Chapter One
"IT IS NEVER wise to become emotionally involved with a
client," Vesta Briggs said.
"I'm not involved with Mack Easton." Cady cradled the
phone against her shoulder and tugged off first one high
heel and then the other. "Not in the way you mean. I'm
just consulting for him. I thought I made that clear."
There was a short, terse silence on the other end of
the line. Cady sighed silently and sank down onto the
sofa. The phone had been ringing a moment ago when she had
come through the door. She had lunged for it on the off
chance that it was Fantasy Man.
It had not been Mack Easton. It had been her great-
aunt.
"There's something in your voice when you talk about
him," Vesta said. Icicles of disapproval hung on each
word. "I get the impression that you are interested in him
in a personal way."
"He's just a voice on the phone."
But what a voice. Every time she heard it, a thrill of
awareness zinged through each nerve ending. Her vivid
imagination did the rest, conjuring blatantly erotic
fantasies out of thin air.
It was a voice that had begun to whisper in her dreams
but she saw no reason to mention that to her rigid great-
aunt. Vesta Briggs was not a romantic.
Cady slipped off one silver earring and set it down on
the glass-topped coffee table. Probably not a good idea to
tell Vesta that in addition to being a voice on the phone,
Easton had also become a frequent e-mail correspondent,
she thought. He seemed to enjoy locating arcane bits and
piecesof information relating to the art world on-line and
forwarding them on to her. Lately, she could have sworn
that he had begun to flirt with her via computer.
She saved all of his on-line correspondence in a
special folder labeled "Fantasy Man." She had gotten into
the habit of checking her computer first thing each
morning to see if he had paid her an on-line visit during
the night. She didn't want to use the word "obsessive" to
describe her new routine, but she was aware that some
people might view it as a tad compulsive.
Of course, if there was anyone who would understand
obsession, it was Vesta, she thought. She glanced at the
row of family photographs arranged on one wall. Her gaze
fell on the woman with dark hair and enigmatic eyes. It
had been taken some fifty years ago when her great-aunt
was in her thirties, shortly after she had founded Gallery
Chatelaine. There was a withdrawn, remote quality about
the image. Vesta looked as if she was listening to a
conversation that only she could hear, one that had taken
place in the distant past.
As far as anyone knew, the only thing Vesta had ever
cared about was Chatelaine's. There had been no room in
her life for love or marriage or children. For five
decades she had single-handedly controlled the fate of the
business she had created. With unflinching determination,
skill and vision she had brought her gallery to its
current respected position in the art world. But her
lifelong preference for privacy could no longer conceal
her growing eccentricities.
A lot of people were convinced that Cady took after
Vesta. Lately Cady had begun to worry about that
possibility herself.
It was true that, in spite of Vesta's austere
personality, she had always felt a deep attachment to her.
It wasn't just because her great-aunt had taught her
everything she knew about the art and antiques business.
The feeling of unspoken understanding between the two
women went deeper. Even as a child Cady had sensed some
deep, long-buried pain beneath the layers of protective
frost that Vesta wore like an invisible shroud.
"Easton is a good client," Cady said, trying hard to
inject reassurance into her words. "What's more, I'm
really enjoying this end of the business."
"Tracing lost and stolen art and antiques?" Vesta
paused. "I can see why that might appeal to you. You
always were more adventurous than Sylvia."
"Which is why Sylvia makes a much better CEO for
Gallery Chatelaine than I ever could," Cady said
quickly. "She thrives on that corporate stuff."
"And you don't." Vesta sounded resigned.
"No." Cady settled deeper into the sofa. "I'm happy
with my little art consulting business. I wasn't cut out
to run a large operation like Chatelaine's. We both know
that."
"You may change your mind someday."
"No."p This was old territory. It had been well
covered after Cady's divorce three years ago.
There was more silence on the line.
"Be careful," Vesta said after a while. "Don't allow
yourself to be seduced by this new client of yours."
"Seduced?" Cady repeated in a strangled voice, unable
to believe what she had heard. Vesta never discussed
sex. "I told you, I haven't even met him."
"There is often a great deal of money at stake when it
comes to art. You know that as well as I do. A man who
requires your expertise to get his hands on that cash
cannot be trusted. It sounds like your Mr. Easton finds
you useful."
"That's the whole point of my art consulting business.
To make myself useful."
"It's all well and good for a client to find you
useful. But don't let yourself be used. There's a
difference."
"Good grief, Aunt Vesta, it's not like I'm having a
red-hot affair with the man." Unfortunately, she added to
herself.
"Yes, well, that's enough on the subject of Mack
Easton. I didn't call just to discuss him," Vesta said.
"Good."
"I also wanted you to know that I'm having second
thoughts about the wisdom of a merger with Austrey-Post."
Deeply relieved by the change of topic, Cady swung her
legs up onto the sofa and leaned back in the
corner. "Sylvia told me that you had mentioned you might
postpone the vote on the proposal."
"I haven't made a final decision yet but I will soon."
Vesta paused. "I just thought you should know."
"I'm no longer a member of the board," Cady reminded
her. "I won't be voting."
"I'm aware of that. Nevertheless, I think you should
stay informed."
"Sylvia is not a happy camper," Cady said carefully.
"I know. She wants the merger to go through."
"She's got a vision for the gallery, Aunt Vesta."
"Yes."
"It's a great vision, one that will make Gallery
Chatelaine even more important in the art world than it is
already."
"Yes."
There was something in Vesta's voice that told Cady
there was more to the story, but she knew her aunt well
enough to know that there was no point pushing for an
explanation. Besides, this was Sylvia's problem.
"Did you go out tonight?" Vesta asked.
Another change of subject. Interesting.
"I went to the preview of the Kenner collection," Cady
said.
"Oh, yes, that's right. I remember that you mentioned
it. I expect that it was well attended. The sharks of the
art world have been circling for years, waiting for Anna
Kenner to expire. Her collection of eighteenth- and
nineteenth-century decorative arts is one of the finest in
the country."
"Well, the good news is that Mrs. Kenner managed to
outlive several of the sharks. She was ninety-seven when
she died."
"Good for her. I always did like Anna. She bought some
of her best pieces from me several years ago."
"Yes, I know. She hired me to consult after I moved
here to Santa Barbara. I liked her."
Tonight Anna Kenner's Santa Barbara mansion had been
filled with scavengers dressed in formal attire. They had
come to view the lady's personal possessions in
preparation for tomorrow night's auction. Anna's heirs had
little interest in the lovely English porcelains, Georgian
silver, Chinoiserie panels and exquisite furniture she had
accumulated in her lifetime. They were anxious to convert
her worldly goods into cash as quickly and profitably as
possible. The denizens of the art world had been equally
eager to help them accomplish that goal.
Cady had spent most of the evening standing in an
alcove, an untouched flute of champagne in one hand. She
had watched the dealers, consultants, museum curators and
private collectors prowl through the fine rooms. People
had paused here and there to examine carefully arranged
groupings of art and antiques and to make inquiries about
provenance and value. The auction house representatives,
also garbed in somber black and white, had stood
discreetly nearby to supply answers and advice.
It had all been very civilized and quite elegant with
a proper air of hushed solemnity, Cady thought; but she
could not suppress the sense of melancholia that swirled
up out of the depths. She ought to know better. The ritual
was a familiar one. She had grown up in the art world. She
was well aware that there was little place for sentiment
when it came to the business of auctioning off a valuable
collection.
But tonight the process of preparing for what was
essentially a high-end garage sale had been tinged with
sadness. She had a right to brood, she thought. Anna
Kenner had been more than a client. She had become a
friend.
"The good news is that Anna was wined and dined in
style during the last few years," Cady said. "I think she
rather enjoyed it."
"I certainly hope so," Vesta said dryly. "I doubt if
there was any expense spared to secure that consignment."
"None. The big auction houses sent people out from New
York. The locals also spent a fortune on her. She told me
that the courtship began while she was still in her early
eighties. Who could know she would live so long?"
Like other wealthy collectors in her position, Anna
Kenner had received the royal treatment from dealers,
consultants and curators during the last years of her
life. Her birthdays had been celebrated with elaborate
floral arrangements from auction houses. Her evenings had
been filled with invitations to lavish gallery openings
and museum receptions. As she had once told Cady, her
dance card was always full.
It was ambulance chasing with class, Cady thought, but
it was, nevertheless, ambulance chasing.
"Well, it's getting late," Vesta said. "I'm going to
take my swim and then go to bed. Good night, Cady."
There was something not quite right here, Cady
thought. This was not a typical Vesta phone call.
"Aunt Vesta?"
"Yes?"
"Is anything wrong?"
"What makes you think there's something wrong?" Vesta
asked crisply.
Cady winced. "It's not like you to call without a very
specific reason."
"I explained my reasons for calling. I wanted to warn
you about getting too cozy with Easton and to let you know
that I was reconsidering the merger."
"I see."
Mack Easton and the merger didn't seem to warrant a
late-night phone call, Cady thought. But with Vesta you
could never be sure of what was going on beneath the
surface. She wondered if her aunt was simply lonely.
"Aunt Vesta?"
"What is it now?"
"I love you."
There was a short, startled pause on the other end of
the line. Cady braced herself. Vesta was not given to
sentiment.
"I love you too, Cady," Vesta said. The words sounded
stiff and rusty as if she'd dredged them up from deep
underground.
Cady was so stunned she nearly fell off the sofa.
"We are so much alike, you and I," Vesta
continued. "But I hope things will turn out differently
for you."
Cady tried to collect her thoughts. "Differently?"
"I hope you will be happy," Vesta said with stark
simplicity. "Good night, Cady."
The line went dead.
Cady sat with the phone in her hand until it started
to make strange sounds. She hung up the receiver, got to
her feet, collected her shoes and went slowly down the
hall to her bedroom. There she unzipped the subdued, cowl-
necked dress she had worn to the preview. She pulled on a
pair of black tights and a leotard and went barefooted
down the hall into the living room. She switched on some
Mozart and stood quietly for a moment.
When she was ready she went slowly through the yoga
exercises that she had practiced faithfully since college.
It had been suggested by more than one acquaintance that
she was a little obsessive about her daily workout. But
she was convinced that it was the flowing, stretching
movements combined with the deep-breathing techniques that
allowed her to control her body's predisposition toward
panic attacks.
A predisposition she had inherited from Vesta's side
of the family.
She was careful about her routine, but just to be on
the safe side, she kept a tiny pill wrapped in tissue
inside the small case attached to her key ring. She had
not had to resort to the little tablet in years, but there
was a certain sense of security in knowing that it was
available if she ever got overwhelmed by the terrible
jitters. She thought about it during that significant
pause that occurs between the closing of an elevator's
doors and the first movement of the cab. She visualized it
whenever she found herself sitting in an airplane that had
been delayed on the ground for an extended period of time.
Most of all, she contemplated it whenever someone tried to
coax her into going swimming in a lake or the ocean or any
other body of water where she could not see beneath the
surface.
The problem with panic attacks was just one more trait
that she shared with Vesta, she thought as she curved into
a slow, arching movement that released the tension in her
shoulder. She had heard the comments for years. You're
just like your aunt.... You take after your aunt.... You
have your aunt's eye for art and antiques. But she and
Vesta were at opposite poles when it came to the subject
of deep water.
To the best of Cady's knowledge, her eighty-six-year-
old aunt had swum almost every day of her adult life.
Vesta loved the water. She'd had a large pool installed on
the terrace of her home near Sausalito in Marin County,
California. She was especially fond of swimming alone at
night in the dark.
It occurred to Cady that she was as compulsive about
her yoga as Vesta was about her nightly swim.
Something else they had in common.
Sometimes she wanted to scream in frustration. But
there was no denying that the comparisons between herself
and her aunt were growing more acute as each year passed.
The parallels were getting a little scary. After her
infamous nine-day marriage blew up in her face, she'd
heard murmurs to the effect that she had also inherited
Vesta's inability to deal with the male of the species.
The words "You're going to end up just like Aunt Vesta"
had taken on new meaning during the past three years.
Lately even her parents, usually serenely absorbed in
their academic careers, had started to become concerned.
After the divorce they had developed an irritating habit
of making polite but increasingly pointed inquiries into
Cady's social life.
She unfolded herself from the last exercise and sat
cross-legged, gazing out into the night. The strains of a
concerto spilled over her and through her, veiling the
shadowy spaces that she knew from long experience were
better off left unexplored.
Genetic inheritances were tough, but nature wasn't
everything, she reminded herself. Self-determination
played a role, too. She was not a Vesta Briggs clone. If
she worked hard, she could avoid developing Vesta's less
appealing characteristics. She would not become a self-
absorbed loner who surrounded herself with the visible
evidence of the past.
Damn, she was still brooding, in spite of the Mozart
and yoga. Maybe a frozen pizza and a glass of wine would
do the trick.
What she really needed tonight was a distraction, she
thought. Preferably another one of the fascinating, out-of-
the-ordinary consulting assignments she had started
accepting from Fantasy Man. There had been three jobs in
the past two months, each one more interesting and more
intriguing than the last.
Mack Easton had tracked her down via the internet. The
only thing she knew for certain about him was that he
operated a very low-profile on-line business he called
Lost and Found. Driven by curiosity, she had tried to
research him and his business on-line but the usual search
engines had come up empty-handed. You didn't find Mack
Easton, apparently. He found you.
Easton brokered information related to lost, strayed
and stolen art. As far as she could discern, his clients
included a wide variety of private collectors, museums and
galleries. They all had two things in common: They wanted
help tracing and recovering art, antiques or antiquities;
and, for various reasons, they did not want to take their
problems to the police.
Easton worked by referral only. In his initial phone
call, he had explained that he frequently required
consulting assistance from experts who had specialized
knowledge. That was where Cady came in. She knew the world
of the so-called decorative arts, the realm where
exquisite design and functionality intersected. She loved
the objects and artifacts of the past that had been
crafted with an eye toward both beauty and practicality:
Glorious Baroque salt cellars, gleaming seventeenth-
century inkwells created by master silversmiths, glowing
French tapestries, brilliantly illustrated wall panels and
handmade furnitureโthose were the things that called to
her across the centuries. Purists could have their fine
art, their paintings and sculpture and the like. She was
drawn to art that had been shaped to a useful purpose, art
that satisfied the needs of daily life as well as the
senses.
She closed her eyes and summoned up the mental image
she had constructed to go with Easton's voice. As always,
the picture refused to gel. Probably because no man could
live up to that fantastic voice, she thought.
"It's all well and good for a client to find you
useful. But don't let yourself be used."
If she hadn't known better, Cady thought, she would
have suspected that her aunt was speaking from personal
experience. But that was impossible. No one used Aunt
Vesta.
The phone rang, jarring her out of her reverie. She
hesitated briefly and then uncoiled to her feet and
crossed the crimson carpet. She paused, her hand hovering
over the instrument, and listened to the second and third
ring.
Her parents were in England at the moment, doing
research for their next papers in art history. But the
fact that they were several thousand miles away did not
mean that they weren't calling to ask about her boring
love life.
She really did not need that conversation tonight. Not
after Vesta's call.
The phone rang a fourth time. She could let it go into
voice mail.
But what if it was Fantasy Man?
The odds were staggeringly not in favor of that
possibility, but the slim chance that it was Easton
calling with another consulting assignment was sufficient
incentive to make her scoop up the phone.
"Hello?"
"What do you know about sixteenth-century armor?"
Fantasy Man asked.
Oh, boy. The voice cued every nerve ending in her
body. Get a grip, woman. He's probably married. Voices
like this one do not stay single for long.
Or maybe he's twenty or thirty years older than you
are.
So what? Maturity was a good quality in a man.
"Funny you should ask ...," she said, striving for a
businesslike tone. Mentally she crossed her fingers behind
her back.
Okay, so arms and armor weren't her favorite examples
of the decorative arts. Nevertheless, she knew the basics.
More importantly, she knew whom to call to bring her up to
speed in a hurry. She had connections at some of the best
museums and galleries in the country.
"I think we should meet to talk about the assignment,"
Fantasy Man said. "There are some complications involved."
This was the first time he had ever suggested that
they should get together face-to-face. Don't get too
excited, here. It's just a job.
"Yes, of course," she said. "Where do you want to
meet?"
"At the clients' place of business."
She seized a pen. "Where is it?"
"Las Vegas," Fantasy Man said. "Place called Military
World. A small museum that features reproductions of arms
and armor from the medieval period to the present. Does a
big gift shop business."
"Reproductions?" she repeated carefully. Her initial
enthusiasm evaporated instantly. Reality returned with a
dull thud. Military World sounded like a tacky, low-rent
souvenir operation. She had professional standards. She
did not work for people who collected and sold
reproductions.
On the other hand, this was Fantasy Man. In spite of
Vesta's warning, she was determined to encourage future
assignments with Lost and Found.
Sometimes you had to lower your standards a notch.
Business was business.
"When do you want me in Vegas?" she asked, pen poised
above the pad.
"As soon as possible. How about tomorrow morning?"
Yes.
"I'll have to check my schedule," she said
smoothly. "But I seem to recall that I'm free tomorrow."
And if she wasn't free, she would cancel whatever
appointments stood in the way of meeting Fantasy Man in
person.
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