Kady set her suitcase down and looked him in the eye. “I don’t want anything from you. Nothing whatever. To tell you the truth, I never want to see you again.”
“Just because we had a lovers’ quarrel is no reason to—”
“Aaaargh,” Kady growled, then gave him a good kick in the shins that made him move to one side of the stairs, and grabbing her case, she ran down them. She was on the Metro and heading toward Union Station before he could cat
ch her.
Chapter 20
WHEN KADY GOT TO NEW YORK, SHE KNEW HER MEASLY SIX grand wasn’t going to last very long. Between lack of time and lack of money, she would have to hurry to find Ruth Jordan’s descendants. She took a room in a less-than-desirable hotel by Madison Square Garden and wasted a day at the library and on the telephone, calling people named Jordan. She soon found that people in New York City did not know who their great-grandmothers were and, for the most part, didn’t want to be bothered.
By late afternoon Kady was ready to give up. She was sitting in a New York deli eating sliced turkey on a bagel, her notebook open before her, and wondering where she could look next, when she noticed the knife in the hand of the man at the table across from her. Looking down at her plate, she remembered how Cole had had knives concealed inside his clothes and how he was one of the few people she’d ever met who knew how to properly sharpen a knife.
Idly, she picked up her pen and began to doodle, and when she had finished, she saw that she’d drawn a sword, a long-bladed, round-hilted sword that looked like something out of a pirate movie.
As she chewed and looked at the drawing, she wondered if a love of something could be passed down through generations. Cole had loved knives. Could a relative of his also love knives and swords?
Grabbing her sandwich, Kady ate as she went back to her hotel room and checked the Yellow Pages for antique dealers, and when she had a few addresses, she hit the streets again.
It wasn’t until midmorning on the third day—the last day—that she had any success. She’d been given the address of a tiny shop downtown, one that reeked of money because only a serious collector could find such a place, and when she saw it, she knew that only a connoisseur would have wanted to go inside. The windows hadn’t been cleaned since the store was built many years before, and there was nothing inside the filthy display window except dead flies and layers of dirt. The glass door had been painted black, and the only indication that she was in the right place was the name Anderson in faded gold paint. Beside the door was a buzzer and a speaker.
Without much hope that she’d meet with any success, Kady pushed the buzzer, and after several minutes the haughty voice of a man came out. “Yes?”
Kady took a deep breath. “Mr. Jordan sent me,” she said into the speaker. When there were no questions asked and no hesitation before she was buzzed inside, Kady could only stand there and stare in astonishment at the door for precious seconds before pushing it open.
Inside the tiny shop the dirty walls were covered with swords, the kind found only in museums: curved blades, thin blades, rusty and pitted blades, some looking pristine new, some as though they’d been buried for centuries. Glass cases were filled with knives of every size, with handles of every conceivable substance. Looking about in wonder, Kady could only gape.
“And what is Mr. Jordan looking for today?” said a man from behind her. Turning, Kady saw an older man, tall and thin, gray at the temples; he had a look on his face that let a person know that he was the best in his field. He was as perfectly groomed as the store was ungroomed.
“Actually, I was thinking of a gift.”
At that the tiniest smile crossed the man’s face as he looked down at Kady’s very ordinary and very inexpensive clothes. She was aware that there were no price tags dangling from the swords. “I think you should look in Bloomingdale’s, a nice tie perhaps.” Pointedly, he glanced at the door.
Wildly, Kady searched her mind for something to prevent his throwing her out. “I was trying to get an idea of what Cole liked, and I—” Kady had no idea what she said, but something had certainly piqued the man’s interest, because, for a flash of a second, his eyebrows nearly hit his hairline.
“I see,” he said as he tried to get his face back under control, but before he could say anything, there was a commotion in the back of the store, and she heard a door opening and closing. “If you’ll excuse me,” the man said, then disappeared into the back, leaving Kady alone to wander about. But she was more interested in what was happening in the back of the store than in the swords, for there was a great deal of furious whispering going on.
Minutes later a handsome, young blond man came into the store from the back, his arms full of packages, looked at Kady for a moment, then whispered, “He’ll do anything to find out what the T stands for,” then disappeared again into the back.
For several stunned minutes, Kady didn’t understand what the young man was talking about, but then she almost swooned with happiness. She had just found Ruth’s descendant, Mr. C. T. Jordan. Now all she had to do was trade her information for the proprietor’s, for she full well knew what the T stood for.
Fifteen minutes later she left the store with an address clutched in her hand and a smile on her face.
Chapter 21
“I HAVE TOLD YOU SEVERAL TIMES,” THE RECEPTIONIST SAID sternly, “Mr. Jordan sees no one without an appointment.”
“But you don’t understand, I must see him today. This is the last day!” Twice now Kady had tried to explain why she had to see Mr. Jordan this day, but what could she say? That his great-great-grandmother who had been dead for ninety-eight years had told her she had only six weeks in which to contact a man who had yet to be born? Even when she said that this was the last day, it carried no weight because she couldn’t answer the question, Last day of what?
When the woman only glared at Kady, she went back to her seat in the elegant waiting room, where she had been sitting for the last hour and a half.
During the past hours she had not only been unable to break through the receptionist’s reserve, but she’d been unable to pry any information from her. The office of C. T. Jordan was the entire top floor of an expensive marble-clad building, and when she’d entered the ground floor and told the guard whom she wanted to see, he had laughed at her. Thinking as quickly as she could, she showed him the sword dealer’s card. Thankfully, the guard made a call, and Kady had been allowed into the private elevator that took her to the top floor.
But here she’d met opposition in the form of a large, humorless woman who at first wanted to have Kady physically thrown out. But a telephone had rung, she’d picked it up, listened, put it down, then told Kady she could not see Mr. Jordan. It had taken Kady a moment to realize what was different in her tone: the woman was no longer saying Kady was going to be dragged from the room by guards. She could remain on the premises, but could not see C. T. Jordan.
“I’ll stay here and wait,” Kady said tentatively, but the woman had merely shrugged her shoulders in dismissal, then turned away.
As Kady sat there for the next ninety minutes, she was more confused than ever. Why was she being allowed to stay? Was someone checking with the sword dealer before having her pulled screaming from the room? And why wouldn’t the receptionist answer any of Kady’s questions, such as what Mr. Jordan was like, what his company did, did the man have a family? But the woman had told Kady that she had no intention of gossiping about her employer. Her attitude said she could not understand why such a poorly dressed young woman was being allowed to stay in this place.