TheCrystal Read online

  Blessed or damned with the healthy sexual appetite of a young animal, he could picture her vividly as she would look without the wearisome nightshirt, the perfectly formed breasts, the long, long legs and slender rib cage.

  Beads of sweat popped out on his forehead. He cursed savagely. He should have taken her ditzy friend up on her blatant invitation.

  He pushed away from the house and stole through the shadows toward his car. To hell with it, he couldn’t get to the crystal with the dog there. And the dog could certainly take care of Leaky, if the man was stupid enough to disregard his warning.

  * * * * *

  In the downtown district, a light was burning in the back of one of the small shops. “I don’t care what you threaten me with you’ll have to send someone else after that crystal. I’m telling you it was The Tiger that threatened me tonight. I saw the ring just before he lashed it across my face.” Leaky dabbed at his oozing lip with a dirty handkerchief, then swearing, dabbed at his arm. “I’m telling you get yourself another boy,” he said, and slammed down the phone.

  Chapter Six

  Bright sunlight streaming in through the window woke Gabby. That and Ned whining to go out and Jericho howling for his breakfast.

  She stretched and glanced at her alarm clock. The large glowing-red numbers read ten o’clock. She jumped out of bed. She hadn’t meant to sleep so late!

  Last night came flooding back, the party, Christopher Saint, the man outside her house and the bodiless voice telling her to call the police prefaced by the term idiot.

  She glanced at the piece of dark blue cloth sitting on her dresser and sighed. There was no way around it. She would have to call, but not before a good strong cup of coffee.

  Throwing on her clothes, Gabby ran a brush through her hair, took care of her pets and made coffee. The smell of fresh ground beans filled the air.

  It wasn’t ’til her second cup that she had built up enough courage to call the police.

  She plopped down on the couch and dialed.

  An impersonal voice came on the line.

  “I’d like to speak to Sergeant Bell,” Gabby said.

  “Gabby, is that you?”

  “Yes, Agnes,” Gabby responded in a resigned voice.

  “Are you working on anything?”

  “Err, yes, I’ve got a story going.” Which was almost true.

  “Just a minute, I’ll get Jimmy. It was good talking to you.”

  “You too, Agnes.” Liar, liar pants on fire. Talking to Agnes was like, well, being interrogated by the police.

  A gruff, familiar voice came over the phone. “Gabby?”

  “Hi, Daddy.”

  The Tiger, who’d managed to elude his clinging date long enough to slip a listening device on Ms. Bell’s phone before they left the party, went reeling. Daddy! He put his head in his hands and groaned. Could things get any worse?

  “Gabriella, what’s wrong?” Sergeant Bell demanded.

  Gabby stalled. “Why, Daddy, what makes you think anything is wrong?”

  “You never call me at work, unless something is wrong. Now quit stalling and spill it.”

  “Uh, there was a man lurking about last night.” She forestalled her parent’s explosion, adding hastily, “Not to worry, Neddy ran him off.” Then to her horror, she heard herself say, “And I heard this voice outside telling me to call the police.”

  Christopher clutched his hair and wanted to howl.

  She heard a muffled sound on the other end of the phone. Long experience told her it was her father breathing heavily through his nose. He did that when he was really, really upset.

  The sergeant’s voice was suspiciously soft. “How much did you drink at that party of yours, Gabriella?”

  Gabby held the phone away from her ear and looked at it, then put it back against her ear. “How did you know about the party?” she demanded.

  “Mr. Edison called and complained.” Mr. Edison was a short, balding, seventy-year-old curmudgeon who lived at the end of the block and called the police regularly with some complaint or another. “Why you had to move into that crummy little house, on that crummy street instead of living at home is beyond me. I’ll be right over.”

  Before she could respond, the phone clicked. Gabby sighed. Who would ever guess her parent was a child of the Sixties. The freedom movement seemed to have passed him by.

  She looked at her watch. Gabby figured she had five minutes before her father came roaring down the street, sirens blaring. It was another reason some of her neighbors didn’t like her. She was sure the thirty-thousand-plus car parked next door hadn’t come from working at the local department store. People were in and out of that house at all hours. Oh well, live and let live was her motto.

  Gabby got up and tripped over a beer bottle. “Damn!” She rushed around plucking it and its dozen or so companions, up and headed for the kitchen, the bottles clanging against each other as they hit the trash.

  She was just spraying Lysol in the air, making wide loops with her arm, when her dad walked in.

  Ned jumped up barking enthusiastically.

  Jimmy made a face as he inhaled disinfectant fumes, grabbed his daughter and hugged her. She got her height from her dad. Her dad stood well over six foot, while her mother had barely topped five foot.

  The years had been kind to Jimmy Bell. Other than a bit of a paunch around the middle and his blond hair a bit grayer, he was still a fine figure of a man as Gabby’s mother used to say. He held her at arm’s length and studied her.

  Gabby fought a desire to squirm as she stared back. He threw a ham-like arm around her, led her to the couch and pulled her down beside him. The worn sofa creaked as they settled into it. “So how about telling me what’s been going on, my girl.”

  “There’s really not that much to tell,” she protested.

  He waited.

  “Oh all right. It all started when I bought this green crystal ball.”

  Jimmy listened without interruption as she told him about the shop owner offering to buy it back for twice its worth and Ned running off a stranger lurking in the backyard. Then she handed him the torn cloth.

  Her father studied it, placed it in a plastic bag and put it in his pocket. “And what about this voice telling you to call the police?”

  “I probably imagined it,” Gabby sighed, winding her hair into a ponytail and knotting it.

  Her dad stood up. “Well, let’s see the blamed thing.”

  “You, you want to see it?” she stuttered, looking at him in dismay.

  “Something wrong with your hearing, girl? Yes, I want to see it.”

  Dragging herself into the bedroom, she prayed Saint didn’t pick that moment to materialize in her ball. Her father stopped in the middle of the room. “What the hell kind of getup is that?” he roared.

  Gabby mentally kicked herself. She’d forgotten to pick up her gypsy outfit from the floor where it had landed in a heap.

  “Chill, Dad. I was telling fortunes last night.”

  “Hope one of them wasn’t ‘You’re going to get lucky tonight’,” he muttered.

  “Dad!” She exclaimed, scandalized by her plain-speaking, policeman father.

  “Sorry. Let’s see that globe.”

  Reluctantly, she pulled off the shiny, multicolored shawl.

  To her relief, the globe sat quietly. No glowing colors. No hard-edged face staring back at her.

  Her father rubbed his chin. She grinned at the raspy sound. For a blond, her father had a heavy beard.

  “It’s pretty enough, but I don’t see anything special about it.”

  She took his arm and led him out of the room before he did. “Dad, would you do something for me?”

  He stopped and fixed an eagle eye on her. “Gabriella Josephine Bell.”

  Gabby winced. Josephine was her mother’s name.

  “You aren’t going to ask me to run a make on someone are you? That’s taking advantage of my position you know.”

  “I know,
Dad.”

  “You got a wild hair about a story don’t you?” he said disapprovingly. Her father had no problem with her working, just the fact that she wasn’t working on a regular basis.

  “Sort of.”

  “What do you mean sort of?”

  “I’d like you to find out what you can about a man named Christopher Saint,” she said slowly. “I think he’s tied up somehow with the globe. And there’s so much interest in my crystal ball that I think I’ll do an exposé on it, could be my big break, Dad.”

  “So why do you think this Christopher Saint is tied up with your globe?”

  As much as she loved her father, Gabby had no intention of telling him about seeing Christopher’s face in the crystal. Her father’s flat feet were too firmly planted on terra firma to take that story seriously.

  “Just a feeling,” Gabby replied.

  “A feeling?” her father’s left eyebrow rose, his expression skeptical.

  “He showed up about the same time the globe did.”

  “Ah,” her father said, looking happier. “Now that’s something that makes sense.”

  He kissed her forehead. “Okay, honey, I’ll check on it for you. In the meantime, I’ll have a squad car patrol the area.”

  “Thanks, Dad.” It was just as well, she didn’t have a love life. Even if she was twenty-six, her father still frowned on that sort of thing.

  She watched as he let himself out then went and poured herself another cup of coffee.

  As she drank her coffee and read the Sunday paper, her conversation with her cop-parent played about in her mind. Why not do a story on the globe? See if she could dig up its history.

  Giving in to an impulse, she set aside her paper, grabbed her purse and car keys and headed for the door.

  She spent the rest of the morning at the library where she pored over books relating to crystal balls and their history.

  Finally, she got up, stretched and rubbed her neck. Gabby had become interested in spite of herself. Apparently, the Curie brothers had discovered that if a slice of quartz was mechanically compressed it became electrically charged. Piezoelectricity she believed they called it.

  She thought her ball was probably either green quartz or green tourmaline. Tourmaline would certainly explain the color changes. Known as the crystallized kaleidoscope, tourmaline provided an overwhelming abundance of color.

  Green was supposedly connected with the fourth chakra, which pertained to matters of the heart. It also represented constant love. She shrugged her shoulders unsure what that had to do with the crystal or its history.

  Picking up one of the books, she went to the counter to check out. It was a book on legends and she was hoping it would shed some light on her ball.

  “You owe $4.20 in overdue fines, Ms. Bell,” the young lady behind the counter told her from pursed, prim lips.

  Gabby rolled her eyes, but dug through her purse ’til she found four ones and two dimes.

  “It’s due in two weeks.”

  Gabby nodded, grabbed her book and hurried out.

  The phone was ringing when she got home. “Yes,” she answered breathlessly.

  “You stay away from that ne’er-do-well.”

  “Dad?” She took the phone away from her ear and looked at it.

  “Who else would it be?” His irritation radiated right through the phone line.

  “What did you find out?”

  “That he’s a dilettante hand in glove with a cat burglar that goes by the name of The Tiger.”

  Gabby felt her eyes narrow. Hand in glove with a thief? I knew that man was up to no good. “The Tiger?”

  “I don’t want you…”

  Years of experience had taught Gabby she wouldn’t get any more information out of her father. Better to nip the lecture in the bud now, before he worked up a real head of steam. Gabby interrupted. “He steals cats?” She rolled her eyes. Duh, Gabby.

  “Of course not,” her father said impatiently. “He steals jewels.”

  “Then why did you say cats?”

  Her father gave a long-suffering sigh. “Just stay away from him.”

  The dial tone sounded in Gabby’s ear as her father cut the connection.

  Chapter Seven

  Christopher watched from the AT&B Cable van as Ms. Bell pulled out of her driveway. It had taken a hefty bribe to borrow the truck for a few hours. But the driver had been young and he’d fallen for the tale about Christopher having a bet with some frat buddies that he could pass himself off as a cable repairman.

  As soon as Gabby turned the corner, Christopher got out of the van. He picked up a navy duffel bag lying on the seat. Looking up and down the street, he walked to the porch. If anyone saw him, they’d just think the owner of the house was having cable problems. Taking a lock pick out of his pocket, he opened the door.

  The dog stood in front of him, his fur on end, his teeth drawn back in a silent snarl.

  He’d been expecting just such a greeting. When no one was looking, he’d filched one of Ms. Bell’s tops at the party. Earlier today he’d rubbed it over his clothes so he’d have her scent on them.

  The animal sniffed, confused then sniffed again.

  “Good boy.” Christopher slipped cautiously inside, reached in his pocket and drew out a plastic baggie filled with strips of steak he’d brought as an added inducement.

  He opened the bag and held one out. The dog’s tail began to wag. “So you can be bought huh, boy?”

  The cat came running into the room. He didn’t bother saying hello, just grabbed the strip from Christopher’s hand and ran off, the meat dangling from his jaws.

  He handed the dog the rest, scratched him behind the ears then ruffled his fur. It was like patting a giant cotton ball. The animal was completely won over.

  Christopher walked into the bedroom. The room smelled of raspberries or some other fruity scent, overladen with a strong smell of dog. He found the globe on the bookcase, sitting in a bowl lined with tissue paper, Ms. Bell’s gypsy shawl thrown over it. He grinned, how appropriate.

  Pulling off the brightly colored cloth, he studied the ball. For the life of him, he couldn’t figure out what all the fuss was about. He’d never really paid any attention to it when his aunt had it. These things were a dime a dozen and certainly not in Leaky or his associate’s line. And then there was the added puzzle of who had hired Leaky.

  Picking it up, he walked to the window and opened the curtains for a bit more light. For a moment the sun shone full on the globe. He squinted as he studied it. For the first time, he noticed the core of the globe. It was similar to the rest of the crystal, but had more fire and brilliance.

  Christopher took a step closer. He pulled out the loupe he always carried in his pants pocket and examined the ball.

  He gave a low whistle. “Good God. This certainly gives new meaning to the term fortune telling,” he murmured to himself and grinned. “All these years, Aunt Tam and you never said a word. I wonder if you know and if you know, if you care.”

  He drew a leather wallet from his hip pocket. Opening it, he pulled out twenty hundred dollar bills. The new bills rustled crisply between his fingertips. He tossed them on the bedside table. That should compensate the tiresome woman for her loss.

  As he stared down at the money lying carelessly on the table, he felt an unfamiliar twinge. The girl had bought the green stone in good faith, an innocent victim of the dark currents swirling in the underworld.

  He gave himself a mental shake. He must be getting soft. He picked up the globe. It was cold as ice. The chill of it seeped through to his very bones.

  Quickly, Christopher stuffed it in the duffel bag then blew on his hands to warm them. The globe was his Aunt Tam’s, he reminded himself. He was merely returning it to its rightful owner.

  Christopher zipped up the bag and carried it out of the room. The Chow-mix followed him to the door, his tail wagging. He bent over and patted him. “Good dog.”

  He glanced at the cat
. The Siamese stared at him enigmatically, his blue eyes glowing, his tail twitching. When no more food was forthcoming, the cat stalked away.

  Christopher walked out of the house.

  Reaching the van, he opened the passenger door and laid the duffel bag on the seat then strode to the driver’s side and got in.

  He pulled a pair of sunglasses out of his jacket pocket, put them on, started the motor and threw the van in gear. As he pulled away from the curb, Ms. Bell pulled in.

  He watched her in the rearview mirror. Her expression was curious then her eyes widened.

  “Damn it,” Christopher muttered under his breath. A New Orleans Saints ball cap was jammed on his head. He wore a dark blue repairman’s jacket with the initials AT&B monogrammed in white across the pocket and dark glasses covered his eyes. The woman should have never recognized him. But she had. He was certain of it.

  He leaned closer to the rearview mirror and cursed. The blasted female was pulling out of her drive, intent on following him. He knew it! He knew that woman was going to be trouble from the day she’d run full tilt into him in the rain.

  He increased his speed then swerved as a dog ran out in front of him.

  Glancing in his mirror, he grinned saying, “Good doggie.” The woman, a look of intense frustration on her face, screeched to a stop. She sat waiting for the stupid animal to decide which side of the road it was headed for.

  Up ahead the yellow light blinked to red. He pushed down the pedal and shot forward.

  Christopher looked in his rearview mirror. Ms. Bell had tried to follow, but she’d had to throw on her brakes at the last minute as the traffic came whizzing across South Grand.

  Sticking his arm out the window he waved, then turned right, whistling cheerfully.

  He took a few more turns, then picked up his cell phone and dialed. “Bring my car to the intersection at North Grand and Davy Jones Parkway. Be here in five minutes and I’ll give you an extra two hundred.” He punched the off button then swung the van onto the shoulder.