Running Scared

by Elizabeth Lowell

  Shane paused and looked over his shoulder at her. “Does it bother you that I can feel it, too?”

  “No. Should it?”

  “I just thought it might be part of what had you running in the other direction for such a long time.”

  “That was pure common sense. I didn’t want another job.”

  “That’s not what you said when you brought those offers to me and I had to match them.”

  “I didn’t say I was stupid. I just said I didn’t want another job.

  He smiled despite the tightening of his skin with every step up the trail. It wasn’t uneasiness exactly. It was more an awareness of difference, a sigh breathed across primitive nerve endings, the faint burned scent in the air after a nearby lightning strike.

  He rather liked it.

  “How are your goose bumps?” he asked after a bit.

  “A lot happier than I am. Why?”

  Something rustled in the brush about twenty feet off the trail. He looked, listened, saw only what might have been four-legged shadows sliding away into deeper shadows.

  “It can’t be much farther,” he said, turning back to the trail.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because O’Conner was an old man, and old men don’t climb cliffs.” Shane stopped walking. “Certainly not this one.”

  The pencil beam of the flashlight couldn’t begin to penetrate the darkness that concealed the top of the cliff.

  “It’s to the right,” Risa said.

  “What is?”

  “Whatever is whispering to a part of me I don’t even want to know about.”

  Despite her words, she stepped around him and walked along the lighter thread of darkness that was the trail at the face of the bluff. Shane was right. Ignoring what she was hadn’t made it go away. Besides, it was easier knowing that she wasn’t the only one who had odd wiring.

  Two odds make an even.

  She was smiling at the memory of Shane’s words when she stumbled over a rock in the dark, put out both her hands to catch herself, and came smack up against one of three leaning stones.

  Sensation poured through her, a rush of gold-masked faces, ritual blades of death and renewal, voices chanting sacred words, and all of it swirling through time and moonlight, through her, until her head spun and she would have cried out if she could have breathed at all.

  Then it was night again, just herself and Shane’s muscular warmth along her back, his hands over hers against the cold rock, his breath tangling softly, rapidly, in her hair, echoes of the chant retreating, common reality returning.

  “You okay?” Shane asked, his voice rough and low.

  “I think so.” She blew air out in a shaky sigh. “You?”

  “I’m working on it.”

  “You get the name of the train that ran over us?”

  The sound he made wasn’t quite a laugh. “No. And I don’t want it.”

  He pulled her hands away from the rock. Then, deliberately, he put his own hands back.

  She watched, waited. “Anything?”

  “Cold rock. And . . .”

  She didn’t want to ask. Couldn’t help it. “What?”

  “Time. Distance. Night. The kind of night that has no dawn.”

  “That’s why they marked the summer and winter solstice,” Risa said in a low voice, knowing what she couldn’t touch. “That’s why they cast their dreams and prayers in gold, gold that never corroded, never corrupted, never changed. Gold and ritual and blood sacrifice to all the gods named and unnamed who controlled life. The darkness that had no dawn, the cold that wasn’t followed by warmth, the death that had no afterlife, the end of all life, including the life of the gods. The Druids feared that.”

  “So does anyone with the intelligence to imagine it. Entropy by any other name is still, ultimately, extinction.”

  Risa hesitated, then put her hand back on the rock. All she sensed was a stirring of air, a fading murmur, trembling silence. Frowning, she lifted her hand and stepped through the opening until she stood in the center of the three stones.

  “Anything?” Shane asked.

  “Not anymore. It was here, though. The gold.”

  “And now it’s gone.”

  She nodded as she touched the cool, rough surface of each sandstone slab in turn and sensed the silent stirrings. “I can’t say I like what I sense, yet I’m not worried by it now.” She looked at him and admitted, “But I’m not volunteering to fall asleep here either.”

  “Yeah. C’mon.” He took her hand and urged her out of the shadows of the three rocks. “Let’s get to a place where there’s cell coverage. I want to know if Rarities has anything new to tell us.”

  Risa walked behind Shane down the trail toward the empty cabin. Too empty. “Can we put out an anonymous tip so that the police start looking for Virgil O’Conner?”

  “Right after I call the local hospitals. If possible, I’d like to talk to him before the cops do.”

  Not far down from the cliff, Shane heard things sneaking through the brush in the same place he’d noticed them before. This time there wasn’t any itching on his neck to distract him. He switched on the penlight and raked its beam through the brush.

  Three sets of gleaming eyes flashed and then vanished in a scrabble of claws over rocks and sun-hardened dirt.

  “Wait here,” he said to Risa.

  “With those eyes watching me? No thanks.”

  “Then stay close enough to share the light.” He reached around behind his back and pulled the gun. “I’ll need it to find a way through the brush.”

  Holding the penlight and the gun so that both swept over the brush simultaneously, Shane started off the trail. Risa followed close enough to touch his back.

  The wind shifted.

  The smell of death clogged the air, telling Shane that the resident wildlife had been enjoying a not-so-fresh kill. Grimly he moved the penlight in ever-widening arcs. The edge of the beam picked up a worn boot, shredded clothes, and remains only a coroner could look at without gagging.

  Swiftly Shane turned around and blocked Risa’s view of Mother Nature at work.

  “Time to go back,” he said.

  She swallowed hard. “O’Conner?”

  “Let’s just say I won’t be calling any hospitals. As soon as we’re well away from here, I’ll call the cops like a good little anonymous citizen.”

  “I’m glad I know you don’t want that gold enough to murder for it.”

  “Why?” Shane asked.

  “Every time someone has died lately, they’ve taken with them one more link in the chain leading back to the true owner of the Druid gold.”

  “Leave it to a curator to worry about provenance.”

  “Somebody has to worry.”

  “Oh, I am. I’m worried about the fact that too many people who touched this gold ended up dead.”

  “Cherelle hasn’t.” I hope.

  “I wouldn’t announce that to the cops,” Shane said.

  “Why?”

  “It could tag her as the murderer.”

  “I’m voting for Bozo,” Risa said instantly. “Or Tim.”

  “You don’t think Cherelle can kill?”

  Risa didn’t answer.

  Shane didn’t ask again. He just followed her down the rise, away from the smell of death.

  Chapter 53

  Las Vegas

  November 4

  Night

  Rich Morrison and Gail Silverado looked at the six gold artifacts from every angle. Both of them wore exam gloves. So did John Firenze, even though he’d done nothing more than set the gold out on pages of casino letterhead on his desk.

  “What do you think?” Firenze asked when he got tired of listening to silence punctuated by the soft beep of his computers when new e-mail arrived. “Is it real?”

  Rich looked at Gail.

  She didn’t notice. She was holding a heavy gold ring whose exterior and interior were incised with letters or symbols from a language she co
uldn’t read.

  But she knew someone who could.

  “Shane has a ring like this,” she said, savoring the weight of gold in her palm. “At least the outside is like it. He never takes it off, so I don’t know about the inside.”

  “Where did you get this stuff?” Rich asked.

  Firenze shifted uncomfortably. “It just came to me.”

  “Try again,” Rich suggested.

  “A guy—”

  “Try harder.”

  Firenze looked at Rich’s eyes. They were as cold as his voice. He wanted answers, and he was going to keep pushing until he got them. Firenze was just irritated enough at the world in general and his stupid nephew in particular to push back. Besides, no matter how worthless Cesar was, he was still blood. Firenze’s mother would make life living hell for him if he implicated her grandson in a lousy pawnbroker’s murder.

  “Why do you care?” Firenze said. “I’m not asking you to buy the fucking stuff. I’m just giving you a chance to set up Tannahill. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”

  There was a tight silence, a muffled curse. Rich looked back at the gold. He wanted Tannahill, sure.

  But that wasn’t all he wanted.

  “I want to be sure the goods are hot,” Rich said.

  “Be sure.”

  Gail’s lips quirked at Firenze’s retort, but she didn’t let Rich see it. He was in a pisser of a mood. Even the thought of nailing Golden Boy’s ass to the courthouse wall hadn’t brought a smile to Rich’s grim face.

  “And I want to cover my ass when the cops start asking me questions,” Rich said.

  Firenze shrugged. “What’s to ask? I won’t mention your name. I’m just letting you preview the gold so I can be sure it’s the sort of thing that will snag Tannahill.”

  “I don’t like it.” It was a snarl as much as a statement. “Tell me how you got the gold or there’s no deal. I’m not buying a pig in a poke.”

  The spike in Firenze’s blood pressure showed in the darkening of his face. He really hated being reminded that he wasn’t top cock of this walk. “My nephew got it from a friend of a friend.”

  “Which nephew?”

  “Cesar.”

  “The one who shot up the Golden Fleece?” Gail asked, drawing Firenze’s angry attention from Rich.

  Firenze grimaced. “Yeah.”

  “Where is he now?” she asked.

  “Cooling off at the lake until we can get him out of the country. He hates the family houseboat, but tough shit. Do him good.”

  Gail hid a smile. The Firenze women’s love of the huge Lake Mead houseboat was the despair of the men, who would rather be staked out on anthills than spend a weekend at the lake. But they did it anyway, at least once a year, along with everyone who was anyone in Las Vegas. Firenze’s Fourth of July bash was as famous as Gail’s own Halloween party.

  Firenze glared at Rich. “You in or out?”

  “I’m thinking.”

  “You got until tomorrow. After that, you ask me about gold and I don’t know shit about nothing.” Firenze shot Rich a slicing glance. “You disappoint me. You asked to have Tannahill on a platter, and I’m giving him to you and you’re backing up.”

  “What do you want out of this?” Rich asked.

  “A bigger slice of the laundry pie.”

  “How much?”

  “Twice as much.”

  Rich looked back at the gold. “Then who gets cut?”

  “Whoever isn’t here.”

  After a moment Rich turned back to Firenze. “Good work, John. When I’ve set things up, I’ll call and someone will pick up the gold. A few hours, no more.”

  “You’re going for it?” Gail asked Rich.

  “I’d be stupid not to. I’ll even get a gold star in my files from the feds on this one. It sure as hell will keep their nose out of my business for a while. They’ll be too busy sticking their nose up Tannahill’s.”

  Gail looked uncertain.

  “What?” Firenze asked her.

  “I think he’s too cagey to get caught by a blind call.”

  “It won’t be blind,” Rich said. He gave Firenze a look that told the other man he had better answer with something more to the point than a friend of a friend. “Who did Cesar get the gold from?”

  Firenze wasn’t stupid. “A bitch named Cherelle Faulkner.”

  “The one who’s tight with Tannahill’s curator?” Rich asked, as though he didn’t already know the players.

  “That’s what my tip said.”

  “Then the message will come from Cherelle.” Rich looked at Gail. “You in?”

  She shrugged. “Yeah, it’s the smart call. But Vegas sure won’t be the same without him.”

  “Who?” Firenze asked.

  “Shane Tannahill.”

  Chapter 54

  Las Vegas

  November 5

  Early morning

  Slowly Risa awoke from a dream of lying naked on her stomach at a tropical beach with the taste of the sea on her tongue and surf beating close by. Smiling, she burrowed deeper into the dream . . . and tasted Shane.

  Her eyes flew open.

  “Do you always wake up all at once?” he asked.

  His voice was deep, amused, and he was as naked as she was. What had been sand in the dream was in reality a mat of dark chest hair and warm muscle. What she had thought was surf was the slow, strong beating of his heart beneath her cheek.

  The part about tasting mildly salty was real. Licking her lips, she decided that she enjoyed the taste of him in the morning. Surprise and heat streaked through her; Shane was even sexier to her now than he had been when they fell asleep locked together like a flesh-and-blood puzzle that had just been solved.

  “Never had an alarm clock like you,” she said, nibbling. Tasting. Licking. Enjoying the feel of his erection nudging between her legs. “Or I would have spent a lot of time waking up.”

  His fingers slid down her hips, probed, found liquid silk and woman. With a sound that was both anticipation and pleasure, he lifted her over him and filled her in a slow, thick stroke that made her moan. He kept moving that way, slowly, deeply, and she answered with a subtle, repeated roll of her hips that redoubled their pleasure. Though both of them trembled with leashed ecstasy, they kept the rhythm easy, dreamlike.

  Then she could bear no more and arched back, stretched and shivering on a rack of exquisite pleasure. His smile was as elemental as the release he felt washing through her. When she lay spent and boneless on top of him, he rolled her over and began moving again. Slowly. Thickly. Her eyes opened, dazed with a pleasure that was both old and burningly new. She shifted, rising up, taking more. Giving more.

  This time they went blind together in a hot darkness that smelled and tasted of intimacy.

  When she could take a breath without echoes of ecstasy shivering through her, she lifted her head and nuzzled his jaw. Tiny touches of her tongue filled her need to taste him, just as slow strokes of his hands over her back answered his need to feel her close and warm against him. She was just drifting off to sleep again when his bedside telephone rang.

  “Sugah?” she drawled.

  “Hmmm?”

  “Kill it.”

  “I’d rather kill the idiot who put in the override code in spite of my instructions.”

  When she started to slide off him, his arms tightened. Taking her with him, he rolled closer to the phone and hit the conference button. “What?” he demanded.

  The man at the desk talked fast, saying one of the three magic names that would allow him to keep his job. “Ms. Cherelle Faulkner left an urgent message for Ms. Sheridan. As you are the only one who knows Ms. Sheridan’s whereabouts, I thought it prudent to tell you right away.”

  Risa stiffened and reached for the phone. With casual strength, Shane caught her hand and held her in place.

  “Not yet,” he said very softly. Then, loud enough for the phone to pick up, “What number did she call from?”

  “It
was blocked, sir.”

  “Why am I not surprised. One moment.” He let go of Risa’s hand, hit the hold button at the base of the phone, and said, “Would you rather have the message in private?”

  She closed her eyes and shook her head.

  He brushed a kiss across her eyes and whispered, “Thank you.”

  “For what?” she said unhappily.

  “Trusting me.”

  With a wry turn to her mouth, she looked at their bodies tangled together. “All things considered, it would be stupid not to.”

  “There are many kinds of intimacy. Of trust.”

  She met his level green eyes. “I trust you not to hurt Cherelle.”

  “If I can avoid it, I won’t, because it would only hurt you. But if she puts you in the line of fire again . . .” Shane didn’t finish. He didn’t have to. The subtle flattening of his features said it all. “I fight for what matters to me. You matter, Risa.”

  “So do you. Jesus, it scares the hell out of me.” She let out a shaky breath. “How did this happen?”

  He smiled crookedly. “I guess we both stopped running at the same time.”

  “Yeah.” She brushed a kiss over his whisker-rough jaw and released the hold button. “Sheridan here,” she said. If her voice was husky instead of crisp, she couldn’t help it any more than she could help noticing the easy strength and living warmth of the man underneath her. “What’s the message?”

  “Good morning, Ms. Sheridan. The message was taken by our VoiceWriter service and has an ‘urgent’ flag stamped on the exterior. Would you like me to open the envelope?”

  “No.” She hesitated, then told the front desk what everyone at the Golden Fleece had already figured out for themselves—Shane and his curator were an item. “Send it up to Mr. Tannahill’s private quarters.”

  “Right away, Ms. Sheridan.”

  Risa disconnected from the call and, more reluctantly, from Shane. She began pulling on clothes that would look like they’d been worn yesterday, stripped off in haste last night, and dumped on the floor next to the bed until morning.

  “There’s a robe in the bathroom,” he said, watching her with lazy male lust.