Sharp Edges (37 page)

"Why not leave the Hades cup, itself, in the safe?" Cyrus asked.

Nellie's red brows drew together. "Because I was afraid that one of the members of the Connoisseurs' Club or maybe Fenella Weeks would find it. They all knew that Daventry owned the cup, and they must have figured it would be hidden somewhere in Glass House. I had to get it out of there before one of them went looking for it."

Eugenia eyed her thoughtfully. "What if one of them had found the painting?"

"The clues would have meant nothing to them," Nellie explained. "They would have recognized the cup, but that was all."

"But you knew that I would recognize not only the Hades cup, but my own fireplace wall."

"I knew you would start asking questions." Nellie's eyes drifted to the open wall next to Cyrus. "You would remember the last time I came to see you, and you would wonder what I had tried to tell you in the painting. You always had incredible intuition. You would have put it all together eventually."

Cyrus settled his shoulders more comfortably against the wall and laced his fingers across his stomach. "What you didn't expect was that she would start asking questions about your death shortly after you disappeared."

Nellie's expression held painful bewilderment. "No. No, I didn't expect that."

"It never occurred to you that she blamed herself for having introduced you to Adam Daventry in the first place," Cyrus continued coldly. "It never struck you that she was afraid you had been murdered because you had seen or heard something in Glass House that put you in danger."

More tears coursed down Nellie's face. "I knew Eugenia was kind, but how could I have guessed that she would care enough to find out what had really happened to me? No one's ever given a damn about me."

"I hate to interrupt such a touching scene," Damien said. "But this is all becoming somewhat maudlin."

He sounded dangerously bored, Cyrus thought. As usual, Damien got restless when he was not the center of attention. "What happens now?"

Damien's gaze narrowed with anticipation. "You will finish your little home improvement project, Colfax. Get the cup."

Cyrus hesitated.

"Now."

Cyrus shrugged and reached into the thick, springy insulation. He probed until his fingers touched the object covered in bubble wrap. He paused.

"Well?" There was a thread of urgency in Damien's voice now. "Is it there?"

"Something's in here." Cyrus put his other hand into the wall and eased the bubble-wrapped object out of its nesting place.

"Don't give it to him," Nellie wailed. "He'll kill us all once he has it."

"Shut up," Damien ordered. "Hurry, Colfax. I don't want to waste any more time retrieving my property."

"It's not your property," Eugenia said forcefully. "I hate to sound like Indiana Jones, but the Hades cup belongs in a museum. Specifically, the Leabrook."

"It belongs to me," Damien said with gritted teeth. "Give it to me, Colfax."

"Take it easy, March. It's heavy, remember?"

He had forgotten just how heavy it was, Cyrus realized. Beneath the thick plastic covering, he could see the muted glow of blood-red glass.

"Be careful," Eugenia said with unexpected urgency.

A fine time for her professional passions to surface, Cyrus thought. What was it with these arty types? Eugenia seemed to have temporarily forgotten that she was standing at the wrong end of a gun held by a man who would have no qualms about pulling the trigger.

Cyrus twisted slightly to draw the plastic-wrapped cup through the hole in the wall. "Forget about the damned cup, Eugenia. In case it has escaped your notice, we've got a few more pressing problems… Oops."

The thickly wrapped cup slipped from his hands and rolled slowly, ponderously across the carpet. For an instant the other three seemed paralyzed. Under other circumstances Cyrus would have found their expressions of incredulous horror amusing.

"You dropped it!" Eugenia gave a half-stifled shriek. She took what was obviously an instinctive step toward the cup, hands outstretched.

Nellie gasped.

"
You clumsy fool
," Damien shouted. "That cup is nearly two thousand years old." He shoved Eugenia out of the way and swung the barrel of the gun toward Cyrus. But his attention was distracted by the tumbling bubble-wrapped package on the carpet.

Cyrus already had one hand back inside the fluffy pink insulation. He wrapped his fingers around the grip of the gun he had stashed there when he'd realized who was at the door.

He aimed as best he could in that awkward position and pulled the trigger.

The bullet tore through the layers of insulation and smashed into the upper right side of Damien's chest.

Nellie screamed.

Damien squeezed off a single shot as the impact spun him back against the wall.

He dropped the gun and the leather briefcase and slid to the floor.

An eerie silence fell. It would not last long, Cyrus thought. The neighbors were probably already frantically dialing 911. He got to his feet and walked to Eugenia.

"You okay?" He did not take his eyes off Damien.

"Yes." Her voice was barely audible. She tried again. This time the words came clearly. "Yes, I'm fine. Thanks to you. Oh, my God, Cyrus, are you all right?"

"Yeah."

"You're bleeding."

Cyrus became aware of the cold fire in his left arm. He looked down. "It's okay. He just nicked me."

Eugenia whipped off her scarf. "Nellie, call 911."

Nellie stared, open-mouthed, at Damien. "Is he dead?"

"Call 911 right now, Nellie." Eugenia wound the scarf around Cyrus's upper arm.

"Ouch," he said.

"Sorry." Eugenia tied the scarf. "You should lie down. Shock, you know."

"I'm not going into shock. It's only a flesh wound."

From out of nowhere, tears sparkled in her eyes "Cyrus, you could have been killed."

Her frantic concern did more to dampen the pain in his arm than anything the medics would have with them, but he did not think this was the time or place to tell her.

He walked across the white carpet and came to a halt a short distance from the fallen man.

Damien stirred slightly. He opened shock-dulled eyes and stared up at Cyrus with chilling hatred. "So you won our little game after all."

"It's the old story of the tortoise and the hare, as my Grandpappy Beau would say." Cyrus pulled out his handkerchief and reached down to scoop up Damien's gun. "You're the hare. I'm the tortoise. I just keep slogging forward until I get where I'm going."

"You and those goddamned sayings of your grandfather's." Damien coughed weakly. "Did he ever tell you the one about old sins casting long shadows?"

A fresh chill settled in Cyrus's stomach. He crouched beside Damien. "Yeah, he did."

Damien's eyes closed slowly. "It's true, you know. You could have made a fortune. Better yet, you could have had real power. You could have taken it all, you stupid son-of-a-bitch."

"So you went for it, instead?" Cyrus asked.

"Yes. But I made one mistake. Thought I could control the shadow…"

Damien's head fell to the side. He did not move again.

Cyrus rose and scooped up the leather briefcase. It was just the right size for a laptop computer. When he unlatched it, he saw the glint of a black metal case.

He reached into his jacket and pulled out the phone. Quint Yates answered on the first ring.

"I need you here in Seattle, Quint. Take the next plane out of Portland."

"I'm on my way."

Eugenia put her hand on Cyrus's shoulder. He closed the phone and touched her fingers.

He looked at the blood that stained Damien's elegant white linen sportcoat. It was the color of the Hades cup in reflected light.

Twenty-three

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C
yrus was brooding.

Eugenia was worried. He was back into his self-contained mode. The grim aura that enveloped him had grown steadily darker after the emergency room staff and the police had finished with them. But it was not until he had returned from a two-hour meeting with Quint Yates that his mood had become truly bleak.

She wondered if she ought to phone the emergency room and ask about delayed shock syndrome. Cyrus did not appear to be in shock, but given his controlled demeanor, it was impossible to tell what was going on below the surface.

The future of the Hades cup had not yet been resolved. At the moment, it was housed in the Leabrook. Possession might be nine-tenths of the law, but whoever had written those words of wisdom had not taken into account someone of Cyrus's unrelenting tenacity.

Unable to face her blood-stained floor and the hole in her wall, Eugenia had checked herself and Cyrus into a downtown hotel. She had taken charge because Cyrus appeared oblivious to the problem of where they spent the night.

He did not show any interest in what was going on around him until she picked up the phone to order dinner from room service.

At that point he had emerged from wherever he had been inside his head.

"Forget room service," he said. "The food is always cold."

Pleased to see some response, she had not argued. "All right. We'll go out."

They had walked a few blocks to one of the eateries in the nearby Belltown neighborhood. It was a balmy evening, and many of the cafés on First Avenue had put tables out on the sidewalk. Trendy people dressed in a lot of black, pale neutrals and denim ate tapenade on crusty bread and drank chilled chardonnay and locally brewed beers.

Eugenia chose one of her favorite cafés. The hostess recognized her and found a table at the rear of the crowded restaurant.

After a few minutes, Eugenia gave up trying to concentrate on the menu. She put it down with a snap and leaned forward slightly. "Are you sure you shouldn't be in bed?"

"What?" Cyrus did not look up from his own menu.

Eugenia leaned closer and pitched her voice a bit louder to overcome the background hubbub. "I said, maybe you should be in bed."

He finally raised his eyes to meet hers. She thought she saw a flicker of humor. It didn't last long, but she was vastly relieved to see even a glimmer of something besides the enigmatic remoteness that had been there all afternoon.

"I love it when you get swept away by your obsession with my body," he said. "Don't worry, I promise we'll get to bed eventually. But first I need food."

"I'm not talking about sex, and you know it." She flushed, horrified by the way her voice had risen. She glanced around quickly, afraid that someone at one of the other tables might have overheard. But no heads turned.

Cyrus definitely looked amused now. "Are you sure?"

"For heaven's sake, you were wounded only a few hours ago." She frowned at his left arm. The sleeve of a fresh aloha shirt, this one covered with pink flamingos, covered a neat white bandage. "You shouldn't be exerting yourself."

"I don't think eating will put an undue strain on my arm." He paused as the waiter arrived at the table. "What are you going to have?"

She glanced impatiently at the menu. "The grilled ahi, please. Medium rare. Wasabi on the side."

"Make it the same for me, I'm in the mood for tuna fish." Cyrus handed his menu to the waiter. For the first time he appeared to notice the glass of wine in front of Eugenia. "And a beer."

Eugenia drummed her fingers on the table while the waiter dutifully wrote down Cyrus's selection.

"What's wrong?" Cyrus asked when they were alone again.

"Do you think you should mix alcohol with those pain pills the doctor gave you?"

"Probably not. But since I haven't taken any of the pills, it's a moot point."

"You didn't take the pills?" Eugenia was aghast. "But doesn't your arm hurt?"

"Nothing a bottle of beer won't fix."

She sank back in her chair. "I give up."

"Good. Let's change the subject."

She braced herself. "I suppose you want to talk about the Hades cup."

He shrugged. "I'll get to that later. It's safe enough at the Leabrook for now."

His indifference to the cup did nothing to alleviate her anxiety. Instead, it threw fuel on the fires of her growing unease. Something was very wrong. "Out with it before I go crazy."

"Out with what?"

"Whatever it is that's bothering you." She reached across the table to touch his hand. "Look, a certain degree of anxiety and depression is quite normal after what you've been through today."

His eyes widened slightly in surprise. "I'm not depressed. I'm thinking."

"From where I'm sitting, it's hard to tell the difference." She hesitated. "You're dwelling on the past, aren't you?"

The waiter returned to the table with the beer at that moment. He started to pour it into a glass. Cyrus waved him off.

When the waiter disappeared again, Cyrus picked up the bottle and took a long swallow. "Speaking of the past, you were right about Katy."

"I was?"

"She did betray me. I guess I just never wanted to look at it that way because it meant facing the fact that she hadn't loved me enough to resist Damien March."

"Cyrus, I'm so sorry."

"She needed me in some ways." He studied the label on the beer bottle. "But need isn't the same thing as love, is it?"

Eugenia hesitated. "I think there's some degree of need wrapped up in love. There are a lot of things mixed in with love. I have a hunch that the right combination of elements varies from one person to another. That's probably why it's impossible to define."

He nodded. "Sort of like art."

"Yes." She smiled wryly. "You can't describe it, but you know it when you see it."

"The problem is, until you do see it, you don't really know what it looks like, do you?" His eyes were very green. "So you make mistakes."

"Yes."

"I made a mistake with Katy."

"It's over, Cyrus. You've avenged her. Let the past go."

He rolled the bottle between his hands. "There's something you should know."