The Adventurer

explain. "Never mind. Here comes our visitor and you're right about one thing—I don't want some stranger to get his hands on them. Those earrings are Fleetwood earrings."
    A black Jeep roared around the bend in the road. Instead of going on past the isolated cabin, it turned into the long, winding drive as if whoever was behind the wheel knew exactly where he was going.
    "You tell anyone else you were coming up here?" Gideon asked, his gaze on the Jeep as it drew closer to the cabin.
    "Sure, a couple of people, including my friend Margaret Lark. But she doesn't own a Jeep and neither does anyone else I know. Maybe it's our landlord."
    "No, I don't think so." Gideon reached the front step of the cabin and drew her to a halt beside him as the Jeep entered the yard. His gaze never left the vehicle.
    The Jeep came to a halt in a cloud of dust. Sunlight glinted on the windshield, obscuring the view of the driver. Sarah experienced a sudden shaft of deep uneasiness.
    "Gideon?"
    He didn't respond. His whole attention was on the Jeep. She sensed the tension in him.
    The door of the Jeep cracked open with a flourish. A black boot, so brilliantly polished that it caught the sun, hit the ground. Something silver glinted at the heel.
    "Hell," Gideon said.
    The man who got slowly out of the Jeep was as spectacular as his boots. He moved with laconic grace, well aware he was making an entrance and obviously enjoying it. His hair was as black and gleaming as his footwear. His eyes were blue, a bright, devilish sapphire blue.
    There was no doubt the stranger had been ruggedly good-looking at one time. He still was, to be perfectly honest. The chin and nose and cheekbones were all well chiseled. But Sarah could see that there had always been an underlying weakness and the years were starting to reveal it.
    He wore khaki pants tucked into the tops of the high, dashing boots and a shirt that had a large number of pockets, epaulets and flaps on it. The clothes fit him so precisely they might have been hand-tailored.
    "He looks like something out of a men's fashion magazine," Sarah whispered.
    "Plenty of flash, all right. But, then, he always had that."
    She frowned up at Gideon but he was still watching the newcomer. The stranger smiled, an easy, knowing, charming grin that revealed sparkling white teeth. Sarah's sense of unease grew a hundredfold. She knew she was not going to like this man, whoever he was.
    "Hello, Gideon. I hear the last name is Trace now, is that right? Nice touch. That's all you left behind when you changed your identity, wasn't it? Just a trace. It's taken me a while to find you but it looks like I finally did it with the help of Ms. Fleetwood here. Long time, no see, Gid. How's it going, buddy?"
    "Sarah," Gideon said, "meet Jake Savage."
    "My pleasure, Ms. Fleetwood. But I believe we already know each other."
    She stared at him. "We do?" But her intuition was already giving her the answer. Something about this man was awfully familiar even though she knew she had never met him. That voice…
    "Jim Slaughter, owner and operator of Slaughter Enterprises, at your service. We had the pleasure of exchanging a few letters and a couple of calls regarding an expedition to find a downed plane full of gold, remember? You declined to invest. I'm still hoping to change your mind on that subject, by the way. I think we could do a lot for each other, Ms. Fleetwood."
    "You're Slaughter?" She was horrified. It was beginning to dawn on her that she was the one who had led him to this place. She'd mentioned the Fleetwood Flowers to him. "Why did you change your name? I don't understand any of this."
    "I had to change my name about the same time as Gideon here changed his, ma'am. But that's all in the past now."
    "I thought you were dead, Mr. Savage," she said.
    Savage chuckled. "So did a lot of people, including my old partner, here, right, Gid?"
    Partner
. Sarah looked at Gideon. "You were his partner? The partner you said disappeared in the jungle along with Mr. Savage?"
    Gideon didn't bother to reply. His eyes were still on the swashbuckling figure of his former associate. "What brings you back to life after all this time, Jake?"
    "Got some big plans, Gid, old pal. Thought you might be interested in going back into partnership. Like I said, I've been looking for you for a while. I had a hunch you weren't any more dead than I was. You're a hard man to kill. Who'd have guessed I'd have found you through the charming Ms.