Walking The Edge: A Romantic Suspense/Espionage Thriller (Corpus Brides Trilogy Book 1) (13 page)

She blinked. No, she couldn’t think of that.

“I’m not staying here,” she said, her fingers again going to the plaster, which she peeled off. Wincing throughout, she then carefully removed the canula from her vein, blotting the blood oozing out with the bed sheet.

Throwing her legs to the side of the bed, she stood, and the world spun out from under her feet.

*

Gerard caught her, her body sagging against him when her legs buckled.

He pulled her to him and swore. “You’re in no condition to go anywhere.”

How could she think she could take on the world under such circumstances, and now, of all times?

She peered up at him with big eyes and he swallowed, hard. For a second there, he thought he saw Mirka, but that couldn’t be. He had to be thinking of her because of the words Amelia had expressed a few moments ago. The “you don’t understand” had echoed like Mirka’s parting statement.

“I can’t stay here, Gerard,” she said, bringing him back to the present.

“You need the medication they’ll give you. It’s only been eleven hours since they brought you in. Not long enough for the acid to be out of your system.”

She remained silent for a long time, before shattering the quiet. “With or without your help, I’m leaving here. Don’t try to stop me.”

She meant every word. As a police officer dealing with a drug abuser, he could order the nurses to strap her to the bed, but he wouldn’t.

“Promise me you won’t do something as stupid as an LSD trip again.” Why he felt compelled to ask this of her, he didn’t know. The only certainty remained that he didn’t want to see her in such a situation again.

She bit her lip, and nodded.

“Come.” He cradled her in his arms, placed her back on the bed, then went to the wardrobe where he found the dress she’d been wearing when they brought her in.

While she changed, he went out to the nurses’ station and told them he was taking her away. They tried to voice disapproval but his tone brooked no argument. As the head police officer for the area, he could take her out without the doctor’s release. The nurse in charge asked only that he keep an eye on her.

That, he would. He and Amelia also needed to talk, so when better than now, when he had her under his care?

On the way back to the room, he called Rashid, asking for a progress report on the situation at the
commissariat
. Throughout the day, he’d darted back and forth between there and his vigil at the hospital.

“Stay put,” he told his friend. “I’m heading home. Call me if there’s anything new.” One big advantage of being a
commissaire
—he called the shots and could leave the station under his second’s command when necessary.

Her step slugged slow and faltering when they emerged from the room and walked to his car, and he held her to him, matching his pace to hers. He settled her into the passenger seat and buckled her seatbelt. She closed her eyes, her head against the headrest, and he had a feeling she dozed off through the trip.

He made sure to stop the car gradually when he reached his place. After quietly opening the garage door, he eased the Peugeot into the interior and closed the entrance. Then he walked to her side and woke her up.

“We’re at the hotel?” she asked, her gaze sleepy and unfocused.

Gently tugging her out of the car, he felt her go stiff when she noticed the surroundings.

“What are we doing at your place?” she asked, reproach heavy in her tone.

“You’re spending the night here where I can keep an eye on you.”

“How dare you—”

His grip closing on her upper arm, the one not already hurt, he pushed her back until she landed on the couch behind her.

“At least this way, I know you won’t go on any trip and scare the daylights out of me!”

She remained silent, as if in a daze. But a shrewd edge in her eyes told him she merely watched him intently. Why? To con him even further? Where did the trouble ever end with this woman?

“What the hell were you thinking?” He ran a hand through his hair.

She squirmed under the intensity of his glare, looked away.

“And don’t tell me I don’t understand,” he added.

“Do you?” she spat as she turned to him again. “You don’t know the half of what I’m going through!”

“Then enlighten me.”

She threw her hands up. “Where do I even start?” She paused, her gaze narrowing on him. “All I’ll tell you will go into your stash of information but you won’t give me anything back.”

He closed his eyes for a second.

She pressed on. “What the hell happened today, when you jumped out of the hotel room and left me there without a word or an explanation?”

“That’s information you don’t need to know.”

“Fucking well suits you to give me this line, doesn’t it?”

Her cheeks gathered colour while her breathing grew loud and rapid. The after-effects of LSD use could sometimes make a person’s mood swing from depression to a heightened manic state and back again in the blink of an eye. He had a feeling she had no grasp over her emotions right now, and figured he could use this to his advantage.

“What did you mean by ‘you needed answers you’d get only through a trip’?” he asked.

She sobered before him, bringing her legs up on the sofa, her arms encircling her knees. Seemingly at a loss for words, she toyed with the hem of her dress while her gaze focused beyond him, on a point in the distance.

“The drugs Peter gave me,” she said and shivered. “They threw me off loop but lately, they made me start to dream.”

He went to the couch, kneeling before her and clasping her hands in his, silently urging her to continue.

“In them, I saw what something inside of me knows are memories. I cannot explain them. I just know I experienced those episodes I flash back to, that I was there when they happened.” She paused, eyes locking with his. “I saw you in one such flash.”

“Did you know my name?”

She shook her head. “I recognized your face on a TV news clip a few days ago.”

The damn coverage after the bust of the robbery gang. “What’s all this got to do with LSD? Was that what he gave you?”

“No. I had prescription drugs I left back in London when I came here.”

London. Where the firm her ‘husband’ worked at would supposedly be found.

“I did an Internet search, and found that LSD has similar effects as the drug I was taking. It could induce the dreams.”

“So you paid no heed to caution and just decided you’d go get your answers.” He paused. “Where did you get the stuff?”

“A club in town.”

He’d quiz her about it later. The police knew all about the dealers who operated in clubs, but no one had managed to nab them so far.

And now the million-Euro question. “Did you find your answers?”

She looked down. “I don’t remember.” Then her gaze came back up. “Guess I’m stuck with you providing me information.”

He couldn’t tell her what he knew. Where did he start, and how did he tell her she reminded him of a woman he had loved and lost? He was also starting to question what had happened to Mirka. Had the body they’d removed from the charred remains of the car on the deserted country road really been hers? If it hadn’t been Mirka, who knew if she’d come back in this guise? He couldn’t tell Amelia anything, at least not until he knew for sure what had happened.

“You don’t play fair,” she said softly, probably interpreting his silence as a refusal to cede.

Damn right he didn’t, and he wouldn’t start now. Tension like a heavy cloak settled over them. Looking up into her face, he noticed how she softly gnawed at her lower lip. In her current state, with her dishevelled hair and her face free of makeup, she appeared like a disoriented and forlorn woman-child. Someone who’d lost her way, and who begged with big blue eyes for a saviour to come show her the light.

He was no knight in shining armour, but every fibre inside him wanted to answer her call. Every cell of his body wanted to shield and protect her when she looked like that.

She would be the death of him...

Pulling up until his knees braced against the edge of the couch, he leaned forward, one hand cradling her cheek. Then he kissed her.

Her lips parted under his, and the scorching embers of desire burst into flames inside his body. Damn her and the effect she had on him. She’d scared the living daylights out of him earlier and he wanted nothing but to be sure that she was well and truly alive.

“You want a trip?” he said huskily against her lips. “I’ll give you one.”

He lowered his body, running his hands along the length of her silky dress, slowing on her thighs, which he gently parted. He exposed her lacy knickers to his view, and he reached up and peeled them off her. She moaned, and the sound turned into a plaintive cry when he placed his mouth against her core.

*

She would’ve jumped off the couch had his hands not held her down. When his lips touched her body, shock waves akin to a thousand volts of electricity radiated through her. Her back pressed into the softness of the sofa, and she cried out in surprise and surrender.

He kissed her softly at first, and she didn’t know if she needed to slide down to the ground or push her body further into the sofa. Then his tongue darted out and touched her—she turned to mush before she could so much as move a muscle.

His lips and tongue expertly worked her, bringing her to a frenzy that had her clutching his head and clamping her hands in his hair with a desperate need for release. Then his finger joined the fray, delving inside her while he sucked her clit and teased her with little nips of his teeth.

She came and shattered against him, begging him to stop when he kept on kissing and fondling her as she reached the hypersensitive plateau of orgasm.

He finally pulled away, but as he stood, he took her hands in his and made her stand, too. She wasn’t sure her legs would hold her after what she’d just been through, so she leaned into him, the hardness of his taut muscles taking on her weight.

With a few frantic moves, he had her naked, the dress in a heap around her ankles. Then he pulled his jumper off, along with the shoulder holster holding his gun, and undid his jeans, pulling them down until they touched her discarded clothing. He sat down, reached for something in the pocket of his trousers at the foot of the sofa, and he tugged her onto him, making her sit in his lap.

He opened the foil packet and retrieved a condom, placing it on the tip of his erection.

Boldness taking over her, she reached for his hand and took over the task, gently caressing him with her fingers while she sheathed him with the thin latex.

He sucked in a breath under her touch, and she smiled. It felt good to have such a strong effect on a man who emanated so much raw sex appeal he could burn down a house with his mere presence.
Women must flock to him in hordes
, she couldn’t help but think, and clamped down on the thought immediately. Right now, he belonged to her, and to no one else.

With the condom on him, she pressed onto her knees, lifted her body up, and guided him inside her. She gasped when he filled her. He felt much bigger this way, with her on top, and she revelled in the sensation of him completing her body.

When they made one and she didn’t know where he ended and where she started, she braced her hands on his shoulders and started to move, lifting almost completely up, but never allowing him to leave her, and then coming back down. His hips moved with hers, and they settled into a rhythm, at times slow, at times fevered and rapid.

Pleasure built up steadily in her; the release waiting for her would be like nothing she’d experienced before with him. Based on how he took her body, he could make her come in so many glorious, devastating ways.

She let out a long, low moan when the spasms racked her body. He increased his tempo and came at the same time, and they both wound down from the high together. Breaths mingled, heartbeats hammered in resonance, foreheads touched, yet, neither of them wanted to open their eyes and look at the other, should the moment be lost when reality worked itself in.

And what a reality they would face. Questions, more questions, and absolutely no hint of any answer.

He cradled her face in his big palms, and she opened her eyes to stare into the aqua depths of his eyes. Gerard brushed her cheekbone with the pad of his thumb, and the tenderness in the gesture nearly undid her.

“It’s not fair,” she whispered.

“No,” he replied. “But tonight is ours.”

Chapter Seven

Marseille.
Quartier de Saint Giniez
in the
8ème arrondissement

Monday, December 17. 11:40 p.m.

She awoke with a start, sitting up in bed and clasping the sheet to her as she gasped for breath. Closing her eyes tightly shut, she rocked her body, trying hard to hold on to the vanishing threads of the dream as consciousness flowed through her.

“What is it?” Gerard propped himself up on an elbow next to her.

“Pen and paper,” she muttered. “Quick.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Give me a pen and some paper. Something I can write on.”

Her eyes flew open, to see him reach over to the bedside table. He turned on the lamp and grabbed the small pad and pen next to the phone. When he placed them into her hand, she mumbled her thanks and began scribbling furiously.

“Be careful,” he said, voicing aloud the same sentiment coursing through her. She’d pierce through the paper with her rapid scrawls. She felt him lean forward, his arm on her pillow, his gaze intent on her.

But she paid him no more heed. Reeling in her full concentration, she let the task of passing her dream to paper absorb her completely. Her scribbles covered the page, and she flipped it to a blank sheet. After a further few lines of writing, she started drawing, the rendition of a large oval with what looked to be the outline of an ancient Roman architecture-style building inside it. Then the image in her mind faded, and she tensed.

“Blast it, damn it, and fuck it all to hell,” she exclaimed as her hand froze and the pen tore through the paper. “It’s gone. I couldn’t get it all down and now it’s gone.”

He drew up to a sitting position and placed his hands on her shoulders. “What’s the matter? Talk to me.” With his thumbs, he kneaded small circles along her neck. “And will you stop swearing so much?”

“Swearing is all I can do right now.”

His touch stilled as he stiffened.

Who was he to order her around? But the question died when she realized he simply expressed concern about her current predicament. A definite note of worry hung in his voice, and acknowledging this fact obliterated her outrage at him because he’d dared to tell her what to do.

“Sorry.” She sighed. Looking away from the paper, she peered into his face. Maybe he did want to help. “
La océane
. Does it mean anything to you?”

His eyes narrowed in question.

“I just had this dream,” she said. “And I heard something like
la océane
in it. I know it’s got something to do with Marseille.”

“You actually
heard
something?”

She hit him with the pad. “Don’t make me sound like I’m insane. I told you the drugs made me dream.”

“You’re no longer under LSD influence.”

You shouldn’t be any more, unless...

She shrugged, dismissing the unspoken question between them. At the same time, she knew she wouldn’t be able to explain what had triggered the vision. Whatever did it made her glad it happened, because it clued her towards a direction. The problem remained, she had no idea what to make of what she’d seen.

She trailed her gaze back to him, onto the serious look in his eyes and the clamped set of his strong jaw. Did he consider whether she might again be under drug influence, or was he thinking there could be some truth in what she claimed to be dreams?

Could she trust him?

Should she?

“I don’t bite, you know,” he said, breaking the silence that had fallen between them under her intent scrutiny.

“Usually,” she replied without a second thought.

He gave her a small smile. “Usually, yes.”

Intimacy between two people sometimes brought on startling revelations in hearts and minds. Right then represented one such moment for her as she gazed at Gerard.

He amounted to all she had, and the realization, and the strange certainty that he really meant a lot to her, made her touch his cheek with hesitant fingers.

His eyes clouded with some emotion she couldn’t identify, and she had a strange sensation of déjà vu. She’d touched him like so before, and he probably remembered.

But he’d said he didn’t know her.

Tearing her gaze and her touch from him, she stared at the pad in her other hand.

He edged closer to her, peeking at the paper over her shoulder.

“May I?” he asked.

She hesitated at first, and then nodded.

He picked up the small notebook and stared at it for a long time, probably taking in the awkward doodle of a Roman edifice inside the oval she’d made when trying to put to paper the image of a logo or badge she’d seen in the dream-flash.

“You saw this picture?” he asked.

“Yes, and I don’t know what it is.”

“You saw only this?”

How much did she tell him? She debated for long seconds, her heart finally telling her to place her trust in him, for she remained certain he wouldn’t betray her. From where her certitude came, she had no idea. She had a feeling he’d once placed his life at her feet and had trusted in her implicitly.

“There was a building,” she started. “Roman architecture, massive stone pillars in front, and a lot of wide steps leading up to its entrance.”

He glanced at her, before returning his gaze back to the paper. “Where was that drawing?”

“Somewhere in that place. It had something to do with it, and I heard a voice saying words like
la océane
. Something looked written on the edge of the badge, all around the upper half of the oval, but I cannot remember what.” She paused. “Do you know what it means?”

*

Gerard stared at the drawing for a long time. The replica of the Roman tower reminded him vaguely of something, but he had a hard time coming up with what.

“Show me where these words were written,” he said.

She took the pen and showed him the curved edge where the letters would be found on the logo.

La océane
. It sounded like something, but what?

Then, suddenly, he knew.

La phocéene
.

He wrote the words along the border, showing it to her. “Is this what it looked like?”

Her face scrunched. “It seems like it.” She peered up at him. “What does it mean?”

His brain started clicking the jagged pieces of her recollection into a whole. “
La phocéene
is Marseille’s nickname, dating back to when the town was one of the biggest Roman ports this side of the Mediterranean. Its name then had been Massilia.”

“What is it supposed to symbolize, though?” She frowned. “What was the dream telling me?”

“You said you saw a structure? Of Roman architecture?”

She nodded.

“I think I know what you saw. There’s an historical building on the outskirts of the
Vieux Port
. It belongs to a private, non-profit organization. If I’m not mistaken, they set up quite an elaborate library, composed of private collections they make available for public viewing there. Their name is
Mémoires de la phocéene
, and their goal is to perpetuate the memory of the vital centre Massilia had been to the Roman Empire.”

A small smile touched her lips. “Were you an ace student?”

He chuckled. “The worst of my class, when I even made it to school.”

“Then how do you know all this?”

“I’m a cop. I’m supposed to know everything about my territory.”

Her smile died on her lips, taking with it the light in her eyes.

He knew what had happened, if he could judge from his own feelings. For a minute there, they’d both forgotten about his job. They’d simply been a man and a woman together.

But worlds and a whole universe separated them, the worst being they knew nothing about what truly existed between them.

She averted her gaze, and in the process, shut him out.

“Can you take me there?” she asked.

He could only watch her draw away, as if a wide chasm opened itself between them.

Why had she done this? What thought had sobered her so effectively, smothered the tangible but unexplainable emotional connection that always tied itself between them despite every attempt they made to sever it?

It had felt the same way between him and Mirka. He’d convinced himself back then it had simply been his desire to nab Stepanovic that made him move Heaven and Earth to be with Mirka as often and for as long as he could. But when she’d left, he’d known he’d been fooling himself. Their relationship had started as mindless fucking, then became mind-numbing sex, to explode into soul-burning lovemaking, all notions of private agendas lost in that fire.

Why did it feel as if he’d been given a second chance with the woman here in his bed, when she wasn’t even like the one he’d fallen in love with?

She, Amelia, or whatever her name could be, was a killer and a mystery. A complication he didn’t need.

But he was alive, thanks to her, and this, he could never forget.

“What will happen if I take you to there?” he asked.

She shrugged, her eyes growing haunted by desperate hope and some other emotion he couldn’t decipher.

What could be going on inside her head?

*

She shivered and brought her knees up, falling back on the mattress in a foetal position.
With any luck, it gives me the key to my past
. She couldn’t fathom the possibility that the dream, and what it implied, would be a dead end, too.

“I don’t know,” she whispered, her voice breaking into a quiver.

Without a word, he leaned towards her and pulled her to him, her back to his front, spooning. She closed her eyes and hung on to the moment, when the man she had a feeling she loved held her as if she were the only thing to exist in the world.

***

Marseille.
Vieux Port

Tuesday, December 18. 9:30 a.m.

“Is this the place?” he asked.

They stood in front of a looming edifice of white marble and stone. At the top of a dozen or so steps to the atrium, heavy pillars supported high arches soaring up as if to touch the sky. The crenellated tower rose overhead.

She closed her eyes and saw the flash from the dream, and in it, this very place. When she opened her eyes, the two images merged to form a whole.

“Yes,” she replied, awed. The building took her breath away. It didn’t feel familiar, but something told her to enter it, whispering directions in her mind when she paused and listened to that little voice.

“Can we go in?” The words sounded hushed—she’d almost been afraid to ask.

“Sure.”

As she started up the stairs, her heart hammered. He remained right beside her, and his strength, so close, reassured her and calmed her rapid breathing. Trepidation coursed through her, and she reached for his hand, grasping his palm.

He hesitated, then laced his fingers with hers and held on firmly.

They entered the cavernous lobby, the sound of their footsteps on the hard, glistening marble echoing loudly. She zeroed in on a drawing at the back of the room, on the wall, and she froze for a second when she recognized the logo she’d visualized staring at them in all its fine detail.

Gerard squeezed her hand; she had stiffened in his grasp. He’d seen the depiction, too, and must know they’d come to the right place.

The woman at the front desk greeted them with a smile when they reached her. “
Je peux vous aider?
”

“The fall of Cleopatra. Can you tell us where that section is?” she surprised herself by asking.

Suddenly, she’d known what to say, what to ask—in French!—but she had no idea why. The burn of Gerard’s eyes on her made her squirm, but she ignored his questioning stare. Instead, she tightened her fingers around his, silently asking him to go along.

“We don’t get many requests for that shelf,” the woman replied. “You’re sure you don’t prefer to check the sections about Massilia?”

“I’m sure,” she replied with a conviction she couldn’t explain.

The woman pulled out a site plan and showed them where they could find the Cleopatra Room.

With a smile and a few mumbled words of thanks, she tugged on Gerard’s hand and headed into the dark interior, looking for the staircase to take them up and to their destination.

Her steps grew more rapid and frantic when they reached the floor, and in her haste, she let go of his hand and hurried on. She was looking for something. What, she didn’t know, but there existed something here she needed.

They reached the part of the collection she’d asked about, stopping before the row of books, loosely bound manuscripts, and scrolls.