Fairytale (32 page)

She leaned a little farther, heard the door
open just as all thoughts faded away. She felt her body falling
from the bed, felt the crushing impact on her right side when she
hit the floor.

Darque reached Bridin’s bedroom door at the
same time as Kate, the nurse. He flung the door open, surged
inside...and paused there as the blood drained from his face.
Bridin lay on the floor, amid the litter of broken glass. Her face
as lily white as that of a corpse. Her eyes closed.

“Gods, why now?” he snarled as he moved
forward, instinctively bending over to pick her up, then
hesitating. The pendant. He couldn’t lay his hands on her as long
as she wore that pendant.

And then Kate was crouching beside him,
pressing her palms to Bridin’s face the way Darque had intended to
do.

“Lord, she’s cold as ice!” The nurse caught
Bridin’s wrist in her hands, and shook her head. Her eyes widened
as she looked up at Darque.

He scowled down at the beautiful woman on the
floor. “Damn you, Bridin, your timing couldn’t be worse.” He stood
straight and paced away from her, rubbing his forehead with his
fingertips. At any moment now, Zaslow would be taking possession of
that damned painting. And Darque had to be there when that
happened. He had to be sure it was destroyed, at once, before
Bridin’s sister ever set eyes on it. He had to witness it burning
with his own eyes. He couldn’t trust this to Zaslow. It was too
important. And he couldn’t wait.

Nor could he leave Bridin here in this
condition. She looked as if she were at death’s door. Gods, he
couldn’t just let her die.

He turned abruptly, saw Kate maneuvering
Bridin’s limp form back into the bed, stroking her hair, muttering
softly. He could care less if she died, he reminded himself. It
wouldn’t matter to him in the least, except that he needed her. He
needed her to secure his hold on the throne of Rush.

“What’s wrong with her?” he demanded.

Kate turned on him, wide-eyed.

“You’re a nurse, dammit. What’s causing
this?”

“I don’t know.”

Sighing in disgust, Darque paced toward the
bed, stood beside it, looking down at Bridin’s ivory face, the dark
circles even now beginning to form around her eyes. The way her
hands trembled against the white sheets.

Kate’s head lay upon Bridin’s breast for a
moment. When she straightened, she faced him. “I don’t have a
stethoscope here, but I think her heartbeat is irregular. And it
looks as if her blood pressure is falling dangerously. We need to
get her to a hospital, Mr. Darque.”

He narrowed his eyes and moved closer.
Without taking his gaze from Bridin, he said, “Go downstairs and
call an ambulance. You’re to ride in it with her. You’re to stay
with her at all times, Kate. Do you understand?”

Kate nodded and started toward the door.

“I’ll join you at the hospital soon. I have
something I have to do first, but I’ll come there directly. Don’t
let her out of your sight for an instant, Kate, until I get
there.”

“I won’t,” she said. “I’ll take care of her.
Don’t worry, Mr. Darque.” And then she left the room.

Darque bent over the bed, lifted his hand as
if to touch her face, but caught himself, and drew it away again.
“I’m warning you, Bridin of Rush, if this is some kind of a
trick...”

His words trailed off as her eyes fluttered,
and then opened, mere slits, unfocused and watery.

But they caught his and held them, and her
pale, trembling hand rose slowly, reaching for his face.

He couldn’t touch her. But she could touch
him with no ill effects if she wanted to do so. It surprised him
when her chilled palm settled on his cheek, and her eyes, dulled
though they were, still managed to pierce his.

“Before I...go...” she whispered. “I wish to
know...your name.”

His name? The Dark Prince blinked in shock.
“You’re not going to die, Bridin,” he assured her. “You’ll
live...long enough to serve my purposes, at least. But since you
asked, my name is the same as my father’s before me, and his before
him, and many before them. I am Tristan of Shara.” He held her gaze
and added, “Ruler of Rush.”

Her chilled hand fell away from his face, and
he saw in her eyes that his barb had struck its target. And then
they fell closed, and she said no more.

Tristan of Shara felt his stomach lurch, and
wondered at it. But he lifted his hand, and spoke the words that
would remove the invisible barrier which kept the fairy from
passing.

And then he sat down in the chair beside the
bed, and he stared at her a while longer.

The pounding on the front door came just as
Adam reread her letter for the fourth time, while racking his brain
to figure out where she’d gone. How he could reach her in time to
protect her when he didn’t even know where she’d gone. The
interruption irritated the hell out of him.

“Dammit, Adam, open up!”

The voice was not one to be ignored. Mac
wasn’t the type to yell and pound on a door at this hour unless
something was very wrong. Adam clasped the letter in his hand, went
to the door, and yanked it open.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“Sticking my nose in where it doesn’t
belong.” Mac shoved Adam aside and came in, heading straight for
the study. “You’re going to knock me right on my ass for this,
buddy, but do us both a favor and save it for later, okay?”

Adam shook his head in confusion. “Look I
don’t know what you’re talking about, and I don’t have time to find
out. And since I need to borrow your car, I’m not likely to knock
you on your ass just now.”

“Good, because I tapped your phones.”

“You...”

“Tapped your phones. Illegal as hell. I could
lose my license.”

Adam blinked. “Why?”

Mac’s face twisted into a grimace. “Because
you’re my friend and I was worried about you. Afraid you were about
to walk into another scam perpetrated by another woman. Jesus,
Adam, I was with you last time, remember? I didn’t want to watch
you go through all that again.” He tilted his head, surveying
Adam’s face. “Or am I already too late? Is she gone, Adam?”

“Yeah, and I have no idea where.”

Mac sighed in disgust, stomped straight
through into the study, and reached for the painting. With a
quickness that made Adam cringe, he jerked the painting off the
wall, flipped it around, and scanned the back. “Did you do what I
told you? With the marking pen?”

Adam nodded, moving forward quickly and
restlessly, wishing he knew what to do to help Brigit. “Yeah. But
there’s no sense looking for it. She switched them, Mac. Took the
original with her, and I don’t even give a damn. It’s her I want,
not the freaking painting.”

Mac’s head came up sharply. “You
knew
she’d switched them?” At Adam’s nod, he rushed on. “And you just
let her go? Just like that? What’s got into you, Adam, you lost
your mind or what?”

But even as he spoke, Mac was scanning that
canvas again, yanking a flashlight the size of a pen from his shirt
pocket, flashing its purplish glow over the back in search of the
ink.

“I didn’t just let her go! She told me she
had two more days, and I was planning to be there with her when she
delivered the damned painting to this Zaslow jerk. But she left
early, took my keys so I couldn’t follow. She’s meeting the bastard
alone and there’s not a damned thing I can do about it.”

“Yeah, well you ought to know, Adam, that I
just eavesdropped on a phone call from Zaslow. The jerk didn’t
ask
her to pull this scam. He didn’t give her any goddamn
choice. Sounds as if he’s holding the old man, just to be sure she
complies.”

“I know all that. She came clean, Mac, told
me everything.”

“He’s a sadistic bastard,” Mac went on. “Told
Brigit that old Raze was sick, started listing symptoms and sounded
like he was enjoying it. I thought I heard a moan in the
background, but—”

“Jesus Christ. No wonder she took off in such
a hurry.”

“Ah, hell, Adam,” Mac’s words held a new
urgency, and Adam looked up fast. Mac stood, staring at the lower
right-hand corner of the painting, and shaking his head. “She
didn’t do it, pal. She didn’t switch them. This is the
original.”

“What?” Adam lunged forward. A rush of
adrenaline flooded his veins, and it propelled him, pushing
him.

He looked over Mac’s shoulder to see the
word, scrawled in Adam’s own hand, illuminated by the ultraviolet
glow.
Rush.

“Brigit...” Adam breathed, almost limp now
with relief. She
hadn’t
betrayed him. Even with all the
pressure on her to do it, and even when he’d told her he didn’t
care about the damned painting, that he’d willingly hand it over to
Zaslow himself, she’d been unable to go through with it.

“This Zaslow is no slouch. He’s an expert.
She might have pulled it over on him if she’d waited a few days,
let the paint dry. But man, he’s gonna see through this so fast he
won’t have to look twice.” Mac frowned hard. “And we both know this
bastard has killed before.”

Adam blinked, shock seeping through his
bones, and the need for action making every nerve ending in his
body twitch and jump. “Tell me you know where she’s meeting him,
Mac.”

“Oh, yeah,” Mac said, with a hard nod. “You
bet your ass I know. An hour from here. Binghamton. At the double-A
ball field there. We can call the cops and have them—”

“No cops.” Adam headed for the front door at
a run. “You leave your keys in the car?”

“Yeah, but Adam, we have to notify—”

“No cops, Mac.” He stopped with his hand on
the knob, his palm itching and shaking to send a glance back over
his shoulder. “They’d connect her with the other forgeries...the
ones in the past. She’d end up in prison.”

“If she’s guilty—”

“She was a kid, Mac. You said yourself, she
couldn’t have been much more than a teenager when those other
heists went down.”

Mac’s lips thinned, but he nodded. “Okay. All
right. It’s your call. But I’m coming with you. You can’t take on a
thug like Zaslow alone.”

Adam shook his head. “No way, pal. This is my
fight.” Adam started through the door.

“Jesus, Reid, aren’t you even going to put a
shirt on first?”

Adam didn’t answer. He jumped into his
friend’s car and twisted the key.

***

She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t betray Adam
that way, not when she knew how often he’d been hurt in the past.
It didn’t matter that he’d told her he didn’t care.
She
cared. She’d tried to make herself switch the paintings. She’d gone
so far as to take the original off the wall. But she’d never
removed it from its frame. Adam had done too much for her. He’d
taught her how to love. And there was no room in that love for
betrayal. She ended up hanging the original back on the wall, and
leaving the house with the copy.

She’d brought the forgery, its paint still
tacky, to the meeting place. It rested in the back seat of her car
as she paced the ground in front of the vehicle. The moon was
waning, but bright. A lopsided half circle of goodness and light,
spilling down on the grassy diamond. The place was abandoned
tonight. The season recently over, the bleachers empty. The grass
needed mowing, she thought, and the chalk lines had faded. She
looked through the link fence that stretched around this end of the
field, to the deserted dugouts. And she thought about Raze, and how
much he loved to come here and watch the Binghamton Mets. How he’d
order a hot dog with extra relish and a Cherry Coke every time,
like some kind of ritual. How he knew every player by name, and
could predict which ones were destined to get called up to the
major leagues.

She loved that old man. She’d never loved
anyone as much as she loved Raze. Until now.

Zaslow’s van rolled in, and Brigit went
stiff. The vehicle pulled up beside hers, the headlights went out,
and the motor died.

Zaslow’s door opened and he stepped out, came
around to stand near its nose. She remained where she was, standing
nervously at the front of her own car. Both vehicles were aimed at
the fence and the field. As if they were sitting there awaiting the
first pitch.

“Well? Where is it?”

She lifted her chin, felt the wind whipping
tendrils of hair around her face. “I want to see Raze first.”

Zaslow tilted his head, shrugged. “Fair
enough. Let’s just get on with this, Brigit. My client was in touch
right after I talked to you, and he’s running out of patience.”

Zaslow stepped between her car and his, to
open the van’s passenger door. Brigit moved to stand beside him,
and when the interior light came on, she saw Raze, slouched in the
seat. His careworn face was relaxed, head tilted to one side. He
slumped there, so still she jerked in shock at first, thinking he
was dead. But then she saw his chest rise and fall, slightly, but
enough, and she drew a steadying breath. She’d take care of Raze.
Right now, nothing mattered but that.

She started forward, but Zaslow stepped right
in front of her, blocking her path. “Not so fast, Brigit.” He
closed the van door. “The painting.”

She glanced past him, through the window of
the van at his back. In the pale moonlight, she could see a set of
keys dangling from the switch. Hope surged in her chest.

“It’s in the back seat,” she said, inclining
her head toward her car, three feet behind her. “Go ahead, take a
look.”

She stayed where she was as Zaslow moved past
her to bend to the car and open the back door. She saw him lean in,
reach out, and she lunged around the van’s nose, reaching for the
driver’s door, just as she heard him yell, “Bitch!”

A gunshot rang out even as she was about to
wrench the door open. Brigit ducked instinctively, covering her
head with her hands, pressing her face to the cool metallic
door.