Kiss Me While I sleep (17 page)

He loved the Jag, but it would have to go. It was just too damn noticeable. Maybe a Mercedes-no, still too noticeable. A French-made car, then, a Renault or something like that; though, come to think of it, he’d love to drive an Italian sports car. He had to think of the job first, damn it, and Lily might balk at running around with him if he was driving something flashy.

God, he’d almost choked on his coffee when he saw her walking casually into the park as if she weren’t being hunted all over Europe. He’d always been a lucky son of a bitch, and that luck was holding. Forget any fancy computer work, deductive reasoning, shit like that-all he’d had to do was sit down on a bench in a dinky park and she walked up before he’d been there fifteen minutes. Okay, so deductive reasoning had helped him pick out the laboratory complex as the place where she was most likely to show; he was still lucky.

He hadn’t been shot, either, which was damn lucky. Too bad about the Jag. Vinay would say he’d been hotdogging again, and the charge would be true. He liked a little excitement in his life. Vinay would also ask him what the hell he was thinking, playing games like this instead of doing the job he’d been sent to do, but he’d always been curious as well as lucky. He wanted to know what Lily was planning to do, what there was at that laboratory that was so interesting. Besides, she’d got the drop on him.

Strange, but he hadn’t been worried. Lily Mansfield was a hired assassin, and just because she hired out to the good guys didn’t make her any less dangerous. But she hadn’t wanted that old guy in the park to get hurt, and she hadn’t recklessly fired where innocent bystanders could have been hurt-unlike the soccer guys, who had done exactly that. Just because of that, he’d have been inclined to help her even if she hadn’t been his quarry.

He guessed he wouldn’t tell Vinay anything just yet, because Vinay might not understand his letting Lily go without getting any idea of how to get in touch with her again.

In betting that she’d call him in a day or so, he was trusting in human nature. He’d helped her, he’d made her laugh, and he hadn’t done anything threatening. He’d offered to help her further. He’d given her information about himself. The reason she hadn’t put down that damn pistol of hers was that she’d been expecting him to use his weapon on her, and by not even trying to, he’d muddied the waters of suspicion.

She was just good enough, just dangerous enough, that if he made a move too soon, he might end up with some extra ventilation holes, which would spoil his reputation for being lucky. And if he was wrong about her calling him, then he’d have to go back to the boring way of finding people: computers and deductive reasoning.

He spent the rest of the day locating someone who would replace the Jaguar’s side window, then renting another car. He started to get one of the ordinary little Renaults, but at the last moment decided on the Megane Renault Sport, a hot little turbo-charged number with a six-speed transmission. It wasn’t exactly a nondescript car, but he figured there might be another occasion when he needed speed and handling and he didn’t want to get caught a few horses short. The rental office had had a red one that really caught his eye, but he went with the silver. There was no sense in waving a red flag and shouting, “Here I am, look at me!”

He ended up back at the Bristol just as daylight faded completely. He was hungry, but he wasn’t in the mood for company, so he went up to his room and called room service. While he waited for his food to be delivered, he took off his shoes and jacket and flopped on the bed, where he lay staring at the ceiling-he’d done some good thinking while looking at that ceiling-and thinking about Lily Mansfield.

He’d recognized her immediately from the color photo in her file. No photograph, however, could have conveyed the energy and intensity that permeated every move she made. He liked her face, almost thin but strongly structured, with very high cheekbones, that proud nose, and Lord God Almighty, that mouth. Just looking at that mouth gave him a woody. Her eyes were like pieces of blue ice, but her mouth was tender and vulnerable and sexy and a lot of other things he could feel but couldn’t put into words.

He hadn’t been kidding when he told her he hoped she’d jump his bones. If she’d said the word, he’d have had her back here at the Bristol in record time.

He could remember exactly how she’d looked, what she was wearing: dark gray pants with black boots, a blue oxford-cloth shirt, and a dark blue pea jacket. He should probably also commit to memory that when she was wearing those boots, she was armed. Her hair was simply cut, just to her shoulders, and framed her face with long wisps. Even though the pea jacket had hidden most of her figure, from the length and build of her legs, he figured she was on the lean side. She had also looked a little frail, with bluish circles under her eyes, as if she’d been sick or wasn’t getting enough rest.

Having the hots for her wouldn’t make his job any easier; in fact, he felt a little sick at what he had to do. He’d finesse the rules, but he wouldn’t break them. Well, not much. He’d accomplish the job on his own timetable, and if there were a couple of detours along the way, so be it. It wouldn’t hurt to find out what was behind the Joubrans’ murders, who had hired them and why. The Nervis were scum, and if he could get some really nasty goods on them, so much the better.

That would buy him time with Lily. Too bad in the end he’d have to betray her.

There was trouble yesterday,“ Damone said softly from the library doorway. ”Tell me what is happening.“

“You shouldn’t be here,” Rodrigo said instead, rising to greet his brother. He’d been astonished when the guards had called to announce Damone’s arrival. The agreement was that they wouldn’t be together again until after their father’s murderer had been caught. Learning that Liliane Mansfield, alias Denise Morel, had killed Salvatore in revenge for the deaths of her friends, in no way abrogated that agreement. In fact, other than telling Damone the woman’s identity, Rodrigo hadn’t passed along any other information other than to say they were searching for her.

Damone wasn’t a weak man, but Rodrigo had always felt protective of his younger brother, first because he
was
younger, and second because Damone had never been in the trenches with their father the way Rodrigo had. Rodrigo knew the ways of urban and corporate warfare, while Damone knew the ways of stock markets and mutual funds.

“You have no one to help you the way you helped Papa,” Damone replied, sitting down in the chair Rodrigo had always used when Salvatore was alive. “It isn’t right that I should spend my time studying money markets and moving funds around when you’re shouldering the entire responsibility for operations.” He spread his hands. “I also receive news from both the Internet and print sources. The item I read early this morning wasn’t very informative, just a small mention of an incident at a park yesterday, of several people exchanging gunfire. None of the culprits were identified, other than two guards from a nearby laboratory who heard the shots and ran to help.” His intelligent dark eyes narrowed. “The name of the park was given.”

Rodrigo said, “But why are you here? The incident was handled.”

“Because this is the second incident at Vincenzo’s lab. Am I supposed to think that is coincidence? We are depending on the influx of profits from the influenza vaccine. There are several opportunities pending that I’ll have to let go by if the funds aren’t there. I want to know what’s going on.”

“A phone call wouldn’t have sufficed?”

“I can’t see your face over the phone,” Damone replied, and smiled. “You’re a talented liar, but I know you too well. I’ve watched you from the time we were small, looking up at Papa and denying we had done whatever thing had happened, though of course we were always guilty. If you lie to me in person, I’ll know it. So. I am capable of adding more than two digits together. There is an ongoing problem at Vincenzo’s laboratory, and in the middle of this, our father is murdered. Are the two connected?“

That was the problem with Damone, Rodrigo thought; he was too damned intelligent, and intuitive into the bargain. It annoyed Rodrigo that he’d never been able to successfully lie to his younger brother; everyone else in the world, yes, but not to Damone. And perhaps being protective of his younger brother had been good when they were seven and four, but they were both grown men now. That was a habit he should perhaps break.

“Yes,” he finally said. “They are.”

“How so?”

“The woman who killed Papa, Liliane Mansfield, was a close friend of the Joubrans, the couple who broke into the laboratory in August and destroyed a great portion of Vincenzo’s work.”

Damone rubbed his eyes as if he was tired, then pinched the bridge of his nose before lowering his hand. “So it was vengeance.”

“That part of it, yes.”

“And the other part?”

Rodrigo sighed. “I still don’t know who hired the Joubrans in the beginning. Whoever it is could well hire someone else to attack the laboratory again. We cannot afford another such delay. This woman who killed Papa wasn’t working for anyone at the time, I don’t think, but she could well be by now. My men spotted her at the park yesterday; she was surveilling the grounds of the complex. Whether she was hired or is doing this on her own, the result is the same. She will try to sabotage the vaccine.”

“Can she possibly know what the vaccine is?”

Rodrigo spread his hands. “There is always the possibility of betrayal from within, someone who works at the laboratory, in which case she would know. Supposedly mercenaries such as the Joubrans don’t work cheaply, so I’m investigating the financial circumstances of all the laboratory employees, to see if any of them had the means of hiring them.”

“What do you know about this woman?”

“She is an American, and she was a hired killer, a contract agent, for their CIA.”

Damone paled. “The Americans hired her?”

“Not to kill Papa, no. She did that on her own and, as you can imagine, they are very upset with her. They have, in fact, dispatched someone to ‘terminate the problem,’ I believe is the phrase that was used.”

“And in the meantime she is trying to devise a way to get inside the laboratory. How did she get away yesterday?”

“She has an accomplice, a man driving a Jaguar. He drove the car between her and my men, shielding her while he returned fire.”

“License plate?”

“No; the angle was wrong for my men to see it. There were witnesses, of course, but they were too busy cowering to take down a license number.”

“The most important question:
Has she tried to harm you personally?”

“No.” Rodrigo blinked in surprise.

“Then it follows that I am in less danger than you. Therefore I will stay here, and you may delegate some of your duties to me. I will oversee the search for this woman, or any of your other problems if you would rather see to that yourself. Or we can work together on everything. I wish to be of help. He was my father, too.“

Rodrigo sighed, realizing he had been wrong to keep Damone away from everything; his brother was, after all, a Nervi. He must long for vengeance as deeply as did Rodrigo himself.

“There is another reason I want this matter taken care of,” Damone continued. “I am thinking of getting married.”

Astonished, Rodrigo stared at him in silence for a moment, then burst into laughter. “Married! When? You haven’t said anything about a special woman!”

Damone laughed, too, and color darkened his cheeks. “I don’t know when, because I haven’t asked her yet. But I think she will say yes. We have been seeing each other for over a year-”

“And you didn’t tell us?”
Us
included Salvatore, who would have been delighted that one of his sons intended to settle down and provide him with grandchildren.

“-but exclusively only in the past few months. I wanted to be certain before I said anything. She is Swiss, of a very good family; her father is a banker. Her name is Giselle.” His voice deepened when he said her name. “I have known from the very first that she is the one.”

“But she took longer, eh?” Rodrigo laughed again. “She didn’t take one look at your handsome face and decide you would make beautiful babies with her?”

“She knew that immediately, yes,” Damone said with cool confidence. “It was my ability to be a good husband that she doubted.”

“All Nervis make good husbands,” Rodrigo said, and it was true, if the wife didn’t mind the occasional mistress. Damone, though, would probably be faithful; he was just that type.

This happy news did explain why Damone was anxious to put this problem of Liliane Mansfield to rest. While it was true that wanting retribution was also part of it, he might well have been patient enough to let Rodrigo handle things had events in his personal life not spurred him to action.

Damone looked at Rodrigo’s desk and saw the photograph lying on it Walking over, he turned the file around and studied the woman’s face. “She’s attractive,” he said. “Not pretty, but… attractive.”

He flipped through the rest of the file, reading rapidly. He looked up in astonishment. “This is the CIA’s file on her. How did you get it?”

“We have someone there on our payroll, of course. Also in Interpol, and Scotland Yard. It has, on occasion, been convenient to know certain things in advance.”

“The CIA calls here? You call them?”