by Anne Stuart
“Then let’s discuss this reasonably.”
“I don’t want—”
“Well, I do,” Holly interrupted. “And it’s my suite too. Come on, Maggie. You may be superwoman, but I’m a mere mortal. I need all the help I can get.”
Maggie opened her mouth to protest once more, then shut it again in sudden defeat. At that moment she couldn’t fight the three of them. She’d bide her time, dump the lot of them, and head after Tim Flynn herself. But for now there was nothing she could do but muster every ounce of self-control she possessed.
She looked like hell, Randall thought, sipping the straight Scotch Holly had thoughtfully provided him and watching Maggie as she paced the living room of the suite. She must have lost ten pounds, there were dark circles under her eyes, and she was too damned pale. And that cropped thatch of wheat-blond hair made her look like a refugee from a concentration camp. What the hell had she been doing to herself for the last four months?
“Children, children,” he said easily. “This bickering is getting us nowhere and giving Tim Flynn more time to get away. If you’d just consider it calmly you’d realize that we have no choice but to work together. We’re all after the same thing, and if we go at it from different angles we’ll keep stumbling over each other and screwing things up. We need a united force if we’re going to get anywhere. Unless, of course, any of us is willing to give up the search?” Dead silence greeted that question, and he nodded.
“As I thought,” he continued. “All right, let’s face facts. None of us know what the man looks like …”
“Wrong,” Holly and Andrews said in unison, then turned to glare at each other.
Maggie couldn’t help but grin at the two of them. “Well, that’s a help. I know Holly saw Flynn at Sybil’s once, when he didn’t realize she was there. How do you happen to know him, Ian?”
“That’s my affair,” Andrews said with a touch of grimness. “But I could pick him out in a crowd anywhere.”
“Then we’re already a step ahead of everyone else,” Randall said smoothly. “And I happen to know where he might be likely to spend time when he’s in London. A certain exclusive gambling club enjoys his patronage, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he shows up there this evening. It’s certainly worth looking into.” He took a leisurely drink. “What do you have to offer to this consortium of knowledge, Maggie?”
The look of acute dislike she cast him was better than the panicked hatred that had swept over her face earlier. “Oh, I have all sorts of talents, Randall. I can be the brains of the organization.”
He snorted gently in disbelief. “So. Any more objections?”
“He’s right, Maggie,” Holly volunteered. “We’ll just keep bumping into each other if we refuse to work together. God knows it won’t be much fun with a charmer like your friend Andrews, but I can put up with him if you can put up with Randall.”
“The feeling’s mutual, lady,” Andrews snapped. “We don’t need an overdressed mannikin getting in our way.”
“That’s exactly what we do need,” Randall interrupted. “Champignons has a strict dress code. I somehow doubt that Maggie thought to pack evening clothes.”
“You’re right,” she said, still withdrawn.
“And Andrews, you wouldn’t have a tuxedo stashed about you? I thought not. So it will be up to Holly and me to find out whether Tim Flynn has been gambling recently,” he said smoothly. “I suggest we leave about nine.” He allowed himself a furtive glance in Maggie’s direction, hoping vainly that she might exhibit a tiny bit of jealousy. Her pale face was stonily unmoved.
Holly nodded, and excitement lit her aquamarine eyes. They were the same color and shape as Maggie’s, yet oddly different. They were more open, trusting, without the dangerous depths of Maggie’s haunted eyes.
“Is everyone agreed?” Randall let his glance drift over the three occupants of the room. “Are we going to work together?”
“As Holly says, we don’t really have a choice,” Maggie said gracelessly, putting her empty glass down and turning away. “Andrews and I will be waiting for you when you get back. You aren’t going to tackle him without me there, Randall,” she warned as an afterthought.
“I wouldn’t think of it, dear heart,” he said gently. “Holly and I will have a full report for the two of you. But don’t expect us before midnight.”
Maggie opened her mouth to snarl something at him, then shut it again, turning away from him. “Whatever you say,” she replied woodenly, and her shoulders looked suddenly narrow and defenseless.
“I’m not sure I agree,” Andrews said, glaring at the smug Holly. “She won’t be much help if you get into trouble.”
“I have no intention of getting in trouble,” Randall said smoothly, reluctantly putting his concern for Maggie in the back of his mind. “And if I did, I’m more than capable of extricating both of us.”
“All right,” Andrews grumbled. “I don’t like it, mind. But all right. We’ll be waiting for you at midnight.”
Timothy Seamus Flynn admired his handiwork with a silent whistle of pride. Explosives had never been his particular forte, but he’d been trained like everyone else, and that training had come in handy. This charmingly compact piece of equipment would blow the elegant confines of Champignons to hell and back again, and take most of the block with it. And there would be that many less British stuffed shirts to feed off the Irish.
The club hadn’t realized with whom they were dealing, he thought, closing the leather attaché case. Whom they accused of cheating, whom they politely requested leave their hallowed premises when he’d made a graphic suggestion or two to some lord’s daughter. He’d gone quietly enough, earlier this evening after his initial rage. Because he knew he’d have the last word.
He rose. Eleven o’clock would be perfect. The club would be packed, and the only drawback was that they’d never know what hit them. He preferred his victims—no, his enemies—to know their crimes and their fates. He liked to see the fear in their eyes, he liked to hear them beg. He’d miss that this time, but you couldn’t have everything.
All he had to do was drop the bomb in the alleyway behind Champignons’ stuffy facade and head on to the airport. He could hear all the delicious details when he arrived in Ireland later that night. He started down the sidewalk, an elegant sight, the briefcase a fitting accessory to his well-tailored figure. And a stuffy, well-dressed matron met his smiling face with a start of surprise and an instinctive, answering smile.
“Lovely evening,” she murmured politely, inclining her head regally.
Flynn imagined that head atop a pike. “Lovely,” he agreed, and walked on down the road.
four
Holly allowed herself a furtive glance at the tall man beside her in the rented Bentley. She’d met Randall Carter once before, years ago when Maggie was in the midst of her abortive career at the CIA. She hadn’t liked him then, and she didn’t really like him now. He was too cold, too remote, with that faintly supercilious smile and those blue-gray eyes that showed emotion only when they rested on Maggie. No, she didn’t like him, but anyone was better than that pigheaded, rude, overbearing son of a bitch, Ian Andrews …
“Something wrong?” His voice wasn’t solicitous, it was coldly curious.
She forced her clenched fists to relax and flashed Randall a weary smile. “Just thinking about Andrews. I don’t see what help he’s going to be.”
“It never hurts to have British Intelligence on your side,” he replied. “And if we don’t work together we’re going to be undercutting each other. Flynn’s a formidable enough adversary—we’re going to need every advantage we can get.”
“One man against the four of us and practically every law enforcement agency in the western world?” she scoffed, smoothing the fuchsia silk harem pants over her long legs. “I think we’re overestimating his danger.”
“Do you really?”
The question was softly spoken, but unwillingly Holly remembered the man sh
e’d seen across the expanse of her mother’s swimming pool, remembered her instinctive distrust and fear and once more she relived the guilt that had haunted her ever since. She should have gone with her instincts, she should have known there was something terribly wrong. Sybil had looked like hell, haunted, worn out, a faint tremor to her hands and dark circles under her eyes that even the world’s finest makeup couldn’t hide. If only Holly had done something about it, instead of shrugging and withdrawing, leaving her mother to make her own bed. She couldn’t rid herself of the feeling that it was her fault that bed might be turning into a coffin.
Randall was watching her out of those cool eyes, waiting for her answer. “No, I don’t think we’re overestimating Flynn,” she said finally. “Not at all.”
And with a small nod of satisfaction Randall turned his attention away from her, back to the London traffic. It was uncharacteristically snarled for nearing ten o’clock on a winter’s evening, and Champignons was halfway across town. He seemed perfectly content to wait, his face expressionless, and Holly found herself wondering if he ever showed any emotion apart from that brooding, possessive look he cast at Maggie whenever she wasn’t looking.
Hiking up her flowing pants legs, Holly swung around on the seat to stare at him. “You want to tell me what’s going on between you and my sister?”
He didn’t waste a glance in her direction. “No.”
“But there is something, isn’t there?” she continued, undaunted.
“Ask her.”
Holly sighed. “Maggie’s not talking. She never was one to share her troubles—she’s always been the strong one. Everyone in the family turns to her for help, not the other way around.”
An emotion did darken his face for a moment, but it flitted by so fast she couldn’t read it. “Then you should stop turning to her. Take care of your own problems,” he said rudely.
Holly shrugged. “I do my best. Maybe you should take her back to New York and leave Andrews to me.”
Randall laughed, a short, abrupt bark of amusement. “Trust me, Holly. The only way I’d manage to take Maggie anywhere was if she was out cold and in a straitjacket. And she’d still put up a hell of a struggle.” He set the car in neutral and leaned back. “We’re going to be here for a while,” he said calmly, casting a backward glance at the cars boxing them in. “There’s an accident up ahead.”
“What time were we supposed to be there?”
“We had reservations for dinner at ten. At this rate it’ll be closer to eleven when we get there.”
“I’ll starve to death,” Holly wailed.
“I sincerely doubt it. You’re a survivor,” Randall said. And Holly could only hope he was right.
That night, Timothy Seamus Flynn smiled his charming smile at the newsdealer on the street corner in Dublin. It was too early for the bomb to have gone off, much less have it reach the papers. He’d have to be patient, wait till tomorrow to hear all the glorious details.
There was one thing to be said for the Americans—their television news was wonderfully speedy. If it were L.A. the bombing would be all over the TV within the hour it exploded. As it was, the BBC would have shut down, and nothing else would be on after eleven tonight. It had been too long since he’d been in Ireland, and his time there usually didn’t encompass television watching.
It would be a grand sight, he thought with a pleased sigh, tossing a quid toward the grizzled old man and picking up the Times. Smoke and flames and screams filling the chilly night air. Next time he’d stay, no matter who he was supposed to meet in Dublin, no matter what arrangements had been made. They could damned well wait for him. A man with his talents didn’t grow on trees, he thought. There was no need for him to forgo the pleasures of this life for the sake of a schedule.
Faith, it would be glorious, he thought with a wistful smile. And the newsdealer, wiping a grimy arm across his runny nose, smiled back.
* * *
“Your sister doesn’t have an ounce of sense,” Ian Andrews announced grimly. “Whatever possessed you to bring her along? You look to me like a woman with a good head on her shoulders—didn’t you know better than to let such a silly creature tag along?”
Maggie turned from the window overlooking the brightly lit streets of London and gave Andrews a fleeting smile. “Holly’s got more sense than you think,” she replied mildly enough.
“That wouldn’t be difficult—a grasshopper has more sense than I credit your sister with.”
“Why?” Maggie asked.
Ian looked startled. “Why what?”
“Why don’t you think Holly has any sense? You’ve only just met her. What makes you assume she’s merely ornamental? And if she was as lacking in brains as you suspect, what would it matter? What have you got against pretty women?”
Ian opened his mouth, then shut it again, and his temper encompassed Maggie as well as her absent sister. “I don’t approve of the time or money spent on personal adornment,” he grumbled sourly.
“God, what a Calvinist,” Maggie said, turning back to the window. There was a light snow falling, and in the distance she could see Big Ben lit up against the dark sky. Almost eleven o’clock. At least an hour before they returned.
“Did you see how many suitcases your sister brought with her?” Ian demanded.
“And her clothes came in handy, didn’t they?” Maggie countered. “I think we’ve got more important things to concentrate on than Holly’s twelve suitcases. She’ll pull her own weight, Ian, I know that much. I don’t have any such guarantees about you.”
“I beg your pardon?” He tossed back the rest of his Scotch, highly affronted.
“I think you’re wasting too much time and energy fretting about Holly’s luggage and not enough on what we’re going to do next if they can’t find anything out at the gaming club.”
“I don’t need to fret, I know,” he said grandly. “We’ll go to Northern Ireland. There’s a man named O’Banion who’s been known to work with Flynn. He’s a lesser member of the local branch of the IRA, and I’ve been told he’s a reasonable man.”
“Where’d you get that information?”
“I have my contacts,” he replied in a lofty tone.
“The same contacts that told you Holly was living with Flynn? I can’t say I think much of them.”
He had the grace to look uncomfortable. “No informant is infallible. Besides, I got this from someone I’ve used a little bit more. It’s someone I knew when I was stationed in Ireland, and I’d trust him with my life.”
“You were stationed in Northern Ireland? Don’t you think it might be a little difficult for you to ferret around among the IRA looking for Flynn? For some reason I don’t think people are going to want to cooperate with you.”
He smiled then, and Maggie immediately revised her opinion of their unwilling partner. He wasn’t completely lacking in appeal. She wondered how Holly would react if he ever directed that beautiful smile in her direction.
“That’s where you come in,” he said. “You and Carter should do very well tracking him down.”
“What do you mean, me and Carter? What about Holly and Carter? I think she’ll do just as good a job—”
“No. I’m not going to tell you how to find O’Banion unless you promise me you’ll do it. I don’t want that painted doll messing up my one solid lead.”
“And if I don’t promise?”
“Then all bets are off and I’ll find him on my own. And if he doesn’t feel like cooperating with a member of British Army Intelligence, I’m certain I’ll be able to work my way around to convincing him.”
Maggie shook her head. “I don’t think we should draw any attention to our search. Beating up people might get a bit untidy.”
“Then you and Randall will have to do it neatly,” Ian replied.
“I suppose … Good God, what was that?” The dark London sky was lit with a ball of flame halfway across the city, and the windows of the old hotel rattled ominously with a sympa
thetic tremor.
Ian was by her side, his face lit with the incendiary glow. “Looks like a bomb,” he said grimly. “I’ve seen enough of them in my time.”
A cold knot of dread began to form in Maggie’s heart. “Where do you think it is?”
He turned to look at her, and his wonderful green eyes were bleak. “I wouldn’t know.”
“You can’t even make an educated guess?” Her voice was deceptively calm.
“It would be a waste of time. You’re already jumping to enough conclusions for both of us,” he said. “I’ll go downstairs and see what I can find out. Why don’t you pour us both another drink while you’re waiting?”
“If Holly and Randall are dead another drink won’t help matters.”
“It won’t hurt either,” he replied, grabbing his shabby tweed jacket and patting his pocket assured that his gun which Maggie had returned to him was there. He also checked his ankle holster for his knife. Satisfied, he headed for the door. “Unless you want to come with me.”
Maggie stared at him. “I’ll wait here.”
The door shut behind him silently enough. Maggie moved with studied calm, pouring herself a second, stronger glass of Scotch and downing it with one gulp. She looked down at her hand and was amazed to see no tremor at all. She picked up the phone, requested an outside line, and dialed the number Randall had left. No one at Champignons deigned to answer the phone—if Champignons was still standing.
She set the phone down quietly, moving back to the window. It looked as if an entire block was in flames, and the snowflakes drifted down, silhouetted by the orangey brightness. Holly was too damned young to die, she thought, her face set and grim. She couldn’t lose Sybil and Holly all in a matter of days. Life was cruel, but it simply couldn’t be that cruel. A small, helpless moan came from somewhere in the room, and she realized with a start that it emitted from her own tight throat.
She didn’t know how long she stood there, staring out into the night. The fire spread to a second block before it was brought under control, and she watched, mesmerized, wondering how many bodies were cremated in that funeral pyre that could have only been Champignons.