The Ugly Duckling

by Iris Johansen

  She shook her head.

  “I want you to move in with me tonight.”

  “What?”

  He took the soap and began to rub it over her shoulders. “I want you to sleep in my bed. I want to wake up in the night and be able to reach out and touch you.”

  She understood at once. “You want to be able to wake me when I have a bad dream.”

  “Among other things.” He ran the soap under her breasts. “What’s the harm? You spend a good portion of the night here anyway.”

  She didn’t know why the idea made her uneasy. To have him there to bring her out of that horror would be unbelievable relief.

  Too much relief, she realized. Nicholas was wrapping her in a web of pleasure and serenity with moments like these. She was becoming too comfortable. The dream was agony, but it was a reminder of what she still had to do. “No.”

  He went still against her and then his hand resumed its soothing motion on her body. “Whatever you say. I’ll be here if you change your mind.”

  No argument. No pressure. Everything easy and without effort. Did he realize that by that very acquiescence he drew her deeper into the web? Probably, he was very clever. “You’re still trying to convince me not to go after Maritz, aren’t you?”

  “Of course.” He chuckled. “I’ve even sacrificed my body to your lust. Do you think I enjoy this?”

  She relaxed back against him. Honesty. Nice to have humor and sex and honesty in one package. No need to be wary of him. “I suspect you do.”

  His hand moved up and rubbed the nape of her neck. She could have purred as the knotted muscles relaxed. “Damn right,” he said cheerfully. “I’m glad all the abuse I’ve handed out lately hasn’t totally damaged your brain.”

  “No sign of Maritz,” Jamie said. “I’ve even shadowed Tania myself, and I haven’t been able to mark him.”

  “But that doesn’t mean he’s not stalking her,” Nicholas said.

  “Hell, no. He’s good and he likes this part of it. I’m keeping a close eye on the situation. I’ve even had Phil key in Lieber’s security alarm number into my pager. That’s all we can do right now.” He paused. “But I got a call from Conner in Athens. Bingo.”

  Nicholas stiffened. “You’ve got it?”

  “Verified and detailed. I’m faxing you a full report.”

  “Good.”

  “You’re still not telling Nell? You’re piling up serious trouble.”

  “Tell me about it. I’ll be waiting for your fax.” Nicholas hung up the phone.

  “There is a man coming. He’s waiting at the third gate. Should I let him in?” Michaela stood in the doorway of the gym, gazing disapprovingly at Nell, who was on the mat on her stomach with Tanek on top of her. “I don’t like this rough play. You should have better things to do than roll around on the floor.”

  “What man?” Tanek got off Nell and stood up.

  “It is that Kabler. The one who was here before.”

  Nell tensed, her gaze flying to Tanek.

  “Is he alone?” he asked.

  “So he says,” Michaela answered. “Make up your mind. I have work to do.”

  “Let him through.” Tanek moved toward the door. “Session’s over, Nell. Go take a shower while I see what he wants.”

  “No.”

  He glanced at her over his shoulder.

  “I won’t be kept out of this. I told you when I came here that I wouldn’t allow you to keep secrets from me.”

  “I’m hardly keeping secrets when I don’t know why the man’s here,” he said dryly.

  She went to her room, washed her face, took off her sweaty jersey, and put on a clean blouse.

  Kabler was driving into the stable yard when she joined Tanek on the porch.

  The air was biting cold, and huge snowflakes were beginning to drift slowly to the ground.

  “You’re not wearing a coat,” Tanek said without looking at her. “Would you consider it Machiavellian if I suggested you wait inside?”

  “I’m fine.”

  Kabler was getting out of the car. “Paying you a visit is like getting into Fort Knox,” he complained. His gaze went to Nell. “Hello, Mrs. Calder. Are you the gold he’s trying to keep to himself?”

  She inclined her head. “Mr. Kabler.”

  “Come in, Kabler. Let’s get this business over.” Tanek went into the house.

  “How are you?” Kabler asked Nell in a low voice as he passed her.

  “Fine. Don’t I look fine?”

  “You look damn gorgeous.”

  She felt a ripple of shock. Since she had arrived in Idaho she had almost forgotten the change in her appearance. “Well, I’m also healthy and strong. You can see Nicholas hasn’t been keeping me walled in a dungeon. Is that why you’re here?”

  “Partly.”

  “Kabler,” Tanek called.

  “Impatient bastard, isn’t he?” Kabler murmured, and entered the house.

  She followed him and closed the door to shut out the chill.

  “Nice place,” Kabler said as he wandered around the room. “Luxurious but comfortable. I like that.” He stopped before the Delacroix. “New?”

  “No, you saw it the last time you were here.” He paused. “You even commented on it.”

  “So I did.” He grinned. “As a matter of fact, after I left, I checked to make sure you’d obtained it legally.”

  “Why? Art theft isn’t your bag.”

  “I hoped it might give me an edge with you. No telling when I might need one.” He shook his head resignedly. “Unfortunately, I found everything was aboveboard. You’re a hard man, Tanek.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “Mrs. Calder disappeared after she left the hospital. Since I doubted the earth had swallowed her, I thought you might have.” He met Tanek’s eyes. “Why is she here? Are you setting her up as bait?”

  “You said the attack on me was pure chance,” Nell said quickly. “If that’s true, then there would be no reason for Tanek to think I’d be good bait.”

  “How quickly she jumps to your defense,” Kabler said. “You were always good at winning people’s confidence. Have you forgotten that Tanek does believe there was a reason for your attack, Mrs. Calder? Tell me, did he tell you about Nigel Simpson?” He smiled. “No, I see he didn’t.”

  “Tell her yourself,” Tanek said impassively. “You’re obviously salivating to do it.”

  “Very perceptive of you. Nigel Simpson was one of Gardeaux’s accountants, who was obligingly feeding me certain information, Mrs. Calder. But he disappeared.” He shook his head. “Around the time our Mr. Tanek paid a visit to London. What a coincidence.”

  London. Nell tried to hide her shock as she remembered the call from London and Tanek’s trip the next day.

  “Do you think I’ve got him hidden here too?” Tanek asked.

  “No, I think the poor bastard’s probably hidden at the bottom of the ocean.”

  “And I did it?”

  “Maybe.” He shrugged. “Or maybe you moved in on my source, tapped him for too much, and Gardeaux decided to chop him. What did he tell you, Tanek?”

  “Nothing. I didn’t see him.”

  “I could bring you in for questioning.”

  “You don’t have grounds. The only thing that you know is that I was in the same city at the same time.”

  “That’s enough with you.” He hesitated briefly. “Okay. I can’t pressure you. Have you shared your findings with the lady?”

  “But we haven’t established that I found out anything.”

  “Then why was Reardon sniffing around?”

  Tanek gave him a blank stare. “Sniffing around what?”

  “Athens.”

  Nell stiffened.

  Tanek smiled. “Greece is a beautiful place. Maybe he needed a vacation. Is that what you came to ask?”

  “No, I think I know the answer.” His expression became grim. “I just came to tell you not to step on my toes again or I’ll nail you.
I needed Simpson.”

  “So did I.” Tanek strode toward the door and opened it. “Good-bye, Kabler.”

  Kabler’s brows rose. “Thrown out into the cold? How inhospitable. Is that the code of the West?” He strolled toward Tanek. “You’re still a hoodlum at heart, Tanek.”

  “I never denied it. We are what we are … or were.”

  Kabler glanced around the room again, his gaze pausing on a Chinese vase in the corner. “And you were paid very well. That vase alone would send my kids to college.” His tone was suddenly bitter. “You live high, don’t you? You and that filth Gardeaux. Doesn’t it ever bother you that—”

  “Good-bye, Kabler.”

  Kabler opened his mouth to speak and then stopped as he met Tanek’s gaze. He turned to Nell. “Will you walk me to my car? I’d like a word with you alone. Providing Tanek will let you out of his sight.”

  “By all means,” Tanek said without expression. “Take a jacket, Nell.”

  Nell grabbed a jacket from the coatrack by the door and followed Kabler.

  The snow was falling faster, harder. The windshield of Kabler’s car was now covered. “I’ll be lucky to get back to town before this becomes a blizzard,” Kabler muttered as he opened the car door.

  “You could stay the night.”

  “After Tanek threw me out? I’d rather risk the blizzard.”

  “He’s not an ogre. If there’s really a danger, he’d let you stay.”

  “He’s not an ogre, but I wouldn’t bank on his store of the milk of human kindness.” He added wearily, “Besides, I couldn’t stay anyway. I have to get back to Washington. I’ve got a sick kid. My wife needs me to help out with him.”

  For the first time, she noticed that he looked older, more worn than the last time she had seen him. “I’m sorry.” She impulsively put her hand on his arm. “I know it’s worse than being sick yourself. What’s wrong?”

  He shrugged. “Flu, maybe. But he can’t seem to shake it.”

  “I hope everything will be all right.”

  “It will.” He smiled with an effort. “We’ve been through it before with the other two. Kids bounce back.”

  She nodded. “Jill had pneumonia one week, and two weeks later she was running in the park. It was as if—” She stopped. “He’ll be all right.”

  “Sure. Thanks for understanding. I guess I needed someone to say what I already knew.” He glanced back at the house. “Don’t trust him. Once a crook, always a crook.”

  “You’re wrong. People change.”

  “He’s not like us, none of them are. Can you imagine him tearing his guts out over a sick kid? They walk in the mud and the mud hardens and nothing gets through.”

  “That’s not true.”

  He shook his head. “I’ve seen it for twenty-four years. They’re not like us.” His hand clenched into a fist. “But they’re kings of the earth. The money rolls in and there are no rules for them. They just take and take and take.”

  “Is that what you wanted to tell me?”

  “He’s got you fooled. I could see it. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “I won’t get hurt and he’s not trying to fool me. Not anymore.”

  “Then why didn’t he tell you about Nigel Simpson?”

  “I have no idea. But he will when I ask him.”

  His lips tightened. “He’s really got you, hasn’t he? Are you sleeping with him?”

  “That’s none of your business,” she said coolly.

  “Sorry. You’re right. I only wanted to help. Do you still have my card?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll be around.” He started the car. “Don’t wait until it’s too late to use it.”

  She watched him drive out of the stable yard.

  He’s really got you.

  He was wrong. Tanek had no hold on her. He was wrong about everything. Except, perhaps, about Nigel Simpson.

  She walked slowly back into the house.

  Nicholas was standing by the fire with his hands outstretched. “Come and get warm. You were out there a long time.”

  She shed her jacket and came forward. “It’s snowing hard. I asked him to stay the night.”

  “But he chose not to risk it?”

  “I told him you wouldn’t object.”

  “But you’re not certain I wouldn’t have staked him out in the snow for the wolves?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “I wouldn’t.” He smiled at her. “Not if you asked him to stay.”

  She noticed he didn’t mention that he’d refrain from doing it if she had not invited Kabler. “I like him.”

  “I know. Why not? Family man, upstanding, protective …”

  “But you don’t?”

  “He’s too righteous for me. Since I’m the one who’s being bombarded by stones, I don’t embrace a man prone to cast the first one.”

  “What happened to Nigel Simpson?”

  “Probably what Kabler thinks happened to him.” His eyes narrowed. “But if you’re going to ask if it was my doing, it—”

  “I wasn’t going to ask you that,” she interrupted.

  “Because you think me too pure and incapable of such barbarity?” he asked mockingly.

  “I don’t know. Maybe you’re capable, but I don’t think—You wouldn’t do it unless—” She stopped and finally said, “I just don’t think you killed him.”

  “Well, that’s clear.”

  “But I do want to know what you found out from him.”

  He was silent a moment. “He gave me his set of Gardeaux’s account books and the name of the other accountant in Paris who could complete them.”

  “Will that be valuable?”

  “Possibly.”

  “How?”

  “Information is always useful. I dealt in it extensively while I was in Hong Kong. Some I passed on, some I kept in reserve. When I got out, I used it for an insurance policy.”

  “Insurance policy?” she asked, puzzled.

  “I’ve made a lot of enemies over the years. I couldn’t be sure I wouldn’t be targeted after I left the Network. So I stashed a piece of high-voltage information about Ramon Sandequez in various safety deposit boxes around the world with instructions to leak the contents to the appropriate parties if I disappeared or turned up dead.”

  The name sounded familiar. “Who is Ramon Sandequez?”

  “One of the three heads of the Medellin drug cartel.”

  That’s right, Paloma, Juarez, and Sandequez, Nell remembered. Gardeaux’s bosses, the hierarchy.

  “Sandequez isn’t a man to cross. He sent out word that if I was touched, he would not be pleased.”

  She felt a rush of intense relief. “Then you’re safe.”

  “Until Sandequez thinks he’s found all the safety deposit boxes. He’s already located two. Or until Sandequez is killed himself. Or until some crazy like Maritz decides that he doesn’t care about the risk.”

  “But if you kept a low profile and stayed here, you’d be safer?”

  “Pull in my head and hope?” He shook his head. “I’m willing to take precautions. I’m not willing to stop living a full life. That’s not why I came here.”

  He had come here to put down roots. But those new roots were so terribly fragile. “Don’t be a fool,” she said fiercely. “You should stay here out of sight. You love it here. There’s no reason for you to go anywhere else.”

  “There’s a reason.”

  “Not worth risking—”

  Gardeaux. Maritz. Of course there was a reason. What had she been thinking?

  She had been thinking only of keeping him safe.

  Guilt rushed through her. Closeness and intimacy had crept into her life, and now they threatened to interfere with what she had to do. She quickly turned away from him. “I have to take a shower.”

  “Running away?” he asked quietly.

  “No, I just— Yes.” She wouldn’t lie to him. “I think I should go away. Things are becoming too
complicated.”

  “I thought it would come to this,” he said. “Damn Kabler.”

  “It’s not his fault. It’s just—”

  “Complicated,” he finished sarcastically. “With Kabler as the catalyst.” He reached out and grasped her shoulders. “Listen to me. Nothing has changed. You don’t have to run away.”

  Something had changed. For an instant she had forgotten what was important because of her concern for him.

  And he knew it. She could see it in his expression.

  “All right. I won’t touch you again,” he said. “It will be like it was before.”

  How could it be? She had grown accustomed to him both physically and emotionally.

  “You’re not ready.” He cupped her face with his hands. He whispered, “Stay.”

  He kissed her lightly, gently. He lifted his head. “See? As sexless as a brother. What’s so complicated?”

  She leaned against him. How she wanted to stay. She needed to stay. He was right, she wasn’t ready to leave him. Maybe it would be all right now that she realized what was happening. “Okay. For a little while.”

  She could feel the tension leave him. “Smart.”

  She wasn’t sure how smart it was. She wasn’t sure of anything at the moment but the fact that his arms were strong and caring and she wanted to be there. “Let me go.”

  “In a minute. You need this now.”

  She did need it. He knew her so well. He had studied her and learned what she needed, what she wanted. When she needed comfort, he gave her comfort. When she wanted sex, he gave her all she could handle. He was the one who was clever. It should frighten her instead of giving her this sense of solid security. She finally pushed him away and moved toward the door. “I’ll see you at lunch.”

  “Right.”

  She stopped at the door as a sudden thought occurred to her. “You didn’t tell me why Jamie was in Greece.”

  “He was checking out a couple of leads about the raid on Medas.”

  “Did anything come of it?”

  “Too early to tell.” He spoke indifferently; his expression was equally casual.

  Too casual, perhaps. She had meant to question him about Jamie immediately, but he had skipped from Simpson to Ramon Sandequez and she had somehow lost the thread. Had he purposely tried to deter her from pursuing that particular thread? “Are you telling me the truth?”