ItTakesaThief (24 page)

“Nothing happened,” Nick said, his voice calm, normal color
returning to his face. “I offered her the bedroom, she insisted on taking the
couch. I got the feeling she wanted to be near two escape routes,” he added
with a brief nod at the swinging door into the kitchen and another toward the
front door. “My girlfriend Anna apologized for not having a guest room, then
Tiffany apologized for making her hostess uncomfortable in her own home. It got
a little stilted after that, so we said good night. Anna went to bed and I went
back to free you from the bedpost.” He grinned. Damian scowled.

“I don’t think Tiffany slept at all,” Nick continued. “I
found her the next morning. Still sitting on the couch. Still staring into the
fire.”

Damian could all too easily see her forlorn expression,
could feel her despair. She must have felt betrayed, not only by her father and
Sir James, but by Damian himself. The ache in his head expanded and squeezed
his chest. Now he knew the meaning of heartache.

“Had she been crying?” he asked, the image of her
tear-ravaged face twisting his heart even tighter.

“TC cry?” Nick laughed.

“Tiffany has been known to. On occasion. Under duress.”

“Yes, well…” The telephone rang and Nick went to answer it.

Damian sensed Nick was grateful for the interruption, as was
Damian himself. Coupled with his fear for Tiffany’s safety, his conscience was
flaying him. Somehow he had to make Tiffany believe she was not alone, that
they were in this together—for better or worse.

For better or worse, for richer or poorer.

Nick’s return effectively blocked the trail Damian’s mind
had wandered down. Seeing Nick’s again pale face brought Damian to his feet. He
felt the blood leave his brain and settle in his stomach, where it whirled like
an out-of-control carousel. His heart pounded so hard he thought it would break
his ribs.

“What is it?” he demanded. “Has Tiffany been hurt? Is she
dead? Damn it, say something!”

Nick grabbed the hands fisted in his sweater and pulled them
away. Looking into Damian’s eyes as if willing away the madness he saw there,
he said evenly, “As far as I know, Tiffany’s fine.”

“Then what is wrong?”

“She’s gone.”

“Gone? Gone where?”

Blowing out a harsh sound, Nick said, “Colonel Mendez
doesn’t know yet. He’s checking the airport.”

“Damn her. Damn her idiotic, stubborn pride. Damn her—”

“I don’t think swearing at her will help anything, Damian.”

“Do you have a better idea?” Damian snarled, then dragged a
deep breath into his oxygen-deprived lungs.

“Yes. Let’s go back to your hotel and start calling
limousine services.”

Damian closed his mouth, then silently headed for the door.
Nick’s idea made no sense to him, but, try as he might, he could not come up
with a better one. He never had been any good at predicting what his Emerald
might do.

But this time, his failure might cost Tiffany her life.

* * * * *

“Isn’t this cozy?” Esmé Cartierri asked as she swept into
TC’s bedroom.

TC responded with an unladylike snort. “Cozy” was not the
word she would use to describe the penthouse suite she and Esmé occupied in
Cartagena’s ritziest seaside hotel. “Posh” came to mind, immediately followed
by “uncomfortable”. The whole setup recalled the days when she traveled with
Charles and took little “trinkets” from the suites of wealthy compatriots
Charles called friends.

“I give them back, girl,” he had said the first time her
conscience got the better of her, the first time she realized what they were
doing was wrong. “I always give them back.”

“Yes,” she had said with biting sarcasm. “Once your
friends have replaced them with some expensive bauble from your own shops.”

Shrugging, he had said, “It doesn’t cost them anything.
The insurance companies are the ones who pay.” He’d laughed, a coarse sound
that had sent shivers down her spine. He had looked pleased at some delicious
irony known only to him. “And, honest citizens that they are, the owners never
report that the stolen item has been returned.”

“Aren’t you afraid they might find out? I mean, knowing
how they gossip, aren’t they bound to discover that you conveniently
‘recovered’ every single item? Isn’t that too much of a coincidence to swallow
without question?”

“And be tried for insurance fraud? Think of the scandal.”

She would have argued with him more, but he had put her
in her place with a sharp reminder that she was disloyal. As disloyal as the
mother who had deserted him on TC’s fifth birthday.

Shrugging off the unpleasant memories, TC opened the sliding
glass door and stepped out on the wide veranda. Hot, moist air wrapped around
her like a blanket. For the first time in what seemed like years, she felt
warm.

“Do come inside,” Esmé ordered. “It’s too sweltering to sit
out there.”

“It’s only in the eighties. Besides, you picked the place,”
TC said over her shoulder, then turned her gaze toward the endless Caribbean.
She could almost feel the gentle waves tickling her toes and calves, lapping at
her thighs and breasts when she sank deeper into their warm embrace. She could
float there forever, just as she longed to float forever in Ian’s—Damian’s
arms. She’d gotten no explanation from Esmé how she knew Ian Soria’s real name
was Damian Hunter. But Hunter was also the name George Fox had called him at
the Museo de Oro. Hunter was also his stepfather’s name. The whole muddled mess
was giving her a headache and she still had to face her stepmother.

Disgusted with herself, she pushed away from the high railing
and all thoughts of Ian. She had read about women who loved men despite their
abuse—mental, physical and sexual. She wouldn’t allow herself to become one of
them. Was she so big a fool that the memory of his scent, his taste, the sound
of his voice, made her insides squish like baby food? Was she such a slave to
lust that she would risk her heart for Ian’s touch? She loved him, loved making
love with him, but she refused to become his slave in any fashion.

Hell if I will!
she thought while she marched through
her bedroom into the spacious living room that separated her quarters from
Esmé’s. Besides, she had more important things to mull over, things Esmé had
refused to talk about during the limousine trip from Bogotá to Cartagena.

Her determined stride faltered. She nearly tripped over her
own feet on her way to the couch where Esmé lounged with cool, calm elegance,
her sherry-colored eyes both assessing and smug.

Do I want to know?
TC thought, suddenly fearful.
Weak-kneed, she collapsed on the couch and willed her body to stop shaking.

“Well?” she demanded when Esmé continued to stare at her.

“Why don’t you take a shower to relax you? We can talk
later.”

Goose bumps dotting her flesh, TC shook her head and forced
renewed fear to the back of her mind. It couldn’t happen again, she told
herself. No one could have tampered with the shower here. No one knew where she
was, therefore, nobody could have booby-trapped her bathroom. No one knew.
Except
Esmé and she won’t hurt me. She won’t. Will she?

“I don’t want a shower or a bath or a drink,” TC said,
hating the petulance in her voice, but powerless to stop it. “I want the
truth.”

“And you want it now,” Esmé observed in a wry tone that made
TC blush at her childish behavior.

“Yes. Please,” she added like a schoolgirl reprimanded for
her lack of manners.

Her stepmother smiled, reminding TC of all the scraped knees
Esmé had kissed and made well. Beautiful though the smile was, its warmth lay
dormant in the older woman’s eyes. TC shivered, then curled her knees to her
chest as if protecting her very soul. It occurred to her that Esmé had an
agenda of her own, one that might destroy TC’s sanity.

“You hate him, don’t you?” TC said, as certain of this
sudden insight as she was of her own heartbeat.

“Yes. I love Charles so much, I hate him.”

“Why?”

Esmé lit a gold-tipped cigarette, then seemed to focus her
gaze on the wafting smoke. “Your mother was a very beautiful woman. Did you
know that? Of course you did,” Esmé said before TC could even nod. “Charles
used to make you stand in front of her portrait while he ranted at you about
how she had deserted him, how she had betrayed him. Always him, never you.
Never your pain, only his.”

Desperate to end this emotion-laden narrative delivered in
an emotionless voice that told more of Esmé’s pain than tears could, TC
unfolded her legs, then scooted toward her stepmother. Esmé’s voice droned on.

“I envied Marlene, your mother. She had everything I wanted.
Beauty, grace. Height,” she added, a whimsical note invading her voice, a genuine
smile brightening her eyes. “Most of all, she had Charles.”

Taking a drag off her cigarette, she drew the smoke deep
into her lungs, then exhaled with a satisfied sigh. “Marlene was so poised, so
unendingly gracious, that it took a long time to see through the façade. Like a
star going nova, she glowed brighter and brighter until she vanished.

“I didn’t care. Charles had fallen out of love with her, had
divorced her and sent her packing because he had fallen in love with me. Or so
he said. But he began every day standing before her portrait, regaling her with
her failures and his triumphs.”

Esmé drew another drag off her cigarette, her eyes blank.
She seemed lost in memories. Shrugging off whatever had taken her away for a
moment, she said, “I still didn’t care, because I had Marlene’s golden life. I
had the beautiful child she had deserted. I had the magnificent lover she had
betrayed with his best friend. I had everything I had ever wanted. It took
years for me to realize I had nothing. Charles still loved Marlene, always had,
always would.” She laughed, a bitter sound that ended on a cough. “And he hated
her. Almost as much as I hate him.”

Esmé ground out her cigarette and turned toward TC. She
looked just as she had on countless weekends when TC came home from boarding
school. Any minute now, TC expected Esmé to pat the couch next to her, hold out
her hands for TC to take and raise her cheek for TC’s kiss.

Instead, in a casual tone that struck terror in TC’s soul,
Esmé said, “He killed her, you know. All the years of their marriage, inch by
inch, drop by drop, he drained the life from your mother. I believe he would
have killed her when he found out she was pregnant except, even knowing the
baby wasn’t his, I think he prayed for a boy. An heir he could mold in his own
image, the coup de gras to Marlene’s faithless heart. But Marlene had the final
laugh after all.”

“Me,” TC whispered.

Esmé held out her hands and TC grabbed them like a lifeline.
“You, my precious darling.”

TC burrowed into the loving arms of the only mother she
could remember clearly and found the never-ending comfort she had always felt
there. “Why didn’t you leave him?”

“I made a promise to your mother. I promised her I would
protect you and try to love you as much as she did.” TC felt Esmé’s smile
against her cheek and snuggled closer. “Loving you wasn’t hard. Protecting you
was. Charles was determined to mold you into a monster, thereby having not only
the ultimate triumph over Marlene, but making you into a creature your real
father would hate.”

“Did he succeed, Esmé? Did Charles make my father hate me?”

“No, love, he did not succeed. Your father loved you when
you were his daughter-in-law. And he loves you now.”

Every muscle in her body tightened as if desperately trying
to hold flesh and bone together. “Sir James is my father?” Horrified, she
pushed from Esmé’s arms, paced away and then whirled to face the older woman.

“What’s wrong, darling? I thought you’d be pleased.”

“What’s wrong? My oh-so-loving father let me marry my own
brother, that’s what’s wrong. And you thought it would please me? What kind of
monsters are you people?”

In the blink of TC’s eyes Esmé transformed from loving
parent into hard-eyed bitch. “In the first place, William was James’ adopted
son. In the second place, incest was never an issue. Despite the fact that you
adored William, James knew William’s tastes ran in another direction.”

“Don’t you think I knew that? Did you think I had my
romantic little head up my butt? That I was too young, too naїve, to see that
William loved Jerry more than he loved anyone? Did you think me so stupid that
I would accept cancer as the cause of William’s death? Good Lord, don’t you
think I know the difference between cancer and AIDS?” She paced the length of
the room, then whirled back to face her stepmother. “William was a homosexual.
A promiscuous homosexual who thought he was immortal. And why not? We all
worshipped him. Forgave him any transgression. Let him walk all over our little
peasant hearts, despite the fact that we knew—we knew—he was killing himself.
William was my best friend, yet I killed him as surely as if I’d taken a knife
to his throat.”

Esmé sat up straighter and applauded, her hands coming
together slowly, a mockery of approval. “Bravo, TC. A remarkable performance,
one Charles would approve of wholeheartedly.”

“You could have protected me from Charles, kept him from
turning me into a thief. Did you hope I’d get caught? Would that have suited
you? Seeing my name and Charles’ smeared all over the newspapers? Damn you,
Esmé. Damn you to hell.” Before she burst into tears, TC fled the suite.

“A remarkable performance, indeed,” a familiar voice
observed from the door to Esmé’s bedroom.

“How the hell did you get in here?”

“The maid let me in,” he said. Smiling, he sauntered across
the room, then opened the sliding glass door to the veranda.

Esmé reached for the telephone, but the man tore the cord
from the wall and caught her wrist in an iron grip. The pressure was
unbearable. She bit her lip until it bled, screamed when she felt the bones
snap.