Page 131 of Homeport

—PROVERBS

twenty-two

The country quiet kept Ryan awake, and made him think of New York. Of the comforting and continual buzz of traffic, of the pace that got into your blood so that you lengthened your stride to get to the next corner, beat the light, keep the clip steady.

Places this close to the ocean made you slow down. Once you slowed down, you could get settled in and rooted before you realized it was happening.

He needed to get back to New York, to his gallery, which he’d already left too long in other hands. Of course, he often did, but that was when he was traveling, moving from place to place. Not when he was . . . planted this way.

He needed to pull up stakes, and soon.

She was sleeping beside him, her breathing echoing the slow, steady ebb and flow of the sea outside. She didn’t curl up against him, but maintained her own space and gave him his. He told himself he appreciated that. But he didn’t. It irked him that she didn’t cuddle and cling and at least pretend that she was trying to hold him down.

It would have been so much easier to resist staying if she did.

He couldn’t concentrate this way. She was a constant distraction from the work at hand, just by being close enough to touch. She was an infinitely touchable woman if only because she was always vaguely surprised by little strokes and pats.

And because he wanted to do so, to nudge her awake and into arousal with little strokes and pats, with quiet sips and nibbles until she was hot and slippery and eager for him, he got out of bed.

Sex was supposed to be a simple form of entertainment, not an obsession, for God’s sake.

He tugged on a pair of loose black pants, found a cigar and his lighter, and quietly opened her terrace doors and stepped out.

Breathing the air was like drinking a lightly chilled and mellow white, he decided. It could become a casual habit, one easily taken for granted. The height gave him a full view of the sea, of the ragged spit of land with the glowing spear of the lighthouse, and that spear’s straight beaming lance.

It held a sense of age and tradition, of security again easily taken for granted by those who saw it day after day. Things changed slowly here, if they flexed their muscles and decided to change at all.

You would see the same view morning after morning, he decided. A similar scatter of boats over the same moody sea, and all with the beat and pulse of that sea as a backdrop. He could see the stars, brilliantly clear like bright studs pinned to velvet. The moon was waning, losing its edge.

He was afraid he was losing his.

Annoyed with himself, he lighted the cigar, blew a fume of smoke into the wind that never seemed to rest.

They were getting nowhere, he thought. Miranda could create her charts and graphs, calculate her time lines, and input her data until she generated reams of paperwork. None of it delved into the hearts and minds of the people involved. It couldn’t touch on greed or anger, jealousy or hate. A chart couldn’t illustrate why one human took the life of another over a piece of metal.

He needed to know the players, to understand them, and he’d barely begun.

He thought he’d come to know her. She was an efficient woman with a practical shell, an aloof nature that could, with the proper key, be unlocked to expose the warmth and needs under the surface. Her upbringing had been privileged and cold. She’d reacted to that by distancing herself from people, honing her mind, fixing her goals and setting along a straight, linear path to achieving them.

Her weakness was her brother.

They’d stuck together, bonding initially out of defense or rebellion or genuine affection. It didn’t matter what had forged that bond; it existed, it was real and strong and unified them. What came out of it was loyalty and love. He’d seen for himself what Andrew’s drinking, his unpredictability, had done to her. It left her shaken and angry and baffled.

And he’d seen the hope and the happiness in her eyes during the dinner they’d shared that evening. She believed he was climbing back toward the brother she’d known. She needed that belief, that faith. He couldn’t stand the idea of shattering it.

So he would keep his suspicions to himself. He knew just what addictions, any kind of addictions, could do to warp a man. To make him consider and to make him commit acts he would never have considered or committed otherwise.

Andrew headed the Institute, he had power, the ease of motion within the organization to have managed the switch of the first bronze. The motive could have been money, or a simple lust to own, or the surrendering to blackmail. No one was in a better position to have orchestrated the thefts and the forgeries than one of the Joneses.

He considered Charles Jones. He’d been the one to discover the David. It wasn’t unreasonable to theorize that he’d wanted it for himself. He would have needed help. Andrew? Possibly. Giovanni, just as possibly. Or any of the most trusted staff.

Elizabeth Jones. Proud, cold, driven. She’d based her life on art, the science of it rather than the beauty. She, like her husband, had put their family in the shadows in order to concentrate energy and time and effort on gaining prestige. Their own. Wouldn’t a priceless statue make the perfect trophy for a lifetime of work?

Giovanni. A trusted employee. A brilliant scientist or he would never have been a part of Miranda’s team. Charming, by her account. A single man who enjoyed flirting with women. Maybe he’d flirted with the wrong one, or had craved more than his position at Standjo offered.

Elise. Ex-wife. Ex-wives were often vengeful. She’d transferred from the Institute to Standjo, Florence. She was in a position of trust and power. She might have used Andrew, then discarded him. As lab manager, she’d be privy to all data. She would have held both bronzes in her hands. Had she coveted them?

Richard Hawthorne. Bookworm. Still waters often ran deep and often ran violent. He knew his history, knew how to research. His type was largely overlooked in favor of the more flamboyant, the more demanding. It could eat at a man.

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