Heartwishes (36 page)

“Jean,” he answered.

Gemma had to work to keep from rolling her eyes. He had invited her to this beautiful, romantic place, but it looked like she was going to have to discuss his ex-girlfriend.

“What about her?” Gemma asked, trying her best to be an adult. She congratulated herself on not shouting, “What does Dragon Lady want now?” She sat down on the grass and looked up at him; Colin stayed standing, looking too nervous to sit down.

Colin told her about searching old files and finding out that
many years ago a young thief had left behind a willow branch tied with a pink silk ribbon.

“So he’s restarted his career?” she asked. “Do you have photos of this man?”

“Yes, but there’s more. He went on to commit some major robberies all over the world. Banks, the Romanian consulate, a couple of penthouses in Hong Kong. He’s scaled buildings using suction cups. He can open any safe made.”

“I guess a screwed-on bedpost was easy for him.”

“Very easy.” Colin was looking at her as though he had something important to tell her, but he didn’t seem to want to say it outright.

“Why would a professional thief come to Edilean?”

“He’s Jean’s uncle.”

Gemma refrained from saying curse words and tried to keep her face calm. She wasn’t going to give in to her anger at her baby news being overridden by Jean’s criminal relative. “I take it you weren’t told about the uncle.”

“Not a word. Jean said she was an only child of only children.”

“I can see why she didn’t tell a man who loved law enforcement that she had a notorious thief for an uncle. Maybe she didn’t know him.”

“Ha! He was under surveillance while she was in law school, and he spent a lot of time with her. According to the files I read and the pictures I saw of the two of them, they were inseparable for years. She traveled with him. I knew she’d been places all over the world, but I just found out that she went with her uncle, a man who—” He couldn’t seem to find the right words to describe Jean’s concealment of this part of her life.

Gemma knew she should offer him sympathy because his former girlfriend had lied to him, but she couldn’t do it. If he was really over her—as he said he was—would it still make him this angry to find
out that she’d hidden things from him? But she kept her thoughts to herself. “So now you need to find her uncle.”

“Yeah, I do.”

“What does Jean say about all his?” She held her breath, hoping that he’d say he hadn’t spoken to her, that he was letting his deputy, Roy, ask the questions.

“Jean says she hasn’t seen him in years, but I think she’s lying.” Colin stopped pacing to look down at Gemma. “That’s what I want to talk to you about. I don’t believe all of this is a coincidence.”

“All of what?”

Colin waved his hand. “You, me, Jean, her uncle, the robberies. I think there’s a reason it’s all happening at once.”

“What’s your theory?” she asked, genuinely interested.

“I think Jean told her uncle that she and I broke up. Knowing her as I do, she probably told him it was all my fault. I’m beginning to think the robberies in our little town are an attempt at revenge.”

“But if he knows Jean, maybe he can figure out the truth about you two. And there might be another reason he’s here.” She told him of how Tristan had found what he believed to be the Heartwishes Stone. “I still don’t know how everyone in town found out about it. Did you tell anyone?”

“I didn’t have to. That legend is known by a lot of people. It wouldn’t be a leap for anyone to go from you looking at the old papers to wishes being fulfilled. I guess Tris told you about his brother-in-law.”

“Yes,” Gemma said, “but I didn’t know he told others.”

“Jake was suddenly brought home from a war and got a job here in Edilean, all in a couple of weeks. People notice that sort of thing.”

“And Sara’s twins,” Gemma said. “It seems to me that a Stone that grants wishes would be enough to attract an international thief.”

“I’m afraid so,” he said. “All this makes what I have to say even more difficult.”

His tone made the hairs on Gemma’s neck stand up. “What do you want to tell me?”

“If Jean’s uncle is committing these crimes in retaliation for my having broken up with his niece, or he wants what you’re researching, I’m concerned about
you
. If he’s anything like Jean, I think he’ll go after whatever he wants without worrying about the repercussions.”

She was trying to conceal her disappointment about how far away from what she’d thought this meeting was going to be to the reality of it. “Since you’re the one who caused Jean pain, maybe her uncle wants to show you up to the whole town. Possibly make you an object of ridicule.”

“To humiliate me?” Colin said. “That’s possible. But now I’m concerned that he wants this Stone and may think that
you
have it.”

She could tell where he was headed. He wanted the two of them to stay apart for a while. But Gemma didn’t want to do that. “Do you think Jean could have instigated the robberies?” Gemma asked. “Maybe Jean asked her uncle to do something that would embarrass you.”

“I don’t think so,” he said, but he wouldn’t meet her eyes.

To Gemma, it looked like he wasn’t going to tell her all of what he was thinking. “So what now?” she asked.

He was looking at her intensely. “Is something wrong? Have I done something to upset you?”

“No. You haven’t done anything,” she said and knew she was lying just as much as he was. “I’m just concerned for your safety, that’s all. What do you plan to do now?”

“I’m going to question Jean some more. I’ve got to use anything I know about her to get her to tell me the truth. I need to find out what’s going on and why. So far, the robberies have been petty, but
I worry that they’re a prelude to something larger. In one job, four innocent people were killed during his escape.”

Gemma was quiet for a moment as her visions of talking with him about having their baby were replaced by scenes of him with Jean. She brought herself back to the present. “You want us to stay apart and make the town believe we’ve broken up, don’t you?”

“I think that’s the best for now.” He gave her a crooked grin. “I thought about picking a fight with you, one that was so bad that you’d throw me out, but I decided not to risk it. I was afraid you’d not forgive me, then where would I be?”

“The same place you were a few weeks ago,” Gemma said. She glanced at her watch. She could feel the beginning of nausea rising in her. If she didn’t leave soon, she’d be throwing up, and that was not the way she wanted him to find out about the child they’d created. “I need to get back to work.” She got up and started toward her car, but he caught her arm.

“You’re angry at me.” He seemed to be astonished at the idea.

“I understand about your work and what you need to do.” She thought about what he’d just said. “How would you have picked a fight with me?”

“Forget I said that,” he said. “Why don’t we go somewhere out of town and have dinner and talk about all this?”

Gemma had a grim vision of herself throwing up at the table. “I’ll take a rain check. I really do need to go.”

“Work!” he said. “I could pick a fight with you about how much you work.”

It was her turn to be astonished. “But I thought you liked hearing about all I was finding out about your family. Didn’t you?”

“I did. I do,” he said. “Although the part about Tris has been hard to take.”

“Tris? What does he have to do with the robberies?”

“Nothing that I know of.”

“Then why did you bring him up?”

“It’s just that I was surprised when he said that you’d told him about my case. He knew many details I’d not even told my deputy. Maybe I should have made you cross your heart not to tell. And of course there’s the two of you and that damned Stone! It would have been easy to pick a fight.”

Colin was smiling, but Gemma took his words seriously. She’d never before been accused of betraying anyone’s trust. “But I thought—” She could feel her face growing red. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have told about your case. I was in the wrong. I apologize.” The nausea was growing stronger and she took a step toward her car.

“Gemma, I’m the one to apologize. It was okay to tell Tris. I do. It’s just that—”

When he cut off, she turned to look at him. “It’s just that what?”

“Nothing. Forget about it.” He stepped beside her. “I’ll see you in a few days.”

“I want to know what you were going to say.”

He looked away from her. “Nothing. I don’t listen to gossip.”

“What gossip?”

Colin ran his hand over his face. “It’s just déjà vu, that’s all. You spent an entire day with Tris, but I understand. Jean was always out with other men too. I pretended to be above it, but it did hurt.”

“Déjà vu? Hurt? Other men? What in the world are you talking about?”

“You and Tris, that’s what!” he said, as though it were a given.

“What about Tristan?”

“Gemma, I don’t want to fight. I asked you to come here so I could tell you the truth, not to argue. You and I have to stay apart for a while because I need time to get all the information out of Jean that I can. And I’m concerned that you may be in danger of some sort of revenge. Plus, there’s your knowledge of that Stone.”

“Of course,” Gemma said. “I understand completely. You’re telling this month’s girlfriend that you need to spend time with last month’s girlfriend. And, by the way, while you’re with her, I’m to stay away from other men. The only question is whether you and I are on for next month. Or do you have someone else picked out?”

“Gemma! By everything that’s holy you’re being unfair! Do you have any idea what I have to put up with because you spend so much time with Tris? His house is very isolated, and half a dozen people told me you were out there with him at night. And he drove you home. Were you too drunk to drive?”

She wasn’t about to tell him the real reason for not driving. “If this is what you think of me, it’s a good idea that we stop seeing each other. I’m sure your family will be pleased to see you back with your beautiful lawyer girlfriend. And since you seem to forgive her for everything rotten she does to you, I’m sure you two will be very happy together. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to go back to work.”

“I don’t mind at all,” Colin said. “I hope you and Tris will be very happy.”

“Good! Because it looks like you and Jean are a perfect match after all.”

“Maybe we are,” Colin said.

Gemma couldn’t take any more. She got into her car, slammed the door, and drove off in a flurry of gravel.

Just as angry, Colin drove to his office. He was determined to go back to work. The sooner he got the crimes figured out and arrests made, the faster he could get back with Gemma. If she wanted to, that is.

An hour later, he hadn’t done anything. He kept going over their argument and trying to understand it.

After a fight with Jean, Colin had always felt better. They said horrible things, accusing each other of infidelity, laziness, stupidity, whatever they could come up with. They covered every
subject, from her leaving the kitchen a mess to Colin’s constant moroseness, to Jean’s inability to see anything except her own wants and needs.

After hours of spewing venom, they would run out of energy—and out of bad things to blame on the other. They’d take a breath, look at each other, and one of them would say something trivial. Colin would say something like, “You hog the bathroom.”

Jean would retaliate with, “And you’d rather watch sports on TV than go dancing.”

“And you’d rather—” Colin would begin, but he’d not finish because in the next minute they’d be in each other’s arms. The sex that followed would be as heated as their argument had been.

But Gemma was different. He’d asked her to meet him at Merlin’s Farm because he didn’t want to start their phony—and temporary—breakup in either of their houses, places where they’d made love. He knew that he’d missed her so much over the last days that all he’d want to do was climb into bed and hold her. He thought that the neutral ground of the summerhouse would be better.

It had never occurred to him that there’d be a fight. He would have said that he and Gemma had nothing to argue about. From the beginning they’d been a perfect match, easy and comfortable with each other.

While it was true that she’d been angry at him for forgetting their time in bed together, they’d solved that, hadn’t they? And he’d made it up to her.

He thought he’d ignored the fact that over the last few weeks people in Edilean had delighted in telling him that Gemma had been seen with Dr. Tris again and again. None of his real friends, the people Colin had grown up with, had said anything, but the newcomers had told him. Everywhere he went, someone told him of Gemma and Tris.

“Their heads were together over chocolate,” one man said. “Now there’s a man who knows how to win a girl’s heart.”

At the grocery, Colin was meant to overhear a nurse say that Tris was staying at home that night alone—with Gemma. “I’m not sure,” the nurse said loudly, “but I think it’s the beginning of a real love affair.”

“Nobody deserves it more than Dr. Tris,” the other woman answered even louder. “It’s about time he settled down and had a family.”

Colin almost stepped in and told them that she belonged to him, not Tris, but his lifelong habit of keeping his personal life to himself overruled him.

It was Mr. Lang who told him that Tris drove Gemma home after what Lang called a “date.”

“It wasn’t a date,” Colin snapped at the old man. “And what were you doing out there anyway?”

Mr. Lang shrugged and looked around Colin’s office. He gave out less information about himself than any Frazier did. He looked back at Colin. “If you like her, you better work to keep her.”

“Let’s leave my life out of this. You see or hear anything about the robberies?”

“No,” Mr. Lang said, and Colin knew the old man was not going to say anything more.

Colin had hated the idea of telling Gemma that they shouldn’t see each other for a while, but his only concern was for her safety. And he wasn’t going to tell her that her suspicions about Jean were at the center of his thoughts. He could easily believe that Jean would come up with some scheme for revenge. He’d seen her do some nasty things to people in her office when they did something like try to steal a case from her. And she’d been
very
angry that day in his apartment when he finalized their breakup.