He stepped forward and took one of her hands.
Ike went for her .22 with the other.
Her captor exploded into a blur of motion. Just as she touched the butt of the small gun, he grabbed her and spun her around, snatching the weapon and tossing it on the floor beneath the desk. Using the hand he held as leverage, he whipped her arm up behind her back and leaned into her.
They wound up plastered together, with his front against her back and their arms twined together, one across her belly below her breasts, the other behind her in a painful, punishing grip.
She screamed and kicked back in a move that should have driven her boot heel into his instep, but he dodged neatly and sandwiched her legs between his, immobilizing her.
Panic spurted, and she was helpless to stop the whimper that bubbled up from her soul, could do nothing but press her eyelids together and fight for air. “Please,” she whispered. “I can’t breathe.”
He immediately eased his grip, surprising her. “I’m sorry,” he said. Then he pressed his face against her neck and inhaled. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Then let me go.”
“I can’t.” He sounded almost sorry. “I need you. I had to have you, had to get you away from the others so you’d understand.”
At first she thought he meant William and Max, and fresh pain wrested a cry from deep in her gut. Then slowly, terribly, she remembered where she’d seen him before. On the ski slope, wearing gray. He’d come to her aid and tried to convince her to stay down while they’d waited for search and rescue.
He’d really been keeping her occupied while her lover had bled out into the snow. Now he kept her captive while William’s body burned.
“Bastard.” Her voice shook on the word, and she couldn’t even bring herself to struggle. He took the opportunity, sliding his hands along her arms and forcing her other hand behind her back, his touch remaining deliberate and almost gentle, though he twisted hard enough to break bone as he overlapped her forearms.
Tears dripped down Ike’s chin, and her mouth opened in a silent rictus of grief, of disbelief. She felt a thin strip wrap around her wrists, heard the zip as he pulled the tie tight but couldn’t bring herself to care as she was swamped beneath the crushing weight of grief.
Oh, God. William.
“Come along.” He lifted his hands and eased something jingling down over her head. At first she thought it was a necklace, another gift.
When he pulled it tight and snapped on a leather leash, she realized it was a choke chain.
“Damn you,” she said hollowly. Some of her fighting spirit rekindled as he stepped away and knelt down to bind her ankles, more loosely than her wrists, so she could walk but not run. She sucked in a miserable breath that did nothing to fill the raw, aching void inside her. “Damn you. You’ll never get away with this.”
He smiled and stepped very close to her, then lifted a hand to trail a finger down her cheek. “Your face is so lovely. You remind me so much of my Celeste.”
“But I’m not Celeste,” she said, jumping on his admission that while she might look like the other woman, he knew they weren’t the same. “I’m Ike Rombout and I can’t just disappear. People will be looking for me.”
His look shifted to gentle pity. “What people?”
Her throat closed on her answer. Her family had been lost to her a long time ago. Her only close friend — Max — was dead. William was dead. Who did that leave to look?
“I made myself almost invisible in your precious databases,” he said. “I wiped all traces of Celeste’s existence, just like I’ll wipe yours after I e-mail your boss on your behalf, telling him you’ve decided to pull up roots and head out on your own. In a few weeks, your other acquaintances will forget to ask where you’ve been and you’ll be nothing more than a footnote on a couple of W2 forms next year.” He spread his hands. “Then you’ll be nothing.”
A black hole of raw panic opened up within Ike at the realization that he could do exactly that. William was right. She’d spent the past two decades trying to stand out in a conformist world, trying to get the attention and the raised eyebrows that meant she mattered. And in the end she’d wound up with so few real friends she’d be easy to forget.
Her heart raced and the walls closed in on her, stealing the oxygen from her lungs. Only there weren’t any walls. They were inside her.
Tears clouded her vision and spilled free, tracking down her cheeks as she wheezed dry, choking sobs.
“That’s my girl,” Smith said again, seeming satisfied by her response. He cocked his head at the rising wail of sirens, then glanced down at Lukas Kupfer’s motionless body. “Such a shame to lose him and Firenzetti all at once. But what the world doesn’t know it lost won’t hurt anyone, and Firenzetti’s usefulness has ended. He may try to turn evidence when he realizes I’m not coming for him, but by then we’ll be long gone.” He kissed her cheek.
Ike didn’t respond; she was too busy trying not to pass out. In the end she’d failed Kupfer just as she’d failed William and Max and Zed. She’d failed thousands of kids like Jeremy, too, because she hadn’t been able to find the adjunct recipe. Hell, she hadn’t even been able to find Matthew’s blog. She’d assumed the scientist had maintained a Web log in his son’s honor, updating it with the progress of the work, but there was no evidence of such a thing on the computer. Hell, from the looks of it, he’d used the word processing package, e-mail and not much else. It seemed odd that he’d —
Her head snapped up as she realized he hadn’t said blog at all. He’d said dog. Matthew’s dog.
She tried to dampen the reaction, but it was already too late. Smith followed her attention to the plush toy on Kupfer’s desk, and his strange pinprick eyes grew thoughtful. “What’s this?”
He crossed the room, yanking her along behind by the leash, and grabbed the small stuffed animal. He felt the thing for a moment before using both hands to give it a violent twist, ripping the toy in half. Then he gave a low cry of triumph and withdrew a small stenographer’s pad.
He flipped a few pages and then beamed at her with approval. “Lovely job.” Hearing the sirens shut off as the cops reached the burned-out car, he said, “Time to go. The limo’s waiting for us on the other side of the building.”
He dragged her out the door, not pausing when she tripped on Kupfer’s still-warm body and fell to her knees. She gagged against the choke chain and struggled to get up with her hands bound behind her, knowing from the implacable set of his shoulders and the blank unconcern in his eyes that he’d choke her to death rather than let her slow him down.
Part of her was tempted to let herself fall, but she was too damn stubborn for that, so she gritted her teeth and struggled onward, staring at Smith’s back while the hatred grew.
Chapter Twelve
To Ike’s surprise, they were only in the limo for twenty minutes or so before the driver pulled into a long tree-lined driveway and stopped in front of a stately old mansion that looked like a restored Colonial on steroids.
“It’s a rental,” Smith said, his expression shifting to one that sent her skin crawling. “I set it up in case Kupfer needed additional persuasion to share his recipe. That didn’t go exactly as planned, but no matter.” He touched the breast pocket of his gray suit, where he’d tucked the small notebook. “I have the formula and I have you. We’ll stop here long enough for me to make other arrangements and to let you freshen up. I’m sure you’d like to change out of those ridiculous clothes.”
Ike bowed her head, hoping she looked utterly broken. It wasn’t far from the truth. Her whole body ached with the pain of loss, with the knowledge that, like the terrible things she’d said the last time she’d visited Donny in the hospital, the last words she’d hurled at William had been angry, unkind ones. And, she admitted privately, she’d been wrong. So much of what she’d done, so many of the choices she’d made had been to protect herself from being hurt.
She’d thought being a rebe
l meant she was brave. In reality, she’d been a coward, hiding behind her look and attitude.
When the driver opened the limo door, Smith unhooked her leash from where he’d tied it to the door handle as an added precaution. “Come.” Using the slip chain as leverage, he dragged her up and out of the vehicle and led her to the front door. When her feet tangled in the zip ties and she stumbled, he yanked on the leash until she gagged. “Watch your step. We wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself.”
He led her into the house, where age competed with modern upgrades at every turn. Her childhood in an old Vermont home and many weekends spent antiquing with her parents told her the bones of the structure probably dated from the Revolutionary War. Somewhere along the line, though, maybe more than once, the place had been gutted and redone, leaving a central staircase to spiral from the front entrance, upward through three levels of rooms ringing a central open space that no Colonial architect would have conceived.
The walls were covered in damask fabric above polished maple wainscoting, the rugs were new looking Orientals and the furniture was expensive modern Scandinavian. The whole effect was jarring and somehow cheap, despite the obvious upgrades.
Ike surreptitiously counted heads as Smith dragged her up the spiraling staircase — the driver followed them in and headed for the kitchen, where she saw two other black-on-black bodyguards seated at a table. She glimpsed two other men hunched over computers in a room on the second floor, bringing the total to five bodyguards plus her captor, though there could easily be others she hadn’t seen.
“In here.” Smith spun the dial on a heavy-duty padlock bolted into the door frame of a room off the stairwell. He popped the lock, opened the door and pushed her through. “My apologies on the decor. This room was intended for Kupfer, but it’s also the only secure space in the house. You’ll be safe here.”
Safe from what? she wanted to ask, but then she got a good look around and the question died in her throat.
The opulent suite was done in polished wood and brass, with soft fabric accents in pale, feminine colors. The main room was large and high-ceilinged, holding a collection of deeply cushioned sofas and chairs, along with a plasma TV and a top-of-the-line entertainment center. In one corner, a small refrigerator was set beneath a bar, with a pair of fixed stools tucked nearby, creating an eating nook. Two doors led off the main space, both open, one leading to a bedroom done in the same pastel color scheme, the other leading to a bathroom with a sunken tub and pale marble on the floor and walls.
In the center of the seating area, a plastic tarp had been thrown over the rug. In the middle of it sat a heavy metal chair that had shackles welded to the armrests and legs, and heavy nylon belts at the waist and neck. Nearby, a tray of wickedly pointed instruments rested atop an elegantly carved mahogany side table, along with an assortment of vials and syringes, all pristine and waiting for a patient.
Ike suppressed a shudder, but Smith saw her reaction, and his lips tipped up at the corners. “I see that we understand each other. Good. I’ll leave you alone to freshen up, but first I need to take care of one important detail.”
He tugged her into the center of the room and scooped a sharp knife from the tray.
Fear shot through Ike. She shrieked and stumbled back, but he yanked on the choke chain to bring her to heel. The ankle ties snagged her feet and she went down in a heap, crying out when he knelt across her belly, pinning her. Then he used the knife methodically, not to stab her but to strip her.
He cut away her tight black pants and cursed to find her bare beneath. Surprising her, he tossed the ragged remains of her pants across her midsection before he turned his attention to her upper half, hacking at her favorite jacket until the tough leather yielded beneath his blade, then cutting through her T-shirt, the one William had taken off her the day before.
Tears stung her eyes at the memory, at the humiliation of being stripped by her enemy.
Just cut me, she wanted to say. Or, better yet, let me go and fight me, you coward.
But he did neither of those things, gathering her shredded clothes and removing her boots with a disturbingly gentle touch. He pulled off the choke chain, stood and gathered the rest of the knives, along with the syringes and drugs. Then he turned for the door, which had remained open throughout the process.
Ike saw four of the bodyguards gathered in the hallway outside her room and cringed at their blatant stares.
“You all have work to do,” Smith snapped, dispersing his men. Then he turned back to her and said, “I had some of Celeste’s clothes moved in here for you. I’m sure you’ll be more comfortable once you’re suitably attired. I have some things to take care of.” He patted his breast pocket. “We’ll leave in an hour. Be ready.”
His strange pinprick eyes held the oddest expression, seeming stuck between love and hate as he shut the door. Moments later, Ike heard the heavy padlock click into place, sealing her in.
She wanted to jump up, pound on the door and scream, Why me? What had she done to attract him, to make him want her, to make him hate her?
Fear and frustration welled up, suffusing her, threatening to drown her. Who was she to think she could go up against someone like Smith, who’d somehow led The Nine without making a mark on the information superhighway?
Surprisingly that small, sarcastic voice inside her, the one that usually shot her down, piped up to say, You’re Ike. Never forget it.
“That’s right,” she said aloud, drawing a bit of empty bravado from the words. “I’m Ike Rombout and I’m not going to let you get away with this. I’m going to take you down or die trying.”
Now she just had to figure out how.
IT TOOK IKE A SOLID ten minutes to get herself out of the zip ties by abrading them against a sharp corner she pried away from the refrigerator housing. Once she was free, she headed for the bedroom and found three flowery sundresses in the closet, though no shoes or underthings.
It’s better than being naked, she thought as she pulled on a ruffled pale pink number that grabbed her at the waist and nearly touched the floor. But not by much.
Then she paused. Behind the dresses, a framed eight-by-ten photograph sat on an empty shoe rack at the back of the closet. It showed a lovely woman wearing a long flowered dress a decade out of date. Her honey-colored hair was waist length and flowed down her back, and her features were sharply exotic and expertly made up.
For Ike, it was like looking in a distorted mirror — one that showed things not as they really were but as they might have been. The picture didn’t look like the woman she’d been before this all began, didn’t look like her made-over disguise of Eleanor. It looked like a blend of the two.
And, she realized as a ball of ice congealed in her stomach, the woman in the photo looked very much like she did at that moment.
Her skin crawled at the touch of the clingy fabric, at the realization that the dress had belonged to a dead woman. She had to assume Celeste was dead, either by accident or murder, because she couldn’t imagine Smith letting her go free.
And just as Ike knew he would have killed Celeste rather than allowing her to leave him, she knew he wouldn’t let her go free either.
“We’ll see about that,” she said aloud. But she knew escape wouldn’t be easy. He might pretend he’d intended this room for Kupfer’s torture, but he’d also brought Celeste’s clothes and picture to the rented mansion, which suggested he’d planned to bring her back here all along.
He’d killed Zed to get to her, Ike thought, her eyes filming. He’d killed William. One had been her lover, one had been her love, though she was just now realizing it, a few hours too late.
Grief rose up and swamped her, weakening her resolve and turning her legs to water. She sank down just outside the closet, pulling her knees to her chest and pressing her face atop them. She hugged her legs and rocked, keening for lost people, lost chances. Her tears soaked into the light fabric of a dead woman’s dress and weakness rose up and claimed her
. I can’t do this, she thought miserably. I can’t.
Worse, she wasn’t sure she wanted to. Wouldn’t it be easier to just give up?
Come on, a voice said inside her head. We both know giving up isn’t your style.
Her head came up and her heart lodged in her throat. That hadn’t sounded like her voice. It’d sounded like William’s voice transmitted through the small earpiece.
She touched her ear on a brief spurt of hope, then let her hand fall away, knowing the transmitter wasn’t there. William wasn’t there. Except in a way, he was there, sitting on her shoulder as he’d been when she first went undercover. Get up, she imagined him saying. He’s erasing you from existence as we speak. In less than an hour he’ll be on the move, and then God only knows what he’ll do with you, where he’ll take you. A pause and then, Are you going to let him get away with this? Are you going to let him license the adjunct and use the money to rebuild The Nine?
A small spurt of anger drove Ike to her feet.
“No, damn it,” she said aloud, taking strength from hearing the words. “I’m going to stop him.” For Zed. For Kupfer. For Jeremy and all the other patients who’d been hurt by The Nine over the years.
And most of all for William.
Blood beginning to burn, she left the bedroom, looking for a weapon — something, anything she could use to attack when the door next opened. As she searched, she was struck once again by the almost haphazard way modern design had been slapped atop an antique structure.
It was a huge old house, she thought as she moved through the main room, skirting the big metal chair. And large houses had servants’ stairs and dumbwaiters, right? In addition, houses built during the Revolution often had hidden spaces for concealing smuggled goods or deserting soldiers. She knew because she’d grown up in just such a house.
“There’s no guarantee,” she told herself, but that didn’t stop her from making a circuit of the room, tapping the outer walls at regular intervals but hearing nothing unusual.
Prescription: Makeover (Harlequin Intrigue) Page 14
