The man didn’t move. For another second, she remained still. Who was he? Where had he come from?
She peered around the bed to see the stranger’s eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling. In the middle of his forehead was a bullet hole, in exactly the same place as Grendal’s. Poor man. He never knew what hit him. One moment he was strolling along the balcony; the next, he was dead. Adrenaline surged through her, pushing away her urge to be sick.
Damn it! The Black Rose had found them.
Move. Self-preservation shifted her feet into high gear.
Grabbing her clothes, shoes and purse, she crawled to the unlocked door connecting to Ford’s room. The assassin must have used a silencer since she’d never heard a shot. Apparently the breaking glass hadn’t been loud enough to wake him. She dressed while she whispered to him. “Ford, wake up.”
He didn’t move until she leaned over to shake him.
Half-asleep, he reached around her waist and tugged, tumbling her into the bed with surprising force. She landed on his chest, his arms around her back, his hands on her bottom. His mouth captured hers, tasting of coffee and strawberry jam. His lips nibbled, teased and for one instant, she thrilled to the heat of his mouth, the insistence of his tongue, the strapping strength of his arms. He dug his fingers into her hair, his tongue stole into her mouth, taking her sweetly, passionately, roughly.
At any other time she might have melted into his warmth, but she jerked back with a breathless gasp. “Hey.”
Cracking the window, a bullet whizzed by her ear, the whine inches from her face before it plunged into the opposite wall. As his window splintered, Ford’s eyes opened sleepily, then sharpened, and he released her.
She reached for his clothes, tossed them at him and kept rolling toward the window. “The Black Rose is out there. He just drilled a man between the eyes outside my room. We’ve got to leave. Now.”
“I’m with you.” Ford tugged on his crumpled slacks and slipped into his shoes. Shirt and jacket in hand, he simultaneously crouched and lunged toward the door. From the floor, he reached for the knob. A second bullet smashed into the door.
“Get down,” she ordered. “The sniper has us pinned.”
“Come with me,” Ford insisted. “Since we don’t know where he is, firing back can’t cover our escape.”
“I’ll close the curtains.” She accomplished the task from the floor, wincing as elbows and knees picked up a few slivers of glass. Ford tensed, ready to leap toward the door and into the hall.
“No! Not yet.”
Ford hesitated.
The assassin squeezed off another round that hit inches from his last shot.
“Now. Go now!”
Ford yanked open the door and dived through the opening. A moment later she followed. He picked her up and set her on her feet. They sprinted toward the stairs that led to the street.
At the last minute, Ford held her back. “Won’t he have the exits covered?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. He was shooting a rifle, using a silencer— that’s why we never heard the shots. Let’s hope he’s too far away to cover all the exits.”
Footsteps pounded toward them. Hotel security? Or had the assassin hired help? Whipping her head from side to side, she searched for cover. They were trapped in the hallway. She knocked on the nearest hotel-room door, found it already partway open and pushed inside with Ford on her heels.
A maid was vacuuming. Devin waved, and the woman nodded and continued with her work, no doubt believing the room belonged to them.
Devin looked around thinking furiously. She spied a phone sitting atop a travel guide on the nightstand and formed a plan. “Call a cab to meet us at the back of the hotel.”
Ford phoned while Devin peeked through the drapes. They hadn’t much time. They were lucky the maid hadn’t heard breaking glass over the vacuum. Someone would investigate the clamor soon though, find the body in her room and summon the police. They couldn’t stay to answer questions, not with the assassin taking potshots at them.
Ford replaced the receiver. “No taxis. Buses, trains and canal boats are the local transportation. So I hired a horse and buggy.”
The maid, who had been cleaning the shower, strode out of the bathroom, nodded a goodbye, then left. Devin waited until the door shut behind her.
“How long before the buggy arrives? Is it a closed vehicle?”
Ford opened the closet to reveal men’s clothing hanging neatly inside. “Five minutes till the buggy arrives and it’s only partly closed in with canvas. Now tell me about the shooting in your room.”
“I woke up to a dead man crashing through the window by the wraparound balcony. I got out fast.”
“Did you recognize him?”
“No.” She thought back with a shudder and recalled the wedding ring on his left hand. Another senseless death. A woman would grieve over her husband’s inexplicable demise. This morning the man had probably said a casual goodbye, perhaps he’d kissed his wife. They might have even had a small spat as married people often did. Perhaps they’d looked forward to making up this evening—and now he would never return. She blinked back tears, knowing his death, like Grendal’s, would always be with her. “Who do you think he was?”
“Probably an innocent bystander in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Suddenly, she recalled more details about the dead man and the blood drained from her face. “From a distance the man would have looked like you. He had dark hair and wore a white shirt and dark pants. A change of clothes is in order, but there’s nothing here that won’t swim on you.”
Ford’s face remained calm, but his eyes flickered with sorrow and regret. He removed a pair of jeans from the closet and held them up to his waist. “Think these will fit?”
Before she responded, he strode into the bathroom and shut the door. How could he be so calm? Every nerve in her body jangled as if shaken. The Black Rose must have been watching and waiting for a shot. At a distance, the man in her room looked like Ford, but the killer already knew of his mistake since he’d fired again into Ford’s room. Was he still out there, waiting?
Ford returned, wearing the jeans but minus a shirt. “I’ll leave money on the bed for what I’m taking.” He stuck his head back into the closet. “Wish I could find some shoes. Rubber soles would be better for running.”
His broad back had the tanned muscles of a fit swimmer. His smooth skin rippled with a masculine beauty she shouldn’t be admiring. When he glanced up and caught her staring, his eyes warmed with a knowing light. She looked away to cover her embarrassment and opened the dresser drawers.
He grabbed a shirt and tried it on, but his broad shoulders didn’t fit, and he resorted to putting his white dress shirt and black jacket back on.
While she cracked open the door and checked the hallway, Ford left money on the nightstand. She didn’t see or hear anyone nearby, although a crowd had gathered around their former rooms. Ford came up behind her, his warm breath fanning her neck. In the distance, a wailing siren neared.
They walked down a flight of stairs, Ford’s arm looped over her shoulders. A bearded man wearing heavy work boots and a plaid shirt lumbered toward them in the narrow hallway. Ford tensed but kept walking. Her free hand clutched the gun in her purse.
The other man noticed them and tramped by. Two police officers barreled past, and her nerves jerked in time to the pounding heels of their boots.
As much as her heart hammered her to hurry, she and Ford strolled toward the back exit. Leaving the hotel, they would be the most vulnerable. But perhaps the police presence had forced the Black Rose to retreat.
At the sight of their transportation, Devin’s hopes for a clean getaway rose. A sleek black horse in harness grazed on the grass beside the walkway, while the driver stood by the door. “Bonjour, madame, monsieur.�
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While Ford gave the driver instructions, she settled into the red leather seat, appreciative of the matching red hood that gave privacy from the sides and rear. “Where did you tell him to take us?”
“Someplace romantic,” Ford replied.
As the buggy pulled into the street, he touched her cheek lightly, and she frowned at him. How could he think of romance after a man had just been shot outside her room? They were lucky to have survived. As he caressed her neck, sending heated tingles down her spine, she wondered if his sudden affections were a ruse to throw off anyone who might be watching. “This is hardly the time for—”
He drew her against his side. “Relax. We’re hidden. I told him to take us into the hills, someplace private. After we arrive we can decide where and how to cross the border and what to do afterward. I think we should head for England and check out the account Gustave gave me, and if nothing solid turns up we should return to the States.”
“We came here to find the assassin,” she protested, unwilling to give up.
“And now the assassin has found us. When I agreed to help you, I didn’t anticipate being hunted across Europe. I thought we’d track down your clues and turn the information over to the authorities.”
“I’m sorry. My mysterious client got us both into more than I bargained for. But I don’t want to give up.”
“Just because we go home doesn’t mean we’re giving up. My power base is in the States. I can fight the assassin better on home ground.”
His words made sense. So why did leaving for home feel like defeat and as if she was abandoning her promise to herself to find her cousin’s killer?
She bit her lip until it throbbed like her pulse. “You want to give up? Go home?”
For all her determination, not even she could justify proceeding with their investigation. Her shoulders slumped. There was no point in staying. Unless the London bank gave them a name, they had no clues.
At the sadness in Devin’s voice, Ford pulled her against his side. “We aren’t giving up. I don’t command the resources here that I do at home. We need a base of operations. A safe place to gather information and make phone calls without worrying about whether they’re being traced. Besides, I could use Martin’s help on this.”
“How can your partner help us?”
“Martin is well connected. He graduated from Yale with accounting and business degrees and went on to Harvard Law School with my brother, Max. He has friends in high places, and so do my parents.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Martin knows people of influence in business and government. From her charity work, my mother has friends in police departments across the country and in several newspapers, people who could prove useful.”
The carriage driver steered the horse through the busy streets with the dexterity of long practice. She settled against Ford, but tension radiated from her. “Phones in Louisiana can be traced, too.”
“But if anyone tries, we’ll know it.” How ironic they’d come to Europe to hunt the killer who was now hunting them. He forced conviction into his tone, hoping to convince her. “Louisiana is home territory. There, the advantages will be in our favor.”
Sighing, she expelled air slowly. “So how do we go home?”
“As I mentioned earlier, the usual transportation out of town is by bus, train and canal boat. Since we don’t have fake identification, renting a car is out of the question.”
She signaled him with her eyes the driver might be listening.
“He doesn’t speak English. I asked,” he reassured her, realizing how little she trusted people.
Momentarily silent, she rubbed her thighs with her palms, then said, “Ask the driver if there’s an airstrip in the area.”
He should have thought of that, but the scent of her shampoo and the curve of her hip, distracted him. Actually, she was much more than a distraction. Another woman would have been screaming or crying after a dead body crashed through her window. Not her. After all they’d been through, she refused to give up. He admired her devotion to Rhonda, although he couldn’t quite understand it. He’d never understood the cousins’ childhood connection.
What else hadn’t he known about his wife?
Only now was he realizing that Rhonda had looked to him for approval and happiness. As much as he’d loved his wife, she’d relied on him to make her happy. He’d tried, and mostly succeeded.
His thoughts returned to the woman beside him. He’d never known a woman with Devin’s talents, courage and resourcefulness. And she didn’t look to anyone to keep her happy. She made her own. Sure, her career was clearly important to her, yet she wasn’t driven by work, and between crises, seemed able to relax.
More important, Devin didn’t seek his approval and that lifted a tremendous weight from his shoulders. Her self-confidence made her an equal partner, and sometimes he enjoyed letting her take the lead. She’d recognized from the beginning that his connections would help them. Where another woman might have felt inadequate or intimidated by his reputation, Devin hadn’t hesitated to ask for his assistance. Hell, she’d been fearless enough to kidnap him for it.
She nudged him. “Did the driver say we can fly out of here?”
“Neuchatel isn’t large enough for an airstrip. But there’s a chance we can ride through the Juras to France.”
“I didn’t think roads passed through those mountains.” Devin glanced to the bluish-green mountains ahead, then back to him, a guarded expression in her honey-colored eyes.
“The driver is taking us to a horse farm. For the right price, we can ride straight into France.”
“We’d avoid Customs.” Her voice rose with excitement. “We could slip away while the Black Rose is watching the normal routes out of Switzerland. There’s only one problem.”
“What’s that?”
Her eyes had a sheepish look layered with determination. “If our survival depends on fleeing on horseback, we’re in trouble. I don’t know how to ride.”
Chapter Six
“TRY AND RELAX. We’ll start at a nice, gentle walk. You all set?”
“I guess.”
Ford had convinced Devin that the best way to avoid detection by the assassin was to avoid the regular routes out of the country. Jacques could take them over the mountains on horseback, and he’d agreed to supply them with food, clothing and bedrolls along with the horses. Although she’d never ridden a horse, she’d finally agreed.
Ford clicked his tongue, and his horse clopped forward with an eager jerk. Devin clasped her arms tighter. “You trying to crack my ribs?”
“I’m a city girl. I’ve never been on a horse.”
Riding beside them, Jacques Moran, their guide and owner of their mounts and equipment, didn’t say a word. Whipcord lean and bowlegged, he dressed like an American cowboy in pointed boots and jeans, his only concession to his ancestry a beret instead of a ten-gallon hat. He led them away from his Swiss home toward a hard-packed trail over the Juras into France.
“I spent my summers on a farm,” Ford told her. “I can’t remember a time when I couldn’t ride.”
“You were precocious?”
“Nope. Red had all three of his boys riding before we could walk.”
“Did you ever fall off?”
“A time or two. Craig once fired a shotgun while Max and I rode bareback. The horse stopped dead.”
She gripped him even harder. “What happened?”
“We went flying over the horse’s head.”
“You could have been killed.”
“We were just having fun.”
Perhaps talking about being thrown off a horse was a mistake. He’d meant to ease her fears while they headed through the pasture. Once they reached the cover of the forest, where a sniper couldn’t pick them o
ff so easily, her nerves would settle down.
“I didn’t get hurt. I broke the fall with my hands and rolled. Max landed a bit harder, but he only sprained his wrist.”
“It sounds like you fell like a judo master.” The tension eased out of her. “Your parents had their hands full with the three of you.”
She eased her hold on his ribs and moved with the horse, her breasts rubbing his back. She jerked away, then yielded to the necessity of their closeness. He kept talking to distract her. “You know judo?”
“Mmm.”
He’d never known a woman who’d studied judo. He recalled how easily she’d tackled him in the ballroom. He also remembered when he’d pulled the key out of her pocket on the airplane. Suspecting she could have broken away if she’d wanted, he wondered why she hadn’t. Her threat to kick the key from his hand probably hadn’t been idle. Odd she hadn’t mentioned her ability then.
“Excusez moi, monsieur.”
“Yes?”
“The land is flat. We could make better time across this area in a canter.”
Devin’s fingers clutched him. “Uh-oh.”
“A canter is a smooth gait between a trot and a gallop. Just keep your hips centered over the horse’s spine. Hold on and don’t make any jerky movements.”
“Easy for you to say,” she muttered.
He grinned as she clutched his chest tight.
They’d climbed a bit, the slope so gentle Ford barely noticed. The horses’ hooves no longer clopped in hard-packed dirt but landed in muffled thuds in the grass. Few cows grazed here. Instead, sheep and mountain goats roamed amid the high green grasses, while overhead, bluebirds circled lazily.
The horse’s swift gait stretched the muscles in Ford’s legs still tight from biking. Behind him, Devin bounced. He gave instructions softly. “Move with the horse. Don’t fight him.”
Twenty minutes later, Ford looked over his shoulder at Devin’s face. Her cheeks had flushed to a rosy hue, and her eyes sparkled. Tendrils of hair had slipped from her braid and softened her cheekbones.
Born in Danger Page 9