In Their Footsteps / Thief of Hearts

by Tess Gerritsen

  “It’s Helena’s,” shouted Richard. “My God, it’s Helena’s!” He leaped out and ran toward the burning car. He almost tripped over a shoe lying in the road. To his horror he saw it was a woman’s pump. “Beryl!” he screamed. He was about to make a desperate lunge for the car door when the flames suddenly shot higher. A window burst out, scattering glass across the pavement. The searing heat sent him stumbling backward, his nostrils stinging with the stench of his own singed hair. He recovered his balance and was about to make another lunge through the flames when Jordan grabbed his arm.

  “Wait!” cried Jordan.

  Richard wrenched away. “Have to get her out!”

  “No, listen!”

  That’s when he heard it—a moan, almost inaudible. It came not from the car, but from somewhere in the trees.

  At once he and Jordan were scrambling along the roadside, yelling Beryl’s name. Again, Richard heard the moan, closer now, coming from the shadows just below the road. He clambered down the dirt bank and stumbled into a drainage ditch.

  That’s where he found her, sprawled among the leaves. Barely conscious.

  He gathered her up and was terrified by how limp, how cold her body felt in his arms. She’s in shock, he realized. We have precious little time….

  “Have to get her to a hospital!” he yelled.

  Jordan ran ahead and yanked open the car door. Richard, clutching Beryl in his arms, slid into the back seat.

  “Go!” he barked.

  “Hang on,” muttered Jordan, scrambling into the driver’s seat. “It’s going to be a wild ride.”

  With a screech of tires, their car shot off down the road. Stay with me, Beryl, Richard begged silently as he cradled her body in his arms. Please, darling. Stay with me….

  But as the car sped through the darkness, she seemed to grow ever colder to his touch.

  Through the haze of anesthesia, she heard him call her name, but the sound of his voice seemed so very far away, seemed to come from a distant place she could not possibly reach. Then she felt his hand close tightly over hers, and she knew he was right beside her. She could not see his face; she could not muster enough strength to open her eyes. Yet she knew he was there, that he would still be there when she awoke the next morning.

  But it was Jordan whom she saw sitting by her bed. The late-morning sunlight streamed over his fair hair and a leather-bound book of poetry lay in his lap. He was reading Milton. Dear Jordan, she thought. Ever reliable, ever serene. If only I had inherited such peace of mind.

  Jordan glanced up from the page and saw that she was awake. “Welcome back to the world, little sister,” he said with a smile.

  She groaned. “I’m not so sure I want to be back.”

  “The leg?”

  “Killing me.”

  He reached for the call button. “Time to indulge in the miracle of morphine.”

  But even miracles take time. After the nurse delivered the injection, Beryl closed her eyes and waited for the pain to ease, for the blessed numbness to descend.

  “Better?” asked Jordan.

  “Not yet.” She took a deep breath. “God, I hate being an invalid. Talk to me. Please.”

  “About what?”

  Richard, she thought. Please tell me about Richard. Why he isn’t here. Why he’s not the one sitting in that chair….

  Jordan said, quietly, “You know, he was here. Earlier this morning. But then Daumier called.”

  She lay still, not speaking. Waiting to hear more.

  “He cares about you, Beryl. I’m sure he does.” Jordan closed his book and set it on the bedside table. “Really, he seems an agreeable fellow. Quite capable.”

  “Capable,” she murmured. “Yes, he is that.”

  “He didn’t turn tail and run. He did look after you.”

  “As a favor,” she amended. “To Uncle Hugh.”

  He didn’t answer. And she thought that Jordie, too, had his doubts about their odds for happiness. And so did she. From the very beginning.

  The morphine began to take effect. Little by little, she felt herself drift toward sleep. Only vaguely did she hear Richard enter the room and speak softly to Jordan. They murmured something about Helena and her body being burned beyond recognition. As the drug swept her brain toward unconsciousness, a memory suddenly flashed with horrifying vividness into her mind—the flames engulfing the car, engulfing Helena.

  For loving too deeply, too fiercely, this was Helena’s punishment.

  She felt Richard take her hand and press it to his lips.

  And what punishment, she wondered, would be hers?

  Epilogue

  Buckinghamshire, England

  Six weeks later

  Froggie was restless, stamping about in her stall, whinnying for escape.

  “Look at her, the poor thing,” Beryl said and sighed. “She hasn’t been run nearly enough, and I think she’s going quite insane. You’ll have to exercise her for me.”

  “Me? On the back of that…that maniac?” Jordan snorted. “I’m much too fond of my own neck.”

  Beryl hobbled over to the stall on her crutches. At once Froggie poked her head over the door and gave Beryl an insistent want-to-go-running nudge. “Oh, but she’s such a pussycat.”

  “A pussycat with a foul temper.”

  “And she so badly needs a good, hard gallop.”

  Jordan looked at his sister, who was wobbling unsteadily on leg cast and crutches. She seemed so pale and thin these days. As if those long weeks in the hospital had drained something vital from her spirit. A bit of pallor was to be expected, of course, considering all the blood she’d lost, all the days of pain she’d suffered after the operation to pin her shattered femur. Now the leg was healing well, and the pain was only a memory, but she still seemed only a ghost of herself.

  It was Richard Wolf’s fault.

  At least the fellow had been decent enough to hang around during Beryl’s hospitalization. In fact, he’d practically haunted her room, spending every daylight hour by her bed. And all the flowers! Every morning, a fresh bouquet.

  Then, one day, he was gone. Jordan hadn’t heard the explanation. He’d walked into his sister’s hospital room that morning and found her staring out the window, all packed and ready to go home to Chetwynd.

  Three weeks ago, they’d flown back. And she’s been brooding ever since, he thought, looking at her wan face.

  “Go on, Jordie,” she said. “Give her a bit of a run. It’ll be another month before I can ride her again.”

  Resignedly, Jordan swung open the stall door and led Froggie out to be saddled. “You’d better behave, young lady,” he muttered to the beast. “No rearing. No bucking. And definitely no trampling your poor, defenseless rider.”

  Froggie gave him a look that could only be interpreted as the equine equivalent of we’ll see about that.

  Jordan mounted and gave Beryl a wave.

  “Take care of her!” Beryl called out. “See she doesn’t hurt herself!”

  “Your concern is most touching!” he managed to blurt out just before Froggie took off at a mad gallop for the fields. Jordan managed a last backward glance at Beryl standing forlornly by the stable. How small she looked, how fragile. Not at all the Beryl he knew. Would she ever be herself again?

  Froggie was bearing him toward the woods. He concentrated on hanging on for dear life as the beast made a beeline for the stone wall. “You just have to take that bloody hurdle, don’t you?” he muttered as Froggie’s mane whipped his face. “Which means I have to take the bloody hurdle—”

  Together they flew over the wall, clearing it neatly. Still in the saddle, thought Jordan with a grin of triumph. Not so easy to get rid of me, is it?

  It was the last thought in his head before Froggie tossed him off her back.

  Jordan landed, fortunately enough, on a large clump of moss. As he sprawled beneath the wildly spinning treetops, he was vaguely aware of the sound of tires grinding across the dirt road, and then he
heard someone call his name. Groggily he sat up.

  Froggie was standing over him, looking not in the least bit apologetic. And behind her, climbing out of a red MG, was Richard Wolf.

  “Are you all right?” Richard called out, running toward him.

  “Tell me, Wolf,” Jordan groaned. “Are you out to kill all the Tavistocks? Or are you after one of us in particular?”

  Laughing, Richard helped him to his feet. “I’d lay the blame where it belongs. On the horse.”

  Both men looked at Froggie. She answered with what sounded suspiciously like a laugh.

  Richard asked quietly, “How’s Beryl doing these days?”

  Jordan began to clap the dirt from his trousers. “Her leg’s healing fine.”

  “Besides the leg?”

  “Not so fine.” Jordan straightened and looked the other man in the eye. “Why did you walk out?”

  Sighing, Richard looked off in the direction of Chetwynd. “She asked me to.”

  “What?” Jordan stared at him in bewilderment. “She never told me—”

  “She’s a Tavistock, like you. Doesn’t believe in whining or complaining. Or losing face. It’s that pride of hers.”

  “Ah, so it was like that, was it?” Jordan said. “An argument?”

  “Not even that. It just seemed, with all those differences between us…” He shook his head and laughed. “Face it, Jordan. She’s tea and crumpets, I’m coffee and doughnuts. She’d hate it in Washington. And I’m not sure I could adjust to…this.” He gestured to the rolling fields of Chetwynd.

  But you will adjust, foresaw Jordan. And so will she. Because it’s plain for any idiot to see that you two belong together.

  “Anyway,” said Richard, “when Niki called and reminded me we had a job in New Delhi, Beryl told me to go. She thought it would be a good test for us to be apart for a while. Said the Royal Family does it that way. To see if absence makes the heart—and hormones—forget.”

  “And does it?”

  Richard grinned. “Not a chance,” he said, and climbed back into his car. “I may be signing up with your wild and crazy family, after all. Any objections?”

  “None,” said Jordan. “But I will offer a bit of advice. That is, if you two expect to share a long and healthy life together.”

  “What’s the advice?”

  “Shoot the horse.”

  Laughing, Richard let out the brake and sped away toward Chetwynd.

  Toward Beryl.

  As Jordan watched the MG vanish around the bend, he thought, Good luck to you, little sister. I’m glad one of us has finally found someone to love. Now if only I could be so fortunate…

  He turned to Froggie. “And as for you,” he said aloud, “I am about to teach you exactly who’s boss around here.”

  Froggie gave a snort. Then, with a triumphant toss of her mane, she turned and galloped away, riderless, toward Chetwynd.

  “It’s quite unlike you to be brooding this way,” said Uncle Hugh as he picked another tomato and set it in his basket. He looked faintly ridiculous in his floppy gardening hat. More like the groundskeeper than the lord of the manor. Crouching on his knees, he uncovered another bright red globe and carefully plucked the treasure. “Don’t know why you’re so gloomy these days. After all, the leg’s almost healed.”

  “It’s not the leg,” said Beryl.

  “One would think you were permanently crippled.”

  “It’s not the leg.”

  “Well, what is it, then?” asked Hugh, moving on to the row of pole beans. Suddenly he stopped and glanced back at her. “Oh, it’s him, isn’t it?”

  Sighing, Beryl reached for her crutches and rose from the garden bench. “I don’t wish to discuss it.”

  “You never do.”

  “I still don’t,” she said, and stubbornly headed down the brick path toward the maze. She brushed past the edging of lavender, stirring the scents of the late summer garden. Once they’d walked this path together, she thought. And now she was walking it alone.

  She entered the maze and, using her crutches, maneuvered around all the secret twists and turns. At last she emerged at the center and sat down on the stone bench. Yes, I’m brooding again, she realized. Uncle Hugh’s right. Have to stop this and get on with my life.

  But first, she would have to stop thinking of him. Had he stopped thinking of her? All the doubts, the fears, came back to assail her. She’d put him to the test, she thought. And he’d failed it.

  From a distance, she heard someone call her name. It was so faint at first, she thought she might have imagined it. But there it was again—moving closer now!

  She lurched to her feet, wobbling on the crutches. “Richard?”

  “Beryl?” came the answering shout. “Where are you?”

  “In the maze!”

  His footsteps moved closer along the path. “Where?”

  “The center!”

  Through the high hedge walls, she heard his sheepish laughter. “And now I’m expected to find my way to the cheese?”

  “Just think of it,” she challenged him, “as a test of true love.”

  “Or true insanity,” he muttered, rustling into the maze.

  “I’m quite annoyed with you, you know,” she called.

  “I think I’ve noticed.”

  “You didn’t write. You didn’t call, not once!”

  “I was too busy trying to catch planes back to London. And besides, I wanted you to miss me. Did you?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “Not at all.” She bit her lip. “Oh, perhaps a bit…”

  “Ah, so you did miss me—”

  “But not much.”

  “I missed you.”

  She paused. “Did you?” she asked softly.

  “So much, in fact, that if I don’t find the bloody center of this bloody maze pretty damn quick, I’m going to—”

  “Going to what?” she asked breathlessly.

  A rustle of branches made her turn. Suddenly he was there beside her, pulling her into his arms, covering her mouth with a kiss so deep, so insistent, she felt herself swaying dizzily. The crutches slipped away and fell to the ground. She didn’t need them—not when he was there to hold her.

  He drew away and smiled at her. “Hello again, Miss Tavistock,” he whispered.

  “You came back,” she murmured. “You really came back.”

  “Did you think I wouldn’t?”

  “Does that mean you’ve thought about it? About us?”

  He laughed. “I could scarcely concentrate on anything else. On the job, the client. Finally I had to call in Niki to pinch-hit for me, while I straighten out this mess with you.”

  She asked softly, “You think it can be straightened out?”

  Gently he framed her face with his hands. “I don’t know. Some folks would probably call us a long shot.”

  “And they’d be right. There are so many things that could pull us apart….”

  “And just as many things that will keep us together.” He lowered his face to hers, gently brushed her lips with his. “I confess, I’ll never make a proper gentleman. Cricket’s not my bag. And you’ll have to put a gun to my head to get me up on a horse. But if you’re willing to overlook those terrible flaws…”

  She threw her arms around his neck. “What flaws?” she whispered, and their lips met again.

  From the distance came the peal of the ancient church bells. Six o’clock. The coming of twilight and shadows, sweetly scented. And love, thought Beryl as he pulled her, laughing, into his arms.

  Quite definitely, love.

  THIEF OF HEARTS

  In memory of Jim Heacock

  “In thy face I see the map

  of honor, truth, and loyalty.”

  —William Shakespeare

  Henry VI, Part III

  Prologue

  Simon Trott stood on the rolling deck of the Cosima, and through the velvety blackness of night he saw the flam
es. They burned just offshore, not a steady fire, but a series of violent bursts of light that cast the distant swells in a hellish glow.

  “That’s her,” the Cosima’s captain said to Trott as both men peered across the bow. “The Max Havelaar. Judging by those fireworks, she’ll be going down fast.” He turned and yelled to the helmsman, “Full ahead!”

  “Not much chance of survivors,” said Trott.

  “They’re sending off a distress call. So someone’s alive.”

  “Or was alive.”

  As they neared the sinking vessel, the flames suddenly shot up like a fountain, sending out sparks that seemed to ignite the ocean in puddles of liquid fire.

  The captain shouted over the roar of the Cosima’s engines, “Slow up! There’s fuel in the water!”

  “Throttling down,” said the helmsman.

  “Ahead slowly. Watch for survivors.”

  Trott moved to the forward rail and stared across the watery inferno. Already the Max Havelaar was sliding backward, her stern nearly submerged, her bow tipping toward the moonless sky. A few minutes more and she’d sink forever into the swells. The water was deep, and salvage impractical. Here, two miles off the Spanish coast, was where the Havelaar would sink to her eternal rest.

  Another explosion spewed out a shower of embers, leafing the ripples with gold. In those few seconds before the sunlike brilliance faded, Trott spotted a hint of movement off in the darkness. A good two hundred yards away from the Havelaar, safely beyond the ring of fire, Trott saw a long, low silhouette bobbing in the water. Then he heard the sound of men’s voices, calling.

  “Here! We are here!”

  “It’s the lifeboat,” said the captain, aiming the searchlight toward the voices. “There, at two o’clock!”

  “I see it,” said the helmsman, at once adjusting course. He throttled up, guiding the bow through drifts of burning fuel. As they drew closer, Trott could hear the joyous shouts of the survivors, a confusing babble of Italian. How many in the boat? he wondered, straining to see through the murk. Five. Perhaps six. He could almost count them now, their arms waving in the searchlight’s beam, their heads bobbing in every direction. They were thrilled to be alive. To be in sight of rescue.