Read Online Gift of Fire by Jayne Ann Krentz - Free Book Online

thought wryly.
    “I understand completely,” Elyssa assured her, gazing at Jonas. She appeared to be infinitely indulgent of his petty carping. She turned back to Verity. “Will you be able to accompany Jonas to our villa with that injured ankle?”
    “Oh, definitely. I’m looking forward to it.” Verity nodded briskly, trying to pump some enthusiasm into Jonas. He ignored her.
    “I can give you a report on the villa easily enough,” Jonas said. “But I understand you also want me to chase some damned legend. I should warn you that from what Verity has told me, it sounds like a complete waste of time. Are you sure you want to pay my, uh, consulting fee to help you hunt for a treasure that probably doesn’t exist?”
    Doug chuckled. “It must sound a little silly to you, but I assure you that Uncle Digby was on the trail of something in that villa. Elyssa wants to see if we can find it before we get rid of the place. Since you’ll be going over the villa anyway, you might as well keep an eye out for treasure.”
    “What makes you think your uncle Digby wasn’t just loony tunes?”
    “Jonas!” Verity hissed. He was being downright rude.
    Elyssa smiled serenely. “It’s all right, Verity. Doug and I have also wondered about Uncle Digby. He might very well have been completely insane. He was certainly an odd character. But he definitely believed there was a treasure buried in that old villa. He left a diary detailing his search for it. Unfortunately, he kept his notes in Latin. He also found a crystal at one point.”
    “Crystal?” Verity tilted her head inquiringly.
    Doug nodded. “I saw it myself about five years ago. Digby showed it to me shortly after he found it. He was sure it was a key of some kind. It’s green, about two inches long. It’s egg-shaped and very smooth, with tiny, odd-shaped little facets cut into the bottom. It disappeared a couple of years ago along with Uncle Digby. He either hid it somewhere or had it on him when he disappeared.”
    Jonas sat forward, finally, showing real interest. “He believed the crystal was genuine Renaissance work?”
    “Oh yes,” Elyssa said. Her bracelets jingled as she turned to Jonas. “He may have been senile there at the end, but at one time Digby Hazelhurst had quite a reputation in academic circles. Thirty years ago he was considered an expert on Renaissance history.”
    “Hazelhurst?” Jonas repeated. “Your uncle was Digby Hazelhurst?”
    “Have you heard of him?”
    “I remember running across some early papers he did on Renaissance scientific learning,” Jonas said slowly. “They were gathering dust in an old library file at Vincent College. I found them by accident.”
    “I’m afraid that by the time he died, Uncle Digby’s academic reputation had been shot to pieces,” Doug said. “His work got more and more bizarre during the last twenty years, I’m told. His colleagues ignored him, he couldn’t get teaching positions, and academic journals stopped publishing him entirely. He eventually retired to his island to spend the last years of his life searching for the treasure.”
    “You said your uncle died a couple of years ago?”
    Doug nodded. “Lost at sea. The old man had no business sailing on the Sound alone at his age. But old Digby always was independent. He’d had a bad heart for years. The authorities concluded he probably had a heart attack and fell overboard. They never recovered the body, although the boat eventually washed ashore on a neighboring island.”
    “And you’re left with the diary, the reconstructed villa, and a missing piece of crystal,” Jonas concluded.
    Elyssa laughed and her earrings tinkled. “Doug’s right. We really do have to sell the villa, there’s no way we can afford to keep it. But I can’t bear not to try to find the treasure before we do. It should be fun, if nothing else. I’m inviting a few friends to help in the hunt.”
    Jonas narrowed his eyes. “What kind of