by Anne Stuart
Drugged… She shook herself. Where was he? Strange, paranoid feelings were washing over her, ridiculous thoughts that she couldn’t shake. She couldn’t remember anything from the last few days, just flashes of sensation. Had she eaten? Had she used the bathroom? Had they talked?
She yanked up her sleeves, half expecting to see needle tracks on her arms. Her head was clearing, and she pushed open the window, letting some of the cold wet air in. Where was he? And what in God’s name had happened?
Nothing of his remained in the room. There was no trace of him, though her things were intact. Including the small amount of money that needed to last, the credit cards and traveler’s checks. Why had he disappeared?
He loved her. She’d believed him when he said it, but now a thousand doubts were beating at her brain. Why would he turn from friend to lover and then disappear? They’d spent more than two weeks together, traveling the back roads of France. She knew everything about him, just as he knew everything about her. And then, suddenly, he was gone.
She couldn’t just sit there. She shoved her clothes into her backpack, pulled on a sweater and headed out to the lobby of the hotel. Her French had improved exponentially during the time she’d been in the country, and she had no trouble making the old woman behind the desk understand her.
“He paid for two more nights,” she said, “and told me to tell you he had to go back to Paris. He was sorry.”
Mary just looked at her, uncomprehending. “Did he say why? Leave an address or a phone number?”
The concierge shook her head. “Monsieur Brown left nothing but cash for the room.” She eyed Mary’s backpack. “Are you leaving early? There are no refunds.”
“Monsieur Brown?” He’d given a false name. Had he given her one, as well?
“We don’t want any trouble here,” the woman said. “Stay or go, it’s up to you. But your boyfriend’s left, and he went off with a group of men. Maybe you should just go back to America and forget about him.”
That wasn’t about to happen. At the very least, she needed some answers. “What kind of men? Do you have any idea where they went?”
The innkeeper, not much cleaner than her rooms, scratched the side of her face. “Bad men,” she said finally. “Smugglers, terrorists. I’ve seen them around before, and you don’t want to have anything to do with them. The police leave them alone, and you should, too. If your boyfriend is mixed up with the likes of them you don’t want to be anywhere near him.”
“Terrorists?”
“I don’t want any trouble here. I think you should leave.”
“Mr. Brown paid for two more nights and you don’t give refunds.”
The woman slapped some money on the desk. “You go.”
Mary Isobel Curwen looked at the bills. She was still feeling drugged. The world had turned upside down, and she was lost. If nothing else, she needed some answers.
“Did you see where they took him?”
“They didn’t take him, mademoiselle. He took them.” She shoved the money toward her. “Go.”
Blood money. For some strange reason the thought came to mind. What in God’s name was Killian doing with smugglers and terrorists? He was a graduate student, a teacher, with a fashion model ex-girlfriend and a family back home in the Midwest. The woman had to be crazy.
“Did you see what direction they went? You can keep the money if you tell me.” Dumb, Mary thought. The avaricious woman would probably just make up something.
“They were headed to the docks. I heard them say something about it. There are old warehouses down there, most of them boarded up. You’ll never find him. Let him go, chérie.” She’d already pulled the money back. “He’s a bad one, and you were too blind to see.”
Was she? Could she have been that wrong about him? For the first time in her life Mary Isobel had fallen in love. Had she been so stupid as to fall for a liar? And perhaps even worse?
“I don’t know anything more. If you have any sense, you’ll get the next train to Paris and go home. You seem like a nice young lady—these people aren’t like anyone you’ve ever known, and the sooner you get away from them the better.”
She’d go to Paris. But she wasn’t going home—she was moving on with her life, her plans, her semester at the Cordon Bleu, where she’d learn to butcher meat, and think of a certain lying American while she did it. But before she left she needed more answers. “Which way are the docks?”
The old woman shook her head. “You’re a foolish girl. You don’t want to get mixed up in this business.”
“Where are the docks?”
She jerked her head. “Turn right and follow your nose,” she said, moving away. “And good luck to you.”
Mary shouldered her backpack and stepped out into the rainy evening. She had no idea where she was—she couldn’t remember when they’d arrived in Marseille, and she had no idea what part of town she was in. Some kind of slum, with narrow, hilly streets leading down toward what must be the docks. Killian had found her in a port city; it was only fitting that their friendship end in the same kind of place.
After the first half hour she stopped crying. Her red hair was a tangled mess from the rough soap she’d used, but the steady rain dampened it down, and she let it hang around her face, shielding her misery from the few people curious enough to look at her. There were clearly no tourists out and about, at least not in the section she was scouring, and the few people she came across weren’t interested in a bedraggled young woman. She walked and she searched. Her sandaled feet were frozen, her fingers numb, but she kept trudging.
It was close to midnight when she finally found Killian’s car hidden behind a warehouse in a relatively empty area of the docks. She’d been walking for hours, and her backpack weighed a ton. As far as she could tell she hadn’t eaten in days, and at one point she’d had no choice but to stop in a corner café for a bowl of bouillabaisse and some crusty bread. At another time she would have savored it, tried to define the various fish and spices used. That night all she did was eat, trying to fuel her body enough to find Killian, slam him against a wall and get some answers.
The huge old warehouse looked deserted, with junk piled all around it, a rusted lock and chain on the doors that faced the narrow street. She wouldn’t have seen the Citroën if she hadn’t been searching—it was covered with a tarp, tucked back in a yard full of rusted machinery and the hulks of dead cars. But the wind caught a tail of the covering, flipping it back, and the familiar orange color caught her eye. She wound her way through debris that looked as if it had been piled there for decades, telling herself she was crazy, until she pushed the rest of the tarp back and saw the scratch on the side panel, a scratch he’d told her came from a rock. A scratch that looked more and more like it was from a ricocheting bullet.
“Crazy,” she muttered under her breath, standing in the rain, staring at the abandoned car. She was imagining disasters, when the answer was probably much simpler. He’d tired of her and gone off with someone else. But why bother to hide his car? And what was he doing with people the innkeeper thought were smugglers?
When Mary Isobel first heard the voices, she thought she was imagining them. She was standing there in the pouring rain, stunned, for God knows how long, but the rough French made her suddenly dive down next to the car, purely on instinct, and yank the corner of the tarp over her as they drew nearer. Then the nightmare blossomed into full-out horror.
“I’ve sent Ahmad to take care of the girl,” one man said. “I don’t know why you didn’t kill her when you had a chance. She served her purpose.”
She heard Killian’s voice, familiar and yet strange, cold-blooded and devoid of any emotion. “She provided excellent cover, and I pumped her so full of drugs she won’t remember a thing. Another dead body will just bring more attention, particularly when it’s a young American.”
“I don’t think that’s all you pumped her with.” The next speaker gave a snigger of a laugh. “Loose ends are a mistake.”
“So is overkill,” Killian said calmly.
“We’ll live with the consequences. She’s dead by now, and Ahmad will get rid of the body. Everyone minds their own business in that part of town, and no one’s likely to question her disappearance. You’re sure her family has no idea where she is?”
“She hasn’t been in touch with them for the last two weeks. I made certain of it. I know my business. She was the perfect mark—no family or ties to speak of, entirely at loose ends. No one will miss her.”
“So why didn’t you finish her? You have a reputation for taking care of details.”
“I’ve been more concerned with completing the job and killing General Matanga. The girl knew nothing—she wouldn’t have caused us any trouble.”
“And if she did?”
“Then I would have killed her,” Killian said in a cool, dispassionate voice. “As it was, I didn’t think she was worth the trouble….”
Their voices were trailing off. She didn’t dare move, to see which direction they were heading, but the sound of a metal door opening and closing suggested they’d gone into the warehouse. She sank down slowly, the tarp still shielding her, so that she was sitting in the dirt and mud, her legs unable to hold her any longer.
She shut her eyes, forced herself to breathe deeply, steadily, when she wanted to scream. She didn’t dare draw any attention to herself; if she was going to make it out of there alive she needed to run, fast, before anyone saw her.
But Etienne Matanga…She kept out of politics whenever she could, nonetheless even she had heard of him, head of the revolutionary forces in his small African nation. A decent man, a leader, despite the fact that most of the free world found him a threat. He was the best hope for stability in a diamond-rich nation torn by tribal warfare, genocide and lawlessness.
And Killian had murdered him.
She couldn’t believe it. This freakish nightmare had to stop—she’d been a weak-minded idiot. She’d find gendarmes, bring them to the old warehouse, tell them everything. She had no idea what Matanga was doing in France, or what Killian had to do with him…. The smart thing would be to run, as far and as fast as she could, and forget all about it. Forget about Killian. She couldn’t do it. During the long, cold hours she’d searched the docks, her anger had turned to a solid knot, mixed with an undeniable need for revenge. She wasn’t going to let him get away with it. Get away with anything.
But maybe there was still time; maybe Killian hadn’t killed Mantanga yet. She had no idea how long it was since he’d left her, drugged and helpless, at the hotel, but he might not have committed murder.
She shoved the tarp aside, struggling to her feet. If she moved fast, she could—
“There you are, chérie,” a rough voice said. “I’ve been looking for you.”
She turned, slowly, to face a very large man with a very large gun.
Killian still had blood on his hands. They’d had to work quickly, arranging the bodies and scattering the broken packets of heroin. It was an expensive setup—the smack could have gone for half a million on the open market, but it was an important part of the show. The French police would confiscate it, and somewhere down the line someone who shouldn’t would get his hands on it, but that wasn’t Killian’s business. His business was almost done.
Etienne Matanga, so-called savior of Western Leone, had died in a shoot-out with his fellow drug smugglers, leaving no one alive. That he’d been supporting his resistance movement with drug money would destroy any reputation the former priest had left. He had led his army of followers in attempting a peaceful coup, and he was so popular he’d almost made it. But his plans for the country were at odds with those of Killian’s employers, and he had to die, disgraced and discounted. And Killian had seen to it, with his usual efficiency.
He was sorry about Mary Isobel. He’d tried to set it up so that she could get away unharmed. He’d found a great deal of pleasure in her semidrugged body the last few days, a good way to keep his mind off what he’d been ordered to do. And he’d found pleasure in the last few weeks, an odd kind of companionship he didn’t remember feeling before.
Maybe if he’d lived a different life he really would have loved her. Instead of being the death of her.
He was sorry they’d sent Ahmad. The West African wouldn’t have been able to linger over his work—time was of the essence. But he would have made it hurt, because he was a master at inflicting pain, and Mary Isobel Curwen hadn’t deserved that. She hadn’t deserved anything that she’d gotten, but then, life was a bitch and then you died.
She’d just died a little earlier than expected.
He glanced at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. As soon as he got to Southeast Asia, his next destination, he was going to dye his hair, maybe grow a beard. He popped out the green tinted contact lenses and stared back at his own grayish-blue eyes. He looked exactly like who he was—a cool, ruthless bastard who always finished what he started.
He heard noise in the warehouse—voices, when they shouldn’t be talking. No doubt President Okawe’s men were thinking he was dispensable. After all, they owed him a great deal of money for shepherding the current operation through to its successful conclusion, and dictators seldom liked to part with anything they didn’t have to. Killian sighed. He wasn’t in the mood for this. It had been a rough night.
Then again, he wouldn’t mind putting a bullet between Ahmad’s close-set eyes. Just because.
Someone rapped on the thin door of the toilet. “Entrez,” he grumbled.
“We’ve got a problem.” It was Jules, the weaselly half African, half French liaison.
“No, we don’t,” Killian said. “I did my part. I want my money, and then I’m out of here. The rest is up to you.”
“Your girlfriend showed up.”
He paused as he was shoving clothes into his duffel bag, just for a moment. “So?”
“So we don’t know who she’s talked to. You said you kept her drugged, but she seems to know far too much already. What the fuck is going on?”
“The drugs would have worn off by now,” he said, weary. “And what’s going on is that Ahmad blew it. When I left her she was out of it, and not likely to remember a thing.”
“Then how did she get here? I don’t think she’s the innocent you think she is.”
“Trust me, she’s an innocent. Clueless to the point of recklessness. If she showed up here it’s nothing more than dumb luck.”
“Not lucky for her. Ahmad’s got her out in the warehouse, and he’s annoyed. He figures she owes him a little time for the aggravation she put him through searching for her.”
Killian had seen Ahmad’s handiwork in the past. There wouldn’t be much left of Mary Isobel Curwen when he was done. Which was probably the best thing that could happen.
“Then Ahmad’s happy, you’re happy, everyone’s happy. Except for the girl, but she doesn’t count. What’s it got to do with me?”
Jules looked at him for a long, contemplative moment, searching for weakness, regret, any emotion whatsoever. He didn’t find it. “All right,” he said finally. “You can go out the back way if you don’t want to see her. Just turn left.”
It was a challenge, one that Killian had every intention of ignoring. He didn’t need to see her again, didn’t need to know what she was going to go through before she died. He already had a fairly good idea. The smartest thing to do was head out the back way, straight to the small cargo plane waiting to take him out of here. These things happened, and the wise decision was move on with his life.
“I couldn’t care less,” he said, shouldering his duffel. He headed toward the sound of voices. Ahmad’s, low and menacing. And Mary’s voice, the one that had whispered in his ear when he was inside her, the voice that had cried his name when she came. The voice that had kept him company the last two weeks, keeping him entertained, charmed, distracted.
He turned right, pushing open the metal door to the huge expanse of empty warehouse. She
was standing there, silhouetted by the open door and the rainy night beyond, holding a gun in her hand.
He was momentarily astonished. Had he been that inept to not recognize an agent when he’d spent two weeks with her? But then he saw the way she was holding the gun, and it was clear she’d never touched one in her life.
There was no sign of Ahmad. Killian dropped his duffel. He had a handgun tucked in his belt—he didn’t need to draw it. She could see it clearly enough, and he could move faster than she could. She’d be dead before she managed to pull the trigger, if that was the way he wanted it.
“Where’s Ahmad?” he said.
She didn’t blink. He wondered if all the drugs had left her system. She was staring at him as if seeing him for the first time, which, in fact, she was. “He left. He asked me if I wanted to kill you, and I said yes. So he gave me the gun and he left.”
Killian couldn’t help it—he laughed. If this was Jules’s way of getting rid of him, it was a singularly ineffective way of doing so. If Mary Isobel had been a professional she’d still have been no match for him. As it was, she was doomed.
“You’re not going to kill me, princess,” he said. “You don’t even know how to hold a gun. Just set it down, and maybe you can leave here without any more fuss.”
The gun was shaking in her hands, and he couldn’t see whether the safety was off. Ahmad was a thorough man; he’d probably set it for her before he disappeared.
“Did you murder Etienne Matanga?”
“Yes.”
“Did you drug me?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you save me in Plymouth, take me with you?”
“Because you provided a good cover. They were already looking for me—someone tipped off the authorities that a single male was planning a hit, but they didn’t know who, and they didn’t know where. I didn’t want anyone looking too closely at me, and you were enough to distract them.”
“Marie-Claire?”
“I made her up.”
