Eight Days to Live

by Iris Johansen

  Jane smiled. “Sorry, I’ll try to concoct a more interesting tale for you next time.”

  “Please do that. I’m losing faith in you.” She glanced at the portrait next to the one of MacDuff’s Run. “You said this was one of the young men who grew up on MacDuff’s estate? Jock . . . ?

  “Jock Gavin. Yes, his mother was housekeeper at the estate, and he grew up running in and out of the castle. He was like a younger brother to MacDuff.”

  “He’s quite beautiful, almost an Adonis with that fair hair and those silver-gray eyes. But he’s too young for you.”

  “There wasn’t anything like that between us. I painted that portrait years ago. He was nineteen when I did that first sketch. I was only a couple years older and we . . . bonded. Jock was going through a rough time, and I was able to help him through it.”

  “Nineteen. He looks younger.” She frowned. “And older. I can’t quite put my finger on it. There’s a kind of an explosive breakability. Intriguing. What kind of a rough time?”

  Jane was silent a moment, then said reluctantly, “He was close to a breakdown.”

  “Why?”

  Jane didn’t answer.

  Celine’s gaze narrowed on her face. “You don’t want to talk about it. You were willing to tell me all about MacDuff and that silly treasure but not about this beautiful boy. That’s even more intriguing.”

  I don’t have the right to talk about it, Jane thought. Celine might be a good friend, but Jane was still fiercely protective of Jock. What was she going to say about him? That boy you think so beautiful had been chemically brainwashed and trained as an assassin by Thomas Reilly? That gentle kid was one of the good people who had been twisted and hurt? Jock, who had already killed over twenty people before that portrait had been painted? Jock, the boy who had tried to commit suicide three times before she and John MacDuff were able to break through to him and bring him back to sanity?

  No, that was just between her and Jock Gavin and would remain that way. “He’s my friend. I don’t gossip about my friends.” She added teasingly, “Which should make you happy. I could have a field day if I decided to gossip about all your affairs.”

  “I wouldn’t care. It would only make me seem more fascinating. But it’s good to know that I could trust you.” She smiled. “More champagne?”

  “No, I haven’t finished this one.”

  “Too bad. I’m trying to get you a little mellow.”

  “So that I’ll let you sell the painting of MacDuff’s Run?”

  “No, I’ll let you keep that one. And the portrait of the beautiful boy.” She sipped her champagne. “I was only leading into my big pitch.”

  Jane gazed at her warily. “Celine?”

  Celine moved to the next painting. “Now this is a painting that I feel it is my duty to take off your hands. True, it also has impact. But who would want to keep it with them all the time? It’s depressing. Even the title. Guilt. What is that supposed to mean?”

  Jane stared at the man’s face in the portrait. He was bearded, his cheeks sunken, his dark eyes burning. She had painted that face years ago. It was one of her works that had been a compulsive obsession until she had finished it. And, once created, she hadn’t been able to let it go. “I have no idea. He doesn’t exist except in my imagination.”

  And in those dreams that had occurred over and over until she had completed the painting.

  Dreams . . .

  No, she wasn’t going to mention those dreams, not even to Celine. “Guilt seemed right at the time.”

  “You don’t know him? He’s not your favorite uncle or your brother?”

  “No.”

  “Then there’s no attachment.” She beamed at Jane. “And you can give him up to make us both rich.”

  “Celine, I told you that—”

  “No, no. Wait until I tempt you.” Celine pulled a card out of her evening purse. “Donald Sarnoff. Computers. San Francisco. He came to me when the show first started and made an offer on Guilt. Very nice. I regretfully refused.”

  “Good.”

  “But then he came back fifteen minutes before the show was over. He said that he had to have the painting.”

  “Too bad. He can’t have it.”

  “Jane, he offered seven hundred thousand dollars for it.”

  “What?”

  Celine nodded. “My darling Jane, you’re very successful, but you’ve not reached that particular pinnacle yet. We’d be foolish to refuse an offer like that. Money is important.”

  “Yes, it is.” Jane glanced back at the canvas. Celine was right about its being an uncomfortable painting. Yet she had never been able to give it up. It owned her as much as she owned it.

  But she didn’t like to be owned. She had fought it all her life. From the time she was a street kid just trying to survive in the slums of Atlanta.

  “Jane?” Celine was softly nudging, wheedling. “I could give a release to the papers, and it would increase your status enormously. It would be a great career move.”

  Everything Celine was saying was true. But, dammit, she didn’t like the idea of her career depending on how much money her painting was worth.

  For heaven’s sake, that was life. Forget the idealistic bullshit.

  “May I sell it?” Celine asked. “Make me rich and yourself famous. What do you say?”

  Jane looked back at the tormented face in the portrait. She didn’t speak for a long moment. “I say that I may be crazy, but I’m not giving it up.” She finished her champagne. “And that I’m tired and want to go to bed.”

  Celine shook her head. “You are crazy.” She shrugged. “But I will keep at you. Maybe I can get this California billionaire to go even higher. You hesitated for a moment.” She made a shooing motion. “Go on upstairs and get to bed. I have to make a few phone calls, then I’ll set the alarm.” She filled her champagne glass again. “Though how you can sleep after such a victory is a mystery to me. I want to go out and celebrate.”

  Jane smiled. “Then do it. You deserve a celebration. This is the best show I’ve ever had, and it’s all due to you. You’re a brilliant woman, Celine.”

  “Yes, I am.” She tilted her head, considering. “And I believe I will go out. Sacré Bleu, one of us should do it. I don’t know why I like you so much. You’re very boring.”

  “True. But I had a rough week at home before I came back here to your Never-Never Land. I could use a little peace and quiet.”

  Celine nodded. “You should stay here in Paris. I know you told me how much you love your adopted parents, but they have to be very grim people. Your Joe Quinn is a police detective. And I’ve read about Eve Duncan and how famous she is for her forensic sculpting.” She gave a mock shudder. “But dealing with all those skulls? Very depressing.”

  For Celine it would be depressing, Jane thought, so she wouldn’t attempt to explain how Eve’s work brought final closure to many parents of children who had been lost for years. “They’re not grim. They just live in the real world.” She looked around the gleaming marble floors and crystal chandeliers of the gallery. “And this is Cinderella’s ballroom.”

  “The real world is what you make it,” Celine said. “And I prefer my world beautiful and full of wonderful toys. When I was a child growing up wearing my sister’s hand-me-downs, I swore I’d surround myself with nothing but things that were new and fresh and unique.” She added, “Like you.”

  “My work?”

  “Yes, yes. But they only reflect what you are. You’re like me. You grew up tough, but you didn’t let it poison you. You’re still full of curiosity and willing to take risks.” She nodded at the painting. “But refusing that offer is a very big risk. I’ll have to concentrate on showing you the error of your ways.”

  Jane smiled. “You don’t feel like concentrating on anything but celebrating tonight. Go party.” She headed for the elevator that would take her to Celine’s elegant suite. It was a charming apartment, beautifully decorated and totally private. Celine
might be a social butterfly, but she clearly liked to divorce herself from the gallery when she got on the elevator and went to her apartment. As Jane punched the button, she glanced back over her shoulder.

  Butterfly indeed. Celine was wearing a black Valentino dress that was the height of sophistication, but she was pulling on a red silk cape that made a brilliant splash of color and caused the ebony darkness beneath it to shimmer. “You look beautiful. Have a good time.” She added quietly, “Thank you for everything, Celine. You’re right, it was a wonderful show.”

  “Yes, it was. I did splendidly, didn’t I? I can’t talk you into coming with me?”

  “Not tonight. But I’d love to have dinner with you tomorrow if you don’t have plans.”

  “Then we’ll have another celebration tomorrow. We’ll go shopping and buy you a midnight blue dress with many sequins, I think. It will be dazzling with that wonderful red-brown hair.”

  “Sequins aren’t my style. And I don’t dazzle.”

  “No, maybe not usually. But you’re beautiful and people stare at you and remember your face after they’ve forgotten all the dazzle around them. But I still think we need a little dazzle to set my Paris whirling.” She swept toward the door, with the red silk cape flowing behind her like a banner. “Go to bed, you boring person. I’ll set the alarm to keep someone from stealing you, but don’t expect me in before dawn.”

  Jane was smiling as she got on the elevator. Celine might not be in before dawn, but she’d be up and working in her gallery by nine. As for Jane, she’d be packing and perhaps spending a few hours walking around Paris before she met Celine for dinner. She loved this city though she never felt totally at home here. It was too sparkling and effervescent. She had been much more at home in Scotland at MacDuff’s Run though the castle’s grandeur should have intimidated her. Particularly since her time there had been filled with the overwhelming threat engendered by that bastard, Reilly, and his hunt for MacDuff’s lost treasure.

  Why had she suddenly thought of MacDuff’s Run? Why not the lake cottage back in Atlanta?

  It must have been Celine talking about the painting and her lust for MacDuff. He had obviously impressed her. Why not? MacDuff was an impressive man, and the force of his personality was pure magnetism. She wasn’t sure that Celine had believed her when she’d told her that she hadn’t gone to bed with MacDuff. Their relationship had consisted of part ally, part adversary in the past few years. Whenever they were together, he ignited a response in her that always put her on the defensive. She didn’t need MacDuff in her life.

  The elevator opened, and she stepped out into Celine’s apartment. All blues and creams and Louis XV furniture and gorgeous bronze mirrors. Restful, but exquisite. All Celine. Not at all Jane. She’d be glad to get back to the U.S. and the simplicity and comfort of her own apartment.

  Day after tomorrow. She’d already made her flight reservations.

  For now, shower, crawl into the bed that looked like Marie Antoinette had probably slept in it.

  In a few minutes Celine would probably be at a club, flitting from table to table like the butterfly to which Jane had mentally compared her.

  Jane didn’t envy her at all.

  JANE’S CELL PHONE was ringing.

  She reached out sleepily for the phone on the nightstand.

  “Whore.”

  She was jerked wide-awake at the hoarse male voice.

  “Bitch.”

  “Who is this?”

  “Blasphemer.”

  An obscene caller. She was about to hang up when something occurred to her. “How did you get my cell number, you creep?”

  “Liar.”

  “I’m going to hang up. And then I’m going to call the police and see if they can trace you.”

  “They won’t be able to do it. I have all the angels of paradise on my side.”

  “I don’t believe angels would have anything to do with a slime-ball like you. You’d better check your information.”

  “You sit there spitting foulness at me in your little cocoon above the gallery of sin, Jane MacGuire. You think you’re safe.”

  A chill went through her. Gallery. This was no random obscene call. He was speaking in English. He knew where she was. Who she was. “I am safe.”

  “Not from me. Not from us.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I’ve left a calling card at the front door. Come and get it.”

  “No way.”

  “Never mind. I see a taxi coming down the street. It may be the whore who runs this gallery. I’ll give my card to her.”

  He hung up.

  Celine.

  She jumped out of bed and ran to the window overlooking the street. There was a taxi drawing to the curb across the street.

  Damn. Damn. Damn.

  She’d be stupid if she went down and opened that door.

  But if she didn’t, then that bastard who had called her might attack Celine when she finished paying the driver and came into the vestibule of the gallery.

  She dialed Celine’s number.

  No answer.

  Dammit, she wished she had a gun. But it was just too difficult traveling with even licensed firearms through airport security. So compromise. Call the police and tell them she suspected an intruder, then go downstairs and talk to that son of a bitch through the door and try to distract him.

  She ran to the kitchen, grabbed a butcher knife, and ran toward the elevator. What the hell was the French version of 911?

  THE GALLERY WAS DARK. Celine must have turned out the lights when she had put on the alarm before she left.

  Jane froze for a second as she stepped out of the elevator.

  The carved oak door of the front entrance was directly across the room from where she was standing.

  She could see the headlights of the taxi through the plate-glass window to the right of the door.

  Stay where you are, Celine. Don’t get out of the taxi.

  She ran across the room.

  Distract him. Quick.

  When she was close enough to be heard, she stopped, and called, “I’m here. Are you out there, scum?”

  Nothing.

  “You’re brave on the telephone. Talk to me, bastard.”

  Silence.

  Had he gone away, or was he waiting for Celine to come toward the door?

  And then the front door began to slowly open.

  She froze.

  But it couldn’t be opening. The door was locked, and the alarm would have gone off.

  She took a step back, her grasp tightening on the butcher knife.

  Someone was there.

  A dark form was silhouetted against the dim glow of the streetlight.

  Her heart was pounding. Where the hell were the police?

  “Blasphemer.” He stepped forward. “He told me to wait for you. I’m trying to wait, but it’s an agony. Come to me.” He had something in his hand, something dark and pointed. “Surely the angels will forgive me.”

  “I’ve called the police. They’ll be here any minute.” Dear God, he was big. But she had the knife, knew karate, and if that wasn’t a gun in his hand, she might be able to—”

  He sprang toward her.

  She sidestepped, then sprang forward, and the edge of her hand came down on the side of his neck. It was only a glancing blow, but he staggered and almost fell. She ran past him and out into the street.

  The taxi. Warn Celine.

  “Celine! Stay where you are. Don’t come—”

  A hand grasped her shoulder, spun her around. “Bitch.” That bastard had followed her from the gallery. He was raising his hand with the odd-shaped weapon. Her foot lashed out and connected between his legs.

  He screamed but didn’t release her.

  She’d have to use the knife.

  He suddenly arched violently backward and cried out.

  What was hap—?

  Then she saw the gleam of metal as a dagger exited his chest.

  Someone was b
ehind him. In the darkness, she could only make out a man, tall, lean, powerful.

  “Jane.”

  He knew her name, but so had the bastard on the phone. Her hand tightened on the butcher knife. She stiffened, waiting.

  The man who had attacked her was falling to the street.

  “Don’t make me take the knife away from you, Jane. You’d fight, and I might hurt you.”

  She knew that voice and that faint Scottish accent. Relief poured through her as her gaze flew to his face. “Jock?” She stared at him in bewilderment as she lowered the knife. “What are you doing here?”

  “At the moment, cleaning up Venable’s mistakes.” Jock Gavin was bending over the man lying before them, going through his pockets. “And trying to get a step ahead of the police I hear a few blocks away. You called them?”

  “Yes.” She could hear the sirens, too, now. Relief was surging through her. The police were coming. Jock was here, everything would be all right. She could trust Jock. At times she felt as if they had been closer than brother and sister.

  He flipped open the man’s wallet. “Henri Folard.”

  She was suddenly jarred out of her shock. “Oh God, you killed him, Jock.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ll get in trouble. I could only report an obscene caller. I don’t even know if we can even prove he was trying to attack me. I know you were only trying to help me, but you have to get out of here.”

  “No. Tell them I was up there in the suite already, and I came down to protect you until the police got here.”

  “But we can’t prove he was any threat to me. It was only an obscene—”

  “We can prove it, Jane,” Jock said gently. “Look at the door.”

  “Door? What are you talking about?” Jock’s hands were on her shoulders, gently turning her to face the gallery, to face the huge oak door that had slowly swung open to reveal the man who had attacked her. “What has—”

  She lifted her head and looked at the door, which had swung back closed from the weight of the burden it carried. The burden that was now illuminated by the streetlight.

  “No! Oh, God in heaven, no!”

  Celine Denarve, still dressed in her flamboyant red cloak, stared back at Jane, her face frozen and contorted with pain and horror. She had been nailed to a cross that had been fixed to the oak door by a huge crucifix nail. There were nails in her palms and feet.