by Kay Hooper
“Did he?”
“He went. I haven’t heard from him yet.”
“What about the second call?”
“From a cop on this side of the border. He said he wasn’t sure he should be calling me at such an ungodly hour, but something had been bothering him. He stopped a car for speeding yesterday—before the bulletin on Stanton went out—and gave the driver a ticket. He didn’t think any more about it until he heard the bulletin, and realized from the description that Stanton had been his racing driver.”
“So?” Drew stared at his friend. “Stanton was in a hurry.”
“Yeah,” Burke said softly. “An almighty hurry, according to the cop. But he wasn’t making tracks for the border. He was heading for Innsbruck.”
Drew frowned. “The cop must have been mistaken.”
“Don’t think so. I recognized the type even though I was barely awake. Very painstaking and thorough, and he’s been patrolling those roads a lot of years. He also described Stanton perfectly, right down to the scars on his face.”
“What time yesterday?” Drew asked slowly.
“Eleven-thirty,” Burke answered. “The cop gave me the precise location, and I checked it on the map. There’s no way Stanton could have crossed the border at noon, at least not where your informant said he crossed. Could your man have been bribed to lie about it?”
“I don’t think so—but I don’t know for sure.”
“In that case, we’d better assume the cop was right. Stanton was still in Austria at eleven-thirty yesterday morning, and he was heading toward Innsbruck.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Drew objected. “He might want to lie low for a while, but not in Austria.”
“Maybe he meant to get out and had some kind of trouble. Or maybe he just meant for us to think he’d gotten out.”
After a moment Drew said, “He usually has a hired gun. I suppose he could have sent him over the border, looking the part, in the hope that we’d follow a false trail. But to head back toward Innsbruck . . . Why would he?”
“I can think of one reason,” Burke said flatly.
Drew immediately shook his head. “He didn’t come back to get me, not with the cross in his hands.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Burke, if there’s anything I know, it’s that Stanton would never risk something as valuable to him as the cross for the sake of revenge. No matter how much he hates me. And he wouldn’t trust a flunky to carry it over the border for him. That means he still has the cross.”
Burke looked at him for a long moment, then sighed. “That was my reading. So—the question is, what’s the bastard up to?”
Drew was silent, conscious of an itchy sensation between his shoulder blades. It was a feeling he recognized. If you could pinpoint an enemy’s location, or at least his direction, you could make certain he wasn’t coming up behind to blindside you. Stanton could be anywhere.
Absently, he said, “Kane and Tyler get off all right?”
“Yeah, they left about an hour ago. One of their contacts checked in around midnight, after you and Spencer had gone to your room, but he didn’t have anything.”
“So we wait,” Drew said.
BITS AND PIECES of her dream came back to Spencer as she stood under the shower, but she could make no sense of them. Something about the statue and a painting and a clock. The images wouldn’t come clear in her mind.
Shrugging to herself, she decided to forget about it for the moment. She dried off and got dressed, thinking instead about the night before. In a way, she didn’t regret the twelve years behind her and Drew. She had been too young for him then, too immature to understand him, too timid to love him as she’d longed to do. If he had married her then, she might never have found any certainty in herself, and he might well have ended up with a woman who was too blinded by the gloss of gold to notice the enduring strength of the metal itself.
Now everything was right between them. In a few short days, it seemed that her entire life had changed. Even with the worries about her father, she had never been happier, and the future looked wonderful.
She was smiling to herself as she went into the bedroom to put her shoes on, humming a little. But when she stepped into the sitting room, a cold shock like nothing she’d ever felt before stopped her in her tracks, and a gasp left her lips.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” he said softly.
He might, at one time, have been a fairly ordinary-looking man. He was a little above medium height, with exceptionally wide shoulders and a light way of standing that suggested both grace and agility. He was dressed casually. But all semblance of normality ended at his neck. From the collar of his plaid shirt, ugly, angry scars twisted upward, puckering the flesh and virtually covering the right side of his face all the way up to his hairline. A dull black patch angled over his missing right eye, and the left eye that was fixed on her face was as colorless as a glacier and just as icy.
“I once saw him cut a woman’s throat.”
Spencer swallowed hard, tearing her gaze from his ruined face to look at the gun in his hand. It was pointed squarely between her breasts. She had never imagined anything like the primitive terror that held her immobile as she looked at that deadly weapon, and knew without a shadow of a doubt that the man holding it was entirely capable of killing her as easily and unfeelingly as he’d swat a fly.
“What do you want?” she whispered.
His head cocked to one side and an empty little smile curved his lips. “You know who I am?”
“Yes. You—you’re Stanton.”
He half bowed in a mockery of courtesy, but the gun never wavered. His voice was utterly without inflection. “I suppose that bastard Haviland told you. Well, no matter. I want what I came here for, Miss Wyatt. The cross.”
That surprised her so much that fear was overlaid with confusion. “The cross? But you got to it first.”
Stanton laughed shortly. The free hand that had been behind his back moved, and he held up a cross. “I got this.”
Spencer looked at it blindly for a moment, seeing only a cross shape roughly twelve by eight inches in size. Then she focused on it, saw that it looked like gold and was encrusted with drab, colored stones. That’s wrong. There are too many stones and the ruby’s off center. The thought came from nowhere, and she accepted it numbly. This wasn’t the Hapsburg Cross, not the one her father had described.
“I was in such a hurry I barely looked at it,” Stanton said flatly. “For a while. Then I looked. It’s a damned fake, and not a very good one at that.” With a sudden, vicious fury, he flung it across the room, and it thudded against the wall before dropping to the floor. “I want the real one—and you’re going to take me to it.”
She’d flinched when he threw the cross, and stared at him in total bewilderment as his demand sunk into her brain. “Take you to it? I thought it was in the cave. That’s all I knew, to find the cave. I don’t know where the cross is.”
“You must know,” he said, his tone reasonable now. “You still have Wyatt’s original notes. What I had were copies. You kept something to yourself, didn’t you? Something about why there was a fake cross instead of the real one. You know how to find the real cross, don’t you?”
“No, I . . .” Her voice trailed off as the softly insistent voice in her head said that there was something she knew, something she just couldn’t remember. Her face must have given her away, because Stanton’s empty, colorless eye narrowed.
“I thought so.” He cocked the pistol and very matter-of-factly said, “Tell me, or I’ll kill you.”
Whatever she knew was still elusively trapped in her memory, but Spencer was certain of one thing. Stanton would kill her whether or not she gave him an answer. He’d killed that other woman when he no longer needed her, without hesitation or mercy, and he’d probably killed others as well.
The only hope she had was to stall for time, to keep herself alive long enough to try to escape him, or long en
ough for Drew to realize something was wrong—
No. No, she didn’t want Drew coming after them. He’d said he was never careless, but this would make him careless, she knew. Careless of his own life. He’d do whatever it took to get her away from Stanton safely, and if that meant offering himself as a target the other man wouldn’t be able to resist, then that’s what he’d do.
She couldn’t bear the thought of that. The memory of Stanton killing another woman years ago still haunted Drew; what would it do to him to see it happen all over again, this time to the woman he loved—and perhaps the seed of life inside her?
Spencer looked at Stanton, and though the terror was still cold in her mind, another emotion overpowered it. She wouldn’t let this animal hurt Drew like that. She wouldn’t. And she wouldn’t be another helpless victim sacrificed to his greed. There had to be a way, there would be a way to defeat him.
“Tell me!” Stanton barked harshly.
Only seconds had passed, she realized, and her mind worked with the clarity of desperation. Time, she needed time. Clearing her throat, she said, “I don’t know where the cross is, but I might be able to figure it out. Something about the statue bothered me when—when I looked at it. I don’t know what it was, but I think if I could see the statue again, I might remember.”
“You’re lying.” His finger tightened on the trigger.
Spencer held her voice steady with an effort. “Don’t you think if I’d found the cross—or knew for sure where it was—I’d have gotten it and gone back home right away? It’s for my father that I came after it, and he’s dying. I don’t have much time.”
A frown made his face even more hideous as he considered her words. “Was there something in the notes I didn’t see, or are you just stalling?” he demanded.
She swallowed hard. “Dad got a journal. Just recently. And there were some books I found on my own. There’s something about the statue I can’t remember. I need to see it.”
It would take at least two hours and probably three to reach the cave, she thought. They’d have to go by horseback, and one horse could never carry them both—they’d have to take two. That would put at least some distance between them. She didn’t know what advantage it would give her, but she was determined to think of something.
“All right,” Stanton said, smiling in a way that made nausea rise in her throat. “We’ll go up to the cave, just the two of us. I don’t want company. So you’re going to write a note to your lover in case he realizes you’re gone. Tell him something he’ll believe.”
The phone in there was on the end table beside the couch and there was a notepad and pen beside it. Spencer glanced at it, then looked back at Stanton a little helplessly. She couldn’t think of a single reason she would have left the inn without Drew, even though she tried to.
Impatiently, Stanton said, “Tell him you went off to buy a gift for your father. And be convincing about it.”
She moved slowly and carefully as she got the notepad and wrote a brief message, very conscious of the gun trained unwaveringly on her. Stanton told her to put the pad on the coffee table when she was through, then ordered her to step back and went over to read the note himself.
“Touching,” he mocked.
She’d had to tell Drew she loved him, though she kept it simple and without undue emphasis. Looking at Stanton, she understood at least a part of what Drew felt for the man, because she was conscious of utter loathing for the first time in her life. It was a horrible feeling.
“Listen carefully,” Stanton said in a flat, hard voice. “We’re going down the back stairs, and out the side door to the street. I have a car waiting there, which you will drive to the stable. If you say a word, or indicate to anyone at all that you might be in trouble, I’ll kill you. Understand?”
“Yes.”
She didn’t remember the fake cross lying on the floor until they were well on their way, and by then there was nothing she could do about it.
THE PHONE RANG, and Burke picked it up with a quickness that belied his air of sleepy exhaustion. They’d been sitting there, more or less silent, for nearly an hour, drinking coffee and waiting for some word of what was going on. Both men were accustomed to such waits and neither was given to restless gestures or movements; anyone watching would have assumed they were merely contemplating the view, with nothing on their minds more serious than idle interest in the scenery.
Burke just said hello into the receiver and then listened, his narrowing eyes fixed on Drew’s face. The silvery sheen of them was unreadable at first, then slowly took on the cold gray of polished steel. When he hung up a few moments later, he was scowling.
“Well?” Drew’s voice was very calm, almost unnaturally so.
“We just picked up the man who presumably crossed the border yesterday,” Burke reported flatly. “Got him near Milan. He still had the fake scars on his face, and an eye patch stuffed in his pocket. Name’s Roger Clay. The computer has a rap sheet on him half a mile long from the States. Mostly small stuff, burglary and forgery.”
Drew waited a beat, then said softly, “What else?”
Burke cursed roughly, the words angry and a little baffled. “Clay talked—not willingly, but he talked. Said that he and Stanton were halfway to the border before Stanton took a good look at the cross—and went berserk.”
“Why?”
“It was a fake, according to Stanton. He seemed pretty damned sure about it.”
Drew stared at his friend, his mind moving with a peculiar sluggishness. A fake? That didn’t make sense. Unless someone had found the cave long ago and stolen the real cross. But why go to the trouble of substituting a fake cross after the real one had been taken?
“I don’t get it,” Burke was saying. “There’s no reason why anyone would want to hide a fake, especially as carefully and securely as you say this one was hidden.”
“I know.” Coldness was spreading through Drew’s body slowly as a more important realization hit him, and his voice sounded hollow to his own ears when he said, “But that does explain why Stanton would come back here. He’d know it wasn’t a trap for him—we couldn’t have gotten into that cave before him without leaving evidence that we’d been there. He found a fake cross where the real one should have been, hidden hundreds of years ago. If I were him, I’d suspect that the real cross could still be there, somewhere.”
Burke half nodded, frowning. “So, obsessed bastard that he is, he sent his hired thug across the border to buy him some time, and comes tearing back here to look again. But he must figure you’re here by now—” Breaking off abruptly, Burke saw Drew’s still face drain of blood as if a savage wound had opened up his veins.
“Not me,” Drew said. “I didn’t grow up listening to Allan Wyatt’s stories.”
Even as Burke was shoving back his chair and following Drew into the building, he was drawing his gun from the shoulder holster and swearing softly in a bitter monotone. They’d missed it, both of them. Drew had said Stanton wouldn’t have come back to Innsbruck with the cross in his hand, but he had come back and that should have warned them to be more alert. It should have told them something was wrong. Once his mind was set on possessing something, Stanton would risk anything, even an attempt to slip past his worst enemy, with his soulless gaze fixed on the one person who might have heard more than she realized about the whereabouts of the cross.
They went up the stairs to the second floor, reaching the suite no more than a couple of minutes after they’d left the veranda. Drew used his key and shoved the door open, calling her name hoarsely. There was no reply. When he stepped into the bedroom, the bed was empty, the covers tumbled. A faint moisture in the air and the scent of Spencer’s perfume hinted that she’d had time to shower. Drew checked the bathroom and found it as empty as the rest of the suite.
“Drew?”
He went quickly back into the sitting room, fear winding so tightly in his chest that it felt as if it were crushing him to death. Burke held out a not
epad to him and Drew took it, reading the short message. His heart clenched at the final three words, remembering her soft voice speaking them.
“What do you think?” Burke asked.
“No. She wouldn’t have left—on her own.” Drew looked at him. “He’s got her.”
Burke had to look away from those suffering eyes. He’d known Drew Haviland a long time, had seen him in brutal situations and dangerous ones. He’d seen him amused, furious, charming, exhausted, deadly quiet, and remote with the iron control that was always a mask over unusually powerful instincts and emotions. Until now, he’d never seen his naked soul, or the clawing terror that only a man who loved a woman could ever feel.
Lon Stanton was a dead man. He’d done the one thing capable of shattering Drew’s reluctance to kill. Burke had no doubt of that at all.
He looked around the room, trying to think. The cave, of course, and from Drew’s description it was a bitch of a place for any kind of confrontation. His eyes sharpened, focused on a dull object lying on the floor, and he swiftly crossed over to pick it up. “Drew, look at this.”
In a moment Drew was turning the cross in his hands. His hands were rock steady, and when he spoke it was mildly. “A fake, all right.”
Burke studied his friend worriedly, fully aware that the quiet voice and seeming calm came, not from control, but from the paralyzing grip of emotions too violent to be mastered. It was just a matter of time before they blew, a matter of time before Drew exploded with a force that would leave everything between him and the man he wanted to kill in a shambles.
God, let her be alive, Burke thought.
He made his own voice even. “They’re less than an hour ahead of us. Think, Drew. Is there any way we can get up there before them? There’s no time to get a helicopter, even if we could find a spot to land it near the cave. Is horseback the only way?”