Jake grunted. "If you care about Cruz enough to save his life, why in the h.e.l.l did you have to go and break his heart?"
She nearly choked on her outrage. "Let"s get something straight here. What I did for Cruz last night I would have done for anyone, if I thought just holding my hand would save a life. As for the heartbreak part, geez. Don"t even try to convince me that you actually fell for that crazy talk."
"What"s crazy about it?"
"You"re Big Jake Sweet.w.a.ter, for Pete"s sake. I can understand some of the younger, more impressionable members of your family like Jeff buying into that romantic nonsense, but not you. Never you."
"Or you?" he asked, the words barely audible above the crash of the waves.
"Of course not. Look, I don"t know who started that story about me breaking Cruz"s heart, but I"m sure it was intended originally as a joke."
"We don"t joke about true love in this family. We take it seriously. You broke my grandson"s heart, and that really p.i.s.ses me off."
"Yeah, well he stole that amethyst chamber from me. If it hadn"t been for him and Amber Inc. I"d have been rich by now."
"You"d have been plenty rich if you"d just taken the d.a.m.ned settlement our lawyers offered you."
"That money came with way too many strings attached."
"What strings, d.a.m.n it?" Jake"s voice rose to a roar.
Vincent abruptly responded to the escalating tension in the atmosphere. He didn"t go all sleek and predatory, but he abandoned his fishing and fluttered across the rocks toward Lyra. She picked him up and tucked him under her arm, grateful, as usual, for the comfort of his furry little body.
"If I had taken the money, I would have had to give up my claim on the chamber," she said.
Jake whacked a nearby rock with his cane. "That was the general idea."
"I"ll never do that. As far as I"m concerned, that ruin was my discovery, and it belongs to me. In addition to giving up my claim, your lawyers actually demanded that I sign a nondisclosure clause and stop doing interviews with the media. I wasn"t about to agree to that, either. Bad press was the only weapon I had to use against you."
"Why the devil did you care so much about that ruin in the first place?"
"Ask Cruz."
"He gave me some ghost c.r.a.p about you probably being worried that the amethyst relics inside the chamber might prove to be weapons. Said you didn"t trust Amber Inc. or the Guilds with them."
She nodded once. "You"ve got that right. And now your lab has gone and lost one of the artifacts. Which only goes to prove that my concerns were justified."
"And you claim you"re not a romantic. Only a romantic fool would turn down the kind of money we offered you just to keep those relics out of what you thought were the wrong hands."
"That wasn"t a romantic act," she shot back. "It was my insider knowledge of how things operate at Amber Inc. that made me do it."
"Next you"re going to tell me you got that so-called insider knowledge from your grandfather."
She raised her chin. "That"s right."
Jake studied her in silence for a moment. Then he exhaled heavily.
"Arthur Dore raised you on poison," he said. "He was the one who challenged me to that game of poker. We each owned claims. Both deeds went into the pot. Winner take all."
"He was drunk. You took advantage of him."
"He"d had a few drinks, but he knew what he was doing." Jake"s voice softened a little. "But I"m willing to allow that his memory of events wasn"t real clear."
"Cruz told me that there was a woman involved," she said.
"There was. Madeline. My wife. Dore challenged me to that game because he had some crazy notion that if he won and wound up owning both mines, Madeline would marry him instead of me. But that was never even a remote possibility."
"What makes you so sure of that? Oh, wait." She held up a hand, palm out. "Cruz said that when it comes to love, you Sweet.w.a.ters have some kind of special intuition."
"It"s part of our talent. The first time I met Madeline, I knew she was the one. She and your grandfather had been seeing each other, but there was nothing serious on either side. At least not until Dore realized that Madeline was going out with me. He was furious but only because it was just one more thing he had lost to me, not because his heart was broken."
"You"re sure of that, are you?"
"d.a.m.n sure. I knew your grandfather better than you did, at least back in those days. h.e.l.l, you weren"t even born yet. I"m d.a.m.n sorry you lost your parents, and I"m glad you had Arthur Dore to take you in, but it sounds like he gave you a somewhat revised version of history."
She gave him a bright, shiny smile. "Well, one thing"s for sure, there"s no way to prove his version now, is there? History is written by the winners, and you were the winner."
"What the h.e.l.l did you expect me to do? Give him back the deed to the mine?"
"Yes," she said. "That would have been the right thing to do."
Big Jake"s hard face darkened with outrage. "Like h.e.l.l. I won that claim off Dore fair and square. He knew it, and I knew it. If I"d turned around and tried to give it back to him, he would have refused it."
"Why would he have done that?"
"For the same reason you wouldn"t take the settlement money Cruz offered you as compensation for that amethyst ruin. Pride. Arthur Dore would have seen any attempt to return the deed as an act of pity."
She felt the familiar shiver of awareness and turned to look at the path that led up the bluff. Cruz was making his way down to the cove, moving with his characteristic sure-footedness. Dark gla.s.ses veiled his eyes, but even from here she could see the grim set of his jaw.
She switched her attention back to Jake.
"You know, I never gave it much thought, because there wasn"t any point to imagining how things might have been different," she said. "But you"re right. Granddad would have turned down your offer."
"I did not cheat him out of that claim," Jake said quietly. "And even if I had, it still wouldn"t give you the right to break my grandson"s heart. If you had a problem with me, you should have come to me about it."
"Ah, but I didn"t have a problem with you," she said politely. "I was doing just fine without any Sweet.w.a.ters in my life. My problem is with Cruz. And if anyone calls me a heartbreaker one more time, I swear I"m going to swim back to the mainland."
The corner of his mouth edged upward slightly. "That would be a very long swim," he said.
"So, I"ll steal one of your boats. Now, if you don"t mind, I"m going back to the house for breakfast."
"I"m hungry, too. I"ll come with you."
"Your island. Suit yourself."
"Thanks, I"ll do that." He fell into step beside her, driving his cane into the sand with each step. He looked toward the path. "Looks like the rescue mission has arrived."
"I don"t need rescuing from you."
"Nope, you sure as h.e.l.l don"t. You can take care of yourself. So what"s with the dust bunny?"
"His name is Vincent."
"I hear they bite."
"Oh, yeah."
Jake chuckled. "Like you."
It was not a question, so Lyra saw no need to respond.
Cruz came to a halt in front of them.
His dark gla.s.ses glinted in the sun. He looked at Lyra and then at Jake.
"Is there a problem here?" he asked in his dangerously neutral voice.
"Yes," Jake said. "But I"m told the problem is with you, not me, so we"re going to have breakfast. You can join us if you like."
Cruz smiled at Lyra. "Thanks, I"ll do that."
Chapter 27.
THEY ATE BREAKFAST OUTDOORS ON THE VERANDA THAT overlooked the spectacular cove. The cook came down from what everyone on the island referred to as the Big House, a large, airy mansion about a mile from Cruz"s cottage. There were platters of succulent fruits and berries, fluffy cheese-and-vegetable omelets, and endless piles of toast and pots of coffee.
Vincent went into full cute mode and charmed the cook into providing him with his own plate heaped with samples of everything on the table. He crouched on the foot-wide railing with his h.o.a.rd and, like every other male in the vicinity, went to work on his breakfast with gusto.
"Here"s what we"ve got," Cruz said, forking up a bite of omelet. "Valentine Fairstead was murdered last night, and the murder is probably linked to the missing relic, which we know was in his vault as of yesterday afternoon."
"How do we know the relic was in his vault?" Jake demanded.
"Because Lyra was there with a client who wanted her opinion on a special piece of amethyst," Cruz said. "They were escorted to a private room by Fairstead, and the vault was opened. She didn"t get a chance to see the relic because I walked into the room at that moment, and Fairstead immediately closed and locked the vault. But she had time to sense it."
Jake eyed Lyra. "You"re sure that relic was in Fairstead"s vault?" he demanded.
"Yes," she said. She picked up her coffee cup. "I"m good with amethyst, remember? And I know those relics. I spent a lot of time with them before AI stole the ruin from me. They resonate on some very unusual and distinctive wavelengths."
Jake"s eyes narrowed. "We did not steal that d.a.m.n ruin."
"Moving right along," Cruz said smoothly. "Since nothing else was stolen out of the vault, it"s clear that whoever killed Fairstead was after the relic. That means he knew it was there in the first place. I"m betting the list of suspects is a short one."
"With Lyra"s client at the top?" Jake asked.
"It"s a possibility," Cruz conceded. "But on the whole I"m inclined to doubt it."
"Who the h.e.l.l is this client, anyway?" Jake demanded.
There was a short silence. Jeff concentrated on some toast. Cruz ate his omelet.
Lyra smiled, drank some coffee, and lowered the cup. "Wilson Revere."
Stunned outrage flashed across Jake"s face. "What the h.e.l.l? You"re consulting for Revere?"
"Past tense, I"m afraid." She sighed. "Cruz made a scene. I was humiliated. I burst into tears and managed to create a spectacle of myself in front of a very large group of the most important amber collectors in Frequency. I think it"s safe to say that I won"t be getting any more high-end clients like Revere for a while."
"Revere is our biggest compet.i.tor," Jake roared. "He"s a complete and total son of a b.i.t.c.h. You can"t trust him any farther than you can walk without amber in the tunnels."
"Really?" She gave him a quizzical look. "I never had any problem with him."
Evidently sensing that he wasn"t going to get far with her, Jake rounded on Cruz.
"Did you know she was working for Revere?" he demanded.
"Yes," Cruz said patiently. "That"s why I went along. But as Lyra said, the situation became somewhat untenable, so we left. The bottom line is that we were able to determine that the relic was in Fairstead"s vault. That"s why I set up surveillance on the gallery."
Jeff leaned back in his chair. "We think the killer came and went via the catacombs, and that"s where we are now."
Jake grunted, clearly unsatisfied. But he picked up his coffee. "You"re going to take a look?"
"I"ve got the plane standing by," Cruz said. "Jeff and I will leave right after breakfast."
Lyra lowered her cup. "What about me?"
Cruz looked at her across the table. "You"re staying here."
She pretended she had not heard the command.
"What, exactly, are you going to be looking at?" she asked instead.
It was Jeff who answered. "The Frequency PD won"t let us into the crime scene. They"re still working it, and they can be kind of territorial. But no one can stop us from going into the catacombs beneath the gallery. The boss and I are going down to see if we can pick up any traces of the killer."
"Right," Lyra said. She crumpled her napkin and got to her feet. "You"ll be needing me, then."
Cruz gave her a hard look. "And why is that?"
"Even if you do manage to track the killer through the catacombs, that doesn"t mean you"ll be able to find the relic. But if it is anywhere in the vicinity, I"ll be able to sense it."
"Huh," Jake said and looked at Cruz. "She"s a Dore. She knows what she"s doing when it comes to amber."