The Silver Fox and the Red-Hot Dove (14 page)

He chuckled at their pool attire and dripping bodies. “We’re looking for the secretarial pool.”

“Phew-wee. Put that joke in the sun and let it stink.”

“Stop speaking in a secret code,” Elena begged softly, looking from Clarice to Audubon with blue eyes gone nearly violet with concern. “Please.”

He let go of her hand and quickly put his arm around her in a hug. “It’s no secret code, I promise. Follow Clarice downstairs and don’t worry about a thing. I’ll be down to get you when it’s safe.”

“I hope you like root beer and marshmallows,” Clarice commented. “Because that’s what you and I are going to be stuck with to munch on until Bernard has time to come down with something more appetizing.”

“I’m sure they’ll be fine—whatever these root beers are,” Elena told her. She faced Audubon and grasped his arms. “In my country, when government men come to people’s homes, it’s very bad.”

“Here we only worry if they’re from Animal Control.
Last month I was ticketed for letting my hot dogs run free.”

“What?”

“Shhh. Nothing’s going to happen to you.”

“I’m worried about you.”

If Clarice hadn’t been observing with her motherly brown eyes, he would have picked Elena up and kissed her. Instead he merely smiled. “Go downstairs, now. I’ll see you soon.”

She looked at him stoically as she entered the stairwell with Clarice. When the panel slid shut behind them, Audubon felt he had just sealed all his treasures in a vault.

Occasionally from somewhere in the mansion would come the slap of a heavy teak door being shut, the muffled rhythm of men’s feet on hardwood floors, the low voices of a dozen FBI agents communicating with each other through walkie-talkies. Audubon half-listened to the sounds of agents rummaging through his home, while he sat, now dressed in a pale blue pullover and tan slacks, behind the massive desk in his study. He lounged in a tall, upholstered chair with his legs crossed, and drank a cup of tea.

“You have my secretary, and I intend to get her back,” Gregori Kriloff said with gruff authority, so scowling and bushy-browed that Audubon was constantly reminded of large, portly terriers with overgrown fur. Beside Kriloff’s armchair sat a handsomely suited, but very nervous State Department official, and the FBI man in charge of the case. The FBI agent kept staring at Audubon with cold, competitive envy.

“I saw her once at the Parklane Hotel reception almost two weeks ago,” Audubon said again. “She wasn’t exactly an attractive woman, and between her shyness and her lack of English, we could barely communicate. Why in the world would I want to help her defect? Or, as you even more bizarrely suggest,
kidnap her? I assure you, Doctor, my taste in women runs to statuesque brunettes with money and careers. Someone in my own class, certainly, not a drab little blonde impersonating a rock.” He sipped his tea from a china cup. “An Audubon get involved with a Russian woman? My ancestors would be turning in their graves.”

“You sly bastard, I’ve learned all about you,” Kriloff retorted. “You and your private little ‘James Bond’ organization, running about the world rescuing people, trampling on the toes of legitimate police and military personnel—”

“Actually, Mr. Audubon has often cooperated with us,” the State Department man interjected, clearing his throat. “He’s been very helpful.”

“When he doesn’t stick his face into official business,” the FBI man amended.

Audubon smiled at all three men. “I’m just a high-priced, state-of-the-art security expert, gentlemen, who offers his services to a wide range of clients. I have a business license, if you’d care to see it.”

“I care to see Elena Petrovic,” Kriloff said. “I know that she went to an island off the coast of this state, and worked briefly for a farmer-woman there. A man who fit your description asked the farmer questions about her new employee—Elena—and shortly thereafter Elena disappeared from the island. The farmer had a note from Elena, saying that she’d left with a passing fisherman to find work elsewhere. But the handwriting was
not
Elena’s.”

“None of which means a thing to me,” Audubon said smoothly. “But I’m curious—why is your secretary so important? I mean, if she wants to defect so badly, why do you care? Frankly, she didn’t seem either bright or capable of efficiency to me.”

Kriloff leaned forward, dark eyes burning with impatience. “Listen to me. I raised her. She’s like a daughter to me, but she’s a frail, troubled young woman. You can’t believe anything she tells you. She’s quite irresponsible and has a vivid imagination.” His voice dropped, becoming patient and fatherly,
as if he felt sorry for Audubon. “She has very little control of herself around men. She’s had dozens of sexual partners.
Dozens
. Don’t take her seriously if she tries to appeal to your vanity. She would be using you.”

Audubon lifted his teacup in a salute. “Here’s to the Russian nymphomaniac, wherever she may be.” He thought about smashing the cup into the doctor’s face, but banished the image. It was too tempting.

“She will leave you when she has an opportunity without a backward glance.”

“No, I’ll lock her in my bedroom and beg her to appeal to my vanity.”

“Make jokes, Mr. Audubon, but I will get her back. For her own good. She cannot roam the world unsupervised. She’s not suited for it. In fact, it might destroy her.”

“Now that’s intriguing. Tell me more.”

“You’ll see, if you haven’t already.”

Audubon set his teacup down and sighed grandly. “I’m innocent, Doctor.”

Kriloff spat out Russian words, then rose and walked out of the study, head up and dignity intact. He was not a harmless enemy, Audubon admitted distractedly, while still mentally playing back some of the things the doctor had said. He discounted the obvious lies and honed in on the hints of truth.

She’d had dozens of
lovers
? No. But from what she’d said there was no doubt that she’d been pressured to have relationships as part of the doctor’s comprehensive study of paranormals. It had not been her own choice, or pleasure, and he suspected that it had been much worse than she’d led him to believe. Whether that made her feelings for him a vulnerable mixture of new-found freedom, gratitude, and emotional naïveté, he didn’t know yet. He only knew he cherished her affection and passion.

She can’t roam the world unsupervised. It might destroy her
. That comment stayed in his mind, too, putting an ominous chill on his skin. He had to draw back from her, maintain his distance, and
understand the secrets she guarded as closely as he guarded his own.

And hope they didn’t destroy each other.

His office was sumptuous and neat—there were no papers on the massive desk to reveal anything about his work, and few personal objects to intrigue her. Except the photos. She was so worried about what might be happening upstairs that she leapt at any distraction.

The photographs were at least twenty-five years old. Clarice pulled them from behind a row of encyclopedias on the floor-to-ceiling bookcases. She didn’t explain the lack of more recent photos or their strange location, and by now Elena knew better than to expect anyone but Audubon to discuss his family in detail, so she didn’t ask.

But she didn’t need to ask to know the power of the people in the photographs. The family’s wealth leapt out at her from their elegant clothes and proud faces against a fabulous white mansion with tall columns across the front, from a sailing yacht bathed in ocean and sky, from sleek thoroughbreds outfitted for the hunt. Only Audubon’s sister, just a child, had looked at the camera with a hint of a smile.

“What’s going on here? Photo day in the bunker?”

Audubon, in the flesh, didn’t smile at all. A family tradition had caught up with him. She rushed to him, relieved that no one had taken him away. He answered her frantic questions with maddeningly vague answers. Of course they were still looking for her. Of course they suspected him. No, they had no proof.

“What did Kriloff say?”

“That you’re just a secretary. He wants you back because he feels responsible for you. He raised you.” A tiny gleam of humor lightened Audubon’s somber expression. “That you’re one hot mama, when it comes to men. He warned me not to be caught in your sultry spell, because you’re fickle and fast.”

Clarice tactfully left the office. Elena gaped at him. It was so outrageous, she had to swallow a yelp of fury. “I never wanted to be a hot mother! I did what I was told!”

“Calm down. I don’t doubt you.”

“But I’m not sure if what you understand is accurate. What do you think? Do you believe I was some kind of—”

“Elena, forget that. He’s bluffing, and it’s not important. He said something else that is important, though. He said you can’t survive in the outside world. I think he was hinting about your gift. What could he have meant?”

She said a little too quickly, “What nonsense. He’s fluffing again, of course.”

“Bluffing. Elena?” He looked at her with one dark brow arched, and the lock of silver hair that had fallen across the lined, weathered skin of his forehead seemed to her like a badge of wisdom, won in shrewd battles with far more skilled opponents than she. He stared at her grimly, waiting.

“Audubon, I am obviously surviving in the outside world. You can see.”

“I’m asking you to tell me the truth. Do you have a problem I need to know about?”

She shook her head. She would learn to deal with it. He didn’t need to know. “No problem.”

“Elena,” he said with warning.

“I said,
There’s no problem.
”

Taking her by the shoulders, he studied her face with unrelenting intensity. She held firm, but her stomach knotted. With a slow hiss of dismay he reached his verdict. “You’re hiding something damned important to you. This is one time you and I aren’t going to play games. Tell me—right now!—what Kriloff meant.”

“He meant to see if you’re a fool who’ll believe anything he says. Of course he wants you to think I belong back at the institute!”

“I’d never believe him. I want to believe you.”

“Then believe what I say about this. Stop digging
into my life. Just help me, and don’t ask so many questions.”

“That’s not a fair trade, Elena.”

“Oh? Are we bargaining for my future now?”

“You may be throwing it away, if you don’t cooperate.”

“Is that a threat?”

He lifted her to her toes, not hurting her with the grip on her arms, but putting her off balance so she sank her hands into his shirtfront for support. The white towel fell from around her waist, and she felt too vulnerable, hanging there in his powerful hands, with him fully clothed and her dressed in nothing but the white swimsuit.

Audubon looked down at her body, making the examination slow and intense. “You’ve offered to give yourself, and I could have taken you—just as you said when we were in the pool. Why haven’t I, do you think?”

“I really don’t know.”

“Because I don’t want to hurt you. So don’t accuse me of making threats.”

“How would it hurt me to make love with you?”

“When this trouble blows over, you want to be free. You deserve to be. And I don’t want to complicate your life. I’m not the right man for you. I’m away most of the time on business. I’m totally involved in my work. I don’t have anything to give to an important relationship.”

He let her down, let her get her feet firmly planted on the floor. In more ways than one. She looked at him with tortured acceptance. He didn’t want to be bothered with her. It was stunning to think she’d misunderstood all the passion between them. Was she that inexperienced with human emotion, compared to his sophisticated self?

Or was she just too odd and too foreign, too awkward and untrained in his country’s ways? A new thought chilled her. She wasn’t in his class. Audubon needed a woman at his own level: Blue-blooded, wealthy, American.

“I’ll go back to my suite now, if it’s safe,” she said in a hushed, angry tone.

“You won’t tell me what Kriloff meant?”

She stared at him evenly, then bent, retrieved her towel, and wrapped it around her waist without answering. “How soon do you think I can leave here?”

“And go where?”

“Wherever I like.” She held his gaze. “Isn’t that the whole point?”

“I’m out of answers at the moment.”

“No, you’re only thinking up new tactics. You’re as manipulative as Kriloff.”

The muscles in his jaw tightened, and his eyes took on the shuttered, ominous coldness she’d seen before. He went to his desk and sat down with smooth grace in a tall swivel chair. “Don’t forget the party in your honor tomorrow night.”

“A party? No. A show. I’m to be on display for your coconspirators.”

“And their spouses.”

“Should I tell them why I’m important to you? I could perform party tricks, if you’d like.”

He punched a button on a phone intercom. “Clarice, show Elena back to the main floor, please.” Leaning back in his chair, he steepled his fingers under his chin and watched her. In a low, hard voice he said, “You have no idea why you’re important to me.”

“I intend to find out.” She pivoted and left his office, barefoot, still damp from the pool, one hand pinning her impromptu skirt together at her hip. She felt her hopes were just as likely to fall as the towel.

At two
A.M
. Elena roamed Audubon’s house, drawn farther and farther from her suite until she reached the destination that had taunted her for hours. Barefoot, wearing only a gown and robe, she padded into the large, dark vestibule outside Audubon’s private wing. Stopping there in tormented silence, she wondered if he could see her because of some hidden camera, if he might be watching her make a fool of herself. She went to the heavily carved double doors and flattened her hands on them, wishing that the wood could talk. He was just inside, but so far away.

She was still shaken by Kriloff’s visit and the anger between her and Audubon. She had always had trouble with insomnia, because she had learned so early in life to bury her fears and fantasies. So they came out at night in vivid and sometimes frightening dreams, and even when there were no dreams, her body couldn’t slough off the tension. At the institute she’d grown accustomed to napping rather than sleeping, and often spent large portions of the night either reading, practicing ballet, or listening to pop music on her tinny-sounding record player.