Fired Up

Hell, so was I. But enough about me. How is Phyllis doing? I miss her wise counsel.”
    “My aunt is doing great. She still takes calls from old clients. You should give her a ring.”
    “I’ll do that,” Drake said. He flicked a look of veiled assessment at Jack and then turned back to her. “I’m curious to know how you found out that I owned the lamp. I bought it last year from an online dealer. You two are the first people who have asked me about it.”
    “Finding things like the lamp is what I do,” Chloe said. “As my aunt explained to you on the phone, Mr. Winters hired me to locate it. He’s considering acquiring it for his collection.”
    Drake looked at Jack. “And what’s your interest in it?”
    “Family heirloom,” Jack said. “It got lost during a cross-country move several years ago.”
    “You must come from a rather interesting family,” Drake said.
    “Why do you say that?” Jack asked.
    “Call it a hunch based on what you consider a valuable family heirloom,” Drake said drily.
    “What made you decide to buy it?” Jack asked.
    “Beats me.” Drake moved one hand in a vague manner. “I was approached online by a dealer shortly after one of the major design magazines did a spread on this place. The guy convinced me that he had a genuine late-seventeenth-century lamp with an interesting history that would look terrific in my house. Claimed it was made out of gold and decorated with a lot of good gemstones. What can I say? I was interested.”
    “You agreed to buy it sight unseen?” Chloe asked.
    “Of course not,” Drake said. “I told him I wanted it evaluated by an expert first. I invited him to bring the lamp here to Vegas. I planned to have a local authority I know take a look at it.”
    Chloe nodded. “Edward Harper. He’s one of my uncles.”
    “That’s right. My interior designer used him for a lot of the pieces she put into this place.”
    “Uncle Edward was the person who told me that you might have the lamp,” she said. “But he couldn’t confirm it. He said he never actually saw it. Who did you get to examine and appraise the lamp?”
    “No one,” Drake said. He drank some coffee and leaned back in his chair. “The morning after I informed the online dealer that I had arranged for the evaluation, the crate containing the lamp showed up on my doorstep. There was no invoice, no delivery papers, no records of any kind. I went back online and tried to find the dealer, but he had disappeared. I figured the lamp had been stolen and someone didn’t want it traced back to him.”
    “Why didn’t you go ahead and have the lamp appraised?” Chloe asked.
    “As soon as I opened the crate, I realized it would be a waste of time. At first glance the metal looks a lot like gold, but it isn’t gold. That was obvious immediately. Gold is soft, but you can’t even put a dent in that lamp. Believe me, I tried. The thing just has to be made of some kind of modern alloy.”
    “What about the gemstones?” Chloe asked.
    Drake grimaced. “They’re just big, cloudy glass rocks. I didn’t need Edward Harper to tell me the lamp was definitely not late seventeenth century.”
    “Hell,” Jack said, his tone flat. He looked at Chloe. “Should have known that finding the lamp so quickly was too good to be true.”
    Disappointment and frustration twisted through her. There was also a lot of embarrassment in the mix. All in all she felt utterly deflated.
    “I was so certain,” she said. She looked at Drake. “Are you absolutely sure the gemstones are glass?”
    “Well, I couldn’t put a scratch on them, so I guess it’s possible that they may be some high-tech crystals,” he admitted. “I ran a couple of experiments with a hammer and then with a drill. Couldn’t even chip the stones.”
    “Let me get this straight,” Jack said evenly. “You did your best to destroy the lamp?”
    Drake shrugged, unperturbed. “I have to admit it aroused my curiosity. Something about it interested me. But after a while, it started to bother me. Can’t really explain it. At first I stuck it on a pedestal in one of the guest bathrooms. As a joke, you know? But my housekeeper told me it bothered her. After a while I realized that I didn’t even want it in the house. I put it back in the crate, nailed the crate shut and stashed it where I wouldn’t have to look at it on a regular basis.”
    Chloe cleared her throat. “If you didn’t like the lamp, why did you keep it? Why not