This time it started with the necklace.

It was one of the most beautiful things she had ever seen.

Priceless diamonds and rubies, glowing with an inner light, were nestled in expertly handcrafted settings. The gold, burnished with the patina of ages, held the stones gently but very firmly, much as a lover holds that which is precious to him.

The exquisitely crafted gold holding the stones expressed the love of the craftsman for his work. Shown to advantage, the stones sparkled with energy in the unshaded overhead light as if they lived and breathed. As Audra Franchi watched, a disruptive aura dulled the beauty of the priceless gems. The stones whispered to her of love and hate. Trust and betrayal. Life and death. They whispered a history of greed.

Pictures, floating in the back of Audra’s mind, followed the whispered words. Flashing pictures, one after another registered in Audra’s consciousness. Pictures of blood flowing through history, agonizing pictures of love dying.

Second-hand pain shot through one side of Audra’s head. An involuntary moan escaped her tightly closed lips.

"No! I can’t do this again. I refuse to be responsible for someone else’s life. Not again."

Instinctively, she knew the stabbing pain belonged to someone else. It subsided as soon as she acknowledged it, leaving behind a dull throb to remind her that it had actually been there and could return any time it chose.

Audra shut the lid of the worn black leather jewelry case and pushed it to the far side of the work area. She couldn’t shake the nausea or feeling of dread that had been her constant companion since the necklace arrived by special messenger. She should have known the minute the feeling started that the "gift" was back.

She hadn’t experienced that terrible sinking in the pit of her stomach for more than a year. She hoped that it had gone forever. But it had grown so strong in such a short span of time that her body almost quivered with it.

The nausea, stronger than before, washed over the center of her stomach sending her running for the bathroom. It had been like this since her tenth birthday. She didn’t know why that date was so strong in her mind. Nothing particularly horrendous had happened that day, yet she knew that was the day the trouble, as her mother called it, had started.

Every time the "gift" forced her to help someone, the price to her emotional self took a bigger bite and the healing took longer. Each time the compulsion finally eased and the sight faded, Audra hoped that was the end of it. No such luck. And when it did return, and it always did, it came back clearer and more forceful than the time before.

Because jewelry was her business, she knew that most of the truly "precious" stones of any size on the market today had a long and varied history. The older that history, the less pleasant were the vibrations her gift picked up. The item will have passed through many hands leaving traces of the strongest emotions of each person who possessed the stones down through time.

In this instance, the violence and pain she was reading in this necklace was life threatening and it was happening now. She looked again at the black leather case knowing that she didn’t want to work with these stones and gold. She shuddered at the thought of touching them, having to take them out of their original settings and melting down that gold to cast new settings. Even though she knew that the number of "new" gems released each year were few and well controlled, at this moment she wished this job was an "original" in every sense of the word.

The choice of whether or not to do the job had ended when she deposited George Webster’s cashier’s check. In the real world, house payments, utilities and the need to eat didn’t stop just because things didn’t feel right. She had considered returning the money and the necklace, but the owner, Mr. Webster seemed to have disappeared off the face off the earth.

Audra pulled an artist’s twelve by eighteen-inch pad out of one of the workbench drawers and started to sketch ring and earring designs with trembling fingers. Keeping her energies focused on the job was important. What the necklace might be trying to tell her was not. She couldn’t let it be important. If she was going to survive her gift this time, she couldn’t let go of that thought.

Her pencil flew over the paper, filling the space with bold strokes. Her hand seemed to work alone as something outside of herself took control. A woman’s face, a frightened face with large pleading eyes, peered back at Audra from the paper. In the background, a large, foreign-looking house sheltered on three sides by jungle foliage emerged from the slashing lines.

Echoing pain streaked through her head again, tearing at her focused thoughts, exposing them to the winds of confusion. The pain was so strong she knew it was a reflection of something very recent, or yet to happen. And it was laced with fear. The energy of that fear was almost overwhelming.

Unaware of what she was doing, Audra turned to a clean page and started to work up a more detailed drawing of the woman. She was beautiful, exotic. Large soulful eyes stared at Audra seeming to beseech her help. Audra’s hand, of its own volition, wrote the name "Nina" under the portrait.

Then there was the inner voice to deal with. No matter how often this had happened in the past, Audra had never been able to come to terms with this particular part of the gift. The voice was so clear. The words so frightening, so pathetic.

A chill swept through Audra. As Nina’s voice started to fade from her mind, a striking masculine face gained strength, feature by feature, over the softer feminine countenance filling the page.

Swiftly, Audra moved to a blank page. With a few bold strokes, piercing eyes, looking out of a strong masculine face filled the paper’s surface. Like the attraction of charged dust particles clinging to a static filled balloon, a sensation of heat swept through her body as she tried, without success, to ignore her own sensual reaction to this hard faced stranger.

Fear, as real as anything she had ever experienced, pinned her to the chair. She tried to put the pencil down. Her shaking hand wouldn’t obey her simple command. Another involuntary stroke of the pencil put hate in the eyes.

The pain in the side of her head increased. The pencil dropped from her numbing fingers. Audra cringed at the physical and emotional danger this man represented to her personally.

He’ll take more than I’m willing to give and never look back.