Dead Ringer (28 page)

"Any trouble with Copley?"

She shook her head. "I played invalid." But she didn't want to talk about Copley. "You held me that night, rocked me in the chair."

He admitted nothing. "I tried to get you to leave."

"But I wouldn't."

"Not until I came back with a way into your locked room."

"And did you?"

They met in the middle of the room, close enough to touch, to breathe the same air, to kiss.

"Yes." His gaze fixed on her face and her heart crashed against her chest. She was drowning and didn't care. He'd come for her because he'd been worried about her, and he'd let her stay because he had faith in the job she was doing. She felt giddy with happiness.

A soft rap on the door pulled her out of the surf. "It's Victor," she whispered.

Finn's face changed, hardened, cooled. "Coming here, to your bedroom?"

Another knock.
"Milaia,
it's me."

"Milay-"

"It's Russian. It means darling or dearest or something."

She looked around desperately. Where could she put Finn?

"Darling?'

"Just a minute, love," she called.

Finn's eyes were like two ice picks. "Love?"

She ran to the closet and swung open the door. "Get in."

"Nice work," he said in a low voice, and she pretended she hadn't heard the sardonic tone.

"For God's sake, Finn, he can't find you here."

"No," he said with a trace of resentment. "Of course not." He ducked into the closet and she pushed the door shut, but he stopped her from closing it all the way.

Victor's voice came through the doof again. "Is everything all right?"

She tore into the bed, pulling the covers up demurely. "Come in."

Victor stepped in and scanned the room suspiciously. "I thought I heard voices."

"Voices?" She smiled faintly. "No, I... I had a bit of a headache and was in the bathroom with a wet cloth."

His face immediately took on an expression of deep concern, and he crossed to the bed. "I'm sorry you're not feeling well again."

"Oh, it's nothing, really." She put a hand to her head, rubbing the right temple, hoping she was convincing enough.

"Poor baby." He settled beside her, pulling away her hand and taking over the job himself. His gaze scoured her face, engulfing her, morphing her into the woman he wanted her to be. "Wait a moment," he whispered, then rose to turn off the light.

Returning to the bed, he leaned back against the headboard and opened his arms. "Come here." He drew her against him and darkness enveloped her.

Stomach heaving, she lay rigid, inhaling his suffocating aftershave and trying desperately to relax. But all she could think about was Finn a few feet away. Could he hear? See? Was he as sickened as she was? For a crazy minute, she hoped he would burst out and tell her she didn't have to lie next to Victor, touching him, letting him touch her.

But Finn didn't burst out of the closet. He didn't tell her to stop. He remained quiet and hidden because that was his job.

And this was hers.

"Do you remember how I used to hold you like this?" Victor murmured against her forehead. "It feels so good to hold you again."

Her heart squeezed, but she played along. "I know."

He kissed her temple, just below the hairline.
"Milaia,
you must get well. We have so much to do, and I need you beside me."

She swallowed her aversion and forced the words out in a soft whisper, hoping they would lead him to tell her what she wanted to know. "I want to help you, Victor. Tell me how I can help you."

"By getting well. I couldn't bear it..." His voice cracked, and he paused to clear it. "You must get well. I want you by my side always."

Yes, but for what? "I won't leave you. Ever again. I promise."

"Oh, God," he whispered.
"Dusha moia, radost'moia,
my heart my joy." His mouth trailed downward, over her cheek and onto her mouth. Her soul contracted at the touch of his lips, but she opened her mouth to him. She had no choice. This was her mission. This was what Finn wanted her to do. But she never dreamed he'd be there, listening, watching.

She endured Victor's kiss just long enough to make it real, but no longer, then gently pulled away. Tenderly, she ran a hand down his face.

"Tell me about your work. Tell me how wonderful it will be when we're working side by side."

He pressed her face against his chest, holding her tight. He was trembling. "Tomorrow, when you're feeling better. You must rest now."

Disappointment surged, but she quickly hid it. What more would she have to do to earn his complete trust?

A lot. The thought lodged in her throat. Like a lump she couldn't swallow, but sadly, she sensed she'd succeed. Victor was edging off the cliff that would bring him to her. A touch, a caress, the right whispered word might push him over. Tonight. It could happen tonight. Now.

But not with Finn listening.

Then Victor kissed her forehead lovingly, and the moment passed.

He rose, but before he left, he poured a glass of water, guiding her hand in the darkness. "Drink as much as you can. The water will strengthen you." He kissed her palm, rubbing her hand against his cheek, then left.

She stared down at the glass in her hand, feeling the weight of it in the darkness. Was the drug supposed to make her more compliant, more willing to submit to him? A wave of acid humor shook her.

She was all his. That's what she was here for. No chemical inducements necessary.

She put the glass of water on the nightstand, switched on the bedside lamp, and sank back against the pillows.

* * *

Deep in the recesses of the closet Finn stood rigid with tension. A thick, spicy fragrance filled his senses as the sound of two people on a bed filtered in. He heard their words, heard the sounds of lips smacking, and suddenly, the stink inside the closet was choking him. Pictures whirled in his head. Mouths together. Limbs entwined. Jesus Christ, Borian was going to...

Shut up and do your job. She's doing hers.

And getting the worse end of the deal.

A bitter wave of guilt washed over him. Unbidden, a picture of the first time he'd seen her rose in his mind. Body-hugging white dress with plenty of skin showing, drunk and gyrating for a pack of drooling men.

The closet closed in, so stultifying he almost couldn't breathe. But he suspected now what he hadn't considered then. That the dress had been a costume, as much a disguise as the clothes he'd made her wear for Borian. Underneath hid the fragile woman who'd been viciously hurt and would do anything to protect herself from that pain.

And he'd asked her to do the very thing that would hurt her again. To give up control to someone else and act the whore for him.

A constricting vine of nausea spread over his belly. His hand jerked, about to shove open the closet door, when the bed creaked. Someone stepped off. Water splashed in a glass. A murmur of good nights. The click of a door latch and then light flared beneath the rim of his hiding place.

Blood churning, he opened the door.

She lay against the pillows, eyes closed, and he remembered how she'd looked the other night when he'd carried her in his arms and put her in the rocking chair. Sweet and innocent in the moonlight.

Drugged and half-dead.

God, the things she'd endured because of him. And those that could still be on the horizon. An image of Jack's bloodstained head flashed in Finn's mind. Automatically, his hand balled into a fist and a muscle twitched in his jaw.

"Are you all right?" The question came out rougher than he'd intended, but the anger was at himself not her. Too bad she didn't know that.

She opened her eyes, darted a glance his way, then focused on the blanket at her lap, smoothing it out in nervous repetition. "Just dandy," she saidVith her familiar sarcastic edge. "How about you? You... look a little green around the edges."

She was fishing for comfort and absolution, and they were about the only thing he could give at the moment. He sat down beside her with a crooked smile, trying to make light of the situation. "I'm fine. Always wondered if I'd take to that Peeping Tom stuff."

"And... did you?"

He felt the tension vibrating her body, the held breath as she waited for the slap across her face. Instead, he covered her hand with his, gently ending the compulsive rubbing. "No," he said gruffly.

She turned her hand in his, gripping it. And suddenly his arms slid around her and she folded into him, clinging like a limpet.

"Did he hurt you?" He held her close, his fingers threaded in her golden hair. "If he hurt you, I'll kill him, I swear it."

"No," she said in his ear, her voice sending ripples of heat through him. "He's barely touched me. Tonight was the first time... the first time he-"

Finn pulled away to look at her. "Then you haven't sl-"

Quickly she shook her head. "No."

A wave of relief clogged his throat, but she looked down at her hands. "But maybe that's why he hasn't told me where the plutonium is." An embarrassed blush stole up her neck and into her face. "You wanted me to get close. I guess..." She shrugged, men confronted him squarely, though he could tell it cost her. "I guess I haven't gotten close enough."

Silence descended, broken only by the moan of rising wind rattling the windowpane. Another storm was brewing, mirroring his turmoil. He wished he could scoop her up and carry her someplace where she'd be safe and protected. Where Borian would never touch her again.

"Maybe you won't have to," he said, trying not to let her see how desperately he clung to mat hope. "My money's on the locked room. If we get in and find the plutonium, your job is over." From his pocket, he took a small black box, no bigger man a jeweler's ring box. "Here's the sequencer. We hook it into the keypad on the door and it will search for the locking combination."

He handed the box to her, his fingers accidentally brushing hers. She tensed at his touch, and something sharp buzzed through him.

Take her somewhere safe? Yeah and then bury himself inside her. Christ, he was no better than Borian.

"So when do we go in?" She handed the box back, and he noticed the slight tremor in her fingers.

'Tonight. We get in, we find what we're looking for, we get out."

He expected her to collapse in relief; getting out of there should have been her first priority. But instead, her green eyes looked troubled. "And then what? You get what you want and everyone lives happily ever after?" She threw the covers off, slipped out of bed, and walked toward the window, arms crossed defensively. "I've been there, Sharkman, and it doesn't work that way. You told me Victor's done favors for powerful people. With connections like that he could get away with anything."

"Not anything."
Jack. Christ.
But he said nothing about Jack. They had a big night ahead and he needed her sharp and focused. "This isn't small-town Texas, and I'm not some fat guy with a belly and a tin badge."

Her back was hunched and he stole up behind her, wanting to ease her tension, touch her, take comfort from her.

But he didn't dare. If he touched her now, he wasn't sure he could stop. And after what Borian had almost done...

He slid around until he faced her. She was frowning at the floor and he slipped a knuckle under her chin to tilt it up. "Borian will get what's coming to him. Trust me."

She searched his face, her expression part hope, part doubt. "I want to, Sharkman." She gave him a small brave smile. "More than you know. More than I should."

CHAPTER
16

The house was eerily still as Angelina led Finn down a stealthy path toward the north wing and the hidden corner where she'd found the locked room. The wind that had kicked up hours ago had ripened into a full-blown electrical storm, and she jumped at a boom of thunder.

"Easy," Finn said in a low, tight voice. "It's just thunder. If we're lucky the sound will cover our search."

To blend into the shadows, he wore a black hooded nylon windbreaker that had been packed into a tiny square that fit neatly in his pants pocket. Just before they left her room, he'd shaken it out and pulled it over his shirt and head, covering every speck of white. She had changed her clothes, pulling on her black jeans-and-sweater SWAT girl outfit. She'd even covered her hair with the scarf Finn had demanded. But she still felt exposed, the dead animals on the wall casting shadows in the dim glow of muted night lighting, shadows that seemed to follow her everywhere.