Samuel let go of his arm.
Noble staggered a little, but kept his feet. “And then bam! The whole pedestal was headed right toward us.”
“Shocking,” Isabelle said. “I’ll speak to Mother about getting a curator in here to make sure the other pieces are more securely placed. Samuel, can you stay with Noah? I want to speak to Darren about the staff he’s hired for the party.”
Samuel weighed the situation.
She wouldn’t be alone.
And Noble shouldn’t be alone.
Samuel nodded at her.
She hurried toward the ballroom, slipped out, and shut the door behind her, leaving Samuel with the senator.
Noble watched her leave, then heaved a sigh. “That is one fine-looking woman.”
Samuel wanted to throw him out the window. Instead he asked, “Can I get you a drink?”
“That would be great. Whisky and tonic, if you can find it.”
A discreet table had been set up for Mrs. Mason and the guests she intended to treat to a gallery tour later, and Samuel poured for Noble. His hand hovered over a glass for himself; then he grabbed a bottle of water.
It looked as if he was going to need his wits about him tonight.
“I can’t believe I dumped Isabelle for my ex.” Noble accepted the drink. “Isabelle’s gorgeous. She’s a jewel on any man’s arm. She knows the right people, always says the right thing, is a fabulous hostess. She’s everything a man in my position could want. But you want to know the truth?”
“You dumped her because she has a gift?” Samuel savagely twisted the cap off his water.
“A gift?” Noble looked puzzled, then nodded. “I guess you could call it that. A gift for making my cock shrivel. The woman is famous throughout the whole East Coast. Listen, man, if you’re interested, fair warning—she’s as frigid as the great frozen North.”
Samuel paused, the bottle of water halfway to his mouth.
The senator was still babbling. “I tried. I mean, I really tried to get it on with her. She was willing in a ‘sure, you can do it, just don’t mess up my hair’ sort of way. But honest to God, I couldn’t make the little soldier perform. It was like . . . as soon as he got close to that woman’s cunt, he got frostbite and turned away.”
“Really.” Visions flashed through Samuel’s mind.
Isabelle kneeling before him, kissing his dick.
Isabelle in her gold silk dress, her legs wrapped around his shoulders, demanding more.
Isabelle riding him, her eyes shining, her cheeks flushed with glory.
Isabelle in his arms, pressed against the wall, climaxing as he hushed her.
Noble said, “I take it you haven’t given her a try, or you’d know.”
Samuel waggled his head noncommittally.
“While we were engaged, I kept going to the call girls to prove the problem wasn’t mine, but that’s dangerous for a man in my position.” Noble puffed out his chest. “The press loves that kind of scandal. So I figured, ‘Dump Isabelle and get someone who has blood in her veins instead of ice chunks.’ The marriage didn’t work out, and Mrs. Mason wanted me to try with her darling daughter again, but I swear to God, that time she spent with you buried under that avalanche must have really frozen her solid, because she won’t even let me kiss her cheek.”
“Not much of a date, hm?”
“No, and now this happened.” Noble waved a hand at the scattered pieces of marble.
“What did happen?”
“I really don’t know. We were looking at a bust of Napoleon done by some famous nineteenth-century French sculptor, and when we turned away, the whole pedestal slammed toward us. Toward Isabelle, really.”
Samuel’s teeth clenched.
“I thought she was a goner, so I shoved her as hard as I could.”
Samuel viewed the senator in a new light. “You’re a brave man.”
Noble shrugged and winced. “Anyone would have done the same.”
Not true. Most people thought of themselves first. The fact that Noble didn’t did a lot to dispel Samuel’s need to murder him. “How’s the injury?”
“There was this blast of pain, I hit the ground so hard I bounced, and it occurred to me . . . well, I wondered if I was going to wake up dead.” His eyes narrowed as he thought. “I must have passed out, because the next thing I know, Isabelle’s rubbing my shoulder and it’s better all the time.” He looked at Samuel in puzzlement. “I guess I didn’t get hurt as bad as I thought I had.”
“Guess not.” Noble didn’t know about Isabelle’s gift. She’d never told him. She was going to marry him, and she never told him.
“I suppose I can find someone to pet my fevered brow.” Noble rubbed his head, then his shoulder. “But it’s not going to be Isabelle, I can tell you that.”
Samuel thought fast. “Listen, you’ve got my sympathy on the bad-date thing. I don’t suppose you’d consider a switch?”
“A switch?” Noble cautiously looked up from his drink.
“You can take my date off my hands and I’ll take Isabelle off yours.”
“You would give me your date?” Noble’s voice rose. “You’d give me Allysen Cadell?”
Samuel played dumb. “You don’t like her?”
“I like her . . . a lot. A lot. She’s gorgeous and she looks ...”
“Easy?”
“Well. Yes.”
“She’s not. She’s smart, she’s witty, and she likes to dance. Although”—Samuel remembered Allysen’s earlier comment—“she does like power.”
“I’ve got power.” Noble sounded deeply satisfied.
“Isabelle and I have to go back to work tonight and I don’t have time to take Allysen home.” Samuel slapped him on the shoulder hard enough to make him whimper. “Consider it a mutual favor.”
“No,” Noble said fervently, “I owe you.”
“No, I owe you.” For saving Isabelle. And for telling Samuel that she never put out for another man like she did for him. He smiled, the kind of smile that, if Isabelle saw it, would make her flee in fear. She was going to be so sorry he found this out. “I’ll tell you what. Go find Allysen; tell her I was called away and I asked you to escort her home. Then it’s all up to you.”
“All right, man.” Noble shook Samuel’s hand once. Twice. “You’re stuck with Isabelle. Try not to get frostbite!”
“I’ll be careful.” He watched the senator walk away, open the doors, and slide like an oil slick into the ballroom.
He turned to face the shadows by the stairway and noticed Isabelle lurking there. She must have come down only a moment ago; he didn’t know how much she’d heard.
She stepped into the light. “So now you know.”
She’d heard enough, then. It was on the tip of his tongue to say, You’re frigid with every man except me. In fact, I may be the only guy you’ve ever slept with.
But she spoke first. “Someone tried to kill me here—and this is the second time today.”
He forgot all about the senator’s revelation and focused on Isabelle’s face. “The second time? Today?”
“Charisma and I were caught in the cross fire of a gang shooting on Fifth Avenue. But the bullet almost got me.”
“Today?” His brain snapped to the obvious conclusion . . . about two weeks too late. “The avalanche was set to take you out?”
“When you add it to the fact that the flight that took off for Amsterdam a few minutes after mine blew up in midair, and I’m pretty sure it was because this guy put a bomb in what he thought was my bag . . . yes.”
“It’s you.” The realization hit him like a blow between the eyes. “Someone’s trying to kill you.”
“Yes, Samuel. Yes!” she said impatiently. “Have you got it now?”
“You?” He stared at her, graceful, elegant, poised, and tried to wrap his mind around the fact that someone hated her enough to kill her.
She looked hurt and bewildered. “Why would someone put out a contract on me?”
“I flatter myself that I am the least likely of the group to have enemies!”
“Point taken. If someone, anyone, the Others, were targeting the Chosen, why not me? Everyone hates lawyers.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Samuel. Everyone doesn’t hate all lawyers. They just hate you.” She sounded a little too fervent for his taste.
But keeping Aaron’s advice in mind—and Caleb’s, and Charisma’s—he didn’t challenge her. Instead he took her hand and tugged her toward the exit. “Come on. I know someone who might have the answer.”
Chapter 46
“Mathis sleeps so much better since you helped him in Switzerland.” The corridors were dim in the Moreaus’ Washington DC home as Madame Moreau, dressed in a robe and nightgown, led Samuel and Isabelle toward the boy’s room. “Before he was kidnapped, the illness, the pain, the demons kept him awake half the night.”
Samuel figured the kidnapping must have given the kid enough nightmares to last him a lifetime.
But no.
“Now . . . he sleeps!” Madame Moreau smiled at Isabelle, tears in her eyes. “Wait until you see him. He looks so much better. Thank you for curing my boy.”
“I am so sorry, but I promise you, I didn’t cure him, madame.” Isabelle smiled sorrowfully. “The disease is still with him, a part of him.”
“But somehow, you chased it into a corner and made it cower. Even if you gave him only a little more time, it is quality time.” Madame Moreau held open the bedroom door. “Wait here. I’ll wake him. He’ll be so happy to see you.”
After Samuel had made his phone call to Ambassador Moreau, they had flown down to DC in the Masons’ private jet, been driven to the Moreaus’ home, and now they waited while Madame Moreau used a low, sweet, singsong voice to wake her son.
He replied sleepily.
A light went on, and she called them inside.
They walked in—and Samuel was astonished to see Madame Moreau’s report was true. In the space of two weeks, Mathis had gained weight, grown taller, and, most important, he looked stronger, like a boy and not a wraith.
His eyes lit up at the sight of them, and to Samuel’s surprise, Mathis said, “Monsieur Faa, I was hoping I would see you again so I could thank you for the rescue. I told Mama I want to be like you when I grow up.”
“Like Samuel? How’s that?” Isabelle sounded droll.
“A hero! He wasn’t afraid to come into that house and rescue me.”
Samuel grinned and ruffled the boy’s hair. “But you’d already shot your guard.”
“Yes, but you didn’t know that.” Mathis stared at him worshipfully. “And you were so good about making sure we were safe before you would call in the woman.”
Isabelle raised her eyebrows. “I’ve never been the woman before.”
“I assure you, you have.” Samuel held her gaze for a long moment. “Mathis, we have questions we think only you can answer. Things have been happening to Isabelle, bad things, and we think they have something to do with your kidnapping. We want you to think back—did you hear your guards talking about anything? About their plans for you and for us? About why they were doing what they were doing?”
Mathis shook his head. “I can’t remember most of the evening. I don’t know why.”
Isabelle softly sighed, then hastily said, “You were in shock. Pain and horror will do that to a person—block their memories, change their thoughts.”
Samuel, too, contained his disappointment. He had been so sure this would work. Yet it wasn’t Mathis’s fault. “That’s okay, buddy,” he assured him. “We’ll get it figured out.”
But Mathis was a smart kid. “You wanted to know or you wouldn’t have come to wake me up. I can’t remember, but I can show you what happened.”
Samuel and Isabelle exchanged glances, then looked inquiringly at Madame Moreau.
She seated herself in the chair beside the bed, curled her feet under her, and said, “Watch.”
Mathis lifted his hand and waved it slowly toward the center of the room.
There, in the emptiness, a screen formed.
No, not a screen. A vision, like a movie, transparent yet as real as life.
They saw the room in the Swiss castle where Mathis had been kept prisoner. They saw it as if they sat there in Mathis’s bed. Two men stood in the doorway, frozen in midgesture.
One was the big-bellied man whom Samuel had last seen dead on the floor. The other, smaller, slighter, Samuel didn’t recognize.
Mathis waved his hand again—and it was as if the movie started. Both men shifted their feet, moved their hands—and spoke.
“He’s not going to live long enough for us to collect the ransom.” The big man spoke English with an accent—French or maybe Cajun.
“He will.” The smaller man smiled evilly. He had a gold-toothed smile, a sixties haircut, and a voice like a New Jersey gravel pit. “You forget, the Chosen is coming to heal him.”
“Then what? Will we get the ransom?”
“You’ve got ransom on the brain. We’re not doing it for the money. We’re doing it for the contract.”
“A contract that makes no sense. Why not just take her out cleanly with a bullet to the heart?”
A good question, Samuel thought.
With exaggerated patience, the short one said, “The contract specifies that the woman be killed in a way that seems natural. So we’ve got the kid as bait. She comes to save his lousy little life—and if you ask me, it’s not worth saving....”
Isabelle stirred.
Samuel calmed her with his hand on her arm.
The short guy continued. “Then she’s swept away with the avalanche. Afterward, if we get the ransom and split it, that’s a bonus.”
“I still don’t know why we can’t just kill her.”
“Because Winstead is a pussy, that’s why—”
Now Samuel straightened, and Isabelle patted him.
Still the short one talked: “. . . scared to death the Chosen Ones will find out he’s behind it and take him out. The contract says we play it this way, so play it this way we do. Do you really want to explain to the boss your way is better than his?”
The big guy shivered and shook his head.
“Okay, then. I’m leaving to set the charges.”
“What about me?”
“You stay and watch the kid.”
“What about when the Chosen show up?”
“Get the hell out. What are you, afraid to stay with a little kid? It’s not like he can hurt you.” The short guy shoved him toward the chair in the door of the bedroom. “Now go on. We’ll pick you up later.” He walked down the hall and out of sight.
“Okay.” The big guy started to sit down, then stood, stepped into the corridor, and yelled, “Pick me up where?”
Samuel heard Mathis laughing, but it wasn’t the Mathis that was here with them. It was the Mathis from that day in the past. They couldn’t see him. It was as if he were behind the camera.
“Are you laughing at me, you little shithole?” The big guy started toward the bed. Then, “Where did you get that?” He looked down at his empty holster.
A gunshot sounded, loud and almost in their ears.
Surprised, the big guy looked down at the blood blossoming on his chest.
And he fell over, dead.
The vision faded.
In the here and now, Madame Moreau clutched her robe over her heart and gave a sob. “So close. It was so close. Mathis, where did you get the pistol?”
“I stole it from him when he carried me in.” Mathis fell back on the pillows, looking tired and dismayed. “Was my life really not worth saving?” he asked.
“You have a very interesting gift, young man.” Samuel tucked the blanket around him. “And that helped us very much.”
Isabelle smiled at him. “If not for you, we wouldn’t have known all this incredibly useful information. So in my opini
on, your life is valuable indeed.”
Mathis reached for her hand.
She gave it to him.
He kissed her fingers with all the elegance and charm of any Frenchman. “I am glad to help . . . but I fear you are the woman they wanted to kill. Isn’t that right?”
“That’s right,” Isabelle told him.
“Do not worry, mademoiselle,” Mathis said with assurance. “Samuel will save you from harm.”
Chapter 47
That settled it.
“Is it possible for me to speak with the ambassador?” Samuel asked Madame Moreau.
“Indeed it is.” Going to the door, she gestured to the servant waiting outside. “Please take Mr. Faa to Monsieur Moreau in his office.”
“Good night, Mathis, and thank you for your help. It has been most valuable.” Samuel shook Mathis’s hand, then leaned down and kissed the top of his head. “I’ll see you again soon, I’m sure.” He followed the servant down the corridor, down the stairs, and waited while he knocked, then opened the door. When Samuel was inside, the door was closed behind him.
“Samuel!” Moreau stood up from his desk, came around, and shook Samuel’s hand. “I’m glad you had time to speak with me. What can I do for you?”
“I have a problem.” Samuel seated himself where Moreau indicated and accepted a cigar. He did no more than tap it on his knee, but it kept his hands busy when what he wanted to do was . . . kill somebody. “Actually, several problems, and I remembered your promise to do us a favor if you could.”
“I owe you a thousand favors, you and Miss Mason, for what you’ve done for my son. So if it is in my power . . .”
“Someone”—Samuel scowled as he remembered the name Mathis had revealed—“has put out a contract on Isabelle.”
“On Isabelle?” Moreau’s eyebrows rose all the way to his nonexistent hairline.
“I know who took out the contract on her. When it came to finding a name, your son has been most helpful.”
“He will have been pleased to be of help. He speaks of you both fondly and often.”
“He’s a good kid, and because of him, I look forward to showing the son of a bitch who would harm Isabelle exactly what a mistake he’s made.”
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