Stranded with a Spy (10 page)

Something she’d thought about doing more and more frequently, she mused as a roar rose from the bleachers surrounding court three.

“Game, set and match to Jensen and Jensen.”

“Good for Nick and Mackenzie!” With another squeeze, Wayland steered Gillian back toward the courts. “Let’s go congratulate each other.”

“Coming, Mike?”

“I’ll wait here.” He adjusted his sunglasses and gave her one of his Uncle-Mike-to-little-Jilly smiles. “Tell Nick I need to talk to him when he gets a minute.”

One of these days, she vowed as she accompanied Wayland through the milling crowd, she’d have to convince him she was all grown up.

After consulting with Lightning, Mike waited until he was back in the Blazer to contact Cutter. Traffic was a bitch, crawling along like a snail on tranquilizers, belching diesel fumes into the slowly gathering dusk.

The traffic snarl matched Mike’s mood. He could have gone all month without that glimpse of Olmstead tipping a champagne glass to Gillian’s lips.

Hell, all year.

With a surly sneer for the unbroken stream of red taillights ahead, he punched a two-digit code into his phone.

“Lightning gave the green light,” he relayed when Cutter’s image appeared on the screen. “You can read Dawes into the op.”

“Roger that.”

The leap of satisfaction in Cutter’s face had Mike biting back a warning. Slash knew what he was doing. He wouldn’t fall for another female with a soul as flawed as the one who’d damned near killed him.

“When do you plan to tell her?”

“First thing in the morning.”

“Good luck.”

“Thanks, Hawk.”

Cutter woke early the next morning.

A cold wind rattled the windows, causing the château to creak and groan with the prerogative of age, but he didn’t hear a sound from the suite next door.

That was fine with him. He needed a good run to clear his head. He’d lost several hours of sleep to the image of Mallory’s angry face and stormy eyes when she jerked away from his touch. Even more to the vivid memory of her slick flesh and low, throaty moan when she’d climaxed in his arms. He’d have to talk hard and fast to recover the ground he’d lost last night. Faster still to get her into bed again.

With various strategies for how he’d break the news that she was the primary suspect in an identity theft of massive proportions kicking around in his head, Cutter pulled on the jogging suit OMEGA’s Field Dress Unit had included in his hastily assembled kit. He would have preferred his usual Nikes and well-worn gray sweats but had to admit the chocolate-brown velour designer job felt as soft as a fuzzy kitten against his skin.

He followed the scent of fresh-brewed coffee and rising yeast to a kitchen aglow with copper pots. Gilbért was seated at a peg-and-board oak table with his jacket hooked on the back of his chair and the remains of his breakfast in front of him. Madame Picard stood at a granite slab of a counter and rolled pastry dough with floured arms.

“’Morning.”

Abashed to be caught in his shirtsleeves, Gilbért scrambled for his jacket. “
Excusez-moi,
monsieur. I did not hear the bell.”

“I didn’t ring. Please, sit down. I just want some coffee before I head out for a run. May I join you?”

“But of course.”

The coffee was thick and tarry black, the cream light and frothy. One cup led to another, then to a brioche fresh from the oven. Regretfully, Cutter passed on a second until after his run.

The morning mist swirled gray and thick when Gilbért disarmed the security system and Cutter exited into the cobbled courtyard. Discreetly placed cameras tracked his progress through the gate and onto the long, sweeping drive.

Instead of following the drive to the main road, he opted for a path that led along the cliffs. A mile at a slow trot loosened muscles that hadn’t been exercised in several days. With the ocean hidden by the fog but roaring loudly in his ears, Cutter gradually lengthened his stride. Salty mist dewed on his face. Damp air filled his lungs. Thoughts of Mallory Dawes looped through his head.

Six miles later, the velour was drenched with sweat and Cutter had decided on a direct approach. He wouldn’t gain anything by pussyfooting around the issue. First he’d shower and shave. Then he’d tell Mallory about the disk, inform her that he’d had her under close surveillance since Paris, and brace himself for the firestorm that would follow.

He accomplished the first two items on his agenda with minimum fuss and maximum speed.

His cheeks tingling from the rapid scrape of his razor, he tugged on slacks and a lightweight knit sweater in a peacocky blue, compliments of Field Dress, and rapped on the door to Mallory’s suite. When she didn’t answer, he tried the small dining salon, the oak-paneled library and the music room before once again making his way to the kitchen. Madame Picard was still at the counter, peeling apples for the pie shell she’d baked while he was running.

“The run?” she inquired politely. “It is good?”

“Very good. Has Mademoiselle Dawes come down?”

“Oui.”
The paring knife made a small circle in the air. “She comes, she goes.”

“Goes?”

“
Oui.
The telephone rings, and mademoiselle, she asks Gilbért to drive her.”

“Drive her where?”

“Into town, to the train station.”

Cutter smothered a vicious oath. “How long?”

“Pardon?”

“How long have they been gone?”

Her shoulders lifted in that quintessential Gallic shrug. “Five minutes, perhaps ten.”

Cutter spun on his heel and sprinted for the stairs to retrieve his car keys, cursing all the way.

M
allory stared unseeing at the mist-shrouded pines drifting past the windows of Madame d’Marchand’s Rolls Royce Silver Cloud. Beside her, Gilbért hummed to himself as he steered through the forest that edged right down to the cliffs on this stretch of coast.

She should have been feeling like a princess. After all, she’d spent the past two nights in a castle and was now being conveyed to town in a chrome-laden behemoth that glided along with slow, ponderous grace. Instead, she wanted to bite something. Or someone.

She supposed she should thank Cutter for waiting until last night to bring the walls of her fairy-tale castle tumbling down around her. At least she’d got to spend a whole day roaming the French countryside, lazing in the sun, sipping apple brandy. An evening filled with sparkling crystal and
le veau de la Normandie.
And let’s not forget that hot, sweaty session between the sheets.

She ground her teeth, and Gilbért raised an inquiring brow.

“Yes, mademoiselle?”

Shifting in her seat, Mallory glanced at the stately majordomo. He appeared so calm, so dignified, with his salt-and-pepper hair, neatly trimmed mustache and spiffy tweed driving cap.

“Mademoiselle is disturbed?” he asked, unbending enough to tip her a look of friendly concern.

She started to deny it. Shielding her thoughts and emotions had become a necessary survival mechanism over the past months. She was feeling just raw enough, though, to blow a long huff of self-disgust.

“Did you ever make a fool of yourself over someone? A total, twenty-four-carat fool?”

“But of course. I am French. It is required.”

“Wish I could use nationality as my excuse,” Mallory said glumly. “With me, it’s just plain stupidity.”

“What is life without such folly, eh?” His lips curving, Gilbért relaxed his gloved hands on the steering wheel. “Madame Picard was the belle of our village. All the men puff their chests and strut like the peacock when she strolls by. She tortures me,
ma petite Jeanette,
until I go mad with despair and decide to drown myself in the village well. It is a gesture, you understand, a foolish gesture. I have gone down the well many times as a boy, but now I am too big and become stuck. It takes a team of horses to pull me out, while the whole village watches. We laugh about it still, Madame Picard and I.”

Gilbért’s rich chuckle invited Mallory to share in the absurdity of life in general and love in particular.

Okay, she thought, smiling at his tale, so maybe she wasn’t the only woman in history to fall for a sexy smile and a body to match. Throw in a propensity to appear just when a girl needed him most and a seemingly sympathetic ear, and it was no wonder she’d let desire cloud her judgment where Cutter Smith was concerned.

The stupid thing was, deep down inside she still wanted to trust him. Against all reason, despite every bitter lesson she’d learned in recent months, she wanted to give him the time he’d asked for. How stupid was that?

She was squirming inwardly at the answer when a figure darted out of the forest. Planting himself in the middle of the road, he waved his hands above his head and signaled for them to stop.

With a low grunt, Gilbért stomped on the brakes. His eyes narrowed under the brim of his tweed cap.

“I know this one. He is the son of the baker in town.”

Judging by the curl to Gilbért’s lip, he didn’t hold the baker’s son in particularly high esteem. Mallory’s glance cut back to the man on the road.

Skinny and spike-haired, he looked to be in his early twenties. His jeans were fashionably ragged, showing large patches of bare skin. His jacket was also denim. The black T-shirt he wore underneath sported a heart skewered by a stiletto dripping blood.

“Wait in the car, mademoiselle.” Gilbért put his shoulder to the Rolls’ heavy door. “I will see what he wants.”

Whatever it was led to an escalating exchange of words and gestures. Mouths twisted into sneers. Arms were flung. Chins were flipped. When the kid dragged an arm across his nose to wipe it, an obviously disgusted Gilbért turned and stalked toward the car.

Before he’d taken more than a few steps, the baker’s son whipped something out from under his jacket. Mallory caught only a glint of metal before he raised his arm and brought it down on Gilbért’s skull. The older man crumpled like an old suit of clothes.

“Hey!”

Mallory was out of the car before Gilbért hit the ground. The kid spun toward her, clutching what she now saw was a small but lethal-looking revolver.

She froze, her breath thick in her throat, as he let loose with a torrent of French. The volume rose with each agitated phrase, until he was almost shouting at her.

“I don’t understand.” Her voice cracked. Her mind fought to find the right translation.
Je, uh, ne comprend…
”

“I will have it!”

“Have what?”

“Everything. The purse. The wallet. What you carry in the car.”

Drugs, she thought when her brain unfroze enough to register anything except the gun barrel aimed at her midsection. The wild eyes. The runny nose. He had to be on drugs. Only someone really messed up in the head would risk a robbery in broad daylight with a man who could easily identify him lying in the dirt at his feet.

The realization she was facing an armed junkie would have scared the crap out of her if a second realization hadn’t hit right on top of that one.
Because
the man lying in the dirt at this guy’s feet could identify him, he might not be inclined to leave either Gilbért or Mallory behind as witnesses.

“The purse,” the kid shouted, his gun shaking with the effort. “Throw it down, in the road. Then move away from the car.”

Struggling desperately to recall the tips imparted in her self-defense course, Mallory tugged at the strap of the purse draped across her chest and one shoulder. Most of the advice had to do with avoiding dangerous situations. Never pick up hitchhikers. Stick to well-lighted areas. Travel in pairs.

The options narrowed down considerably when confronted by an armed robber. Don’t resist. That was rule one. Her life was more valuable than her possessions. Except in this case, she didn’t have many possessions and she couldn’t shake the sick certainty that her life hung by a very thin thread with this guy.

Rule two, don’t make any sudden moves that might make the attacker think she was reaching for a concealed weapon. Dear God, what she wouldn’t give for a concealed weapon!

Rule three…Do whatever you could to get away if he tried to force you into the car and run like hell in a zigzagging pattern.

Her hand shaking, Mallory dragged her purse over her head. She could zigzag it into the trees lining the road. Maybe. If she ran, though, she’d leave Gilbért at the mercy of this crackhead.

“Here.” Her mind racing in frantic circles, she dangled the purse. “This is all I have. Just take it, okay?”

“Throw it down onto the road and move away from the car.”

She tossed the purse, but not onto the pavement. With a twitchy jerk that was ninety-nine percent nerves and one percent desperation, she managed to land it in the weedy grass beside the road.

Okay. All right. Mallory’s breath came fast and shallow as the kid stalked towards her to snatch up the purse. He was closer now. Almost within reach.

She sucked in her gut, trying to work up the courage to propel her body through the air while he tore open the purse and viewed its meager contents.

She waited a fraction too long.

“Pah!” Pocketing her one credit card, he threw the purse into the weeds again. “There is more, yes?”

“No! Nothing! I swear.”

“You come from the château. You are the guest of Madame d’Marchand. You have the suitcase. The furs. The jewels.”

“I’m staying at the château, but I don’t have any jewels or furs. You’ve got the wrong girl.”

“I think not. Move away.”

She took one step to the side. One slightly forward. Another…

Gilbért’s groan was hardly more than a whimper, but the small animal sound provided the only distraction Mallory knew she would get. When the kid threw a swift glance over his shoulder, she sprang.

She knocked into his shoulder, threw him off balance, lunged again. This time she hit him from behind.

Locking one arm around his neck, she clung to his back like a monkey and made a desperate grab with her free hand. She caught only a corner of his jacket sleeve, but it was enough to keep him from angling his gun in her direction.

Cursing, he bucked and humped like an enraged bull. Mallory bounced on his back like a rag doll, but wouldn’t loosen her stranglehold or release his sleeve. Knowing she had to bring him to his knees before he shook her off, she tightened her arm around his throat and squeezed for all she was worth.

“Mademoiselle!”

From the corner of one eye, she saw Gilbért stagger to his feet.

“He’s got a gun!” she shouted.

The possibility Gilbért might join the fray spurred the kid to renewed fury. Choking, he spun in a circle and pumped off wild shots.

The first went into the air. The second plowed into the Rolls’ shiny chrome grill. Cordite stung Mallory’s eyes. Percussive shock waves hammered at her eardrums, so loud and painful she almost missed the roar of a car tearing down the road at top speed.

The kid picked up on it the same moment she did. Every bit as desperate as Mallory now, he staggered toward the Rolls and spun her into its side. Her hip slammed into the tank-like fender. Pain screamed up her spine.

Still she hung on. Or tried to. A second ramming jarred every bone in her body. Her chokehold loosened. His sleeve tore free of her grasp, but it took a vicious elbow to her ribs to knock her off the bastard’s back.

She fell to the pavement. Heard Gilbért shout something in French. Then another shot cracked through the air.

“No!”

Mallory rolled onto all fours, prepared to see the butler stretched out on the pavement, fully expecting she would be next. Instead she heard an unbroken stream of curses from Gilbért, punctuated by the thud of running feet. Her head whipped toward the sound.

Cutter raced toward her from the car skidded sideways across the road some yards back. Mallory’s dazed mind registered the pistol gripped in his hand. Gulping, she cranked her head around and spotted the baker’s son sprawled face-down in a slowly spreading pool of blood. Her joints turning to jelly, she plopped down.

“Are you hurt?” Cutter crouched beside her, his grim glance raking her from head to toe. “Mallory! Sweetheart! Were you hit?”

“No.” She raised a shaking hand to shove back her tangled hair and winced. “Not by a bullet, anyway. Bastard got me with an elbow.”

“An elbow?”

“Right in the ribs.”

Cutter sat back on his heels. His blood still thundered in his ears. His lungs hadn’t pulled in a breath since he’d spotted the humpback figure gyrating wildly beside the Rolls. He’d aged a good ten years when he’d identified Mallory as the hump. Another ten in the two or three seconds it had taken him to jam on the brakes, leap out of the car and yank his Glock from its ankle holster.

“Stay here,” he bit out.

Glock in hand, he joined Gilbért. The majordomo was on one knee beside the shooter, feeling for a pulse. Cutter didn’t expect him to find one. He hadn’t had time for a precision take-down.

“He’s dead,” Gilbért confirmed.

With a grunt of pain, the older man pushed to his feet. Cutter hooked his arm to help him up.

“You okay?”

“Yes.” Disgust riddled his voice. “Like the fool, I turn my back and he hits me from behind.”

Cutter kept a steadying hand on Gilbért’s arm. His face was ashen and his cap had slipped down over one ear, but otherwise he appeared whole.

“Madame Picard and I feared it would come, sooner or late, with that one.”

“You know him?”

“He is Remy Duchette, the son of the baker in town. He’s had trouble with the police, you understand, but nothing that makes me think he carries a gun. I would not have stopped if I thought him dangerous.”

“Why
did
you stop?”

“Remy comes out of the woods just there and waves to us. I think he wants a ride. Too late it becomes clear he waits for us.”

Cutter slewed toward the treeline. The kid had picked a good spot for an ambush. A bend in the road, where the Rolls had to slow to make the turn. Plenty of cover to hide behind until his prey appeared.

“Remy knows this car,” Gilbért continued, his disgust mounting with every word. “He knows madame entertains guests of great wealth. He has probably heard in the village that you and mademoiselle stay at the château and decides to wait in hope of robbing you.”

“So that’s what you think this was? An attempted robbery?”

“
Oui.
I hear him tell mademoiselle he wants her purse and the furs and jewels from her suitcase.”

Cutter said nothing, but the warning lights already blipping inside his head flashed a sharper red.