Smoke and Mirrors (34 page)

He shifted as he shrugged and she was struck by the grace of the flesh around his collarbone. Absently, she touched a single finger to the taut side of his corded neck. It pulsed against the beat of his heart, rising and falling with slow measured movements.
What the hell are you doing, Sam?

His low voice preempted her mind’s answer. “Not sure. You’ll have to ask him, if, in fact, you can hear him…”

She straightened, appalled. “What did you say?”

But his face had gone slack.
What a complete jackass.

Sam swept angrily back to the kitchen, stooping to pat Tamar along the way. “I might just let you eat him,” she whispered.

Then movement caught her attention. Brad stood in the kitchen, a stack of tomatoes and cheese vise-gripped between his blunt fingertips. “Have I told you how much I’ve missed you, my dearest Sammy?”

“Not in some time.” She crossed her arms and did her best to appear aggravated.

He smiled and held up an opened bottle of 1989 Fernand Coffinet Batard Montrachet and a set of Riedel goblets. If only all apologies were so well-crafted.

“Dios mio.”

Brad’s hands stilled. “What?”

“I said, ‘Dios mio’.” She worked her way over Tam into the kitchen. “That bottle is overkill for scampi.”

“No,” he interrupted. “I mean why in Spanish?”

Samantha slipped a glass from his fingers. “Something Nigel said. Asked me if I understood it.” She poked her elbow into Brad’s taut abdomen. “I think he’s got a fever. Should probably go to the hospital. He was hallucinating, you know.”

“Ah.” The tautness through his wide shoulders lessened. “That’d be the painkiller I chucked in his whisky. Bloody idiot wouldn’t take anything voluntarily.”

“What happened to him?”

He poured her a measure of wine. “We were in Morocco motorcycling. He was shot and robbed.”

“Where were you while all this was going on?” Samantha raised a brow as Brad started to chuckle. “Never mind, I don’t want to know.”

Brad’s grin remained. “Don’t worry. The doctor said he’ll be fine. Nigel’s just grumpy because he hates London.”

“If you say so.” Samantha took in the wine’s bouquet, then a sip. “God, that’s really good.”

Brad sampled his own. “It is nice, isn’t it?”

By then the water had boiled. She put her glass on the counter and grabbed the handmade pasta from beside him. “Shove over.”

He backed up, his eyes on Nigel’s sleeping countenance. “He looks fine to me.”

Steam mushroomed around the dumped linguine. Samantha gave it a stir. “He’s not. He was delirious - thought
I
was an angel.” She had another sip from her glass. Marvelous what a grape could do.

Brad laughed and she punched his shoulder. “Stop making fun of me. He asked if I spoke Spanish and finished by refusing to eat in case the shrimp had grown wings.”

Brad contemplated her words more seriously.

“Oh and… ” She shook her head at the memory. What did it matter, she wasn’t likely to see the man again. “When I asked if you’d given him aspirin, he told me to ask you myself.”

“What of it?”

“He joked about me not being able to
hear
your answer.” She ran a finger around her goblet. Okay, so maybe it mattered a bit - every once in a while - when her guard was down.

Brad lifted her chin, his fingers gentle enough to bite her heart. “And you thought he was taking the piss?”

“Wasn’t he?” She studied Brad’s expression of regret.

“Not likely, luv. I never told him you were deaf.”

AN EXCERPT FROM

Through a Mirror, Darkly

AVAILABLE AUTUMN 2012

The Ice House is a vodka bar on the shores of Lake Wakatipu, Queenstown. Its insulated walls are coated with three feet of Canadian ice and the internal temperature hovers just above -5° C. Patrons are given sheepskin-lined jackets and mittens at the door, but Brad’s chest and arms have always done the trick for me.

Until tonight.

Tonight, I had to make do with an Absolut cocktail and the barman’s navy blue parka, because Brad was late.

“It’s those Aussie girls,” Sebastian joked as he disappeared behind the concealed door at the bar’s rear. “Probably tied him up and dragged him to the chalet they’re renting.”

I stared unseeing into the surface of the ice glass I’d almost drained. “Better not be, or I’ll poison his margarita.”

“Brad drinks margaritas?” The barman’s muffled voice sounded surprised.

“No, but he’s been known to lick the salt,” I muttered, thinking Sebastian would faint if he knew the half of it. I drew back from my hunched position, stifled a yawn, and checked my watch again. I’d been on call for far too long, and the edge of my vision was getting hazy.
Where was Brad?

As if on cue, the front door swung in bringing with it a sultry gust of New Zealand air and…. a woman. She was about twenty-two. Blond. And very pretty in an aristocratic sort of way. I could picture her at the Leander Club during the Henley Regatta, aquiline nose peeking demurely out from an outrageously priced hat.

My lips parted, to tell her the bar wasn’t open to the public yet. Then I saw a flash of terror streak her chlorinated blue eyes. The Ice House only has one egress, a fire hazard in any other establishment, but not in one where everything is made of ice. I guessed she hadn’t counted on that.

She wore a pair of Prada flip-flops, jeans, and a cashmere t-shirt. Not exactly cold-weather-wear.

“There’s a storeroom behind the bar. No one will know you’re here.”

My words stiffened her already posh school posture, but she dipped her chin, and I scooted off the deerskin-covered ice bench. We met halfway around the bar, and I smiled my “don’t worry you’ll only feel a pinch” smile. “The barman’s in there. But he’s a sucker for a pretty face.”

The door hissed when I released its latch. I caught Sebastian’s surprised eye and put a finger to my lips. The storeroom was warm, and he’d obviously been killing time. He offered our visitor a smile and a Coke. She accepted both with a murmur of upper-class thanks.

I secured the door and contemplated a second vodka.

Fuck it.
I grabbed the whisky Brad kept on a private shelf. It wasn’t Russian, but it was vintage Brad Milton.

Letting the first sip burn its way down, I ran through my options hoping fatigue wasn’t clouding my judgment. If ‘they’ hadn’t seen her enter, they’d look around the easily viewable space and leave. If they had seen her come in, they’d be more thorough. Which is why I hadn’t hidden. I figured if the bar were completely empty, it would only be a matter of time before they figured there was a storeroom. Even morons have heard of secret doors.

So I scooped up a tray of ice glasses and spaced them evenly across the bar. The thick counter might offer protection from bullets, but it didn’t help that it was cut from clear ice. Hiding behind it would be an option reserved for an ostrich or a very desperate woman. I glanced at my Rolex. It was nearly 16:00 hours.
Where the hell was Brad?

My ears pricked and I straightened at the sound of voices. The familiar thrill of danger warmed me enough that I shed my gloves. Shed them eight months to the day that I’d yanked my Sig Sauer out on a cold Moscow night and drilled fellow SIS agent Daniel Roberts.

He’d been a mole.

He’d been in my way.

So I’d taken off my gloves and shot him.

Three men entered. They seemed like tourists, apart from the fact their matching gray shirts had been purchased not two blocks from where we were standing. From a rack of discounted merchandise no one else wanted. A rack of shirts with two kiwis in an obscene position and the words “I went down to NZ” printed above them. The word ‘to’ was crossed out and the word ‘in’ had been inserted above it.

Oh, you’re going down all right.

“We don’t open for another five minutes,” I said, pouring drinks as I spoke. “And you’ll need to pay the cover charge and get kitted out in cold weather gear if you want a cocktail.”

The temperature inside The Ice House is a bit deceiving. At first it’s like stepping into a Walk In. Cold, but not bitter. It’s dry. Windless. But -5º is -5º. And that fact was beginning to dawn on them. They’d obviously been chasing someone for a while, because their skin was slicked with a sheen of sweat which hadn’t yet soaked their new shirts. Probably another reason they’d been on sale. They were made of polyester.

“Where’s the girl?”

I tossed a coy glance out from under my lashes. “The parka isn’t flattering, I know. But I assure you, I’m all girl under here and I get off at one. At least I hope to…”

One of the guys – the smaller of the three – smiled. His teeth were crooked and tobacco stained. He had two black flat earrings in his elvish-sized ears and a gun where his belt should have been. I wrinkled my nose, hating baggy jeans.

The other two kept up the pretense of tourists, but just barely. They wore faint smiles while their cold eyes roved the room. The tallest spoke. “No, he means our friend. She was supposed to meet us here; he thought he saw her come in as we rounded the corner.” He tilted his head toward Baggy Jeans.

I played a pout for what it was worth. “Pity, I haven’t done a German in a while.”

Baggy Jeans snorted, but the other two stared.

“What makes you think he’s German?” the middle guy asked.

“His accent.”

Arms around his upper body, Baggy Jeans lost some of his enthusiasm. “It’s fucking cold in here. Let’s go.”

But the other two didn’t budge, though their skin was covering rapidly in gooseflesh.

“Are you sure you didn’t see a girl come in?” the tallest one asked.

“Maybe she went into FATZ CAT. Their entrance is next to ours.”

“Go check it out.” The tall one stared at me as the door swung shut behind Baggy Jeans. I figured he was the trio’s leader. He had mean eyes and ginger hair. Not a great combo. Stepping closer, he covered the movement of his left hand with a flutter of his right. “Give me one of those and I’ll pay you instead of the bouncer.”

I selected the one I’d put closest to my right hand. “What are you going to give me?” My heart had picked up its pace. It would take an accurate throw. Accurate and fast. The guy was pretty cool, which meant he was good at his job and probably a decent shot. His gun wasn’t obvious like the other man’s. The only reason I knew it was hidden at the small of his back was because the front of his tight shirt had been pulled to keep it from clinging to his abdomen. His finger marks were still there.

“Come closer and I’ll show you.”

Pretending to weigh the decision, I turned the cup into my palm. “I don’t know, the bouncer’s going to be here any second. I could get fired.”

This piqued their interest, and Ginger nodded toward his other friend. The second fellow, shuddering like a jammed drill bit, headed to the door where he wedged his foot against it. He was wearing a pair of black Vega biker boots. Probably the owner of the rented Ninja I’d seen on my way down from the hospital.

A kid’s bike.

“My boyfriend’s BMW K 1200 S is faster than your Kawasaki,” I purred, waiting for the sentence to sink in. They both jerked to attention. “And I’m faster than you…”

Time slowed, Ginger pulled at his gun and Door Jammer went for a knife he’d hidden in his boot. But my body was warm; theirs were cold. The empty ice cup arced from my hand until it made contact with Ginger’s freckled nose. Blood bloomed and his hands flew to his face.

I leapt over the counter, sliding as I went, and booted his chest. He slammed backward into the oncoming path of the knife Door Jammer had thrown. There was a second scream, but I was already on the ground, Ginger’s gun in my hand, when Door Jammer scrambled out from under his boss’s limp body. “Don’t even fucking think about it,” I snarled, adrenaline making my trigger finger itchy. “Now take that creepy Ginger friend of yours and push him up onto a bench. Sit across from him and wait there like a good little Nazi.”

He reluctantly did as I asked, slumping his boss awkwardly against the table, just as the door opened. Baggy Jeans entered, this time wearing a borrowed jacket. “Bouncer’s here…” He studied his two friends. “We drinking?”

“Yeah, sit down.”

“Kurt?” Obviously Baggy Jeans wasn’t used to taking orders from his fellow underling.

“I said, ‘Sit down’,” Door Jammer repeated.

Facts confettied my brain like cards in a game of 52 Pickup. I had to focus. Ginger AKA ‘Kurt’ was dead. That left his two underlings. Not too difficult to deal with. After all, I had the gun and the bouncer was here.

Wait….the bouncer didn’t come on until later…so if it wasn’t him out there…

Nonplussed, Baggy Jeans parked himself next to his boss. He reached for the drink I’d left there earlier. Then he noticed the smear of red trickling down the glassy bench. “Scheisse! He’s bleeding!” His eyes sprung wide and met mine across the bar, which is when he finally noticed his boss’s gun wedged between the cocktails.

“And dead. Which is what you two fuckers are going to be if you don’t tell me why you were after that girl.”

Door Jammer snarled in German, “Don’t open your mouth. She isn’t going to shoot us. It was my knife that killed Kurt. She just got lucky.”

The sound of a bullet discharging in a closed room is deafening. The sound of it going off in a room of rock-hard ice, is worse.

“Oh, mein Gott!” Baggy Jeans yelled as the bullet I discharged from the Sig P229 slammed into the glass in front of Door Jammer, blowing it to smithereens.

“Luck has nothing to do with it. Answer the fucking question or the next bullet’s making friends with your shoulder.”

Before he could respond, the door gaped.

The two men tensed. Perhaps they were hoping for an ally.

Instead a tall dark stranger entered wearing a lazy smile.

I grinned, an action as involuntary as my heart beating. “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, he walks into mine.”