Cursed (5 page)

Exasperated, Hope pulled out of
his embrace, stood up from the desk, and faced him. “This is serious. I’ve
heard a lot about Morelli. He has a solid arrest record, he’s honest to a
fault, and the man never quits. I’ve known who he was for a while but we’ve
never really connected involving a particular case. My case load is mostly
homicide, but I can ask around and see if I can find out more about the
investigation.” 

She raised her hand and tapped
her index finger against her lower lip in thought, then shifted her gaze to
Cullinan. “I bet he thinks the Dove is back in circulation.”

“Why would he think that?”  

His indulgent tone irritated her.
She wanted to smack him. Hope tilted her head to the side and studied him. Her
next statement should jar him out of his mental apathy. “A white feather was
left behind at the crime scene.”

Cullinan’s congenial demeanor
faded into a serious expression. “Really.”  His tone was reflective. “No
mention of it in the paper.”

“Abel wants to keep that part of
the case quiet.”  She lifted her briefcase from the chair. “I wonder if
this is a random theft by someone impersonating the Dove or something far more
serious.”  Her voice trailed away. Would this theft eventually lead to the
Dove’s secret being revealed? She shuddered to think of that happening. Her
father would turn over in his grave if it became public.

Cullinan shrugged, his expression
changing back to indifference. “So what if they are?”

Hope laid a hand on his arm. “How
can you be so cavalier?” Her voice rose. “You of all people should care about
Dad and the mission he worked toward completing practically his whole
life.”  She sure as hell did especially after…  She pushed back the
weariness of sadness and guilt that threatened to dampen her mood even further.

His lips thinned as his amber
gaze shifted to hers. “Of course I cared about Dad, but he’s gone, Hope.” 
His voice was cool. “Now his unfinished mission is up to me. Whoever left that
feather behind can’t possibly know the truth.”  He gestured with his hand.
He put on his jacket, walked over to the front door and flipped the sign
hanging in the door’s window to closed.

Hope stood where she was with her
arms folded over her chest. “Okay. Would you like a list of the stolen items?”

Cullinan looked at her briefly as
he turned a key in the door’s main interior lock. “What does it matter?”

“Besides some cash and a few
bonds, they stole a pendant, a very rare and expensive pendant.”  She used
her courtroom voice, the one she implemented during opening remarks in a new
case. “A piece that is worth more intact than it would be if the stone was
removed from the setting and sold separately.”

Cullinan finished locking up. He
walked to a set of switches on the wall and turned a couple of knobs dimming
the interior lights.

“It might have even hung around
Marie Antoinette’s neck before the French citizenry led her to the guillotine
and--” She made a slashing motion across her throat.

“You think it could be
the
pendant?”

Hope shrugged one shoulder. “I
don’t know. Maybe.”

“We’ve found at least half a
dozen forgeries over the years. Just because the pendant might have been worn
by Marie Antoinette doesn’t really mean anything. I’m sure she owned a lot of
jewelry.”

“You’re right, but guess who the
pendant belonged to?”  She varied the pitch of her voice only slightly.

Cullinan walked to her side.
“Abel’s late-wife?”

Hope straightened the collar of
her coat and looked him in the eye. “Try former sister-in-law.”

He frowned. “It was Tess’s
pendant?  Why would she keep it at Abel’s?”

“She kept it there temporarily
while the setting was being checked. Abel convinced Tess no one could access
his safe.”

Cullinan raked a hand through his
mink-colored hair and was silent for a moment. He exhaled a heavy sigh and stared
across the darkened shop.

Hope listened to the faint
ticking of a few clocks in the shop along with the moaning wind outside as it
buffeted the store windows. She cared so much for her brother and wanted to protect
him and his secret any way she could. But what if she wasn’t there for him when
he really needed her?  She hadn’t been there for her father and he ended
up…dead.

“Only someone did access the
safe.”  Cullinan’s quiet words interrupted her thoughts. “But why Abel’s
house? Why rob the D.A.? They would have to know he’d be after them with
everything he had.”

Hope sighed. “Yes, it’s odd.
Someone must have known the pendant was in the safe and stole it for a specific
reason. Greed?  To get back at Abel?  God knows, he’s helped send
enough criminals to jail.”  She tucked a stray piece of hair behind her
ear as another thought occurred to her. “Or did they steal it for a much higher
purpose?”

“Maybe they stole it to prove a
point with Abel and never had any intention of selling it.”  Cullinan
shrugged. “We could speculate forever. We don’t even know if it is
the
pendant.
Besides, no one knows of its existence except us, remember?”

A terrible fear shuddered through
Hope’s body. “What if someone else
did
know about the pendant and its
power?  What then?”

Cullinan shook his head.
“Impossible. Only those of us in the order know about the pendant.”

Hope pushed her fear away.
“You’re right. The thief must have had inside information about the safe’s
contents, but according to Abel, he was the only one who knew the pendant

was in the safe.”

Cullinan turned and stared at
Hope. “Except Tess.”

Loyalty to her best friend rose
up inside her. “You don’t believe that Tess arranged to have her own pendant
stolen, do you?”

Cullinan shook his head. “No.
Maybe the connection we’re looking for doesn’t have to do with Abel but with
Tess.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that maybe she
confided this information to someone close to her, besides you. You knew Tess’s
pendant was at Abel’s, right?”

Hope stopped to button her coat
and lowered her head, avoiding his question. Cullinan tilted her chin up with
the tip of his finger. “You did know the pendant was there.”

She shook her head. “No, I
didn’t. I knew she had--” She bit off the words she was about to utter and
continued fastening her coat.

Cullinan dropped his hand to his
side. “You knew she had what?”

“Never mind, Tess swore me to
secrecy.”

Her brother scowled at her.
“Sometimes secrets have a way of coming out and stabbing you right in the
heart.”  He snapped out the words with bitterness.

Regret gripped Hope deep inside,
making her wish she could take back her words. She laid a hand on his arm. “I’m
sorry. Please, let’s not dig up that old ground.”

Cullinan curved his mouth into a
fake, but pleasing smile, one he’d perfected over the years as a way of hiding
his true feelings. Only Hope knew him too well. “Water under the bridge.”

Water under the bridge, my
foot
, Hope thought. She was
too tired to hash it out tonight. Cullinan opened the back door. A gust of
frigid wind danced inside, bringing sleet along with it. The bits of ice hit
Hope’s face like tiny pinpricks. She shivered against the cold. Hope reached
for a pair of leather gloves she had shoved into her coat pocket, put them on,
and looked outside. Street lamps glowed along the narrow street that ran behind
the store. The sleet had begun to coat the asphalt in a layer of white. “I have
to be careful about asking too many questions because Abel might get
suspicious.” Had the tense moment passed?  She never liked being at odds
with her brother. He was the only family she had left. “Maybe you could talk to
some of your old contacts, see if anybody knows anything.”  The wind
nearly took her breath.

After Cullinan set the alarm and
secured the back door, they headed for his black SUV. “I’ll ask around, I
promise.”

Sleet, as white as the feathers
the Dove used to leave behind after a theft, crunched under Hope’s boots. It
made her think of her father and the search that had consumed his life. Her
temper flared. “Whoever this person is, I want them found.”  She gave her
head a little shake. “Abel said the thief damaged the safe door. Obviously he
didn’t know beans about cracking a safe.”

Cullinan grinned as he opened the
passenger door for her. “You miss it, don’t you?”

They were back on solid footing
again. Hope returned his smile and shrugged. “A little,” she murmured as she
climbed inside the freezing truck. Yeah, she missed it more than she cared to
admit.

* * *

The next morning, Nick rapped on
the door to the district office of the chief of detectives, John Ruly. He heard
a loud “Come in” echo from inside. All around him, phones rang incessantly and
a myriad of voices blended with the sound of a radio playing country music.

As Nick opened the door, Chief
Ruly cursed softly and gave his left hand a couple of quick shakes. Nick saw a
coffee stain spreading over the cuff of the chief’s pristine white shirt.

He shut the door and shrugged out of his
leather jacket.

The chief turned, gave him a
brief glance and then mopped at the stain on his shirt with a napkin.
“Morelli.” His greeting was delivered in his usual brisk manner. “Have a seat.”

Chief Ruly had the voice of a
veteran smoker; deep and raspy with a little grating sound around the edge of
it. “Just wanted to give you an update on the D.A.’s case,” Nick said as he
walked to a chair sitting in front of the chief’s desk and sat down.

The chief added more coffee to
his cup, then dumped in several packets of sugar and gave it a couple of stirs
with a plastic spoon. “Good. Chief Palmera has already called me twice today
and it’s not even noon. He’s like a stray dog gnawing at a T-bone.”

Nick noticed a few files stacked
around the perimeter of the desk. Photos of the chief’s wife and kids were
jammed in between the phone, a bobble-head doll of Rockies baseball player Todd
Helton, and a cheap desk lamp. The lamp’s green shade sported a couple of small
blisters from the light bulb’s heat.

The chief turned from the coffee
pot and slurped some coffee through his thin lips. He wore dark blue slacks
with a black leather belt that hung a little loose around his thin waist. A
navy-blue tie loosened at his throat emphasized the bulge of his Adam’s apple.
His silver and gold badge, pinned to the front pocket of his shirt, glimmered
in the light.

After shuffling to his green
metal desk, the chief set the cup down on top of the desk blotter. He pulled
out his desk chair, sat down and looked at Nick with a pair of shrewd blue
eyes. “I picked you to handle this case because you’re a damn good cop with an
excellent record.”  One corner of his mouth curved up. “Your only drawback
is your pretty boy looks,” he teased in a wry tone.

Nick winced inwardly. He’d heard
it a thousand times. He was aware that one of the most desirable attributes in
a detective was to appear physically average and inconspicuous. His looks had
definitely been a detriment to his chosen field. He’d had to work harder to
push himself ahead of the other candidates in the selection process. The chief
was right. If it hadn’t been for his solid record, he wouldn’t have been culled
from the ranks of patrol officers.

“Get solid evidence so we can
make an arrest,” the chief continued. “The sooner we close this case, the
sooner my boss will start sniffing in another direction. Now, what have you
got?”

Nick was required to give his
boss an update on every aspect of the case no matter how trivial, per request
from the chief of police, Frank Palmera. “First, I went by to see the gardener
who was injured during the theft.”

Nick frowned, remembering the
sight of his old friend and gardening mentor, Sam, lying in a sterile hospital
bed with tubes sticking out of him and a sickly pallor covering his tanned
skin.

The chief took another sip of his
coffee. “Yeah, how’s he doing?”

Nick rubbed a hand over the back
of his neck. “He’s out of the coma, but he’s still too doped up to talk.”

“Too bad. Find out anything from
that antique place down in Lodo?”

At the mention of the antique
shop, instead of thinking of Cullinan Benedict, Nick’s first thought was of
Benedict’s sister, Hope, with her pretty eyes and long legs. He smiled.

“What’s so funny?”

Nick sat up straight, feeling foolish
that the chief had caught him thinking about Hope Benedict. He shook his head.
“Nothing. Benedict, the owner of the shop, was friendly at first until I showed
him my badge. I saw a jade egg in his shop that I know was stolen. He claimed
it belonged to his father.” Nick paused, pursing his lips in thought. “Guy’s
got no arrest record, but I don’t think he’s clean. He’s too young to be the
Dove, but he might be a copycat because the style of burglary coupled with
someone being hurt wasn’t the Dove’s usual M.O.” A copy cat would make it
harder for him to find the real Dove. “It could be the Dove’s come out of
retirement and when he got caught in the act, he panicked.”