“They’re not home, either of them.”
“You said they weren’t in jail.”
“And they’re not.” He could see he’d get nothing out of her until she’d satisfied herself. “I’ll take you to them. Then we’re going to sort this out, Ms. Fontaine—I promise you.”
Grace didn’t speak as he drove her toward the tidy suburbs edging D.C. He’d assured her that Bailey and M.J. were fine, and her instincts told her that Lieutenant Seth Buchanan was saying nothing but the truth. Facts were his business, after all, she thought. But she still gripped her hands together until her knuckles ached.
She had to see them, touch them.
Guilt was already weighing on her, guilt that they should be grieving for her, when she’d spent the past few days indulging her need to be alone, to be away. To be somewhere else.
What had happened to them over the long weekend? Had they tried to contact her while she was out of reach? It was painfully obvious that the three blue diamonds Bailey had been assessing for the museum were at the bottom of it all.
As the afterimage of that stark outline on the chestnut floor flashed into her head, Grace shuddered once again.
Melissa. Poor, pathetic Melissa. But she couldn’t think of that now. She couldn’t think of anything but her friends.
“They’re not hurt?” she managed to ask.
“No.” Seth left it at that, drove through the wash of streetlights and headlights. Her scent was sliding silkily through his car, teasing his senses. Deliberately he opened his window and let the light, damp breeze chase it away. “Where have you been the last few days, Ms. Fontaine?”
“Away.” Weary she laid her head back, shut her eyes. “It’s one of my favorite spots.”
She jerked upright again when he turned down a tree-lined street, then swung into the drive of a brick house. She saw a shiny Jaguar, then an impossibly decrepit boat of a car. But no spiffy MG, no practical little compact.
“Their cars aren’t here,” she began, tossing him a look of distrust and accusation.
“But they are.”
She climbed out and, ignoring him, hurried toward the front door. Her knock was brisk, businesslike, but her fist trembled. The door opened, and a man she’d never seen before stared down at her. His cool green eyes flickered with shock, then slowly warmed. His flash of a smile was blinding. Then he reached out, laid a hand gently on her cheek.
“You’re Grace.”
“Yes, I—”
“It’s absolutely wonderful to see you.” He gathered her into his arms, one of which was freshly bandaged, with such easy affection that she didn’t have time to register surprise. “I’m Cade,” he murmured, his gaze meeting Seth’s over Grace’s head. “Cade Parris. Come on in.”
“Bailey. M.J.”
“Just in here. They’ll be fine as soon as they see you.” He took her arm, felt the quick, hard tremors in it. But in the doorway of the living room, she stopped, laid a hand over his arm.
Inside, Bailey and M.J. stood, facing away, hands linked. Their voices were low, with tears wrenching through them. A man stood a short distance away, his hands thrust in his pockets and a look of helplessness on his bruised and battered face. When he saw her, his eyes, the gray of storm clouds, narrowed, flashed. Then smiled.
Grace took one shuddering breath, exhaled it slowly. “Well,” she said in a clear, steady voice, “it’s gratifying to know someone would weep copiously over me.”
Both women whirled. For a moment, all three stared, three pair of eyes brimming over. To Seth’s mind, they all moved as once, as a unit, so that their leaping rush across the room to each other held an uncanny and undeniably feminine grace. Then they were fused together, voices and tears mixing.
A triangle, he thought, frowning. With three points that made a whole. Like the golden triangle that held three priceless and powerful stones.
“I think they could use a little time,” Cade said quietly, and gestured to the other man. “Lieutenant?” He motioned down the hall, lifting his brows when Seth hesitated. “I don’t think they’re going anywhere just now.”
With a barely perceptible shrug, Seth stepped back. He could give them twenty minutes. “I need your phone.”
“There’s one in the kitchen. Want a beer, Jack?”
The third man grinned. “You’re playing my song.”
“Amnesia,” Grace said a little time later. She and Bailey were huddled together on the sofa, with M.J. sitting on the floor at their feet. “Everything just blanked?”
“Everything.” Bailey kept her hold on Grace’s hand tight, afraid to break the link. “I woke up in this horrible little hotel room with no memory, over a million in cash, and the diamond. I picked Cade’s name out of the phone book. Parris.” She smiled a little. “Funny, isn’t it?”
“I’m going to get you to France yet,” Grace promised.
“He helped me through everything.” The warmth in her tone had Grace sharing a quick look with M.J. This was something to be discussed in detail later. “I started to remember, piece by piece. You and M.J., just flashes. I could see your faces, even hear your voices, but nothing fit. He’s the one who narrowed it down to Salvini’s, and when he took me there… He broke in.”
“Shortly before we did,” M.J. added. “Jack could tell the rear locks had been picked.”
“We got inside,” Bailey continued, and her tear-ravaged eyes went glassy. “And I remembered, I remembered it all then, how Thomas and Timothy were planning to steal the stones, copy them. How I’d shipped one off to each of you to keep it from happening. Stupid, so stupid.”
“No, it wasn’t.” Grace slid an arm around Bailey’s shoulders. “It makes perfect sense to me. You didn’t have time for anything else.”
“I should have called the police, but I was so sure I could turn things around. I was going into Thomas’s office to have a showdown, tell them it was over. And I saw…” She trembled again. “The fight. Horrible. The lightning flashing through the windows, their faces. Then Timothy grabbed the letter opener, the knife. The power went out, but the lightning kept flashing, and I could see what he was doing…to Thomas. All the blood.”
“Don’t,” M.J. murmured, rubbing a comforting hand on Bailey’s knee. “Don’t go back there.”
“No.” Bailey shook her head. “I have to. He saw me, Grace. He would have killed me. He came after me. I had grabbed the bag with their deposit money, and I ran through the dark. And I hid down under the stairs. In this little cave under the stairs. But I could see him hunting for me, blood all over his hands. I still don’t remember how I got out, got to that room.”
Grace couldn’t bear to imagine it—her quiet, serious-minded friend, pursued by a murderer. “The important thing is that you did get away, and you’re safe.” Grace looked down
