“All right, then, the mutilation. What was it for?”
“As I said before, to look for microfilm, computer chips, any way information might be hidden on the human body.”
“But why?”
“They’re looking for Stephen’s code and the key to tell them where he hid Will Donovan.”
“Then they know he’s alive.”
“Yes. They threatened him and he disappeared. They didn’t kill him, ergo he ran.”
“How do they know Peter’s behind it?”
“Our operations aren’t completely off the radar. People who need us find us.”
“Why were the three of you at the ski lodge?” I asked. I knew they’d gone there to meet Donovan again, but I didn’t know why.
“The threat had grown and Peter had green-lighted us to get Jayne Donovan out, despite the risks.”
“You, Stephen and James.”
He nodded.
“But you didn’t,” I went on. “She’s dead.”
“We waited too long. The plan was to take her the day we met with Donovan at the lodge.”
“The day Stephen died.”
“Yes. Stephen’s death stopped our plan. We had a traitor to deal with. Jayne had yet to be informed she was to leave,” he explained.
“She didn’t know her son was alive when she died.” I felt anger surge inside me. Another woman lied to on the pretense of safety.
“No,” he said softly. I actually believed he found that painful as well.
“We have to find Will Donovan,” I said.
“Yes. If we don’t, they will.”
“After we go for Cara and Patrice.”
“Eat your food, Elizabeth.”
I hadn’t touched my salad.
“You’re going to need all your strength to get your daughter back.”
“Then you’ll go with me to Taos.”
“Your daughter isn’t in Taos.”
“How do you know that?”
“If she were, she would have insisted on speaking with you when you called the hotel. James has convinced her that he’s there to protect the two of you, that I murdered her father.”
Just as Ian had tried to convince me that James had killed Stephen.
“You can’t be sure of that,” I insisted, desperately wanting Cara somewhere I could find her, wanting her not to trust a man who could be a murderer.
“Cara compromised your identity, Elizabeth. James used it to trace where you were staying. He may have even told her you’ve been abducted.”
“That you’d taken me?”
He nodded. “Remember she lost contact with you for two days. He can’t afford to let you talk with her and plant any doubt in her mind.”
“So you think she’s safe?”
“For the moment. As long as she trusts him and…”
“As long as James believes I have something he needs.”
“Yes.”
“Where has he taken them?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you have an idea how to find out.”
He nodded. “James wants Will Donovan. Find Donovan and you’ll have something to bargain with.”
One child traded for another. Was I capable of that?
“And if I say no?”
“Then we’ll go to Taos. The decision is yours, Elizabeth. I told Stephen I’d watch over you, and I’ve done a damn poor job of it. I’d hoped to establish a relationship with you earlier, while we were both teaching, so that you would know me, trust me, but I underestimated how closed your circle of friends was. We’ll work this together, however you want to do it. All I’m doing is telling you what I think is best.”
But was it the truth? I would not gamble with Cara’s and Patrice’s lives.
“When James called me at the hotel, he asked me to meet him at the pueblo in Taos at three tomorrow afternoon,” I said.
“Good. That gives us a place to begin.”
“We don’t have enough time to find Will first,” I insisted.
Ian nodded, accepting my decision, just as he said he would.
“James will know, won’t he?” I asked.
“That you contacted me? Or that I found you? He won’t dismiss the possibility. You fled from him. But I doubt he would believe you’d come to me, especially if Cara and Patrice told him about our encounter in York. My main concern right now is that if you don’t show at the pueblo…”
“He may harm Cara or Patrice.”
His face was solemn. “I believe he will continue to woo you, to try to win you to his side. Hurting Cara or Patrice would be a major mistake. I don’t think James is that stupid.”
I had to believe that, or I’d never get a moment of rest.
The waiter returned and suggested dessert, which we both declined, and then left the check in a leather holder on the table. Ian scanned the figures and drew out his wallet.
“Let me,” I began fishing for mine.
He slipped several bills into the folder. “I know you’ve been taking care of yourself for a long time, but allowing someone to assist you is not a sign of weakness. Let’s start with something small, like this dinner. I’d very much enjoy treating you if you will allow me the pleasure.”
I nodded. I’d just as soon Ian didn’t know how much money I had with me. Besides, he played the gentleman so well I half believed it wasn’t an act.
“So, where are you staying?” he asked.
“I was at the Hilton, but—”
“You’ve checked out. Of course. James knows you were there. There’s a house, in the mountains. It’s safe and I have a key.”
“Are you suggesting that the two of us…”
The thought startled me. To be alone in a house with this man.
“You requested my help. It would be to your benefit to trust your instincts, to trust me, Elizabeth. You have your pistol, and, I suspect, some other means of protecting yourself. You’ll have your own room with its own dead bolt as will I, just in case you decide to slit my throat in the middle of the night. Early tomorrow morning we’ll head out—”
“For Taos,” I said.
“For Taos,” he repeated.
Chapter 19
Ian drove me to the bus station to retrieve my bag, and then we took off for the mountains. We barely spoke. My thoughts were crowding my mind, and he seemed lost in his own reverie.
The nearness of him unsettled me. I could have denied the attraction between us, but that would have been foolish. It was a factor that would color both our actions. It had already made him underestimate me. I intended not to let it make me underestimate him.
I watched him drive, making certain he kept his hands on the wheel where I could see them. He spoke mostly of teaching at Gilman, periodically glancing at me. He was trying to put me at ease. It wasn’t going to happen, not with him so close.
My thoughts strayed to Taos. I wondered what Cara was doing, then shook myself out of it. I had to focus on getting there, nothing else, except, perhaps, the man beside me.
I would have preferred to drive straight through, but even I knew I was too tired. The first moment I nodded off to sleep, I’d be at Ian’s mercy. I bought most of his story—it meshed with what I already knew—so I let him take me into the mountains. If he’d wanted to kill me, I’d already be dead, attraction or no. I needed help, and no one else was standing in line to give it.
We turned onto an unpaved road that twisted through the trees. It ended in the driveway of an isolated A-frame built over a garage to keep the doors free from deep snow.
He showed me through the house. The main floor was one great room with wood floors, a huge, free-standing fireplace in the middle, a kitchen at one end with a magnificent view and a sitting area at the other with equally large windows. The two bedrooms, with walls that slanted all the way to the floor, were upstairs, each with a private bath. I inspected both, then took the room in the back, the one with key-locked windows that looked onto the snowy evergreens, the one
with no balcony, the one with a good twenty-foot drop to the ground. I wasn’t sure if I was keeping someone out or blocking my own escape.
I bade Ian good-night. His eyes held mine as though he wanted to say something. But he didn’t. I threw the dead bolt on my door. Then I dragged the chair from the desk in front of it—not to keep anyone out, but so it would scrape across the floor if anyone came into the room. I would not be surprised.
I dared not take a shower. Instead, I sponged off and changed into my pajamas, crawled into bed with my gun, and lay there under a down comforter, watching snow flutter past the windows in the moonlight. In my mind, I replayed everything Ian had told me. Stephen, Peter, James and Ian worked together. They hid people whose lives were in danger, people the courts couldn’t protect. Peter must be the contact between the “client” and the operative, and it was his money that financed the operations when the client wasn’t wealthy enough to pay the fee. One million dollars. The fee that Stephen had paid Ian to protect me from Nicholas Ackerman if something went wrong.
I’d been so young when I’d married Stephen. Only nineteen. He was twenty-six. Cara had come so quickly into our lives. I was busy. But I hadn’t stayed young, and I certainly hadn’t stayed naive.
Now I finally had some answers, but I still drowned in questions. They ran together in my mind, melding into confusion as I sank into sleep.
The next thing I was aware of was Ian pounding on the door. My watch read five o’clock.
“Coffee’s ready,” he announced. “If we’re going to make Taos by one, we need to be up and out of here within the hour.”
He had more than coffee ready when I went downstairs five minutes later, having pulled on my jeans and sweatshirt and brushed my hair into a low ponytail. Stuffed sausages and eggs and sweet rolls. He must have gone out early this morning to get them. Either that, or this was where he’d been staying. I couldn’t tell. The place was immaculate. It had been dark when we pulled in, so I couldn’t see then whether there were other tire tracks in the snow.
I sat down at the small table in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows, savoring the enticing aromas. Ian brought over orange juice and joined me. I took up my fork and attacked the food, my gun tucked into the front waistband of my jeans, my pepper spray wedged, as always, into a pocket.
“Those eggs aren’t going anywhere,” he reminded me, sipping coffee and studying me. He had yet to lift a fork. “Whether it takes us ten minutes or twenty to eat will make no difference, Elizabeth. Enjoy your food. Enjoy your coffee. Watch the snow fall. Part of every morning’s nourishment should be for the soul.”
He was either a very wise man or one who knew each day could be his last. Or the professor of philosophy he purported to be. Perhaps all three.
My heart sped up as I looked at him. Ian was the only man, other than Stephen, who had ever stirred something inside me. It was far more than his physical appearance. It was his slow confidence, his considered words, the depth of his thought, his awareness of each moment as it passed and his reluctance to waste it.
He seemed to respect my intelligence and my abilities. Feigned or genuine, he showed concern for my feelings. Under other circumstances…
I put down my fork and watched the snow silently wind its way down. So peaceful. So serene. So like the days when Cara was young and we awoke to an unexpected blanket of white that closed the schools and left us to amuse ourselves by throwing snowballs and later with puzzles, games and hot chocolate in front of the fireplace.
Cara. I wondered if it was snowing in Taos.
“Did you bother to give them an excuse—at the college? Or did you just walk away?” I asked, taking a sip of juice.
“I’m suffering from a rather unfortunate case of the shingles. Quite incapacitating. I’m not certain when I’ll recover. How about you?”
“My grandmother died.”
“Pity.”
I shrugged. “I couldn’t kill off my mother. She’s still alive.”
He nodded. “I’ve had some students with as many as eight grandparents. The little buggers don’t seem to think I’m capable of keeping score.”
“Blended families make it more difficult. Why didn’t you tell me who you were that day we had lunch?”
“I promised Stephen I wouldn’t. He didn’t want to scare you or to disrupt your life. He cared for you a great deal. I assure you he had no plans to get himself killed. He wanted to come back to you.”
I dropped my gaze, ready to do anything except talk about Stephen’s feelings for me. “I thought you’d be in a hurry to get out of here,” I managed, picking up my fork.
“I am. Now.” He joined me, relishing his food.
When we finished, I watched him wash and rinse the dishes. I dried them and stowed them in the cabinets. I was still reluctant to do anything that occupied both my hands at once, and I wasn’t good at hiding it.
He wiped his hands and turned to me. “Either dive into the water or get your foot out of it.” It was the first time I’d ever seen him at all impatient. “If that’s a little too esoteric for you, let me put it another way. Trust me, Elizabeth, or I’ll leave you someplace safe while I get on with my business.”
“Finding James?”
“Finding Cara.”
“I’m with you,” I said. It served his purposes for me to trust him, and, for the moment, it served mine for him to think I did. Even if Stephen had trusted him, I wouldn’t forget he was at the ski lodge when Stephen was killed. And most likely in Denver when Jayne Donovan died. The one thing I couldn’t afford was unqualified trust.
“Good. I estimate James will give us no more than one hour past the appointed time. But, as I told you before, don’t expect to find Cara there.”
As we neared the city limits of Taos, Ian pulled off to the side of the road. It was close to one-fifteen.
“You do have James’s cell phone number,” he said.
“Yes. Do you want me to call him?”
“And alert him that we have arrived? It’s better not to help the enemy, Elizabeth, except in those rare instances in which we have no choice, and then not until we have a full-fledged plan in place. The key to this game is making certain we retain options.”
“This,” I reminded him, “is no game. What do you suggest?”
“You’re certain Patrice and Cara checked out of their rooms?”
“Yes.”
“If James knows you called their hotel, he knows that you’ve gone to the police. He’ll also know that they couldn’t help you. I expect he believes you to be a hysterical woman who won’t be careful what she does. It’s to our advantage for him to continue to believe that.”
“Will he bring others with him to meet me?”
“You’re only one woman, and an untrained one at that. I suspect James has badly underestimated you. My bet is he’ll come alone. He does, however, have others working with him. He won’t leave Cara and Patrice alone.”
“You’re certain he’s working for Nicholas Ackerman.”
“Yes. James works for pay. He’s already demonstrated he’ll go with the highest bidder.”
And he had my daughter. “Do you think he tapped the hotel phone lines?”
“I have no idea what he’s done. There’s a slim chance that Cara and Patrice may still be at the inn, registered under different names.”
“You said they wouldn’t be here.”
“They won’t, but I haven’t stayed alive in this business without being thorough. I’ll check it out.”
He dropped me at one of the ski lodges, handed me a fifty-dollar bill and told me to try their menudo, which turned out to be a thick soup. I picked at my serving, fishing out something that looked suspiciously like tripe and then let the waiter take it away. I had just begun toying with the Indian pudding the waiter had recommended for dessert when Ian joined me and ordered coffee.
“I take it they weren’t there.”
He nodded. “Tell me about your friend Patrice.”
/> “You held her prisoner for hours.”
“During our time together, she wasn’t in a particularly talkative mood. Tell me how she would react to James.”
The waiter brought his coffee. Ian added cream, swirled it with his spoon and then savored it as he drank, studying my face.
“She’d be skeptical, I think. I don’t think she trusts men.”
He frowned. “Go on.”
“She knows I don’t trust him. She certainly doesn’t trust you.”
“Right. All I’m hoping for is, given the proper situation, she’ll follow your lead. So. Are you ready?”
“To meet James? Damned straight.”
He placed a hand on my arm as I started to rise from my chair. “Leave the emotion here. It could get you killed.”
“I’m not worried about that,” I told him.
“I know, but I am.”
Chapter 20
The pueblo at Taos seemed much like an outcropping of earth, as though it had been forced up from the ground itself, sprouting windows and doors to house the wares of its earth children in a warren of rooms and passageways. As I passed by them, the inhabitants seemed, in their silence and grace, to know some profound secret that eluded me, some secret that they’d learned in the thousand years they’d dwelled there. They seemed to be a people who treasured their time on this earth, a people who were in nowhere near the rush I was.
It was a little before three. Most of the sightseers had gone.
Ian had let me off at the far end of the parking area and then driven off. I had no idea where he would leave the car, but I was certain he would be watching me, following me, as I strolled through the village. The pueblo wasn’t wired for electricity, so what light there was inside the buildings was dim.
I stepped through a doorway and pretended to admire a pendant set in heavy sterling, resting on velvet atop a wooden counter.
“That one’s more than fifty years old,” an old fellow offered. He wore a long-sleeved plaid shirt and a string tie with a huge oval of silver. A white braid lay on each of his shoulders. “I can give you a good price. It would look lovely on such a lady.”
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