Take Me for a Ride

by Karen Kendall

  There were no signs of gunmen.

  Natalie padded back to the alcove. “I think we can leave now.” The colonel helped her shivering grandmother up from the floor. “Are you all right?”

  “Just a bit creaky,” Colonel Blakely assured her.

  “Nonnie?”

  “Holding together, my dear.”

  “I think we should all go back to the Savoy to wait for Eric,” Natalie said. “Please God, let nothing have happened to him.”

  “St. George—,” Nonnie began.

  “Yes, I know. St. George will protect him,” Natalie finished for her. “Forgive me if I’m still anxious about his welfare.”

  “I don’t like guns,” Nonnie announced.

  “That makes two of us.” Natalie kissed her grandmother’s cheek and took her hand. The colonel had her arm on the other side. “Come on, let’s go.”

  Ted frowned and said slowly, “You don’t think that Eric fellow was telling the truth back there?”

  “Of course not,” said Natalie. “He was bluffing. Scary how good he is at it, too. But I trust him. Don’t worry.”

  They found that the temperature had dropped a good fifteen degrees as they exited the church and walked the few blocks back to the Savoy. Natalie’s whole body broke out in gooseflesh, and she had to clench her teeth to prevent them from chattering. The colonel tried to give her his coat, but she refused it. At his age, he needed it more than she did.

  Their appearance garnered a discreetly raised eyebrow from the registration clerk, but he made no comment until she asked whether Eric had come in yet.

  “Mr. McDougal? No, we haven’t seen him yet this evening. There is a message for him, however.”

  “For him or from him?”

  “For him.”

  “I’ll take it up,” Natalie said. She took the folded message from the clerk. “Thank you. I’ll make sure he gets it.”

  The three of them went upstairs to the room, and Natalie left the message on the nightstand, under the telephone. She was tempted to peek at it, but it wasn’t for her, so she left it alone.

  They all needed a drink and a hot meal, so Natalie fixed Nonnie’s hair and straightened her clothes. The colonel borrowed a comb. Natalie threw on a different sweater and said a silent thank-you that her blind grandmother couldn’t see the sloppy way she was dressed, thanks to Eric’s odd choices from her wardrobe.

  Then they went down to have a somewhat strained, exhausted dinner in the Savoy’s elegant, white-tablecloth restaurant.

  Where was Eric? Natalie could barely contain her rising worry throughout the appetizer and soup courses. Was he unconscious or bleeding to death somewhere? Had the thugs outright killed him and disposed of his body in the Moskva River? Should she call the American embassy and beg for help to find him?

  By the time the main course arrived, a lovely chicken dish with a Georgian walnut sauce, she couldn’t eat more than a bite. Instead she downed more wine in an attempt to soothe her nerves.

  Eric McDougal had entered her life less than a week ago, and she refused to believe that he could exit so quickly. Still, her fear mounted with every passing minute.

  Colonel Blakely picked up the dinner tab, over her protests, and with a shrewd glance at her face suggested that he take Nonnie back to their hotel. She was fatigued.

  “Do you feel safe here alone, after the incident in your room?” he asked Natalie.

  “Yes. They’ve doubled, if not tripled security since then. Hotel management have fallen over themselves to make us comfortable and have even comped part of our stay.”

  “All right. Let us know when Eric returns, will you? I’m going to take advantage of your grandmother’s fatigue and keep asking her to marry me until she says yes.”

  Nonnie flapped a hand at him. “Stop it, Ted. I’m blind.”

  “And clearly I’m deaf . . . We’ll make a wonderful pair.”

  Natalie shook her head at them. “Just say yes, Nonnie. I couldn’t pick a nicer man for you myself.” She bundled them into a cab.

  Then, left to herself, she wandered into the Savoy’s Hermitage Bar and ordered a third glass of wine, telling herself it would be the last.

  The minutes ticked by like passing eons. Halfway through her drink, she couldn’t take it anymore. She got up and left, riding the elevator back up to the room.

  The silence and tastefulness of the furnishings were meant to be relaxing, but instead they screamed at her. The walls closed in, suffocating her in a welter of polished wood, cream brocade, and pastel paintings.

  Natalie glanced at the phone, willing it to ring. The message she’d brought up earlier still sat on the nightstand. She wondered whether it might contain any clue about where Eric could be and when he’d return. It was doubtful, but possible.

  She tugged the paper out from under the phone and unfolded it, feeling guilty.

  McDougal, it read.

  Trying to find you. If you are still chasing the St. George piece, then we need to talk. There are complications. And be careful! ARTemis can’t afford to lose you. Call me,

  Avy

  Natalie read the message, reeling, and then read it again. ARTemis? The St. George piece?

  ARTemis, she knew, was a company that tracked down and recovered stolen art. The “St. George piece” could only refer to the necklace.

  She covered her mouth with a shaking hand.“No . . . ,” she whispered. “No, no, no.”

  Eric didn’t work for the government?

  She tried to process this as her legs began to tremble and refused to support her. She sat down hard on the bed and stared at the note. Her stomach pitched, hurling bile up her throat, but her heart was there already and blocked it.

  She was going to choke on her own heart.

  She couldn’t get any air.

  Still, she tried to deny the evidence in front of her. Working for ARTemis could be his cover, right?

  But that didn’t explain the direct reference to the necklace. It didn’t come close to explaining it.

  She finally got some air down into her lungs; she didn’t know how. But slowly the truth seeped through the blinders over her eyes.

  Eric wasn’t some secret agent. How could she have been so stupid? So blind?

  It’s not a matter of me trusting you, Natalie, he’d said. Please understand that, okay? Let’s just say that you have good instincts. But I am not at liberty to tell you who I work for.

  He’d picked her up in Reif’s deliberately, and she’d gotten tipsy and made it easy for him. Her face flamed as she remembered begging him to make love to her, to give her a happy ending. He’d never been attracted to her in the slightest. She’d been part of a job to him.

  A job.

  No wonder he’d “dropped everything” to drive to her grandmother’s house in Connecticut! No wonder he’d conveniently been there when she’d found her apartment trashed. He’d probably done that himself, the bastard . . .

  He’d told her he was a security expert, for God’s sake. And he was—he knew exactly how to get around security.

  How convenient that he had the urge and the vacation time to accompany her to Moscow! Of course he’d paid her way—it was the least he could do, while he was using her to get to her grandmother and the necklace.

  Mortification beat a mocking tattoo in her bloodstream and pulsed fiercely at her neck.

  Natalie, Natalie. You pathetic, impulsive, naive little product of ivory-tower professors. Believer in honor and chivalry and fairy-tale romance—all the ideals of world literature.

  She’d believed in Eric McDougal. Been dazzled by him. She’d trusted him. Worse, she’d declared her heart to him.

  I fell in love with you that night in Reif’s.

  And he’d tried to shut her up, but she clearly wouldn’t know a clue if it stabbed her with a spear.

  Guys like you don’t end up with girls like me.

  Oh, Natalie. Ya think?

  He must have had a hard time containing his laughter.


  Natalie cringed, even as her anger and sense of violation swelled to volcanic proportions. She’d been in agony for hours now, worried whether Eric was injured or dead. Waiting for him to come back to her.

  And she had given him the St. George necklace with her own hands! Nonnie, you can trust this man . . .

  Sounds emerged from her throat that she didn’t recognize. Little rusty gasps of appalled amusement at her own expense. She should be crying, but she was far, far too enraged.

  She’d done intimate, uninhibited things with Eric sexually because she’d trusted him so completely. He’d been so generous and tender—when all the while he’d been planning to use, betray, and steal from her.

  He was, for all intents and purposes, a thief. And he’d not only stolen the St. George necklace; he’d stolen her heart and all her faith in humankind.

  McDougal waited an hour and a half before moving. He lay on his back, looking up at the stars over Moscow. Inside his jacket pocket his fingers toyed with the St. George necklace. Ten percent of $2 million was a nice chunk of change, enough to put a down payment on that Bertram 540 he wanted so badly that he could taste it.

  Easy enough to smuggle the piece back into the U.S. and walk it into the executive offices at Hiscox.The necklace would go back to the thugs who’d insured it, even if he dropped a hint to Hiscox about the fraudulent provenance. The insurer would void the policy but couldn’t, under the law, keep the necklace. And Natalie?

  Hell. Natalie could still be prosecuted and go to jail, even with Luc Ricard dead and his business presumably defunct. But Natalie was a grown woman and should have considered the consequences of her actions before she “borrowed” the necklace.

  “Natalie,” he groaned aloud. What to do? He liked her. He cared for her. He hated deceiving her. But it was part of his job—which was to recover the necklace.

  Nobody was in the right here. They were all thieves: the Nazi who’d stolen the St. George piece to begin with; the Russian thugs who’d stolen it from the Nazi; Natalie, who’d stolen it from her place of employment; her grandmother, who’d stolen it from Natalie; and now he himself, who’d repossessed it from Nonnie with a lie, by promising to give it back. Who was in the right here? Who among them hadn’t broken the law? And to whom did the necklace really belong?

  To Nonnie, of course, if he were to throw all legalities out the window. But Eric worked for ARTemis, which had been contracted by an insurance company, which had written a policy in good faith.

  Eric broke the law in small ways on a regular basis, simply to do his job. He was a B-and-E specialist, a trained con artist. But his loyalty? No matter what his conscience or his heart told him, his loyalty had to be to ARTemis.

  Curiously enough, loyalty was important to him. It was, in fact, sacrosanct. And that was the very reason he never promised it to a woman—he refused to swear a loyalty that he couldn’t maintain.

  His thoughts returned to Natalie as he fingered the contours of the necklace in his pocket. He’d be a fool to give it back to the old lady. A fool.

  What purpose would it serve? The family treasures she spoke of gaining in return for it had to be long gone. The items would never have survived the war or the greed of their caretakers over the years. Even priests succumbed to temptation.

  If he gave back the necklace, it would be for nothing but redemption in Natalie’s eyes. And even that hope was tenuous at best. Once she found out how he’d deceived her, she’d never forgive him. She’d never trust him again.

  How to explain? There was no explaining. How to make it up to her? He couldn’t.

  So if she was going to hate him anyway, why not give her a damned good reason?

  The bottom line was that she and her grandmother were safer without the necklace in their possession. If he kept the necklace, they’d be protected. Unharmed.

  Wasn’t that worth something? Didn’t saving their lives make him less of a shit?

  Oh, McD, buddy. You are good. You can justify anything in that evil mind of yours, can’t you?

  He did his best to shut down his brain and its labyrinth of twisted logic and deal with his current situation.

  Focus, you bonehead. But he couldn’t.

  He had to find a way to completely neutralize the Russians so that Natalie and her grandmother would be safe. And so, as a last resort, he sent a text message to Kelso himself.

  Russian Mafiya boss: Pyotr Suzdal. Need to neutralize. Dirt?

  If anyone could find out that kind of info, Kelso could. Miguel was phenomenal at digging up information. But Kelso was the master of interpersonal relationships—who knew whom and how and why on a global scale. McDougal hoped he could help.

  In the meantime, Eric had to get down from this building and go rent or steal a car in order to pick up his crazy boss, who was, inexplicably, at an airport with an unconscious man and a tiger.

  Where in the hell did you get food for a tiger? Suddenly Eric remembered the two men who had stepped forward to help him and Natalie when she’d been stuffed into the car—one of them had been a soccer player, Mikhail. The other, Ivan, had owned a restaurant.

  Eric fumbled his wallet out of his back pocket and dug out the scrap of paper Ivan had given him. He dialed the telephone number and asked to speak to Ivan.

  “I’m ready to take advantage of your hospitality,” he said, after identifying himself. “Can you do a very large take-out order?”

  McDougal had a taxi drop him off a couple of blocks from Ivan’s restaurant. Cars lined both sides of the street, and he chose a nondescript beige Renault that had seen better days. He wasn’t stealing it, only borrowing it.

  His mouth twisted wryly as he fished out his ARTemis-issued set of lock picks, easily opened the door, and had the car running within seconds. He eased out of the tight parking spot and into the street. Within ten minutes he’d pulled in back of Ivan’s restaurant and switched license plates with another car.

  Called simply Ivan’s, it was a casual, cheerful little place with scarred wooden tables, mismatched chairs, and a two-sided stone fireplace that kept the patrons toasty on cold nights.

  McDougal asked to use the facilities and was directed around a corner and down a cramped hallway. It was a nasty, dark little room furnished with a crapper that had to date to 1950-something and a sink that also shrieked with age at the turn of its rusty taps.

  He glanced around quickly for someplace to stash the damned necklace burning a hole in his pocket. If the thugs jumped him before he could get back to the Savoy, it was better that he not have it on him.

  There wasn’t much to work with. He wasn’t going to plunge the St. George piece into the gray water in the mop bucket. He didn’t have any duct tape to fasten it under the commode. It wouldn’t be smart to just drop it in the toilet tank.

  His eyes went to the dusty window treatment, which surprisingly enough had once been a pretty, floral, padded cornice board. Limp matching curtains still hung under it.

  He stepped over to it and peered underneath. Then he dug a small pocketknife out of his trousers, reached up with it, and made an incision. Dust and some crumbly foam rubber fell into his eyes and made him sneeze, but he created a pocket that he could slip the necklace into. Then he tugged the fabric back down and tucked under the edges. Beautiful.

  He went to the pocked, pitted mirror over the sink and brushed the particles and dust out of his hair. He washed them down the drain and then cleaned his hands. Now it was time to claim his barbecue.

  “You have party?” Ivan asked, handing over three big paper bags of packaged meat, bread, and salads.

  McDougal nodded.

  “Where is pretty girl? You break up? Give me chance?” Ivan grinned.

  “She’s spoken for, buddy. All mine. Sorry.”

  “You are not sorry.”

  “Well, no,” Eric admitted, grinning back at him. “So how much do I owe you?”

  Ivan shrugged and named a sum that was ridiculously low.

  Eric
gave him double the amount. He sniffed the bags. “Mmmmm.”

  “You will like,” Ivan promised.

  “I’m sure I will.” The question was, would the tiger?

  Thirty-two

  McDougal’s eyes itched as he drove toward Bykovo Airport. The ripped-off Renault reeked of some cheap floral perfume mingled with stale cigarette smoke and mildew. This combination fought with the tangy, smoky aroma of the barbecue and created a strange miasma of vapors that made him sneeze. He’d rolled down the windows to take deep breaths of the freezing air when his cursed cell phone rang yet again. He sighed and rolled up the windows again as he answered it.

  “McDougal!” screamed Sheila out of the clear blue night.

  “What?” he said, holding the phone away from his ear. “I didn’t do it. It was a guy dressed up like me.”

  “Listen, you have to tell Marty that I’m not screwing around on him!”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Tell him, McDougal, please! He noticed the diamond bracelet. I lied about it and said it was CZs, but he’s not completely stupid—who knew?—and now he’s threatening to divorce me.”

  If not for the very real anguish in her voice, this would have been comical. “So why didn’t you tell him you just bought it?”

  “Are you smoking crack, McDougal? Marty is an accountant . Me buying a diamond bracelet for myself is much, much worse than selling my body in the town square. That’s grounds for death, not divorce.”

  “O-kay. So tell him it was only phone sex.”

  “I did! He doesn’t believe me. But you’re a witness. Remember? When I thought you were Sid? The bit about the crotchless panties?”

  McDougal shuddered. “Sheila, babe, I’m so not getting between you and your husband. That comes under the heading of extremely personal.”

  “Just talk to him, I’m begging you. Here he is.”

  “What? No, hell, no, I am not—”

  “McDougal?” Marty growled.

  The tic at the poor little man’s left eye was probably going nuts, making his nerdy little glasses vibrate. He sounded so mad that his straight, limp comb-over strands had gone corkscrew.