IT WAS CLOSE TO ELEVEN WHEN THEY drove up the road to Lina’s cottage. The moon was bright overhead and illuminated the mountains and valley with almost surreal beauty.
“Peaceful,” Jane said. “I can see why she’s content to stay here.”
“Yes, the light on the mountains is pretty spectacular.” Caleb glanced casually back at the road through the mountains which they’d just traveled. “And she set herself up to ensure that she wouldn’t have to move again. Let’s just keep it peaceful.” Caleb reached for his phone. “I’ll tell Lina that it’s us coming up her drive. We don’t want to alarm her.”
Or she might reach for that AK-47, Jane thought, as Caleb talked to Lina on the phone. It was difficult to accept that the woman who lived here gardening and working in seclusion could possibly be violent. But who could blame her for protecting herself after the life she had lived?
She could see the front door of the cottage open and Lina’s slender figure silhouetted against the lamplight as they drew up before the cottage.
“I’m not quite finished,” she said, as they got out of the car and walked toward her. “I’ll give you what I have, but you’ll have to wait for the rest.”
“How long?” Jane asked.
Lina shrugged. “A few hours. It was more difficult than I thought it would be. Come in and have a cup of tea. Do you have the time?”
“We have the time,” Caleb said. “We have no choice. Jane has something else for you to translate.”
“Not tonight. I’ll finish the first book that I promised you I’d do. But I need some time away from Adah Ziller.” Her lips tightened. “I don’t understand her. She liked it.”
“What?”
“Pain.” She turned and went back into the house. “She was twisted.”
“S and M?”
“Oh, yes.” She put on the kettle. “Some of the passages are very descriptive. Particularly the ones that have to do with Jack Millet. What he did to her was unbelievable.”
“He was her lover?” Jane asked.
“That’s not love,” Lina said. “And she didn’t care. She liked it.” She got cups down. “You said that she’d been murdered? Maybe it was just that one of her lovers went too far. She said that Millet almost killed her several times while they were playing their games.”
“No, that wasn’t how it happened,” Jane said. “And it’s not another ledger we found in the safety-deposit box. There was a tablet that we need translated.” She took the black container out of her tote and set it on the table. “As you can see, it’s pretty large, and the script is very tiny. Caleb thinks that it may be very old.”
“A tablet?” She looked suddenly thoughtful. Then she shrugged. “We’ll see.”
“It would help us,” Jock said quietly. “I know you don’t want us here, but we can’t leave until we know.”
“I don’t mind you being here. I’m not that much of a hermit.” She glanced at Caleb. “But don’t bring me any more of this ugliness. It brought back too many memories.”
“I didn’t have any idea what I was bringing, or I would have warned you,” Caleb said. “We know very little about Adah Ziller.”
“Well, I know quite a bit.” She poured tea over the leaves in the pot. “You can start with the printout on the table over there, but you’ll have to plow through it. As I told you, it’s disjointed.”
“Can you summarize?”
“As long as you don’t make me describe her sexual perversions.”
“Sit down,” Jock said as he crossed the room and nudged her away from the teapot. “Relax. I’ll take care of this.”
“I won’t argue. I like to see a man do domestic chores.” She dropped down in the easy chair. “It was strictly forbidden to let any male lift his hand in the house where I grew up.”
“And my mother made sure that I helped out,” Jock said. “Or I got boxed on the ears.” He poured tea into cups. “So watch all you please. You won’t see me shirk.”
Lina gazed at him thoughtfully. “No, I don’t think you would.”
“Adah,” Jane prompted.
Lina nodded. “The ledger begins when she’s fourteen. She grew up in Syria. Her father was a merchant and was moderately well-to-do. She had a Western upbringing and was sent to England when she was sixteen to complete her education.”
“Where did she meet Millet?”
“Before she left Syria. She met him at something called the Offering.”
“What’s that?”
“She doesn’t elaborate much. A sort of meeting her family went to every year since she was a child. She always found it exciting, but when she met Millet there, that was the only thing she could think about. She called him the Guardian. He was older than she, in his early twenties, and she kept talking about his power and what she wanted to do with him. She seduced him.”
“At sixteen?”
“She was no virgin. She had been experimenting since she was thirteen. But Millet was special to her. At last she’d found someone who had the same tastes. She was upset when she had to leave Syria.” She took the cup Jock handed her. “But she replaced him quickly. She’d acquired a taste for power and knew that was the fast lane. She honed her sexual talents while she was at school and took a job with Med-Coast Oil. She climbed the ladder quickly there.”
“What about Millet?”
“She still saw him occasionally. And they’d spend weekends together whenever she went back to Syria for this Offering meeting every year.”
“She went back every year?”
“Sometimes she didn’t want to go, but she said that she had to do it. It was her duty.”
“Judging by what you’ve said, I wouldn’t think she would pay much attention to duty.”
“She paid attention to the Offering.”
“And she never described exactly what kind of meeting it was?”
Lina shook her head. “No, but she usually liked the meetings once she was there. It was exciting. She said that she was able to make contacts she’d never have made otherwise. She said that rich and powerful people came who were completely out of her reach in everyday life.”
“When she wasn’t screwing Millet,” Caleb said.
“He was entertainment. The other men she met there were business.”
“Did she mention names?”
Lina nodded. “Two movie stars. A Wall Street financier. A fast-food chain CEO. She wasn’t choosy as long as they could move her ahead.” She paused. “But toward the end of the ledger, she talked about one man quite a bit. He was going to grease her way to the top. All she had to do was to do what he ordered, and he’d give her whatever she wanted.”
“Who?”
“Alan Roland. She said he was a mover and shaker in the financial world. Very rich, tremendously powerful.”
“I’ve never heard of him,” Jane said. “And was he talking about sexual favors?”
“She went to bed with him, but that wasn’t what she was talking about. She evidently found someone who was using her as much as she used everyone else.”
“To do what?”
She glanced at the box on the table. “A tablet. Something called Hadar’s Tablet. Roland wanted her to steal the tablet from Millet, who was evidently its custodian.”
“Why?”
Lina shook her head. “She didn’t go into reasons. But it was very valuable, and she knew it would be dangerous. It was kept in a special cabinet in the Offering Room, and she had access because of her affair with Millet. But if she were caught, he would kill her. She was going to make Roland pay.”
“It seems that she did it.” Jane’s gaze was on the black container on the table. “That tablet we found in the safety-deposit box.”
“Yes. She was to give it to Roland. That was part of their deal. He was to take possession, but Millet wasn’t to know that she no longer had it. Which meant that she had to run the entire risk.”
“Charming.”
“She was willing to do it. He gave her two hundred thousand dollars to steal the tablet and promised her another five if she kept her mouth shut about his involvement. But she double-crossed him. She kept the tablet herself and was trying to squeeze Millet for every dime she could get.” Her lips twisted. “And she was getting hush money from Roland for not telling Millet that he’d paid her to steal the tablet. Money was rolling in from every direction.”
“How could she get away with it? Millet would think nothing of grabbing her and torturing her until she told him where she’d hidden the tablet.”
“She told Millet that she’d placed the tablet with a friend who would send it to the police if Adah didn’t check in with her regularly.”
Jock shook his head. “Big risk.”
“And why would this tablet be important anyway?” Jane asked. “No hint?”
“I should know by the end of the ledger,” Lina said. “I scanned it and saw several references to Hadar and a tablet.”
“But if this tablet was her cash cow, why would she leave the information about the safety-deposit box lying around in the office, where anyone could find it?” Jane shook her head. “If Weismann and Adah were intimate, then she must have known that he’d have access to it. That gold key is very showy, and she left the information in the study where it would be seen. She was either careless or wanted someone to know about that Swiss account. She doesn’t appear to have been careless.”
“A puzzle,” Caleb smiled at Lina. “So will you finish up this translation and let us get out of your hair?”
“Gladly,” she said emphatically.
“Good.” He moved toward the door. “I believe I’ll wait outside. It’s so beautiful looking down at your valley. Call me when you’re ready.”
Jane watched the door shut behind him and turned to Lina. “How can I help?”
“Be quiet and stay out of my way.” Lina had picked up the ledger again. “Sit down over there, and I’ll tell you when I’m finished.”
“Another cup of tea?” Jock asked Lina. “I’ll even make a fresh pot so that you can enjoy having me wait on you.”
Lina didn’t answer. She was already deep in her work.
Jock looked at Jane inquiringly.
She shook her head. She was still thinking about Adah Ziller and trying to put it together. “Weismann. We have to assume Millet sent him to Adah to get the tablet or find out where it was. But if she was as cynical as Lina says, I can’t believe he fooled her for long. She was very sharp, and I can see her having a sexual fling, but she would have gotten around to checking him out. She had to be playing him along, and leaving that gold key and bank info was just too obvious.”
“Makes sense,” Jock said. “But the key was genuine and the tablet was in the bank. Why run a risk like that? Weismann was-”
“Get out,” Lina said. “If you can’t be still, go for a walk.”
“Sorry.” Jane headed for the door. “You’re right.”
Jock was at the door and opening it for her. “If you need anything just-”
“I need you out of here,” Lina said flatly.
Jock chuckled as the door shut behind them. “She definitely makes her desires known. Interesting woman.”
“Yes.” Jane took a deep breath of the cool night air to clear her head. Her mind was full of deceptions and tablets and the twisted desires of Adah Ziller. She had been thinking of her as a victim, but that was far from the truth. She had been balancing Millet, Roland, and Weismann and trying to cheat all three men. But her clever machinations had been useless in the end. She had been caught off guard for one moment, and that had been enough to kill her. “Weismann bothers me. I can’t see how he figured in-”
“Where’s Caleb?” Jock interrupted. His gaze was darting over the garden and down the road. “Oh, shit.”
“WHERE THE HELL IS HE?” Jane asked. “What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong is that I don’t think Caleb just went for a stroll,” Jock said. “I should have known I couldn’t trust him.” He went to the edge of the road and looked out at the foothills. “He must have noticed someone following us.”
Jane remembered that instant when they’d gotten out of the car and Caleb’s gaze had wandered casually back toward the curve of the road and commented on the light on the mountains. “And didn’t tell us?”
“He’s not into sharing. He left us on that damn doorstep at Adah Ziller’s.” His lips thinned. “I may break his neck.”
Jane felt the same way. “Dammit, if we’d known we were being followed, we could have lost him.”
“Yes.”
She caught an undertone in his voice that caused her gaze to fly to his face. “You wouldn’t have tried to lose him either.”
“I don’t know if I’d have led him here, but I would have tried to trap the bastard.”
“Who is it? You said we weren’t followed from Paris.”
He nodded. “And because we weren’t followed, that meant someone was at the bank waiting for us.”
“Weismann.”
“He didn’t have time to go to the study and get the key after he killed Adah Ziller. He probably decided to camp out at the bank and see if we managed to get whatever was in that deposit box. He must have been parked around the corner and was in one of the buildings watching until we came out of the bank.”
“And Caleb also figured it was Weismann when he saw we were being followed.” Her hands clenched at her sides. “Damn him.”
“Go inside.” He started down the road. “I’m going after him.”
“No! Do you think I don’t want to do that, too?” she asked fiercely. “We can’t leave here. We brought this on Lina. We have to make sure nothing happens to her.”
He stopped and turned back. “And what happens to Seth Caleb? We don’t know if Weismann picked up some help.”
She had been thinking the same thing. Anger and frustration and a deep underlying fear had been struggling within her. “It was Caleb’s choice. He closed us out. He clearly thinks he doesn’t need us.”
He studied her expression. “You’re sure?”
She nodded jerkily. “He made the choice. Lina is innocent. No one could ever call Caleb innocent. He’ll have to fend for himself.” She turned back toward the cottage. “We’ll just have to wait until he comes back.”
“He didn’t take the car.”
“We would have heard him leave. That’s not what he wanted. I imagine he functions very well on foot.” She could visualize him running over those hills, his dark eyes narrowed, his expression intent.
Darkness.
Power.
Blood.
She took a deep breath and reached for the doorknob. “He’ll be fine. After all, he’s a hunter.”
JUST AHEAD.
In the trees on the hill overlooking the cottage.
Caleb’s pace lengthened, his gaze on the trees. Weismann had left the car he had parked a few hundred yards away and was moving up the hill. He was carrying an M-25. Otherwise known as a light sniper.
A sharpshooter weapon.
He was planning on picking them off as they left the cottage.
Caleb could feel the blood coursing through his veins as he began to run.
Exhilaration.
Heady joy.
Silence.
Wind.
The earth moving, giving, beneath his pounding feet.
His heart beating, beating, beating.
This was the way a hunt was meant to be. Not on city streets or a rolling sea. A hunt could take place anywhere, but this was the best, this was how it had been at the dawn of man.
Weismann had stopped and was lying down, positioning himself on a hillock.
Come in from behind?
No cover.
The trees. There was a huge oak tree near the spot where Weismann lay.
Four strides, and he was next to it. He shinnied up the oak tree and crawled out onto the branch.
Don’t rustle a leaf.
Slide smoothly, like a python, without a sound.
He was directly over Weismann.
And Weismann knew he wasn’t alone. Caleb could see it in the slight stiffening of his body. He knew he’d not made a mistake but there was no way to fight primitive instinct.
Then strike fast before instinct became thought.
He dove from the tree.
Weismann rolled away at the last moment and Caleb landed on his hands and knees beside him.
“Son of a bitch!” Weismann swung the barrel of the gun toward him.
Caleb rolled the few feet toward him, grabbing at the gun and jerking it away. In one motion he rose and swung the barrel at Weismann’s head.
Weismann grunted and fell to the ground. Unconscious but still alive.
Caleb stared down at him in disappointment, his heart still racing.
Too easy. He wanted more.
He wanted a kill.
He reached down and gently pushed back the hair from Weismann’s temple, where the blood was pouring from the cut made by the rifle barrel. What harm? Weismann was a murderer. Take what he wanted and walk away.
Not possible.
The realization caused a bolt of fury to sear through him.
Keep it under control. Anger was the enemy. It made every breach of the code seem valid.
But killing this scum wasn’t a breach of his code. That was why he was a hunter.
Excuses. This was more complicated. Jane needed information from the bastard. She wanted him alive.
He had to let him live… for a while.
He reached down, picked Weismann up, and slung him over his shoulder. He was a big man but Caleb didn’t mind the weight.
He needed to channel every bit of his mind and strength into trying to keep himself from making the kill.
“HE’S COMING.” JOCK TURNED AWAY from the window. “And he looks like paintings I’ve seen of frontiersmen carrying home the carcasses from a buffalo hunt.”
“He’s here?” Jane ran to the door and flung it open.
Caleb was coming up the road, and the carcass on his back was no animal. He was carrying the burden without effort, striding quickly. His hair was rumpled and his shirt stained with blood.
She stepped out on the doorstep. “Caleb?”
He stopped before her and threw the man on his back to the ground. “Weismann. As promised.”
She gazed down at the man. Eyes closed, auburn hair now covered in blood. “Is he dead?”
“No. I hit him with a rifle butt. He’ll probably have a concussion, but the chances are fair that he’ll be able to talk. Let’s get it over with.”
The words were spoken with such leashed ferocity that her gaze flew to his face.
Caleb’s dark eyes were glittering in his taut face, and his lips were full and sensual and slightly drawn back from his teeth. He looked wild, barbaric. No, he looked… hungry.
“Get what over with, Caleb?” Jock said softly as he shut the door and moved to stand beside her.
Caleb’s glance at him was like a dagger thrust. “Don’t mess with me, Gavin. This isn’t the time.”
“No, I can see that.” Jock turned to Jane. “Why don’t you go in and-”
“No,” Caleb said sharply. “She wanted him. She’s got him. I have to have it finished.” He looked at Jane, and she unconsciously braced herself. She felt… scorched. “Do you want me to wake him so that you can talk to him?”
“He’s unconscious. How can you-”
“If you want it, I can do it.” He knelt beside Weismann and added recklessly, “What the hell. I’ll do it anyway. It’s just a question of adjusting the blood flow…”
“I’m not sure that-”
Weismann screamed in agony, and his lids flew open.
“What happened?” Jane asked, startled.
“I told you, blood flow. I didn’t say it wouldn’t hurt.”
Weismann was cursing venomously, his eyes fixed balefully on Caleb.
Caleb bent closer to Weismann, and said softly, “Be polite. I’m holding on by a thread. The lady wants answers, give them to her.” He looked at Jane. “Ask your questions.”
“I will. Just don’t hurt him again.”
“Do you hear that, Weismann? She’s feeling sorry for you. That weapon I took away from him was an M-25, very good for sharps-hooting up to 980 yards, and he was getting set to pick us all off as we came out of the cottage.”
“And I would have gotten you.” Weismann’s gaze went to Jock. “Stop him. You’re not going to do anything to me. You’re in Venable’s pocket. The CIA needs the information I have. He’s willing to pay.”
“You killed Adah Ziller, and God knows what other deals you’ve been making on the side,” Jock said. “Venable may not have any use for you any longer.”
“You don’t believe that. What’s the death of one greedy bitch matter? Tell him to let me go. Who is he anyway?”
“Seth Caleb,” Caleb said. “And no one tells me anything, Weismann. They ask politely. Or, in your case, they beg.”
“Stop this,” Jane said as she took a step nearer. She wanted to be done both with Weismann’s ugliness and the wild recklessness she could sense in Caleb. “All I want is for you to tell me what you know about why I’ve been targeted, Weismann.”
Weismann’s lips curled. “Then tell Venable to pay me. Or you can spend the next few days trying to dodge Millet and hope he doesn’t find you. Let me go, and we can negotiate.”
“I think not,” Caleb said. “I’ve lost patience. Talk.”
“Caleb,” Jane said.
He smiled. “I won’t touch him.”
That brilliant smile was terrifying. “Just persuade him to change his mind. I don’t care if he thinks you’re his brother.”
“I care.” He leaned still closer to Weismann, and whispered, “You’re not worth the extra effort I’d have to make. So tell Jane what she wants to know.”
“Screw you.”
“Screw. Interesting word. Painful word.”
Weismann shrieked, his body convulsing, his spine trying to curve.
“Talk to Jane,” Caleb said. “Don’t be impolite. She asked you a question.”
“Son of a bitch.” Tears were running down Weismann’s cheeks. “What’s happening?”
“Caleb,” Jane said sharply.
“Too late.” Caleb said. “A little hemorrhage…”
Blood was pouring from Weismann’s nose.
“Convulsion.”
Weismann howled and bent double in agony.
“Dammit, Caleb,” Jane said.
“He can stop it. All he has to do is talk to you.”
And Caleb wouldn’t stop. He was enjoying it too much.
“Do it, Weismann,” Jane said curtly. “For God’s sake, answer.”
Weismann was scrambling, desperately trying to scoot backward. “Get him away from me.” He gazed frantically at Jock. “Gavin, do something.”
“Why? I’m finding this very interesting. I’d guess you’re the only who can end it.”
“Cramps,” Caleb said.
Weismann flinched back, his legs twitching. “Monster,” he gasped. “You’re-a-monster.”
“Yes, tell her what she wants to know.”
More pain.
Weismann howled.
“Why did they target her, Weismann?”
“Damn you.” He could barely talk because of the blood running down into his mouth. “Stop it. How can I talk when you keep-”
“Two minutes. Then it starts again if you don’t tell her everything that she needs to know. Why?”
He was silent. “It’s that painting of the man. The one she called Guilt.”
“That painting?” Jane repeated. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“Weismann is going to make sense out of it for you,” Caleb said. “Go on, Weismann.”
“I don’t know everything,” Weismann said sulkily. “Millet doesn’t trust me as far as he could throw me. But I managed to slip around and listen to him rant to some of the others after I saw how angry he was when he received that clipping.”
“You thought it would prove valuable,” Gavin said.
Weismann ignored him. “It wasn’t the painting as much as the title that bothered Millet and the others. He said by naming it Guilt, you’d committed blasphemy.”
Blasphemy. That word again. “How could I do that when that painting was born purely from imagination?” Jane asked, in frustration.
Weismann shook his head. “That’s not what Millet said. He said you must have seen it in the temple. He said that even if you weren’t a blasphemer, they’d have to stop you before you could tell anyone about the temple.”
“What temple?”
“I don’t know.” He groaned, twisted in a ball. “Stop him. Stop-Caleb. I don’t know.”
Jane whirled on Caleb.
He shrugged. “Just a little nudge.” His gaze shifted to Weismann. “The name of the man who sent Millet the photo?”
He didn’t answer.
Then he screamed. “Alan-Roland.”
“Ah, the man pulling strings behind the scenes,” Gavin said. “What do you know about Hadar’s Tablet?”
“I know that bitch Adah had it. I know Millet wanted it.”
“But what is it?” Jane asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe some artifact Millet thought was valuable. He grew up in Syria and did a little smuggling before he formed the Sang Noir.” He looked in panic at Caleb. “That’s the truth. I swear that’s the truth. Millet sent me to Adah and told me to pretend that I was a wealthy businessman and try to find out where she was keeping it. No problem. I’m good with women. She was easy. It was in the safe-deposit box, right?”
“Yes,” Jane said. “But I can’t believe she didn’t realize what scum you were.”
“I had her. The bitch was going to take me to get the tablet, and she thought we were going to go away together.”
“And you were going to give the tablet to Millet.”
“Maybe. I hadn’t decided.”
“Are you through with him?” Caleb asked.
“Don’t be impatient,” Gavin said. “I can understand your dislike for him, but I don’t believe Jane is going to let you have your way.”
“You don’t understand anything about me,” Caleb said curtly. “Neither does she. It’s my nature to be impatient. He’s no use to us.”
“Back off. I can’t let you murder him in cold blood,” Jane said.
“Not cold blood, hot blood,” Caleb said. “That’s the problem.”
“He’s a freak.” Weismann moistened his lips. “Don’t let him near me.”
“We’ll do our best. Alan Roland,” Jock said. “What do you know about him?”
“Not much. I overheard Millet talking to him on the phone a couple times. I got the impression they’ve known each other for a long time. I think he lives in London.”
“More,” Jane said.
“There isn’t any more. Just something about an Offering.” He shrugged. “They don’t like each other. But I think Roland had something on him.”
“And Jane was part of the deal?” Gavin asked.
Weismann nodded. “Roland threw her to Millet as a kind of appetizer, but she wasn’t the main course.”
“How humiliating,” Jane said ironically. “My life isn’t even that important in the scheme of things. Well, it’s important to me, dammit.”
“It’s important to me, too,” Caleb said roughly. “Or I wouldn’t have brought this bastard here gift-wrapped. But he’s told you all he can.”
“How do you know?” Gavin asked.
“I don’t. The only way to make sure is to go inside and take a look. But if I did that, I couldn’t promise you that he’d come out of it intact. He’d probably be a vegetable. I don’t have much control right now. Any resistance, and I’d burn him away.” He glanced at Jane. “But I don’t mind, if you don’t.”
The words are cool but they are the only thing cool about him, Jane thought. Kneeling there in the moonlight, she could almost feel the heat emitting from him. No, not heat, fire. His muscular body was taut, his eyes dark and glittering, and she somehow felt as if she could see him surrounded, enveloped, in flames. She couldn’t look away from him. She felt as if he were drawing her close, closer, into the fire that he was generating. She was dizzy with it. She wanted it.
“He’s just scum,” Caleb said softly, coaxingly. “He was going to kill all of us. Let me go inside. Just say yes.”
She could feel herself sway, yield. After all, he was right.
No, he was wrong. She finally managed to tear her gaze away from him. “I believe he’s told us everything he knows.” She turned to Jock. “Will you call Venable and have him send someone to pick Weismann up?”
Jock nodded. “And I’ll take him to the toolshed and find some rope to tie him up.” His lips lifted in a half smile as he glanced at Caleb. “You lose.”
Caleb didn’t look away from Jane. “I didn’t expect to win. She’s very strong. But I had to try.” He got to his feet in one graceful motion and turned toward the door. “Be careful with him.”
“You’re worried about me? I can handle him.”
“No, I meant don’t let him get loose. It isn’t over.”
What isn’t over? Jane wondered. His bloodlust, which was nearly visible in intensity? His attempt to persuade her that had been almost a seduction of the senses? She shook her head to clear it. “Lina. I need to get back and see if anything she’s translated has any connection with what Weismann told us.”
“We can make a deal,” Weismann said jerkily. “I’ll go back to Millet and find out whatever you need to know.”
“No deal.”
His lips curled. “Venable won’t be so reluctant. Go ahead. Turn me over to him. I’ll win anyway.”
“I don’t think so.” Caleb opened the door for Jane and stepped aside to let her precede him into the cottage. “You were very stupid with Adah Ziller. I can’t see you coming out of this in one piece.”
He closed the door behind them. “You’re sure that you don’t want me to take care of him now?” he asked Jane wistfully. “It would be no trouble.”
“I’m quite sure.” She looked away from him. She was still too aware of that disturbing aura of electricity that seemed to surround him. “He may be a murderer, but I don’t have to be one.”
“Very commendable. In the abstract. But there’s a streak of savagery in you, too. Would you feel the same if he had killed your Eve?”
“No, I’d squash him without a qualm,” she said bluntly. “But that’s different.”
“No, that’s selective savagery,” he said. “My selectivity range is just wider than yours.”
“Much wider.” She looked around the room. “Where’s Lina?”
“Here.” Lina Alsouk came out of the bedroom, an AK-47 cradled in her arm. “What have you been doing, Caleb? Did you think I wouldn’t hear all that caterwauling out there?”
“I was hoping you wouldn’t.” Caleb glanced at the AK-47. “And my second hope was that you wouldn’t come out with that weapon blazing.”
“It’s not blazing.” She gave him a cool look. “But I’m ready. I’m always ready these days. I don’t intend ever to be caught with my guard down again. What’s happening?”
“Nothing that concerns you. We have it under control.”
“Everything that occurs here concerns me. You’re in my space, Caleb.”
“Of course, it concerns her,” Jane said. “Stop being soothing. We were followed, Lina. Caleb caught him. We’re calling someone to come to get him.”
She was silent, then slowly lowered the weapon. “How soon?”
“Right away. Immediately.”
“Then I suppose it will be all right.” She paused. “But I want you off my property as soon as possible. You’re as close to a friend as I have, Caleb, but you’re not welcome here right now.”
“We understand,” Jane hesitated. “In the meantime, could you finish that translation?”
Lina studied her face. “You’re pushing.”
“I want to live. I want the people I love to live. I have to know what I’m up against. These people are crazy.”
Lina nodded. “After translating the last of that ledger, I don’t have any doubt of that.” Her lips tightened. “I don’t want to have anything to do with them. Which means anything to do with you. I know men who would kill their own families for the chance to get their hands on something this priceless. People would claw at each other, destroy everyone around them to touch it. I won’t be caught in the middle of that madness. I want my peace.”
Jane frowned, puzzled. “You’re talking about the tablet?”
“No.” She set the weapon on a chair by the door. “The tablet is valuable. It’s not priceless.” She moved toward her easy chair, sat down, and flipped open the computer. “And these fanatics are already destroying each other. They’ve been killing for centuries.” She glanced up at them. “Adah Ziller became very precise, very explicit in the last section of this ledger. It wasn’t disjointed or vague like the rest of the book. I think perhaps she may have known what thin ice she was skating and instinctively wanted to make sure someone would know what had happened if she didn’t survive.”
“How explicit?” Jane asked.
Lina smiled without mirth. “She talked about the Offering. Evidently, that’s the height of betrayal. It’s strictly forbidden to speak of it. Do you want to know what it is?”
A small boy screaming as the knife descended.
“Human sacrifice,” Jane said.
“You knew?” Lina asked.
She moistened her lips. “Offering. The word is close enough in meaning.”
“Not to human sacrifice.” Caleb was gazing at Jane searchingly. “But you jumped at it.” His glance shifted to Lina. “A cult of some sort?”
“A religion.” Lina looked down at her computer screen. “They would be insulted to be called a cult. Though that’s exactly what they are. It’s very old and as powerful in its way as the Catholic Church. Not as well-known, of course. Particularly since they advocate sacrifice and have no problem with murder. It wouldn’t do to let outsiders know they exist. The faith has been passed down through the centuries from father to son and has members all over the world. No new members are accepted unless they’re connected by blood to a member. They regard themselves as the only true religion.”
“A religion that makes human sacrifices,” Jane said dryly.
“Abraham was asked to sacrifice his son,” Lina said. “The Aztecs and Mayans used sacrifices as a regular course.” She held up her hand. “I’m only saying that it’s not that unusual except in present day.”
“This is present day. And killing children isn’t-”
“Children? I didn’t mention children,” Lina said, puzzled. “According to Adah, they rarely sacrifice children these days. They used to do it in early days because they were more easily obtained. Parents were pressured to offer their children to gain status and secure their place in paradise. Adah said sacrifices were chosen from lists of candidates submitted by members.”
“Candidates?” Caleb asked.
“In the present day there’s only one offering every year, and members of the faith were urged to submit a name of a person whom they wished sacrificed. It was a mark of respect if their submission was chosen for the kill.”
“Who did they submit?”
“An enemy, a business rival, a member of the family,” Lina said. “The family member was considered the purest of all the sacrifices. It gave instant status.” She paused. “Millet submitted his mother as a candidate. Her death won him a position as Guardian of the Offering.”
Shock upon shock. A man so callous he would put his mother on that altar and take her life. “Exactly what is a Guardian?”
“He heads up a sort of guard of honor at the Offerings. He’s custodian of holy artifacts and presides at the sacrifices.” Lina’s lips twisted. “Adah admired his strength of will as well as his sexual techniques. She envied his star status in the Offerings. In short, he was her kind of man.”
“You mean she watched him kill and got off on it.”
“Power,” Lina said. “Yes, but she might have been content to obey the rules if Roland hadn’t offered her a new and golden ladder to climb.”
“You said she met him at one of these Offerings? He’s a member?”
“Oh, yes. Or he would have ended up as a sacrifice if he’d shown up there. The ceremony and religion itself are top secret.”
“And I was supposed to be scheduled to be a sacrifice at this Offering?” Jane asked.
“I don’t know,” Lina said. “Adah didn’t mention you. She was very self-absorbed and evidently you didn’t enter into any of her plans.”
“I can’t think of any other reason why Millet would want to wait until April 1 to kill me.”
“April 1?” Lina nodded. “Then you’re probably right. April 1 is the traditional day of the Offering.”
“And what is this Hadar’s Tablet? You said it was one of the holy artifacts that Millet protected?”
“Yes, Hadar was the founder of the cult. He was a scribe and an artist. The tablet supposedly describes his journey from Jerusalem and his philosophies. He’s looked upon as a great prophet.”
“ ‘Supposedly’? Don’t they know what’s in the tablet?”
She shook her head. “There are rumors about it that have been handed down over the centuries, but Hadar commanded that no one open the gold box where he’d placed the tablet. It was forbidden to see the light of day after his death. It was placed in a special cabinet of honor near the altar in the Offering room.”
Caleb gave a low whistle. “Then Millet’s letting the tablet be stolen would have been regarded as a mega sin by the members.”
“And so would Alan Roland’s involvement. Adah had them both by the throat.”
“According to Weismann, Millet thought I was guilty of blasphemy. It must have been against their great holy man.” Jane looked at Caleb. “That’s crazy. I tell you, any resemblance of anyone to my painting was purely coincidental.”
“Blasphemy?” Lina repeated. She was silent a moment, then said thoughtfully, “I don’t think that your crime was against Hadar.”
“Who else? You said he was the founder of their blasted religion. And you said his tablet was priceless.”
“No, I didn’t say the tablet is priceless. I only told you that Hadar’s Tablet is valuable and held in reverence by the members of this cult.”
Caleb shook his head. “You referred to a priceless artifact.”
“I wasn’t talking about the tablet.”
“Then what were you talking about?” Jane asked impatiently.
“I’m speaking about the rumors that have been handed down through the centuries about what was in Hadar’s tablet. He was supposed to have knowledge about a very special treasure.”
“What treasure?”
“A handful of ancient coins.”
Jane stiffened, her gaze narrowed on Lina’s face. “Go on.”
“You didn’t ask me to what deity they make their sacrifices,” Lina said. “Aren’t you curious?”
“Satan?”
“No.”
“Tell me, dammit.”
“Their religion is dedicated to the glorification and redemption of the man who they say sits at God’s side, who is beloved by all the angels of heaven.”
Jane looked at her in bewilderment. “Jesus?”
Lina shook her head. “No,” she said quietly. “Judas Iscariot.”