by Anne Stuart
Michael's instincts were lightning fast. His eyes met hers, seconds after she glanced his way, and he started toward her, leaning heavily on his cane. "I've got us a ride home."
"This is a small island—most of the villagers don't own cars. You did get a ride in a car, didn't you? I can't say I fancy a ride on a motorbike. Or a mule."
"Sort of a car," he temporized. "A delivery truck, to be exact. Cecil has offered his services." He gestured toward the linebacker, who smiled and nodded, flashing his white teeth in the moonlight.
"Who is he? I've never seen him before."
"Neither have I," Michael said wearily. "Do you know everyone from around here?"
Francey couldn't fight her guilt. Here she was quibbling over strangers when Michael was almost dead on his feet. "Of course not," she murmured. "I just thought I would have noticed him if I'd seen him before. He's awfully big."
"Shall we take the ride or not?" Michael swayed slightly, and his color had bleached back to a sickly white.
"We'll take the ride," she said, taking his arm in hers and helping him over the uneven rock-strewn beach. She could feel him tremble slightly from the exertion, and she held his arm more tightly against her, close to the side of her breast. He was harder, more muscular, then she would have thought beneath the baggy suit. At one point in his life, before the car accident, he must have been a fairly strong, well-built man.
The delivery truck was a silver Ford in surprisingly good shape. The three of them squeezed into the front seat—no mean feat, considering the sheer size of Michael's new acquaintance, Cecil, but apparently the back was padlocked and filled with whatever it was Cecil delivered. There was no identifying sign painted on the truck, and somehow Francey couldn't figure out a polite way of asking. Reaction was beginning to set in. Her own limbs were trembling when she climbed into the front of the track, and for the time being all she wanted to do was crawl into bed. Once she made sure Michael was comfortably settled, she reminded herself.
She felt very tiny, squashed between Cecil's impressive bulk and Michael's bony frame. Leaning her head back, she shut her eyes, waiting to be transported home. When nothing happened, she opened them again.
"Where do you live?" Cecil asked in a pleasant voice with just a trace of island hit. He must have spent most of his life off-island. Playing football?
"Sorry," she said briefly, giving him directions. St. Anne was a small, social island—everyone knew everyone's business outside the rush of tourist trade. Cecil should have known where she lived, just as she should have been able to identify him.
It didn't matter, she thought, closing her eyes again. She'd been through too much in the past couple of hours to make sense of anything. In the calm, clear light of day, after a good night's sleep, she would be able to place him and these nagging inconsistencies would make sense.
Like where had their huge black savior come from? Like why Michael Dowd, instead of being terrified by their near brush with death, had merely been exhilarated by the experience. Like why the brakes had failed on a vehicle that had just been checked.
But for now all she had to concentrate on was holding together long enough to get her frail companion settled for the night. Then a good strong dose of Scotch and she might be able to sleep herself. After she gave in to the strong case of shakes she was busy fighting.
Cecil was damned good; Michael had to grant him that. He'd objected to having him around at first, saying he could handle things better without backup. The more people who were involved in a situation, the more likelihood that things would get cocked up. But right now Cecil's buddies would be stripping the Jeep, and if they didn't come up with a severed brake line, then he'd been in the wrong business for the past fifteen years.
Of course, that might be the case anyway, even supposing he was right. A job where you routinely got shot at, threatened, beaten up, a job where you lied, cheated and sometimes even killed, wasn't the sort of job to lead to mental health. Maybe he was reaching his limit. Hell, there was no maybe about it.
But he wasn't ready to quit. Not until he tied up a few loose ends, including Frances Neeley's little chums. He'd learned there was a problem with loose ends, though. No matter how many you tied up, more appeared, ready to strangle you. Sooner or later he was going to have to simply walk away from it. Or the next time the doctors wouldn't be able to pull him back from the edge of death.
Cecil dropped them off at the front veranda of the villa with a flash of teeth and a subservient bob of his head. Michael frowned, wondering whether Cecil might not be carrying things a bit too far, but he pressed something that looked like a high-denomination bill into his meaty hand. Frances would assume it was a tip, not a carefully coded request for information. Unless she was even brighter than she looked.
And she looked pretty damned bright, Michael thought as he limped up the wide front steps. He'd had nothing to do during those last long weeks in hospital but research Ms. Frances Neeley and Daniel Travers's villa on St. Anne. He'd come to a great many conclusions, some snap judgments, some carefully thought through. As usual, he was going to have to alter most of them.
She didn't rush to help him. She'd noticed his reluctance to accept assistance, and she was waiting for some imperceptible sign. She'd chosen wisely both times she'd taken his arm before, and she chose wisely now in letting him navigate the steps on his own. She had a certain intuitive caring that wasn't going to make this task any easier.
"I think you need a drink," she said, when he reached the front door, pale and sweating from exertion. "I've got lemonade and iced tea up in the fridge. And then I think you need a bed. Or would you like it the other way around?"
"A drink first. And something a little stronger, if you've got it."
Francey smiled. It didn't reach her eyes, but there was still a compelling warmth in it. "I'm planning on Scotch myself. Will that do?"
Might as well start now, Michael thought. "You don't have any Irish whiskey, do you?"
He didn't feel guilty at the way her face blanched, the stricken look that wiped the smile off her lips. Not when it was partly her fault he was in this damnably weakened state in the first place. "I don't know," she said. "Daniel probably has some stashed away. I'll go look…"
"Don't bother. Scotch'll do fine." He almost made the mistake of heading for the living room, and he caught himself, cursing beneath his breath. Maybe Cardiff was right. Maybe he wasn't ready for the field, if he was going to make mistakes like that.
"Are you all right?" Francey's voice was anxious, her own earlier pain dismissed.
"Fine," he said tightly. "If you'll just steer me in the direction of the living room…?"
She glanced at him curiously. "The way you were heading. Unless you'd rather go to bed first. I could bring you the whiskey…?"
"Not yet," he said. "Let's have our drink first. It's not everyone who gets so intimately acquainted in the first hour. I think we need time to unwind."
The smile was back, and it was beginning to warm her eyes. Nice eyes, she had. Brown, soft, vulnerable. Not the kind of eyes to be involved in something as nasty as this. "That sounds nice," she said, then disappeared in the direction of the butler's pantry.
Of course, he wasn't supposed to know that was where she was going, he thought as he limped into the living room, turning on lights as he went. He would have to be very careful not to make the sort of mistake he'd almost made earlier. He knew the layout of this place down to the last electrical outlet. He knew where he was going to sleep, and he knew where he needed Frances Neeley. The question was, how to get her there without arousing her suspicions.
The living room was regulation island decor. Wicker furniture with chintz cushions, straw matting on the floor, a huge fireplace that was used on the rare, chilly evenings. Beyond the black picture windows he could hear the pounding of the surf on the private beach below. He would have thought twice about turning on all those lights—they would be perfectly illuminated for anyone approaching
from the north, and a sniper would have no trouble at all picking them off. Except that the northern approach was only by sea, and while some marksmen might manage an accurate shot while standing on a deck, the pitch and roll of the ocean would make that unlikely. And no one was going to risk making a mistake. Not at this point.
Of course, they'd already made one. Michael had assumed Frances was safe. Four months had passed, and no one had bothered her. His people had been watching her from a careful distance, but no one had approached her, no hint of threat to her well-being had surfaced.
Maybe they'd sabotaged the brakes to get at him. Maybe they'd simply found the right time to kill her. Or maybe they were being efficient, two for the price of one, and they'd just been waiting for him to come and pick her brain.
They couldn't have known for sure it would be him, though they could have suspected it. His enemies in the IRA weren't fools. He had a reputation for thoroughness, and for cold-blooded revenge. If they knew him at all, and they did, they would know he wouldn't get up from a hospital bed after Patrick Dugan had nearly finished him for good and simply go about his business.
He intended to find out exactly who and what had been involved in that abortive assassination attempt. How things could have gotten so close, who were Dugan's compatriots. And where an ordinary American like Frances Neeley fit into the nasty equation. Was she part and parcel of the Cadre's plot? Or another one of their many innocent victims?
It would make things easier on him if she was involved. There was something about her that got under his skin in ways he didn't like. But he had to keep an open mind. If he condemned her simply because he didn't want to feel anything, then he was going to be useless in the field. And despite what he'd said to Travers, he had no intention of taking a desk job. Ever.
She was probably sleeping in the only bedroom on the lower main floor. The one with access from the beach. He was going to have to put a stop to that. The safest rooms in the rambling old place were the row of four bedrooms on the second storey, overlooking the water. The rocky ledge kept boats and invaders at a distance, and the balconies were high enough to keep all but the most determined assassins away. And he had more than enough experience to boobytrap them so that no one could get close.
If worse came to worst, he could maneuver Francey Neeley into sharing his bed. He'd hoped he would be able to work the arrangements around gradually. But the death-defying ride in the brakeless Jeep had disabused him of any such notion. They weren't wasting any time in trying to get rid of one or both of them. And he couldn't assume they would be given even one night's reprieve just because the first attempt had failed.
He knew enough about her to recognize that her own glass of whiskey was taller and darker than she used to drink before she ran into Patrick Dugan. His own was on the weak side, but he didn't complain. He needed to use the next few minutes carefully, building her trust, then move in for the kill before she realized what was happening to her.
He let his hand tremble slightly as he reached for the glass. "Two car wrecks in six months is a bit more than the old ticker can take," he said in a weak voice.
Her face immediately creased in concern. "Oh, I'd forgotten. You'd just been through a car crash. That must have been doubly awful for you. I'm so sorry…"
"Not your fault. You saved our lives," he said with a brave grin. Just the sort to melt a woman's heart, and this woman looked the sort whose heart melted easily. He drained his glass, despising himself for one brief instant. "Still, I'm not used to so much excitement. In my line of work we consider things to be quite thrilling if we have a bat fly into the house."
"We have bats here," Francey said, taking an impressively big gulp of her drink. He was beginning to wonder whether she'd become a lush in the past six months, but her shudder and grimace of distaste told him otherwise. She was using it for medicinal purposes, to dull the pain and terror. He could have told her that would only work for a while. "What is your line of work?" she asked brightly, and if he were any other man he would have believed her interest.
"Math and soccer master at a boy's public school in Somerset. A place called Willingborough. Have been for twelve years."
She blinked, staring at him. "Somehow I wouldn't have pictured you as a schoolteacher," she said slowly.
Sharper than he'd expected, particularly since he knew he was putting up a good front. All gangling limbs and innocent smile and curly red hair. He could even have managed to drum up a few freckles for her if they'd let him out into the sunshine sooner. "Why not?"
"Your face," she said. "And there's something about your eyes. Something almost…ageless. Ancient. Dangerous." She gave herself a little shake, and he was reminded of a silky cocker spaniel shaking water from its thick coat. "I think I've had too much whiskey. Sorry."
She'd only had three drinks. If she finished that glass she would be flat on her bum, and while that would solve the problem of where she slept, he wasn't in the mood to haul her dead weight around the huge old house. Assuming he had enough strength left after the last few harrowing hours.
"It must be the young hellions I'm in charge of," he said easily. "They age a man before his time."
She laughed at that, as she was supposed to, and he hoped she'd forgotten her sudden astuteness. He knew the expression that lurked in the depths of his blue eyes. It wasn't ancient. It was dead.
Most people didn't look that closely. He wondered whether Frances Neeley was particularly intuitive. Or whether she had reason to doubt.
She was yawning, and he knew he was going to have to work fast, before she shunted him off to the wrong bedroom. "Where were you planning to put me?" he asked, wishing he dared ask for another Scotch, knowing it wouldn't be a wise idea. In his weakened condition he couldn't drink as much as usual, and he'd already learned he had to keep his wits about him.
"There's a nice bedroom at the east end of the house, with stairs leading down to the beach. I thought that would be perfect for you."
He shook his head. He'd guessed she would try to put him there. He could wind up with his throat cut by dawn, and the tide would wash away any trace of footprints in the sand. "Would it be too much trouble if I slept on the west side of the house? That is, if there are bedrooms there? I have a thing about sunsets."
He could see the doubt in her eyes, but she was unfailingly polite. "Of course. The rooms there aren't as nice, and you can't get to the beach very easily, but the balconies overlook the water. I'll just make up the bed…"
He reached out and caught her wrist just as she was about to dash away. It was a slender wrist, with its own strength. He had enough strength to hold her, but he did so lightly, deceptively. He didn't want her realizing that his limits weren't that overwhelming. "I'll take care of it," he said.
She made one faint, futile tug on her wrist, and then let it rest in his hand. "You're dead on your feet."
"So are you. I can manage. Where are you sleeping?"
That startled her, and he let her go, not wanting to encourage any conclusion jumping. "In the back of the house."
Right again, he thought. He summoned up his sweetest, most self-deprecating smile. "I don't suppose you could hear me if I happened to call you?"
"It's too far away," she said, her doubt immediately replaced by concern. "Do you think you might need help in the night?"
He shrugged with just the right amount of rueful unconcern. "I'm certain the attacks have passed. During the past few months I sometimes got a breathing spasm, and I wouldn't be able to get to my respirator. But I haven't had one in quite some time, and I'm sure I'd be able to manage."
"What's quite some time?"
"Five days," he said blithely. "What about an intercom system? A telephone…?"
"There are three bedrooms on that side. I'll move down," she said firmly.
He almost batted his eyes at her, but decided that would be carrying it too far. "I couldn't ask you to do that."
"You haven't. I've offered. And I insist. Le
t me get you some warm milk and a touch more whiskey, and then we'll get you settled for the night."
He came up with a wan smile. She was a very motherly soul, was Frances Neeley. He didn't like to be mothered.
If she wasn't involved in this mess, except as a victim, he had the sudden fantasy of finding her once he'd regained his full strength and showing her just how little he needed a mother. Except that he knew he couldn't do that. Couldn't jeopardize his cover. She'd swallowed it completely, and he would be a fool to let his ego shatter that.
An hour later she had him tucked up in bed, wearing a pair of Daniel Travers's silk pajamas. He hated pajamas. The glass of warm milk was beside his bed, and he wondered if she would have the nerve to give him a maternal kiss on the brow before leaving him.
She didn't. "I'll leave my door open a crack in case you need me," she said, looking down at him with an anxious, doting expression. The problem was, she looked even worse than he did by now. The night's activities had taken their toll—she was pale, limp and swaying slightly, and the sooner she fell into bed, the better off they'd all be.
"You'll hear me if I need you," he promised. "I've got good lungs."
"I thought you had respiratory problems?" she asked, with that sudden unnerving astuteness.
"They don't keep me from screaming bloody loud. Good night, Francey. Thanks for taking such good care of me."
"My pleasure," she said.
He waited a good ten minutes before leaving the bed. She would be asleep by then—she'd been almost asleep on her feet as she stood over his bed. Stripping off Daniel's silk pajamas, he lay down on the rush matting and began his sit-ups.
He couldn't do more than forty-five. Which was better than the twenty-five he'd managed last week. The push-ups were up to forty, but by the time he was finished he was sweating, trembling with the effort, almost ready to throw up. He collapsed on the matting, breathing heavily, and wondered how damned long it was going to take to get his body back in working shape.