Orange Blossoms & Mayhem (Fantascapes)

by Blair Bancroft

  Oh, shit! “You didn’t!” I breathed. “It’s impossible.”

  “Did.” Arlan’s teeth flashed in a grin that made my fingers clench into fists. I wanted to kick his butt all the way to the beach. The miserable rotten sneak had come into my territory and accomplished something I’d been trying to arrange for years. And he didn’t even have a first-born child to donate for the privilege.

  There’s a warm mineral spring ten miles southeast of Golden Beach. People come from all over the world to bathe in its medicinal waters. Far down in its depths is a cave with artifacts dating back ten thousand years, one of the finest archeological sites in North America. But the spring is privately owned, and after an archeologist suffered a severe case of the bends back in the early eighties, all cave exploration ceased. I’d been beating my head against a wall for years, attempting to get permission to allow qualified divers to go only as far as the cave mouth, and now . . . Arlan Trevellyan—damn him!—had gotten permission to go inside the cave. The dirty rotten miserable rat. He was here to crow about a genuine five-star triumph.

  “I guess you made the owner mad,” he said with a shrug that was so smug my shock turned to fighting mad. “Harassment,” Mr. Jankowski called it. “I’m afraid he’s really enjoying sticking the knife.” Arlan bared his teeth in something that passed for a sympathetic smile. “Sorry, dear, but some men really don’t like pushy women.”

  The horrible thing was, Arlan was probably right. Girls like me are an acquired taste. Obviously, even Rhys, whose British butt I’d saved, had had second thoughts.

  “Are you in town for long?” I asked.

  “Just long enough to cement the deal.” Arlan’s smile took on a tinge of leer. “Could I tempt you to show me the sights, the best place for a nice quiet dinner . . .” He raised an eyebrow, while allowing his voice to trail into suggestive silence.

  He had to be kidding.

  Then again, I recalled that ancient advice about keeping your enemies close. I’d be a fool not to take this opportunity to pry into the details of how Arlan Trevellyan had gotten around Arkady Jankowski. “Fine, let’s go,” I said, and enjoyed watching his eyes widen in surprise. Too bad. He’d asked for my company. He was going to get it. I would stick with him until I waved goodbye at the airport, giving him no more opportunities to horn into Fantascapes’ territory. Later, it was my turn to smile at the look on Arlan’s face when he discovered Flint was joining us for supper.

  Four weeks since Peru. I’d seen Arlan off to Toronto. I still didn’t like him, but we’d parted with a slightly better understanding of how we could avoid stepping on each other’s toes. Whether or not we chose to do so was still in question.

  The inner two Fabergé eggs were finished. Viktor and I made a field trip to Sarasota, where he declared them “perfect.” The Ringling students re-doubled their efforts to make the wedding deadline, now only two weeks away.

  Still no word from Rhys. In those last frantic minutes before the policia boarded the VistaDome in Cuzco, he’d given me his cell phone number, and since we both had global service, I could call him any time. I’d even considered it once or twice—or maybe thrice. Until the check came. Now he could rot for all I cared. He’d dangled the carrot of Interpol under my nose. He’d dangled himself under my nose—I had a flash of Rhys stark naked in our room at the Pueblo—and then he’d disappeared. Well, he had my cell number too. Each of us was instantly available to the other, all we had to do was punch in the numbers.

  There was, however, the not-so-little matter of Halliday pride. There were certain aspects of feminism I refused to embrace. No way, no how . . .

  I jumped as the tinkling notes of my cell phone demanded my attention. Rhys, Interpol, the lovely Florida day disappeared with the first anguished syllables of the frantic call from our rep in Paris.

  We’d arranged an extended European vacation for an Argentinian rancher and his wife that included a week at a private chalet in Switzerland, where they would live in pampered luxury while comparing the Andes to the Alps. Everything had gone smoothly until today, when a spring avalanche had buried their chalet under twenty feet of snow.

  “Oh, my God,” I breathed. “I’m on my way.” A half hour later, Bella roared into life. I was on my way to Switzerland and, believe me, I was praying.

  But not so steadily I didn’t recall that just over the border in France was the city of Lyon.

  I arrived in time to see Jorge and Julieta Gaudio pulled from the chalet, frostbitten but alive, thanks to outstanding work by local rescue teams to whom avalanches were as much a way of life as hurricanes were to Florida. I added my profuse thanks, accompanied the Gaudios to the hospital, and as soon as they were pronounced fit to be moved, whisked them to a private sanatorium where their every whim would be indulged, in addition to receiving expert medical care. I instructed our Paris rep, who had reached the site of the disaster only a few hours ahead of me, to be on stand-by to adjust the Gaudio’s airplane reservations back to Buenos Aires. Whatever was needed—Fantascapes carried high-level insurance for just this sort of thing.

  I paid a final visit to our clients who were gracious enough to express their gratitude for what I could only view as Fantascapes putting their lives in danger. No more Swiss chalets during snow melt season! Then I packed my bag and took a taxi into Bern. Now that the crisis was past, I didn’t mind taking some time to compare the Andes to the Alps myself. A few hours on a train would give me time to think, to ask myself if I were crazy. To say, Laine, turn around. Go home! You’re not wanted here.

  I bought a first class ticket, though a vision of Grady’s disapproving face flashed before me. This side trip was definitely not on my schedule.

  Spectacular as the scenery was from Bern to Geneva, there was rather too much white stuff for a girl who’d spent the last dozen years in Florida. The villages were picture postcard perfection—quaint, sparkling clean, and backed by amazing rugged mountains. Yet in my mind I saw the green of the Urubamba Valley, of vast agricultural terraces, and the solid stone on stone of Inca walls, the only snow on distant white-capped peaks tall enough to defy their location so close to the equator.

  There was a half-hour stop-over in Geneva, and then the next leg of my journey. Just under three hours after I left Bern, the train pulled into Lyon.

  Chapter Twelve

  While in Switzerland, I’d had several long evenings to continue my research on Interpol via laptop and to investigate Lyon as well. Among other things, I’d come to the conclusion that the Meridien Hotel was the place to stay. Close, but not embarrassingly close, to 200, quai Charles de Gaulle, the home of Interpol. The Meridien was also the top ten floors of a rather spectacular round skyscraper. I’d stayed in some pretty strange places—witness Phuyupatamarca—but I’d never stayed in a round hotel. Since my mind seemed to circle endlessly these days, accomplishing only what it absolutely had to, a circular hotel seemed both ironic and fitting.

  But before I registered, I asked the taxi driver to take me past Interpol’s headquarters. He flashed a knowing grin, as if to say, But of course, mademoiselle, what visitor would not wish to see Interpol? I joined him in the front seat so I’d have the best view, and off we went.

  After only a few blocks of city traffic, we emerged onto the beautifully landscaped bank of the Rhone. The broad river was on our left; to our right, a large park dotted with people of all ages enjoying the brisk spring afternoon. “C’est là, mademoiselle.” The driver, beaming, waved his hand toward a sparkling white building that appeared to be more like a fairy-tale castle set down in a sea of green than an international police headquarters. Suddenly, I felt like a small child with her nose pressed to the toy store window. This was Interpol?

  While researching, I’d discovered that after years of being shuffled around step-child-type offices, Interpol had finally moved into a new building in the St. Cloud section of Paris in 1966. And outgrew it in barely more than twenty years—probably the biggest clue to the value the intern
ational community placed on Interpol’s services. So once again the member nations anted up, and a grand new monument to international policing went up in Lyon. The present headquarters was both castle and fortress, transformed by late twentieth century architecture into the clean curves and angles of the modern world. The roofline might not have been crenellated, but if those clusters of columns weren’t inspired by ancient turrets, I’d . . . I’d nibble on one of Viktor’s papier maché eggs.

  “Mademoiselle,” said the driver, a new note in his voice, “it is possible we are being followed.” My head swiveled around so fast I almost bumped my nose on the partition. “The black Citroën, three cars back, has been with us since we left the Gare Part Dieu.”

  I could see excitement in the driver’s eyes—I was young, I was attractive, I’d asked to see Interpol. Therefore, intrigue was afoot. I faced forward, assuming my most bland expression. “Perhaps they are simply going in the same direction, monsieur. But thank you for being cautious. We will go to the Meridien now.”

  “Oui, mademoiselle.” With a resigned sigh, the driver headed back the way we had come.

  The black Citroën stayed with us, but my concern was soon swept away by astonishment as a uniformed bellman on the ground floor of the round, brown building escorted me to an elevator, which went directly to the thirty-second floor. As the doors opened, I glanced around, struggling to maintain my international sophistication as I discovered that here, far above the rooftops of Lyon, was the lobby of the Meridien Hotel.

  My room was on the thirty-fourth floor, and I admit I was glad to shut the door, throw the deadbolt, and put up the chain. And then, ignoring my considerable doubts about following Rhys to Lyon, as well as my questions about who was following me, I rushed to the broad curve of my window and looked out. There was Lyon—roofs, steeples, toy cars, streetcars, buses, and boats, bisected by the gray-blue line of the Rhone.

  Okay, I was glad I’d come. Even if I went home without ever seeing Rhys, I’d have these pictures to carry in my head. Interpol and Lyon were no longer vague words with no images to anchor them in place. But I couldn’t be easy. Why would anyone want to follow me? On the grand scheme of things I was a nothing, a nobody. The taxi driver was mistaken.

  If I’d been followed from the train station, I’d been followed all the way from Bern. Perhaps from the sanatorium itself. I’d been followed across the border between Switzerland and France. Which supposedly in this era of one great happy European community was no longer a big deal, but nonetheless . . .

  No, no way. Nobody cared what I did. Except . . . possibly . . . Interpol. I’d been on hand for the attempted murder of one of their officers. Three times. Surely they didn’t think I was involved?

  Stupid! How could they not? I was involved up to my eyeballs. I simply didn’t know why. Had Interpol put out their equivalent of an APB for me? Had I been watched from the moment I went through customs at the airport in Zurich?

  It was, of course, entirely possible. Which made things that much more awkward.

  I fixed myself a scotch from the mini-bar. I took my cell phone out of my purse and plunked it down on the table by the window, right next to my scotch. I glared at it, the pros in a battle-to-the-death with the cons inside my head.

  It would be romantic to say my heart won, but, truthfully, it was more like curiosity and determined selfishness pushing aside stubborn pride. I needed to know why I hadn’t heard from Rhys, and I needed to find out if I still wanted to jump his bones.

  I punched in his cell number, my last swallow of scotch threatening to come back up and choke me. But as his phone rang, instead of my heart pounding in time-honored romantic fashion, it went all cold and still. The man was a lying rat, and I was betraying the Halliday pride.

  Voice mail. I was caught somewhere between annoyed and relieved.

  “Hi, this is Laine. Just passing through and thought I’d say thanks for the check. I’m at the Meridien.”

  Was that cool or what? He couldn’t fail to get the dig about the check. Looking out over the rooftops of Lyon, I finished my scotch. I poured another.

  I waited.

  “You lost him?” Klaus Peiper, chief of Interpol’s Human Trafficking section, glared at Alain Bedard, a relatively new addition to Interpol, seconded from the Sûreté in Paris.

  “What can I say, sir?” the young man exclaimed. “He’s been so good, obeying all the rules—I never thought . . . We’d been in that meeting for two hours . . . he was checking his cell phone messages, I needed to take a—ah, use the facilities, sir. When I came out, he was gone.”

  Inspector Peiper sighed, his slightly overweight body seeming to deflate, along with his wrath. “Not your fault, Bedard. And it’s not as if we can’t guess where he is.”

  “Cherchez la femme, sir?” Bedard grinned, his face hastily rearranging itself when his Interpol superior did not share his amusement. “It’s not as if she’s the assassin, sir.”

  “May I remind you of the meeting we just finished?”

  The young man gulped. “No, sir.”

  “In more than a month of investigation the only conclusion we’ve been able to reach is that someone feels so strongly about keeping Tarrant and Mademoiselle Halliday apart that they’re willing to kill for it. And yet Tarrant swears they have nothing in common other than his desire to use her as an informant. No cause sufficient for someone to hire an assassin.”

  “To kill Rhys, not the girl.”

  Klaus Peiper gave an abrupt nod. “A further mystery. And right now Tarrant’s on his way to her hotel. You know it, I know it, the assassin likely knows it. She wasn’t exactly keeping a low profile in Switzerland. She was on the evening news—what the Americans call, ‘eye candy’—so sweetly thanking everyone in sight for rescuing her clients.”

  Alain Bedard sighed. “You can’t really blame Tarrant for giving us the slip. I mean . . . what red-blooded man wouldn’t?”

  “So take your team and find them,” Peiper growled, “before someone tries to turn the Meridien into the World Trade Center.”

  “Sir!” Bedard gasped. And took off at a run.

  I was still sitting, staring at my silent cell phone, tapping my fingers against the condensation on the side of my glass of scotch, when someone knocked on my door. Not too loud, not too soft. Just right for a man unsure of his welcome. Leaving the chain in place, I cracked open the door.

  “May I come in?” Rhys inquired. Humbly. I gaped, my stomach churning in Wash cycle while my head made it all the way to Spin. I shut the door, rested my forehead against it for a moment before removing the chain. Idiot! He’ll think you’re shutting him out. I opened the door, instinctively scooting back, seeking safety from diametrically opposing emotions that had just launched into World War III. I longed to throw myself in his arms and weep for joy, but my pride wouldn’t let me. The man had a lot of explaining to do.

  Rhys turned the dead bolt, put the chain back in place. “Scotch?” I asked, calling on all my resources to project calm, cool, and utterly professional. “Or is that a sin in France?” Before returning to my seat by the window, I waved a hand toward the mini-bar. “Help yourself.” Rhys maneuvered around the suitcase I’d left lying in the middle of floor and busied himself with ice cubes, tongs, and a fine single malt. Ice tinkled against glass. The air hung so heavy with tension I was surprised the cubes didn’t shatter.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off him, of course. He cleaned up a treat, as the Brits would say. Steel-gray eyes, warmed to molten silver, glowed from a smooth, impeccably sculptured face that showed no sign of the various traumas he’d suffered in Peru. He wasn’t quite as tall or as rugged as Flint, but he was strikingly good looking in a European sort of way. British upper class crossed with continental smarts. To an American, I guess he could be described as Ivy League meets Don Corleone. Oh, yes, Rhys Tarrant had recovered completely. And well. A twenty-first century James Bond.

  I was having trouble remembering to breathe.

 
He settled himself into the other chair at the small round table, took a long, slow sip of scotch, and made a low sound I had no trouble translating as, Ah, I needed that! He raised his deep-set steel eyes to mine and flat out said what we were both thinking. “You’re angry with me.”

  I batted my eyelashes in my best dumb blonde routine. “Whyever would you think so?” I inquired, dripping honey. “We were ships that passed in night. Why should I expect you to keep you to keep in touch.”

  He looked away, staring out over the city, his fingers going white-knuckled around his glass. “They took away my passport,” he said at last. “Ordered me not to call or contact you in any way. Perhaps that makes me spineless, but I’ve been a cop a long time now. I’m on my second three-year tour here. I like what I do—the way you like what you do. The ban was only going to last until we could figure out what was going on, and the investigative resources of Interpol should make short work of it.”

  “And have you figured it out?”

  Rhys winced, his handsome face screwing into a grimace worthy of a gargoyle. “This isn’t the way I pictured our reunion,” he murmured.

  Neither had I. Too damn bad for both of us. Reality sucks. I glared, and he got back to business.

  “We had a meeting this afternoon, laying out everything we’ve learned in the last few weeks, and that includes input from at least fifteen countries, mostly those where trafficking is a problem. I didn’t agree with the conclusion—it has to be someone I’ve ticked off during my investigations—but everyone else seems to think you’re the catalyst. That someone doesn’t want us to get together and compare notes. About what? Some mysterious thing so vague it’s ridiculous? We don’t have any mutual acquaintances. Do we, Laine? No Thais, Philippinos, Pakistanis, Iranians, Romanians, Russians . . . ?

  “Laine?”