Deadly Games (30 page)

November 19: 1:04 p.m.

Rori looked at the silent child who still hadn’t eaten since Ian had left two days ago. She still hadn’t heard from him and she didn’t want to worry.

She hated to worry.

The little girl was pale, but her eyes seemed overly bright.

“All right, Poppet?” She reached her hand out and felt the girl.

Darya was hot. Rori cupped her face in both her hands and Darya looked at her miserably.

“Oh, baby. You don’t feel well do you?”

No one was in the house. Roth had taken the Kinncaids to the hospital where Taylor was still in labor. Rori had the fleeting thought that perhaps not being able to have children had some strong points--mainly hours upon hours of labor.

She picked Darya up and walked down the hallway with her. They had been in the living room, Darya playing with her blocks Ian had bought her, glancing out the window every few seconds. When she’d stopped playing, it drew Rori’s attention. For Darya to be quiet was one thing, but she’d become withdrawn since Ian’s departure and Rori so wanted to be able to communicate with the girl. No one had apparently thought of that fact. But they had gotten along well enough until now with only a couple of glitches. The nightmares and the fact she wouldn’t eat. To get her to drink something, they gave her bright colored glasses with swirling straws--Mr. Kinncaid’s idea.

But this … she was hot.

Fear thrummed through her. Probably just a fever. But what if it wasn’t? What the hell was she to bloody do?

Becky was still here.

Rori carried Darya down the hallway and into the kitchen. The little girl put her head on Rori’s shoulder, her arm slung over Rori’s back. Becky was humming and rolling something on the center block.

“Becky?” she asked.

Becky turned and smiled. “Lonely are you? Don’t worry, they’ll call. You should have gone to the hospital with them.” Her grin grew. “Babies are such a joy.”

“Becky,” she said, walking up to the woman. “I think she’s sick.”

Becky’s round face frowned. “What?” She wiped her floured hands on a dishtowel.

“She feels warm to me.”

Becky put her hand on Darya’s face, then her arm, and shook her head. “No wonder. Child won’t eat, doesn’t sleep, she’s bound to get sick sooner or later.”

The panic fluttered anew. What did she bleeding know about sick kids. “Becky?

What do I do?”

Beckky’s face softened. “Just hold her. I’ll call Mrs. K. and see what we have to 196

give her.”

Rori pulled back and studied Darya. “Do you think we should take her to the doctor or something?”

Becky chuckled. “Oh, new parents.” She patted Rori’s arm. “You just go put her up in her bed and sit with her. I’ll bring up some soup. Main thing is to keep liquids down her.”

She nodded. “Anything else?”

Becky’s smile was tender. “Just mother her, luv, like ye’ve been doing.”

Rori turned and walked out of the kitchen. Well, she knew the girl had a fever, but what to do about it was another matter. Becky acted as if it was nothing out of the ordinary, but still…

She turned back and walked into the kitchen again. “Becky.”

“Yes?”

“Mrs. Kinncaid was a doctor wasn’t she?”

“Yes. Doctored little ones, she did, still does from time to time. “

“So she’ll know what to do?”

Becky frowned. “We should take her temperature. Mrs. K. has one of the computer kind around here somewhere.” She opened a drawer, then closed it muttering.

Next she checked the cabinet next to the sink. Aspirin, bandages, first aid supplies. “Ah, here it is, then.” Becky pulled out a box with a coiled wire and thermometer on the end.

She slid a plastic cover down over the thermometer and motioned Rori over.

Rori set Darya on the counter. The little girl blinked slowly. “Ian’s going to be bloody furious,” she muttered.

Becky humphed and picked Darya’s arm up, sliding the thermometer under her arm. Five seconds and several beeps later, she said, “One-oh-two point 3.” She frowned at Darya and said to Rori, “Put her to bed and I’ll call Mrs. K.”

So relieved that something was being done, she leaned over and pressed a kiss to Becky’s cheek. “Thank you so much.”

She carried Darya out of the kitchen and upstairs. She opened Darya’s door, the room felt cool to her. Maybe she should build up the fire. She sat her on the edge of the bed and undressed her, tossing her jeans and sweater to the side and putting some flannel pajamas on the girl. She at least knew enough to keep the girl warm.

She pulled the covers back and tucked Darya in. The entire time, the girl only stared, her hand clutching the photograph. She pulled the ragged teddy bear to her and lay down, her eyes closing.

“Please don’t let her have any nightmares,” Rori whispered, brushing the hair off Darya’s forehead.

Maybe a cool cloth would be the thing to do. She hurried to the bathroom and wet a washcloth. Sitting on the bed, she put the folded linen on the girl, who opened her eyes and stared for a moment, before closing them back.

God what if they’d been wrong? What if she had been sexually molested or some such and had come down with something? It could be any thing.

Rori chewed on her thumb nail and a memory flashed through her brain. Nikko nursing her after he’d rescued her from that hell of apartment. They hadn’t gone to his apartment on the same floor. Instead he’d taken her a house, and then when she’d been 197

better, they’d moved quite often until settling in Italy.

Nikko. God, her brain wasn’t working.

“I’ll be right back,” she told Darya and hurried from the room into her and Ian’s.

There she grabbed her mobile she’d plugged in last night so it would charge.

She started to punch his number, but Becky came huffing up the stairs. “Mrs. K

said to give the poor dear a teaspoon of this and in a few hours give her this other one.”

She held up two bottles of children’s versions of pain and fever relief. “And we’re to take her temperature every half an hour to make certain it’s going down and Mrs. K said she’d be calling to check up things.”

Rori took the bottles and thermometer from Becky and said, “Thank you, Becky.”

“Go give her the medicine. I’m going to put some chicken stock on for soup so perhaps she might eat something tonight.”

“I hope she will.”

With that she turned and walked back into Darya’s room. The girl hadn’t moved.

Rori looked from one bottle to the other. Which one did she give first? Did it matter?

Setting her phone down, she jogged out of the room and down the staircase, catching up with Becky in the hallway.

“Which do I give her first? You didn’t bloody say.”

Becky shook her head and muttered something. “Doesn’t matter. Pink or purple, you choose.”

That’s it? She hurried back upstairs and measured out some of the pink bubble gum flavored fever reducer. Picking the girl up, she coaxed her to drink it all down.

Darya licked her lips, and lay back, staring at her picture.

She looked so lost.

Rori took the wet, cool cloth and wiped Darya’s face. “He’ll be back.”

Darya stared at the photo until her eyes slid closed.

Rori reached over on the nightstand, stood and walked to the window ledge.

Hitting the preprogrammed number, she waited for the phone on the other end to ring.

“It’s about damn time you called. What the hell is going on?”

“Hello to you as well, Nikko.”

“Cara,” his voice warned. She caught the worry in it.

“How do you take care of a sick kid?”

For a minute he was silent and then he chuckled. “Oh the things I miss!”

“Nikko, it’s not bloody funny! She’s sick, has a fever and I haven’t heard from Ian--have no bleeding clue where he is and she’s running a fever. I gave her some bubble gum fever reducer medicine.” She rattled off, biting on her thumb nail.

“Cara, calm down.”

She took a deep breath and watched the girl sleep on the bed.

“You haven’t been sleeping,” he commented.

“How do you know?”

“I know you. You ramble when you’re tired. Why no sleep?”

She sighed. “Ian’s been gone tying up some loose ends. Darya hasn’t eaten or slept really since he’s been gone. Not a bite in two days and nightmares every night.” She ran a hand over her hair.

“It’ll be fine. You were sick when you first came to live with me.”

198

“What did you do?”

“Took care of you, same as you will do for little Darya.”

Rori thought about how Nikko had a way of cutting through every thing else. She sighed. “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing anymore, Nikko,” she admitted.

“How so, cara?”

She sat on the window and thought about it. “This … this job is all fucked to hell.”

He laughed.

“I don’t find anything amusing.”

“You know, I am as proud as any parent can be of their child. But do you know what I have always wanted, always prayed for you?”

“You pray?”

“I’ve returned to the flock. My priest is constantly giving me penances.”

“Did you tell him what you’ve done?

“I don’t have that much time, cara I’d be saying Hail Mary’s until I passed onto the next world. It’s better to give it to him in small doses.”

She laughed, trying to picture it.

“You.”

“You,” he answered.

“I miss you, Nikko.”

“I know, cara. “ He sighed. “I want you to find happiness … peace.…” He waited. “Does Mr. Kinnciad bring out those things.”

She stared out over the sunlit dead grasses and bare trees. “Ian makes me feel.

Period.”

“Then that is a good thing. Now tell me, what loose ends must he tie up?”

“I can’t talk about it.”

Silence, then. “Perhaps you’d be interested to know that the streets are alive with talk of Mr. Petrolov and his guard dying in an explosion in Amsterdam.”

She hadn’t known, damn the man. “That was the plan.”

He humphed. “Cara, the man for you, is not an average man. One you are a very strong woman, you need someone who can meet you. And you obviously have feelings for the girl.”

She took a deep breath. “I think I did something stupid, Nikko.”

“You never do anything stupid.”

“I did this time. I signed my name to a marriage document.”

“What?”

“The marriage to Kinncaid … it’s um … real.”

She expected silence, expected disappointment even anger. What she didn’t expect was laughter. “You, cara, have bought such joy to my life. Enjoy yours. As I said, you’ve never been stupid and you’ve read documents before.”

So she had. “I just wasn’t thinking,” she tried.

He tsked. “No, this time you were finally thinking with your heart and not with that keen intelligence. Fate moves us in ways we should go if we’re too stubborn to go there ourselves.”

“Nikko, you’re starting to annoy me.”

199

“Denial is a terrible thing. Now what are you going to do about Mr. Kinncaid?”

She shook her head. “I have no idea.”

“He’s keeping the girl?”

“Oh, yes.”

“I like this man. If he hurts you, I’d have to kill him, but I think I like him. He makes you feel, truly feel and that is much. Plus, he didn’t have to take the child, but he did. That’s a good man.”

“He reminds me of you, I think.” She rubbed her forehead and watched Darya shift to her back, still asleep.

“That is lovely. But love him for who he is, not because he reminds you of someone. I must go, cara. Take care and call me.”

“I will.”

“Oh, by the way, your two fish, Frank and Henry or whatever their names were --”

“Frank and Fred.”

“Yes, well, they are no more.”

“It’s sad, Nikko, when you’ve reached the point to kill fish.”

He said something not very flattering. “Ti Amour, cara.” And he hung up.

She realized he’d never answered her on where he was.

* * * *

8:04 p.m. Quinlan said good bye to his mother and father and promised to be home tomorrow night for a family dinner. He set the vase of flowers on the shelf in the hospital and looked again at the newest little Kinnciad. Another girl. Seemed like there were girls everywhere. Miss Anna Marie was seven pounds and thirteen ounces and twenty inches long.

Everyone else oohed and ahhed over her and though she was cute, he supposed, she looked like all babies looked to him. He’d already bought in a big pink chenille elephant and Gavin had only shaken his head. Ryan had been talking ninety miles and hour. He’d just missed Aiden who was returning home where Jesslyn was with the twins.

He had no idea Ian had even left until his mother mentioned it and he was stupid enough to comment on his lack of knowledge. “If you’d come home more, interact more with your family than with the hotel guests you might know what’s going on.”

For a moment, he’d thought she’d meant something all together different. Then he shook his head and placated her by saying, “I’ll come out to dinner tomorrow.”

“And cancel at the last moment”“ She patted his hand.

“No, I won’t.” He would try not to.

“You know, Marylin Pladdock’s daughter is staying with them for a bit. You remember the Pladdocks.”

A shudder danced down his spine. “Mother I have to go. If a date is required, I will find my own, thank you.”

“At the hotel?”

Shaking his head, he slapped Gavin on the back again. Kissed Taylor’s cheek.

“Congratulations.”

“Thank you, Quinlan.”

“Isn’t she just the coolest, Uncle Quin?” Ryan asked him.

200

“That she is, Ryan.”

“Anne Marie,” Ryan stood smiling beside his dad.

Jock was busy taking pictures with the digital camera. It was time for him to go.

“Tomorrow night.”

“Yes, Mom.”

He hurried from the hotel room before anyone else could grab him and left.

Once in his car, he breathed a sigh of relief and drove to the hotel.

A date. God, why couldn’t mom just leave well enough alone.

Back at the hotel, he walked to his office, checked his messages. No messages from Alla.

His stomach grumbled and he figured he’d go eat.

In the restaurant things were going smoothly for a Friday evening. The place was packed, people waited to be seated, but it was normal with no snags.

He glanced at the bar and saw her at once.

She sat again, dressed in a dark suit of plum, still sexy as hell, the dark ‘v’

showing off something lacy and black. She stared at him, her slanted eyes promising delights that haunted him, her lips curved seductively in that come-and-get-me smile.

And why did he want to?

He remembered the feel of her on him, against him, under him. Her tight muscles, her beautiful breasts. The way she moved tight as steel and fluid as water.

Hell. He sighed and shoved his hand through his hair. He’d been in meetings most of the day, spent the evening at the hospital and had planned to eat, and later work out on his treadmill.

Then again.…

An image of her riding him, those lips of hers curved and demanding, her muscles squeezing, squeezing. Quinlan closed his eyes and shook his head. What the hell was with him? Women were nice, he enjoyed a good lay as well as the next guy, but this….

This was like a craving. A hum under his skin that itched to the surface.

She arched one brow.

Some inner voice said he should just turn around and walk away….

He walked towards her and figured why not enjoyed that which was offered.

When he was even to her, he said, “You’re back.”

Her eyes ran the length of him, her nail raked down his tie and he felt it tug straight to his groin.

He narrowed his gaze at her. “Staying the night?”

She licked her lips, grazing her teeth over the plump bottom lip. “Depends.”

He leaned closer, smelled that enchanting swirl of floral and something he could never put his finger on. His hand on the small of her back, he whispered against her ear.

“On what?”

Her lashes swept up as she stared at him. “You.”

He grabbed her hand and pulled her behind him, her husky laughter floating out and tightening around his control as surely as her fist on his dick.

“I just so happen to have a room.”

“I remember.”

Tonight, so would he.

201

202