LITMIR.BIZ

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And my collection of statues, inside…

      Little more than rubble.

      I took a step forward, unbelieving. Chunks of white marble were all that remained of what had once been a twelve-inch Pallas Athena, which I’d bought in Greece. Shards of lapis lazuli had been my Isis-and-Horus statue. My obsidian Shiva was many-armed rubble. My glossy, ceramic Virgin Mary had been smashed to shiny dust. Even the wonderfully fertile Venus, similar to the famous Willendorf figure and carved from granite, had been reduced to round and jagged bits.

      There was no way the Venus could have broken like that accidentally. Someone must have pounded on her, hard. Repeatedly. Purposefully.

      And in anger.

      I’d recently read a news piece about a goddess artifact being similarly destroyed, in a museum in India, and the similarities—as well as my sudden conclusions—unnerved me.

      “Wow.” Willis whistled. “What were those?”

      “Goddesses,” I said. “I collect statues of ancient goddesses.”

      “Were they worth a lot?”

      Monetarily? Some more than others—none were originals, thank heavens. But emotionally…

      Officer Douglas, from my study doorway, said, “Goddesses? Are you one of those Wiccans?”

      “Not exactly,” I told her, fingering the amulet I wore under my shirt. It wasn’t a pentagram, but two interlaced circles called a vesica piscis. I wasn’t technically Wiccan. But our beliefs have surprising similarities.

      It’s like I told you.

      I come from a very long line of very strong women.

      The police all but moved in. They made phone calls and questioned neighbors. Specialists showed up to photograph the wreckage and to dust for fingerprints, more backup than I’d ever expected for a simple break-in. When I asked if this was normal, Officer Willis said, “We’re just trying to be thorough, ma’am.”

      I put up with it for insurance reasons, but mainly I just wanted to clean up. Did you know recent studies have shown that while men have a fight-or-flight response to stress, women have a hormone that prompts them to tend-and-be-friend? I hated to see Officer Sofie go, despite her leaving her card with me and telling me to call anytime. But I also wanted space in which to mourn my statues, to put things as much to right as I could…and to consider who could have done such a thing…and why.

      I couldn’t help thinking this break-in might somehow be related to the recent destruction of an ancient goblet, the Kali Cup, a week before it could go on display. But that meant things I couldn’t face. Not yet.

      I’d barely managed to start straightening the mess, alone at last, when a knock at the door startled me. I don’t like being scared. It goes against almost everything I believe in.

      Checking the peephole and catching a glimpse of brown hair, and a familiar face in its usual impersonal mode, didn’t do a lot to improve my mood…or my lingering disorientation.

      Lex.

      Alexander Rothschild Stuart III and I go back. Way, way back. Worse, he makes me question my life choices almost every time our diverse paths collide. See, he’d be the dream catch for almost any woman—wealthy beyond his unimaginable inheritance, quietly handsome and, despite nearing thirty, still something of a brooding bad boy. Hard to resist, huh?

      Hell, even I have a terrible time resisting him, as our roller-coaster history attests to. And I have different views on money and power than a lot of women. At least—I try.

      I could also no longer trust either him or his family as far as I could comfortably spit them.

      Still, there was that lack-of-resistance thing, and the intimate-history thing, along with no small amount of curiosity. It had been months since I’d so much as glimpsed him, yet there he stood, too self-possessed to even look impatient while I checked him out. Him showing up on the night of my break-in couldn’t have been a coincidence even if I believed in coincidences.

      I don’t. But I opened the door.

      “Are you all right?” The question came out vague and polite, as if he were making bored chitchat at a cocktail party. Lex has always had that coolness about him—he supposedly can trace his family line back to the Royal House of Scotland, by way of England, so it’s probably all that blue blood chilling in his veins. But the fact that he was here at all, much less this late, belied his nonchalance. So did the powerful energy that instantly roiled between us. “I heard about the break-in.”

      “From the police?” I asked. That might explain all the special treatment, mightn’t it? “Or are you a part of the criminal grapevine now?”

      He’d been accused of perjury the previous year. Worse, he hadn’t denied it. It had contributed to our latest breakup.

      Now my words wrung a hint of a smile from him, an expression that, on Lex, packs a potent punch. “So may I come in? You know I need permission to cross a person’s threshold.”

      No, he wasn’t a vampire. He was just being sarcastic.

      “You might as well.” I sighed. “Everyone else has tonight.”

      So he did, casually touching my arm as he passed me…except that nothing Lex Stuart does is truly casual. He’s got a great poker face, but it’s more as if he’s eternally lying in wait for something, patiently still, ready to pounce.

      I’ve only seen him pounce once. I didn’t enjoy it.

      “Ouch,” he said, noticing my broken curio cabinet. I’d had to cruise every room before I saw it, but he took it in first thing. “They got the girls?”

      “Thoroughly.” I watched him cross to the rubble. I’d been straightening, but I hadn’t gotten to that yet. Once I cleaned it up, I might as well throw it all away—nothing left to save. I wasn’t sure I felt ready for that.

      “Bastards.” Lex picked up the round, faceless head of my Willendorfesque Venus—a piece he’d given me when I got my doctorate. We hadn’t even been dating at the time. But he’d sent me the statue for my collection anyway, managing in true Lex fashion to choose something that, despite my best sense, I couldn’t bear to return.

      “Luckily none of it was original.”

      “This was,” he said.

      I gaped at him.

      He shrugged, dropped the chunk of rock back onto the carpet, and brushed his fingers on his neatly pressed, thousand-dollar slacks. “You know my family collects antiques.”

      Yes, I knew. Beyond last year’s corporate espionage trial, and his still-murky role, his family’s antique collection was one more reason to distrust the Stuarts. Considering my own family’s connection to certain relics, that is. Now this.

      “You gave me an original piece of Paleolithic sculpture?” Not counting what something like that would fetch at auction, hadn’t it belonged in a museum? Was owning it even legal?

      The Stuarts never had constrained themselves with something so mundane as legalities.

      “So did they take anything?” Lex answered my question with his avoidance. “Or was it simple vandalism?”

      They were looking for something. The dumped drawers, the gutted cushions, the carpet pulled away from the corners… It was the only logical explanation. I hadn’t cleaned enough of the damage for someone as smart as Lex to miss that, either. And they hated my goddesses. Any guesses?

      “I haven’t found anything missing,” I said, noncommittal. “But it’s hard to tell, this early.”

      We eyed each other, letting the silence stretch. Me, because I had theories I wanted to protect awhile longer. Him…who could tell? Maybe he had secrets, too. Or it could just be his love of a good competition.

      Either way, neither

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