Death is Forever

more often than Paris fashions, where betrayal was the only thing that could be trusted.
    Her father’s world.
    Her brother Phil’s world.
    Her ex-fiancé’s world.
    Erin’s head moved in an abrupt, negative gesture that sent streamers of hair sliding across her cheek. Automatically she brushed the strands aside. Just as automatically she brushed aside memories that had nothing new to teach her. Treachery existed. Betrayal existed. She accepted that.
    But she no longer existed for them.
    Seven years ago she’d been a victim in an undeclared war. She wasn’t a victim any more. She’d learned to defend her body with techniques both ancient and modern. She’d learned to defend her mind by discovering other worlds, incredible worlds, places where ice was alive and mountains radiated light, places where people laughed and shared their last bite of food with a hungry stranger, places where death existed, yes, but as a natural extension of life processes rather than as a premeditated act of perversion and political power.
    Perhaps there was even a place out there where the incredible green stone was real, a place where the restlessness in her body would be stilled, a place where she could trust men again.
    And if not all men, then at least one.
    “That’s the question, isn’t it?” Erin asked herself softly. “You can’t answer that question alone. What’s important is the future, not the past.”
    The phone felt cool in Erin’s hand, smooth, an impossibly perfect surface against her sensitive skin. It was the thing she found most startling about civilization, all rough surfaces smoothed into a beguiling perfection. A false perfection, because beneath the surface terrible things seethed, waiting to explode into life. The primitive world was exactly opposite, its rough surfaces concealing a serenity of emotion that was beguiling…and also, in its own beautiful way, false.
    Primitive and civilized shared one central truth: Death always waited for the unwary, the unlucky, or the unwise.
    But life also waited, a fire burning beneath ice.
    Erin punched in the telephone number that remained the same no matter where her father happened to be stationed at any given time. When the phone was answered, she spoke quietly, clearly, and hung up.
    Then she sat on the bed, stared at the handful of stones that could be diamonds or glass, and waited for Matthew Windsor to be summoned by his beeper to return his daughter’s call.

8
Beverly Hills
    People don’t walk up to you and hand you a million bucks in a tin box. Not in the real world. Not even in the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. It’s just flashy glass, baby. Next time this Blackburn guy calls he’ll be selling you a map to the mine.
    Matthew Windsor’s cool, faintly impatient voice echoed in Erin’s ears as she stared at the phone she’d just hung up. She hissed out a curse. Part of her agreed with her father. Another part of her believed that the stones were real, because Cole Blackburn was real.
    All too real.
    She turned away from the phone but couldn’t stop thinking about the conversation. After a few more verbal pats on the head, her father had agreed to make “discreet inquiries around D.C.” for Erin. When—and if—he had anything interesting, he would call.
    She hadn’t argued. As a senior officer of the Central Intelligence Agency, her father had access to every database in the government, from the FBI to the U.S. Geological Survey.
    She was still running the conversation through her mind when the phone rang. The instant she picked up the receiver, her father began speaking in a clipped voice.
    “Describe Cole Blackburn,” Windsor said.
    “Big,” Erin said, running through a kaleidoscope of impressions in her mind. “Even bigger than Phil. Not fat. Hard. Caucasian. American accent. Intelligent. Confident. Moves well. Black hair. Gray eyes. Well-defined mouth, off-center smile. Faint scar along left jawline. Random scars on his hands. Big hands, by the way. Long fingers. No rings. Expensive clothes but not fancy. There’s nothing fancy about the man. In all, I suspect he’d make a bad enemy.”
    Windsor grunted. “You’ve got a good eye. That’s Blackburn to a T.”
    “I’m a photographer, remember? I make my living looking at things.” She waited. Only silence came over the line. “What’s going on, Dad? Is Cole Blackburn a con man?”
    “I can’t go into it on the phone, baby.”
    Anger flashed through Erin. Part of it sprang from