“He didn’t do it. Full stop. Period.”
“Who else knows about you and the egg?”
“You do!”
“Oh, yeah,” Cruz drawled. “Now I remember. I want you dead so I save your life. Stupid of me. But what can you expect from a retrograde macho son of a bitch?”
She wanted to scream at him. The reaction was irrational, and she knew it. Even so, controlling herself took an unbelievable effort.
“They could have been after you,” she said carefully.
He heard the desperation in her voice and was divided between a desire to shake some sense into her and an even stronger need to hold her in his arms until she cried all the fear and adrenaline out of her system.
But there wasn’t enough time for that, or for what would surely follow once he got his hands on her. Ripped cartilage or not, bruised bone or not, he wanted her until he could barely stand up straight.
It’s just adrenaline, fool, he told himself savagely. It will pass. She’s not the kind of woman for a little medicinal screwing.
And that was all it would be. He’d learned very painfully that it was easier to live without all women than to live with any one woman.
“They weren’t after me,” he said.
“How can you be so damned certain? You’re the one they shot.”
“No one could have followed me here,” he said patiently, “because I didn’t know where I was going until I was in the air over Los Angeles.”
“But what about—”
“Think, Laurel,” he said over her words. “Use your mind and not your emotions.”
A visible shudder went through her body.
“No,” she said harshly. “He would never set me up for execution.”
“Did you know the egg was coming to you?”
“No.”
“Did he?”
Reluctantly, she nodded.
Cruz reached out and laid his hand gently along her upper arm. Her flesh was rigid, trembling.
“Laurel,” he said as gently as he could. “Somebody—your father or one of his partners—tried to kill you.”
“But w-why?”
The break in her voice made Cruz even more grim. All he could do now was hope that he’d read her correctly, that honesty rather than false comfort would keep her going. If he’d guessed wrong, in less than thirty seconds he was going to have a hysterical female on his hands.
“They were trying to cut the link between you and your father,” Cruz said calmly.
“Why?” she whispered.
“They didn’t want someone like me to follow that link to the egg. With you dead, the trail ends here.”
She took a long, shattered breath. What he said made an ugly, savage kind of sense.
“I can guarantee more assassins will be sent as soon as word of the failure gets back,” he continued. “That’s why you have to come with me. You don’t have the training to run without leaving tracks that the hunters would follow.”
Under his palm, he could feel the tension that rippled over her skin. He could also feel the elemental female softness lying beneath the tension. Not weakness. Not in this woman. Rather it was a special quality of smoothness, a sensuous yielding of flesh that told his senses she was female rather than male.
Laurel met Cruz’s eyes. He noted that her pupils were still dilated, her eyes black but for small rims of gold.
“Maybe those creatures did me a favor,” she said. “You no longer look at me with a weary kind of calculation, like I’m just one more piece of scum on your radar.”
His dark eyebrows rose. “You see me very clearly.”
“No. Just the shadows.”
“That’s all there is, honey.”
He ran his thumb gently over the long, firm muscle in her arm. The touch was soothing rather than sensual.
Letting out a long, broken breath, she looked at him like he was a map leading out of the hellish world she’d stumbled into without warning.
“Go pack,” he said softly. “I’ll take you to a safe place.”
The temptation was great, but Laurel knew she would be a long time forgetting the ugly, deformed lead and the furrows and the pain on Cruz’s face. And most of all his words telling her a shattering truth.
They were after you. I was just in the way.
“No,” she said tightly. “Taking bullets for me isn’t in your job description.”
He was amused and touched by her unwillingness to put him at risk. “Page four, section two, paragraph three. ‘Fair damsels are to be rescued by all good knights without regard to personal danger.’”
“No. I couldn’t bear it if you were hurt again.” She shook her head firmly. “I have a safe place to go. Nobody knows about it except…”
“Jamie Swann.”
She didn’t answer. Words were echoing in her head, Cruz’s words.
They were trying to cut the link between you and your father. They didn’t want someone like me to follow that link to the egg. With you dead, the trail ends here.
“I can’t lead you to my father,” she said starkly to Cruz, “so there’s no point in playing the role of knight. It won’t work.”
He loosened his hold on her arm, but his thumb still rested with disarming familiarity along the muscle. She shifted a little, trying to withdraw. He moved just enough to maintain the gentle connection.
“Why don’t we make a deal that has nothing to do with your father?” he said.
“Can we?”
“Sure.” Cruz lied, because he knew it was the only way. “I need a driver to get me over the mountain and back to the airport in Paso Robles. You do it and we’re even.”
“That’s all? Just drive you there?”
“Uh-huh.” Then he added ruthlessly, “Not much to do for the guy who took two bullets for you, is it?”
The part of Laurel that was still capable of rational thought knew she was being manipulated by a man who was far too good at reading her. And he was persistent. If the first gambit didn’t work, he tried another, and then another, and another, until he found a way past her defenses. Under normal circumstances she’d have held her own with him and even enjoyed the skirmish.
But there was nothing normal about tonight.
Gently, without demand, his thumb stroked the taut muscle in her upper arm. She shivered and fought against the desire to crawl into his arms and be held, simply held.
With a light tug of his good arm, he pulled her against him. She wanted to fight but now that the moment of danger was past her strength was gone. With a ragged sigh, she leaned her forehead against the right side of his chest. He stroked her hair, making no attempt to hold her any closer.
His restraint was an irresistible lure. Without realizing what she was doing, she turned her head and rested her cheek against his chest. Beneath a cushion of hair, resilient pads of muscle shifted and flexed with each soothing motion of his arm. His heart beat strongly, smoothly, reassuring her in an elemental way that he was truly alive.
After a moment she turned and looked up at him. He was watching her with a combination of weariness and shadows and warmth in his eyes that made her heart turn over.
God help me if Cruz ever decides to seduce me, she thought in dismay.
“Thank you,” he said softly.
She flinched like she’d been struck. He read her with shocking clarity.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“I don’t like the way you read my mind.”
“Did I?”
“I was just thinking how good—” Abruptly she realized what she was saying and switched in midsentence. “Why did you thank me?”
“For seeing me clearly and not backing away. It’s taken me a long time to do that with myself. Hell, I’m still working on it.”
“God,” she said hoarsely. “Why couldn’t you have been stupid and repulsive and old and ugly?”
“Three out of four isn’t bad,” he said. “Time will take care of the ‘old’ part.�
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Helplessly she laughed.
Knowing he shouldn’t, unable to stop himself, he bent just enough to brush a kiss against her temple.
“Better pack,” he said huskily. “Whatever you decide to do, you can’t come back here for a while. Do you accept that?”
“I don’t have much choice, do I?”
“Not if you want to stay alive.”
She turned away, then looked over her shoulder at the man who was leaning against her worktable wearing half of a modern suit of armor. Cruz Rowan was the last male on earth who should have appealed to her all the way to the soles of her feet, but he did, and she was too honest with herself not to admit it.
“There’s an ice pack in the freezer over there,” she said, pointing.
“Think I need cooling off?”
“Your ribs might appreciate it.”
He smiled. “Thanks, honey.”
Normally Laurel disliked endearments from men. Yet when the word came with a smile like that, she liked it.
A lot.
Right. I’m losing my mind, she told herself. But under the circumstances, I’m not sure sanity has much going for it.
While Cruz got the ice pack, Laurel gathered up the tools that were scattered in unusual disarray across the workbench. She didn’t remember making such a mess while she worked on the egg, but she must have. The evidence was in front of her.
As she put familiar tools in their familiar places in the leather box, she began to feel less like someone wading through a nightmare. Inside the satchel, the box that held all her loose gemstones wasn’t positioned correctly. She settled it in the right place, pushed the box of tools in beside the other box, and shook the satchel experimentally.
Everything stayed put. She fastened the leather straps, closing the satchel, and threw the wide carrying strap over her shoulder.
When she turned back to Cruz, she was surprised to find that he’d managed to dress himself without help.
“Will it be more than a week?” she asked.
He looked up from the button he was worrying into place one-handed. “Before the egg is found?”
“Yes.”
“If it is, our client will be lip deep in hot sauce. Get packing. We’re on a short clock.”
“I’m ready to go.”
His eyes narrowed. “Just that? What about clothes?”
“I don’t need more clothes to drive you over the mountain.”
“Then what are you going to do?”
“I’ll think of something.”
He didn’t doubt it. What she didn’t know was that he’d thought of something already.
And he was bigger than she was.
24
Cambria
Monday night
As soon as Laurel got to the garage, she automatically headed for her car.
“No,” Cruz said, leading her out of the garage. “They’ll know the license plate and make of your car. We’ll take my rental.”
With a careless snap of his right wrist he threw the keys to Laurel. Though he gave no warning, she caught them without fumbling.
“Nice reflexes,” he said.
It was the last thing he said directly to her for a long time. While she drove, he pushed her out of his mind. As far as he was concerned, she’d spent too much time in it already.
He reached into the glove compartment, pulled a tiny, battery-driven cell phone out, and turned it on. His first call was to a Risk Ltd. number.
Because his little pocket cellular didn’t have a scrambler or a decoder, he had to be very careful what he said. Every word he spoke was in the clear, available to anyone with another cellular and enough curiosity to surf the channels for interesting conversations.
When the curiosity was professional, there would be a mainframe computer doing the surfing and recording all conversations that contained certain key words. It was how the CIA and the FBI routinely kept track of things.
If Cruz’s message had been more complex, or if the timing had been less urgent, he’d have waited until he reached the airplane to make his calls. The cell phone on the aircraft had a first-class scrambler. But every minute he delayed was another minute Swann could use to bury himself deeper in whatever cover he was using.
“This is John Smith the Second,” Cruz said when the call was picked up.
“Lousy weather,” came the answer.
“Maybe where you are. I’m in the clear.”
“What can we do for you?”
“I gave the guv an address,” Cruz said. “I need a little cleanup there.”
“Will you be helping us?”
“No.”
“Will anyone else be around?”
“Not so far as I know, but it was a professional job,” he said.
“How much cleanup?”
“Odds and ends of metal. Then you might hang around to help out anyone else who shows up.”
“Any systems damaged?”
“Not enough to matter,” he said.
“Anything else?”
“Tell your crew to wear black. The occasion could become formal without any notice.”
“Black. Affirmative.”
Cruz hung up, punched in another series of numbers, and began talking as soon as the phone was picked up.
“This is Red Two and I’m running barefoot, so I’m running fast. First: Juliet, Alpha, Mike, India, Echo. Second: Sierra, Whiskey, Alpha, November, November. See what the Agency has. And dig. He knows how to hide. If you try for the personal touch, wear black. He’s expecting someone.”
Cruz cut the connection, punched in more numbers, and repeated the message, except that he asked the second operative to check with the FBI.
Three more calls covered the legitimate government agencies that might have employed Jamie Swann. The numbers got longer as Cruz began covering international bases, reaching out to Risk Ltd. sources around the world.
Numbly Laurel drove, listening to call after call in three languages, one of which might have been Russian. She’d quickly sorted out the international radio code; Juliet, Alpha, Mike, etc., were letters spelling Jamie Swann’s name.
That didn’t bother her. She’d known Cruz would go after her father. What bothered her was the blunt assessment of Swann’s character that marked the conclusion of each of Cruz’s English conversations.
He’s expecting someone. Wear black.
She wondered if modern body armor came in any other color. The more she thought about it, the more she doubted it.
Cruz hung up, shifted in the seat, grimaced, and shifted again. Then he reached inside his clothes, pulled a Velcro tab, and fished out the ice pack he had taken from Laurel’s freezer. Thin, flexible, still largely frozen, the pack was obviously filled with something other than water.
“Wonder if Gillie has one of these,” Cruz said under his breath. “Damn thing works.”
Laurel didn’t bother to look his way. She knew he wasn’t talking to her. In fact, he hardly seemed to know she was there.
She wondered how often someone had driven Cruz through the night after he’d been “banged up,” and then listened in while he made thirty phone calls to thirty world-class spooks. She knew it must have happened more than once.
She’d seen other scars on his body.
The thought of him being hurt like that made something twist painfully within her. It wasn’t reasonable that she should feel his past pain so clearly, but she did. And the thought of Cruz being hurt in the future made her skin go cold.
The certainty that he’d been injured saving her life was agonizing. She barely could control the impulse to run her fingers over his cheek, his eyebrows, his lips, to feel the living warmth of his breath on her hand. Then she thought of his own hand, the injury that spoke eloquently of past danger, past pain.
Does my father have scars too? she asked the night while she stared out at the black, winding road. Is that why Mother finally divorced him? Did she get tired of waiting for him to come home dead?<
br />
There weren’t any answers for Laurel’s questions. There never had been. Her mother simply had refused to talk about Jamie Swann and marriage problems. Nor had Swann spoken of Ariel in anything other than wistful terms.
For an instant Laurel took her eyes off the road to glance at the man beside her on the front seat. In the half-light of the rental car’s dashboard, Cruz was a study in shades of darkness. He was bent over slightly, as if to favor his injured ribs, but the lines on his face came from intense concentration rather than pain. The intelligence in him burned with the clarity of a laser.
She knew that she was capable of such focus when she was dreaming a new design or bringing an intricate metal shape into three-dimensional life. But she’d never encountered another human being with that ability to exist utterly without self-consciousness, living in the center of each moment, no time but the endless, vivid now.
She wondered what Cruz was like when he let down his guard and relaxed. If he ever did. In his business, a man who was caught napping tended not to wake up again. Ever. Living on the edge instilled a kind of bone-deep wariness that made relaxation difficult.
Like her father with his wide smile and narrowed eyes.
Odd sounds came from the cellular when Cruz punched in yet another number and began speaking in Spanish.
Laurel knew enough of the language to catch the gist of the conversation.
Black on black.
25
Los Angeles
Very early Tuesday
Although it was past midnight, the galleries of the Hudson Museum were alive with frantic activity. Beneath floodlights, work lights, and spotlights, curators and workmen moved quickly to reassemble display cases and mount paintings on stark white gallery walls. The only still point in the chaos was Damon Hudson. He stood with hands on hips, looking at the mess.
“I have half a mind to cancel the entire exhibit,” Hudson said coldly.
Aleksy Novikov didn’t bother to look up from his work. “A little more to the right. No, no, no. That is too much. Move it closer to the top. That is better.”
Bending over slightly, he focused on a gleaming silver and gilt Fabergé table service that was being arranged in a chest-high display case by an assistant curator.
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