“I’m afraid it’s a fake.” She lowered her senses, turned away from the small statue and looked at Bernard Paddon. “A very fine fake, but a fake, nonetheless.”
“Damn it, are you absolutely certain?” Paddon’s bushy silver brows scrunched together. His face reddened in annoyance and disbelief. “I bought it from Crofton. He’s always been reliable.”
The Paddon collection of antiquities put a lot of big city museums to shame, but it was not open to the public. Paddon was a secretive, obsessive collector who hoarded his treasures in a vault like some cranky troll guarding his gold. He dealt almost exclusively in the notoriously gray world of the underground antiquities market, preferring to avoid the troublesome paperwork, customs requirements and other assorted legal authorizations required to buy and sell in the aboveground, more legitimate end of the trade.
He was, in fact, just the sort of client that Harper Investigations liked to cultivate, the kind that paid the bills. She did not relish having to tell him that his statue was a fake. On the other hand, the client she was representing in this deal would no doubt be suitably grateful.
Paddon had inherited a large number of the Egyptian, Roman and Greek artifacts in the vault from his father, a wealthy industrialist who had built the family fortune in a very different era. Bernard was now in his seventies. Sadly, while he had continued the family traditions of collecting, he had not done such a great job when it came to investing. The result was that these days he was reduced to selling items from his collection in order to finance new acquisitions. He had been counting on the sale of the statue to pay for some other relic he craved.
Chloe was very careful never to get involved with the actual financial end of the transactions. That was an excellent way to draw the attention not only of the police and Interpol but, in her case, the extremely irritating self-appointed psychic cops from Jones & Jones.
Her job, as she saw it, was to track down items of interest and then put buyers and sellers in touch with each other. She collected a fee for her service and then she got the heck out of Dodge, as Aunt Phyllis put it.
She glanced over her shoulder at the statue. “Nineteenth century, I’d say. Victorian era. It was a period of remarkably brilliant fakes.”
“Stop calling it a fake,” Paddon sputtered. “I know fakes when I see them.”
“Don’t feel bad, sir. A lot of major institutions like the British Museum and the Met, not to mention a host of serious collectors such as yourself, have been deceived by fakes and forgeries from that era.”
“Don’t feel bad? I paid a fortune for that statue. The provenance is pristine.”
“I’m sure Crofton will refund your money. As you say, he has a very good reputation. He was no doubt taken in as well. It’s safe to say that piece has been floating around undetected since the eighteen eighties.” Actually she was sure of it. “But under the circumstances, I really can’t advise my client to buy it.”
Paddon’s expression would have been better suited to a bulldog. “Just look at those exquisite hieroglyphs.”
“Yes, they are very well done.”
“Because they were done in the Eighteenth Dynasty,” Paddon gritted. “I’m going to get a second opinion.”
“Of course. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be on my way.” She picked up her black leather satchel. “No need to show me out.”
She went briskly toward the door.
“Hold on, here.” Paddon rushed after her. “Are you going to tell your client about this?”
“Well, he is paying me for my expert opinion.”
“I can come up with any number of experts who will give him a different opinion, including Crofton.”
“I’m sure you can.” She did not doubt that. The little statue had passed for the real thing since it had been created. Along the way any number of experts had probably declared it to be an original.
“This is your way of negotiating for an additional fee from me, isn’t it, Miss Harper?” Paddon snorted. “I have no problem with that. What number did you have in mind? If it’s reasonable I’m sure we can come to some agreement.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Paddon. I don’t work that way. That sort of arrangement would be very damaging to my professional reputation.”
“You call yourself a professional? You’re nothing but a two-bit private investigator who happens to dabble in the antiquities market. If I’d known that you were so unknowledgeable I would never have agreed to let you examine the piece. Furthermore, you can bet I’ll never hire you to consult for me.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way, of course, but maybe you should consider one thing.”
“What’s that?” he called after her.
She paused in the doorway and looked back at him. “If you ever did hire me you could rest assured that you would be getting an honest appraisal. You would know for certain that I could not be bought.”
She did not wait for a response. She walked out of the gallery and went down the hall to the foyer of the large house. A woman in a housekeeper’s uniform handed her the still-damp trench coat and floppy-brimmed hat.
Chloe put on the coat. The trench was a gift from her Aunt Phyllis. Phyllis had spent her working years in Hollywood. She claimed she knew how private investigators were supposed to dress because she’d known so many stars who played those kinds of roles. Chloe wasn’t so sure about the style statement, but she liked the convenience of the numerous pockets in the coat.
Outside on the front steps she paused to pull the hat down low over her eyes. It was raining again, and although it was only a quarter to five, it was almost full dark. This was the Pacific Northwest, and it was early December. Darkness and rain came with the territory at this time of year. Some people considered it atmospheric. They didn’t mind the short days because they knew that a kind of karmic balance would kick in come summer when there would be daylight until nearly ten o’clock at night.
Those who weren’t into the yin- yang thing went out and bought special light boxes designed to treat the depressive condition known as SAD, seasonal affective disorder.
She was okay with darkness and rain. But maybe that was because of her talent for reading dreamlight. Dreams and darkness went together.
She went down the steps and crossed the vast, circular drive to where her small, nondescript car was parked. The dog sitting patiently in the passenger seat watched her intently as she came toward him. She knew that he had been fixated on the front door of the house, waiting for her to reappear since she had vanished inside forty minutes ago. The dog’s name was Hector, and he had abandonment issues.
When she opened the car door he got excited, just as if she had been gone for a week. She rubbed his ears and let him lick her hand.
“Mr. Paddon is not a happy man, Hector.” The greeting ritual finished, she put the satchel on the backseat and got behind the wheel. “I don’t think we’ll be seeing him as a client of Harper Investigations anytime soon.”
Hector was not interested in clients. Satisfied that she was back, he resumed his customary position, riding shotgun in the passenger seat.
She fired up the engine. She had told Paddon the truth about the little Egyptian queen. It was a fake, and it had been floating around in the private market since the Victorian period. She was certain of that for three reasons, none of which she could explain to Paddon. The first was that her talent allowed her to date objects quite accurately. Reason number two was that she came from a long line of art and antiquities experts. She had been raised in the business.
Reason number three was also straightforward. She had recognized the workmanship and the telltale dreamlight the moment she saw the statue.
“You can’t rat out your own several times great grandfather, Hector, even if he has been dead since the first quarter of the twentieth century. Family is family.”
Norwood Harper had been a master. His work was on display in some of the finest museums in the Western world, albeit not under his own name. And now one
of his most charmingly brilliant fakes was sitting in Paddon’s private collection.
It wasn’t the first time she had stumbled onto a Harper fake. Her extensive family tree boasted a number of branches that specialized in fakes, forgeries and assorted art frauds. Other limbs featured individuals with a remarkable talent for deception, illusion and sleight-of-hand. Her relatives all had what could only be described as a true talent for less-than-legal activities.
Her own paranormal ability had taken a different and far less marketable form. She had inherited the ability to read dreamlight from her Aunt Phyllis’s side of the tree. There were few practical applications—although Phyllis had managed to make it pay very well—and one really huge downside. Because of that downside, the odds were overwhelming that she would never marry.
Sex wasn’t the problem. But over the course of the past year or two she had begun to lose interest in it. Perhaps that was because she had finally accepted that she would never have a relationship that lasted longer than a few months. Somehow, that realization had removed what little pleasure was left in short-term affairs. In the wake of the fiasco with Fletcher Monroe a few months ago she had settled into celibacy with a sense of enormous relief.
“There is a kind of freedom in the celibate lifestyle,” she explained to Hector.
Hector twitched his ears but otherwise showed no interest in the subject.
She left the street of elegant homes on Queen Anne Hill and drove back downtown through the rain, heading toward her office and apartment in Pioneer Square.
2
JACK WINTERS WAS TRACKING DARKLY IRIDESCENT DREAMLIGHT all over the hardwood floor of her office.
“Please sit down, Mr. Winters,” Chloe said.
Clients came in an endless variety of guises, but you did not last long in the investigation business unless you learned to distinguish between two broad groups: safe and dangerous. Jack Winters was clearly in the second category.
Hector got up to greet the newcomer. He usually gave clients a brief, assessing once-over and then proceeded to ignore them. But he was treating Jack Winters with what looked like a canine version of polite respect.
In spite of the icy control and sense of determination that radiated from Winters in an almost visible aura, he surprised her by taking a moment to acknowledge her dog. Most clients lost interest in Hector once they had been assured that he was not likely to bite. Hector was not cute or fluffy. Then again, neither was Jack Winters. Maybe that allowed for some male bonding.
Winters had been cool about Rose, her secretary, as well. The elaborate tattoos and piercings sometimes made clients nervous. Then again, she decided that it would probably take a lot more than some extensive body art and unusually placed jewelry to make Winters uneasy. Hand the man a flaming sword, and you would have a warrior-priest or maybe an avenging angel, she thought. It wasn’t just the stern, ascetic features or the lean, hard body. It was the cold, knowing look in his green eyes. It was as if he sensed all your weaknesses and wouldn’t hesitate to use them against you.
Satisfied, Hector retreated to his bed in the corner of the room and settled down. But he did not go back to sleep. Instead, he continued to watch Jack with an expression of rapt attention.
It occurred to her that, in her own, hopefully more subtle, way she was doing pretty much the same thing; watching Jack Winters closely. She was torn between fascination and profound wariness. The energy stirring in the room disturbed her in new and unsettling ways. She probably should be a lot more worried, she thought. Instead she was intrigued.
Winters ignored her invitation to sit. He walked across the hardwood floor to the windows overlooking First Avenue and the rain-drenched scene of Pioneer Square. Her senses still heightened, she took another quick look at his footprints. No question about it, Winters was a powerful talent.
On general principle, she was always deeply suspicious of strong talents. It was not just that high-level sensitives were rare and potentially dangerous. The more serious issue was that there was always the possibility that they were affiliated with the Arcane Society. Avoiding contact with Arcane was a Harper family motto.
Most of her regular clients came to her through referral. Someone who knew someone who needed her services arranged for an introduction. Jack had not been referred. Harper Investigations was not in the phone book. Her online presence was extremely discreet and so was her upstairs office. She rarely got walk-ins. Yet somehow Winters had discovered her. Intuition told her that it was not random chance that had brought him to her. Common sense dictated that she be wary.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Winters?” she heard herself say instead.
“I want to hire you to find an old family heirloom.” Jack did not turn around. Instead, he concentrated on the view outside the window, as if the sight of the late- nineteenth-century brick and stone buildings in the city’s oldest neighborhood was riveting. “I understand you’re good at that kind of thing.”
In the Northwest it was never smart to judge a man’s financial status by his clothes because a lot of wealthy people, especially the new-money folks who had made their fortunes in high-tech businesses, bought their jackets, running shoes and pants from the same outdoor gear stores as everyone else. Nevertheless, there were always subtle clues and signs. She was sure that whatever Jack Winters did, he was very, very good at it and therefore successful.
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I am very good at finding things,” she said. “What, exactly are you looking for, Mr. Winters?”
“A lamp.”
She folded her hands together on top of the desk and thought about that for a moment. For some reason the name Winters and the word lamp in the same sentence rang a very distant bell, an alarm bell. But she could not put it together. She made a note to call her grandfather later. Harry Harper was the family historian.
“Perhaps you could describe this lamp, Mr. Winters,” she said.
“It’s old,” he said. He finally turned around to look at her. “Late seventeenth century.”
“I see. You’re a collector, I assume?”
“No. But I do want this particular lamp. Like I said, it’s a family heirloom.”
“When did it go missing?”
“Thirty-six years ago.”
“Stolen?”
“Possibly.” He shrugged. “Or maybe just lost. All I know is that it disappeared during the course of a cross-country move the same year that I was born. Not the first time it’s gone missing.”
“I beg your pardon?”
His mouth kicked up at one corner, but there was no humor in the smile. “It has a habit of getting lost.”
She frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s complicated.”
“Can you tell me a little more about the lamp?”
“I’ve never seen it, but my parents told me that it isn’t particularly attractive or even interesting. Not the kind of thing you put on display in the living room. It’s about eighteen inches high and made of some kind of gold colored metal.”
“Real gold?”
“No,” Jack said. “Not real gold. It’s not a real lamp, either. It was never meant to hold oil and a wick. I’m told that it looks more like a tall vase.” He used both hands to illustrate.
“It’s narrower at the bottom and flares out at the top. There’s a ring of stones or crystals set in the rim.”
“Why is it called a lamp?”
“Because, according to the legend, it can be made to give off powerful rays of light.”
She pulled a pad of paper toward her across the desk, picked up a pen and started to make notes.
“When was it last seen?” she asked.
“My parents stored it in the basement of their Chicago home. After they moved to California, they didn’t even notice that it was gone until I got curious about it and started asking questions. That would have been when I was in my teens.”
She tried to pay close attention to the description, but it was hard
to ignore the shivery little thrills of awareness that were lifting the hair on the nape of her neck. She’d dated her share of men. Some would say more than her share. It wasn’t her looks or body that drew them. She strongly suspected that she qualified as merely okay in both departments. There was a certain type, however, who was attracted to her because of her profession. That kind found it intriguing to date a lady PI; always wanted to know if she carried a gun and seemed disappointed when she said no.
Others responded unconsciously to her aura. She possessed a very high level of talent, and psi power could be seductive, especially to a man who was endowed with some degree of sensitivity of his own, even if he wasn’t consciously aware of his own psychic nature.
And then there were always those like Fletcher Monroe who were initially ecstatic about the prospect of dating a woman who made no demands when it came to long-term commitment. To them she was a fantasy come true. At least for a while.
But although she liked men and she’d had some experience with the species, she could not recall the last time any man had aroused this fizzy sensation of sensual awareness and anticipation in her.
It was as if something inside her recognized Jack Winters in ways she could not explain. Maybe she was simply responding to his own very high level of talent, she thought. Or perhaps it was the darkly fascinating dreamlight she saw in his footprints. Whatever the case, she was fairly certain she’d caught a flash of sexual heat in his eyes when he’d come through the door. She could not be absolutely positive, however, because he’d concealed his reaction so quickly.
There is a certain kind of freedom in celibacy, she reminded herself.
“There is something else you should know about this case,” Jack said.
“What is that?”
“It’s critical that the lamp is found as soon as possible.”
More tiny alarm bells went off.
“You just told me that it was lost thirty-six years ago,” she said. “Why the rush to find it now?”
He raised his brows a little. “I’m the client, Miss Harper. That means I decide if the matter is urgent. If you’re too busy to take the case, please tell me now and save us both some time.”