She glanced down at the bodice of her dress, once again marveling at the intricate beadwork which made the green velvet roses glitter with every breath she took. She had fallen in love with the dress the instant she saw it. It was exactly her color. The top half of the dress was made of almost invisible mesh. Embroidered cover the top of the mesh were vines of roses trailing from her waist, up her torso and along the length of her arms, gradually thinning out until her shoulders were bare. The roses were arranged to maintain her modesty, for she was bare beneath the mesh.
Each rose was picked out with Swarovski crystals, some of them the same green as the velvet and some of them a frosty white.
No jewelry could compete with such a dress, so she wore none. Her hair was piled on the top and back of her head and pinned so it looked like a waterfall of curls.
She felt wonderful in the dress. Drinking too much champagne would dull that feeling. It was not a difficult decision to avoid alcohol. Quinn lifted her glass with the others and looked at Aslan expectantly.
Aslan’s gaze moved about the table. Johnson and the little Italian man everyone called Giorgio, also sat at the table. They were the most frequent guests at Aslan’s dinner table. They had driven the cars. “No one gets to sit outside, tonight,” Aslan had said.
Now Aslan looked at everyone and gave a small smile. “To one of the most successful rounds of bidding we have ever had the fortune to host—and I mean that literally. Also, Merry Christmas.”
Quinn pretended to sip her champagne, then put her glass down.
The others were slower to respond. She saw their gazes swivel toward her, then back to Aslan. Aslan had created this little ripple of consternation in his people for the past week. Since he had told her about the nature of his affairs, he had spoken freely about business when she was in the room.
The first time he spoke about the logistics of the shipment, which they were still sorting out, everyone froze. No one looked at Quinn directly in case their glances warned her Aslan had spoken about something he should not.
Aslan said in a slightly louder voice, “Mitchell, the railcar?”
Mitchell shook his head and stirred. He turned his attention back to Aslan, then warily provided him with the information Aslan had asked for. Trains were still one of the better ways of transporting goods across Europe. The shipment could not be arranged until the bid was finalized, though. Gradually, everyone relaxed.
The same freeze-and-check reaction had reappeared all week. Even now, as Aslan spoke about records bids, Quinn could feel everyone trying to look at her without looking, to measure her reaction.
Quinn reached for a strawberry. She suspected Toni was the most violently opposed to her knowing about Aslan’s true business. Over the last week, Quinn realized that Toni did not like her. Either it was because she was a woman—for Toni did not get along with women—or it was something more personal. Maybe both.
However, Toni tolerated her because Aslan wanted Quinn to hand. The conversations about Denis continued on an almost daily basis but not always at the same time. In Innsbruck, despite working, Aslan considered himself to be in vacation mode. The pace was easier. Here in Vienna, though, business stepped up a notch. He worked long hours as far as Quinn could tell. He didn’t go to bed before she did and she was a night owl.
“Are the bids…” Mitchell began. He cleared his throat, his gaze flickering toward Quinn. “Are the bids really that good?” It was a diffident attempt to follow Aslan’s lead and include Quinn in the conversation. Quinn liked him for it.
Aslan didn’t answer immediately. He sipped the champagne and took his time selecting a strawberry. He looked relaxed. “A competing bid came in this afternoon. There were eight figures.”
Over ten million for three tons of Sarin precursor. Quinn’s mind sheered away from that. If she let herself think too long about what all these fantastic bids were vying for, she felt ill. Better to pretend it was an auction over real estate. Then she could look at urbane as everyone who sat around the table.
With her new laptop, she had researched a little about Sarin gas. What she learned had left her sleepless for a night. Sarin gas was so lethal it was considered a weapon of mass destruction. That put it on the same level as nuclear warheads and thermonuclear missiles.
Exposure to the gas was lethal at even low concentrations. If one was exposed to a lethal dose, they died within ten minutes. It wasn’t an easy ten minutes, either. It wasn’t like carbon monoxide poisoning, where the victim went to sleep.
Oh, no, not at all.
Whoever invented the damn thing hadn’t thought it sufficient to merely kill everyone. They had developed a weapon which would deliver the most gruesome death possible. Ten minutes didn’t seem like long, normally. For someone unable to breathe because their lung muscles were paralyzed, ten minutes would be a small ice age.
Victims didn’t just stop breathing. They also vomited, defecated and urinated. While being murdered by the truckload, people lost all their personal dignity, too.
And to make it even worse, because it was a gas, it was easy to spread about. On top of that, if the gas settled on skin or clothes, then it could be transmitted the same way people transmitted the common cold.
Even nonlethal doses could leave someone with permanent neurological damage.
Quinn now understood why the precursors which made the gas were so heavily controlled. What she didn’t understand was why anyone would want to have a stockpile of Sarin gas in the first place. How could anyone with a conscience use it?
Whenever she thought of this and looked at Aslan, she felt a shuddering revulsion and the need to run away.
It was easy to suppose Denis had died because of this awful business, although the connection was still not clear to her. The longer she stayed among these people, the more she needed to know exactly what happened to him. There was still the question of why she had been a target, too. It could not simply be because she was with Denis, surely? That seemed excessive.
Only, anyone who helped manufacture Sarin gas wouldn’t hesitate to take out the innocent partner standing next to their target.
No one in the house monitored Quinn, anymore. No one had stripped her laptop of communication software. No one told her not to leave the house. She could easily hop on a train and head for Paris or London and on the way contact Dima. No one would stop her, she was sure of it.
So why was she still here?
Quinn studied Aslan’s pleasant features. The charming man in the excellent suits. The man who had loved Denis so much, he sucked Quinn into his life just so he could capture the last few years of Denis’s life for himself. Surely a man who felt so strongly about another person could not be all bad?
She couldn’t make sense of the dichotomy of Aslan’s nature.
The deeper she was drawn into the cesspit, the more determined she was to see this through and get the answers she craved. She desperately needed everything to make sense. Finding out why Denis died would help her make sense of it—at least, she hoped so.
“Ten million plus for three tons is excessive,” Noah said. “Is there something else going on? Another factor we haven’t considered?” Unlike the others, Noah didn’t react stiffly whenever Quinn was included in the conversation. He just didn’t care.
Aslan nodded. “The United States Embassy in Berlin was evacuated last week. The staff had breathing difficulties.”
Quinn remembered hearing about it. “So the Berlin authorities shut down all the chemical plants in the region,” she guessed.
Aslan’s smile was warm. A reward. “They inspected them but didn’t shut them down. For our competitors, though, an inspection is the same has being shut down. They can’t operate under severe scrutiny. That leaves us as the only suppliers in Europe.”
Toni drained her champagne and held her glass out toward Aslan. He took the glass from her and refilled it. “Did you arrange for the Embassy evacuation?” she asked Aslan.
Quinn looked at Aslan
, horrified. She hadn’t even thought of that. Only it had conveniently cleared the way for Aslan to receive record breaking bids on his precursor chemicals.
Aslan shook his head. Quinn felt a trickle of relief. “It was a coincidence,” he said. “The world is filled with coincidences.”
The world is filled with hard luck. You have to make your own good luck.
Aslan handed Toni her refilled glass. Her fingers slid over his and her gaze was steady. It was the most direct kind of invitation.
Quinn had been slow to realize that Toni didn’t just live in the house, she was Aslan’s partner. It seemed like a loveless arrangement, perhaps merely a convenient one. Neither of them was demonstrative, which was why it taken Quinn so long to figure it out.
However, this week, Toni had physically reached out to Aslan on a number of occasions and now she stared at him with intimate, bedroom eyes. Any other man might’ve picked up her hand and taken her somewhere private right now. Toni at her most powerful would be hard to resist.
Aslan, though, ignored her. He got to his feet and moved between the tables. Like the restaurant on the boat, the tables were not jammed in, giving the dancers plenty of room to move between them. It was just as well, for Quinn was not the only woman wearing a dress which took up a lot of room.
Aslan stopped beside her and held out his hand. “Dance with me.”
Quinn’s heart started. “I…I don’t dance.” She dropped her voice. “Remember?”
Aslan bent and picked her hand out of her lap and tugged her to her feet. “When you’re with me, you can do anything you want. Including dancing.”
There was nothing she could say to that. Any protest she made would draw attention to her past and make everyone wonder about her all over again. Besides, Aslan’s low declaration had made her heart beat even harder. Could she do this? She had disciplined herself against it for so many years.
Then her choice was taken away from her. Aslan’s gentle tugging brought her onto the dance floor. Her feet twitched as she felt the rhythm and music. It was a three-quarter time. A waltz.
Aslan put his hand around her waist and she scrambled to pick up the back of her dress and loop it over her wrist, just as he turned her into the first spin.
Her breath caught. She was dancing!
She had often wondered that if she dared to dance, would she have forgotten how. Yet, like riding a bicycle, it came back to her with effortless ease. This was ballroom dancing, not ballet, but the principles were the same. She let her partner lead.
Quinn had immersed herself in music, her substitute for dancing. Now she was dancing, too. It was heavenly.
Aslan watched her face as they danced. Then he smiled. “There. See? The world did not implode.”
She laughed. It was a carefree sound she had never made before. “Oh, you have opened Pandora’s box now. I hope you are prepared to dance all night, because I don’t think I could sit down, now.”
He didn’t answer her directly, although his eyes gleamed with a light she thought might be his acceptance of her challenge.
Then, as they rounded the dance floor and she saw everyone at Aslan’s table watching them, she stumbled. Aslan kept her on her feet but he couldn’t stop her heart from throwing itself against her chest.
Toni watched them. Her face was still and expressionless while her eyes held bloody murder.
[19]
Sunday, December 22nd
The orchestra was still playing and everyone was still dancing. When Aslan declared they should go home, the dance floor was just as crowded as it had been at the start of the night.
Everyone threaded their way through the ballroom to step into crisp night air. It was a shock to Quinn to see the sky was growing lighter. Dawn would be here soon. She had danced the night away.
Aslan looked at Johnson and Giorgio. He lifted his brow.
“We left them farther down the street. The car park was full,” Johnson said, his tone apologetic. “Give us a few minutes and we’ll bring them around.” He dug in his jacket pocket for keys.
Aslan shook his head. “It’s too cold to stand around waiting. We will all walk to the car. Walking will keep us warm. Lead the way.”
Johnson and Giorgio led them out from under the portico, on to the wide sidewalk. Quinn pulled her shawl around her, glad of its warmth, even though she was so full of energy the cold didn’t register. She could have continued dancing for hours yet.
Everyone at the table had switched with Aslan to keep her on her feet. Everyone except Noah. He sat like the Rock of Gibraltar, his brows together. “I don’t dance,” he said gruffly, when Aslan suggested he traded places and dance with Quinn.
Quinn hadn’t minded. Mitchell was an adequate dancer and was happy to dance as long as she did. Even Johnson and Giorgio danced with her, giving her an excuse to stay on the dance floor.
Perhaps Toni gravitated toward Noah because they were the only two people to remain at the table. They drank champagne and ate the strawberries, while everyone else danced.
At one point, as Quinn was being turned about the floor, she glanced at the table and thought that Toni had draped herself on Noah’s shoulder. She was talking quietly, her mouth not far from his ear. What poison was she pouring into him?
Whatever she was saying, it seemed to have no effect on Noah. His scowl did not deepen. He didn’t react to her. Although, he was not shrugging her off his shoulder, either.
Quinn dismissed it from her mind. She was dancing and didn’t give a damn about anything else.
Now, as she walked along the cold, white pavement, the energy and joy of the evening lingered like champagne in her veins.
They turned the corner and headed down a narrow side street filled with parked cars, leaving barely enough room for a single car to drive through. Vienna side streets were all this way. They had been built long before massive traffic and multiple cars per household were common.
Mitchell glanced at his watch as they moved deeper into the side street. “By the time we get home the Giants game will be just starting. I could watch it live, instead of on replay. There’re six cans of Red Bull in the kitchen fridge. Anyone want to join me?”
“I am going to bed,” Toni said, her tone chilly.
Mitchell raised his brow at Quinn. “I bet you want to stay up.”
Quinn shook her head. “No offense, Mitchell, but I’ve just had a wonderful evening dancing. Watching football would be anticlimactic.”
“If you put money on it, I might be talked into staying up to watch a game,” Johnson said, over his shoulder. “Only, you must explain the rules to me.”
Mitchell halted and Quinn bounced off him. He jerked his chin up. “Someone at the car,” he murmured.
Quinn glimpsed a shadowy figure in the broadening light. They were pressed against one of the SUVs and fumbled at the door.
She only caught the single glance before Noah took off. He had been behind her. She felt the wind of his passage as he rocketed past her.
Less than a second behind him, Toni and Mitchell followed.
Toni kicked off her shoes as she ran and lifted the dress over one elbow, freeing her legs.
Noah reached the man first. All three of them moved silently and so swiftly they were upon him before he detected their approach. He threw up his arms as Noah reached for his neck.
Noah closed his fingers around the man’s neck in a painful pinch and gave him a little shake. “Do you have any idea whose car you are messing with?” he growled, in English.
The man swiveled his chin with a wince of pain. He glanced at Aslan, who remained on the sidewalk with his hand inside his jacket. Did Aslan have a gun in his jacket? Had he been wearing it all night?
Quinn studied the man, feeling a touch of pity. He did not look tough. She had learned what tough looked like, these last few weeks. It wasn’t like in the movies. Real toughness could only be detected by watching someone for a while. It wasn’t a factor of shoulder width or a strong jaw. It
was an internal factor, an ability to never give up.
The poor man Noah held had thin hair and a sharp nose. His eyes were watery. He moved his gaze back to Noah. “My mistake,” he said in German.
Mitchell stepped up beside Noah and shoved his hand inside the man’s dirty coat. “Let’s find out if you’re just desperate or stupid, too.” He grunted and pulled out a small, black handgun. “Stupid it is.”
The man looked scared for the first time. “I was looking…somewhere warm!” He spoke English badly.
“Because a car which has been parked for hours is the warmest place on earth,” Toni said dryly. She hadn’t dropped her skirt. She looked as though she was braced for instant action.
“Let him go, guys,” Aslan said. “It’s Christmas. And it’s cold.”
Noah looked over his shoulder at Aslan. “He has a gun and he knows who you are.”
“It just makes him a career criminal who knows who the players are in this city,” Aslan said. “Let him go, Noah.”
Noah dropped his hand and stepped away from the man. “Get out of here before I change my mind,” he growled.
The man straightened and shrugged his coat back into place. “Do I get my gun back?” he asked in German.
Mitchell held up the black gun. “This one?” Still looking at the man, he moved his fingers over the gun. The clip dropped to the ground, then the gun fell to pieces, clattering unmusically on the cement. Mitchell held up the trigger guard on his forefinger, all that was left in his hand. “Ooops.” His tone was flat.
Toni took a step toward the man. “Can I have a little fun with him before we let him go?” She reached under her gown, pulled out a flat black knife and held it up, so the first rays of sunlight glinted on it.
The man bolted, running as if the hounds of hell were behind him. He reached the far corner of the next block, turned it and disappeared. It took less than ten seconds for him to make the distance.
Toni laughed and relaxed. She slid the knife back under her gown. She must have a thigh holster, Quinn realized.
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