Teresa Medeiros (34 page)

As he wandered into the living room, his dazed perusal discovered what his frantic search had not—a panel of drywall propped against the wall like a piece of missing puzzle. It seemed Arian had exited his life by more conventional means than a broom—through his secret escape hatch, up to the roof, and down the express elevator to the street.

Sven
, Tristan thought, shaking his head in disbelief. Who would have thought sweet, dumb Sven would have the guts to do what even Copperfield hadn’t? Defy his boss’s wishes and smuggle Arian to freedom.

A breeze that smelled of rain blew through the gaping hole, sending a scrap of paper fluttering off the coffee table. At first Tristan thought Arian had left him a note.
So long, sucker
, or some other such sentimental farewell scribbled on the back of one of their wedding napkins in her peach-flavored lipstick.

But closer examination revealed that she hadn’t left him a note. She’d left him a message.

The million-dollar bank draft in Tristan’s hand
bluntly informed him that wherever Arian had fled, she wasn’t holed up in some luxury hotel in Arthur Finch’s bed, giggling over her husband’s gullibility. The check was no longer crisp and new, but worn and creased as if it had meant less than nothing to its temporary owner. A blotchy tearstain smeared the arrogant flourish of his signature.

Tristan sank to his knees on the floor, crumpling the check in his fist. He might have remained that way until his first anniversary if something hadn’t butted up against his thigh.

He reached down blindly, encountering the beguiling softness of baby cat fur. The persistent creature began to worry his thumb.

Tristan detached its sharp little teeth before they could draw blood and cupped the tiny kitten in his palm, bringing it to eye level.

“You were her familiar,” he said hoarsely. “You were supposed to take care of her.”

The kitten retorted with a plaintive mew that sounded suspiciously similar to,
Like hell, bozo. That was your job
.

“Yeah, well, I blew it, too,” he confessed.

Tristan rose, cradling the cat against his chest, and wandered to the window to gaze out over the vast and rain-drenched city. Arian was out there somewhere amid the shuffling homeless and street gangs and wailing sirens. Utterly defenseless. Without her magic. Without her cat. Without him.

And he would sell what was left of his worthless soul to find her.

“What do you mean you let her go alone? Are you out of your freaking mind?” Grabbing the gigantic Norwegian by the collar of his pajamas, Tristan hoisted him out of his bed and slammed him against the nearest wall.

It had taken Tristan over fifteen hours to trace Sven to this cozy TriBeCa walk-up. Fifteen hours of prowling the city streets in icy drizzle, shoving fliers printed with Arian’s bridal portrait into every face he saw—drunk faces, white faces, black faces, sympathetic faces, suspicious faces, apathetic faces, frightened faces, hostile faces. He had attracted the usual share of predators throughout the day—baby-faced kids with fuchsia mohawks, pierced noses, and automatic weapons bulging beneath their leather vests, grizzled vets in camouflage pants with flat, lifeless eyes and needle-scarred arms. They would trail him for a few blocks, nudging each other or their invisible demons and hungrily eyeing his expensive coat, his leather shoes. But something in his unshaven face, something feral and slightly mad, would send them slinking away in search of easier prey.

Arian had been missing for almost twenty-four hours.

Tristan had spent the first three hours on the telephone, shaking down every police captain and precinct chief who’d ever entreated him to sponsor their annual charity ball. He didn’t give a damn if he could hear their wives grumbling in the background or if their own muttered oaths changed to poorly suppressed mirth when they learned the billionaire hotshot from Fifth Avenue had
misplaced
his bride. All he gave a damn about was that they get on the phone and roust their grumbling men out of their warm, cozy beds to look for Arian.

Tristan spent three to five
A.M.
putting his considerable organizational skills to use. He called in most of his own staff, promising them triple overtime for working on Sunday, and helped them assemble and copy a hundred thousand fliers printed with Arian’s likeness. He looked away each time a fresh stack emerged from the copy machine, each time he read the mocking words:
Reward for the Safe Return of Arian Lennox—One Million Dollars
.

But even when he’d been assured that half of his dedicated staff was saturating the city with fliers while the other half manned the Tower phones, even when he knew a veritable army of New York’s finest was combing the city streets, even when he learned that no one of Arian’s description had been admitted to any of the area’s hospitals and the poor, strangled brunette lying on a cold slab down at the city morgue was some other man’s wife or daughter, it still wasn’t enough. So at dawn, when a bitter north wind was already threatening to turn the rain into snow, Tristan had turned up the collar of his coat and ducked out of the Tower on foot without his security detail for the first time in seven years.

Fifteen hours later, he was roughing up his own bodyguard in a bedroom draped in a dizzying array of paisley and chintz. “You just turned her loose? You didn’t
offer to go with her? To protect her? How could you do such a witless thing?”

Sven hung limp in his boss’s grip, too stunned and remorseful to put up even a token protest. “She would not let me go. She said she’d already cost me my job and was afraid you’d send me to jail if you found us together.” He hung his shaggy head in shame. “I did not want to lose my green card.”

Tristan released him, biting off an oath. “If I hadn’t been such a bastard, maybe none of this would have happened.” He laughed bitterly. “But I’m damn good at it, you know. I’ve had a lifetime of practice.”

He paced the small room, growing more claustrophobic with each pass. The proliferation of flowers and stripes was making his weary eyes cross. When he spotted the sleek Walther on the bureau, he knew exactly what he’d been looking for. As Tristan drew the gun from its leather holster, Sven threw his hands up, obviously thinking he was done for.

But Tristan simply checked to make sure the gun was loaded, then jammed it into the waistband of his jeans. “You head toward the Lower East Side. I’m going north. She might have sought shelter in the park.”

“Sir?” Sven called out meekly as Tristan strode toward the door. “Am I fired?”

“Hell, yes, you’re fired!” Tristan barked. “Now get to work!” Sven was still scratching his head, struggling to comprehend this bewildering turn of events when Tristan pivoted on his heel. “One more thing, Nordgard.”

“Sir?”

Tristan’s smile was almost conciliatory. “The next time you move, would you please take the time to upgrade the address on your personnel file?”

Tristan was already out the door before Sven’s mumbled, “Yes, sir,” could reach his ears.

*  *  *

Arian crept out from beneath the wilting hydrangea bush at nightfall to discover her hair had frozen and the icy drizzle had changed to snow. Although the swirling flakes were a vast improvement over the rain, the bitter wind cut through her dress like a blade. She rubbed her eyes, disoriented from sleeping the day through. She would have preferred to have stolen a few hours of sleep the night before, but every time she found a comfortable bench and dozed off, some uniformed man would poke her in the back with a stick and order her to move on.

After fleeing the Tower and wandering the city streets for what seemed like an eternity, Arian had discovered this pastoral haven. She had feared she might be terribly conspicuous in her tattered dress and tangled hair, but there were many others like her in this place. Lost souls wandering aimlessly down the darkened paths, some staggering and muttering to themselves, others pushing wheeled carts crammed with the meager extent of their worldly belongings. One old man huddled beneath a sodden blanket had fixed her with such a piteous look that she had knelt and pressed the wad of green bills Sven had given her into his palsied hand.

Some instinct told her there was nothing to fear from these kindred spirits. They, like herself, had been betrayed and abandoned by those they believed in the most.

The ones she feared were the ones who watched her from the darkness with sharp predator’s eyes. The stealthy ones, who stalked her through the shadows, moving only when she did until the arrival of another surly officer would send them scurrying for cover, the predator becoming the prey. Those were the ones who had driven Arian under the hydrangea bush, forcing her to burrow beneath the fallen leaves like some small, frightened animal until sleep claimed her exhausted body.

She stretched as she emerged from her nest, but the motion failed to thaw her rusty joints. The sound of
cantering hoofbeats, so woefully out of place in this harried century, made her heart beat a trifle bit faster. She barely had time to jump out of the way before a mounted patrolman went galloping past.

She stared after him, thinking he might be the same officer who had introduced her to his beloved Bathsheba.

He drew hard on his reins, wheeling his mount in a prancing circle. Pointing a black-gloved finger right at her, he shouted, “Hey, you there! Freeze!”

Beneath his helmet, he was just another stranger, no different from any of the others who had harassed her throughout the night. Since she was already freezing, Arian turned and fled, seeking the shelter of the towering trees. Hugging herself, she raced down the nearest path, weary of shadows and longing for the mundane comforts of lights and people.

It didn’t take her long to emerge on another bustling city street. People rushed past, bumping and jostling her as if she were invisible, the collars of their heavy woolen coats turned up against the biting sting of the snow. They weren’t like the people in the park. They obviously had somewhere warm and dry to go.

Their rudeness and apathy jarred Arian. When she had walked the streets on Tristan’s arm, it was as if he had cast an invisible shield of protection around them both, forcing others to keep a polite distance or suffer the consequences.

But that magical shield had been withdrawn, she reminded herself bitterly, and the sooner she reconciled herself to its loss, the better off she would be.

The aroma of roasting meat drifted to Arian’s nose, making her nostrils twitch and her mouth water with yearning. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was until that very moment.

She followed the delectable smell to its source only to have her spirits plunge when a man poked his head
out the window of a big silver wagon and bellowed, “Hot dogs! Git yer fresh dogs here!”

She watched steam waft off the fat sausages while her hollow stomach argued with her sensibilities, understanding for the first time why it was the poor who considered cat such a delicacy. Perhaps it was a good thing she had left Lucifer in the haven of the penthouse.

Arian had to stand on tiptoe to peer into the window of the wagon. “Excuse me, sir. Might I have a”— she could not quite suppress a tiny shudder—“sausage?”

Grease drizzled from the thing as he slapped it on a split roll. “That’ll be three fifty.”

Arian stared up at him blankly.

He leaned out the window, eyeing her ragged dress and the scuffed maid’s shoes she had once worn to Bloomingdale’s with a cynical eye. “Damn leeches,” he muttered. “I’m sick of the whole lot of you. I’m already supporting your deadbeat generation with my hard-earned tax money and you still have the nerve to come begging for food. Hell, you probably make more bilking the government out of your welfare check than I do trying to make an honest living.”

Arian began to back away from the wagon. She wasn’t sure what she’d done to incense the man, but his already florid face was turning an alarming shade of scarlet.

“Go on!” he shouted. “Get the hell out of here! And while you’re at it, get a job!” He punctuated his tirade by slamming down the wagon window, climbing into the front of the vehicle and racing off, gunning the motor so hard Arian was nearly smothered by billowing blue clouds of exhaust.

“Well!” she exclaimed, when she could strangle out a breath. “He shouldn’t go around offering hot dogs to strangers if he’s going to be so stingy about giving them away.”

With a pathetic flounce of her wilted skirts, she
turned in the opposite direction and marched down the sidewalk, her ire increasing with each step. Her hunger only worsened her mood, and before she realized it, she had worked herself into quite a fine temper. And made an intriguing discovery.

Moping about feeling sorry for herself had only intensified her shivers, but being furious with the rest of the world invigorated her. Her face was aglow with heat, her fingers tingling with delicious warmth. She clomped along through the deepening snow, cursing hot dog vendors, the Reverend Linnet, Wite Lize, her anonymous papa, and every other faithless man born since the beginning of time. She hated them, she decided, but she hated her husband most of all. She hated him so much she nearly lost the rhythm of her stride and fell down.