Three Fates

Cleo leaned closer. “When they get back, I’m going to drop a little bombshell. Slick’s not going to like it, and big brother’s already looking at me sideways. I could use some help. Support, a distraction, whatever you’ve got.”
    “What is it?”
    Cleo started to speak, then heard the key in the lock. Tia saw something move over her face that might have been grief, might have been regret. Then she tossed back the last of her wine. “Countdown,” she mumbled.
     
     
    “ATHENS?” GIDEON BROKE into a delighted, almost demented grin. “Athens?” he repeated and plucked Tia out of her chair, kissed her enthusiastically on the mouth. “You’re a bloody genius.”
    “I, uh . . . Well.” Her ears buzzed. “Thanks.”
    “A bloody genius,” he said again, and swung her in a quick circle before he shot that grin at his brother. “And you were worried Anita would gobble her down like lunch. We’ve a certified mastermind here.”
    “Set her down, Gideon, before you bruise her. That was clever,” Malachi said to Tia. “Clever and quick.”
    “It was logical,” she corrected and, with her head spinning just a bit, and rather pleasantly, sat again. “I don’t know if she’ll actually go to Greece, but she’ll certainly look there.”
    “It gives us some breathing space,” Malachi agreed. “Now what do we do with it? Rebecca’s doing what she does to get background information on this Jack Burdett. We’ll leave that, and him, to her for now. Seems the first thing, logically speaking, is to figure out how Cleo’s to get the White-Smythe Fate. We’ll want to do that quietly, without putting Anita on the scent, then get it into a safe, secure place.”
    “That’s not a problem.” Cleo didn’t take a deep breath, but she did brace herself, did shift her gaze until she met Gideon’s directly. “I’ve already got it, and it’s already in one.”

Sixteen
     
     
     
     
    “Y OU had it all along?” Shell-shocked and with temper just starting to bubble beneath, Gideon stared at Cleo. “From the beginning?”
    “My grandmother gave it to me when I was a kid.” She felt the bats beating wings in her stomach. “She’d started to get pretty spacey, so I guess she didn’t think of it as more than a kind of doll. It’s been like my good-luck piece. It went where I went.”
    “You had it in Prague.”
    “Yeah, I had it.” Because the steady, quiet tone of his voice made her feel a little sick, she poured another glass of wine.
    “I never heard the story. The Three Fates deal. If that part of it ever came down through my mother’s family, it didn’t get as far as me. I didn’t know what it was until you told me about it.”
    “And wasn’t it lucky for you I came along and educated you?”
    She decided the bitter edge of the words, delivered with just the perfect dip of contempt, was as effective as a jab in the gut. “Look, Slick, some guy chases me down at work, starts asking about my good-luck charm, gives me the song and dance about big money and Greek legends, I’m not handing it over to him on a platter. I didn’t know you.”
    “Got to know me, didn’t you?” He leaned over, clamping his hands on the arms of her chair, caging her in with his body. “Or do you make a habit of rolling around on a hotel floor with strangers?”
    “Gideon.”
    “This isn’t for you.” He whipped his head around, flicked the keen edge of his fury over his brother to silence any interference. Then snapped it back to Cleo.
    “You knew me well enough for that. You knew me well enough, didn’t you, when we shared the bed Mikey gave us hours before he died.”
    “That’s enough.” Though her hands were ice cold with fear, Tia used them to pull on Gideon’s arm. It was, she realized, like trying to pry open a steel wall with her fingers. “He was her friend. She loved him. However angry you are, you know that, and you know you haven’t the right to use him to hurt her.”
    “She used him. And me.”
    “You’re right.” Cleo lifted her chin, not in defiance but in a kind of invitation. Punch me, she seemed to say, I’d prefer it. “You couldn’t be more right. I overestimated myself, underestimated Anita. And Mikey’s dead. However much disgust and rage you’ve got working in you for me right now, it doesn’t touch what I’ve got for myself.”
    “It might come closer than you think.” He shoved himself away from her.
    “Okay.” Something inside her broke, something she