Touch of Magic (29 page)

She reined in her horse. Her right hand rested
loosely on her thigh, and it felt almost normal. Al
most. Not completely. The camera, with its long, heavy lens, was leaving a sweaty streak under the
band that held it. They'd been out for over an hour.
Serafin
squinted at her, his nose wrinkling.

"Come on, Channing. What're we hunting?"

Deliberately -- and out of wariness -- she'd been
keeping all her senses tuned to the surroundings,
leaving little room for thoughts about the object of
her search. Now she sighted through the camera again, as she'd done periodically.

"I thought you read minds," she said.

He cocked his head.

"You're doing something to make it hard."

She still didn't answer. Was that a deliberate line
she saw winding in the distance?

Letting the camera down, she nudged her
mount.

"Let's ride up that way."

They climbed higher,
Serafin's
horse resisting the
effort at times. He wasn't an expert rider. Channing
started to wonder if she'd been grasping at straws
coming out here. Then the horses wheezed up a
dusty ridge, and ahead of them lay a rough private
drive. It twisted still higher. Whatever might wait
at the top was screened from the probing of
Channing's
camera by the landscape itself, a hodgepodge of boulders and steep angles. Hiding frustration, she assessed the drive again. It gave an obvious vantage
point to anyone at the top. She was turning her
horse when a metal plate fixed in one of the near
boulders caught her eye.

"Desert View Clinic," read
Serafin
as they rode
closer.

A scrubby little bush had taken root in a crack in the rock and was starting to obscure the sign. The Desert View Clinic didn't look open for business.

Channing felt her pulse quickening. This was the
break they needed, maybe. The kind of place that
might have had a vault once, for patients' valuables
or medicine.

"Let's get back," she said.

Avoiding the drive, she led the way back down toward an outcrop of rock. She was planning. Tell
Ellery what she'd found. This was one of the places
on his list, and it certainly looked promising. If noth
ing else turned up--

She rounded the outcrop and jerked on her reins
so sharply that the horse beneath her reared. She
was face-to-face with Henri
Ballieu
. He, too, was on
horseback, and he had a gun with a silencer leveled
at her. At us, she amended sickly, hearing
Serafin's
gasp at her flank.

"Looking for something?"
Ballieu's
voice held a deceptive pleasantness.

In a split second Channing decided, almost intuitively, how she had to play this.

"I'm looking for you,
Ballieu
," she said as
smoothly as he had. "Was your meeting last night
successful?" She gave a velvety smile as the pupils of his eyes widened almost indiscernibly. Knowing
how to read an audience, how to judge a reaction,
was paying off. "I put something in your watch," she
said. "I thought I should ... know you better. Haven't you discovered it?"

It was, she theorized, the last thing in the world
he'd expect her to say. But maybe what someone
who aspired to take over a business like
Yussuf's
would really do. By volunteering exactly what he'd
meant to confront her with, she'd made him uncertain. She let her eyes flick suggestively to the surrounding rocks.

"Put the gun away,
Ballieu
. Do you think we'd come here alone?
Yussuf's
people -- my people --
 
have been watching this place since before you arrived."

He looked cunning now, and it made her own confidence waver.

"And the one you left up there who's dead?"

Damn. This could be a test. Or had he been up
there ... killed whoever was guarding the place? But he couldn't have gotten the film or he wouldn't
still be here wasting time with her.

She shrugged.

"We're testing each other,
Ballieu
. We both know
it."

All the time she could hardly swallow, trying not
to watch his gun, trying not to think of
Serafin
in the
middle of this.

Ballieu
switched his horse around. Coming
nearer. Half circling her. The gun didn't waver.

"You're bluffing," he said. "You don't know where
the film is and you're hunting it."

Wrong, she thought. You're confirming what I need to know.

Calmly, pretending indifference to him with ev
ery ounce of acting skill she'd ever acquired,
Channing
reached up and removed the camera from around her neck. She shook her hair back.

"If you knew as much about me as I know about you, you'd know I'm a geologist. I'm fascinated by
rock formations." She gave a provocative smile.
"Good cover for the kind of work I did for
Yussuf
,
don't you think?"

Steeling herself, she turned to
Serafin
and handed
him the camera.

"Take this back for me. I have business to talk
over."

Serafin's
dark eyes met hers and received the
message to do more than just take it back. He'd take
it straight to Ellery and tell him what had hap
pened. She felt sure of it. She hit his horse on the rump.

Ballieu
veered, on the verge of stopping the boy,
but she spoke again.

"There are federal agents watching you,
Ballieu
.
Do we cooperate?"

Once more she'd startled him, made another
crack in his distrust of her if she was lucky. His gun
dipped slightly.

"How do you know who's watching me?"

His eyes were narrow. Accusing. Yet wavering in
their certainty. Channing looked at him with what
she hoped was guile.

"I have my ways."

She could feel the two of them in double
checkmate, will against will, wit against wit, her
personality locked with his. A gleam she couldn't
identify touched his eyes. He studied her and slid his tongue across his lower lip.

"
Yussuf's
people aren't happy about your killing him," she continued. "But they'll do whatever I tell
them. If I walk out with you when you get the film,
they'll accept our truce. If not ... Can you see
behind all these rocks?"

He chuckled suddenly, a chilling sound. He
brought his horse closer to hers. His gun was lowered.

"And if I agree to a truce, what more?" His hand
ran up the side of her throat. "There'll be more than
business, perhaps? You entice me." His fingers
turned over to stroke the faint line of her windpipe.

Channing felt her flesh crawl. Sensuality and the
threat of death mingled in his touch.

"We'll see," she said, struggling to maintain her
poise.

He moved back. He slid the gun into a pocket,
unwrapped a red-and-white candy, and dropped
the cellophane on the ground. An expression like
amusement curled his mouth.

"Be at the small pool at midnight," he said. "We'll
go from there."

As she started to leave, the small of her back still
prickling, he caught her reins.

"If anything goes wrong -- if you've lied to me --
 
you won't walk out, either."

Hate, like the dark sides of a box, closed around
her. She couldn't touch him. She couldn't betray
the contempt she felt. Yet she wouldn't bow be
neath the fear he generated, either.
"I hope you're better dressed at midnight," she
said. "That flower you're
wearing's
too gaudy."

The outrush of his breath was audible as he
looked down to see the orange paper flower pro
jecting from his shirt pocket. He realized she'd
placed it there, and he hurled it angrily to the
ground.

It had been an act of defiance causing it to appear
there, an act she realized she should have resisted
yet didn't regret. Channing spun, setting her course toward the resort, deliberately not looking over her
shoulder.

Twenty-one

"See
Ballieu
out there?" Walker, none too firm in his saddle, galloped up as Channing reached
the stable area. "He gave me the slip."

From half a dozen lengths behind them, Ellery saw Channing slide to the ground and nod in an
swer. She paid no attention as Walker took off in pursuit. As though attempting to steady herself, she
bowed her forehead against the side of the horse
she'd ridden.

Tension easing, Ellery swung his own horse close.
Her face was pale, but she looked unharmed. Her eyes sprang open.

"I know where the film is," she said, breathing
hard.

"Old mental hospital on long-term lease to some
movie company?" He spoke quickly, keeping part of his attention on Walker's retreating figure while
his horse danced impatiently. "
Serafin
told me. Said
you'd run into
Ballieu
and he'd pulled a gun--"

"It's okay. He's taking me up there at mid
night--"

"He could be lying. I'm going to keep my eye on
Walker. Back me up."

He gave his horse its head and lunged ahead.
They had lost several seconds in conversation. Now,
as he reached the outer gate of the stable area, he
saw Walker already circling back. Another dot far
ther out was heading in as well. Wheeling, Ellery trotted back and dismounted, watching Channing,
just up in her saddle again, do likewise.

"We look like the goddamn cavalry," he said in
disgust.

"Real subtle, huh?"

"Yeah."

Her mouth had twisted sidewise, reflecting an
irony similar to his own. The shared recognition of
absurdity made him feel better, even knowing their
backs were against the wall. Smacking the horses on
their rumps, he sent them toward the stable.

"I thought maybe Walker was our man, and the
meeting going down now. But they're both coming
in," he said.

"So it's not Walker?"

Ellery squinted, wishing he could see the answer.

"Who knows? Maybe we were just too close be
hind." He brought his gaze back from the horizon.
"I'd dug up some facts of my own before
Serafin
found me. It was under a phony name, of course,
but
Yussuf
subleased that old clinic about a week
ago. The check number traced back to an account
he kept."

She was quiet. He knew it still hurt her, facing the
fact that a man she'd valued as friend had been
what
Yussuf
was.

"You'd never make it up there in daylight, El
lery," she said with a waver in the steadiness of her
voice. "The place has an open view of everything
moving below. And guards. I think
Ballieu
killed
one."

He nodded, lost in thought.

"We'll gamble on your meeting at midnight then,
unless there's movement beforehand."

They started back toward the grounds of the
lodge. Ellery looked at her, eyes traveling the
length of her body.

"You have strings and things under the costume
you wear for your act?"