An Angel In Stone
Cade glanced up at her; his brows knit together as their eyes met. A private awareness skated between them. He started to speak—then turned back to the box, where Lia was lifting away wads of crumpled newspaper.
“Here, let me take those.” Raine grabbed a double handful of paper as the breeze snatched at the packing.
“Those are nothing,” Lia muttered, intent on a bundle the size of a football that she was unwrapping. “It is this…”
As the last paper peeled away, Raine smothered a gasp. A dino tooth! The gently curved fang was nearly twice as long as Lia’s hand. Rounded like a lethal punch, it came from a member of the theropod family, for sure; quite possibly a T. rex. “Careful!” she murmured. Sixty-five million years after he’d shed it, you could cut yourself on the serrated edge of a Tyrannosaurus’s tooth.
“Let’s throw a little light on this.” Cade produced a penlight from an inner pocket, flicked it on.
And Raine grabbed for the railing as her knees went weak. Oh, my God! “Where did you—!” Where on earth could Lia have found this?
Coruscating with green-and-pink flames, then glimmers of coppery gold, the tooth flamed as Cade played the light over it. Chain lightning and rainbows, trapped inside bone!
Or replacing bone, actually. By some happy chance, mineralized water had trickled into the pores of the buried tooth over a million years or more, to create an opalized fossil.
Lia laughed on a shrill note of triumph. She turned the tooth in Cade’s light, setting off another explosion of fireworks. “You like?”
A T. rex tooth made entirely of fire opal? “It’s…pretty,” Raine admitted in a shaken voice. And if she fainted, would they hold up the auction till she’d revived?
Opalized fossils were Raine’s professional specialty—and her personal obsession. The circumstances that allowed them to form were so vanishingly rare. With two staggering exceptions, all the opalized fossils that had been discovered so far were invertebrates—small snails and shells, unremarkable except for their composition.
Then, rarest of the rare, came the only known opalized dinosaurs in all the world. Both of them had been discovered in the opal mines of western Australia. The larger specimen was a humdrum little pliosaur. It was fourteen feet long.
But a ten-inch tooth from the bottom jaw meant that Lia’s entire outrageous, unbelievable beast had to be close to…fifty feet!
And if by some miracle its entire skeleton was made of fire opal? Where, oh, where, oh, where did you find this? Raine fought an urge to grab the girl by her shoulders, try to shake the answer out of her.
The largest T. rex ever unearthed was Sue—just a plain vanilla fossil, forty-five feet long, eighty percent complete. But collectors adored T. rexes. They were scarce. They were sexy. At a Sotheby auction, Sue had brought nearly eight and a half million dollars.
Compared with Sue, what would a fifty-foot, fire opal dragon bring? Enough gold to sink a battleship? A ransom for Bill Gates? Could you trade it for the Great Pyramid at Giza?
Who could possibly say? A fire opal T. rex would be priceless. A wonder of the world. You’d just have to put it up for auction and see what bid was hammered down.
Lia held the tooth close enough for Cade to kiss. “Would you like to buy this?”
“Oh, yeah,” Cade admitted, his voice husky with desire.
“And you?” Lia challenged, deigning at last to notice Raine. “What would you give me for this?”
Off the top of my head? Raine’s stomach whirled. Valuing a unique object, with no sales history, she could only guess at its worth. Ashaway All could raise two million easily—three, scraping the barrel, but that was their total acquisitions fund for the entire year.
If they had time to broker the deal to a private collector, act as a go-between, they could raise much more than that. Or they might put together a consortium of civic-minded dino lovers, who’d pool their funds, then donate the prize to a museum, as had been done with Sue. “Well, that depends.”
On so many things. Like for starters, was Lia the real owner of the tooth? And did she have control of the rest of the skeleton—or even know where it was?
Lia made a clicking sound of impatience. “That is no answer!” She turned back to Cade. “And you? What will you give me?”
He laughed under his breath, then glanced ironically up at Raine—and held her gaze. You and me. Awareness sizzled between them.
You against me! The breeze caught a skein of her hair, rippled it across her mouth. But still Raine wouldn’t blink. Not before he did.
“How much?” Lia cried, swinging around on the bench to intrude between them.
“A lot.” Cade shifted casually to one side, and looked up at Raine with a duelist’s smile—a white glove slapped across her face. “Put it this way, Lia. Whatever Ms. Ashaway offers you? I’ll give you more.”
Chapter 6
Y et neither of them was ready to name a price, Raine realized. Though Lia was doing her utmost to start a bidding war between them, they refused to be stampeded.
Each insisted on examining the tooth, since the first issue was: could it possibly be a fake?
But when—ladies coming decidedly second—Raine was allowed to take the tooth from Cade and turn it in the light, her hands trembled with excitement. By God, it was the real thing! She could think of no way to fake its eerie opalescence. Like the northern lights dancing on polar snow. Sunrise shining through a turquoise glacier. I’ve got to have it! Simply got to. Here was glory and fame, as well as a fortune. This was the find of the century! “Nice,” she murmured, carefully neutral.
“Then how much you give me for it?” Lia cried, almost stamping her foot with impatience.
“I’d have to talk with the other members of my firm. Come up with a suitable offer—a very generous offer,” Raine added as Lia scowled.
One reason to stall was that, given a day or two, Trey should be able to profile Kincade, now that they knew he owned SauroStar. If they could learn how much the man was worth, where his money came from, then they might estimate his top bid. Figure an offer that would knock him out of the game, without blindly overbidding.
“And you’re sure you can’t tell us where the rest of this dinosaur is located?” Cade coaxed. “I’d like to bid on the whole specimen, if you’ve got it.”
Lia snapped her fingers. “I told you and told you! You buy this first, then we talk about that.”
Raine exchanged a wry glance with her rival. Lia’s steadfast refusal to say might mean that she hoped to establish a value for one tooth—then sell the rest of the dino, bone by bone, at the same price.
But a T. rex had sixty-four teeth and a couple of hundred other bones in its body…If I offer her a hundred thou for this tooth, then it turns out she wants to multiply that by 264 for the rest of the dinosaur!
And try to explain to the kid that the sixty-fourth tooth wouldn’t be as valuable as the first tooth, since supply inevitably decreases demand. But would Lia understand and accept economic realities—or simply feel she was being cheated?
And then there were other reasons Lia might refuse to discuss the rest of the dino’s skeleton. The tooth might be stolen.
Or—Raine’s pulse rocketted with the thought—What if she doesn’t know where the rest of it is? What if the skeleton’s still in the ground? Up for grabs? In which case, Raine was on her way to…somewhere. Gone yesterday! But I’ve got to learn where.
“Maybe the Internet was wrong, your Web sites lie! Maybe neither of you have the money to buy such a treasure,” Lia cried. She must have imagined herself going home tonight with a fortune in her pocket. Probably she’d picked out the car she meant to buy tomorrow. She was beginning to seem even younger than Raine’s first guess of twenty. Hissing with displeasure, she bent over her box and began to rewrap the tooth.
“Lia, calm down,” Raine pleaded. “I do have enough money and I do want to buy your fossil. I’ll call you tomorrow afternoon and we’ll discuss a price, okay?” That was rushing negotiations more than she liked, but she needed to nail the prize down, before Miss Show-Me-The-Money offered it elsewhere. “Do you have a phone number where I can reach you?”
Lia sniffed without raising her face. “Give me a number and I call you. Be by your phone tomorrow at precisely three o’clock. This is your last chance, you understand?”
Raine grimaced. “I do.” She drew a business card from her gown’s pocket, and handed it over. “Oh, and here’s your packing,” she added, dropping an armload of paper into the box. “Wrap it up nice and safe.”
Lia snorted her contempt. “And you, Kincade? Will you bid tomorrow—or lose this amazing fossil?”
Her threat simply made him chuckle. “Let me take you out to dinner tomorrow night, someplace very special. After that, I’ll make you an offer you can’t refuse.”
Blast the man! Raine could have cheerfully tossed him off the bridge. He’d soften up the girl with a drink or two, then ask what Raine had bid—he could trump that by a few thou. Plus he’d sweetened the pot with a promise of romance, a bonus that Raine had no way of matching. Lia looked up from her package, her pout melting to a starry-eyed simper.
“I’ll pick you up in a stretch limousine,” Cade added shamelessly. “Do you prefer white limos—or black?”
Lia might be young, naive and off her home court—but she wasn’t a fool. Her smile widened, catlike, triumphant. “Give me your number and I call you tomorrow—precisely at three-thirty. Then you say where I meet you. You can pay for my cab.”
“Fair enough,” Cade agreed, accepting defeat with a smile.
Lia stood. “Now I go.”
Cade rose and touched her elbow. “It’s late. Let me drive you home.”
Raine clenched her teeth. Knowing where to find the girl would give Cade an edge, as would doing her favors.
Lia tossed her hair. “No, thank you. I have other plans.”
In that case, Raine resolved to follow her home. No way was she letting that box out of sight, till it was safely off the city streets. But first. “Lia, I had one other question. Do you have anything else to sell? Anything that was found with this tooth?”
Fossils were often discovered in a narrow geologic stratum, tangled together. If the kid had any other old bones, even if they weren’t significant in themselves, their age and species might prove a clue to the T. rex’s location.
Lia frowned in thought, then set the box down on the bench. “There is…one thing.” Her gloved hand dipped into a pocket of the trench coat.
“It was found with the tooth?”
“I…yes. Of course,” she agreed, wide-eyed.
She’s lying, Raine guessed. Or possibly uncertain?
“I have another buyer for this, but if you like to bid…” Lia’s fingers opened, to show a circular object resting on her palm.
A snail of some sort, Raine guessed, just as Cade switched on his light.
Gold gleamed in its rays. Lia held a closed pocket watch, with a broken bit of chain dangling from its fob. “You found this with the tooth?” Raine bent closer. There was a name ornately engraved on its convex case.
Lia’s thumb snapped down, hiding the scrolled letters. “I told you, yes.”
“But—” Raine glanced helplessly at Cade. Surely the kid realized the two objects were separated chronologically by some sixty-five million years?
“It belong to an American soldier,” Lia added proudly. “His family will give much money for it.”
A soldier! Are we talking Vietnam? Or for that matter, Burma in World War II? Or the Spanish-American War in the Philippines. Or a guerilla clash in any one of a dozen different nations.
“But we’re bone hunters,” Cade prodded mildly. “Why would we want to buy a watch?”
“Because…” Lia opened the case, then covered a portion of its inner side with her thumb. “You see?”
Cade squinted down at the case. “It’s a…Is that a map?”
“Yessss!” She whisked the watch from under his nose. “You like to buy?”
“May I see it?” Raine asked, careful to quell her eagerness.
Lia shrugged, checked again that her thumb blocked part of the inner case, then showed it to Raine.
Below the girl’s long red thumbnail, lines had been scratched into polished gold. Raine made out a shape that looked like a lopsided butterfly, then angled below that, a range of upside down Vs—denoting mountains? “Wait!” she cried as Lia snapped the lid shut.
“You want to see the whole thing, then you must buy. How much you give me?”
For a map that possibly showed the way to where the tooth had been found? Where perhaps the rest of the dinosaur still waited?
Possibly.
But at a minimum, once she learned the name of the soldier, Trey with his connections could find out the man’s war. That might give Raine a starting point if it came to a search. “I’ll give you five hundred dollars for it.”
“It’s a nice watch,” Cade said carelessly. “I could go a thousand.”
Raine shrugged. “I suppose I could go two.”
“Three,” Cade snapped.
Lia laughed softly, and with that malicious little sound, both bidders paused, eyeing each other. The thought hung in the air between them. Are we being hustled?
Still, the tooth was no scam. “Three thousand-five,” Raine said at last.
“Five thousand.”
As she glared at Cade, Raine brushed a skein of windblown hair back from her eyes. How much money do you have, wise guy? And where does it come from? Did he have a stopping point—or was he a bottomless pocket? “Six thousand.” This was idiotic. The map, if map it really was, could lead to anything, not necessarily to ancient bones. It might be a sentimental picture of the soldier’s hometown. “You will take a check, right?” Not that she’d brought one. She carried a folded fifty for emergencies, and that was that.
“No!” Lia shook her sooty hair till it fanned around her face. “No way, Jose! Cash or no deal!”
Cade threw back his head and laughed. “And I take it you don’t accept MasterCard?”
“Absolutely not.” Lia failed to see the joke.
“Then I’m out of the running for tonight,” Raine admitted. “Let’s talk about a price tomorrow at three.”
“And whatever she offers? I’ll give you even more at dinner,” Cade assured the girl.
Lia sniffed as she picked up her box. “The soldier’s family is most desperate to buy this. They give me ten thousand, cash. You must do better than that. So goodbye, and I call you tomorrow.” Chin high, she marched off toward the Manhattan shore.
Elbows brushing, they watched her go, then glanced ruefully at each other. “We’re gonna be pretty obvious, if we both follow her,” noted Cade. “I don’t suppose you’d let me—”
“Jose?” Raine showed her teeth. “No way at all.”
“Then if that’s the way it’s gotta be, why don’t we—”
But his proposal was cut short by the puttering sound of a two-stroke engine. An old Vespa motorscooter purred out of the shadows below the Manhattan tower. Stopping beside Lia, the rider wheeled it smartly around. “Why, the crafty minx!” Cade swore as she settled onto its pillion. With a taunting wave, she rolled off toward the city.
“Other plans,” Raine echoed, looking after her. A woman of ambition and forethought. It wouldn’t pay to underestimate the kid.
“Well, meantime…” Cade swung to face her. “It’s even later. Could I drive you home?”
As second choice to little Lia?
His amber eyes had darkened. When they rose from her lips, they promised any sort of ride she might want. To any destination she desired. A tongue of summer lightning licked up her spine; still Raine shook her head. “No, thanks.”
Mixing pleasure with business was risky. But mixing pleasure with a feud, when only one of them knew the terms or limits of the grudge? That might prove fatal. What did he have against the Ashaways?
“Pity. But in that case—” Cade shrugged out of his jacket, and swooped it around her bare shoulders.
His body heat settled deliciously upon her. The soft wool smelled of active, clean male, with a hint of his cologne. Raine started to wriggle free of the jacket, but he’d gripped both lapels. Slip out of it and she’d step straight into his arms. She stiffened for a moment—then shrugged. There was no sense fighting, when it felt so good. The weight of his knuckles resting on her collarbones was seductive as a drug. “I…don’t know where to return it.”
“No problem. You’ll be seeing me around.”
But is that a promise—or a threat? she wondered, walking west without a glance behind. And which would be harder to handle?
Whatever. She’d always choose interesting, over safe.
Right now, nothing interested her more in the world than a T. rex made of fire opal. As she passed into the tower’s shadow, Raine slipped her fisted hand into a pocket of Cade’s jacket—she let go a wad of crumpled newspaper.
Chapter 7
W hen they reached their building, Lia hopped off the back of the Vespa. Leaning against the front door to hold it open, she tapped her foot with impatience while Ravi wrestled his motorbike up the steep steps from the sidewalk. If he didn’t chain it in the rear of the dirty hallway, it would be stolen by morning.
Watching her roommate grunt and groan and swear at the machine, she thought of Kincade, so smooth and good smelling. Lia had to giggle at the difference. Such a man would own a car, not a beat-up old motorbike. He’d drive a Jaguar, and he’d have a garage in which to park it. Maybe he even had a chauffeur!
When she was rich, she would have a chauffeur—a blond one in a blue uniform, who would carry her shopping bags and open doors for her. Soon, yes! She bent to kiss the box she held, then forgot about helping Ravi. She almost danced up to their apartment.
Six flights of badly lit stairs that smelled of cat piss and cabbage dampened her gaity, but hardened her resolve. The sooner she had money, the sooner she could move away from this dump and the losers who lived here.
Placing her box on the shelf above her desk, she took the letter from its top drawer. She paced the room, her lips shaping the words as she reread them.
Like I explained when you phoned me last week, that pocket watch has got to belong to my grandfather, Private Amos Szabo, of the 11th Airborne. He always carried just such a watch. But please, please believe me, miss, it isn’t worth beans. I’m sorry if I sounded harsh, and that I yelled at you. You surprised me is all, calling out of the blue like that. And wanting all that money.
But believe me, its only value is sentimental. You see, my grandmother never knew what happened to my grandfather (her dear beloved husband). Only that he and his squad parachuted into the island of Borneo, during WWII. Except for that one letter she got, he was never heard from again—none of them came back. He’s gotta be dead by now, but the family would sure like to know where he died and how. You can understand that, can’t you?
I’d be happy to pay you fifty dollars as a reward for return of the watch. You went to a lot of trouble to find me, and you must be real clever to have tracked me down on the Internet. Lucky for me, I guess, that my name isn’t a common one.
I’d be glad to pay the postage if you want to mail the watch C.O.D. And maybe I could give you a bit more than fifty, if you really feel you deserve it. Maybe if you wrote down all the details you know about where and when he died, that ought to be worth something, I guess, shouldn’t it? Fair’s fair, I always say.
So why don’t you call me again—real soon—and let’s talk it over? I swear I’ll make it worth your while.
Yours truly,
Amos Szabo the third
As she punched in Szabo’s number, Ravi tried the doorknob, then knocked. “Lia?”
“I’m busy! Use your key.” But she’d lost track of the numbers. She swore and started over as he shambled into the living room.
“Who can you be calling at this time of night? So late, it’s not polite. It isn’t done.”
“Oh? But you see me doing it, don’t you?” She gave him a teasing smile. He was so easy to handle. “Anyway, this man wants to hear from me, most desperately.”
“It is not polite,” he muttered with a weary shrug. “And this time you really must repay me the charges, okay?” He went on into the bathroom. “Yes, Lia?”
“Most certainly,” she called, knowing he’d have forgotten by the time the bill came. Or if he didn’t, why, by then she’d be rich; her debts would be nothing. She let the phone ring four times, then five, as she drummed her fingers on the desktop.
When the man answered, she brightened. “Hello. It is me again,” she began—then frowned as the voice kept on speaking. Ah, an answering machine!
“It is me again,” she repeated, after the signal. “Lia, who has your—”
“Hello!” broke in a man’s voice, rusty with sleep. “Missy, is that you? Hang on. I’m here. Just let me—” He seemed to fumble with something, then said, “Well, you’re sure some night owl.”
An owl? What was that? “It is night,” she agreed. “And you ask me to call, so here I am. I need to know. Do you want to buy the watch?”
He cleared his throat. “You got my letter? I mailed it to that post office box number you gave me. Did you read it yet?”
“Yes, I’m reading it now, tonight. And I need to know.”
“Well, if you got the letter, then now you do know. That watch isn’t even real gold, just gold-plated brass. But like I said, if you could tell me a bit about where my granddaddy died, then I could pay you maybe a hundred bucks, all told.”
“I say to you last time we speak. My price is ten thousand dollars, for your ancestor’s watch.”
“Now look, you little island monk—!” He paused, muttered something under his breath, then laughed. But the laugh had sharp edges. “Look, Missy, maybe I could give you a hundred-fifty for your trouble, if you—”
Lia snorted. “I have two other bidders who will give me more than that.”
“What? You showed it to somebody else? Shit! Now what would you go and do that for? Nobody’d want it but my family!”
“Ohhh, you think so?” Smiling, she wound a lock of hair round and round her gloved forefinger. “One lady, she will give me ten thousand for this watch. And there is a man—a very rich and handsome man—who will give me twelve.” At least Kincade surely would tomorrow night, once he’d seen how she looked in her blue model’s dress that she’d found at the consignment store.
“So my price must go up, if you wish to bid. The price is now…fifteen thousand dollars.” Her face went all hot; her eyes went misty, as she thought of so much money. Picturing what she’d do with all those excellent dollars, she waited till he’d finished cursing. “You like to buy?” she said when he’d wound down to hard-breathing silence.
“Shit,” he said softly. “Well…it wouldn’t be easy, raising that kind of nut. You said there’s some sort of map drawn on the inside of the cover?”
Her smile widened. He was like a little bird that had hopped to her palm for sugar. If the fingers were quick…“Yes, it has a map. But if you are a poor man, without much money to buy the watch of your ancestor, well, I can sell the map to one of these others. I will make a copy of the map and sell it. Then I will scratch out the map on the watch, and you may buy it without, most reasonably.”
“No!”
She clapped a palm to her mouth to smother the giggles. Oh, little bird, you are in my cage now! “No?” she said innocently. “You want the map?”
“Uh, err, I don’t want you messing with that watch. However my granddaddy fixed it, that’s the way I want it. Shit, girl, it’s an heirloom! His souvenir of the war.”
Oh, little lying bird. How you sing! They all wanted the map most desperately. Lia couldn’t hide the laughter in her voice, but now there was no need to. He was caged. “So. You want the watch—and you want the map.”
“That’s right. That’s exactly right. But at a reasonable price. No more dickin’ around.”
Whatever that meant. “Very reasonable,” she purred. “My price has gone up. Watch with no map is fifteen thousand dollars. Watch with map is eighteen thousand.”