In Search of the Dove (25 page)

Tousled auburn hair, pixie face, enormous hazel eyes, white ankle pants, and a T-shirt. She didn’t look much like an intelligence agent. It was probably a carefully cultivated persona. Though she was frightened, she was putting up a brave front. “What are you doing down here?” he snapped.

She looked away. It was useless to try the cover story Constance McGuire had prepared for her. Lonnie had already recognized her.

“Well?” Talifero prompted, his voice taking on a biting edge.

When she didn’t answer, he slapped her hard across the face. Her eyes stung and she bit back a scream.

“We’ll find out why you’re here, whether you cooperate or not,” he promised. The confidence of his tone wasn’t reassuring. She didn’t know if she could survive what he’d done to Jed.

Talifero addressed his next question to Lonnie. “Did you search the boat?”

The pale man shook his head apologetically. “No. I thought I should bring her right here to you.”

“I want to know who she’s working for.”

“She was with that DEA agent, Michael Rome, in New Orleans. We took care of him back there.”

“I hope so, for your sake,” the director said with a growl. “You should have asked for instructions. Now I’m going to have to get Barahona’s men on the job, if it’s not already too late.”

What a mess, Talifero thought. He hadn’t let on to Gorlov that the captive starring in the ceremony tomorrow was an intelligence agent. Now this girl turned up. If the Russian suspected Blackstone was being stalked, Moscow might well withdraw their support.

Talifero turned away toward the window, his hands clasped easily behind his back. But his mind was racing.
All right, think it through calmly, don’t panic. Probably she knows Prentiss. The man hadn’t broken under torture. But perhaps if you put them together, he may respond to a friendly face from home. Maybe they’ll talk to each other. And if they don’t, you can always get rid of her at the ceremony with him.

Lonnie cleared his throat. “Doctor.”

Talifero swung back to face the drug distributor. “Yes.”

“She’s the chick who got that shot of Dove back in New Orleans. Only Rome came in and messed things up for me.”

The director’s eyes held a speculative gleam as he ran his fingers down her bare arm. “And what happened after that?” he murmured. “Was Mr. Rome the benefactor of Lonnie’s largesse?”

She pressed her lips together.

“I was wondering if you might let me, uh, take up where I left off with her when Rome interrupted us,” the drug dealer put in.

Talifero laughed. “Now that’s an idea! We do have the facilities for it.”

Jessica clenched her fingers together behind her back, her nails digging into her palms.

The director turned to her. “Would you tell me whom you’re working for if I promised not to turn you over to Lonnie?”

“No.” The syllable was the most difficult Jessica had ever uttered. But Talifero’s question hadn’t given her any hope. She saw no reason why he would keep his word.

“Well, maybe I’ll let you think about it for a while.”

At that moment there was a knock at the door. Talifero glanced at his watch. He’d forgotten that he’d made an appointment with Moonshadow to discuss tomorrow’s ceremony. Well, she was going to have to know about this new development sooner or later.

“Come in,” he called out.

The priestess took several paces into the room but stopped abruptly when she saw the young woman with her hands tied behind her back.

“No, my dear. You don’t have to leave. I was just interrogating another prisoner. Maybe you could give me some suggestions on how to make her more cooperative.”

The director put a hand on Jessica’s shoulder and turned her roughly around. She found herself facing an extremely attractive and very self-contained black woman dressed in a flowing jade caftan and matching turban. Unwillingly her eyes were drawn to the smooth tawny features, heavily accented with makeup. Her eyes squeezed shut to block out the image. An illusion. Oh, God, let it be a mistake! When she opened them again and stared at the self-possessed woman, she felt a chill freeze her heart. My God, Simone! Jessica gasped.

The priestess drew on years of discipline. Her face betrayed nothing.

Talifero’s gaze flicked from one woman to the other. Was there something here below the surface that he didn’t understand? “You seem to have startled Ms. Duval, Moonshadow. Do the two of you know each other?”

Jessica held her breath, her mind reeling from the shock of the unexpected meeting—here at the Blackstone Clinic of all places. She’d seen Simone in New Orleans only last week. What words would come out of the woman’s mouth? she wondered. She seemed to be an ally of Talifero. He called her Moonshadow. She’d never heard that name. What else didn’t she know about Simone?

“Ms. Duval and Michael Rome consulted me about the voodoo charm the police found at Lonnie’s.”

“Quite a coincidence. Where do you suppose they got your name?”

The black woman shrugged imperiously. “I am well known around New Orleans as being an authority on such matters. Quite probably someone recommended me to Rome.”

“I see.” The director stroked his chin. “I’m thinking about having her join Prentiss tomorrow evening at the ceremony you’ll be conducting. Would you have any objections to offering two sacrifices to your gods?”

“None whatsoever.” The assurance in her voice was matched by the cool indifference in the depths of her ebony eyes.

* * *

“G
ET READY TO CAST OFF
right now,” Michael snapped as he jumped aboard the boat.

Holcroft looked up, startled. He and Rome had only been back at the wharf for a few minutes. “You’re not going to wait and see if Jessica turns up?”

“She’d not going to turn up. One of Talifero’s men got her.”

Holcroft swore. “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. The kid she bought the necklaces from described him to me. He’s the candy man from New Orleans who tried to kill me. He must have brought Xavier back.”

“And you think someone’s coming back for us?”

“Exactly.”

Holcroft was already untying the line at the bow. Michael cast off the one at the stern. “I assume you can change the name on this tub,” he said as the CIA agent started the engine.

“Naturally. I’ll take care of it as soon as we get out to sea.”

Neither man spoke until they had cleared the crowded harbor.

“I’d better put in a call to headquarters,” Michael said, heading for the lounge.

“Yeah.” And ask XP 251 what we’re supposed to do now, Holcroft added silently.

* * *

A
BURLY ATTENDANT
opened the metal door of the dimly lit little room and shoved Jessica inside. She landed on the cement floor in a heap. For a moment she lay still, struggling to catch her breath. Her head was still spinning.

Her old friend Simone was there, apparently working with Talifero and mixed up in this drug thing. It was hard to believe, but it must be true. Suddenly pieces of a puzzle fell into place. She remembered the day Simone had come to Aubrey’s apartment. She’d tried to talk Jessica out of probing into the drug scene. The words had sounded so earnest. But she hadn’t been worried about her old friend at all. She’d been protecting her own interests.

When she’d failed with Jessica, she’d set the trap for Michael at the cemetery. And Jessica had unwittingly helped Simone by introducing her to Michael. The thought made her head throb. Why hadn’t she been able to read Simone’s duplicity? The answer was all too clear now. The woman was a voodoo priestess. She had probably fashioned the talisman that had burned her, which meant she had powers beyond Jessica’s wildest dreams. She hadn’t come around or written after Aubrey’s death because she was already down here with Talifero.

Now Jessica knew why she had reacted in her vision to the director’s reference to the visiting voodoo
mambo.
He’d been talking about Simone.

For a long time she was too heartsick and disoriented to move. When she finally raised her face and glanced around her cell, she was startled to see that she wasn’t alone. In the corner of the room, sitting on a narrow mattress that rested directly on the floor, was a broad-shouldered man. He was wearing only a pair of faded jeans. His hair was matted and his skin was pale. There were rope burns around his wrists and ankles and cuts across his broad chest. Jed. So he was still alive. Thank God for that at least.

She stared at him, remembering how she had been drawn into his mind, wanting to comfort him when he’d been in pain. Now, though battered by his captives, he appeared completely unapproachable on any sort of personal level.

He regarded her with cynical interest. “Well, what have we here?” he questioned.

“I—”

“It was just a rhetorical question, honey,” he cut her off abruptly, his look condescending. This was probably just another one of Talifero’s tricks. “They’ve put you in here for some purpose. Probably to get me to talk.”

He’d suffered through that tricarbotane torture without talking. He certainly wasn’t going to give anything away to this woman—no matter how innocent she looked. “Maybe you don’t know it, but we’re live on TV right now.” He pointed toward a small round opening near the ceiling.

Jessica gulped and nodded.

“So, whether you’re one of the unfortunate inmates of this asylum, or one of Talifero’s confederates, or even a fellow prisoner, I don’t have anything to say to you.” He crossed his arms and looked toward the cinderblock wall.

Jessica closed her eyes for a moment, struggling to assimilate his defiant words. Jed. He’d gone through so much, and he was still fighting them. Would she have that kind of courage when they tortured her? And how could she get through to him now?

“Do I have to sit on the cold floor?” she finally asked him.

He shrugged and moved to one end of the mattress. “I guess not.”

Jessica scooted over beside him. For several minutes they sat in silence. She had to communicate with him, tell him what was happening. But how? They couldn’t talk. It would be suicidal to let Talifero in on Michael’s plans. God, if she could only project her thoughts. But that power was beyond her.

“I’m frightened,” she murmured, trying to reach him with her eyes as much as her voice. That was no lie. She was terrified, more than ever now that she knew about Simone.

“I don’t particularly want to hear about it.”

Another long silence followed. She might as well have not been in the room. She used the time to think of and discard ideas. Could they communicate in some sort of code?

A workable plan began to form in her mind. After shooting Jed another quick look, she reached out and clasped his hand so that her fingers were against his large palm. When he tried to pull away, she covered his hand with her other one. “Please,” she whispered. She felt the tension in his body.

Angling herself so that their hands were hidden from the camera, she scratched her thumb down his palm.

From under hooded lashes, he gave her a questioning look.

“Please, I’m frightened. Just let me hold on to you,” she repeated.

He said nothing, but he didn’t withdraw from the contact.

She scored his skin again. This time, instead of a straight line, she made a letter “F.”

He nodded almost imperceptibly. He understood what she was doing.

Slowly, writing with her thumb, she spelled out the word “Falcon.”

She heard him draw in his breath. His blue eyes probed her face.

With their hands still hidden from the camera, he reversed the process, spelling out a word in her palm.

“How?”

“Rome.”

For the first time, hope flickered in his eyes. He studied her face, then shifted so that she could lean more comfortably against him.

“When?”

She rested her head against his shoulder, glad for the simple human comfort.

“Tomorrow.”

“You?”

“Jessica.”

Had he met her before? He didn’t think so. Yet there was something familiar about her, as if he somehow knew her. The Falcon must have sent her and Michael down there. He could only assume that she had gotten captured or let herself be taken in order to facilitate the rescue. But there was another explanation for her presence in this cell, he reminded himself. If Talifero had somehow gotten hold of the word
Falcon,
it could all be a clever trap. But then he’d also have to know about Michael Rome.

Jed closed his eyes, not wanting her to read his sudden vulnerability. There were a thousand questions he wanted, needed to ask—questions that would take all day to spell out in the palm of her hand. But then it looked as though neither one of them was going anywhere.

* * *

“D
UVAL AND
P
RENTISS
have been locked in that cell together for six hours now. They’re sitting huddled together like two dogs trying to keep warm. But as far as I can tell, they’ve hardly said a word.” Talifero walked over to the sideboard and poured himself a drink. Then he turned back to Simone. “I have half a mind to take Lonnie up on his offer. Maybe after an hour or so with him, our new prisoner will be willing to talk.”

The priestess shook her head. “I can’t allow that.”

“What do you mean
you
can’t allow it? I give the orders down here.”

“In the old days, a woman used in the ceremony would have been a virgin.”

Talifero laughed. “I assume it’s a little late for that with Ms. Duval.”

“But still, she must be as pure as possible. Letting an animal like Lonnie defile her so soon before the ceremony would make her entirely unacceptable to the great
loa.
”

Talifero muttered an oath. “Do you honestly believe that nonsense?”

Moonshadow drew herself up straighter in her chair. “So you consider my religion nonsense.”

“Your religion! It’s just a tool you use to make your living.”

“You have a rather distorted view of me, Jackson.”

“Oh, no, my dear, I have a very clear perception of you. But for some reason of your own, you obviously have your heart set on making tomorrow’s ritual authentic, so I won’t stand in your way.” He was willing to humor the woman for the moment. He didn’t want one of her tantrums messing things up with Gorlov, and until he had control of the island, she was still a threat. But as soon as the coup was over, he was going to take personal pleasure in breaking her.