The Black Sheep and the English Rose (30 page)

“Then we showed up,” Finn said. “And here we are.”

Everyone looked at each other, but no one said anything.

“So,” Felicity said at length. “I say we put our heads together and figure out who is really behind this. Then we figure out how to nail him.”

John looked at her, then at Julia for an extended moment, in which she held his gaze quite intently as well. “I'm in.” He turned to Finn. “I owe you.”

“How do we figure out who is behind this?” Felicity asked.

“I say the first thing we need to do is figure out why your country wanted this artifact in the first place and why it has anything to do with national security. If we know that, figuring out who else might have wanted it, for any reason, might be more easily pinned down.”

“Except we don't know who we can trust,” Felicity said.

“I do,” Finn said, and pulled out his PDA.

F
inn landed the helicopter gently on the pad at Dalton Downs. It was good to be home. It wasn't the way he'd have planned things when bringing Felicity here for the first time, but there wasn't much he could do about that. Mac was waiting a few yards away and ducked to come closer as the blades slowed overhead. Rafe was coming up the path.

Mac grinned as the door opened and first Felicity, then Reese, then Julia debarked. “It's the British Invasion, all over again. Welcome.”

Felicity smiled. She extended her hand. “You must be Donovan MacLeod.”

He took her hand. “Mac, please. A pleasure to meet you, Miss Trent.” He shot a look at Finn, who was coming around the front of the bird. “In fact, you have no idea.”

She took his teasing in stride and smiled more broadly. “Thank you. And it's Felicity.” She stepped back. “This is John Reese and Julia Forsythe.”

Mac shook hands with both of them, then stepped over to Finn. “Finn and Felicity, John and Julia. Cute.”

“Ha ha,” he said, then shook his best friend's hand and accepted a quick hug and clap on the back. “It's good to be back.”

“It's good to get you back.”

Rafe arrived, and introductions were made again. He gave Finn's shoulder a squeeze. “Good to have you back, man.”

“Same. So,” Finn said, “no smartass commentary from you?”

Rafe's gaze flickered down to the paddocks, where Kate's ranch manager, Elena, was putting one of their horses through its paces. He glanced back at Finn, his smile warmer and more relaxed than Finn could ever remember seeing it. “Uh, no. I believe in karma. I'll just welcome you home.” He glanced at Felicity Jane. “And hope you're half as content as I am.”

He was clearly sincere and sounded so…yes, content was the right word, that Finn didn't know what to say to that. It was a lot to process. “I take it I'm not the only one whose life got a bit…interesting over the past few weeks.”

“Interesting is one way to put it.”

“More later?”

“We can swap stories, but for now, I've got things set up to run those tests you asked for. Did…everything make it okay?”

“Yep.” He stepped back over to the helicopter and pulled a leather satchel out of a small storage net. “Right here.”

“Good.” Rafe stepped back. “Shall we, then?”

“Always working, that guy,” Mac said. “I had dinner set up for about an hour from now. And we prepared rooms for everyone. I know it's been a marathon of flights from California to New York to here, so if you'd rather—”

“We'd like to get started with the testing,” Reese said. “If that's all right with you,” he added, including Finn in the request.

“It's going to take some time to run everything—” Mac began.

Julia stepped forward then. “It's not that we question you or your facility; we couldn't be more grateful. It's simply, after all we've been through, we'd be able to relax and enjoy your hospitality far more if we could observe things getting under way.”

Mac looked to Finn, who nodded, then turned back to the group and spread his arm wide, gesturing to the stone path that led down to the main house. “Absolutely. Please, right this way.”

They all walked up to the house, with Finn and Felicity letting Reese and Julia take the lead, allowing Mac to play tour guide. Rafe hung back with the two of them. Finn noted that Reese had his hand on Julia's lower back. After their initial discussion in the limo, once they'd decided to team up, he didn't think Reese had allowed more than a few feet to separate him and Julia since. Finn smiled, and put his hand on Felicity's lower back as they walked down the path toward the house. For once, he understood exactly how Reese was feeling.

“It's lovely, this place,” Felicity said, looking fresh despite the fact that they'd spent most of the past few days flying or driving. “The rolling fields remind me a bit of home, as do the horses. But your mountains are a different backdrop. Quite beautiful, really.”

“Thank you,” Finn said, wondering, for the first time, what her home was like. He knew the Trent ancestral holdings were outside London.

“You grew up here?” she asked.

“No, I grew up in boarding schools and summer camps. This was my father's home.” He looked down at the house he'd hated coming back to as a child. “But it's my home now.” And, thinking about the people he'd brought together here, he realized how true that sentiment really was.

“And you love it here now; I can hear it in your voice.”

“Finn has worked hard to create a family here,” Rafe said. “We all feel strongly about this place. It's become a foundation to build on, for all of us.” He looked to Finn. “More so now, than ever.”

Finn thought about Mac, who'd brought Kate home a year before, and now Rafe, who, from what little he had been able to get from him, had Elena, who was also here permanently now. He glanced to Felicity and wondered what she was thinking. They hadn't talked about their future. There was too much to be done first, before any decisions about that could even be discussed. But it didn't mean he hadn't thought about it.

He slid his hand into hers. “Yes,” he said. “I do love it here.”
But I'm falling in love with you, too
, he thought silently, wishing the rest would fade away so he could have some time alone with Felicity. But now was not the time for that conversation. He tried to take heart in the fact that she was here and the conversation would happen at some point. That was all he could hope for, and, for now, it would be enough.

“Flight down from the city go okay?” Rafe asked.

“Fine. But I'll be happy to stay in one spot for more than twenty-four hours for a change.”

They'd left San Francisco last night, as soon as they could arrange a private flight out. Finn had spoken to Rafe before leaving to get him going on the research. Then they'd spent the flight back catching up on some much-needed sleep. Or trying to. The flight down from New York in the helicopter really hadn't been conducive to much discussion either, so there was still a lot of brainstorming to be done on what the connection was between Britain and a Byzantine-era sapphire necklace. It had been Mac's idea to check the stone and setting, to see if they could find anything on it, or any inconsistencies with it, that would explain its value to British intelligence.

“Anything else pop up?” Finn asked.

Rafe shook his head. “Alexander Capellas runs a restaurant. The same one his grandmother ran, and her mother before that. The necklace came to him through his father's side of the family. His father stepped out of the picture when he was a child, but the extended family stuck around, and, as the last son, he inherited it along with other possessions from his grandfather.”

“No clue why he suddenly parted with it? His family has hung on to that thing for over a hundred and fifty years. Any financial worries with the restaurant? Relatives ill and needing medical care? Gambling debts?”

Rafe shook his head. “Nothing. He's comfortable, but he doesn't live the high life by any standard, and there is nothing to indicate he suddenly wanted to change those circumstances. He's known as a hard worker, loyal, honorable.”

Finn nodded. “He's as stubborn and as strong on protecting his family name as Theo is about restoring his. That's why I can't figure out what could possibly make him change that, after decades of legal battles that had to hurt him financially as much as it hurt Theo.”

“Maybe my government convinced him,” Felicity said.

This had come up on the plane ride, with no good rationale coming out of it. “It makes sense, but with what?”

“Blackmail?”

“He lives in a small Greek village and runs a family restaurant—”

“The one thing he is the most stubborn about is his family,” Rafe said. “If your people had something on a member of his family, and threatened to take it public, even if just in his immediate village—”

Finn nodded. “That could do it. He'd hate it, but it might be enough. It would have been for Theo, I think, if it were damning enough and there was no other alternative, or the pressure was just more than he could surmount. And, as you said, his resources were very limited.”

“I'll do some more digging, look at that angle. I started digging back on his father, but so far, I can't track the guy at all. It's like he—”

“Disappeared?” Felicity and Finn said at the same time. “Sort of like they made Julia disappear from her former life,” Finn finished.

Rafe's expression changed. “Except, as far as I can tell, his father's life until that point was pretty routine. Yes, his wife died giving birth to Alexander, but from what I've dug up, his family was quite close and they all dealt with the blow. I don't know that his answer would have been to also abandon his family. He seemed to be cut from the same cloth as the rest of them in terms of loyalty.”

Finn thought about that, then had another idea. “What if he was convinced to leave, or go down a different path, for the same reason his son was convinced to give up the necklace.”

“To protect the family name?”

“In their culture, and his was especially Old World, it could follow.” He looked at Rafe. “Maybe we need to dig more on the father, but also start tracking back. Theo has the provenance on the necklace up to the point where it left his family's hands in the early eighteen hundreds. So it would have to be something that happened with it after that.”

“With it, or to it,” Felicity said.

Both men looked at her. “What do you mean?”

“Well, you've talked about testing the stone, and the setting, the necklace, to verify it is in fact an artifact and not some kind of duplicate, or something that would be out of the ordinary. I'm thinking that if the necklace proves authentic, it doesn't rule out foul play in the same vein.”

“I'm not following,” Rafe said.

“I think I am.” Finn paused on the path and turned to Felicity. “You mean you think something is hidden in or on the necklace.”

“Something like that.”

Rafe said, “But microtechnology didn't begin until—”

“It doesn't have to be a micro dot or chip,” she said. “It could be something encrypted, scrolled into the metal, or—”

“Or designed right into the jewelry. I know something about that.”

They turned to find Julia and Reese behind them.

“You think it's not the necklace itself, but information being passed along with it?”

“What else about a gemstone and some jewelry could jeopardize security, or, by passing it along to someone, be seen as a betrayal of one's country?” Reese countered.

“We've been discussing it, too,” Julia said, “and I think you've hit on something.” She looked to Rafe and Mac. “Do you have equipment that could scan for technology?” She glanced at Felicity. “We also can't rule out that Alexander's father worked for his government, in the same capacity we do for ours. Microtechnology did exist in his day.” She looked back at the men. “I can go over it and look for inconsistencies in the metal work. If you have a really good magnifier, we can examine it for possible micromessaging.”

“You mean engraved right into the setting? Or, the stone?” Felicity looked properly horrified at the thought. “That piece is over a thousand years old. Would they really desecrate it like that?”

“If it's even the original setting. No one knows. It's been in Capellas' family for over a century.”

“I didn't have it authenticated,” Reese said. “I did verify it was in the case, and I had the provenance paperwork direct from Capellas as well.”

“So, you got it straight from Capellas?” Rafe asked. “Or did someone else play mule getting it out of Greece?”

“No, I was sent down there to get it. I got it out—”

“Did it go to headquarters before coming to the States?” Felicity asked.

He shook his head. “No. Direct to New York for the meeting with Chesnokov's agent.”

“And you knew he'd be using a courier,” Rafe stated.

“Yes. I knew to expect Andreev. Chesnokov uses him frequently. There was nothing out of the ordinary there.”

“He didn't demand any kind of proof it was authentic?”

Reese turned to Mac. “I have an impeccable reputation. He relied on that.”

Unfazed by Reese's cool response, Mac pressed. “You weren't concerned that you might jeopardize that impeccable reputation by not personally guaranteeing its authenticity?”

“There was no time for that. And no, I was following orders as I always did. I trusted they would not set me up.” He looked to Julia. “A misplaced trust, it would seem. For both of us.” He looked back to Finn and Mac. “But, at that time, I had no reason to believe it wouldn't be in their best interests as well to maintain my integrity. I worked with them often enough, it was to their advantage as well.”