Mac's Angels : Sinner and Saint. a Loveswept Classic Romance (9780345541659) (21 page)

Sudden loud voices and running footsteps caused a disturbance at the party below.

“Where is she?” Niko's voice called out. “She couldn't have disappeared into thin air. Karen!”

Karen's heart leapt up in her throat. She opened her mouth to scream, then held it back. She didn't know what was about to happen, but she didn't want Niko hurt.

This was no fantasy, no dream. This was real, and she was about to bring harm to the man she loved.

Frantically she looked around, searching for something—anything.

“Forget it, Karen,” her masked assailant growled. “In a very short time I'm going to make sure you never interfere with me again.”

By now Karen's eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness. She followed the line of her assailant's gaze and saw a large, crumpled figure on the floor by the door.

“Sam? Sam, are you okay?”

“He's not dead, not yet. I have no quarrel with that one, but I couldn't allow any complications, not now. It was too hard to find you.”

Her attention had been momentarily diverted. In that second she heard a click, followed by a flash of light. Miles had lit a torch.

“What are you doing?” Karen cried out.

“Making sure you understand what is happening, Karen.”

Karen thought she heard Sam beginning to stir. If
she could just keep Miles's attention a little longer. “How did you find me?”

“Oh, I had some help from that reporter back in Silver Lake. He never believed that you were dead. He came to interview me, told me what he'd learned. He thought he had it all figured out. He was a fool. Led me straight to you.”

Just like Niko said, all the little blank spots in her memory had begun to fill themselves in now that she needed to know. She hadn't wanted to leave Minnesota, and she'd felt like the criminal for letting the arsonist go free, but she'd had no choice. She hadn't considered that the police would think something had happened to her.

Karen forced her attention back to the present. She had to keep him talking, stall until she could think of something. Surely the police were on the way.

“The reporter?” Karen remembered. “Of course, he called me. He was coming to talk to me. He said he knew why I left. That the Lambert family promised to send you away if I disappeared.”

“They were all fools. You didn't believe me either, so I gave you a little warning.”

“I believed you. I left.”

“Only after I set that little fire in the nursing home. I knew you wouldn't want your mother hurt.”

“The fire was effective,” Karen admitted as it all finally came back to her. “We had a deal. As long as there were no more fires, I agreed to stay away. I
couldn't let anyone else die. But it doesn't matter now, does it? The reporter knows the truth.”

“Yes, that's why I had to kill him. I couldn't push him in front of a taxi too. But a subway works just as well. I guess they haven't found him yet.”

Karen felt colder than she ever had in her life. “You—pushed me? Of course, now I remember.” Karen could feel the jab in her back just as she stepped into the street. “I was going to the police.”

“I picked up your purse and took it back inside. Nobody ever saw me. I didn't want anybody to think it was a mugging. No, I wanted the world to know that you had been punished. But you didn't die, so now I'm going to set another little fire.”

Karen sucked in a deep breath and realized in horror that she'd been too alarmed before to notice the smell of gasoline.

“Why, Miles? Why would you want to hurt all those people downstairs? They haven't done anything to you.”

“You still don't understand, do you?”

“Karen!” Niko's voice was just beyond the door now.

She didn't dare answer, not with Miles between her and Niko.

“Karen! Princess, where are you? Answer me, dammit!”

The low, garbled laugh came again. “Princess?”

“You don't want to do this,” Karen insisted. “Niko isn't the kind of man you want to cross.”

“Niko? So that's the boyfriend, not the one I hit
over the head. Too bad. The fire will take care of him too.

“But he's a doctor,” Karen said, trying to reach the man who had slipped over the edge of reason. “He can help you.”

Too late, Karen realized that was the wrong thing to say.

“No more doctors.” The guttural scream rose from deep inside her assailant's throat and almost blocked the sound of pounding on the door.

Miles jerked Karen toward the outside door.

“You must not do this,” Karen begged, pulling against the tightening grip. It no longer mattered what he planned for her. She couldn't allow anybody else to be harmed.

“You have nothing to say about it, Karen. You're going to die.”

Karen was no match for the strength of her assailant as he dragged her toward the edge. She managed to kick off her shoes and plant her feet on the tarpapered roof.

“Look down there, little Karen. You'll either burn alive or you'll jump. I'll finally be rid of you. It's your choice.”

Karen had never had martial arts training. She'd never even been an athlete. But when her captor pitched the torch, igniting the puddle of gasoline in the little room where Sam lay, she went ballistic.

Karen swung herself around, flinging the masked man toward the edge of the roof. She could hear the sound of the blaze, and she watched in horror as it
licked the trail of gas out the doorway just past her feet toward the low wooden rail around the roof. Miles had created an arrow of flames toward the edge.

Behind her she heard a crash and a shout as Niko broke into the burning room. There was a struggle as Niko helped Sam to his feet.

“He's got Karen,” Sam yelled.

“Where?” Niko asked.

“Tell them to stay back!” Miles threatened, pulling Karen another step closer to the edge.

At that moment Niko leapt over the low flames and landed on the roof beyond. “Let her go,” he said. “You aren't going to hurt anybody else.”

“Don't move! All I have to do is step back, over the edge, and your princess will go with me.”

“Go away, Niko,” Karen said quietly. “Miles wants only me. I don't want you hurt.”

Niko ignored Karen's directions.

“Don't, Miles,” Niko argued, taking a step to Karen's left. “You don't know what you're doing. You're ill. You can't fight this by yourself, but I can help you.”

“Nobody can help me.”

“But I can. I know a good place. It's called Hope House. My own father is there. It's very nice. They'll protect you.”

“You mean they'll keep me locked up. Doesn't matter. I can get out. I'm very clever.”

“I'm sure you are. You'd have to be to start all those fires. I can tell.”

“What do you know? You're a doctor?”

“I had a sister once. She lived a very unhappy life. She sacrificed her future to save me. I almost let her death ruin my life. I know now that we have choices, but if we make the wrong one, we can ask for help.”

“I don't want any help,
doctor
.”

“Neither did she. I tried very hard to help her, but she wouldn't let me.”

Karen kept quiet. What was Niko doing? Then she understood. He was trying to distract Miles.

As he talked, Karen sensed movement on her right. The fire from behind caught the surrealistic mask in its glow while the wooden rail ignited, turning Miles into a silhouette against the flames in the night sky. Karen could hear shouting. Clouds of smoke boiled past them, making it hard to breathe.

“Stop talking. You don't really care about me, none of you. Stay away!” The masked figure screamed, taking another step back, drawing Karen along. “I won't go back, ever again!”

“Why?” Niko asked, keeping even with them. “Isn't the sanitarium a nice place, Miles?”

“Don't talk to me. You don't know. None of you knows. Not even smart little Karen, who stopped me from getting away.”

“Why do you keep calling me ‘little'?”

Another laugh. “You really don't know, do you? All this time you thought you did, but you didn't. You were so blind that you never understood the lie.”

“What lie?” Karen asked, hearing the telltale sound of footsteps on either side of her.

A sudden blast from the horn of an arriving fire
truck startled Miles, and he glanced behind himself for just a moment. It was now or never. Karen jerked her arm. Her captor stumbled and fell against the burning wall. For a moment he teetered wildly.

“Now!” Niko yelled. Sam grabbed Karen, yanking her back from the edge.

At the same time, Niko reached for the arsonist, who fought to right himself. There was a momentary struggle. Niko held on to Miles's right arm and reached for the other, catching the mask instead. As he ripped it away, a scream cut through the night.

Karen finally knew and understood. The final piece of the puzzle fell into place. She knew why she hadn't wanted to wake up.

The scream came again, not from the person wearing the mask, but from Karen.

The unmasked figure wasn't Miles. It was a woman.

The woman cursed, turned, and plunged over the edge, pulling Niko with her.

Karen screamed again.

“Mother!”

Tuesday the 18th Mercy General Hospital

“You aren't going to die and leave me alone now that we've found each other, my Gypsy lover,” Karen said. “I'm waiting right here until you wake up.”

The voice was as sexy and smooth as vintage brandy. He liked what it promised as much as he liked the feel of the fingertips working their way up the side of his leg
.

“It's my turn to be the rescuer, Niko. I guess I
ought to clear the air completely. My mother set the fires. She was in a sanitarium, the same one that Miles was sent to from time to time. For a reason that I'll never understand, they became friends. Seems Miles told her about burning down a neighbor's toolshed to get even with the man for telling lies about him. My mother thought she had a lot of getting even to do.”

Niko was listening, though he was having trouble understanding. It was like a dream. He was there, yet he wasn't
.

“The arsonist was never Miles. The night of the haunted house fire mother found a specter's mask at the patient's Halloween party and managed to escape with the volunteers. She'd done it before. She probably hid in the back of one of the cars leaving the sanitarium.”

Specter's mask?

“She spent enough time around hospitals that she knew how they worked. I had to tell the director of Mother's sanitarium where I was. That's how she found me at the library. After the accident, one of the street people finally told her the name of the hospital where I was. By the time she got there I was gone. But my mother was a charmer when she wanted to be, and she knew how to blend in at Mercy General until somebody let her get to your records.”

The voice was low and sensual. The words and the seductive tone didn't match. But he liked the feel of her, of the hands intimately exploring his body
.

“She even outsmarted the Silver Lake reporter. Left a message with the poor man that I was ready to
grant him an exclusive interview. He was to meet me at the Algonquin Hotel. That was when he fell across the subway tracks, but he's going to be all right.”

Karen pressed a kiss against his fingertips. “Nice touch, don't you think, using the hotel where the great creative minds of the twenties met?”

Karen sighed. She didn't know if Niko was aware of her, but her attempt to wake him by touching him was certainly getting to her.

“As soon as I go back and get the mess in Silver Lake settled, I'm taking you to my island. All sunshine and white beaches, in the middle of the Caribbean.”

Island? He remembered a dream about an island. But there was snow. Snow and ice and cold. No, not cold, not always. For they'd made love on the floor before a roaring fire
.

“The representative at the travel agency told me our cabin is very isolated and a bit primitive. She said if I insisted on satin sheets, I'd better take along my own. So I've packed a couple.”

Satin sheets?

“Oh, I talked to your friend Mac, and just to keep you happy, he's sending you a supply of house shoes and ten pounds of sugar for your coffee.”

Her laugh was infectious. Niko couldn't put a name to it, but a feeling and a longing was beginning to grow. A face began to form in his mind. The lady was tall with alabaster skin, silver-blond hair, and eyes the color of his favorite blue marble
.

Her fingers had reached his hip now and were wandering
inward. His corresponding physical reaction rippled the bedclothes and elicited another laugh
.

“The hospital needs this bed, Niko. And I need you. You have to wake up and come home with me.”

Hospital? Yes, I remember. It was Friday the thirteenth. You were in a coma. I
—

Though his eyes remained closed, suddenly Dr. Nikolai Sandor was awake. Karen. She was alive. He was alive. He didn't know what happened on the roof, but they were together.

As if in answer, Karen said, “You fell from the roof, hit your head on the fire escape and were knocked out. You have a concussion, but that's all. Mother has a broken hip and suffered a stroke. They took her to your Hope House.

“Please, Niko. It's time for you to wake up. I need you.”

Damn, it wasn't working. She had to do something more drastic, something she hadn't planned. He might not hear her, but she needed to say it. It was the only thing she hadn't tried.

“Nikolai Sandor, you gave me a beautiful fantasy about a man and a woman who were in love. What you didn't count on was that it came true. At least for me. Do you hear me, you wicked man? I'm in love with you and I want you forever.”