The Secret Sister Read online

  The road brought them to the far edge of the mesa. Reflexively Christy braked to a stop and stared at the beauty that was Xanadu.

  The valley lay between two red-gold sandstone mesas. A mile wide and three miles long, Xanadu was mostly meadow and pasture. The grass was a green so deep and rich it could only be described as emerald. Graceful cottonwood and willow lined the watercourses that snaked down from the mesas.

  At the head of the valley, on the steep slopes that led up to the San Juan Wall, stands of aspen blazed bright yellow against the cobalt sky and stark white afternoon clouds.

  Like the land itself, the ranch house had uneven levels and surprising angles, a redwood and glass mansion with soaring windows that faced the wall of mountains on one side and the western sky on another. The huge house sat on a knoll at one edge of the valley, like a god overseeing the earth below. On the flats, a huge barn with outbuildings and corrals spread out in the balanced asymmetry of boulders in a Japanese garden. Like gems in a well-designed setting, the buildings blended rather than clashed with the uncluttered landscape.

  “Gorgeous,” Christy said simply. “How far does the ranch go?”

  “Way up into the mountains and clear across both mesas. Boundaries are kind of hard to pin down when you’re talking about this much land. Darn shame it’s all going to waste.”

  Puzzled, she looked at the deputy.

  “Not one head of working stock,” Hammond said.

  Abruptly she understood why Xanadu’s beautiful meadows and pastures had seemed wrong to her.

  “The only cows on this place are the ones they’ll be barbecuing for tonight and tomorrow,” he said. “Some of the best pastureland in the state too. Put a lot of ranch hands out of work when this turned into a playground.”

  She suspected the young deputy was one of them. “An idle ranch for the idle rich?” she asked.

  Hammond shrugged and let the empty land speak for itself.

  “What happened to the stock?” she asked.

  “Sold. I guess Mr. Hutton didn’t like cow flop on his pretty grass. Or maybe he was afraid they’d wander onto his target range and stop a few bullets.”

  The deputy’s contempt was strong enough to override his training about loose talk and reporters. He was drawing Hutton’s wages, but he was still pissed off by the changes a wealthy outsider had brought to a hardworking western town.

  Christy wasn’t surprised by the young deputy’s attitude. You couldn’t dump a mega-millionaire outsider like Hutton on a community like Remington without ending up with envy, resentment, and a half-shamed, general stampede by the locals to suck up any crumbs falling from the rich man’s table.

  In Manhattan, Peter Hutton was just one among many ultra-rich people.

  In Remington, he was the cash cow for an entire county.

  Chapter 7

  As she released the brakes, Christy wondered if that was part of Remington’s allure for Hutton. He was a man of amazing vanity.

  Silently they drove through the city man’s dream of a well-designed West.

  The meadow with its landing strip and apron for small planes spoke eloquently of quick, expensive transit across the wide-open spaces.

  A shooting range lay on the opposite side of the meadow, well away from the landing strip. The bold targets were set at distances that suggested both pistol and rifle.

  “Six-guns at twenty paces?” Christy suggested ironically.

  Hammond almost smiled. “Hutton’s not bad with a pistol for a city sli—uh, man. One or two of his boys are pretty good with a rifle too.”

  “Especially for city slickers?” she asked innocently.

  The deputy looked uncomfortable. “Uh, yeah.”

  “Relax. I grew up in Wyoming, hours from anything I’d call a city now.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It sure don’t show,” Hammond said.

  “Thanks. I think.”

  He laughed.

  She pointed to an area in front of the barn where a dozen carpenters were hammering like they were being paid by the nail. “What’s going on over there?”

  “They’re building a dance floor out of rough lumber. The barbecue pits are over there. Going to be a big party tomorrow night.”

  Off to one side another work crew was sweating over a fire that was slowly turning a side of beef into a feast for the smaller private party tonight. Four damp mounds of earth marked the locations of fire pits big enough to contain whole pigs.

  “Looks like quite a shindig,” Christy said dryly.

  As the outbuildings fell away on either side, the road passed through an elegant wrought-iron arch and wound up the hill to the big house. As soon as Christy parked and opened the car door, a silver-haired man dressed like a drugstore cowboy came out to meet her. The white boots, dark pegged pants, and pearl-button white shirt were as expensive as they were amusing.

  “Ms. McKenna, I’m Ted Autry, Peter’s administrative vice president,” he said.

  Before Autry could help Christy, she was out of the car. She gave him a professional smile and a handshake to match.

  “You’re just in time for a glass of wine,” he said. “Peter’s giving a few friends an unscheduled look at the Sisters Collection.”

  “The Sisters?” Christy asked rather sharply.

  “Sorry, I forgot. You haven’t been briefed about the background of the collection. Myra Best wanted you to see the designs cold.”

  “Here I am.” She smiled. “As cold as they come.”

  Autry was a good vice president. He caught the edge in her voice and tried to smooth things over.

  “The designs are drawn from a stunning archaeological find Peter made right here on Xanadu.” His smile invited Christy to share the excitement.

  She resisted.

  “He actually discovered an old Anasazi site,” Autry said. “It was dedicated to two sisters. Princesses.”

  “Royal sisters?” Christy’s voice invited Autry to keep talking.

  He resisted.

  “I’ll let Peter have the fun of filling in the details,” Autry said. “He loves to tell the story.”

  She didn’t doubt it.

  Autry escorted her across a manicured lawn, onto a smooth redwood deck, and into a huge room that took up one entire end of the ranch house. The cathedral ceiling rose almost three stories above the floor, giving a sense of vast space within a sacred enclosure.

  Two of the three exterior walls were entirely of glass. The third wall was an extraordinary mosaic of hand-crafted wood. Suggesting an altar, a freestanding stone fireplace in the center of the room soared to the full height of the ceiling. There was a panoramic mountain view from deck to roof. Mellow afternoon light filled the room, making everything glow with a special beauty. The wood floor had a warm reddish cast and a superb grain. Glass display cases were scattered cleverly about. Western art and artifacts lay within the glass, waiting to be admired.

  Christy spotted a Remington bronze. Genuine, no doubt. Hutton’s ego wouldn’t settle for less. A dozen paintings with western themes and/or artists hung on the walls. They included a Catlin, a Bierstadt, and a Moran. There was a small O’Keeffe, some very good watercolors, and a Charlie Russell with the trademark vivid colors.

  Now she understood the guards and guns. Hutton’s spectacular secular church had several million dollars in art gracing its various altars.

  Gradually she focused on the people in the room. They had gathered around a huge glass case in the most prominent display area. She recognized several of the other guests immediately: Tim Carroll, a dark-haired Hollywood actor who made $10 million a picture; Shannon Prell, his girlfriend, whose ditzy-blonde roles made her the highest-priced actress in the trade; Frank Rohrlick, a New York author with a string of blood-drenched bestsellers to his credit.

  Christy didn’t recognize the rest of the guests by name, only by type. Everyone had the air of well-dressed confidence that she associated with the wealthy at play.
Hutton’s trophy guests were a cross section of the Beautiful People, the jet set, the top tier of the two-tier West that had grown when nobody east of the Rocky Mountains was looking.

  Autry put a finger to his lips, smiled, and gestured for Christy to join the others.

  No one looked up from the display case when she walked across the room.

  “…so all the evidence suggests that the two women were members of an aristocracy. They had magnificent jewelry. Lots of it. Several kilos of turquoise and six thousand pieces of jet.”

  Everyone murmured appreciatively.

  Hutton kept talking. “The body of the tortoise is solid argillite of a kind not found anywhere but the Queen Charlotte Islands of British Columbia. The mother-of-pearl inlay is from California abalone shell. My archaeologists tell me there should be another tortoise somewhere in the dig, because the sisters were probably priestesses. I can’t tell you how wildly impatient I am to find that other tortoise.”

  He straightened up from his position over the case. Tall, spare, curly-haired, he had the sculpted features of a male model, the lazy smile of a sybarite, and the supple voice of the Broadway actor he’d wanted to be until he realized how much more money there was in dressing rich women than in entertaining them.

  “What you’re seeing is mother-of-pearl,” he said. “Abalone shell, to be precise. The nearest abalone beds are in Malibu, California.”

  More awed sounds rose from the people as they leaned closer, trying to see better.

  “In other words,” Hutton said, “this tortoise proves that the people of the Chaco empire were powerful enough to reach out a thousand miles for materials and for the artistic vision to create a piece of grave goods that is every bit as elegantly stylized as anything from an Egyptian tomb.”

  He paused and smiled his trademark smile. The women who were watching smiled back.

  Christy didn’t. She just wondered if Jo-Jo enjoyed looking at her sexual opposite in Peter Hutton, or if the competition made her uneasy.

  “That’s why I’m so enthusiastic about this find,” he said. “Not only is it an inspiration for me artistically, it’s also a real breakthrough in our understanding of ancient Mesoamerican cultures. Until this find, the Anasazi were dismissed as backwater clods. Now people will be forced to admit that one thousand years ago an important imperial culture existed from the New Mexican desert to the Colorado Plateau.”

  Hutton glanced around, measuring the enthusiasm of his audience. When he saw Christy, his expression changed.

  “Excuse me for a moment,” he said to the people gathered around the case.

  He crossed the huge room toward her with the odd, flowing grace of a runway model. While his chiseled Grecian beauty wasn’t to Christy’s taste, it was compelling in the way that all good art is compelling.

  Jo-Jo had the same effect on the senses. People stared because they couldn’t believe such physical perfection existed anywhere short of heaven or a movie screen.

  “Christa? We’ve almost met so many times, and now I find out you’re Jo’s sister. I’m still in shock.”

  Hutton took both Christy’s hands and held them with every evidence of pleasure.

  “Hello, Mr. Hutton.”

  “Never. For you I’m Peter, and you’re Christa for me.” He smiled, a curve of the lips that was just for her.

  For the first time in her life, Christy was grateful that she’d spent a childhood in Jo-Jo’s glittering orbit. Otherwise Hutton’s sheer physical beauty might have left her speechless and scrambling for balance.

  But she smiled because it was impossible to be the focus of Hutton’s smile and not return it.

  “Mr. Hutton—”

  “Peter,” he interrupted firmly.

  “Peter.” She shook her head slightly. “You’re everything people said you were.”

  “Oh, I hope not.” He winked, sharing a secret with her. “People say some pretty awful things and forget to say the nice ones.”

  “That’s the first thing a reporter learns.”

  Hutton leaned down and said in a low voice, “For instance, Jo never mentioned that you were a beauty in your own right.”

  “Jo-Jo is beautiful. I’m well turned out.”

  He laughed. Then he looked Christy over from the crown of her head to her feet.

  “I beg to differ with you, darling,” he said. “And I’m the acknowledged world expert on female beauty.”

  With a confident pressure of his hand over hers, Hutton drew Christy toward the case.

  “I was just giving some friends a preview of the treasure of Xanadu,” he said. “You can’t imagine the magic of these pieces.”

  As he approached the people grouped around the case, they looked up expectantly at him.

  Christy didn’t blame them. There was a vividness to Hutton that colored everything within reach.

  “Mind your nasty tongues, children. The press has arrived,” he said.

  Christy watched the predictable result with a mixture of resignation and amusement.

  “Such shocked looks,” Hutton said. “Relax, Tim, she’s not going to mug you for some sleazy tabloid.”

  The movie star grimaced. The rest of the group laughed.

  “Christa McKenna is class all the way. She’s the guru—or is it guress?—of taste and style in the U.S. If you don’t believe me, ask Horizon magazine.”

  A wave of interest went through the people as they looked at her.

  “Shannon,” Hutton said, “you’re blocking the case. I, personally, don’t mind, but I’m sure Christa would rather look at the artifacts than your heart-shaped ass.”

  Laughing, the actress stepped to the side.

  Christy saw instantly why the guests were so fascinated by the display. Every piece in the case was marvelously preserved and presented. None showed the rude execution that she associated with Anasazi works.

  The turquoise fetishes and strings of jet beads were tiny and immaculately polished. The pottery’s painted designs were both irregular and artistically inevitable. The baskets had breathtaking elegance and intricacy. The arrowheads and the stone and bone implements were superb in their execution and timeless in their balance and purpose.

  Most compelling of all, some of the artifacts transcended the limitations of form and function to become art.

  “What do you think?” Hutton asked, watching Christy with shielded intensity.

  “Elegant, elemental, and extraordinary,” she said.

  His smile was genuine, relieved, and triumphant. “And you haven’t even seen the best!”

  He set a simple rosewood display box lined with soft green velvet on top of the case and gestured to her. When she hesitated, he pushed the box closer.

  “Look,” he said in a hushed voice.

  A tortoise effigy rested on the velvet. The pendant was as big as a man’s palm. The creature’s shell was made of highly polished black argillite. The potent head and neck were mother-of-pearl inlay, as were the legs. The collar at the base of the neck was turquoise inlay. The eyes were polished turquoise spheres.

  Beyond the age of the object, beyond its superb craftsmanship, beyond its rarity, there was an aura about the tortoise that fairly sang of longevity and reverence, wisdom and fertility.

  It was a god effigy from a sophisticated culture.

  “Isn’t he marvelous?” Hutton said.

  “Yes,” Christy said simply.

  “I believe he’s the highest expression of Anasazi art ever to be found.” Hutton’s voice was rough with excitement. “For my money, this is one of the highest expressions of ancient art of any culture.”

  She let out a breath she hadn’t been aware of holding. “This came from Xanadu?”

  “Yes.” His voice softened. “Everything in this case came out of a sandstone cave we found last year.”

  She bent closer, inspecting the icon intently. A tiny piece of abalone inlay was missing from one foot. Somehow the loss reassured her, made the piece more genuine, more huma
n.

  Imperfect, and therefore real.

  “Go ahead,” Hutton said, picking up the tortoise with heart-stopping casualness. “Touch it. Hold it.”

  Reverently Christy took the object in her hand and touched the polished shell with her fingertips. The surface was smooth, cool, almost seamless. The inlays were so carefully made that she had to concentrate to feel where stone ended and mother-of-pearl began.

  “My archaeological consultants tell me that the cave was a tomb for two royal sisters,” Hutton said.

  “When I studied the Anasazi in college,” Christy said, “we were told they were simple farmers.”

  “Textbooks are being rewritten as we stand here. Hundreds of Anasazi sites are being uncovered every year, all across the Colorado Plateau and the Southwest.”

  She glanced up at the excitement in Hutton’s voice. Then she went still, caught by the beauty of his eyes, as deep and vivid as the mountain sky.

  “The latest thinking is that the Anasazi were an imperial people,” Hutton explained. “Their capital was in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. They maintained a system of roads that reached all the way into Colorado.”

  But even his excitement and mesmerizing male beauty couldn’t keep Christy’s attention from the icon for long. Both timeless and atavistic, the tortoise enthralled her.

  “Our archaeologists believe Xanadu’s cave is the northernmost reach of the Chaco empire,” Hutton said. “Not far from where we’re standing lies the edge of one of the greatest ancient empires in the world.”

  “Why, it’s like finding King Tut’s tomb right here in Colorado!” Shannon Prell said.

  “Anyone have the movie rights?” Tim asked idly. “I could make a hell of a film out of it.”

  Hutton smiled, but he didn’t look away from Christy. Gently she placed the ancient tortoise back in its modern rosewood box.

  “It must have been thrilling to discover this,” she said, looking at the object. “I can’t wait to see the cave.”

  Hutton’s disappointment was immediate and intense. “I’m sorry. It’s not safe.”

  “It can’t be more dangerous than midnight in Manhattan.”

  “It’s so bad they’re not digging, they’re stabilizing walls.”