by Nora Roberts
“Peter …” Whitney poked her head and one naked shoulder around the screen. “Excuse me.” She did her best to blush as she swept her lashes down, then up again.
Whether the blush worked or not, the captain took off his hat and bowed. “Madame.”
“My wife, Cathy. Cath, this is Captain Sambirano.”
“How do you do?”
“Charmed.”
“I’m sorry I can’t come out just now. You see I’m …” She trailed off and smiled.
“Of course. You must forgive the interruption, Mrs. Wallace. Mr. Wallace. If I can be of any help to you during your stay, please do not hesitate.”
“How sweet.”
Halfway out the door, the captain turned back. “And your destination, Mr. Wallace?”
“Oh, we’re following our noses,” Doug claimed. “Cathy and I are graduate students. Botany. So far we’ve found your country fascinating.”
“Peter, the water’s getting cold.”
Doug glanced over his shoulder, looked back, and grinned. “It’s our honeymoon, you understand.”
“Naturally. May I congratulate you on your taste? Good afternoon.”
“Yeah, see you.”
Doug closed the door, leaned back against it, and swore. “I don’t like it.”
Wrapped in a towel, Whitney came out from behind the screen. “What do you think that was all about?”
“I wish I knew. But one thing, when cops start nosing around, I look for other accommodations.”
Whitney took a long look at the gaily covered bed. “But, Doug.”
“Sorry, sugar. Get yourself dressed.” He began to strip off his own dripping clothes. “We’re catching a boat, a little ahead of schedule.”
“You have something new?” After fondling a glass chess piece, Dimitri moved bishop’s pawn.
“We think they headed toward the coast.”
“Think?” At the snap of Dimitri’s fingers a dark-suited man placed a crystal goblet in his hand.
“There was a little settlement in the hills.” Remo watched Dimitri drink and swallowed on his own dry throat. He hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in a week. “When we checked it out, the family was in an uproar. Somebody’d ripped them off while they were in the fields.”
“I see.” The wine was excellent, but, of course, he’d brought his own stock with him. Dimitri enjoyed traveling, but not inconvenience. “And what precisely was acquired from these people?”
“A couple hats, some clothes, baskets …” He hesitated.
“And?” Dimitri prompted, too gently for comfort.
“A pig.”
“A pig,” Dimitri repeated and chuckled. Remo nearly let his shoulders relax. “How ingenious. I begin to regret Lord must be disposed of. I could put a man like him to good use. Go on, Remo. The rest.”
“A couple kids saw a peddler in a truck pick up a man and woman—and a pig—late this morning. They headed east.”
There was a long silence. Remo wouldn’t have broken it if there’d been a knife in his back. Dimitri studied the wine in his goblet then sipped, drawing the moment out. He could hear Remo’s nerves stretching, stretching. His gaze came up.
“I suggest you also head east, Remo. I, in the meantime, will move on.” He ran his fingers over another chess piece, admiring the craftsmanship, the detail. “I’ve calculated the area our quarries are headed for. While you track them, I shall wait.” He brought the goblet to his lips again, breathing deeply of the bouquet of the wine. “I grow weary of hotels, though the service here is quite excellent. When I entertain our guest, I’d like to do so with more privacy.”
Setting down the wine, he picked up the white knight and its queen. “Yes, I do love to entertain.” In a quick move, he smashed the pieces together. The shards tinkled lightly as they fell onto the table.
C H A P T E R
10
“We didn’t eat.”
“We’ll eat later.”
“You’re always saying that. And another thing,” Whitney said, “I still don’t understand why we have to check out this way.” She gave a quick grimace to the pile of “borrowed” clothes in a heap on the floor. Whitney wasn’t accustomed to seeing anyone move quite so fast as Doug had in the last five minutes.
“Ever heard of an ounce of prevention, sugar?”
“With a little salt, I’d eat an ounce of prevention at the moment.” Whitney scowled down at his fingertips on the window ledge. In a flash they were gone and she held her breath as she watched him drop to the ground below.
Doug felt his legs sing briefly. A quick glance around showed him that no one had seen his leap but a fat, battle-scarred cat dozing in a patch of sunshine. Looking up, he signaled to Whitney. “Toss down the packs.” She did, with an enthusiasm that nearly knocked him off his feet. “Take it easy,” he said between his teeth. Setting them aside, Doug braced himself beneath the window. “Okay, now you.”
“Me?”
“You’re all that’s left, lover. Come on, I’ll catch you.”
It wasn’t that she doubted him. After all, she’d taken the precaution of slipping her wallet out of her pack—and making certain he saw her—before he’d climbed through the window. In the same way, she remembered that he’d switched the envelope to the pocket of his jeans. Trust among thieves was obviously the same sort of myth as honor.
Whitney thought it rather strange that the drop looked so much longer now than it had when he’d hung by his fingers. She frowned down at him.
“A MacAllister always leaves a hotel by the front door.”
“We ain’t got time for family traditions. For Chrissake come on before we draw an audience.”
Setting her teeth, she swung a leg over. Agilely, but very slowly, she twisted herself around and lowered. It only took her an instant to discover she didn’t like the sensation of hanging from the window ledge of an inn in Madagascar one bit. “Doug …”
“Drop,” Doug ordered.
“I’m not sure I can.”
“You can, unless you want me to start throwing rocks.”
He might. Whitney closed her eyes, held her breath, and let go.
She fell free for hardly more than a heartbeat before his hands clamped around her hips, then slid up to her armpits. Even so, the abrupt stop took the breath from her.
“See?” he told her when he placed her lightly on the ground. “Nothing to it. You’ve got real potential as a cat burglar.”
“Goddamn it.” Turning, she examined her hands. “I broke a nail. Now what am I supposed to do?”
“Yeah, that’s tragic.” He bent to pick up the packs. “I guess I could shoot you and put you out of your misery.”
She snatched her pack out of his hands. “Very droll. I happen to think walking around with nine fingernails is extremely tacky.”
“Put your hands in your pockets,” he suggested and started to walk.
“Just where are you going now?”
“I’ve arranged for a little trip by water.” He slid his arms through the straps until the pack rested comfortably on his back. “All we have to do is get to the boat. Unobtrusively.”
Whitney followed as he wound his way around, keeping to the backs of houses, away from the street. “All this because some fat little policeman dropped by to say hello.”
“Fat little policemen make me nervous.”
“He was very polite.”
“Yeah, fat little polite policemen make me more nervous.”
“We’re being very rude to the nice lady who took our pig.”
“What’s the matter, sugar, never skip out on a bill before?”
“Certainly not.” She sniffed, racing along behind him as he crossed a narrow side street. “Nor do I intend to begin. I left her twenty.”
“Twenty!” Grabbing her, Doug stopped behind a tree beside Jacques’s store. “What the hell for? We didn’t even use the bed.”
“We used the bath,” she reminded him. “Both of us.”
/> “Christ, I didn’t even take my clothes off.” Resigned, he studied the little faded frame building beside them.
While she waited for Doug to move again, Whitney glanced back wistfully toward the hotel. Another complaint sprang to her mind before she saw a man in a white panama crossing the street. Idly she watched him until sweat began to pool at the base of her spine.
“Doug.” Her throat had gone dry with an anxiety she couldn’t explain. “Doug, that man. Look.” She grabbed his hand, turning only slightly. “I swear he’s the same one I saw at the zoma, then again on the train.”
“Jumping at shadows,” Doug muttered but glanced back.
“No.” Whitney gave his arm a quick tug. “I saw him. I saw him twice. Why should he turn up again? Why should he be here?”
“Whitney …” But he broke off as he watched the man stroll down to meet the captain. And he remembered with sudden clarity a man jolting out of his seat on the train in the middle of the confusion, dropping a newspaper onto the ground, and looking him straight in the eye. Coincidence? Doug pulled Whitney back behind the tree. He didn’t believe in them.
“Is it one of Dimitri’s men?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who else could he be?”
“Dammit, I don’t know.” Frustration tore through him. He felt he was being chased from all sides. Knew it, but couldn’t understand it. “Whoever he is, we’re getting out.” He looked back at Jacques’s shop. “Better go in the back way. He might have customers and the less people that see us, the better.”
The back door was locked. Crouching down, Doug took out his penknife and went to work. Within five seconds, the lock clicked open. Whitney counted.
Impressed, she watched him pocket the knife again. “I’d like you to teach me how to do that.”
“A woman like you doesn’t have to pick locks. People open doors for you.” While she thought this over, he slipped in the back.
It was part storage room, part bedroom, part kitchen. Beside the narrow, neatly made bunk was a collection of half a dozen cassette tapes. Upbeat Elton John music seemed to pour through the wallboards. Tacked to them was a full-color poster of a pouting, sexy Tina Turner. Beside her was an ad for Budweiser—the King of Beers, a New York Yankees pennant, and an evening shot of the Empire State Building.
“Why do I feel as though I’ve just walked into a room on Second Avenue?” And because she did, she felt ridiculously safe.
“His brother’s an exchange student at CCNY.”
“That explains everything. Whose brother?”
“Shh!” Padding silently on the balls of his feet like a cat, Doug moved to the door that connected with the shop. He opened it a crack and peered through.
Jacques leaned over the counter, in the midst of a transaction that involved what was obviously a detailed exchange of town gossip. The bony, dark-eyed girl had apparently come in to flirt more than she’d come in to buy. She poked among spools of colored thread and giggled.
“What’s going on?” Whitney maneuvered herself so that she could peek through the crack under Doug’s arm. “Ah, romance,” she proclaimed. “I wonder where she got that blouse. Just look at the embroidery work.”
“We’ll have a fashion show later.”
The girl bought two spools of thread, giggled for another moment or two, then left. Doug opened the door another inch and made a hissing sound through his teeth. It was no competition for Elton John. Jacques continued to swivel his hips as he picked up on the lyrics. With a glance to the window that opened onto the street, Doug eased the door open a bit more and called Jacques by name.
Jolting, Jacques nearly upset the display of spools he was rearranging. “Man, you gave me a scare.” Still cautious, Doug crooked a finger and waited for Jacques to saunter over. “What you doing hiding back here?”
“A change of schedule,” Doug told him. Taking Jacques’s hand, he jerked him inside. He realized Jacques smelled of English Leather. “We want to take off now.”
“Now?” Narrowing his eyes, Jacques studied Doug’s face. He might have lived in a small seaside village all of his life, but he wasn’t a fool. When a man was on the run, it showed in his eyes. “You got trouble?”
“Hello, Jacques.” Stepping forward, Whitney held out her hand. “I’m Whitney MacAllister. You must forgive Douglas for neglecting to introduce us. He’s often rude.”
Jacques took the slim white hand in his and was instantly in love. He’d never seen anything so beautiful. As far as he could tell, Whitney MacAllister outshone Turner, and Benatar, and the high priestess Ronstadt put together. His tongue quite simply tied itself in knots.
She’d seen the look before. In a slick, three-piece-suited professional on Fifth Avenue it bored her. In a trendy club on the West Side, it amused her. In Jacques, she found it sweet. “We have to apologize for barging in on you this way.”
“It’s …” He had to search for the Americanisms that were usually on the tip of his tongue. “Okay,” he managed.
Impatient, Doug laid a hand on Jacques’s shoulder. “We want to move.” His sense of fair play wouldn’t allow him to drag the young man blindly into the mess they were in. His sense of survival prevented him from telling all. “We had a little visit from the local police.”
Jacques managed to drag his gaze away from Whitney. “Sambirano?”
“That’s right.”
“Asshole,” Jacques proclaimed, rather proud of the way the word rolled off his tongue. “You don’t worry about him. He’s just nosey, like an old woman.”
“Yeah, maybe, but we’ve got some people who’d like to find us. We don’t want to be found.”
Jacques took a moment to look from one to the other. A jealous husband, he thought. He needed nothing more to trigger his sense of romance. “We Malagasy don’t worry about time. The sun rises, the sun sets. You want to leave now, we leave now.”
“Terrific. We’re a little low on supplies.”
“No problem. You wait here.”
“How’d you manage to find him?” Whitney asked when Jacques went through to the front again. “He’s wonderful.”
“Sure, just because he was making bug-eyes at you.”
“Bug-eyes?” She grinned and sat down on the edge of Jacques’s bed. “Really, Douglas, wherever do you dig up some of your quaint expressions?”
“His eyes nearly fell out of his head.”
“Yes.” She brushed a hand through her hair. “They did, didn’t they?”
“You really eat it up, don’t you?” Annoyed, he paced the small room and wished he could do something. Anything. He could smell trouble, and it wasn’t as far away as he’d have liked. “You just love it when men drool.”
“You weren’t exactly offended when little Marie all but kissed your feet. As I recall, you strutted around like a rooster with two tails.”
“She helped save our skins. That was simple gratitude.”
“With a touch of simple lust thrown in.”
“Lust?” He stopped directly in front of her. “She couldn’t’ve been more than sixteen.”
“Which made it all the more disgusting.”
“Yeah, well old Jacques here must be pushing twenty.”
“My, my.” Whitney pulled out her emery board and began to repair her chipped nail. “That sounds distinctly like jealousy.”
“Shit.” He paced from one door to the other. “This is one man who won’t drool over you, duchess. I’ve got better things to do.”
Giving him a half smile Whitney continued to file and hum along with Elton John.
A few moments later there was silence. When Jacques came back in, he was carrying a good-size sack in one hand and his portable stereo in the other. With a grin, he packed the rest of his tapes. “Now we’re ready. Rock and roll.”
“Won’t anyone wonder why you closed up early?” Doug opened the back door a crack and peered out.
“Close up then, close up now. Nobody cares.”
Nodding, Doug opened the door for him. “Then let’s go.”
His boat was docked less than a quarter mile away and Whitney had never seen anything like it. It was very long, perhaps fifteen feet, and no more than three feet wide. She thought of a canoe she’d once paddled at summer camp in upstate New York. This was along the same lines if one stretched it out. Light on his feet, Jacques hopped in and began to stow the gear.
The canoe was traditional Malagasy, his hat was a New York Yankees fielder’s cap, and his feet were bare. Whitney found him an odd and endearing combination of two worlds.
“Nice boat,” Doug murmured, wishing he saw an engine somewhere.
“I built her myself.” In a gesture she found very smooth and very courtly, he held out a hand for Whitney. “You can sit here,” he told her, indicating a spot in the center. “Very comfortable.”
“Thank you, Jacques.”
When he saw she was settled opposite where he would sit, he handed a long pole to Doug. “We pole out here when the water’s shallow.” Taking one himself, Jacques pushed off. The boat glided out like a swan on a lake. Relaxing, Whitney decided the boat trip had possibilities—the scent of the sea, feathery leaves dancing in the breeze, the gentle movement beneath her. Then, two feet away, she saw the ugly leathery head skim the surface.
“Ah …” It was all she could manage.
“Yes, indeed.” With a chuckle Jacques continued to pole. “Those crocks, they’re everywhere. You have to watch out for them.” He made a sound somewhere between a hiss and a roar. The round, sleepy eyes at the surface came no closer. Without a word, Doug reached in his pack, dug out the gun, and hitched it in his belt again. This time Whitney made no objection.
When the water deepened enough for them to use the paddles, Jacques switched on his stereo. Vintage Beatles blasted out. They were on their way.
Jacques paddled tirelessly, with a smooth energy and enthusiasm Whitney admired. Through the hour and a half Beatle extravaganza, he sang along in a clear tenor, grinning when Whitney joined in with him.
From the stores Jacques had brought aboard, they had a late impromptu lunch of coconut meat, berries, and cold fish. When he passed Whitney the canteen, she drank deeply, expecting plain water. Tilting the canteen down again, she swished the liquid around in her mouth. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it wasn’t plain water either.