The Stars Of Mithra

He’d been right to stop before matters got out of hand. She knew he was right.

But, oh, she wished he’d just taken her, there on the floor. Taken her before she had all this time to think about the right and wrong of it, the consequences.

Some of this emptiness within her would be filled now, some of those undefinable needs met.

Sighing, she rolled to her back and stared up at the ceiling. But he’d been right to stop. She had to think.

She closed her eyes, not to seek sleep but to welcome memory. Who were the women she’d dreamed of? And where were they now? Despite herself she drifted off.

Cade woke the next morning stiff as a board. Bones popped as he stretched. He rubbed his hands over his face, and his palms made scratching sounds against the stubble. The moment his eyes cleared, he looked across the room. The couch was empty.

He might have thought he’d dreamed her, if not for the books and papers heaped all over the floor. The whole thing seemed like a dream—the beautiful, troubled woman with no past, walking into his life and his heart at the same time. In the morning light, he wondered how much he’d romanticized it, this connection he felt with her. Love at first sight was a romantic notion under the best of circumstances.

And these were hardly the best.

She didn’t need him mooning over her, he reminded himself. She needed his mind to be clear. Daydreaming about the way she’d wrapped herself around him and asked him to make love with her simply wasn’t conducive to logical thinking.

He needed coffee.

He rose and trying to roll the crick out of his neck, headed for the kitchen.

And there she was, pretty as a picture and neat as a pin. Her hair was smooth, brushed to a golden luster and pulled back with a simple rubber band. She was wearing the navy-and-white striped slacks he’d bought her, with a white camp shirt tucked into the waist. With one hand resting on the counter, the other holding a steaming mug, she was staring out the window at his backyard where a rope hammock hung between twin maples and roses bloomed.

“You’re an early riser.”

Her hand shook in startled reaction to his voice, and then she turned, worked up a smile. Her heart continued to thud just a little too fast when she saw him, rumpled from sleep. “I made coffee. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Sweetheart, I owe you my life.” He said in heartfelt tones as he reached for a mug.

“It seems I know how to make it. Apparently some things just come naturally. I didn’t even have to think about it. It’s a little strong. I must like it strong.”

He was already downing it, reveling in the way it seared his mouth and jolted his system. “Perfect.”

“Good. I didn’t know if I should wake you. I wasn’t sure what time you leave for your office, or how much time you’d need.”

“It’s Saturday, and the long holiday weekend.”

“Holiday?”

“Fourth of July.” While the caffeine pumped through his system, he topped off his mug. “Fireworks, potato salad, marching bands.”

“Oh.” She had a flash of a little girl sitting on a woman’s lap as lights exploded in the night sky. “Of course. You’ll be taking the weekend off. You must have plans.”

“Yeah, I got plans. I plan for us to toddle into the office about midmorning. I can show you the ropes. Won’t be able to do much legwork today, with everything shut down, but we can start putting things in order.”

“I don’t want you to give up your weekend. I’d be happy to go in and straighten up your office, and you could—”

“Bailey. I’m in this with you.”

She set her mug down, linked her hands.

“Why?”

“Because it feels right to me. The way I see it, what you can’t figure out in your head, you do on instinct.” Those sea-mist eyes roamed over her face, then met hers. “I like to think there’s a reason you picked me. For both of us.”

“I’m surprised you can say that, after the way I acted last evening. For all we know, I go out cruising bars every night and pick up strange men.”

He chuckled into his mug. Better to laugh, he’d decided, than to groan. “Bailey, the way a single glass of wine affects you, I doubt you spent much time in bars. I’ve never seen anyone get bombed quite that fast.”

“I don’t think that’s anything to be proud of.” Her voice had turned stiff and cool, and it made him want to grin again.

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of either. And you didn’t pick a strange man, you picked me.” The amusement in his eyes flicked off. “We both know it was personal, with or without the alcohol.”

“Then why didn’t you…take advantage?”

“Because that’s just what it would have been. I don’t mind having the advantage, but I’m not interested in taking it. Want breakfast?”

She shook her head, waited until he’d gotten out a box of cereal and a bowl. “I appreciate your restraint.”

“Do you?”

“Not entirely.”

“Good.” He felt the muscles of his ego expand and flex as he got milk out of the refrigerator. He poured it on, then added enough sugar to have Bailey’s eyes widening.

“That can’t be healthy.”

“I live for risk.” He ate standing up. “Later I thought we’d drive downtown, walk around with the tourists. You may see something that jogs your memory.”

“All right.” She hesitated, then took a chair. “I don’t know anything about your work, really, your usual clientele. But it seems to me you’re taking all of this completely in stride.”

“I love a mystery.” Then he shrugged and shoveled in more cereal. “You’re my first amnesia case, if that’s what you mean. My usual is insurance fraud and domestic work. It has its moments.”

“Have you been an investigator very long?”

“Four years. Five, if you count the year I trained as an operative with Guardian. They’re a big security firm here in D.C. Real suit-and-tie stuff. I like working on my own better.”

“Have you ever…had to shoot at someone?”

“No. Too bad, really, because I’m a damn good shot.” He caught her gnawing her lip and shook his head. “Relax, Bailey. Cops and P.I.s catch the bad guys all the time without drawing their weapon. I’ve taken a few punches, given a few, but mostly it’s just legwork, repetition and making calls. Your problem’s just another puzzle. It’s just a matter of finding all the pieces and fitting them together.”

She hoped he was right, hoped it could be just that simple, that ordinary, that logical. “I had another dream. There were two women. I knew them, I’m sure of it.” When he pulled out a chair and sat across from her, she told him what she remembered.

“It sounds like you were in the desert,” he said when she fell silent. “Arizona, maybe New Mexico.”

“I don’t know. But I wasn’t afraid. I was happy, really happy. Until the storm came.”

“There were three stones, you’re sure of that?”

“Yes, almost identical, but not quite. I had them, and they were so beautiful, so extraordinary. But I couldn’t keep them together. That was very important.” She sighed. “I don’t know how much was real and how much was jumbled and symbolic, the way dreams are.”

“If one stone’s real, there may be two more.” He took her hand. “If one woman’s real, there may be two more. We just have to find them.”

It was after ten when they walked into his office. The cramped and dingy work space struck her as more than odd now that she’d seen how he lived. But she listened carefully as he tried to explain how to work the computer to type up his notes, how he thought the filing should be done, how to handle the phone and intercom systems.

When he left her alone to close himself in his office, Bailey surveyed the area. The philodendron lay on its side, spilling dirt. There was broken glass, sticky splotches from old coffee, and enough dust to shovel.

Typing would just have to wait, she decided. No one could possibly concentrate in such a mess.

From behind his desk, Cade used the phone to do his initial legwork. He tracked down his travel agent and, on the pretext of planning a vacation, asked her to locate any desert area where rockhounding was permitted. He told her he was exploring a new hobby.

From his research the night before, he’d learned quite a bit about the hobby of unearthing crystals and gems. The way Bailey had described her dream, he was certain that was just what she’d been up to.

Maybe she was from out west, or maybe she’d just visited there. Either way, it was another road to explore.

He considered calling in a gem expert to examine the diamond. But on the off chance that Bailey had indeed come into its possession by illegal means, he didn’t want to risk it.

He took the photographs he’d snapped the night before of the diamond and spread them out on his desk. Just how much would a gemologist be able to tell from pictures? he wondered.

It might be worth a try. Tuesday, when businesses were open again, he mused, he might take that road, as well.

But he had a couple of other ideas to pursue.

There was another road, an important one, that had to be traveled first. He picked up the phone again, began making calls. He pinned Detective Mick Marshall down at home.

“Damn it, Cade, it’s Saturday. I’ve got twenty starving people outside and burgers burning on the grill.”

“You’re having a party and didn’t invite me? I’m crushed.”

“I don’t have play cops at my barbecues.”

“Now you’ve really hurt my feelings. Did you earn that Scotch?”

“No match on those prints you sent me. Nothing popped.”

Cade felt twin tugs of relief and frustration. “Okay. Still no word on a missing rock?”

“Maybe if you told me what kind of rock.”

“A big glittery one. You’d know if it had been reported.”

“Nothing’s been reported, and I think the rocks are in your head, Parris. Now unless you’re going to share, I’ve got hungry mouths to feed.”

“I’ll get back to you on it. And the Scotch.”

He hung up, and spent some time thinking.

Lightning kept coming up in Bailey’s dreams. There’d been thunderstorms the night before she came into his office. It could be as simple as that—one of the last things she remembered was thunder and lightning. Maybe she had a phobia about storms.

She talked about the dark, too. There’d been some power outages downtown that night. He’d already checked on that. Maybe the dark was literal, rather than symbolic.

He guessed she’d been inside. She hadn’t spoken of rain, of getting wet. Inside a house? An office building? If whatever had happened to her had happened the night before she came to him, then it almost certainly had to have occurred in the D.C. area.

But no gem had been reported missing.

Three kept cropping up in her dreams, as well. Three stones. Three stars. Three women. A triangle.

Symbolic or real?

He began to take notes again, using two columns. In one he listed her dream memories as literal memories, in the other he explored the symbolism.

And the longer he worked, the more he leaned toward the notion that it was a combination of both.

He made one last call, and prepared to grovel. His sister Muffy had married into one of the oldest and most prestigious family businesses in the East. Westlake Jewelers.

When Cade stepped back into the outer office, his ears were still ringing and his nerves were shot. Those were the usual results of a conversation with his sister. But since he’d wangled what he wanted, he tried to take things in stride.

The shock of walking into a clean, ordered room and seeing Bailey efficiently rattling the keyboard on the computer went a long way toward brightening his mood.

“You’re a goddess.” He grabbed her hand, kissed it lavishly. “A worker of miracles.”

“This place was filthy. Disgusting.”

“Yeah, it probably was.”

Her brows lowered. “There was food molding in the file cabinets.”

“I don’t doubt it. You know how to work a computer.”

She frowned at the screen. “Apparently. It was like making the coffee this morning. No thought.”

“If you know how to work it, you know how to turn it off. Let’s go downtown. I’ll buy you an ice cream cone.”

“I’ve just gotten started.”

“It can wait.” He reached down to flick the switch, and she slapped his hand away.

“No. I haven’t saved it.” Muttering under her breath, she hit a series of keys with such panache, his heart swelled in admiration. “I’ll need several more hours to put things in order around here.”

“We’ll come back. We’ve got a couple hours to kick around, then we’ve got some serious work to do.”

“What kind of work?” she demanded as he hauled her to her feet.

“I’ve got you access to a refractometer.” He pulled her out the door. “What kind of ice cream do you want?”

Chapter 5

“Your brother-in-law owns Westlake Jewelers?”

“Not personally. It’s a family thing.”

“A family thing.” Bailey’s head was still spinning. Somehow she’d gone from cleaning molded sandwiches out of filing cabinets to eating strawberry ice cream on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. That was confusing enough, but the way Cade had whipped through traffic, zipping around circles and through yellow lights, had left her dizzy and disoriented.

“Yep.” He attacked his two scoops of rocky road. Since she’d stated no preference, he’d gotten her strawberry. He considered it a girl flavor. “They have branches all over the country, but the flagship store’s here. Muffy met Ronald at a charity tennis tournament when she beaned him with a lob. Very romantic.”

“I see.” Or she was trying to. “And he agreed to let us use the equipment?”

“Muffy agreed. Ronald goes along with whatever Muffy wants.”

Bailey licked her dripping cone, watched the tourists—the families, the children—clamber up and down the steps. “I thought she was angry with you.”

“I talked her out of it. Well, I bribed her. Camilla also takes ballet. There’s a recital next month. So I’ll go watch Camilla twirl around in a tutu, which, believe me, is not a pretty sight.”

Bailey choked back a chuckle. “You’re so mean.”

“Hey, I’ve seen Camilla in a tutu, you haven’t. Take my word, I’m being generous.” He liked seeing her smile, just strolling along with him eating strawberry ice cream and smiling. “Then there’s Chip. That’s Muffy’s other mutant. He plays the piccolo.”

“I’m sure you’re making this up.”

“I couldn’t make it up, my imagination has limits. In a couple of weeks I have to sit front and center and listen to Chip and his piccolo at a band concert.” He shuddered. “I’m buying earplugs. Let’s sit down.”

They settled on the smooth steps beneath the wise and melancholy president. There was a faint breeze that helped stir the close summer air. But it could do little about the moist heat that bounced, hard as damp bricks, up from the sidewalks. Bailey could see waves of it shimmer, like desert mirages, in the air.

There was something oddly familiar about all of it, the crowds of people passing, pushing strollers, clicking cameras, the mix of voices and accents, the smells of sweat, humanity and exhaust, flowers blooming in their plots, vendors hawking their wares.

“I must have been here before,” she murmured. “But it’s just out of sync. Like someone else’s dream.”

“It’s going to come back to you.” He tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “Pieces already are. You know how to make coffee, use a computer, and you can organize an office.”

“Maybe I’m a secretary.”

He didn’t think so. The way she rattled off information on diamonds the evening before had given him a different idea. But he wanted to weigh it awhile before sharing it. “If you are, I’ll double your salary if you work for me.” Keeping it light, he rose and offered her a hand. “We’ve got some shopping to do.”

“We do?”

“You need reading glasses. Let’s hit the stores.”

It was another experience, the sprawling shopping center packed with people looking for bargains. The holiday sale was in full swing. Despite the heat, winter coats were displayed and discounted twenty percent, and fall fashions crowded out the picked over remains of summer wear.

Cade deposited her at a store that promised glasses within an hour and filled out the necessary forms himself while she browsed the walls of frames available.

There was a quick, warm glow that spread inside him when he listed her name as Bailey Parris and wrote his own address. It looked right to him, felt right. And when she was led into the back for the exam—free with the purchase of frames—he gave her a kiss on the cheek.

In less than two hours, she was back in his car, examining her pretty little wire-framed glasses, and the contents of a loaded shopping bag.

“How did you have time to buy all of this?” With a purely feminine flutter, she smoothed a hand over the smooth leather of a bone shoulder-strap envelope bag.

“It’s all a matter of stategy and planning, knowing what you want and not being distracted.”

Bailey peeked in a bag from a lingerie store and saw rich black silk. Gingerly she pulled the material out. There wasn’t a great deal of it, she mused.

“You’ve got to sleep in something,” Cade told her. “It was on sale. They were practically giving it away.”

She might not have known who she was, but she was pretty sure she knew sleepwear from seduce-me wear. She tucked the silk back in the bag. Digging deeper, she discovered a bag of crystals. “Oh, they’re lovely.”

“They had one of those nature stores. So I picked up some rocks.” He braked at a stop sign and shifted so that he could watch her. “Picked out a few that appealed to me. The smooth ones are… What do you call it?”

“Tumbling stones,” she murmured, stroking them gently with a fingertip. “Carnelian, citrine, sodalite, jasper.” Flushed with pleasure, she unwrapped tissue. “Tourmaline, watermelon tourmaline—see the pinks and the greens?—and this is a lovely column of fluorite. It’s one of my favorites. I…” She trailed off, pressed a hand to her temple.

He reached in himself, took out a stone at random. “What’s this?”

“Alexandrite. It’s a chrysoberyl, a transparent stone. Its color changes with the light. See it’s blue-green now, in daylight, but in incandescent light it would be mauve or violet.” She swallowed hard because the knowledge was there, just there in her mind. “It’s a multipurpose stone, but scarce and expensive. It was named for Czar Alexander I.”

“Okay, relax, take a deep breath.” He made the turn, headed down the tree-lined street. “You know your stones, Bailey.”

“Apparently I do.”

“And they give you a lot of pleasure.” Her face had lit up, simply glowed, when she studied his choices.

“It scares me. The more the information crowded inside my head, the more it scared me.”

He pulled into his driveway, turned to her. “Are you up to doing the rest of this today?”

She could say no, she realized. He would take her inside then, inside his house, where she’d be safe. She could go up to the pretty bedroom, close herself in. She wouldn’t have to face anything but her own cowardice.

“I want to be. I will be,” she added, and let out a long breath. “I have to be.”

“Okay.” Reaching over, he gave her hand a quick squeeze. “Just sit here. I’ll get the diamond.”

Westlake Jewelers was housed in a magnificent old building with granite columns and long windows draped in satin. It was not the place for bargains. The only sign was a discreet and elegant brass plate beside the arched front entrance.

Cade drove around the back.

“They’re getting ready to close for the day,” he explained. “If I know Muffy, she’ll have Ronald here waiting. He may not be too thrilled with me, so… Yeah, there’s his car.” Cade shot his own into a space beside a sedate gray Mercedes sedan. “You just play along with me, all right?”

“Play along?” She wrinkled her brow as he dumped stones into her new handbag. “What do you mean?”

“I had to spin a little story to talk her into this.” Reaching over, he opened Bailey’s door. “Just go along.”

She got out, walked with him to the rear entrance. “It might help if I knew what I was going along with.”

“Don’t worry.” He rang the buzzer. “I’ll handle it.”

She shifted her now heavy bag on her shoulder.

“If you’ve lied to your family, I think I ought to—” She broke off when the heavy steel door opened.

“Cade.” Ronald Westlake nodded curtly. Cade had been right, Bailey thought instantly. This was not a happy man. He was average height, trim and well presented, in a dark blue suit with a muted striped tie so ruthlessly knotted she wondered how he could draw breath. His face was tanned, his carefully styled hair dark and discreetly threaded with glinting gray.

Dignity emanated from him like light.

“Ronald, good to see you,” Cade said cheerily, and as if Ronald’s greeting had been filled with warmth, he pumped his hand enthusiastically. “How’s the golf game? Muffy tells me you’ve been shaving that handicap.”

As he spoke, Cade eased himself inside, much, Bailey thought, like a salesman with his foot propped in a door. Ronald continued to frown and back up.

“This is Bailey. Muffy might have told you a little about her.” In a proprietary move, Cade wrapped his arm around Bailey’s shoulder and pulled her to his side.

“Yes, how do you do?”

“I’ve been keeping her to myself,” Cade added before Bailey could speak. “I guess you can see why.” Smoothly Cade tipped Bailey’s face up to his and kissed her. “I appreciate you letting us play with your equipment. Bailey’s thrilled. Sort of a busman’s holiday for her, showing me how she works with stones.” He shook her purse so that the stones inside rattled.

“You’ve never shown any interest in gems before,” Ronald pointed out.

“I didn’t know Bailey before,” Cade said easily. “Now, I’m fascinated. And now that I’ve talked her into staying in the States, she’s going to have to think about setting up her own little boutique. Right, sweetheart?”

“I—”

“England’s loss is our gain,” he continued. “And if one of the royals wants another bauble, they’ll have to come here. I’m not letting you get away.” He kissed her again, deeply, while Ronald stood huffing and tugging at his tie.

“Cade tells me you’ve been designing jewelry for some time. It’s quite an endorsement, having the royal family select your work.”

“It’s sort of keeping it in the family, too,” Cade said with a wink. “With Bailey’s mama being one of Di’s cousins. Was that third or fourth cousin, honey? Oh, well, what’s the difference?”

“Third,” Bailey said, amazed at herself not only for answering, but also for infusing her voice with the faintest of upper-class British accents. “They’re not terribly close. Cade’s making too much of it. It’s simply that a few years ago a lapel pin I’d fashioned caught the eye of the Princess of Wales. She’s quite a keen shopper, you know.”

“Yes, yes, indeed.” The tony accent had a sizable effect on a man with Ronald’s social requirements. His smile spread, his voice warmed. “I’m delighted you could stop by. I do wish I could stay, show you around.”

“We don’t want to keep you.” Cade was already thumping Ronald on the back. “Muffy told me you’re entertaining.”

“It’s terribly presumptuous of Cade to interrupt your holiday. I would so love a tour another time.”

“Of course, anytime, anytime at all. And you must try to drop by the house later this evening.” Pumped up at the thought of entertaining even such a loose connection with royalty, Ronald began to usher them toward the jeweler’s work area. “We’re very select in our equipment, as well as our stones. The Westlake reputation has been unimpeachable for generations.”

“Ah, yes.” Her heart began to thud as she studied the equipment in the glass-walled room, the worktables, the saws, the scales. “Quite top-of-the-line.”

“We pride ourselves on offering our clientele only the best. We often cut and shape our own gems here, and employ our own lapidaries.”