Hot Ice (39 page)

“Whitaker was a bit of a fool, but at times he was clever enough. He’d been, at one time, a business partner with Harold R. Bennett. You recognize the name?”

“Of course.” She said it easily while her mind began to work frantically. Hadn’t Doug mentioned a general once? Yes, there’d been a general who’d been negotiating with Lady Smythe-Wright for the papers. “Bennett’s a retired
five-star general and quite a businessman. He’s had some dealings with my father—professionally and on the golf course, which almost amounts to the same thing.”

“I’ve always preferred chess to golf,” Dimitri commented. In the ivory silk, she shimmered so much that she might have replaced the glass queen that was in shards now. He remembered how well it had fit his hand. “So you know of General Bennett’s reputation.”

“He’s well known as a patron of the arts, and a collector of the old and unique. A few years ago he led an expedition in the Caribbean and discovered a sunken Spanish galleon. He recovered somewhere around five and a half million in artifacts, coins, and jewels. What Whitaker pretended to do, Bennett did. And very successfully.”

“You’re well informed. I like that.” He added cream and two generous teaspoons of sugar to his own coffee. “Bennett enjoys the hunt, shall we say. Egypt, New Zealand, the Congo, he’s looked for and found the priceless. According to Whitaker he was in the first stages of working out a deal with Lady Smythe-Wright for the papers she’d inherited. Whitaker had his connections, and a certain amount of charm where women were concerned. He slipped the deal from under Bennett’s nose. But unfortunately, he was an amateur.”

With a weak heart, Whitney remembered. “So you learned from him where the papers were kept, and hired Douglas to steal them.”

“Acquire them,” Dimitri corrected delicately. “Whitaker refused, even under duress, to tell me the contents of all the documents, but he did inform me that Bennett’s interest stemmed primarily from the cultural value of the treasure, its history. Naturally, the idea of acquiring a treasure that had belonged to Marie Antoinette, whom I admired particularly for her opulence and ambition, was irresistible.”

“Naturally. If you don’t plan to sell the contents of the box, Mr. Dimitri, what do you plan to do with it?”

“Why, have it, Whitney.” He smiled at her. “Fondle it, gaze upon it. Own it.”

While Doug’s attitude had frustrated her, at least she understood it. He’d seen the treasure as a means to an end. Dimitri saw it as a personal possession. A dozen arguments sprang up in her mind. She repressed them. “I’m sure Marie would have approved.”

As he considered this, Dimitri gazed toward the ceiling. Royalty was another of his fascinations. “She would have, yes. Greed is looked on as one of the seven deadly sins, but so few understand its basic pleasure.” He dabbed his mouth with a linen napkin before he rose. “I hope you’ll forgive me, my dear, I’m accustomed to retiring early.” He pressed a small button that was worked cleverly into the carving on the mantel. “Perhaps you’d like to choose a book before you go up?”

“Please don’t think you have to entertain me, Mr. Dimitri. I’ll be quite happy on my own, just browsing.”

With another smile, he patted her hand. “Perhaps another time, Whitney. I’m sure you need your rest after your experiences of the last few weeks.” There was a quiet knock at the door. “Remo will show you to your room. Sleep well.”

“Thank you.” She set down her coffee cup and rose, but had taken no more than two steps when Dimitri’s hand clamped over her wrist. She looked down at the lightly polished nails, and the stub. “The bracelet, my dear.” His fingers pressed hard enough to rub against bone. She didn’t wince.

“Sorry,” she said easily, holding her hand out.

Dimitri unhooked the gold and rubies from her wrist. “You’ll join me for breakfast, I hope.”

“Of course.” Whitney swept toward the door, pausing as Dimitri opened it. She stood trapped between him and Remo. “Good night.”

“Good night, Whitney.”

She held to cool silence until the door of the sitting room locked behind her. “Sonofabitch.” Disgusted, she took off the delicate Italian slippers that had been provided for her and threw them at the wall.

Trapped, she thought. Locked up just as tidily as the treasure chest—to be gazed upon, fondled. Owned. “In a pig’s eye,” she said aloud. She wanted to weep and wail and beat her fists against the locked door. Instead, she stripped off the ivory silk and left it in a heap before she marched into the bedroom.

She’d find a way, Whitney promised herself. She’d find a way out, and when she did, Dimitri would pay for every minute she’d been his prisoner.

For a moment she rested her head against the armoire because the urge to weep was almost too strong to resist. After she’d controlled it, Whitney reached inside for a teal blue kimono. She needed to think, that was all. She just needed to think. The scent of flowers permeated the room. Air, she decided, and marched to the French doors that led to the tiny bedroom balcony.

With her teeth set, she yanked open the doors. It was going to rain, she thought. Good, the rain and wind might help clear her head. Resting her hands on the rail, she leaned out, looking toward the bay.

How had she gotten herself in this mess? she demanded. The answer was plain, two words. Doug Lord.

After all, she’d been minding her own business when he’d barged into her life and embroiled her in treasure hunts, killers, and thieves. At this moment, instead of being trapped like Rapunzel, she’d have been sitting in some nice smoke-choked club, watching people show off their clothes or their new hairstyles. Normal stuff, she thought grimly.

Now look at her, locked in a house in Madagascar with
a smiling middle-aged killer and his entourage. In New York,
she
had an entourage, and no one would have dared turn a key on her.

“Doug Lord,” she muttered aloud, then looked down numbly as a hand clamped over hers on the rail. Whitney drew in her breath to scream when the head popped over.

“Yeah, it’s me,” Doug said between his teeth. “Now help me over, goddamn it.”

She forgot everything she’d just been thinking about him and bent over to cover his face with kisses. Who said there wasn’t any Seventh Cavalry?

“Look, sugar, I appreciate the welcome, but I’m losing my grip. Give me a hand.”

“How’d you find me?” she demanded as she reached down to help him over the rail. “I didn’t think you’d ever come. There are guards out there with these nasty little machine guns. My doors’re all locked from the outside, and—”

“Jesus, if I’d remembered you talked so much I wouldn’t have bothered.” He landed lightly on his feet.

“Douglas.” She wanted to cry again but held the tears back. “It’s so nice of you to drop in like this.”

“Yeah?” He strolled through the French doors into the opulent bedroom. “Well, I wasn’t sure you wanted any company—especially after that cozy little dinner you had with Dimitri.”

“Were you watching?”

“I’ve been around.” Turning, he fingered the rich silk of her lapel. “He gave you this?”

Her eyes narrowed at the tone, her chin tilted. “Just what are you implying?”

“Looks like a nice setup.” He wandered to her dresser and drew the top from a crystal decanter of scent. “All the comforts of home, right?”

“I hate to state the obvious, but you’re an ass.”

“And what’re you?” He pushed the stopper back into
the bottle with a snap. “Walking around in fancy silk dresses he bought for you, drinking champagne with him, letting him put his hands on you?”

“His hands on me?” She said the words slowly, letting them sink in.

Doug gave her a look that skimmed from her bare legs to the milky skin of her throat. “You sure know how to smile at a man, don’t you, sugar? What’s your cut?”

Each step measured, Whitney walked over, reared back, and slapped him as hard as she could. For a long moment, there was nothing but the sound of their breathing and the wind kicking up against the open windows.

“You’ll get away with that once,” Doug said softly as he ran the back of his hand over his cheek. “Don’t try it again. I’m not a gentleman like your Dimitri.”

“Just get out,” Whitney whispered. “Get the hell out. I don’t need you.”

There was an ache in him that far outdid the sting in his cheek. “Don’t you think I can see that?”

“You don’t see anything.”

“I’ll tell you what I saw, sugar. I saw an empty hotel suite. I saw that you and the box were gone. And I saw you here, nuzzling up to that bastard over a rack of lamb.”

“You’d have rather found me tied to the bedpost with bamboo shoots under my nails.” She turned away. “Sorry to disappoint you.”

“Well, why don’t you tell me what the hell’s going on then?”

“Why should I?” Furious, she brushed a tear away with the back of her hand. Damn, she hated to cry. Worse, she hated to cry for a man. “You’ve already made up your mind. Your very limited mind.”

Doug dragged a hand through his hair and wished he had a drink. “Look, I’ve been going crazy for hours. It took me the better part of the afternoon to find this place,
then I had to get through the guards.” And one of them, he didn’t add, was lying in the bushes with a slit throat. “When I get here, I see you dressed like a princess, smiling across the table at Dimitri as though you were the best of friends.”

“What the hell was I supposed to do? Run around naked, spit in his eye? Dammit, my life’s on the line. If I have to play the game until I find a way out, then I’ll play. You can call me a coward if you like. But not a whore.” She turned back again, her eyes dark, wet, and angry. “Not a whore, do you understand?”

He felt as though he’d just struck something small and soft and defenseless. He hadn’t been sure he’d find her alive, then when he had, she’d looked so cool, so beautiful. And worse, so in control. But shouldn’t he know her by now?

“I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry.” Edgy, he began to pace. He plucked a rose from a vase and snapped the stem in half. “Christ, I don’t know half of what I’m saying. I’ve been going nuts ever since I walked into the hotel and you were gone. I imagined all kinds of things—and that I was going to be too late to stop any of them.”

He looked dispassionately at the tiny drop of blood on his finger where a thorn had pierced the skin. He had to take a deep breath, and he had to say it quietly. “Dammit, Whitney, I care, I really care about you. I didn’t know what I’d find when I got here.”

She wiped at another tear and sniffed. “You were worried about me?”

“Yeah.” He shrugged, then tossed the mangled rose onto the floor. There was no explaining to her, even to himself, the sick dread, the guilt, the grief he’d lived with during those endless hours. “I didn’t mean to jump all over you like that.”

“Is that an apology?”

“Yes, dammit.” He spun back, his face a study in frustration and fury. “You want me to crawl?”

“Maybe.” She smiled and walked toward him. “Maybe later.”

“Jesus.” His hands weren’t quite steady when they reached for her face, but his mouth was firm, and a little desperate. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”

“I know.” She pressed against him, wild with relief. “Just hold me a minute.”

“After we’re out of here, I’ll hold you as long as you want.” Taking her shoulders, he drew her away. “You’ve got to tell me what happened, and what the setup is here.”

She nodded, then sank down on the edge of the bed. Why were her knees weak now when there was hope? “Remo and that Barns character came.” He saw the quick, nervous swallow and cursed himself again.

“They hurt you?”

“No. You hadn’t been gone very long. I’d just run a bath.”

“Why didn’t they hold you there until I got back?”

Whitney lifted a foot and examined her toes. “Because I told them I’d killed you.”

His face, for a brief instant, was a study of incredulity. “What?”

“Well, it wasn’t difficult to convince them that I was a great deal smarter than you, and that I’d put a bullet in your brain so I could have the treasure to myself. After all, they’d’ve done the same thing to each other at the first opportunity, and I was convincing.”

“Smarter than me?”

“Don’t be offended, darling.”

“They bought it?” Not particularly pleased, he dipped his hands in his pockets. “They believed that a skinny female got the drop on me. I’m a professional.”

“I hated to tarnish your reputation, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“Dimitri bought it too?”

“Apparently. I opted to play the material-minded, heartless woman with an eye on opportunity. I believe he’s quite charmed with me.”

“I’ll bet.”

“I wanted to spit in his eye,” she said so fiercely Doug cocked a brow. “I still want the chance to. I don’t even think he’s human, he just slides from place to place leaving a slimy trail, spouting off his love for the finer things. He wants to hoard the treasure like a little boy hoarding chocolate bars. He wants to open the box, look, fondle, and think of the screams of people as the guillotine falls. He wants to relive the fear, see the blood. It means more to him that way. All the lives he took to get it mean nothing to him.” Her fingers closed over Jacques’s shell. “They mean absolutely nothing to him.”

Doug moved over to kneel in front of her. “We’re going to spit in his eye.” For the first time, he closed his fingers over hers on the shell. “I promise. Do you know where he’s stashed it?”

“The treasure?” A cold smile moved over her face. “Oh yes, he took great pleasure in showing it to me. He’s so damn sure of himself, so sure he’s got me pinned.”

Doug drew her to her feet. “Let’s go get it, sugar.”

It took him a little under two minutes to trip the lock. With the door open only a crack, he peered out to check for guards in the hall.

“Okay, now we move fast and quiet.”

Whitney slipped her hand in his and stepped into the hall.

The house was silent. Apparently when Dimitri retired, everyone retired. In darkness, they moved down the staircase to the first floor. The funeral-parlor smell, flowers and polish, hung thick. Whitney used a gesture of the hand to
show Doug which way. Keeping close to the wall, they made their way slowly toward the library.