, he had to have Venable cover his bases.

He rose to his feet and moved down the hall to the studio Mario was using. Mario had already gone to the adjoining bedroom, and Trevor crossed the study to stand before the statue of Cira. The moonlight was pouring into the room and illuminating the features of the bust. He never got tired of looking at it. The high cheekbones, the winged brows that looked a little like Audrey Hepburn’s, the lovely curve and sensitivity of that mouth. A beautiful woman whose attraction lay more in the strength and personality of her spirit than in her features.

Jane.

He smiled as he thought how angry she would be to have him compare her to Cira. She’d been fighting it for too long. And it wasn’t really true. The resemblance was there, but since he’d met Jane he no longer saw Cira when he looked at the statue. It was Jane, alive, vibrant, intelligent, and very, very direct.

His smile faded. And that directness could be her worst enemy right now. She only knew one way to go, and that was straight ahead, jumping over all obstacles. She wouldn’t be content to sit and wait for the police to find clues to Fitzgerald’s death.

He touched the statue’s cheek and it felt smooth and cold beneath his finger. Right now he wished he still did think of the statue as Cira.

Smooth and cold.

Without life . . .

His phone rang. Venable again?

“Trevor, Thomas Reilly.”

Trevor stiffened.

“We haven’t met, but I believe you’ve probably heard of me. We have a common interest. We almost ran into each other several times in Herculaneum over the years when we were pursuing that common interest.”

“What do you want, Reilly?”

“What we both want. But I’ll be the one to get it, because I want it more than you or anyone else. I’ve been studying your background and you appear to have a streak of softness, a certain idealism I wouldn’t have attributed to you. You may even be willing to hand the gold over to me.”

“Dream on.”

“Of course, I’d be willing to let you have a percentage.”

“How kind. And what about Grozak?”

“Unfortunately, my friend Grozak is fumbling, and I feel the need for a backup.”

“So you’re double-crossing him.”

“That’s up to you. I’ll deal with whoever can supply what I want. I’ll probably even tell Grozak I’ve contacted you to stir up a little competition.”

“You want the gold.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t have it yet. I wouldn’t give it to you if I did.”

“I’d judge you have an excellent chance of finding it. But the gold isn’t everything I want.”

“The Cira statue. You can’t have it.”

“Oh, I’ll have it. It belongs to me. You stole it away from me when I was trying to buy it from that dealer. I’ll have it all.”

“All?”

“I want something else. I’ll make you a proposition. . . .”

T
hat was Joe Quinn calling from the airport,” Manning said as he hung up the phone. “He wants protection for Jane MacGuire when she comes back to school after the funeral.”

“Are you going to request it?” Fox asked as he leaned back in his office chair.

“Of course I’m going to request it.” Manning shook his head. “But after that budget cut, the captain is going to go ballistic unless I can show definite cause. Can we tie anything into that case you said you read about on the Internet?”

“Maybe. Let’s see. . . .” Fox leaned forward and typed an access code into his computer. “I pulled up this old newspaper article when we came back to the precinct from the hospital. It’s interesting, but I don’t believe we’re going to see a connection to anyone with homicidal tendencies. Unless we’re talking about ghosts.” He pressed a button to bring up the article and then swung the laptop around on his desk so that Manning could read it. “Evidently this serial killer, Aldo Manza, had a father who had an obsession with an actress who lived two thousand years ago, at the time of the eruption of Vesuvius that destroyed Herculaneum and Pompeii. The father was an archaeologist who wasn’t above peddling illegal artifacts, and he’d found a statue of the actress, Cira, in the ruins of Herculaneum.”

“So?”

“Aldo developed an obsession too. He couldn’t stand to let any woman live who bore a resemblance to the statue of Cira his father possessed. He’d go after them and slice off their face before he killed them.”

“Gory bastard. And you said Jane MacGuire looks like this Cira?”

Fox nodded. “The spitting image. That’s why she became a target.”

“Stalked?”

“Yes. But Eve Duncan and Quinn managed to turn the tables on him. They set a trap in the tunnels below Herculaneum. Duncan reconstructed the face of one of the skulls the scientists found in the marina at Herculaneum, and they publicized it as being the skull of Cira. It wasn’t, of course. It was a deliberate phony done by Duncan. The real skull looked nothing like Cira. But the combination of the skull and the presence of Jane MacGuire drew Aldo close enough so that they could take him out.”

“He’s dead?”

“As a doornail. Like his father.”

“Any relatives who might want revenge?”

“Wouldn’t they have tried before this? It’s been four years.”

Manning frowned. “Maybe.” He was reading the article. Everything checked out as Fox had described, but there was one line that puzzled him. “It mentions that Duncan, Quinn, the girl, and a Mark Trevor were at the scene. Who’s Mark Trevor?”

Fox shook his head. “I accessed a couple of other articles, and some of them have a mention of him. None of the other people present in that tunnel would make a comment about him. He was clearly at the scene but he left before either the police or media could interview him. One article indicated there were hints he had a criminal background.”

“And yet Quinn’s protecting him for some reason?”

“I didn’t say that. He’s just not talking about him.”

“But if Trevor was involved with Fitzgerald’s killing, I can’t see Quinn not serving him up to us. He’s too protective of the girl. Does Trevor have a record?”

“Maybe.”

“What do you mean? Either he does or he doesn’t.”

“I can’t seem to get through to the right database. It bounces me out.”

“That’s crazy. Keep trying.”

Fox nodded as he turned the laptop back around to face him. “But you said you didn’t think Quinn would protect Trevor if he suspected him. Why waste the time?”

“Because there’s always the possibility that Quinn might want to leave us out of it and cut Trevor’s throat himself.”

“He’s a cop, for God’s sake. He wouldn’t do that.”

“No? How would you feel if it was your kid, Fox?”

Lake Cottage
Atlanta, Georgia

W
hat are you doing out here on the porch?” Eve asked as she came up the steps. “It’s the middle of the night.”

“I couldn’t sleep.” Jane pushed her dog, Toby, to one side to make room for Eve on the top step. “I thought you’d be staying with Sandra at her condo.”

“I was planning on it, but Ron showed up and I felt a little de trop. They may be divorced, but they both loved Mike. I’m glad he’s there for her.”

Jane nodded. “I remember all the fishing trips he took Mike on when he was a kid. Is he going to the funeral tomorrow?”

“Today,” Eve corrected. “Probably. Did Joe go to bed?”

“Yes. He wasn’t expecting you either. You’d better get some sleep. It’s going to be a difficult day.” She looked out at the lake. “A nightmare of a day.”

“For you, too. It’s been a nightmare since the moment you met Mike in that bar.” She paused. “Do you ever have those dreams of Cira anymore?”

Jane looked back at her, startled. “What? Where did that come from?”

Eve shrugged. “Nightmares. It just popped into my mind.”

“Now? It’s been four years and you’ve never mentioned anything about them.”

“That doesn’t mean I haven’t thought about them. I just figured it would be better if we forgot about everything connected with that time.”

“That’s not easy to do.”

“Obviously,” Eve said dryly. “You’ve been on three archaeological field trips back to Herculaneum since you entered Harvard.”

Jane gently stroked Toby’s head. “You never argued with me about it.”

“That would have been placing too much importance on something I wanted to fade from your memory. That didn’t stop me from hating it. I didn’t want you to spend your youth chasing an obsession.”

“It’s not an obses— Well, maybe it is. I only know I have to find out about Cira. I have to know if she lived or died when that volcano erupted.”

“Why? It was two thousand years ago, dammit.”

“You know why. She had my face. Or I have her face. Whatever.”

“And you dreamed about her for weeks before you actually knew she existed.”

“I probably read about her someplace.”

“But you haven’t been able to verify that.”

“That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.” She made a face. “I like that explanation better than some wacky psychic bullshit.”

“You didn’t answer me. Have you dreamed about her?”

“No. Satisfied?”

“Partially.” She was silent a moment. “Have you been in contact with Mark Trevor?”

“What is this? Twenty questions?”

“It’s me, loving you, and making sure that you’re okay.”

“I’m okay. And I haven’t talked to Trevor since that night he left Naples four years ago.”

“I thought you might have run into him on one of those excavations.”

“He wouldn’t be on his knees spooning dirt with college kids. He knows where those scrolls are buried, blast him.” Trevor had been involved in the smuggling of ancient Roman artifacts when he was contacted by a less than legitimate professor of antiquities and his son, Aldo. They’d discovered a library in a tunnel leading from the villa of Julius Precebio, one of the ancient town’s leading citizens. The library had proved to contain a number of bronze tubes holding priceless scrolls, which had escaped the lava flow that destroyed the villa. Many of the scrolls had been devoted to describing Julius’s mistress, Cira, who had been a bright star in the theater at Herculaneum. Aldo and his father had blown the tunnel to kill everyone who had knowledge of its location, including Trevor. But he’d managed to escape. “Trevor’s the one who camouflaged the site after the cave-in. He doesn’t want anyone to find that tunnel before he can go back and get that chest of gold Julius mentioned in the scrolls.”

“Maybe he’s already found it.”

“Maybe.” Jane had often wondered that same thing, but she had still kept searching. “But I have a feeling . . . I don’t know. I have to keep looking. Dammit, I should be the one to find those scrolls. I deserve it. I’m the one who had that crazy after me trying to slice off my face because I looked like Cira.”

“Then why didn’t you tackle Trevor and get him to tell you where they were?”

“Persuading Trevor to do anything is never an option. He wants the gold, and he believes he deserves it after he lost his friend Pietro in that tunnel. Besides, how was I supposed to find him when Interpol couldn’t keep track of him?”

“I rather thought he might have contacted you when you were over there.”

“No.” On Jane’s first expedition she had fought that irrational thought for the entire time she was in Herculaneum. She had found herself looking over her shoulder, remembering Trevor’s voice, fighting the feeling that he was around the corner, in the next room, somewhere—near. “It’s not likely that he’d stay in touch. I was only seventeen and he thought I was too young to be interesting.”

“Seventeen going on thirty,” Eve said. “And Trevor was no fool.”

“You’d be surprised.”

“Nothing Trevor would do would surprise me. He was one of a kind.”

Eve’s tone was almost affectionate, Jane realized. “You liked him.”

“He saved my life. He saved Joe. He saved you. It’s hard to dislike a man who’s stacked up that kind of credit. That doesn’t mean I approve of him. His intelligence may be off the charts, and he definitely has a way about him. But he’s a smuggler, a con man, and God knows what else.”

“What else indeed? He’s had four years to get into all kinds of nefarious pursuits.”

“At least you’re not defending him.”

“No way. He’s probably the most brilliant man I’ve ever met and could coax the birds from the trees. Other than that, he’s an enigma, he’s proficient in all manner of violence, and he has an addiction to walking a tightrope. None of those qualities tend to endear themselves to a hardheaded, practical woman like me.”

“Woman . . .” Eve sadly shook her head. “I still think of you as a girl.”

“Then that’s what I’ll stay.” Jane leaned her head against Eve’s shoulder. “Whatever you want me to be. You name it.”

“I just want you to be happy.” She brushed her lips against Jane’s forehead. “And not waste your life chasing after a woman who’s been dead two thousand years.”