Electricity zinged along his nerve endings, just as it had last night whenever and wherever she’d
touched him. A sense of loss coursed through him and he contemplated pulling her close and telling
her he’d changed his mind. But what would that do? Only prolong the inevitable. Build her up for
his eventual crash and burn like Lisa had predicted. Distract him and ultimately put her in danger.
No, he wasn’t willing to risk her safety. He pushed the reaction down and eyed the eight-foot-tall
rocks she was now walking around. Following, he noticed what had caught her attention, a separation in the rock that looked like it led to a cave of some kind.
“Did you grab the flashlight from the boat?” she asked.
He tugged the flashlight from his belt and handed it to her. She flicked it on, then moved toward the
rocks, turning sideways to get between the two biggest ones and the gap that seemed to lead inside.
Cloth rasped against rock, but the cave must have turned abruptly, because from Shane’s position,
he couldn’t even see her light anymore. “Anything?” he called.
Silence met his ears, and he was just about to go in looking for her when she appeared from between the rocks with wide and excited eyes. “Call Billy and Nicole. I think I found it.”
C HAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“It’s steel,” Billy said, running his hand down the large metal door built into the rock wall in front
of him. “Rusted steel, but still steel.”
They were all inside the narrow cave opening, their flashlights illuminating the darkness. Behind
and around them, rock walls loomed, while the musty scent of earth clung to the air.
Shane shined his light over the door again, zooming in on the handle. “Doesn’t take a key like any
I’ve seen before.” He glanced at Hailey. “Guess that means the one your father left you wasn’t to
this, either.”
Hailey bit her lip and moved forward to trace her finger along the edge of the door. To the left, also
in steel and embedded in the rock, was a circle with a rectangular hole cut out of the middle. On the
top and bottom of the circle, small indentations could also be seen, like two little balls had been
pressed into the steel.
“ ‘The answer lies with me. The key is set in steel.’ This is definitely steel but…” Hailey pushed
against the circle, then the small indentations, hoping there was some kind of release somewhere.
Nothing happened. “Not a key. This is a lock.”
“Let me take a look.” Hailey moved out of the way to give Nicole better access. “Do you remember
what Daddy used to say about The Last Seduction?”
Hailey glanced at her sister’s shadowed face. “That it was priceless.”
“Yeah.” Nicole ran her hand over the lock. “I did some research recently. At auction, the bronze
would probably go for a cool million—that is, if you had the original. That’s a good chunk of
change, but definitely not priceless. I got the impression, though, that Daddy never cared about the
original. He was more interested in the copies. And to him, those were what were priceless.”
Hailey looked back at the door where Nicole’s fingers were covering the lock.
“If this is where his puzzle led us,” Nicole went on, “then it makes sense he’s got the last copy
stored in here somewhere. And the key—”
“Would be related to them as well,” Hailey finished. She reached for the backpack slung over her
shoulder and pulled out the dagger her father had given her. The one still encased in the evidence
bag Shane had set in front of her last night.
The guard on both sides of the blade curved up and outward to swirl around and form two small
metal balls. She opened the plastic bag.
“Hold on, Roarke,” Shane said, placing a hand on her arm to stop her.
She heaved out a sigh of frustration and looked up. “You said Bryan died of a heart attack. That
means this isn’t the murder weapon. So my handling it now isn’t going to make a difference.”
“True, but I don’t think it’s a smart idea to—”
“Are you planning to give it back to your partner or turn it back in to evidence?”
Their eyes held, and in the darkness she saw the answer in his obsidian eyes long before he answered. “No.”
Of course he wouldn’t. Because doing so would put her in jeopardy. And he wouldn’t ever do anything to hurt her. Intentionally or otherwise. Why couldn’t he see what had happened last night was
a reaction to her touch, not a reflection of him? When was he going to figure out she wasn’t some
fragile, breakable woman who needed protecting?
He dropped his hand, and because she knew the answer to both of those questions already, she
turned away and refocused on her task.
She pulled the dagger that had killed Alessandro de Medici out of the plastic bag. The metal was
cool, the blade sharp enough to cause trouble if used properly. “Here goes nothing,” she said on a
breath as she lifted the tip of the blade to the center of the steel circle and pushed.
Metal scraped metal as the blade slid into the rectangular hole, until all that was left was the handle
sticking out. Both metal balls on the ends of the guard pushed perfectly into the twin indentations
above and below the circle.
She let go of the hilt and wiped her sweaty hands down the thighs of her jeans. “Now what?”
“You turn keys,” Billy said. “See if it’ll move one way or the other.”
They all seemed to hold their breath as Hailey turned the hilt to the right and met only resistance,
then repositioned her grip and turned the handle to the left.
Her heart rate picked up as the dagger began to turn. The steel door in front of them made a clicking
sound and pushed inward with a heavy groan.
“Christ Jake,” Shane muttered at her back. “I don’t believe this.”
Neither did Hailey. Almost. “I told you my father was eccentric. Just like National Treasure.”
The flashlights illuminated a long corridor that seemed to run into the center of the hillside. The
floor was dirt, the ceiling some kind of concrete mix. As they moved inside, Hailey couldn’t help
wondering just how long ago her father had built this bunker. And why so far from civilization.
They came to a stop halfway down the corridor, where three steel doors were lined up in a row, each
set roughly twenty feet apart. Billy’s light shifted from one door to the next as he clucked his
tongue. “Okay, Monty Hall, let’s make a deal. Will it be door number one, door number two, or
door number three?”
Nicole chuckled.
Shane ran his hand up the edge of the closest door and shifted his flashlight to get a better look.
“Hinges on this one are all rusted out. It hasn’t been opened in a long time.”
A strange sense of déjà vu settled over Hailey as she stood there staring at the middle door. A feeling that she’d been here before, with her father. A lifetime ago.
“It’s this one.” When Shane glanced at her with a how do you know? look in his dark eyes, she said,
“He…I’m pretty sure he brought me here.”
“When?” Nicole asked. “Not with me. I’ve never seen this place before.”
Hailey shook her head. “It was before you were born. Just before.” Memories spilled into her mind,
memories of the way her father used to be—doting, caring, smiling—memories she’d forgotten all
about because he hadn’t been that way in a long time. “It was dark. I was only seven, and he woke
me up in the middle of the night, put me on the boat. I don’t remember much about the trip, just that
he said we were going to have an adventure. He brought me here. I was inside this room.” She
turned toward Nicole. “He told me things were about to change. I thought he meant change at home
with a new baby in the house—you. But that’s not what he meant. I didn’t realize until years later
that he’d meant he was changing. And he did. That’s when he pulled back and turned into the father
we both knew.”
Nicole glanced warily at the steel door. “So what’s in the room?”
Hailey’s gaze followed. “I don’t remember.”
In the silence, Billy scratched the back of his head, and in typical Billy fashion, tried to lighten the
mood. “C’mon, you two. It’s not like the boogeyman’s in there or his dead body’s gonna pop out
when you open the door.” Three sets of eyes shifted his way, and his expression grew nervous.
“Okay, maybe that was a bad analogy.”
Hailey took a deep breath and reached for the key her father had left her—the one she and Shane
had thought went to a safety-deposit box—the one she instinctively knew now unlocked this door.
“Hold on.” Shane’s hand on her wrist stopped her from sliding the key into its lock. “Are you sure
about this? Tony can prove your cousin died of heart failure, not by your hand. And we’ve got
enough evidence with what happened to you and your father’s autopsy report to make a strong case
you weren’t involved with any of it. With what we know about your mother and McIntosh and your
uncle, the authorities can figure out the rest. If you don’t want your father’s company after all, you
don’t have to go in there.”
He was right. And a small part of her recognized that. But an even bigger part knew if she didn’t go
in, she’d always wonder what her father had been trying to tell her. Why he’d so badly wanted her
to find his statues. And how it related to their rocky relationship and every question she’d always
been too afraid to ask about her family.
“It’s not just about Bryan,” she said, looking into Shane’s dark eyes. “Or about what I want. There
are a thousand reasons for me to leave and only one reason to stay. And all I know right now is that
one reason to stay is the most important reason of all.”
“And what’s that?” he asked quietly.
“Trust.” Her heart pinched. “Even with everything bad that happened between us and all the arguments, in the end he trusted me with whatever secret he’s been hiding all these years. Until just now,
I’d forgotten the man he’d been before. I’d forgotten how much he really did love me. Something
changed him. Something I know in my heart he wants forgiveness for.” She shook her head. “I can’t
leave until I know what that is. I won’t. And it hurts me, more than you will ever know, that he
couldn’t tell me the truth when he was alive.”
His eyes held hers, and her heart squeezed tight under his heated gaze. Did he hear what she was
telling him? Would he see the similarities between what her father had done to her and what he was
doing now? Why couldn’t he understand that more than his protection she just needed him?
His eyes ran over her face. And just when she thought he was going to reach for her, he dropped his
hand. Then stepped back and nodded once. “Try the key then.”
She tried not to let his reaction hurt her. But it did. Like a sharp slice right to her heart. Taking another deep breath, she turned the key in the lock and pushed the heavy door open with her shoulder.
A hissing sound echoed, as if a seal was being broken, and as Hailey moved into the room and
shined her light inside, she drew in a deep breath. This wasn’t a dirt-floor cave. The room was concrete from floor to wall to ceiling. A panel on the wall blinked multicolored lights, and she stepped
toward it, noting the readings that indicated the high-tech ventilation and climate-control systems.
Behind her, the others filed in, their flashlight beams jumping over wooden crates and boxes piled
nearly to the ceiling.
“My God,” Nicole said. “Look at this place. I knew Daddy had storage units full of crappy art, but
this…this is unbelievable.”
Hailey’s pulse beat as she moved to look at a long rectangular crate to her right. The heavy ink on
the outside said Renoir.
Behind her, light flared, illuminating the room, and she turned to look over her shoulder where
Shane had found an old lantern. She glanced back at the crate in front of her. “No way that can be
real.”
“Here.” Shane handed her a crowbar.
“Where did you get this?” She took it. Set her backpack on the floor.
“It was by the lantern.”
“You guys are not gonna believe this,” Billy said from across the room. “These boxes are labeled
van Gogh, Picasso, Monet, Adams, O’Keeffe, Rubens, Manet.”
Hailey’s heart rate picked up as she slid the crowbar between the wood. Shane braced his hands on
the box to hold it steady. “Go for it,” he said.
She pulled, and the front of the box popped open. Shredded paper and stuffing spilled out. She
reached in, pulled the cover off the painting and simply stared at the famous image of a black pitcher full of multicolored flowers.
“Anemones,” Billy said behind her. “1898. Holy shit.”
“How do you know the name—” Hailey began.
He reached over her shoulder for a sheet of paper that had been stuck between the wrapping and the
painting. “This used to be in Pete’s collection. I remember seeing it at Odyssey.” He snapped open
the envelope with the words Odyssey Gallery stamped on the outside and extracted the papers. “It’s
the provenance.” He looked up with wide eyes. “It’s real. This painting alone is worth a small fortune.”
Hailey turned to look over the hundreds of boxes stacked in the room. They couldn’t all be real,
could they? Sure, her father had been an avid art collector, but most of his stuff wasn’t worth much
and meant little to anyone but him.
A strange pounding started in her stomach, worked its way up her chest until it felt like her heart
was going to come out of her skin. She moved around the room, her eyes running over names she
recognized but could barely believe, until she came to one marked Cellini.