Midnight Jewels

the possibility that I might smash a wild-flower than about the possibility I might blackmail you."
    "Mercy, we both know you're not capable of blackmailing me. Don't make threats you can't carry through."
    "You won't tell me about your past?"
    "Not now. Maybe not ever. Believe me, honey, you don't really want to hear about it."
    She wondered about that. "Maybe you're right. Okay, I accept your right to remain silent about that side of things. But I want some questions answered about this Gladstone business. It concerns me and I want to know your plans."
    "I've told you my plans. I want to find something, anything, that might tie Gladstone to Egan Graves."
    "You think you'll find evidence in the vault?"
    Croft nodded. "It's the most likely spot. If not there, then maybe in his office. I should be able to check both places tonight during the party. Isobel says there should be almost fifty guests."
    "That many more chances you'll be discovered."
    He shook his head. "That much easier to disappear."
    Mercy shuddered. "I wish you'd let it go, Croft."
    "I can't."
    She heard the simple truth in his words and sighed. "No, you can't just let it go, can you? You're Croft Falconer and that means you have to close all the doors, seal all the gaps, stop all the leaks. Nothing must be left to chance. No questions can remain unanswered."
    "A closed Circle."
    "What was she like, Croft? The young woman you went down to the Caribbean to rescue?"
    He hesitated and then, to Mercy's astonishment, he answered her question.
    "Eighteen years old. Pretty. Blonde. Athletic. Full of life. When I pulled her off that island she was no longer eighteen, pretty, blonde, athletic or full of life. She was strung out on drugs, believed Egan Graves was the local representative of heavenly salvation and thought she was doing her duty to the church when she slept with Egan's business acquaintances."
    "Grim."
    "Yes."
    Mercy chewed on her lower lip for a while. "How is she now?"
    "Her father said it took a year to get her off the drugs and convince her Graves was nothing more than a pimp and a dealer. But two years ago she started college and she's still there."
    Mercy breathed an unconscious sigh of relief. "So she's going to be all right."
    "Looks like it."
    "You saved her," Mercy said quietly. "She would probably be dead by now if you hadn't rescued her. Does she ever talk to you? Do you see her sometimes?"
    "No. She doesn't remember me. She was hysterical that night. So were the others I managed to keep from throwing themselves into the flames. I turned them all over to Ray before dawn that morning. He was waiting in a boat a couple of miles offshore. I never saw any of the kids again and they never really got a good look at me. I told Ray that Graves was dead."
    "Ray?"
    "Ray Chandler. It was his daughter I was supposed to pull off the island. He was the one who desperately wanted to get his hands on Egan Graves."
    "He's the one who asked you to go?"
    "Yes."
    "You didn't take a fee for your services?"
    Croft gave her a strange glance. "Not from Ray Chandler," he said quietly. "I owed him."
    "Why?"
    "Ray works for the government. He did me a favor once. Looked the other way when I needed some answers from a top secret file."
    "So when Ray came to you for help, you returned the favor?"
    "Some people call it maintaining good karma. Others call it keeping your honor clean. I call it keeping the Circle closed. I told you, I owed him."
    She looked at him. "That's how you live your life, isn't it? You keep this… this Circle closed around you. Everything must be kept under control. Including me."
    "I don't think you know just how much of a wild card you are in all this, Mercy. Just when I think I've got you pinned down, you do something that scares the hell out of me. Like following me downstairs last night. Don't ever do that again."
    A wild card? Mercy experienced a rush of recklessness. "You know what I dunk, Croft? I think you need to be shaken up from time to time. You're too rigid, too set in your ways. You get upset if you miss your morning meditation or if a waitress brings you tepid tea water. You dunk your way of doing things is the only way to do them and you turn tyrannical when someone tries to argue. This business of keeping the Circle closed sounds like a very limiting kind of philosophy. It makes you inflexible. Maybe it keeps you from being able to fall in love." Mercy shook her head wisely. "Doesn't sound like a healthy lifestyle to