Lovers Never Lie (26 page)

A broad sweep of light suddenly illuminated the room, causing shadows to dance against the far wall. Stacia ducked to the floor, her heart pounding against the sweater she held crushed to her chest.

She crawled to the window and peered out into the night. A truck had arrived, and was now backing toward the front door. Stacia crept back into the hall, and crouched there, listening. She heard the front door open, and her skin turned to ice.

"Maria," a man shouted. "Are you ready?"

This surging of blood and numbness of limbs must be how it felt to have a heart attack. The more intently Stacia listened, the faster her heart beat.

"You took your time," Maria answered, her voice increasing in volume as her feet echoed along the downstairs' hall.

Heavy boots thumped towards Maria's voice. Adrenaline surged through Stacia. She had to get out, but there seemed no escape. Muffled footsteps now sounded behind a door at the far end of the hall. There must be a back staircase, which, like the front one, connected the two floors.

There was no time to think, no time to plan. Stacia darted across the hall and down the front stairs, not caring now whether or not anyone heard her. She flung open the door at the bottom and saw that the hall was empty. For an instant, relief swept through her. Then she tried the front door, and her relief turned to panic. Whoever had come through had re-locked the door behind them.

"Who's there?" Maria shouted, her voice a frozen shard that pierced the ceiling separating them.

Stacia ran towards the kitchen, but saw through its open door a man standing with his back to her peering into the garden. She plunged down the stairway leading to the basement, hopefully a place filled with nooks and crannies into which a person could squeeze. Instead, she found a whitewashed box of a room with a single bulb illuminating its surface. Wooden crates were piled high along the walls.

She twisted, turned, then twisted again, but there was no place to hide.

The footsteps pounded closer.

* * *

Andrew slammed on the brakes and for the umpteenth time cursed the mountain road. God alone knew how Stacia's bus had made it around these bends. With one hand on the horn and the other on a crucifix, no doubt, that seemed to be the way things worked here on Crete.

It was getting dark. Andrew's fingers tightened around the steering wheel. He had to find Stacia, had to keep her safe. This wasn't a game where the shots fired were blanks. He took the next curve faster than the last.

Maria Argolis walked slowly down the basement steps, one hand on the railing, the other on her gun, a gun whose barrel was trained on the center of Stacia's forehead.

Stacia pressed flat against one of the wooden cartons. Her stomach knotted. If she was
Alice in Wonderland,
the boards would reform to make a barrier. But this was no fantasy where safety came on demand. She stared into Maria Argolis's eyes. This was real.

"You should have left well enough alone, my dear," Maria said, her voice softly menacing.

Stacia stood as still as she was able, afraid to move, or even to breathe, lest the gun erupt as it had before.

"And where's Mr. Moore?" Maria asked, her voice scratching the nerves along Stacia's spine.

She shrugged in response, not trusting herself to speak.

"Is he here?" Maria demanded.

"No." Thank God, he wasn't. No matter how much she longed for the comfort of Andrew's arms, she couldn't bear to see him hurt.

The satisfaction in Maria's eyes almost hid the shadows on her face, the signs of stress in her voice, and the lack of sleep. She laughed at Stacia's answer, but the laughter was hard and grating.

"It's better this way," Maria said. "He'll suffer more alive than dead, as he did the last time, when his wife was killed." Her eyes glittered with malice. "Did he tell you about that?"

"Yes," Stacia whispered.

"He thought it was my brother who killed her, my brother, who's still rotting in jail because of Andrew Moore.
My brother."
Maria screamed the last words, as if her brother were the important one, not the woman he had killed. She seemed half mad in the glaring light of the uncovered bulb, for her eyes burned in the icy whiteness of her face.

Maria pointed to the hard cement beneath Stacia's feet. "Pick up the sweater," she commanded.

Stacia bent at the waist, her body so stiff with fear, she almost couldn't bend at all. Her fingers were stiff, too, and when she grasped the black sweater, she found her arm shook.

Remaining where she was, Maria gestured curtly to her helper, who had appeared on the stairs behind her. He descended the steps two at a time and snatched the sweater from Stacia's hand. As he did so, his gaze roved insolently over her body.

"Take her upstairs," Maria directed. She grabbed the sweater her helper threw. "Lock her in my study, then get back down here and load the weapons into the truck."

"Weapons?" Stacia repeated.

"They're in the crates behind you." Maria's smile was reptilian.

The crates Stacia had imagined might help save her. Her head swirled.

"The best weapons money can buy," Maria gloated. "Or should I say diamonds."

The dizziness extended to Stacia's limbs, causing her to sway as though she were at sea.

"You use diamonds to buy weapons?" she asked. Andrew's diamonds?

"It saves selling them when they're hot. Diamonds for weapons, weapons for money."

"But who are the weapons for?"

"I don't ask," Maria snapped. "It doesn't pay to be too inquisitive in this part of the world. You should have learned that by now." Her face took on a knowing expression. "That bombing in Athens...."

"Was a bomb you supplied?" Stacia's stomach churned as she remembered the fear on fellow passengers' faces.

Maria shrugged.

"Three people were killed." Stacia didn't even attempt to keep the horror from her voice, a horror seeping into the marrow of her bones.

"As long as I'm paid, what does it matter? They can blow each other to kingdom come for all I care."

Andrew would care. She cared. Stacia pressed her eyes shut. If she could call to mind Andrew's touch and warmth, perhaps it would help, would make her feel less alone. But it was impossible to dispel the images the weapons conjured up, of shooting, and bombs exploding, of people dying.

"Why not shoot her here?" Maria's helper growled. "Why take her upstairs?"

Maria turned her flinty gaze on him. "Do as I say," she snapped.

The man's fingers bit cruelly into Stacia's arm, and he jerked her toward the stairs. As he dragged her past Maria, she felt the evil emanating from the woman and every nerve in her body screamed in protest.

On the top step she stumbled and fell to her knees, jarring her leg against the door sill. The man jerked her up again, and yanked her along the hall, taking as little care as he would with a sack of potatoes. Once in the study, he shoved her into a chair and bound her hands and feet.

There was no question of a struggle. Not with Maria following behind, her gun trained on Stacia's back, and death in her eyes. She squeezed past Stacia's chair, something new in her hand now.

"A bomb," Maria said, carefully holding the object up. She smiled again, even more coldly than before. Slowly, carefully, she placed the bomb on the desk. "Just like the one in Athens. This one's set to go off in forty-five minutes. Once I press this timer, it'll tick away the minutes until it blows up, taking you with it."

"Why are you doing this?" Stacia whispered.

"You know too much," Maria replied coldly. "Seen too much; our operation, our base, everything. You've made it so we can't use this place again." She glared at Stacia. "You should have stayed in Agios Nikolaos, my dear. You shouldn't have meddled." She frowned down at the bomb. "I just wish Andrew Moore had come here with you. Then everyone who knows would be silenced." She smiled a cunning smile. "Never mind. We'll find him, and before we kill him, we'll tell him what happened to you."

The thundering of blood through Stacia's brain couldn't shut out Maria's words. She had tried to make things better for Andrew, had succeeded only in making them worse.

Maria's hand inched forward and shifted the bomb so that its face was toward Stacia. So she could count off the minutes of her life, Stacia supposed. Could know to the second how much time she had left.

Maria's helper backed out the door as though he wanted to run, his gaze locked on Maria's hand as though he didn't trust it would take forty-five minutes for the bomb to explode.

Stacia wanted to run as well, wanted to flee as fast as she could back to Agios Nikolaos and back to Andrew. She would never see him again now. Pressing her eyes shut, she tried to shake away her tears. She couldn't allow Maria to see her fear, or her sorrow, either. That would only make it worse, would give the other woman too much satisfaction.

"Well!" came a reedy voice from the direction of the doorway. "I didn't expect to see you here, Miss Roberts."

Stacia jerked open her eyes. "Mr. Stone," she said hoarsely. The bald spot on Stone's head shone as he bowed politely.

"Stone?" Maria inquired sharply. Her forefinger hovered above the bomb's ignition button.

"Just a little joke, my dear," Wilson explained. "Diamonds. Stones." He gave a depreciating shrug. "It amused me at the time." He turned back to Stacia. "I'm sorry you ended up this way. But you shouldn't have angered my wife."

Maria was his wife?

Wilson moved his head from side to side. "No, really you shouldn't have."

"Enough of this chatter." Maria pointed a bony finger down the hall. "Go help Niko with the crates."

Her husband didn't move. Only his gaze shifted, as did Stacia's, to the object poised beneath Maria's hand. "You should wait, my dear, until we're finished loading. No sense taking any chances. We want to be well away before that thing explodes, and once you've pressed the button, it'll blow up if you change the setting."

Stacia hadn't been aware her breathing had ceased, but, suddenly, she gulped in air. Her chest heaved and twisted, as the terror locked inside struggled to escape.

Maria stared at her husband, her eyes two burning fires, then she lifted her hand from the button and swept her hair back from her brow. She, too, seemed to be panting for air, but she moved away from the desk and out the door without another glance in Stacia's direction.

Wilson followed. Their footsteps echoed down the hall, taking on a hollow sound as they descended to the basement. The study door was partially shut, so though Stacia couldn't see, she could still hear. With grunts, groans, and sharp instructions from Maria, the two men heaved the crates up the stairs. They carried them down the hall past the study, and loaded them into the truck.

Leaving Stacia locked in what had become a nightmare. No matter how much she struggled, the knots in the rope refused to loosen. No matter how much she twisted and turned, she saw nothing in her line of vision that could possibly help.

Desperate ideas for escape whirled in her head, but nothing could get past the numbing realization that she would never see Andrew again. Never hear the exhilaration of his laugh, or exult in the boundless energy of his mind, feel the tenderness of his smile, or the passion of his body.

In too short a time, Wilson and Niko had shifted every crate to the truck. Maria re-appeared in the study doorway, her eyes glittering with malice. She didn't pause, didn't speak, simply walked over to the bomb and re-set the timer's hands to read fifteen minutes. Then, with a swift almost reverent movement, she pushed the button.

"Still time enough for you to think," she murmured, before crossing in front of Stacia and pulling the door closed behind her. With a harsh, grating sound, a key turned in the lock and Maria's footsteps receded rapidly down the hall.

The clock face might be visible from where Stacia sat, but the only sound she heard, muffled as though she were under water, was the slam of the front door and the growl of the truck's engine as it pulled out of the drive.

She sat as still as she was able. Only the nerve twitching beneath her right eye and her heart pounding its way through her chest let her know she was still alive. She nurtured a hope that if she didn't move, the hands on the clock would remain motionless also.

Then she heard it, a soft ticking, inaudible almost, but as unstoppable as the drift of sand across a desert.

Chapter 16