The Adventurer

you say?" Sarah asked, uncertain she'd heard him correctly.
    "I said, it's going to be a long drive back to the coast this afternoon."
    "We could stay here or in Seattle tonight," she suggested.
    "No," said Gideon. "We'll go back to my place. I didn't have a chance to ask my neighbor to take care of the cats."
    "We'd better get back there, then. Poor things. They'll be starving."
    "Not likely. Machu can still hunt when he has to, although he doesn't much care for the effort involved. He'll see that Ellora eats if it's necessary but he'd much prefer someone opened a can for both of them."
    Sarah grinned. "He's a lot like you, isn't he?"
    Gideon cocked a brow. "Because he doesn't mind eating canned food?"
    "No, because he can still hunt if it becomes necessary."
     
    S HORTLY AFTER MIDNIGHT Machu Picchu landed on Gideon's bare back with a heavy, near-silent thud. Gideon stifled a soft groan. The cat stepped off his back and sat on the edge of the bed, tail moving restlessly as he waited for a response.
    Gideon rolled over slowly so that he wouldn't waken Sarah who was curled up beside him. He eyed Machu's implacable face for a few seconds and then he slid carefully out of bed.
    Machu leaped soundlessly down onto the floor and started toward the bedroom door. Gideon paused long enough to collect the revolver he always kept in a shoe-box under the bed and quickly put on his jeans. Barefoot, he went down the stairs as silently as Machu had.
    At the bottom of the staircase, Gideon turned right and went down the hall to his study. He stopped outside the open door and peered into the shadows. He was not unduly surprised to see the figure of a man hunched over the locked file cabinet where the strongbox had been stored earlier. Keeping the revolver hidden behind the half-open door, Gideon reached just inside the room and flicked on the light switch.
    The intruder jumped and whirled around to face him, his mouth open in shock and alarm.
    "Forget it, Jake," Gideon said calmly. "Even if you managed to get the file open, you'd only find an empty, rusted out strongbox with nothing in it. The Fleetwood Flowers are long gone. Somebody got to them years ago."
    Jake's hands fell away from the file cabinet. "Damn it, Gid, you always did have a way of sneaking up on people."
    "Sarah kept saying she was afraid you'd get close to the earrings. I guess this was what she anticipated, wasn't it? That you'd break in and find the old strongbox. Looks like I've got to start paying more attention to that woman's intuition."
    Jake hesitated, relaxing slightly when Gideon didn't move or say anything else. Then his brashness returned in a rush. With a cocky grin he stalked across the room and threw himself down in Gideon's desk chair. Legs stuck out in front of him, hands behind his head, Jake continued to smile the rakish smile that had never failed to charm.
    "Tell me the truth, Gid. This is your old partner here so you can be honest with me. I know you went back into the mountains this morning. I followed you. And I know you did some digging. I saw where you'd filled in the hole. You really didn't find the earrings?"
    "Just an old strongbox. The earrings might have been stored in it at one time, but the box is empty now."
    "Why keep it in a locked cabinet?"
    "Sarah doesn't know yet that the strongbox is empty," Gideon explained patiently. "She's looking forward to opening it in the morning. I didn't want to spoil the surprise."
    "But you couldn't resist taking a quick look for yourself, is that it?"
    "That's it. You know me. I get curious about locked boxes."
    "And you're telling me there was nothing inside, huh?"
    "Right."
    "I don't believe you." Jake Savage shook his head slowly. "You never came back empty-handed from a job."
    "This wasn't my treasure hunt. It was Sarah's. I just went along as a paid consultant."
    "Bull." Savage suddenly sat up straight in the chair, his eyes glittering with frustrated anger. "I think you found the earrings. I think you found them the same way you always find what you go looking for, you bastard."
    "No. There's nothing inside. Take a look." Gideon opened the file cabinet and removed the strong box. Then he twisted a strip of metal in the old lock until something clicked. Then he raised the lid to expose the empty interior. He waited a few seconds while Jake stared into the box and then Gideon closed and relocked it.
    Jake eyed him uneasily. "Come on, Gid. We can do a deal. Just like old times. All I want is