Fired Up (Dreamlight Trilogy #1)(28)
Author: Jayne Ann Krentz

“No one,” Drake said. He drank some coffee and leaned back in his chair. “The morning after I informed the online dealer that I had arranged for the evaluation, the crate containing the lamp showed up on my doorstep. There was no invoice, no delivery papers, no records of any kind. I went back online and tried to find the dealer, but he had disappeared. I figured the lamp had been stolen and someone didn’t want it traced back to him.”

“Why didn’t you go ahead and have the lamp appraised?” Chloe asked.

“As soon as I opened the crate, I realized it would be a waste of time. At first glance the metal looks a lot like gold, but it isn’t gold. That was obvious immediately. Gold is soft, but you can’t even put a dent in that lamp. Believe me, I tried. The thing just has to be made of some kind of modern alloy.”

“What about the gemstones?” Chloe asked.

Drake grimaced. “They’re just big, cloudy glass rocks. I didn’t need Edward Harper to tell me the lamp was definitely not late seventeenth century.”

“Hell,” Jack said, his tone flat. He looked at Chloe. “Should have known that finding the lamp so quickly was too good to be true.”

Disappointment and frustration twisted through her. There was also a lot of embarrassment in the mix. All in all she felt utterly deflated.

“I was so certain,” she said. She looked at Drake. “Are you absolutely sure the gemstones are glass?”

“Well, I couldn’t put a scratch on them, so I guess it’s possible that they may be some high-tech crystals,” he admitted. “I ran a couple of experiments with a hammer and then with a drill. Couldn’t even chip the stones.”

“Let me get this straight,” Jack said evenly. “You did your best to destroy the lamp?”

Drake shrugged, unperturbed. “I have to admit it aroused my curiosity. Something about it interested me. But after a while, it started to bother me. Can’t really explain it. At first I stuck it on a pedestal in one of the guest bathrooms. As a joke, you know? But my housekeeper told me it bothered her. After a while I realized that I didn’t even want it in the house. I put it back in the crate, nailed the crate shut and stashed it where I wouldn’t have to look at it on a regular basis.”

Chloe cleared her throat. “If you didn’t like the lamp, why did you keep it? Why not just chuck it into the trash?”

“Beats me,” Drake said. “I thought about doing just that from time to time. But, for whatever reason, I didn’t. There’s something about it.” He looked at Jack. “Every time I considered getting rid of it I got this weird feeling that I should hold on to it.” He smiled his stage-lights smile. “Like maybe until the real owner showed up.”

There’s just something about it. A tiny flicker of hope sparked inside Chloe. Paranormal artifacts exerted their own kind of compelling attraction, especially on those who possessed even a small measure of talent. Maybe Drake Stone had sensed some energy in the object. But the Winters lamp had been forged in the late 1600s. Drake seemed certain the item he had bought online was modern.

Jack was looking interested again. “I’d like to see it, if you don’t mind.”

“Come with me.” Drake put his coffee aside and rose from the lounge chair. “Frankly, I’ll be thrilled if you take it off my hands. Hell, I’ll pay you to remove it.”

He started across the heavily landscaped pool gardens.

Chloe glanced at Jack, but he was already on his feet, moving to follow Drake. She put down her tea and got up to follow the two men. A familiar fizzy sensation was whispering through her. Harper intuition always told her when she was on the right track.

Drake threaded a path through the maze of plantings, statuary and fountains to a low building tucked out of sight behind a high hedge. He stopped, dug out some keys and opened the door.

“Like I said, I kept it in the house for about a week.” Drake pushed the door open. “After that I couldn’t stand it any longer. The guys from the pool service gave me some static when I stored it in here, but given what I pay them, I figured they could just get over it.”

“Why did the pool service people complain?” Jack asked.

“They decided that the crate contained some toxic gardening chemicals or pesticides. They wanted me to get rid of whatever was inside it.”

“Bad smell?” Chloe asked.

“No,” Drake said. He smiled wryly. “Whatever it is, it seems to affect the nerves.”

He reached around the edge of the door, flipped a light switch and stood back.

A tendril of dark, powerful energy wafted out of the opening. It didn’t just stir the hair on the nape of Chloe’s neck, it prickled the skin on her upper arms and caused her pulse to quicken. An unsettling chill swept through her. She knew Jack sensed the currents, too. He said nothing, but she could tell that he had opened up all of his senses. Energy pulsed invisibly in the atmosphere around him. He stood in the doorway and looked into the shadowy interior of the pool house.

She took a couple of steps closer and peered past him into the crowded space. It took a few seconds for her eyes to adjust to the low light. When they did, all she saw was a lot of gardening equipment, pool chemicals and cleaning devices. She did not see a crate.

“It’s all the way at the back,” Drake said, as if he’d read her mind. “Under some tarps.”

Jack removed his dark glasses, dropped them into his shirt pocket and entered the pool house as if he knew precisely where he was going.

“I’ll wait out here,” Chloe said. He gave no indication that he had heard her.

Energy spiked higher in the atmosphere, not the stuff that was uncoiling in ominous waves from inside the structure. She slipped into her other vision and looked down. Hot ultralight dream energy burned in Jack’s footsteps.

She heard the clang and thud of some gardening tools being shifted about inside the shed. A moment later Jack emerged, a wooden crate under one arm. He used his free hand to put on his dark glasses.

“I’ll take it,” he said to Drake. “What’s your price?”

“You haven’t even opened the crate,” Drake pointed out.

“That won’t be necessary,” Jack said. “Whatever is inside this crate belongs to me.”

Drake studied him for a long, considering moment and then his neon-bright teeth flashed in the sun. “It’s yours, Winters, free and clear. It didn’t cost me a damn thing in the first place, and you’re saving me the cost of having it carted away by the garbage company. A real deal as far as I’m concerned.”