Wilderness of Mirrors (16 page)

Ivan’s cadence changed. “Where did you get this? No rabbits this time.”

Good. They were playing. “Laayounne, Western Sahara.”

“You can get more?”

“Much more.” Nigel rolled his neck. “I’ve a contact there who helps me. I give him money and he stores it away for moving to America.”

Ivan spit. “America? Why?”

Nigel shrugged. “Word of the economic collapse missed Africa. They never had one to begin with.”

Drasnov snorted, but there was a smirk under that hard mouth. “And if you can get this, why come to me? Why not sell it yourself?”

“I don’t like working with people. If I sell it to you, I only have to work with one.”

“A wolf, eh.” Ivan leaned in again. “I don’t like wolves, Andrus Sepp. You know why?”

Nigel knew exactly why. “Because you’re one of us.”

It had the right effect. Ivan expanded with conceit. “We only need one wolf in this pack, eh Jaak?”

The Rat snickered. Nigel knew that one wanted him dead. The feeling was mutual.

“Cut him loose.”

Jaak’s eyes widened.

Ivan was all slyness. “Hopefully you’re done praying, Andrus. It’s time to show me if you mean business. Jaak, bring her in.”

Nigel stared hard at the shower wall. 323 tiles. No, 324. They had to be multiples of two. The tiles were spaced evenly.

Her eyes were wide. She didn’t think he’d do it. Ivan’s gun was warm. Uncomfortable in Nigel’s calloused grip.

If he multiplied by three, he’d have the stall done and could find out exactly how many there were in the room. The doors were shatterproof glass.

Bang. One hole. No more wide brown eyes.

“
Clean the carpet, Jaak.”

Frantically, Nigel twisted the gauge and pitched from the stall. Dripping wet, he staggered across the room, footprints slick behind him. Hands shaking, he fell against a teak bench. For the first time in his life, he wished Brad were around to discuss religion. Nigel would ask him how forgiveness was granted, because he’d gone and done something so awful, the very core of him was beginning to melt down like fucking Chernobyl.

He struggled to focus. To calm himself.

The floor itself had larger tiles. 12 by 12. Maybe 13 if he counted the grout.

The room was stuffed with nooks and crannies. Half-tiles cut at corners. Fast, faster. Still his head computed.

Then suddenly, he remembered his date with Sam.

Reason began to creep back into his rotting flesh.

Until the little voice began whispering again.

You think Sam’ll give you absolution?

You said The Lord’s Prayer and drilled your woman with a 9 x 17 mm bullet. What do you expect, dinner and a benediction?

It was 17:30 on Valentine’s Day.

Too late for everything.

Boots had carried them himself; no sense paying someone to say three words. Not of course that he had planned to say them today. But the stage was to be set.

Only it had all gone pear-shaped.

He stood outside
Bond and Teller Interiors
reeling. His hands were empty because Sam’s prick-tease of a partner had taken the crimson spray of roses inside.

Jane? Was that what she’d said?
He didn’t remember. Not after she’d bent his ear about Sam being blessed enough to have two admirers, when her own boyfriend had gone and ditched her ‘
On Valentine’s Day, no less’.

Her other words were swallowed by the sticky fog swimming up between his brain and mouth. Somehow he managed to smile warmly and play the doting affectionate role of a godfather, but his mind had gone on a hellish ride.

Faces morphed and bled together until the bastard banker from Sam’s rental became another man. Gruesome and wrecked by fire. Clawing his way out of the fractured burning car. Eyes, oddly topaz, laughing all the while chunks of melted flesh fell around him on the snowy ground.

Not again. There was not a fucking chance he’d be made a fool of twice.

He stamped down the stairs, an uproar of emotion directing his actions.
I’ll call Farrington Hawkes
.
He’ll know exactly how to deal with the bloody bastard. And this time, I sure as hell am going to watch.

S
am peered into the dimness with a concentrated lack of enthusiasm. The hostess had exiled her to Hell where a table had been reserved under Bond/Forsythe.

Brad’s influence.

God knew why he loved the basement so much.

She reminded herself it was her own fault for losing Nigel’s number. When she’d texted Brad, he’d refused to give it to her and intimated she’d better get her arse to L’Osteria or he’d lose his standing with the owner.

Which left her on the well-worn flagstone stairwell, like Dracula’s unwilling date, her thrashing heart a beacon of disaster. Tam drifted down the stairs, snarfing the table of a rather putout couple.

“Sorry,” Sam said when she finally made it to them. “He likes linguine.”

Her eyes adjusted and Nigel became visible. He was clean-shaven. Elegant in dark denim and a white oxford. Better looking than anyone she’d ever seen.
A colossal injustice.

He stood, pulled out her chair, and said, “You look lovely.”

I don’t want you to think that. Yet I wore this just for the look in your eyes.
“Is that Brad’s shirt?”

“Yes.”

She sat at the very edge of her seat. The scent of cooking garlic and damp brick pervaded. Above it, she detected lime in his drink and the harsh soap of locker room showers.
I cannot let this happen.
“Actually, I tried to cancel but lost your number. Sorry.” She shrugged, unable to do much else.

His small smile worked its way to the corners. “Don’t apologize. I only wanted you to come to keep my mind off other things.” Then his hand dropped unconsciously to Tamar’s head.
Please don’t. I can’t let you break my heart as well as his.
He pushed a menu across with the other. “I’m getting Brodetto di Pesce.”

She panned the cream and blue menu and tried not to think of Tam. Of Marc. The paper was crisp and she flicked the corner with her thumbnail.

Nigel touched his wineglass, just enough to edge her downcast eyes in the direction of their approaching waitress.

“May I get you something to drink?”

Sam pointed to Nigel’s San Pellegrino. “The same and I’ll have the Calamari Spezzatino and a Caesar salad without anchovies.”

Nigel ordered and handed their waitress the menu.

‘
Back where we started. Here we go ‘round again.’

Even now, almost twenty years later, the melody, one of her mother’s favorites, gurgled through her.

“What kind of music do you like?” Sam wondered, desperate to get the night over with.

Those eyes were lasers in the murk. “Classical. But not opera.”

“Not classic rock?”

“I have issues with voices.” He ran a hand over his head, leaving his hair to snap like wind-driven wheat fields.

Beach stones being dragged to sea.
That’s how his voice would sound
.
“How so?”

“I can’t concentrate when I hear lyrics.”

“How about jazz?”

He shrugged and shook the cubes in his drink. “It’s fine.” Those crazy eyes locked on hers once more and she loathed the fact her unconscious had already anticipated it.
I can’t breathe when you look at me like that.
“Were you born deaf, Sam?”

She was surprised by the question. “No. The concussion of a car bomb deafened me.”

He stared at her for a long moment. “How old were you?”

“Eleven.” A year full of delights. “It killed my mother.”

“Is that when you went to live with your uncles?”

“Yes.” She pressed the edges of the tablecloth away from her. He hadn’t apologized or said something stupid like, ‘You’re lucky you survived’ or ‘So that’s why you don’t sound deaf’.
Bastard
. “What did you want to keep your mind off of?”

If he flinched, it was internal, and she only caught the merest of shock waves in the surface of his pupils.
Why is it you’re so very good at hiding your true feelings, Mr. Forsythe?

“You wouldn’t like my answer.”

“Try me.”

A long swallow drove the length of his neck. The white oxford was crisp against his skin. It suited him. “I blew it with a good friend.”

She’d seen it in John. The same haunted look the night he’d shot a 16-year-old kid who’d held up a convenience store. “That’s an interesting way to phrase it.” She didn’t want to understand him, to see the way he ticked and whirred. Only she did.

His face flattened. The waitress came and went. The scent of bread pushed away some of the horror.

“I’m a cold man.”

“If you were callous, you wouldn’t have wanted company.”

Nigel sawed a chunk from the loaf. Steam rippled. “Cowardly, then.” His jaw worked the bread.

“You don’t believe that.” She took the other half and slathered it in oil and hot peppers. No use calorie watching tonight. Her stress was burning barge-loads. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

Nigel envied her enjoyment of the bread. He never savored his food, just downed his without thinking about its heat, texture and flavor. He struggled to name the ones swimming around his tongue: nuts maybe, bitter wheat and the slide of salty oil.

She’d wanted to cancel, so perhaps she wasn’t who he thought she was. It cheered him somewhat. “I read
BLUE
.”

The corner of her mouth lifted. “Brad’s copy.”

“You wrote it with your uncle.”

There was a tuneless humming sound vibrating through her long, elegant neck. He remembered it from the car ride. From the night at Brad’s.
Why do you do that, Sam?

“I did.”

“Decoration as therapy?” It was a bit ludicrous.

“It worked for us.”

He couldn’t imagine it. Mathematical equations, maybe. But wall paper and throw pillows?

His eyes picked up the turn of a head. There was an irregular toss of tables surrounding them. Far enough, but not for busy ears. And the ginger woman with perfect nails and a droning husband had a pair. Sam picked up his cue. She dropped her voice and came closer.

Her elbows slid apart. Her top was runched at the cleavage and afforded him a classic view of firm curves. He concentrated on her eyes.

“Uncle John was diagnosed with cancer two years ago. It hit Loch hard. Harder I think than the deaths of my mom and grandfather.” There wasn’t a glimmer of tears along her long sweep of lash.
Something neither of us can do.
“Throughout the treatments, he refrained from working. In the end, the lack of creativity and sense of accomplishment nearly drove him mad.”

“And you felt it helped you with your own losses?”

“Maybe.” Her eyes flicked and narrowed. Something else hid there. More secrets.

He thought back to the book. The inside cover was a patchwork of old notes written in the margins of an eclectic assortment of literature. He thought of a particular handwritten fragment, slanted and scornful, that stood out from the rest of the ink-blue patchwork.
‘Karenin had the right to his anger. But if Anna had not been married? What could she have found with her Vronsky, I wonder?’
Her mother had written those cryptic musings, of that he was certain. This other something was only to do with Sam. “What happened to Marc?”

That pulled the one-armed bandit to three cherries. Her face went dead white. “He stepped in front of the Acela. It’s a high-speed train.”

“Why?”

“Because I was a callous bitch.” She meant it. But there wasn’t a lot of regret written across her countenance, just devastation.

“Sane people don’t kill themselves when they break up.”
Something is not right.

The brown eyes distanced themselves from London. “We were at Parsons Design School together. Dated for almost two years. Then, when I took a few months off to model in Hong Kong, I broke his heart.”

Marc was a sadistic son of a bitch, Nigel decided. “I’m sorry.”

“So am I.” She swirled the bread until it was translucent with oil. “Change of subject?”

He forced a grin knowing levity couldn’t be lip-read. “Why on earth would you want to work for my sister?”

Her echoing smile was a prism of light in the dark corner. “You mustn’t have read all of
BLUE
.” She wiped her mouth with the edge of a napkin. He would have liked to oblige her with his thumb. “We decided that design had to be an extension of both the decorator and the client. Often though, money doesn’t equate with taste. So the idea of decoration donation was born. Our clients pay a little extra to be part of a design process which, in some way, reflects a passion – or charity if you will – of theirs.”

She opened her palm and fingers to him. “Your sister adores dogs. My firm worked to design a unique fabric,
Posh Paws
, which can be special ordered. Portions of the proceeds from that fabric and from the work at Barkley go to a no-kill shelter in London.”

Nigel was reminded of three decades of black tails and paws. When no one else was allowed to wear boots inside Barkley Manor, those dogs had had the run of it. “Still, not everyone can have similarly philanthropic ideas.”

A devious flicker lit her face. “Those clients pay a bit more for our services. And I assure you, that money goes to places I’m quite happy to send it.”

C had no idea how like the rest of them Ms. Samantha was.

Then dinner wedged itself between them.

She made quick work of her salad and calamari, eating with precision and appreciation. He was reminded once more of his methodical nature. Cut. Chew. Swallow. He didn’t consciously savor or even register tastes. Unless of course, the food could possibly be contaminated.

“How is yours?” she asked.

He considered her question. “Quite good.”

“Will you see your sister again?”

“She wants me to join them at Eton. Dylan’s got Field Games Saturday.” It reminded him that Will had yet to return his call.
Must try again later.