Midnight Jewels

Erasmus. It has done a great deal for me. I'll admit you're usually right, but—"
    Isobel smiled benignly. "Erasmus is always right. You must trust him when it comes to this kind of thing."
    Micah sighed. "Don't worry, I do. So do most of the people in this room." He smiled at Mercy. "All of us here tonight have reason to be grateful to Erasmus. Without his help and financial encouragement, most of us would be trying to make a living doing advertising layouts or department store windows. Are you going to be joining the colony?"
    Mercy smiled self-deprecatingly. "I'm afraid I'm a business person, not an artist. But I've seen your work in the sitting room across the hall. It's wonderful. I love your nice, clean colors and shapes."
    "Micah has an extraordinarily fine sense of color and shape," Erasmus interjected.
    Micah looked thrilled. "Can I get you another drink?" he asked Mercy.
    She looked down at her empty glass and decided not to mention that she had been drinking water. She started to respond as she handed her glass to Micah, but nearly tripped over the polite words as an image of water flickered through her mind.
    Blue, glowing water. Water the color of Erasmus Gladstone's eyes. Unable to help herself, Mercy glanced quickly at Gladstone. He was saying something to Isobel that was making the other woman smile politely. Then they both turned away to talk to a woman dressed in a glittering, iridescent leotard.
    "Mercy?" Micah Morgan cocked a quizzical brow.
    "A glass of… water sounds good."
    "Just water? Nothing in it?"
    "If you don't mind."
    "Sure," Micah said amiably. "Be right back."
    Mercy watched him disappear into the crowd. Then she glanced again at Gladstone and Isobel, who appeared to be deeply involved in their new conversation.
    Glowing blue water rippled through her mind again. She wondered uneasily how Croft was doing down in the vault. Automatically, as she had every few minutes, she checked to see that Dallas and Lance were still in the room. Dallas was tending the bar and Lance was just coming in from the kitchen with another loaded tray of canapes. She had seen him go into the kitchen a few minutes earlier.
    Damn it, this was ridiculous. There was nothing to worry about. She couldn't really bring herself to believe Erasmus Gladstone was the evil Egan Graves in disguise, and even if she did believe it, there was no denying Croft was more than capable of taking care of himself. He always seemed to know what he was doing.
    The water image faded from her mind, but the sense of uneasiness did not. Mercy began wondering how long it took to thoroughly explore the interior of a man's private library vault. How long before someone noticed Croft had disappeared?
    One thing about this crowd, it did provide good cover. There were a number of men dressed in black or other dark colors scattered around the room. Croft's absence wasn't immediately noticeable.
    Nothing should be wrong, but something was.
    After having awakened more than once now with this strange, uneasy feeling in the middle of the night, Mercy was not inclined to ignore it when it struck, even if it did so in the middle of a party. Being around Croft seemed to have caused her to develop a sixth sense of awareness.
    She remembered his unusual cheeriness earlier. For the first time she wondered if Croft really had had too much to drink before he undertook his trip downstairs. He had claimed he hadn't, but he'd had half a glass of wine in his hand and there was no telling how much he had had before she saw him last.
    The idea of Croft drunk was ludicrous. But if she hadn't known him better, she would have sworn he had been dangerously close to overindulging just before he left for the basement.
    Mercy waited no longer. A glance across the room showed that Micah had gotten sidetracked by a blonde in a pair of red long Johns and three-inch high heels. Gladstone and Isobel were still occupied with their leotarded friend. Mercy slipped through the crowd toward the door. No one paid her any attention.
    Outside in the hall she heard a few voices whispering and laughing from the elegant sitting room. Someone had turned off the lights and it was obvious the couples who had retreated to that room had not gone there to enjoy the starlit view of the Rockies.
    Mercy waited a minute to make certain no one noticed her and then she headed for the staircase. The sounds of laughter and the smell of marijuana and tobacco faded rapidly as she descended into the