Red Midnight (15 page)

They watched her. Why did they watch her? They saw everything. But who was “they”? Why, why, why?

And she had been so blissfully ignorant. Moving about, shedding her clothing with little thought, bathing.

And then there was Jarod. Dear God, the outrage was such that even now she wanted to scream. She felt violated. How could this be happening?

It wasn’t a place to query civil rights, he had warned her. This was normal.

It wasn’t normal to her. Long ago she had walked out on humiliation. And now there was this. Things going on that she didn’t understand. Fear and humiliation and … Jarod’s strange effect upon her. Trust me, he had said. And she kept trusting him, even as he manipulated her. Even as she came back to this, lying in the dark, wondering why they watched her, wondering what midnight meant, feeling the darkness close in on her, ready, to explode.

It was simple. She had stumbled into an insane asylum, and she was taking the first exit as soon as she could.

She lay there for hours and hours without sleeping, and the panicked beat in her head became louder and louder. She tossed and turned, burned and froze all night. And became very determined to escape this nightmare she found herself caught up in.

Very very early the next morning she went down for coffee. And in her determination, she remembered Gil Sayer’s thoughtful offer of help.

With the red tape over the simplest movement in the U.S.S.R., she was going to have to be very careful how she worded her request.

Praying and crossing her fingers, she put through a call to the embassy. Relief made her giddy when Gil answered the phone.

She was never quite sure what she actually said. She managed to convince Gil that although she adored Jarod he could be just a bit overbearing (that was rather easy to get across) and that she needed to slip out to Paris. “You know Jarod,” she said cheerfully. “Anything out of line and he’s an eagle-eyed worrier! I’d just like to manage to arrange this surprise. I can’t let you in on the details yet, but I promise I will!”

It worked, it all worked. Gil came himself to see her to the airport, and she was finally sitting in a craft of the Aeroflot line listening to flight procedures in Russian, German, Spanish, and French.

What went wrong where, she would never really understand. The humming engines suddenly ceased to growl and the plane went still.

She had settled down with a magazine; she looked up to see two grim, uniformed guards coming down the aisle.

They were coming for her. Somehow she managed not to fall apart as they forcefully escorted her off the plane. Her demands were crisp and clear and polite even as she trembled from head to toe. But if she had screamed and cried and pleaded, the results would have been no different. She was politely ignored.

Terror built inside her as she was led to an official-looking vehicle and seated beside a stone-faced guard. It continued to rise as they rode through the streets of Moscow. Where are they taking me? she wondered desperately. Why?

Visions floated through her mind. This was Russia. You weren’t necessarily innocent until proven guilty. But guilty of what? Innocent of what? Where the hell were they taking her? Jail? Oh, dear God….

Her imagination began to play havoc with her. She pictured a blindfold, a firing squad…. No, no, no, no! Don’t be ridiculous, Erin. It is a civilized country. There is just some misunderstanding.

But she felt as if her heart had permanently lodged into her throat as the seemingly never-ending drive continued. Just when she thought she would lose all control and burst into tears, they drove into the driveway of the hotel Rossia.

She thought she would faint with the relief. She wasn’t being taken to jail, they weren’t going to throw her in front of a firing squad. But neither were they just dropping her off, she realized quickly. Very politely—they really were such wonderful, stone-faced, polite people—the two uniformed men assisted her from the car—and back to her room. A man on either side.

As if I could run, she thought wryly. She felt like laughing as she imagined herself suddenly throwing them both off and bolting down the hall. Sure. Bolting down the hall—and then what? A helicopter would appear out of nowhere, as one always did in the movies, to rescue her.

Tears kept forming in her eyes. As the door to the room she had thought she had just checked out of was cordially opened for her, she made one last attempt with the guards.

“Please … spasee ba …”

The younger of the two men faltered. He looked confused for a moment, as if struggling for words.

“You wait. Wait. Understand?”

No, she didn’t understand at all. But she was ushered into the room. The door was closed behind her and she knew she would find it locked from the other side if she tried to open it, just as she knew that a guard would be hovering on either side of the door.

The tears that had continually threatened finally fell. What on earth have I done?

The deluxe-class room suddenly closed in around her. It wasn’t a room anymore; it might as well consist of iron bars.

Get ahold of yourself, Erin, she muttered.

She tried to calmly light a cigarette. Tears were still damp on her cheeks. She had to flick the lighter several times before she could create a flame. Even then her fingers shook so badly she could barely take a drag. She started pacing the room. Time became eternity as she tortured her mind over and over again. Why? Why? Why? And what was going to happen now?

Jarod had been stunned when he tuned into Catherine II and heard first that Erin had planned to run and second that she had been taken off the plane by Sergei’s men. He was both furious and alarmed. What did Sergei have on her?

Nothing, probably nothing. Was Sergei in the same quandary he was in? Wondering if Erin was really a suspect, or merely an innocent pawn. Damn! If only he had a few answers….

He couldn’t believe she was guilty, but it was still possible. He had to get her back under his control.

He left the computer room and hurried into his office, taking deep breaths and clenching and unclenching his fists as he planned his phone call. Finally he asked his secretary to get him through.

He had to plead an emergency. Hell, it was an emergency.
He
had to be the one watching Erin McCabe; he had to be the one to discover what was happening first. And if she was innocent, she needed to be protected.

That’s an emotional response, he reminded himself with impatience. Emotional, but true….

His phone call went through. He heard Sergei’s voice and spoke Russian in return.

“What’s this, Sergei? I hear you dragged my fiancée off a plane. For what?”

Sergei hesitated a long time. “I think we both know, don’t we, Jarod?”

“Do we? Did you find anything on her?”

More hesitation. “No.”

No. Jarod breathed a long sigh of relief.

“But I think Miss McCabe should remain our guest for a while, don’t you, Jarod? We haven’t searched her person—”

“Dammit, Sergei!” His indignation was more than acting. “Listen, Sergei, leave her alone. You’ve got her at the hotel?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll be right there. You can’t really suspect her of anything, and damn it all, Sergei, she’s my fiancée. I’ll take care of things, I promise you.”

“Jarod,” Sergei replied slowly, “I haven’t even had a chance to speak with her yet.”

“Christ, Sergei! Trust me, will you? I told you, I’ll take care of things. She’ll be with me.”

Jarod prayed silently as he waited.

“Make sure you keep her, Jarod. You do seem to be having problems with this woman to whom you are … engaged.”

“I’ll handle things,” Jarod promised grimly.

He hung up the receiver and drummed his fingers on the desk. A second later he had his secretary putting through more phone calls.

An entire pack of half-smoked cigarettes littered the ashtrays. She had cried, she had sat in shell-shocked silence. And now she was pacing the room again, trying not to cry again, ready to scream, beat on the walls, or tear her hair out.

The door finally opened and then she heard his voice. Husky, velvety, authoritative. And for the first time since meeting him, the sound filled her with abject gratitude.

Jarod. Oh, thank God! When she so desperately needed him, Jarod had come for her.

“Oh, Jarod!” she gasped as she saw him, his tall frame and undeniable presence an aura of power and security that overwhelmed her.

But she caught her words in her throat. His eyes as they caught hers were pure blue ice; she had never seen the rugged contours of his face more grim. She swallowed and stood silent as he came to her, gripping her hand in a vise of frigid steel.

“Jarod, what did I do? What’s going on? Why—”

“Just shut up and go along with everything,” he hissed quietly.

Erin could do nothing but nod, and realized that he had not come alone. Joe Mahoney was with him and one of the secretaries from the dinner at Sergei’s the night before. (Had that been less than twenty-four hours ago? It felt like years.)

And there was a third man, dressed in the robes of a priest. He positioned her beside Jarod, then began speaking in Russian. He paused and glared at her, and Jarod tightened his grip on her hand.

“Say yes,” he whispered in another hiss.

Erin nodded, forming a yes that didn’t create a sound.

Jarod said something; the strange ritual continued.

Not even Joe Mahoney would meet her eyes. The entire proceeding was tense and cold and miserable. It seemed the Russian man would go on speaking interminably.

She could only lay it down to the shock of the situation that it took her so long to realize they were going through a mock marriage ceremony, but it wasn’t until Jarod took her hand and slipped a plain gold band over the diamond that she did understand. By then it made no difference. She hadn’t been in a jail, but she had been just as surely held in a nightmare. Whatever ruse he had constructed to free her from this terror of not knowing, of waiting, of being scared half to death was fine.

And then it all ended. Jarod made a quick, terse phone call. The two guards deserted her door. She was so relieved she felt as if she were intoxicated, stumbling, weak.

“Thank you,” she managed to gasp to Jarod, still grim, still meeting her with his glacial stare. She didn’t care. “Oh, thank you. I know you’ve wanted me out of the country—I’ll go. I don’t know what I supposedly did, but I’m very grateful. I’ll oblige you and go immediately.”

He just kept staring at her, so Erin kept talking, her words gushing out like a waterfall. “I really appreciate everything. I know how terribly annoying this mock marriage must have been. I realize it will cause you a great deal of embarrassment, and again, all I can say is thank you and that I’ll never trouble you again.”

He clenched his hand around her wrist; she almost screamed out. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he grated close to her ear in a sizzling whisper that made her hot and then cold and clammy again, a ripple of fear and electricity raging along each vertebra of her spine. “Shut up before someone hears you. You’re not going anywhere—not until it’s convenient for me to take you. You little fool! Did you really think I could take you from the Soviets with theatrics? That marriage was no mockery, madam. You just became Mrs. Jarod Steele.”

T
HE BUILDING WAS OLD,
but the apartment had been done in a contemporary style. The downstairs consisted of a kitchen—large and airy, bright and inviting with soft yellow tiles—a formal dining room, a music room, and a living room or salon that reminded her of a friend’s ranch house in Denver. There was a warm brick fireplace, a cowhide rug over earthen tile, and a couch in leather with complementing chairs beside it. The drapes were in mellow orange and beige, the coffee table was hewn from maple. As yet, she hadn’t seen the upstairs.

Despite his hard demeanor, apparently Jarod wasn’t completely immune to the depth of her shock. From the impromptu wedding he had brought her here; he had placed her before the fireplace and stoked up a flame. He had made coffee, and she could dimly appreciate that the coffee was excellent.

From nervous emotion which had left her stuttering word after word in shaky quivers, she had gone completely still. Cold seemed to have invaded her extremities; she was numb. Even her mind felt numb. She hadn’t said a word since they had entered the apartment. She now sipped her coffee jerkily, as if she were a mannequin performing a task.

Finally she managed to open her mouth, and her single word was an agony of torment and confusion. “Why?”

He straightened from the fireplace, watched her as he picked up his mug of coffee, took a sip, returned it to the maple table, and took one of the chairs beside the couch. His glare was cool, distant, and yet probing. With elbows casually upon the arm rests, he folded his hands together, the forefingers straight, idly held beneath his chin.

“Because Ivan Shirmanov was arrested last night.”

“Who?” Erin said blankly, a frown creasing her brow with further bewilderment.

“Ivan Shirmanov, the Intourist guide who picked you up at the train station.”

“For what?”

“Treason.”

If she had been cold before, she was colder now. Breathing seemed so terribly difficult. “But what on earth has that to do with me?” she demanded, barely keeping her tone from becoming a screeching wail.

“Perhaps nothing,” Jarod replied, his eyes still watchful and yet strangely distant. “Any tourist with whom Ivan made contact in the last week is being questioned.”

“You mean they were just going to question me?”

At his nod Erin rushed on. “Then why the wedding? Why? I have nothing to hide! Why didn’t you just explain things to me? I could have handled myself if I just understood what was going on.”

“Erin.” His interruption was quiet—too quiet. It held a razor’s edge. He hadn’t moved, and yet she had the uncanny feeling that if she were to rise he would pounce upon her in a split second. His condemning and unyielding stare was fast wearing on her nerves, but she still fell silent at his statement of her name.