Gold of Kings by Davis Bunn Page A

Balenciaga gown she had found in a Palm Beach–style garage sale. It was fashioned in the thirties Art Deco style, of black and white silk velvet. “It was still in the dry cleaner’s bag from last year.”
    â€œSame event?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWith Sean?”
    â€œHe used the event to announce I was taking over the Palm Beach shop.” It had also been the first time Sean had ever publicly introduced Storm as his granddaughter. She tried to offer Harry a smile. “Like you said, memories.”
    â€œSay the word, we’re out of here. Until then, we’ll tough it out together.”
    The car jockey opened her door and welcomed them to the Breakers. Storm started to rise from the car, then turned back. She inspected Harry carefully.
    â€œWhat?”
    She leaned forward and kissed Harry’s cheek. “Thanks for being here, Harry.”
    Harry didn’t speak. But he rubbed the spot where her lips had been and gave her a look she carried out into the night.
    Harry Bennett entered the Breakers Hotel with a boxer’s swagger and a total lack of guile. No matter how she might buff and shine the man, Harry would always remain a buccaneer. Wearing his midnight blue Armani and formal shirt with studs and black bow tie, Harry was handsome in the manner of a drill sergeant in full dress uniform. She gripped his arm and fed on his hard-earned confidence.
    The Breakers had originally been built as an afterthought to Flagler’s Royal Poinciana Hotel, which had stood three miles further inland. Guests had often requested rooms close enough to hear the surf, so a smaller inn of cedar and pine had been erected on the tip of Flagler’s ten square miles of Palm Beach Island. By the dawn of the twentieth century, the demand to stay in the inn nicknamed the Breakers by its regulars was greater than at the inland palace. When the inn burned down three years later, Flagler ordered a new beachfront structure built in the style that came to be known as the Gilded Age.
    The arriving guests made a stately procession down the Spanish baronial hall, beneath a cathedral ceiling adorned with royal crests. They passed through the main bar and entered the vast circular ballroom. For Storm, last year’s event had swept by in a flash of elation. Her necklace had become one of the evening’s most talked-over items. The emerald pendant had weighed in at sixty-one carats, the largest of twelve stones found in a stern lockbox on the Kristinya , a Dutch vessel sunk off Curacao in 1715. Storm had recounted the tale four times that night, until a Hollywood mogul bought it over champagne and canapés for his newest leading lady.
    This year’s reception was filled with cold shoulders and knowing smirks and poisoned hugs. Harry took up station a few steps back, his stone-like demeanor telling everybody he had no interest in small talk. Storm stood on the outskirts of a cluster that did not quite shut her out. When a quartet began playing Brahms, she decided she had endured more than enough.
    But a male voice chose that moment to say, “This must be so very hard for you, Ms. Syrrell.”
    Storm made a half turn and found herself facing the man whose photograph she had just seen inside an FBI file. “Do I know you?”
    â€œYou have been pointed out to me.”
    Harry noticed the change and stepped forward. “Everything all right?”
    Storm lifted her chin, motioning him away. Harry took a step back, but his gaze never shifted. Storm said to the gentleman, “You worked with my grandfather?”
    â€œWe did business together for many years.” He sipped from his glass, revealing a gold cuff link with the largest star sapphire she had ever seen. “I have an item for sale. One I wish you to handle for me.”
    Selim Arkut, that was the name Emma Webb had used. Storm put him down as Persian or Turkish, late sixties, black hair laced with silver, the profile of a