Hot Ice (21 page)

First things first, Whitney cautioned herself. She needed better cover, and she needed it quickly. Moving only her head, she looked from side to side. Her best shot seemed to be a wide, downed tree between her and a thicket of bushes. Without giving herself time to consider, she gathered both packs and scrambled for it on all fours. Scraping her skin on the bark, she rolled over the tree and hit the ground with a thud.

“Hear something?”

Holding her breath, Whitney flattened herself against the trunk. Now she couldn’t even see down to the huts and Doug. But she could see an army of tiny, rust-colored insects burrowing into the dead tree an inch from her face. Fighting revulsion, she kept still. Doug was on his own now, she told herself. And so was she.

Overhead came a rustling that might have been thunder by the way it echoed in her head. Fear gripped, followed by a wave of giddiness. How the hell was she going to explain to her father that she’d been kidnapped by a couple of thugs in a forest in Madagascar on her way to find lost treasure with a thief?

He didn’t have much of a sense of humor.

Because she knew her father’s wrath and didn’t know Dimitri, the idea of the first worried her a great deal more than the second. She nearly crawled into the tree.

The rustling came again. There was no more casual conversation between the men. Stalking was done in silence. She tried to imagine them walking toward her, around her, beyond her, but her mind iced over with fear. Silence dragged on until sweat pearled on her forehead.

Whitney screwed her eyes shut as though, like a child, she believed the idea of
I can’t see you, you can’t see me.
It seemed easy to hold her breath when her blood was slowed and thickened with terror. There was a quiet thump on the trunk directly above her head. Resigned, she opened her eyes. Staring at her with intense eyes out of a black face was a smooth-coated lemur.

“Jesus.” The word came out on a trembling breath, but there wasn’t time for relief. She could hear the men approaching, more cautiously now. She wondered if being stalked in Central Park brought the same chilling fear. “Get!” she hissed at the lemur. “Go on.” She lay there, making faces at him, not daring to move. Obviously more amused than intimidated, he began making faces back at her. Whitney shut her eyes on a sigh. “Sweet Christ.” The lemur sent up a chatter that brought both men rushing to the rise.

She heard a high-pitched whoop and the retort of a gun, then watched the wood splinter and fly no more than six inches above her face. At the same moment, the lemur leapt off the trunk and into the thicket.

“Idiot!” Whitney heard the quick, hard sound of a slap, then incredibly, a giggle. It was the giggle more than the shot, more than the stalking, that had her body limp with terror.

“Almost got him. Another inch and I’d’ve plugged the little bastard.”

“Yeah, and that gunshot probably has Lord running like a rabbit.”

“I like shooting rabbits. Little fuckers freeze and look right at you when you pull the trigger.”

“Shit.” She recognized disgust when she heard it and nearly sympathized. “Get going. Remo wants us moving north.”

“Nearly got me a monkey.” The giggle sounded again. “Never shot a monkey before.”

“Pervert.”

The word and the echoing laughter drifted away. Moments passed. Whitney lay still and silent as a stone. The insects had decided to explore her arm as well as the tree, but she didn’t move. She decided she might have found a very good place to spend the next few days.

When a hand closed over her mouth, she jerked like a spring.

“Taking a nap?” Doug whispered in her ear. Watching her eyes, he saw surprise turn to relief and relief to fury. As a precaution, he held her down a moment longer. “Take it easy, sugar. They aren’t that far away yet.”

The moment her mouth was free, she started. “I nearly got shot,” she hissed at him. “By some whiny little creep with a cannon.”

He saw the fresh splinters in the tree above her head, but shrugged. “You look okay to me.”

“No thanks to you.” She brushed at the sleeve of her blouse, allowing the disgust as insects scattered into the moss. “While you were down there playing Robin Hood, two nasty men with equally nasty guns came strolling by. Your name was mentioned.”

“Fame’s a burden,” he murmured. It had been close, he thought with a glance at the splintered tree again. Too close. No matter how he maneuvered, no matter how often he shifted direction and tactics, Dimitri hung on. Doug knew the sensation of being tracked. He also knew the sweaty, gut-fluttering feeling of the hunted when the hunter was closing in. He wasn’t going to lose. He looked into the forest and forced himself to stay calm. He wasn’t going to lose when he’d almost won.

“By the way, you’re a lousy lookout.”

“You’ll have to excuse the fact that I was preoccupied and couldn’t whistle.”

“I nearly had to talk my way out of a very sensitive situation.” Back to business, he told himself. If Dimitri was close, they’d just have to move faster and jazz up their footwork. “However, I managed to pick up a few things and get out before it got crowded.”

“It figures.” It didn’t matter that she was relieved he was in one piece, and that she was more than pleased to have him with her again. She wouldn’t let him know it. “There was this lemur, and…” Whitney broke off when she saw one of the things he’d brought with him. “What,” she began, in a tone that was obviously as offended as it was curious, “is that?”

“A present.” Doug picked up the straw hat and offered it. “I didn’t have time to wrap it.”

“It’s unattractive and has absolutely no style.”

“It has a wide brim,” he returned and dropped it on her head. “Since it isn’t possible for me to stick a bag over your head, this has to do.”

“How flattering.”

“I picked you up a little outfit to go with it.” He tossed her a stiff, shapeless cotton dress the color of sun-bleached dung.

“Douglas, really.” Whitney picked up a sleeve between her thumb and fingertip. She felt a revulsion nearly identical with that she’d experienced the morning she’d woken with the spider. Ugly was ugly, after all. “I wouldn’t be caught dead in this.”

“That’s just what we’re shooting for, sugar.”

She remembered the wood splintering a few inches above her nose. Perhaps the dress would pick up a bit of style when it was worn. “And while I’m wearing this fetching little number, what about you?”

He picked up another straw hat, this one with a slightly peaked cap.

“Very chic.” She smothered her laughter when he held up a long plaid shirt and wide cotton pants.

“Our host obviously likes his rice,” Doug commented as he spread the generous waist of the pants. “But we’ll manage.”

“I hate to bring up the previous success of your disguises, but—”

“Then don’t.” He rolled the clothes into a ball. “In the morning, you and I are going to be a loving Malagasy couple on their way to market.”

“Why not a Malagasy woman and her idiot brother on their way to market?”

“Don’t press your luck.”

Feeling a bit more confident, Whitney examined her slacks. They’d been torn at the knee on the bark. The hole annoyed her a great deal more than the bullet had. “Just look at this!” she demanded. “If this keeps up, I won’t have a decent outfit left. I’ve already ruined a skirt and a perfectly lovely blouse, and now this.” She could stick three fingers in the hole. “I just bought these slacks in D.C.”

“Look, I brought you a new dress, didn’t I?”

Whitney glanced at the ball of clothes. “How droll.”

“Bitch later,” he advised. “Right now tell me if you overheard anything I should know.”

She sent him a smoldering look, reached in her pack, and pulled out her notebook. “These slacks are on your tab, Douglas.”

“Isn’t everything?” Twisting his head, he looked down at the amount she noted. “Eighty-five dollars? Who the hell pays eighty-five bucks for a pair of cotton pants?”

“You do,” she said sweetly. “Just be grateful I’m not adding on the tax. Now…” Satisfied, she dropped the notebook back in her pack. “One of the men was a creep.”

“Only one of them?”

“I mean a first-class creep with a voice like a slug. He giggled.”

Doug momentarily forgot his growing tab. “Barns?”

“Yes, that’s it. The other man called him Barns. He tried to shoot one of those cute little lemurs and nearly took off the tip of my nose.” As an afterthought she dug in her pack for her compact to make certain there was no damage.

If Dimitri had set his pet dog loose, Doug knew he was feeling confident. Barns wasn’t on the payroll because of his brains or cunning. He didn’t kill for profit or for practicality. He killed for fun. “What’d they say? What’d you hear?”

Satisfied, she patted on a bit of powder. “It came through loud and clear that the first man wanted to get his hands on you. It sounded personal. As for Barns…” Nervous again, she reached in Doug’s pocket and pulled out a cigarette. “He prefers me. Which, I suppose, shows some discrimination.”

He felt a well of fury rise up so quickly he nearly choked on it. While he battled it back, Doug took out a pack of matches and lit the cigarette. Since he was running low, they’d have to share a while. Saying nothing, he took the cigarette from Whitney and drew smoke in deeply.

He’d never seen Barns in action, but he’d heard. What he’d heard wasn’t pretty, even up against some of the obscenities that happened with regularity in places Whitney’d never heard of.

Barns had a penchant for women, and small, fragile things. There was a particularly gruesome story about what he’d done to a sharp little hooker in Chicago—and what had been left of her after he’d done it.

Doug watched Whitney’s slender, elegant fingers as she took the cigarette again. Barns wouldn’t get his
sweaty hands on her. Not if he had to cut them off at the wrist first.

“What else?”

She’d only heard that tone of voice from him once or twice before—when he’d held a rifle in his hand and when his fingers had closed around her throat. Whitney took a long pull on the cigarette. It was easier to play the game when Doug seemed half-amused and half-frustrated. When his eyes went cool and flat in just that way, it was a different story.

She remembered a hotel room in Washington and a young waiter with a red stain spreading over the back of his neat white jacket.

“Doug, can it be worth it?”

Impatient, he kept his eyes trained on the rise above their heads. “What?”

“Your end of the rainbow, your pot of gold. These men want you dead—you want to jingle some gold in your pocket.”

“I want more than jingles, sugar. I’m going to drip with it.”

“While you’re dripping, they’ll be shooting at you.”

“Yeah, but I’ll have something.” His gaze shifted and locked on hers. “I’ve been shot at before. I’ve been running for years.”

She met the look, as intense as he. “When do you plan to stop?”

“When I have something. And this time, I’m going to get it. Yeah.” He blew out a long stream of smoke. How could he explain to her what it was like to wake up in the morning with twenty dollars and your wits? Would she believe him if he told her he knew he’d been born for more than two-bit hustling? He’d been given a brain, he’d honed the skill, all he needed was a stake. A big one. “Yeah, it’s worth it.”

She was silent a moment, knowing she’d never really
understand the need to have. You had to be without first. It wasn’t as simple as greed, which she would have understood. It was as complex as ambition and as personal as dreams. Whether she was still following her first impulse, or something deeper, she was with him.

“They were heading north—the first man said Remo’d told them to. They figure to flush us out in here, or drive us out where they can pick us up.”

“Logical.” As if it were pricey Columbian, they passed the Virginia tobacco back and forth. “So for tonight, we stay put.”

“Here?”

“As close to the huts as we can without being spotted.” With regret, he stubbed out the cigarette as it burned into the filter. “We’ll start out just after dawn.”

Whitney took his arm. “I want more.”

He gave her a long look that reminded her of a moment by the waterfall. “More what?”

“I’ve been chased and shot at. A few minutes ago I lay behind that tree wondering how much longer I was going to live.” She had to take a deep breath to keep her voice steady, but her gaze never faltered. “I stand to lose every bit as much as you do, Doug. I want to see the papers.”

He’d wondered when she’d back him into a corner. He’d only hoped they could be closer before she did. Abruptly, he realized he’d stopped looking for opportunities to ditch her. It seemed he’d taken a partner after all.

But it didn’t have to equal fifty-fifty. Going to his pack, he searched through the envelope until he came to a letter that hadn’t been translated. If it hadn’t been, his deduction was it wasn’t as vital as those which had. On the other hand, he couldn’t read it. Whitney might pass on something useful.

“Here.” He handed her the carefully sealed page before he sat on the ground again.

They looked each other over, wary, distrustful, before
Whitney lowered her gaze to the sheet. It was dated October, 1794.

“Dear Louise,” she read. “I pray as I write this letter will reach you and find you well. Even here, so many miles away, word comes to us of France. This settlement is small, and many people walk with their eyes regarding the ground. We have left one war for the threat of another. Political intrigue can never be escaped, it seems. Every day we search for French troops, the exile of another queen, and my heart is divided as to whether I would welcome them or hide.

“Still, there is a certain beauty here. The sea is close and I walk in the mornings with Danielle and gather shells. She has grown so in these last months, seen more, heard more than any mother can bear for her daughter. Yet from her eyes the fear is fading. She picks flowers—flowers such as I have never seen grow in any place. Though Gerald still mourns the queen, I feel, in time, we can be happy here.

“I write you, Louise, to beg you to reconsider to join us. Even in Dijon you cannot be safe. I hear the stories of homes burned and looted, of people dragged to prison and to death. There is here a young man who received word that his parents were driven from their home near Versailles and hung. At night I dream of you and fear desperately for your life. I want my sister with me, Louise, safe. Gerald will open a store and Danielle and I have planted a garden. Our lives are simple, but there is no guillotine, and no Terror.