by Anne Stuart
He’d heard the confusion, the misery, in her voice. And he didn’t know what to do, apart from lying to her. And lying would have done no good, either. She would have known the truth. He wasn’t a man who knew how to love any longer. But he could care for her.
She’d been frightened by the intensity of her response. He’d been awed by it. He’d been hoping to give her at least some pleasure; he hadn’t expected her to be swept away by it. And he certainly hadn’t expected his own reaction to match hers.
Magic hookie-pookie garbage, maybe. It could have something to do with that annoying, almost mystical link they shared. More likely it had to do with hormones and a happy coincidence. They were well suited to each other, despite outward appearances. They were good in bed. Period.
She turned to him in her sleep. She reached for him, her lips murmuring his name, her hands touching him, her face rubbing up against him like a hungry kitten. He wanted her again, with an intensity that surprised him. But the least he could do for her was let her sleep.
He lay in the darkness, listening to the rain beat down on the roof, listening to the sizzle and crackle of the dying fire. It was hours later when she stirred. The rain had ended sometime during the night, and the early light of dawn was streaking through the roof window overhead. She opened her eyes and looked up at the blue sky and the bare branches overhead. And then she looked into his own blue eyes, and she was very solemn.
“You’re in trouble,” she said.
“Am I?” The quilt was covering her breasts. He pushed it down, casually.
“I could get addicted to this,” she said faintly.
“I hope so.” Her body was faintly pink in the early-morning light, and her nipples were hard. Probably from the coolness of the air, but he could hope. “I’ll do my best to keep you hooked. Unless you wanted to become a nun again.” He started to push the covers down farther, but this time she caught them, pulling them up to her neck.
“Don’t be snide,” she said. “It doesn’t become you.”
“That quilt doesn’t become you. Take if off.”
“I’m a mess. I need a bath, I need clean clothes, and I need to talk to you.”
“Um-hm,” he agreed lazily, kissing her eyelids. They fluttered shut just in time, and he moved his mouth to her ear, nibbling at the soft lobe. She liked that, arching her back slightly, and he was sorry he hadn’t tried that last night. “What about my needs?” he murmured softly.
“I can just imagine your needs.” Her voice was tart.
“You don’t need to imagine,” he said, pressing against her. His mouth caught hers gently, and he kissed her slowly, thoroughly, lovingly, doing his best to give her everything he could but the words. When he drew back her eyes were faintly glazed, her lips parted and her cheeks flushed.
“Maybe,” she said very carefully, “our needs aren’t so far apart.”
“Besides,” he said with a wicked smile, pulling away the quilt before she could cling to it, “I happen to like messy women.”
MUHAMMED ALI Reza looked at the woman lying in the narrow, filthy bed. She was asleep, but just barely, and he knew that within an hour she’d be awake and ravenous again. He’d never known a woman with such an appetite for sex, such as unceasing craving for constant erotic adventures. And he wondered if there were other women in the U.S. like Shari Derringer. Perfect little ladies with the souls of whores.
Her cravings disgusted him; her body defiled him. He wouldn’t go anywhere near her, except that she didn’t know how to take no for an answer, and he couldn’t kill her. She also had one other advantage. Her enjoyment of pain was almost equal to his enjoyment of inflicting it.
But for now he’d had enough. The raw, red marks on her body no longer had the capacity to excite him. Besides, he had other things on his mind. He’d been told that Kempton hadn’t checked in when he was supposed to. Ali Reza hoped he was just being thorough before reporting, but he had the gloomy feeling that Kempton had failed.
What harm could two Americans do, far away in Washington? To be sure, he’d found out that the man, the one he’d instantly distrusted, was a professional with impressive credits. An old enemy of the Spandau Corporation, he was an adversary to reckon with, but what could he do when he knew nothing? And there was no way he could know anything important—Ali Reza was too careful a man for that.
And there was the woman with the ghost eyes. He’d wanted to shut those eyes out of superstitious fear and an attention to details. But really, what could she know? He’d read the papers, known she was supposed to be a psychic who could see things other people couldn’t. He didn’t believe in such things. Still, he wished he’d managed to tidy up that small matter.
When this was over, when things were still in a diplomatic shamble, he’d take a quick trip back to that accursed country and track down Elizabeth Hardy. Otherwise he had the feeling she’d haunt him for the rest of his life.
Of course, Kempton might have managed it. But the more time that passed since he was supposed to check in, the more Ali Reza accepted the fact that he had failed. So it was up to Ali Reza once again. And there would be no more mistakes.
The American stirred in her sleep, and he saw a smear of blood on the dirty sheet. He shrugged. It was convenient of her stupid father, of her idiotic, pride-drugged nation, to go along with the deception. The embarrassment and public outcry would be all the greater when the mission was finally accomplished. Mary Nelson had served her purpose, providing an identity for Shari Derringer to travel under. It was even better to have her serve as Shari Derringer’s corpse.
He had no doubts at all as to whether they actually believed the woman was dead. She hadn’t been discreet those past few months in Washington, and they knew the information that lay in the back of her mind, festering there. Much as the U.S. government would like to believe that Shari Derringer’s dangerous knowledge lay buried with the corpse found in the quarry, their forensic knowledge was too advanced.
But there was no way they could have any idea where Shari was. They’d been too careful for that. Every clue would lead the searchers on a wild-goose chase to a dead end. By the time they found Shari Derringer, all hell would have broken loose. And if he had his way about it, she’d be publicly, spectacularly dead.
Chapter 16
IT WAS MIDAFTERNOON before Elizabeth woke up. Sometime during the long hours of the morning the fitful sunlight had disappeared, and a steady drizzle was beading on the slanted glass skylight. She was alone in the bed, but she could hear Sam moving around downstairs, could smell the delicious scent of coffee.
She’d get up in a moment, run herself a deep bath in the old-fashioned claw-footed bathtub and try to soak some of the aches and pains away from her body. She tried to summon up a trace of self-pity for the shape she was in, but none came. Despite the discomfort from parts of her she’d barely acknowledged existed, she felt warm and safe and absolutely wonderful.
She let herself drift, knowing it could be dangerous, letting it happen anyway. God knows it wasn’t a vision, she told herself. Just daydreaming. Wishful thinking. What a cozy house this was. Big enough even for a baby. One, at least. Two would need an addition. And there would be three.
She scrunched down in the big soft bed, wiggling her toes, and she let the fantasy play out behind her eyelids. The images were vague, soft-colored and comforting, and she wanted to float in them, safely removed from real life.
It took no effort at all to know that the quilt beneath her fingers had been lovingly made by an old black woman in South Carolina. Her granddaughter had sold it to a Washington antique shop to support her upscale life-style. Elizabeth could feel the love and caring in the tiny stitches, and she wondered if the granddaughter knew what she’d traded away so carelessly. Probably not. She wouldn’t be privy to the strange strands of knowledge that twisted and filtered through Elizabeth’s brain. If only all her visions, her snips of knowledge, were as gentle.
A flash of red intruded among the m
isty, impressionistic pastels, and she could see the red dress again. She could also sense urgency, even a trace of fear, and she tried to reach it, to focus on it. A rattle of dishes from the floor below made it vanish, and she was just a sore, aching woman alone in a messy bed.
She headed into the bathroom, pinning her tangled hair on top of her head. It was going to take hours to get the snarls out. She should never go to sleep with her hair wet, she reminded herself. Not that she’d actually slept. And not that it was the act of sleeping that had tangled it.
She slid into the deep, warm water with a sigh of contentment. Lovemaking wasn’t quite the peaceful, passive activity she’d envisaged. But, of course, she’d only contemplated it with Alan, a man so gentle and undemanding that he hadn’t done more than give her a few delicate kisses, once he’d understood her fears.
Sam had understood her fears, then overridden them in his usual high-handed manner. And while he’d been gentle, he’d been rough, too, delightfully, arousingly rough in just the right way. She found her body growing warmer than the tepid bath at the memory, the anticipation.
The red dress was hanging on the back of the bathroom door. She found herself smiling wryly as she realized he’d hung it there on purpose. She might as well wear it. The lack of it hadn’t protected her. Though that was probably because she hadn’t wanted to be protected. Not from Sam. Not from her own suddenly overwhelming needs.
The last twenty-nine-year-old virgin bit the dust last night, she thought, looking at her toes peeping up from the steaming water. Sam was absolutely right—it was past time. And almost more important than the mind-shattering, body-dissolving pleasure she’d received at his clever, hard hands, was the knowledge that her mind hadn’t gone sinking into bloody visions. There had been no one in the bed but Sam and Elizabeth. No other heroes and villains, interfering. And she wondered why.
She waited until the water grew cool and her skin grew pale and wrinkled before she climbed out. She was just toweling herself off when she heard the phone ring.
Sam was still talking when she stepped out onto the balcony overlooking the living room, wearing the red dress and nothing else, her long hair fastened in a loose bun at the nape of her slender neck. She knew the moment he saw her—his eyes looked up and met hers, and she was shocked at the brief flare of possessiveness in their depths. And then he returned to his phone conversation, effectively shutting her out as she wandered down the narrow stairs. She tried not to listen, and indeed, he didn’t say much, just made a few noncommittal grunts as she headed for the kitchen area and the coffee.
She heard him hang up, without anything as civil as a goodbye. When she turned he was still sitting on the comfortable old sofa, and his expression was remote, thoughtful and faintly grim.
“Who was it?” she asked, sinking down in the chair opposite.
“Danny.”
“Is it bad?”
“Depends on how you look at it. Kempton’s been found, and they’re treating it like a vehicular accident. I doubt anyone will waste much time on it, and if they do, Danny knows who to call to put a stop to it. The police are on the lookout for the pickup. Marcy Lou didn’t take too kindly to the Audi blowing up, and her bosses didn’t appreciate having the store windows shatter.”
“I can’t say I blame them. What are we going to do?”
“Nothing. They won’t find the pickup here. We’re safe behind one of the best security systems in the world. No one can get in here, and I’ll ditch it before we leave.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why one of the best security systems in the world? Do you have That many enemies?”
“Probably. However, it’s not my security system. I couldn’t afford such a rig. I happen to own twelve acres of a larger property. The owner of the rest pays for the security system.”
“Who?”
“Nobody you would have heard of. He was my boss in the old days, and he’s one of the few men I trust. He’s very old now, and just about crippled from a series of strokes, but there are still people who’d give anything to kill him. The security system keeps them out. It’ll keep people away from us, too.”
“All right.” She accepted the information, albeit unwillingly. “What else?”
“What do you mean?”
“Your friend Danny wouldn’t have called without something more than that. What is it?”
A small, wry smile lifted the corner of his mouth. “How could I have forgotten? You’d be hell to be married to. No one could ever lie to you.”
She kept her face impassive. He’d said it on purpose, testing the waters, and she had no intention of reacting. “Keep it in mind,” she said. “What else?”
“Mary Nelson flew from Kennedy Airport in New York to Orly last Friday.”
“So that’s why. They wanted her identity.”
“It makes sense. I doubt if the missing-persons report made it all the way to the East Coast, and if it did, it certainly wasn’t high priority. No one would have picked it up if Danny hadn’t had a friend run a computer check.”
“Are we sure it’s the same person? Mary Nelson can’t be that uncommon a name.”
“Security video,” he said succinctly. “Now mysteriously scrubbed, but not before Danny managed to hack into it.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “Orly?”
“The Paris airport . . .”
“I know that,” she said, sipping at the coffee. It had been sitting too long, and it was dark and strong and oily, and it went zipping through her veins like wildfire. “I just don’t think she’s in France.”
“Danny’s working on that. Apparently she took another flight to Frankfurt, but we don’t know what happened next. He’ll be calling back in another hour. He told me he’d shoot me if I didn’t answer.” Again he smiled, and that hungry look was back in his eye.
“You’ll answer. I intend to start eating and not stop until everything in this house is gone. Did you finish the pizza?”
“Every bite. There’s soup, frozen steak, beer nuts and crackers.”
“I may draw the line at beer nuts,” she said, heading back toward the kitchen, wondering if he was going to say something, wondering if he was going to follow her, wondering if he was going to touch her.
Instead he stretched out on the sofa. He was wearing a pair of drawstring gray sweatpants, and they were drooping down around his narrow hips. His dark blue T-shirt had seen better days, but he’d managed to shave while she slept. He was watching her out of hooded blue eyes, and she could feel that telltale flush rise again, across her exposed chest, up to her cheeks.
He seemed to have every kind of Campbell’s soup known to man, and she started opening cans haphazardly, trying to ignore him. “You know,” he said, his voice conversational, “I always thought I’d give anything to see you in that red dress.”
She turned, leaning against the counter. “And?”
“I’d much rather you took it off.” His voice was low, sexy and compelling.
“Dream on,” she said, turning back to her soup.
“I’ll do more than that,” he said, starting to rise from the sofa, when the phone rang once more.
With a shrug he answered it, though his greeting was nothing more than a barked, “Yes?” And then he did sit up, tension radiating through his lean body.
Elizabeth turned off her soup. It didn’t take special gifts to guess this was new trouble, nor psychic abilities to know she wasn’t going to get to her soup for a while. She stood at the edge of the threadbare Oriental carpet and listened, watching him out of steady, troubled eyes.
Sam dropped the phone back into the cradle with a short, explicit curse. “Danny,” he said briefly.
“What’s happened?”
He leaned back, watching her out of hooded eyes. “Why don’t you tell me?”
For a moment she misunderstood, and it was like a slap across the face. “You can’t still think I could be involved . . . ?” she began,
her voice raw with pain.
He shook his head, unmoved by her hurt. “No. I’d know if you were. I mean, why don’t you summon up your crystal ball? We’ve reached a dead end, Elizabeth. Mary Nelson flew from Frankfurt to Amsterdam, and then she disappeared. No trace of her, and there’s not going to be.”
“How do you know that?”
“Danny asked the right people. So it’s up to you to find her.”
“I can’t,” she said.
“Or Phil’s death goes unpunished.”
“I told you . . .”
“Not to mention Mary Nelson, the other women in Colorado and God only knows who else. Whatever these people are doing is worth killing for, and they’re not going to stop. When it’s over there’s no telling how many people will die, innocent people. Children. And if you aren’t part of their original plan, once they’ve finished whatever it is they’re doing, they’ll come after you. And me. And the next time they won’t make mistakes.”
“How many times do I have to tell you it’s not that simple?” The raw edge in her voice sounded too close to tears, but there was nothing she could do about it. He’d seen her cry, felt her tears. There was no way she could ever convince him of the myth of her invulnerability.
He was off the couch in one fluid movement, and she wanted to run. Instead she stood her ground, chin raised defiantly as he stalked her. “You forget. We did it before, in the apartment. We can try it again.”
She backed away from him. “Maybe I’ve lost my powers,” she said, her voice a little hysterical. “Isn’t there something about witches losing their powers when they lose their virginity?”
“No,” he said, catching her arms in his strong, hard hands. “They lose their powers when they fall in love.”
She knew he was testing her, taunting her. “That lets me out, then,” she said.
“Of course, only virgins can catch unicorns,” he pulled her closer with a gentle little tug. “Were you planning on going unicorn hunting?”
“No. I don’t want to do this, Sam.” She pulled, but his hands were inexorable. “I feel too . . . too fragile. Give me some time, and we can try it. Please.”