Femme Faux Fatale

by Susan Laine

  Camille chuckled as she straightened up and backed off, her arm extended and the barrel of the gun aimed squarely at Cain’s chest. “I make no promises. Since you bedded your client, you’re not a gentleman. As I’m no lady. We’re a match made in hell.”

  Inching away from Riley and starting to get up, Cain grimaced as he gathered one of the sheets around his naked body. “What do you want? Shouldn’t you be halfway across the world by now since you have everything you want? Namely both of the statuettes.”

  Camille waved the gun about in indication that Cain should walk ahead of her out of the room and into the living room. “If that is the game you’re going to play, I’ll bring in a new player.” She nodded in Riley’s direction.

  Cain faced her, barely holding back his anger. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Camille stuck the gun right against Cain’s chest and shoved him painfully. “The key wasn’t inside the statuette.”

  That surprised Cain. He frowned in confusion. “Well, I know I fucking don’t have it. Feel free to search me, my clothes, my apartment.” He shook his head, feeling like he was again one step behind the story. “I don’t get it. Why would Sheridan keep the statuette with her if the key’s not in it?”

  Camille got right up in Cain’s face, invading his personal space. “You mean Sherry didn’t give it to you before Renner and I got there?”

  “No. She just told us the story of how you and she met, got married, and background to the statuettes. That’s all. I didn’t even know the damn statue was in the hotel room until you ran off with it.”

  Apparently Camille wasn’t buying Cain’s version of events, even though it was true. “You lie,” she spat out vehemently. “That means Riley must have the key.”

  As she backed up and started for the bedroom, Cain tried to intersect her. Camille saw him coming. She struck out fast before he could defend himself, busy holding the sheet up around his waist. The butt of the gun hit Cain smack on the side of his forehead. He fell onto his knees, groaning as waves of pain launched through his head. His vision became a chaotic interplay of black and white. The only signs of red were the smears on his fingertips as he brushed over the trickling wound. At least it would close soon, Cain knew from experience.

  “Consider yourself lucky I didn’t kill you, deviant,” Camille hissed at him venomously.

  “Stop. Do not hurt him any more.”

  Unlike Cain, Riley hadn’t bothered with a sheet around his naked body. His slender figure nude in the doorway, he stood astride in a show of strength.

  “That depends on you,” Camille snorted. “Give me the key.”

  Riley was breathing shallowly, and his eyes appeared huge and luminous. “I don’t have it.”

  “Give me the fucking key!” Camille screamed, waving the gun about in a frantic manner. She was unhinged and would undoubtedly soon lash out at them. Finally able to see clearly again, Cain tried to stand on wobbly legs. Camille turned enraged eyes his way and aimed the gun at him while still addressing her rant to Riley. “Give me the key, freak, or I swear I’ll do away with your lover. Or perhaps his life means nothing to you….”

  Riley went as pale as a ghost, and his throat worked convulsively. His gaze shifted between Camille and Cain. His indecision didn’t bode well, and Cain sucked in an anxious breath.

  “Riley?” When Cain addressed him, Riley’s head whipped immediately in his direction. “If you have the key… give it to her. It’s not worth our lives.”

  There was no pause, no hesitation. A nod of agreement followed.

  Then Riley raised his leg and reached for the black leather anklet with the iron iris embedded in it. He gripped it and pulled it free.

  The metal ornament was the key everyone had been looking for. The flower shape formed the bow and the blade of the key had lain hidden, buried beneath the leather, in plain sight and yet out of sight. Clever.

  Cain stared at the unassuming object. He remembered seeing it on Riley for the first time and wondering if Riley was the Iris referenced in the club’s name and color. Now Cain knew better, but the thought had wormed its way inside his head and brought forth suspicion. He’d felt ashamed about it later, for doubting Riley’s sincerity. And yet….

  So once again Riley had lied to him. He’d had the key the whole time. A powerful sense of disappointment swamped Cain. After everything they had been through, Riley still didn’t trust Cain enough to be frank with him. Perhaps this habit of dishonesty and this secretive quirk were personality traits. In which case Cain couldn’t do much about them. They were ingrained in Riley’s psyche. He’d never change.

  Only this time his secrets and lies had yet again put the case and their very lives in danger.

  Cain finally got to his feet as Riley handed the key to Camille. “What’s so special about this damn key? I mean, thanks to your male statuette, you already know where the treasure is. You’ve had the map all along. With modern technology, surely you’d be able to get any kind of lock open. Pick it, blow it up, whatever.”

  Camille closed her eyes briefly and pressed the key against her chest, as if bringing it as close to her heart as she could gave her a sense of peace. “No, not this lock. You were right. This is a very special key. It has numbers on it. They are the combination to the lock.”

  “Combination?”

  “The door is impenetrable, you see.” Camille’s expression portrayed perfect bliss. She was exactly where she wanted to be. “And the lock—or locks, plural—have to be turned in a specific order. The whole door is a kind of puzzle box. The gears must be worked in the right sequence for the door to unlock. If done in the incorrect order, the mechanism within jams up, and an explosive charge is set off, destroying the doors and more than likely whoever is trying to open them. The diamond, of course, is protected, but a thief can’t steal it if he’s blown himself up.”

  “But the diamond wouldn’t be damaged anyway, right?” Cain cut in. “Diamonds are the hardest material in the world.”

  “Shows what you know.” Camille scoffed derisively. “Have you ever heard of the Mohs scale? No, I didn’t think so. It was created by a German mineralogist, and it has to do with mineral hardness. Or more specifically, scratchability. It was the first thing I learned from my grandmother, Stefan’s daughter and a jeweler of some renown herself.”

  “Iris Lehmann?” Cain confirmed, mostly rhetorically for himself.

  Camille smiled, seemingly pleased that Cain mentioned her. “Yes, Iris. I named the nightclub in her honor, did Sherry tell you that? Iris is a wonderful woman, a proud Aryan soldier, a true believer of the cause.”

  “The eradication of everyone not of the master race?” Riley said between gritted teeth.

  “As a matter of fact, yes.” Camille was clearly unashamed. She might be the victim of generations of hatred, brainwashing, ignorance, and stupidity, yet Cain couldn’t find it in himself to feel sympathy for her. She’d killed people to get what she wanted. That made her a criminal, not a victim. One could only make allowances for bad people over the past for so long. Sins might have cast long shadows, especially the sins of the father, but at some point enough was enough.

  “Let’s get back on track, shall we?” Cain steered the conversation back in the right direction. “I still don’t get how a blast could destroy the gemstone.”

  Camille rolled her eyes and sneered loudly, the topic obviously boring her. “According to the Mohs scale, the definition of mineral hardness is the ability to resist scratching. A diamond is both hard and brittle. Or as gemologists say, if you hit a diamond with a hammer in the right place, it’ll shatter into a million pieces. My family called it wearability or durability. Even scratching can happen. Scratches might be tiny, even microscopic, but they’re there. And then there’s gemstone cleavage.”

  Cain blinked. “I take it that doesn’t mean the cleft between breasts?”

  “No.” Camille snorted. “It has to do with the strength of the molecular bonds within a
gem. Properly cut diamonds have perfect cleavage, but if a diamond is cut poorly along a cleavage plane, the gem can chip or even shatter.”

  “So if the Despair Diamond wasn’t cut properly…,” Cain began. He’d concluded from Camille’s insinuations that the fabled gem had been cut at least once, probably by Stefan Lehmann. Any further work on it could therefore be disastrous.

  “An explosion could destroy it,” Camille confirmed with a curt nod. “But like I said, the stone is protected. Once I get my hands on it, I can get it insured for a fortune. It would naturally be best if the piece is whole when doing so. After that I don’t care what happens to the damn thing. Later I can get it cut into smaller pieces for multiple sales in the black market or even aboveboard, and if the worst happens and the stone shatters in the process, well, that’s life. I’ll be rich regardless.”

  Trying his best not to burst out laughing, Cain came to a quick realization. To Camille, her family’s legacy wasn’t the gemstone itself but the resources it generated for their deluded cause. Riley and Sherry had both been right: for Camille to get her hands on the gemstone would be devastating. Not because of what the diamond was but because of what it represented—untold amounts of money to continue white supremacist terrorism, both in and out of the country.

  Somehow they had to stop Camille. Cain hoped it wouldn’t involve killing her. He had enough deaths on his conscience. People might say one more drop in the ocean didn’t matter but those folks didn’t know what the hell they were talking about.

  “Now what do I do with you?” Camille walked back and forth between Cain and Riley, her gaze flicking from one man to the other.

  “If I’m allowed to vote, I’d suggest you let us live,” Cain cut in playfully. Camille laughed. “We’ve done everything you’ve asked of us. You have the key, the map, both the statuettes. Sherry is near death, Mirabel and Woolrich are dead, and neither Riley nor I pose any threat to you.”

  Cain knew that was a boldfaced lie. As long as a single person who knew the truth about the infamous gemstone, its shady origins, and what was being planned for it in the future existed, that individual amounted to a credible threat. Camille would have to respond. If not, she’d be rather foolish. Evil plans 101: Always get rid of witnesses. Cain didn’t have to hold a gun to be a problem for her.

  Camille frowned. “Yes, that’s one puzzle piece I’m missing. If Renner killed Woolrich and Mirabel, he did so without my permission or knowledge. He was just supposed to keep an eye on Sherry and the club. And Woolrich really was the perfect coconspirator. No fuss, no muss. I don’t understand why he was at Mirabel’s, not to mention naked in her bed…. He’d never shown any interest in her before, or anyone else for that matter.”

  Cain and Riley exchanged confused glances. Camille had been forthright about everything else, including her Nazi origins and what she had in store for innocent people in the days to come. Why lie about the murder of two people? Was it possible there was something amiss after all?

  “What are you going to do with us?” Cain asked, clutching the sheet around him. He knew he’d never reach his gun on the bedside table before she shot both him and Riley full of holes.

  Camille cocked one hip out and tapped on her chin thoughtfully. Then a wicked gleam lit up her eyes. “I have just the thing. You will come with me and help me open the door. If by chance the combination is wrong and the safe explodes….” She shrugged, chuckling, her meaning clear.

  Cain and Riley might just be blown to smithereens.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “TAKE the next left,” Camille advised Cain from the passenger seat, the gun still firmly in her hand. Cain was driving and Riley was handcuffed on the back seat.

  Cain grunted. “I don’t need directions. I know where we’re going.”

  Camille gave him a surprised glance. “Do you?”

  “Yes. Why else would you convince Sheridan to buy the mansion after you’d hounded her into marrying you?” Cain could connect the dots with the best of them. A few inferences had been all he’d needed to figure things out.

  Camille smiled like the proverbial cat that ate the cream. “You’re correct, of course. Aren’t you a smart one? Too bad you’re a deviant. You’d make excellent breeding stock.”

  “Even if I wasn’t gay, I’d still have standards,” Cain remarked dryly.

  On the back seat, Riley giggled. Camille slapped Cain across the face. The car swerved to the left into the wrong lane and dangerously close to the edge of the road. His cheek throbbing with pain, Cain grimaced and steered the car back on the right side.

  “That was uncalled for,” Riley declared defiantly, growling. “I’m the one who laughed, not him.”

  “That’s the role of the femme fatale you chose, honey,” Camille purred. “They never get hurt, only the men who choose unwisely to love and protect them. That’s a lesson you should have learned by now. Next time I’ll shoot a piece off him.”

  In the rearview mirror, Cain could see Riley growing visibly pale. Regardless of all the deceptions and secrets, it warmed Cain’s heart to know that at least on some level Riley did seem to care for him. Perhaps Riley just didn’t want to see Cain die as a result of his lies.

  Either way, time would tell.

  IT was dark by the time they reached the mansion. The Astor Estate had only the outside lights on, illuminating the circular driveway and odd angles of the garden and trees beyond it. Not quite a haunted mansion, but it was not inviting. Maybe it was because inside Cain and Riley could face their last minutes on this planet. Cain tried to focus on the positive—that they still had a chance, that their lady enemy was alone and Cain might gain the upper hand, that their dire straits held a grain of hope. But his natural cynicism had a tendency to rear its ugly head at the most inopportune moments, this one included. Nonetheless, he did his best.

  “Where are the cops stationed here?” Cain asked, concerned.

  Camille snorted. “Don’t fret. I took care of them. No one will disturb us tonight.”

  That was what Cain feared. Again, he was left confounded by Camille’s refusal to admit culpability for Woolrich and Mirabel—while offhandedly confessing to the disposal or death of several police officers. What piece of the puzzle was Cain missing?

  Cain walked ahead into the building. Their footsteps echoed eerily in the darkness. Camille didn’t turn on any lights. Thankfully Cain didn’t need any, since he’d searched the house twice. He knew the way to the basement, and he headed there directly.

  Last time he’d not seen any signs of a secret door, though.

  But the second he made it to the narrow winding corridor leading to the laundry room, he noticed that a section of the wall was missing. It hadn’t been busted open with tools, as there was no rubble or debris. It was simply gone.

  Camille chuckled. “It was a fake wall, in case you were wondering. Rather expertly done, am I right?”

  Cain didn’t reply. The lack of a wall did irritate him because if he’d discovered it earlier a lot of things might have gone down differently. He was annoyed with himself. But Camille did not need to see him pissed off so he feigned indifference.

  “How did you ensure this house wasn’t torn down or sold to, shall we say, impure people?” Cain asked, deciding to play along with Camille’s filthy little game—for now anyway.

  “Any property can be purchased with enough coin. Back in the forties, this place belonged to a member of the Third Reich, who had the foundations built. Unfortunately, he had to give the site up for… valid reasons and flee the country to safety south of the equator. Marigold, my great-grandmother, owned the place for a time but she died when Iris was still too young to own property, so…. After that various people have owned the land and the house, which has been renovated numerous times. Yet no one touched the foundations, as they were solid. Renner and I broke it down when we moved in here and then erected a fake wall.”

  Cain studied the surrounding structure for signs of wear and tear. There
were none in plain sight. The walls didn’t flake, the floor wasn’t cracked, and the ceiling appeared as sturdy as the day it was constructed. Whoever built the site had clearly known what they were doing. Guess that was one point to German engineering.

  “And it was around that time, the war, when the map was made as well?” Cain asked.

  “My grandmother, Iris, is a fine artist. She inherited the skill from Marigold, her now-dead mother, who helped design most all of the jewelry pieces Stefan sold from his shop and even bequeathed her the male statuette with the map of the house and the safe. Iris is going to cut the stone herself once I get it to her, hopefully intact.”

  The answer worried Cain because it implied Camille had an exit strategy in play and would be harder to eliminate. She had thought this through, to an extent, and was determined not to allow anything to get in her way. Cain figured he understood her pretty well. Smart and capable but also cautious and willing to bide her time because there were so many unanswered questions still up in the air, for example the deaths of Woolrich and Mirabel and the fates of Sheridan and Renner, assuming she cared about the last at all.

  “Anyway, Iris was just a newborn during the war. After the war ended, her family here took her in and raised her. Cousins and devout followers of the Nazi ideals.”

  “You never speak of your own mother and father,” Cain noted.

  Camille blinked briefly, then pushed Cain and Riley forward down the new hallway, farther underground. “They died when I was a child. A car accident in the Hills. My dad was a drunk. His death wasn’t a loss to the family.”

  “Iris raised you,” Cain finished. He couldn’t say he was sorry. He just couldn’t. Besides, he knew the full story thanks to Tess’s skills, and the game was still afoot.

  “Yes.” Camille sounded proud and happy. “She’s amazing. She raised me properly.”

  “Turned you into a hate-filled monster and vile murderer,” Riley murmured next to Cain.