The Catspaw Collection

by Anne Stuart

  She lay in his arms stiffly, without moving for countless seconds. And then, sighing, she sank into him, her bones melting, her body flowing over him as she gave up fighting. At least for the moment.

  He was so warm, and she was so very cold. She could hear the steady thudding of his heart beneath her, racing just slightly, as if something had frightened him. His hands were tough but gentle, brushing the hair away from her face, holding her trembling body in the shelter of his arms, and for a short while she allowed herself the luxury of believing that as long as he held her, everything would be all right.

  The mindless state, delicious though it was, couldn’t last forever. The heavy downpour lessened, her own throbbing heart slowed its tumultuous pace, and sanity, with its evil twin, uncertainty, returned.

  She pushed away from him, and he let her go, not moving to stop her as she made her ungainly way back across the gearshift and the emergency brake and junk food trash. Once she was back in the safety of her own bucket seat, her hands firmly on the leather-covered steering wheel for the sole purpose of giving her something to hold on to rather than Blackheart, then she could toss her hair back over her shoulder and meet his gaze directly.

  “Better now?”

  She could be gracious. “Yes, thank you.”

  He looked as if he wanted to grab her again, but was controlling the urge. “You want to tell me what happened?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “Let me rephrase that. You are going to tell me what happened.”

  It would have been useless to argue. Besides, she needed to talk to him. “I went looking for Danielle. Someone told me she was waiting for me down by the animal cages. I went down there to find her, and someone let one of the tigers out.”

  “Who told you she was there?”

  “I don’t remember. One of the clowns, I think, but he told me an acrobat had gotten the message from someone else.”

  “All right. What happened next?”

  “Danielle showed up, together we lured the tiger back into the cage and locked the door, and then I came back up here.”

  “Somehow I think I’m missing something.”

  She managed a wry smile. “Actually I was wondering where you were. Like a fool, I kept expecting you to show up at the last moment and rescue me.”

  “Francesca . . .”

  “And actually you did. I still had some of the herring you brought for Blackie on my hands. The tiger licked my fingers and followed me into the cage. So you’ve done your good deed for the day, and now you can go. . . .”

  “Shut up, Francesca.” He didn’t pull her this time; he climbed across the barrier and put his arms around her, drawing her face close to his. “You’re all right now?”

  He was too close for her peace of mind. Her equilibrium had been restored, at least to a working level, and she had no excuse to move closer. “I’m fine, Blackheart. I just want to go home and change.”

  “You should do more than that. You should leave town.”

  “Sounds like an excellent idea. I’m sure you’d be happy enough to see me go. Unfortunately I can’t leave until after the circus benefit.”

  “To hell with the circus benefit. A dozen women at the committee could do what you’re doing.”

  “Yes, I know just how dispensable I am. Nevertheless, I have a responsibility, and I’m not going to shirk it just so you can chase after Danielle whoever she is without me watching.”

  He sank back into his own seat with a snort of disgust. “Is there any way you can control your jealousy long enough to see reason?”

  “I’m not jealous. Maybe you have no carnal interest in Danielle. But you’re interested in something, something that makes you carry your picklocks around with you. And I’m not going to go away, and I’m not going to stand idly by while you give in to your baser urges.”

  “The only thing my baser urges want is you, Francesca. Go away, dear heart. Somewhere deep in that flintlike heart of yours there must be a spark of feeling left for me. Give in to that spark, just for two weeks. Go away, and when you come back everything will be over and I can explain.”

  “Trust is a two-way street, Blackheart. Tell me now.”

  He looked at her for a long moment. “I can’t.”

  “And I can’t go away. So it looks as if we’re at an impasse.”

  “That’s what it looks like,” he said wearily. “Just do me one favor.”

  “If I can.”

  “Keep away from animal cages. I’m not the only person you can’t trust.”

  HE ALREADY HAD a buyer. A man of untold wealth and spotless reputation would pay anything, anything to own The Hyacinths. He didn’t care where it came from, he didn’t care that no one would ever know he owned it. He didn’t care that he was paying possibly more than it would get at current inflated auction prices. He wanted it with an obsessive passion and he would stop at nothing to get it.

  Fortunately there was nothing the buyer needed to do but come up with an enormous supply of untraceable bills and bearer bonds—and wait for him to do the dirty work.

  And fortunately for him, the dirty work wasn’t all that dirty. Taking The Hyacinths from its current location in Regina Merriam’s third-floor hallway would be child’s play. He had a key to circumvent the alarm system, he had an accomplice, and he had not one but two possible scapegoats. The way his luck was going, there was no telling where it might end. Possibly beyond his fondest dreams. Although his dreams were pretty grandiose already.

  He almost wished he didn’t have to wait. He almost didn’t trust the utter simplicity of it. He wanted to get it over with, to make certain it really was as easy as it appeared to be. But his buyer wasn’t ready, his accomplice wasn’t ready, his alibi wasn’t ready, and his scapegoat wasn’t quite ready. Eager or not, he’d have to wait. And gloat, in anticipation. Things would only be getting better.

  Chapter Eleven

  Psycho

  (Paramount 1960)

  THE DAMNED RING was back on her finger. Ferris stared down at it, her eyes still blurred with sleep, and cursed. Last night had been bad enough. She’s somehow managed to put in most of a day at work, had crawled home and sat in her huge old bathtub until the water cooled and Blackie drove her crazy with his incessant mewing. She’d fed him herring, shuddering in memory, and had gone to turn on the television.

  A DVD of Mary Poppins was sitting on top of the player. She’d stared at it, mystified. The mind of John Patrick Blackheart worked in mysterious ways, but right then she needed something mindless and soothing. A Walt Disney musical, complete with animated foxes and the like, should hit the spot, and there’d be nothing to remind her of a certain cat burglar.

  Wrong. Two thirds of the way through the movie, when she’d been lulled into a comfortable acceptance, the entire cast started dancing over the rooftops of London, leaping from building to building with the expertise of a dozen cat burglars. She watched, throat dry, heart pounding, even the glossiness of a Disney extravaganza unable to calm her fear of the dizzying heights. Damn Blackheart, she thought miserably, unable to simply press the button and turn off the machine. Damn his black heart.

  She sat up, the morning light filtering around her, and peered at her digital clock. Later than she’d thought—after ten. It was a good thing the office was closed—the way things were going she’d be out of even her menial job. Becoming irresponsible wasn’t the way to start a new life.

  It had never been in her nature to be irresponsible. So why was she still lying in bed, when anyone else would be up and accomplishing things? Maybe she didn’t feel like accomplishing anything. Maybe she just wanted to sit in her lonely bed and feel sorry for herself.

  She tugged at the ring. It was too tight on her finger—she’d need soap to get it off. How had Patrick managed to slip it on while she stil
l slept? Maybe he’d used Krazy Glue—she wouldn’t put anything past him.

  She looked around her uneasily, then breathed a sigh of relief. She’d stripped the maroon sheets off the bed and replaced them with pink flowered ones that had never seen Blackheart’s irresistible body. With his ability to cloud her mind and walk through walls, she wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d managed to change the sheets under her sleeping body, but the pink ones were still in place. Then she smelled the coffee.

  “Hell and damnation,” she said.

  “Is that any way to start a morning?” His voice floated in from the kitchen. He appeared in her doorway, a cup of steaming coffee in his hand.

  Ferris didn’t know which vision had the stronger emotional effect on her—Blackheart in his black denims and ancient tweed coat or the cup of perfect coffee that only he could make. She’d been making do on instant, and she missed Blackheart’s coffee almost as much as she missed the man himself.

  “If that coffee’s for me, bring it here,” she grumbled, still tugging absently at the ring. “Otherwise go away.”

  “It’s for you.” He sank onto the bed beside her with his customary grace, the coffee barely sloshing the sides of the full cup. “And don’t tell me to get off the bed. You don’t get the coffee unless I sit here.”

  “I may be an idiot where you’re concerned, Blackheart, but my price is a little bit higher than a cup of coffee.” She could smell it, the aroma dancing across the air to tease her nostrils and make her mouth water.

  “Not the price of my coffee,” he countered. “Lighten up, Francesca. I said sit here, not let me have my wicked way with you. Stop tugging on the ring, drink your coffee, and listen to me.”

  Certain things weren’t worth fighting. She took the coffee, absorbing the caffeine with a contented sigh. “That’s where I get into trouble. Listening to you. You’re tricky, Blackheart.”

  “I know you don’t trust me, Francesca. You’ve told me so in as many ways as you can manage. Right now I don’t give a damn. Your lack of trust is your problem, not mine.”

  “Is it?” The coolness in her voice would have chilled a less stalwart soul than Blackheart.

  He leaned back on the bed, away from her. “I’ll say it just once, Francesca, and then we’ll drop it. It’s not me you don’t trust. It’s yourself. You’re afraid of being in love with me, afraid of losing yourself. So you manufacture excuses, when deep down inside you know perfectly well that if you listened to your heart, you’d know that you can trust me. You’d know that I love you and that you love me, and if we have that then everything else can be worked out. But as long as you’re too much of a coward to listen, it’s a waste of time. Besides, I have more important things on my mind right now. Your neuroses can wait.”

  She’d gone through a dizzying range of emotions during his short speech, moving from annoyance to melting love to absolute fury. She would have thrown her coffee at him, but at that point the coffee was worth more to her than the man. She drained it, shoving the empty mug under her bed and glaring at him. “All right. Then let’s talk about more important things than my puny little neuroses. You slimy, conniving, black-hearted—”

  “Ah-ah-ah,” he reproved. “You don’t want to use those nasty words, do you, dear heart? You might have me convinced you really care.”

  “You’re so egocentric, you’ll believe anything you want to believe.” She was tugging fretfully at the canary diamond again. He reached out and covered her hands with his.

  “Stop yanking at it,” he said. “If you just stopped eating so many cookies, it would probably fall off.”

  “You’ve been sending me the cookies!” she snapped, outraged.

  “That’s because you were getting too skinny. Eating your heart out over me, I suppose. I thought I’d better fatten you up.” Before she realized what he was doing, he’d levered his body across hers, his hands cupping her rounded hips. “I don’t know, maybe you could do with a few more cookies. I like you with a few extra pounds.”

  “Go drown yourself, Blackheart.” She tried to push him off, but it was a half-hearted effort, and they both knew it. She squirmed, then realized with sudden astonishment that he was completely aroused.

  “Yes,” he said. “You do have that effect on me.”

  “Tough.”

  “Yes,” he said, lowering his mouth to hers. “Tough.” He kissed her, long and deep, pushing her back into the pillows, kissed her with lips and tongue and teeth and soul until she was feverishly kissing him back, her hands trapped beneath their bodies, her hips reaching up to him, her body straining for his. Once more it was starting, the dark midnight of desire that wiped out thought and will and any lingering trace of sanity, and with the last ounce of effort she yanked out her hands from beneath them, bringing them up to his shoulders to push him away.

  For a brief moment her fingers clung to him, to the thick tweed and the tense shoulders beneath, clung and kneaded. And then she shoved, taking him off guard, so that he fell back onto the bed beside her.

  He just lay there for a moment, breathing deeply, his chest rising and falling, his eyes closed. And then he opened them, turning to look at her, and there was a wicked gleam in their brown depths. “You can’t blame me for trying,” he said. “Or maybe you can. You have the ability to blame me for all sorts of things, whether I’ve done them or not.”

  “Have you?”

  “Have I what?”

  “Done them? Did you rob the people in Madrid and the museum in Paris and the people in Lisbon? Have you been breaking into places? Have you been breaking the law and lying to the police?”

  He said nothing, looking up at her, his face expressionless, wiped free of desire, irritation or any emotion at all.

  “Please answer me.” To her inner disgust her voice was cracking. “I can’t stand this uncertainty. Tell me the truth.”

  “The truth, Francesca, wouldn’t end your uncertainty,” he said briskly, sitting up and withdrawing from her, physically, mentally, emotionally. “You want any more coffee?”

  “I want answers.”

  “You’ll have to find your own.” His voice was colder than she’d ever heard it, and she knew with sudden despair that she’d gone too far. Past the point of no return.

  All right, she thought, drawing her defenses back around her like invisible armor. I can survive. I can survive anything. “Did you just come to make me coffee and harass me?” she demanded. “Or was there something you wanted?”

  He paused in the doorway, and a blessed glint of humor lit his somber eyes. “Loaded questions again. If you think this is harassment, you ain’t seen nothing yet. And I thought I made it clear there was something I wanted.”

  “Stop it!”

  He shrugged. “All right. Yes, there’s something I need from you. A little help for old times’ sake, and I didn’t know who else to ask. Surely you can be noble enough to do me one small favor.”

  “One small favor? All right, Blackheart. For old times’ sake I’ll do you one small favor. What is it?”

  His face was wreathed in an innocent smile. “Do a little roof-hopping and housebreaking,” he replied. “What else?”

  DANY WAITED UNTIL the door to the Winnebago slammed, waited until she was sure he was well and truly gone. She lay in the narrow bunk, unmoving, not quite daring to believe she was alone at last. He’d been whistling something cheerful and jaunty, and the grating sound of that tuneless little song died away as Marco moved across the grounds.

  She’d been such a complete fool. Hadn’t she learned anything in the twenty-four hard years she’d been on this planet? Hadn’t she learned you don’t threaten and provoke a wild beast, no matter how tame it seemed? Hadn’t she learned not to hope for happy endings?

  She pulled her aching body out of the bunk, her fingers clinging to the edge as dizzi
ness swept over her. She shook her head to try to clear the mists, but the pain was so intolerable that she fell back against the hard mattress with a wordless moan. She lay there, and for the first time in the last long, horrible day, she cried.

  The salt tears stung her face, reminding her that she couldn’t spend the day in bed feeling sorry for herself. She’d gotten herself into this mess and was simply paying the price for her own stupidity. This time she was able to get to her feet and totter across the narrow aisle to the miniature bathroom, holding on as she went.

  She hadn’t meant to look into the mirror. She waited until she’d finished her shower, waited until she’d drained the water reservoir and stumbled back into the tiny bathroom. And then she caught sight of her reflection, the swollen jaw, the raw scrapes from Marco’s knuckles, the black eye. It was going to take five pounds of makeup to cover it this time, she thought wearily, swallowing three ibuprofen and praying that they’d work quickly. If only she could cover up what he’d done to her body.

  She stared at her reflection in the mirror. Yellow covered the red marks, green toned down the purple bruises, and a heavy matte makeup did an adequate job. She’d have to stay out of bright sunlight and away from curious eyes, particularly those of Stephen McNab. What a fool she was, to think he was comfort and safety! Stephen McNab was the long arm of the law, and if he knew what she’d been doing for most of her adult life, he’d slap her in jail so fast her head would spin. No. There was no one she could turn to, no one who could help her. Only her own wits could do that now.

  Ferris Byrd was going to have to use her own wits, too. She’d done what she could to protect her, and had probably put her in worse danger. There were times when Dany wasn’t sure if Marco was quite sane. But it wasn’t a question of sanity. It was a question of a not too bright, not too civilized creature feeling threatened. And when stupid creatures were threatened, they reacted violently.

  She was going to have to be very careful, Dany thought, pulling on a turtleneck shirt that covered the bruise at the base of her throat. Five more days and she’d be free. In the meantime she had to go out into the sunny morning and hope that no one looked too closely. And that she didn’t run into the eagle-eyed Stephen McNab.