Midnight Jewels

but not a true treasure—not to a man like Gladstone. It's not special enough to go into his collection."
    "Yet he tried to kill us because of it?"
    Croft nodded. "That book is the key. He's going to keep trying to get it back."
    "I wonder why?"
    "I wish I knew." Croft ran a hand through his hair. "I looked through it again this morning while you were sleeping. I didn't see any signs of altered pages, but that doesn't mean there's not a code of some kind imbedded in the text."
    "A code!" Mercy was struck by the possibility.
    "Don't look so thrilled. I'm grasping at straws, believe me. I'm just trying to come up with a reason why Gladstone wants that book so badly." He came away from the window again, finishing his tea. "Let's go get something to eat. You can call your shop and alert Dome that someone might be trying to reach you. But whatever you do, don't tell Dome where you are, understand? She might accidentally mention our location to Gladstone and that could be awkward."
    "When you're not indulging your streak of melodrama, you have a nasty way with the classic understatement. Tell me something. What will Gladstone hope to accomplish by contacting us about the book?"
    "By now he'll be fairly certain we're not representing the forces of law and order. That means we're just small-time opportunists who've stumbled into the biggest deal of our lives and are trying to take advantage of it. He'll probably assume we're holding
Valley
for ransom now that we know how important it is to him. I imagine he'll offer us a real deal."
    Mercy eyed him warily. "But we're going to refuse it, right?"
    "No," said Croft. "We're going to accept. On our own terms."

----
Chapter SEVENTEEN

    "I don't like it, Croft. I don't like it one damn bit." Mercy paced up and down in front of him, her brows drawn into a straight line. This was not the first time she had made her impassioned plea for common sense. She had been arguing with Croft off and on all afternoon. It was nearly time for dinner and she still hadn't made any headway. He was stubbornly determined to handle the Gladstone situation on his own.
    "You don't have to like it, Mercy. I'm the one who will handle tilings from here on in." He was reclining on the bed, his back propped against a stack of pillows, his arms folded behind his head.
    There was the same note of abiding patience in his voice as they went through the argument for the umpteenth time as there had been when they went through it the first time. Mercy was convinced that his endless patience was beginning to bug her as much as his endless stubbornness. "This is stupid. This is crazy. We should be running to the cops."
    "No."
    "What have you got against the cops? We pay taxes so they can handle this kind of thing."
    "They can't handle Gladstone. They couldn't touch him when he was Egan Graves and they can't touch him now. He's too well protected. Too careful. It's obvious he's involved in something as dirty as his guru scam down in the Caribbean, but it's going to take some doing to prove it,"
    "But he has acted illegally. He sent Dallas and Lance to run us off the road," Mercy pointed out.
    "Prove it. Dallas and Lance were a couple of hired, two-bit hoods who snuck around during their leisure time and robbed motel guests. The cops will be lucky to make that much stick. There's no chance of making attempted murder stick."
    Mercy swung around and confronted him with her hands on her hips. "Do you have this lack of trust in all authority or is it just the law you don't trust?"
    "I told you, I don't—"
    "Deal well with authority figures. I know. You want to know why?" She pointed a finger at him.
    He smiled at her, his eyes strangery curious. "Why?"
    "Because you are one, yourself. People who tend to dominate don't take to
being
dominated. Somewhere along the line you never learned to relax occasionally and let someone else take charge."
    "That's an interesting theory. Were you giving me a lesson in how to let someone else take charge this morning when you assaulted me on this bed?"
    "Forget this morning. I'm not finished with my observations on your behavioral eccentricities. There's more," Mercy said threateningly.
    "Yes?"
    "Yes," she muttered, resuming her pacing. "It isn't just that you're a dominant personality, it's that you're so isolated, so self-controlled. You operate in your own universe—which just happens to collide once in a while with the real world. Occasionally, probably only when absolutely