Dead Wrong (43 page)

Amanda Crosby.

Derek England.

Marion O’Connor.

He came to a full stop at the stop sign, and leaned over to raise the volume on the radio. Tapping his fingers on the steering wheel, he headed back to town to return the borrowed car. He had plans to make. Places to go.

People to see . . .

BY MARIAH STEWART

Until Dark

The President’s Daughter

A
shadow fell across her.

Mara looked up to find Aidan looking down at her. He wore a pale yellow shirt and his hands were stuck in the pockets of his worn jeans. Dark glasses shielded his eyes.

“What are you doing here?”

“Checking up on you.” He took the can from her hands and popped off the tab.

“Have you been doing this every day?”

“Nope.” He passed the can back to her. . . .

“I really don’t think I needed to check in with you to take a fifty-yard walk from the courthouse steps to the hot dog stand. . . . You really take this watchdog thing seriously, don’t you?”

“Serious as life and death.”

She glanced around, her eyes darting from the small groups that gathered on the lawn to the solitary figures scattered here and there.

“You think he’s here? Someone out there?” She gestured with the hand that held the soda can. “Just waiting for me to come out?”

“I would be, if I were him.”

Read on for a sneak peek
at the next two books
in this supenseful new series
by Mariah Stewart

DEAD CERTAIN

Coming in July 2004

and

DEAD EVEN

Coming in August 2004

DEAD
CERTAIN

“I’
M GOING TO KILL HIM.
I
SWEAR, THE MINUTE HIS
plane lands, I will kill him.”

Amanda Crosby glared at the screen of the laptop that sat open on the cluttered counter near the door of Crosby & England, the antique shop she co-owned with Derek England, the subject of her wrath.

“Is she sure? Is your sister positive it’s the same piece?” Amanda closed her eyes and silently begged,
Please, please, let it not be the same piece. . . .

“Isn’t there any chance she’s mistaken?”

“Daria is positive the goblet in the photos we e-mailed her yesterday is the same one that’s on the list of items stolen from an Iranian museum some years ago. You read her reply yourself.” Iona McGowan, Amanda’s longtime friend and onetime college roommate, hit the print command and watched as the color image emerged through the printer, accompanied by the e-mail from Iona’s sister.

“The goblet is in the stylized design of the fine painted pottery found at the Tall-e Bakun site in southwestern Iran. Probably dates from 5 b.c. The mouflon horns are pretty typical of the time period and the culture. This piece would be especially prized and noteworthy because of its near-pristine condition, the vividness of the colors, and the quality of the painted design work. I’m sorry, but there is absolutely no question that this piece could only have been bought on the black market.”
Amanda glumly read the e-mail aloud. “And I guess your sister would know.”

“Daria is an internationally recognized expert in the field. Which is why you wanted to consult with her in the first place,” Iona reminded her. She started to close out the window on the screen, paused to ask, “Are we finished here?”

Amanda nodded in disgust and turned away from the counter.

“Damn Derek anyway.
Damn
him. I told him not to buy anything on this trip, and to cover his eyes and ears if anyone offered to show him anything that couldn’t be completely and thoroughly documented. I told him to run like hell the minute someone whispered, ‘American, I have something special for you.’ ” Amanda continued to steam. “The business just can’t afford to absorb this hit. I don’t know how we’re going to make up this loss.”

“Look, Daria said there’s a reward . . .”

“Which would just barely pay to send the damned thing to her, by the time we had it securely packed and insured and hire a courier to hand-deliver it so that Derek doesn’t get arrested for dealing in stolen antiquities.” She blew out a hot, angry breath. “He has no idea how lucky he is that she’s willing to help him out on this. I’m sorely tempted to let Interpol arrest him and be done with it.”

“You know as well as I do that Interpol is hardly likely to waste its time and limited resources on pursuing this one item. Especially since it’s being returned to its rightful owner through a reputable archaeologist, which never would happen if it had fallen into someone else’s hands. Besides, you’d never do anything like that—turn your own partner in—no matter how angry you are, and we both know it.”

“I don’t think we’d want to test that right now.”

“Manda, I’m sorry. I really am.”

“Not as sorry as Derek England is going to be when I get my hands on him.”

“I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation. What exactly did he tell you when he called, anyway?”

“Just that he bought what he believed was an important piece, that he already had a buyer for it, and that he was having it shipped home—and to watch for it because it was going to knock my socks off. Well, it did that, all right.” Amanda slapped a hand on the top of a nearby farm table. “God, I could just
kill
him.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t give you better news.”

“I appreciate your help. I wouldn’t have known what to do with this”—she waved her hand in the vague direction of the goblet—“without Daria’s guidance.”

“Glad I could assist.” Iona patted Amanda on the back. “But right now, I’ve got to get back to my shop. I told Carly she could leave early today. Give me a call over the weekend. There’s going to be an auction up near Pipersville on Monday—maybe we can go together, pick up some goodies for our shops.”

“Sure. Thanks.”

Amanda walked Iona to the door and stepped outside onto the narrow cobbled walk that snaked around the well-manicured greens to tie together the tidy shops, the restaurants, and the parking lots.

“I’ll talk to you soon,” Iona called over her shoulder before she disappeared around the corner.

Amanda nodded and waved.

Still sick to her stomach after having had her worst fears confirmed, she stood for a few minutes in the doorway, barely noticing the shoppers who walked by. Even on this dull August afternoon, St. Mark’s Village had attracted a lively crowd. Springing from a cornfield via the imagination of its founder, Mark Hollander, St. Mark’s Village was a popular and pricey assemblage of antique and specialty shops in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. On weekends such as this, it wasn’t unusual to see busloads from New York, Washington, or Boston already lined up in the parking lot by 9 a.m. for an all-day shopping experience. Not for the faint-of-heart shopper nor those with low balances in their checking accounts—or on their plastic—the Shoppes at St. Mark’s Village were a tourist attraction for the discriminating.

Amanda Crosby had been one of the original dealers to sign on seven years ago when Mark Hollander had first proposed the idea of a cluster of high-end shops. She’d immediately recognized the advantage of being associated with a group that would be collectively marketed as upscale and high profile. And since—for the most part—each dealer specialized in a particular type of merchandise, there was little competition among the ever-growing number of merchants in the ever-expanding complex. In addition to private shoppers drawn to the village, there was the profitable secondary market of selling to dealers from other parts of the country who often came east seeking items for their own shops or for special customers. The shop owners at St. Mark’s had solid reputations and had networked nicely with their counterparts in other states.

Sighing heavily, Amanda walked back into her shop, pausing to wipe a speck of dust from a piece of Art Deco pottery on a stand to the left of the door.

“Oh, the hell with it,” she muttered, tears stinging her eyes.

All of her hard work down the drain with one stupid purchase on Derek’s part.

“Correction,” she said as she began to repack the pottery goblet as Daria McGowan had instructed. “One
more
stupid purchase on Derek’s part.”

Over the years, Derek’s get-rich-quick schemes had cost him and the shop a tidy penny. This, however, was the worst. The $65,000 Derek had paid for the goblet—the now-known-to-be-
hot
goblet—had wiped them out. And if not for Daria’s assistance, Derek could very well be a candidate for a nice long chat with Interpol or UNESCO.

Amanda gritted her teeth.

But Manda, I have a buyer,
he’d assured her.
Don’t worry about it, okay? He’ll pay many times what I paid to get his hands on this piece, trust me. I know what I’m doing here.

No, Derek, you do
not
know what you’re doing. Whatever it is, just let it go. Don’t make any deals, don’t buy . . . Derek?

The line had gone dead, and he’d not called back.

The goblet arrived several days later, and as soon as she unwrapped it, Amanda suspected they were in deep trouble. She’d immediately called Iona, whose father and sister were well-connected archaeologists and who would know how best to deal with an item one suspected might be stolen
without
getting arrested in the process.

In spite of everything, Amanda dearly loved Derek England. They’d been the best of friends since that day, junior year in college, they had discovered that they shared a passion for American primitive furniture, Art Deco pottery, and a desire to own a high-end antique shop someday.

Someday had come three years after they’d graduated from the University of Delaware. With heavy backing from Derek’s parents and an equally heavy reliance on Amanda’s well-trained eye, Crosby & England had done relatively well, well enough to support themselves and a little more. They’d finally accumulated a healthy bank account, thanks to Amanda’s shrewd eye. At a country auction just months earlier, she’d spotted a set of four cottage chairs that she strongly suspected might be the work of Samuel Campbell, an early-eighteenth-century furniture maker from western Pennsylvania who was just coming into vogue. She’d bought the painted chairs for an astounding eighty dollars—she’d expected the bidding to start at ten times that figure—and held on to them for six months, during which time she was able to confirm their origin. Then, as Campbell’s popularity hit its stride, she resold the chairs for a tidy $8,000 apiece. Thirty-two thousand lovely dollars. Money she’d planned to use to move the shop from its present location at the upper edges of the original village to a more central location closer to Main Street. Money to purchase more high-end stock . . .

Amanda punched in Derek’s number on her cell phone.

“Derek, you are so dead.” She hissed through clenched teeth at the record message prompt. “If you have any sense at all, you’ll stay in Italy, because the minute I see you, I am going to kill you.”

“Excuse me?” a startled voice from behind asked.

“Oh,” Amanda turned, equally startled. She hit the End Call button and slipped her phone into her pocket. “I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you come in.”

The well-dressed middle-aged blond woman smiled absently, her eyes scanning the shop’s offerings.

“Was there something in particular you were looking for?” Amanda moved the wooden box holding the goblet to a shelf under the counter.

“I was wondering if you had any Weller pottery,” the woman said. “My friend bought a vase here a week or so ago and she said you might have some others.”

“A tall green vase? Raised dogwood blossoms?”

“Yes.”

“Justine Rhodes?”

“Yes, Justine.” The woman nodded. “She was showing me just yesterday what she’d bought from you.”

“This is such a coincidence,” Amanda forced a bright note. “I was planning on calling Justine in the morning because I know she has the beginnings of a lovely collection, and I have some new items that just came in. I haven’t even unwrapped them yet, and I thought I’d give her first look. But since you’re already here, perhaps you’d like to see . . . ?”