“Top of the scale."

"Sex?"

"Almost, but cooler heads prevailed."

"Damn."

"Plus he's funny and interesting and sweet. Pretty bossy in a really clever way so you barely notice until you've been bossed. Smart, and I think tenacious."

"Sounds perfect. Can I have him?"

"Sorry, pal, but I may have to keep him." She snatched out the disk, then carefully closed documents and shut down. "Mission accomplished with no loss of life. Thanks, Tod." She threw her arms around him, gave him a big, noisy kiss. "I've got to get to work on this."

She hunkered down in her apartment, systematically going through the data, cross-referencing, eliminating, until she had a workable list. By the time she left for Flynn's, she'd winnowed The Gallery's client list by seventy percent.

Dana was already there when she arrived.

"Had dinner?"

"No." Malory looked, cautiously, for Moe. "I forgot."

"Good. We've got pizza coming. Flynn's out back with Moe for their daily romp. You're okay that I told him about your dream?"

"Yeah. We seem to have brought him into this."

"Okay. Go in and flop. We'll have some wine."

She'd barely done so when Zoe arrived with Simon in tow. "I hope it's all right. I couldn't get a sitter."

"I don't need a sitter," Simon declared.

"I need a sitter." Zoe hooked an arm around his neck. "He's got homework, so if there's a corner he can use. I brought the shackles."

Dana winked at him. "We'll use the dungeon. Can we torture him, then feed him pizza?"

"We've already had—"

"I could eat pizza," Simon interrupted. Then he let out a whoop as Moe charged in from the back of the house. "Wow! That's some dog!"

"Simon, don't—"

But boy and dog were already rushing together, caught in the throes of mutual love at first sight.

"Hey, Flynn, look what Zoe brought us. We get to make him do homework."

"I've always wanted to do that with somebody. You must be Simon."

"Uh-huh. This is a great dog, mister."

"The dog's Moe, I'm Flynn. Zoe, can Simon take Moe back out so they can run around like maniacs for a while?"

"Sure. Twenty minutes, Simon, then you hit the books."

"Sweet!"

"Straight out the back," Flynn told him. "There's a ball out there with toothmarks and drool all over it. He likes you to chase it and fetch it back to him."

"You're funny," Simon decided. "Let's go, Moe!"

"Pizza," Dana announced when the bell rang. "Want to call him back?"

"No, he's fine. He just finished eating three helpings of spaghetti."

"Flynn, be a man. Pay for the pizza."

"Why do I always have to be the man?" Then he zeroed in on Malory and grinned. "Oh, yeah. That's why."

Dana sat on the floor with a fresh notebook in her lap. "Let's be organized about this. The librarian in me demands it. Zoe, pour yourself some wine. We can each report what we've found or thought or speculated on since the last time we got together."

"I haven't found much." Zoe took a folder out of her canvas bag. "I typed up all my notes, though."

"Aren't you a good girl?" Delighted, Dana took the folder, then pounced on the first box of pizza when Flynn dropped two of them on the coffee table. "I'm starving ."

“There's news." He sat on the sofa beside Malory, turned her face toward him with his hand, then kissed her long and firm. "Hi."

"Gee, don't I get one of those?"

At Zoe's question, he shifted and leaned toward her, but she laughed and gave him a light shove. "I'd better settle for the wine."

"If Flynn's finished kissing girls," Dana began.

"Which won't be until I've drawn my last, gasping breath."

"Settle down," Dana ordered. "We know about Mai's experience. I have the typed report of it here, which I'll add to the collection of notes and other data."

"I've got more." Since it was there, Malory took a slice of pizza from the box and dropped it onto a paper plate. "I have a list of people—clients through The Gallery— who've purchased or shown interest in classical and/or mythological subject matter in art. I've also started a search of like styles, but that's going to take some time. I intend to start making phone inquiries tomorrow."

"I could help," Zoe offered. "I was thinking that maybe we should do a search for paintings that include the element of a key. Like a theme."

"That's good," Malory acknowledged, and tore a sheet off the roll of paper towels that stood in for napkins.

"I've got some appointments tomorrow, but I'll work around them."

"I've been working on the clue itself." Dana picked up her wineglass. "I'm wondering if we should take some of the key phrases and do a search on place names. Like restaurants or shops. Take the Singing Goddess, for example. I didn't find anything on that, but it's the sort of thing that could be the name of a shop or a restaurant or a site."

"Not bad," Flynn said and helped himself to another slice of pizza.

"I've got some more." Still she said nothing as she reached into the box herself, topped off her wine. "I put in some Internet time running the three names Malory heard in her… in her dream. "Niniane" comes up a few times. Some legends have her as the sorceress who enchanted Arthur's Merlin and trapped him in the cave of crystal. There's another that has her as Merlin's mother. But when I put her together with the other two, I found one hit from this esoteric little site on goddess worship. It gives a variation on the Daughters of Glass—and calls them by those names."

"Those are their names. You can't think it's a coincidence that I dreamed those names and you found them today."

"No," Dana said carefully. "But isn't it possible you came across the same site and the names stuck in your head?"

"No. I would've written it down. I would've remembered. I never heard them before the dream."

"Okay." Flynn patted her knee. "First, I'll tell you I haven't found any record of a shipping or moving company that serviced Warrior's Peak. And no record of any company shipping furniture here for clients under Triad."

"They had to get all that stuff in there somehow," Dana protested. "They didn't just click the heels of their ruby slippers together."

"Just giving you the facts. The real-estate company didn't make the arrangements for them, either. At this point, I haven't found any trail leading Rowena or Pitte to the Peak. Not saying there isn't one," he continued before Dana could protest. "Just saying I haven't found one through the logical sources."

"I guess we have to look at the illogical ones."

He shifted to beam at Zoe. "There you go. But I've got one more logical step to take. Who do I know who collects art seriously, someone I could use as a source? The Vanes. So I gave my old pal Brad a call. It so happens he's heading back here in a couple of days."

"Brad's coming back to the Valley?" Dana asked.

"He's taking over the local headquarters for Home-Makers. Brad's got the Vanes' passion for art. I described the painting to him, or started to. I wasn't close to being finished when he gave me the title. The Daughters of Glass ."

"No, that can't be. I'd have heard of it." Malory pushed herself to her feet and began to pace. "Who's the artist?"

"Nobody seems to be sure."

"Just not possible," Malory continued. "A major talent like that, I'd have heard. I'd have seen more of the artist's work."

"Maybe not. According to Brad, nobody seems to know much about the artist. The Daughters of Glass was last seen in a private home in London. Where it was, by all accounts, destroyed during the Blitz. In 1942."

Chapter Eight

Malory closed herself in her apartment for two days. She submerged herself in books, telephone calls, E-mail. It was foolish, she'd decided, to run around chasing a dozen different angles and suppositions. Better— far better—to conduct the search with technology and systematic logic.

She couldn't function, simply couldn't think , in disorder. Which was why, she admitted as she carefully labeled yet another file, she'd failed as an artist.

Art, the creation of true art, required some mysterious, innate ability to thrive in chaos. Or that was her opinion. To be able to see and understand and feel dozens of shapes and textures of emotions at one time.

Then, of course, there was the little matter of possessing the talent to transfer those emotions onto a canvas.

She lacked the gift, on all levels, while the artist of The Daughters of Glass had it in spades.

The painting at Warrior's Peak, or one done by the same artist, was the path. She was sure of that now. Why else did she keep coming back to it? Why had she somehow in her dreams walked into it?

Why had she been chosen to find the first key, she thought, if not for her knowledge of and contacts in the art world?

She'd been told to look within and without. Within the painting, or another by the same artist? Did "without" mean to look at what surrounded the painting?

Opening a file folder, she studied the printout of the painting again. What surrounded the daughters? Peace and beauty, love and passion—and the threat to destroy it. As well as, she mused, the method to restore it.

A key in the air, in the trees, in the water.

She was damn sure she wasn't about to pluck a magic key out of the air or from a tree branch, so what did it meant And which of those three was hers?