Silver Linings

by Jayne Ann Krentz

  For a second nothing happened. Mattie thought the stress would overwhelm her. She simply could not go back out into that bedroom. She would become a screaming zombie here in the elegant bath if she did not escape right now.

  The panel slid silently open. Mattie breathed a silent prayer of gratitude, hitched up her skirt, and stepped into the darkness. The sense of relief was enough to push aside the mounting sense of claustrophobia for a short time. She found the button on the other side of the panel and pushed it. The panel slid soundlessly back into place.

  At that same instant there was a soft knock on the bathroom door.

  “Mattie? Are you all right in there?”

  Mattie switched on the flashlight, stepped into her shoes, and fled down the hidden hallway. She reached the door that opened onto the jungle and held her breath as she turned the handle.

  Half expecting to meet up with one of the armed guards, she switched off the flashlight and stepped out into the night. She stood very still for a minute, waiting for her eyes to adjust. Then she darted into the jungle.

  She had only the moon and the lights of the house to guide her. The soft, moist earth muffled her footsteps, but she knew she was making far too much noise in the undergrowth. At any moment one of the guards would surely hear her. She could only hope the crashing surf would give her some protection.

  She went straight into the jungle, keeping the house lights at her back. They quickly began to fade, however, as the thick vegetation closed in around her. She had to concentrate on the sound of the ocean and the vague light of the moon to guide her. She did not dare turn on the flashlight.

  Ocean on the left. House to the rear. Straight on until you cross the stream.

  Rainbird's voice, sounding as if it were magnified through some sort of megaphone, blared out in the darkness.

  “Mattie, come back. Don't run away. You won't come to any harm. You can't survive in that jungle, Mattie. There are too many things out there that can kill you. Especially at night. Things like snakes, Mattie. Do you want to find yourself in the coils of a giant snake?”

  Hugh had said not to worry, Mattie recalled. There were no snakes in the jungles of Purgatory. Hugh had never lied to her. Rainbird could tell you he loved you while he slit your throat.

  She plunged on. When the lights of the house disappeared entirely, she risked the flashlight in brief doses. At one point she scrambled over a fallen log and realized it was the one on which she had torn her silk blouse the first time she had come this way.

  She was on the right track.

  “Mattie, you're safe with me. You will die a horrible death out in that jungle. Trust me, Mattie. I mean you no harm.” Rainbird's magnified voice was fading into the distance.

  Hugh had said it would be virtually impossible to miss the stream. Ocean on the left.

  Were those distant crashing sounds the footsteps of her pursuers?

  She batted at the leaves, crawled over vines, pushed rare orchids out of the way as if they were so much noxious garbage in her path.

  Mattie stumbled over a vine and went down on one knee. She put out her hand to steady herself and her fingers went straight into running water.

  The stream.

  Blindly she turned left. Now all she had to do was follow the rivulet of water to the waterfalls.

  By now Rainbird would have sent his men out into the jungle on the theory that she would not go far. Perhaps he had assumed she would head for the sea in some primitive instinct to avoid the jungle.

  She risked the flashlight again in short bursts of light. She quickly learned it was easier not to subject her eyes to the changes in shadows. Mattie continued her journey with the aid of the moon and wet feet. As long as her shoes stayed wet, she knew she was on the right path.

  A familiar roaring sound told her she was approaching the waterfalls. Mattie picked up her pace, hoping she would not fall and twist her ankle. She still had all those caves to get through.

  God, the caves.

  And then what? she wondered bleakly. Assuming she survived the caves, she could not stay in Cormier's sanctuary forever. She would die of thirst and starvation. But she would worry about escape later. Right now the important thing was to get away from the blue-eyed vampire in the beautiful white mansion.

  She would rather die of thirst and starvation in the cavern than lure Hugh to his death, and she knew that was what Rainbird intended.

  Mattie burst through the last green barrier and came to an abrupt halt at the sight of the magnificent twin waterfalls bathed in silver moonlight. It was an eerie sight that touched some deep cord within her. There were things on this earth that were more powerful and would last eons longer than Jack Rainbird. And they could protect her from him now.

  Mattie went forward and stepped up on the first of the wet, slippery rocks that outlined the foaming pool. She dared not fall tonight. Hugh was not here to catch her.

  But this time she was not trying to juggle her purse and a French string bag full of pâté and bottles of sparkling water. This time it was a little easier. This time she was a little more determined.

  Mattie did not slip. She leaped off the last rock, straight through a shower of water, and found herself in the black mouth of the cave. She flicked on the flashlight and scanned the walls for the marks Cormier had left behind.

  Now came the hard part, she told herself ruefully. Now she had to walk through these twisting, turning tunnels of darkness all by herself.

  It was worse than any crowded elevator but not quite as bad as having Jack Rainbird try to seduce her in a white and silver room. All things were relative, it seemed.

  Twice she found herself turning down wrong corridors, but both times she was able to retrace her steps and find the small white marks on the walls. At several points along the way she wanted to close her eyes, but she did not dare. She might miss one of the white marks.

  Her stomach was in knots. Her heart was pounding, and the flashlight threatened to fall from her damp palms. But she could not go back. The only direction was forward. Walking through the corridors was a lot like going through life without an obvious talent, Mattie told herself. You just kept moving forward until you found the right path.

  She was getting close to the point of screaming, convinced she had made a wrong turn and was heading toward oblivion, when she caught a whiff of fresh sea air.

  “Oh, my God.” Mattie broke into a stumbling run.

  The air became fresher and laden with the tang of salt. It was going to be all right, at least for a while. Rainbird and his men would never find her here.

  Of course, neither would anyone else, she reminded herself grimly.

  Obviously she would have to risk a trip back out sooner or later. But perhaps after a day or so Rainbird would not be looking so hard for her. Perhaps he would assume she had either escaped or drowned in the sea or died somewhere in the jungles.

  She would worry about getting off Purgatory when she had recovered from this first, mad dash to freedom.

  She was running full tilt when she reached the entrance to the massive cavern where she and Hugh had hoped to find Cormier's boat. The flashlight pierced the gloom in front of her, revealing the natural boat basin.

  The first thing Mattie noticed was that this time there was a boat tied up at the dock. A swift, sleek, very powerful-looking cruiser.

  Before she could comprehend the meaning of the boat in the cavern, a man's arm came out of the darkness and tightened like a steel noose about her throat.

  Mattie tried to scream, but the sound was promptly choked off. She dropped the flashlight to struggle futilely with her assailant and felt the point of a knife graze her skin in warning.

  “Well, shit,” said Hugh, lowering the knife. “It's Mattie.”

  CHAPTER

  Nineteen

  Mattie sat on a duffel bag next to Silk Taggert, who was calmly checking over a handgun, and watched Hugh pace the cavern with a restless wolfish tread. The forbidding expression o
n his hard face reminded her of the one he'd had the night she had called him to rescue her from the bar in Seattle. But this was a thousand times worse, Mattie decided. Hugh was a grenade waiting to be detonated, a sword waiting to be unsheathed.

  “Are you sure he didn't hurt you?” Hugh demanded for the fifth or sixth time.

  “He didn't hurt me. I told you, he admitted he was looking for you, then he fed me a lovely dinner. He told me he was a vegetarian, but I didn't believe him. Not for one minute.”

  Hugh gave her a strange glance. “Then what?”

  “Then he took me to see Cormier's collection of old weapons.” Mattie had already been through this recitation several times.

  “And then he took you to the bedroom. Goddamn his soul.”

  “He didn't exactly drag me, Hugh,” Mattie said patiently. “He assumed he was charming me. I let him think he was succeeding. The truth was I went with him because I remembered the panel in the bathroom. It was easy enough to duck in there for a minute or two. Having to use the bathroom is the greatest excuse in the world. And as far as Rainbird was concerned, it was safe to let me go in there. After all, there weren't any obvious exits except through the bedroom.”

  “Good thinking, Mattie,” Silk said. He flicked a glance at Hugh. “Lighten up, boss. She did great and she's here, safe and sound. That's all that counts. Hell of a woman, if I may say so.” He shoved a clip into the automatic. “Now you and I got work to do.”

  “I'll kill him.”

  “Yeah. I know. But first we got to get to him.” Silk slanted a smile at Mattie. “Way I see it, we now got us some terrific inside information. A lot more than we had an hour ago.”

  “Oh, God,” said Mattie, feeling drained. “I don't want you two involved in any more violence.”

  “A little late to worry about that,” Silk said gently. “Don't you worry yourself into an ulcer over this, now. It'll be over before you know it. And then we can all get off this damn island. But it would sure speed things up if you could give us some details.”

  Mattie looked at him and then at Hugh and knew there was nothing she could do to stop either of them. The next best option was to try to help. “I'm afraid I wasn't paying a lot of attention to that sort of thing.”

  “Just think back and count all the faces you remember seeing and where they were.”

  “Well, I do remember thinking a couple of times that there weren't as many thugs around as I would have expected. Maybe half a dozen in all. I kept wondering where the army of occupation was.”

  Hugh stood at the edge of the basin of black water and stared down into it. “I told you. There is no army of occupation on Purgatory. No need for one. Rainbird is on the government's side, remember?”

  “What there is of it,” Silk added. “Never was much of a government here. That's one of the reasons Cormier liked it.”

  Hugh nodded. “What Rainbird did was classic. He made a brief show of force, handed out a few guns, and created a lot of confusion with a small group of trained men. There was no organized resistance on Purgatory. By the time the initial uproar was over, he had cut himself a deal with the folks who are officially in charge around here. Probably guaranteed to triple or quadruple the island's annual tax base with a corresponding increase in salary for the honchos and everyone else who cooperated. Money always speaks louder than guns in the long run.”

  “Yeah,” Silk said. “You can get someone's attention with a gun, but you keep him on your side with money.”

  “But what does Rainbird get out of it?” Mattie asked.

  “A safe harbor. He probably needs it in order to expand his business interests. God knows what he's into by now. Purgatory is perfect. A tiny, politically independent island of absolutely no strategic importance to anyone where he can relax, kick back, and run his empire.”

  “Probably had his eye on Purgatory for years after he realized Paul had moved here,” Silk said. He turned to Mattie. “Anyhow, that's one of the reasons why you didn't see an entire army hanging around the place. But there's another reason for keeping the house guard down to half a dozen or less.”

  Mattie nodded. “Hugh explained Rainbird doesn't trust anyone and doesn't want too many people around him at any one time.”

  Hugh glanced back over his shoulder. “It's damn tough to find even five or six men you can trust with your life. Rainbird is pushing it by having that many around him, and he knows it. Probably intends to cut back as soon as he feels secure.”

  Mattie shivered and clasped her hands. “All right, give me a minute to think. There was Howard inside. He was the only one other than Rainbird who was actually in the house. He wears a gun strapped to his hip like some old western gunslinger. And then there was Goody, who was waiting for me at the beach cottage on St. Gabe.”

  “Shit,” said Hugh. “I'll kill him, too.”

  Silk shot him a disgusted glance. “Shut up, boss. You ain't thinking straight yet. Let me and Mattie talk while you cool down. Go ahead, Mattie.”

  “Well, then there was the pilot…”

  Mattie began to talk more quickly as she started to concentrate. It proved easier to recall details than she would have thought. All those years of art lessons and her work as a gallery owner were paying off. She really had developed an observant eye, she thought proudly as she concluded her report. She looked at Hugh expectantly, waiting for praise. She got a glare that under other circumstances would have frozen her socks off.

  Silk tried to compensate. “Great job, Mattie.” He gave her a slap on the back that nearly unseated her. “One of the best recon reports I've ever heard. This is going to make things a lot easier, ain't it, Hugh?”

  “Shit,” Hugh said again.

  “Sometimes his vocabulary is what you might call limited,” Silk confided to Mattie.

  “I've noticed,” Mattie said. “He told me once it was a sign of stress.”

  Silk grinned. “Is that right? Stress, huh? And here I thought all along it was just on account of he never learned his manners.”

  Hugh whipped around to face both of them and resumed his pacing across the cavern floor. “We can't move on Rainbird until we get Mattie out of here.”

  “It'll take two or three hours to get her to Hades. Another two or three to get back here. If we wait that long we'll lose a lot of the advantage we've got right now,” Silk pointed out reasonably. “You know it, boss. Rainbird obviously doesn't realize we're on the island yet. He's got his men scattered from here to breakfast looking for Mattie. That means he's as isolated as he's ever going to be.”

  “I know, I know,” Hugh growled, shoving his hands into the rear pockets of his jeans. “But I don't like it. If something happens to us, Mattie is trapped here.”

  “She can take the boat.”

  “And do what with it?” Hugh stormed. “She's a city girl. What does she know about boats or navigation? How's she going to start the engine, let alone find her way back to Hades?”

  “Excuse me,” Mattie murmured, clearing her throat. “I would just like to point out that I may be a city girl, but the city I grew up in was Seattle. My father owned a boat all the years I was growing up. Ariel and I can both handle one. And I can read a chart. I wouldn't get lost between here and Hades if I had to find my own way.”

  “Well, I'll be damned,” Silk said in deeply admiring tones.

  Hugh gave Mattie a hooded glance. “Is that right?”

  She nodded. “It's true. But I don't want to even think about leaving the two of you behind. Hugh, there's got to be a better way of dealing with Rainbird. I don't like the idea of the two of you going in alone against Rainbird and those half dozen overgrown boy scouts he's got around him. Those are not good odds.”

  “But we don't care about the boy scouts,” Hugh explained quietly. His initial outrage was fading now, and a chilling, emotionless quality was entering his voice. “The only one we have to take out is Rainbird. When he's gone, the boy scouts will scatter fast enough. They're nothing without a l
eader.”

  “How will you get into the house?” Mattie asked, wishing she could find a way to talk them out of the whole project and knowing it was impossible.

  “I told you Cormier built a lot of emergency exits from his house. They work just as well as secret entrances.” Hugh ran a hand through his hair, frowning in thought. “We'll use the one in the kitchen this time.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Silk said. “Get in, get out, and we're off the island before anyone even knows what happened. We'll be eating dinner on Hades.”

  “Wait,” said Mattie, feeling desperate. “Are you sure there isn't some other way to do this? Couldn't you get more help?”

  Silk grinned. “Hey, we've got you, Mattie Sharpe. So far you've been more use than a whole company of Marines.”

  Mattie groaned.

  “Okay,” Hugh said finally, his tone utterly cold now. “You're right, Silk. This is the best chance we're going to get. Let's go do it.”

  Mattie stood up. “Hugh?”

  “Yeah, babe?” Hugh was crouched beside a pile of equipment, his back to her.

  “Promise me you won't take any…any unnecessary chances.” That sounded stupid. Of course he was going to take chances.

  “Sure, babe. No unnecessary chances.” He shoved a knife into his boot and checked his revolver.

  “I love you,” Mattie whispered.

  Hugh thrust the revolver into his belt and stood up. “I love you, too, babe,” he said absently. His attention was clearly on his preparations, not on the words he had so casually just spoken.

  Mattie smiled mistily. He did not even realize that this was the first time he had actually said it aloud. The man could be so dense at times. “I know,” she said softly. “I wasn't sure until recently. But now I know.”

  He glanced at her, briefly surprised. And then he scowled. “About time.”

  “Yes. Things have been a little confused lately,” she murmured apologetically.