said, his hot breath washing over her nape as he maneuvered her into the noise of the party, “perhaps I could give you a private showing of the collection, since you’ve such an avid interest.”
In her peripheral vision, she saw Rafe slink behind closed doors. Her heart rate kicked up, and she fought to keep it steady. With a tense smile plastered to her face—one she hoped her host couldn’t read—she turned to look up. “I think I’d like that very much.”
He moved like a silent shadow. Quiet. Quick. Invisible.
Rafe slipped down the dim corridor and turned at the end of the hall. The party drifted to the back of his mind. He tuned out everything but the sound of the building, the whir of the heating vents, the click of the security camera high above. Pausing in a dark corner, he waited while the camera made a wide sweep, then counted to ten and skirted the wall until he was out of range.
One down. A handful more to go. Landau was more than a little paranoid—the man had cameras everywhere. Luckily, Rafe had a photographic memory and an inside line on where each one was mounted.
He headed for the back stairs, the ones the servants used, the ones he knew would be dark and empty at this hour. Another security camera at the base of the steps forced him to pause, but within a handful of seconds he had passed it and was onto the second level.
Common sense told him anything of personal value wouldn’t be in Landau’s office. It would be in his private sanctum. He hesitated at the master suite’s double doors, slipped on thin surgical gloves, retrieved the slim pick he needed and waited until the camera swept away. Fifteen seconds later he was inside.
He stilled and let his eyes adjust to the dim light from the window across the room. The safe was hidden in the back of the master closet. He pushed clothing aside, knelt and opened the front panel. Removing a palm-sized portable computer from his pocket, he interfaced it with the safe and waited as each number popped up on the readout. When the seventh number clicked, he whispered, “Go time.”
He grasped the handle, turned and pulled. The safe gave with a pop, and a smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. “Like stealing candy from a baby.”
He bypassed the stack of cash, a case he knew was most likely full of jewels and went directly for the back of the safe. A thin folder was hidden beneath legal documents and a stack of contracts. He pulled the manila file out and opened it.
Bingo.
Pages of notes on the Furies. References to Dr. Douglas Stone. Copies Rafe recognized from the papers he’d seen in Lisa’s parents’ attic. Lisa’s hunch about the man had been right. Had Landau and Stone worked together?
His mind spun as he paged through the materials, looking for anything that stood out. No locations, only dates and names of historical figures who may at one time have come in contact with the marble goddesses. Donald Ramsey, a treasure hunter who had gone after the Furies in the early eighties and disappeared. Seymour Tarkin, an explorer from the 1920s who’d spent time in Jamaica searching for a sunken Spanish galleon. Henrietta Sanchez, a merchant who’d made reference to seeing a marble relief sometime in the late nineteenth century.
All somehow related. He continued to flip pages, taking a quick scan. It all looked unimportant to him, but they’d mean something to Lisa. She was the research guru, not him.
The second-to-last page made him pause. Handwritten notes were scrawled on half a notebook page.
Annalise de Los Cruz. 1852–1897.
His heart skipped a beat. The woman had seen all three pieces intact. A hand-copied paragraph from what must have been a personal letter filled the bottom of the sheet.
Footsteps in the hall outside dragged at his attention. He’d dawdled too long, knew better than to spend time studying the goods. With nimble fingers he folded the few papers, stuck them in his inside jacket pocket, reset the rest of the items in the safe and closed the door. He put his tools away, made sure he left the closet the way he’d found it and headed for the door.
He waited until the guards passed, cracked the door and checked to see that the floor was empty. Twenty seconds later he was on the third level, repeating his steps until he was safely in Landau’s