by Jenna Ryan
His eyes shifted briefly to Clover, then rose to the ceiling, to Sophie’s room. Should he do the unthinkable and search…? No, dammit, he should not! He would not. He knew nothing and wanted to know less. Leave it be.
If she had secrets, leave them be, too. After all, he had secrets of his own, didn’t he? Blodwyn being the big one. Seductive, flame-haired Blodwyn, who’d done everything in her power to witch him. Who’d come to him months later, proudly but with tears burning behind her green eyes. She’d wanted him to know, to care, to accept and change.
The devil, he’d stormed at her; that’s what she’d been, what she remained today in hell. What a vixen to have caused so much damage in his life.
He brought his thoughts back harshly to Sophie, then to Clover before him. Fox was coming over tonight. He would have dinner with the man, be polite and unrevealing. Listen, answer questions and offer trite opinions. No need to probe. Let all skeletons remain in their closets. Let justice prevail. Let those responsible for Robbie’s death be punished at last.
He waited until Clover left the parlor, then went over and retrieved the note. He did not read it again, but folded it twice and shuffled back to the fire. He positioned it carefully on the burning coals, fully aware of the pain that gripped him. Only when the last of the note was reduced to ashes did he begin to rub his chest.
It was gone, and he knew nothing. The lack of knowledge brought a wicked smile to his lips.
THE JUNKYARD WAS too quiet for 9:00 a.m. on a weekday, too inactive, devoid of people, trucks and even children, who loved to play among the rubble. Torbel’s sharp ears picked out the sounds of traffic and car horns and a tower clock chiming in the distance. The sky had a black, angry cast to it; the air scarcely moved. He was hot and edgy and more tense than he ought to have been.
The latter was thanks in large part to the woman at his side, he reflected with a veiled glance at her enchanting Gypsy profile. He must be crazy bringing her here after the two previous incidents. But although Peacock had sounded hushed and nervous, it was, after all, broad daylight.
Daylight, yes, but fraught with shadows all the same. And questions, piling up unanswered, that had the power to frighten him. Frighten and anger.
The combination was explosive, not dangerous in the way his mother had believed and Boots still did, but in the sense that he had a temper, one that he knew from experience he must not allow himself to lose.
A shudder he seldom experienced worked its way through his body. To combat it, he let his gaze sweep the shadowy areas of the yard.
“There he is.” Victoria pointed through a stack of old tables and benches to the lane beyond the open gate. “He’s in his car.” She paused. “Should we go to him or let him come to us?”
“We’ll go to him.” Torbel took her hand. “There are too many hiding places in here.”
She pressed herself disconcertingly closer. “Places that could hide a shooter, you mean?”
He felt her breasts against his arm and had to grit his teeth against the sudden rush of heat and desire in his lower body. “Something along those lines.”
“That’s not very reassuring, Torbel.”
It didn’t inspire her to step away from him, either, which could be good or bad, depending on which way he viewed it. Under the present circumstances, it was a problem, one that was wreaking havoc with his mind and body.
They emerged through the wooden gate. “I think,” Victoria began, then stopped and turned her head. “Do you hear an engine?”
“A car,” Torbel told her.
She strained for a better view, past the piles of junk near the outer fence. “I don’t see any—Oh, my God!” The last words emerged in a horrified whisper. Her nails bit into his fingers. “Torbel!”
He had no time to respond, no time to do anything except shoulder Victoria roughly aside and dive in the same general direction.
The car shot around a curve in the lane with a roar and a squeal of tires that made Torbel think of a Cobra he’d seen on a trip to New York. It had been used as a getaway vehicle after a jewelry-store robbery, and only the driver’s stupidity had prevented the criminals’ escape. He’d shot the thing straight into a brick wall.
This driver made no similar mistake as he sped toward them. Torbel saw a glint of black metal and positioned himself to protect Victoria. The passenger window must have been down, because no glass shattered as the person inside aimed and fired. Torbel had been grazed the first night down at the dock, scarcely worth the bandage that Zoe had insisted be stuck on him. This time, however, the bullet lodged. It might even have passed through; he couldn’t tell, so fierce was the sudden bolt of pain.
“Torbel—”
“Stay down!” he ordered, tight-lipped.
The car raced on. Dark blue, he noted, squinting, a Mazda RX-7. Sporty, fast and powerful. The plates were a blur, but then so was his vision at the moment. The car flew along the lane, past piles of chairs, car parts and half of an old piano. In his police car, Peacock might have had time to react, but little more than that. In the same vein, the tiny object launched from the window might have been an empty cigarette pack. But no empty package could have brought about the explosion that suddenly rent the sooty London air.
Bits of glass and metal blew out in all directions. A deafening roar sounded in his ears. Torbel held Victoria against him until the debris had settled, then eased his head up.
Where Sergeant Peacock’s car had sat seconds before, now there was only an enormous ball of flames. Even the rickety junkyard fence was involved.
Victoria’s hair brushed his cheek, a tantalizing reminder that he was still lying partly on top of her. “Sergeant…” she said in a voice barely audible above the sudden clamor of feet and shouting voices.
“What happened?” someone yelled. A group of construction workers looked around wildly, spotted Torbel and gestured at the burning car. “Was there anyone inside?”
Torbel gave a grim nod, climbing to his feet and pulling Victoria with him. He felt her probing the bullet hole in his arm but paid no attention to it. “A cop,” he said. “Sergeant Robert Peacock of the Stepney Precinct.”
One of the men perched on a mound of wooden crates regarded the flames. “Well, he’s dead now, right enough. Looks like a bomb to me.”
Torbel used the pain to concentrate. Nevertheless, he felt the blood that dripped down his arm to the ground. It looked like a bomb because that’s precisely what it had been. His eyes darkened. But had it been meant for Peacock or for them?
ROBBIE HOLLYBURN’S grammar-school scribbler lay open to the fifth page. The eyes that devoured it visualized Robbie’s little hand printing out the words: “Jack and Jill went up the hill…”
The rest of the rhyme turned fuzzy and gray. No matter. The message had been duly delivered. Victoria would find it, and she’d go straight to Torbel.
A picture formed of a car and its occupant being consumed by flames. A shame in a way that Peacock had to go. The bomb would have been better used for Torbel and Victoria. But the sergeant had been sacrificed for a noble cause. And if the life taken in order for that cause to be realized had been more or less innocent, it had also been unimportant in the scheme of things. Robbie’s death must be avenged. Only he really mattered.
How would old Goggy react to the whole truth? Did he have an inkling already? Did he know but not want to acknowledge it? Some people had the capacity for complete denial. Was he one of them?
Time would tell on that score. Goggy was incidental anyway. Punishment must be meted out.
The lid rose on the sea chest. Time to don a new disguise. The chimney sweep was history. Gloved hands scrabbled through the chest. There it was, the new persona. It would parade about right under their noses, and they’d never know it. Who said the Rag Man was too perceptive to be fooled? He had no idea who was behind this. He wouldn’t, either—until the time came for him and Victoria to die…
Chapter Ten
“Have Jack and J
ill,
Now had their fill,
Of lies and truths untold?
For bombs and things
With poison stings,
Will kill this lie most bold.
Torbel and Vickie, hear the bang,
Of death before you go.
Your crowns will break,
Make no mistake,
Your blood by me shall flow.”
The message had been left on Zoe’s answering machine. The voice was disguised, a macabre, distorted blend of rhyming words and laughter.
Torbel, who’d brought Victoria back here after endless hours at the station house in the wake of the explosion, rubbed his forehead as he prowled the floor. “Nursery rhymes,” he muttered. “How the hell do you make sense of that?”
“You don’t,” Victoria said simply. “Why won’t you let me have a look at your arm? I don’t think the police doctor—”
“He’s competent,” Torbel cut her off.
He sounded tired. She might just slip past his guard this time.
“I’m not suggesting he isn’t,” she replied with a calm shrug, difficult to pull off in the wake of Peacock’s death and what she’d just heard on Zoe’s answering machine. “But he looked a little harried to me. I took an extensive course in first aid at the university.”
The look he sent her was a combination of amusement and aggravation. “Your middle name must be ‘obstinate.’ All right, fine, have your look. But think while you’re about it. Did you see any part of the person in the Mazda?”
He perched on the arm of Zoe’s overstuffed chair, and gently Victoria began removing the bloodied gauze. “I saw an arm covered in black and a hand wearing a glove. The hand threw something out of the window, and the next thing I knew, Peacock’s car was a mass of flames. I already told the police the part of the license plate I saw.”
She wondered vaguely how long she could keep up this facade of serenity. Her teeth were chattering—and it wasn’t entirely due to the close call they’d had this morning at the junkyard or the threatening message they’d listened to moments before. Some primitive, erotic force began gnawing on her senses whenever she got within a certain range of the Rag Man.
What was worse, she knew he sensed her discomfiture and likely the reasons behind it. If only she could be more certain of her life’s goals. How much easier it would—or should in theory—be to assert her will and close her mind to the danger he posed. Yet how did someone, even a person with definite goals, close her heart to feelings too powerful to be denied?
The question had no answer, and Torbel’s proximity made searching for one impossible. Heavy rain had started to fall around 7:00 p.m. They’d missed dinner, Victoria recalled as she removed the last of the gauze. Lunch, too, and even tea. She should have been half-starved, and she was, but not for food.
The dampness of the channel storm weighed heavily upon her. Talk, that’s what she needed to take her mind off Torbel’s smooth skin and nasty-looking wound.
“Why do they call you the Rag Man?” she asked, opening a bottle of hydrogen peroxide.
His gaze was steady on hers. “Because my mother sorted clothes in a charity store when I was a kid. They called places like that rag shops. I was the rag lady’s son, the rag boy. The rag boy grew up into the Rag Man.”
“Did you, uh, know your mother well?”
A cynical smile played on the corners of his mouth. “Well enough.”
Feeling bolder, Victoria persisted. “Boots said she was—”
“A visionary?” Torbel arched a shrewd brow.
“I was going to say psychic.” The skin around the bullet hole felt hot. Or did the heat emanate from her? “I don’t believe in witches, not outside the realm of Snow White anyway.”
“Neither do I, and the answer’s no. End of conversation.”
Undaunted, Victoria tried again. “Why did you leave Scotland Yard?”
She hadn’t anticipated his reaction. The fingers of his good hand caught hers in a not-quite-painful grip. His eyes were an icy shade of green blue, his expression cold and unrelenting. “That isn’t for anyone to know. Do you hear me, Victoria? It’s my business, so don’t start digging around on your computer. My past has nothing to do with the present.”
She banked the lump of fear that climbed into her throat at the intensity of his response. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” he said tightly, and although she wasn’t entirely convinced, she let the subject slide.
“The bullet went right through,” she murmured, focusing her full attention on his arm. “What caliber was it?”
“A .45. Common enough to be virtually untraceable.”
“You could have been killed, Torbel. A few more inches, and the bullet would have caught you in the chest.”
She was trembling as she applied a new bandage and cursed herself for it. He wouldn’t understand female emotions. Boots said he had deep feelings, but what did Boots know of the Rag Man’s heart?
Her gaze flicked briefly to Torbel’s face. She was unnerved to discover him watching her. The scar on his cheek held a particular fascination for her.
Her hand came up. “How did you get this?” she asked so tentatively that she barely heard the question herself. But Torbel did. He jerked away from the fingers that stroked the uneven mark.
“Don’t, Victoria,” he warned, yanking his sleeve roughly down. “I’m not Prince Charming in disguise.”
The dampness and heat in the air made it difficult to breathe. She’d only turned on the necessary lights, just enough to create a strong forties feeling in the flat. Basil and Nigel shone in the soft glow of lamplight. She thought she heard a swing tune in the distance, maybe from Gooseberries. Rosie was curled up contentedly on the sofa, Zoe was nowhere to be found, darkness had settled beyond the lead-paned windows—and Victoria wanted Torbel to kiss her. Just a kiss, and then…
She felt herself swaying toward him, a purely involuntary motion. Careful, her brain warned, but right then she wasn’t listening to her brain. She knew he hesitated, knew he wanted to resist what was growing between them. She felt him halt, then sigh and give in.
His lips caught hers gently, experimentally. She savored the taste of him, the brush of his thumb across her jaw. All her senses seemed to wobble as his tongue slid coaxingly over her teeth. She hadn’t expected him to be gentle.
The force of her emotions startled her as Torbel’s kisses drugged her mind. She was further startled when she heard his murmured “You want the fairy tale, Victoria.” He raised his head, and she saw the faint light of regret in his eyes. “I can’t give it to you.”
Because she felt half a fool already—and perhaps partly because he wasn’t entirely wrong—she pushed away from him. No Prince Charming, he’d said. She wanted fairy tales, he’d said. Maybe there was a grain of truth in those statements, but she was no idealistic female. Her da had taught her better than that.
Fragments of temper began to assert themselves. It didn’t lessen her desire for him, but it allayed the weakness in her limbs.
Removing her hand from his cheek, she walked to the window. “You have a jaded sense of women, Torbel,” she said over her shoulder. “No one expects fairy tales anymore. Still, it wouldn’t hurt you to…” The rest of her statement died in her throat as she turned to face him. To her surprise, he was standing directly behind her—and there was a great deal more than cynicism visible in his eyes.
“Two men are dead, Victoria,” he said in a low voice. “Three if you count Robbie. Some psychotic nut is out to murder us—we have no idea who it is—and now you want to goad me.”
“I’m not goading you, Torbel.” She was challenging him, though in a subtle sort of way. “I feel badly about what’s happened, including Robbie’s death, but I can’t change any of it, and I can’t see us running around blindly searching for clues tonight.”
“No?” he said softly. “Then what do you suggest we do?”
On edge from before and still feeling tiny
pricks of temper, Victoria took the initiative. “This,” she said. And placing her hands on either side of his face, she pulled his mouth onto hers.
THIS WAS A MISTAKE, an enormous error in judgment, and Torbel wasn’t doing a single thing to fight it. Moreover, once his astonishment at her impulsive action had faded, he found himself responding to her, this time with an emotional urgency that almost outweighed the demands of his body.
Sliding his hand around the back of her head, he brought her up hard against him. The first time he’d been in control. Now that she’d caught him off guard, he no longer maintained that edge. He wanted to explore the contours of her mouth one by one, slowly enough to memorize them all.
The oddity of his behavior struck him even before her fingers slid up and under the front of his jersey. Normally he didn’t like to kiss. A leftover from his youth, when girls’ kisses had ranged from sickeningly demure to outright ravenous. Not out of love or any semblance of the word, either. During his teenage years, at least, the female of the species had not been what he’d expected. On the other hand, he might have been meeting the wrong females. People from rough neighborhoods, no matter which sex, tended to be brash.
Victoria was not brash. But she was bold and her boldness was a quality he could admire even as he felt himself hardening against her. She was an enigma, this one, streetwise in some ways, innocent in others, the daughter of a Yorkshire marketeer and a mother about whom she tended not to speak.
He encouraged her with his mouth when she would have drawn away. Maybe she thought he’d be angry with her for starting this. It certainly wasn’t from lack of wanting him. Her nipples were hard against his chest, her breathing as uneven as his, the skin of her neck damp to his touch.
