Dangerous to Know (13 page)

When the shimmering image hooked his cane over one arm, she scrambled back another few inches.

When he stepped out of the portrait, she toppled backward off the bench onto the black tile floor.

“Don't be alarmed, my dear.”

The measured, mellifluous voice raised the hairs on her arms. Crabwise, Paige scuttled back, away from the approaching image. The high slit in her skirt parted as her sandaled feet sought purchase on the slippery tiles.

An appreciative gleam darkened the Baron's eyes, and his waxed mustache lifted in a small smile. Bending over her, he held out a gloved hand.

“Don't be frightened. Let me help you up.”

“Da-vid!”

“Your friend will return momentarily, I'm sure. Please, allow me to assist you.”

Since the shimmering image was at that point hovering directly above her, Paige had to chose between taking his hand and lying on the floor quivering like the spineless, terrified blob she was. Her whole body shook as she lifted her arm, inch by agonizing inch, toward his outstretched hand.

Blinding light from the projector bathed her arm in the same eerie glow it did the Baron's. Paige thought she would faint when she touched the white glove and felt solid flesh inside. She gave a tiny whimper of abject terror, closed her eyes, and let him pull her to her feet.

“Oh, my dear, I'm sorry to have frightened you so. Please, forgive me.”

When nothing violent happened immediately, Paige opened one eye. She wasn't quite sure, but she thought she detected genuine remorse on the Baron's handsome face as he led her back to the bench.

“Here, sit down while I turn off the projector.”

Paige collapsed onto the padded bench. She would've tumbled right off it again a moment later, if total shock hadn't held her pinned in place.

When the Baron pressed the switch for the projector, the dazzling white light disappeared. So did Swanset's handsome, youthful face. His smooth skin lost its firm tone and sank into wrinkles. Liver spots darkened his forehead. His hair grew thinner, sparser, duller, and his tall frame seemed to shrink into itself, until the Baron of the Night became a stooped, thin man in a conservatively tailored business suit. Only his dark eyes retained their intense, penetrating quality.

Paige glanced from the man before her to the dramatic image in the portrait, then back again.

“How…how did you do that?”

He gave a small, self-deprecating smile. “It's a new process I'm working on. One which digitizes images and projects them onto living objects. When perfected, this process could revolutionize filmmaking.”

“Well, it certainly revolutionized me,” Paige admitted shakily. “But I don't understand how you walked out of the wall like that.”

His smile deepened, and he lifted his cane. Its tip disappeared into the portrait.

“This is what we call a molecular screen,” Swanset explained gently. “It's composed of air bubbles, not solid canvas, as are those in movie theaters. The Baron's portrait is projected onto the bubbles, or, at certain degrees of intensity, onto the object behind them.”

“Onto you,” Paige murmured.

“Onto me,” he concurred with a rueful twinkle in his eyes. “I must ask you to forgive an old man's vanity, my dear. I shouldn't have done it, I know, but I simply couldn't resist the chance to appear before a beautiful young woman as I once was.”

He gestured toward the spot beside Paige on the bench. “May I?”

At her small nod, he leaned both hands on his ivory-handled cane and eased down. Once seated, he studied her face. “Will you be all right?”

“I doubt if I'll ever be able to walk into another movie without swallowing a few dozen tranquilizers first, but aside from that, I'm fine.”

Swanset gave a low, delighted chuckle. The sound rippled over Paige like deep, dark velvet brushing across her skin. Millions of women must have swooned when they heard that husky laugh, she thought in some astonishment. Particularly when it was accompanied by the heavy-lidded, blatantly masculine stare Swanset raked her with.

“You really are a most beautiful young woman,” he murmured, his gloved hands curling around his cane. “That costume you're wearing enhances your charms quite deliciously, Miss—?”

Paige went very still as his gaze lingered on the gold collar of her halter. In the terror of the preceding few moments, she'd forgotten the reason she'd come to the Victor Swanset Wing of
the Palais des Festivals in the first place. The reason came rushing back with soul-shattering intensity.

He cocked a brow, politely awaiting her response.

“Ames,” she supplied, in a small, breathless voice. “Meredith Ames.”

Oh, God! Was he going to ask for the microdot? Frantically she tried to recall David's itemized list of instructions for just such a possibility.

First… First… Dear Lord, what was first?

The sound of approaching footsteps reined in Paige's spiraling panic.

David's deep voice preceded his arrival on the scene by a tenth of a second. “No luck with the guard. He doesn't have any idea—”

Both his voice and his footsteps ceased abruptly.

Paige swung around on the bench. She had never been more glad to see anyone in her life. She had never been more glad to see David,
her
David, in her life.

His red shirt and tan slacks stood out in startling contrast to the sterile white-and-black decor. As did his strong, athletic body and gleaming, steel blue eyes. There was nothing sterile about David, Paige thought in a rush of relief. Nothing ephemeral, like the shimmering image of the youthful Victor Swanset. David was real. He was solid. He was hers.

The instant communication she felt with him at this moment went deeper than mere visual identification. With the heightened instincts of an animal for her mate, Paige knew that she would recognize David even if he stepped out of a molecular screen wrapped in the body of Michael Jordan.

Unfortunately, her brief flash of absolute identity with, of belonging to, this man vanished when he caught sight of Victor Swanset on the bench beside her.

David,
her
David, disappeared in an instant. In his place stood the stranger she'd seen last night in the mirror.

Only someone as attuned to him as Paige was could have noticed the switch. It was so soft, so subtle. She caught the almost imperceptible tightening of his jaw. The slight shift in
the planes of his face. The hint of menace in his walk as he strolled into the alcove.

“Ah,” Victor murmured. “Your gallant returns.”

Rising to his feet with the aid of his cane, he nodded politely. “You are this delightful creature's David, are you not?”

“I am,” he replied, laying a light hand on her bare shoulder. Neither Paige nor Swanset missed the significance of his possessive gesture. He might be hers, but there was no doubt that she was also his.

This time Paige had no objection whatsoever to being claimed like a lost toy poodle. Even by this stranger, who was almost, but not quite, her David. In fact, she would've been more than grateful if he'd tugged on her electronic leash at this very moment and walked her right out of this bizarre situation.

A life of adventure, she decided, wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

“I fear I frightened your lovely companion,” Swanset said, with a charming, apologetic glance at Paige.

Frightened
wasn't quite how she would have described it, but she never used the kind of words that sprang into her mind at that moment. Not in public, anyway.

“I couldn't resist the opportunity to demonstrate a new technique I'm working on,” the aging star explained.

“The Swanset visual imaging ionization process?”

Victor's smile broadened to one of pure delight. “You're familiar with my work?”

“I'm an electronic engineer by trade. My firm is very much involved in preparing for the transition to the information highway. Your pioneering work in visual imaging will ease that transition.”

“Ah, yes, this information highway one hears so much about. An interesting concept, is it not? Channeling all information, whether written, visual, or audio, through a single network, into millions and millions of homes around the world.”

Victor looked into the distance, his dark eyes gleaming with a vision of a world he might not ever see. A world that would explode with ideas, images, sounds. One that would exploit the
new technology encoded on a tiny sequin attached to Paige's glittering gold collar.

Swallowing, she resisted the urge to lift her hand to her throat and cover the gold band.

With a tiny shake of his head, Victor recalled himself to the present. “May I be permitted to make amends for frightening your lovely companion so? Perhaps you both might join me for dinner, Mr.—?”

“Jensen.”

His dark eyes widened. “But of course! Dr. David Jensen. I've read the paper you presented at the international symposium this week. It's brilliant, quite brilliant.”

If David was surprised that this aging recluse had obtained a copy of the highly technical paper that provided his cover for this mission, he didn't show it.

“Please,” Swanset insisted. “You must join me for dinner. To allow me to apologize for discomposing Miss Ames so, and, perhaps, to discuss further your paper.”

David glanced down at Paige, as if politely seeking confirmation of her wishes.

“Dinner would be wonderful,” she managed with a small smile.

“Fine. Shall we say tomorrow evening? My car will pick you up at the…”

“The Carlton.”

“The Carlton. At eight o'clock, then.”

With a gracious bow to Paige and a nod to David, he strolled out of the alcove.

When the clicking of his cane on the tiles had faded, David slipped a strong hand under her elbow. “Come on, let's get out of here.”

Paige wasn't surprised to find that her knees were still shaky. Grateful for both David's support and for the opportunity to put some distance between herself and the Baron's portrait, she clutched at his arm as he led her back out into the gardens. In the rose-scented arbor, he swung her around and curved a hand
around her neck. Tilting her face up to the light, he scanned it anxiously.

“Are you all right?”

“More or less.”

His fingers curled into her skin. “I just about lost it when I walked in and saw Swanset sitting next to you.”

“I did lose it.”

With a small, embarrassed laugh, she described the abject terror that had toppled her onto the floor when the star made his dramatic appearance.

“Damn!” David muttered, resting his forehead against hers for a moment. When he lifted his head, his blue eyes gleamed down at her with a combination of resignation and reluctant admiration.

“You have your own inimitable style, Jezebel, but you do get results.”

Paige basked in the glory of his praise for all of twenty seconds, then sighed.

“I'd take full credit for this coup, except for one small detail,” she said gloomily. “We really don't know if Victor Swanset invited us to his villa to get his hands on my microdot or to pick your brain about your brilliant paper.”

W
hen she walked out of the Palais des Festivals, Paige experienced a sharp sense of disorientation. With all that had happened, it seemed as though she and David had been inside the huge convention center for hours, if not days. Yet the sun still hung high overhead, and bright diamonds sparkled on the bay. The scent of spring drifted along the Croisette, and even the traffic moved more slowly, more politely, as though the drivers were taking the time to enjoy the balmy afternoon.

“Do you mind walking a bit?” David asked as they approached a rank of waiting taxis. “We can have lunch at one of the beach cafés, then, if you're up to it, take a stroll through the Allées.”

At the mention of the Allées, the nervous tension still gripping Paige shifted focus. She shoved aside the lingering jitters generated by her meeting with the Baron of the Night and instantly started worrying about Maggie's meeting with Antoine the bookie.

By the time this great adventure of hers was over, she thought, she was going to have an ulcer.

“I could use some fresh air,” she said truthfully.

David smiled and slipped on a pair of aviator-style sunglasses. “Me too.”

At any other time, Paige would have delighted in the spectacle that presented itself as they strolled along the palm-lined boulevard. If ever a city had been made for people-watching, it was Cannes, especially at this time of day. The previous night's revelers were just emerging for a late brunch. All along the Croisette, the idle rich rubbed shoulders with camera-laden tourists. On the white, pebbly beaches, northerners who'd come to escape the cold, drizzly wet stripped down to string bikinis, or less, and displayed their pale bodies beside those of tanned sun worshipers. Paige managed to refrain from gawking the way she had at the well-endowed starlet posing on the beach at the Palais.

They chose a small seaside restaurant run by one of the huge hotels on the other side of the Croisette. The tiny open-air café was dotted with gaily striped umbrellas and tubs of pink geraniums and white primroses. The aroma of hot bread and mouth-watering sauces made Paige suddenly aware of the fact that she hadn't eaten anything since her breakfast with Henri.

Was that only this morning? She sank into the chair the waiter held out for her, feeling as though she'd aged several years since then.

After ordering crabmeat salad and a carafe of wine, David stretched out his legs and folded his hands across his stomach.

He looked so at ease, she thought with a touch of mingled wonder and resentment. She was still tied up in knots from her encounter with Victor Swanset, and David appeared so relaxed. And so darned handsome.

She hadn't missed the looks he'd attracted as they strolled the Croisette. No wonder. The red shirt deepened the hue of his skin to a polished oak and brought out the mahogany tints in his thick brown hair. What it did to his powerful, well-sculpted body made her squirm in her seat.

Strange. Paige had never thought of herself as the kind of woman who could regard a man as a sex object. In fact, she hated the TV ad that showed a bunch of women gathering at an
upper-story window every morning at a specified hour to watch some hunk in a hard hat peel off his shirt. She'd always considered the ad sexist and demeaning to both men and women.

Since last night, however, she'd come to the conclusion that she might just be more susceptible to a man's body—to this particular man's body, anyway—than she'd ever realized. And he, in his infinite, irritating wisdom, had decided this wasn't the time to indulge in some serious body wrapping.

Wrenching her gaze, if not her thoughts from David, Paige stared out at the shimmering azure bay. The dazzling, dancing pinpoints of light reflecting from its surface hurt her eyes. She wished she had the deliciously gaudy star-shaped sunglasses Maggie had given her, but they were at the bottom of the bay, with her purse. And her engagement ring.

“Don't you think you should call Chameleon?” she asked, turning back to face David.

“No. Not yet. She's probably still nosing around the Allées. With any luck, we'll run into her there.”

“You don't seem nearly as concerned about keeping tabs on her whereabouts as you do mine.”

“Maggie's a pro,” he replied with a small shrug. “And I'm not engaged to her.”

“You're not engaged to me, either, remember?”

“Are you ready to talk about that?”

Paige rubbed her thumb across the base of her bare ring finger, feeling strangely naked without the familiar white-gold band.

“I'm sorry I lost the emerald, David.”

“I'm sorry you felt the need to take it off.”

She gnawed on her lower lip, remembering the wrenching unhappiness and insecurity that had caused her to slip the ring over her knuckle.

“I sensed that you were holding something back from me,” she told him slowly.

“Now you know I was.”

Paige forced herself to articulate the feelings she'd been too shy, too timid, to discuss with him before. “I'm not talking
about this secret life you lead, although I'll admit that was a bit of a shock.”

“Then what?”

“You were always so much in control, even when we made love. You never seemed to lose yourself. All of yourself.” Heat crept up her cheeks, but she met his eyes. “Until last night.”

“Did I hurt you?” he asked, frowning.

“No!” She shook her head, her face fiery now. “I liked it. A lot. I liked thinking that I was woman enough to push you past the limits you set on yourself. On us. I like what I do to you when I'm wearing satin and sequins.”

“Dammit, Paige—what you wear doesn't have anything to do with what I feel for you.”

She cocked a brow.

“Okay, so maybe seeing you in Meredith's working uniform has given me a slightly different perspective.”

“Ha!” She placed one elbow on the table and leaned forward. The golden halter drooped enticingly.

“A very different perspective,” he conceded, with a small grin. “But doesn't that disprove your doubts about us? Evidently I still have as much to discover about you as you think you do about me.”

“What if—what if we never really find the real us, David?”

“I'm not sure anyone can ever know all there is to know about another person. We're too complex, too changeable. But isn't that what marriage is all about? Long years of learning what works, what doesn't. What pleases you, or irritates me. What makes you sneeze or makes me lose control. Think about it, Paige. Think of all those days and nights of exploration.”

 

She was still thinking about those days and nights—particularly the nights—when they strolled through the Allées de la Liberté, a series of delightful avenues shaded by wide, leafy plane trees.

The Allées teemed with color and humanity. During balmy afternoons such as this, the natives gathered to sip kir, a white
wine spiced with black currant liqueur, at open-air cafés or stroll the flower-filled markets and squares.

Her arm looped through David's, Paige paused to watch a lively game of
boules.
The players tossed the heavy, palm-sized balls into a sandy gravel pit some distance away, gesticulating and arguing so vociferously after each throw that she couldn't tell if the object of the game was for the balls to touch or not touch each other when they landed. David was trying to explain the rules when she caught a flash of carroty red hair out of the corner of one eye.

Paige glanced across the small square, then gripped David's arm. “Look! Isn't that Henri?”

“So it is.”

As they watched, the boy hurried toward a circular booth plastered with colorful posters advertising everything from toothpaste to what was billed as the most extravagant transvestite nightclub act in Cannes.

“That must be the kiosk he uses as his headquarters,” Paige murmured.

When David didn't reply, she glanced up at him. With a small shock, she saw that her relaxed companion of a moment ago had vanished. In his place was another man, not quite a stranger anymore but not one she felt entirely comfortable with.

Eyes narrowed, David watched the boy dig through his pockets, then begin shoving coins into the phone with a frantic disregard for their denominations. Even from across the square, they could see the controlled desperation on his young face.

“Come on.”

Paige didn't need David's terse order. She was already heading across the tree-shaded plaza, the gravel crunching under her sandals with each quick step.

When the boy caught sight of them, a look of relief flashed across his freckled face. He slammed the receiver down and rushed to meet them.

“
Monsieur!
I try to call you!”

“Why?”

“
Mademoiselle's
friend, the one with the so-lovely legs. She
offers me fifty francs to take her to Antoine's shop. I tried to dissuade her, but she insists.”

“Why did you try to dissuade her?”

Doc kept his voice even, allowing no hint of his suspicions to color it. His muscles tightened as he noted the worry that sharpened the boy's thin face. If Henri was acting, Doc thought grimly, he was doing a damn fine job of it.

“Antoine, he is a pig. He has the weakness for beautiful women, but they do not always return his regard.” The boy hesitated. “Not without some persuasion, you understand?”

Doc's jaw hardened. “I understand.”

“I cannot go inside the shop, since Antoine and I have severed our business relationship, but I point it out to
mademoiselle.
She goes in some time ago, and does not come out.”

David ignored Paige's small gasp. “Where is this shop?”

“Two streets over. I will show you.”

In the space of a single heartbeat, Doc ran through a short mental list.

A—this could be a setup, an attempt to separate him from Paige so that Henri could retrieve the microdot.

B—Maggie could be engaging this Antoine in idle chitchat while she scouted out the place.

Or C—she could be in serious trouble, even though she hadn't signaled an emergency or requested backup.

Given the very real possibility of A or C, Doc wasn't about to let Paige out of his sight, and he sure as hell wasn't going to waste any more time.

“Let's go.”

Without another word, Henri turned and darted off.

Doc took Paige's arm with one hand and slipped the other into his pocket to activate the transmitter in the gold cigarette case, preset to Maggie's code. If she responded to his signal before they got to Antoine's shop, good. If she didn't, Doc would take it from there.

Henri led them down a narrow lane and across an intersection clogged with afternoon shoppers. He turned right at the next cross street, then skidded to a halt halfway down a block lined
with shops and pizzerias. Keeping to the shadows, he pointed across the pavement to a narrow facade near the corner.

“It is there, that
tabac.
”

Enough afternoon sunlight filtered through the tall windows to illuminate the tobacco-and-sweet shop's interior. Even from this distance, they could see that it was deserted. A sign hanging crookedly on the front door announced that it was closed until four o'clock.

His jaw tight, Doc surveyed the shop. “Is there a back entrance?”

“
Oui.
Through the storeroom. But Antoine, he's very cautious. He keeps the door locked at all times.”

“Show me.”

By the time Henri had led them down a narrow alley studded with malodorous garbage cans and grocer's boxes overflowing with wilted vegetation, Doc knew he was going in.

He'd spent enough years in the field to recognize when something had gone wrong with an operation, and this situation had all the hallmarks of a major disaster. Maggie would've responded to his signal by now—if she could. Doc still suspected Henri's motives, but he didn't believe the boy was lying or trying to lead them into a trap. Not with that scared expression on his face.

Adding to Doc's worry over Maggie was a gut-wrenching need to shield Paige from what he feared he might find inside the tobacco shop. Every protective instinct in him was on red alert, but he didn't dare take the time to send her to safety.

Edging around an overturned wooden crate spilling soggy, rotting tomatoes onto the cobbles, he glanced down at the woman beside him. She picked her way carefully through the muck in her open-toed sandals, her nose wrinkled and her face pale. Under her evident disgust and natural nervousness, however, was a strength of purpose every bit as strong as his own. Seeing the determined set to her chin, Doc suspected she wouldn't leave the alley even if he dared send her back out onto the street alone.

With a sheer effort of will, he forced himself to accept the
fact that Paige, his sweet, delicate Paige, was beside him in this foul-smelling alley. He couldn't shield her from this side of his life any longer. Besides which, she didn't want to be shielded.

Nevertheless, he halted her a safe distance away from the back entrance to the tobacco shop.

“You and Henri stay here,” he instructed in a low, clipped tone.

“But,
monsieur!
” Henri hissed. “You have need of me! To pick the lock.”

Somehow Doc wasn't surprised that the boy included breaking and entering among his many talents.

“I need you to stay right here, with Mademoiselle Paige.”

The boy frowned, then nodded a reluctant agreement. “
Oui,
someone must protect her.”

“Take him with you, David,” Paige whispered. “I'll be all right. I've…I've got my weapon with me.”

“What weapon?”

She fumbled in her purse for a moment, then held up the mascara tube.

“Paige!” Doc shoved her hand to one side. “Watch where you aim that thing.”

“I will stay with her,” Henri said, shaking his head. “You need not worry. Me, I have the knife.”