Moving Target (26 page)

“How about this one?” Erik asked.

She looked at the open, sunny room with its baronial furnishings, high ceiling, and brass ceiling fan. The bedspread on the huge, raised bed was a machine-made tapestry that had once been jewel-toned but had faded over the years to a quiet kind of radiance. The rug was an old kilim with its hallmark slit-weave technique, which resulted in designs shaped like diamonds or triangles and diagonal stair steps marching across the center. The rug’s yellow, red, green, and blue-black colors were also faded, yet still vibrant.

“Perfect,” she said simply.

“How do you know? You haven’t even looked out the windows.”

Guiltily her head snapped up from studying the beautiful old handwoven rug. “I’m sure the view will be—“ Her words stopped when she looked out the windows that took up most of the west wall. “Oh, the mountains! That’s Dry Falls, isn’t it?”

He smiled. “Especially this winter. We’ve hardly had enough rain to make a drool line down the stone cliff.”

After a few moments Serena looked away from the view of her favorite mountains. The subtle signs of habitation that she had missed on her first survey of the room now came out clearly: sketches tacked on a big bulletin board near the closet door, several electronic charging cradles plugged in near the dresser, a portable computer humming quietly to itself on a bedside table that was also a desk, and a book detailing medieval designs open on a second bedside table.

“This is your room,” she realized. “I can’t take it.”

“Don’t worry, I had the housekeeper come in for a fast lick this morning after I left. Everything’s clean, including the sheets.”

“That’s not what I meant. I can’t move you out of your own room.”

“You aren’t. I am.”

“But—”

“It will save me sneaking through your bedroom while you’re asleep—”

“Sneaking—“ she began hotly.

“—to check on our tail,” Erik continued, ignoring her interruption. “The guest room has the best view of the street in the whole house. Besides, my bedroom is big enough to set up your loom. Little Betty would be a real squeeze in the other room.”

She took a breath to argue, but the thought of having some stranger peering through her bedroom window made her skin crawl. “Let’s go back to Plan A.”

“The one where you stay at a motel?”

“Yes.”

“Even with adjoining rooms, we’ll be a lot more crowded there than we are here.”

“Adjoining rooms. We. What are you talking about?”

“Watching your back while you watch mine. We’re sticking together, Serena. Two have a better chance playing this game than one, and the best chance of all is to stay here. I have a good security system, a high wall, and an attack cuckoo.”

She started to argue and found herself laughing instead. “Attack cuckoo. My God. We’d be better off whacking the guy over his head with my loom.”

Erik grinned. “Good idea. Like I said, we’ll have a better chance if we stay together.”

She didn’t look convinced.

He put his hands on his hips. “Look. If I was going to hurt you or jump on you, I’d have done it already. Can you say the same for the guy out there?”

“No.”

“Then what’s the problem here?”

The problem was that Serena was beginning to want to jump on Erik, but she wasn’t about to say that out loud. She didn’t even like thinking it. Yet there it was, as plain as the tingling in her palms and the heat growing in the pit of her stomach.

“No problem,” she said through her teeth. “Let’s get the loom tightened before the threads go completely wonky. I’ll settle down once I have something to do with my hands.”

He had a suggestion or two about that, but kept his mouth shut. Until her loom was set up, she could still change her mind and bolt, taking the pages with her. He didn’t want that. He was dying to really examine them.

When he heard his own thought, he winced. Dying to wasn’t a happy description at the moment, especially with some thug parked on the street just outside the gate.

Factoid, where the hell are those police reports on Ellis Weaver’s murder?

A
s soon as Serena began weaving, Erik took his computer to the guest room, plugged it in again, and started hunting for new additions. Even though McCoy hadn’t called, he might have left something in the file.

He had.

“Thank you, O gods of geekdom,” Erik muttered.

He called up the Book of the Learned file, turned the audio down to zilch—Factoid’s running commentary tended to be loud and often obscene—and started reading about the night Ellis Weaver died.

The police work was about what he would expect of county cops whose major duties consisted of rousting prostitutes, scraping up human roadkill, and handcuffing mouthy drunks. Even if the cop work had been of the highest order, by the time the county fire truck emptied its tank and hosed down the smoking ruins of the cabin, there wasn’t much evidence left to collect.

What they had found was gruesome. Enough remained of Serena’s grandmother to prove in living color that a human being had burned to death. It was all there in the video file, the spine arched backward in death, the odd shreds of flesh or clothing that had escaped complete annihilation, the feeling of terrible screams echoing from the charred, open jaw.

Erik took a few deep breaths and let them out. He had seen autopsy reports and crime-scene photos before, but the grisly ones still turned his stomach. He forced himself to focus on the pages of written reports detailing evidence collected at the crime scene.

There wasn’t much real evidence. Tire tracks leading in and out on the dirt road and footprints around the cabin . . . yeah, there were lots and lots of them. Every county cop with a set of wheels and an hour to kill had driven up the road to offer his professional opinion on what had happened. The fire crew had left tracks and puddles all over the place. The arson investigation team had been more delicate, but only after they finished cussing out everyone who had messed up the scene in the first place.

The closest thing to a neighbor was Jolly Barnes, a hermit who lived a half mile down the road. He hadn’t heard or seen anything, because he had spent the night the way he always did—stinking drunk. Ellis Weaver didn’t have any friends to question. There wasn’t a lover, husband, ex-husband, or Peeping Tom. There was nothing worth stealing inside the cabin. No TV, no computer, no fancy electronics of any kind because there was no electricity. Ellis Weaver’s idea of cash on hand had been a dish of small change and a few crumpled dollar bills. The truck she drove was older than most high school graduates.

The cops had tried. The investigator assigned to the case had made the rounds of all the grungy bars, sun-hammered trailer parks, hobo campgrounds, and biker hangouts. A handful of people had heard about the death. No one looked guilty. No one gave a damn. No one had any idea why anyone would want to fry some old lady who lived alone. She hadn’t bothered anyone. They hadn’t bothered her. End of interview.

There had been no blind phone calls to the sheriff’s office hinting at a possible motive or suspect. No drunken bragging at any of the bars. No pissed-off girlfriend turning in an abusive boyfriend who just happened to like burning grannies. No informant pointing the way for an investigator to follow. No guilt-wracked amphetamine freak walking in to confess. Dead end.

After several weeks, fresher crimes claimed the attention of the overworked sheriff’s department. Ellis Weaver’s file remained open, but the conclusion wasn’t likely to change: Death by homemade napalm bombs of one old lady at the hands of person or persons unknown. There hadn’t been a crime like it before in the county. There hadn’t been one like it since.

Erik looked out the window where the little pickup gleamed beneath a trail of moonlight and wondered if the man carried a box of soap flakes and a spare can of gas in the trunk.

N
iall pushed back from his desk and stretched hard enough to make his tendons pop. A quick scan of all the screens showed that Rarities Unlimited was buttoned up for the night, except for the International Division. The people there went twenty-four hours a day. But that was his second in command’s problem; Ruben Valenzuela was in charge of overnight security.

After another glance at the screens, Niall lifted his worn leather jacket off the back of his chair. If he hurried, he might get to Dana’s kitchen before she added too much pepper oil to the stir-fry. She was always trying to get even for the nuclear curries he prepared.

The phone rang. It was his private line. Not his most private one, but not a line that many people had a number for.

“Yeah?” Niall said.

“Tannahill here. Sheridan isn’t answering her unit.”

“You want me to cry now or later?”

“I want you to tell me where she is.”

“Flea-marketing.”

There was a faint click from Shane’s end of the line. Experience told Niall that the other man was walking his pen over his hand, and the click came from solid gold pen meeting solid gold Celtic ring. Niall wished he could watch the process. No matter how many times Niall tried the pen-walking trick, the damned thing kept leaping to the floor.

“Upscale fleas, I trust,” Shane said.

“Museums.”

Shane grunted. “Any news on a nice nearly solid gold illuminated manuscript page for my casino?”

“What kind of news are you looking for?”

“Price.”

The laconic answer made Niall grin. He had only played poker with Shane once. It had been a learning experience. One of the things he had learned was how Shane had survived after he told his overbearing daddy to take his billions and shove them where the sun don’t shine.

“The only one I know about isn’t for sale,” Niall said.

“Sooner or later, everything is for sale.”

“Not this. Not today.”

“When it is, call me.”

“Norman Warrick gets the first call. If he doesn’t want the pages or can’t afford them, we’ll let you know.”

“What does the old buzzard want with that page among all the others? Besides, he likes fifteenth-century French stuff.”

Silently Niall noted that Shane obviously had heard in fair detail about the manuscript pages that Serena Charters had. “I didn’t ask. He didn’t offer.”

“You’re acting as his go-between?”

“Not me. Erik North.”

“What else can you tell me?”

“I’m hungry and Dana is cooking without my supervision.”

There was silence at the other end, then the click that said Shane had quit playing with the pen and had flipped it onto his palm.

“You’re not the only one who knows about the pages,” Shane said.

Niall’s eyes narrowed. “Besides you, is there anyone in particular you want to talk about?”

“Not yet. But if Serena Charters was hoping to keep her pages quiet, she shouldn’t have sent them through the House of Warrick’s mail room.”

“What else do you hear?”

“The pages are forgeries. The pages are Nazi loot. The pages are a local history of local political alliances. The pages are from a twelfth-century alchemy text and contain the secret to eternal life.”

“Oh, Christ Jesus. We’ll be ass-deep in geriatric millionaires.”

“Young billionaires, too.”

“Don’t tell me you believe that crap.”

“I believe that initial page is a fantastic example of Insular Celtic gold illumination. I believe that all the pages came from something that Erik North refers to as the Book of the Learned. I believe that Ellis Weaver’s murder had something to do with—”

“You got into our files,” Niall cut in angrily.

“—those pages,” Shane continued without a pause. “I know I want that illuminated carpet page with the intertwined initials for the Golden Fleece’s collection.”

“How did you get in our files.” It was a demand, not a question.

“McCoy is very good, but he isn’t God.”

“And you are?”

“No, but my daddy dearest wrote the software. He knows where all the trapdoors are hidden and how to open them. He made sure I learned even when I wanted to be out playing hockey in his very own private stadium.”

“I’m switching software.”

“To what?”

Niall snarled some words under his breath. There was nothing even half as good on the software market and both men knew it.

“I’ll make you a deal,” Shane said. “I’ll tell McCoy how I got in your computer system if you’ll guarantee that I’m first in line for those pages.”

“I’d love to. I won’t. It’s called integrity, a concept you have at least a nodding acquaintance with. My name is on the contract with the House of Warrick and Rarities Unlimited.”

“You think old man Warrick’s a pillar of honesty?”

“I think he’s a pillar of shit. What does that have to do with it?”

“Let me know if you change your mind.”

“I won’t.”

“Warrick would sell you out in a nanosecond.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“You’re a good man, S. K. Niall. Too damn good for this world.”

Niall snickered. “Right, mate. I’m a regular fairy godmother blowing sparkling stuff out my arse.”

Shane laughed once, roughly, then said, “There’s something ugly oozing around those pages. Watch your back.”

Before Niall could ask what he meant, Shane hung up. Niall looked at the phone, thought about dialing up Shane again, and decided against it. If the gambler had anything concrete, he would share it.

All the same, Niall didn’t dismiss what Shane had said. Both men came from a long line of people who respected hunches, luck, and things that go bump in the night. Niall also respected Shane Tannahill for other reasons, one of which was that Shane had what every successful gambler had: a way of understanding people, cards, and circumstances that went beyond the rational surface of probability and odds.

Hunches, luck, and things that go bump in the night.

There’s something ugly oozing around those pages.

As Niall stared out at the sea of lights and the overarching darkness that was Los Angeles, he decided to tackle Dana again on the subject of security cameras in her home. This time he would be a gentleman and a scholar about it. He would give her a choice.