Ice Blue - Anne Stuart [1]
He wanted her Japanese bowl, probably as much as she didn’t want him to have it—the bowl her Japanese nanny had given to her a short while before she’d been killed in a car accident. It was one more betrayal from her self-absorbed mother, something she was used to by now. Summer had loaned it to the exclusive museum where she worked, just to keep it away from the religious charlatan for as long as she could. But sooner or later the creepy, charming Shirosama was going to get it, and there wasn’t a whole lot she could do about it. At least she’d put it off for the time being.
But it wasn’t the Shirosama who was watching her, or any of his white-robed minions—not as far as she could tell. She could feel the eyes boring into her back, and she turned, trying to catch whoever it was. Certainly not the elderly Asian couple by the fourteenth century incense burners. Not the tall, slender man with the sunglasses, who seemed much more interested in the impressive cleavage of the blonde he was talking to than in the exhibit. Maybe she was imagining it.
She recognized only half of the elegantly dressed guests who filled the gallery for this private opening, and none would have any reason to be interested in the lowly junior curator at the Sansone Museum. Her connection to Lianne and Ralph Lovitz and their Hollywood lifestyle was generally unknown, and by southern California standards she was totally ordinary looking, something she did her best to cultivate.
“His holiness wishes to speak with you.”
She was very good at hiding her emotions, and she turned to face the monk, if that’s what he was. For a group of ascetics, the followers of the True Realization Fellowship tended to be particularly well fed, and the plump young man in front of her was no different. He had the same round face, shaved head and faintly sanctimonious look they all did, and it made her want to stomp on his sandaled feet.
She was being childish and she knew it. She could come up with an excuse, but the reception was drawing to a close, the trustees were seeing to the departing guests and she had no real reason to avoid their guest of honor.
“Of course,” she said, trying to add a note of warmth to her voice. Someone had trashed her house three nights ago, taking nothing, but she’d known instinctively what they’d been looking for. The Japanese bowl they coveted was right in front of them now, guarded by an excellent security system.
She crossed the room, feeling like a prisoner on her way to execution. She could still feel those eyes boring into her back, but all the Shirosama’s posse, including the man himself, were in front of her. She glanced behind, but there was no one except the blonde and her date. Summer decided she must be paranoid, looking behind her for trouble when it was right in front of her.
“Dr. Hawthorne,” his holiness greeted her in his soft voice. “You do me honor.”
It was the softest of barbs—he knew very well that he was the one conferring honor on the place, at least by conventional wisdom. The Shirosama was highly sought after; obtaining his presence at a social event was a great coup.
Unlike his followers, he hadn’t shaved his head—his pure white hair was long and flowing to his shoulders, a perfect match to his paper-white skin and pale, pink eyes. His white robes draped his rounded body, and his hands were soft and plump. Charismatic to those easily swayed, like her ditzy mother. Harmless. Unless he was thwarted, and Summer was thwarting him.
But she knew how to play the game. “You honor us, your holiness.” She didn’t even trip over the words.
“And this is the bowl your mother spoke of?” he said softly. “I wonder that it has no provenance, and yet you still put it in the exhibit.”
He knew as well as she did that she’d put it on display to keep it out of his hands. “We’re researching its background, your holiness,” she said, the absolute truth. “In the meantime a piece of such