Key Of Valor (Key 3)

She nodded, noted it down. "Heard you were down at the council meeting this morning. Anything up?"

"Just the usual hot air."

She snickered, glanced at Jordan. "How about you, big boy?"

When she walked off with their orders, Flynn settled back, twitched his head toward Brad. "So, did you hear that Mr. Bigshot Vane here sent a mile-long limo to pick up his date for dinner last night?"

"No shit? Show-off."

"It was only half a mile long, and how the hell do you know?"

"Nose for news." Flynn tapped a finger on the side of his nose. "My sources, however, were unable to confirm if said show-off scored."

"I took the kid in Smackdown, but he whipped my ass in Grand Theft Auto."

"Struck out with the mother," Jordan concluded. "I bet the kid got one large charge out of riding in that limo."

"He did. So did Zoe. Did you hear what she said the other day? She's never lain in a hammock?" His face clouded as he took his coffee back from Flynn. "How can somebody go their whole life and never lie in a hammock?"

"And now you want to buy her one so she can lie in it," Flynn decided.

"I guess I do."

"Which makes you, let's see"—Jordan stared at the ceiling—"oh, yes, that would be toast." Then he sobered. "She's a terrific woman. She deserves a break, somebody to take some of the weight."

"Working on it. With your mother, if somebody had come along who was serious about her, would that have bothered you?"

"I don't know. Nobody ever did—or she didn't let anybody. I can't say for sure. I guess it would have depended on who it was, and how he treated her. You that serious?"

"It's heading that way, for me."

"That brings us back around," Flynn commented. "The three of us, the three of them. Pretty damn tidy."

"Maybe sometimes things are meant to be tidy."

"I know all about that. I happen to be engaged to the queen of neat. But I think it's something we have to think about. What part you're meant to play in this production we're in," Flynn stated matter-of-factly.

He let that stew while their sandwiches were served.

"I've been thinking about it," Brad said. "It seems to me most of the clue deals with things that happened to her, or things she did before she met me. But those things brought her here. Then if we assume I'm part of it, those same clues could apply to things that happened to me, or things I did, before I met her. Those things brought me back here."

"Different paths, same destiny." Jordan nodded. "It's a theory. Now your paths have crossed."

"What you do now, that's a question," Flynn put in. "But also where. The goddess with a sword indicates a battle."

"She won't be fighting it alone," Brad promised. "The sword's sheathed in the paintings. In mine it's sheathed and placed with her in the coffin, and in the one at the Peak it's sheathed and at her hip."

"It's sheathed in the stone in the portrait Rowena did of Arthur, too. The one I bought," Jordan added.

"She never had a chance to draw it." Brad brought the image of the still, white face in the painting into his mind. "Maybe we're supposed to give her that chance."

"Maybe Malory should take another look at the paintings," Flynn suggested. "See if she missed anything. I don't—"

"Hold that thought," Jordan told him as his cell phone beeped. He flipped it out, smiled at the number on his readout. "Hey, Stretch." He lifted his coffee. "Uh-huh. It so happens my associates are with me in my office at the moment. I can do that," he said after a minute, then tipped the phone away from his ear.

"Meeting, six o'clock, Flynn's place. I have nods of assent," he said into the phone. "That works for me. Zoe's making chili," he told his friends.

"Tell Dana to tell Zoe I'll pick her up."