He bit into his own dinner. The treat melted in his mouth. “That wasn’t luck. You were alert and ready to act. I didn’t see him.” And he should have.
“No doubt you had other things on your mind,” she said dryly.
He thought back to the moment just before the shot and recalled he’d been considering whether to kiss her. From the sound of her tone just now, she must have surmised his intention. Such distractions could get them killed. Such distractions could be delicious.
But as much as he wanted to know her better—in every way—from now on, he’d stick to the business at hand. For both their sakes. Because, while he no longer doubted his attraction to her, Devin clearly detested his lifestyle. He couldn’t imagine her attending parties or golf tournaments, a mere ornament on his arm. She’d be miserable.
Like Rhonda had been?
That wasn’t a fair question. His former wife had enjoyed the parties, enjoyed the social whirl that aided his career. She’d often teased him that he’d accomplished more on the golf course than in the office.
And yet if Rhonda had been left to her own devices, she would have spent more time in her garden. Guilt stabbed him that he’d never had time to build her a rooftop greenhouse.
As he lifted a rye loaf, bit into the still-warm crust and chewed, the flavor of caraway seeds burst in his mouth. He mulled over his past. Rhonda had seemed mostly content to run her life around his in a way Devin never would. It had been convenient. For him.
But he didn’t need convenience—not when his soul cried out for something more. Yet, he had to regain control of his thoughts. He’d already made a mistake by thinking Lindsay Betancourt was the right woman for him. That he’d thought he would grow to love her, that he’d thought by having her by his side and in his bed would soothe the giant wound of Rhonda’s passing had been pure wishful thinking. And denial of the depth of his grief.
He barely thought of Lindsay at all, and when he did, it was with relief not regret. On the other hand, when he closed his eyes, although Rhonda would always have a special place in his heart, Devin’s image burned his mind. But her features were only part of the attractive package. She had intelligence and courage and had just saved his life.
Outside, footsteps approached, interrupting his thoughts. The metal door swung shut with a clang, blocking out the streetlights that had flickered inside. Devin’s every muscle stiffened to an unnatural tautness.
Ford stood and looked through the tiny window into the cab. The man wore a uniform. “Relax. It’s the regular driver.”
He scooted back beside her. She remained stiff as three-day-old bread.
“What’s wrong?” he whispered.
“Nothing.”
“You’re shaking.”
“It’s just the truck’s vibration.” She wasn’t a good liar. Her voice caught and fluttered.
The truck pulled around a corner, but the occasional pothole couldn’t account for her trembling. Perhaps the shocks she’d suffered were catching up with her. They’d traveled almost nonstop to discover a dead body. He’d forced her to attend a party. Then an assassin had shot at them. During the action, she’d held tough, in control. Now they were stuck in the back of a bread truck on their way to who-knew-where— but they were still relatively safe. So why was she shaking? What had suddenly made her so vulnerable?
And why was his conscience screaming at him to protect her?
She gripped his hand so tightly she cut off the circulation. “I don’t like the dark.”
He pulled a lighter out of his pocket and flicked it on. The small flame reflected the panic in her eyes. After a moment in the light, her dilated pupils returned to usual size. Her breathing evened out, and she spoke almost normally. “You don’t smoke, do you?”
Now he was the one uncomfortable. He didn’t want to admit that when he could no longer stand the loneliness, he used the lighter to strike up conversations with women. “Should we get off the truck at the next stop?”
“It depends.” Her voice cracked.
“On what?”
“Whether or not we stop in the city. Let’s hope the assassin didn’t have a partner watching the back door, and that we’re not being tailed.” She drew her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, but he could still feel her trembling.
“No one watching could know for certain that we’re in this truck.” He ached to reassure her, but she was shutting him out, and he didn’t like it one bit.
“But if the assassin traipses into the party and learns we’re not there, he’ll guess we escaped. He may assume we left on foot or hailed a cab. But if he thinks to ask, it won’t take long to discover which trucks left and by which route.”
His stomach did a jig. He’d taken for granted they were safe. That kind of assumption could get them killed. The Black Rose had had more than an entire year to learn about Ford’s contacts, his mode of travel, his friends. They would have to avoid Ford’s usual haunts.
“You have our passports, don’t you?” he asked.
“Why?”
He steadied them as the truck rounded a corner. “We need to get you on the first flight home.”
Her shaking worsened. “We can’t fly from Switzerland. We’ll have to cross the border.”
“But customs—”
“We’re not going through customs.”
He almost choked on the last bit of rye. “Hold it right there. Tomorrow morning, we’ll have professional bodyguards to protect us. We can—”
“We need to disappear, not pick up an entourage,” she whispered insistently. “This assassin has killed heads of state. If the Black Rose is as good as Willowby said, he’ll have the airports, bus and train stations covered. We can’t even rent a car.”
“One person couldn’t possibly cover that much territory.”
“Once you use a credit card, your name pops into a computer database. Presto, you’ve been traced.” She turned to him and brushed her hair from her face. “How much cash have you got on you?”
“A few thousand.”
She chuckled. “For the first time, I’m glad you are wealthy.”
“It’s all yours. What do we need?”
“I don’t know yet. I’m taking stock of our assets. Once Gustave gives us information on those bank accounts, we can decide our next move. Meanwhile, tomorrow, I want to research black roses.”
“I don’t follow.”
“If every flower shop in Europe sells black roses, tracing the flowers down will be impossible. But if they are expensive, there will be fewer sales, fewer buyers to track.”
“Sales records of black roses might lead us to the assassin?”
“I’m hoping.”
“If we need more cash, just give me ten minutes in a bank—”
“I don’t want to risk it unless we have to. Any computer transaction with your name attached might be traced.”
His lighter winked out. Despite his attempts to relight it, the sparks wouldn’t catch. “Sorry, out of fuel.”
“Tell me the walls aren’t closing in.” She tried to joke, but she couldn’t disguise the tremble in her voice.
Her mixture of bravado and fear had confused him. But now that he understood she didn’t like being confined inside the dark bread truck, he tried to reassure her. “Hey, it’ll be okay.”
Panic edged her words. “We might be stuck in here all night.”
He rubbed his hand back and forth over her arm, trying to heat her icy skin. “No chance of that. He has too much inventory to deliver.”
“You think so?”
He searched for a way to take her mind off the darkness. “Close your eyes.”
“Why?” Her voice cracked.
“Pretend you’re someplace safe. In bed.”
“I ne
ver think of being in bed with you as safe.”
Wow. Double wow. Her muscles went rigid at her admission. She must be terrified of the dark to confess to thinking about him.
Just the thought of what she’d suggested caused his forehead to bead with sweat. Was it so obvious that he wanted to kiss her? Or hold her? She was right. Sharing a bed with him would be anything but safe.
“Come on,” he coaxed. “Close your eyes. Mine are shut. Rest your head on my shoulder. I won’t bite.”
“You’ve probably bitten so many women, you can do it with your eyes closed,” she muttered.
From the way she pressed against him, so hard his ribs ached, he knew the sarcasm was to keep her fear at bay. Her breathing came in ragged gulps. Every muscle tightened into hard knots.
The contradictions in her amazed him. She was afraid of the dark and terrified of social blunders, yet fearless of assassins, protecting him with her own body from an imagined bullet. The thought gave him a warm feeling.
She’d jumped into the bread truck without hesitation, knowing she was petrified of the dark. Shy about wearing a revealing ball gown, she hadn’t hesitated to change her clothes in the middle of a kitchen filled with men. She ran like the wind, yet had the silkiest, softest skin.
As he held her, he tried to forget her comment about the two of them in bed. But breathing in her vanilla scent, it was impossible not to imagine making love to her. What would she be like? Tender kitten or passionate tigress?
The truck’s brakes squealed. Another red light? Or had they reached a stop along the bread route?
As they rolled to a halt, she jumped to her feet, lunged toward the back of the truck. He grabbed her, pulling her back to his chest. Her heart beat frantically against him. Smoothing the hair from her clammy forehead, he sensed that only her strong will kept her from screaming and pounding his shoulders to be free. “Hey, just another minute,” he told her. “Let him open the door and make his delivery. Then we’ll sneak out.”
The door banged open with a clang. Their driver picked up two baskets and wandered away whistling.
“Let’s go.”
She leaped away from him like a cat on fire. Dashing toward the truck’s exit, she tripped over a basket. Bread rolled to the floor, but it didn’t slow her. He followed as quickly as he could.
The truck had stopped in another alley. The damp pavement smelled of oil and tar. Garbage overflowed a receptacle, the stench of rotten food lay heavy in the murky air. A cobbled street led between rows of houses with belching chimneys that spread a pall over the night sky.
Hand in hand, they trekked past stone buildings toward the streetlights. Ford checked his watch. “We were in the truck about half an hour.”
“It seemed like forever.” Her voice sounded close to normal now.
“We must still be in the city. On the outskirts, I’d guess.”
The medieval architecture and colorful fountains that dominated the central part of the city near the embassy had changed to picturesque cobblestone streets lined with flower-decked houses and shops. The road held few cars. A dog barked at the full moon which was partially blocked by puffy clouds. The streets were relatively deserted.
“Let’s put as much distance between us and the bread truck as possible,” Devin suggested, picking up their pace with newfound confidence.
Now that she’d escaped the confining darkness of the truck, she’d lost her nervousness. They might be lost in a foreign city, but that didn’t frighten her. His urge to get them off the streets before they ran into trouble warred with the need to leave town.
Traveling by train or plane or rental car was out of the question. Buses didn’t run at this time of night. “Why don’t I flag down a taxi?” he suggested.
“I’d rather not. The assassin could trace the bread truck’s route, call the taxi companies and ask if anyone was picked up near where the truck stopped. From there, it would be simply a matter of talking to the driver to find us.”
“You’re good at this.”
“Think again. Evading a professional assassin is a lot more difficult than tracking a father avoiding child support. My on-the-job competency is the equivalent of making the mail clerk CEO of Norton Industries.”
He squeezed her hand. “I would be dead if it weren’t for you.”
She fluffed off his praise. “And we may not last a day on the streets if we don’t do some quick maneuvering.”
The streets remained empty except for a couple just leaving their apartment. Devin pointed at two bicycles locked against a wrought-iron railing. “Ford, try and buy their bikes.”
He approached the pair and spoke softly in French in order not to frighten the hesitant couple. Money could be a powerful inducement to sell, especially when he offered double the price of new bikes. With their finances several thousand Swiss francs poorer, they climbed onto the bikes.
“What did you say to them?” Devin shifted gears, her long golden hair flying behind her.
“I told them we were on our honeymoon and our bikes were stolen.”
She looked over at him skeptically. “That’s it?”
“I mentioned we had a hotel reservation, and if we didn’t arrive soon, our first night together wouldn’t happen.”
She let out a low whistle. “You are some liar.”
He wished he hadn’t been lying. For a moment he wished they were on their honeymoon, on the way to their hotel—not fleeing the country, attempting to cross the border pursued by an assassin who might even now be tracking them.
“Where to?” he asked.
“We should head for the border. That way we can keep our options open depending on what Gustave finds out for us.”
They rode the bikes, heading west, then north, then west again toward France, taking short breaks when needed. If he remembered his geography correctly, they weren’t far from the Swiss-French border. Unfortunately, the Jura Mountains separated the two countries. Although less rugged than the Alps, three-to five-thousand-foot ridges created a notable barrier to crossing the border. Once they reached Lake Neuchatel, they’d be forced to head north to Basel or southwest to Geneva where the Black Rose could spot them at a checkpoint.
He drew beside her to converse. “Do you think the assassin works alone?”
“Why?”
Ford made his voice reasonable. “He can’t cover every road out of Switzerland.”
“True. But he’ll have contacts, spies, people who feed him information. Right now, he probably has no idea where we are.” She spoke urgently. “I see no reason to leave Switzerland. We’re close to identifying him.”
Had he missed something? “And how do you know we’re close to identifying him?”
“Because he’s out to kill us.”
He groaned at her logic.
From behind them, a car’s headlights caught them in its glare. He pulled farther off the road. Exposed and vulnerable on their bikes, he drew closer to Devin. She’d just said they were probably safe. She’d also told him she wasn’t qualified for this job. His heart pounded as the light caught them in its glare once more.
Were they in trouble? Had the assassin found them?
“Don’t look back,” she warned.
“The vehicle is slowing.” He glanced to his side, and his stomach clenched as he gauged the distance to the trees and possible safety. Too far. “We’ll never make it into the forest. Any suggestions?”
“Pray.”
Chapter Five
OH, GOD. EVEN a ten-year-old with a squirt gun couldn’t miss a shot at Devin and Ford silhouetted by the nearing vehicle’s headlights. Clutching the gun in her purse, Devin didn’t withdraw the weapon, her heart racing like an Olympic biker crossing the finish line.
The car pulled parallel with them and stopped, and a man called out in
German, “Guten Abend.”
“Bonsoir.” Hello, Ford replied in French.
The stranger’s response sounded French. She glanced at Ford. “What does he want?”
“I’m not sure.”
She climbed off her bike and edged closer to Ford. “If he was the Black Rose, we’d already be dead.”
Ford exhaled softly. “Is that supposed to be comforting?”
The man exited his vehicle, leaving his engine running and his lights on. Of medium height and with a paunch draping his belt, he lumbered toward them. Although he carried himself with authority, he wasn’t wearing a uniform.
As the men conversed, she peered into his car, spotting a police radio next to a half-eaten sandwich.
He might be an off-duty officer, but why had he stopped them?
The assassin probably knew the people and geography of this country a hell of a lot better than she did. And while biking tourists were more common during summer, many Americans vacationed in Europe during the early fall. Could he have tapped into the police computer system and uploaded false data about them? Or was her revved-up imagination verging on paranoia?
At Ford’s responses, the German scratched his head and eyed her as if she were crazy. Wishing she’d studied French, she shifted uneasily in the grass and reminded herself Ford was a good liar. He could handle himself. Ford squeezed her hand, as if to say he had the conversation under control, and she appreciated his gesture.
Devin was accustomed to working alone. Of always being in charge. However, if she had to work with a civilian, she was glad it was Ford.
With a nod, the other man finally returned to his car and drove off. She released her pent-up breath. “Well?”
“He said Neuchatel is about ten kilometers up the road.”
They climbed back on their bikes and headed west. She drew beside him to converse. “That’s all? Why did he stop?”
Ford eased his pedaling and rubbed his jaw as if perplexed. “He said night was an odd time for tourists to be bike riding. And he looked at my tuxedo pants and dress shirt strangely. Can’t say I blame him. He asked where we’re headed.”
Born in Danger Page 7