by Anne Stuart
“I—I don’t like pain, signor,” she said, swallowing a groan.
He laughed. “Don’t you, Annamaria? That’s too bad. Because you’re going to feel a great deal of pain before I’m through with you.” He slid his hand back up her stomach and snatched her purse away before she realized what he was doing. “You’re going to learn to like it in the few hours you have left on this earth.” He moved away from her, snapping open the purse to take out Ian’s knife. He eyed it like a connoisseur. “Very nice,” he said. “I think I’ll use this one on you.” And he moved back.
Holly backed against the window, no longer able to hide her terror. “But signor, why would you want to kill me?”
“Because, Signorina Holly Bennett, I like to kill women,” he said, smiling that horrifically charming smile as he started toward her.
She watched him come. There was absolutely nothing she could do. He was going to kill her, slowly, painfully, and her choice was simple. She could scream and fight and run, or she could die with dignity. She opened her mouth to scream.
No sooner had the first ear-splitting shriek escaped her mouth when all hell broke loose. It sounded as if the entire Italian army were outside Flynn’s door, breaking it down. Moments later it crashed down, and Ian Andrews stood there, breathing fire, an Uzi assault pistol in his hand, looking for all the world like a green-eyed Rambo.
Flynn whirled around, the knife moving with him, and Holly screamed a warning. It came in time, Ian ducked, and the knife embedded itself in the hallway as he stormed into the room.
But Flynn was gone. He hadn’t waited to see if the knife connected, hadn’t waited to see whether Ian was going to use that assault gun despite Holly’s proximity. He dove out the window, onto the steeply slanted lower roof, and had taken off, disappearing into the shadows.
Ian was halfway out the window, heading after him, when the wailing siren of the carabinieri reached their ears. He pulled back, cursing vehemently. “We’ve got to get out of here,” he said, grabbing her arm and pulling her out of the suite. She grabbed her discarded shoes on the way, following him out at a stumbling run. He yanked the knife out of the wall and headed for the service exit, ignoring the elevators that stood waiting.
They were halfway down the fourteen flights when Holly pulled back, her breath tearing through her. “Why … are … we running?” She gasped. “We didn’t do anything wrong.”
He looked up at her from the lower step, and she couldn’t read anything in his expression beyond impatience and a raw determination. “I don’t want to waste time trying to explain what we were doing there to the Italian police. I smuggled the knife into the country, and this gun is highly illegal. By the time they let us go Flynn would be so far gone we’d never find him.”
“But—”
“Come on, Holly. The sooner we’re away from here the better.”
He hadn’t said a word of criticism. During the surprisingly short walk back to the Ultima in the rain that had started as they had left Flynn’s hotel, he said nothing, holding her arm in a deceptively romantic fashion that helped hide the telltale bulge of the compact Uzi. He didn’t need to criticize. She felt like a criminally stupid fool. If she’d only confided in him, Flynn might be in custody now. Or dead. But in her egocentric quest for revenge she’d blown it, and almost lost her own life in the bargain. And if Ian hadn’t been as quick, he would have ended with his own knife in his throat. Stupid, stupid, stupid!
Ian shut their hotel door behind them, leaning against it, his green eyes hooded as he watched her drop down wearily on her bed. It was dark, and Holly’s silk suit was soaked with rain. She sat there, huddled in misery, waiting for his attack. She deserved every blistering word of it.
He pushed away from the door, dropping the Uzi on the table between the beds and pulling off the heavy sweater he’d worn against the December chill. “I think we could both do with a drink,” he said, and his voice carried no reproach.
She looked up at him then. “Aren’t you going to tell me what an idiot I’ve been? What a shallow, selfish, silly bitch? We could have had him, and I blew it.”
“Why should I tell you that? You took a chance, and it didn’t work. Well, there’ll be other chances.” He pulled a flask from his suitcase, unscrewed it, and took a long swallow. He shuddered, the ripple moving across the muscled torso, and then handed it to Holly.
She did the same, tipping her head back and swallowing the fiery liquid. She didn’t choke, but it took all her self-control not to. “I make a hell of a lousy Mata Hari. I wouldn’t blame you if you refused to have anything to do with me,” she said, self-pity taking over. “Maybe I should go back to L.A. where I won’t cause any more trouble.”
She felt the bed sag as he sat down next to her, close enough so that his shirt brushed her arm. His hands were gentle as he turned her to face him, and his green eyes were warm and soothing. “Listen to me, Holly Bennett. I won’t have you sitting here feeling sorry for yourself. You made a mistake, but it was a mistake any beginner would make. You were smart enough to find the man in the first place, just not smart enough to ask for backup. It’s lucky I know you well enough to know something was going on.”
“How did you find me so quickly?”
“They keep very good records of phone calls here at the Ultima. And Signor Palmo was more than helpful. I told him I was a jealous lover, and if he didn’t tell me where you were I’d trash his elegant lobby. He was more than happy to show me the private elevator.”
“You’re not a jealous lover,” she said, and if her voice sounded somewhat aggrieved at that she was too overwrought to notice. “And what do you mean, you knew me well enough to know something was going on? You’ve only known me a couple of days,” she protested, liking the feel of his hands on her arms, wishing she could move closer. She was cold and wet and miserable, and he was warm and strong and there.
“I know you very well.” His hands were moving up her arms to the collar of her jacket, and he was pulling it off her, gently, with such expert ease that she was almost unaware of it. “I know you have the heart of a lion and the soul of a Valkyrie. When we catch Flynn next time I’ll let you kill him.” And as he slid the silk jacket off her his arms circled her, and his mouth touched hers.
They both tasted of rain and Irish whiskey. Holly sighed, moving her arms up around his neck. “Oh, Ian,” she said, when he kissed her neck. “What took you so long?” And she sank down on the bed beneath him.
Timothy Seamus Flynn ducked under the low-hanging portico of the train station. He was soaked to the skin, but the chill December wind didn’t bother him. A hot, burning rage was keeping him warm, keeping him fiery hot beneath the cold dampness of his clothes.
He’d only seen him for a moment, a brief flash in time before he’d dived out the window, but he’d have known him anywhere. Ian Kellehy Andrews, in the flesh, still after him after all these years. He couldn’t know about Maeve, it was too soon. Maybe, just maybe, he could turn around and find him, be the one to tell him just what had happened to precious Maeve O’Connor less than twenty-four hours ago.
As soon as the thought entered his mind he dismissed it. Ian wasn’t alone, he’d somehow gotten tied up with those damned Bennett women and Randall Carter. And while Flynn had few doubts about his own infallibility, to finish all four of them would take careful planning.
For now he’d just move on to his next stop a little ahead of schedule. He could make a few calls, pull in a few favors, and maybe leave those interfering Americans up to someone else. He would have liked to have been the one to finish Ian, but there was no need to be greedy. Right now what he needed most was a vacation.
The row of telephones stood off to one side in the noisy, crowded building. Shaking off the rain that had soaked him to the skin, he headed toward them, brushing against a stern-looking Italian policeman. The carabiniere glared at him, and Timothy Seamus Flynn smiled his devastating smile, murmuring “Scusi.”
And the policeman
smiled back, before turning away from the most wanted criminal in Europe.
twelve
The moment Holly awoke the next morning she knew something wasn’t quite right. Despite the fact that her body felt deliciously sore, well loved from the top of her raven hair to the tips of her red-painted toes, her sleep-dazed mind warned her she wasn’t going to like what she saw when she woke up completely. She considered rolling over and going back to sleep, but consciousness had taken its nasty toll. She opened her eyes, past the empty space next to her, over to the second bed they hadn’t needed to use the night before. Ian’s battered leather suitcase was gone.
Keep calm, she ordered herself. He probably just took it into the bathroom with him to change. Or he shoved it under the bed and she didn’t notice. But that was a vain hope. She’d noticed quite clearly everything he’d done when they got back to the hotel room, noticed and enjoyed it thoroughly.
She sat up, pushing her thick black mane away from her face. Sun was filtering through the closed curtains, the bright sunlight of midday. The bathroom door was open, and Ian wasn’t inside. Ian was gone.
“Hell and damnation,” Holly said succinctly, pulling herself out of bed and walking over to the dresser. There was a note waiting for her, and she opened it with barely suppressed fury.
“I’ll be back for you. Ian.”
“Sure you will,” she snarled, dropping it back on the dresser. “But I’m damned if I’ll be waiting.”
She cursed her way through a long hot shower, reviewing her options. She could sit and wait like a good, passive little girl. She could fly home and keep Kate and Jilly company at their bedside vigil. She could take off with Randall and Maggie, assuming they had anywhere to take off to. Or she could see if she could find out where the hell Ian went.
The latter option was the most attractive. Ian was on special assignment for British Army Intelligence, wasn’t he? The logical place to start would be the British Embassy. And if by any chance her questions proved embarrassing, well, that was too damned bad. He should have trusted her enough to tell her where he was going.
She’d met the current ambassador at a party her friends, the Fendis, had given last year, hadn’t she? A sweet, red-faced gentleman of the old school, all British bluster and faded blue eyes and apoplectic charm. If she couldn’t get what she needed to know out of him then she was losing her touch, her looks, and quite probably her mind. But she had no doubts at all she’d succeed.
The silk suit was a rumpled mess on the floor beside the bed. The Ultima’s valet service would be able to rescue it in no time, and for now Holly had no other options. She would have preferred not to dress in the outfit that had almost become her shroud, but her choice was limited. It was that or fatigues, and blustery old gentlemen preferred women to look like ladies. She’d pick up something better on the way back and dump the damned suit in the incinerator. It would serve Ian Andrews right if he returned to find her reequipped with twelve suitcases.
First things first. She’d have to hassle with a call to California again. At least Sybil had made it through the night—if she hadn’t, Holly would have heard. There might even be good news. At least she was still alive.
For Maggie the flight from Damascus to Rome was deceptively brief. It was a small enough compensation for the incredible frustration of the last twenty-four hours. The supposedly easy trek down from El Khabrim to the Syrian border was wrought with nothing but hassles. First the Bronco overheated, and they had to hike five miles to find water. Two hours later it developed a flat tire, due to a bullet graze from the night before. They hit a goat in the early afternoon, and ran into a particularly surly border guard when they tried to cross over into Syria. They were detained for five hours, sitting apart from each other in a squalid little oven of a building. Maggie wasn’t even allowed to use the bathroom until she went through the expected indignity of a body search, and her mood grew fouler by the minute.
Illogical as it was, she blamed Randall. She blamed him for her discomfort, for her empty stomach and full bladder, for the sneering threat of the customs officer and the sadistic behavior of the guard who examined her. At least they’d waited until a woman customs official showed up, though the uniformed creature with the badge reading S. Khuerdi must have come close to failing the gender test. With her dark, malicious, piggy eyes, rough hands, and incipient mustache, she somehow failed to encourage in her prisoner any feeling of sisterhood. Maggie withstood the indignities and the deliberate cruelties with a calm she had to admire in herself. She could only hope Randall was meeting with a similarly degrading fate.
It was after midnight when they were released, with empty apologies. The Bronco was waiting, and this time it served them well. They made it in record time, and the clean hotel Randall checked them into had small, separate rooms. Maggie had fallen into the narrow bed, thanking God she at least had that small respite. If she fell asleep clutching the lumpy pillow and thinking of Randall, she was too tired to fight it.
At least there was an early flight to Rome. Maggie sat in her window seat, staring out at the clouds, trying to ignore her seat mate. Randall had been in an unusually sunny mood, with none of his characteristic mockery showing through. He’d accepted her taciturn silence, accepted her bad temper, and immersed himself in an Arabic newspaper. Maggie remembered another occasion, when he’d been equally engrossed in an Eastern European newspaper, apparently as at home with the Cyrillic alphabet as he was with the Arabic one.
She’d allowed herself a brief look at him, a dangerous glance that she regretted the moment she succumbed. He was a bundle of contradictions and questions. In repose his austere, handsome face was almost grim. The lines that furrowed his brow and ran down parallel to his mouth were deeply etched, and the thin, sensuous mouth was, she knew from experience, unused to smiling. It was still dangerously effective, at least on her.
His sixth sense must have told him she was watching. He lifted his head, his stormy blue-gray eyes meeting hers for a lingering moment. And then he did smile, that rare, bewitching curve of his lips, and Maggie felt the ice around her heart begin to melt.
“Are you certain you want to change partners, Maggie?”
God, she was a stupid fool. An idiot of a female, betrayed by her hormones. She looked at his hands holding the paper, the long, tanned fingers that were so fiendishly clever, the narrow palms, the deceptive strength. She could still feel those hands on her, feel their power and their pleasure.
“I’m certain.” And she turned her face toward the window, staring into the puffy white clouds.
Holly’s hand shook as she let herself back into her hotel room. She didn’t even bother to glance at the bed, to see whether Ian’s leather suitcase had made a reappearance. She knew it hadn’t. She shut the door behind her, fastened the chain, and headed straight for the bathroom.
Once there, her misery-induced nausea passed, and she was left staring at the spotless commode and bidet with something less than pleasure. “God damn it,” she said out loud, and the tiled bathroom provided a pleasant echo. She sat back on her heels beside the john and tried it again. “Damn it to hell,” a little louder, and the sound bounced off the walls. She kicked off her high-heeled Charles Jourdan shoes, wiggled her silk-covered toes, and leaned back against the marble bathtub. In the circumstances there was only one thing to do. She’d call down to room service, have them send up a bottle of Amaretto and a box of chocolates, and spend the next few hours drinking and eating and singing in the bathroom.
Sir Alfred had been more than kind. More than helpful. He’d sent his willowy young aide scurrying after information while the two of them had enjoyed a high British tea, complete with Hu Kwa and real scones with Scottish marmalade, until Tavistock reappeared with the information that effectively wiped out Holly’s appetite. Ian Andrews was no longer a member of British Army Intelligence, and hadn’t been for six months. He’d received the British equivalent of a dishonorable discharge arising out of an incident when h
e was stationed in Northern Ireland. He’d let a known terrorist escape, a terrorist who’d been linked to bombings and ambushes that had resulted in the death of more than forty people in the last three years.
“Was the terrorist Tim Flynn?” Holly had questioned, her stomach burning with rage and disbelief.
Tavistock shook his marcelled blond hair. “No. It was a woman named Maeve O’Connor. Apparently she’s his half sister. And the man spent a great part of his childhood in Londonderry—half his friends are now members of the IRA. Including Timothy Seamus Flynn.”
“Did the army think he was helping them?” Sir Alfred demanded, his beetled white brows bristling.
“I don’t believe so, sir,” said his aide. “But they felt, given his connection with various criminals, that his integrity might be compromised. He was offered a post in the Falklands but he declined.”
“Well, well, young lady, does that answer your questions?” Sir Alfred demanded, clearly eager to get back to their light flirtation.
Holly had summoned up her best smile. “Some of them,” she replied, forcing herself to swallow the cold tea.
She stretched out on the bathroom floor, reviewing her information. It explained quite a bit, as a matter of fact. Ian Andrews knew what Tim Flynn looked like because he grew up with him. Apparently he’d taken on a private vendetta against the man, one that the British army failed to sanction. Rather than accept exile to the Falklands, he’d decided to go after Flynn himself.
At least, that was the most palatable explanation. Another, far less pleasant one, was that he was an undercover member of the IRA, hand in glove with Flynn and his ilk. But that didn’t make sense. He would never have gotten involved with her, would have kept his distance from Maggie and Randall, led them away from Ireland, from Beirut, from Rome. Unless he’d been setting them up for Flynn.
But no, that was impossible. If he was helping Flynn he wouldn’t have rescued her from Flynn’s bloodthirsty clutches yesterday.
