On Thin Ice (28 page)

All reasonable. It didn’t explain the aching despair, the blank emptiness that filled her. She could feel the hot tears pouring down her face, and she pressed it against the stone.
MacGowan, you stupid bastard
, she thought.
Why did you have to go and get yourself killed? I care about you.

Care about you. Stupid phrase. She knew the truth, and right then the least she could do for the man who’d died protecting her was to admit it. She was stupidly, idiotically in love with him. He didn’t deserve it, she was smart enough to know better, but all the rationalization in the world didn’t help. It simply was.

The low murmur of voices was getting louder, but it was just background noise to the despair that filled her. The stone wall was rough beneath her cheek, and she realized she had her hands up against it, trying to scratch her way through. Her hand was bleeding again, but she didn’t care.

She heard Dylan’s voice, asking her a question, but it didn’t sink in. If she stayed in this strange, despairing fugue state she’d be all right. If she had to emerge it would be unbearable. She couldn’t face the pain that reality would bring. He was dead, and there was nothing left.

She was vaguely aware of Dylan moving, more light coming in the narrow passageway. And then it darkened again, as someone took Dylan’s place, and a hand clamped down on her arm.

She tried to pull away, filled with panic as the truth started to sink in, hitting at the inexorable hands, hitting at the voice that tried to break through. He caught her again, pulling her, and her hands scraped against the wall as she was hauled out into the sunlight to die.

“Jesus, MacGowan, what did you do to her?” A voice came from a distance, elegant and coolly formal. “I thought you were supposed to be so good with women.”

“Back off, Taka,” a familiar voice snarled from beside her. “She’s had a tough few days.”

She turned in disbelief. It was MacGowan all right, in one piece, blood streaming from his forehead.

She didn’t throw herself in his arms, weeping. She was stronger than that. She straightened, reaching out for the cut. “You’re not dead.” Even her voice sounded reasonably calm, despite the pained rasp in it. “Were you shot?”

He shook his head. The blood had matted in his long hair, adding one more color to the black and silver, brown and sun-bleached. “Piece of the stone wall ricocheted when a bullet hit. What’s wrong with you?”

He was looking at her too closely, and she averted her face, hoping he wouldn’t see the tears on her face. “Nothing,” she said firmly. She looked at the door to the café, now closed, and she didn’t want to ask. “Who are your friends?”

“You don’t need to know,” he said, looking at her oddly out of those flint-gray eyes. “Why were you crying?”

Shit, of course he’d noticed. He noticed everything. She straightened her back. “I thought I was going to die.” That was a reasonable cause for crying, wasn’t it?

“You aren’t usually such a pussy.”

It startled a laugh out of her, the anguish that had been strangling her slowly loosening its hold. He was all right, nothing would kill him. “Shut up, MacGowan,” she snapped. “Everyone’s allowed a moment of weakness.”

A car was coming down the narrow alleyway, moving slowly, and she glanced up to see the flame-haired young tourist pulling up in the sedan, climbing out with indecent energy.

“GPS coordinates are set,” he said in perfect if formal English. “Food in the backseat, blankets, change of clothing.”(

“We’ll see these two back to their homes,” the more conventional-looking man said. “You’re better off alone.”

“No,” MacGowan said abruptly. Then he laughed. “At least, it’s up to them. You ready to go back home, kid?”

Dylan shook his head. “Don’t have a home to go to. I’ll stick with you and Sister Beth.”

MacGowan glanced at Beth, a question in his eyes, and she knew she should say no, jump for safety with the two faux-tourists who’d doubtless take excellent care of her. Why did MacGowan even give her the choice? Didn’t he want to get rid of her?(Dylan’s words came back to her. “He looks at you like he’s a starving man and you’re a six-course meal.”

Her heart, already shredding, was going to get destroyed if she stayed with him. But she’d played it safe most of her life.

“I’m with you, MacGowan.” She wiped the tears from her face with the back of her unbandaged hand. “Just try not to get us killed.”

He grinned at her, and there was a sudden, odd lightness between them. “I’ll do my best.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The chunnel crossing was effortless. It was easy enough to jump the line with his kind of clearances, and while the speed limit tested Peter’s patience at the very least he was alone with his thoughts. He kept coming up with arguments, writing mental letters to Genevieve, then discarding them as stupid or maudlin. What was she going to do when he got back? Kick him out? Have one of those civil relationships that would rip him in two? Or would she understand? Forgive him?

The moment he hit France he had to stop thinking about her. His job was to meet up with MacGowan at the farmhouse he’d rented for him, face up to the threat and deal with the repercussions. He didn’t want to kill him, not after three years of hellish captivity. But he wasn’t going to let MacGowan kill him – there was a limit to guilt and nobility.

He stared straight ahead, grinding his teeth. He wasn’t a man who made many mistakes but when he did they were spectacular. The only way to ensure that Isobel and Killian didn’t leave their safe refuge was to deal with MacGowan directly, and she’d gotten that message loud and clear.

He breezed through customs, then set out inland, quickly becoming accustomed to right-side drive on left side roads. He’d been driving since he’d been a twelve-year old delinquent, and there was nothing he couldn’t handle, and he flew through the narrow back roads, avoiding major highways. It was probably an unnecessary precaution, but that was the reason he was still alive.

Not that he would be once he got home. Genny was going to kill him, and he didn’t blame her. He switched on the satellite radio, turned to French punk and shifted into a higher gear, when he heard something that froze his blood.

He slammed on the brakes, fish-tailing on the narrow country lane, finally coming to a stop up against a hedgerow. Grabbing his gun, he slid out of the car and headed straight for the back.

“I would suggest you stay very still back there while I open the boot.” His voice dripped ice. After the fight with Genny he very much wanted to shoot someone. “I’ve got my gun and I’m going to shoot first and ask questions later if you so much as move.”

He heard the muffled voice, a distinct, Arabic curse, and he swore himself, tucking his gun away before opening the boot. Mahmoud’s lanky body was curled up back there, his iPod still attached to his ears, looking up at him with lazy defiance.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” he demanded, hauling his by-default stepson out of the car.

Mahmoud shook himself free, brushing invisible dust off his shirt. “Keeping an eye on you. Genevieve says you won’t kill yourself if I’m along.”

He stared at the boy in astonishment. “She sent you?”

Mahmoud shook his head, his long hair dancing around his narrow face. “How stupid are you?” he asked with his usual lack of respect, a look that in better times amused Peter. Not today. “She had no idea I decided to tag along. I called her when we got to France to tell her where I was. Look at it this way, mate. Now she’s more pissed off at me than at you. As long as you don’t get both of us killed.”

“What do you mean?”

Mahmoud pulled out his phone, pushed a few buttons and tossed it to Peter, who caught it easily. The text message was clear. “Tell Peter he’s an asshole who better come home safe or I’ll never forgive him. And tell him I love him.”

“Looks like she forgives you,” Mahmoud said. “Not sure if I do – I don’t like it when something upsets her.”

“I’m her husband; I’m bound to upset her.”

“I don’t give a flying fuck,” Mahmoud said. “Don’t do it again or I’ll kill you.”

“You and what army?” Mahmoud was all talk. There was no denying that he’d been a child soldier, and seen things no adult should have to see. No question that he’d kill for Genny and the children. But he’d kill for Peter too, he suspected, despite their cantankerous relationship.

Peter handed him back his phone, reluctantly. He couldn’t believe how his mood had lightened. Right now he felt as if he could conquer the world. That was the problem with falling in love, something he’d managed to avoid for decades before he fell afoul of Miss Genevieve Spencer. It left you far too vulnerable for this kind of work.

She was right, he wasn’t fit for field work anymore. This was the last one. It happened on his watch, and it was his mistake. He needed to fix it.

“We’ve got a few more hours,” he said. “You want to ride in the trunk or in the passenger seat?”

“Funny.” Mahmoud stretched. He was getting taller, brushing six feet and hadn’t stopped growing. Probably because he hadn’t stopped eating. Mahmoud reached into the trunk and pulled out a bag of crisps and three cans of soda, and wrappers littered the back of the previously spotless car.

Peter sighed. “You little shit. You’re cleaning this car when we get home.”

Mahmoud just grinned at him, strolling around to the passenger seat. “So, why don’t you tell me what our mission is?”

Peter sighed as he slid behind the wheel. “You’re staying out of it. Next thing I know you’ll be asking for a gun.”

Mahmoud gave him a pitying look. “Dude,” he said, “I brought my own.”

MacGowan checked the GPS. Probably a good seven hours until they reached the tiny village of Merrais-sur-le-pont and the old farmhouse that had served as a safe house off and on for the last decade. He didn’t need the GPS – he had a photographic memory. Once he travelled to a place he never forgot how to get there, and those five days holed up with Bastien, Peter, and Taka had been burned into his brain. Bastien had been bleeding, Peter had been his usual cold, bloody English self, and Taka had ignored their squabbles. In the end he hadn’t hated Madsen quite as much, but right now he was really looking forward to cutting out his liver and serving it to him.

He glanced over his shoulder. Beth was asleep on the back seat. She’d flat out refused to take the front seat and he wasn’t into arguing. He was better off without the distraction. He had a lot to think about.

What the hell had happened to him today? Twice he’d almost gotten them killed because of her. He’d taken one look at her bruised face streaked with tears and wished he’d killed the man who hit her twice over. Taka had given him a long, assessing look when he did it. He could have left the son of a bitch for Barringer to find.

But he’d heard what the man had planned to do to Beth, what he’d done to other women, and that had pretty much sealed his fate, even if he hadn’t hit Beth.

This was no life for someone like her, and he knew it. He should have insisted she go with Taka. Taka and his cousin would have made sure she got on a plane back to America, to the nice cocoon of all that money. Once away from him she probably wouldn’t think about him again.

Which was why he couldn’t let her go. He wasn’t finished with her. He didn’t know why, or what was left, but it sat between them like the proverbial elephant in the living room. He needed to get it settled, make peace with it, before he said good-bye to her.

Not that saying good-bye was in the cards. He was a man who simply vanished when it was time to go, no note, no farewell. He was just gone.

But he wasn’t quite ready to leave.

He drove through the night, while Dylan slept beside him, sprawled out like the gangly teenager he really was. Beth made no sound from the back seat, but he knew when she was awake and when she slept, even if she pretended otherwise. The old stone farmhouse was a sprawling old building, with half a dozen bedrooms behind the crumbling façade. He could put her in the one on the first floor behind the kitchen, out of reach in case he decided to wander. The only problem with that was she’d be alone down there if anyone decided to come calling. In all the years no one had ever breached the farmhouse. It was far too badly maintained, deliberately so, with overgrown shrubbery and a road that looked barely passable. The roof looked as if it were about to cave in, though underneath its ravaged surface was a new and solid one.

He could put her on the second floor in one of the five bedrooms. Most of the rooms were utilitarian, made for soldiers in hiding, but one was elegantly decorated. Madame Lambert had insisted she wasn’t going to camp out in a barracks if she had to stay there, and her room had pale colors and florals. Putting her there was the obvious choice, but it had an adjoining door to the room he habitually used.

Not that he’d ever touched Madame Lambert. The Ice Queen had frankly scared the shit out of him, and he still couldn’t imagine her running off with any man, even Serafin the Butcher.

He could go downstairs. In fact, that would make more sense – he’d be the first line of defense down there. Yes, that was the smart thing to do.

And he wasn’t going to do it. He was going to put Dylan in the room under the eaves, at the far end of the house, and maybe even lock him in. And then he was going to turn his attention to the woman in the back seat who was pretending she wasn’t awake.

“You should go back to sleep,” he said in a soft voice, not wanting to wake Dylan.

For a moment there was silence, and he wondered if she’d keep faking it. “I’m trying,” she said finally. “I keep seeing … there’s been too much blood.”

“Then why did you come with me? Taka would have taken you straight to the airport.”

She said nothing, and he could have kicked himself. Putting her on the spot was no way to keep her talking to him, and he wanted to hear her voice. It seemed as if it had been weeks since he’d slept. The nights he’d been alone on the ship he’d tossed and turned, unable to get used to the feel of the ship beneath him. Or maybe unable to get used to Beth being so far away.