Immortal Sacrifice: #4 The Curse of the Templars (6 page)

“I believe he fears Raphael.” Gareth gave in to a smug smirk.

“Nay,” Tane interjected. “’Tis strategy. He has succeeded with too much to take foolish risks. Once he obtains the tears from within the necklace, he will become more bold.”

“Lest we find the
remaining seraphs first.” Slowly, Gareth’s gaze crept to Caradoc’s. Curiosity lightened his brown eyes.

Caradoc looked away, unwilling to feed his brother’s suspicions that the
y would encounter a seraph whilst they were in Sicily. ’Twould not be difficult to make the connotation, for every relic assignment brought another seraph. But confirming Isabelle’s status, before he could make amends to her, he would not do.

“If you do not mind, Caradoc, ’
tis late.” Tane stood and smoothed his hands down his dark suit pants. “I have ripped my coat and must rise early to find another.”

Laughter rumbled from Gareth.
“Aye, these garments were not made for swords.” He leaned forward, cocked his elbow, and pulled at a flap of torn material. “Nor claws.” Rising, he beckoned Tane to the door. “Come, Tane, I am not so opposed to finery as the both of you. I have another jacket in my room that you may use.” He glanced at Caradoc. “May we have your leave?”

“Aye.
Go rest. We must be at Shapiro’s villa by ten.” An early hour for those accustomed to a nocturnal life.

Caradoc
followed to the door and locked the deadbolt behind them before extinguishing the nearby brass lamp. Light spilled from his sleeping chamber into the small room, giving the marble floor a slick sheen. A breeze stirred up from the hotel’s private harbor, swaying the broad-leafed plants outside his window and rushing through his bedroom. Once, he would have welcomed the Mediterranean breeze, would have left the balcony doors open and bathed in the cool air as he slept.

Now, the brine-fringed wind chilled him to the bone and made him ache all the more.
He hurried to close the glass double doors. Silence settled around him. He stood stock still in the center of his bedroom, uncertain. Instinct ordered him to do something other than sit and wait for Isabelle. And yet…his hands were tied. He did not even know which hotel she occupied.

He sighed.
Tonight he would shower. Then he would lie in his bed and allow the memories to consume him.

As he had each night since he left her to wake alone.

Chapter
5

Moonlight filtered through thick overgrown trees, casting eerie shadows throughout the decaying garden. Beneath Isabelle’s feet, clumps of grass rose between the pavestones, threatening to trip her. She stumbled around a cracked marble bench and caught herself on a rough tree trunk. From the corner of her eye, a whitened face broke through the darkness.

A scream rose to the back of her throat.
But as she turned to confront the ghostly specter, relief washed through her veins and relaxed her shoulders. Just a statue. A time-weathered angel, whose left wing had broken off long ago. As she looked more closely, a faint golden hue framed the marble’s greying presence.

Isabelle let out the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding and glanced over her shoulder, looking back the way she’d come.
They’d catch up to her soon.

“Help me!” a strangled childlike voice called from the darker shadows around the bend.

Isabelle’s heart wrenched, and her pulse skyrocketed. She pushed away from the tree and plunged down the uneven path, oblivious to the thickening shadows. Visions of September flashed in her mind, pushing her beyond fear. The voice wasn’t hers, but the fact it belonged to a child erased Isabelle’s concern for herself. No child should know whatever terror this one was experiencing.

A gut-curdling scream ricocheted through the night.
Then silence.

Absolute, maddening silence.

Isabelle bolted upright, smacking her elbows on the smooth desktop. For several minutes, she stared at the wall and willed her pounding heart to slow down. She drew in slow, even breaths as she took in her surroundings. Elegant floral print wallpaper rose twelve feet or more to an elaborately molded ceiling. At her right, the flat screen television sat atop a deep cherry dresser. The bed, still crisply made, waited at her back.

Just the dream.

She closed her eyes, relaxing. She was in her room, not in a forgotten garden, and not chasing after a child she didn’t know, but one who desperately needed help.

When
would the damn thing happen? Though she sensed whatever she’d find at the end of the path would haunt her eternally, she wanted the inevitable over. Anything to escape the constant, unrelenting, warning that it was coming.

Pushing out of her chair,
she winced at the needles that pricked her feet. She shook out one ankle, then the next, trying to restore blood flow. When that didn’t work, she gingerly hobbled to the antique wardrobe where she pulled out her thick terry cloth robe and slid into it to ward off the soul-deep chill.

Maybe if she’d gone to the indoor gym
—the last thought she remembered clearly from the night before—she could have avoided that terror all together. With no sleep at all she’d still feel like a truck ran her over, but her heart wouldn’t be racing like she’d just encountered Freddy Kruger, and she wouldn’t be freezing cold.

She spied her cell phone on the corner of her desk, and September, the memories of Paul
’s words, crashed into her. In a lunge, she swiped the phone off the desktop and punched in Paul’s number.

“Good morning, Isabelle,” he answered with his usual smooth charm.

Every bit of hatred she’d ever experienced burst free at his casual tone. “You fucking bastard! You’re terrorizing my daughter.”

“Now, now, Isabelle, I haven’t harmed her.
I even gave her a new dolly.”

“She hates dolls.”

“Too bad.” The brittle edge crept back into his voice. “I suggest you stop concerning yourself with insulting me and focus on the reason I sent you to Italy.”

Grinding her teeth together, Isabelle stalked to the window and yanked open the sheers.
“I want to talk to her, and none of this one-word bullshit. I want to talk to my daughter.”

“It’s the middle of the night
. I don’t think you really want to wake her.”

Oh
, hell yes she did. He might not have hurt her, but September must be terrified. The subtle undertone of warning, however, stopped Isabelle from pushing further. “Why are you doing this? I’ve dealt with single gemstones more priceless than these diamonds and haven’t once been tempted to sell them out from under my buyer.”

“Precisely why I hired you.”

“Then why are you doing this to my daughter?” her voice rose to a near screech. Fearful someone in an adjoining room might hear, she quickly lowered it. “My reputation is impeccable, Paul.”

“And it will stay that way, won’t it?
Now, goodbye, Isabelle. If my memory serves me, you’ve got a cabochon sapphire ring up for auction this morning. Bring me my jewels, and all will be as it should be.”

The line went dead before she could say anything else.
Fighting back a surge of unbidden tears, she sank onto the edge of the mattress and stared, unseeing, at her reflection in the wide mirror on the opposing wall.

For the first time in her life
, she could understand why her father went around the law and sought out his own personal justice against those who’d wronged him. She’d like nothing more than to point a gun square at Paul Reid’s chest and squeeze the trigger. Twice.

Hang in there, baby.
Mommy will be home soon.

Slowly, she focused on her reflection, noting the smeared mascara beneath her eyes and the darker circles that haunted her cheeks.
Her face looked pale, like she’d recently been ill. Even her lips held a faint greyish pallor.

Her gaze strayed to the closed mini bar, and for an instant, she debated getting lost in the tiny bottles within.
In the next, however, sense warned her vehemently that attending an auction two sheets to the wind would only worsen her present situation. As it was, she had little less than three hours to pull herself together and go to bat for a ring that Thomas Dunn from Cartier had already mentioned he was interested in.

Besides, before she’d found out she was pregnant, she’d tried finding answers in the bottom of a glass.
It didn’t work. The questions still lingered when the blissful haze wore off.

Running, however, worked out kinks.
The lulling ocean tide soothed tight knots.

She stood, renewed in her ability to survive this horrible ordeal, and shucked her clothes.
Leaving them all in a pile on the floor, she quickly pulled on a pair of cotton running shorts, a long-sleeved shirt, and her sneakers. A few quick whisks of her brush, and she’d fashioned her hair into ponytail. She held the power to insure September’s safety. She wouldn’t allow worry to override logic.

Isabelle hurried out of her room, down the three flights of stairs to the main level, and jogged out the rear terrace doors.
The steady rhythm of her feet took her quickly through the romantic garden with its budding springtime flowers, down to the private stretch of beach the hotel owned. There, she took a few moments to stretch her legs on a jutting rock, then struck off down the dry sand to the cadence of the waves.

The gentle lapping didn’t comfort as it should have, however.
It reminded her of the day she and Caradoc had fled Kiddington and spent the afternoon in Dorset, taking in the magnificence of the English coast. He wanted to talk to her. Why now, after all this time? Because he happened to run into her and maybe felt a little guilt? She couldn’t convince herself his conversation had anything to do with genuine apologies—if he’d regretted walking away, he could have contacted her. He knew where she lived. The name of her business. Hell, he knew everything.

Maybe it was nostalgia.
The sex had been incredible. They shared very similar interests. They could talk for hours. Maybe he’d decided to indulge a little in Sicily, hoping to briefly enjoy the sparks they’d ignited in the past. That seemed most plausible.

A slow burn of anger spread through her limbs, and she ran faster, trying to
snuff it out. If he thought for one minute he could sweet-talk her back into bed, he’d obviously forgotten a whole hell of a lot more than she had.

She closed her eyes for a brief moment to block out the bitterness.
In that fraction of time, a vivid snapshot of his compelling hazel eyes staring into hers, his expression soft and tender, blasted across her eyelids.
I love you, Isabelle.

God, she’d been such a fool to believe
three weeks could open those kind of emotions. They had for her. She didn’t question that. But his charming smile was enough to tell her he clearly knew his way around women. She should have known when she stumbled onto him, sitting in a far corner of Kiddington lands beneath the turning leaves of a red maple, that he was a drifter. One of those guys who carried a backpack and roamed because they couldn’t settle down. He’d told her as much. Said he’d spent most of his life traveling. That he’d come to England only to say goodbye to what had once been home.

Isabelle jerked her attention back onto the beach and shoved Caradoc to a far corner of her mind.
He was a dangerous distraction she couldn’t afford with September’s safety in question.

When she’d run as far as her lungs could carry her, she stopped, doubled over and sucked in air.
One hand on her hip to ease the nagging pain in her side, she turned back for the hotel at a casual walk. Sweat trickled down her face, cooling her skin in the crisp morning breeze. Her limbs felt sturdier, the gnawing anxiety having retreated.

Caradoc could rot.
He’d lied to her, sworn he couldn’t have children, gotten her pregnant, and abandoned her. No matter how he persuaded, she would
not
be his fool again.

* * *

Though his blood ran in Britain’s fertile soil, and his heart knew only one homeland, America offered one comfort Caradoc treasured. Good coffee.

He stared into the black depths of his mug, willing the bitter dark roast to gain flavor.
He would sing Europe’s praises until air ceased to flow through his lungs, but he could not fathom how she failed with such a simple concoction.

Grimacing, Caradoc took a neat sip.
Zounds. ’Twas no better than week-old grounds warmed over a fire. Disgusted, he set the cup aside and picked up his brioche. He gestured at the disappointing brew. “It can get no worse.”

“Oh, aye.
It can,” Tane argued. “Have you sampled the packets in our rooms?” He wrinkled his nose in distaste.

With a mutter, Caradoc ripped a chunk of brioche off and dunked it his lemon granita.
“I shall not, now, to be certain.”

“You will be glad for that decision.
Where is Gareth?”

Caradoc shrugged.
He chewed on the tasty morsel, savoring the one luxury this assignment afforded—fine accommodations with even finer dining. He had grown so accustomed to the magic Anne’s new chefs worked in their American temple that he had come to fear this extended trip abroad would quickly lead to starvation.

Mayhap he treasured something else about his forced homeland after all.
Or, mayhap, he had simply become weary of the Templar sacrifice. Most likely ’twas the latter. Anymore, it required monumental effort to convince himself his purpose had merit.