Rick followed her line of vision and saw what had put the animation in her expression. A fog-like mist curled around the floor, swirling in a faint breeze that was making the candles sputter. His eyes opened a little wider and he sat up, taking her with him. A shiver of uneasiness worked its way up his spine. He turned serious eyes to her.
“I didn’t have anything to do with this,” he told her.
She snorted in disbelief. “Yeah, right.” She pulled up the covers and started to settle into the bed. Rick yanked the sheets back and stared at her.
“I didn’t do this, Cinthya. Do you smell dry ice?”
Cindi sniffed the air then looked closely at Rick’s still features.
“This place is supposed to be haunted,” she murmured.
Rick watched her gaze dart back to the shifting fog that was growing thicker. There was a distinct chill in the room now, something that hadn’t been noticeable just minutes earlier.
“You don’t really think…?”
“Can’t be,” Rick agreed, pretending he didn’t feel his own twitch of fright at the strangeness. He looked into her huge eyes for several seconds, then they nodded in unison. “Time to go home. C’mon, honey.”
He was already reaching for his clothes when he realized she wasn’t moving.
“In case you’ve forgotten, Rick, my clothes are still in the other room you dragged me into,” she reminded him. “And I’m sure as hell not walking out of here completely naked.”
“Wait here, I’ll go get them.” He made a second attempt to pick up his own things. Her arm jerked him back before he could scoop up the discarded pile of clothes.
“You’re not leaving me here with that!” she snapped, eyeing the mist with growing suspicion.
He actually managed to laugh at the declaration and she glared at him. He shivered when he reached down for his pants and the foggy mist closed around his hand and wrist. The touch was cool and cloying, creating a tiny shudder of revulsion in him even though he didn’t really believe it was more than some kind of elaborate illusion. Probably the idiots I hired to set this up in the first place, he bitched silently. However, that thought didn’t keep him from donning his clothes, the weapons he was never without, and tossing her his jacket and shirt.
“Get up, honey, we’re leaving,” he stated firmly. “We’ll stop for your clothes on the way out.” He ignored the furious look she fixed him with and pulled his .45 from the drawer in the bedstand. The cleanup team would take care of the rest of the stuff.
When she hadn’t moved off the bed and continued to eye the thickening fog with open dread, Rick leaned over and kissed her. He checked his backup gun, a small Derringer, pulled on his shirt when she handed it to him, then headed out.
* * * * *
Rick heard Cindi’s scream of terror the instant he entered the room he’d dragged her into early in the evening. He didn’t bother grabbing her clothes, he simply turned and hit the hallway at a run, just in time to see Cindi stagger as she was pushed back into their party room. Rick slammed into the door with his shoulder, throwing a second assailant into the room crashing over furniture.
Without a second glance in that direction, Rick reached for the first man, who was readying a second strike at Cindi, who was bleeding. Rick stepped in front of her, using himself as a shield. Cindi slumped backward, met the wall and slid down to the floor. She moved her hand over the wound and gagged.
A flip of his wrist relieved Cindi’s attacker of control of the weapon as Rick intercepted the slashing hand and caught the man’s wrist in a bone-breaking grip. Using the momentum of the swing, Rick redirected the blade as he grabbed a handful of hair and pulled forward.
He felt the razor-edged steel slide under the attacker’s chin, penetrate through vulnerable flesh and come to an abrupt halt when the hilt met the torn throat. The tip of the knife grazed his fingertips. The long blade had pierced the back of the dying man’s neck and Rick yanked the knife free with a jerk as he let the body fall.
From the corner of his eye, he saw the second attacker stumbling to his feet. Rick closed the distance.
The second assailant had barely regained his footing when Rick struck him again, slamming the heel of his hand against the man’s face. Rick heard the distinct crack of bones followed by an agonized wail. Ignoring both, he pulled the crumpled figure erect and launched him backward against the wall, indifferent to the red smear that stained the ruined face.
“Who sent you?” he growled, bringing the knife up to hover menacingly close to the other man’s terrified eyes. When a frenzied shake of his head was the only response, Rick smiled with pure malevolent iciness. “One more chance,” he offered, his tone as lethal as the circling blade.
He lowered the knife, deliberately bringing the tip to rest in the hollow of his victim’s throat and pressing hard enough to puncture skin. As a tiny drop of blood welled up around the small wound, Rick allowed the blade to inch down while he continued to hold the fear-filled stare. He could see the man’s mind working, weighing the terror he was facing against the one waiting at the end of this failed mission.
Rick knew the outcome of that debate before the attacker did and was prepared when the man bolted. The blood-soaked knife dipped downward and rose again, sliding beneath the sternum to pierce the heart. A warm gush of blood over his hand made the weapon slippery. This time he released the handle of the knife and let it stay with the body, which sagged to the floor with a dull, liquid thump.
Rick closed his eyes and dragged in several gasping breaths until the pounding in his ears dimmed to a faint roar. A moment later, he glanced around the death-filled silence and spotted the shock-dazed figure he’d almost forgotten for several minutes.
“Cindi.” He was kneeling beside her in an instant. “How bad is it?”
When Cindi’s gaze strayed to the bodies sprawled on the floor, her already ashen features grayed further. Watching the shifting expression, Rick started to turn Cindi’s face toward him, then stopped when he realized his own hands were covered with blood.
“Don’t look at them!” he snapped, the command effectively bringing the wide eyes back to focus on him. When he was sure he had Cindi’s attention, he spoke again, this time the tone gentle. “We’re gonna stand up now, Cindi. It’ll probably hurt like hell, so lean on me, okay?”
At Cindi’s slow nod, Rick bent and carefully gathered her up and lifted.
“I’m gonna be sick,” Cindi groaned.
I’ll bet you are, Rick conceded silently. “Hang on, baby,” he encouraged as he took a few shaky steps.
He made it fewer than six feet along the corridor when his past reached out and caught them at last.
Pain exploded in his skull, a spray of falling stars blinded him, then blackness descended. His last awareness was of Cindi shrieking his name.
Chapter Five
The world came back into focus slowly and Rick’s headache pulsed like a jackhammer behind his eyes when he saw a familiar figure across the room. Suddenly everything made sense. Leeza Villeman, a woman he had once used badly in the name of the job. She’d sworn vengeance almost a decade ago.
“Where is she, Leeza?”
“She’s waiting for you to save her, Rick,” she said, a smile passing like a ghost across her face. She shifted to the left, leading him with her gaze to the monitor she had been hiding.
It took all his self-control not to react to the image that flickered before him in neutral tones on the monitor. The surveillance camera must be at ceiling level. It looked down into the bed he’d shared with Cindi such a short time ago, focusing on the stripped mattress. Cindi lay very still, one arm draped over the side of bed. She wasn’t moving, even her breathing was imperceptible. For one terrible, eternal second Rick thought she was already dead. Then she shifted slightly and a low moan slipped from her. She didn’t move again.
Rick knew better than to give their captor the satisfaction of pleading for Cindi’s life, but his heart put the words in his
throat and he couldn’t resist them. “If it is my life you want, then let her go. Enough innocents have died in this useless game.”
“You used me, Richard, over and over. Then you killed my son,” she said, and it was startling to hear the words slip so easily from her. “Don’t you think there should be some sort of retribution?”
“Then take your retribution,” he countered, spreading his hands out in a gesture of surrender. “But take it from me, not an innocent girl.”
“That doesn’t seem a balanced equation.” She slid back into position, again blocking the screen.
She was enjoying this, Rick thought with a flare of anger that he forced into submission. If he allowed any of his fear or pain to show in his face, she would feed off it like a parasite. He wouldn’t give her that pleasure. He waited for her to continue.
“You killed my son. I’ll kill the only person I have ever known you to really love. How ironic she’s the age of my Kurt. Then we are even. Don’t you agree?”
“Except that I didn’t kill your son,” Rick offered softly.
That caught her attention. For a moment she wavered and genuine indecision flickered through her eyes.
“Perhaps it was not your gun,” she conceded, reining in her temporary confusion, “but it was your operation. You were in charge. You are liable for anything that happened during the mission. Do you deny that?”
The anger was the first honest emotion he had seen in her eyes. It suggested a loss of control Rick would not let pass.
“You never read the report, did you?” he pressed. “You never even read your own people’s version of the report.” He waited. “Did you?”
“I saw my son’s body!” Her voice rose almost to a shout. “I did not need a report to see my dead child!”
“Kurt was killed by one of your own agents. He tried to help one of the other students who was wounded and one of your people shot him. He died trying to save another life, but it was neither my hand nor my mission that killed him. It was your own people’s lack of concern for innocent bystanders.”
Her face grew scarlet, suffused with rage. When her words came, she was almost whispering. “The little bastard should have stayed in Berlin. I told him to stay there.”
Rick watched, chilled by the strange, distorted smile that came over her face. Confusion flickered in his mind, he had no idea who she was talking about. Well, she’d enlighten him or she wouldn’t.
“Your lover is very much like my son was, Rick. Did you realize that?”
She stepped away from the table, turning to stare into the screen. For a moment, she watched the still figure on the cot, then spun around on one heel, taking a single step closer to Rick.
“I have been watching you both for the past couple of years, Rick.” Her mouth twisted as if undecided on its next expression. “She’s very much like Kurt. Idealistic. Naïve. You know what it’s like trying to keep them safe. We work so hard just to keep them safe and they fight us. Always, they fight us.”
She walked across the room at an angle from him, the severely straight skirt frustrating her usual long stride. At a dust-covered desk, she halted, speaking again as if there hadn’t been a pause. “No matter what you do for them, they don’t appreciate it. Cindi accuses you of restricting her freedom, doesn’t she?” She looked up at him, waiting for an answer.
Rick knew he was treading dangerous ground, but he hardly imagined things could get much worse. “She used to. Now she tries to understand.”
The dark anger flashed again. “She accuses you! Just like Kurt did. He never understood that I did everything for him. Never! He thought the world was worth saving, and he died before I could convince him otherwise.”
“Then perhaps he was better off,” Rick said into her madness, knowing he would only enrage her but not caring now. Her insanity had put the only real love in his life in danger, and Rick was well beyond even a second of compassion for her. That she had ghosted after them for months on end woke his own fury, along with the metallic taste of fear. She might know the effort of keeping a child safe, but she so very clearly did not know the joy of really loving someone. When she stared speechlessly at him, he explained, “He died before you were able to destroy him with your own twisted version of the world, before you could contaminate him with your hate. He was better off.”
“How would you know?” she said through clenched teeth. “You never stopped long enough to care about anyone. I loved my son, I taught him, protected him.”
“You taught him only hatred.” Rick’s anger nearly matched hers now as his attention veered back to the monitor.
“I could kill you now! Here!” Leeza took one shaky step toward Rick, leaning into the action, giving every appearance of a viper poised to strike.
Rick smiled up at her and took a gamble. He hadn’t been searched, he had the small Derringer strapped to the inside of his forearm, the harness one he could trigger easily when he wanted the weapon to drop into his hand. It was still in place, and gave him a small measure of hope that they’d survive this incident. She appeared to be alone now that he’d killed the men who’d gone after Cindi.
“If you kill me now, you gain nothing, Zia,” he said softly, using the nickname he’d last used when they’d been lovers. “You’ve waited so long. Your best revenge is down in that room. Are you going to waste it?”
Her eyes followed his to the monitor where Cindi lay pale and still on the bed, the unwilling instrument of Leeza’s vendetta. She drew in a long, quivering breath and Rick watched the thin veneer of control slip back over her face.
When she spoke, her voice was once again icy calm. “It is not over this soon, Rick. The game must be played out. You will not cheat me again.”
He breathed in relief. All he needed to win this game was to get close enough to Cindi to free her.
* * * * *
Cindi was on her knees on the bed, her hands tied at her back. Her head was held slightly back by a tight grip on her hair, giving Rick a clear view of the thin wire that encircled her throat. Rick’s gaze followed the path of the noose, which ran from the back of Cindi’s neck to a second loop that bound her ankles. At best, Cindi appeared to be only semiconscious, the little awareness she could summon focused on remaining motionless. All it would take was a slight push from Leeza’s hand to upset the precarious balance—effectively slitting Cindi’s throat before he could react quickly enough to prevent it. The image came of its own accord―as though she were a rabbit in a snare.
“Really, Rick,” Leeza said around a dark smile, “your little act is wearing thin.”
“Your revenge won’t be served by Cindi’s death. It’s a game that you and I played, Leeza. Let her go and I’m yours. That’s really what you’ve wanted all along, isn’t it?”
Her expression shifted, becoming almost coquettish. “I can have both. You see, that’s what I nearly missed when this thing started. I was simply going to kill you, but you’ve made it so much more interesting now. I owe you and her father, and taking her with me will teach you both what pain is all about. What you put me through when you killed my son!”
Rick watched the demented hate in her eyes, shivering at the depth of her insanity. He inched forward another half step, but she noticed this time.
“I’ll kill her now,” she warned, fisting her hand tighter into Cindi’s hair.
Cindi’s tiny whimper of terrified pain triggered the response, and Rick snapped his wrist, letting the Derringer drop into his palm as he lifted his arm and fired, knowing this was as close as he was going to get. Only later did he recall the choked “No!” from Cindi. His efforts were concentrated on catching Cindi in a life-saving embrace as she toppled forward and Leeza sprawled backward onto the bed, then sagged to the old hardwood floor. Bracing Cindi’s head against his chest, Rick slipped the wires free, then untied the rope that held her hands.
When she was untied, he sat back and gathered her close while she cried in choked sobs.
After a few m
inutes, Cindi shifted in Rick’s arms and she whispered hoarsely, “Are you okay?”
Rick let his gaze stray to the woman he had known with reluctant intimacy. He felt nothing for her, no regret. The choice had been simple, for once black-and-white. He looked back at Cindi.
“More than okay, sweetheart,” he said softly. “I’m so sorry. This is what I fear all the time, that my past will get you killed. It almost did tonight.”
He scooped her up and carried her out of the room the same way he’d brought her in. They were out of the hotel less than ten minutes later, both breathing easier when they were inside Rick’s Jaguar and heading for their apartment.
“I’ll get the doctor over as soon as we’re home.”
“It’s really not bad, Rick.”
Rick didn’t bother commenting, and Cindi sighed as they drove away from the ancient hotel. Halloween fun had turned deadly and horrifying. Maybe it was time to retire for real, he thought darkly.
* * * * *
Two hours after they left the hotel, Rick was putting her carefully into bed. Cindi grabbed his hand when he would have left the room.
“Stay, Rick. We need to talk.”
He looked down at her for a moment, undecided, then nodded and sat next to her, holding her hand clasped between his.
“I’m so sorry, baby,” he murmured. “There’s so much in my life that puts you at risk every day. It’s not fair to you.”
She shook her head and lifted their hands so she could kiss his before she answered. “Rick, every day I live in ways that make me happier than I ever thought possible. Because of you. I know the risks, and I wouldn’t change us for anything.”
“She almost killed you!”
“Almost, sweetheart,” she said. “She was crazy, wasn’t she?” The words whispered between them. “And not in a good way.”
“She’s one of many, Cindi,” he replied with a sigh. “There’s so much you don’t know about me. About what I was for so long.”
Cinthya stared at him for a long time, memorizing the sharp lines of his face, holding on to the image as if it were a lifeline. “Come to bed, Rick. Please.”
Reckless Assignation Page 4
