Jeopardy (16 page)

“I guess that would be all right.”

“Sure.” She smiled at him. “And, Peter, thanks for being so much help to me these last few days.”

He broke into a wide, beaming grin. ‘It was
my
pleasure, Miss DiFrenza.”

“You know, there's a young woman at the front desk, I think her name is Alice. Do you know her?”

“I know her, but not real well. Why?”

“Oh, no reason. I just think she’s really pretty, that’s all.”

“You do?”

“Uh-huh. Thanks again, Peter.”

“Oh, no problem.”

She turned around and saw that Amarillo was looking in her direction. She waved. He waved back and reined his horse toward the house.

Smiling happily, watching him come toward her, she idly reached for the box and plucked at the tape with her fingernail until she could grip it and peel it off. She was folding back the flaps just as Amarillo dismounted at the base of the terrace.

He vaulted over the balustrade.
“What are you doing?”

“N-nothing,” she said, surprised at his furious expression.

“God, it’s ticking!” He grabbed the box away from her, but not before she had glanced into it and seen its contents.

“It’s a clock, Amarillo.” She tried to grab it back, but he held the box tight, staring hard at the clock, and she leaned forward so she could see too. It was a small crystal and mother-of-pearl clock, the type a woman would keep on her dresser. “Why, It’s lovely! I wonder who would have sent me a clock.”

“There wasn’t a card?”

"No. Here, let me have it.”

She reached out for the box, but Amarillo didn’t release it, and he couldn’t tear his gaze from the clock. He felt as if he were encased in ice, completely immobilized, but his mind was working at the speed of light.

The clock was lovely; its mother-of-pearl face and gold hands gleamed in the afternoon sunlight. The second hand ticked off the seconds. One . . . two . . . three . . .

Amarillo straightened and threw the box as far out over the grounds as he could, then he grabbed Angelica and pulled her to the floor of the veranda behind the balustrade.

The shock and fall took her breath away. “What—?” He wrapped his arms around her and held her tight against him.

The explosion was loud and the percussion stunning. Tiny bits of the clock landed on the veranda with a clatter, along with clumps of grass.

The explosion.
Angelica put her hands over her .ears. She heard another explosion in her head. Where was it coming from? Was it another bomb? No, it was part of the dream.

No!
It
couldn’t
be.

She was awake, she was definitely awake. She refused to let herself go off the deep end now, not when she had so much to remain sane for. She heard Amarillo speak to her.

“Are you all right?”

His tone was low and throbbing. “I guess so." She laughed shakily. “How did you know?”

He stood and drew her to her feet. “Instinct more than anything else.” He glanced toward the black hole the bomb had made in the green grass, then back to her. “My guess is it was plastique with a photosensitive device set to go off after ten to twelve seconds of exposure to light. I'll know more after I study it.”

“Thank heaven for your instincts. I don't even know why I opened the package. I didn’t intend to. I was going to wait until you got through riding and give it to you. And then I was watching you and . ."

His eyes darkened with anger as he gazed at her and realized she had nearly been killed. Her face was deathly white, and it was clear only her will was keeping her from crumbling. He pulled her into his arms and hugged her tight. “If anything had happened to you—” The rest of the words knotted in his throat.

He wanted to keep on holding her, shielding her with his body, protecting her from anything that might hurt her. But out of the corner of his eye he noticed people had begun to come out of the house. They were talking excitedly and pointing toward the explosion site. He loosened his hold on Angelica and turned to the people. “There’s nothing to worry about, folks. I was playing with some fireworks, thinking we might have a few tonight, but one got away from me, that’s all. Nothing to worry about. Now that I’ve had time to consider, I don't think fireworks for tonight is a real good idea.”

The people in the crowd laughed and repeated what he had said to others who were coming out on the veranda. They milled around, then slowly began dispersing.

Amarillo spotted three of his men converging on them and gave them a sign that had them disappearing into the shadows. Then he saw Peter and motioned him over. He put his hand on the young man’s shoulder. “I have a very important job that I need you to do for me, and the job calls for the utmost discretion. Can I depend on you for this?”

“Yes,
sir!"

“Good. Now, listen very carefully. The box you gave Miss DiFrenza exploded—”

“Oh, no!”

Amarillo’s hand tightened on his shoulder. “It’s all right. She wasn’t hurt. But I want you to get one other person, a friend of yours you can trust, and comb this area”—a sweep of his hand included the veranda and the grounds in front of it—“for pieces of the clock and any other thing that looks odd or out of place. Can you do that?”

Peter nodded solemnly. “Yes, sir. I won’t let you down.”

“I knew I could depend on you.” He turned to Angelica, slid his arm around her, and began walking with her back into the house. “How does a hot bath sound?”

She tilted her head to his shoulder. “With or without you?”

“Without this time. I want to come back down here, but first I want to make sure you're all right.”

“Oh, I’m fine.”

“Don't lie to me, Angelica,” he said gently. “I know your legs must be about to give way on you.”

Her laugh was shaky. “How did you get so smart?”

“I fell in love with you.”

Outwardly she smiled; inwardly she agonized. Why
did she keep hearing the explosion over and over in her mind?
She would like to think that under the circumstances it was a normal thing to happen. But she was very much afraid it was another sign of her diminishing sanity.

Amarillo closed and locked Angelica’s door and nodded to the man standing just outside it. “I shouldn’t be gone long. But until I get back, no one is to be let in unless I okay it. And if for some reason that I can’t think of Angelica leaves the room, follow her, but try not to be obvious.”

The man grimaced. “Blending into the woodwork is going to be pretty hard to do, seeing as how I’m the only other person on this floor at the moment.”

He lightly slapped the man’s arm. “You’re one of the best. That’s why I sent for you.”

Too impatient to wait for the private elevator, Amarillo headed for the back stairway.

As he made short work of the four flights of stairs, he reflected that he had tried hard to respect Angelica’s wishes and not assign bodyguards to her, but in the end, protecting her life had come first. This was the first time he had asked one of the men specifically to watch her. But even if she never spoke to him again because of it, he had had no choice. As much as he had loved his wife, he had survived her death. He wouldn’t be able to survive Angelica’s.

He exited a side door of the house, his intent to find out if one of his men who had been outside at the time of the explosion might have seen someone watching Angelica as she had sat on the veranda. He was sure that whoever had sent her the clock would have wanted to see the results.

Out of the corner of his eye he sensed movement. He turned and saw William Breckinridge walking fast toward the parking area. Frowning, Amarillo glanced at his watch. It was very near the time when the women would be wanting the jewelry they had chosen to wear for the evening. His eyes narrowed, and he set out after the man.

“Breckinridge! Hold up!”

The jeweler whirled around, startled and wary. Studying him, Amarillo thought Breckinridge’s expression resembled that of a wild animal who had just realized he’s in danger. But Breckinridge wasn’t looking down the barrel of a high-powered rifle as a wild animal might. So why was he so wary?

“Where are you going?” Amarillo asked, walking up to him.

An intended nonchalant gesture was hampered by the fact that he carried a suitcase. “Nowhere. Just to my car.”

“You wouldn’t by any chance be leaving, would you?”

“No, no. I was just going to put my suitcase in my car so that I would be ready to leave first thing in the morning.”

“That’s very efficient. I wonder why I’m bothered? Maybe because I don't think a three-day visit requires that much organization, suitcase-wise. Maybe because I have a strange feeling you’re leaving now.”

“Now? Oh, no." He shook his head vehemently. “No, no."

“Good. Then I'll stay here while you put your suitcase in the car, and then we'll go back to your room together. I’d like to have a look at the jewelry."

“I assure you that’s not necessary. The jewelry is completely safe.”

Amarillo smiled thinly. “Then it will all be there, won’t it?”

Angelica walked across the room to the ringing phone, the silk of her black ballgown rustling, a cloud of perfume following her. For a moment her hand hovered over the phone, then she chided herself. She hadn’t received one of those weird phone calls in days. She had just had a bomb delivered to her, that was all. “Hello?"

“Hi,” Amarillo said. “What took you so long? Were you still in the bath?”

“No. I decided I wasn’t in the mood for a long soak. In fact, I’m already dressed."

“Good, because I'd like you to come down to William Breckinridge’s room.”

“Why? Is there something wrong?” Her hand flew to her heart. “Oh, my Lord, the jewelry hasn’t been stolen, has it?”

“No, it’s all here. Just come down, will you? Oh, and—now, Angelica, don’t get upset—but you’re going to find a man outside your door. He works for Nico and me. Have him escort you."

She glanced at the door and felt something cold slide down her spine.
Someone was out there, and he was gong to hurt her.

She closed her eyes. What was wrong with her? Assigning a man to guard her was a perfectly natural thing for Amarillo to do, and the man wouldn’t hurt her.

“Angelica?”

“All right. I need to get the jewelry I’m going to wear tonight anyway. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

The walk down the hall to the private elevator, and then the elevator ride from the fourth floor to the third, seemed to take forever. Her nerves were strung tighter than they’d ever been before, her stomach was in knots. Someone had actually tried to
kill
her. She had never had an enemy in her life that she knew of.

She was still hearing the explosion in her mind, and every time she did, it terrified her. And somehow she felt her fear went beyond what had happened that afternoon. In the folds of her black silk gown her hands balled into fists.

Don’t let it get to you,
she cautioned herself. You
have to quit thinking about it. Just get through the evening ahead.

At William Breckinridge’s room she found another guard. He nodded at her, knocked on the door, then opened it for her. When she walked in, she saw a grim-faced Amarillo standing across the room from an ashen William Breckinridge.

Amarillo motioned his two men inside and pointed toward the stack of jewelry cases on the bed. “Take the cases down by the elevator. There are chairs and a table there.” He paused to draw a list out of his pocket. “This is a list of names of who will be coming for the jewelry, plus what sets they are to have. Be sure to check them off.” The men nodded, took the cases and the list, and left. Amarillo shut the door and turned to Angelica.

“What’s going on?” she asked. “Are you ill, Mr. Breckinridge?”

“He may need hospital care after I get through with him,” Amarillo muttered. “Take a look at this, Angelica..”

He picked up a large black case from the dresser, flipped the lid up, and handed it to her.

Puzzled, she stared down at the necklace, bracelet, and earring set that lay on the black velvet. The necklace was made up of three intricately worked, gold, vinelike tiers, interspersed with large, perfectly matched rubies. The earrings were a waterfall of vines and rubies. The bracelet, a wide gold cuff, was again set with the rubies. The stones were red—like the color in her dream.

“I don’t understand,” she said when she could. “This looks like the setting for the Deverell rubies, but these are not the rubies." She sent the jeweler a bewildered glance. “The stones look like red glass.”

“That’s what I thought too,” Amarillo said. “I was waiting for you to confirm it.” He turned to Breckinridge. “Start explaining.”

William Breckinridge sank into a chair and buried his face in his hands. “I never wanted to hurt her. I meant only to scare her.”

“Why?”

Breckinridge lowered his hands to his lap but couldn’t bring himself to meet Amarillo’s hard gaze, so he stared unseeingly across the room. “I knew that at one time she had received a series of crank calls, and that she had been sequestered in her home. Most everyone who worked in the store on an executive level at that time knew. That’s what I wanted to happen this time too.” 

“You wanted her sequestered in her home?” 

“Yes. That way she would be forced to stay home and not attend the ball.”

Angelica was hearing his words, but their meaning was eluding her. “What are you saying?” She glanced at Amarillo. “What is he saying?"

Amarillo’s lips thinned as he continued watching Breckinridge. “He's saying that he’s the one who made those strange calls to you, sent the note, slashed your dress, and today sent you the lovely clock that was intended to blow you to smithereens."

Her gaze flew back to Breckinridge. “My God!” He looked at her then. “That’s not entirely true, Miss DiFrenza. I mean, I did all those things, but you must know I regarded Elena DIFrenza as a queen. I would never have Intentionally set out to harm you, her great-granddaughter, If there had been any other way.”

“I caught him trying to leave SwanSea,” Amarillo said. “We came back up here and I found the safe combination on the bed. At least he is conscientious when it comes to the jewelry owned by the store."