Cold as Ice

by Anne Stuart

  He was almost sorry they hadn’t. Avoiding a lethal trap would be a welcome distraction, and if, after all these years, his luck failed him, then so be it.

  In fact, things were definitely taking a turn for the worse. Harry Van Dorn was the first mission he’d ever failed to complete, and it was little wonder he was feeling like shit. His professional pride was wounded, nothing more. The wrong person had died.

  He’d done his best for her, given her tools and a map and as strong a hint as he dared. If she hadn’t gotten away it wasn’t his fault, just part of the grand cock-up that the Van Dorn assignment had become.

  The house smelled stale and empty and faintly of mice. If he was going to sell the place he’d have to get a massive cleaning crew in to rid it of its neglected air.

  Putting it on the market was the smart thing to do. For some sentimental fool it would seem the perfect house—slate roof, diamond-pane windows and the kind of winding floor plan that attested to almost three hundred years of additions and improvements. His wife had always complained that it was too oldfashioned, and she hated to garden. He’d never taken her to the stripped-down, ultramodern flat in London where he spent most of his time. It would have suited her perfectly and she’d never even known it existed.

  Funny, he never thought of his ex-wife by her name, only by her relationship to him. That was part of the problem. He’d chosen the perfect trophy wife and he’d never given a rat’s ass about her.

  Annabelle. Annabelle Lawson—how could he have forgotten? But then, why should he remember? Women came and went through his shadowy life, some lived, some died. But in the end he forgot them, and he wasn’t going to let that change.

  He better turn up the heat while he was here—it might improve the damp chill. He took the two steps down into the old kitchen. The Aga sat in solitary splendor at one end, and the stone hearth had been swept clean of ashes. He sat at the scarred old oak table, the one his wife had tried to replace with some upscale form of plastic, and stared out into the gathering darkness.

  He heard her coming, of course, but she knew he would. Madame Isobel Lambert, his superior and current head of the Committee, seemed to know just about everything, including the fact that he’d recognize her from a distance and not kill her before he identified her.

  “Moping, Peter?” she asked, pausing in the kitchen doorway. If it was anyone but Madame Lambert he would’ve said she did it for dramatic effect, but that was very small currency in Madame’s arsenal.

  He leaned back in the wooden chair. “Have you ever known me to mope?” he asked in a steady voice.

  “No. But then, I’ve never known you to fail in a mission before.”

  “Is that what this is about? I thought I made a complete report while I was in London. I wouldn’t have left if I knew you still had questions.”

  “Your report was crystal clear in every detail, as it always is,” Madame Lambert said, stepping down into the kitchen. She was a remarkable woman. She could have been anywhere between thirty-five and sixty, and the perfection of her well-tended appearance was like an impenetrable suit of armor. No one and nothing scared Peter Madsen, but Isobel Lambert came close.

  “Then why are you here?”

  “I wanted to make certain you were all right. It’s the first mission you’ve ever failed to complete, and I was a bit…concerned.”

  “You think I’m going to blow my brains out because I failed to do the same to Harry Van Dorn? Not likely.”

  “I was more concerned you might decide to resign.”

  “I’m touched,” he drawled.

  “Surely you don’t expect my concern to be personal, do you? We’ve both been in this business a long time, and we know the mortality rate. My job is to make certain the Committee is well staffed, and since Bastien left you’re the best we have.”

  He raised an eyebrow and she laughed her light, silvery laugh. “I’m sorry,” she amended. “Since Bastien left you’re the only good operative we have left.”

  “I’m not resigning,” he said after a moment. “I’m not really equipped to do anything else, am I? I can kill. I’m certain there will always be a job opening at the Committee for that.”

  “Everyone has a failed mission now and then, Peter. You’ll be a better operative now, knowing you can fail.”

  “You make it sound like I lost my erection. ‘Don’t worry, dear, it happens to everyone,’” he said, mockery hiding his anger.

  “Well, metaphorically, isn’t that exactly what happened?”

  “Metaphorically, I fucked up. I didn’t pick up on the fact that Renaud had turned, and I waited too long to go back and make certain Van Dorn was dead.” He knew why he had hesitated. He didn’t want to run into Genevieve Spenser. He didn’t want to find her dead, he didn’t want to find her alive and have to decide what to do about it. He left her fate in her own hands, and he hadn’t wanted to have to take it back.

  Madame Lambert simply shrugged. “Everyone screws up occasionally—I trust you more as a fallible human being than an efficient robot.”

  “Then I did it all for you,” he said lightly.

  “Besides, you don’t need to worry. Harry Van Dorn is well in hand. This operation has always been too big to have it rest with one plan. We already have someone in situ, and when the time is right, Van Dorn will be taken care of. Chalk it up to a learning experience.”

  Peter resisted the impulse to snort. One didn’t snort at Madame Lambert. “You set my mind at ease. So why don’t you tell me why you’re really here.”

  Isobel Lambert smiled her perfect, ageless smile. There wasn’t a line, a wrinkle, a mark of character on her exquisite, porcelain face, and he wondered how many face-lifts she’d had to keep her skin like that. Just another tool of the trade. “To tell you to take a couple of months off. You’ve been working nonstop since the fall of 2001, and you need a break.”

  “Not particularly.”

  “Your wife left you.”

  “I know that. It was more than two years ago, and we were never well suited. She’s already remarried.”

  “And she never had the faintest idea what you really do for a living?”

  She might have suspected, but he wasn’t about to tell Madame Lambert that. Annabelle had been a fairly unimaginative creature, but she wasn’t stupid. She probably got out before she learned what she didn’t want to know.

  “Not a clue,” he said. “I wasn’t going to have her killed, Peter,” she said mildly. “I’m not Harry Thomason, you know.”

  He hadn’t been about to take that chance. Thomason had been a ruthless old buzzard, and yet he’d retired with honor after overseeing countless needless deaths. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. He wasn’t about to take a chance on it for Annabelle’s sake.

  “The poor girl,” Madame Lambert said. “It would take a hell of a woman to stand up to you.”

  Involuntarily his mind went back to Genevieve glaring at him, arguing with him, baiting him even though she knew she was doomed.

  And what good did it do her in the end? At least it would have given her some fitting sense of revenge to know he couldn’t wipe her out of his mind. But she wasn’t going to be feeling any triumph, was she?

  “She’s still alive.”

  He jerked his head up, to meet Madame Lambert’s calm gaze. “Of course she is,” he said. “She’s married to a dentist in Dorking.”

  “I’m talking about Genevieve Spenser. She joined forces with Renaud to get Harry Van Dorn off the island and he took her with him. Renaud wasn’t so lucky.”

  “Van Dorn has her?” He didn’t bother pretending not to care. “She might be better off dead.”

  “Perhaps. But there’s nothing you can do about it. This is no longer your mission—even I have people to answer to, and personal involvement is the first step toward disaster. You are to keep out of the situation. Which is why I’m putting you on two months’ leave, with pay, of course.”

  “Fuck the money,” he said, furious. �
�Where is she?”

  “Are you planning to ride to the rescue like some white knight? That can’t be the Peter Madsen I’ve known for so many years. You don’t care about anyone or anything. The Iceman cometh and all that.”

  It was a needed reminder. “You think that I suddenly developed a heart, Isobel? Not likely. It’s a matter of professional pride and personal responsibility. If she had to die, I should have seen to it, quickly and painlessly.”

  “Ah, but would you have?”

  He ignored the taunt. “You know what kind of man Harry Van Dorn is. We have no right to leave anyone to his tender mercies.”

  “We have no responsibility either. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time. You know that as well as I do.”

  “So you’re leaving her where she is?”

  “We can’t afford to compromise the mission by trying to get her out. Our man has too much on his plate already. So I want you to put it out of your mind and spend the next couple of months relaxing. Fix this place up a bit—it looks terrible. It needs a woman’s touch.”

  He’d never been particularly slow to understand even the subtlest of hints, but Isobel Lambert was one of the best. She looked at him out of those calm, expressionless eyes. She’d told him for a reason.

  “I keep forgetting you’re not Thomason,” he said after a moment.

  “I try. Enjoy your vacation. You do realize that while you’re on leave there’s nothing the Committee can do for you? You’re entirely on your own.”

  He almost smiled for the first time in days. “Of course. I’d expect nothing else.”

  “Enjoy your time off. I expect you back in two months, at the top of your game.” She took a parting glance around the room. “Definitely needs a woman’s touch.”

  Genevieve heard voices. She was scarcely Joan of Arc, and it wasn’t the voice of God, that rich Texas drawl that oozed warmth and compassion. It was the voice of the devil, some huge, slimy, warty creature who stank of death and bourbon.

  She drank that tea. She tried not to, but the patient, implacable Anh had stood over her, her English limited to “You drink.”

  And Genevieve had drunk, because she’d had no choice, hoping she had misunderstood Takashi O’Brien’s implied warning. But it hit her so fast she had only time to whisper, “Oh shit,” as Anh caught her falling teacup.

  She fought the effects, but it was like wrestling in marshmallow fluff—everything was white and thick and sticky, and when she tried to push it away it clung to her hands. The sheets were wrapped so tightly around her body she couldn’t move. She could only lie there, mummified, hoping she was suddenly transported back in time to the couch in Harry’s living room on the island, and she could somehow stop the inevitable.

  But the voices told her otherwise. It was Harry Van Dorn’s familiar voice, but the words were strange.

  “She screwed him,” he said. “I can see the stink of him on her. Get rid of her. I’m no longer interested.”

  “As you wish.” It was his assistant’s soft voice. Takashi—who’d warned her about the tea.

  “On second thought,” the voice that was and wasn’t Harry said, “maybe there’s some fun to be had. I don’t get to play with a white woman very often—too many people ask questions when they disappear. But she’s already been declared dead—I can do anything I want, take as long as I want, and I don’t need to worry about repercussions. Why don’t you keep her like this until I get back.”

  “Of course,” Takashi O’Brien said, ever the obedient servant. “If you have no problem with Madsen’s leavings.”

  Madsen? Who was Madsen, Genevieve thought uneasily. And then she remembered. She should open her eyes, tell them she could hear them, but someone had sewn her eyelids shut and put one-hundredpound weights on them.

  They were standing over her as she lay on the bed—she could tell that much even without being able to see. Harry made a sound of disgust. “You’re right, Jack,” he said. “You always are. I certainly don’t want sloppy seconds, even if there is no trace of him.

  “What would I do without you, Jack? You protect me from my mistakes. If it weren’t for you, I imagine I would have stopped having fun long ago.”

  She didn’t have to see to know that Takashi O’Brien was giving an obsequious bow, but Harry’s laugh confirmed it. “That’s what I like about you Japs,” he said. “Always bowing and scraping, and you understand loyalty. You know who’s master, and you’ll die to protect me.”

  “Certainly.”

  “So you take care of the bitch. You can have a bit of fun with her, if you’re not picky, but just make sure you get rid of the body so that it’s never found. I’ve got a lot of irons in the fire right now and I can’t have anything get in the way. There’s a lot of money riding on my current project, and she’s endangering it. One false move and the entire thing would come tumbling down, and I’m out billions of dollars. And I like money, Jack.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Genevieve would have given anything to open her eyes and see his face. But the fog was still surrounding her, and she decided she didn’t really give a shit. If Jack/Takashi was going to kill her there wasn’t a whole lot she could do about it—not at this point. If he waited long enough, maybe she’d be able to roll out of bed and hide underneath it. But at that point she couldn’t even manage to summon the energy to open her goddamn eyes.

  Someone leaned over her, and gentle hands patted the covers that imprisoned her useless body. “I told you not to drink the tea,” he said, his soft voice a welcome change from Harry’s drawl.

  But then he was gone, and she was alone, and since she wasn’t dead yet she might as well go back to sleep. So she did.

  15

  It was midnight, though she wasn’t certain how she knew. There were no clocks in her luxurious bedroom, and her Patek Philippe watch had disappeared along with the clothes she was wearing. And the enigmatic note Peter had left her.

  It shouldn’t bother her. It was just a hastily scrawled note, with no signature, no tender words. But it was part of him, all she had, and she wanted it.

  She sat up in bed, strangely alert. The drugged tea had worn off, leaving her with only a little fuzziness. She slid out of bed and stood, a little weak but steady enough.

  She glanced down at her clothing. More of the lacy clothing Harry seemed to provide for all his guests, willing or unwilling. If she went to the drawers she’d probably find the same absurd collection of thongs and demi bras designed to turn an A cup to a C cup. Since she was already a firm C, the idea of such infrastructure was alarming.

  She crossed the darkened room slowly, but with each step she felt a little stronger moving toward the bank of windows she hadn’t noticed before. The house was on a bluff overlooking the ocean, but which ocean was a mystery. There were boats, but without glasses she couldn’t even begin to guess their size, much less their nationality, and she turned away, frustrated. She could feel a burning, knotting feeling in her stomach, and for a moment she was afraid the drugs in her system were reemerging in a particularly unpleasant fashion.

  And then she realized she was hungry. Starving, in fact. She couldn’t remember how long it’d been since she’d eaten. Harry had said she’d been in an induced coma for some thirteen days, which meant her sole sustenance had been given intravenously. She reached up and touched her hair. It was clean, as was the rest of her body, and she wondered if the impassive Takashi was responsible for that. He’d be as efficient and impersonal as anyone, but she didn’t like the idea of any male messing with her while she was naked and unconscious. She was a little picky about such things.

  No mirrors, not even in the adjoining marble bathroom. Clearly this was no place for the model-perfect women Harry usually entertained.

  It didn’t matter—as long as she was clean she could manage just about anything.

  She heard someone approaching, and she dived back into bed, pulling the covers up around her again and closing her eyes. She knew instincti
vely that it wasn’t Harry; even without looking she could feel the miasma of evil that emanated from the man she’d been determined to save. The sick creep who’d ordered her death.

  Why the hell did everyone want to kill her? First the attack in upstate New York, then Peter Jensen, then Renaud. At least with Peter it had been nothing personal, more a matter of simple expediency, the polite son of a bitch. And in the end he hadn’t done it, no matter how practical and simple it was.

  And now good old Harry Van Dorn wanted her dead, and his henchman would doubtless be ready to carry out his orders at once because…

  Why? Was she a victim of bad timing over and over again? Or maybe it was the fact that she never took the smart or easy way out, throwing her lot in with Harry Van Dorn. She knew there was something dodgy about him—her instincts had screamed it while her brain was trying to reason with her. And yet she’d gone blundering ahead.

  And no one deserved to be executed by a vigilante Committee, no matter how bad they were. Or so she thought, rescuer that she was.

  Big mistake. Was he coming to kill her now? If so, she could, and would, put up a hell of a fight, even though she hadn’t even the slightest chance of winning. She’d never been the kind to give up, even when it was the smart thing to do.

  She recognized the voices—Takashi O’Brien and Anh conducting a muted conversation in a language she couldn’t begin to understand. And then O’Brien spoke to her.

  “Ms. Spenser? Are you awake?”

  She considered faking it, but he was far too observant. Besides, she didn’t want to be there with her eyes closed and suddenly find her throat cut.

  But no, he wouldn’t do that. Harry had told him not to leave a trace, and cutting her throat while she lay in bed would be a messy business.

  How long did someone live after their carotid artery was severed? Could they run around like a decapitated chicken, spraying blood? Or did they slip quietly into Ophelia-like oblivion?