Midnight Jewels

didn't sink into unconsciousness, but she saw stars for several seconds.
    By the time she had recovered from the dazed sensation she was being pushed into Gladstone's rare book vault.
    The heavy door closed immediately with a final sounding thud.
    A terrible silence and an even more terrible darkness descended instantly.

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Chapter NINETEEN

    Croft stood in the shelter of a stand of aspen and watched the helicopter set down inside the Gladstone compound. The last of the twilight was going quickly, but the lights installed around the high walls gave a clear view of what was happening. A bleak anger tightened his gut as he watched Mercy get slowly out of the craft and start toward the front door.
    As soon as he had heard the ominous sound of the helicopter returning to the estate, Croft had been prepared for the fact that something had gone very wrong. Now he knew just how wrong. Mercy was Gladstone's prisoner.
    From his vantage point on the hillside Croft watched as Gladstone appeared in the doorway. A moment later Isobel, Mercy and Gladstone disappeared inside the house.
    "Shit." Croft stared at the empty compound.
    It didn't take much of an exercise in logic to figure out that Gladstone planned to use Mercy as bait. Croft decided he could assume Mercy had been told that Croft, himself, was already a captive.
    And she had come dashing recklessly to his side, even though it had meant flying in the small copter and facing Gladstone's gun. Croft shook his head, thinking about how much Mercy must love him. She would do just about anything for him, apparently.
    Except obey orders
. She really did have a thing about doing what he told her to do. When this was all over, he was going to make love to her until she was limp, and then he would read her the riot act on the subject of staying put when he told her to stay put.
    Whereupon, Croft decided, she would probably tell him she was not a dog, that she didn't like someone else telling her what was good for her, and that anyone who had as much trouble dealing with authority as Croft did had no right to give her lectures on following orders.
    When that argument was done, he would give up trying to reform her and just take her to bed again.
    But first he had to get her out of Gladstone's compound and that wasn't going to be easy. Getting in was no problem. He had already figured out how he was going to do that. Getting at Gladstone might be more complicated, but Croft was confident he could handle it. Isobel was a factor, but she could be dealt with if she got in the way.
    The problem, Croft realized, was to get Mercy out of there before he went back for Gladstone. Mercy was the number one priority. As long as she was in Gladstone's hands, Croft was also held in check. Apparently Gladstone had figured that out for himself.
    Croft continued to stand silently in the trees for a while, thinking. He was distantly aware of the chill in the night air, of the breeze that was making the aspen leaves shiver and of the sounds of the night around him. He let himself meld with his environment, accepting it and being accepted by it. Then he started to think as Gladstone would think.
    It was possible Mercy would be locked in an upstairs bedroom. It was also possible she was being held downstairs at gunpoint. But as things stood now, Gladstone and Isobel didn't quite know what to make of Croft. He was a mystery to them, an unknown factor. They wouldn't know when or where to expect him. As far as they knew he might be keeping to the original agreement, in which case they wouldn't see him until dawn.
    But they would have to be prepared for the possibility that Croft might try something unexpected, in which case Gladstone and Isobel would want their hands free. They wouldn't want to have to worry about Mercy. She was merely a nuisance to them at this point. People like Gladstone and Isobel frequently made the mistake of not taking people like Mercy seriously. They didn't look beneath the surface. They would keep her alive until they had Croft, but they wouldn't want to be bothered with her until they had achieved their main goal. They would want her out of sight and out of the way.
    The vault was the most secure room in the household, a natural and logical choice as a jail cell. It would be much more secure than an upstairs bedroom and much less taxing on the captors than holding a gun on Mercy for several hours. And instinct told Croft the vault was more than it appeared to be at first