She stood next to the roan, waiting for a leg up into the saddle. This concession to him was a big deal to her, even he knew it.
“I’m sorry,” she said as she turned to face him. “For being nosey.”
She was apologizing? To him?
Hell.
Nat brushed a tendril of hair away from her forehead and leaned down to touch her lips with his own. It was a kiss of reassurance, gentle and uncomplicated. Nat was determined not to frighten her by taking things too far, too fast. Even if all he really wanted was to get inside her.
****
Elizabeth stood for a moment, dazed by the soft kiss that sent heat spiraling through her veins. It felt so good she kissed him back, opened her mouth to his and explored him with her tongue. She rose on tiptoes and wrapped her arms around his neck, felt rock hard muscles strain beneath the super-soft sheepskin. For a single second he hesitated, before he backed her up against the solid cowpony. She’d forgotten the raw strength of the man, forgotten the firebrand nature of their kisses. She felt her knees give way and suddenly he was sweeping her off her feet.
Tiger snorted in Nat’s ear and Elizabeth laughed for the second time that day. It was getting easier. Even though life was a bitch, it was getting easier to laugh about it. With Nat.
“Who asked you?” Nat said to the horse. He blew out a big sigh of frustration and placed his forehead against hers. Tiger snorted again and Elizabeth wiped horse drool off Nat’s cheek with her jacket cuff.
With a reluctant groan, he slid her slowly down his body and let her feel every frustrated inch of him. Then he held her away.
“So now you know all my deep, dark secrets, Eliza.” Nat’s blue eyes delved into hers. She froze and knew he felt it.
“I can’t promise anything except the here and now.” He brushed his thumb across her bottom lip. “No rings, no happily ever after. I’ve got nothing to offer you, but I want you so badly I can barely stand to let you go.” But he did. He released her with a slight squeeze of her shoulders and took a step back. Somehow he managed to look annoyed and considerate at the same time.
Her heart tilted.
Elizabeth wanted him.
He’d said he had nothing to offer her but really it was the other way around. She could only cause him misery and sorrow. If she had any decency at all she would leave now. But Nat Sullivan was her chance at salvation, a lifeline thrown at the last possible moment. If she was nervous, it was only that her old fear would paralyze her, ruin the moment. Tentatively she raised a hand to the crease in his cheek and smiled.
Time stood still as they stared into each other’s eyes. She hoped he found the answers he needed written in her eyes, because she couldn’t speak about her past. Not yet, maybe never. But she did want him, and she wanted him to know it.
“Damn,” he said. He clenched his jaw and glared down at her like she’d done something wrong. He held his breath for a finite moment, stroked her cheek.
Then he grinned.
****
Connecticut, April 12th
Marsh dragged his hand through his short hair and blew out a ragged sigh of frustration. He drove his black BMW along Interstate 95, past the bustling port of New Haven with the gothic spires of Yale, just visible to the north.
His jaw was clenched so hard he’d given himself a headache. He was as frustrated as hell and getting more pissed off by the minute. The number Josephine’s father had given him had turned out to be a cell phone, but it was turned off and therefore untraceable. To all intents and purposes, Josephine Maxwell had disappeared off the face of the earth, no ATM or credit card activity, no sightings, nothing, nada, zilch.
She could be dead. But he didn’t think so.
Part of him was relieved that she was so hard to find, but he had a bad feeling about it. He’d missed something. His gut instinct was telling him that time was running out, slipping through his fingers like sand through an egg timer. The preliminary hearings on the mob cases were due to start in two days and things were going to happen. Crime families throughout the U.S. were running around like headless chickens, covering their asses and pissed because the Feds had got one over on them.
Signs for the exit ramp to New London and Mystic loomed. He suddenly remembered the photograph in Josephine’s apartment of the women by the boathouse. Damn. He’d forgotten about Elizabeth’s aunt. Marsh swung hard across two carriageways, cutting off a sporty little Miata as he left a streak of black rubber on the asphalt.
His cell phone rang.
“Hayes,” Marsh answered.
A crackly voice came over a very bad line. “Special Agent Hayes, this is Captain Claremont, Brooklyn PD.”
“What can I do for you, Captain?” Marsh didn’t have time to deal with another case, but it had to be urgent, otherwise the cops wouldn’t involve the FBI. They’d rather suck their own blood.
“I need you down at the precinct. I got some questions for you.” The accent was thick Brooklyn, a no-nonsense sort of voice.
“Sorry, Captain, no can do, I’ll send one of my team down ASAP.” Marsh wanted the cop off the line. He needed to get a name and address on Elizabeth’s late aunt. She’d had a house near Mystic—that was all he knew.
There was a muffled exchange at the other end of the line, as if the man had covered the mouthpiece and conferred with someone else.
“You don’t get it, Hayes,” Captain Claremont said abruptly. “I need to question you in relation to a double-homicide. Your prints were found all over the murder scene.”
Shit.
“Walter Maxwell?” Marsh asked. He needed to be sure.
“How’d you know that, Hayes?” the Chief asked.
Marsh nearly laughed at the Colombo-style nature of the interview, but he didn’t. Josephine Maxwell’s father was dead and he didn’t believe in coincidence.
“Because he’s the only person I’ve visited in Brooklyn in the last thirty-eight years. What time did the murder occur?”
“I can’t—”
“Who’s the other victim?” Marsh cut through the bureaucratic bullshit.
“Can’t disclose that at the moment, Hayes, if you just—”
“Was it a mob hit?” Marsh asked.
“Mob?” Claremont clearly hadn’t got a clue what was going on.
Forget it. Marsh wasn’t wasting his time being questioned by detectives while the mob lined up their next victim. He’d get the information he needed from another source.
“Listen, I met Walter Maxwell this morning for the first and only time. I gave him a bottle of whiskey and three-hundred bucks. It was in relation with an ongoing investigation that I am not at liberty to discuss.”
He let his FBI status work for him and put on his most autocratic voice. “If you need any more information I suggest you talk to either FBI Director Brett Lovine or my attorney. My secretary can tell you how to contact them.” He ignored the spluttered protests and rang off. Then he dialed his secretary before anyone else could tie down the line. He needed information and he needed it fast.
The FBI had a leak.
It had to be a mob hit. Had to be. How else could they have connected an old man in the slums to an upscale curator at MOMA? Marsh knew the OCU had fingerprinted Elizabeth’s apartment after she disappeared and had gotten a cold-hit on Josephine Maxwell’s prints. That information must have been passed onto the mob, only they hadn’t believed the old man when he’d told them he didn’t know where his daughter was. They’d killed the bastard.
Marsh didn’t believe in coincidence. Josephine Maxwell was up to her slim neck in trouble and time was running out.
Half an hour later, Marsh stood outside the house that had once belonged to Elizabeth’s aunt, nestled on the beach just outside the small town of Stonington. He’d been dumb. He should have remembered that Elizabeth never sold property. His black BMW was parked on a grass-verge hidden from view a hundred yards down the road. The house was a two-story clapboard with freshly painted blue shutters, set
deep in leafy gardens, well hidden from the casual passerby.
Marsh wore a black jersey over his white shirt, his 9-mm SIG pistol holstered to his chest. The place was quiet except for the scream of gulls on the wind. Salt stung the air.
Adrenaline hummed through his veins, reminding him it had been a long time since he’d put his own life on the line. Maybe too long. He vaulted the small wooden fence that sided the property and made his way through the garden, not wanting to approach from the drive. Cautiously, he worked his way around to the back of the house and spotted lights on in a couple of rooms.
He stretched up and spotted a blonde woman walking away from him toward what looked to be the kitchen.
Bingo.
Looking up, he saw an intricately carved balcony with the doors standing ajar and gauzy drapes billowing in the wind. An old hemlock stretched gnarly limbs just inches from the white balustrade. It had been years since he’d climbed a tree to get into a woman’s bedroom.
Two minutes later he stood in an opulent room and brushed lichen from his pants. A canopied bed, draped with cream silk, dominated the room. It was a bed made for fantasies. Marsh raised his eyebrows, wondering just whom it belonged to. It wasn’t a bed he could picture Elizabeth sleeping in; it was far too girly for his gritty agent. A delicate French lady’s-vanity stood next to the window, complete with a skirted stool. Covered with dozens of tiny glass perfume bottles and an old wedding photograph in a silver filigree frame, it looked like something his mother would have liked. Checking the hall, he made his way silently downstairs, and headed toward the sound of music that spilled from the kitchen.
Josephine Maxwell stood at a center island with her back to him, opening a can of tomatoes. Long silver-blonde hair was caught up in a simple twist that exposed the graceful line of her neck. Her long legs were covered in skintight black leggings and she wore a figure-hugging black tank, draped with a gauzy green shirt that had some weird ethnic print on it. It floated around her as she moved in time to the music.
He waited for her to turn around, knowing she was going to be frightened when she saw him, but not knowing how to prevent it. Not that she didn’t deserve a little shot of terror, the way she’d treated him when they’d last met. But he had to convince her he was one of the good guys. Somehow. She grabbed a saucepan, oblivious to him, and his nerves stretched to breaking point.
Dancing to the music, she whirled and froze as she saw him standing in the doorway. She swallowed convulsively and her eyes darted towards the French-doors at the other end of the kitchen. He started to shake his head, to tell her everything was okay, but she hurled the saucepan and its contents at him. He swore, ducked, and narrowly avoided the cast-iron pot before chasing after her. She made it to the doors, but couldn’t unlock them before he grabbed her.
He spun her around by the shoulders. “Calm down, I’m not here to hurt you.”
The look in her blue eyes suggested she didn’t believe a word of it. She raised her chin a notch, but remained rigid beneath his hands, quivering like the string of a violin.
“I’ve come to get you out of here, you’re in danger,” Marsh told her. Understatement of the century.
“Elizabeth said that if anybody found me it would be you. How’d you do it?” Her voice caught him off guard. It was as soft as a whisper and stroked his nerves like a gentle caress.
“It wasn’t easy,” he admitted.
Josephine smiled tremulously. “But you found me anyway.”
She looked so forlorn that he released her shoulders and was about to explain the danger when she piled her knee into his crotch so hard that his vision blanked. Pain exploded into every neuron of his body, telling him to die now. She was out of the door in a flash, racing across the garden.
It took him a good twenty-seconds before he could move, and then it was just an inelegant stumble. At least he hadn’t screamed—or had he?
“Damn.” He went after her. Vicious little cat.
He could hear her crashing through the bushes as she headed towards the beach. He ran flat-out through the shadows and over the uneven ground, relying on his luck not to break a leg or trip in the blackness. Not that his luck seemed to be doing him much good tonight, but he couldn’t let her get away, it was too dangerous.
The noise stopped abruptly and Marsh slowed down, moving quietly around large bushes and trees. Another sound caught his attention, the low throb of a powerboat heading out to sea. He ignored that sound and focused on his immediate target. He could hear the waves lap against the dock. Smell the salty tang of sea air. She was close by, he could feel her. A sliver of moon illuminated patches of garden, but dense shadows shrouded most of it. She wore black, but her face and hair would catch the moonbeams.
He almost called out to her, but decided silence was his best ally. He could explain the situation when they were somewhere safe and the shrew wasn’t trying to emasculate him. He rubbed his balls, which still ached from her knee. Patient now, he crouched on the grass beneath an overgrown honeysuckle bush looking for reflections of moonlight across pale skin.
There. Just beside the trunk of a massive oak was the glimmer of a face.
He backtracked behind the honeysuckle and along a lilac hedge, keeping his attention focused on the spot where she hid. He crept forward slowly until he could make out her faint profile against the night sky and see her shoulders rise and fall with each breath.
He caught her from behind, banded one arm around her middle, pinning her arms to her sides, while his other hand covered her mouth to smother her screams. She writhed and struggled violently, trying to bite his hand and scratch him with her nails.
Damn, for all she was slight she was fierce.
Other sounds caught his attention, deep male voices followed by the abrupt cutting of a powerboat’s motor. Silence followed, with just the splash of wake causing the dock to bounce and grate against its moorings. Soon even that was gone and the sounds of their struggle carried like bomb-blasts in the silence.
“Hush,” Marsh said.
She bit him. He squeezed her chin hard enough to get her attention.
“Goddamnit, I said be quiet,” he hissed into her ear. “We’ve got company and it’s not the fucking Boy Scouts.”
She stilled in his arms and he finally had her full attention.
Marsh pulled them both back behind the oak tree and started to reverse toward the thick vegetation that edged the fence at the side of the property. He froze as three dark-suited men crept stealthily toward the house. Josephine flinched beneath his hands as pistols were drawn and magazines inserted. He kept his hand over her mouth just in case she did anything stupid. One man broke off and headed around to the back of the house—to block her escape.
When the men entered the open French-doors, Marsh decided it was time to get the hell out of there. He turned her around to face him. “Look, they’re here to kill you. Got it?”
She nodded, her eyes wide with fear.
“My car’s parked just the other side of this fence. If I let you go, you have to promise to come with me, to trust me.”
She stiffened her spine, but nodded. He let her go, knowing he could never trust her, but she wasn’t stupid. He kept a tight grip of her hand, just in case she decided to run.
Drawing the SIG from its holster he took the safety off and moved along the fence to the spot where he’d climbed over earlier. They could hear movements inside the house, shouts and the sound of furniture being broken. He jumped the fence and waited for her to join him, but she tripped and fell, cutting herself on a wooden post and crying out in pain.
Marsh pulled her to her feet.
“Run.” He hissed and half-pushed her along the road. He could hear feet pounding through the garden. They were still twenty feet from the car when the first mobster opened fire.
Marsh fired back blindly. Bullets whizzed past his head with only inches to spare. He threw himself into the car at full speed and gunned the engine. Josie still had one leg out th
e passenger door when he floored it and tore down the road with grit spitting out behind the tires.
They’d made it, for now.
Chapter Twelve
Mount Vernon Street, Boston, April 12th
Josephine Maxwell’s silver blonde hair fell down from its twist, making her look younger than her twenty-seven years. Marsh untangled the knots gently with his fingers, tentatively traced the outermost shell of her ear. Delicate features in a heart-shaped face denied the ice that flowed through her veins—making her look as soft and innocent as an angel.
But she was a player and he shouldn’t be fooled. She’d kicked him in the balls a split-second after she’d conned him with those big blues. If he underestimated her again it would be more than his manhood at stake, it would be her and Elizabeth’s lives.
At least now he had her under control.
Drugged.
They’d made it back to his Louisburg Square home without incident and he’d carried her up the wide staircase to the guestroom closest to his own bedroom.
To keep an eye on her.
Sitting on the satin coverlet, he pulled a wide-bore syringe from the little surgical kit he kept in his office. Josephine would escape from him at the first opportunity, but he intended to be ready for her. In fact, he needed her to escape. He was relying on her to lead him straight to Elizabeth.
Heavy bronze-colored drapes were closed against prying eyes. The lights were on, but he was confident that Josephine wouldn’t rouse, and he needed to see exactly what he was doing. Carefully, he turned Josephine onto her front, gently moved her arms to the sides of her body, turned her head to the side so that she could breathe more easily. He pulled up the black top she wore, exposing her back, ready to swab the insertion site with alcohol.
Her skin was as pale as alabaster and she wasn’t wearing any underwear. That was the first thing he noticed. Then his gaze lit on the first scar and his mouth twitched. He pulled her vest higher and saw that she was covered in evil lines of old pain. They formed an ‘X’ in a series of crisscrosses over her back.
Her Sanctuary Page 15
