Stars of Mithra Box Set: Captive Star\Hidden Star\Secret Star (23 page)

The storm rolled in fast and mean, blocking the flaming sun, dark, grasping shadows shooting out and covering the landscape. Now there was panic, a great need to hurry. Hurry. Hurry. A stone for each of them, before it was too late. Before the lightning struck.

But it was already too late. Lightning stabbed the skin, sharp as a knife, and she was running, running blindly. Alone and terrified, with the
walls closing in and the lightning stabbing at her heels….

She awoke with her breath heaving, shooting straight up on the sofa. What had she done? Dear God, what had she done? Rocking herself, her hands pressed to her mouth, Bailey waited for the shudders to pass.

The room was quiet. There was no thunder, no lightning, no storm chasing her. And she wasn't alone. Across the room, under the slant of light from a globe lamp, Cade dozed in a chair. He had a book open on his lap.

It calmed her just to see him there, papers scattered at his feet, a mug on the table beside him. His legs were stretched out, crossed comfortably at the ankles.

Even in sleep, he looked strong, dependable. He hadn't left her alone. She had to block an urge to go over, crawl into his lap and slide back to sleep cuddled with him. He pulled her, tugged at her emotions so strongly. It didn't seem to matter that she'd known him less than twenty-four hours. After all, she'd hardly known herself much longer.

Pushing at her hair, she glanced at her watch. It was just after three a.m., a vulnerable time. Stretching out again, she pillowed her head on her
hands and watched him. Her memory of the evening was clear enough, no breaks, no jumps. She knew she'd thrown herself at him, and it both embarrassed and amazed her.

He'd been right to stop before matters got out of hand. She knew he was right.

But, oh, she wished he'd just taken her, there on the floor. Taken her before she had all this time to think about the right and wrong of it, the consequences.

Some of this emptiness within her would be filled now, some of those undefinable needs met.

Sighing, she rolled to her back and stared up at the ceiling. But he'd been right to stop. She had to think.

She closed her eyes, not to seek sleep but to welcome memory. Who were the women she'd dreamed of? And where were they now? Despite herself she drifted off.

 

Cade woke the next morning stiff as a board. Bones popped as he stretched. He rubbed his hands over his face, and his palms made scratching sounds against the stubble. The moment his eyes cleared, he looked across the room. The couch was empty.

He might have thought he'd dreamed her, if not
for the books and papers heaped all over the floor. The whole thing seemed like a dream—the beautiful, troubled woman with no past, walking into his life and his heart at the same time. In the morning light, he wondered how much he'd romanticized it, this connection he felt with her. Love at first sight was a romantic notion under the best of circumstances.

And these were hardly the best.

She didn't need him mooning over her, he reminded himself. She needed his mind to be clear. Daydreaming about the way she'd wrapped herself around him and asked him to make love with her simply wasn't conducive to logical thinking.

He needed coffee.

He rose and trying to roll the crick out of his neck, headed for the kitchen.

And there she was, pretty as a picture and neat as a pin. Her hair was smooth, brushed to a golden luster and pulled back with a simple rubber band. She was wearing the navy-and-white striped slacks he'd bought her, with a white camp shirt tucked into the waist. With one hand resting on the counter, the other holding a steaming mug, she was staring out the window at his backyard where a rope hammock hung between twin maples and roses bloomed.

“You're an early riser.”

Her hand shook in startled reaction to his voice, and then she turned, worked up a smile. Her heart continued to thud just a little too fast when she saw him, rumpled from sleep. “I made coffee. I hope you don't mind.”

“Sweetheart, I owe you my life.” He said in heartfelt tones as he reached for a mug.

“It seems I know how to make it. Apparently some things just come naturally. I didn't even have to think about it. It's a little strong. I must like it strong.”

He was already downing it, reveling in the way it seared his mouth and jolted his system. “Perfect.”

“Good. I didn't know if I should wake you. I wasn't sure what time you leave for your office, or how much time you'd need.”

“It's Saturday, and the long holiday weekend.”

“Holiday?”

“Fourth of July.” While the caffeine pumped through his system, he topped off his mug. “Fireworks, potato salad, marching bands.”

“Oh.” She had a flash of a little girl sitting on a woman's lap as lights exploded in the night sky. “Of course. You'll be taking the weekend off. You must have plans.”

“Yeah, I got plans. I plan for us to toddle into the office about midmorning. I can show you the ropes. Won't be able to do much legwork today, with everything shut down, but we can start putting things in order.”

“I don't want you to give up your weekend. I'd be happy to go in and straighten up your office, and you could—”

“Bailey. I'm in this with you.”

She set her mug down, linked her hands.

“Why?”

“Because it feels right to me. The way I see it, what you can't figure out in your head, you do on instinct.” Those sea-mist eyes roamed over her face, then met hers. “I like to think there's a reason you picked me. For both of us.”

“I'm surprised you can say that, after the way I acted last evening. For all we know, I go out cruising bars every night and pick up strange men.”

He chuckled into his mug. Better to laugh, he'd decided, than to groan. “Bailey, the way a single glass of wine affects you, I doubt you spent much time in bars. I've never seen anyone get bombed quite that fast.”

“I don't think that's anything to be proud of.”
Her voice had turned stiff and cool, and it made him want to grin again.

“It's nothing to be ashamed of either. And you didn't pick a strange man, you picked me.” The amusement in his eyes flicked off. “We both know it was personal, with or without the alcohol.”

“Then why didn't you…take advantage?”

“Because that's just what it would have been. I don't mind having the advantage, but I'm not interested in taking it. Want breakfast?”

She shook her head, waited until he'd gotten out a box of cereal and a bowl. “I appreciate your restraint.”

“Do you?”

“Not entirely.”

“Good.” He felt the muscles of his ego expand and flex as he got milk out of the refrigerator. He poured it on, then added enough sugar to have Bailey's eyes widening.

“That can't be healthy.”

“I live for risk.” He ate standing up. “Later I thought we'd drive downtown, walk around with the tourists. You may see something that jogs your memory.”

“All right.” She hesitated, then took a chair. “I don't know anything about your work, really,
your usual clientele. But it seems to me you're taking all of this completely in stride.”

“I love a mystery.” Then he shrugged and shoveled in more cereal. “You're my first amnesia case, if that's what you mean. My usual is insurance fraud and domestic work. It has its moments.”

“Have you been an investigator very long?”

“Four years. Five, if you count the year I trained as an operative with Guardian. They're a big security firm here in D.C. Real suit-and-tie stuff. I like working on my own better.”

“Have you ever…had to shoot at someone?”

“No. Too bad, really, because I'm a damn good shot.” He caught her gnawing her lip and shook his head. “Relax, Bailey. Cops and P.I.s catch the bad guys all the time without drawing their weapon. I've taken a few punches, given a few, but mostly it's just legwork, repetition and making calls. Your problem's just another puzzle. It's just a matter of finding all the pieces and fitting them together.”

She hoped he was right, hoped it could be just that simple, that ordinary, that logical. “I had another dream. There were two women. I knew them, I'm sure of it.” When he pulled out a chair
and sat across from her, she told him what she remembered.

“It sounds like you were in the desert,” he said when she fell silent. “Arizona, maybe New Mexico.”

“I don't know. But I wasn't afraid. I was happy, really happy. Until the storm came.”

“There were three stones, you're sure of that?”

“Yes, almost identical, but not quite. I had them, and they were so beautiful, so extraordinary. But I couldn't keep them together. That was very important.” She sighed. “I don't know how much was real and how much was jumbled and symbolic, the way dreams are.”

“If one stone's real, there may be two more.” He took her hand. “If one woman's real, there may be two more. We just have to find them.”

 

It was after ten when they walked into his office. The cramped and dingy work space struck her as more than odd now that she'd seen how he lived. But she listened carefully as he tried to explain how to work the computer to type up his notes, how he thought the filing should be done, how to handle the phone and intercom systems.

When he left her alone to close himself in his office, Bailey surveyed the area. The philoden
dron lay on its side, spilling dirt. There was broken glass, sticky splotches from old coffee, and enough dust to shovel.

Typing would just have to wait, she decided. No one could possibly concentrate in such a mess.

From behind his desk, Cade used the phone to do his initial legwork. He tracked down his travel agent and, on the pretext of planning a vacation, asked her to locate any desert area where rockhounding was permitted. He told her he was exploring a new hobby.

From his research the night before, he'd learned quite a bit about the hobby of unearthing crystals and gems. The way Bailey had described her dream, he was certain that was just what she'd been up to.

Maybe she was from out west, or maybe she'd just visited there. Either way, it was another road to explore.

He considered calling in a gem expert to examine the diamond. But on the off chance that Bailey had indeed come into its possession by illegal means, he didn't want to risk it.

He took the photographs he'd snapped the night before of the diamond and spread them out on his desk. Just how much would a gemologist be able to tell from pictures? he wondered.

It might be worth a try. Tuesday, when businesses were open again, he mused, he might take that road, as well.

But he had a couple of other ideas to pursue.

There was another road, an important one, that had to be traveled first. He picked up the phone again, began making calls. He pinned Detective Mick Marshall down at home.

“Damn it, Cade, it's Saturday. I've got twenty starving people outside and burgers burning on the grill.”

“You're having a party and didn't invite me? I'm crushed.”

“I don't have play cops at my barbecues.”

“Now you've really hurt my feelings. Did you earn that Scotch?”

“No match on those prints you sent me. Nothing popped.”

Cade felt twin tugs of relief and frustration. “Okay. Still no word on a missing rock?”

“Maybe if you told me what kind of rock.”

“A big glittery one. You'd know if it had been reported.”

“Nothing's been reported, and I think the rocks are in your head, Parris. Now unless you're going to share, I've got hungry mouths to feed.”

“I'll get back to you on it. And the Scotch.”

He hung up, and spent some time thinking.

Lightning kept coming up in Bailey's dreams. There'd been thunderstorms the night before she came into his office. It could be as simple as that—one of the last things she remembered was thunder and lightning. Maybe she had a phobia about storms.

She talked about the dark, too. There'd been some power outages downtown that night. He'd already checked on that. Maybe the dark was literal, rather than symbolic.

He guessed she'd been inside. She hadn't spoken of rain, of getting wet. Inside a house? An office building? If whatever had happened to her had happened the night before she came to him, then it almost certainly had to have occurred in the D.C. area.

But no gem had been reported missing.

Three kept cropping up in her dreams, as well. Three stones. Three stars. Three women. A triangle.

Symbolic or real?

He began to take notes again, using two columns. In one he listed her dream memories as literal memories, in the other he explored the symbolism.

And the longer he worked, the more he leaned
toward the notion that it was a combination of both.

He made one last call, and prepared to grovel. His sister Muffy had married into one of the oldest and most prestigious family businesses in the East. Westlake Jewelers.

When Cade stepped back into the outer office, his ears were still ringing and his nerves were shot. Those were the usual results of a conversation with his sister. But since he'd wangled what he wanted, he tried to take things in stride.

The shock of walking into a clean, ordered room and seeing Bailey efficiently rattling the keyboard on the computer went a long way toward brightening his mood.

“You're a goddess.” He grabbed her hand, kissed it lavishly. “A worker of miracles.”

“This place was filthy. Disgusting.”

“Yeah, it probably was.”

Her brows lowered. “There was food molding in the file cabinets.”

“I don't doubt it. You know how to work a computer.”

She frowned at the screen. “Apparently. It was like making the coffee this morning. No thought.”

“If you know how to work it, you know how
to turn it off. Let's go downtown. I'll buy you an ice cream cone.”