Kat gave a harsh laugh devoid of humor. “Like being murdered?”
Releasing the towel, Sebastian pulled Kat against him, his arms crossing her waist. She leaned into the embrace, bolstered by his presence. “Senora Martinez, I know what Tio Felix wanted. For me to create the Cinchona and take it to the Mutambo. To return their legacy.”
“That’s right.” She skimmed her eyes over the couple before her, hoping what she knew of Katelyn and what she suspected of Sebastian was true. “Follow me.”
Kat moved first, Sebastian’s arms falling away. The loss made him hesitate, a forerunner of what would happen when they found the Mutambo. Pushing the grim thought aside, and with the corresponding ache settled near his heart, he followed.
Gabriela led them to the extraction room. The desk that held the extraction system had four drawers. She pointed to the bottom drawer. “Sebastian, reach underneath the desk. There’s a key screwed into the base.”
He didn’t argue. Instead, he lay flat on the cool tiles and scuttled under the massive frame and, near the far right leg, caught sight of the key. “Give me something sharp.”
Kat dashed into the main room, found a knife. Returning, she knelt and passed the blade to him, handle first. Sebastian unscrewed the oblong shape and handed out both the key and the knife. From the shape of it, he recognized a safe-deposit key.
Without pause, Kat passed the key to Senora Martinez and helped Sebastian to stand. A tiny thrill coursed through her when he maintained his hold. “What is it, Senora?”
“A safe-deposit box key,” replied Sebastian. “The operative question is where is the box.”
“I know where it is and what is inside,” Gabriela said. “A map, I think. And money. The Mutambo are not friendly to outsiders, but they are not hostile. My Josef has known some of their kin. The village is not on the main roads. You will have to travel along the coast and hike into the country, to where Bahia is crossed by the Amazon.”
“There’s no way we can get into a bank dressed like this, especially with our friends on the lookout. Exactly how are we supposed to use the key?”
“The bank is not here in Canete. It is east, in Huanco. We should go.” She stepped forward and patted Sebastian’s cheek. “Are you a sailor, Sebastian?”
“I’ve been in a boat.”
“The runabout is small and motorized.” Kat spoke up. “Tio Felix taught me to use it years ago. I’ve kept it up.”
“Well then, we should go.” Senora Martinez bobbed her head, pleased. “My vehicle is at the cove, and we will have to walk there from here. You need shoes.”
The trio walked into the main area and Sebastian broke off, going to the computer. “I’m going to download his files. A precaution.”
While Kat and Gabriela packed provisions, he logged onto the account he’d established. The yellow envelope warned him of mail.
TO: [email protected]
FROM: [email protected]
RE: RE: Finder’s Keepers
You disappoint me, Sebastian. Deliver the Cinchona in two days or Dr. Katelyn Lyda dies. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not even two months from now. But one glorious morning, as she gardens at her cottage in Miami, an assassin will plant a bullet in her forehead, a bullet you can stop if you keep our bargain. Deliver the Cinchona, and I will still pay your fee and guarantee her safety. Do not disappoint me again.
Taking a deep draft of air, Sebastian surrendered to the coursing of black ice that froze him to the core. Terror grappled slickly with violence, and he wondered about the line between salvation and betrayal, where a secret transformed into a lie that devoured.
To save Kat’s life, he’d have to use her and desert her. He’d have to comply with Helen Cox’s demand and trade the future of an impoverished community for one woman’s life.
The line blurred for him, taunted him. He’d never loved before, never cared about the lines. Then, because he’d crossed so many, he stepped over it. For once, though, the action bothered him on levels he hadn’t known he possessed. But as he shunted the disturbing nag of conscience aside, a gaping wound seared him where his heart had been.
There was no help for it, no question. He would betray Kat, rob her of redemption to save her life.
TO: [email protected]
FROM: [email protected]
RE: Finder’s Keepers
You win. But the price just went up. Ten million for the manuscript and Borrero’s diary. With billions awaiting you, I’m sure you won’t quibble over price. I’ll meet you in Lima on Friday.
With a steady hand, he pressed send.
Chapter 20
Helen read Sebastian’s e-mail again. His latest demands were steep, but not too onerous. After all, she’d struck her bargain with him before he’d known the true value of his target. Caine was too much the businessman not to seek higher profit. As long as he delivered, the Cinchona was a bargain at twice the price.
Bringing the Cinchona to the marketplace served her purposes sufficiently. Beautifully. A masterstroke to cement her as the rightful heir to the Taggart legacy. Were she more spiritual, Helen would have thought it preordained. Destined.
Had it only been months ago that she received the plaintive communication from Clifton Burge? A silly old man with a fear of death and access to information that had kept Taggart on top for years. A useful partnership, as Burge required an alternate stream of income to his bureaucrat’s salary, a way to pay for his hypochondria and penchant for exotic treatments.
The private partnership between Taggart and the NIH had been created when her uncle had done his residency with Burge. And he’d introduced a twenty-year-old Helen to him during her stint in Washington, before she assumed the helm of the family company.
Helen Taggart Cox, daughter of Phillipa Taggart-Cox and Jason Cox. CEO of Taggart Pharmaceuticals. Unless her board meeting in one week resulted in her termination. Taggart had been flying high under her leadership, until recently, when three of their drug trials had resulted in catastrophic deaths, and a pending lawsuit threatened to drown the company in damages.
But in the labs belonging to Taggart and her partners, the Cinchona would save them all. Four companies, each on the brink of ruin. Santé Laboratoire, headed by Marguerite Seraphin, which had not brought a new drug to the marketplace in four years. Its last cash crop, the cancer drug Wynzert, had generic competitors hitting the stores in December. Then there was Gezondheid Corp., the upstart Dutch company led by Kenyan exile Vincent Palgrave. Palgrave had falsified his company’s financial records and was in desperate need of a hit to cover his tracks. And Jeremy Holbrook’s HolStrum Labs, an American company accused of hiding test results for an AIDS drug, a public relations nightmare that required a distraction. Helen had found the solution for them all, had brought together a team bound by a prisoner’s dilemma so taut, no one could afford betrayal. At the light rap at her door, Helen pressed the buzzer and the door swung open to frame Marguerite. “You’re early.”
Marguerite sank gracefully onto the rich red leather. “I’m interested in our status.”
“Sebastian Caine and Dr. Lyda are under control.” Helen lifted a Mont Blanc from the desktop, twirling it absently between her fingers. “I have been in contact with my recovery specialist. He has agreed to deliver the Cinchona. We are on call.”
“Captured by your other team?”
“No.” Helen scowled and lifted a cigarette to her lips. She ignited a black-lacquered lighter, and quickly, pungent smoke filled her lungs and settled her nerves. Enzo had reported in, had told her of Turi’s accident. She felt a bit of sympathy, as she enjoyed Turi’s penchant for hostility and his ease with knives. “They are on track, in case anything else goes awry.”
“But nothing will, no?”
Dragging deeply, Helen puffed out a moue of smoke, the ring evaporating into the chilled air. “No. Caine has the manuscript in hand.”
“Where was it? When will it arrive?”
Pleased, Helen became expan
sive. The Cinchona was her brainchild. Her salvation. “Before our board meeting. In time for our labs to run tests.”
“Has Dr. Lyda tested the Cinchona? Is there proof from live subjects?”
“Of course not.” She’d thought about the communications between Burge and Estrada, and it occurred to her that the niece might try to accomplish what her uncle couldn’t. “Estrada didn’t manage it, so I don’t see how she could.” Helen inclined her head to the doorway, where Palgrave and Holbrook waited in the vestibule. “You know that making the compound stable has been the greatest challenge. Burge tried to help Estrada, but Estrada refused to tell him all of the elements that needed to be combined.”
“Could Katelyn Lyda figure it out? Helen, be honest.”
“Yes, with enough time, I think she could.”
“Then we need to bring them in. Now.”
Helen shook her elegant head, the tight coiffure remaining immobile. She possessed sole control over the turn of events, a control she did not intend to relinquish. “We have exactly what we need. There is no cause for alarm.”
“What happens now?”
“Exactly what I promised when I brought you all on board. I promised you a return on your investment, and you will have it.”
In the years Marguerite had known Helen, their mutual admiration had been tempered by a healthy distrust. Still, she had never had her suspicions confirmed. “Who will deliver the Cinchona? Sebastian Caine?”
“He has not deserted his baser instincts. However, he has upped his price for delivery. I will need an additional $3 million from each of you immediately.”
“Fine. I will consult with Vincent and Jeremy.”
“As long as they do not interfere,” Helen demurred. Sebastian Caine had shown a recent wavering in his amorality, a disturbing trait she didn’t quite trust had been quelled. She’d allow Enzo’s bumbling hacks to follow them and ensure their arrival in Lima, she would take the Cinchona and redirect the group’s investment into her own special R&D account in Zurich.
She pressed the intercom button on the sleek red phone. “Send in Mr. Palgrave and Mr. Holbrook. We have much to discuss.”
Senora Martinez drove the truck with a Formula 1 driver’s speed, whipping around the tight curves of the highway without regard for gravity or her passengers. Snugged between her and Sebastian, Kat watched the road with terrified fascination. If they made it to Huanco alive, she’d be amazed.
She was amazed to be alive at all. She’d been chased, shot at, shot at again, and in between, she’d solved a centuries-old medical mystery and fallen in love.
With a man who couldn’t admit he loved her and never would.
Kat searched vainly for anger, wanting to feel something other than the growing shadows that gloomed inside. But there was only sadness and resignation and that primal urge to be with him again and again and again until reality returned.
Because, Kat admitted wanly, despite the way he held her hand, or watched her with those piercing, intense eyes or made love to her in the dark of night, Sebastian Caine did not love her.
It was impossible—and imprudent—to believe otherwise. Sebastian wasn’t a man to mince words, and he’d warned her more than once that love was out of the question. They were from not only different worlds but diametrically opposite ethical planes.
She wanted to believe she wasn’t in love with him either. Falling in love so quickly was the stuff of fairy tales and caprice. A smart, balanced woman didn’t succumb to the lure of danger and the romance of adventure.
She didn’t brazenly kiss a beautiful, bad man who had stolen from her and her family.
She didn’t take a small kindness and spin a fantasy of happily ever after.
She didn’t hope that everything she knew to be true wasn’t. Which was why loving Sebastian baffled her—she, who valued honesty and morality, bound by heart to a man who glibly decried a belief in either one. He was a self-proclaimed thief and a devout liar. And the one reason she was still alive.
Kat furtively studied Sebastian’s stern profile, the gorgeous mouth hard and immobile, the rugged jaw set. The man was a walking, breathing mass of contradictions. He was heroic and loyal and more honorable than most of the men she knew.
More than once, he placed himself in danger to protect her. More than once, he violated his own rules against caring about others to soothe and comfort her. To save her.
The paradox of him fascinated her, captivated her. He eschewed sentiment, but cradled her in his arms when she whimpered in the night. Forswore obligations to anyone but himself, and yet, here he sat, traveling to Huanco to help her fulfill her pledge to her uncle rather than taking the Cinchona and heading for New York.
The truck lurched around another hairpin turn, tossing Kat into Sebastian. She sprawled onto his lap and gripped at his knee to brace herself. Her other hand splayed across his chest, and because she couldn’t help it, she curled her fingers against the beat of his heart. She swallowed once, her pulse fluttering in time with his. Testing, she slid her hand higher, to brush the rigid jawline that seemed hard as concrete. “Hmm,” she murmured. “Can’t seem to keep my balance around you.”
Beneath her touch, Sebastian savored the contact, the gentle heat he knew could explode into an inferno with a stroke, a touch. But their idyll had ended with Senora Martinez’s arrival and his betrayal. He no longer had the right to enjoy her scent, to revel in even the briefest contact. His happiness had been forfeit when he accepted Helen’s ultimatum.
With more control than he realized he possessed, Sebastian merely wrapped his hands around the taut, narrow waist he’d strung with kisses the night before, and when he wanted to hold tight, he set her away from him. “Grab the dashboard next time.”
As quickly as he could, he snatched his hands free and dropped them onto his lap, ignoring the hurt arrowing into the bright, wide eyes. Turning away, he stared out the window, wondering where in the hell he’d gone so terribly wrong.
In his whole damned career, he’d avoided the one, unforgivable sin of a rogue. Never fall for a mark. The moment emotion entered the picture, sanity and smarts vanished. Which was why he had three good friends in his life and no lover who meant more than fun, raucous release.
He’d come close before, tantalizingly close. Until he remembered the trade-off. Give away your heart, he understood, and you give away your edge. All of a sudden, decisions aren’t cold and clear, they’re hazed up by feelings and promises and the desperate urge not to disappoint. Fall in love, and the woman would sink into you, deep into your skin, into your very bones. She’d cloud your judgment and mess with your head until all you knew, all you wanted was her.
So he resisted. Time and again. And now, in days, he’d lost his edge. Handed it to Kat on a silver platter. Along with his heart.
And as soon as she figured out the truth, she’d crush it and leave him empty.
He had options, he knew. With another woman, he might have told the truth, asked her to disappear with him. His nest egg was solid. They’d be able to live nicely in Europe, richly in the islands. Even if he retired, he’d take an occasional gig here and there to keep the skills sharp, their lives safe.
But Kat wasn’t made for his kind of retirement. Not with her sense of justice, the one that spurred her to fulfill a dying man’s wish despite her grief and the peril. No, not his Kat. She’d try to accept him and his work, trying to reform him. With her tenacity, she’d believe it possible. And if she loved him, she’d never admit defeat. Until he’d eroded her trust, broken her spirit. Until she gave in and accepted the man he was. Would always be. And was no longer the woman he loved.
Sebastian rolled down the window, ignoring the blast from the air conditioner. Warm, sultry winds gusted into the car, mingling with the artificial air. The two battled for dominion, the wind bowing to the cold. It wasn’t a fair fight. Never could be.
“What are you doing, Sebastian?” Senora Martinez eased off the gas to bark at him. “Put th
e window up.”
Sebastian complied, turning the handle quickly. He clenched his jaw and looked past Kat to Gabriela. “How far to Huanco?”
“Another fifteen minutes or so. We’ll stop by a store first, get you two better clothes. You can’t go wandering around in those pajamas.”
“What about the bank?” Kat asked quietly, her eyes fixed on the road. “We don’t have the identification that matches the safe-deposit box.”
“No, but we may yet be able to gain access.” Senora Martinez shot a glance at Kat. “Felix wanted you to take the contents.”
“What? Why?”
“Because he considered you his next of kin. All of Felix’s belongings and possessions belong to you.”
“I don’t want them.”
“Katelyn—”
“No. I will do this for him. I’ll return the Cinchona to its rightful owners, but I will not own those other items he stole. I won’t profit from his thievery.”
“Now, wait a minute—” Senora Martinez began.
“Felix didn’t steal, Kat.” Sebastian spoke over Gabriela, his tone obdurate and unyielding. “He usually bought his possessions at twice the going rate, just to make sure the artisans were rewarded. Think what you like about your uncle, but he wasn’t like me. He was a good man.”
Aghast, Kat looked over at Sebastian, her mouth open with remorse. “I didn’t mean that you aren’t a good man.”
He laughed, the sound low and guttural. “Sure you did, honey. And you’re right. I’m not a good man. But we’ve gone over this before.” He glanced over at Gabriela, who had slowed the truck even more. Making a decision, he jerked his thumb to the shoulder of the road. “Pull over, Senora. Kat and I need to have a chat.”
The truck clabbered over the rough terrain to an area that could generously be called a shoulder. Sebastian unlatched the door and hopped out. “Come on, Kat. Let’s go.”
Sensing something she didn’t quite comprehend, Kat followed as he strode briskly along the trail, winding down into a ravine. Blocked from sight of the truck, he stopped.
Secrets and Lies Page 21