Secret Star
Stars of Mithra
Book Three
Nora Roberts
He was standing face-to-face with a dead woman… and she was holding a gun. Lieutenant Seth Buchanan’s homicide investigation—and his heart—were thrown into turmoil when Grace Fontaine turned up very much alive—and in possession of one of the huge blue diamonds known as the Stars of Mithra.
The cool, controlled cop never let his feelings get in the way of his job, and everything he knew about the notorious heiress told him she was poison. But in her irresistible presence, it was hard to remember there was any mystery more important to solve than that of Grace herself.
To generous hearts
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter 1
The woman in the portrait had a face created to steal a man’s breath and haunt his dreams. It was, perhaps, as close to perfection as nature would allow. Eyes of laser blue whispered of sex and smiled knowingly from beneath thick black lashes. The brows were perfectly arched, with a flirty little mole dotting the downward point of the left one. The skin was porcelain-pure, with a hint of warm rose beneath—just warm enough that a man could fantasize that heat was kindling only for him. The nose was straight and finely sculpted.
The mouth—and, oh, the mouth was hard to ignore—was curved invitingly, appeared pillow-soft, yet strong in shape. A bold red temptation that beckoned as clearly as a siren’s call.
Framing that staggering face was a rich, wild tumble of ebony hair that streamed over creamy bare shoulders. Glossy, gorgeous, generous. The kind of hair even a strong man would lose himself in—fisting his hands in all that black silk, while his mouth sank deep, and deeper, into those soft, smiling lips.
Grace Fontaine, Seth thought, a study in the perfection of feminine beauty.
It was too damn bad she was dead.
He turned away from the portrait, annoyed that his gaze and his mind kept drifting back to it. He’d wanted some time alone at the crime scene, after the forensic team finished, after the M.E. took possession of the body. The outline remained, an ugly human-shaped silhouette marring the glossy chestnut floor.
It was simple enough to determine how she’d died. A nasty tumble from the floor above, right through the circling railing, now splintered and sharp-edged, and down, beautiful face first, into the lake-size glass table.
She’d lost her beauty in death, he thought, and that was a damn shame, too.
It was also simple to determine that she’d been given some help with that last dive.
It was, he mused, looking around, a terrific house. The high ceilings offered space and half a dozen generous skylights gave light, rosy, hopeful beams from the dying sun. Everything curved—the stairs, the doorways, the windows. Female again, he supposed. The wood was glossy, the glass sparkling, the furniture all obviously carefully selected antiques.
Someone was going to have a tough time getting the bloodstains out of the dove-gray upholstery of the sofa.
He tried to imagine how it had all looked before whoever helped Grace Fontaine off the balcony stormed through the rooms.
There wouldn’t have been broken statuary or ripped cushions. Flowers would have been meticulously arranged in vases, rather than crushed into the intricate pattern of the Oriental rugs.
There certainly wouldn’t have been blood, broken glass, or layers of fingerprint dust.
She’d lived well, he thought. But then, she had been able to afford to live well. She’d become an heiress when she turned twenty-one, the privileged, pampered orphan and the wild child of the Fontaine empire. An excellent education, a country-club darling, and the headache, he imagined, of the conservative and staunch Fontaines, of Fontaine Department Stores fame.
Rarely had a week gone by that Grace Fontaine didn’t warrant a mention in the society pages of the Washington Post, or a paparazzi shot in one of the glossies. And it usually hadn’t been due to a good deed.
The press would be screaming with this latest, and last, adventure in the life and times of Grace Fontaine, Seth knew, the moment the news leaked. And they would be certain to mention all of her escapades. Posing nude at nineteen for a centerfold spread, the steamy and very public affair with a very married English lord, the dalliance with a hot heartthrob from Hollywood.
There’d been other notches in her designer belt, Seth remembered. A United States senator, a bestselling author, the artist who had painted her portrait, the rock star who, rumor had it, had attempted to take his own life when she dumped him.
She’d packed a lot of men into a short life.
Grace Fontaine was dead at twenty-six.
It was his job to find out not only the how, but the who. And the why.
He had a line on the why already. The Three Stars of Mithra—a fortune in blue diamonds, the impulsive and desperate act of a friend, and greed.
Seth frowned as he walked through the empty house, cataloging the events that had brought him to this place, to this point. Since he had a personal interest in mythology, had since childhood, he knew something about the Three Stars. They were the stuff of legends, and had once been grouped in a gold triangle that had been held in the hands of a statue of the god Mithra.
One stone for love, he remembered, skimming through details as he climbed the curved stairs to the second level. One for knowledge, and the last for generosity. Mythologically speaking, whoever possessed the Stars gained the god’s power. And immortality.
Which was, logically, a crock, of course. Wasn’t it odd, though, he mused, that he’d been dreaming lately of flashing blue stones, a dark castle shrouded in mist, a room of glinting gold? And there was a man with eyes as pale as death, he thought, trying to clear the hazy details. And a woman with the face of a goddess.
And his own violent death.
Seth shook off the uneasy sensation that accompanied his recalling the snippets of dreams. What he required now were facts, basic, logical facts. And the fact was that three blue diamonds weighing something over a hundred carats apiece were worth six kings’ ransoms. And someone wanted them, and didn’t mind killing to gain possession.
He had bodies piling up like cordwood, he thought, dragging a hand through his dark hair. In order of death, the first had been Thomas Salvini, part owner of Salvini, gem experts who had been contracted by the Smithsonian Institutions to verify and assess the three stones. Evidence pointed to the fact that verifying and assessing hadn’t been quite enough for Thomas Salvini, or his twin, Timothy.
Over a million in cash indicated that they’d had other plans—and a client who wanted the Stars for himself.
Added to that was the statement from one Bailey James, the Salvinis’ stepsister, and eyewitness to fratricide. A gemologist with an impeccable reputation, she claimed to have discovered her stepbrothers’ plans to copy the