Hot Ice (35 page)

“And bingo.” Doug tore a vine as thick as his thumb, riddled with trumpet-shaped flowers, from another stone. It read only MARIE.

“Marie,” she murmured. “It could be another suicide.”

“No.” He took Whitney’s shoulders so that they faced each other across the stones. “He’d guarded the treasure just as he’d promised. He died still guarding it. He must have buried it here before he wrote that last letter. He might have written down a request to be buried in this spot. They couldn’t bury him in there with his family, but there wasn’t any reason not to give him a last wish.”

“All right, it makes sense.” But her mouth was dry. “What now?”

“Now, I’m going to go steal a shovel.”

“Doug—”

“No time for sensibilities now.”

She swallowed again. “Okay, but make it fast.”

“You could hold your breath.” He gave her a quick kiss before he was up and gone.

Whitney sat between the two stones, her knees drawn up and her heart thudding. Were they really so close, so close to the finish at last? She looked down at the flat, neglected plot of ground beneath her hand. Had Gerald, queen’s confidant, kept the treasure at his side for two centuries?

And if they found it? Whitney plucked the grass with her fingers. For now she’d only remember that if they
found it, Dimitri hadn’t. She’d be satisfied with that for the moment.

Doug came back without rustling the grass. Whitney heard him only when he murmured her name. She swore and scrambled forward on her knees. “Do you have to do that?”

“I’d rather not advertise our little afternoon job.” He held a dented, short-handled shovel in his hand. “Best I could do on short notice.”

For a moment, he just stared down at the dirt under his feet. He wanted to savor the sensation of standing over the gateway to easy street.

Whitney saw his thoughts in his eyes. Again she felt twin sensations of acceptance and disappointment. Then she put her hand over his on the shovel and gave him a long kiss. “Good luck.”

He began to dig. For minute after minute, there was no sound but the steady rhythm of metal cutting earth. No breeze blew in from the sea, so that sweat drained off his face like rain. The heat and quiet pressed down on them both. As the hole grew deeper, each remembered the stages of the journey that had brought them this close.

A mad chase through the streets of Manhattan, a frantic leg race in D.C. A leap from a moving train and an endless hike over barren, rolling hills. The Merina village. Cyndi Lauper along the Canal des Pangalanes. Passion and caviar in a stolen jeep. Death and love, both unexpected.

Doug felt the tip of the shovel hit something solid. The muffled sound echoed through the brush as his eyes met Whitney’s. On their hands and knees, they began to push the dirt aside with their fingers. Not daring to breathe, they lifted it out.

“Oh God,” she said in a whisper. “It’s real.”

It was no more than a foot long, and not quite as wide. The case itself was moldy with dirt and damp. It was as
Danielle had described, very plain. Even so, Whitney knew that the small chest would be worth a small fortune to a collector or a museum. The centuries made gold out of brass.

“Don’t break the lock,” Whitney told him when Doug started to pry it.

Though impatient, he took the extra minute to open it as smoothly as if he’d held the key. When he drew back the lid, neither of them could do anything but stare.

She couldn’t have said what she’d been expecting. Half of the time, she’d looked on the entire venture as a whim. Even when she’d caught Doug’s enthusiasm, pieces of his dream, she’d never believed they’d find anything like this.

She saw the flash of diamonds, the glint of gold. Breathless, she dipped her hand into them.

The diamond necklace that dripped from her hand was as bright and cold and exquisite as moonlight in winter.

Could it have been the one? Whitney wondered. Was there any chance at all that what she held in her hand had been the necklace used in treachery against Marie Antoinette in the last days before the Revolution? Had she worn it, even once, in defiance, watching how the stones turned ice and fire against her skin? Had greed and power taken over the young woman who loved pretty things, or had she simply been oblivious to the suffering going on outside her palace walls?

Those were questions for historians, Whitney thought, though she could be certain that Marie had inspired loyalty. Gerald had indeed guarded the jewels for his queen and his country.

Doug held emeralds in his hands, five tiers of them in a necklace so heavy it might have strained the neck. He’d seen it in the book. The name—a woman’s. Maria, Louise,
he wasn’t sure. But as Whitney had once thought, jewels meant more in three dimensions. What glinted in his hand hadn’t seen light for two centuries.

There was more. Enough for greed, for passion and lust. The little chest all but spilled over with gems. And history. Gingerly, Whitney reached down and picked up the small miniature.

She’d seen portraits of the queen consort many times. But she’d never held a masterpiece of art in her hand before. Marie Antoinette, frivolous, imprudent, and extravagant smiled back at her as though she were still in full reign. The miniature was no more than six inches, oval-shaped, and framed in gold. She couldn’t see the artist’s name, and the portrait was badly in need of treatment, but she knew its value. And the moral.

“Doug—”

“Holy Christ.” No matter how high he’d allowed his dreams to swing, he’d never believed there’d be such sweetness at the end. He had fortune at his fingertips, the ultimate success. He held a perfect teardrop diamond in one hand and a bracelet winking with rubies in the other. He’d just won the game. Hardly realizing he did so, he slipped the diamond into his pocket.

“Look at it. Whitney, we’ve got the whole world right here. The whole goddamn world. God bless the queen.” Laughing, he dropped a string of diamonds and emeralds over her head.

“Doug, look at this.”

“Yeah, what?” He was more interested in the glitters tumbling out of the box than a small dulled painting. “Frame’s worth a few bucks,” he said idly as he dug out a heavy, ornate necklace fashioned with sapphires as big as quarters.

“It’s a portrait of Marie.”

“It’s valuable.”

“It’s priceless.”

“Oh yeah?” Interested, he gave the portrait his attention.

“Doug, this miniature’s two hundred years old. No one alive’s seen it before. No one even knows it exists.”

“So, it’ll bring a good price.”

“Don’t you understand?” Impatient, she took it back from him. “It belongs in a museum. This isn’t something you take to a fence. It’s art. Doug—” She held up the diamond necklace. “Look at this. It’s not just a bunch of pretty stones that have a high market value. Look at the craftsmanship, the style. It’s art, it’s history. If it’s the necklace of the Diamond Affair, it could throw a whole new light on accepted theories.”

“It’s my way out,” he corrected and set the necklace back in the case.

“Doug, these jewels belonged to a woman who lived two centuries ago. Two hundred years. You can’t take her necklace, her bracelet to a pawnshop and have them cut it up. It’s immoral.”

“Let’s talk about morals later.”

“Doug—”

Annoyed, he closed the lid on the box and stood. “Look, you want to give the painting to a museum, maybe a couple of the glitters, okay. We’ll talk about it. I risked my life for this box, and dammit, yours too. I’m not giving up the one chance I have to pull myself out and be somebody so people can gawk at stones in a museum.”

She gave him a look he didn’t understand as she rose to stand in front of him. “You are somebody,” she said softly.

It moved something in him, but he shook his head. “Not good enough, sugar. People like me need what we weren’t born with. I’m tired of playing the game. This takes me over the finish line.”

“Doug—”

“Look, whatever happens to the stuff, first we’ve got to get it out of here.”

She started to argue further, then subsided. “All right, but we will discuss this.”

“All you want.” He gave her the charming smile she’d learned never to trust. “What do you say we take the baby home?”

With a shake of her head, Whitney returned the smile. “We’ve come this far. Maybe we’ll get away with it.”

They stood, but when he turned to push through the brush, she held back. Pulling blooms from vines, she laid them on Gerald’s grave. “You did all you could.” Turning, she followed Doug to the jeep. With another quick glance around, Doug settled the chest in the back and tossed a blanket over it.

“Okay, now we find a hotel.”

“That’s the best news I’ve had all day.”

When he found one that looked stylish and expensive enough for his taste, Doug pulled up at the curb. “Look, you go check in. I’m going to go see about getting us out of the country on the first plane in the morning.”

“What about our luggage in Antananarivo?”

“We’ll send for it. Where do you want to go?”

“Paris,” she said instantly. “I have a feeling I won’t be bored this time.”

“You got it. Now how about parting with a little of that cash so I can take care of things.”

“Of course.” As if she’d never denied him a cent, Whitney took out her wallet. “You’d better take some plastic instead,” she decided and pulled out a credit card. “First class, Douglas, if you please.”

“Nothing else. Get the best room in the house, sugar. Tonight we start living in style.”

She smiled, but leaned over the back seat and retrieved the blanket-covered chest along with her pack. “I’ll just take this along with me.”

“Don’t you trust me?”

“I wouldn’t say that. Exactly.” Hopping out, she blew him a kiss. In dirt-smeared slacks and a torn blouse, she walked into the hotel like a reigning princess.

Doug watched three men scramble to open the door for her. Class, he thought again. She reeked with it. He remembered she’d once asked him for a blue silk dress. With a grin, he pulled away from the curb. He was going to bring her back a few surprises.

She approved of the room and told the bellboy so with a generous tip. Alone, she uncovered the chest and opened it again.

She’d never considered herself a conservationist, an art buff, or a prude. Looking down at the gems, jewels, and coins of another age, she knew she’d never be able to turn them into something so ordinary as cash. People had died for what she held in her hand. Some had died for greed, some for principle, some for nothing more than timing. If they were only jewels, the deaths would mean nothing. She thought of Juan, and of Jacques. No, they were more, much more than jewels.

What was here, at her fingertips, wasn’t hers or Doug’s. The trick would be in convincing him of it.

Letting the lid close, she walked into the bath and turned the water on full. It brought back the memory of the little inn on the coast and Jacques.

He was dead, but perhaps when the miniature and the treasure were in their rightful place, he’d be remembered. A small plaque with his name on it in a museum in New York. Yes. It made her smile. Jacques would appreciate that.

She let the water run as she walked to the window to look at the view. She liked seeing the bay spreading out and the busy little town below her. She’d like to walk along the boulevard and absorb the texture of the seaport.
Ships, men of ships. There would be shops crowded with goods, the sort a woman in her profession searched for. A pity she couldn’t go back to New York with a few crates of Malagasy wares.

As her mind wandered, a figure on the sidewalk caught her eye and made her strain forward. A white panama hat. But that was ridiculous, she told herself. Lots of men wore panamas in the tropics. It couldn’t be… Yet as she looked, she was almost certain it was the man she’d seen before. She waited, breathlessly, for the man to turn so that she could be sure. When the hat disappeared into a doorway, she let out a frustrated breath. She was just jumpy. How could anyone have followed the zigzagging trail they’d taken to Diégo-Suarez? Doug better get back soon, she thought. She wanted to bathe, change, eat, and hop a plane.

Paris, she thought and closed her eyes. A week of doing nothing but relaxing. Making love and drinking champagne. After what they’d been through, it was no less than what they both deserved. After Paris… She sighed and walked back to the bath. That was another question.

She turned off the taps, straightened, and reached down to unbutton her blouse. As she did, her eyes met Remo’s in the mirror over the sink.

“Ms. MacAllister.” He smiled, lightly touching the scar on his cheek. “It’s a pleasure.”

She thought about screaming. Fear bubbled in the back of her throat, hot and bitter. It closed in the pit of her stomach, hard and cold. But there was a look in Remo’s eyes, a calm, waiting look, that warned her he’d be only too happy to silence her. She didn’t scream.

In the next instant, she thought about running— making a wild, heroic dash past him and out the door. There was always a possibility she’d make it. And a possibility she wouldn’t.

She backed up, her hand still poised at the top button of her blouse. In the small bathroom, her fast, uneven breathing echoed back over her. The sound of it made Remo smile. Seeing this, Whitney struggled for control. She’d come so far, worked so hard, and now she was cornered. Her fingers closed over the porcelain of the sink. She wouldn’t whine. That she promised herself. And she wouldn’t beg.

At the movement behind Remo, Whitney shifted her gaze and looked into Barns’s idiotic, amiable eyes. She learned fear could be primitive, mindless, like the terror a mouse feels when a cat begins to playfully bat it with its paws. Instinct told her there was a great deal more danger
in him than in the tall, dark man who leveled a pistol at her. There was a time for heroics, a time for fear, and a time for rolling the dice. She forced her fingers to relax, and prayed.

“Remo, I presume. You work fast.” And so did her mind, beginning to rapidly tick off angles and escape routes. Doug had been gone no more than twenty minutes. She was on her own.