Most of the documents, including a first-class Olympic Airways ticket from New York to Athens, were issued to an unpronounceable Greek name. The remaining papers, issued to one Monsignor Herve Chalfont, included a passport with his current likeness and a Lufthansa ticket from Frankfurt to the United States.
They would be watching the Nice airport. But his jet for Germany left from a private airfield near Arles in less than two hours. Money talked. From there, an eight-hour flight to the US. With luck he would be in the safe house by the time the sun rose over the east coast. Twenty-four hours after that a rich—a very rich—businessman would be on his way to Greece. Not even Victor knew about the house on Mykonos. He would disappear completely.
Just one last job.
One final role to play.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX
AIX-EN-PROVENCE. NIGHT, JULY 11
“Bonsoir, Madame O’Shea.” The night manager at the inn smiled at Maggie as she entered the small lobby. “I hope your friends at the hospital are doing well?”
“The little boy is going to be fine, Monsieur, merci bien.”
Maggie pulled the heavy, borrowed jacket more closely around her shoulders. She’d driven herself to the hospital and found TJ curled in a corner bed, wrapped in blankets, a muscular policewoman reading by his bedside.
“Hey, TJ,” she said with a gentle shake of his shoulder. “You saved my life.”
“Mag…gee.” The raw, hesitant voice was the most miraculous music she’d ever heard.
He had thrown his arms around her neck. “I didn’t want that man to hurt you, Maggie,” he whispered against her neck, “not like…my mama. I saw the knife!”
“I know, honey. You were very brave. But you should be resting your voice.” She grinned at him. “You sound just like a frog.”
They’d laughed and she’d held him while he bombarded her with his rasping questions and fears until the small voice was no more than a whisper and, exhausted, he finally slept. She stayed with him for a long time, watching him sleep.
Then she’d gone to Zach’s room.
In the small quiet lobby of her hotel, Maggie closed her eyes, but still she saw the image of Zach’s face on the white pillow. The tubes, the bandages, the machines that registered every breath and heartbeat with a whirring, frightening sound.
Fight, Zach, she’d told him, fight for Brian and TJ. Fight for your life. She’d touched his scarred face. “You really are a beautiful man,” she’d whispered.
“Madame?” The concerned voice of the hotel manager broke into her thoughts. “We will miss you and Mon Colonel, Madame. Your room will be called ‘The Music Room’ from now on. We have decided to leave the piano there.” She tried to smile at him, but knew that he saw the sadness that touched her face. “Mon Colonel looked very tired, also,” he ventured.
“He’s back? Thank God.” She turned toward the lift.
“Back, oui, Madame. But heading to the airport,” said the manager with dismay. “He settled his bill and had me call for a taxi.”
But she was gone, running up the narrow stairs.
* * *
He stood by the fire, feet apart, left hand in the pocket of his tweed jacket, right hand swirling one final glass of whiskey as he stared into the flames. Shiloh lay curled on the hearth rug, watching him, the flames turning his fur to gold.
Just five more minutes, Beckett bargained.
Time to go home, old man, he thought. Taxi’s waiting. Dane’s gone to ground. Victor as well, along with a vast fortune in art. Only the devil knows where he’s hidden those pieces. Sugar is somewhere over the Atlantic by now. And Maggie, well, her room is empty. She’s with Zach, of course.
He looked down at the Golden. “By tomorrow she’ll be gone, too, back to Zach Law and her family and a life of music that doesn’t include us.”
Shiloh’s eyes flickered in the light, seeming to glow with sadness.
This mission was over. It was time for him to walk away. Time to let her go. What the devil was he waiting for, anyway? Momentary insanity, under control now. Pick up the duffel bag. Slip the leash on Shiloh. Forget shining green eyes and lips that tasted like the sea.
Go. But still he gazed into the fire. And all he could see was the image of a woman standing on a dark beach, lit by flashing blue lights, holding on for dear life to a small boy and a three-legged dog.
He heard the sound of the door opening behind him, breathed the soft scent of roses in the air. His heart was beating like the whump of a ’copter blade but he was afraid to turn around and so he continued to stare into the fire.
“Mrs. O’Shea,” he said softly, smiling, watching the leaping flames.
There’s still a chance, he told himself. I can still leave.
“Colonel,” she said.
The husky voice drew him, no hope for it, and he turned, eyes questioning, seeking hers. Everything around him seemed to blur, and all he could see was Maggie, standing in the firelight. She’d pulled her hair up and tucked it inside the knitted hat.
Her gaze swept over his duffel bag, waiting by the door. “Could you just leave me then, without saying goodbye?”
“I’ve never done a harder thing.”
“I thought we.”
“Yes,” he said simply. “We did.”
“Then don’t go, Michael.”
“I couldn’t stop Dane or Orsini. They’re still out there, you’re still in danger. You shouldn’t be here.”
“You saved my life. You protected my son’s life. Where else would I be?”
He looked over at the Golden. “See, when she says things like that…”
His sleek head resting on his paw, Shiloh gazed back at him with an expression of amusement.
Maggie smiled at the dog. “This is where he tells me to go home. Again.”
Beckett gazed down at her. “The soldier wants you to go, ma’am. But the man wants you to stay.”
The room behind her was very dark. The firelight caught the planes of her face, her eyes blazing. Very slowly, as if drawn by the heat, she walked toward him, past the cleared desk, past the untouched bed, past the packed and waiting duffel bag. Then she was in front of him, looking up with those smoldering eyes.
“It’s not finished between us.”
He looked down at this woman who stood before him, who changed his life early one morning in an ancient French cemetery under a lavender sky.
If I don’t touch her, he bargained, I’ll still be able to leave.
Like a man caught in a dream, his hand came up. He pushed the cap back from her head so that it fell to the floor, her hair tumbling like dark water over her shoulders.
“Don’t go,” she said again. “I couldn’t bear it.”
His eyes held hers. “If I stay, Maggie, there’ll be no turning back for me.”
“I don’t want you to turn back. I don’t want to be anywhere else right now. Only with you.”
He smiled crookedly at her. “But?”
“But—” She looked down at her wedding ring, twisted it on her finger.
“I know you’re not ready,” he said.
“Every step I take toward the future is taking a step away from my husband. It feels like I’m betraying him.”
“You loved each other when he died, I get that. It doesn’t just go away. But your husband would want you to be happy.”
“I’m scared,” she whispered. “Scared of what I felt for you the night you gave me the piano. What I felt when you kissed me on the beach.”
“You think that I’m not afraid?” he said. “Afraid because you’re the only woman I’ve ever known who would run into eight lanes of traffic to save a three-legged dog, the only woman who would jump overboard into a raging black sea to rescue a little boy.” He shook his head, still astonished by her bravery.
“I couldn’t stop my husband’s death, Michael. But I could damned sure do something for the dog and that child.”
“A woman like you doesn’t belong with a man like me
.”
“I have news for you, Colonel, you’re the last person I want in my life as well! You’ll make me fall for you, and then…then you’ll die, just like Johnny died!”
“I’m not going to leave you.”
He stepped closer, cupped her face in both hands and tilted her head back. “It’s barely a week since I laid eyes on you. But the first time I saw you in the cemetery, I knew.”
“That I was trouble?”
“That I’d met my downfall.”
“I’m not the same woman you met in that cemetery. I’m—tougher. Stronger.”
“Couldn’t you just have gone for—oh, I don’t know—maybe less impulsive, unpredictable and confusing?” He looked over at the Golden. “Every conversation with her is like trying to teach a kangaroo to limbo.”
Shiloh gazed back at them as if in deep contemplation. Maggie laughed. “For so many months,” she said, shaking her head, “my life hasn’t seemed to fit me. But now, with you, I’m starting to feel as if I know who I am again.”
“I didn’t want to fall for you,” said Beckett. “Tried so damned hard not to. But it just is.”
They were close enough to feel each other’s breath.
“I was drowning, Colonel. And then you were there…”
He placed his hands on her shoulders. “You are the most intensely beautiful, infuriating, brilliant woman I have ever known,” he said. “You take away the shadows.”
* * *
The small clock on the mantel began to chime the midnight hour. She looked up at him—this formidable army colonel who wanted only to roam the blue hills of Virginia with a dog named Shiloh, a man who had frightened her and given her a piano and protected the life of her son. A man who looked at her with such fierce yearning that at last she felt the pain locked for so long inside her tremble and shatter into a thousand pieces.
“I want to be alive again,” she whispered. “But we can’t. I’m not ready to…”
His silver brows spiked with amusement. “To make love? I have no doubt, Maggie, that making love to you will be as astonishing as a sunrise. But my plane leaves at dawn. And I’m not a hit-and-run kind of guy, right, Shiloh?”
The Golden barked once.
“This is about much more than the physical,” he said. “Not that I haven’t been thinking about it.” He gave her his crooked grin. “This is about emotional intimacy, and you know it. It’s about two lost people finding each other.” He reached out slowly, caught the collar of her coat, pulled her closer. “But I could stay here with you. For a while.”
“You’re talking too much.” Her hands moved over his face and rested on the bandages over his eye. “Your stitches…”
“The devil with the stitches.”
Without taking her eyes from him, she dropped her coat to the floor.
Her t-shirt said Handel with Care.
They didn’t speak.
He gathered her in his arms and drew her down on the rug in front of the fire.
She touched his mouth with her fingers.
His grasp tightened around her waist and pulled her body closer.
He lifted her hair and brushed his lips across the hollow of her neck. Slipped her sweater off her shoulder, touched his lips to her skin.
“You have a tattoo,” he murmured.
“It’s a treble clef.”
He shook his head at her.
The Golden moved closer, settling against her hip. Beckett stoked up the fire.
They shared bread and cheese in the streaming shadows. He wrapped her in a soft blanket. They drank sweet red wine.
“Better than a cold beer on a hot night,” he murmured. She laughed.
He found Chopin on the small radio.
“Being with you is like music,” she whispered.
He lifted her hand to his lips, kissed the inside of her wrist.
She touched her forehead to his.
He wrapped his arms around her and told her, “Being with you is like being home, in my mountains. An endless big sky in your eyes. A light in the window…”
She twined her fingers in the silver chain around his neck while she listened.
Then, “Just keep saying my name, Colonel,” she said. “I want to hear it over and over.”
“Maggie. Maggie.” His lips found hers. “Maggie.”
CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN
AIX-EN-PROVENCE. PAST MIDNIGHT, JULY 12
Victor Orsini stood at a tall, open, casement window, staring out into the darkness.
Where is my son tonight? Is Thomas still alive? He had to find out.
His fingers closed into tight fists. I did not love you enough, he told his son.
But it was too late for anguish. He’d been lost for too long. His chance was gone. He would make the O’Shea woman pay for what she’d done to him—if she was still alive.
* * *
The bedroom was swathed in shadows. They sat together on the floor in front of the fire, Maggie’s head against Beckett’s shoulder. The Golden’s head was in her lap.
The air was quiet, flickering. A log dislodged, falling to the hearth in a loud shower of sparks. Both Beckett and the Golden jolted against her.
“Michael,” she said, reaching to stroke and reassure the dog. “Do you trust me?”
A beat of silence. Then, “Yes.” She could hear the shimmer of surprise in his voice.
She took his hand. “Can you tell me what happened to you? To both of you…”
He gazed into the flames, still and silent. Gripping her hand tightly, he closed his eyes and began to speak.
“The Middle East. A hell of a place. Neon skylines on the edge of desert. Conflict not only in the war zones, but cultural. A museum with modern art, a woman who walks miles to get there because she’s not allowed to drive.
“And then—the moonscape of Afghanistan. Nothing prepares you for it. It was my third tour in Helmand Province. A quiet morning. I was in the village on recon with my team. There was this kid, Farzad. Eleven, twelve. Friendly kid, always hanging around. There was just something about him, you know? He had a little sister, and a thin, wild Golden that followed him everywhere. Only mutts in the village, but the Golden had belonged to some US contractor.” He shrugged. “The local kids loved soccer, it was the only escape for some of them. So that morning I’d brought a bright red soccer ball with me.”
* * *
This morning the square is busy, hot and dusty, surrounded by white cubes of houses with dark, open windows.
He tosses the soccer ball across the square. A bright red sphere against the high sky. The little girl, her brother Farzad, and the Golden all run after it. The children are shouting, laughing. Smiling.
He smiles, too, watching them.
The red ball spins through the air.
Again. Again.
The boy runs up to him, grabs his hand, squeezes. “You will take us home with you one day?” the child asks, eyes huge in the thin face. “We will play soccer every day together?”
He smiles down at Farzad. And wonders, not for the first time, if there is any way he can take this smart gentle boy and his little sister home with him.
He lifts the ball once more, sends it sailing high across the dusty square. He hears Farzad’s sister squeal with delight just as he sees the glint of the sun on metal in one of the windows overlooking the square.
All sound stops.
The sudden scream of automatic gunfire split the air.
A shout, Allahu Akbar!
A flash of brilliant light.
“Incoming!” he shouts, throwing himself toward the boy. But the boy runs from him.
More explosions, blooming in the sky. He is on the ground. The earth beneath him is stained red. Sharp and pulsing. He’s been hit.
He raises his head, sees the boy racing across the square toward his sister. The gold dog chases him, barking frantically.
Christ, the kids. No, Farzad! Don’t—
Allahu Akbar!
The dog
launches into the air, his front paws hitting the boy, pushing him down. Covering him.
Bright flashes, a terrible scream. The whining spit of bullets, the smell of burning flesh. The roar of thunder, a searing blast of heat.
Dust exploding around him, shattered glass, blood everywhere.
An animal’s high howl of fear and pain. Then silence.
He staggers to his feet, struggles across the square.
Past the soccer ball, glistening in a pool of blood.
He sees Farzad’s sister, crumpled and still. Gone.
The dog is covered in blood, lying on top of the boy. They are not moving.
No! Farzad…
Somehow he gathers the boy and the dog against him, lifts them both against his chest, and begins to stagger across the shimmering square toward safety.
The sounds of automatic gunfire echo around him.
* * *
Maggie reached up to wipe the tears from his face. “Farzad didn’t make it,” she said.
“No. He died cradled in my arms. I never got to bring him home. If only I hadn’t…” He swiped angrily at the tears. “I went into the darkness for the all right reasons,” he said, “but I didn’t know it would shatter my soul. Now, somehow, I have to learn to live with it.”
She put her arms around him and held on tight.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-EIGHT
AIX-EN-PROVENCE. PAST MIDNIGHT, JULY 12
The sailboat slid sickeningly across the roaring water toward the rocks. Chimes rang wildly in the darkness, while in the distance a phone rang and rang...
“Oh, God!” Maggie jolted up, looking wildly around the firelit room. Then she saw Michael.
Beckett looked down at her. “I trusted you tonight. It’s your turn. Tell me about the nightmares.”
Her eyes widened with sudden understanding. “It was you that first night in Aix, in my bedroom. You came to me, when I was dreaming. You tasted of brandy. You said, ‘I’ve got you.’”
“Yes.”
“I dream,” she said, “that I’m playing the piano—the Grieg Concerto—late at night on a faraway beach. There’s a terrible storm. A telephone is ringing loudly, insistently. And all around me, the echo of chimes. Then Johnny’s sailboat appears, flying across the sea. Suddenly it explodes, and I’m in the water, searching for him…drowning with him.” She buried her face in her hands. “I thought I faced the nightmares this afternoon. In the sea. But—”
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