Glass Houses

by Stella Cameron

  Olivia felt as if she, personally, had done something wrong. “I’m sorry, Vanni, but there was nothing I could do to stop him.”

  “Hold,” Vanni said and she heard him talking to someone in the background. When he came back on, he kept his voice lowered. “I’m at the hospital. My grandfather’s been admitted.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” Olivia said. “He’s a dear man.”

  “He’s an ornery old devil, but he’s my grandfather. If he dies because they won’t operate, I… I don’t know what I’ll do.”

  “Perhaps they really can’t operate,” Olivia said.

  “Sure they can, if the price is right. That means these greedy bastards want enough to buy another island somewhere.”

  The transmission was breaking up. “Vanni, we’ve got to be quick. Aiden was knocked unconscious and taken away. I’m almost sure Fats was one of the people in the vehicle, but there was another man and a woman I hadn’t seen before.”

  “Oh, my, God,” he said. “If he…” Vanni’s voice was cut off.

  “Hello?” she said. “Hello, Vanni?”

  “Yeah.” He sounded very faint. “Where’s Boss? Running loose?”

  “No,” Olivia told him. “I don’t know. He followed Aiden and jumped in the truck with him. I’m afraid those people will shoot him.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Vanni said. “What a mess. Get that phone charged. I’ll call back later. I’m going to have to come to—”

  “Vanni,” she cried, “Chris—”

  “Sure,” Vanni said. “I know, don’t worry, you’ll be okay. So will Aiden. Mama said I should tell you—”

  That was that, the battery failed, and she didn’t have the vaguest notion where the charger was. Probably in the Rover, but she didn’t want to leave the room until Chris arrived. And now he wouldn’t be able to reach her on the cell phone.

  The room was on the second floor. Olivia went to the window and looked down on the parking lot. Cars, trucks, and motorcycles arrived constantly. People ducked and ran through rain to the building. She could feel a base thundering somewhere below her. The Rover was parked closer now, barely on the other side of the ridge, and she’d locked everything in the boot. She wished she and Aiden had bought some food. Chocolate, anything would do. They hadn’t thought about it.

  She returned to the chair and tried to keep her feet still. They didn’t want to remain on the floor. What was happening no longer felt like an imaginary adventure. This was real. She was scared, but she still wasn’t sorry she’d come. If she’d remained in London, she would never have met Aiden Flynn and she didn’t even want to think about that.

  Penny Biggies had a way of analyzing Olivia. According to Penny, her friend was a war victim, a victim of a quietly defiant war between her parents.

  Bunk.

  It was true that Mummy and Daddy disliked each other. In the years of their marriage, Daddy had only sharpened his gift for the genteel insult, while Mummy’s skills as a bombastic whiner were probably the best to be found in any human being. And Olivia’s parents had used their children as a buffer between them.

  The FitzDurhams liked to tell their daughter she wasn’t capable and shouldn’t be on her own because she needed to be looked after. Sometimes she wondered if they might be right-like now, when she ought to be able to make decisions without waiting for help. And that’s what Daddy would say, that she was proving how right he was to want her at home. Mummy and Daddy didn’t approve of the photography either. They had told her how “silly” they thought it was.

  But they were wrong. So was Penny. It had been a struggle, but Olivia hadn’t let her parents ruin her self-confidence. She’d broken away from them to find her own way, and she had the makings of a good career. And she would never return home to live. The idea appalled her.

  She found the bulky envelope of photographs she had with her and spread them on the bed. In addition to putting on her glasses, she located a magnifying glass. The other envelope, the one containing the money and checks, was also in the bag. Olivia pulled it out and glanced at the checks. The sums were as huge as she’d remembered.

  Mr. Fish had posted them in her letterbox by mistake.

  The dry-cleaning receipt was for a shop in Belgravia. As for the theater ticket, he had been to a cinema that showed pornographic films. Olivia didn’t even recognize the address.

  Again, there were no clues there.

  Kneeling, she pored over the photos. Walls covered with paintings. Art Deco furnishings. Extraordinary rugs. A little whimsy here and there. Sculptures, some of them dreck, some exquisite.

  She couldn’t ignore the furnishings. Since Fish and Moody were antique dealers, it was to be supposed that they dealt in more furniture than art. Not necessarily, but in the absence of knowing for sure, every possibility must be examined. The Art Deco furnishings weren’t reproductions.

  Olivia started from the beginning, studying even more slowly. From time to time she got up and went to the window. She had no idea what Chris Talon looked like, but somehow she expected to know him. The rain had turned to sleet that flew directly toward her and made minuscule icy halos against the encroaching darkness.

  She put her nose to the window, and a cloud of fog blossomed on the glass. Her glasses fuzzed up everything. Aiden was somewhere out there, and he wasn’t with friends. What did she know about him? Almost nothing. He was an only child His parents were dead. He was shy around women.

  Now there was an interesting observation she hadn’t even recognized before. How could she think that a man capable of making love the way he did was shy? Because there was a reticence about him, a watchfulness when he looked at her. It fell away when they—had fallen away when they’d been together.

  Oh, really, she had been shameless, and enjoyed it.

  Olivia returned to the bed. She was ambivalent about most of the paintings she’d photographed in Notting Hill, although a Kandinsky that was a study for another work charmed her. The next shot was of what she supposed would also be called nonobjective, a piece heavy with brilliant geometric splashes of color and apparently random lines. She tried for the spiritual meaning, the intuitive response devotees of the form spoke of. Perhaps she was old fashioned but all she saw was red and purple, lavender and pink. But then, a sculpture made of mirrors and granite and with a many-angled surface like framed blocks of rock candy entranced her, and it was certainly very modern.

  A sorcerer’s palace, or perhaps a house of glass for someone with nothing to hide.

  There wasn’t a single incriminating piece of evidence in any of these. She shuffled them together like cards. When they were buried at the bottom of her bag with the negatives once more, she felt safer.

  She used a hand to scoop water from the faucet to her mouth and peered into the mirror over the sink. Nothing would help the way she looked. Olivia grinned. She looked awful.

  “Olivia?” A voice whispered very close to the door.

  Her bag was hooked over her arm. She let it slip to the threadbare green carpet, kicked it gently under the bed, and took a step backward, away from the door.

  A light, steady tapping began.

  “Chris,” she said, but couldn’t even hear her own voice. Very cautiously, she approached, listening. She must learn to be cautious and smart. She didn’t know who was out there.

  “Olivia?”

  “Yes?”

  “We don’t want to attract attention here.”

  With her heart punching at her eardrums, Olivia unlocked the door and pulled it open enough to give her a clear view of a good slice of corridor. Empty corridor.

  Blood receded from her brain fast enough to make her feel faint.

  She slammed the door.

  Slammed it against a black shoe.

  “Go away,” she said, as loudly as she could manage. “I’ll call the police.”

  The door opened with enough force to knock Olivia onto her bottom, then smashed against the wall. She opened her mouth to yell, but not a sou
nd came out.

  A windswept, dark-haired man holding a gun stepped over her. “Don’t move,” he said and toured the room and bathroom, where he repeated his shattering entry. A ripping sound jarred her all over again. If the shower curtain hadn’t been torn from the rod, she’d be amazed.

  Finally this human whirlwind in a dark suit, white shirt with tie dangling, and mud spattering the lower halves of his trouser legs relaxed a little. He didn’t put the awful gun away, but he did stop gliding about and making a lot of unpleasant noise.

  He closed the room door quite gently and locked it.

  Olivia swallowed. He had greenish eyes and black eyebrows that flared. And he was so big. And he stood over her, staring as if she were an enormous puzzle.

  “Don’t just sit there,” he said. “We’ve got places to go.”

  She had no choice but to let him pull her to her feet.

  “I’m Chris Talon,” he said.

  “Yes. Thank you for coming.”

  He looked her over again and shook his head. “I’m gonna have to have Sonnie talk to you. There are some rules about these things, and something tells me you don’t know any of them.”

  “What things?” She didn’t like his disapproving expression.

  “Man-woman things,” he said.

  She didn’t need a lecture on the birds and the bees from Chris Talon, and keeping her dignity was essential. “Let’s decide on the best thing to do. Aiden’s cell phone battery’s dead, and I don’t know where the charger is. Vanni’s going to call back, and he won’t be able to reach us.”

  “Leave that to me. You ever ridden a Harley?”

  Olivia frowned.

  “Motorcycle. Big motorcycle.”

  She shook her head emphatically. “Never. I absolutely would not want to.”

  “You’re absolutely going to have to. I borrowed one from a friend in Chicago. First things first. I’ve got to check distances around here, and possible places they might take Aiden. They won’t have gone far.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Chris sighed and patted her shoulder. “Because you’re here. Unless Aiden’s got everything wrong, it’s you they’re after, you and what you have, or know. They’ll hole up and figure out how to use him to get at you. Only we’re going to get to them first.”

  He pulled maps from his inside coat pockets and opened them one on top of another on the bed. She stood close beside him.

  Chris turned his head toward Olivia. “I’m gonna give you one piece of advice I know Sonnie would approve of. Don’t let Aiden pick out your clothes again.”

  Eighteen

  Improv theater was a great outlet for people who had difficulty communicating on a personal level. They learned to act out a scenario with little or no warning. A person could pretend they were someone else. That made it easier, distanced you. The classes Aiden had taken years ago also came in real handy when he needed an Oscar-winning performance to save his skin.

  Tonight, putting on a convincing impersonation of an unconscious man had at least postponed the beating he knew Ryan and Fats would have enjoyed giving him. If things didn’t start looking up, there would be another opportunity for the gruesome duo to work him over.

  “Watch him,” Ryan said. “I still think the cuffs should be behind him.”

  “Oh, no such thing,” the woman said. She was obviously from England. “You’ve already put those things on his ankles, too. Where’s he going to go? Anyway, he’s been unconscious so long, it’s scary. Maybe he won’t ever wake up. He could have a seizure or something after you hitting him on the head like that. With his arms behind him, he’d probably break them. Then where would we be? You’ve already said you want to keep him in one piece until you don’t need him anymore. Look at him lying there, poor man. White as the sheets. Does he look like someone who could do us any harm?”

  “Fucking bleeding-hearts society,” Ryan muttered. “It’s a good thing I recognized him through the Halloween getup. He’s never gotten over his stint in narcotics. Thinks he’s still undercover as a punk. Okay, leave the cuffs in front. You keep your eyes on him, Fats. Anything happens to him before I’m ready, and you’re dead. Understand?”

  “I understand,” Fats said with his habit of letting his dislike show through a coat of spurious, insincere respect. “You don’t need to hang around here. Go lose that canine.”

  “When I need you to give the orders, I’ll let you know.” Ryan was at his foul-tempered best. “Damn dog. I got hold of him by the collar while you were dragging Flynn out. Got him from behind. Look at my hands. That dog pulled so hard, his friggin’ collar took chunks out of my fingers. And my wrists. This is from the glass when I was reaching through from the front to grab him.”

  “Sorry, Ryan,” Fats said. “We gotta think of a way to get Flynn to lead us to the woman. It’s turned out to be a good thing he met her and they took off.”

  A pause before Ryan replied suggested Fats had hit an unpopular topic. “Olivia hooked up with Flynn. Fucking, bleedin’ amazing. How could I know the bastard would snoop around the way he did? As soon as I sensed something wrong, I went after her. I was too late. Again, nothing I could do about it. But everything’s gonna be fine. He’s gonna die. She’s gonna die. I’m gonna get what I want—everything. You want to keep on talking about this?”

  Fats swallowed so loudly, it sounded as if he’d cracked something. He said, “Nah.”

  “Good. You’d better start praying those two clowns we’re stuck with remember to turn on the cell phone,” Ryan said. “Damn, but I hate dealing with civilian morons. And remember, you do not mention me to them. No reason to let them think I’m close enough for them to use me as leverage to get what they want.”

  Fats said, “What exactly do they want from you?” so offhandedly that Aiden came close to grinning. He risked slitting his eyes enough to see through his lashes.

  “Just do as I tell you,” Ryan said. “Mess up, and you’ll go where I send the dog. I’d have nothing to lose anymore.”

  Ryan took the keys to the truck, holstered his gun, and let himself out of the overly warm room. Aiden had seen that the place was called Sleep In Peace, but didn’t know where it was. He thought the name of the motel could turn out to be too appropriate.

  All he could do for Boss was send good thoughts in his direction. Ryan might try to let the dog go, but if Boss made it too difficult, he’d buy himself a bullet.

  Damn, his head ached. How could he have been so careless as to leave his flank vulnerable? He wondered where Olivia was. It would be just like her to try to find him, but she wouldn’t go far, particularly since she was likely to get hopelessly lost. He didn’t like thinking about her out there like that. She led with her heart—a bad idea in most situations. They’d met at the wrong time, in the wrong circumstances. Somewhere up there someone was laughing and thinking what Aiden already knew: he and Olivia had come together because he’d meddled in somebody else’s business, but he wouldn’t have met her at all otherwise.

  “You think we ought to cuff him to the bed, too?” the woman, Kitty, said. “Ryan would be pleased we cared enough to do it, and we wouldn’t have to watch quite so closely. After all, no play makes boys and girls dull, and we’re not dull types, are we, Fats?”

  Aiden swallowed distaste at Kitty’s suggestive tone. He’d assumed she was with Ryan exclusively. Evidently the lady liked to spread herself around.

  “Where’s he going to go anyway?” Fats said in a voice that sounded thickened. “We cuff him to something and he’s more likely to come to while we’re doing it and make a nuisance of himself.”

  “And that would certainly be a shame,” she said. Aiden felt her breath on his face. The pressure of her lips on his and the sensation she caused when the tip of her tongue slid into his mouth infuriated him. He’d have liked to bite that tongue and take the consequences. Only the thought of Olivia, alone somewhere out there, stopped him.

  “Now this man’s got a mouth,” Ki
tty said. “And a body. Whoa, what a body.” She demonstrated what she thought of that body by running her hands all over him. Lying still on a bed had never taken such willpower. “Don’t you love tattoos on the kind of muscles he’s got in his arms?”

  Aiden heard a slap, followed by a yelp from Kitty. “What do you think you’re doing? Who do you think you’re pushing around? I don’t let men hit me, Fats. If that husband of mine does show up, he’ll tell you it’s not a good idea to underestimate me.”

  “I don’t give a shit about Rupert Fish,” Fats said. “Ryan says he’s a little asshole. How come you married a man like that?”

  “I guess it’s because I’ve got a thing for little assholes, Fats.”

  Aiden wanted to laugh. He was also struggling with the idea that Kitty was Mrs. Rupert Fish.

  “You led me on, and I want what you promised,” Fats said, and if a pout was something you could hear, Aiden heard this one. “I don’t want you threatening me with your husband, and I don’t want to listen to you talkin’ nice to unconscious jerks.”

  “You’re jealous,” she said, all coy. “I think that’s really lovely. I’m just one of those artsy types who appreciate beautiful people, and he’s beautiful. It’s only academic. He’s probably no good in bed.”

  This was no time for Aiden to consider defending his male pride.

  “I’m damn good in bed,” Fats said. “I know how to give a woman what she wants.”

  “How long do you think Ryan will be gone?”

  “Maybe an hour. We can lock the door and put the chain on.” Aiden heard Fats slip on the chain. “There. That way if he does come back at an inconvenient moment, we’ll have time to recover.”

  “Recover from what?” Little Miss Innocence asked.

  “Take your clothes off,” Fats said. “Not too fast.”

  “Ooh, I do love masterful men. Why should I undress for you?”

  “Because you want to. You got off in that truck with all your clothes on and Ryan sitting on the other side of you. I don’t want anything between you and me but skin. And you owe me, so start paying back.”