Books by Maggie Shayne (4 page)

"What the hell are you doing?"

 
"Getting dressed. I'm going to give you the key and then I'm leaving.

All right? " She didn't wait for an answer. She dug through the dresser again, emerging this time with a sweatshirt. Turning her back, she tugged the nightgown over her head.

Torch stood motionless, staring at the length of her bare arms, the curve of her spine, the soft, smooth roundness of her shoulders. And for just an instant, he battled an overwhelming urge to run his hands over her silken skin. To turn her around and look at her breasts and her waist and. He averted his eyes, gave his head a shake, tried to focus on something else besides her. The fireplace on one wall, not burning.

The neat stack of kindling and wood on the grate, ready for the touch of a match. The brass log holder, filled with fragrant, seasoned cherry wood.

"You'll leave me alone? You promise? if there's anything to he found, it will be in that box. And whatever you do find, it's only going to prove you're wrong about him."

He looked at her again. The sweatshirt was in place, concealing her lovely flesh from his gaze. Thank God for small favors.

"Give me the name of the bank, and give me the key, Alexandra. You're not in a position to" -- He went silent at the sound of tires crunching gravel, "Damn, ~,re here. We're out of time." He saw her fear return, chasing all that false bravado right back into whatever closet she kept it in when she wasn't using it. ,"I lied about leaving you alone. You're coming with me, you understand? If you want to survive this, don't argue about it. Now get the damned key and let's get out of here."

She looked so crestfallen it would have been laughable if the situation hadn't been so deadly. Turning, she dumped a jewelry box onto. her dresser, pawing through a small mountain of trinkets. He saw the key as she snatched it up, and before he'd even extended his hand for it, she'd tucked it into her jeans pocket.

 
The car stopped.

"Oh, God," she whispered. But she never stopped moving. She swooped down on a pair of sneakers that had been hiding under the bed, stuffed her feet into them. She was shaking again.

Breathing hard. She snatched the inhaler from the dresser where she'd dropped it, clutched it in a white-knuckled grip.

"Is there a back door?" Torch whispered harshly. "We'd have to go back downstairs."

He lunged for the window, shoving it open as she watched, baffled.

"What are you doing?"

Torch stuck his head out the window.

"No fire escape? Nothing?"

She only shook her head, her face draining of color When the front 'door opened audibly below. Then she blinked. "Just rope ladders in the bedrooms. Father insisted on it." She turned to the closet and hauled a flimsy-looking rope ladder from an upper shelf.

Torch took the bundle from her, anchoring the two end hooks on the window ledge and letting the rest fall free.

"Come on," he whispered harshly.

"Hurry. Get out there."

"I don't want to leave my cat!"

"You'll leave him on angel wings with a harp in your hands if you don't get yQur butt in gear!"

She sent a desperate glance toward the bed, where the cat had been only seconds ago, but the beast had gone into hiding: She shook her head, taring a't the open window, then at him.

"I ... I can't" -- "You damned well better. Move it!"

Torch heard heavy footfalls on the stairs. Alexandra bit her lip and, her entire body shaking, she stared at the' flimsy rope. Torch took her shoulders in his hands, gave her a shake.

"You don't have a choice, Alexandra."

Her eyes cleared a little and she nodded. Then, awkwardly, she climbed through the window, slowly making her way down the ladder.

 
It wasn't Alexandra Holt climbing down that rope ladder in the middle of the night while brutal killers invaded her home. It just simply wasn't. Alexandra knew that her reaction would have been very different. She'd have been hiding under the bed, with Max, shivering in fear.

But something had happened to her up there, something she hadn't been aware could happen. She'd suddenly stepped out of herself, standing aside, quiet and trembling with fear, just watching events unfold like watching a scary movie. And something else had taken over.

Something stronger and braver than timid Alexandra could ever be. She didn't recognize that thing. It was like an alien presence, summoned to life by a strong pair of hands gripping her shoulders, and by intense blue eyes boring into hers. He'd roused some new, unfamiliar part of her to life. She didn't know how, but she was grateful.

Enough so that she almost felt guilty for lying to him about the safe-deposit box.

For just a few seconds; Alexandra had found courage she'd never known she possessed, and she managed to hang on to it until her feet were on the solid ground once more.

She stood, trembling on the ground below her bedroom window, watching the man descend. She heard the others, inside, and she felt no further hint of that brave alien. Only stark terror.

He jumped when he was still ten feet from the ground, rolled to his feet and gripped her arm. But she couldn't move when he tugged her.

Fear had rooted her feet to the ground.

"Come on, Alex! Don't freeze up on me now!" He made a harsh whisper seem like a barked order, and it shook her enough to make her move.

He'd called her Alex. No one had ever called her that before. It seemed different than Alexandra. Better. He pulled her into the pine forest beyond her back lawn and never slowed his pace.

He seemed to know where he was going. That gave her a little confidence. Becoming lost in the Adirondacks was not an appealing prospect. Usually she knew this section of forest like the back of her hand, but in this state of mind, God only knows where she'd end up.

Still, getting lost in the forest was a far more appealing prospect than falling into the hands of those men back at the house.

He veered westward, cutting a diagonal path through the forest that would bring them to the only road that led up here. She had to struggle to keep the pace he set. Briskly cold, pine-scented night air rushed in and out of her burning lungs. She kept looking back over her shoulder as they ran, expecting to see an army of men in black giving chase. None in sight. Not yet, anyway. They'd have to know where to look for them, though. The rope ladder was still hanging in the window.

Maybes Max would find it and use it to escape. Or maybe he'd stay hidden until those men left. The poor thing. She hadn't intended to leave him behind. " She'd intended to send this man off on a wild-goose chase and then gather up her eat and disappear herself.

Right after she went through her father's papers and found proof of his innocence. Now she'd have to wait until she could get away from this crazy man who clung to her hand with his strong, warm one and pulled her through the pitch-dark forest at a dead run.

Finally he stopped at the edge of the woods near the winding dirt road.

He wasn't even winded, though~Alexan- dm panted more loudly than she would have liked. She sank to the ground and its cushion of pine needles, watching him stare out at the road. And she automatically pulled her inhaler from her pocket and took a dose.

He tilted his head, listening. He seemed even to sniff the air.

Then he turned to her and jerked his head. She rose, though she wanted to stay right were she was. Taking her arm, he led her out onto the road. A car sat a few yards away, and that was where he drew her.

Alertness marked his every movement, and his feet on the road made barely a sound. He stopped beside the car, slipping a penlight from a pocket.

Then he was on his belly, shining the light underneath. What in the name of. ?

He got up, checked the car's interior and opened the driver's door.

"Get in ."

She hesitated.

"But" -- "Get in, Alex. The keys are in the switch. Don't start the engine.

Not yet. Count to one hundred, slowly, beginning when I leave. Then start it. I'll be back before you can count to a hundred a second time.

If I'm not, get the hell out of here. "

"You're leaving? For what? Where are you" -- "No time. Just do as I say, okay?"

"I don't think I can" -- "You'll be fine. Just do whatl ell you."

She clamped her lower lip between her teeth and nodded, sliding into the car. He opened the back door, snatching out a small satchel. Then he closed both doors without making a sound. He turned and ran into the woods.

Her sweaty hands slid back and forth over the steering wheel as she counted.

"One, two, three... how in the name of God did I end up in the middle of this iusani~? Six, seven, eight, nine... I can't possibly sit still all the way to a hundred!

"Where/s he? Twelve, thirteen... I've never b~n so scared in my life...

fifteen..."

She-did it. Somehow, she sat there, imagining she saw dark shapes moving just beyond the tree line, only to discover they were branches swaying in the wind, hearing sounds that turned out to be her own body brushing against the plush seat of his car. His car. A sports car with what appeared to be fangs where the grill should be. Jet black, inside and out. Expensive. It smelled new.

"Ninety-nine, one hundred. There. Made it that far."

She closed her eyes, prayed her pursuers were all hard-of-hearing, checked to be sure it was in neutral and turned the key. / The beast of a car came to life and sat purring like a contented lion. She started counting again and adjusted the mirror so she could see behind her. She checked the emergency brake. It was on. When she got to fifty, she depressed the clutch and slid the stick shift into first.

But when the passenger door was yanked open and he dove in, she was so startled her foot slipped off the clutch and the car stalled.

He swore.

"Come on, Alex! Go!"

She twisted the key again, released the brake and managed to take off this time.

"Are they following us?"

She looked up at the mirror.

"Shift! We're in a hurry here, the object is to go fast!" She shifted, negotiated a curve, picked up speed and shifted again.

Behind her she could only see a cloud of brown dust. Ahead, only darkness. She reached for the headlight switch. He covered' her hand.

"Not yet. No lights."

"I can't drive in the dark!" She shifted again, but fourth gear was all she dared on this road. She'd get them both killed if she tried to go any faster.

"Are they" -- "Yeah, they're coming."

Her foot pressed harder on the accelerator.

"This is insane. I'm running for my life in the middle of the night with a total stranger.

I can't drive this car! I've never driven a car like this in my life! "

"You're doing fine."

"God, I don't even know your name!"

"Palamaro," he said.

She glanced at him briefly, not daring to take her eyes from the barely visibly road ahead for more than an instant. He was turned in his seat, staring behind them, and he held something in his hand that she couldn't identify. Not a gun.

"Palamaro?" she repeated stupidly.

"Torch Palamaro," he said.

 
"Torch?" She swung the wheel and the car veered wildly. She'd almost missed that corner.

"That's not your real name, is it?"

"Nickname." He was a man of few words, it seemed. She frowned, aga~ glancing his way.

"Why Torch?"

His answer was a slow grin, and he lifted the thing he held, pointing it behind them.

An explosion rocked the very ground beneath them. The car vibrated with it. The night glowed for a moment, and Alexandra jammed the brake and th clutch at the same time, skidding the vehicle to a stop in a cloud of dust.

She looked behind them, saw what had been the van, minus several important parts, the hoodbe/ng the most obvious. It burned like a motorized torch, ~pourin' g black aoke skyward as several men emerged like rats from a burning ship.

They scurried, then regrouped and ran forward, and she heard a rat-a-tat sound she couldn't place at f'u~t.

Then the back window exploded, and she screamed. The man who called himself Torch--for obvious rea-sous--gripped her waist in his large hands and pulled her onto his lap. Before she could yell again, he was sliding out from beneath her, into the driver's seat. In what seemed like a heartbeat they were flying, and one of his hands rose to the back of her head to push it toward her lap. "Stay down, Alex."

Alex stayed down.

Torch didn't know where that brief flash of courage she'd displayed back at the house had come from, but it was long gone now. She sat huddled in the passenger seat with her knees drawn to her cheat and that long hair of hers hiding her face. And he was pretty sure she was crying.

Shaking ~ a leaf, too.

When they finally hit a road with what passed for blacktop, he slowed down a little. Not much, just enough to avoid drawing undue attention.

He turned the heat on full blast, but it still didn't make up for the wintry air cgming through the shattered back window. She must be cold, as well as terrified. Not to mention sick. He didn't know much about her gasping fits, but he didn't imagine being scared out of one's wits and then exposed to frigid air was exactly good for them. He wished she'd say something, but he didn't expect her to.

He found himself wanting to draw her out of the shell she'd crawled into, but he wasn't sure why.

"Are you sick?"

She shook her head, said nothing.

 
"Is it asthma?" He didn't know why the hell he'd asked that. He didn't want to know anything about Alexandra Holt, except where her father had hidden his formula. He didn't care about her.

"I've had it since I was three."

"Is it bad?"

"Chronic. Not as bad now as it used to be though." She lifted her head a little, so her hair fell back and revealed her face. She closed her eyes.

"Used to drive my father crazy, having to take time off from work running me to doctors and hospitals."

Torch looked down at the way her long, elegant hands clasped each other more tightly as she spoke. Her father sounded like a real prince.

"What brings it on?"

She shrugged, opening her eyes again, even looking at him for a second.

"I haven't had an attack since I found my father, in his bed " She gave her head a nearly imperceptible shake.

And Torch found himself envisioning her, alone in that mausoleum of a house, slipping into her father's bedroom to cheek on him, worded maybe, about the man she adored, according to the background cheek on her. He could see it all so clearly, those wide, expectant brown eyes, growing even wider when she called to her father and got no answer. Wider still when she shook his shoulders and still heard no response. And finally filling with tears when she the~alized that her father, was dead.

Damn, why did his brain insist on conjuring so much baloney?

"When I was younger, it would act up at the first sign of pollen or cat hair or smoke. Now I guess it's mostly stress induced. Even Max's long hair doesn':t bother it."

That was better. She was talking. When she talked he could. focus on the words, the inflections in her tone. He could try to hear more than she was saying, maybe pick up on a clue. When she went silent, it was far too easy to start searching her eyes and imagine he could read every emotion in them.

Way too easy.

Stress induced, she'd said. Well, then, it was no wonder she'd had an attack. She'd certainly had some stress in the past few hours. But it couldn't be helped, could it? He had to get the formula, and he had to kill Scorpion. Alexandra and her asthma be damned.

"So where is this safe-deposit box located, Alexandra?" "New York."

He nodded.

"You told me that." She took a few steadying breaths. He thought she might be searching for some more of the tiny reserve of strength she kept hidden So well, way down at the end of some twisting cavern. inside her. He kind of thought she'd stumbled onto it by accident when he~d caught a glimpse of it before. Maybe she didn't even know the way back to that place.

She bit her lip, seemingly forcing words now.

"This is over as far as I'm concerned. You can just let me go now.

Okay?" She lifted her head, staring at him from huge brown eyes that were still frightened and now red rimmed to boot.

"I don't think so?" The words slipped out before he'd given them any thought at all. Why riot Iet her go?

"You don't need me. I'll tell you the name of the bank and give you the key, but only if you swear: to let me go.," He stared at her, searched her face probed those expressive eyes until he was in danger of being sucked into them as if they were made of quicksand. She was up to something. Damned if she wasn't. He could read her like a book. "Seems to me you'd want to go with me, Alex.

Seems like you'd want to see what I find in that box for yourself, especially since you're so sure it'll prove your old man innocent. "

"I know it will."

"So how do you know I can be trusted to report what's really in there?

How do you know I won't lie and ruin his impeccable name no matter what I find?"

 
Her eyes widened and she bit her lip.

"I'm... not cut out for this."

"No, I don't suppose you are." He sighed hard, knowing it was an understatement. She was fragile and frightened and he was about to drag her with him into the hubs of hell. But he had no choice.

"Look, Alex, the truth is that if I let you go those guys are gonna track you down. It won't matter where you gofer how well you think you can hide. Sooner or later, they'll find you, and they'll try to force you to tell them what they want to know. They won't believe you don't know anything. And even if you didO manage to convince them of that, they'd be obliged to kill you anyway. And by the time they decided to do it, you'd be grateful for death."

She shook her head.

"No one is that brutal."

"Don't tell me that, Alex. I know exactly how brutal they are.

Believe me. "

"You've dealt with them before?"

Her eyes took on a new look, a curious, probing one, and they picked his brain. He clamped his jaw, averting his face. He didn't want her digging into his soul, because with eyes like those, she'd have to be capable of seeing right into its blackest, bottomless pit. Right to the heart of his grief. She'd look into the empty place where his soul was SUl posed to be. But his soul was gone. It had died with his little boys.

"You're not gonna be safe until I boss. Then I'll let you go. Until then, i He glanced her way.

"Now, how about handing over that key?"

She shook her head.

He sent her his meanest glare, but it was ineffective since she refused to look him in the eye.

"How about the name of the bank?"

"I'll tell you when we get to New York."

"You care to explain your reasons?"

 
She shook her head from side to side.

"It's not as if it matters anyway. There's not going to be anything there." "Huh?"

Her white teeth worried her lower lip for a moment.

"I've already told you, my father couldn't have done this." She drew a shaky breath.

"And... and if he did stumble onto some potentially deadly weapon, then he did it by accident. He wouldn't have done something like that deliberately."

"I don't really care if it was deliberate or not, Alex. Your father created a monster. When he had it, he took it and ran."

" " Maybe he wished he hadn;t found whatever it was. You said he deleted his files, took all his notes. "

"So?"

"So, if this thing ever existed, he probably destroyed it himself."

"That's where you're wrong, Alexandra."

She tilted her head, staring at him, and her eyes pierced his skin again, tears slowly drying on her lashes.

"I know my father."

"And I know his type."

She was silent for a long moment while Torch waited. "You don't know anything about him at all," she said softly.

"Alex,/his formula of your father's--good or bad--was probably the most significant discovery of his career in science. Do you really think he'd have had the heart to destroy it?" She blinked at him, apparently unable to look away.

"I don't. I think he'd squirrel it away somewhere, and maybe he had the best of intentions. Maybe he never intended for another soul to see it or even know about it. But I really doubt he destroyed it. His vanity, his oversize ego, wouldn't let him destroy it."

Her knees lowered until her feet rested on the floor. She tipped her head back, resting it on the seat behind her. "You're wrong about him."

But her voice lacked conviction.

 
~ "Sure I am. And you're so loyal to him because... what, he was the world's greatest dad?"

She-flinched in real pain. Intense pain that brought tears to her eyes.

Torch wished he hadn't' spoken. He'd obviously touched a raw spot. He rolled his eyes, wishing he couldn't so easily tell when his words hurt her, wishing he could be callous to her pain.

"Look, you could be wrong, and we can't take a chance like that. I have to be sure. This is too important, Alex. Those guys back there would do anything, pay anything to get their hands on this."

She turned toward him, eyes narrow.

"And I'm supposed to trust that you won't get it yourself--on the off chance there is actually anything to get--and sell to the highest bidder?"

"What?"

She closed her eyes, sighed long and hard.

"If I'm stuck with a man I barely know, I'm going to hold on to the key.

For all I know, you might murder me once I give it to you and tell you what you want to know."

"You're kidding, fight?"

"I'm going to prove you wrong. I'm not going to let my father s memory be tarnished like this. For once m my life, I'm go' rag to do something fight, something he would have expected of me."

Torch had the feeling she was speaking' more to herself than to him.

He frowned at her, wondering where that last remark was coming from.

No way, Palamaro, you don't want to go tit ere Leave it alone. You don't give a damn about her, remember?

"You're liable to regret it," he told her, wisely heeding the advice his practical side was feeding him. Damn, he didn't want her with him. He didn't want her anywhere near him. She was dangerous. But he didn't see that he had a choice in the matter.

"I'd regret it more if I let him down again. I'd regret that for the rest of my life."

 
Something close to admiration welled up in his throat. -He'd never seen anyone as scared as she'd been back there. Scared as she was, though, She was still able to stand up to him on behalf of this idiot father of hers. Her loyalty might be misplaced, but 'it was sure as hell solid.

"You mighrneed a refill on that medicine of yours before this is over."

He gunned the gas and the car shot forward.

He came out of the motel office with one key dangling from his good hand, and Alexandra couldn't take her eyes off him as he crossed the parking lot toward the car. He'd donned a leather jacket that had been lying in the back seat, so he wouldn't attract notice by walking in shirt leas with a bandage job on his shoulder. But she imagined he'd attracted just as many eyes this way. Striding purposefully toward her with the black jacket hanging open and his unclothed chest beneath it, she figured he looked like some women's fondest fantasy.

Not hers, though. To her, he looked scary. Too big and too hard. A little bit too virile. She'd prefer a less muscular man, one who was all brain and little brawn. She'd prefer a man with short, tame hair.

Not the long, wild waves that suggested rebellion and seemed untamable.

A man who was shy and sensitive, and who didn't keep his feelings to himself. The way this one did.

When she looked into his eyes, she could plainly see them roiling with.

something.

He looked tough, she mused. Like someone you wouldn't want to cross. or even look at wrong. She could never be attracted to a man as ominous and unapproachable as he was. One who seemed to exude subliminal, erotic messages along with his masculine scent.

He got into the car and drove it around behind the motel, parking it between a camper and a pickup truck to conceal its presence, He seemed to think of everything, this guy. He might he muscular, but he was smart, too. Who was he?

 
Who did he work for? What kind of man did this stuff for a living?

It didn't matter, she told herself, wishing she could he-lieve it and stop wondering. She wouldn't be with him long enough to find out.

She didn't trust him. And she didn't want him getting a dose look at that key until she was ready to run. Because if he did, he might realize that it wasn't a safe-deposit box key at all. And she wasn't going to tell him the name of the bank, either, because then all he'd have to do would he to place a phone call, and he'd know her father no longer had a safe~eposit box there. Hadn't had one since right after he'd died.

Rather than trust Torch Palamaro with the truth, she was going to slip away from him at the first opportunity. She had to see for herself what her father's notes had to say. That way she could be sure the truth came out. This was the last chance she was ever going to have to make her father proud of her, to repay him for all the disappointments in the past.

Double-cross' rag Torch Palamaro, though, was going to he the most frightening thing she'd ever done. She could just ima~/ine what his wroth would be like. She shivered a little.

"Our room awaits," he announced as he got out.

She stopped shivering and stared, wide-eyed.

"What do you mean, our room?" Opening her door, she jumped out after him.

He didn't stop walking. Just paused in front of a door, inserted the key and opened it with a flourish.

"Let's just say I don't trust you any more than you trust me, Alex. And I wouldn't he a bit surprised if you were planning to take that key and go to that bank by yourself. In which. case you'd get killed, the bad guys would get the formula, and I'd lose my chance to do my job and collect my money ... and it's too much money to risk losing like that."

So he was only in this for the money. She might have guessed as much.

Well, he had one thing right, she was leaving. But she didn't care if it was with or without th key, .

and she wouldn't be going anywhere near New York. Doing so would he easier, though, if they had separate rooms.