Jeopardy (17 page)

“I value my job, and I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he said again to Angelica. “In fact, I told the person who made the bomb for me to make it as light as possible. But I knew the red glass I’d put into the necklace to get it past the bankers would never fool you. So I had to keep you from the ball until I could get the real rubies back.”

Angelica’s legs gave out and she sank onto the bed.

“Tell us the whole story,” Amarillo said.

Breckinridge nodded sullenly. “The last couple of years I’ve become heavily involved in investing as a sideline. I did well at it too. I seem to have a certain knack for it. I was really quite good at knowing how far to let a stock climb before I bailed out. But I was making money too slowly for my taste. Then recently I found a stock I thought was the one that would set me up for life. I cashed in everything I had, plus I borrowed money from people who weren’t exactly on the up and up.”

“That’s wasn’t very smart of you,” Amarillo said.

“Oh, I wasn’t worried. I knew I’d be able to pay them back. The stock climbed nicely, as I had predicted. But suddenly the company was found to be guilty of serious environmental hazards and the stock plummeted. I lost everything, plus there was the money I owed. They wanted it back. I had no option but to quickly recoup my losses. I knew I could do it if I could get back into the market, but I had to have money.” His expression was defensive as he glanced at Angelica. “Then you asked me to oversee the cleaning and repair of the Deverell jewelry in the vault. Well, you can see, can't you, that it was a perfect opportunity? Those jewels were never worn. They were just sitting there, gathering dust. I decided to use them to help me. So I took the rubies out and reset the necklace with glass, knowing that should there be a random check by a bank official, he probably wouldn’t know the difference. Not many people do.”

Angelica looked down at the fake jewels. They were very good fakes, only the color was wrong. The color was red,
bloodred.

“You and Caitlin Deverell-DiFrenza were the only two people I was concerned about,” he said, continuing, “and I had never seen either of you wear any of the jeweliy from the vault. And the idea of a charity ball suddenly appearing on the social calendar certainly never entered my mind. At any rate, my aim was only to
borrow
the jewels. I wasn’t
stealing
them.”

Amarillo cut in. “What did you do with them?”

“I put them with the same people I had borrowed from before. They gave me fifty thousand dollars with the understanding that if I didn’t pay them back the money within ninety days, the rubies would be theirs. ” His face took on a pained expression. “I
nearly
had the money together. I needed only another couple of weeks. If you had cooperated and stayed home, the rubies would have been back in their settings, I would have repaid my debt, and I would have had my money.”

She barely heard him. She was mesmerized by the red glass stones. And everything was hazing over,
red,
like it had in her dream.

“Angelica?”

It was Amarillo’s voice. And it was the last thing she heard before eveiything turned dark.

Ten

“Angelica.” Amarillo stared down at her, the lines of his face deepened by worry. “Angelica honey, wake up.”

Hearing him, she found his voice compelling. Her eyelids fluttered, then rose.

Relief hit him with such force, he felt weakened. “Don’t move, sweetheart. I’ve called for the doctor.”

She ran her tongue around her lips, moistening them. “Where am I?”

“I carried you back to your room. You’re lying on your bed."

“Breckinridge?”

His tone took on an edge. “My men are watching him until the police arrive. You have nothing more to fear from him. I’m going to make it my personal goal to see that the United States justice system gives him everything he deserves. It’s all over.”

If only that were true, she thought. But the color red— She heard a knock on the door.

“That’s probably the doctor,” he said, rising from the bed and striding toward the door. “Send him away.”

He stopped halfway between the bed and the door.“No way, Angelica.”

Her ballgown whispered and rustled as she struggled to sit up. “Send him away. I’m not up to being poked and prodded. There’s nothing wrong with me that he can fix.”

“It wouldn’t hurt to let him look you over. Why are you being so stubborn?”

“Because I know what’s wrong with me.”

His face hardened. “Then you’ve got a choice, sweetheart. Ill send him away if as soon as I do you 11 tell me what the hell is the matter.”

 “Amarillo—”

“Either that or the doctor is coming in.” Reluctantly she nodded and saw him open the door and say to someone she couldn’t see, “I appreciate your coming, but she’s much better and won’t be needing you to look at her after all. I’m sorry if we’ve inconvenienced you.”

“Not at all,” she heard the doctor say. “Don’t hesitate to call if you need me.”

Amarillo nodded and closed the door again. “Okay, Angelica,” he said, coming back to her side, “it’s time you and I had a talk. You scared me to death by passing out like you did, and if you know what’s wrong, I want you to tell me.” 

She glanced around the room. “Where is the Deverell jewelry?”

“On the table to your left.”

She reached for the large case, and he came down on the bed so that he was facing her.

“Okay, Angelica, tell me what happened back in Breckinridge’s room. Do you know why you passed out?”

It had been the red stones, she thought, gazing down at the top of the black velvet case she held in her hands. They had caused the red haze. The red haze just like in the dream. But that didn’t make sense. It didn’t, that is, unless she was, at last, certifiably crazy.

“Had you gone too long without eating?” he was saying. “What was it?”

“Amarillo, this is very hard for me to talk about. ”

Very gently he clasped her arms. “I’ve never pushed you, but I’m not going to let the matter drop this time. I’m not angry, but I want to know.” He paused. "Why are you staring at the jewelry case? You’re not worried about the real rubies, are you? I’ve already dispatched several of my men to an address I got from Breckinridge. We'll have them back before the night is over.”

“That’s good.”

“Angelica, talk to me.
Now.
I love you, but I won’t be shut out any longer. You talk to me now, or I’m calling the doctor back, and that’s a promise.”

She raised her gaze to his face. She couldn’t doubt the love she saw there. Or the frustration, or the determination. “It’s just that I don’t know, Amarillo. The necklace ... the red glass stones ... I saw blood, and then they made this haze appear.”

She was scaring him again, this time for an entirely different reason. But he couldn’t let her see the fear he felt for her. He drew a slow, deep breath. “Okay, let’s take one thing at a time. Where was the blood?”

“I—it was on the necklace.” She shook her head. “No, that can’t be.”

“Lift the lid and look at the necklace.”

“No—” She stopped herself in mid-objection. He was right. If she looked at the necklace again, maybe she could figure out what it was that was making her lose her mind. She had to be brave and look.

Slowly, carefully, she lifted the lid and gazed down at the three pieces of jewelry. Even with the fake stones in them, the intricate workmanship of the settings made each piece beautiful in its own way. But it was the necklace that drew her interest.

“Tell me what you see,” Amarillo said, watching her closely.

Through the open French doors she heard the orchestra strike up downstairs. “Music,” she said. “You
see
music?”

“No, I hear music. There’s a party.” Her gaze was fixed intently on the necklace so she didn’t see him frown. “And I see red . . . red.”

“You mean the stones? You see the red stones?” “No. I see blood. She’s wearing blood around her neck.”

Amarillo stilled. “Who, Angelica? Who’s wearing blood around her neck?”

Tears sprang to her eyes and she tried to blink them away. She looked up at Amarillo, but she couldn’t see him. “What did you say?”

He was afraid to breathe, afraid to move, afraid he would do or say something wrong and send her over the edge. “It's okay, honey,” he said very gently. “Everything’s all right. You said there’s music, and there’s a party somewhere.”

“Yes, downstairs. Mommy and Daddy are having a party. They can’t hear me. I’m calling for them, but they can’t hear me.”

“And the blood, Angelica? Who’s wearing blood around her neck?”

“Who?” She saw her then, as clearly as if she were in front of her. Her face was lined and heavily rouged. Her brown hair had silver running through it, and it was pulled back into a bun. Except strands of it were hanging down onto her face. And she wore a necklace of blood. And her eyes were open, staring blankly back at her.

Her hands flew to her mouth. “Oh, my God,” she cried, “he killed her!” She began to sob uncontrollably, and Amarillo pulled her into his arms. “He killed her, he killed her!”

Once again he had no enemy to fight, so he did the only other thing he could. He held her tight and directed eveiy bit of his love toward her. Each sob she gave tore directly into him, but still he held her. For his sake he wanted her to stop, and he never again wanted to hear such sad, pitiful, hurt sounds coming from her. But for her sake he knew it was important for her to release the hellish emotions that had been pent up in her for days now . . . perhaps for a
lot
longer.

She cried on and on. He still held her. He rocked her, he soothed her, he loved her.

He could hear the music from downstairs. Soon the ball would begin, he thought, vastly uninterested. There was only one important thing or person in the whole world and that was Angelica. Finally the crying began to taper off.

“The dreams,” she whispered after a while, “the awful dreams. They kept going after I woke up, and I didn’t know what was happening. I thought I was losing my mind.”

"Why didn’t you tell me? Lord, why did you go through it alone?”

She drew back from him and wiped her hands across her tear-blotched face. He watched her and didn’t tiy to pull her back to him. There couldn't be anything harder, he concluded, than letting her do things on her own.

“Because you deserved so much better than a woman doomed to insanity.”

He groaned. “Angelica. Even if it had been true that you were having a breakdown of some sort, don’t you think I would have wanted to help you? Be there for you? Love you?”

“But it’s not true, wasn’t true, thank heavens! Now I know what’s been happening to me. I’ve been
remembering,
Amarillo.”

“Remembering what?”

She paused, trying to find a way to put the newly remembered memories into words. “I was kidnapped, Amarillo. When I was very young. I’m not sure how young. Maybe two years old, maybe two and a half.”

He started with surprise, then his brow knitted with puzzlement. “Nico never mentioned a kidnapping to me. Nor did your father, or Elena. I would have thought at least one of them along the way would have made a reference to something as momentous as a kidnapping in the family.”

She shrugged. “They didn’t talk about it with me either. I don’t know why they didn’t. Maybe they were trying to spare me. It was probably very painful for them too. Maybe they thought it would be better if I didn’t remember. You see, I
had
forgotten all about it.”

His jaw tightened. “More than likely it was so traumatic for you that you developed a kind of selective amnesia about the event, even as young as you were,
especially
as young as you were. I saw it a time or two when I was with the police department. A person would just completely blank something out. It made things easier to deal with that way.”

"Yes, but I’ve remembered everything now. The man came and took me from my bed in the nursery. I was wearing a nightgown, and my nanny made him wrap me in a blanket, but I think the blanket got lost somewhere after that.”

"Your nanny knew him? She was in on it?” 

“She knew him. I guess she was in love with him. I heard them talking a lot. She called him her ‘golden-haired boy.' He was younger than she. Anyway, I don’t know where he took me or how long he kept me there. But wherever we were, I think he must have kept me closed up in a closet.”

Amarillo uttered an oath, but she went on. “There was a mattress on the floor, but it was always dark, I was always cold. And as the days went by—I have no concept of the time involved— I guess I naturally got dirty. I remember how furious he would get with me and how afraid I was. And how much I cried.”

He reached for her hand. “I can’t bear that you went through something like that. It just tears me apart.”

She gazed at him and smiled tremulously. And looking at it, he thought it was the most beautiful smile he had ever seen.

“But I’m okay now. It’s like I’m waking from a nightmare that’s lasted for days. I can’t tell you how relieved I am."

As beautiful as he thought her smile, he couldn’t return it. She had already relived her hurt. He was only beginning to live it. “So I gather the dreams were you beginning to remember. But what I don’t understand is what triggered the dreams? What made it all come back to you?”

“Breckinridge."

“What? He kidnapped you?"

“No, no. It was the wording he used both when he called me and sent the note. Now I know that he was just trying to get me to stay home, but inadvertently he chose words that triggered my memory.
Mind me or I'll make you mind me.
Those were the words the man kept saying to me over and over again. Then,
Be a good girl. She should stay home. She shouldn’t go out.
Those were the words my nanny used to try to keep him from getting angry at me, but it was a feeble attempt. I suppose in her way she loved me, but she loved him more.”

His grip tightened on her hand. “I hope she paid for what happened to you.”

“Oh, she did. He killed her. I guess my dad finally satisfied his demands, because I remember one night the man jerked me out of the closet and then we were at a park or something. It was dark, and my nanny was there. He put me down on the grass. I remember how wet and cold it was and how loud he and nanny were arguing. She wanted to run away with him then and there. He wanted her to go back to the house and wait until a decent time had passed, and then join him. I don’t think she trusted him, much as she loved him. In the end, I think he agreed to take her with him. She leaned down to kiss me good-bye and then she fell beside me. Looking back now, I realize what happened. He slipped a knife around her neck and tried to cut her throat, but she struggled. Apparently he managed to cut her, but not enough to kill her, because in the end he shot her. The explosion was so loud. By then I don’t think I was crying anymore. All I remember is the droplets of blood lying on her neck like a necklace of rubies.” She shivered. “My Lord, the horror she went through.”