Lovers Never Lie (19 page)

"I regret it's necessary to shoot you," Maria said tauntingly, "but you do understand, don't you, that I can't allow you to tell anyone about me."

"I won't tell anyone," Stacia promised. She held her body rigid, determined to stop herself from sinking to the floor on knees too weak to hold her.

"You won't have the opportunity," the other woman replied sharply.

"They'll find you," Stacia cried. "I expect the police will arrive any minute now." If only that was true.

Argolis's finger tightened on the trigger.

The hair rose on the back of Stacia's neck.

"Crete is a small place," she whispered, her gaze glued to the gun. If she watched it, perhaps it wouldn't go off. "There's nowhere to hide." If she kept talking, perhaps some miracle would occur.

The older woman smiled. It was the cold, cruel smile of a crocodile about to pronounce its meal delicious. "I have a boat," she said, "and a man to run it." She gave a rueful shrug. "He's not overly bright, but he can get me off this island." Her eyes were coldly triumphant. "I have a safe place to hide on Crete."

Stacia's breath grew so shallow, her chest barely rose. Then something familiar touched her from behind. Andrew's hand, whose warm cautionary pressure on her waist warned her to be silent.

Maria Argolis backed toward a small door on the opposite wall.
"Adio,"
she said softly. With a slight movement of her finger, she pressed the trigger.

A flash, a puff of smoke, and a flicker of white streaked across Stacia's vision, while at the same time, a sharp pain lanced her side. If there was more to it than that, Stacia didn't know what. All she could see now was an edging of moss growing in a crack between the stones on which she lay. Her shoulder ached as if wrenched from its socket and the blast echoed again and again in the space reserved for her brain.

Someone groaned, a door slammed shut, and a silence ensued, so complete, so unexpected, she was sure she was dead.

Chapter 12

Another groan, coinciding so completely with Stacia's pain, that she knew without doubt it was coming from her.

She was alive.

With intense concentration she managed to separate the solid green of the moss into individual filigreed bits. When she squinted, her vision cleared further. The whole uneven sweep of floor and one wall stretched out before her.

Her one arm lay in front of her face like the limb of a discarded doll, while the other lay pinned beneath her body, where it had turned completely numb. She tentatively wiggled the fingers of the hand she could see.

Another groan, then there came the sound of something scraping the floor behind her.

"Stacia," a voice said urgently. A warm hand touched her hip.

Blood raced to her head and cleared it.

"Andrew." Relief he was alive resonated through her bones.

"Thank God," Andrew said, his words muffled as though spoken through clenched teeth.

The length of his body came up against hers. She hadn't realized she was so cold until his warmth seared her back.

She longed to shut her eyes and revel in that warmth, to shut out this nightmare and return to their paradise on the rocks.

Andrew shifted and rose to a sitting position, forcing Stacia to sit up, too. She turned to face him and found her head spun from the movement. Shutting her eyes to maintain her bearings, she struggled to keep from folding beneath a new wave of dizziness. The pain in her shoulder helped. She focused on it, determined to keep her lips from crying Andrew's name.

He touched her cheek, his fingers lingering and caressing.

"Are you all right," he demanded softly.

"Yes," Stacia whispered, opening her eyes.

Andrew's face was pale despite his tan, with pain etched in the circles around his eyes and in the lines at the corners of his compressed lips. He touched her shoulder. She bit her lip, but was unable to contain a moan.

"You're hurt. When I pushed you aside—" Andrew's eyes grew tortured, "—there was no time to be gentle."

"Pushed me aside?" Memory flooded back, of him shouting first then pushing her hard to the floor. "You saved my life," she said breathlessly.

"Risked it," he growled. Muscles along his jaw line tightened, and his eyes suddenly blazed. "What the hell are you doing out here anyway?"

"Getting the answers you need. I thought you were here already." Stacia pushed her hair back from her face. "I thought it would be safer if we did this together."

"If anything happened to you—" Andrew stared at her fiercely, looking as though he longed to shake her.

"It would have had nothing to do with you."

"It would have had everything to do with me." He stood. "I want you to stay here this time."

"Where are you going?"

"To catch a thief." Andrew's eyes turned cold as ice.

"A few diamonds are not worth getting killed over."

"Those few diamonds are worth half a million dollars," he growled.

Stacia gasped. "Why didn't you tell me before?"

"You felt bad enough already. Besides, you might have insisted on helping me." He glowered at her. "It looks like you did that anyway."

"But she has a gun," Stacia protested, memories flooding back of the gun pointed at her.

"She's not a very good shot," Andrew said, with a grim smile. "Besides, without the diamonds, my business is destroyed."

"She's already gone."

"She can't have gone far."

Stacia grabbed him by his shirt, then she dropped her hold as her fingers met something slippery and warm.

Andrew groaned.

"You've been shot!" Stacia cried, staring at the blood on her hand. "That bullet was meant for me." Carefully, she pulled away his shirt. It was impossible with all the blood to tell if the bullet had lodged in his shoulder.

Andrew shrugged away her hand and took her face between his palms. "Stay here," he repeated, locking her gaze with his.

Mutely, she shook her head.

His touch told her he was angry as did the taut line of his face.

"My wife died," he growled. "I don't want that to happen to you."

Stacia tugged her face free. Tears gathered and threatened to spill.

"If anything more happens to you, Andrew, I—"

"Don't worry," he said gently. "Nothing's going to happen to me."

"You don't know that. Nobody knows that."

He squeezed her shoulder. "I'll be back," he swore, then moved toward the door through which Maria had escaped. When he reached it, he turned and looked at Stacia, blood seeping through his shirt from his wound. He stared at her hard as though memorizing her face, then disappeared like a ghost in the morning mist.

She remained motionless and listened as he ran along the stone floor. When the last sound died, she moved swiftly after him.

No matter what he said, she had to follow. No matter how much she was afraid, she had to be strong.

The door through which he'd exited led into another room identical to the first, then through to a passageway leading to an inside courtyard. Across a postage stamp square of tramped-down dirt was an archway to the outside.

At the archway, Stacia hesitated, willed the racing of her heart to slow. If she was to help Andrew, she had to be calm, had to stop her mind serving up images of him shot and bleeding, with Maria Argolis and her not-so-clever-but-strong-and-capable man standing over him. With a shudder, Stacia peered out through the archway.

Nothing.

Not a sign or sound.

Her breathing deteriorated to irregular gasps. She pulled in a long breath and tried to think. She had seen no sign of Maria's boat when she landed, so there must be another cove. A trail traced the cliff's edge, but Stacia couldn't see how far it went. Her view was blocked by the out-jutting tower of the fortress.

She started along the trail, sprinting as swiftly as she dared over the uneven ground. Within seconds, she had rounded the tower. In that instant, her blood froze.

Andrew was in front of her, his muscular form listing to the right as he favored his wound. A lump lodged in Stacia's throat, cutting off her respiration as her eyes blurred with tears. She could scarcely see him now.

Scrubbing away the tears with the back of her hand, his image cleared, then blurred, then cleared again.

Now it was too clear. Beyond Andrew was Maria, who raced like a young woman along the edge of the cliff. Her footsteps were no longer shaky or infirm. Under that false grey hair she must be far younger than she pretended. She must be thirty-eight or forty, forty-five at the most.

Past Maria, the figure of a man rose up from beyond the cliff. Stacia's heart stopped. The man must be on another trail to the sea, must be coming to Maria's aid. Stacia's mouth opened in a panic-filled scream.

At the sound of her cry, Andrew turned toward her, his black hair whipped against his face by the wind.

A shot rang out, smoke curling from the gun in Maria's helper's hand. Stacia screamed again and began to run, ignoring the ache in her wrenched shoulder.

Andrew. Andrew. His name beat a tattoo in Stacia's skull. At least he hadn't been hit by the man's bullet. Instead, he put himself between the gunman and her, running back towards her, frantically waving her away.

Maria's helper didn't retreat, but came closer, instead, and with a sickening lurch in her belly, Stacia recognized him.

It was the man from the taverna. She should have guessed he was the man in Maria Argolis's pay. If Andrew hadn't come along, his diamonds would have been in Maria's hands much sooner, and if that had been the case, perhaps no one would have been hurt.

The man crouched low and aimed once more, using one hand to hold the other steady, his face hard with concentration. Maria Argolis still ran towards her helper, glancing over her shoulder as she drew near him. Her face glowed with triumph.

As Stacia ran, too, her breath rasped in her ear, drowning out the wild pounding of her heart. She didn't know what she would do to help when she finally reached Andrew, only knew that whatever happened, she had to be at his side.

"Go back!" Andrew shouted.

Stacia ignored him, continued to run, didn't dare look to her right where the cliff face was sheer for fear she would falter.

With no conscious thought, she ran on furiously, saw the man aim his gun at her, and Andrew fling himself between. She clung to the faith that if they just were together, everything would be all right.

They would both be safe.

She was closer to Andrew now, and realized with horror that the sticky patch of blood on his shoulder had spread to his rib cage. He held out his hand as though to shield her, and she drew strength from the memory of his fingers enclosing hers.

Then another shot rang out and the whole world changed.

She saw the dust first, a skittering twister of fine sand rising from the ground next to her feet. Then another shot, and another, and the ground fell away. The disappearing earth yawned emptily beside her.

She scrabbled on the cliff's edge, her feet dancing in the wind. But there was nothing left to hold her.

Andrew flew over the ground, reaching for her again, extending his fingers in a final impossible attempt to catch her. His guttural cry was the last sound she heard before she scraped and slid and bumped over the rocks.

Falling. For what seemed an eternity, she continued to fall. When finally she stopped, she lay on her back, stunned, afraid to move, speak, or even open her eyes. Only the sound of Andrew's voice penetrated her terror.

"Stacia," he called again.

She forced her eyes open. Andrew stared down at her from the new edge of the cliff some eight feet above.

"I'm all right," she whispered.

"Anything broken?" he asked urgently, his skin devoid of color, his gaze never leaving hers. His lips were a grim slash, as though he, too, were holding his breath, convinced, the same as she, that the whole ledge would come tumbling down if he let her out of his sight.