Sharp Edges (5 page)

"Solid as a rock. No wonder Katy wanted to marry you the day after she met you."

"The feeling was mutual."

The image of Katy slid through his memories. It was a picture of a woman who could have stepped straight out of a Renaissance painting. There had been an ethereal quality about her. He had taken one look at her and known that she needed to be protected from the world.

But in the end he had failed to keep her safe. Damien March had used her and then murdered her in cold blood. Officially, Katy had died at the hands of an unknown carjacker, but Cyrus had never believed that story. He was certain that March had killed her because she had known too much about his plans to disappear with the Hades cup.

"It's so unfair that you and Katy had so little time together," Meredith said.

"Don't think about the past, Meredith. There's no profit in it. You've put your own personal life on hold long enough. Tell Fred you'll marry him and put him out of his misery. He's a good man."

"Maybe I'll do that."

"Hey, Mom, Uncle Cyrus, guess what?" Rick came to a halt in front of them. His eyes flashed with excitement as he glanced at his distinguished-looking father. "Dad says he's going to buy me a car at the end of summer so that I can have it when I go to college in the fall. I won't have to take your old Honda, Mom."

Meredith raised her brows. "It's not that old."

Jake avoided Cyrus's eyes as he clapped Rick on the shoulder. "The kid will need his own transportation at college. I'll check back in August to make the final arrangements."

"Fine," Meredith said. "I'm sure Rick will have picked out the car he wants by then."

Rick laughed. "You can say that again."

"It's settled, then." Jake glanced at his wristwatch. "Hell, look at the time. I'd better be on my way. My flight back to L.A. leaves at three."

Disappointment doused the excitement and pleasure that had been in Rick's eyes a second earlier. "You're leaving already, Dad?"

"Got to run." Jake gave a what-can-you-do shake of his head. "I have a meeting with some people in Newport Beach this evening. You know how it is."

"Yeah." Cool acceptance replaced the disappointment in Rick's expression. "I know how it is. Glad you could make graduation."

"Wouldn't have missed it. Not every day my only son gets out of high school. Take care of yourself. Good luck with the summer job. I'll give you a call when I get a chance."

"Sure."

A short silence descended on the three people left standing beside the Jeep as Jake turned and walked off toward his rental car.

"Got plans for tonight?" Cyrus asked finally.

"What?" Rick swung back around to face him. "Oh, yeah. Alan and Doug and some of the others are coming to the house this evening. Mom said we could have a party."

Meredith winced. "I'm going to dinner with Fred. I don't think I could take a house full of kids celebrating graduation. Want to join us, Cyrus?"

"I'll take a rain check," he said. "I'm going out of town for a while. I've got some business to take care of tonight before I leave."

"Where are you going?" Rick asked.

"Frog Cove Island."

"Never heard of it."

"It's in Puget Sound. One of those little islands off the coast. A lot of artists live there."

Rick nodded. "How long will you be gone?"

"I'm not sure. A couple of weeks, maybe."

Meredith smiled. "Are you finally going to take a vacation, or is this a job?"

"It's a job."

"Sorry to hear that." Meredith gave him a speaking glance. "You could do with a vacation, Cyrus. I can't even recall your last one."

"I've been a little busy for the past three years."

Her mouth twisted in rueful acknowledgment. "I know."

"See you when you get back?" Rick asked in a seemingly offhand manner.

"Sure," Cyrus said. "We'll go fishing."

"Okay, then." The last of the coolness vanished from Rick's eyes. "Guess I'd better get out of this stupid hat and gown."

"I expect to find the house in one piece when I return tonight," Meredith said.

"Don't worry." Rick started to turn away.

"Don't forget our deal," Cyrus said softly.

Rick grinned. "Not a chance." The long folds of his gown flapped around him as he whirled and started off toward his friends.

Meredith glanced at Cyrus. "What deal?"

"No booze and no getting into a car with anyone who's been drinking."

"I don't know what I would have done without you, Cyrus." Meredith stood on tiptoe and kissed him lightly on the cheek. "You know, one of these days you should take a real vacation."

The following afternoon Cyrus eased the Jeep into one of the two short lines of cars waiting for the small, privately operated ferry to Frog Cove Island. It took him less than sixty seconds to spot Eugenia Swift.

She was in the silver Toyota Camry at the front of the other row of vehicles. Her window was rolled down. He could see that she was speaking to someone on a cellular phone. There was no way to overhear the conversation at this distance, but he could tell that she was very intent on it.

He studied the boldly sculpted planes of Eugenia's face while he punched in a number on his own phone. She was not especially pretty, let alone beautiful, but there was a striking vitality about her that made it hard for him to look away. Her dark hair was pulled back into a sleek knot at the nape of her neck. She wore a close-fitting, long-sleeved black pullover that accentuated her slender, lithely built frame. She had fine-boned wrists and high breasts.

He was too far away to see the color of her eyes, but he remembered that they were a very rich shade of amber.

Sleek and smart. Wore a lot of black. Liked long scarves.

The arty type. Probably wouldn't know what to do with a can of tuna fish.

The impression he had formed at their first meeting held firm. She looked like a lady cat burglar.

The ringing on the other end of the line stopped.

"Quint here."

"This is Colfax." Cyrus watched the way Eugenia's elegantly shaped fingers curved competently around the steering wheel. "What have you got for me?"

"Nothing to get excited about," Quint Yates said. "I hate to disappoint you, but the lady seems to have led what used to be called a blameless existence."

"Nobody leads a completely blameless existence." Cyrus kept his eyes on Eugenia as he spoke to his assistant. "Give me what you have."

"Very little beyond what you already know. Graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in Fine Arts and an expertise in glass. Studied in Venice for a while. Went to work for the Leabrook Museum as an assistant curator. Endeared herself to Tabitha Leabrook the first year on the job when she persuaded Dorothy McBrady to put her collection of fifteenth-century Venetian glass on permanent loan in the museum."

"Go on."

"Our Ms. Swift sailed on to new heights a year later when she detected a forgery in a collection of early-Roman cameo glass that had been loaned to the museum for an exhibition. She pulled off the same trick again six months later when she curated a display of eighteenth-century Chinese glass."

"She found another fraud?"

"Yep. After that, her reputation was made. Major glass collectors routinely consult her."

Cyrus was not surprised. He had known she was good. During the past three years he'd made it his business to be aware of the art experts who specialized in glass. "Anything else?"

"Two and a half years ago Tabitha Leabrook promoted her to the position of Director of the Leabrook Museum and gave her a whopping budget. You know the rest."

"Yeah." The museum's collection of ancient and modern glass was well on its way to becoming one of the best in the nation. Even the big European museums respected the Leabrook for its depth and quality. A new wing featuring contemporary studio glass art had recently been completed.

"She gets job offers from other institutions all the time," Quint said. "But she routinely turns them down."

"I have a hunch it's because she enjoys the authority she has at the Leabrook." Cyrus watched Eugenia through the window. "She pretty much gets to run the whole show there. Something tells me she's the kind who likes to be in charge."

"That's it on the professional side."

"What about the personal angle?"

"Not much there, either. Thirty years old. Never been married. Oldest of three children. Brother and sister both went into academia. One teaches at a college here in Oregon. The other is an assistant professor at a school in California."

"Parents?"

"Also academic types. They divorced when Eugenia was fourteen. Her mother went back to school to get her Ph.D. She now teaches in the women's studies department at a college back East. Her father is in the sociology department at a Midwestern university."

Cyrus groaned. "That fits."

"With what?"

"With the way she looked down her nose at me the first time we met. She's one of those highbrowed intellectual types."

"Could have been your shirt."

"Nah, couldn't have been the shirt. I wore my best one. Any lovers?"

"Couple of relationships that lasted a while, but nothing serious for the past year and a half. She has what you might call business dates, but that's about it. Actually her sex life reminds me a lot of yours. Nothing very interesting going on."

"You can skip the editorial remarks. No one is more aware of my boring sex life than me. Anything else?"

"Not much. She lives alone and apparently likes it that way. Her idea of a vacation is a trip to a world-class museum."

"Okay, that's all for now as far as Ms. Swift is concerned."

"Right."

"Anything new on the Connoisseurs' Club angle?"

"I've got all of the names and addresses. I'm starting the background checks."

"You know how to reach me if you come up with anything." Absently, Cyrus severed the connection. He did not take his eyes off Eugenia Swift. She was still on the phone.

Something important, he decided. He could feel the intensity of the conversation from here. Funny how much you could tell just by watching a person's body language.

Eugenia was annoyed. Irritated. Impatient. Frustrated. He smiled to himself. She was drumming her fingers on the steering wheel. Some people could not sit still for more than five minutes at a time.

He, on the other hand, could stay still for hours when necessary. His grandfather had taught him the secret of stillness. It was a hunter's trick.

Cyrus considered his quarry in the Toyota. According to Quint, she was unlikely to be arguing with a lover because she did not have one. Therefore, by process of elimination, he was forced to the conclusion that she was probably discussing him.

The fierce battle that she had fought to keep him from accompanying her to Frog Cove Island raised a lot of interesting questions. He had been mulling them over since the meeting in her office.

If her only goal on the island was to combine a vacation with the task of inventorying the Daventry glass, she should not have had the reaction she'd had when she'd discovered that he was going to accompany her.

It would have been understandable if she had been merely annoyed or put out by the prospect of sharing Glass House with him. But Eugenia had been genuinely alarmed. He'd seen the brief flare of real panic in her eyes before she'd managed to conceal it.

He was a major problem, not a minor nuisance, for her.

He wondered why.

There was, of course, one all-too-obvious explanation. It was just barely possible that Eugenia had picked up the same rumors that he had. If she was on the trail of the Hades cup, he had some very big problems, himself.

He opened the door of the Jeep, got out, and walked toward Eugenia's car.

"I understand that you don't have too much, Sally." Eugenia narrowed her eyes against the glare of sunlight on water and watched impatiently as the small ferry prepared to take on passengers and vehicles. "Just give me what you've got."

"The most interesting thing is that Colfax was once half-owner of a company named March & Colfax Security."

"What's so interesting about that?"

"Three years ago the firm collapsed after something went very wrong on a transport job. Armed robbery. The details are amazingly scarce. I couldn't even find out the name of the client, let alone what got stolen. But Colfax was shot in the process."

Eugenia sucked in her breath. "
Shot?
As in, with a
gun?
"

"Yes. It gets worse. While he was in the hospital, his wife was the victim of a carjacking. She was killed. The cops found her car but not the murderer."

"My God."

"Damien March, the other partner in March & Colfax Security, disappeared at about the same time."

"What do you mean he disappeared? Was he killed, too?"

"That was the conclusion of the authorities, but they never found the body. The object, whatever it was, that was stolen in the course of the robbery vanished, too."

Eugenia frowned. "What about insurance claims?"

"None were filed."

"This is getting a little bizarre, Sally."

"My thoughts precisely. Look at it this way, maybe you'll have something interesting to write home about after this year's summer vacation."

Eugenia ignored that. "Anything else on the personal side?"

"Just basic stuff. Mother died shortly after he was born. No info on his father. Colfax was raised by his grandparents. Dropped out of college to take care of them during the last year of their lives. After they died, he worked as a cop in a medium-sized town in California for a while. Eventually quit to go into business for himself as a private investigator. That's about it on the early years."

A large, dark object loomed between the open car window and the bright sun. Eugenia suddenly found herself in dense shadow. Her fingers closed convulsively around the phone. She turned her head quickly and jumped when she saw Cyrus Colfax looking down at her. The glare off his mirrored sunglasses nearly blinded her.

"I've got to go, Sally."