Night Magic (18 page)

“Please, no! I don’t know anything, I swear I don’t?” Clara was babbling through falling tears. “Please. …” Her eyes encountered McClain’s. His were such a dark green that they looked almost black. “Jack!”

“All right, Rostov. You win. Back off.” McClain’s voice was hoarse. Clara didn’t understand for a moment as she watched the slow smile that stretched Rostov’s mouth. His pale blue eyes gleamed. Then the cigarette was put back in his mouth and he turned to look at McClain. At a gesture from Rostov, Clara was abruptly released. She sank to her knees, dazed with relief. It was a moment before she could even cover herself. Then she scrambled back into the protection of shirt and sweater like a rabbit running for its burrow. Not that the garments would protect her, but she couldn’t stand to be naked to their view.

“Well?” Rostov drew out the syllable, not troubling to conceal his triumph.

“It’s on the damned cat,”

“What?” Rostov’s voice was sharp. The cigarette came out of his mouth again to be held tensely in his hand as he stared at McClain.

“You heard me. The cat. The one we’ve been lugging around. The microfilm is on the cat.”

Rostov swore in Russian. Clara blinked, her attention caught despite the pain. McClain had hidden the microfilm on
Puff?
No wonder he had been so careful of him! Fuzzily she remembered him saying, Just because I didn’t let the damned cat drown doesn’t make me some kind of hero, you know. Some kind of hero, indeed! He’d been saving his precious microfilm, and not Puff at all! She looked across at him, blinking, knowing she should be angry but too dazed with pain and fear, only to find that his attention was all on Rostov.

“And where is the animal now?”

McClain smiled, a slow and mocking smile that made Rostov’s lips tighten.

“Where is Puff now, Clara?” McClain was looking over at her with a kind of triumph in his eyes. Rostov’s eyes followed his. Clara felt her heart lurch as those merciless pale blue eyes pinned her. He would hurt her again. …

“The pound. They took him to the pound,” she gasped.

“Where?”

“At Camp Lejeune.”

Rostov uttered another short Russian curse and turned to Malik. “Tell them to stop.”

Malik pulled a walkie-talkie out of his pocket and said something into it in Russian. A moment later the truck was pulling off the road and coming to a stop. Rostov turned back to McClain.

“For your sake I hope you are telling the truth. If I go to the quite considerable trouble of extracting an animal from an impoundment office and there is no microfilm I will be most unhappy. And if I am unhappy, I fear I will vent my feelings on Miss Winston here first. Perhaps I will present her with a necklace. Like all women, you like necklaces, eh, Miss Winston? But not, I think, the kind I have in mind. You see, we take a small rubber tire and soak it in gasoline, then put it over your head so that it imprisons your arms. Then we give you a cigarette to smoke. Sooner or later an ash falls, the tire ignites, and you are burned alive.” Rostov smiled as Clara paled. She had no doubt at all that he would do just as he threatened. “Think well about that, Miss Winston, while I am gone. If I return without that which I seek, that is how your life will end.”

He turned, saying something in Russian to Malik. Malik in turn said something into the walkie-talkie. A few seconds later the van’s door rolled up. Rostov turned to look at McClain.

“I will be back, Dragon,” he said, and then jumped down onto the road. Malik and Orlov followed him. The door rumbled shut. Clara heard a clang as it was locked from the outside. For a moment she stayed where she was as the van once again got under way, unable to believe that they had gone. She was reprieved, no matter how temporarily. Then she saw McClain’s bare feet beside her and realized that he was standing over her.

“Clara …” He hunkered down beside her. With his hands still cuffed behind his back, he couldn’t touch her, but his voice was rough with concern. She lifted her head. Her teary eyes traveled over the broad chest and wide shoulders clad in soft black cotton; they touched on the thick neck, jutting chin, narrow mouth, crooked nose, and kept going until they met his eyes … His eyes were a dark pine green. She stared into them, saw the hurt that was in them for her, and sobbed. Immediately he was leaning over her, nuzzling her cheek with his lips, rubbing his face against her neck.

“Sh, baby.”

“Oh, Jack!” She rose off the floor to press against him, her face burrowing into the hollow between his neck and shoulder, desperate for his warmth, for the solid comfort of touching him. She had been so frightened. Was still so frightened. And she hurt. Sobbing, she huddled against him, trying to get closer yet. He couldn’t take her in his arms, but his warmth was all around her. She squirmed against him, her cuffed hands going under the hem of his sweatshirt to entwine in the thick mat of hair on his chest, her mouth open against the skin of his neck. Her eyes closed as she tasted the salt of his skin against her tongue, breathed in the musky scent of man, felt the satin over steel muscularity of him, the hard warmth of his chest. She
needed him so much that she wanted to absorb him through her skin. Shivering, she leaned against him and cried, her tears trickling down his neck, glistening against his bronzed skin.

XVIII

“Clara.”

She sobbed, hiccupped, and pressed her face harder into the warmth of his neck. His voice threatened to pull her back to reality. Closing her eyes tightly, she resisted. He moved slightly, his mouth nuzzling the hair out of her face to rest against her forehead.

“Clara. Baby, stop crying. Come on.”

“No.” It was a resentful mutter. His mouth nuzzled her forehead again.

“Please, sweetheart. We’ve got things to do before Rostov gets back. We’ve got to make sure he can’t hurt you again.”

“You can’t stop him.” Her voice was muffled against his skin. Another hiccup punctuated the words.

“I can try. Come on, Clara, dry up, will you please? We don’t have time for this. Besides, I’m uncomfortable as hell. My legs have fallen asleep.”

This bit of trivia had the effect he desired. Clara lifted her head, looked up to find his face so close that she could make out every black whisker, every pore in his bronzed skin. Shakily, her hands against his chest, she pushed
herself a little away from him, aware suddenly of the shooting pain in her hand where Orlov had broken her finger, the stinging of the burn beneath her ear.

“My hand hurts.” Brought back to reality, she was also brought back to pain. She stared down at her hand. The little finger was shades of purple and swollen to three times its normal size; it stuck out from her palm at a forty-five degree angle.

“I know it does. I can make it better. Just hold on for a couple more minutes. Don’t faint on me, baby.”

Clara felt herself swaying, felt the blood drain from her face. The inside of the van seemed to swirl around her. She thought hazily that she needed to lie down. Then, like a flower left too long without water, she wilted, and lay panting on her side on the floor.

“Clara!” He was beside her, bending over her. She blinked up at him, saw his mouth tighten. Her eyelids flickered down.

“You’ve got to stay with me, baby. Just a little longer. Do you hear?”

He was speaking very slowly and distinctly, as if he was afraid she might not be able to understand him. Clara looked up at him, her brow wrinkling. She supposed she must be going into shock. Her eyes closed, shutting him out. Her every instinct clamored for sleep. Sleep was escape. …

“Clara.” There was an urgency to his voice, a leashed frustration to his movements that were hampered by his chained hands. Against her will, she felt herself being pulled back from the edge of blessed unconsciousness. She was in pain, frightened, and exhausted. All she wanted was to go to sleep. But he was not going to let her escape.

“Clara. Don’t go to sleep. There’s something that I need
for you to do.” He leaned closer, his breath warm against her cheek as he spoke almost directly into her ear. “When Rostov hit me with that rifle and I fell down, I managed to pull the keys to the handcuffs from Thompson’s pocket. Do you hear me, Clara? I have the keys to the handcuffs.”

“You don’t.” Clara’s words were slurred. It was all she could do to think at all. “They searched you. They would have found them.”

“I dropped them on that pile of moving pads just inside the door. They didn’t see me. I knew they would search us. Come on, Clara. I need your help to get these handcuffs off. Rostov probably won’t be back for a while, but we can’t take that chance. We have to do it
now.”

It took the words a few minutes to penetrate the fog surrounding her. Then Clara felt a sudden tiny prickling of hope. She struggled to suppress it. To hope was too painful. It would just make her suffering worse when Rostov got back.

“Get up, Clara.”

He wasn’t going to let her go to sleep. She turned her head, blinking at him resentfully, trying to marshal the words to tell him how hopeless it all was. But before she could put them together in her dazed mind, he leaned over and kissed her, hard and quick, on the mouth.

“You are a pain in the ass, Clara Winston.” The words were rueful, affectionate, exasperated. He clambered to his feet and stood over her, nudging her thigh with his bare toes. She liked his toes, she decided, looking at them with detachment. Long, narrow toes with a tiny tuft of black hair on the largest attached to long, narrow feet. Nice.

“Clara, stand up!” There was no affection in his voice now. It was hard, the words a command. Clara flinched, looking up into his eyes almost fearfully. He sounded too
much like the men who had done this to her. Hard, uncaring men who liked inflicting pain.

“Did you hear me?” The edge to his voice made her whimper. His eyes narrowed, hardened. Clara felt nausea rise in her stomach. The brutal voice penetrated. Moving slowly, awkwardly, she stood up. For a moment everything swam around her, she was afraid she might fall down again. He swore, moving behind her, helpless to hold her up if she should fall. His cuffed hands twitched impotently.

“Don’t you dare faint on me now!” The words were a fierce order. “Damn it, I don’t know about you, but I refuse to just He here and die, and you’re going to help me! Do you understand?”

His harsh voice cleared some of the cobwebs that swirled through her mind. Clara nodded, and her head cleared a little more.

“All right, Jack. What do you want me to do?” Her very docility was unnatural, she sensed, but he wasn’t arguing.

“The keys are somewhere in that pile of pads.” He indicated a jumbled heap of quiltlike furniture pads in the rear corner. “You’ll have to dig through them and then unlock my handcuffs. That’s all you have to do. I’ll take it from there.”

Clara nodded. Anything to keep him happy, she told herself, so that he wouldn’t yell at her. She could not take any more violence. It was hard to walk with her head swimming and the truck jouncing over potholes and around turns, but she made it to the pile of pads. Then, gritting her teeth against the pain that even the slightest movement brought, she began to pull the pads off the pile one by one. Finally, with a jingle, the key ring clattered into view. Another tiny prickle of hope awoke within her. This time she let it flicker.

Bending carefully so as not to jar her hand, she picked up the keys and turned to McClain. He nodded his approval.

“Good girl. Now unlock these.” He turned his back to her. It took Clara a few moments and a few false tries to find the right key, and a few more false tries before she got it to click open the lock, but at last she did. The cuffs came off. He turned, rubbing his wrists, and reached for her. She went into his arms without thought, as though it was the most natural thing in the world. As though she belonged there. She felt a pressure against the top of her head and wondered if it was his lips. Looking up, she saw that his jaw was set and his eyes were that familiar brilliant green.

“Now at least we can give Rostov a run for his money,” he said, his eyes glowing. Danger excited him, exhilarated him, she remembered. He got high off it, just like some people did off drugs.

“You’re crazy,” she muttered with conviction. He leaned down and kissed her mouth hard.

“I’m sorry I got you into this. Sorry you got hurt. Sorry I didn’t stop the bastard sooner.” Her head was tucked into the hollow of his neck now; the words were muttered into her hair. Clara nestled closer, forgetting everything but the security he offered. A stab of pure agony shot from her broken finger. She moaned, stepping back from him, cradling her injured hand. Her finger was aching terribly, so badly that it made her stomach heave. She felt dizzy again, and leaned her head forward to rest it against McClain’s chest. His hands came up to grasp her shoulders in quick concern.

“You need to lie down, don’t you? Let’s get these things off first.” He was unlocking her handcuffs as he spoke, gently easing them off her wrists so as not to hurt her more than he had to. Hurriedly he piled a few of the pads into a
makeshift bed next to the wall, then swept her up in his arms and carried her over to it, staggering a little with the motion of the truck. She mewled a tiny protest as he laid her down, and he apologized with a quick kiss on her lips. Folding a pad under her head like a pillow and covering her with another, careful not to touch her injured hand which rested on top of the quilt, he made her as comfortable as he could. Then he smoothed the hair out of her face, straightened, and moved away.

Clara watched him as he prowled around the trailer, checking the door to be sure it was locked, testing the strength of the walls and corners, looking at the miscellaneous items lying around the floor. Besides the rusty looking generator, which must have once graced somebody’s farmhouse, and the pads, there were other typical movers’ items: a pair of dollies, ropes, a couple of empty boxes, and a small fire extinguisher. There was also half a case of warm beer. McClain lugged it over to where Clara lay on the pallet of quilted pads, fished a beer out of the case, popped its top, and held it out to her.

“Drink up.”

Clara shook her head, unmoving. “I don’t like beer.”

“Now why did I guess that, I wonder?” He shook his head at her. “A lady to the bitter end, aren’t you, baby? Will you please, as a favor to me, drink this beer? You’ll feel better, I promise you.”

Before she could answer he was settling himself behind her and propping her against his shoulder, then holding the can to her lips. Clara could either drink or drown. She drank, gasping and choking as the liquid came too fast. But when he let her come up for air she had to admit she did feel a little better. Warmer, more aware, if a little woozy.

“I told you,” he said when she admitted as much. She
didn’t even feel like glaring at him. Having him take care of her was too comforting. As long as he cosseted her she could pretend everything was nearly normal. That they weren’t going to die when Rostov returned.

“Let me fix your finger for you, baby. I know it must hurt like hell. I can make it better if you’ll trust me.”

Those two little words set off warning bells in her brain, but she ignored them. When he settled her back down in her bed of pads and told her not to look, she obediently put her good arm across her face. When she felt him gently take her injured hand in his, she let him. Even when she felt his fingers probing her injured pinky while his other hand encircled her wrist she made no protest. Then he repaid her trust by grabbing the end of her poor broken finger and jerking with all his might. The pain was so excruciating that she screamed. And then at last she fainted.

“I’m so sorry, so sorry I had to hurt you,” he was whispering to her, cradling her in his arms when she started the slow swim back to consciousness. “Poor sweetheart, poor baby, poor little girl. …”

“I am not,” Clara said, revolted, “a poor little girl.”

He lifted his head a little to look down at her. The smallest glimmer of a smile quivered at the corners of his mouth.

“No, you’re not, are you? I beg your pardon,” he said gravely, then bent to press a quick kiss on her soft lips. He disentangled himself, got to his feet and reached for another beer. Hunkering down beside her, he popped the top, then took a long swallow himself before offering it to her. Clara didn’t even argue this time. She drank thirstily. Her mother might swear that ladies never, but never, drank beer, but she didn’t suppose that any ladies of her mother’s acquaintance had ever found themselves in a situation quite like this one.

“My finger doesn’t hurt quite so much,” she said, discovering that she could move her hand without a shaft of agony jolting her clear down to her toes.

“I had paramedic training in the marines. It’s almost as good as new. See?”

Her eyes followed his to her hand. He had fashioned a makeshift splint out of the stiff cardboard of the beer case and a soft maroon strip wound with an inch-wide section of white elastic, both of which reminded her forcibly of his underwear. She touched the funny looking bandage with a tentative finger.

“Yours?” she asked, looking up at him. He grinned a little.

“Sacrificed to a good cause. How does that burn feel? I don’t have anything to put on it, but it doesn’t look too bad.”

“It stings a little, but I’ll live.” As soon as she said it, she wished she hadn’t. The truck was still lumbering through the North Carolina countryside, but it had to stop sooner or later. And when it did, Rostov would rejoin them, and despite McClain’s increased mobility they would die. Even McClain was no match for five gorillas armed with rifles.

“We’re going to die, aren’t we?” She started shivering violently.

“No, we damned well are not. We’re going to get out of this with our skins intact and live to laugh about the whole damn thing.” But his very vehemence told her that he was as uncertain as she. Her shivers intensified. The thought of what Rostov would do to her—to them—when he returned was too terrifying to contemplate.

“Hold me, Jack,” she whispered, scrambling onto her knees as she reached for him. His arms went around her and
he cradled her against him, his hands stroking her back, his bristly cheek pressed against the softness of her own.

“Listen to me,” he said. “We’re going to get out of this.”

But she was beyond listening. She was beyond anything but an urgent need to affirm that she was alive. That she could smell and taste and touch and see and hear and feel … Her shivers intensified until she was quaking in his arms, her body pressed to his from knees to chest. Her hands burrowed beneath his sweatshirt to find the heat of his skin, pushing the shirt up and over his head in her greediness to absorb his warmth so that his movements were hampered by the cloth that stretched from elbow to elbow. She was mindless now, acting solely on instinct; primitive instinct intent on affirming her body’s life-force.

Her open mouth ran along his neck, down through the curling black thatch on his chest, over his hard stomach to the waistband of his jeans. She nuzzled her face lower, pressing her mouth against his crotch, biting at the swelling bulge she could feel straining against the stiff blue denim. He jerked, sucking in his breath. She didn’t stop, couldn’t stop. Her hands were urgent, tugging at his snap, working down his zipper so that his manhood fell free, unconfined by the underwear he had sacrificed to bind her finger, huge and hot and pulsing and alive. She took it in her mouth, cupping the soft sacs beneath with hands that shook, rubbing and stroking and caressing the twin roundnesses while her lips and teeth and tongue staked their claim to his shaft.