When an exquisitely crafted, authentic imperial Faberge egg mysteriously shows up at Laurel Swann's home studio, she knows it can only be from one person—her father, who has drifted in and out of her life for as long as she can remember. But this time Jamie Swann leaves her something too many people will kill for. Out of her league and desperate, Laurel is forced to accept help from the very man who is trying to ensnare her father in his own web of double crosses. Cruz Rowan can help her stay alive, but will he do the same for her father? Elizabeth Lowell, writing as Ann Maxwell, deftly combines the nonstop action of a spy thriller with the heart-pounding excitement of true love and adventure. When an exquisitely crafted, authentic imperial Faberge egg mysteriously shows up at Laurel Swann's home studio, she knows it can only be from one person—her father, who has drifted in and out of her life for as long as she can remember. But this time Jamie Swann leaves her something too many people will kill for. Out of her league and desperate, Laurel is forced to accept help from the very man who is trying to ensnare her father in his own web of double crosses. Cruz Rowan can help her stay alive, but will he do the same for her father? Elizabeth Lowell, writing as Ann Maxwell, deftly combines the nonstop action of a spy thriller with the heart-pounding excitement of true love and adventure. New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Lowell has more than eighty titles published to date with over twenty-four million copies of her books in print. She lives in the Sierra Nevada Mountains with her husband, with whom she writes novels under a pseudonym. Her favorite activity is exploring the Western United States to find the landscapes that speak to her soul and inspire her writing. Whirlpool By Elizabeth Lowell HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. Copyright © 2006 Elizabeth Lowell All right reserved. ISBN: 0060511133 Chapter One Laurel Swann touched the gleaming pebble, with the tip of her index finger. The stone was as smooth and cool as the ocean. She wished that all of life were half as pleasing to her senses. But it wasn't. Even the agate reminded her of past unhappiness and present uncertainty; there was a single band of pale amber in the stone that was the exact color of her father's eyes, and her own. Seeing the color made her wonder where Jamie Swann was, if he was well or sick, thin or well fed, free or captive in some country whose name changed with every headline. "Don't think about it," Laurel told herself, speaking aloud in the manner of someone who spends much of the time alone. "There's nothing you can do. He's old enough to know better. Hell, he's old enough to retire, get a cat, and write his memoirs." The thought of it made Laurel smile. Like her dead mother, Laurel couldn't stop caring about the man whose cheerful grin and guarded eyes had shaped her life.Still smiling, Laurel picked up the agate and turned it slowly. Light from the north window of her weathered A-frame cottage spilled over her workbench, making the stone glow as if it held all the sunshine it had gathered during countless years of being tumbled by surf on a California beach. As a professional jewelry designer, Laurel had much more valuable stones—diamonds and opals, rubies and sapphires and citrine—in the safe in her workshop. But she still took real pleasure in finding a clear agate on the beach in front of her house. To Laurel, a good beach agate was a small gift from God, a memento of the forces that shaped the earth, the mingling of enduring rock and restless ocean. The stone on Laurel's palm was a good agate. Looking into its clear depths was like looking through a window into another world. The agate's radiant golden amber color gave way to a lightly marbled transparence at one end. The stone was flecked with dark inclusions, tiny bits of the agate's history preserved in a crystalline frame. The flaws made the stone more interesting to Laurel than mere perfection would have been. Turning the pebble slowly in the light, she automatically began creating a design in her mind, a simple, flowing framework of gold that would show off the agate to its best advantage. Stones were as unique and individual as people; a setting could enhance the natural beauty of a stone or all but destroy it. For Laurel, that was the endless fascination of making jewelry. Each design was her own answer to the silent challenge of the stones that she create a frame for them which was as unusual and enduring as their beauty. The rattle of a truck turning into Laurel's steep driveway broke her concentration. Frowning, she set aside the agate and looked out the ground floor window of her small house. A delivery van was idling just outside. The driver had thoughtfully driven down to the garage, savingLaurel a trip upstairs to the street level. Even so, she wasn't happy to see the truck. "Damn," Laurel muttered. "What's this? I'm not expect