by JoAnn Ross
“Always liked the idea of a love slave,” he mused out loud. “Read a story in Rawhide.” Daria was not surprised when he named one of the most lewd porno magazines. The vice guys had brought some in after a recent kiddie-porn raid and although she’d never considered herself a prude, the acts of sadomasochism portrayed in the magazine’s pages had quite literally turned her stomach.
“Guy was in a custody battle with his wife,” he related, “so he took her lawyer captive. The bitch had to do everything he wanted her to do—everything,” he stressed wickedly, “or he’d cut little pieces off her.”
Daria couldn’t help it. She shuddered. “You wouldn’t have to cut me,” she promised. “I’d do whatever you wanted. In fact—” reminding herself that desperate situations called for desperate measures, she reached up and pressed her palm against the swelling visible at the front of his jeans “—I want to.”
When he stirred against her hand, Daria feared she would throw up. Reminding herself that the objective was to survive, she managed, just barely, to keep her revulsion to herself.
He glanced around the deserted cemetery. “Not here,” he decided.
“Where?”
“In the bayou. That way no one can hear you scream.”
Daria knew that if she allowed him to take her away from the city, out into that dark and dangerous place, she would never survive.
He jerked her to her feet with a force that caused a cracking sound in her shoulder joint and made her flinch. Then, as if wanting to stake his claim on her now, he pulled her against him, much as the drunken men in the street had done, ripped off the executioner’s hood and ground his mouth against hers so hard their teeth clashed.
His hand was tangled in her hair, effectively holding her hostage. His thick tongue was down her throat in a way that almost made her gag. The punishing kiss was nothing like the surprisingly stimulating one she’d shared with Roarke O’Malley earlier.
That thought led instantly to another. If she hadn’t run away from the reporter, she wouldn’t be in this fix now.
But she had run away. And never having been one to dwell on what might have been, Daria knew her survival was strictly in her own hands.
Having no intention of going meekly to her death, she jammed her knee up between his legs. When he dropped to his knees, she threw the shell gravel with all her strength into his face.
His roar reverberated off the lonely tombs like that of a wounded lion. She wheeled away and began running toward the street—and, she prayed, safety.
2
IT DIDN’T TAKE LONG to find her. A mere ten minutes after she’d managed to slip away from him, Roarke was headed down Rampart Street when he came across a crowd gathered in a circle beneath the spreading yellow glow of a streetlight. At the center of the circle, a uniformed cop stood guard over an unconscious woman.
Although she was facedown, Roarke had no trouble recognizing the clinging black cat-suit. She was lying in a pool of darkening blood that was being washed away by the light winter rain that had begun to fall. A slender black shoulder bag was on the ground beside her.
Using his size to his advantage, he pushed his way through the crowd. “Roarke O’Malley,” he said, flashing his press badge at the cop. “WorldWide Broadcasting Network. What happened?”
The policeman, who didn’t look old enough to shave, seemed unimpressed by Roarke’s credentials.
“When I say everybody stand back, I mean everybody. Including reporters.” His scornful tone gave Roarke the distinct impression that the news media were ranked with drug dealers and serial killers on his personal hierarchy.
Roarke hadn’t made it to the top of a very exclusive ladder without being able to think on his feet. He also had no intention of letting the woman lying on the pavement out of his sight again. “I’m more than a reporter,” he retorted. “I just happen to be the lady’s husband.”
A murmur rippled through the crowd. The suspicious expression didn’t leave the cop’s face, but his shrug said he wasn’t going to bother arguing the point.
“You and the little woman in town on vacation?”
“Yeah.”
Roarke knelt down beside the prone woman. Her hair was wet with rain and a dark sticky substance that could only be blood. Someone—the cop?—had taken her mask off, revealing a face he knew under normal conditions would be lovely, but was at the moment far too pale.
“Funny you weren’t together. Like most folks on vacation.”
“We got separated in the crowds. That’s easy to do this time of year.” Roarke wondered if he’d suddenly become a suspect. That was all he needed. “We should be doing something for her, dammit.” He shrugged out of his leather bomber jacket and laid it over her.
“I called in for an emergency vehicle,” the cop said back defensively.
She’d been shot. Roarke had seen enough gunshot wounds to recognize the bullet graze on her scalp.
“Wife gets shot,” the cop said, as if quoting the police manual, “first suspect is usually the husband.”
“Yeah, I’ve watched ‘Homicide,’ too.” Watching the anger move across the kid cop’s face, Roarke reminded himself that sarcasm wasn’t going to help keep him out of an interrogation room.
“Maybe it was an accident. Someone shooting a gun off in the air,” he suggested. “What goes up, comes down.”
The cop frowned. “Too many damn civilians shooting guns during Mardi Gras.”
“Isn’t that the truth.” It was not Roarke’s nature to be polite and obliging, but he could be, when necessary. “It’s a wonder half the city isn’t lying bleeding in the street.” He pushed her matted hair away from her temple. She was too pale; her complexion reminded him of the shells underfoot everywhere in the city. “Where the hell is that ambulance?”
Right on cue, a battered red-and-white ambulance came screaming up, scattering the crowd. The rotating red lights atop the ambulance were reflected in the puddles on the street, giving a surrealistic look to the somber scene.
“Where are you taking her?” he asked the paramedic taking her blood pressure and pulse while the other set up an IV.
“Tulane.”
“Hey,” the cop said suddenly, “did you say your name was O’Malley?”
“Yeah.”
“You Mike O’Malley’s hotshot reporter brother?”
“Mike’s my brother.” The hotshot remark didn’t sound like a compliment, but Roarke wasn’t going to rise to the bait. “You know him?”
The cop shrugged. “Everyone knows Mike. We were real sorry he quit the force after that serial-rapist thing.”
Roarke didn’t want to waste time discussing his big brother’s disaffection with the New Orleans police force. “Can’t blame a guy for wanting to be his own boss.”
“No.” The cop frowned, as if wondering what his superiors would want him to do now.
“Look, officer,” Roarke said as the paramedics lifted the woman onto a gurney. “I know how understaffed the department is during carnival. Why don’t I go to the hospital with my wife while you track down some detectives to send over to interview us?”
The young cop looked from Roarke to the unconscious woman, then back to Roarke again. “Well, I guess that’d be okay,” he decided. “Seeing as she can’t tell me anything right now and you’re Mike’s brother.”
“If you’re coming along, let’s get going,” the paramedic complained. “Unfortunately, the lady isn’t the only customer we’ve got tonight.”
Deciding not to give the cop the opportunity to change his mind, Roarke scooped up the purse and jumped into the back of the ambulance. As they slogged through the crowds clogging the streets, lights flashing and siren blaring with scant effect, Roarke reached out to take her hand in his.
The diamond solitaire glittering like ice on the third finger of her left hand was only one of the reasons he hadn’t believed that little story about a blind date.
“Who are you?” he murmured as he absently str
oked a finger down the back of her limp hand.
As if his words had managed to filter through whatever fog was clouding her mind, her eyes suddenly opened. They were the color of aged whiskey, laced with pain and, he thought, fear.
“Please.” Her voice was too soft for the paramedics, who were currently arguing about the fastest route through the carnival crowd, to hear. “Don’t let them kill me.”
He leaned down, ostensibly to stroke her face. “Who would want to kill you?”
Her eyelids fluttered shut She murmured something he couldn’t quite make out
His mouth was next to her ear. “I can’t help you if you don’t tell me who they are.”
Her eyes didn’t open. He could feel her drifting away again. Just when he thought he’d lost her completely, she managed to whisper, “Police.”
His WBN bosses had told him that he was burned-out. Maybe even finished. And although he would never admit it to another living soul, deep down inside, when he’d boarded that plane under government police escort in Moscow forty-eight hours ago, Roarke had figured they were probably right.
But now that he’d gotten himself tangled up with Cat Woman, whoever she was, Roarke was discovering, to his chagrin, that old impulses died hard.
He picked up her purse from the floor of the ambulance and opened it. He bypassed a lipstick tube and birth-control-pill compact and pulled out her billfold. Her Louisiana driver’s license listed the usual information—height, weight, eye and hair color. And her name—Daria Shea. Although her expression was serious, her photo was better than the usual bureaucratic photo, which wasn’t surprising, given her looks.
The wallet also contained twenty dollars in cash, an AMEX card and a Visa. Nothing out of the ordinary.
“Bingo.” He whistled beneath his breath as he got to an ID card identifying her as a deputy prosecutor. Which only made the mystery more intriguing. He had no idea if she was telling the truth, but if she was, he’d definitely stumbled onto something worth looking into. It wasn’t every day cops were trying to kill someone who was supposedly on the same side.
BUSINESS WAS BRISK in the emergency department at Tulane University Medical Center. A steady stream of patients arrived by ambulance, taxi, private car and even on foot. The injured were mostly in costume, as were many of the medical staff treating them.
Impatient, frustrated and wondering why a simple CAT scan could be taking so long, Roarke cooled his heels in the waiting room.
As he watched a woman dressed like the Little Mermaid have a cut above her eye stitched up by a six-foot-five-inch African-American genie, he’d just about decided to go looking for his mystery woman when Michael Patrick O’Malley arrived at the hospital.
“Nice of you to let the family know you were coming home,” he greeted his brother dryly.
“I didn’t have a lot of advance warning.”
Mike pulled back from the fraternal hug and gave his younger brother a long look that Roarke figured probably had worked wonders during interrogations. “Sounds like those rumors that popped up on CNN last week might have some basis in fact.”
Roarke wasn’t in the mood for the third degree. He’d spent the flight back to the States stuck next to a Russian weight-lifter who seemed to be auditioning for a job as a stand- up comedian.
As soon as he’d landed at Kennedy, he’d been whisked by limousine to the network offices where he’d been forced to undergo a furious dressing-down by Darren Fairfield, president of WorldWide Broadcasting Network, that had resulted in Roarke’s tossing his press badge on the wide mahogany desk.
Fortunately, Jordan Conway, VP and head of the news department, had leaped into the breach, soothing tempers and suggesting a cooling-off period for all parties concerned.
Roarke had reluctantly agreed to a temporary leave of absence, had booked himself a seat on the next available flight to New Orleans, where, after checking into the Whitfield Palace, he’d wandered into the lounge for a drink and met Cat Woman. Although this wasn’t the first time he’d been awake for forty-eight hours straight, fatigue was beginning to catch up with him.
“I didn’t kill anyone,” he grumbled. Not that he hadn’t considered it. As it was, he figured that Natasha’s former lover—and murderer—had gotten off easy. If those cops hadn’t shown up when they had, he might have ended up spending Mardi Gras in a Soviet prison, which would undoubtedly have been even worse than the chaos of this emergency room.
“Glad to hear that,” his brother said equably. “How about the little story about someone trying to kill you?”
“That was, unfortunately, too true for comfort.” Roarke sat down in an avocado-green molded-plastic chair and dragged both hands down his face as he remembered the fireball that had once been his car.
“Want to talk about it?”
There’d been a time when Roarke had been able to tell his older brother anything. From the nonjudgmental look on Mike’s face, he figured that might still be the case.
“Probably. But not now.” Not while the wounds were too fresh and raw.
“Suit yourself.” Mike sat down beside his brother.
“I suppose the junior cop called you,” Roarke guessed.
Mike laughed. “They just keep getting younger. Or we’re getting older.” It was his turn to sigh. “Now that’s a damn depressing thought.”
Although Roarke agreed, he didn’t say anything.
“I think the cop got the story a little screwed up, though,” Mike offered. “He said your wife was shot.”
Roarke suddenly found himself on the uncomfortable proverbial horns of a dilemma. He’d never lied to either of his brothers. But if he told the truth, Michael would undoubtedly feel the need to get involved and until Roarke knew what, exactly, he was dealing with, he didn’t want to risk anyone else’s getting hurt. Even knowing Natasha had set him up to be killed that day, watching her die so horribly continued to weigh heavily on his conscience.
He knew that Natasha had left the hotel early to be out of the way. And because she hadn’t known how Roarke was to be killed, it had been easy for Dimitri Davidov to make her the victim instead. Apparently, he had considered her even more of a threat than the American journalist. Which made sense, since it also turned out that Natasha had known a hell of a lot more about the crime syndicate than she’d told Roarke—things she’d apparently been willing to tell the western press for enough money, a long-term network contract and a one-way first-class ticket to America.
Knowing that he would never be able to forgive himself if he ended up getting his big brother killed, Roarke reluctantly decided to stick to the lie. For now.
“It’s a long story. But yeah, that’s pretty much what happened. Looks like she got grazed by a random bullet.”
“CNN didn’t mention you had a wife.”
“That’s probably because nobody knew. We wanted to keep it quiet,” Roarke improvised. “Until we could have a proper ceremony with friends and family.”
“I see.” Mike’s tone remained deceptively mild. But Roarke knew he wasn’t going to get away that easily. “When were you planning to tell Mom that she has a daughter-in-law?”
“That’s partly what I came back to town for.” Hell. The problem with lying was that you just kept getting in deeper and deeper. “To introduce her to the family.”
“Is she Russian?”
“No. American.”
“Where did you meet her?”
“This is beginning to feel a lot like an interrogation. So, when do you bring out the bright lights and rubber hoses?”
“I’m merely catching up on family news,” Mike said evenly. “What’s her name?”
Good question. And one the cop back on Rampart should have asked. Unless, Roarke considered grimly, the guy had already known the answer. Maybe he was one of the cops she’d been running from.
“Daria. Her maiden name was Shea.”
He thought he saw a flicker of recognition in Mike’s eyes, but it was gone too quickly
to tell for certain. “Pretty name. Is she?”
“Is she what?” Roarke was beginning to feel more and more like a suspect. Although his brother had left the force over a year ago to set up his own private investigative business, Roarke figured once a cop, always a cop.
“Pretty.”
The image of the clinging cat-suit she’d poured herself into flashed into his mind. “Yeah, but—”
“I know. You married her for her mind.” Mike’s grin was quick and wicked.
“So, how do you like your new career?” Roarke asked, wanting to shift the subject away from his alleged bride. “Are you living Thomas Magnum’s high life with gorgeous women constantly throwing themselves at you?”
“Haven’t had that much trouble dodging women. But I like the work just fine. Since I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life peeking into motel-room windows in search of errant spouses, I decided to specialize in executive protection and company security. Unfortunately, times being what they are, I’ve got more business than I can handle.”
“Sounds like you made the right choice, then.” Roarke saw the double doors at the end of the room swing open.
“I think so.” Mike’s gaze followed Roarke’s to the gurney the orderly was pushing. “That her?”
“Yeah.” Roarke was already on his feet, making his way across the floor. He noticed he’d been right about the wound being merely a graze; the doctor had closed it with butterfly bandages. Her face was bruised from her hard landing on the pavement. “You’re awake.”
“Yes. I seem to be.” She looked up at him. Then blinked. “Do I know you?”
Was she faking? Or did she really not recognize him? And if she was on the level, what else had she forgotten about this evening? As his brother came up behind him, Roarke couldn’t decide whether to be relieved or chagrined by her apparent amnesia.
On the one hand, she wouldn’t be able to prove him a liar. On the other hand, she also wouldn’t be able to provide a lot of helpful information about what she was doing that had gotten her shot.