Masquerade (39 page)

“Not yet.” She held tight to the table as the antiseptic burned and the wound throbbed even more. “Levine's so immersed in his own work, he pays little attention to anything else. Bremner could've told him the whole deal, and he could've forgotten it all.”

“What about that industrialist—the one getting drugged at Je Suis Chez Moi? Why isn't he giving his workers what they need, when he apparently seems to agree they need it?”

“For
La Grandeur
,” she gritted her teeth. “That's a Charles de Gaulle phrase. Back in the '50s, de Gaulle used it to fire up France's nationalist spirit. He wanted the country to return to the grand days when it considered itself ruler of the civilized world. In any case, this French operation of Bremner's has to
be huge, and Levine's planning to build a private, permanently funded lab. It sounds as if the tycoon I saw there is somehow part of it. As we both know all too well, Bremner does nothing without reason. He has to be planning for a mighty big payoff to have gone to the trouble of setting up that extremely secret club for France's elite.”

Asher retired the antiseptic and opened a tube of antibiotic cream. He squirted a thick line the length of the laceration.

The antibiotic was soothing. “At least that's what I figure,” Sarah continued. “So—number one—we've got Levine's experiments on the brain and body, which are proving unnervingly successful. And—two—we've got some kind of huge operation happening on Monday that involves billions for Hughes Bremner and his people. And—three—we've got an international assassin trying to come in, but Bremner wants him killed before he tells what he knows.”

“I've got an addendum.” Asher described his search through the various data banks at Christine Robitaille's shop. “There was a sentence at the end of the Carnivore's file that said the President had changed his mind and told the Carnivore to pack his toys and get the hell over to someone else's playpen.”

She frowned. “That makes no sense. Why would Levine tell me the coming-in was set: Eight o'clock tomorrow night. He was very definite about it.”

“That soon?”

She nodded.

He shook his head. “Somebody's either misinformed, or lying, or—”

“Or Bremner's out on his own, rogue all the way. My God, whatever he's got planned for Monday has to be damned big!”

“And there's more,” Asher said. He told her about Lucas Maynard's death. “That makes no sense either. Unless Maynard knew something and Bremner had him killed.”

While they thought of the enormity of Bremner's defying the President, Asher put a thick gauze bandage on her wound and taped it.

She smiled. “You're a tender doctor, Asher.”

They exchanged a long look.

She broke away first. “How did the Languedoc locate you?”

“Could be they figured out about Gordon's code and traced me through that. It was only a matter of time.” He paused. “Anyway, Gold Star Rent-a-Car turned out to be a dead end. It read like a textbook company. Nothing suspicious. I printed out the list of Sterling-O'Keefe companies, and I'll show it to you later. Maybe it'll give you some ideas.”

She eased the robe up over her bandaged shoulder. It was time for Asher to sneak her bloody clothes out of the hotel and buy new ones in one of the local late-night stalls.

She wanted him to stay. He wanted to stay.

She said, “They killed Blount.” She closed her eyes. “I still can't believe it. He was so sweet and honest and funny. He swore celebrities were the scum of the earth, and it was his personal quest to expose them all. He hated my new face.” Two tears slid down her cheeks.

“You really liked him.”

“Yes.” She could hear Blount's impossibly bright voice:
My God, Sarah . . . you look like a CELEBRITY
! “Death is so damn final.”

Asher said, “Lucas Maynard was one of Bremner's oldest associates. They'd worked together thirty years.” He let the implication of that sink in for a moment before he went on. “You did a good job at Je Suis Chez Moi. It wasn't just luck that got you out alive. What made you buy the delirium?”

“I don't know. It was like a premonition. Or maybe it was just because I'm so aware of drugs, after my particularly intimate experience with them lately.”

“In our business, that kind of instinct's called gut. You've got gut, Sarah, and that's something no amount of training can teach you.” He waited for her to object, to tell him she was no spy and was never going to be.

She said, “I've changed.”

“I know.”

“I'm glad I've changed.”

“Me, too.” He wanted to hold her to him, tell her he realized how hard it had been and that she'd triumphed over the biggest adversary of all—herself. But he could delay no longer. She had
to have a disguise. Tomorrow the Carnivore would come in. They had to find out where, and how Bremner planned to kill him, and how it all tied in to some billion-dollar operation on Monday.

Sarah locked the hallway door behind Asher. The aspirin had kicked in, and her shoulder felt better. The better the shoulder, the grimier the rest of her felt, and the more her bruises and battered bones ached. What she needed was a long, hot bath. Taking her reloaded Beretta, she filled the tub and crawled in, careful to keep her bandage dry. The water was hot and comforting.

She closed her eyes and tried not to think of anything. Neither the past nor the present. She tried, but Je Suis Chez Moi and her personal Doctor Frankenstein—Allan Levine—kept running through her mind. The crippling terror in Blount McCaw's eyes as he'd died. The night of horror replayed constantly. And then it was gone and she was thinking of Asher.

She could see him in her mind. Unconsciously she found herself undressing him. She smiled lazily.

Then her eyes snapped open. There was the sound of a key turning in a lock.

Besides the bathroom door, there were two other doors in the hotel room—one to the hall, and the other, locked, to the adjoining room. The sound was coming from the hallway door. She'd left the bathroom door open wide to give her a direct view.

Heart pounding, she picked up her gun from the floor beside the tub. She aimed at the door as it began to swing open.

A woman's voice called into the room,
“Bon soir! Bon soir! Pardon-nez-moi!”

Sarah gazed grimly at the door. It could be one of Bremner's people. Or Dr. Levine's people. Or simply a maid.

She called disagreeably, “Go away. This room is occupied!”

The door inched open.
“Bon soir. Bon soir!”

Sarah cocked the Beretta. Forced herself to exhale slowly. Lord, she hoped it was just a maid.

Suddenly Asher Flores's wide-planed, swarthy face appeared around the door. He was sporting a brand-new black beret.
“Bon soir, madame!”
He mimicked a woman's alto perfectly. He
swaggered in, heeled the door closed, dumped his packages onto the nearest twin bed, and locked the door.

“Asher! Are you mad? I could've killed you!”

He started to grin. Then he really looked at her. He stared across the beds at her. And stared.

She saw her nakedness in his eyes. She lowered the Beretta.

For a long beat she stared back, feeling sudden heat in her groin. Desire flooded her, hot and insistent, and he was in her mind again, and she was undressing him, and—

He walked toward her, breathing heavily. She stood up, water sluicing off her body, and stepped from the tub. He enveloped her in his arms. His mouth fell upon hers, passionate and devouring. His salty tongue flicked the roof of her mouth. She felt the roughness of his jeans and shirt against her nakedness, teasing. Demanding. He shuddered and groaned. She unbuckled his pants, pulled, tugged, raised herself up on her toes.

“Oh, God,” she moaned, as he slid hot and hard between her legs. “Oh, God.”

Chapter 44

The hotel room was dim now, lit by only one bedside lamp. The air smelled of musky sex and bath oils. Sarah and Asher lay entwined on one of the twin beds. Unless she really thought about it, she couldn't tell which legs were his and which hers. Her wound and bruises hurt dully, but she no longer cared.

“Are you purring?” he whispered in her ear.

“Maybe. I feel as if something's humming inside. A happy kind of humming.”

“Well, not so long ago that was me. Inside you, I mean.”

“Yes, but not purring or humming. More in the way of roaring.”

“Noisy fucker, aren't I?”

She laughed and turned to face him, her nose touching the tip of his. “Breathe,” she said. “I want to inhale you.”

“I
am
breathing. Can't you tell?”

“I can tell. I want a commitment you'll continue.” She inhaled the spiciness of his exhalation. “Delicious.” She sighed. “God, I'm glad we're both alive.”

“Yeah. Kind of makes you appreciate things.” He ran his finger around the rim of her ear. “I think we should eat something now.”

“Yes. Keep our strength up.”

They'd have to stay in the room. The less they showed themselves, the better. He'd checked in under a name no one at the Languedoc knew, but still, they'd be idiots to take a chance.

He sat up on his elbow, peered down. His curly black hair and beard made him look like a pirate. “The restaurant here is
superbe
.” He got up, nude, long wiry muscles rippling. She loved the way his chest tapered into his hips. So male.

She watched, feeling lazy and feline, as he wielded the phone like a maestro and ordered in perfect, fluent French. She studied the black triangle of hair between his legs, the way his cock seemed to swell and relax, beckoning.

She got up, knelt beside his chair, and slid her fingertips across his chest, through the soft curly hair, down over his belly.

“You're so incredibly sexy,” she murmured, going lower.

He jumped, grinned, pushed her away.
“Merci beaucoup,”
he said into the phone. He looked down at her. “God, you're distracting!”

“Merci beaucoup.”

Still nude, they stood shoulder to shoulder at their tall window, which overlooked the rue Bonaparte. Their arms encircled each other as they peered down through a crack in the drapes at the narrow street below.

Electricity crackled between them.

The rue Bonaparte was lined with chic art galleries and antique shops. “That's one old street,” he said. “Just think, peddlers and princes were riding along it way back in 1250.” He studied the traffic, and she knew he was looking for more than thirteenth-century ghosts.

No one lingered on the sidewalk opposite, watching their hotel. Without speaking, but understanding perfectly the importance of that information, they left the window and sat across from each other at the round table.

“We should put on robes,” he said.

“Yes.”

But they didn't. They pulled their chairs together, watching one another's body, enjoying the exploration and knowledge. The risk of intimacy.

She said, “I made some other telephone calls today I should tell you about. One was to a colleague in London. He went back through the microfilm of old issues of the London
Times
to when Liz Sansborough's parents died. Sure enough, there was
one of those brief, official obituary notices. But there was something peculiar about it. Remember how Gordon said they'd died when they were mugged in New York?”

“I remember.”

“Well, they died in New York, all right. And the police called it a mugging. But their bodies were found partially burned near Times Square. They had their wallets, but no jewelry or money.”

“So?”

“In my experience, a thief takes everything. He doesn't stop to pull out cash and credit cards so he can leave the wallet. He doesn't stop to burn the bodies. All he can think about is getting away fast and clean.”

“True. But what does that have to do with anything?”

“I don't know. Maybe nothing. But it's one more thing that makes sense, yet doesn't quite.”

“Actually it does. What's in your Liz Sansborough memory is only what the files and Gordon told you. Was there any point to giving you any more specifics about the murders of your ‘parents'? Remember, Gordon was intent on one thing—remaking you. At that point, the details didn't matter.”

The food arrived, and they ran for their robes. He touched her breast as it flew by, and he thought he'd never seen anything more perfectly curved, more lovely.

Properly covered, they allowed the waiter in. With a flourish he removed silver lids and served their dishes at the table. For
monsieur
was
ravioli de langoustine au chou
, lobster ravioli on a bed of cabbage, and for
madame
, Challans
canard aux cerises
, Challans duck with cherries.
Monsieur
had ordered a red burgundy, an exemplary Morey-Saint-Denis Clos de Tart 1983, a very good year from a very fine winery owned by the Mommessin family.

As the white-aproned waiter bowed and left, Asher touched his glass to hers. “To a very fine vintage. Yours.”

“Ours.” She'd said it without thinking, without stumbling. Was that an omen?

“Ours.” He grinned agreement, and his teeth flashed white inside the thickening black of his beard.

They picked up their forks and ate.

She said, “Your mother was a Jew from Poland, and your dad a Catholic from Mexico. So how come you speak French like a native and go on and on about all things Parisian, but I've never heard you once enthuse over the history of the Jews and Poland, or Mexico, Spain, and the Pope.”

“Never thought about it much.”

“Why?”

“Don't know.” He chewed. “Does it matter?”

“It matters. It's important to have a life. Ask me, I'll tell you.”

“It may be great to have
your
life, but mine, the verdict's still out.”