At the Edge of the Sun

by Anne Stuart

  Ian’s palms were suddenly dry. He stepped into the bedroom, leaving the door open behind him. He might have to make a quick getaway, and he didn’t want anything slowing him down. “I did tell you, Tim,” he said, his voice calm and even. “When you least expect it, I’ll be there.”

  “To be sure, I didn’t expect you,” Flynn said, leaning back against the pile of pillows. The waterbed shifted and rolled beneath his weight, and Ian’s grip on the gun tightened infinitesimally. “But you’re welcome any time. Especially when you bring such lovely company.”

  “What the hell …” His voice faded as he sensed a presence behind him in the doorway. Someone very tall and very female, and he began to sweat again. “Damn, Maggie, what are you doing here?”

  It was worse than he’d thought. “Not Maggie,” Holly said. “She’s still wandering the halls, looking for you.”

  “How did you find us, Annamaria?” Flynn mocked.

  She looked at him, unmoved by that sunny smile. “I simply asked someone.”

  “Who did you ask?” Ian’s breathing was harsh, labored.

  “A man in a wheelchair.”

  Flynn laughed. “Well, that takes care of that, doesn’t it? Lazarus may not be my favorite person, but he won’t like having guests murdered in their beds. Better do it now, Ian, or you won’t get any chance at all.”

  Slowly Ian raised his gun, aiming it directly at Flynn’s naked, hairy chest. His arm was trembling, just enough to throw off his aim, and he used every ounce of his strength to still the tremors. He cast only a quick, worried glance at Holly’s pale face before walking farther into the room.

  “You can’t do it,” Flynn said. “There’s too much of your goddamned British sense of justice and fair play. You can’t shoot an unarmed man in bed, no matter how much he deserves it. And I have no intention of making it easier for you. I’m not going to go for my gun. I’m just going to sit here and wait until you’re ready to admit you’re too damned civilized. And by the time that happens Lazarus will be back with help.”

  “Maybe,” said Ian. “Maybe not.” He still held the gun pointed at Flynn.

  “Remember the good old days, Ian?” Flynn said with a sigh. “Just the three of us, you, me, and Maeve. What a group we made. I was always the leader, and Maeve would do anything I said. You were less obedient. I should have done something about it back then.”

  “You weren’t into cold-blooded murder when we were thirteen years old,” he said flatly.

  Flynn grinned. “Wasn’t I, then? And what do you think happened to Maury Piper? He didn’t just happen to drown, you know. And who ended up with that bright-red bicycle of his?”

  The gun trembled for a moment, then held still again, as Ian’s impassive eyes kept watch on the man in the bed. “So I underestimated you,” he said. “So did Maeve. It’s probably too late for her—she’ll get caught sooner or later. But in the meantime you’re going to pay for what you did to her, and for what you did to all those people.”

  “Maeve isn’t going to get caught, Ian,” Flynn said, his voice an enchanting lilt. “Didn’t your friends tell you? Maeve is beyond the reach of the British army, Interpol, or anyone else who wants to interfere. She’s beyond anybody’s reach.”

  “You killed her?” Ian’s voice was thick with disbelief. “I don’t believe you.”

  “Oh, but I did. Look at it this way: I did you both a favor. She’d outlived her usefulness. There was no way you could ever be brother and sister again. She took after her renegade father too much, while you’re just like that tight-arsed British major that sired you.” Flynn smiled. “So do your worst, me boy. I more than deserve it.”

  “I plan to,” Ian said, moving into the room. Now the gun was very steady.

  “But do remember,” he continued, “that I’ll win in the end. If you shoot me like this you’ll be descending to my level. You’ll never crawl back up. And, of course, your lady will be a horrified witness. Do you want her watching you commit cold-blooded murder?”

  “No, I don’t. Go away, Holly. Go back to the room. I’ll meet you there the moment I finish with this.”

  “I’m staying.”

  Flynn grinned. “Stubborn as her sainted mother. Speaking of which, Annamaria Holly Bennett, I have some of her jewels still with me. I’m not about to give them back, but you might like to see them.” He reached over to flip back the pillow beside him.

  Ian cocked the gun, waiting, hoping to see Flynn’s hand emerge with a weapon. It emerged with a fistful of jewels that shimmered even in the dull artificial light. “I couldn’t bear to part with them,” he said with a sigh. “I plan to cut them up and then cash them in one at a time. Your mother had such wonderful luck with her husbands and lovers. Until she met me.”

  Ian stared at him, sick with frustration. “Get out of bed, Tim.”

  “Why? To give you a better chance of shooting me? No way, laddie. I’m staying put. You’re going to have to shoot a naked, unarmed man in the safety of his own bed. Let’s see if you can do it, eh? Come on, boy, you’ve got it in you. Think of Maury. Think of Holly’s mother. Think of Maeve, screaming and crying in the night …” His hand reached under the pillow once more, and Ian pulled the trigger.

  It was timeless, it was instantaneous. Two sharp thwups, directly into the middle of Flynn’s naked chest. He opened his mouth, an expression of complete amazement on his handsome face, and then he slid down on the bed.

  Within seconds he was lying in a pool of bloody water as the bed began to deflate. The bullets had gone directly through his body, into the plastic liner of the waterbed, and the empty husk that had once been Flynn was sinking. The pillow fell away from his arm as the bed collapsed in upon itself, and in Flynn’s dead, clutching hand was a 345 magnum.

  Ian could feel the cold sweat pouring down his face. He didn’t for one moment realize they were tears. “We’d better get the hell out of here,” he said, his voice husky. He crossed to the bed, digging down to catch the handful of jewels lying beside Flynn. For one last moment he stared down at him, then turned back to Holly, handing her the jewels. He looked for horror, for condemnation in her eyes. Instead he saw only love and sorrow, and for a moment it unmanned him.

  She smiled then, tucking the jewels in both pockets of her safari suit. “Let’s go.”

  twenty

  Someone was following her. In the empty halls of Cul de Sac someone was stalking Maggie as she tried to find Flynn’s suite of rooms. She reached behind her, taking the snub-nosed gun from her waistband and holding it carefully in one large, capable hand. For only a moment did she regret coming out alone into the night, then she dismissed it. She wasn’t going to let Randall have Flynn’s murder on his conscience. Her own was fairly clean—she could afford to add one execution to her list of sins.

  If she made it at all. There were strange noises in the night. The cooling system made its own, monotonous hum. Then there were other noises, the muffled, sporadic sound of pumps and electric motors. It was almost as if she were being stalked by a robot, by something composed of mechanical parts and not human flesh and blood.

  The very thought chilled her. Sybil’s melodramatic blood must run thicker in her veins than she’d thought. It wasn’t Darth Vader after her in the moonlit night, and it wasn’t something out of Stephen King or even Buck Rogers. Whoever was stalking her was alive and real and—

  An arm snaked across her throat, a hand clamped down over the scream in her mouth, and she was hauled back against the very flesh and blood she was hoping for. It took her only a moment of sharply painful struggling before she recognized Randall’s unmistakable touch.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he whispered in her ear, his voice furious.

  “Argermphn,” she said, and he removed his hand from her mouth. “I was looking for Flynn,” she said again, her voice equally low. “Why were you creeping around after me? You scared me half to death with those weird noises.”

  “I wasn’t making an
y weird noises,” Randall said. “And I wasn’t creeping around after you. I just got here.”

  Maggie allowed herself one swift moment of panic. “Okay,” she said, once it had passed, “I must be paranoid. Where—”

  They both heard it at the same time. The muffled thuds, two in a row, that might be champagne corks popping. Or might be a gun with a silencer.

  “Shit,” Randall said succinctly, and took off down the hall with Maggie following. Suite 236J-5 was just around the corner, and Holly and Ian were just inside the door.

  Ian looked deathly pale, and Holly looked equally shaken. “You’ve taken care of him?” Randall asked in a surprisingly gentle voice.

  “I have,” Ian said after a moment. “Let’s get the hell out of here. I expect Lazarus may be on to us, and I don’t trust the man.”

  “I think we’d better split up,” Maggie said.

  “Good thinking,” Randall agreed. “The three of you go on ahead. I’ll cover things from this end and meet you—”

  “You two take off,” Maggie interrupted firmly. “I think there’s at least one back entrance …”

  “There are two,” Ian said, his voice only slightly hoarse. “I ran across them earlier. I think there’s a jeep there. We could all go.”

  “The three of you—” Randall began again.

  “Shut up, Randall,” Maggie said fiercely. “I’m not leaving you and that’s that. You two go on ahead and we’ll meet you later.”

  “Where?” Holly demanded in a shaky voice.

  “L.A., probably. Go on, now.”

  She turned to Randall, expecting more arguments. He opened his mouth, then shut it again, glaring at her. Within moments Holly and Ian had vanished, leaving them alone in the doorway of Flynn’s suite.

  “So why did we stay behind?” she asked in a conversational tone.

  “You stayed behind because you’re a stubborn, infuriating woman,” Randall said. “I stayed behind because I want to make sure Flynn’s dead and because I have one other job to do.”

  “You don’t think Ian would have made certain?” She followed him into the suite, pausing inside the bedroom door and holding her breath against that smell she recognized far too well.

  “Maybe.” Randall leaned over the collapsed bed, then straightened up again. “He’s dead, all right.” He moved away, his footsteps making squelching noises in the soaked carpet. “Why’d he have to shoot him in the waterbed?”

  “I don’t think they had much choice,” Maggie said, backing out of the room. “What’s your other job?”

  He looked up then, his blue-gray gaze even. “I have to take care of Lazarus.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Randall. We know where Cul de Sac is, and we know it’s full of murderers and terrorists. Can’t someone just send a bomber? The Salambian army isn’t big enough to do anything about it.” She could hear the whirring noises in the background, the ones that had terrified her before, but she was too intent on Randall to pay them any mind.

  “I expect someone will. But I’m not taking any chances. Ian had his destiny with Flynn, I have mine with Lazarus.”

  “Who the hell is Lazarus?” she demanded, frustrated.

  “Who do you think, sweet cakes?”

  She didn’t want to turn. She didn’t want to have to look into that face she thought was long dead, she didn’t want to have to hear that barely recognizable voice. But she had no choice in the matter. Slowly she turned, her gaze dropping onto the shriveled figure in the automatic wheelchair.

  Bud Willis. Lazarus, once dead, now alive. Or partly so. He had machines wired up to him, breathing for him, moving for him, pumping his blood for him. A clear plastic tube ran from the tanks on the back of the wheelchair into his throat, his eyes were bloodshot and cheerful, his skull and face a travesty of what they’d been.

  “Oh, no,” she said, her voice sick and shaking.

  “You can’t keep a good man down, sugar buns.” He glided into the room. “You should have known I don’t die that easy. Randall did.”

  “I guessed,” Randall said.

  “You two been having a good time?” he demanded, that wheezing, rasping voice a travesty. “How’d you like my little deathbed confession?”

  Maggie was holding herself very still. “You bastard. To lie like that …”

  “Who said it was a lie?” Bud said.

  She didn’t dare look at Randall. She could feel his eyes on her, watching her, but she knew that if she turned she’d weaken. “Was it a lie?” she had to ask.

  Bud grinned. “That’s for me to know, baby and I’m sure as hell not going to tell you.” He moved farther into the room with the faintest movement of his shriveled left hand. “How do you like this place? Some setup, eh? We can thank the Company for part of this. They subsidized my relocation over here. Not to mention paying my medical bills. God, it’s great to come up against bleeding hearts. They’ll bend over backward for their enemies and let their friends starve to death.”

  Maggie stared at him. Then she turned to Randall, her face calm and still. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “You mean you’ll go off with the man who hired me to kill your husband?” Bud scoffed.

  “It means I wouldn’t believe a word you say.”

  “It’s your funeral,” Bud said. “And believe me, it will be. I have a couple of male nurses who are on their way here right now. They’re not too good on TLC but they’re great with a submachine gun.”

  “We’ll be long gone,” Randall said.

  “They’ll find you. But cheer up, sweet lips. Your sister and her boyfriend will get away. I’m more interested in the two of you.”

  “We’re all going to get away.”

  “No, you’re not,” Bud offered cheerfully.

  It happened so swiftly Randall nearly missed it: the infinitesimal movement of Bud’s withered hand, the tiny metal plates swinging back from the front of the electronic wheelchair. He had just enough time to shove Maggie, hard, before a hail of tiny darts sprayed the wall directly behind the spot where she’d been standing.

  For a man in Bud’s condition he moved very quickly. With a tiny flick of his finger the wheelchair spun around, the arsenal of poisoned darts following Randall. But he wasn’t quite fast enough. Randall dodged, darting past him. His long arm shot out and ripped the plastic tubing out of Bud’s throat.

  Willis screamed, a gargling sort of noise as bright-red blood began to spill down the front of his shirt. Maggie stood there in a daze, watching, as he tried to catch his breath. But there was no breath for him; the machine was disconnected and he was too crippled to reach it. He sat there in the chair, his eyes wide and furious, gasping, choking, struggling, and completely helpless. His maddened eyes began to glaze over and his struggles lessened, and then stopped altogether. His head sank onto his blood-soaked chest.

  “Let’s go,” Randall said, his voice steady.

  Without a backward glance, Maggie put her hand in his and followed.

  Holly didn’t say a word until they were clear of Cul de Sac’s ominous bulk, driving into the parched African dawn across the burnt-out grasslands. The tears had dried on Ian’s face, his green eyes were bleak, and his mouth was set in a tight line.

  Their escape had been flawless, from the deserted corridors to the unlocked back gates to the keys left in the jeep. They drove off into the night in a silence that stretched between them like flypaper.

  “Are you all right?” she said finally, her voice low.

  He didn’t even look at her. “Fine,” he said.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To the nearest city, the nearest airport. Probably somewhere in Egypt.”

  “And when we get there?”

  “I’ll put you on the first plane out of here.”

  “What will happen to you?”

  “God knows,” he said. “God knows.”

  “Ian …”

  “I loved him, you know,” he said. “I loved him like a brother. He
had so much charm, so much joy in him. I simply couldn’t believe he could do such things. I covered for him, all during our childhood. I made excuses for him in our teens. And I let him get away once, when we were in our early twenties. I knew he’d set the bomb that killed thirteen people in a Londonderry shop. I knew it, but I convinced myself he couldn’t have. I looked the other way while he ran for it.”

  “You couldn’t have known—”

  “But I did know. Deep in my heart I knew what he could do. When he dragged Maeve into it, brought her along with his wickedness and his killings, I couldn’t hide from it any longer.”

  “It’s over now,” she said, hating the simplicity of her words but not knowing how else to comfort him.

  “Is it? I expect it will haunt me the rest of my life.”

  She leaned back against the uncomfortable seat. “Maybe,” she said. “But you’ll have me there to remind you it wasn’t your fault.”

  He turned to look at her then, and some of the bleakness had left the green of his eyes. “I will?” His tone of voice wasn’t promising, but she charged on, regardless.

  “And you might as well come straight to L.A. with me,” she added in her most prosaic voice. “I can’t very well buy my trousseau without you when you’re so damned picky about what I wear. And God knows, I’ll need new luggage.”

  He stared at her, outrage and amazement vying for control. Then he laughed, a raw, painful sound in the morning stillness. “Anything but purple,” he said as his strong, rough hand caught hers, holding it tightly as they drove into the light.

  “Do you know how to fly this thing?” Maggie slid into the copilot seat beside Randall.

  “It’s been years,” he replied, his voice muffled. “I imagine it’s like riding a bicycle. You never forget how.”

  “I hope so,” she said, shoving her hair out of her face. “I’d hate to think we’d made it this far only to crash on the runway.”

  Randall was ignoring her, flipping switches, checking dials, looking comfortably efficient. “Do you want to sit in the cabin? That way you don’t have to watch.”