by Anne Stuart
“I was never very obedient. I wouldn’t be here in Paris if I wasn’t accustomed to doing what I want.”
“I don’t give a damn what you want. You’re going back home to the States and you’re staying there. You understand me?”
At that point there was nothing she wanted more, but some inner devil prompted her to object. “And if I refuse?”
“Then I’ll cut your throat and leave you here. It seems a shame, since I’ve already gone to so much trouble. That stuff I put on your wounds is very valuable, and I wouldn’t have wasted it on you if I’d known I was just going to have to kill you a few hours later. But that won’t stop me. You’re a liability, a drain and a danger, and perhaps I never should have stopped Hakim, but since I did I may as well see this through. It’s up to you. You want to die now and get it over with? Or do you want to get back to your family and a normal life?”
He spoke so matter-of-factly about death and killing, and she had not the slightest doubt that he would do just as he said. All she had to do was look into his dark, empty eyes. “How do I know you can keep me safe?”
“You don’t. There are no guarantees in this life. You certainly stand a better chance with me than on your own. And if I fail, I can promise I’ll be the one to kill you before you get in the hands of someone worse than Hakim. I’ll make it fast and painless.”
Chloe swallowed. “There are worse men than Hakim?”
“Actually, the very best at torture and interrogation are usually women. Which is no surprise.”
She stared at him in the darkness. “Who the fuck are you?”
His cool smile was far from reassuring. “You no longer believe I’m an arms dealer from Marseilles? It’s taken you long enough.”
“Then who are you? Is Bastien Toussaint even your real name?”
“Do I look like a saint to you, Chloe? And you don’t need to know who I am. Suffice it to say I’m part of an international operation few people know exist, and it’s better they don’t. Just keep quiet and do as I say.”
She stared at him, a cold, sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. “Can you tell me one thing? Are you part of the good guys or the bad guys?”
“Trust me,” he said wearily, “there’s not much difference. We need to get out of here before dawn. Get out of that sexy lingerie and put some clothes on. Only Americans would dream of sleeping in such a garment.”
She looked down at her soft flannel nightgown. “I’m supposed to wear a lace negligee when I’m freezing and running for my life? You’ve seen too many movies.”
“I never go to the movies.”
She crawled across the mattress, keeping as far from him as she could. Not that it mattered—he seemed to have no interest in touching her. She kept her clothes in a small chest by the window, and rose, pulling out some clean underwear, a pair of jeans and a warm shirt. She started toward the bathroom, when his voice stopped her.
“Where are you going?”
“To the bathroom. I’m going to pee and then I’m going to change in there, unless you have any objections.”
“You don’t need to be modest, Chloe. I have no interest in your naked body.”
He’d already made that clear, but for some reason his calm statement was the final straw. She slammed her clothes down in a nearby chair and yanked her nightgown over her head, hearing it tear in her anger. She threw it at him, then picked up her clothes and stalked into the bathroom, her naked body illuminated by the moonlight.
At the last minute she remembered not to slam the door, much as she wanted to. Not enough to die for it, and certainly not enough to risk having him get up from his spot on the floor and put his hands on her again. He couldn’t have been clearer—he’d used sex for one thing and one thing only. To gain information. Now that he knew everything he needed to know he had no more use for her.
She wanted a shower, but that might be pushing it. She used the toilet, then dressed quickly. Her shortened hair had dried in a messy tumble that looked better than she’d hoped, but was still a far cry from a Hollywood makeover. But then, he didn’t go to the movies. And what he thought clearly didn’t matter, since he wasn’t interested. Thank God.
She’d do what he said, all right. She would be quiet, obedient—anything to get the hell out of France as quickly as possible. She wouldn’t be safe until she did, and despite those horrifying hours with Gilles Hakim she couldn’t really believe she was in that much danger. No, the most important thing was to get as far away from her mystery man, and not have to worry about him showing up again once she thought she’d escaped.
He caught the nightgown in one hand while he watched her walk from the room. Her body was pale in the moonlight, and he could see that the gunk had done its work.
He almost could have laughed. She was so offended, with little idea just how desirable she really was. He’d wanted nothing more than to strip off his clothes and crawl beneath the duvet with her, to lose himself in her body, in the darkness. He was tired, so very tired.
But he’d kept his distance, even when he read in her eyes that he could have her. He buried his face in the soft flannel, inhaling the scent of her body, her soap, her skin. She had no idea just how powerfully erotic the juxtaposition of soft, shapeless flannel covering a lithe, sexual body was. And he wasn’t about to tell her.
If he were a man with any softer feelings left inside him he would have taken the nightgown as a souvenir, to remember her by. She was unlike anyone he’d ever dealt with—vulnerable and angry and surprisingly brave. But then, he didn’t need a nightgown to remember her for the rest of his life. It wasn’t going to be that long.
She’d torn the nightgown when she’d yanked it off—he’d been too busy covertly admiring her body to notice. The fabric was old and well laundered and very soft—it must have been in her possession for many years. She’d slept in it since she’d been no more than a girl—she wasn’t that old as it was.
He didn’t know why he did it. But he did. He took the fabric and yanked at the tear, ripping a piece from it. She wouldn’t notice. He wasn’t going to give her the chance to pack anything. He had the piece shoved in his pocket, conveniently forgotten, by the time she emerged from the bathroom, looking just as furious as she had when she went in, though unfortunately more clothed.
Nothing like telling a woman you didn’t want them to really piss them off, he thought. He couldn’t afford to have her start having second thoughts. The sex they’d shared had been nothing but that—short, powerful, even harsh. She belonged in a field of daisies with a tender lover. Not on the run for her life with a murderer.
He’d only begun to think of himself as that, but it fit as well as anything else. He’d killed in self-defense, he’d killed in cold blood, he’d killed by assassination and he’d killed in formal combat. He’d killed women and men, and he hoped to God that he wouldn’t have to kill Chloe. But he would if he had to.
Maybe he’d tell her before she died, if it came to that. He could make it very fast, so she barely knew what was happening, but before he drove the knife up into her heart he could tell her the truth. At least she could die feeling smug.
He was getting ahead of himself. If he was forced to kill her it would be a failure, and he wasn’t a man who considered failure to be an option. As long as they kept moving they’d be fine. And as long as he kept his hands off her they’d keep moving.
“Do you have a coat of your own, or do I need to let you have mine?”
“Mine’s at the château. I can borrow one of Sylvia’s—I’ve already lost some of her best clothes.” She sat down in a chair and began to put on her socks and shoes. He didn’t need to tell her to wear comfortable shoes—her boots were well-worn and serviceable looking, with low heels. She’d be able to run in them if she had to.
He hadn’t seen her in jeans and a sweater before. She looked even more American, and even more desirable. She got up and opened the door to the bedroom, and he recognized the smell before she did.
His hand was already over hers, turning it off again, but not fast enough that she didn’t see the woman’s body lying on the floor. She hadn’t been dead for more than a few hours, probably just before Chloe had arrived home. The smell would have been more noticeable if she’d been there awhile.
He’d put his arm around Chloe, clapped his hand over her mouth to silence her scream and dragged her from the room, kicking the door shut behind them, closing the body away from them. But the smell filled the room, and they had to get out of there, fast.
She was gagging, and he didn’t blame her, but he couldn’t afford to be gentlemanly about it. He’d come in the back way, over the roofs and through the storage room window, and he’d go back that way, taking Chloe with him, if he had to sling her over his shoulder and carry her.
She stopped trying to scream, and he let go of her mouth long enough to grab his coat from the bed before pushing her from the room, closing the door behind them.
And out into the icy dawn of the Paris streets with the stink of death still on them.
14
Chloe was in shock, the first piece of luck Bastien had had in a long while. She was past the point of speaking, of protesting, of doing anything but moving with him in blind obedience. He stopped long enough to wrap her in his coat, and then he moved on, keeping hold of her limp hand. If he let go of her she’d probably just stand in the middle of the street until they found her.
He moved fast, in and out of alleyways, backtracking. Why the hell had they killed the girl and then not come after them? Maybe it was a simple mistake—if they’d sent an outsider they might have thought she was Chloe. Or maybe they’d killed the girl as a precaution, then went looking for them, and they’d somehow managed to miss each other in the night.
That was the least likely—he didn’t believe in lucky breaks. His sixth sense told him there was no one watching them as he moved Chloe through the dawn-lit streets. Maybe they thought he’d bring her in himself.
Poor little American idiot, caught up in a game that was way over her head. Both sides wanted her, and he knew his own organization well enough to know that both sides wanted her dead. She was a liability—she’d seen too much, and the sooner she was disposed of, the better.
The traffic had begun to pick up, the sun was rising over the rooftops when she suddenly froze. He knew what was coming, and he held her as she vomited into the street. Her roommate’s body wasn’t the first dead person she’d seen—she’d been there when he’d killed Hakim.
But her time with Hakim had momentarily inured her to reality. She’d had enough time to recover her equilibrium, to start thinking for herself, and the sight of her friend’s brutally murdered body would have hit her full force.
She’d stopped, and he handed her a handkerchief to wipe her face as he hailed a taxi. One pulled up fairly quickly—despite the hour and the neighborhood and Chloe’s obvious distress the taxi drivers of Paris were well trained. They could judge the cost of a patron’s clothing from a block away, to know whether they were worth stopping for.
He bundled her into the cab and followed her, keeping his arms around her and her face tucked against his shoulder. The fewer people who saw her, the safer she’d be.
“Where to, monsieur?”
He gave an address in the fifteenth arrondissement, then leaned back. The driver took off, weaving through the burgeoning traffic with expert ease, but Bastien could see him watching them in his rearview mirror.
“Your girlfriend drink too much?” he asked. “I don’t want her puking on my seats.”
A legitimate enough concern, Bastien thought. “She’s done for now. She’s not my girlfriend, she’s my wife. She’s three months pregnant and having a hard time of it.”
He felt her jerk in his arms, but he put his hand to the back of her head and held her down.
The cabdriver nodded knowingly. “Ah, that’s the worst part. Don’t you worry, madame, it doesn’t last the whole time. My wife can’t keep a thing down for the first three months, and then she can’t stop eating. We’ve had four children, and it’s always the same. Is this your first?”
So many questions, Bastien thought. “Yes,” he said. “Any advice?”
That set him off, and for the next ten minutes Bastien got a lecture on everything from the food cravings of a pregnant woman to the best positions for sex when the wife is the size of a water buffalo. He listened with half an ear, making the appropriate responses, as he felt Chloe go limp in his arms once more.
The address he’d given was a modern high-rise with a basement garage—he’d spent a few weeks there several years ago with a beautiful model from Ethiopia. The last time in recent memory that he’d spent any time away from the job. She’d been warm, affectionate and sexually inventive, and he’d been very fond of her. He couldn’t even remember her name.
“Could I ask you to drive us into the parking garage?” Bastien asked. “The elevator is right there and I could get my wife up to bed that much faster.”
“Of course, monsieur.” The poor man had no idea. He drove under the building, into the darkened parking garage, and pulled up to the elevator. He even got out of the taxi to help Bastien with Chloe’s limp form. He never knew what hit him.
It would have made sense to kill him. Slit his throat and leave him in the cul-de-sac behind the elevator, where no one would find him for days. By then Chloe would be long gone, and Bastien wouldn’t care.
But at the last minute Bastien remembered the four children and the wife the size of a water buffalo, and for some reason he felt sentimental. It was probably just defiance—they had turned him into a man who would kill without compunction, and he wanted to do the opposite of what he’d been trained.
The driver had a roll of duct tape in the trunk of the taxi—it saved his life. Bastien wrapped him tightly, efficiently, stuffing the man’s own handkerchief in his mouth before sealing it. They’d find him sooner or later—he figured he had at best six hours, maybe less. Chloe was still in the back seat of the cab, and he left her there, closing the door and climbing into the driver’s seat. He flicked on the Pas de Service sign, and drove out into the early-morning sunlight, a taxi driver on his way home after a long night’s work.
Too bad he didn’t kill the driver—it would have given them a solid twelve hours before his wife reported him missing, maybe longer. And the disappearance of one taxi driver wouldn’t be treated with much deference by the Paris police department. They would probably assume he’d gone off with a girlfriend and would return to the wrath of his wife eventually.
Another sign of why he’d outlived his usefulness, Bastien thought. Mercy was a weakness an operative couldn’t afford. He glanced into the back seat. Chloe was curled up on the seat, his coat wrapped tightly around her body, her eyes open and staring. Sooner or later the shock was going to wear off, and she was going to start screaming. He needed to get her someplace safe before that happened.
He couldn’t get her on a plane until that evening. For a moment he considered driving her to a smaller airport, like Tours, but then rejected it. They would be watching all the airports—he stood a better chance at Charles de Gaulle where he had a few connections even Thomason and the others didn’t know about.
He found the house easily enough, though he spent a good twenty minutes circling it, alert to the possibility of surveillance. They’d stopped using the place two years ago when it had been hopelessly compromised, and while the Committee would remember to check it eventually, they would be more likely to go through the current safe houses first. Again, another few hours added to the precious horde he was building.
As far as he could tell no one was watching. It was a huge old house on the very outski
rts of Paris, abandoned since the 1950s. It was sitting on a prime piece of real estate, and it was a wonder no one had forced enquiries into the ownership. On paper it belonged to the family of an old lady whose estate was so complicated it would never be resolved. In truth it had once been the home of a collaborator, the attics filled with looted treasure. That treasure had been part of the Committee war chest—whoever had owned the priceless works of art and jewelry would no longer be alive to benefit from them.
It also came equipped with a secret room where the previous owner had hidden for three weeks when the allies had liberated Paris. Bastien himself had spent several days there, and it was as protected a place as he could think of. He’d been operating on very little sleep for the past few days, and he needed just an hour or two before his brain could function properly once more. Before he could make the right decisions, instead of foolishly sentimental ones.
He drove down the narrow alleyway that led behind the house, closed the sagging wooden gates behind them, and stashed the taxi near some bushes, hoping it might avoid aerial surveillance. He only needed a few hours.
He pulled Chloe from the back seat, and she moved like an automaton. It might be nice if he could count on her being out of it for the next few hours, but he’d already had more than his share of luck. He walked her through the empty building, up littered stairways, past broken windows and abandoned furniture, up three flights to the empty attics. Her dazed state lasted until he pushed the button hidden at the side of the old chimney and the door slid open, exposing the small room.
He was unprepared for her reaction. She went from limp obedience to full-bodied panic, lashing out at him, trying to bolt, screaming…
There were a number of ways to silence a person, render them unconscious. If he’d realized she was about to flip out he would have been able to do it more gently, but he had no choice but to hit her, just so, and everything drained from her terrified body.