Nick paused, waiting for a reaction, but Connor was speechless. The muscles in his bum leg cramped up, sending fiery bolts of pain through his thigh. He gripped it with his fingers and tried to breathe.
"I just thought you should know. Considering that Georg Luksch has a personal bone to pick with you," Nick said. "Ever since last November when you smashed all the bones in his face."
"He was under orders to hurt Erin." Connor's voice vibrated with tension. "It was less than he deserved."
Nick paused. "He never touched her. We have only Ed's word that he was planning to, and Ed's credibility is worth shit. Ed was trying to save his own skin, but did you think of that before you charged off to the rescue? Oh no. You had to be the big hero. For the love of Christ. It's lucky you weren't on active duty. You would have been crucified."
"Georg Luksch is a convicted assassin," Connor said, through clenched teeth. "He was ready to hurt her. He's lucky he's not dead."
"Yeah. Sure. Whatever you say. Anyhow, your hero complex aside, I just wanted you to watch your back. Not that you give a shit, or need anybody's help. And you've got better things to do than talk to me, so I won't waste any more of your valuable time—"
"Hey, Nick. Don't."
Something in Connor's voice made Nick pause. "Oh, what the hell," he said wearily. "If things get weird, call me, OK?"
"Yeah, thanks," Connor said. "But, uh… what about Erin?"
"What about her?"
"Novak hasn't forgotten about her," Connor said. "No way has he forgotten. Somebody should be assigned to guard her. Immediately."
Nick's long silence felt ominous. "You are seriously hung up on that chick, aren't you, Con?"
He clenched his teeth and counted until he had his temper under control. "No," he said, in a low, careful voice. "It's just obvious to anybody with half a brain that she's going to be on his hit list."
Nick sighed. "You haven't been listening, have you? You're lost in your own fantasy world. Wake up. Novak is in France. He was spotted in Marseilles. He's a monster, but he's not an idiot He's not thinking about Erin. And don't make me regret keeping you in the loop, because you don't deserve to be there."
Connor shook his head. "Nick, I know this guy. Novak would never—"
"Let it go, Con. Move on with your life. And watch your back."
Nick hung up abruptly. Connor stared down at the phone in his shaking hand, ashamed of having blocked the number. He disabled the function and hit redial. Quick, before he could change his mind.
"Nick Ward," his friend said tersely.
"Memorize this number," Connor said.
Nick let out a startled laugh. "Whoa. I'm so honored."
"Yeah, right. See you, Nick."
"I hope so," Nick said.
Connor broke the connection and let the phone drop onto the seat, his mind racing. Novak was filthy rich. He had the resources and the cunning to do the smart thing, to buy a new identity, a whole new life. But Connor had been studying him for years. Novak wouldn't do the smart thing. He would do whatever the fuck he pleased. He thought he was a god. That delusion had flushed him out before. And that same delusion was what made him so deadly when his pride was stung.
Particularly to Erin. Christ, why was he the only one who could see it? His partner Jesse would have understood, but Jesse was long gone. Novak had tortured him to death sixteen months ago.
Erin had slipped through Novak's fingers. He would consider that a personal insult. He would never let it go for the sake of expediency.
His leg was cramping again. He dug his fingers into the muscles and tried to breathe into it. He and his brothers had each other for protection, but Erin was wide open, laid out on the sacrificial altar. And Connor was the one who had put her there. His testimony had sent her dad to jail. She had to hate his guts for it, and who could blame her?
He covered his face with his hands and groaned. Erin would be at the very center of Novak's twisted thoughts.
Just like she was always at the center of his own.
He tried to think it through logically, but logic had nothing to do with these impulses. He had to feel his way through it. If the Feds wouldn't protect her, then he had to step into that empty space and protect her himself. He was so goddamn predictable. Erin was so innocent and luscious, calculated to push all his lamebrain, would-be hero buttons. And all those years of hot, explicit sexual fantasies about her didn't help either, when it came to thinking clearly.
Still, the thought of having a real job to do, a job that might actually mean something to somebody, jerked his mind into focus so laser-sharp it was painful. It rolled back the fog that had shrouded him for months. His whole body was buzzing with wild, jittery energy.
He had to do this, no matter how much she hated him. And the thought of seeing her again made his face get hot, and his dick get hard, and his heart thud heavily against his ribs.
Christ, she scared him worse than Novak did.
Subject: Re: New Acquisitions
Date: Sat, May 18,14:54
From: "Claude Mueller"
To: "Erin Riggs"
Dear Ms. Riggs:
Thank you for forwarding me a copy of your master's thesis. I was intrigued with your theories on the religious significance of bird imagery in La Tene period Celtic artifacts. I just acquired a third century B.C.E. La Tene battle helmet with a bronze mechanical raven perched on top (see attached JPG). I look forward to discussing it with you.
In addition to the helmet, I have several other new items to show you. I will be passing through Oregon en route to Hong Kong, staying at the Silver Fork Bay Resort tomorrow. I am arriving late in the evening and leaving the following day. This is short notice, and I understand if you cannot make it, but I went ahead and arranged an e-ticket for the SeaTac-Portland shuttle for you tomorrow. A limo will be waiting in Portland to take you to the coast. We can examine the pieces together Monday morning, and then have lunch, if time permits.
I hope you do not find me presumptuous. Please come. I look forward to meeting you in person, since I continue to have the strangest feeling that I know you already.
I trust the same economic arrangement as before will be acceptable. JPGs of the items that I want you to examine are attached.
Sincerely yours,
Claude Mueller
Quicksilver Foundation
Erin leaped out of her chair and hopped for joy. The walls of the studio apartments in the Kinsdale Arms were too thin to permit herself howls of triumph, so she pressed her hand to her mouth to muffle the howls into ecstatic squeaking noises. She reread the e-mail on the screen again and again, just to make sure it still said the same thing.
This job was going to save her sorry butt, and in the nick of time, too. She was probably knocking the rotten ceiling plaster onto the head of her cantankerous downstairs neighbor with her jumping, but she didn't care. Maybe the great Whoever had decided she'd had enough piss-poor luck lately, and it was time to give her a breather.
Edna demanded an explanation for this unseemly excitement with a disapproving meow. Erin picked her up, but she cuddled the finicky cat too tightly. Edna leaped out of her arms with a disgusted prrrt.
Erin spun around in a goofy dance step. Her luck was finally turning. Her eyes fell on the cross-stitch that hung over her computer, which read: "You Shape Your Own Reality Every Day." For the first time in months, it didn't make her feel as if someone were asking her, in the snootiest of tones, "And is this the best you can do?"
She'd stitched the damned thing four months ago, right after getting fired from her job. She had been so angry, she could barely see straight, and the project had been an effort to channel all that negative, destructive energy into a positive direction. She'd written it off as a failed experiment, though. Especially since every time she looked at the thing she wanted to rip it off the wall and hurl it across the room.
Oh, well. It was the effort that counted. And she had to at least try to think positively. With Dad i
n jail, Mom crumbling in on herself, and Cindy acting out, she couldn't afford one instant of self-pity.
She printed out Mueller's e-mail and the e-ticket itinerary attached to it. First class. How lovely. Not that she would've minded economy. A Greyhound bus would've been fine. Hell, she'd have cheerfully agreed to hitchhike down to Silver Fork, but being pampered was such a balm to her bruised ego. She glanced around the water-stained walls of the dismal studio apartment, the single window that looked out at a sooty, blank brick wall, and sighed.
First things first. She grabbed her organizer, riffled through it until she found today's To Do list, and added: Call temp agency. Call Tonia to feed Edna. Call Mom. Pack. She dialed the temp agency.
"Hello, this is Erin Riggs, leaving a message for Kelly. I won't be able to make it in to Winger, Drexler & Lowe on Monday. I have a last-minute business trip tomorrow. I'm caught up on all the current case transcriptions, so all they'll need is someone to cover their phones. Of course, I'll be back in on Tuesday. Thanks, and have a nice weekend."
She forcibly suppressed her guilt about missing a day's work with no notice as she hung up the phone. Her fee for one of these consulting jobs equaled almost two weeks' pay from the temp agency at thirteen bucks an hour. And wasn't that what temping was all about? Less commitment from both parties, right? Right. Like one of those relationships where you were free to see other people. Not that she was an expert on those. Or any other kind of relationship, for that matter.
The easy-come, easy-go temp concept was hard to get used to. She liked to fling herself into her work and give two hundred percent. Which was why it had hurt so badly when they had fired her from the job she'd gotten out of grad school. She'd been the assistant curator for the growing Celtic antiquities collection at the Huppert Institute.
She had worked her butt off for them, and she'd done an excellent job, but Lydia, her boss, had trumped up an excuse to get rid of her during the media furor surrounding Dad's trial. She claimed that Erin was too distracted by her personal problems to do her job, but it was clear that she considered Erin a liability for the museum's image. Bad for future funding. "Unappetizing" had been the word Lydia had used, the day she'd fired her. Which, coincidentally, had been the same day that a pack of bloodthirsty journalists had followed Erin to work, demanding to know how she felt about the videos.
Those celebrated X-rated videos of her father and his mistress, which had been used to blackmail him into corruption and murder. The videos which, God alone knew how or why, were now available on the Internet for all to enjoy.
Erin tried to shove the memory away, using her shopworn sanity-saving mantras: I have nothing to be ashamed of; Let it go; This too shall pass… None of them worked worth a damn anymore, not that they ever had. Lydia had all but blamed Erin personally for the whole thing.
To hell with Lydia, and with Dad, too, for getting them into this sordid, public mess. Her anger felt like poison running through her body, making her guilty and sick. Dad was paying the highest price he could for what he'd done. Being sour and pissy wouldn't change things, and she had no time to mope. Busy was better.
That phrase was another sanity saver. The best of the lot. It was dorky and uncool, but she was already a lost cause when it came to cool. Look up uncool in the dictionary, and you'd find a photo of Erin Riggs. Busy, busy, busy Erin Riggs.
She sharpened a pencil and crossed off Call temp agency. Sure, it was stupid to put items on her list just to immediately cross them off. Grasping for a cheap, fleeting sense of accomplishment. She didn't care. Every little bit of accomplishment helped. Even the cheap kind.
Mom's bills still headed the list. The scariest, most depressing item. She decided to stall for a couple more minutes, and dialed her friend Tonia's number. Tonia's machine clicked on. "Hi, Tonia? I got a last-minute job from Mueller, and I have to go to the coast tomorrow. Just wondering if you could pass by to feed Edna. Let me know. Don't worry if you can't, I'll find another solution. Talk to you later."
She hung up, her belly fluttering with anxiety as she gathered together Mom's checkbook, bank statements, her calculator, and the stack of unopened mail that she'd collected from beneath the mail slot on her last visit home. Throwing away junk mail cut the pile down to half, but many of the remaining envelopes had Final Notice stenciled across them in scary red block print. Brrr. Special pile for those.
She arranged them neatly in piles. Unpaid property taxes, due months ago. Threatening letters from collection agencies. Past due mortgage payments. Past due phone bills. Medical bills. Credit card bills, big ones. A letter from the bursar's office of Endicott Falls College, "regretting the necessity of withdrawing Cynthia Riggs's scholarship, based on poor academic performance." That one made Erin close her eyes and press her hand against her mouth.
Moving right along. No point in dwelling on it Organization was calming. It put things in perspective. She piled collection agency letters in one pile, past due notices in another, and made three columns in her notebook: Urgently Overdue, Overdue, and Due. She totaled the sums, and compared it to what was left in Mom's account. Her heart sank.
She couldn't cover the shortfall in the Urgently Overdue column, not even if she drained her meager checking account dry. Mom had to get a job; it was the only solution, but Erin hadn't had much luck even getting Mom out of bed lately, let alone out into the workforce.
But it was that, or lose the house she had moved into as a bride. That would push Mom over the edge for sure.
Erin let her face drop down against the neat piles of bills and fought the urge to cry. Sniveling was not constructive. She'd done enough of it in these past few months, so she should know. She needed fresh ideas, new solutions. It was just so hard to think outside the box, all by herself. Her tired, lonesome brain felt like it was padlocked inside a box. With chains wrapped around it.
This job from Claude Mueller was a godsend. He was a mysterious figure, a reclusive, art-loving multimillionaire, the administrator of the enormous Quicksilver Fund. He had found her in a random Internet search on Celtic artifacts, which had landed him on one of her articles, posted on the website she'd designed when she started her own consulting business. He'd begun to e-mail her, complimenting her on her articles, asking questions, even requesting a copy of her doctoral thesis. Oh, boy. The ultimate ego rush for an antiquities nerd like her.
But then he had asked her to come to Chicago to authenticate some new acquisitions, and he hadn't blinked an eye at her fee. Or rather, his staff hadn't. He had been in Paris at the time. She hadn't met him on that or any of the three subsequent jobs, the fees for which had been providential. The first had paid for her move from the apartment on Queen Anne to this far cheaper room in the run-down Kinsdale Arms. The second and third, in San Diego, had covered the insurance deductibles of Mom's recent medical bills. The Santa Fe job had paid two of her mother's past due mortgage payments. And this one, hopefully, would almost cover the Urgently Overdue column.
Working for Mueller had been so dignified. First class, all expenses paid. It had been lovely to be treated with deference and respect. Such a pleasant break from the squalid grind of her daily life; arguing with the bank over missed mortgage payments, begging her landlord to call the exterminator, spending all of January with no hot water. And the sordid details of Dad's trial, surfacing one after the other, until nothing could shock her anymore. Well, almost nothing. Those videos had been quite a jolt.
Enough. Moving right along. So Claude Mueller wanted to meet her in person, did he? How gratifying. She was curious about him, too. She paper-clipped the bills together, put them into the Mom's Bills folder in her file cabinet, and turned her attention to the Mueller e-mail.
She had to hit the perfect tone for her reply. Warm, enthusiastic, but not puppyish or, God forbid, desperate. Reserved, but with just a flash of extra personal interest showing through at the end. Looking forward to it… pleased to have the opportunity to meet you at last, etc. Referrals from Mueller could
set her highly specialized consulting business on its way. And she was finished in Seattle with museum work, since the Huppert had fired her. She would have to change cities to get away from the dark cloud that hung over her, and she couldn't possibly leave her mother and Cindy when they were both so unstable.
She had gleaned all the info she could on Mueller from the Internet. He was publicity-shy, though he'd been cited in museum journals for his generous donations to the arts. Her grant-writing and development colleagues were forever swooning over the largesse of the Quicksilver Fund. He was in his early forties, and lived on a private island off the coast of southern France. That was all she knew.
She read over her response and hit send. Who knew? Maybe Mueller would prove to be attractive and charming. His e-mails were faintly flirtatious. He was intellectual, erudite. Wealthy, too, not that she cared, but it was an interesting fact to file away. He appreciated the sensual, enigmatic beauty of Celtic artifacts, which were her passion. He was a collector of beautiful objects.
Nothing at all like Connor McCloud.
Ouch. Damn. And here she'd been quietly patting herself on the back for not thinking of Connor for hours. She tried to wrestle her mind away from him, but it was too late. His hair had grown out, as shaggy and wild as a Celtic warrior the last time she'd seen him, at the Crystal Mountain nightmare last fall. He'd leaned on his blood-spattered cane while Georg was loaded onto a stretcher behind him, staring at her. His face had been so hard and fierce, his eyes boring into hers. Blazing with barely controlled fury. The image was indelibly marked on her memory.
That was the day that her life had begun to unravel. And Connor had been the one to haul Dad into custody. Her father, the traitor and murderer. God, when was this going to hurt a little less?
She'd had a knee-trembling crush on Connor McCloud for ten years, ever since Dad had brought the recruits he was training for the new undercover unit home to dinner when she was sixteen. One look at him, and something had gone hot and soft and stupid inside of her. His tilted eyes, the translucent green of a glacial lake. His lean, foxy face, all planes and angles. The sexy grooves in his cheeks when he grinned. His beard stubble, glinting gold. He'd always been quiet and shy when he ate at their house, his mile-a-minute partner Jesse doing most of the talking, but his laid-back, sexy baritone voice sent shivers through her body whenever he spoke. His hair was a shaggy mane, a crazy mix of every possible color of blonde. She wanted to touch its thick, springy texture. To bury her face in it and breathe him in.
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