In Their Footsteps & Thief of Hearts (28 page)

She entered the maze and, using her crutches, maneuvered around all the secret twists and turns. At last she emerged at the center and sat down on the stone bench.
Yes,
I’m brooding again,
she realized.
Uncle Hugh’s right.

Have to stop this and get on with my life.

But first, she would have to stop thinking of him. Had he stopped thinking of her? All the doubts, the fears, came back to assail her. She’d put him to the test, she thought.

And he’d failed it.

From a distance, she heard someone call her name. It was so faint at first, she thought she might have imagined it. But there it was again—moving closer now!

She lurched to her feet, wobbling on the crutches.

“Richard?”

“Beryl?” came the answering shout. “Where are you?”

“In the maze!”

His footsteps moved closer along the path. “Where?”

“The center!”

Through the high hedge walls, she heard his sheepish laughter. “And now I’m expected to find my way to the cheese?”

“Just think of it,” she challenged him, “as a test of true love.”

“Or true insanity,” he muttered, rustling into the maze.

“I’m quite annoyed with you, you know,” she called.

“I think I’ve noticed.”

“You didn’t write. You didn’t call, not once!” 258

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“I was too busy trying to catch planes back to London.

And besides, I wanted you to miss me. Did you?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“You didn’t?”

“Not at all.” She bit her lip. “Oh, perhaps a bit…”

“Ah, so you
did
miss me—”

“But not much.”

“I missed
you.
”

She paused. “Did you?” she asked softly.

“So much, in fact, that if I don’t find the bloody center of this bloody maze pretty damn quick, I’m going to—”

“Going to what?” she asked breathlessly.

A rustle of branches made her turn. Suddenly he was there beside her, pulling her into his arms, covering her mouth with a kiss so deep, so insistent, she felt herself swaying dizzily. The crutches slipped away and fell to the ground. She didn’t need them—not when he was there to hold her.

He drew away and smiled at her. “Hello again, Miss Tavistock,” he whispered.

“You came back,” she murmured. “You really came back.”

“Did you think I wouldn’t?”

“Does that mean you’ve thought about it? About us?” He laughed. “I could scarcely concentrate on anything else. On the job, the client. Finally I had to call in Niki to pinch-hit for me, while I straighten out this mess with you.”

She asked softly, “You think it
can
be straightened out?”

Gently he framed her face with his hands. “I don’t know. Some folks would probably call us a long shot.”
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“And they’d be right. There are so many things that could pull us apart….”

“And just as many things that will keep us together.” He lowered his face to hers, gently brushed her lips with his.

“I confess, I’ll never make a proper gentleman. Cricket’s not my bag. And you’ll have to put a gun to my head to get me up on a horse. But if you’re willing to overlook those terrible flaws…”

She threw her arms around his neck. “What flaws?” she whispered, and their lips met again.

From the distance came the peal of the ancient church bells. Six o’clock. The coming of twilight and shadows, sweetly scented.
And love,
thought Beryl as he pulled her, laughing, into his arms.

Quite definitely, love.

In memory of Jim Heacock

“In thy face I see the map

of honor, truth, and loyalty.”

—William

Shakespeare

Henry VI, Part III

Simon Trott stood on the rolling deck of the
Cosima,
and through the velvety blackness of night he saw the flames.

They burned just offshore, not a steady fire, but a series of violent bursts of light that cast the distant swells in a hellish glow.

“That’s her,” the
Cosima
’s captain said to Trott as both men peered across the bow. “The
Max Havelaar.
Judging by those fireworks, she’ll be going down fast.” He turned and yelled to the helmsman, “Full ahead!”

“Not much chance of survivors,” said Trott.

“They’re sending off a distress call. So someone’s alive.”

“Or was alive.”

As they neared the sinking vessel, the flames suddenly shot up like a fountain, sending out sparks that seemed to ignite the ocean in puddles of liquid fire.

The captain shouted over the roar of the
Cosima
’s engines, “Slow up! There’s fuel in the water!”

“Throttling down,” said the helmsman.

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“Ahead slowly. Watch for survivors.” Trott moved to the forward rail and stared across the watery inferno. Already the
Max Havelaar
was sliding backward, her stern nearly submerged, her bow tipping toward the moonless sky. A few minutes more and she’d sink forever into the swells. The water was deep, and salvage impractical. Here, two miles off the Spanish coast, was where the
Havelaar
would sink to her eternal rest.

Another explosion spewed out a shower of embers, leafing the ripples with gold. In those few seconds before the sunlike brilliance faded, Trott spotted a hint of movement off in the darkness. A good two hundred yards away from the
Havelaar,
safely beyond the ring of fire, Trott saw a long, low silhouette bobbing in the water. Then he heard the sound of men’s voices, calling.

“Here! We are here!”

“It’s the lifeboat,” said the captain, aiming the searchlight toward the voices. “There, at two o’clock!”

“I see it,” said the helmsman, at once adjusting course.

He throttled up, guiding the bow through drifts of burning fuel. As they drew closer, Trott could hear the joyous shouts of the survivors, a confusing babble of Italian. How many in the boat? he wondered, straining to see through the murk. Five. Perhaps six. He could almost count them now, their arms waving in the searchlight’s beam, their heads bobbing in every direction. They were thrilled to be alive. To be in sight of rescue.

“Looks like most of the
Havelaar
’s crew,” said the captain.

“We’ll need all hands up here.”

The captain turned and barked out the order. Seconds later the
Cosima
’s crew had assembled on deck. As the
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267

bow knifed across the remaining expanse of water, the men stood in silence near the bow rail, all eyes focused on the lifeboat just ahead.

By the searchlight’s glare Trott could now make out the number of survivors: six. He knew the
Max Havelaar
had sailed from Naples with a crew of eight. Were there two still in the water?

He turned and glanced toward the distant silhouette of shore. With luck and endurance, a man could swim that distance.

The lifeboat was adrift off their starboard side.

Trott shouted, “This is the
Cosima!
Identify your-selves!”

“Max Havelaar!”
shouted one of the men in the lifeboat.

“Is this your entire crew?”

“Two are dead!”

“You’re certain?”

“The engine, she explodes! One man, he is trapped below.”

“And your eighth man?”

“He falls in. Cannot swim!”

Which made the eighth man as good as dead, thought Trott. He glanced at
Cosima
’s crew. They stood watching, waiting for the order.

The lifeboat was gliding almost alongside now.

“A little closer,” Trott called down, “and we’ll throw you a line.”

One of the men in the lifeboat reached up to catch the rope.

Trott turned and gave his men the signal.

The first hail of bullets caught its victim in midreach, arms 268

Tess Gerritsen

extended toward his would-be saviors. He had no chance to scream. As the bullets rained down from the
Cosima,
the men fell, helpless before the onslaught. Their cries, the splash of a falling body, were drowned out by the relentless spatter of automatic gunfire.

When it was finished, when the bullets finally ceased, the bodies lay in a coiled embrace in the lifeboat. A silence fell, broken only by the slap of water against the
Cosima
’s hull.

One last explosion spewed a finale of sparks into the air.

The bow of the
Max Havelaar
—what remained of her—

tilted crazily toward the sky. Then, gently, she slid backward into the deep.

The lifeboat, its hull riddled with bullet holes, was already half submerged. A
Cosima
crewman heaved a loose anchor over the side. It landed with a thud among the bodies. The lifeboat tipped, emptying its cargo of corpses into the sea.

“Our work is done here, Captain,” said Trott. Matter-of-factly he turned toward the helm. “I suggest we return to—”

He suddenly halted, his gaze focused on a patch of water a dozen yards away. What was that splash? He could still see the ripples of reflected firelight worrying the water’s surface. There it was again. Something silvery gliding out of the swells, then slipping back under the water.

“Over there!” shouted Trott. “Fire!” His men looked at him, puzzled.

“What did you see?” asked the captain.

“Four o’clock. Something broke the surface.”

“I don’t see anything.”

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“Fire at it, anyway.”

One of the gunmen obligingly squeezed off a clip. The bullets sprayed into the water, their deadly rain splashing a line across the surface.

They watched for a moment. Nothing appeared. The water smoothed once again into undulating glass.

“I know I saw something,” said Trott.

The captain shrugged. “Well, it’s not there now.” He called to the helmsman, “Return to port!”
Cosima
came about, leaving in her wake a spreading circle of ripples.

Trott moved to the stern, his gaze still focused on the suspicious patch of water. As they roared away he thought he spotted another flash of silver bob to the surface. It was there only for an instant. Then, in a twinkling, it was gone.

A fish,
he thought. And, satisfied, he turned away.

Yes, that must be what it was. A fish.

One

“A small burglary. That’s all I’m asking for.” Veronica Cairncross gazed up at him, tears shimmering in her sapphire eyes. She was dressed in a fetching off-the-shoulder silk gown, the skirt arranged in lustrous ripples across the Queen Anne love seat. Her hair, a rich russet brown, had been braided with strands of seed pearls and was coiled artfully atop her aristocratic head. At thirty-three she was far more stunning, far more chic than she’d been at the age of twenty-five, when he’d first met her.

Through the years she’d acquired, along with her title, an unerring sense of style, poise and a reputation for witty repartee that made her a sought-after guest at the most glittering parties in London. But one thing about her had not changed, would never change.

Veronica Cairncross was still an idiot.

How else could one explain the predicament into which she’d dug herself?

And once again, he thought wearily, it’s faithful old chum Jordan Tavistock to the rescue. Not that Veronica
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didn’t need rescuing. Not that he didn’t want to help her.

It was simply that this request of hers was so bizarre, so fraught with dire possibilities, that his first instinct was to turn her down flat.

He did. “It’s out of the question, Veronica,” said Jordan.

“I won’t do it.”

“For me, Jordie!” she pleaded. “Think what will happen if you don’t. If he shows those letters to Oliver—”

“Poor old Ollie will have a fit. You two will row for a few days, and then he’ll forgive you. That’s what will happen.”

“What if Ollie doesn’t forgive me? What if he—what if he wants a…” She swallowed and looked down. “A divorce,” she whispered.

“Really, Veronica.” Jordan sighed. “You should have thought about this before you had the affair.” She stared down in misery at the folds of her silk gown.

“I didn’t think. That’s the whole problem.”

“No, it’s obvious you didn’t.”

“I had no idea Guy would be so difficult. You’d think I broke his heart! It’s not as if we were in love or anything.

And now he’s being such a bastard about it. Threatening to tell all! What gentleman would sink so low?”

“No gentleman would.”

“If it weren’t for those letters I wrote, I could deny the whole thing. It would be my word against Guy’s then. I’m sure Ollie would give me the benefit of the doubt.”

“What, exactly, did you write in those letters?” Veronica’s head drooped unhappily. “Things I shouldn’t have.”

“Confessions of love? Sweet nothings?” She groaned. “Much worse.”

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