She kept her arms at her sides for balance, since the path back to Caleb was missing its railing. Long, dark fingernails and rings of both gold and silver. The light shifted around her head as she came closer.
I laid the bundle of fake artifacts in the middle of the X of the crosswalk but kept the bundle closed. I reached for her. She let me. I grabbed her outstretched hand and pulled her toward me. She let out a moan of relief as I steadied her. She grabbed the rail closest to me.
“Dr. Moon!” she gasped.
“Scarlet?” I stared. The last time I’d seen her, she’d worn her hair in a bob. The long hair…the ponytail…A trendy cascade of fake hair. Dying her hair or bobbing it was nothing new, but I hadn’t expected Scarlet. My God, I’d thought she was Lilah. I’d expected her to be Lilah. It was obvious up close, though not from a distance and not with the sun in my eyes. Their eyes were different. And the mouth. But the profile…the profile was a perfect match. It had been a ruse. All of it. This was Scarlet, not Lilah.
“Quit dawdling.” From the southern tower, Simon leaned forward over the edge. “Look in the bag. What do you see? Are there tiles?”
Scarlet hesitated, watching me intently through veiled lashes. White knuckles on the rail, she slowly lowered herself to the bundle of tiles and allowed one tentative hand to pull back the edge of the tapestry. “Yes,” she called back without looking up. “They’re tiles. With pictures of the Madonna on them.”
Simon’s laughter caught in the wind. “Excellent! And the book? Is there a briefcase with a book in it?”
Scarlet touched the briefcase. “I…I guess that’s what it is.”
“Good. Good. Then gather them up and carry them back to Caleb. Without dropping them.”
I caught Scarlet’s hand and held it. “I can get you out of here.”
She looked as if she might laugh. “I don’t want to get out of here. And I don’t want to hear any more of your lies about Caleb.”
“They’re not lies. And Scarlet?” I glanced up at Simon. He’d already made it quite clear that he found her a threat to his control over Caleb. “Scarlet, you’re in danger here.”
Her face twisted in disgust. “You’re the one who’s dangerous. Caleb’s never done a thing to hurt me. I’ve never met anyone as special as he is.”
I gripped her wrist and shook it. “Didn’t you hear Simon? You’re expendable.”
“So his dad’s an ass. I’ve dealt with worse.”
“No. No, you haven’t. The Adrianos—and that includes Simon and Caleb—are killers. They’ll do anything for power. Don’t you understand?”
“You know what?” She yanked her wrist out of my grip. “I don’t know what this—” she waved at the exchange going on around her “—is all about, but I do know one thing. To steal from your employer like you did and then kidnap that little boy to save your own ass and then try to tell me that Caleb and his family are the bad guys? Dr. Moon—or whatever your name really is—you make me sick!”
I watched her go. I stood in the middle of the X, in the crosshairs of the Adrianos, and watched Scarlet Rubashka go. She was indeed in danger if Simon discovered who she really was. She was one of “my kind.” One of my lineage. Or rather, Matthew’s lineage. I knew it in her profile. Matthew’s little sister, the little girl Matthew’s mother had adopted from a relative, the child they’d called Nonny, my daughter’s only other living relative. And she hated me.
I let her go. I let her take the only leverage I had left—the fake artifacts—and go. They didn’t have my daughter. They had an unwitting accomplice who was Matthew’s sister. But they didn’t have my daughter. I felt the glorious release inside my throat and wanted to cry out in victory in spite of my situation. They didn’t have Lilah. My daughter was safe.
Scarlet inched along the crosswalk a little faster as she neared Caleb. He stepped out onto the edge of the stone bridge and drew her in by the waist. He lifted her onto the tower beside him, setting the bundle on the deck at their feet. He hugged her close, and she pressed her cheek into his chest.
“Good,” Simon called back. “Now get rid of her.”
Caleb glowered. The sun had dropped another degree on the horizon, and I could barely see his face now. The look was one of pure hatred. I knew it personally.
For a moment I thought Simon’s order had been directed at me, not Scarlet. Caleb drew Scarlet into a deep embrace and turned his back on his father, protecting Scarlet, hiding the naive little fool from the man who’d just pronounced her expendable.
“Dr. Moon?” Simon’s voice wasn’t nearly so loud since I’d closed half the distance between us.
I rose to my feet in the center of the X but didn’t look down. I knew better. There was nowhere to look except directly at him.
“Dr. Moon? Aren’t you forgetting something?”
A security guard, the man behind him, stepped to one side. He pulled a second figure with him, a woman, and shoved her to the tower’s edge next to Simon’s right. A slight woman. Judging by the lack of ripeness in her figure, I guessed she was no more than twenty. White T-shirt, jeans. Her arms pulled behind her back. A thick blue scarf covering her forehead and eyes.
Lilah?
Sunlight washed cross the blue swath on her face. She was close enough that I could see her chin quiver. Dread twisted in my stomach. I’d expected to see Lilah in Caleb’s hands. I’d been so worried about Caleb getting his hands on my precious daughter that I’d forgotten what a bastard his father could be. No, this was much more Simon’s forte. Torture the ones you love, then torture you.
Oh, God.
“Dr. Moon, did you think you could outsmart my family? We made you. We turned you into what you are today.”
“And for that,” I whispered, “I hate you.” I breathed through gritted teeth. “Let her go!”
“Why would I do that?”
I was vaguely aware of Scarlet asking what was going on and Caleb trying to talk her into going back downstairs. “You have me,” I told Simon.
“Don’t be silly. Of course I have you. I’ve always had you. Did you think you’d ever be able to leave us? I’ll own you until the day you die…whichever day I decide that to be.” He grabbed Lilah’s jaw and twisted her to look at me, even though she couldn’t see me through the blindfold. “Don’t you have something to say to your mother?”
“M-mom?” she croaked out. That voice. So frail, so fragile. My baby?
“Let her go!” My voice cracked on the last syllable. If there was any doubt that I’d shown my weaknesses to everyone watching—Simon, Caleb, Eric, Scarlet, even Lilah—all doubt was now gone. Lilah was my weakness. She always had been. From the moment she was conceived. But she was also my strength. The one thing that had kept me going through the all the dark times. Knowing that she was safe. Knowing that she was living the life I could never have and that she was free to live and love as she wanted.
“No,” was all he said.
“Simon…Duke? Please? Let her go!”
He seemed to think for a moment. Hope surged through me. We’d had a good working relationship for so long. He owed me, I’d thought. He cared, I’d thought. Didn’t all those years count for anything? He seemed to reconsider. He still didn’t know the tiles were fake or that the manuscript in the tapestry was a fake. He still thought those were real. Maybe he’d keep his end of the bargain, at least long enough to let her go.
“Please,” I said, lowering my voice. I would never beg for myself. But for Lilah, I would die. “Please let her go.”
He shrugged. “Okay.”
I saw the blur of white shirt and blue blindfold, the whirl of motion. She took flight. She tumbled forward, over. I was vaguely aware of a scream from Scarlet’s direction.
Chapter 17
“Caleb, what happened? What happened?” I barely heard Scarlet’s voice.
My baby.
I stared openmouthed at Simon. We locked gazes. I couldn’t miss the amusement in his eyes.
“O
ops.” He grinned back.
My eyes searched the courtyard below, the grounds, out into the gardens. She’d fallen beyond the security fence on the compound’s perimeter. I caught a flash of white T-shirt as she tumbled down the hill and out of sight.
A three-story fall. Could she be okay? Could she be alive? Could— I let out a yelp as reality set in.
I felt Eric’s eyes on me. I sensed his pain at seeing my own, but I had no time for it.
Lilah. Lilah, my life.
I bounded across the crosswalk toward the eastern tower, snatching the utility belt from under my sweater. I flung it into the sky as I ran, bringing it down into the scaffolding in a fast loop around the upper bar as I launched myself into thin air. The utility hook grabbed the bar and held. I heard the chaos behind me. Simon yelling. Scarlet crying. Caleb yelling. None of it mattered. The only thing that mattered was getting to my baby. The cord unraveled behind me as I swung out wide beyond the southern tower and over the security fence. I let go and tumbled to the grass. My knee gave way under me, but I pulled myself up and kept going. I had to keep going. I had to.
I plunged toward Lilah where she’d plummeted down the hill. She was sprawled like a broken doll. Arms still tied behind her at the wrists but in an awkward angle that didn’t seem human. One leg askew, obviously broken. She didn’t move.
I hit the ground and tumbled toward her. It was faster than limping. I knew before I touched her that she was dead.
“Ah, baby.” I crawled to her, touched her hair, soothed the dirty wisps that escaped from the edges of the blindfold. A scarf. Robin’s-egg blue. A beautiful blue. With gold threads through it. Probably Scarlet’s. It matched her outfit of the day. They’d used Scarlet’s scarf to blindfold my daughter. I wonder if she even knew.
“My baby,” I whispered. Full-grown. I never got to meet her full-grown. In my mind, despite the private investigator’s photographs, she was still ten years old. “I’m so sorry, baby.” I kissed her forehead. “If I could rewrite my life, I swear, Lilah, this would all be different.”
Gently I lifted the blindfold and peeled it back to look into her beautiful eyes one last time.
What the hell?
I blinked. I didn’t know these eyes.
Then I realized that I did. Green eyes. Nose ring. Nicole. The runaway. The girl in San Francisco. The girl who’d posed as my daughter to escape her stepfather. My contact in L.A.—George, who created new identities for various Adriano assignments—had betrayed me. Betrayed her. Had given her to Simon thinking she was my child. Mine and Matthew’s.
Damn you! I sobbed, sinking a clenched fist into her shoulder and then pounding her shoulder again. Damn you, damn you, damn you, you naive little girl! I let my fist rest on her shoulder and then pressed my forehead to hers. It wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t Nicole I wanted to strike but the man who’d done this to her. I’d sworn to keep her safe and to kill anyone who hurt her, but all I had to pour my shame into was a broken body. I pulled her to me and kissed her forehead. “I’m sorry. So sorry.”
I shook off a deep need to stay and mourn this girl. There’d be time for that later. Because if Nicole was the only child Simon had attached to me, then Simon didn’t know about Lilah. This girl had been sacrificed in my daughter’s place. And that meant—
Lilah’s still alive! Safe!
I pushed up off my feet and quickly checked the direction of the sun. I made my way to the trees and brush, the rocks, heading as fast as I could go toward the entrance of the tunnel Myrddin had shown me. I needed a place to hide, at least until things calmed down. Then, after dark, I’d head toward the place we’d hidden the car. I could hear shouting from within the Adriano compound. They’d be here within moments. I couldn’t look back. I would never look back again. Only forward.
“Leaving empty-handed?” A voice spun me around and I came face-to-face with Interpol agent Analise Reisner. With a gun. She couldn’t have picked a worse time.
“Look,” I said, palms in the air, angling to get around her, “I don’t want to fight you.”
She smiled grimly. “You don’t look like you have any fight left in you.”
Reisner was right about the way I looked. Bedraggled and exhausted. Not calm, athletic, robust like Reisner, but still with plenty of fight in me, especially if it meant Lilah was alive.
“Dropping off another artifact you acquired for your benefactor?”
“Simon’s not my benefactor. Not anymore. And I can’t stay here or they’ll kill me. And no, I didn’t make my delivery.”
“But I saw—”
“They had my…something very important to me. I mean, I thought they did. Look, you don’t owe me anything, but—”
“I’m here to help you.” The air seemed to crackle between us. My skin tingled.
I eyed her suspiciously. Help? She’d been chasing me for months. I’d saved her life in France and in return she’d let me get away, but I’d always known I’d have to face her again. No doubt, she could tell I didn’t believe her.
“Myrddin.”
“Myrddin?” I repeated. She knew Myrddin?
“I was sent to make sure you didn’t come back from San Francisco with a present for the Duke. I failed. Yesterday morning, Myrddin told Cat you were on your way to Paris with some important artifacts that had to stay out of Adriano hands. I was to tag you.” She holstered her weapon. “When I lost you, I retraced my path to here.”
“You were going to…help me?” I glanced over my shoulder at the sounds of chaos behind me. I couldn’t linger much longer. “Why would you help me?”
“I understand we have some ancestors in common.”
I froze and stared at her. No, not a descendant of Isabelle. An ancestry that went farther back than that. To a time when our foremothers had been sisters in their mission, priestesses of the Mother. She was one of my kind, too. How many of us were there?
“I have to get out of here. Now.”
“I have a boat.” She dug a set of keys out of her pocket and pitched them to me. “It’s down at the water access. Only one there. Will I see you at Cat’s?”
I nodded. “And you? What about you?”
She shrugged. “I’ll see what I can do to stir up some trouble here with the guards. Give you a delay. And don’t worry. I’ve called the local police for backup. They’ll make sure I get away in one piece.”
I caught my bottom lip between my teeth and frowned in the direction of Nicole’s rag-doll body. “The girl…”
We locked gazes, both of us silently acknowledging the casualties of this war with the Adrianos.
“Innocent bystander,” I whispered, swallowing the lump in my throat. The words were lost between us, but she read my lips and nodded.
“I’ll see that the police take care of that, too.” She gestured toward the bay. “Now, go. I’ll be safe. See? My backup’s already at the main gate.”
I twisted my jaw to one side. “One more thing. I’m not going to be able to retrieve those artifacts for a while, and they can’t stay where I left them.”
Reisner nodded. “I’d be more than happy to pick them up for you.”
“I thought so. But don’t go hauling them all back to Interpol. Some of those artifacts belong to me personally.” I frowned. “Some may belong to you personally, too.” I had no idea if she’d inherited tiles, as well. “Go to Naples. Get on the Circumvesuviana train line. Get off at the Pompeii Scavi. I left a navy-blue blanket hidden in the ceiling above the toilets. You’ll know it when you see the Adriano logo on the blanket.”
I heard her wish me luck as I ran toward the water access. I had to slide down between the rocks, digging my heels into the ground to keep from plunging down to the water. Once the Adrianos found out I hadn’t delivered the real tiles, they’d never stop hunting me. I’d have to die to escape them.
I have to die.
I wished I could tell Eric. I wished I could say goodbye to him. As long as he was a man of his word, there would be nothi
ng for either of us to worry about.
“Ha!” Algernon shot up in front of me, grabbing my arm, spinning me around. I punched him hard in the nose, not once but twice. His face contorted and he raised a fist…then sank at my feet.
Reisner stood behind him, a big rock in her grip. “Go!” she urged. “Now!”
I pounced into the boat and started the motor before my feet were firmly on the floor. Within seconds I was out in open water, looking back at the palazzo on the hill and the four towers. I circled the boat back around, not so close as to be hit if they decided to shoot but close enough that they would know who it was.
As soon as I saw more men appear on the towers, I tugged off the red sweater and tied the arms to the steering wheel, letting the bright red flap in the wind beside me. Then I turned the boat toward the rocks, going faster and faster and faster—
At the last possible moment, I slipped over the edge and let the water cover me. Plumes of fire exploded above me, and I knew I had a long swim ahead to my rebirth.
Chapter 18
Six weeks later
London, England
I was late. Train service from Paris had been disrupted, and the London Underground had been closed down for nearly a day due to a gas leak of some sort. But Robert’s flat looked inviting as I strolled toward the stoop.
Had I not stayed too long in Paris with Cat and Analise Reisner—who I now knew as Ana—I might have made it to Robert’s flat two days ago. Both women had helped me locate a safe house and make some real plans for the future, plans that included both Europe and North America. In the six weeks since I’d confiscated the tiles, not a single rainstorm had threatened the Italian countryside. The three of us had celebrated a victory over the Adrianos. If they were responsible for the scientifically induced bad weather, we now had the tiles and their energy far from the ley lines at the palazzo. We weren’t sure whether they had used the energy to create storms, but since the weather had improved, we assumed they didn’t have the needed energy stored for another attempt. The only thing we were sure of was that the storm had stopped.
Lorna Tedder Page 21
