Tell Me No Lies (8 page)

"I'll tell you this," Catlin added softly. "If someone helps me, I never forget it."

He didn't need to add that if someone hurt him, he never forgot that, either.

There was a moment of electric stillness. Slowly Stone nodded. He headed for the door, not waiting for Catlin to show him out.

"Tell your boys to be more discreet," Catlin called after him, "or I'll take them out at night and lose them. There's no point in scaring the Danner woman before she's agreed to help us. If she agrees."

"She will," Stone said grimly.

Catlin raised one black eyebrow. "Flattery, blackmail, intimidation or bribery?"

"Would you believe patriotism?" Stone asked, his tone sarcastic.

"Would you?" Catlin asked curiously.

Without a word Stone shut the apartment door behind him.

Catlin finished dressing, shrugged into the specially tailored suit coat that fell without a wrinkle over gun and holster, and left the apartment. He was followed by two men who were discreet and a third who was very nearly invisible. Curious about the third man, Catlin maneuvered until he was close enough to identify him. O'Donnel.

Only one of the men followed him into the Museum of the Asias. It wasn't O'Donnel. Catlin stood in the door of the secretary-receptionist's office. The sign on the desk said Sherry. Her face said available. She looked at him the way a cat looks at fresh cream. Catlin smiled and silently wished that Lindsay reacted to men in the same way. It would have made things so much cleaner, less complicated.

Safer.

"Jacob Catlin," he said. "I have an appointment with Lindsay Danner.''

When Lindsay heard Sherry's light laughter and the click of her high heels as she crossed the margin between two hall rugs, Lindsay knew that her afterhours appointment was a man who fell into that broad category called "interesting." Other men, and all women, who checked in at Sherry's office on their way to finding Lindsay were given verbal directions rather than a smiling close-up of Sherry's personal charms.

"Lindsay, this is Mr. Jacob Catlin," said Sherry, stepping over the threshold.

Lindsay smiled professionally at the man who was being led into her office by Sherry's crimson-tipped fingers, which were buried in the sleeve of a custom-made silk suit coat that L. Stephen himself might have envied.

"A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Catlin," Lindsay said, rising and extending her hand. The name was familiar, but she couldn't quite place it. She decided that Catlin must be one of the many collectors she had heard of but never met.

"Just Catlin, Miss Danner," he said, smiling and holding out his hand in return. "My father was Jake, I refused to answer to Jacob or Junior, so that left Catlin."

Her smile changed, becoming more personal, less professional. "I wish I'd been that stubborn. I hated my name," she confessed. "I've learned to live with it, though. Please call me Lindsay."

The handshake surprised Lindsay. Catlin's hand was hard, with a distinct ridge of callus along the outer edge of the palm. He was powerful underneath the tailored silk. Even as she registered the unusual strength of him, she realized that he had eyes that were the exact golden brown of an amber and bronze pendant she had just purchased for the museum.

"You don't like the name Lindsay?" he asked. "Why? It's like you, restrained and elegant." His glance moved around the office. "No bronzes?" he asked, giving her no chance to either react to or retreat from his personal comment.

Lindsay blinked and caught herself just before she looked around the office, too. "Er, no. Mr. White wasn't very specific as to which period of Chinese bronzes interested you."

She retrieved her hand from her visitor's hard yet gentle grasp. He didn't try to hold the contact, but he let go of her hand in such a way that his fingertips caressed her from her palm all the way to her bronze-tinted nails. She gave him a swift, sideways glance, but he was absorbed in his study of the office, apparently unaware of the almost intimate way he had touched her. The paradox of the man intrigued her, particularly the civilized exterior on what she suspected was a very uncivilized interior. The best of the bronzes she dealt with were like that – three dimensional embodiments of human paradox.

"I collect Warring States and Qin dynasty bronzes, or Huai style, if you prefer that description," he said, acknowledging with a smile the fact that every expert seemed to divide Chinese bronzes differently. "Third century B.C. bronzes, particularly those of Qin's time, are my passion, but – " he shrugged " – of course they're very rare. I've collected some early Han, as well, but it has to be spectacular to interest me."

Instantly Lindsay thought of the hill-censer. O'Donnel had called an hour before to tell her that the bowl and incense burner were both for sale. Mr. White had approved the purchase of the bowl, but had refused to even consider the hill-censer. Nor would he give any reason, although he had assured her that he had no personal doubt as to the piece's authenticity.

"Mr. White didn't mention what price range you were looking in."

Catlin turned toward Lindsay. "There's no limit on a piece that I like."

She listened to the faint roughness underlying the deep male voice. Like his callused palm, his strength and his nearly gold eyes, Catlin's voice was unusual. Combined with the thick, sleek pelt of black hair, and the mustache that contrasted with the white curve of his occasional smile, Mr. Jacob Catlin was a definite change from the slim-hipped, vaguely male curators and white-haired collectors who were the museum's usual clients. No wonder Sherry had walked him down the hall, doubtless watching hungrily the whole way.

"Have you known Mr. White long?" asked Lindsay.

"Senior, junior or very junior?" Before she could answer, Catlin continued, "I haven't been collecting for a while. I was told that you would be an excellent adviser on any acquisitions I make. I'll pay the usual fee, of course, plus a bonus for any Qin bronzes you find for me."

Lindsay's previous question was forgotten in her sudden curiosity about the man who had stopped collecting and wanted to begin again. Like everything else about Catlin, that was unusual. Collectors were noted for their obsessiveness. A collector didn't simply abandon collecting unless his heart stopped or he ran out of money.

"You realize," Lindsay said carefully, "that the museum gets first refusal on everything I find, whether in or out of business hours."

Catlin nodded, wondering if it were true. There was a built-in conflict of interest between Lindsay's work as a private consultant to collectors and her job at the museum. It would take an unusual degree of scrupulousness to avoid the temptation of pleasing one of her private – and fee-paying – clients at the cost of her employer's interest. On the other hand, the combination of museum work and self-employment as an expert was common. It often benefited the museums, which as a result had a direct pipeline to serious collectors and thus knew instantly when a private collection was up for sale. The cream could be skimmed long before the collection as a whole went to auction. There were other, more subtle benefits, too, involving tax write-offs and untaxable trades for existing, surplus museum stock.

Catlin was sure that Lindsay would be glad to point out all the benefits to him.

"You're in luck," said Lindsay, smiling at Catlin. "Follow me to the workroom. My boss has just turned down an absolutely exquisite bronze hill-censer."

"Why?" Catlin asked as he fell into step alongside her.

"You'll have to ask him," said Lindsay, unable to conceal her irritation. "I still don't believe it."

Catlin smiled slightly. He believed it. He had been there when Yi gave the order.

Lindsay watched Catlin's small, hard smile and decided that wherever White senior or junior or "very junior" had met Catlin, it hadn't been on the lawn bowling circuit. Yet despite his dissimilarity to most of the men she was accustomed to meeting in Washington, Catlin was oddly familiar to Lindsay. She hadn't really realized it until she saw his cool, private smile. He reminded her of the men who years ago had slipped into her uncle's house while she lay awake, men who spoke in low voices of things she was too young to understand, men who moved like beautiful, hungry tigers through the darkness. Like Catlin, beside her. Lean and powerful beneath a deceptively silky hide.

She wondered if, like the long-ago men, Catlin would bring terror and death in his wake.

Even as her skin tightened and moved, sending a tiny ripple over her arms, Lindsay put aside the unwelcome thought. There were parts of her childhood she had forgotten how to remember. There were other parts that she remembered only in dreams and woke up screaming and wondering why.

Lindsay took a slow, careful breath and tried to control her unruly thoughts. Shaanxi had been a long time ago. Surely it should stop haunting her. Surely she could look at a strong, self-confident man without waiting to hear gunfire and screams.

Surely that wasn't blood naming between her fingers.

"Lindsay?"

The quiet, deep voice lured her out of the past's paralyzing fears. She realized that she was standing in front of the stairway, her hand gripping the railing as though she were afraid of falling.

"Is something wrong?" asked Catlin.

He steadied Lindsay with his left hand even as he reflexively unbuttoned his suit coat with the right, making it possible to reach his gun quickly. He didn't know what was wrong, but he had seen raw fear too many times to mistake it in her eyes now.

"I – " Lindsay cleared her throat, loosening muscles constricted by a need to scream. "I'm sorry. I was thinking of something else." She let out her breath and forced herself to ignore the irrational fear sweeping over her, as though nightmares pursued her even when she was awake. "Watch your footing," she said briskly, starting down the stairs. "This house is almost a century old. When we took it over, nothing but rats had lived in it for years. We've done a lot of repair work since then, of course, but we've tried to keep the Victorian features intact. That means steep, narrow steps to the basement."

Catlin followed very closely, ready to reach for Lindsay if she stumbled. She didn't. She recovered her composure with a quickness that made him wonder if he had imagined the instant when fear had tightened her features into a mask. Then he saw the fine trembling of her hand as it slid down the oak rail. Adrenaline still coursed through her, primal response to terror. He wondered what had triggered it. The shadows pooled at the bottom of the stair? The musty scent rising out of the basement? A word? A sound?

Lindsay's fingers fumbled, then found the wall switch. Very bright, un-Victorian work lights glared down. Throughout the basement, long tables were covered with artifacts in various stages of being unpacked, cataloged and, if necessary, repaired or restored. The unusual Shang bowl shared one end of a table with the Han incense burner. A discarded packing carton and scattered Styrofoam chips gave silent testimony to Lindsay's eagerness as she had unpacked the bronzes.

"Both of these bronzes are very unusual," said Lindsay, touching the bowl possessively as she turned to face Catlin. "They-"

Her voice died. Catlin's face was hard, intent, and in the relentless light his eyes glittered like yellow crystal. The back of his right hand was resting lightly just behind his hip. He was examining every part of the basement as though he expected something to explode out of the black shadows beneath the tables. His stance radiated danger as surely as the metal-topped table reflected light.

"Yes?" he asked encouragingly, turning to face her fully. "They…?"

Lindsay took a grip on her overactive imagination. There was nothing dangerous about Catlin except his effect on her mind. Or perhaps it was simply the humid air and heat that were playing tricks with her memories, calling up Hong Kong and with it a host of older, more frightening memories. Or near-memories. She would never know, now. The last person who could have told her was dead. She would never know why in her nightmare last night she had run with her hands covered by blood.

"These – " Lindsay's hands clenched as she reassured herself that they were clean, dry, not bloody at all. "These two bronzes are nearly unique among their own kind," she said, her voice husky. "The bowl is a Shang precursor to the more familiar Chou p'an."

Even as Lindsay spoke, she realized that Catlin was like the bowl, an enigma, showing the stamp of no single time or culture.

And like the bowl, he was genuine.

The realization calmed her at the same irrational level where fear had bloomed. She let out a slow, silent breath. Whatever danger there was in this man, he wasn't dangerous to her. Only lies and deceit were.

Catlin walked over to the table. The silence of his stride struck Lindsay. Not once since she had met him had she heard the sound of his shoes against the floor. Yet he was hardly a dainty man. She was five feet six inches in her high heels, and he still had at least six inches on her.

"May I?" asked Catlin, his hands poised over the bowl.

"Of course," answered Lindsay, curious to see how he would handle the bronze. She had discovered that it was possible to tell a lot about a man from the way he handled objects.

Catlin's hands were both careful and confident as he picked up the bowl. He turned and tilted it slowly, letting the basement's unforgiving illumination pick out every potential flaw. His eye followed the discrete line of each design. There was no overlap of decoration from foot to bowl or from interior to exterior. The symbols were appropriate to the time and to their placement on the p'an itself.

There was no inscription.

"Amazing," said Catlin, meaning it.

"Genuine, too," Lindsay said dryly.

He nodded, his eyes intent upon the bronze resting coolly, heavily, in his hands.

"There's no doubt of that," Catlin said, his mind utterly involved with the smooth, green-gray bronze. "Only on forgeries do the designs overlap the functions. Shang artists saw life as an assembly of individual pieces. One animal symbol for the foot. One for the outer bowl, and so on. The symbols themselves are quite openly savage," he continued, looking into the bowl as though it were a crystal ball. "The Shang world was one of terrifying demons and human sacrifices to appease the unknown. Shang art reflects that, as does the art of the Maya and the Inca. Quite similar, as a matter of fact."