The Second Lie (Immortal Vikings Book 2) (3 page)

She apologized to the two women waiting with spray bottles and rags as she stood, not bothering to stuff her swollen feet back into her heels. They had to clean and make a long trek home, a schedule she knew because her mother had lived that life until she’d married Big Frank. Her mother’s friends had been housekeepers even after the wedding.

Hair tickled her left shoulder. Half her bun had escaped its confines, so she unpinned the rest while she used a hip to open the swinging door.

The hall was dim and deserted except for the cleaning cart. She’d missed the opportunity to talk to any Bodeby’s bigwigs, to check the rest of the wine, to delve deeper into this mess.

The realization that she’d gambled with her entire life in the United States by coming here, and yet she’d blown it napping in the ladies’ lounge, crashed through her hard enough to stop her. Almost two thousand dollars in airfare and sixty dollars on the cab, money she couldn’t afford to spend without results that would protect Morrison and Mancini. Each wasted dollar weighed like a backpack full of two thousand rocks.

A vacuum propped open the door into the dark party room, where the greenish glow of emergency lights reflected off dark wooden tables stripped of their linens. The empty room beckoned.

Her feet took a step closer. The fake cave occupied the middle of the room, reminding her that tomorrow night—no, tonight—would be a special preview for Asian collectors. They too would see certifications of authenticity backed by her reputation.

The carpets gave slightly under her feet as she crossed to the structure. Without the lighting and chattering crowds, it squatted in the center of the room like a mausoleum.

She shivered, her bare arms chilled even as her palms felt damp and sweaty. The antique door handle was cool and slippery. As soon as it swung open, she wiped her hand on the fabric over her thighs, and the conversation with the fake Geoffrey Morrison returned.

An off-brand dress.

Her dress didn’t define her any more than it had when she was a little girl wearing thrift shop clothes, so she walled his words away. His snobbery and fake values were a pathetic attempt to demean her, one she wouldn’t think about, not while she had the freedom to investigate the wine display.

The interior of the cave was as dark as a covered vat. She groped to the right until she felt a switch, and soft light illuminated wall niches filled with bottles ready for the second round of previews. Chinese, Japanese and Korean characters had been added below the hand-lettered script on Bodeby’s tags. She hadn’t begun to pursue the Asian market for high-end wine, but that bastard had jumped ahead of her. If Morrison and Mancini pulled out of this intact, maybe she could develop a few new clients from his work.

Without the presence of living, breathing people, the cooling system had sanitized the space. A real wine cave smelled alive in an indescribable way, not organic, not the rampant attack-force of brewery yeast, but yet alive. This space had less aroma than a walk-in refrigerator.

She set her purse on the bar and dropped her shoes while she scanned the rows for her most prized acquisitions. The Argentinian Incarnadine was there, its label glowing with the fire of sunrise on a wine-red sea. Two years ago, she’d secured a half case for Lord Seymour by swapping tickets to the owner’s box of the Los Angeles professional soccer team with the winemaker’s brother-in-law. She’d worked her ass off for six bottles, but there was a little
twelve
next to the lot size. She snapped a photo with her phone. The family who produced Incarnadine tracked their bottles like grandchildren, and they would notice the discrepancy. Of all the fakes, these had to be pulled.

She pulled her master list out of her purse. The crackle of paper unfolding broke the still quality of the space and sent her heart racing. There was no one but her to hear, she reminded herself. That didn’t prevent the paper from trembling in her hand.

Over five years, she’d sourced six cases of a fine, but not rare, syrah that Lord Seymour claimed went well with roast pork. Seventy-two bottles, minus a healthy number for consumption, but there were three lots of four cases each available for Friday’s bidding. She could multiply twelves in her sleep, and the answers were the same. Fakes.

She took a photo of this sign too. Might as well be thorough. Whoever the imposter was, there was no way he’d get away with this, not so blatantly.

She swapped her phone and list for a closer look at the bottle.

* * *

If the men hadn’t been arguing loudly, Christina wouldn’t have heard their voices through the wine cave’s walls several minutes later. She didn’t have time to raise the hinged counter panel, just ducked under with the syrah bottle’s green glass neck clenched in her fist and crouched in the corner behind the bar.

They opened the door. Now she could hear them clearly. Her shoulders shook and her breathing sounded like a twenty-year-old air conditioner until she covered her mouth with her free hand.

“You don’t have a choice, Stig.” The man’s accent was clipped and hard enough to emphasize the malice in his voice.

“On the contrary, I have several.” The voice of the man replying was unfortunately familiar. “I choose to finish my business here.”

His business. Defrauding and ruining her. She didn’t have any sympathy.

“It is finished.”

“I’m afraid not.” Whoever the bastard claiming to be Geoffrey Morrison actually was, he didn’t sound nervous. She was, however, so she bit down on the skin between her thumb and first finger in her effort to keep silent. A slight rustling that she couldn’t identify, and then he continued. “May I offer you a drink before you leave?”

“You’re coming with us. One way or another.”

Her stomach twisted, and she tried to recall the mental chant she’d used to enter her zone before gymnastics meets, but part of that ritual had been pacing, twelve out, twelve back. Stuck in a corner, no walking, no moving, just listening, she couldn’t find her calm.

“He doesn’t mean it that way.” This third voice was more modulated, less vicious than the first and hinted at Eastern Europe. “We told you Ivar wants to see you.”

“His problems are no longer mine.” His voice had come closer and his shadow blocked the light diffusing into her hiding space, as if he was leaning on the other side of the bar. “I paid my debt with the Boston job and I’m free.”

Payment. Money. Her purse.

The weight of the revelation rolled across her like a loose barrel, crushing her with certainty even before she looked at the bottle clenched in her left fist. Her right hand covered her mouth and crap, yes, she’d forgotten to grab her purse or shoes. From her place crouched on the floor, the only thing visible to her was the faux-beamed ceiling, but she pictured the countertop as clearly as a label engraving. A black oblong purse with a ribbon trim and a thin gold chain. Stark against the green slate counter. Her black heels tumbled on the floor. No way to retrieve them.

Dread raised goose bumps on her arms, and she curled her chest tighter to her knees to try to warm herself.

Her phone and list were out there too. On the counter? Or in a niche next to a bottle? It didn’t matter exactly where, because her presence was scattered across the space like leaves in the street.

“What’s behind you.” The angry man’s flat intonation wasn’t a question.

They were coming for her now, but she was frozen on the floor, a ball of quivering silence.

“A bar. In celebration of our unexpected reunion, I’m happy to share the Incarnadine. It’s the best vintage here, and happily it’s not mine. A glass, shall we?”

“No. This.”

The tiny jingle wouldn’t have registered in a crowded party, but inside these walls no night-traffic or city noises, not even the hum of a heater, intruded. To Christina’s ears, the clinks of her purse chain sounded like a tray of glasses breaking.

“I know you like dressing fancy, but that doesn’t look like yours.”

Don’t look.
She focused on the stones and mortar opposite.
They won’t look if you don’t look.

“Hopefully whichever lovely lady is missing her bag had a place to stay that didn’t require keys.” The lightness of his voice gave her a thread of hope. “Do me a favor—leave it with the doorman on your way out.”

Instinct told her he knew a woman was in the room and was trying to protect her, but she doubted he knew the purse was hers. One black purse looked like any other to a man.

“Doorman’s gone. I made sure.”

In the silence, her arm shook from gripping the wine and her legs had cramped, but she couldn’t set down the bottle or shift her legs without making a noise.

Then the suss-suss of smooth leather soles on terra-cotta told her that one person had moved. With a click, the bar’s swinging counter lifted. The small noise startled her so much that her shoulders jerked to her ears.

The man who stepped into the opening wore a black eye patch partially covering a thickened ridge of pink scar tissue that climbed to his hairline, where it merged into a streak of white. “This is not good.” His lips twisted to the side as he scowled at her. Her purse dangled from one of his hands. The other hovered above his hip, as if he wanted to pull something from under his jacket. “Not. Good.”

Chapter Three

“The lady is with me.” Geoffrey—or Stig, as these men called him—slid through the narrow opening to insert himself between her and the gray-haired man. He held one hand behind his back and curled his fingers into his palm as if he wanted her to get to her feet. “I hope you gentlemen have finished interrupting my private party.”

Her legs barely functioned. She had to brace on the back of the bar to heave herself to her feet, thighs screaming as muscles unfolded. Cramp or no cramp, she wouldn’t let go of the familiar heft of the wine in her other hand. She prayed her legs didn’t collapse and send her sprawling, prayed none of them could see her shake.

Now he wiggled his fingers as if he wanted her to move closer. She had the feeling he wasn’t the worst man in the room, and she couldn’t stay in the corner, so she slipped underneath his arm. His warmth was welcome after so long on the tile floor.

Her right hand with the bottle was trapped low behind his back, but he urged her closer and nudged her left elbow until her empty hand threaded itself under his tux jacket and across the starched white shirt. It was warm that close to his skin.

She understood what charade he had in mind.

“Geoffrey.” She drew out the final
e
sound and tucked her head against his shoulder as if she was tired. That part at least was true. “Can we go to the hotel? I picked a wine and waited like you told me to.”

The hand cupping her shoulder squeezed in what she suspected was approval. “As soon as I finish with this business, my dear.” He nuzzled into her hair, and she expected him to whisper instructions, but he just breathed.

Improvising was not her forte. She looked into his eyes and saw a spark of encouragement. The con man was daring her, but to do what?

She looked at the other two. “I didn’t know you invited—” she tilted her head and slowly licked her lips, an attempt to seem more intrigued than worried, before she smiled, “—friends.”

“They’re leaving.” Then he swiveled his chest enough that her hand brushed against something hard under his jacket, in the space over his rib cage.

She’d watched enough television to know it was a gun. In a holster.

This wasn’t her fight, so she reminded herself to exhale normally. There was no chance in hell she would pull that out. Using a gun wasn’t in her plan. “I think I’ll go now.” Too squeaky, she tried again. “I’ll get a cab.” That sounded better. She let her hand slip out from his jacket, away from the gun, away from the man who would carry one. “See you later, okay?”

“I’ll be right behind you.”

He meant something by that, but she didn’t know what, so she turned to walk past the man with the eye patch. This was the test.

“You’re not leaving.” He looked from Stig to her, one side of his mouth drawn up while he stared at her legs. “We can use her.”

That phrase put another layer on whatever she’d tumbled into.

“You’re becoming annoying, Skafe. Obviously, I have plans for what’s left of the evening. They don’t include a ménage.”

“I’m not sure about your luck.” The third man studied a paper in his hand. He had dark hair and his pronounced cheekbones combined with slightly elongated eyes to give him a Slavic look. “Since she appears to be an investigator.”

Her list. He raised it to shoulder level so they could see the two tidy columns comparing her original records of sale with total bottles listed for auction. His other hand held her phone.

She couldn’t have spoken even if she’d known what to say. Her throat was scalded raw by the acid of fear.

Then Stig sighed. “I chased that biddy away. Black dress, nose like a beak, pearls good enough that they nearly fooled me into missing her affiliation with the insurance industry. Surely you saw her stomp out from your lobby purgatory?”

She
almost believed him, and it was her list, so she wasn’t surprised that both men looked confused. He was that good.

This was it.

“I’m really tired. And cold.” She didn’t have to act as she grabbed her purse and looped the gold chain around her wrist. “I hope the coat check isn’t locked.” One step separated her from the scowling older man. He’d have to turn slightly to let her pass, or she’d have to flatten her butt against the bar and slide sideways. She smiled with everything in her, the smile she’d used the first time her mother had brought Frank Mancini home for dinner at their tiny apartment, the smile she used when renewing her driver’s license, the expression she called her
I’m so nice and tiny and cute that you need to be nice right back
face.

He didn’t move.

Midstep, she shifted to slide to her left. Kept her sweet smile in place despite its failure. Kept going even when her dress snagged on a hinge that protruded from the raised counter panel. Screw her good black dress. If she got out of here, she’d buy a replacement.

She made it around the bar.

The dark one stepped to his left as she went right, and she forced herself to giggle like a high schooler in the hall as she darted to the other side.

He was too fast. Didn’t let her pass.

A commotion behind her. She didn’t have time to look. The door was open in front of her, and she had only one not-very-big guy between her and freedom.

She brought up her purse on its shortened chain and swung it fast and bingo, his eyes followed it for a second. Her other hand, gripping three pounds of thick glass and wine, came hard from her side, as hard as she could swing. Her brother had made sure she knew to aim for the temple and ear, but her grip was upside-down. She couldn’t put her whole weight behind her swing.

Fuck. The bottle didn’t break.

He stumbled to the side but didn’t fall. She barreled past, but he must’ve stuck out a leg, because suddenly she was on the floor and she knew she hadn’t made it.

Then a hand grabbed her hair and yanked.

She screamed, because
it hurt
to be pulled to her feet by her hair.

“Stop it, Wend.” The order came hard and fast, not like the smoothly mocking cadences of her imposter, but it was his voice. “Let her loose.”

The dark man spun her away from the door, and she couldn’t contain a whimper. She’d lost. She wasn’t getting away.

They faced the other two. Nose bleeding, the one with the eye patch pressed a short but wide-bladed knife into a spot above Stig’s or Geoffrey’s or whoever he was’s bow tie. A red line marked the skin above his wing-tip collar. Beginning by the corner of his jaw as a thin scratch, she watched drops of blood well from the incision closest to the knife point.

Held like this, all she could do was pant and fight to keep the contents of her stomach in place, try not to panic, not to scream.

Geoffrey’s eyes locked with hers, his head tilted, his eyebrows raised in the center and eyes drooping to the outside as if combining regret and admiration. Despite the knife at his neck, he adjusted his watch band and realigned his cuffs and tuxedo sleeves.

He could remain unflustered, but she was flushed with the hot fury of denied freedom and sick with fear at the same time. The frustration inside her gut needed to escape, but she couldn’t move because even the skin of her face was pulled back into taut immobility by the fist gripping her hair.

She knew her lips curled away from her teeth as she put her anger into the glare she threw at the one-eyed man. At this point, anger was her only refuge. Without anger, she’d collapse, shatter to the floor. She knew that.

“Feisty.” The one-eyed man spoke without removing his knife from Stig’s neck. “You can pick them. Too bad you never could keep them.”

“Our memories differ. ’Twas always thus.”

She felt hyper-focused on the man with the knife, and she saw the back of his hand flex, perhaps only the shift in the light reflecting in a way that signaled his hand had moved, but then a wider trickle of red slipped under Stig’s collar. The blood left a visible progress map in the places his white shirt clung to his skin, translucent and crimson.

The knife at his throat was like a kick to her stomach. If her head hadn’t been yanked backward past her spine, and she’d had the space to lean forward, she would have thrown up. She breathed through her open mouth, the sound loud in the room, but it was the only way to keep her bile down. One whiff of the room, crowded now with the sweat of four people and blood and fear, and she’d be retching.

“Skafe.” The man clutching her hair spoke. “Enough. Not in front of her.”

“You’ll come with us now, won’t you, Stig?” The one called Skafe withdrew his knife point and laughed as he wiped it clean across the front of Stig’s shirt. “For her sake. You always want to save the women, don’t you.”

Bait. She was bait. Let her get out of this, and she’d show up at Saint John’s every Sunday.

Skafe kicked her heels across the floor to her. “We’re going.”

The tight leather of her shoes was the least of her concerns now. Novenas for her mother and Big Frank every week, Wednesday nights too, and she’d give ten percent of her income to the church, and another ten percent to the food pantry and volunteer as a mentor...She ran out of bargains to offer.

She shut down inside then, because the next thing she understood was that she was stumbling down the auction house steps, nearly dragged by Wend’s grip on her upper arm, with an alarm ringing behind her.

“Bloody stupid to use the front door,” Stig muttered.

“Pardon us for not being master thieves,” Wend replied without loosening the hand fastened on her bare skin.

Someone had to be around on the street, had to see, and help.

They stopped at a black car parked fifty feet from the entrance. Self-defense courses said
don’t get in the car. Fight when they open the door, but don’t go along.

“Double yellow means no parking.” Stig started to laugh, and she followed his gaze to see a metal triangle clamped to the front wheel. “Illegally parking an unregistered car in central London? You didn’t make that mistake, did you? They’ve put your wheels out of commission.”

Their captors spoke in a language she didn’t understand, but the tone was an argument. Wend’s hand squeezed her arm, and she didn’t have to speak the language to understand. What to do with her had become the subject of debate.

“Perhaps it’s a sign from the gods to let her go.”

The other two ignored Stig’s comment.

The alarm still blared. Police would respond soon, and they’d rescue her, although she assumed they’d also ask to see her identification. The wine world would pounce on every morsel of tonight, but she’d trade her reputation, her business, all of it, to be inside a police car.

“Move out,” Skafe ordered, and Wend prodded her at a pace that her heels were not meant to achieve. “Three mates on a constitutional. Old times, eh, Stig?”

“I was never your mate.”

“Right. You were a prisoner, and I was a freeman. You never were my mate.”

These three had a history, and not the type that included exchanging barbecue recipes. Whoever Ivar was, Stig must have screwed him badly enough to get Skafe and Wend sent hunting for him. If they wanted retribution, maybe they didn’t want her.

She looked at the dark-haired man gripping her arm and tried to make her voice slightly breathy, suppressing the scratchy panic that wanted to squeal out each time she parted her lips. “Please let me go? I don’t know anything. I don’t even know who any of you are. I won’t—”

“Shut up.” Skafe cut off Wend before he could answer her plea.

Her captor shrugged, his expression the type of smile that turned up and down on opposite corners, maybe to show regret or resignation. Big help sympathy was.

Temporarily backing off to reassess wasn’t giving up, she told herself as she started to shiver. London in March wasn’t spring by California standards, and her jacket was in the coat room with her suitcase. The drizzle that coated her arms and chest made her dress damp enough to cling.

“Here.” Stepping up from behind, Stig whipped his tux jacket around her shoulders. She couldn’t slip her left arm in the sleeve unless Wend released her, but the warmth of wearing even half the jacket was heaven.

“Thanks.” She was too scared and cold to do more than smile with the corners of her closed mouth.

“You’re welcome.” His smile was relaxed until he glanced at the others. “Oh, for Freya’s sake, let her wear the coat properly.”

The group stopped in the shadows between streetlamps, but there was enough light for her to see the bloodstains on Stig’s tuxedo shirt. He wasn’t wearing the holster and gun she’d felt inside Bodeby’s.

Then the oddly balanced weight of the coat on her shoulders made sense. He must have tucked the holster into the sleeves.

Which meant she had the pistol, a gift she didn’t want. Theoretically a handgun was point-and-shoot, like a camera, but she’d taken a lot of crappy pictures and she knew she’d never get a second chance if she fucked up with the gun. This got worse.

“Can’t stop working the angles, can you,” Skafe said.

“I haven’t forgotten basic decency yet.” Stig glared at the other man. “Ivar would never let you involve her.”

Skafe rotated his wrist, letting the knife concealed low in his hand show from his palm while he indicated that Stig should back away from her. Once he had, Skafe nodded at the man holding her arm and she was free, for a moment.

Stig was still talking. “You can’t hurt her. It’s the first rule.”

She sucked in a breath, hovering on the edge of flight now that she was untethered.

“The situation’s changed.” Skafe must have read her thought on her face, because he shifted on his feet into a position she recognized as ready to spring and showed more of the knife blade. “Ivar’s changed. You’ll see. Leashes are off.”

She lowered her chin, trying to make herself look meek as she carefully threaded her hand through both the holster and the empty sleeve.

“With improved manners, maybe you’d have better luck with the fairer sex.” Stig flicked a speck off his white shirt. A hard flick that started with a circle from his middle finger and thumb and was almost audible in its crispness. Or maybe that was her heart pounding in the silent street.