Wildest Dreams (The Contemporary Collection) (55 page)

“I suppose that would be all right.” Joletta leaned against the counter behind her and folded her arms as she spoke.

“Great. Then let us have the old one out of the journal. We’ll just say everything was fine until Mimi came along, that she was the one who made the changes, added the vetiver and so on. In other words we split the formula, turn it into two perfumes, one for you at the shop and one for us.”

It was, Joletta saw, the bribe Timothy had suggested. They were so transparent in their greed. Didn’t they realize it? Or was it just that they didn’t care enough to hide it with her because she was family and didn’t count. She said, “You think Lara Camors will go for that? Or Rone?”

“I think they might, especially if you explained it. If it would make you feel better, we could even admit that the formula was changed from the days of Cleopatra. French perfume is where it’s at today anyway; it will be impressive enough for advertising purposes if we just throw in Joséphine and Eugénie. Besides, it’s true, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know if it’s true or not. Violet didn’t say.”

“But it’s close enough to being true that you could claim it, couldn’t you?” Natalie’s tone was exasperated and the frown lines between her eyes grew deeper.

Joletta hesitated, but at last she shook her head. “I don’t think I could, not to someone like Lara Camors, and especially not to Rone.”

JOLETTA LOCKED THE DOOR BEHIND
her relatives with a sigh of relief. They could have seen themselves out, as they had let themselves in, but it gave her satisfaction to escort them from the premises.

She was exhausted. The argument over the formula, covering the same ground again and again, had gone on for what seemed like hours.

She didn’t really think this was the end of it. Her aunt and her cousins would try again to convince her, no doubt, or would come up with other schemes to bring her around to their way of thinking. It didn’t matter; it wasn’t going to work.

She had tried hard to be fair. But she knew now what she could and could not do, knew what she wanted, and she would have no part of defrauding Camors Cosmetics or the public. She would mix and sniff and sniff and mix, trying to recreate Le Jardin de Cour on her own. But if she couldn’t, then that was all right. She would have done her best. There must have been thousands of perfumes lost over the ages, just as millions of valuable lives had been destroyed, cut off like snipping loose threads from a beautiful piece of embroidery. The loss was felt, but people kept right on living, right on loving again, making up their lives as they went along.

And that was what she would do, just as Violet had, all those years ago.

Joletta moved back through the shop. She would finish clearing away the mess she had made with the perfume, then it was time she headed for home.

She had left her shoulder bag and car keys upstairs. As she passed through the courtyard on her way to get them a short time later, Joletta stopped to breathe fresh, unperfumed air. She felt as if she were moving in a miasma of fragrance, that it clung to her skin and hair and clothes, and especially to the soaked journal she carried. She would have loved it ordinarily, but it was a bit much just now.

It was pleasantly warm. The moisture in the atmosphere gave it the softness of breathable silk. A gentle wind stirred the leaves of the huge old sweet olive in the corner and the grapevines on the stone arbor, so they made a rustling whisper. The pressure in the fountain was low, so it barely splashed as it fell into the basin. Under the old porte cochère that led from the courtyard through the lower floor of the house to the street, the roosting pigeons made noises like drowsy toddlers grumbling themselves to sleep.

For an instant Joletta was transported to Venice and St Mark’s Square with the pigeons wheeling in battle formation around the campanile, with Rone on one side and Caesar on the other.

“
Bella, bella,
” she said softly, smiling to herself with a bittersweet twist of her lips.

This garden had also been the scene of many a memory with Mimi, however, including her fall on the outside stairs. Now it carried shadings of that other tragedy in Florence as well because of its resemblance to the garden there.

Abruptly, she shook her head and turned to mount the stairs.

It was then that she saw the shadow move under the sweet olive in the far corner.

“Who’s there?” she called, her voice sharp.

No one answered. The moments stretched as she strained to see. She was beginning to think it had only been a cat after the pigeons when a man stepped forward, into the light.

“It’s just me,” Timothy said.

She let out her breath in a rush. Irritable from ebbing fright, she said, “What are you doing here? I thought you’d gone.”

“Mother and Natalie did go, but I had to come back to see you. I want the journal, Joletta.”

“We went through this before. I thought it was settled, at least for tonight.”

He moved a step closer. “Nothing was settled at all. I really need that journal for Camors, since they won’t deal until they see it. I’m not leaving without it this time.”

There was something flat and unemotional about his tone that sent a chill along Joletta’s spine. Regardless, she held her place. “Why you? I thought you hardly cared.”

“Money, honey, two mil, to be exact. Besides, there’s mother. She’ll be furious if she doesn’t get it and the old formula you were making. She expects me to do something. I can’t let her down.”

“Oh, Timothy, I’m sorry, but don’t you see it’s impossible for me to go along with you?”

“Yeah. That’s why I came back to kill you,” he said quietly. “I don’t want to, really; that’s just the way it is.”

As he took another step toward her she sidestepped, putting the table between them. At the same time the evening breeze brought a strong whiff of lime scent to her nostrils. Timothy’s cologne; she could smell it here as she had not been able earlier in the mixing room with the overpowering scent of spilled perfume on the air. Lime. She had smelled that harsh, nose-tingling scent before.

Her voice stuck in her throat, so she had to swallow before she could speak. “You,” she said. “It was you who tore up my room in Switzerland and upstairs here before I left.”

“Fat lot of good it did me, sneaking around, scaling up and down walls like some Outward Bound idiot. All I got was a stupid notebook with scribbles that didn’t mean a thing without the journal.” He circled around the table as he spoke.

“You ran us off the road, me and Rone.” She moved again to keep the barrier between them while a memory flashed across her mind like a film image of the careening car, the fire and thunder of its explosion.

“I got mad. I almost ran you down in Paris, too, but that dumb Italian was there, not to mention old Rone. It’s a mistake to cross me. Mimi found out. I only gave her a little push when she started down the stairs over there, but she died anyway.”

Her grandmother, frightened to death like the Signora da Allori, Joletta thought as a shiver of horror moved over her. Or more likely, struck down by grief. That terrible ordeal may have been something else Mimi had been trying to tell them.

“Does Aunt Estelle know you did that?” she asked. “She doesn’t, does she?” she went on as an uneasy look crossed his face.

“She hasn’t been able to keep up with where I am or what I’m doing for years. Or Natalie either, though she thinks she can.”

“Kill me, and they may begin to wonder about a few things.”

“They won’t care, so long as I get hold of the journal. That’s the thing they really need, the thing that will make people sit up and take notice. But you’ll give it to me. You’ll be glad to give it to me.”

As he spoke he slid his hands into his jeans pocket and took out something black and tubular like a large pocketknife. He held it away from his body. There came a metallic snap and click, and a switchblade sprang out, glinting in the dimness.

At that moment the scrape of footsteps came from the direction of the porte cochère. A hard voice spoke from out of the darkness.

“Hold it right there.”

Timothy whirled, his face contorting as he muttered a curse. “Where did you come from? How did you get in here?”

“You left the street gate open,” Rone answered.

Joletta had recognized his voice even before Rone walked out of the tunnel-like area. She couldn’t believe it. He was there in spite of everything she had said. He was there as he had sworn, on self-imposed duty.

He was breathing hard, as if he had been running, and beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead. Shrugging out of a light jacket, he wrapped it over his arm as padding as he walked. If he was armed in any other way, there was no sign of it.

“I can take you, man.” Timothy’s eyes widened as he made the boast. He settled into a street fighter’s crouch.

“Try it,” Rone said. “I don’t mind.” He moved toward the younger man, his gaze watchful, ready.

“Wait,” Joletta cried. “Don’t do this.”

She felt as if she had wakened from a deep sleep only to find herself in a nightmare. Her chest jarred with the beat of her heart. Sickness clenched her stomach.

Rone had come to help her when she needed him. He was getting ready to lay his life on the line for her. Because of Violet’s perfume. She couldn’t let it happen. There had to be something she could do.

The heavy journal was in her hand. She thrust it out toward Rone. Her words tumbling over themselves in her haste, she said, “This is what he came for. You take it, take it for Camors. The code for the old perfume is in it, proof of where it came from, everything you need.”

“Shut up!” Timothy shouted, stepping between her and Rone before the other man could reach for the journal. His voice dropped to a growl and he took a pace toward her as he said, “What do you think you’re trying to do?”

As he snatched at the journal Joletta jerked it back, retreating a quick pace. “If Rone has everything, then Aunt Estelle will be satisfied, and there will be nothing for you to do but go home.”

Timothy turned the knife he held over in his hand. He turned it over again. He said, “Or I could kill you both and take everything to mother and Lara Camors myself.”

Hard on his words, he moved to the attack.

Rone sprang to meet him. The two men came together with hard grunts. Rone blocked Timothy’s first blow, and a ragged tear, rapidly darkening, appeared in his jacket. Then they were grappling, their staggering footsteps grating on the stone paving, as Rone’s fingers bit into the wrist of Timothy’s knife hand. Timothy clawed with his free hand at Rone’s face, reaching for his eyes.

Rone struck a hard blow at Timothy’s chin. Timothy wrenched from Rone’s grasp and stumbled back, but recovered in an instant. They circled each other, watching for an opening.

Rone wrapped his arm once more where the jacket was flapping loose. The material had turned wet and shining. Timothy bared his teeth in a grin as he saw it. He leaped once more, driving the knife toward Rone’s stomach.

Rone twisted away from the thrust, letting it slide past him before he closed with the younger man. They strained together, chest to chest, lips pulled back in effort.

Joletta couldn’t stand it. Her eyes burned with the effort to see. The need to scream was so strong that it hurt her throat. Her muscles felt frozen in place, while her hands trembled with the cold rush of the blood in her veins.

She had to do something. She had to, or she would go crazy. She took a step toward the two men.

She drew back the journal and threw hard, with all her strength, straight at Timothy’s head.

Her cousin saw the movement. He dodged the heavy book, so it only struck him a glancing blow on the shoulder as it sailed past him with pages flying.

In that moment of distraction, Rone shifted his weight, twisting. Timothy threw himself in the opposite direction, trying to get his shoulder into Rone’s chest so he could free his knife hand. Rone gave ground, sidestepping. Timothy followed in a plunging tangle of legs, and the two men went down. They rolled from the flagstones to the grass square around the fountain, each seeking purchase, straining to bring the knife blade to bear.

Then came a sudden thud, a hoarse expelling of breath, and a sigh. Then silence.