Midnight Jewels

pornography sentimental, but to each his own, I guess."
    "Just how large is the price tag you've placed on my book?"
    "Fifty thousand."
    There was a beat of silence from the other end of the line. "You're not bashful, are you, Mr. Falconer?"
    "Mercy tells me there aren't many copies of this particular volume around. I think you took advantage of her in the first set of negotiations."
    "And she's empowered you to negotiate this time?" Gladstone asked.
    Croft looked at Mercy. "Let's just say she's put everything in my hands."
    "Isobel was correct. You and Miss Pennington are, indeed, besotted with each other. How strange. Well, in the meantime, you and I must deal. I can meet your figure, Mr. Falconer. In cash. How soon can you get here with the book?"
    "You want me to come back to the estate?"
    "Isobel can meet you anywhere you choose with the helicopter."
    "No thanks. I prefer to get there under my own power. I'd just as soon not have to depend on Isobel to fly me back out of the mountains after you and I have made our deal. I'll be there at dawn."
    There was another pause on Gladstone's end before he asked smoothly, "How far away are you?"
    "Far enough."
    "You can't get here any sooner?"
    "I'm afraid not. It's going to be a long drive. Dawn is the earliest I can make it. Have Isobel take the money down to the first gate at sunrise. I'll meet her there."
    "With the book, I presume?"
    "All I want is the money, Gladstone. You're welcome to the book. It's not my kind of thing, anyway."
    "No, I'm sure it isn't. You undoubtedly prefer a more modern style of such fare."
    Croft noted a trace of condescending disgust lacing the man's voice. Gladstone was giving into his private sense of intellectual snobbery, he realized, though he also wondered how anyone could be snobbish about preferences of erotica.
    "I don't want to see anyone except Isobel at that gate, Gladstone."
    "There's no one left to meet you except Isobel or myself. Lance and Dallas are in the hands of the authorities, as I'm sure you're aware."
    "And you're not going to go bail, right?"
    "For a couple of thieves who had taken advantage of my generosity?" Gladstone sounded appalled at such an idea. "I wasn't aware they both had criminal records when I hired them. I was very shocked when the sheriff informed me."
    "I can imagine. Everyone must be feeling sorry for you. So the cops aren't worried about any possible connection between them and you?"
    "The authorities understand that I am merely an innocent, victimized employer. Apparently Dallas and Lance robbed a motel the other night. They gave the sheriff some nonsense about having been sent by me to do it, but the sheriff didn't buy that ridiculous tale for a minute. I'm afraid their past is against them."
    "Somehow I'm not surprised."
    "The story they gave the sheriff about how they came to be tied up in a ghost town, however, was far more interesting," Gladstone continued thoughtfully. "They claimed they were chasing a burglar down the mountain and that this man vanished in Drifter's Creek. When they stopped to search for him they found nothing but ghosts. They remember very little of the incident. I, of course, informed the sheriff that nothing was missing from my home and that I had to assume Lance and Dallas were involved in another private scheme. I did hint, however, that there might be a third man involved and that there might have been a falling out among thieves. That would explain how my two employees came to be found with such incriminating evidence in their possession."
    "So the sheriff is now looking for a third thief?"
    "Relax, Falconer, I don't think he's looking very hard. He assumes the man will have left the area after having abandoned his buddies. The sheriff is pleased to think that trouble has moved out of his neighborhood."
    "All neat and tidy."
    "I like tilings neat and tidy, Mr. Falconer."
    "So do I," Croft said. "Make sure Isobel is at that gate at dawn." He hung up the phone before Gladstone could respond.
    Mercy sat on the bed, waiting for the details. Her hands were clasped tightly in her lap and her eyes were very large in her face. "Well?" she asked bluntly.
    "It's all settled as far as Gladstone is concerned. He thinks I'm a petty thief who's willing to turn
Valley
over to him for fifty thousand."
    "That's hardly a petty sum."
    Croft shrugged. "I had to make the number big enough to convince him I meant business but not so huge that he might suspect I thought the book was really