“Oh, by all means, be my guest.” Corbett’s tone was acidic-just short of bitter. Not at all like him.
And which didn’t appear to faze Adam. “After a few major arms deals featuring Soviet weaponry were traced back to the DuMont organization, SIS-CIA, too, I should think-got interested. Laz and I were part of the team on Max’s trail. We got a bit too close, apparently, because old Max decided we needed to be taught a lesson. Sent his daughter to seduce the lead agent on the case, which happened to be our friend, here.”
As Adam talked, Lucia watched Corbett’s profile, trying to decipher the tight smile and narrowed eyes in the everchanging light inside the cab. Wanting to understand the tension she could feel in his body, pressed up against her side.
“She was supposed to set him up-to be kidnapped, tortured, murdered-probably all three, based on Max’s track record. It was a warning to the rest of us to back off. That was the plan, anyway. Trouble was, things didn’t go quite according to Maximilian’s plan. You see, Cassandra fell for Laz, arse over teakettle-”
Revelation came to Lucia via the very tiny twitch she felt in Corbett’s body, as if he’d experienced an unexpected stab of pain.
He feels guilty. He blames himself for what’s been happening…his agents’ deaths.
And he shouldn’t, she thought angrily. He’s a good and decent man who cares deeply about all his agents. He isn’t to blame for someone else’s evil. He isn’t.
“-and instead of giving him up to her old man, she warned him. Maximilian never did forgive her. It’s a wonder he didn’t kill her, even if she was his own daughter. But in the end, I suppose, what he did was worse.”
“What did he do?” she asked, holding her breath for the answer.
“Disowned her,” Corbett replied in a flat voice.
“Cut her out of his organization completely.” Adam picked it up from there. “But that wasn’t the worst of it. Not long after that, Max’s son, Apollo, came gunning for Corbett.” He paused, and in the light of the streetlamps they were passing, Lucia saw the shadows in Corbett’s face go long and deep. Adam went on in a thoughtful tone, “I never did figure out how you knew just where and when they’d be coming for you. You want to-”
“It’s neither the time nor the place. Needless to say, I’m fairly certain Cassandra is behind all my troubles, all of them for the past nineteen years,” Corbett snapped.
They were in the financial district now and approaching the ultramodern building that, in addition to the well-known banking institution on the ground floor and several securities and insurance firms higher up, housed the secret headquarters of the Lazlo Group. Corbett moved as if to shift forward and at the same time reached for his wallet. Then he drew a sharp breath and held it, and leaned back instead.
“Got it,” Adam said under his breath, and taking out his own wallet, counted out some euro notes to give to the cabdriver.
Meanwhile, Lucia struggled to hold on to her frustration. There were so many things she wanted to know. Felt she deserved to know. Particularly since these dramatic events in Corbett Lazlo’s past appeared to be about to dramatically affect her future.
“She-Cassandra-said you killed her brother,” Lucia said to Corbett in a tight but steady voice. “Did you?”
He replied with a quiet, “Yes.”
“The little punk didn’t give ’im much of a choice,” Adam said as he settled back in his seat. “And that’s the plain truth of it. If he hadn’t-”
“Not now.” Corbett’s tone was one that neither Lucia nor Adam cared to challenge. Adam gave her a smile and a shrug of apology as the cab rolled into the underground parking garage.
Following Adam’s directions, the driver, with protesting tires, pulled around to a remote corner of the lot and jolted to a stop. Adam opened his door and turned to help Lucia, both of them carefully avoiding watching Corbett’s determined but obviously painful struggle to extricate himself from the car.
“He’ll be okay,” Adam murmured for her ears alone, and she nodded and mouthed the words, “I know.”
But she marveled at the strange confusion of emotions stirring inside her, seeing the indestructible Corbett Lazlo in such a state.
As the taxi drove off with a screech of tires, its three former passengers turned to a door marked in French, in large black letters: Emergency Exit-Authorized Personnel Only. Adam opened the door using a remote and held it while Lucia and Corbett entered what appeared to be a large steel-walled vault, then followed them in, closing the door after him. Corbett placed his palm on a glass panel near the door, and a steel panel above it slid open to reveal a state-of-the-art optical scanner. One by one, each of them stepped up to the screen, eyes wide-open. Only when all three had passed the iris recognition scan did the larger panel slide back to reveal the elevator.
The purpose of this, Lucia knew, was to prevent anyone from gaining access to the Lazlo Group secret headquarters by taking one of its members hostage. Hidden sensors in the vault would determine the number of people inside. Entry could only be accomplished once every person had been cleared by iris scanning. She remembered thinking, when she’d first been introduced to the system, that it seemed a bit excessive-even paranoid. Now, remembering the light of madness in Cassandra’s eyes, the way she’d stabbed those forked fingers when she’d spit the words, “Tu es fichue…”
A shudder ran through Lucia. For the first time, as the steel-reinforced elevator whisked them silently upward, she was grateful for the extreme security measures and no longer thought them the least bit excessive.
It wasn’t until the elevator doors opened again and she found herself standing at the entrance to Corbett’s private apartment that it hit her. Wherever in the world she was being whisked away to, it was happening now. The helicopter was on its way. It would land on the rooftop of this building, and she would be bundled aboard like baggage, without even being allowed to go home to her apartment to pack her own.
It was, suddenly, simply too much.
As Corbett and Adam stepped out of the elevator, she took a step backward and said in a strangled voice, “I can’t-I’m not doing this.”
Both men turned to look at her, wearing identical expressions of noncomprehension, as if a piece of their luggage had acquired a voice.
Corbett’s expression changed quickly to a puzzled frown. “Can’t do…what?”
She was suddenly furious with him. For an intelligent man, could he be more obtuse? “I can’t just leave like this. I have to go home first.”
His frown deepened. “I don’t see why. Unless you have a cat. Do you? I’ll arrange for someone-”
“No, I don’t have a cat. I have to-” her voice rose as Corbett began to shake his head “-I have to get my stuff.”
“Out of the question. By this time Cassandra will no doubt have your place located and staked out. No, we’re getting you out of the country-now.” He reached for her arm, and she pulled away like a stubborn child.
“Dammit, Corbett, I don’t have any clothes.”
Adam said quietly, “She’s got a point, boss.”
Corbett glanced at him, then let out a breath and drove a hand through his already untidy hair. “Oh, all right then. I’ll send someone to pick up your things. Adam?”
“On it.” Adam had already plucked a cell phone from the inside pocket of his jacket.
As he turned away, mumbling instructions into the phone, Lucia ventured, though still with some reluctance, from the elevator.
“What about my job?” she said to Corbett in a low voice as he was engaged in convincing his security system to grant them entry into his apartment. “I’m so close to tracking down the source of those e-mails. Who’s going to-” Seeing the wry smile beginning to form on his lips, she broke that off and said, “Oh.”
“Yes, I think we can mark that little mystery solved, at any rate,” he said dryly. He opened the door and waited for her to enter ahead of him. “I’m only surprised I didn’t think of it immediately-the
messages did have Cassandra’s particularly nasty style. And the attacks on my agents and safe houses…Although to be perfectly honest, I wasn’t entirely certain she was still alive. Given the circles she moves in.” He paused to frown at Lucia. “What is it now?”
She had halted just inside the door and was looking around, feeling a little like Dorothy, awaking to find herself in Oz. In all the years she’d worked for Corbett Lazlo, all the hours she’d spent in his company, she’d just realized this was the first time she’d ever set foot in his apartment. Her heart gave an odd thump and seemed to drop into the bottomless well that was her stomach. She couldn’t put her finger on why. Not then.
“Nothing,” she breathed, willing herself to relax as she moved through the entry and into the graciously appointed but strangely sterile living room.
Adam came in, closing the door behind him. “Team’s ready to roll,” he said briskly as he tucked away his cell phone. He turned to Lucia. “You might want to write out a list, luv. I expect they’ll be in a bit of a hurry.”
Though his glance rested only briefly on her face, which she knew must be a disaster, his nut-brown eyes seemed kind. Adam was kind, she realized, in spite of his reputation as a bit of a player. He’d always treated her with a kind of cheeky affection-rather like an older brother, she thought, although she’d never had a big brother and could only guess what that might be like. He was terribly good-looking, too, and she wondered why his company never made her heart do unnatural things the way being close to Corbett did.
“You warned them to be on the lookout for Cass’s crew?” Corbett asked quietly, as if lowering his voice could somehow keep the gravity of the circumstances from Lucia. As if she were a child to be protected from the truth.
“You know I did, boss.” Adam’s grin was wide and showed his rare dimple.
Corbett opened a top drawer in a carved and inlaid sideboard Lucia knew must be a priceless antique, took out a notepad and ballpoint pen and handed them to her. “Make it quick,” he said on an exhalation, sounding put-upon.
Lucia’s chest felt tight. Everything else-her muscles, her insides, her nerves and bones-wanted to tremble. Wordlessly, and with jerky movements, she scribbled down the items she wanted and thrust the pad and pen back at him.
He tore off the top sheet, glanced at it, then up at her, eyebrows raised. “Needlepoint?”
Lucia desperately wanted to shout at him, perhaps paraphrase her favorite line from her favorite Sandra Bullock movie: Look, guy, I’m having a bad day. I’ve shot and maybe killed a man, and been threatened with death by a crazy woman, skinned my knees and lost a pair of very expensive shoes, and ruined an even more expensive designer gown. Don’t mess with me!
Instead, she met his gaze with steady calm and said, “I do needlepoint to relax. Otherwise my brain won’t shut off. Okay?”
“Fascinating,” Corbett murmured, eyelids at half-mast. “I would never have guessed.”
“I guess you don’t know me as well as you thought you did,” Lucia snapped back, in no mood to be patronized.
The moment stretched…and stretched…long enough for it to come to her, what it was that was making her feel so unsettled. She was beginning to realize she didn’t know Corbett Lazlo all that well, either.
Chapter 4
I’ ve known her for more than ten years, Corbett thought. I hired her, trained her, I’ve worked with her nearly every day of those ten years, and she’s right. I don’t really know her…do I?
It was an unsettling thought, in the way earthquakes are unsettling. This one rocked the very foundations of his own convictions, shook his confidence in his own beliefs, made him wonder how much he really knew about anything-or at least about the people in his life.
But it was only the latest in the series of tremors that had shaken him tonight, shaken him to his very core.
I have a son.
A son, moreover, who was bent on killing him.
The boy’s mother, the woman he’d once cared for, in his fashion, and long believed to be dead, was very much alive, and bent not only on killing him, but also on destroying everything in the world that mattered to him, including the woman he…loved.
Yes, God help me. Love. What other word could he use to express how much she meant to him?
And that woman, whom he had always considered to be someone in need of his protection, had saved his life tonight.
Under the circumstances, he thought he might be forgiven some slight discomposure.
What he really was, though he hated to admit it, was exhausted. Tonight he felt every one of his forty-eight years, and a few more besides. Awful thought: Was it possible that a man rounding the corner and homing in on the half-century mark might be getting too old for this business?
Rubbish. He’d be fine, he told himself, once he’d had a hot shower and a good night’s sleep.
Though he suspected it was going to be a good long while before he could enjoy either of those things.
First, he had to get Lucia to a place beyond Cassandra’s considerable reach. And there was only one place he knew of where he could be certain she would be safe. Besides himself, only Adam knew of its existence, and not even Adam knew exactly where it was located. Which meant the only way to get Lucia there was to take her himself.
Furthermore, after tonight’s events he was reasonably certain the only way to ensure she would remain there, short of chaining her to the wall, would be to stay and personally see that she did.
He’d been through these facts in his mind again and again, trying to find another way, but it always came up the same: For the foreseeable future, he was going to have to live in close-one could say intimate-proximity to the woman he’d been trying desperately for the past ten years to maintain as much distance from as possible.
Bloody hypocrite. The voice of his conscience, which most of the time he was able to ignore-on this subject, at least-chided from the back row of his mind. If you were really trying to avoid contact with the woman, you wouldn’t keep challenging her to martial arts duels. And you didn’t really have to take her with you to the embassy tonight…did you?
Truthfully? Probably not. And if I hadn’t done both of those things, I’d most likely be dead.
So. Nothing for it but to carry on, face the woman standing before him with her chin at a stubborn tilt and her cheeks flushed with anger. Face her and reply as he always did, with dignity and decorum, keeping the vivid memory of what her body felt like pinned beneath his, hot and moist with exertion, heart thumping, chest heaving against his, her woman’s scent like a fog in his brain…keep all that buried in the deepest and most private reaches of his soul. As he always did.
He’d faced armed killers with less trepidation.
“Perhaps not.” He answered her question in a voice carefully devoid of all expression, keeping his eyes veiled, as well. “Perhaps I don’t know you at all. However, I think I can safely assume you might like to, uh…freshen up after our evening’s adventures. While we wait for your belongings to arrive, I should imagine there’s time for a shower, if you wish.”
How stuffy he sounds-like a British schoolmaster. Sorely tempted to tell him so, Lucia instead merely inclined her head formally and murmured, “Thank you. That would be nice.”
After all the shocks that had rocked her this evening, the prospect of getting naked in Corbett Lazlo’s bathroom barely registered on the Richter scale.
A sense of unreality enveloped her as she followed him through the tastefully decorated but impersonal living room, down a hallway past several intriguingly closed doors and into a large bedroom-his, obviously. Like the living room, it was furnished in a typically masculine style, but here at least were a few personal touches: A photograph of his parents-a snapshot taken on a windy day with a lake in the background; a dark blue robe tossed carelessly across the foot of a king-sized bed; an open book lying facedown on a table beside a comfortable chair, a pair of reading glasses perched crookedly atop the spine.
Corbett had crossed the room without pausing and now, with his hand on an ornate doorknob, turned to give her an inquiring look.
She glanced at him briefly, then went back to gazing at the subtle dance of light in the ceiling. “It must be amazing when there’s something to see,” she said lightly, for some reason reluctant to give away her true feelings. Particularly the wave of homesickness that had come over her so unexpectedly, sweeping her back to childhood camping trips in the California high country, happy times spent with her parents far away from the heartaches and pressures of being an overachieving misfit, too smart to fit in with the popular kids and too pretty to find acceptance among the geek crowd. She could almost smell the sun-warmed pines and crushed meadow grass, and the particular scent of her father’s flannel shirt and lucky fishing vest. If she closed her eyes…
“Having come much too near to losing the privilege forever, I do like to be able to see the stars,” Corbett said. His tone was dry, and his head tilted now at an angle that seemed almost defensive.
Lucia gave him a sideways look from under her lashes as she went to join him. “I never would have guessed,” she said, mimicking his earlier remark to her.
He shot back, deadpan, “I guess you don’t know me as well as you thought.”
It was too close to her own musings, and she didn’t reply.
He gave the knob a turn, opening a door in the wood paneling into what turned out to be a dressing room and closet, though it was larger than the bedroom in Lucia’s tiny two-room apartment on the other side of the river. From a bank of shelves he took a folded bathrobe, snowy white, the thick, plush kind found in very expensive hotels. She wondered if he kept a supply handy for all his female guests. She wondered-but only briefly-if any of those guests ever shared the shower with their host. Or that view of the stars.
Lazlo’s Last Stand Page 5