Hot Ice (28 page)

Her man, driving the limo, had been killed first.

Marcos and Felicity were dead. Their bodies, stripped of identity, were still in the rental car parked behind the motel. Gregory was bleeding on the cheap hotel rug. Without proper medical care, he too would be dead come morning.

The only thing that had gone
right
was the three T-FLAC operatives' deaths, as well as that of the woman. The XC11 gas she'd used was quick and lethal. The supplier had guaranteed his product with his life.

Half her job was done. But her brilliantly executed plan had, unfortunately, assisted
Mano del Dios
in retrieving the disks as easily as a mother plucked a teat from a baby's mouth.

The ramifications of her failure made Lisa feel numb. She looked at her remaining three members through a veil of terror. "Well?"

Their silence was punctuated by the sound of rain hitting the windowpane.

"I will do it," Stefan said when the quiet stretched unbearably. He had the body of a man and the mind of an adolescent. His accuracy with a pistol was nothing short of miraculous. His stamina in bed impressive.

"No." Lisa stood. "It is I who bears the responsibility." Taking her cell phone from her pocket, she nodded to Stefan as she flipped it open. Stefan removed a Ruger from the pack he carried. Before Christina or Gregory knew what he was about, the boy shot them. One shot each to the temple.

Pop. Pop
. They hit the floor almost simultaneously and lay still. Dead still.

"Good boy." Lisa smiled at him as she hit the speed-dial number for her own office in Barcelona. As the phone rang on the other end, she walked over and gently removed the gun from Stefan's hand. "Good with a gun, but
not
a good driver, I'm afraid. Five minutes faster and we could've retrieved the disks and completed our task." She raised his pistol. His innocent eyes widened and his mouth contorted with terror. Without hesitation she pulled the trigger.

Stefan stared at her blankly for a moment. His mouth moved. She wasn't sure she'd hit him. But from such close range… Still looking at her from sightless eyes, his knees gave way and he crumpled atop Gregory's body and lay still.

The ringing phone was picked up. Bile rose in Lisa's throat as a cool voice spoke in her ear. "You have my disks?"

Chapter Twenty-seven

Zurich

No gunshots.

"All clear," Neal told Taylor after several long,
tense
minutes of silence.

She could have told him that. Most of the residents in the building worked, and mornings on the fourth floor were usually pretty quiet. If there'd been any untoward noises, Mrs. Hildebrandt, with her bat ears and her walker, would be in the thick of things.

Thank God there'd been no shots fired. Shooting meant the police. Possibly a dead body. Which all sounded exhausting and more than she wanted to deal with at the moment.

She stumbled after Neal, who'd started down the corridor. He continued to hold the big, menacing-looking gun. Taylor walked directly behind him, using his tall body as a shield.

Hunt waited for them at her front door. He too still held his gun. "After you," he said, gesturing her inside as if she were a guest.

"No Uzi-wielding bad guys lying in wait?" Taylor asked as she walked past him, kicked off her heels to clatter on the marble floor, and kept right on going. Marta, her bimonthly char, used lavender furniture polish on all the wood pieces, and the entry hall welcomed her home with open arms.

Neal followed her inside, then Hunt closed and locked the door. "Place is clear," he said, following her. "Nobody's been here for a while."

She looked at the vacuum marks on the plush, cream wool carpet. Marta had her own machine, and she vacuumed her way out of the front door every other week. Except for a few sets of large, wide depressions, presumably Hunt's and Max's, the carpet was Marta-pristine.

"Not since last Tuesday anyway," Taylor agreed as she continued through the spacious, gold and black living room without stopping. A jungle of plants, saturated by early morning sunshine pouring through the windows overlooking the lake, had grown inches in the month since she'd last been home.

"There's a shower in the guest room," Taylor told the three men. "Gym is third door on the right, if you have the urge to punch something. And if you're hungry, check the kitchen."

Marta usually stocked up for her every couple of weeks, in the hopes she'd be home more often. "Coffee's in the freezer, and there's always frozen or canned stuff. Help yourselves."

Taylor yawned, beyond ready for a quick shower and a long nap. Without waiting for their response, she started down the long hallway.

The glide of a drawer being opened stopped her in her tracks, and she retraced her steps to see what they were up to.

Hunt stood beside her Chinese credenza with the top drawer open. The piece had been a gift from the House of Chu six years ago, in thanks for the return of a six-hundred-year-old jade chess set made of rare and expensive purple jade. It was a lovely and generous gesture, but her commission alone had paid the deposit for her second condo, down on the third floor.

"Can I help you find something?" she asked a little too politely, too damn tired to be fully irritated, but knowing that she was. "I don't own a gun. And if you guys are searching for something to eat, the kitchen is that way."

"Feel free to do whatever it is you'd do if we weren't here," Hunt said absently, riffling through her
Rapallo
lace tablecloths.

Annoying man. If
he
wasn't here,
she
wouldn't be here. She was
supposed
to be in London at the Hardings' house party. Retrieving a gorgeous choker of perfectly matched Burmese rubies. Stolen a month ago and already reset.

"Now
there's
a dangerous weapon," she said dryly. "Why don't you check the freezer in the kitchen? I keep the weapons-grade plutonium in the ice trays."

Hunt looked up. "Got any electrical tape?"

"No." Maybe he wanted to
shut
her up, or he wanted to
tie
her up. Taylor wasn't in the mood for either. "Keep the noise down in here. And don't worry about the front door when you leave, it'll lock behind you automatically."

She went back down the long, wide hallway leading to the master suite, firmly closed both doors, then locked them.

Taylor drew in a ragged breath as she picked up the control from the bedside table and closed the electronically operated drapes, shutting out the spectacular lake view and the bright morning sunlight with full-length, blackout-lined, rose velvet drapes. The room immediately went dark.

Removing her jacket, she tossed it in the general direction of the wide, king-sized bed. It slid to the floor as she stalked into the opulent bathroom and turned on the gold faucets adorning her sumptuous shower stall.

"There's nothing that says I have to cooperate with them for the rest of my natural life, is there?" she demanded as she stripped. "No," she answered herself as steam filled the room. "There sure as hell isn't." She bent down to retrieve the two small pieces of insurance she'd hidden in a specially constructed and totally concealed pocket sewn into the waistband of her ruined slacks. Only then did she walk naked to the gilt mirror disguising the medicine chest.

"I accompanied them halfway around the world." She opened the mirrored door, took out ajar of face cream and twisted off the lid. "I took them to the bank." She removed a few good pieces from the jar—earrings, and a diamond-encrusted watch—and tossed them into a crystal hair-clip bowl by the sink.

"I
gave
them what they asked for—no,
demanded
."' Taylor inserted the two disks from the bank into the empty container, then reached back into the medicine cabinet and removed a large box of body powder. "I was asphyxiated, almost killed. It should not be this impossible to get rid of a man."

She sprinkled a goodly amount of loose powder from the second jar into the first, then tapped it on the counter to settle around her contraband. She tightened the lid, placed the jar back inside the cabinet, and snapped the door closed.

"Now, damn it." She jerked open the shower door and stepped into a stream of temperature-controlled water with a sigh. "
Now
I have squatters with guns in my sanctuary. This is just wrong in so many ways."

And then, because clearly the poison gas had addled what little was left of any intelligent brain cells, she wished Hunt would come into her room and join her in the shower.

Chapter Twenty-eight