Black Ice

by Anne Stuart

  “I’m hard to kill,” he said, automatically switching into Étienne’s guttural Marseilles accent. “How have you been, Fernand?”

  Fernand shrugged. “It’s a living. What can I get you? You still like that Russian vodka?”

  In fact, Bastien had never been that fond of vodka, but he nodded amiably, taking a seat at the bar and pulling out his Gitanes.

  “You’ve changed your brand, I see.” Fernand nodded toward his cigarettes. “I thought you only smoked American cigarettes.”

  That was the kind of careless mistake that could get a man killed, Bastien thought with a faint frisson of something that could almost be called anticipation. He was getting sloppy. “I switch around,” he said. “I’m not a man with strong allegiances.”

  “I remember.” Fernand poured him a shot of vodka, and Bastien tossed it back quickly, then held it out for another hit. “You look the same. How has life been treating you?”

  “Like shit, as always,” he said easily. In fact, he looked very different from the Étienne he had once been. Étienne had been working class, dressed in leather and jeans, his hair had been streaked and much shorter, and he always had a couple days’ stubble. It was all a matter of how he carried himself, Bastien had found. He could become Étienne, or Jean-Marc, or Frankie, or Sven, or any number of people simply by changing the way he spoke and moved, and few ever saw through it.

  “You still haven’t told me why you’re here,” Fernand persisted. “What can I get for you?”

  In the past Fernand had been a purveyor of drugs, information and laundered money, but he had nothing Bastien needed.

  “Can’t a man come in for a drink with an old friend?” he answered easily enough.

  “Not a man like you.”

  Bastien glanced at the street outside. The snow was still drifting down in lazy flakes, and the streets were almost empty. Those who were still awake were someplace warm on such a cold, deadly night. And he realized with real amusement what he was doing in the seedy part of the Marais at midnight when he had better things to do.

  “A woman, Fernand,” Bastien said with a self-deprecating smile. “I was in the area to see a woman, and I thought I’d warm myself up a bit before I face her wrath.”

  “Ah.” Fernand nodded, immediately satisfied. “She lives around here, then? Maybe I know her?”

  “Maybe. She’s Italian,” he said, making it up on the spot. “Short and plump and fiery, my Marcella is. Maybe you can tell me if you’ve seen her in here. I want to know if she’s been playing around. She swears she hasn’t been, but who can trust women?”

  “Who indeed? She doesn’t sound familiar. Where does she live?”

  Chloe shared a tiny apartment with an English girl two streets away—he’d found that out within hours of her arrival at the château. The others would know as well, but even she would have the brains to keep her distance from the first place they’d look for her. Wouldn’t she?

  And she was no longer his problem. Except that he’d ended up in a bar two streets away from her, for no earthly reason. And he might as well stop fighting it, go and see if she was there.

  If she wasn’t, he could forget about her. He should have already, but such things were easier in theory than in practice. He liked answers, and Chloe’s disappearance left too much unsettled.

  Fernand was looking at him with far too much curiosity. Then again, information was one of his most valuable commodities, he’d be wanting to get everything he could from Bastien for future use.

  Bastien named a street in the opposite direction. “And I’d better get my tail over there before she decides to come looking for me.”

  “Then we’ll be seeing more of you? With your girlfriend in the area?” Fernand persisted.

  “This will be my home away from home,” Bastien said grandly, portraying the slightly inebriated cock of the walk known as Étienne. “’Soir!”

  He was well-hidden in the shadows by the time Fernand followed him out of the bar. The little man peered through the lightly falling snow in search of him, never realizing he was only a few feet away, hidden. Fernand swore, then moved to a corner of the building, away from the light, and pulled out a cell phone.

  He was too far away for Bastien to hear more than a few words, but he heard enough to know that his death wish was drawing closer. One more mistake like this one and that would be the end of it. Too bad he couldn’t bring himself to care. It didn’t matter who Fernand was working for, or why. He’d have connections to half a dozen people who wanted him dead.

  Fernand closed the phone, looked around one last time and spat before heading back into the bar. Bastien wondered how long it would be before reinforcements showed up.

  It wasn’t important—he would be long gone by the time Fernand’s mysterious compatriots got there. It wouldn’t take more than a moment to check the apartment. And then, unless he were completely suicidal, he would go to his house in St-Germain-des-Prés and become Bastien Toussaint again. And Little Miss Chloe would have to fend for herself.

  Sylvia and Chloe shared a typically small apartment on the top floor of an old house in a poorer section of the Marais. The ground floor was let to a tobacconist, the first was occupied by an elderly couple who spent most of their time traveling and the top floor held storage rooms and the cramped little flat. The entire house was dark when Chloe finally turned the corner. Her hair was wet with snow, and the burnt edges smelled horrible. The first thing she was going to do was take a bath and to scrub her entire body, even the waxed-over wheals. It had been a lot longer than four hours since he’d spread the stuff on her. A lot longer than four hours since she’d managed to leave the hotel without anyone looking twice. She’d been so muffled in his black coat that they might have thought she was Bastien. Except that duplicating his walk would be just about impossible, for her or anyone else.

  Maybe, twenty years from now, she’d remember him, and wonder what fit of insanity had come over her. She’d like to think she’d been drugged, anything to take the responsibility off her shoulders, but she couldn’t. She had been in an altered state of consciousness, all right, but it had nothing to do with drugs and everything to do with…God, she couldn’t even begin to understand what had prompted her to act that way. She’d been bored, longing for romance and adventure. No, actually, she’d been longing for sex and violence, and that was exactly what she’d gotten. Be careful what you wish for—hadn’t the Chinese said that? Or was it, “May you live in interesting times”? Whatever—right now all she wanted was a long bath and a warm bed, and tomorrow she’d fly home to the loving, protective arms of her family and all the boredom anyone could ask for.

  It was at that moment that she realized she didn’t have a key. Not to the house, not to the apartment, and she almost let out a wail of despair. Her feet hurt, her hair smelled like wet dog, her entire body ached, and even though her stomach was empty she wanted to throw up. And she was cold, even in the soft cashmere embrace.

  She could go to the police, but there would be questions she didn’t want to answer. She could go to the embassy, but it was probably a mile in the other direction, and she didn’t think she could walk another foot, much less retrace her steps along the snow-drifted streets.

  But luck was finally with her. The door leading to the upper floors was unlocked, as it often was. Sylvia usually couldn’t be bothered with locking it, and no one else had been around for the past few days. She closed the door behind her, shutting herself into the dark, cold hall, and reached for the light switch to guide her way up the two flights of stairs.

  And then pulled back. It was very dark, but she knew her way by heart, and there was no need to draw attention to her presence. It was highly unlikely anyone would know where she lived, but Bastien had made her nervous. If she moved through the place in the dark, like some silent wraith, she could be reasonably sure that no one would come to investigate.

  The door to the flat was locked, but Sylvia always left a key on the wind
owsill in the hall, just in case she lost hers, which she managed to do on a regular basis. She pushed open the door, and cold air surrounded her. Sylvia must be off having a riotous time in the arms of her elderly lover.

  She closed the door, leaning against it, and slowly let out her breath. In fact, she hadn’t been away that long. Two nights, coming onto the third one, and Sylvia had gone off for a long weekend. It wasn’t surprising that she hadn’t yet returned, and probably just as well.

  The moon shone in the dormer windows, illuminating the cluttered rooms enough for Chloe to make her way through them. She started the gas fire, shivering in Bastien’s coat, then drew her bath. It had never been the best of arrangements. The flat consisted of one bedroom—Sylvia’s—a tiny kitchen and even smaller bathroom, and a jumbled living room. Chloe slept on a mattress on the floor, stalwartly refusing to consider the possibility of insects or rodents in the ancient building.

  She opened the door to Sylvia’s room and peeked in, but even in the filtered moonlight she could see it looked as if it had been hit by a bomb. Sylvia must have thrown everything here and there as she packed for Chloe’s magical weekend in the country. She wasn’t going to be very happy at the disappearance of some of her best clothes.

  It was nothing compared to Chloe’s state of mind. Knowing Sylvia, she might not be back for a week or more, and by then Chloe would be long gone. Once she got back to the States she’d wire her some money to cover her share of the rent until Sylvia found someone to replace her, and an extra bit to help replace the designer clothes. While Chloe had very little money, the rest of her family had more than they knew what to do with, and they’d be so deliriously grateful that she’d decided to return home they’d probably send Sylvia enough to support herself for months.

  She didn’t look in the mirror as she stripped off Bastien’s clothes and kicked them away. She slid into the old-fashioned tub, bracing for searing pain, but instead the hot water enveloped her like a loving embrace. She sank into it with a moan of pure pleasure and closed her eyes, at peace for the first time in what seemed like an endless nightmare.

  But eventually the water grew cold, and life had to be faced. She climbed out of the tub, catching a glimpse of her body in the mirror. She froze, staring in shock at the reflection.

  The noxious, searing green gunk had done its job. The marks were still there, stripes of pain caused by fire and blade, but they looked months old, a distant memory. There were dark marks on her hips, and she peered closer, until she could make out the faint imprint of his hands on her hips where he’d held her. Bastien. It was only fitting that those marks would remain when the rest was healing.

  She wrapped herself in a towel. Her wet hair was a disaster and wouldn’t wait for Sylvia’s leisurely return. She had no choice but to attack it herself. She found some scissors and started hacking away at it, letting the various lengths fall into the sink.

  She’d been hoping for one of those movie makeover—the dull, bespectacled secretary takes nail scissors to her mop and becomes a gamine worthy of Audrey Hepburn. Not quite. She put the scissors down before she went too far—maybe it would look better once it dried. Her mother’s hairdresser would cluck in horror and then dive in, and in a few days she’d be chic and adorable. Right now she felt like a drowned cat.

  The heat had managed to fill the main room, but the air was still stuffy, so she opened one of the windows a crack, searching through her clothes for her warmest nightgown, a flannel granny gown that always had Sylvia in stitches. There’d be no one around to laugh at her tonight, and she needed the warmth and comfort of the soft, enveloping fabric.

  There was nothing to eat but cereal and cheese. She ate two bowls of Weetabix in the darkness, washed it down with a glass of wine and crawled beneath the duvet on her thin mattress. Tonight she could be overrun with rats and she wouldn’t move. All she wanted to do was sleep.

  She did, dreaming terrible dreams. The nightmares should have been the worst—Hakim’s face looming over her, his soft, insinuating voice more horrifying than anger, as he lovingly drew the knife over her flesh and dared her not to cry out.

  In her dreams he didn’t stop. In her dreams she bled to death, with Hakim smiling down at her with gentle approval, and Bastien sitting in a thronelike chair, women draped around him as he sipped a glass of whiskey and watched.

  And yet that was bearable. She knew she dreamed, and no matter how real it felt, a tiny part of her brain was aware enough to convince her it wasn’t real.

  But her dreams didn’t give up easily. She was no longer dying, bleeding. She was lying in a white bed, covered in lace, and Bastien was on top of her, inside her, making love to her with slow, wicked intensity, and the pleasure was so exquisite she felt her body spasm in her sleep.

  She was cold, she was hot, the covers were too light, then too heavy, and she could feel Bastien around her, like an embrace, his scent teasing her as she fought her way deeper into sleep. She didn’t want to dream, she didn’t want to remember, all she wanted was warmth and darkness.

  Somewhere in the distance a church bell tolled four. She should get up and close the window, but she was finally warm, and surely she could manage to fall asleep again. In the morning, in the daylight, she could face things again. In the darkness all she could do was hide.

  Something didn’t feel right. Small wonder—there was very little that was right in her life, and thinking about it wouldn’t help. Only time and daylight would make things better.

  She shifted on the thin mattress, tugging the duvet up around her chin, reaching for Bastien’s stolen coat to wrap around her as well, one more layer against the cold.

  But the coat wasn’t there—she’d left it lying across a chair. She opened her eyes in the darkness, only to see Bastien himself sitting on the floor beside her, leaning against the wall, watching her in utter stillness.

  13

  For a moment she thought she was still asleep, her nightmare come to life, and she told herself it was just a dream. When he spoke, his voice was low and calm in the darkness.

  “You’re lucky you’re still alive,” he said softly.

  She wasn’t going to argue with him about that, though she was tempted. She lay very still, not moving, hoping he’d just fade away. But he was distressingly real and solid, far too close to her. “How did you find me?” she finally asked. “And how did you get in?”

  He didn’t move from his spot against the wall. His long legs stretched out in front of him, crossed, and his hands lay in his lap. “I told you, it wouldn’t take them any time at all to find you. I was faster, but it won’t be long before they catch up with us.”

  “With us?”

  He cocked his head, looking at her. “I have a tendency to finish what I started. You’ve missed one plane, but I’ll get you out on the next one, if I have to knock you out, tie you up and ship you in a trunk.”

  She reached out to turn on the light beside her bed, but he stopped her, his hand catching her wrist, and she jerked back, knocking the lamp over as she did so.

  “We don’t need lights,” he said. “That was the one smart thing you did, leaving the lights off when you came back. When they come for you a little darkness won’t stop them, but you were wise not to draw undue attention to yourself.”

  “Maybe I just turned off the lights when I went to bed?”

  “I was here before you arrived looking like the little match girl. I decided a few hours’ sleep wouldn’t do you any harm. But you stole my coat—I’ve been freezing.”

  “Tough,” she said. She didn’t ask where he’d been, what he’d seen. There was nothing she could do about it at this point, but if he’d been watching her as she bathed, as she hacked off her hair and examined the marks on her body she wouldn’t be happy. Better not to know.

  He’d helped himself to her wine—the bottle and a glass sat on the floor beside him. She had no idea how long he’d been there, how long she’d been sleeping.

  “Why did you
change your mind?” she asked abruptly. She pulled the covers up to her chest and slid away from him to sit in the corner. And then she realized her fingers were clutching his coat, and she dropped it.

  “Changed my mind?” he repeated.

  “About me. I had a lot of time with Monsieur Hakim, and he enjoys talking while he hurts people. If it hadn’t been for you he wouldn’t have known I’d been looking on the Internet. He wouldn’t have thought I was anything other than what I am.”

  “Anything other than what you are? And what’s that?” He didn’t wait for her answer. “Once Hakim decided not to trust you there was nothing I could do to stop it. Showing him your clumsy tracks through the computer only sped things up.”

  “So what made you change your mind and come to save me?”

  “I didn’t.”

  She was cold, so cold, but she didn’t reach for his coat. “Then why were you there? Had you just come to watch?”

  He shrugged. “I was surprised you were still alive. Hakim must have been enjoying himself more than usual, to have barely touched you.”

  “Barely touched me?” Her voice rose, and he moved so fast he was a blur in the darkness, his hand over her mouth, silencing her as he held her against the wall. He’d held her against another wall, not that long ago, and she wondered what he was going to do.

  “Don’t raise your voice,” he said, his eyes staring into hers in the darkness. So close. “Try not to be as stupid as your behavior suggests.”

  He moved his hand away and she was silent, looking up at him. Waiting for him to touch her. He was going to kiss her, and she wasn’t sure what she was going to do about it.

  But he didn’t. He moved away, sitting back on the floor several feet away. “I came to find Hakim about another matter, saw you were still alive, and on a whim I killed him.”

  “On a whim?”

  He shrugged, so very French, and yet she didn’t believe he was French. “Part of my own death wish, I expect. I’m living on borrowed time as it is, and taking you out of that place only made things move a little faster. God knows when you walked out today I should have just let you go, but you annoyed me. If I’m going to that much trouble you might at least do as I say.”