Читать книгу An Angel In Stone - Peggy Nicholson - Страница 14

Y et neither of them was ready to name a price, Raine realized. Though Lia was doing her utmost to start a bidding war between them, they refused to be stampeded.

Each insisted on examining the tooth, since the first issue was: could it possibly be a fake?

But when—ladies coming decidedly second—Raine was allowed to take the tooth from Cade and turn it in the light, her hands trembled with excitement. By God, it was the real thing! She could think of no way to fake its eerie opalescence. Like the northern lights dancing on polar snow. Sunrise shining through a turquoise glacier. I’ve got to have it! Simply got to. Here was glory and fame, as well as a fortune. This was the find of the century! “Nice,” she murmured, carefully neutral.

“Then how much you give me for it?” Lia cried, almost stamping her foot with impatience.

“I’d have to talk with the other members of my firm. Come up with a suitable offer—a very generous offer,” Raine added as Lia scowled.

One reason to stall was that, given a day or two, Trey should be able to profile Kincade, now that they knew he owned SauroStar. If they could learn how much the man was worth, where his money came from, then they might estimate his top bid. Figure an offer that would knock him out of the game, without blindly overbidding.

“And you’re sure you can’t tell us where the rest of this dinosaur is located?” Cade coaxed. “I’d like to bid on the whole specimen, if you’ve got it.”

Lia snapped her fingers. “I told you and told you! You buy this first, then we talk about that.”

Raine exchanged a wry glance with her rival. Lia’s steadfast refusal to say might mean that she hoped to establish a value for one tooth—then sell the rest of the dino, bone by bone, at the same price.

But a T. rex had sixty-four teeth and a couple of hundred other bones in its body…If I offer her a hundred thou for this tooth, then it turns out she wants to multiply that by 264 for the rest of the dinosaur!

And try to explain to the kid that the sixty-fourth tooth wouldn’t be as valuable as the first tooth, since supply inevitably decreases demand. But would Lia understand and accept economic realities—or simply feel she was being cheated?

And then there were other reasons Lia might refuse to discuss the rest of the dino’s skeleton. The tooth might be stolen.

Or—Raine’s pulse rocketted with the thought—What if she doesn’t know where the rest of it is? What if the skeleton’s still in the ground? Up for grabs? In which case, Raine was on her way to…somewhere. Gone yesterday! But I’ve got to learn where.

“Maybe the Internet was wrong, your Web sites lie! Maybe neither of you have the money to buy such a treasure,” Lia cried. She must have imagined herself going home tonight with a fortune in her pocket. Probably she’d picked out the car she meant to buy tomorrow. She was beginning to seem even younger than Raine’s first guess of twenty. Hissing with displeasure, she bent over her box and began to rewrap the tooth.

“Lia, calm down,” Raine pleaded. “I do have enough money and I do want to buy your fossil. I’ll call you tomorrow afternoon and we’ll discuss a price, okay?” That was rushing negotiations more than she liked, but she needed to nail the prize down, before Miss Show-Me-The-Money offered it elsewhere. “Do you have a phone number where I can reach you?”

Lia sniffed without raising her face. “Give me a number and I call you. Be by your phone tomorrow at precisely three o’clock. This is your last chance, you understand?”

Raine grimaced. “I do.” She drew a business card from her gown’s pocket, and handed it over. “Oh, and here’s your packing,” she added, dropping an armload of paper into the box. “Wrap it up nice and safe.”

Lia snorted her contempt. “And you, Kincade? Will you bid tomorrow—or lose this amazing fossil?”

Her threat simply made him chuckle. “Let me take you out to dinner tomorrow night, someplace very special. After that, I’ll make you an offer you can’t refuse.”

Blast the man! Raine could have cheerfully tossed him off the bridge. He’d soften up the girl with a drink or two, then ask what Raine had bid—he could trump that by a few thou. Plus he’d sweetened the pot with a promise of romance, a bonus that Raine had no way of matching. Lia looked up from her package, her pout melting to a starry-eyed simper.

“I’ll pick you up in a stretch limousine,” Cade added shamelessly. “Do you prefer white limos—or black?”

Lia might be young, naive and off her home court—but she wasn’t a fool. Her smile widened, catlike, triumphant. “Give me your number and I call you tomorrow—precisely at three-thirty. Then you say where I meet you. You can pay for my cab.”

“Fair enough,” Cade agreed, accepting defeat with a smile.

Lia stood. “Now I go.”

Cade rose and touched her elbow. “It’s late. Let me drive you home.”

Raine clenched her teeth. Knowing where to find the girl would give Cade an edge, as would doing her favors.

Lia tossed her hair. “No, thank you. I have other plans.”

In that case, Raine resolved to follow her home. No way was she letting that box out of sight, till it was safely off the city streets. But first. “Lia, I had one other question. Do you have anything else to sell? Anything that was found with this tooth?”

Fossils were often discovered in a narrow geologic stratum, tangled together. If the kid had any other old bones, even if they weren’t significant in themselves, their age and species might prove a clue to the T. rex’s location.

Lia frowned in thought, then set the box down on the bench. “There is…one thing.” Her gloved hand dipped into a pocket of the trench coat.

“It was found with the tooth?”

“I…yes. Of course,” she agreed, wide-eyed.

She’s lying, Raine guessed. Or possibly uncertain?

“I have another buyer for this, but if you like to bid…” Lia’s fingers opened, to show a circular object resting on her palm.

A snail of some sort, Raine guessed, just as Cade switched on his light.

Gold gleamed in its rays. Lia held a closed pocket watch, with a broken bit of chain dangling from its fob. “You found this with the tooth?” Raine bent closer. There was a name ornately engraved on its convex case.

Lia’s thumb snapped down, hiding the scrolled letters. “I told you, yes.”

“But—” Raine glanced helplessly at Cade. Surely the kid realized the two objects were separated chronologically by some sixty-five million years?

“It belong to an American soldier,” Lia added proudly. “His family will give much money for it.”

A soldier! Are we talking Vietnam? Or for that matter, Burma in World War II? Or the Spanish-American War in the Philippines. Or a guerilla clash in any one of a dozen different nations.

“But we’re bone hunters,” Cade prodded mildly. “Why would we want to buy a watch?”

“Because…” Lia opened the case, then covered a portion of its inner side with her thumb. “You see?”

Cade squinted down at the case. “It’s a…Is that a map?”

“Yessss!” She whisked the watch from under his nose. “You like to buy?”

“May I see it?” Raine asked, careful to quell her eagerness.

Lia shrugged, checked again that her thumb blocked part of the inner case, then showed it to Raine.

Below the girl’s long red thumbnail, lines had been scratched into polished gold. Raine made out a shape that looked like a lopsided butterfly, then angled below that, a range of upside down Vs—denoting mountains? “Wait!” she cried as Lia snapped the lid shut.

“You want to see the whole thing, then you must buy. How much you give me?”

For a map that possibly showed the way to where the tooth had been found? Where perhaps the rest of the dinosaur still waited?

Possibly.

But at a minimum, once she learned the name of the soldier, Trey with his connections could find out the man’s war. That might give Raine a starting point if it came to a search. “I’ll give you five hundred dollars for it.”

“It’s a nice watch,” Cade said carelessly. “I could go a thousand.”

Raine shrugged. “I suppose I could go two.”

“Three,” Cade snapped.

Lia laughed softly, and with that malicious little sound, both bidders paused, eyeing each other. The thought hung in the air between them. Are we being hustled?

Still, the tooth was no scam. “Three thousand-five,” Raine said at last.

“Five thousand.”

As she glared at Cade, Raine brushed a skein of windblown hair back from her eyes. How much money do you have, wise guy? And where does it come from? Did he have a stopping point—or was he a bottomless pocket? “Six thousand.” This was idiotic. The map, if map it really was, could lead to anything, not necessarily to ancient bones. It might be a sentimental picture of the soldier’s hometown. “You will take a check, right?” Not that she’d brought one. She carried a folded fifty for emergencies, and that was that.

“No!” Lia shook her sooty hair till it fanned around her face. “No way, Jose! Cash or no deal!”

Cade threw back his head and laughed. “And I take it you don’t accept MasterCard?”

“Absolutely not.” Lia failed to see the joke.

“Then I’m out of the running for tonight,” Raine admitted. “Let’s talk about a price tomorrow at three.”

“And whatever she offers? I’ll give you even more at dinner,” Cade assured the girl.

Lia sniffed as she picked up her box. “The soldier’s family is most desperate to buy this. They give me ten thousand, cash. You must do better than that. So goodbye, and I call you tomorrow.” Chin high, she marched off toward the Manhattan shore.

Elbows brushing, they watched her go, then glanced ruefully at each other. “We’re gonna be pretty obvious, if we both follow her,” noted Cade. “I don’t suppose you’d let me—”

“Jose?” Raine showed her teeth. “No way at all.”

“Then if that’s the way it’s gotta be, why don’t we—”

But his proposal was cut short by the puttering sound of a two-stroke engine. An old Vespa motorscooter purred out of the shadows below the Manhattan tower. Stopping beside Lia, the rider wheeled it smartly around. “Why, the crafty minx!” Cade swore as she settled onto its pillion. With a taunting wave, she rolled off toward the city.

“Other plans,” Raine echoed, looking after her. A woman of ambition and forethought. It wouldn’t pay to underestimate the kid.

“Well, meantime…” Cade swung to face her. “It’s even later. Could I drive you home?”

As second choice to little Lia?

His amber eyes had darkened. When they rose from her lips, they promised any sort of ride she might want. To any destination she desired. A tongue of summer lightning licked up her spine; still Raine shook her head. “No, thanks.”

Mixing pleasure with business was risky. But mixing pleasure with a feud, when only one of them knew the terms or limits of the grudge? That might prove fatal. What did he have against the Ashaways?

“Pity. But in that case—” Cade shrugged out of his jacket, and swooped it around her bare shoulders.

His body heat settled deliciously upon her. The soft wool smelled of active, clean male, with a hint of his cologne. Raine started to wriggle free of the jacket, but he’d gripped both lapels. Slip out of it and she’d step straight into his arms. She stiffened for a moment—then shrugged. There was no sense fighting, when it felt so good. The weight of his knuckles resting on her collarbones was seductive as a drug. “I…don’t know where to return it.”

“No problem. You’ll be seeing me around.”

But is that a promise—or a threat? she wondered, walking west without a glance behind. And which would be harder to handle?

Whatever. She’d always choose interesting, over safe.

Right now, nothing interested her more in the world than a T. rex made of fire opal. As she passed into the tower’s shadow, Raine slipped her fisted hand into a pocket of Cade’s jacket—she let go a wad of crumpled newspaper.