That was Barky. Not this person Balaton was talking about, not the man in black who’d battered him and Ashley in the woods.

“What do you think we should do?” he asked Balaton.

“Stop him.”

“Sure, but how?”

Balaton seemed clearheaded and calm now. “We must beat him to the jewels, David. You have access to them, don’t you? Perhaps we can get to Switzerland before they do and—” He stopped as David shook his head.

“Won’t work.”

“And why not?”

“Because the jewels aren’t in Switzerland.”

After Ashley’s call, Jeremy found Lillian Parker in the dining room, where she sat with an ashtray, a pack of cigarettes and coffee. She had dressed casually in jeans and a bright turquoise cotton sweater, but her hair was lank, and because she hadn’t put on any makeup, he could see the lines of age around her mouth and eyes. Knowing she’d been worried, he told her Ashley was on her way back.

Lillian smiled. “She’s irrepressible, isn’t she? I wonder if she went after the rest of the jewels.”

“The what?” Stunned, Jeremy sat diagonally across from her. “Lillian...”

She didn’t seem to hear him as she tapped her cigarette lightly on the edge of the ashtray; a whitened ash dropped off. “Mac will be furious—probably’ll blame me for her, too.”

He contained his impatience. “I’m sorry, Lillian, I don’t understand.”

“Of course not.” She laughed, tired and sad and bitter, and put the cigarette back in her mouth. “You were just a little boy yourself thirty years ago. You couldn’t know about all the honest but disastrous mistakes I made when I was young and oh, so stupid.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

“Why not? Everyone else is.”

Jeremy wished he could think of some way to comfort her, and yet at the same time, he only wanted to pin her down and get her to talk. At the moment, sitting under the portrait of the dead Judith Land, Lillian was just rambling and feeling sorry for herself....

And then, all at once, it became clear. His eyes widened, but ever the lawyer, he forced a note of calm into his voice. “You and Judith were in Hungary in ‘56. You’re the other two Mac helped escape.”

Lillian exhaled smoke at the ceiling. “Bingo.”

What a bombshell that would have been— and would be now, if it were widely known. In an effort to keep from strangling the woman for answers, Jeremy pulled the insulated coffeepot over to him and had a look. Practically full. Lillian had an extra mug; he filled it. As he did so, he tried to imagine two rich young Americans caught in the hell of Budapest during one of its revolutions.

“You lost Mac that night,” he said with compassion. “It must have been frightening.”

“The whole thing was frightening from start to finish—pure hell. And much, much more than either of us, Judith or I, had bargained for.” She stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray. “Crockett hates it when I smoke here. He says he can smell it for weeks afterward. Poor Crockett, he’s been through so much. Usually I oblige him, but today...I just don’t give a damn.”