Smoke and Mirrors (29 page)

“My thoughts exactly, Agent Brothers.”

An Excerpt

Wilderness of Mirrors – A Spy Games Novel (Book 1)

(Romantic Espionage)

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An Excerpt

Through a Mirror, Darkly
A Spy Games Novel (Book 3)

(Romantic Espionage)

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An Excerpt

Something Wicked

(Paranormal/Time Travel/Suspense Romance)

AN EXCERPT FROM

Wilderness Of Mirrors

AVAILABLE NOW

T
he mortician’s invisible stitches barred the way to her boyfriend’s once-warm mouth. As she knelt before Marc’s coffin and sucked a ragged breath, Samantha forced herself to look away from his plasticized expression.

Had the funeral staff even looked at his picture? There were certainly enough of them, pinned like yesterday’s butterflies against linen easels.

This is my fault.
The thought hadn’t stopped echoing inside her splitting head since Uncle Loch had phoned her Hong Kong hotel room.
I’m the reason Marc’s dead.

Her knees knocked together as she made room for another to kneel beside her. The woman’s perfume, expensive but not subtle, set Sam’s teeth on edge. Marc had hated the scent of stargazer lilies and now the expensive silk pillow and padding would forever smell of them.

My fault.
She felt hot, yet frantically cold. Her stomach growled, but eating seemed unthinkable.
If only I’d done what they said.

Desperate to ground herself, Sam ran a French-tipped nail along the coffin’s edge. It was a sleek, silver affair with long bars of muted stainless steel gracing its sides. They were sturdy, those bars; his brother and cousins would have no trouble transporting 180 pounds of sinew over the church’s front steps.

Then the cold touch of polished metal brought to mind his beloved 1998 BMW and, for a sweet moment, she recollected better times.

God, they’d had fun in that car.

Silver exterior. Black interior. A wheel wrapped in leather and stitched tight against sagging –
like the inside of his lips
.

A shudder ripped through her and she clung to the kneeler’s armrest as nausea and fear coupled inside her. She couldn’t do it. Why would anyone think she could steal a priceless Chinese artifact?

She bit down on her inner lip and tried to focus on the body before her.

A costly tie had been laid stiff and flat against the starched-white of Marc’s shirt.

Nothing like the worn tee shirts he’d paired with long athletic shorts and flip-flops.

Who was this man?

And why did his chest look as though it had been replaced with a mannequin’s? Was the casket half-closed because part of him had been shredded along the rails?

She felt a hum begin at the back of her throat. Her legs were weak as eggshells.

Because the scenario was all too familiar.

Silence – solid walls of it. Everyone tiptoeing around her, red-eyed and full of pity. A casket filled with someone she loved.

Bile tainted her spit.

She swallowed hard and wished she had gum.

Then the woman beside her stood, leaving Sam’s eyes nowhere to rest except upon Marc’s bruised skin.

Why was it dusted with powder? Hadn’t anyone heard of liquid foundation? Dazedly, she contemplated using her bottle of Chanel Teint to fix it.

Her fingers brushed his. Dead and thick. The room swam out of focus and she snatched her hand away, fingernails digging hard into the flesh of her palm.

Stop it! They don’t need you fainting - causing more grief for them. As if Marc’s death isn’t enough.

She wrapped her arms around her shaking shoulders and remembered how much warmer his had been.

Her uncles were newly gone, having expressed their condolences and returned to their respective jobs. And their loss left her feeling utterly bereft of support. Part of her knew they would have stayed had she asked. Another part howled in despair that they would have done so instinctively had she been their biological daughter.

She dropped a shaking hand to Tamar’s sleek, black-furred head. At least he was there. Forever warm and reassuring, the dog sat stoically beside her.

Then Marc’s youngest sister - face blotched red with uncontrollable crying - looked her way, and panic reared ugly and swift in the understated opulence of the funeral home. Because under all that pain, there was an undeniable stain of carefully checked anger.
They think I broke his heart. Think I cheated on him.

It was too much to bear. Sam jerked to her feet and backed away from Marc’s body, mumbling something to his numb parents before she fled into the cold arms of Manhattan’s East 87
th
Street.

The wind bit fast and sharp. And she realized rather belatedly that her coat was still draped over the back of a camel-covered chair, cashmere gloves shoved deep into one sleeve.

To hell with it.
She wasn’t about to go back. Ever.

“Taxi.” Her hand shot up, blurring the view of austere façades and leafless Lindens. The cab was pleasantly grubby and the scent of stale cigarettes almost inviting. “424 Broadway, please.” She needed pain right now. Real, honest to God, physical pain. Maybe then her head would clear. Maybe then she’d be able to figure out how to become a thief.

Tam settled in beside her, his great black head tipped so that a splash of ominous teeth decorated the grimy back window. Their driver picked up speed along Park Avenue and she wondered suddenly - terror seizing the emptiness of her stomach - exactly how fast the Acela had been going when it hit Marc.

‘
The police said he…said he jumped in front of it…
’ His mother’s whisper of disbelief slid through Sam’s tattered thoughts.

But he didn’t!
She had tried to tell them there was no bloody way he’d have killed himself over her. Over pictures which had been taken during the fashion industry’s annual Hong Kong soirée. It wasn’t as though indiscretions were unimaginable in their long distance relationship. And this had been a rather dull kiss with a male model of ambiguous sexuality.

Only no one seemed to be listening.

Sam swore softly, realizing her lighter and Marlboros were still inside her coat pocket. She drummed fingers on a wool-covered knee and bit back the urge to smash the window.

Why hadn’t she done what the note had asked? Why hadn’t she considered the anonymous bastard behind it wasn’t bluffing?

Because crazy fans do these things. It’s part of the job, which is exactly why you didn’t bother to tell Uncle Loch and John. They’d only have worried and made you come home.

More of New York, busy and unperturbed by her desolate musings, shot by.

But you didn’t believe he was crazy, did you? Not completely. Not after what happened to Mum.

The original blackmail note had fallen from a book Sam had been reading while her hair was being blown out.

Steal the tiger, or someone you love will pay the price.

The next day, a sheet of directions and a sketch of the figurine’s location had appeared inside her morning paper. The one slipped beneath her hotel room door.

Not so crazy
, her mind rejoined.
Calculated. Cruel
.

Like the note she received the day Marc was killed.

Smart little girls learn from their mistakes.

You are a smart little girl, aren’t you, Samantha?

Night was coming on. Lights flickered in the cab’s side view mirrors. Her hands shook. She hadn’t had a cigarette since breakfast. She contemplated asking the driver to pull over. There was a convenience store on the next corner… maybe after a cigarette she’d be able to concentrate. To think of what to say to Marc.

If only I could cry.

Then somehow the corner slipped by.

Another two after that.

Eventually, the reason came to her.

A small thought. A prayer of sorts even
she
could handle.

I won’t smoke again. I promise you that. Not if I have to run to stay skinny.

The idea almost made her smile. Because Marc would have been on the floor, incapacitated with laughter, at the thought of his blond Barbie trading heels for sneakers.

He’d been a swimmer. Lean and long. His hair smelled of chlorine and his eyes were forever bloodshot. He was smooth and supple. Thoroughly engulfed in the life of someone who prized the power of his lungs. More than once he’d hidden her cigarettes or thrown them out.

Quitting would mean something to him.

She felt a small measure of peace tip the scale of her mounting terror.

How the fuck was she going to become a thief?

Think of that later. Right now just take a deep breath and then another.

The taxi slid to the right, and she could just make out a charcoal exterior delineating one brick rectangle of a building from its neighboring jewelry store. The slick mirrored letters spelling out ‘
Sacred Tattoo’
were demure and sophisticated amid the cacophony of Chinatown’s neon decor.

Probably why she had noticed it in the first place. Sam had an eye for design that Parsons School of Design was in the process of refining.

Only now Marc won’t graduate. Won’t work for his uncle’s architectural firm. Won’t…

“Thanks.” She paid the driver and exited behind Tamar. He surveyed the unusual street, his eyes darting in every direction, until he glanced up at her.

She touched his head in thanks, always grateful, always safe with him. Then, legs finally regained, Samantha slipped through traffic toward the parlor, Tam’s steps perfectly at ease beside hers.

I’ll have them put it on my wrist, Marc.
Right on the spot where you liked to kiss me.
And brown. Like your hair and eyes.

She ducked under a maze of scaffolding and slipped into the unfamiliar parlor. A pink-haired girl at the chic floating counter glanced up from under a studded eyebrow. Her dress was Dior, her boots Salvation Army. “Nice wolf.”

Samantha wondered if it had been said with sarcasm. There was a bitchy edge to the vixen-wannabe that even fluffy tails and gleaming fur weren’t likely to buff.

Her gaze flitted down toward the immaculate marble flooring. Almost invisible against the onyx surface, her beloved German shepherd stared at the receptionist with baleful eyes. He obviously agreed with Samantha’s sentiment. “I wouldn’t be so certain,” she murmured.

But the girl’s words got her thinking straight for the first time in days. Even the shaky tension inside her began to settle.

A wolf. How about that, Marc? Tam loves you. We both do… did.

Flint began spreading out along the underside of her skin.

Strength bordering on defiance was starting to make a comeback. Her shoulders slid back into their normal place and her nearly six feet of height returned. She let her lungs fill slowly.

She may have been foolish before, but it wouldn’t happen again.

The asshole who killed Marc wouldn’t hurt anyone else she loved, because Samantha was planning on being a very good girl.

That way her uncles would be safe.

That way Tam would always be by her side.

She’d make fucking certain of it, even if it meant selling her soul.

Her eyes, clear and sure, sought the receptionist’s. She withdrew a sheet of paper and pen from her Louis Vuitton bag. “If I sketch a Chinese character, could your artists copy it?” Already her hand was forming the sleek lines her grandfather had taught her so many years before.

The girl let her wintry gaze visit Sam’s conservative pantsuit. She ran the tip of her tongue – pierced with yet another stud – over the black lipstick covering her lower lip. There was a daring smirk to the blue depths of her heavily lined eyes. “You know it hurts like hell?”

A fiery course of rage roared hot and unexpected through Sam’s veins. Circumstances might dictate she work for a psychopathic piece of shit, but this was altogether different.

She tilted her head, establishing with not-so-subtle technique that she was far taller, and let the smile she reserved for photographers and men unfurl with a slow burn.

“Oh, pumpkin,” she breathed soft and mocking, “I suggest you stay tucked in this little paradise. Because if you’d actual visited ‘h - e - double hockey stick’ instead of looking at the brochure, then you’d know we call this kind of pain foreplay.”

There was a brief spasm of surprise in those blue orbs. And Sam indulged in several seconds of absolute stillness.

Then two fingers slid across the pristine glass surface and touched the Chinese character Sam had formed. “Jun will be the best with your request.”

“There’s a good girl,” Samantha murmured, Cantonese effortless on her tongue.

“You can go through.” The receptionist pointed Sam toward a wide sandalwood opening.

In the curved doorway stood a slim, casually dressed Asian, arms crossed over his chest cowboy-style. He had artist’s fingers and an intelligent glint to his stare. “Not just a beautiful face.” His native language reached out, warm and river-like through the room.

Samantha allowed her anger to dissolve. There was no longer room in her life for emotion. “I need a bit of myself preserved.” She pulled up the sleeve of her jacket, displaying the white of her inner wrist. “That bit there. I can spare you four square inches.”

His lips came together for a moment while he considered her words. “That is not so much.”