The Kill Shot (12 page)

If Sally thought it odd that I wore my fancy duds from the store, she didn't comment.

Neither did Philip's driver when he helped me into the back of the car.

With the rest of London's traffic, the Mercedes crawled along one street and then another. I felt so antsy, I had to fight the urge to get out of the car and push. Of course, a bit of a delay was a good thing, I told myself. Among the rich and famous, only the unimportant arrived early. And if I wanted to hobnob with the other party guests, I had to appear as important as they perceived themselves to be.

“Relax,” Philip said, his hand closing over mine.

His nails may've been manicured, but his palm was a little rough from games of cricket with his club league and sailing off the coast of Anglesey. The contact touched off a flutter beneath my skin. I blamed it on the upcoming party and the adrenaline that comes with chasing down a lead. But I knew my reaction had everything to do with my friend and nothing to do with the strangers I was about meet.

“You,” Philip decided, “need a drink.”

Really, what I needed was to remember that Philip was nothing more than a pal, but I didn't tell him that.

He took my silence for acceptance and flipped open a panel in the console before us. A blue light flashed on in its interior and a cloud of frosty condensation rose like a ghost from a grave. Despite my long sleeves, it felt like a breeze off an iceberg.

Philip withdrew the sleekest of crystal shot glasses from his fancy cooler, poured a measure of the purest Russian vodka into each. The lip of my glass was rimmed with ice. The temperature of the thing bit into my fingertips when I took hold of it.

“When I was posted to Moscow,” he said, “my colleagues advised that vodka was safer to drink than tap water.”

“Was it true?”

“I don't know. I never gave the water a chance.”

I laughed for the first time in days. In toast, Philip tapped his glass to mine. The crystal sang like a star soprano.

We drank, knocking back the clear liquor in a single swallow. It wasn't as if I'd never done that before, but I had to fight the urge to gasp as the vodka's snapping cold exploded in my mouth. And I reveled in the warmth as the alcohol spread through my chest.

When Philip poured us a second round, I didn't object.

“Do you miss Moscow?” I asked.

“At times.” Philip frowned into his shot glass as if his feelings were inscribed in the bottom of it. “My father, however, was pleased when I came home. It meant a promotion, you know. If I'm successful in carrying out my duties now, it may mean another.”

“You'll be promoted to an ambassador's slot?”

“To deputy minister—which would make my father pleased indeed.”

“Oh!”

In American parlance, that would put Philip in the same neighborhood as a member of the president's Cabinet. So it was no wonder his father approved. But Philip added he'd have to carry out certain duties to get that promotion—and while he didn't spell it out, I knew which duties he meant.

He meant he'd have to locate Barrett.

And to see him prosecuted for killing Dalmatovis.

If push came to shove—and if Philip caught up with Barrett—I'd never be able to convince my old friend to let his quarry go. Not with the prestige of a promotion like that hanging in the balance. And not with the approval of his exacting father on the line. Such approval, I knew too well, was a reward in itself. And whether Philip knew it or not, he craved that reward as much as I did.

He and I really were two of a kind.

And in my book, he deserved every reward his father could hand out.

But I couldn't bear to think of his success coming at Barrett's expense. Or vice versa. And that left me with only one option.

I'd have to double my efforts to keep the two men apart.

To do so, I'd have to stay as far from Philip as possible. That way, he'd stay far from Barrett, too. But keeping my distance turned out to be easier said than done.

Especially when Philip's glass met mine with a crystalline chime.

“To success,” he said. “May she come to those who seek her.”

I tried to smile. “I'll drink to that.”

“Would you? And what else can I tempt you to do?”

Philip was serious. Far too serious. I turned my attention to the vodka, because it gave me something to do besides continuing to look at him and seeing how serious he truly was.

Again, the alcohol's chill was a welcome shock to my senses. It heated my chest and burned through my stomach. Until Philip's hand found its way to my silk stocking.

His palm closed over my knee. And began a slow slide along my thigh. That's when the fire in my system spread down and deep.

“Jamie?” Philip's voice was low and lusty when he said my name. “What are you seeking tonight?”

“You already know,” I told him. “The physicist's father. She won't leave London without him.”

“You truly have no knowledge of his whereabouts?”

I shook my head.

“Are you certain he's all you're seeking?”

“Of course.”

But even as the words passed my lips, I knew I was lying. Some need tugged at my heartstrings every time I spent time with Philip. A need that was more than physical. It urged me to seek the answer to that need in him. And it had always been that way.

“What will happen,” Philip murmured, leaning close to nuzzle the shell of my ear, “when you find the physicist's father?”

“I'll board a plane.”

“You should,” Philip whispered and nibbled a vulnerable spot on my neck. “You should distance yourself from the likes of me. But when you leave, will you spare a thought for what could've happened between us if you'd stayed?”

I began to tremble. Because the question of what could happen between me and Philip had been on my mind lately. It had been on my mind a lot.

And there, in the back of his car, Philip left me in no doubt as to what was on his mind. When I didn't answer him, his hand slid higher. And the attention he'd lavished on my throat became absolute.

Without wanting to, I shivered. Without meaning to, I sighed. I threaded my fingers through Philip's ginger hair and closed my mind to anything but his kisses.

And Philip certainly knew how to kiss.

Each touch of his mouth shook me up. Every touch of his hand turned me on. I knew I was flesh and blood, heart and soul—but I often forgot it in the day-in-day-out crush of what my work made me do. Now, in the dark of the evening, Philip wanted to remind me I was more than a brain and some brawn behind a PI's license. And I was inclined to let him.

But if Philip and I were going to do anything more than kiss, it would have to wait for later. Because the car had stopped moving. We'd arrived in Belgravia.

Philip removed his hand from my leg as his driver opened the door at my elbow. I stepped out of the close confines of the car. And into the foggy damp of the London night.

The chill felt good on my cheeks.

Because I felt hot and bothered everywhere else.

Even Philip's feathers were ruffled. I saw it in the way he plucked at his tie and the way he smoothed his lapels. Our host's security stiffs didn't notice, though. They stood on the wide sidewalk, in their tuxedoes, looking as relaxed as private goons in rented penguin suits ever look and scanning a streetscape that had changed little since the richest of the Regency rich had built their towering townhouses here, cheek by jowl.

Philip forked over a heavily embossed invitation and we were permitted to mount the wide, granite steps that swept up and into our host's front door. Carriage lamps, glowing with flickering gaslight, showed us the way. As if by magic, the ebonized portal opened to admit us the second we neared it.

And while the outside of the place had been all Regency restraint, on the inside, light and color collided in one hell of a twenty-first-century spectacle.

Sure, gaslight still danced in the hall's antique sconces, but pretty girls in short, red dresses and hairdos twisted up and out like bare tree branches offered to take our wraps. The waiters were just as weird in bottle-green jackets and Venetian masks depicting birds even Audubon couldn't have dreamed up. They foisted tall flutes of champagne on us even before a grinning boy in a suit of turquoise ruffles escorted us across the orange-and-black checkerboard floor.

He led us up a staircase chopped from an enormous block of marble.

At the top of the stairs was a gallery long enough to make Christopher Wren goggle. Works by Pollock, Warhol, and their stylistic descendents splattered the walls. The paintings may've been bad or they may've been good, but in either case, Philip wrinkled his nose as we walked by.

The little boy in blue kept grinning, however, and with a flourish, he pointed us toward a pair of doors. Their purple panels were tipped with gold leaf. And they'd been thrown wide to reveal the house's ballroom.

Philip's hand touched the small of my back as we crossed the threshold—and found ourselves in the middle of a rollicking good time. London's stuffed shirts were out in full force. So were the socialites, wearing the latest and greatest designer duds. In this crush of humanity, I wouldn't have known our host if he walked up and bit me, but I had to say one thing for him. He'd planned quite the entertainment for his guests.

Runaways from Cirque du Soleil dangled from the ceiling on fuchsia ribbons, performing flips and tricks as some kind of techno band pumped out music only robots could love. Contortionists in sunshine-yellow spandex and more of those bird masks topped buffet stations to my left and my right. Humans costumed in hot pink feathers stalked through the party on stilts like giant, slow-motion flamingoes. Everywhere, light, color, and motion were meant to dazzle the eye and amuse the mind. But I hadn't come for the show.

I was here to find out if our host harbored Armand Oujdad.

Or if he knew those who did.

Our host was in energy speculation. That was a young man's game. And there were plenty of young men in the ballroom. Any one of them with a fat bankroll and an ear to the ground could've heard the elder Oujdad was on the run in London. And any one of them could've been interested in that fact.

After all, the old man had a daughter with a head full of nuclear know-how and a keen need for a hideout. If I were an energy speculator—and based in a country that would look the other way when it came to certain rules and regulations—I'd figure it wouldn't hurt to be kind to an old guy and end up with a physicist who owed me a favor. Nuclear power was relatively cheap to produce.

And with some free input from a grateful daughter, profit margins could soar.

Philip had to know this as well as I did. With a wink for me, he proved it. He moved to take his place among the young bucks—and to dig up what he could.

I shot him a smile of appreciation and moved in on the mature men. Clustered around one of the room's half dozen fireplaces, these would be the guys heavily invested in fossil fuels. Financially stable and incredibly solvent, they'd grab hold of the news of a foreign physicist's father seeking sanctuary with both hands. Even if they didn't have an immediate need for a physicist themselves, having Ikaat owe them one could mean keeping her away from competitors. And if anyone was into that kind of long-term strategic planning, these guys would be.

The first clutch I came to welcomed me cordially. And though we were strangers, it didn't take long to break the ice. I'd never found men like this hard to talk to. Variations of them were always gathered around my father's dinner table. In this crowd, at this event, English was spoken with accents from Azerbaijan, Canada, and Zimbabwe—just like at home.

Inside of forty minutes, I'd received an unwanted critique of British Petroleum's drilling practices, jokes about low U.S. subsidies for alternative energy research, and an indecent proposal for a wild weekend in the Maldives. No one said a word about nuclear energy in general, nuclear physicists in particular, or anything regarding the Oujdads at all.

But the night was young.

And it was about to get interesting.

Before I could move in on another group of guests, Philip appeared at my elbow. He whispered in my ear. “Come. Let me introduce you to our host.”

There he was, our host, stationed near a bar the size of a gamekeeper's cottage. He was young and hip and wore his thick mane of black hair to his shoulders like an African lion. His tux was the color of night and his shirt was the shade of platinum. It was open at the neck, while his European guests wore theirs buttoned up tight.

He stood watching his guests as they watched a sword-swallower with a glistening chest and acid-green fur pants. The performer plied his trade with a weapon a medieval knight could've wielded. I got heartburn just looking at it.

“I first saw this trick,” our host said, suddenly at my side, “when I was a boy. Once a year, the Bedouin would come to pay their respects to my father. My brothers and I would get lost among their tents. For nights on end, they sang and danced and celebrated with feats like this. We were always welcome to join them, just as you are welcome here, now.”

He smiled and bowed, and I was completely charmed.

I murmured my thanks and Philip said, “Miss Jamie Sinclair, may I present Amir al Amul?”

Our host's smile became a grin. “Do call me John.”

He may've grown up among the tents of the Bedouin, but his accent was loaded with the echoes of Oxford and Cambridge.

“John,” I said, and my own smile reached all the way to my toes. “I'm so glad I could join your party while I'm in town.”

“As am I.”

John walked and talked, and we went with him to the monstrous mahogany bar. A bartender appeared across from us in a snap, wearing a glaring orange jacket cut from the same pattern as the waiters' green ones. Despite this, I got the impression the bartenders occupied a higher rung on the servers' ladder—because they didn't have to wear those Carnevale bird masks.

While the bartender got busy setting up three flutes and filling them with champagne from a bottle so expensive it had to be from our host's private reserve, John asked me, “How long will you remain in town?”

“Not long.” I accepted a glass from his hand. “My father misses me terribly.”

This wasn't exactly the truth, of course. But it was close enough that someone in the know would get what I was talking about. And I suspected Amir al Amul was that someone.

“Ah, yes,” he said. “The father-daughter bond is unbreakable.”

Given my relationship with my father, I wasn't sure I was willing to go that far. Instead, I replied, “I know a young woman desperate to find her father. He went missing, you know.”

“Poor man,” John replied, eyeing Philip.

And Philip had the sense to agree. “Indeed.”

“This young woman, Miss Sinclair—is she a friend?”

“She's a business associate.”

“Of yours? Or of your father?”

Now, we were getting somewhere. John knew of my father. With any luck, he knew of Ikaat's father, too.

I reined in my excitement and said, “My father is very eager to do business with her, yes.”

John's grin set his black eyes sparkling. “Surely, you must know many people are eager to do business with her.”

And there it was. Proof that “John” Amir al Amul knew about Ikaat's defection and the information she'd bring with her to her new home. I ordered myself to stay calm.

“Unfortunately,” I said, “she isn't interested in doing business at all until she's reunited with her father.”

“Then—forgive me for saying so—your father has a problem.”

Grudgingly, I borrowed a word from Philip's lexicon. “Indeed. But my father would be most grateful to anyone who helped him solve it.”

This news got the gears in John's brain grinding. I could practically smell the smoke. In fact, at that point, I thought he'd snap his fingers, Armand Oujdad would appear, and John would remind me my father owed him one.

Instead, he shook his head. “It's a pity your father is so far away.”

“Well, it's a small world. And it gets smaller every day, doesn't it? The distance between London and Washington is practically nothing.”

“My world, Miss Sinclair, has never been that small.”

I opened my mouth to reply, but no words came out. As much as I hated to admit it, John had a point. Washington was light-years from some places on this planet. In some parts of the world, my father's favor would do John no good at all. In fact, these days, it could be a dangerous liability.

While I wracked my brain, trying to come up with a way to bring John to my way of thinking, he turned his attention on Philip.

And I saw every hope of mining him for Oujdad's whereabouts slip away.

He said, “Mr. Spencer-Dean, I understand you live in town.”

“I do. That's to say, I'm in town when I'm not at my family's country home.”

John's face lit up like a kid's at Christmas. “Ah, yes. Your family. Your father and I belong to the same club, you know, but I've never happened to meet him.”

So that was the price for John's cooperation. He didn't want a boost from my father, the senator. What he wanted more than anything was one from Philip's father, the member of the House of Lords.

Well, I didn't need a British politician calling the shots.

I needed to be the one with my finger on the trigger.

“I'm sure I could arrange an introduction,” Philip said smoothly. “My father is always interested in meeting those with solutions to problems.”

He inclined his head toward me, just in case any of us had forgotten my father was the one with the problem—and that the price of an introduction to Philip's dear old dad was the information to fix it.

“I shall keep that in mind,” John promised, clasping Philip's palm in a hearty shake.

Before I could feel like chopped liver, John seized my good hand. He brought it to his lips. He bestowed a kiss upon it.

“I am so pleased to have met you, Miss Sinclair. Do enjoy the party.”

And without another word, he swanned off to chitchat with another gaggle of party guests eager for his attention.

“Well,” I muttered to Philip, “apparently I didn't make much of an impression.”

“On the contrary. You are a vision of the beauty of the night. It was your father who was less than impressive.”

“That's too bad. Because I'd say John knows where the old man is.”

“Undoubtedly.”

Philip's confirmation didn't do anything to improve my mood. I knocked back the champagne John had ordered for me. It tasted like starlight, but it did nothing to lighten my spirits.

“Perhaps if we're among the last of the guests to leave, our host might be more talkative,” Philip suggested.

“Maybe.” But I didn't want to wait that long. “Or maybe I can learn a thing or two under the cover of this crush.”

I gestured to the partygoers cramming the room. There were bodies everywhere. Many were in silk, satin, or black tie. Still others were wearing those ridiculous bird costumes or enough spandex to outfit a dance troupe. Sourly, I hoped the performers were being paid well to appear in public like that.

“What do you intend to do?” Philip asked me.

“John lives here, doesn't he? In this house? That means his laptop is here. And his cell phone. I could learn a lot from his cell phone.”

“Darling, even if you found a room full of his filing cabinets, men like our host don't leave their dirty laundry where their guests can pick through it. Additionally, they don't look kindly on guests wandering about the place. If you think John's only security measures are the watchdogs outside, think again.”

I followed Philip's line of sight, saw instantly what he meant. The pair of gentlemen strolling past the fireplace on my left weren't gentlemen at all. The way their roving eyes sectioned the room was a little too familiar. And so were the telltale bulges, illegal in Britain, ruining the line of their tuxedo jackets.

“I don't like the look of that fellow in particular.” Philip tipped his champagne flute toward one of the circulating waiters.

The guy's grass-green coat made the most of his broad shoulders and the least of his trim waist, and the beak of his bird mask could've hidden a multitude of sins. But whatever he looked like, he sure listened well enough. From the way he took his time picking up the empties from the end table that just happened to be beside some of the old boys I'd hoped would know a thing or two about Armand Oujdad, I figured he was taking in every word they said.

And I didn't like it.

Still, I said, “All the servers look like that. That's the point of the uniform.”

“That may be, but many of them are bona fide security personnel, and there's no point in drawing security's notice.”

“Don't worry. I can handle them.” I handed Philip my empty glass, treated him to a show-stopping grin. “I'm a security specialist, remember?”