In Their Footsteps & Thief of Hearts (15 page)

He took off his jacket and tossed it over a chair. “You haven’t eaten. There’s some food in the kitchen.” Her gaze focused on his shoulder holster. “Why did you quit the business?” she asked.

“You mean the Company?”

She nodded. “When I saw you holding that gun, it…it suddenly struck me. What you used to be.” He sat down beside her. “I’ve never killed anyone. If that makes a difference.”

“But you’re trained to do it.”

“Only in self-defense. That’s not the same thing as murder.”

She nodded, as though trying very hard to agree with him.

He took the Glock from the holster and held it out to her. She regarded it with undisguised abhorrence.

“Yes, I understand how you feel,” he said. “This gun’s 138

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a semiautomatic. Nine millimeter bullets, sixteen car-tridges to the magazine. Some people consider it a work of art. I think of it as a tool of last resort. Something I hope to God I never have to use.” He set it on the coffee table, where it lay like an evil reminder of violence. “Pick it up if you want to. It’s not very heavy.”

“I’d rather not.” She shuddered and looked away. “I’m not afraid of guns. I mean, I’ve handled rifles before. I used to go shooting with Uncle Hugh. But those were only clay pigeons.”

“Not quite the same thing.”

“No. Not quite.”

“You asked why I quit the Company.” He pointed to the Glock. “That was one of the reasons. I’ve never killed anyone, and I’m not itching to. For me, the intelligence business was a game. A challenge. The enemy was well-defined—the Russians, the East Germans. But now…” He picked up the gun and held it thoughtfully in his palm. “The world’s turned into a crazy place. I can’t tell who the enemy is anymore. And I knew that sooner or later, I’d lose my edge. I could already feel it happening.”

“Your edge?”

“It’s my age, you know. You hit forty and you don’t react the way you did as a twenty-year-old. I like to think I’ve grown smarter, instead, but what I really am is more cautious. And a lot less willing to take risks.” He looked at her. “With anyone’s life.”

She met his gaze. Looking into her eyes, he suddenly found himself wanting to babble all sorts of crazy things.

To tell her that the one life he didn’t want to risk was hers.

When had this stopped being a mere baby-sitting job? he
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wondered. When had it become something much more? A mission. An obsession.

“You frighten me, Richard,” she said.

“It’s the gun.”

“No, it’s you. All the things I don’t know about you. All the secrets you’re keeping from me.”

“From now on, I promise I’ll be absolutely honest with you.”

“But it started out as half truths. Not telling me you knew my parents. Or how they died. Don’t you see, it’s my childhood all over again! Uncle Hugh with his head full of classified secrets.” She let out a breath of frustration and looked away. “Then I see you with that…thing.”

He touched her face and gently turned it toward him.

“It’s just a temporary evil,” he murmured. “Until this is over.” She kept looking at him, her eyes bright and moist, her hair tumbling about her shoulders.
She wants to trust
me,
he thought.
But she’s afraid.

He couldn’t help himself. He kissed her. Once. Twice.

The second time, he felt her lips yield under his, felt her whole body seem to turn liquid at his touch. He kissed her a third time and found his hands sliding through her hair, his fingers hopelessly becoming tangled in all that raven silk. She sighed, a delicious sound of surrender, invitation, and she sagged backward onto the couch.

Suddenly he, too, was falling, tumbling on top of her.

Their lips met in a touch that instantly turned electric. She reached around his neck and pulled him down hard against her—

And flinched. That blasted gun again. The holster had pushed into her breast, had served as an ugly reminder of 140

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all the things that had happened today. All the things that could still happen.

He looked at her face, at her hair flung across the cushions, at the mingling of fear and desire he saw in her eyes.
Not now,
he thought.
Not this way.

Slowly he pulled away and they both sat up. For a moment, they remained side by side on the couch, not touching, not speaking.

She said, “I’m not ready for this. I’ll put my life in your hands, Richard. But my heart, that’s a different matter.”

“I understand.”

“Then you’ll also understand that I’m not a fan of James Bond, or anyone remotely like him. I’m not impressed by guns, or by the men who use them.” She rose to her feet and moved pointedly away from the couch. Away from him.

“So what does impress you?” he asked. “If not a man’s gun?”

She turned to him and he saw a flicker of humor cross her face.
The old Beryl,
he thought.
Thank God she’s still
there, somewhere.

“Straight talk,” she said. “That’s what impresses me.”

“Then that’s what you’ll get. I promise.” She turned and walked to the bedroom. “We’ll see.” Jordan was not impressed by this lawyer, no, he was not impressed at all.

The man had greasy hair and a greasy little mustache, and he spoke English with the exaggerated accent of a second-rate actor playing a stereotypical Frenchman. All those “eets” and “zees” and
“Mon Dieus.”
Still, Jordan reasoned, since Beryl had hired the man, he must be one of the best attorneys in Paris.

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You could have fooled me,
thought Jordan, gazing across the prison interview table at the smarmy M. Jarre.

“Not to worry,” said the man. “Everything will be taken care of. I am reviewing the papers now, and I believe we will soon reach an agreement to have you released.”

“What about the investigation?” asked Jordan. “Any progress?”

“Very slow. You know how it is, M. Tavistock. In a city as large as Paris, the police, they are overworked. You cannot be impatient.”

“And my uncle? Have you been able to reach him?”

“He is in complete agreement with my planned course of action.”

“Is he coming to Paris?”

“He is detained. Business keeps him at home, I am afraid.”

“At home? But I thought…” Jordan paused. Didn’t Beryl say Uncle Hugh had left Chetwynd?

M. Jarre rose from the table. “Rest assured that all that can be done, will be done. I have instructed the police to transfer you to a more comfortable cell.”

“Thank you,” said Jordan, still puzzling over the reference to Uncle Hugh. As the attorney was leaving the room, Jordan called out, “M. Jarre? Did my uncle happen to mention how his…negotiations went in London?” The attorney glanced back. “They are still in progress, I understand. But I am sure he will tell you himself.” He gave a nod of farewell. “Good evening, M. Tavistock. I hope you find your new cell more agreeable.” He walked out.

What the dickens is going on?
thought Jordan. He wondered about this all the way to his cell—his new cell.

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One look at the pair of shady characters seated inside and his suspicions about M. Jarre deepened.
This
was more agreeable quarters?

Reluctantly Jordan stepped inside and flinched at the clang of the door shutting behind him. The jailer walked away, his footsteps echoing down the hall.

The two prisoners were staring at his fine Italian shoes, which contrasted dreadfully with the regulation prison garb he was wearing.

“Hello,” said Jordan, for want of anything else to say.

“Anglais?”
asked one of the men.

Jordan swallowed.
“Oui. Anglais.”
The man grunted and pointed to an empty bunk.

“Yours.”

Jordan went to the bunk, set his bundle of street clothes on the foot of the bed, and stretched out on the mattress.

As the two prisoners babbled away in French, Jordan kept wondering about that greasy attorney and why he had lied about Uncle Hugh. If only he could get in touch with Beryl, ask her what was going on…

He sat up at the sound of footsteps approaching the cell. It was the guard, escorting yet another prisoner—this one a balding, round-cheeked man with a definite waddle and a pleasant enough face. The sort of fellow you’d expect to see standing behind a bakery counter.
Not your typical
criminal,
thought Jordan.
But then, neither am I.

The man entered the cell and was directed to the fourth and last bunk. He sat down, looking stunned by the circumstances in which he found himself. François was his name, and from what Jordan could gather using his elementary command of French, the man’s crime had something to do with the fair sex. Solicitation, perhaps? François was not
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eager to talk about it. He simply sat on his bed and stared at the floor.
We’re both new to this,
thought Jordan.

The other two cellmates were still watching him. Sullen young men, obviously sociopathic. He’d have to keep his eye on them.

Supper came—an atrocious goulash accompanied by French bread. Jordan stared at the muddy brown gravy and thought wistfully of his supper the night before—poached salmon and roast duckling. Ah, well. One had to eat regard-less of one’s circumstances. What a shame there wasn’t a bottle of wine to wash down the meal. A nice Beaujolais, perhaps, or just a common Burgundy. He took a bite of goulash and decided that even a bad bottle of wine would be welcome—anything to dull the taste of this gravy. He forced himself to eat it and made a silent vow that when he got out of here—
if
he got out of here—the first place he’d head for was a decent restaurant.

At midnight, the lights were turned off. Jordan stretched out on the blanket and made every effort to sleep, but found he couldn’t. For one thing, his cellmates were snoring to wake the dead. For another, the day’s events kept playing and replaying in his mind. That drive with Colette from Boulevard Saint-Germain. The way she had glanced at the rearview mirror. If only he had paid more attention to who might be following them back to the hotel. And then, against his will, he remembered the horror of finding her body in the car, remembered the stickiness of her blood on his hands.

Rage bubbled up inside him—an impotent sense of fury about her death.
It’s my fault,
he thought. If she hadn’t been watching over him, protecting him.

But that’s not why she died, Jordan thought suddenly.

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He was nowhere nearby when it happened. So why did they kill her? Did she know something, see something…

… or someone?

His thoughts veered in a new direction. Colette must have spotted a face in her rearview mirror, a face in the car that was following them. After she’d dropped Jordan off at the Ritz, maybe she’d seen that someone again. Or he’d seen her and knew she could identify him.

Which made the killer someone Colette knew. Someone she recognized.

He was so intent on piecing together the puzzle, he didn’t pay much attention to the creak of the bunk springs somewhere in the cell. Only when he heard the soft rustle of movement did he realize that one of his cellmates was approaching his bed.

It was dark; he could make out only faintly a shadowy figure moving toward him. One of those young hoods, he thought, come to rifle his jacket.

Jordan lay perfectly still and willed his breathing to remain deep and even.
Let the coward think I’m still asleep.

When he moves close enough, I’ll surprise him.

The shadow slipped quietly through the darkness. Six feet away, now five. Jordan’s heart was pounding, his muscles already tensed for action.
Just a little closer. A
little closer. He’ll be reaching for the jacket hanging at the
foot of the bed….

But the man moved instead to Jordan’s head. There was a faint arc of shadow—an arm being raised to deliver a blow. Jordan’s hand shot out just as his assailant attacked.

He caught the other man’s wrist and heard a grunt of surprise. His attacker came at him with his free hand.

Jordan deflected the blow and scrambled off the bunk.

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Still gripping his attacker’s wrist, he gave it a vicious twist, eliciting a yelp of pain. The man was thrashing to get free now, but Jordan held on. He was not going to get away. Not without learning a lesson. He shoved the man backward and heard the satisfying thud of his opponent’s body hitting the cinder-block wall. The man groaned and tried to pull free. Again, Jordan shoved. This time they both toppled over onto a cot, landing on its sleeping occupant. The man in Jordan’s grasp began to writhe, to jerk. At once Jordan realized this was no longer a man fighting to free himself.

This was a man in the throes of a convulsion.

He heard the sound of footsteps and then the cell lights flashed on. A guard yelled at him in French.

Jordan released his assailant and backed away in surprise. It was the moon-faced François. The man lay sprawled on the bed, his limbs twitching, his eyes rolled back. The young hood on whom François had landed frantically rolled away from beneath the body and stared in horror at the bizarre display.

François gave a last grunt of agony and fell still.

For a few seconds, everyone watched him, expecting him to move again. He didn’t.

The guard gave a shout for assistance. Another guard came running. Yelling at the prisoners to stand back, they rushed into the cell and examined the motionless François.

Slowly they straightened and looked at Jordan.

“Est mort,”
one of them murmured.

“That—that’s impossible!” said Jordan. “How can he be dead? I didn’t hit him that hard!” The guards merely stared at him. The other two prisoners regarded Jordan with new respect and backed away to the far side of the cell.