Cold As Ice

Cold As Ice Anne Stuart The job was supposed to be dead easy—hand-deliver some legal papers to billionaire philanthropist Harry Van Dorn's extravagant yacht, get his signature and be done. But Manhattan lawyer Genevieve Spenser soon realizes she's in the wrong place at the wrong time, and that the publicly benevolent playboy has a sick, vicious side.As he tries to make her his plaything for the evening, eager to use and abuse her until he discards her with the rest of his victims, Genevieve must keep her wits if she intends to survive the night. But there's someone else on the ship who knows the true depths of Van Dorn's evil. Peter Jensen is far more than the unassuming personal assistant he pretends to be—he's a secret operative who will stop at nothing to ensure Harry's deadly Rule of Seven terror campaign dies with him.But Genevieve's presence has thrown a wrench into his plans, and now he must decide whether to risk his mission to keep her alive, or allow her to become collateral damage. . . . Praise for USA TODAY bestselling author ANNE STUART “A consummate mistress of her craft, Stuart crafts a sophisticated romance that mirrors the rigours of the era and adds her own punch of passion and adventure so that her characters can have the time of their lives. It is pure pleasure to indulge in this part lighthearted, part deeply emotional and all-glorious story.” —Romantic Times Book Reviews on The Devil’s Waltz “This taut romantic suspense novel from RITA ® Award-winner Stuart delivers deliciously evil baddies and the type of disturbing male protagonist that only she can transform into a convincing love interest… Brilliant characterisations and a suitably moody ambience drive this dark tale of unlikely love.” —Publishers Weekly on Black Ice “[A] sexy, edgy, exceptionally well-plotted tale.” —Library Journal on Into the Fire “Before I read…[a] Stuart book I make sure my day is free… Once I start, she has me hooked.” —New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber “A master at creating chilling atmosphere with a modern touch.” —Library Journal COLD AS ICE ANNE STUART www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk) This is for all the people, friends and family, who left me blessedly alone to write this, gave me space and freedom from demands. And for those of you who didn’t— well, you know who you are. Acknowledgements I couldn’t have done this without Jill Barnett and Barbara Samuel holding my hand and slapping me upside the head for being an idiot. I have to thank Bastien for inspiring me, blow a kiss to Clive Owen and say a special thank-you to everyone who fell in love with Black Ice. I’m finally getting over my hang- up about writing connected books, and having the time of my life. 1 Genevieve Spenser adjusted her four-hundred-dollar sunglasses, smoothed her sleek, perfect chignon and stepped aboard the powerboat beneath the bright Caribbean sun. It was early April, and after a long, cold, wet winter in New York City she should have been ready for the brilliant sunshine dancing off the greeny blue waters. Unfortunately she wasn’t in the mood to appreciate it. For one thing, she didn’t want to be there. She had a six-week sabbatical from her job as junior partner in the law firm of Roper, Hyde, Camui and Fredericks, and she’d been looking forward to something a great deal different. In two days’ time she’d be in the rain forests of Costa Rica with no makeup, no contact lenses, no high heels and no expectations to live up to. She’d been so ready to shed her protective skin that this final task seemed like an enormous burden instead of the simple thing it was. The Grand Cayman Islands were on her way to Central America. Sort of. And one extra day wouldn’t make any difference, Walter Fredericks had told her. Besides, what red-blooded, single, thirty-year-old female would object to spending even a short amount of time with People magazine’s Sexiest Man of the Year, billionaire division? Harry Van Dorn was gorgeous, charming and currently between wives, and the law firm that represented the Van Dorn Foundation needed some papers signed. This was perfect for everyone. Serendipity. Genevieve didn’t exactly think so, but she kept her mouth shut. She’d learned diplomacy and tact in the last few years since Walt Fredericks had taken her under his wing. She pulled out her pale gray Armani suit, put on the seven-hundred-dollar Manolo Blahnik shoes she hadn’t even blinked at buying—the shoes that hurt her feet, made her tower over most men and matched the Armani and nothing else. When she first brought them home she’d emerged from her corporate daze long enough to look at the price tag and burst into tears. What had happened to the idealistic young woman who was determined to spend her life helping people? The rescuer, who spent her money on the oppressed, not on designer clothing? Unfortunately she knew the answer, and she didn’t want to dwell on it. In her tightly controlled life she’d learned to look forward rather than back. The shoes were beautiful and she told herself she deserved them. And she’d brought them to see Harry Van Dorn, as part of her protective armor. They didn’t make climbing down into the launch any easier, but she managed with a modicum of grace. Genevieve hated boats. She rarely got seasick, but she always felt vaguely trapped. She could see the massive white shape of the Van Dorn yacht against the brilliant horizon; it looked more like a mansion than a boat, and maybe she could simply ignore the sea surrounding them and pretend they were in a fancy restaurant. She was good at ignoring unpleasant facts—she’d learned the hard way that that was what you had to do to survive. And her job should only take a few hours. She’d let Harry Van Dorn feed her, get him to sign the papers she’d brought with her in her slim leather briefcase, and once she’d arranged to have them couriered back to New York she’d be free. Only a matter of hours— she was silly to feel so edgy. It was far too beautiful a day to have this sense of impending doom. There could be no doom under the bright Caribbean sun. Her tranquilizers were in her tiny purse. Harry Van Dorn’s crew had gotten her comfortably seated with a glass of iced tea in one hand. It was a simple enough matter to sneak one yellow pill out and take it. She’d almost planned to leave them behind in New York— she didn’t expect to need tranquilizers in the rain forest, but fortunately she changed her mind at the last minute. The pill was going to take a few minutes to kick in, but she could get by on sheer determination until then. Genevieve had been on yachts before—Roper and company specialized in handling the legal concerns for myriad charitable foundations, and money was no object. She’d gone from her job as public defender to private law practice, and she’d hoped specializing in charitable foundations was still close enough to honorable work to assuage the remnants of her liberal conscience. She’d been quickly disillusioned—the foundations set up as tax shelters by the wealthy tended to spend as much money glorifying the donors’ names and providing cushy jobs for their friends as they did on the actual charity, but by then it was too late, and Genevieve was committed. Harry Van Dorn’s floating palace, SS Seven Sins, was on a grander scale than she’d seen so far, and she knew for a fact it was owned by the Van Dorn Trust Foundation, not Harry himself—a nice little tax write-off. She stepped aboard, her three-and-a-half-inch heels balanced perfectly beneath her, and surveyed the deck, keeping her expression impassive. With any luck Harry Van Dorn would be too busy on the putting green she could see up at the front of the ship to want to waste much time on a lawyer who was nothing more than Roper, Hyde, Camui and Fredericks’s perfectly groomed messenger. Damn, she wasn’t in the mood for this. She plastered her practiced, professional smile on her Chanel-tinted lips and stepped inside the cool confines of a massive room beautifully furnished in black and white, with mirrors everywhere to make it appear even larger. She could see her reflection in at least three different directions. She’d already checked her appearance before she’d left that morning. A young woman, just past thirty, with her long blond hair neatly arranged, her pale gray suit hanging perfectly on her shoulders and disguising the fifteen pounds that she knew Roper et al didn’t approve of. Genevieve didn’t approve of it either, but all the dieting and exercise in the world couldn’t seem to budge it. “Ms. Spenser?” It took a moment for her eyesight to adjust from the bright glare of the sun on the water to the dimmer light in the large room, and she couldn’t see anyone but the indistinct shape of a man across the room. The voice held a faint, upper-class British accent, so she knew it wasn’t Harry. Harry Van Dorn was from Texas, with a voice and a character to match. The man took a step toward her, coming into focus. “I’m Peter Jensen, Mr. Van Dorn’s personal assistant. He’ll be with you in a short while. In the meantime is there anything I can do to make you comfortable? Something to drink, perhaps? The newspaper?” She hadn’t thought of the word unctuous in a long time, probably not since she’d been forced to read Charles Dickens, but the word suited Peter Jensen perfectly. He was bland and self-effacing to a fault, and even the British accent, usually an attention grabber, seemed just part of the perfect personal-assistant profile. His face was nondescript, he had combed-back, very dark hair and wire-rimmed glasses; if she’d passed him on the street she wouldn’t have looked twice at him. She barely did now. “Iced tea and the New York Times if you have it,” she said, taking a seat on the leather banquette and setting the briefcase beside her. She crossed her legs and looked at her shoes. They were worth every penny when you considered what they did for her long legs. She looked up, and Peter Jensen was looking at them, too, though she suspected it was the shoes, not the legs. He didn’t seem to be the type to be interested in a woman’s legs, no matter how attractive they were, and she quickly uncrossed them, tucking her feet out of the way. “It will only take a moment, Ms. Spenser,” he said. “In the meantime make yourself comfortable.” He disappeared, silent as a ghost, and Genevieve shook off the uneasy feeling. She’d sensed disapproval from Harry Van Dorn’s cipher-like assistant—he’d probably taken one look at her shoes and known what she’d spent. Normally people in Jensen’s position were impressed; she’d walked into a particularly snooty shop on Park Avenue in them and it seemed as if the entire staff had converged on her, knowing that a woman who spent that kind of money on shoes wouldn’t hesitate to spend an equally egregious amount in their overpriced boutique. And she had. Genevieve steeled herself for Peter Jensen’s reappearance. Instead, a uniformed steward appeared, with a tall glass of ice-cold Earl Grey and a fresh copy of the New York Times. There was a slender gold pen on the tray as well, and she picked it up. “What’s this for?” she inquired. Didn’t they expect her to be professional enough to have brought her own pen? “Mr. Jensen thought you might want to do the crossword puzzle. Mr. Van Dorn is taking a shower, and he might be awhile.” Now, how did that gray ghost of a man know she did crossword puzzles? In pen? It was the Saturday paper, with the hardest of the week’s puzzles, and she didn’t hesitate. For some irrational reason she felt as if Peter Jensen had challenged her, and she was tired and edgy and wanted to be anywhere but on Harry Van Dorn’s extremely oversize, pretentious yacht. At least the puzzle would keep her mind off the water that was trapping her. She was just finishing, when one of the doors to the salon opened and a tall figure filled the doorway. It had been a particularly trying puzzle—in the end she’d been cursing Will Weng, Margaret Farrar and Will Shortz with generalized cool abandon, but she set the paper down and rose with serene dignity. Only to have it vanish when the man stepped forward and she realized it was simply Peter Jensen again. He glanced at the folded paper, and she just knew his bland eyes would focus on the empty squares of the one word she couldn’t get. “Mr. Van Dorn is ready to see you now, Ms. Spenser.” About frigging time, she thought. He moved to one side to let her precede him, and it was a momentary shock to realize how tall he was. She was a good six feet in her ridiculous heels, and he was quite a bit taller than she. He should have dwarfed the cabin and yet he barely seemed to be there. “Enigma,” he murmured as she passed him. “I beg your pardon?” she said, rattled. “The word you couldn’t get. It’s enigma.” Of course it was. She controlled her instinctive irritation; the man got on her nerves for no discernible reason. She didn’t have to play this role for very much longer, she reminded herself. Get Harry Van Dorn to sign the papers, flirt a little bit if she must and then get back to the tiny airport and see if she could catch an earlier flight to Costa Rica. The bright sun was blinding when she stepped out on deck, and there was no more pretending she was back on the island with all the water shimmering around them. She looked up at the huge boat—not a mansion, an ocean liner—and followed Peter Jensen’s precise walk halfway down the length of the ship until he stopped. She moved past him, dismissing the executive assistant from her mind as she took in the full glory of Harry Van Dorn, the world’s sexiest billionaire. “Ms. Spenser,” he said, rising from his seat on the couch, his Texas accent rich and charming. “I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting! You came all this way out here just for me and I leave you cooling your heels while I’m busy with paperwork. Peter, why didn’t you tell me Ms. Spenser was here?” “I’m sorry, sir. It must have slipped my mind.” Jensen’s voice was neutral, expressionless, but she turned back to glance at him anyway. Why in the world wouldn’t he have told Van Dorn she was there? Just to be a pissant? Or was Van Dorn simply dumping the blame on his assistant as he knew he could? “No harm done,” Van Dorn said, moving forward, taking Genevieve’s hand with the most natural of gestures and bringing her back into the cabin. He was clearly a physical man, one who liked to touch when he talked to people. It was part and parcel of his charisma. Unfortunately Genevieve didn’t like to be touched. But a client was a client, so she simply upped the wattage of her smile and let him pull her over to the white leather banquette, forgetting about the unpleasant little man who’d brought her here. Except that in fact he wasn’t that little. It didn’t matter—he’d already made himself scarce. “Now, don’t you mind Peter,” Harry said, sitting just a bit too close to her. “He tends to be very protective of me, and he thinks every woman is after my money.” “All I’m after is your signature on a few papers, Mr. Van Dorn. I certainly wouldn’t want to take up any more of your time—” “If I don’t have time for a beautiful young woman then I’m in a pretty pitiful condition,” Harry said. “Peter just wants to keep my nose to the grindstone, while I believe in having fun. He doesn’t have much use for women, I’m afraid. Whereas I have far too much. And you’re such a pretty thing. Tell me, what sign are you?” He’d managed to throw her completely off guard. “Sign?” “Astrology. I’m a man who likes my superstitions. That’s why I named the boat Seven Sins. Seven’s my lucky number and always has been. I know that that new age crap don’t mean squat, but I enjoy playing around with it. So indulge me. I’m guessing you’re a Libra. Libras make the best lawyers—always judging and balancing.” In fact she was a Taurus with Scorpio rising—her teenage friend Sally had had her chart done for an eighteenth birthday present, and that was one of the few details that had stuck. But she had no intention of disillusioning her wealthy client. “How did you guess?” she said, keeping the admiration in her voice at a believable level. Harry’s laugh was warm and appealing, and Genevieve was beginning to see why people found him so charming. People magazine hadn’t lied—he was gorgeous. Deeply tanned skin, clear blue eyes with laugh lines etched deep around them, a shock of sun-streaked blond hair that made him look like Brad Pitt in his seedy mode. He radiated warmth, charm and sexuality, from his broad, boyish grin to his flirting eyes to his rangy, well-muscled body. He was handsome, charming, and any warm-blooded woman would have been interested. Right then, Genevieve couldn’t have cared less. But she had a job to do, and she knew that one of her unspoken orders was to give this very important client anything he wanted. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d considered sleeping with someone for business reasons. She knew perfectly well what that made her—a pragmatist. She’d avoided it so far, but sooner or later she was going to have to be less fastidious and more practical. If it turned out that she had to sleep with Harry Van Dorn just to get some papers signed and get out of there…well, there were plenty of more onerous duties she’d had to perform while at Roper et al. She could perform this one if she had to. But she knew the drill. They weren’t going to get to the business she’d brought until the social amenities were covered, and with Texans that could take hours. “You mustn’t mind Peter,” he repeated. “He’s an Aries, with a very auspicious birth chart or I wouldn’t keep him around. April twentieth, as a matter of fact. He’s too damn gloomy by half, but he gets the job done.” “Has he worked for you a long time?” she asked, wondering when Harry was going to take his hand off her knee. Good hands—big, tanned, perfectly manicured. There could be worse hands touching her. Like the slimy Peter Jensen’s. “Oh, it seems like forever, though in fact he’s only been with me for a few months. I don’t know how I managed without him—he knows more about me and my life than I do. But you know how men like that are—they get a little possessive of their bosses. Look, I don’t want to spend the afternoon talking about Peter—he’s about as interesting as watching grass grow. Let’s talk about you, pretty lady, and what brought you here.” She started to reach for her briefcase, but he covered her hand with his big one and gave an easy laugh. “To hell with business. We have plenty of time for that. I mean, what brought you to an oldfart law firm like Roper and company? Tell me about your life, your loves and hates, and most of all tell me what you want my chef to prepare for dinner.” “Oh, I can’t possibly stay. I have a plane to catch to Costa Rica.” “Oh, but you can’t possibly leave,” Harry mimicked her. “I’m bored, and I know your associates would want you to make me happy. I won’t be happy unless I have someone to flirt with over dinner. Those oil wells aren’t going to dry up overnight—nothing will happen if I don’t sign the deeds of transference till later. I promise, I’ll sign your papers, and I’ll even see that you get to Costa Rica, though why you’d want to go to that pesthole is beyond me. But in the meantime, forget about business and tell me about you.” Genevieve let go of the briefcase, and after a moment he let go of her hand. She should have been uneasy, but he was such a simple puppy dog of a man, wanting someone to play with him, throw a ball for him, that she couldn’t feel edgy. He was harmless, and she could play along for a while. As long as he didn’t start humping her leg. “Whatever your chef cares to make,” she said. “And what do you drink? Apple-tinis, right?” Any kind of martini made her stomach turn, though she’d downed more than her share of them in order to fit in at the requisite social functions that Roper sponsored. Cosmopolitans were the worst, and everyone assumed she loved them. Her Sex and the City persona must have been very effective. But he was one of the ten richest men in the western world, and he could get anything he wanted. “Tab,” she said. She’d managed to throw him. “What’s Tab?” “A hard-to-find diet soda. And not that revolting energy drink version. Never mind, I was just kidding. Whatever you’re having.” “Nonsense. Peter!” Harry barely had to raise his voice. His assistant entered the room so silently he only increased her feeling of uneasiness. “I need you to get some kind of soda pop called Tab. Apparently it’s what Ms. Spenser drinks.” Jensen’s colorless eyes slid over her. “Of course, sir. It might take an hour or so but I’m certain some will be available.” “That’s fine, then. The original—not any newfangled crap. Ms. Spenser is staying for dinner, of course. Tell the chef I want him to do his very best work.” “I’m afraid, sir, that the chef has left.” It was enough to wipe the charming smile off Harry’s handsome face. “Don’t be ridiculous. He’s been with me for years! He wouldn’t take off without warning.” “I’m sorry, sir. I have no idea whether his reasons were professional or personal, I simply know he’s gone.” Harry shook his head. “Unbelievable! That’s the fifth long-term employee of mine who’s left without notice.” “Sixth, sir, if you count my predecessor,” Jensen murmured. “I want you to look into this, Jensen,” Harry said in a dark voice. But then his sunny smile took over. “In the meantime, I’m sure you can find someone to take Olaf’s place and rustle up something wonderful for me and my guest.” “Certainly.” “I wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble in the midst of such a domestic crisis,” Genevieve interrupted. “Really, you could just sign the papers and I’ll take off—” “I wouldn’t hear of it,” Harry said grandly. “You traveled all this way just for me—the least I can do is feed you properly. See to it, Peter.” She watched Harry’s assistant disappear with a twinge of regret. There was no getting out of this. At the very least, however, she had little doubt he’d manage to scare up both Tab and a five-star chef—he had that kind of machine-like efficiency down pat. And Van Dorn was turning up his Texas charm—in a few minutes he’d no doubt be talking about his dear old pappy—and she might as well lean back and make the best of it. At the very worst she was going to be bored to death, but there were worse ways to spend an evening. Peter Jensen could move with frightening efficiency, even in the guise of the perfect executive assistant. It had taken him longer to get rid of Olaf than the others, and he was afraid he was going to have to use force, but in the end he’d done his job and the chef had decamped in a righteous snit. Not that Peter would have minded using force. He did what he had to do, and he was very well trained. But he preferred subtlety, and brute force left bruises and bodies and too many questions. In the end Olaf had left, Hans was primed and ready to step in, and they were just about to make their well-planned move. The girl, however, was a problem. He should have known Harry’s law firm would send someone young and pretty to keep him happy. They didn’t know enough about Harry’s complicated appetites to realize anyone would do. The papers she brought with her were another question—were they simply an excuse or a clue to something more important? Harry hadn’t seemed the slightest bit interested, but then, Harry wouldn’t. He had to get the woman off the boat, fast, before they could put their plans into motion. They would get the go-ahead in the next few days, and he didn’t want any stray civilians to get in the way and complicate things. The assignment was relatively simple— nothing he hadn’t done before, and he was very good at what he did, but timing, as always, was everything. Ms. Spenser was getting in the way, and the sooner he got rid of her, the better. He was a man who avoided collateral damage, and he wasn’t about to change his ways at this point, no matter how important the mission. And while he knew only a part of Harry Van Dorn’s maniacal Rule of Seven, he knew stopping Van Dorn was a very important mission indeed. He knew what they called him behind his back. The Iceman. Both for his ice-cold control, and his particular expertise. He didn’t care what they called him, as long as he got the job done. Ms. Spenser would have to go, before it was too late. Before he was forced to kill her. He remembered her dark eyes as they’d looked through him. He shouldn’t have mentioned the crossword puzzle—that was something she might remember if someone started asking her questions once the job was finished. But no, he’d played his part well enough. She’d looked at him and hadn’t seen him, and that ability to vanish was his stock-in-trade. She’d be no threat to their mission. She was bright and pretty and clueless, and she was going to be back in her safe little world before anything bad could happen. And she’d never know how close to death she came. Madame Lambert looked out over the bare tree branches outside her nondescript office in a nondescript building near London’s Kensington Gardens. She was slim, elegant and ruthlessly chic, with creamy, ageless skin and cool, ageless eyes. She stared at the trees, looking for some sign of life. It was April, after all, time for things to come alive again. But it always took longer in the city, where pollution slowed the natural evolution of things. And for some reason the trees and gardens near the offices of the Spence-Pierce Financial Consultants, Ltd., tended to die. If Madame Lambert were a more fanciful person she’d think it was a sympathetic reaction to the actual work they did. Spence-Pierce was nothing more than one of a dozen covers for the covert work done by the Committee, a group so steeped in secrecy that Isobel Lambert was still just learning some of the intricate details, and she’d been in charge for more than a year. It was April, and time was running out. The Rule of Seven was in play, backed by Harry Van Dorn’s brilliant brain and seemingly limitless resources, and they still didn’t know nearly enough about what it was. Seven disasters, orchestrated by Harry Van Dorn, to plunge the world into chaos, chaos that would somehow be turned to Van Dorn’s benefit. But the whens, the wheres, the hows were still maddeningly unclear. Not to mention who—Harry couldn’t be doing this without help. Whatever it was, it was deadly. And it was the Committee’s job to keep deadly things from happening. No matter how high the body count happened to be. She wasn’t feeling good about this, and she’d learned to trust her instincts. Peter was the best they had, a brilliant operative who’d never failed a mission. But she had the unpleasant feeling that all that was about to change. She shook herself, returning to the spotless walnut desk that held nothing but a Clarefontaine pad and a black pen. She kept everything in her head, for safety’s sake, but sometimes she just needed to write. She scrawled something, then glanced down at it. The Rule of Seven. What the hell was Harry Van Dorn planning to unleash on an unsuspecting world? And would killing him be enough to stop it? 2 Harry Van Dorn’s McMansion of a yacht was large enough that Genevieve could almost forget she was surrounded by water. The smell of the sea was still there, but she loved the ocean if she wasn’t on a boat, and she could easily pretend she was on some nice safe cliff overlooking the surf, rather than bobbing around in the middle of it. Harry Van Dorn was both quirky and charming, there was no denying it, and he was focusing all that charm on her. His megawatt smile, his crinkly blue eyes, his lazy voice and rapt attention to her every word should have made her melt. Except that Genevieve didn’t melt easily, even beneath the warm Caribbean sun with a billionaire doing his best to seduce her. The Tab had appeared, of course, cold with a glass of ice as well. She knew she ought to have insisted on Pellegrino or something equally upscale—the firm would never approve of something as mundane as soda pop—but she should have been on vacation, and for now she could let little things drop. She’d even kicked off her shoes as she stretched out on the white leather chaise, wiggling her silk-covered toes in the sunlight. She knew how to make the most self-effacing man become expansive, and Harry was hardly a wallflower. The Van Dorn Foundation had never been under her particular purview—she’d been kept busy with the relatively simple concerns of several smaller foundations—but she found his worldview fascinating. It was no wonder he collected humanitarian awards by the bucketload—he’d even been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, though she thought it would be a cold day in hell before he got one. The profits from his overseas production companies were cut in half because he refused to let them employ child labor, and the workers received enough of a living wage that they didn’t have to send their children into factories and brothels. He still made a profit, Genevieve thought cynically, and his generous salaries were still only a fraction of what he used to pay the workers in the American factories that now lay closed and abandoned in the dying cities in the Midwest, but the humanitarian organizations ignored that part. Either ignored it, or knew that giving a billionaire an award was likely to make his charitable foundation feel even more charitable toward them. His money came from everywhere—oil fields in the Middle East, diamond mines in Africa, investments so complicated she doubted even he understood them. All she knew was he made money faster than he could spend it, and his tastes were lavish. But she had become used to billionaires in the past few years, and in the end there were all the same, even someone like Harry Van Dorn with his little eccentricities. She listened to him ramble on in his lazy Texas accent, telling herself she should just relax, that by tomorrow she’d be stripped of these clothes and her professional armor and be hiking through the jungles of Costa Rica, fending off mosquitoes and blisters. Compared to this plush cocoon it sounded like heaven. She awoke with a start. Harry was still talking—apparently he’d never even noticed that she’d drifted off for a moment. She could thank her mirrored sunglasses for that—if Walt Fredericks ever knew his prot?g?e had fallen asleep in front of a client she’d be out on her ass in a matter of hours. Though there was always the good possibility that that was exactly what she wanted. And then she realized what had woken her. Not Harry’s lazy ramblings, but the feel of the boat beneath her. The unmistakable rumble of an engine, when this damn thing should be floating and silent. “Why did they turn on the engines?” She broke through Harry’s discourse on tarot cards. “Did they? I hadn’t noticed. I think they do that every now and then to check the engines. Make sure she’s in good running order. Sort of like a fire drill. They don’t usually do it until a few hours before we’re supposed to set sail, but I have no plans to go anywhere right now. Must be some sort of maintenance thing.” She’d sat bolt upright. They’d been under the shelter of an overhanging deck when Harry had ensconced her on the chaise, but now the sun had advanced far enough that it was halfway up her legs. It was a reasonable explanation, but she wasn’t buying it. She swung her legs over the side of the leather couch, slipped on her killer shoes with barely a wince and rose. “I hadn’t realized it had gotten so late—I’ve been so interested in your stories,” she lied with the talent she’d honed over the years. “I really do need you to sign those papers—I have a plane to catch. I’m due in Costa Rica tomorrow afternoon.” “Nonsense. I wouldn’t hear of you leaving,” he replied. “We’ll have a lovely dinner, you’ll spend the night, and tomorrow I’ll have my private jet take you wherever you want to go.” “I couldn’t—” “And don’t think I have wicked designs on you,” he said with a wink. “I do, but my mama taught me to be a gentleman where ladies are concerned. This place has seven bedrooms, each with its own bath, and there’s nothing like sleeping in the rocking arms of the ocean. It’ll rock your cares away.” “I don’t have any particular cares at this moment,” she said, lying through her teeth with utter charm. “And I couldn’t ask you to go to so much trouble.” “No trouble at all.” He overrode her. “I have a jet and a pilot just sitting around with nothing to do— he’d love a chance to get out for a day or so. He can even wait for you while you do your business down there and bring you back, either here or to New York.” “I’m staying for six weeks, Mr. Van Dorn.” “No one calls me Mr. Van Dorn,” he protested. “That was my daddy’s name. And why in hell would you spend six weeks in Costa Rica?” “I’m going on a hiking expedition in the rain forest.” She waited for his reaction. He blinked, and for a moment she wondered just how deep his humanitarian commitment ran. “The Van Dorn Foundation has always been active in environmental issues as well. After all, this is the only earth we’ve got.” She wasn’t about to tell him that her vacation choice of rain forest had been motivated more by the notion that she’d be unreachable than by any charitable instincts. “Indeed,” she murmured. “But I really do need to be going…” “Peter!” Harry barely raised his voice, but Peter Jensen was there instantly. He must have been hovering just out of sight. “I need you to get in touch with my pilot and tell him to get the jet ready. Ms. Spenser will be flying down to Costa Rica tomorrow, and I want her to be comfortable.” She opened her mouth to protest again, and then caught an odd expression lurking behind Peter Jensen’s rimless glasses. It was unreadable, but definitely there, and very curious. Enigma, she thought, remembering the crossword puzzle. “If you’re certain it’s no trouble,” she said, keeping her pleasant demeanor firmly in place. It looked as if she was going to have to spend the night on this boat, in the middle of the damn water. “Very good, sir,” Jensen murmured tonelessly. “And have them make up the mate’s cabin for her, would you? She’s going to spend the night.” He turned back to Genevieve with a winning smile. “You see? All open and aboveboard. I intend to be a perfect gentleman.” For some reason Genevieve found herself glancing at the assistant. She must have imagined the sheen of contempt in his colorless eyes—a good servant never betrayed his emotions, and she suspected Jensen was a very good servant indeed. Harry could afford the best, and she’d already witnessed Jensen’s machine-like efficiency. “Very good, sir.” “You’ll need to have someone fetch Ms. Spenser’s bags.” “I’m afraid that’s impossible, sir. I checked on them when I went to secure a new chef—it seemed prudent since I was on land. Ms. Spenser’s bags were already sent on their way to Costa Rica on her scheduled flight.” Prudent. Now, there was a word you didn’t hear every day, Genevieve thought. She would have been annoyed, but Jensen’s “prudent” action gave her the excuse she needed. “That was very kind of you to try, Mr. Jensen. It seems I’d better try to catch my plane after all.” “Simply doing my job, Ms. Spenser,” he murmured. “I’ve arranged for the boat to be ready in an hour’s time.” “Well, you can just unarrange it,” Harry said grandly. “Ms. Spenser is spending the night. Don’t tell me there aren’t clothes on board to fit a pretty little thing like her, because I know different. Besides, it’s April seventh, and you know seven is my lucky number. I bet your birthday’s on the seventh of October, Ms. Spenser. Isn’t it?” For a moment she wondered where he’d come up with such an outlandish notion, but then she remembered she’d agreed when he asked if she was a Libra. Would he give up trying to keep her here if she said she was born on the fifteenth? “You really are amazing,” she said in a light voice, avoiding the issue altogether. “I’m afraid all the women’s clothes on board are more likely to fit a size two or four. On your orders, sir.” Genevieve didn’t know who pissed her off more, Harry Van Dorn for assuming she’d do what he wanted, or Peter Jensen for his implied suggestion that she was fat. “I wear a size six,” she said in a dulcet tone. In fact, she was an eight and sometimes even a ten, and she suspected in cheaper clothes it might even be worse than that, but she wasn’t about to admit it. She just had to hope Jensen wouldn’t be able to turn up some size sixes that she would have to try to squeeze into. He didn’t look skeptical—he probably knew what size she wore, even down to her shoes—but he was too well trained. “Hell, we’re informal around here,” Harry said. “I’m sure you can rustle up something for her, Jensen. I wouldn’t put anything past you.” He turned to Genevieve. “He’s an Aries, remember. Tight-assed son of a bitch, if you’ll pardon my French, but he gets the job done. Whereas I’m an Aquarius—more of an ideas man. I don’t usually get along with Libras, but I expect you’ve got one hell of a rising sign.” The only thing rising about her was her temper, but there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it. She wasn’t getting out of this, she thought. Given that she worked for him, he could expect just about everything he wanted from her. So she gritted her teeth and smiled. “I’m sure I’ll be fine,” she said. Peter Jensen nodded, his face as impassive as ever. She half expected him to back away like some medieval Chinese servant, but he turned and left, and she watched him go, momentarily fascinated. He looked different from the back—taller, leaner, less generic. Maybe it was the glasses and the slicked-down hair that made him appear so ordinary. Or maybe she was even more in need of a vacation than she had thought, to be having paranoid fantasies about a nondescript personal assistant. In the end it wasn’t important. She’d been efficiently roped and tied by the charming Texan—she’d let Harry Van Dorn wine and dine her and tomorrow she’d be on her way, able to leave her work and her life behind her. She wasn’t going to sleep with him—she’d decided that a while ago, though she wasn’t sure when. She wasn’t in the mood for anything but escape and quiet. She would survive the utter hell of falling asleep surrounded by water by taking a couple of tranquilizers to drown out the anxiety. And by this time tomorrow it would all be a distant memory. Jensen wasn’t happy. Things weren’t going as he’d planned, but then, things seldom did. He hadn’t counted on Genevieve Spenser, or Harry Van Dorn’s taking to her like a puppy with a new squeaky toy. He could turn her to his benefit, as a welcome distraction, but he still didn’t have to like it. Complications were a necessary evil, but he was a man who got rid of complications. He should have arranged to get rid of Miss Spenser before she ever arrived in the islands. He seldom wasted his time in hindsight. He would have expected a pretty bimbo, a minor inconvenience, one he could dispose of quickly. And she was very pretty, in that sleek, well-cared-for way that tended to set his teeth on edge when he allowed himself the luxury of feeling. But there was more to her than that, though she was trying to hide it. She was smarter than she wanted people to know, and angrier. That anger was undeniably fascinating. Distracting. The women he knew hid their anger very well, channeling it into more devious endeavors. Genevieve Spenser didn’t seem to have found her outlet, and he could see it simmering beneath her calm brown eyes. Blond hair and brown eyes—an interesting combination. Though her hair was probably some mousy color in its natural state. And he was thinking far too much about her when he had a job to do. Hans was safely ensconced in the galley, a job he was well trained for, both when it came to food and knives, and Renaud was busy in the bowels of the ship, making sure everything was set to go when they got the word. The other five had been chosen by Isobel Lambert herself, and they were almost as efficient and professional as he was. They’d blended into their new jobs with effortless ease. Harry Van Dorn had no idea he was surrounded by members of the Committee. Then again, if he was as artless as he seemed to be, he’d have no idea what the Committee was. Few people did, but he didn’t quite believe in Harry’s cluelessness. The kind of power and money he controlled bought a lot of privileged information. For some reason he was getting impatient. Harry Van Dorn should have been a simple matter. A megalomaniac billionaire with a taste for the occult and a complicated plan to disrupt the flow of commerce and the financial stability of the world, all to his own benefit. The problem was, Harry compartmentalized. He had people working on each branch of his plan, each branch of the Rule of Seven was self-contained, and it made discovering the details about each incipient disaster that much more difficult. One never led to another, and his army of minions seemed to have no idea that there were other armies working in concert on parallel disasters. Peter had only been on-site for four months—a relatively short time compared with his last tenure as personal assistant to Marcello Ricetti, a Sicilian arms dealer with a taste for sadism and young boys. Peter had managed to keep him away from the children during the year he’d spent with him, at a price. He’d have had to pay the same price anyway, and he hadn’t thought twice about it. Even though in the end it had cost him his wife. At least he hadn’t been required to perform more personal services for Harry Van Dorn. Peter’s wellhoned asexual persona was an asset—it was up to the target to make what they wanted of him, and all Harry wanted was someone to see to his every comfort. He could provide for his own sexual needs. Which brought him around to Genevieve Spenser again. It would probably be better if she slept with Harry. If she were alone in the mate’s cabin it would be harder to keep Renaud from cutting her throat. Though in the end they might have no choice—it would be very dangerous to let her go back to her pampered life in New York and have to answer questions about the disappearance of Harry Van Dorn and his yacht. A casualty of war, Thomason would have said. But Thomason was gone, and Peter had hoped that the ruthlessness that was part and parcel of the Committee could be tempered by restraint. But people who knew too much were always a problem. The drugs that had been developed were volatile; they could wipe out too much memory or too little. When the stakes were high enough one couldn’t afford to take chances. But maybe it wouldn’t come to that. Maybe he could get her off the boat after all—she certainly seemed desperate to go. It wouldn’t take long—if Van Dorn’s jet was out of commission she’d have to fly out on a commercial plane, and it would be easy enough to arrange a flight for the crack of dawn, necessitating that she spend the night on the island. She’d seen him, of course, but she wouldn’t remember anything about him. It was one of his many dubious talents. He was making things needlessly complicated, all for the sake of a spoiled little rich girl. She was here, and she could stay here. He’d deal with the ramifications of that later. He’d keep her alive if he could. If not, he’d make certain it was swift and merciful. After all, being born into privilege was no great crime. Only a moral misdemeanor. The mate’s cabin was an expansive suite that belonged more in a five-star hotel than on a boat. The king-size bed took up only a quarter of the room, and a picture window overlooked the gently rocking ocean. Genevieve pulled the curtains. She took a lengthy shower, simply for the novelty of it, pampering herself. She’d finally gotten used to those little elegances—a childhood of scrimping, of making sure appearances were kept up, had done a complete turnaround, to such a well-kept extreme that it sometimes amused her. Who would have thought the well-bred, desperately poor little Genny Spenser would end up so pampered? There’d been a certain cachet in being one of the nouveau pauvre. The money her robber baron ancestors had amassed was long gone, and all that was left was the expectation of privilege without the money to buy it. Not that her parents would admit to that. In public they were still the Spensers, socially above those who actually had to work for a living. Inside the house with the leaking roof, the closed-off wings, the weed-choked driveway and the empty rooms, they ate boxed macaroni and cheese resentfully prepared by her mother. They were lucky they had a roof over their heads. Her black-sheep father was the only Spenser left in their branch of the family, but upon his death the house was already in trust to the state of Rhode Island. So he’d simply sold anything he could—all the surrounding land, every piece of furniture worth something. The art had already been divested in a previous generation, and her grandmother had survived by selling off her jewelry. There was very little left to sell by the time Genevieve’s parents moved in. No one was allowed to visit, of course, because then the secret would be out. They were always in the midst of massive renovations, her parents would say, and returned social commitments at a restaurant or club. And Genny and her sister would eat butter-and-potato-chip sandwiches for weeks to pay for it. Now she could buy anything, eat anything, wear anything she wanted. It was no wonder she had those wretched fifteen pounds—there were just too many lovely things to partake of. If her ruthlessly slim mother had been alive she would have been horrified. But her parents were dead, the house was gone, and Genevieve Spenser earned a fortune at the hands of Roper, Hyde, Camui and Fredericks. She belonged with a man like Harry Van Dorn, her mother would have said, though she would have wrinkled her nose at his politically correct factories. The only acceptable way to have money was to inherit it, according to her mother. Her father would simply have had another scotch. The shower was huge, somehow managing to be both tasteful and ostentatious, and she let the water pound some of the tension from her body. She’d take another tranquilizer before she joined Harry again, though she’d have to watch her intake of wine. And she’d sleep alone in that luxurious bed, doubtless beneath Egyptian-cotton sheets with an astronomical thread count, and tomorrow night she’d be in a sleeping bag on the ground. And she’d be a hell of a lot happier. It was getting dark when she came out of the shower, and she could see lights from the shoreline through the filmy curtains. She wasn’t sure they were a reassurance that land was nearby or a reminder that she wasn’t on it, but she left the curtains closed anyway as she dressed in the new clothes, pulling off the tags that had been left on. Size eights. She didn’t know whether to be annoyed or relieved. She reached for her bottle of pills, and at the last minute popped two in her mouth. It had to be the ocean water that was making her paranoid, uneasy, convinced that something, somehow, was wrong. But the pills would take care of that, and after tomorrow she could throw them away. Or at least pack them until she had to return to the city and the way of life she’d chosen. She sank down in one of the oversize chairs, closing her eyes as she waited for the Zenlike calm to envelope her. It would all be all right. It would be lovely. And then she’d be gone. She was a pretty little thing, Harry Van Dorn thought, watching her on the closed-circuit television in his stateroom. A little too padded for her clothes, but stripped she was just right. He’d gotten tired of bone-thin models who performed tirelessly. But then, that was normal for him. He was a creature of impulse, and he had a short attention span. He became obsessed with something, overindulged, and then lost interest. He’d gone through virgins, older women, ugly women and handsome men. He’d stayed longest with the children, but they tended to cry too much, and even when he found a good one they had an unfortunate tendency to age, and he’d never cared for anyone over eleven. His taste for models had been a fortunate alternative—it was socially acceptable, even encouraged, and he had no trouble attracting them. He was just as much a trophy as they were, and the relationships were mutually beneficial. The only problem was he couldn’t hurt them without paying a huge price. Their bodies were their livelihood, and any kind of scarring, any broken bones or bruising would diminish their value. He’d gone a bit overboard with one, and then had to try to buy her off. She’d made the very grave mistake of refusing, and no one had thought it the slightest bit strange that an anorexic supermodel had been found starved to death in a little French ch?teau. But that was in the past. He looked at Genevieve Spenser’s creamy, beautiful skin and knew he was going to have her. His lawyers knew how to quiet things up, and if he made a mistake, went a bit too far, his ass would be covered. No, Ms. Genevieve Spenser was a downright thoughtful gift from the universe, as well as those contracts she’d brought with her. The ones that severed his connections to some of his most lucrative oil fields. The ones that were going to be blown up in just about two weeks’ time. The Rule of Seven, his lucky number. Seven disasters to throw the financial world into an uproar, the kind of uproar a smart man could benefit from. And he considered himself a smart man. The decimation of the oil fields was number three, and nothing would stop it. Nothing would stop him. Until he had everything he wanted. And the nice thing about that was, he always wanted more. 3 Of course it had to be tonight, Peter thought savagely, closing the communication device that was so visionary it didn’t even have a name. Word had come down from Madame Lambert—the time for waiting was past, and tonight was the night. There was no wiggle room; at midnight, when the harbor patrol changed, they were taking over Harry’s Seven Sins and disappearing. The course had been plotted long ago, and the men in the wheelhouse were some of the best. No one would be able to find them, even with the most advanced surveillance systems. Then again, no one would be looking for them. Harry Van Dorn was known to take off when the mood struck him, and the time he spent aboard the Seven Sins usually involved the world’s idea of romance. If he disappeared, it would first be assumed he had some sort of assignation, probably at his private island. And Peter Jensen had been on-site long enough to know how to steer nosy people in the wrong direction. Harry did have an assignation on Little Fox Island, all right. But it wasn’t with a leggy model. He had an appointment with death, and the longer Jensen was around him the more he knew it was long overdue. But why the hell did Madame Lambert have to pick tonight? When a relative innocent had strayed into their path? He was used to dealing with anomalies, but his choices had never been quite so clear cut. He had to get her off the boat. Or she had to die. And he had only a few hours to make that happen. Questioning orders was frowned upon by the Committee, and Peter didn’t even consider it. He did his job with single-minded determination and ignored the larger ramifications. He didn’t want to be the one making the life-or-death decisions. If he had to make them, he might have trouble carrying them out, and the world couldn’t afford that. Saving the world, one murder at a time, Peter thought, putting his wire-rimmed glasses back on his face. The funny thing was, he really didn’t want to kill Harry Van Dorn. For the simple reason that he was afraid he might enjoy it, and then he’d really be lost. It was going to be an antiseptic, long-distance hit, and he’d let Renaud do the honors. Renaud had no qualms about his work; he reveled in it a bit too much, which could always be a liability. Peter’s icy control was money in the bank—the job got done with deadly efficiency and no fuckups. There’d be no fuckups on this one either. But he had to get rid of Genevieve Spenser. Now. She’d miscalculated. Genevieve sat in one of the elegant lounges on Harry Van Dorn’s megayacht, forcing herself to eat sparingly of the food that was far too good for a pick-up chef, and drank too much wine. She should have paid attention, but even by her recently pampered standards the wine was extraordinary, and it would have been a crime to ignore it. She knew herself well enough to know when she’d had enough, but it was too late at that point, and her only choice was to manage a dignified retreat. It hadn’t been a bad evening—Harry was charming, full of flattering attention and entertaining stories that poked fun at both himself and the high and mighty. At some other time Genevieve might have felt like reciprocating that flattery—he was movie-star handsome, and she hadn’t been involved with anyone in longer than she wanted to remember. The firm would approve, and she could have a night of pleasure to send her on her way to the rain forest. The problem, of course, was that it wouldn’t be particularly pleasurable. The first time she slept with a man it tended to be uncomfortable, nerve-racking, even unpleasant. Even with the wine and the tranquilizers she would only manage to relax enough to do it but not enjoy it. No, Harry Van Dorn was flirting heavily, but he didn’t seem likely to push it, and she was just as happy to be able to keep a relative distance. “I’ve got a busy day tomorrow,” she said, rising on thankfully steady feet. “I’ve had a lovely evening, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to say good-night.” Harry rose, towering over her, his big Texas grin almost tempting. “Are you sure I can’t talk you into an after-dinner liqueur? Maybe view my etchings?” She laughed, as she was supposed to. “I think I’ll take a rain check on the etchings,” she said. “I’m so exhausted I’ll probably fall asleep on my feet.” “We can’t have that. I suppose I’d better call Jensen!” The ghost appeared, seemingly out of the woodwork, and his sudden presence momentarily cleared the fog in Genevieve’s brain. “Shall I see Ms. Spenser to her quarters, sir?” Harry didn’t look pleased at Jensen’s rapid appearance. “I can find my own way,” she protested, just as the boat shifted beneath her, and she had to reach out and catch the back of the banquette. “The wind has picked up a bit, and we wouldn’t want you to slip or get lost. The SS Seven Sins is a big ship. Besides, Jensen’s here to serve, aren’t you?” “Yes, sir,” he murmured, his voice as colorless as his eyes. She almost changed her mind. Stupid, of course, she chided herself, but for a brief, wine-fogged moment she felt safer with Harry Van Dorn and his straightforward attempts at seduction than the almost invisible servant with the empty eyes. But she hadn’t had that much to drink. She put her best smile on her face. “If you wouldn’t mind, Mr. Jensen?” “It’s his job, Genevieve,” Harry drawled. She glanced up at Jensen’s impassive face. She really needed this vacation—she had no reason at all to feel so uneasy in his presence. Maybe the pills she took to calm her down had backfired, making her more paranoid. None of it mattered. She’d be gone by tomorrow, and she wouldn’t have to be anyone but herself. “This way, Ms. Spenser,” he said, opening the door for her, and she squashed down her misgivings. “Thanks again for a lovely evening,” she said to Harry. It wasn’t really a lie—it hadn’t been that unpleasant. She just desperately wanted to be somewhere else. “It was entirely my pleasure. Jensen will see you safely to your room and we’ll meet for an early breakfast.” She knew she should make some polite response, but right then she was too tired for social amenities. She’d smiled and laughed and responded till she felt like a trained monkey, and she hadn’t even gotten the papers signed. Papers he’d insisted on having brought to him. First thing tomorrow morning, she promised herself hazily. And then if he didn’t let her go she’d damn well jump overboard. She followed Jensen along the outside passageway. She could see the lights of the island, too close and yet too far away. The faint rocking of the boat was even more pronounced as the wind whipped through her carefully coiffed hair, and then they were inside again, the passageway small, dimly lit, almost claustrophobic. “Is this the way we came?” she asked, unable to disguise the faint nervousness in her voice. “I’m taking a shortcut. You looked like you needed to get to your cabin as soon as possible. Unless…” He stopped, and she barreled into him, much to her embarrassment. He wasn’t a ghost at all, but warm, solid flesh. “Unless what?” “I could arrange for a launch to take you back to the island. That way you could catch a flight out tomorrow morning and not have to bother with Mr. Van Dorn’s pilot.” Her contact lenses had been in for far too long, and she was having trouble focusing. For a moment she was tempted—dry land, no more Harry Van Dorn or business of any sort. But the goddamn papers weren’t signed, the reason she was sent here in the first place, and she couldn’t afford to offend an important client by disappearing and refusing his hospitality and his private jet. She was on the fast track at Roper, Hyde, Camui and Fredericks, and she wasn’t ready to throw that overboard. Literally. “I’m sure this will be fine. Besides, what sane woman would trade a ride on a private jet for a commercial flight?” she said flippantly. Me, she thought, in a New York minute. He said nothing for a moment, and then nodded. “As you wish, Ms. Spenser,” he murmured in that bland, empty voice that didn’t seem quite real, and continued down the passageway. He’d tried, Jensen thought. He could go one step further, knock her cold and have one of the men take her back to the island, but that would leave far too many questions, and he couldn’t risk it. Collateral damage was a necessary evil, something he’d done his best to avoid most of his career, but if she was going to end up dead then it was due to her own greed. He should make peace with that unpleasant fact and take her back to her room. He wondered how many of those pills she’d taken. He’d searched her purse, of course, more out of habit than any particular suspicion, only to discover that Ms. Genevieve Spenser had a fondness for tranquilizers. Maybe he could just keep her drugged the entire time, until Harry and the rest of them could disappear. But that would leave her wondering why Harry had chosen to take off to his private island and leave her behind, doped and groggy. She was too smart not to be suspicious. Discretion was as much a part of his assignment as getting it done. He’d also gone through that slim black briefcase, photographing the details and sending them on to London. One more piece of the puzzle of the Rule of Seven. But what did oil fields in the Mid East have to do with a dam in India? What did it have to do with anything? Apparently Madame Lambert had decided it wasn’t worth waiting to find out. Which was fine with Peter, if this goddamn woman hadn’t stumbled into his path. He was taking her the long way on purpose. She was slightly out of it and hiding it very well indeed, but with his roundabout path she’d never find her way back to Harry Van Dorn, assuming she even wanted to. The one thing that didn’t make sense was her not sleeping with her host. People didn’t say no to Harry Van Dorn, and she had to have. She might be a lesbian, but he doubted it, his fine-tuned instincts ruling out the possibility. More likely she was frigid. Or maybe she only liked it when she could be in control, and Harry was a topper if ever there was one. Peter had asked London for intel on her, but they didn’t seem in any particular hurry to get back to him, and he was still working in the dark. It would be easier if he knew a little more about her. But he didn’t need to waste his time thinking about how Genevieve Spenser liked or didn’t like sex. He needed to figure out how to get rid of her without sacrificing discretion. Collateral damage, he reminded himself as he turned down one of the narrow service passageways. “You might want to take off those shoes, Ms. Spenser,” he said in his empty voice. “The sea’s getting a bit choppy. Do you need something for seasickness?” “I never get seasick.” She stopped anyway, leaning against the side of the passageway to slip off her ridiculously expensive shoes. She was a tall woman, but the heels had added a good three inches, and she now seemed more vulnerable. He didn’t like it when they were vulnerable. “Never?” he echoed. “You strike me as someone who doesn’t like boats very much, and I assumed it was a tendency toward seasickness that caused it.” Her eyes jerked up, suddenly sharp, and he could have kicked himself. Jensen might have noticed her dislike of boats, but he would have gone no further than that. He certainly would never have mentioned it. “I don’t like feeling trapped,” she said in a tight voice. “Then you must not like this passageway either,” he said, another mistake. It was long and narrow, with the dim lighting Harry considered atmospheric, and if she had a problem with claustrophobia she’d be hyperventilating at any moment. “I don’t. But just because I don’t like something doesn’t mean I’ll run from it.” He wanted to smile. She sounded like a feisty little kid instead of a corporate mannequin. “I can still arrange for that launch.” “Are you trying to get rid of me, Mr. Jensen?” Too sharp, despite the wine and the tranquilizers. She had a soft mouth, rich brown eyes, and for a moment he wanted to be someone, anyone but who he was. He was going to make a mistake, and he was going to pay for it, but at that moment he didn’t give a shit. He didn’t bother telling her he was trying to save her life. He slid his hand up her neck, and while she flinched at the first touch she gentled quickly, as his long fingers cupped her face. “I have a romantic streak,” he said with a faint smile, and leaned down to kiss her. Such a mouth. He wanted to drown in it. She was too startled and maybe just a bit too drunk to do more than lean back against the wall and let him, and he took full advantage of it, kissing her with a leisurely thoroughness that he hadn’t let himself enjoy for a long time. And at the last minute he increased the pressure just below her ear, and she slumped into his arms, unconscious. It was five in the morning, London time, and Isobel Lambert was still awake. In fact, she slept very little, a gift of both genetics and training. Things were just about to go down in the Caribbean, and while the operation was now out of her hands, she needed to be awake and alert, there in spirit if not in fact. She never asked anyone to do anything she wouldn’t do herself. And Peter Jensen was the best there was. She didn’t tend to second-guess herself, and her gut-felt decision, to terminate Harry Van Dorn before he could implement some of the near-global damage he was planning, was the right one. But there was the girl who’d gotten in the way, and Jensen, usually cold as ice about such things, was dragging his heels. She could communicate directly with Renaud, have him take care of her, but she wasn’t ready to do that. Renaud was a nasty piece of work, and she only liked to use him sparingly, with calmer heads like Jensen overseeing him. If there was any way to save the girl, Jensen would see to it without compromising the mission. In the meantime, they had one more vital piece of Harry’s plan. Oil fields in Saudi Arabia, a dam in Mysore, India. What else did he have in mind? And for God’s sake, why? Peter Jensen looked at the unconscious woman in his arms. It was a good trick, one he’d used a number of times, mostly to save lives. If he had to kill someone there was usually no reason for finesse. But if Genevieve Spenser wasn’t going to show enough sense to take his advice and get her butt off the boat then he was going to see to it, and pick up the pieces later. Madame Lambert probably wouldn’t be happy; she trusted him to know enough to veer from a plan when he had to, but she wouldn’t like it. He might get his wrist slapped, but as long as no one would ever be able to trace anything back to him or the Committee they’d be fine. Ms. Spenser was heavier than he’d thought, but he was strong enough, and he dumped her over his shoulder, leaving her shoes behind as he headed down toward the launch. “What’s that you’ve got there, Petey lad?” Renaud was leaning against a row of packing cases, a cigarette in his mouth, sharpening his knife. “Present for me?” “Not quite. I want her off the boat before we get rid of Van Dorn. You need to take her back to the island and dump her somewhere.” Renaud put the knife away, rising. “She dead? Or do you want me to finish her off?” “She’s fine and I want her to stay that way. Just dump her somewhere that’ll require a couple of days to find her and get back here. We’re running late.” “Wouldn’t be running late if I didn’t have to take an extra ride in this choppy water,” Renaud pointed out. “If you don’t want her I’ll have her. She’s pretty enough.” “She’s trouble.” “Then let me take care of her. Much neater all around.” Peter was getting tired of arguing. “I’ll take her myself,” he said. “I don’t think Hans would like it.” “And what does Hans have to say to anything? This is my operation.” “So it is. But we’ve all got orders to keep an eye on each other. What with the shake-up and all, the Committee isn’t as trusting as it used to be.” Jensen wanted to laugh at the very idea of trust and the Committee in the same sentence, but he was too edgy and she was too damn heavy slung over his shoulder. “Fine,” he said. “You take her to the island and I’ll deal with Hans.” “Not a good idea, Petey,” Renaud drawled. He’d always hated being called Petey, something Renaud already knew. “It’s the witching hour. No time left for heroic gestures.” He was right. They’d planned the takeover for midnight, and it was too damn close to risk everything for the sake of a spoiled young lawyer. He gave up fighting. “You’re right,” he said. “So much for being a gentleman. I’ll dump her back in her room. Maybe we’ll get done with Harry before she even wakes up.” “Yeah, you can believe that,” Renaud said, dropping his cigarette on the teakwood deck and stubbing it out. “But we both know what’s going to happen in the end. You’re going to have to kill her.” He didn’t bother to argue. Renaud was only stating the unpalatable truth. Genevieve Spenser was in the wrong place at the wrong time and she hadn’t left when she could. She was going to have to live with the consequences. And die by them. It was a pleasant enough dream. She was being rocked, peacefully, like a babe in her mother’s arms, except that her mother had never been much for rocking. She was surrounded by comfort, and yet she felt oddly free, peaceful, pampered. Something was making a low, rumbling vibration, adding to her delicious sense of comfort. She wasn’t about to wake up—it was too lovely lying there enjoying the physical sensations. There was a faint, nagging worry at the very back of her mind, but she decided to ignore it, sinking deeper into a blissful sleep. She should have known it was coming. It always happened when she least expected it, and it took over before she could stop it. It was three years ago and she was back in that dingy little cubicle at Legal Aid in the tiny town of Auburn, New York, with her cluttered desk filled with too many hopeless cases, the industrial green on the walls stained with damp, the cold, rancid coffee and the telephone that rang and rang and then stopped like a death knell. She should have known not to work late, alone, in that building. Too many very bad people knew where it was, and she’d made a lot of enemies in her short life. She was Joan of Arc, a heroine riding to the rescue of battered women, putting their abusive, murderous husbands in jail, helping to give the women a new chance at a decent life. She’d done such a good job of it that she was being handed all the cases involving domestic abuse, and in a poor area like Clinton County, New York, the workload was overwhelming. But she kept at it, overworked, underpaid, foolishly thinking she was making a difference, and she never heard the footsteps down the deserted hallway. Never knew what was happening until she looked up and saw Marge Whitman’s husband looming in the doorway. He was an ugly man with an ugly temper, and a day after he got out of jail for breaking his wife’s arm, cheekbone and shoulder, he’d been served with a restraining order. And he wasn’t happy about it. Genevieve had a button beneath her desk to call for help if she needed it. She pressed it with her knee as she reached for the phone. “You don’t have an appointment, Mr. Whitman, and I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” she said. She was calm, always certain she could fix anything. “If you want to come in tomorrow and discuss your case—” “The telephone don’t work,” he said, lumbering closer. He was a huge man, burly and heavily muscled, and he smelled like beer and sweat. And rage. “And I ain’t got a case. You’ve been interfering between me and mine, and it’s time somebody taught you a lesson.” He was right, the telephone was dead. That was when she felt her first inkling of fear, but there was still the button beneath her desk. She held it, thinking fast. “We can talk about it during office hours, Mr. Whitman,” she said, not a trace of nervousness showing through her calm demeanor. “In the meantime I’ll have to ask you to leave.” He laughed. He didn’t bother to close the glass door of the cubicle behind him—he knew there was no one there to help. “I think we’ll talk about it right now. And I don’t think talking is gonna cut it.” She tried to run, but he slammed her against the cubicle, and the heavy glass shattered beneath her body. There were times when she could almost forget it, and times when it came thundering back. The feel of his fists against her face, her body, so that when she fell she landed on the broken glass, as he kicked her, over and over again, and the broken shards dug into her skin. It seemed to go on forever; just when she thought he’d finished and was leaving her, another blow came, another kick, and she moaned, her mouth full of blood. He leaned over her, yanking her up so that her face was just inches from his. “Hell,” he said, “you ain’t even worth killing.” And he dropped her back on the floor. She must have lost consciousness. When she woke up she was alone in the pitch-black building, lying in a pool of blood. She’d had to crawl over the glass. She’d made it as far as the stairs and then collapsed, lying in a broken heap, unable to move, unable to speak. She could only cry. She’d spent a week in the hospital. By the time she could talk, Whitman had disappeared, along with his wife and two children. People said Marge had gone willingly, and Genevieve had believed them. After all, hadn’t she received a bouquet of flowers with an almost illegible, unsigned note? “I’m so sorry.” It could hardly have come from Whitman. The police looked for him, but it was a halfhearted attempt. She wasn’t dead, she wasn’t even permanently injured. Her body healed with the help of medicine and physical therapy, her mind healed with the help of the best therapists, and she’d learned to be comfortable around men once more. She’d learned to defend herself and she’d left for the safer pastures of New York City, where she could live a peaceful life. Until she woke up screaming. Remembering. As she did right now. 4 Harry wasn’t in the best of moods. He’d been ready to make his move on the luscious Ms. Spenser when Jensen had stuck his unwanted limey nose into the room and taken her away, and now he was feeling restless, bad-tempered and ready to take it out on someone. Preferably Ms. Spenser. It would be no problem—the rooms were soundproofed, and even if she made a lot of noise no one would interfere. They’d either assume she was an enthusiastically noisy fuck, or that something was going on they didn’t want to know about. Either way, no one would interfere. He had better equipment in his massive stateroom, though, and he didn’t like having to compromise. He firmly believed in indulging his whims whenever he could, and being refused even the tiniest little treat made him very cross indeed. He was going to have to explain a few things to Peter Jensen. He’d been an excellent servant for the four short months he’d been working for him, but then, he’d come with impeccable references. The kind of people he’d worked for in the past required someone with the utmost discretion, the ability to look the other way and the willingness to do whatever was asked of him, with no arguments or questions. Jensen had proved remarkably efficient, and it hadn’t been his fault that the young Thai girl last year had run away before he’d finished with her. He could blame that on one of the men who’d caught her in the first place, and he’d taken care of him in a fitting manner. No, this was only a minor transgression, and once he gave Jensen a sharp reprimand he could go below and enjoy the undeniably luscious Ms. Spenser. Hell, he might even turn to fat women if he liked her curves well enough. There were some interesting variations on force feeding… He heard a noise, and he looked up. The engines were running again, making an odd noise, and Harry had a sudden, unpleasant premonition. His horoscope said today had a potential for disaster, but whenever he didn’t like his forecast he skipped to his rising sign for something more pleasant. He rose, wandering over to the window to look out at the shoreline, when he realized the goddamn ship was moving. He let out a scream of rage, slammed open the door and headed out on deck, only to run smack into Peter Jensen. “You son of a bitch—” Harry managed to say, before blinding pain exploded in his head. And as he sank into darkness his body climaxed in pure, murderous rage. The boat was moving. It wasn’t Genevieve’s paranoid imagination, it wasn’t a remnant from her nightmare. The goddamn boat was moving. She scrambled out of bed. She was still wearing the silk slip of a dress she’d worn last night, with her bra and pantyhose in place, if a bit rumpled. She hadn’t been that out of it, had she? She’d had a little too much to drink on top of a three-pill day, but still, she shouldn’t be having blackouts. She sank down on the floor beside the platform bed, dropping her head in her hands. She couldn’t remember anything, not since she left Harry Van Dorn’s side and headed for her room. She’d left with the gray ghost, hadn’t she? But she couldn’t remember anything about the walk to her cabin, whether he’d turned down her bed or kissed her good-night. Holy shit. She’d been facetious, trying to reconstruct her last conscious moments, but the memory, no longer elusive, came flooding back. The son of a bitch had kissed her. At least, she thought he had. Or maybe it was just part of her dreams, an earlier, less nightmarish part. Though if it involved kissing someone like Jensen then she’d almost prefer the nightmares. She’d learned how to fight back with them. She rose on unsteady feet. At least she hadn’t slept in her shoes. She walked in what she hoped was the direction of the window, feeling her way, and when she reached the heavy curtains she tugged, trying to open them. They stayed put, obviously on some kind of heavyduty curtain rod, but she could push the fabric out of the way enough to have her worst fears confirmed. It was midday, when she should have already landed in Costa Rica, and they were out at sea. Harry’s multi-million-dollar yacht ran smoothly and quietly through the waters, but there was no mistaking the feel of the engine beneath her, the sound of the water as the boat cut through the swells. She let the curtain drop again, swearing under her breath. If this was Harry Van Dorn’s idea of a joke then she wasn’t amused. Maybe he was taking her to Costa Rica via the yacht; across the open water it wouldn’t be that far, and she hadn’t actually come right out and told him she hated being on a boat. Maybe it was his twisted idea of flirtation—he was so used to women falling at his feet that he assumed anyone would be thrilled by his attention. Genevieve was definitely not thrilled. She had every intention of tracking him down and giving him an ultimatum. She hadn’t seen a helicopter landing pad on this floating mansion but she was willing to bet he had one, and she was going to give him an hour to provide her with a flight out of here. If he set Jensen to it then it would be there in half an hour. He couldn’t have kissed her, could he? The man seemed totally asexual, and besides, what an absurd thing to do. She already knew how badly she needed this vacation—this paranoid delusion only proved it. She took long enough to shower and change back into her business clothes. She’d slept in her contacts—always a mistake—and she felt rumpled and gritty and vulnerable. It took her less than fifteen minutes to put on her business persona once more; she’d become an expert at constructing Genevieve Spenser, Esquire, in record time, even without makeup and fresh underwear and shoes. Her reflection in the mirror wasn’t reassuring. She didn’t look as polished and inviolate as she usually did. It didn’t matter. Her justifiable anger would make up for any lingering vulnerability. Except that the door was locked from the outside. At first she couldn’t believe it—it must have been some kind of mistake. But no matter how hard she tugged and twisted the polished brass doorknob, the door wouldn’t move. She lost it then. She began pounding on the door, kicking it, yelling at the top of her lungs. “Unlock this door, you son of a bitch, and let me out of here! How dare you do this—it’s kidnapping, and just because my firm represents your goddamn foundation doesn’t mean I won’t sue the daylights out of you, you slimy weasel.” She kept pounding, kicking, yelling, until a sudden slam against the locked door momentarily silenced her. “Be quiet!” It was a voice she hadn’t heard before, someone with a heavy accent, possibly French. “Then unlock the goddamn door and let me out of here,” she snapped. “You have a choice, lady. You can sit down and shut up and wait until we’re ready to deal with you, or you can keep making noise and force me to come in and cut your throat. The boss said to leave you alone, but he’s a practical man and knows when you have to cut your losses, whether he likes it or not. I promise you I would have no problem killing you.” Genevieve froze. She wanted to laugh at the melodramatic absurdity of that disembodied voice, except that it wasn’t absurd. She believed that flat, unemotional tone. “What’s going on? Why are we in the middle of the ocean and why have you locked me in here?” she asked in a deceptively calm voice. “You’ll find out when the boss says you need to. In the meantime be quiet and don’t remind me that you’re causing trouble. Not if you want to have any chance of making it back to your expensive lifestyle.” She should have kept her mouth shut, but right now she was having a hard time being docile. “Who’s the boss?” “No one you want to fuck with, lady.” “Is it Harry?” The sound of retreating footsteps was her only answer. She was half tempted to call out after him, but wisdom kept her mouth shut. In her short foray into pro bono law she’d met enough sociopaths and career criminals to recognize the sound of one. The man who’d stood on the other side of the door would have no qualms about killing her. And he said his mysterious boss was even worse. Not Harry. Harry was just a harmless good ol’ boy and the logical target of whatever was going on. It had to be someone else. She tossed her jacket on the bed and proceeded to prowl around the room. She’d managed to figure out how to work the power-operated curtains, and she could open the window itself a scant ten inches. She might be able to get through it sideways, except that there was nowhere to go. It looked straight over the water, with no railing or deck beneath it, and she didn’t fancy dangling off the side of a fast-moving yacht while she tried to make her way to another level. What the hell was going on? The man had said his boss was ready to cut his losses, and it was clear she was one of those losses. The obvious center of whatever was going on had to be Harry Van Dorn and his billions of dollars. Was he being held hostage? If so, she’d be an obvious negotiator. Maybe that was why the unnamed boss had decided to keep her alive. And where was Jensen in all this? Probably already dead—he would have been expendable. Unless he was part of whatever was going on. Though someone less like a terrorist or extortionist she couldn’t imagine. She had a Swiss Army knife in her makeup bag. No pockets in her silk suit, but she could tuck the weapon in her bra just in case. Most of all, she had to stay calm. She’d learned that, and a great many other things in the months following the attack. Just to ensure it, she found her pill bottle and swallowed two of the yellow pills. Not enough to impair her, but enough to make sure she didn’t overreact. Thank God she had them. She grabbed her briefcase, but the contracts she’d brought with her were gone, taken sometime during the night. It was the least of her worries. She pulled out a legal pad of paper with its elegant tooled-leather binding and started making lists, always a way of calming herself. There were any number of possibilities right now. Harry Van Dorn could be playing an absurd practical joke. A comforting idea but unlikely. He was more likely to be the target of whatever was going on. Kidnapping? He’d be worth an unbelievable amount of money. Or was it a political act by some disgruntled militants? What did they want with Harry? Money? Publicity? His death? God, she hoped not. He was harmless enough, despite his faintly annoying flirtatiousness and his crackpot superstitions. He must have an army of bodyguards—anyone with real wealth did—though the only person she’d seen much of had been Jensen, and he would have been useless in a dangerous situation. There were countless other possibilities, and her response would be dictated by which one it was. In the meantime she could reasonably assume that she was being held hostage along with Harry Van Dorn. She looked out the window. She’d always been a strong swimmer, and she could float for hours, the one advantage of those unwanted fifteen pounds, but she had no idea how far from land they were. If they’d been at sea since she passed out last night, they could be hundreds of miles away from Grand Cayman Island. If it was a question of life or death, she could go overboard and take her chances in the water, but at this point she needed to stay calm and not make any unnecessary assumptions. She barely had time to scramble to her feet when she heard someone at the door. She could feel the knife tucked safely between her breasts, and she had her full, corporate-lawyer armor on, minus the shoes. The scruffy-looking individual who stood there with a semiautomatic did not look impressed. “The boss is ready for you,” he said. She recognized his voice from the other side of the door, and gave an instant, silent prayer that she’d shown enough sense to shut up. Whoever he was, he wasn’t the type to make idle threats. “And where’s Mr. Van Dorn?” she demanded in a cool voice, reaching for her briefcase. “You can leave that there,” he said. “And if you need to know anything about Harry Van Dorn then someone will tell you. In the meantime shut up and come with me. And don’t cause any trouble. The boss doesn’t want us to be cleaning up bloodstains.” “Why bother to clean them?” She was always too mouthy when she was nervous, and the pills weren’t having the desired effect. “If you’re into kidnapping and extortion, then I don’t think you’d care about what condition you left the boat in.” The small man blinked, a quick, dangerous movement, like a rattler about to strike, and Genevieve wondered whether she needed to dive for cover, but then the man simply laughed. “Someone will pay good money for it.” “It’s a little ostentatious, don’t you think? Whoever buys it can’t expect to get away with it.” “I appreciate your concern, lady, but there are places that can strip a boat and change its appearance as quickly as they can with stolen cars. And most of the people who own a ship like this don’t care too much about legal niceties. Now shut up and move.” Genevieve shut up and moved. He gestured with the gun, and she preceded him into the narrow passageway. She half expected to see bodies and blood, but it looked the same—spotless, deserted, normal. She kept moving, looking back every now and then to make sure her companion was with her. The gun was trained at the center of her spine, and a tiny shiver washed over her. A gun like that could do a lot of damage to a spinal cord. It was colder out on the open water, and the stiff breeze tugged at her neatly coiffed hair. She should have had it cut—she’d intended to wear it in braids while she was in Costa Rica, but it was looking as if it was going to be a long time before she saw that place. “Keep moving,” the man behind her snarled. “Up that staircase.” She started up, wishing she’d found her missing shoes. They would have done more damage, but she’d simply have to make do without them. He was following close behind her, and she waited until the right moment, when she was at the very top of the metal staircase, and then she kicked backward, hard. Her bare foot connected with his face and he tumbled down the steps, cursing. She didn’t wait to see whether the fall had done any permanent damage— she took off. The deck was deserted, with blinding sunlight all around, and there was no place to hide. She grabbed the first doorway, only to be confronted by a utility closet, but she didn’t hesitate, cramming herself inside and pulling it shut just moments before the sound of heavy footsteps made it onto the deck. It was pitch-black inside the tiny cubicle, and it smelled like gasoline and cleaning supplies. She was covered with a cold sweat, and her heart was racing, but apart from that she could pride herself on an almost surreal calm. She’d studied hard and well on just what to do if someone ever came after her again. The circumstances hadn’t been quite what she’d practiced, but close enough, and she’d definitely managed to hurt the man with the gun. The question was, if he found her, how would he pay her back? One thing was crystal clear in the claustrophobic confines of the closet. She didn’t want to die. And she wasn’t going to go without a fight. “Lost something, Renaud?” The voice came from almost directly outside her hiding place, and the cold feeling in the pit of her stomach turned to ice. She hadn’t heard anyone approach, and she’d been listening intently. She didn’t recognize the voice either—it was low, cool, expressionless. “That bitch.” Renaud’s voice was muffled. “Got the drop on you, did she? Maybe you should go clean up—you’re bleeding all over the deck.” “I’ve got a score to settle with that little—” “You don’t have any scores to settle, you have a job to do. I’ll take care of Ms. Spenser.” “She’s got to be a plant.” “Because she managed to get away from you? I doubt it—I think you just underestimated her. Madame Lambert just came through with the best possible intel—she’s simply a high-priced lawyer who stumbled into something unpleasant. Too bad for her, but no particular problem for us. Harry was just as likely to have someone with him when the mission went down.” “She’s the one who’s going down,” Renaud snarled. “You’ll do what I tell you to do and nothing more.” The voice was cold, cold as ice, and Genevieve could feel the goose bumps form on her arms. She didn’t want to meet the owner of that emotionless voice—the cold water of the open sea would be warmer than the man who was dangerously close to her hiding place. “Whatever you say, boss,” Renaud muttered, clearly unhappy. “After you get cleaned up why don’t you go to her room and get rid of her stuff. We don’t want any loose ends, do we?” “What about her?” “It’s a boat, Renaud. There aren’t many places to hide in the middle of the water. I’ll take care of her when the time comes.” Genevieve held her breath, half expecting an argument, but Renaud had been thoroughly cowed. “Just promise me you’ll make it hurt,” he said. “I’ll do what I need to do to accomplish the mission, Renaud. No more, no less.” She listened as Renaud’s footsteps retreated down the deck, then the belated clatter on the metal staircase. There was no other sound, but then, she hadn’t heard the mysterious boss approach. It stood to reason she wouldn’t hear him when he left either. She wasn’t about to take any chances. He couldn’t stand there forever—if she counted to five hundred in French then she could probably risk opening the door to make a run for it. Where she would run to was still a question. Over the side seemed the safest possibility, if she could find a life vest and a flare gun. A self-inflating raft would be even better—she could wait until the boat was out of sight before she inflated it. But if worse came to worst she’d simply go over the side as is, taking her chance with the cold water rather than the deadly cold voice of the unseen man. She had no idea whether there were sharks out there. She only knew about the human ones on board. She counted to five hundred twice, her rusty French slowing her down. She considered trying it in Latin, but it had been too long since her high-school classes with Mrs. Wiesen, and besides, the chances of anyone still being outside the utility closet were almost nil. If they knew she was there they would have simply opened the door. She moved her hands blindly over the door, looking for the inside latch. Her eyes should have become accustomed to the darkness, but the door was sealed shut. If she stayed in that airless, lightless hole much longer she’d probably pass out from the chemical fumes. She made no sound as she ran her hands down the inside of the door, her fingers finally reaching the catch. She breathed a tiny sigh of relief—she’d known a moment’s panic that there might be no inside latch. After all, how many people expected to be opening a tiny closet from the inside? The door opened with an almost inaudible click, and she pushed it open, closing her eyes against the suddenly blinding glare of the midday sun as it bounced off the waters. She squinted, then opened her eyes fully. To look straight into the impassive eyes of a man she’d never seen before. A million emotions raced through her—instant panic, then hope as her eyes focused on the man leaning against the railing, looking at her. He was tall, dressed in loose white clothing, with long dark hair and very blue eyes, and his expression was nothing more than politely curious. She’d never seen him before in her life. “I wondered how long you were going to stay in there, Ms. Spenser,” he said in a voice that was both Peter Jensen’s and a stranger’s. “As you heard me tell our bloodthirsty friend Renaud, there aren’t that many places to hide on a boat.” She didn’t hesitate. Her only chance was taking him by surprise, and she dived for the side of the boat. She was halfway over the railing before he caught her with insultingly minimal effort, pulling her back onto the deck, against him. His body was warm, hard against her back, which somehow seemed wrong, she thought dizzily. He should feel like a block of ice, not a living, breathing human. “Sorry, Ms. Spenser,” he murmured in her ear, a soft, soothing voice. “But we can’t have you complicating our very careful plans, now, can we?” She would have said something if she could. But the stinging sensation at the side of her neck was spreading through her body, and she wondered if this was how she was going to die. If so, she wasn’t going to go without a fight. She kicked back against him, but her legs felt like rubber bands as they began to collapse beneath her, and she could hear his faint laugh in her ear. “Feisty creature, aren’t you, Ms. Spenser? Just relax, and it won’t hurt a bit.” Her elbow didn’t work either, as she tried to jab him in the stomach. Nothing worked at all, and she let herself sink down, knowing that this was the last thing she’d remember before she died. And then she knew nothing at all. 5 Ms. Genevieve Spenser was rapidly becoming a pain in the ass, Peter thought. He ought to finish what she started, toss her unconscious body over the side of the boat and let the fish have her. In the end he doubted it would matter. As long as they found identifiable traces of Harry Van Dorn’s body in the rubble of his island home the authorities would be satisfied. They wouldn’t go to that much trouble trying to ascertain if his pretty little lawyer was there too. Unless, of course, they suspected foul play. He highly doubted that—he was an expert at his job, and he seldom made mistakes. Harry Van Dorn had done a magnificent job of convincing the world what a decent, charming, humanitarian fellow he was, and most people outside of a select few would have no idea just how overdue retribution was. It was Peter’s job to see to it, and if Harry’s death was supposed to look like an accident then it would. And those were his orders. He shifted the dead weight in his arms. It would be far easier to dump her over the side than figure out what to do with her. Things had gone too far—the unpalatable fact was that she was going to have to end up dead anyway. Why complicate matters by putting it off? Having her found on the island would be neater, and when it came to his job he tended to be fastidious. The thought would have astonished his mother. He’d never been the orderly type, and chaos had suited him very well for many years. But his job required precision, attention to the smallest detail, a cool detachment that nothing could permeate. Ms. Spenser was undoubtedly going to die, whether he liked it or not, but now wasn’t the right time. He could have left her on the deck and had Renaud haul her into the cabin where he could keep an eye on her, but he never delegated work he could do himself. Besides, Renaud had his limitations, and he liked to hurt women. There was nothing he could do about Ms. Spenser’s upcoming fate, but there was no reason why she should have to suffer. After all, he was a civilized man, he mocked himself. He hauled her limp body over his shoulder. She wasn’t that bad, not compared to some of the dead weight he’d carried in his thirty-eight years. Odd, but when someone was simply unconscious they weighed less than when they were dead. It made no sense, but it was true. Or maybe it was the weight of his conscience when he had to dispose of someone. Except that he had no conscience—it had been surgically removed along with his soul years ago. Still, maybe he retained a trace of sentimentality. Otherwise he wouldn’t hesitate with the interfering Ms. Spenser, and he wouldn’t feel the random regret about her future or lack thereof. He wasn’t used to regret at all. He dumped her down on the huge bed in the main cabin, next to Harry Van Dorn’s unconscious body. She had long, pretty legs, and it was hard to forget the distracting taste of her mouth. He still hadn’t figured out why he’d kissed her. An aberration, a momentary indulgence…he wouldn’t let himself do it again. He stared down at her for a long moment. He’d killed women before, it was inevitable in his line of work. At times the female of the species could be a lot deadlier than the male. But he’d never been forced to kill someone who’d simply gotten in the way. And he didn’t want to start now, no matter how goddamn important it was. Of course, one could argue that the world would always be a better place with one less lawyer. But looking down at Genevieve Spenser’s unconscious, undeniably luscious body, he wasn’t completely sure he could make himself believe it. Genevieve came awake very slowly, letting the strange sensations wash over her. She was conscious of an odd sense of relief, quickly washed away by an unshakeable sense of entrapment. She was lying in a bed next to someone—she could hear his steady breathing, feel the weight of his body next to hers— and her panic increased. The room was shadowed, the only light at the far end, and she blinked, trying to focus, trying to get her brain to work. She was lying next to Harry Van Dorn, and her immediate reaction was fury. Until she noticed he wasn’t sleeping, he was drugged. And her hands, ankles and mouth were wrapped in duct tape. She struggled to sit up, making a muffled noise behind her makeshift gag. There was someone at the far end of the cavernous room, reading, but she couldn’t see him clearly, and he didn’t look up when she struggled to a sitting position, didn’t pay attention to the noises she was trying to make. She reached her bound hands up to try to tear away the gag, but the tape ran around the back of her neck, and her fingers couldn’t gain purchase on the slippery stuff. She made another angry sound, and the man in the shadows looked up for a moment, clearly noting that she was awake, and then went back to his book. It had been a very difficult few days, to put it mildly, and Genevieve had no intention of simply lying back down and being ignored. She swung her legs over to the side of the bed, but it was higher up than she’d thought, and she went sprawling onto the floor. The hands that pulled her up were strong and impersonal. She’d already figured out who it would be before she saw him, and she glared into Peter Jensen’s cool eyes, putting as much emotion and fury into her expression as the duct tape would allow. His faint smile didn’t help her temper. “It must be hell to be a lawyer and not be able to talk,” he said mildly. Her ankles were bound so close together that she could barely stand, and it was only with his help that she remained upright. She yanked herself away, and he let her go, not moving as she collapsed at his feet. If her mouth was free she would have bit his ankles, she thought in a red haze of fury, trying to get to her feet again. He pulled her up once more. “Don’t be tiresome, Ms. Spenser,” he said. “Behave yourself and this will all be a lot easier on you.” She wasn’t in the mood to believe him. For a moment she thought he was going to put her back on the bed, but instead he half dragged her across the room to where he’d been sitting and dropped her down on the small sofa. She reached up and clawed at the gag again, and he made a long-suffering noise. “You won’t like it if I take it off,” he said. “It’s going to hurt.” She kept pulling. So he pushed her bound hands down, into her lap, reached for the duct tape and yanked. She thought her scream would have filled the cabin and even woken her drugged client, but the only sound that came out was a choked gasp as the duct tape was ripped from her face, taking a few strands of loose hair with it. He tossed it in her lap. “Sorry,” he said, sitting across from her and picking up his book. “Sorry?” she echoed in a hoarse voice. “Sorry for what? For kidnapping me, for drugging me, for wrapping me in duct tape, you son of a bitch!” “I have another roll of tape and I’m not afraid to use it,” he said lightly. “Behave yourself, Ms. Spenser.” “You think this is funny?” Her voice was getting stronger now. “You have a pretty sick sense of humor.” His faint smile wasn’t reassuring. “So I’ve been told. I’ll leave the gag off if you sit there and be quiet. I have work to do.” “You’re an idiot.” That got his attention, though it failed to ruffle him. In the dim light his eyes looked very dark, almost empty, but she’d managed to catch his attention, and he put the book down. “I am?” Her brain was going very fast. “I know you didn’t expect to have me on board when you carried out your nasty little scheme—you tried hard enough to get rid of me. But now that I’m here, don’t you think you ought to make use of me?” He leaned back against the chair, watching her. “And how would I do that? Are you offering to join our merry band?” “Don’t be ridiculous. Any fool can see what your plan is.” “Enlighten me.” “You’ve kidnapped one of the world’s richest men. Clearly you did it for the money—you don’t have the look of a wild-eyed terrorist. Therefore you need to negotiate the terms of the ransom, and I’m your woman.” “Are you, indeed?” he murmured. “And why don’t you think I’m a wild-eyed terrorist bent on some bloody political crusade?” “You dress too well.” He laughed. It seemed to surprise him as much as it surprised her. He sounded as if he didn’t laugh very often, which was no surprise. She wouldn’t have expected extortionists to be a humorous bunch. “So whose side are you going to be on, Ms. Spenser? Mine or Harry’s?” “You want money, I want Harry safe. I imagine I can find a solution that will work for both of you. Now, why don’t you take the rest of this duct tape off me and we can negotiate. You already know I’m no physical threat to you.” “Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” he drawled, but he rose anyway, reaching in his pocket and pulling out a small knife. He leaned down to cut through the tape around her ankles, and she brought her bound hands down hard on the top of his head. Or at least she tried to. He caught her wrists in one hand while he slit the tape at her ankles, not even bothering to look up. He ripped the tape off her ankles and then his cold blue eyes met hers. “It’s a waste of time, Ms. Spenser,” he said, “and it will only annoy me. It’s a boat—there’s no place to go but over the side, and I’ve heard there are sharks in this area.” “I think I’d be safer with them,” she muttered. He cut the tape at her wrists, and she realized he was using the Swiss Army knife she’d tucked in her bra. She wasn’t going to think about how he’d found it, she was going to concentrate on how his grip on her wrists hurt, and decided if anyone was going to be shark bait it was going to be Peter Jensen. “Is Jensen really your name?” she asked when he sat down again, closing the knife and tucking it back into his pocket. “Does it matter? I’ve used any number of names. Jensen, Davidson, Wilson, Madsen.” “In other words your mother didn’t know who your father was.” The moment the words here out of her mouth she could have bit her tongue. She almost picked up the gag that lay in her lap and slapped it back over her mouth. The man sitting across from her was probably only one step removed from a sociopath, and to call his mother a whore was beyond foolish. His expression gave nothing away. “You’re not a very good lawyer, are you, Ms. Spenser? A good lawyer knows when to keep her mouth shut.” She said nothing, and after a moment the tension in the room relaxed slightly. “In fact, I know exactly who my father was, unfortunately. You wouldn’t have liked him…he had a very bad temper. Would you like some tea?” She blinked. “What?” “Would you like some tea? The particular drug I gave you tends to make your mouth feel like cotton, and being gagged doesn’t help. Since we’re about to enter negotiations, I want to be sure your mouth is in working order.” She could positively feel his glance on her lips, and she ran a nervous tongue over them, making her feel even more conspicuous. He had kissed her, hadn’t he? “I’d be happier with a drink.” “Not a good idea. On top of the drugs I gave you and your little yellow pills, you might find yourself way too vulnerable. They aren’t good for you, you know.” She shouldn’t have been surprised that he knew about her tranquilizers—it was just one more violation. “Life is stressful,” she said. “And that was before I got kidnapped and molested.” “Don’t sound so hopeful. No one’s molested you. Yet.” “This isn’t funny,” she snapped. “If being abducted and drugged isn’t being molested I don’t know what is.” “Oh. I thought you were referring to something a bit more sexual.” She blushed. It was the oddest sensation. She wasn’t used to blushing, and his drawled comment was casual, not suggestive, and yet she could feel the warmth staining her cheeks. She had pale skin, and she’d just been pumped full of God knows how many drugs, and it must be a reaction, she thought nervously, and he wouldn’t even notice… “Ms. Spenser, are you blushing?” “A lawyer doesn’t blush, Mr. Jensen,” she said severely. “Now, why don’t you tell me what it is you want, and I’m certain we can come to an agreement.” He said nothing. He rose and crossed the room, pushing open a hidden cupboard that exposed a small refrigerator. When he returned he put the icy can of Tab in her hand, and she almost kissed the sweating fuchsia sides. He’d already popped it open, a good thing, because her hands were shaking as she lifted it to her mouth. “Aren’t you going to worry that I’m drugging you again?” He sat back down. “I don’t care,” she said, drinking half the can in one gulp, letting the cold liquid slide down her throat. She closed her eyes and let out a blissful sigh. She would have welcomed anything cold and wet, but this was almost enough to make her not want to kill him. Almost. She opened her eyes again, to see him watching her. “So what do you want?” she asked again. He hesitated, and he didn’t seem like a man who would ever hesitate. “I’m afraid there’s nothing you can offer me, Ms. Spenser. I have a job to do.” “And what is that?” “My orders are to kill Harry Van Dorn,” he said, his voice flat. “And anyone else who gets in the way.” She was tough, he had to grant her that. Only the quick blink of her eyes betrayed any kind of reaction to his bald statement. She believed him, though. She was too smart not to. “Why?” “I don’t know the particulars, and I prefer it that way. I’m very good at what I do, and part of the reason is that I never ask why. I figure if I’m sent to take care of someone then he must have done something to deserve it.” “Who sends you? Who gave you these orders?” she demanded. “It wouldn’t mean anything if I told you. Believe it or not, we’re the good guys.” “The good guys?” she scoffed. “And you’re going to kill a harmless dilettante like Harry Van Dorn in cold blood?” “I assure you he’s not quite as harmless as he seems,” Peter said. “And what about me?” “What about you?” “You said you were told to kill Harry Van Dorn and anyone who got in the way. Does that include me?” He should have lied. People were better off if they didn’t know they were going to die. They got panicky, did unexpected things and made his job that much harder. “Would you believe me if I told you no?” She shook her head. “Then trust me, you aren’t one of the good guys. I’ve never done anything remotely worth getting killed over. And I don’t particularly want to die.” “Few people do.” “So how am I supposed to change your mind?” He considered it for a moment, as he’d been considering it for the last several hours. “I don’t think you can. For what it’s worth, I promise it won’t hurt. You won’t even know what’s happening.” “I don’t think so.” She set the empty Tab can down beside her and met his gaze quite calmly. “If you’re going to murder me you’re going to have to work hard to do it, and I have no intention of letting go easily. I’m going to kick and scream and fight all the way.” “It’s a losing battle, Ms. Spenser.” He was amazed at how calm he sounded. As if silencing unfortunate witnesses and accomplices was a normal part of his duties as one of the best-trained operatives in the Committee. He was the best marksman, brilliant with a knife and in hand-to-hand combat, and he never showed or felt emotion. The Iceman, as always, both in temperament and his specialty in putting unwanted evil on ice. But Ms. Spenser wasn’t evil. This was the first time he’d ever made the mistake of letting someone unwitting get caught in the careful trap he’d set, and he was going to have to live with the consequences. They were in the middle of one of the most complicated operations in his memory—Harry Van Dorn was up to something and all the resources and manpower of the Committee had been unable to uncover anything more than a few hints. Harry was a control freak—this wouldn’t go further without him overseeing it. They needed Harry on ice, permanently, with no interference, so they could find out what the hell the Rule of Seven was, and how they could stop it. He couldn’t afford to let her go…she had already seen too much, knew too much. She was a smart woman—give her time and she could put together far too much information on the Committee. She’d jeopardize the lives of the men and women who risked everything. It was an equation with only one solution, whether he liked it or not. “I specialize in losing battles,” she said. “I’m not going to die, and neither is Harry. You, I’m not so sure about.” She rose, stretching with all the intensity of a lazy cat, and smiled at him with utter sweetness. “In the meantime I think I’ll take a shower and change into something more comfortable, and then we can continue our negotiations.” He didn’t move. The door to the cabin was locked, and she wouldn’t be able to get very far. “We have nothing to negotiate, Ms. Spenser,” he reminded her. “I disagree. There’s a great deal of money at stake here, and if you’re deluded enough to think Harry’s some kind of evil monster, then your information is wrong. I have excellent instincts when it comes to people, and Harry Van Dorn might be a horny, superstitious, spoiled baby, but he’s miles removed from anything evil. You wouldn’t be killing one innocent bystander, you’d be killing two, and I don’t think you want that. Not when the alternative is so much money your mysterious employers would never be able to find you.” “They’d find me,” he said. “And everyone on this boat knows the mission. I’m sorry, but even if I wanted to let you go I couldn’t. Renaud or one of the others would see to things, and they tend to be a bit more… brutal.” He saw the nervous shift in her eyes and felt a pang of something. It couldn’t be regret or guilt, he didn’t allow himself either of those emotions, no matter what the circumstances. “If you say so,” she said airily. “That doesn’t mean I won’t try. Tell me, is this door locked or can I come and go as I please?” “It’s locked.” “Then please unlock it,” she said, more a demand than a request. “I’d like to go back to my room and change my clothes.” He knew what she was going to try, probably even before she did. It would have worked under normal circumstances, but she had no idea who she was dealing with, and that her body was telegraphing her plans loud and clear. Best to get it over with, he thought, rising. “I don’t think so,” he said. And caught her as she tried to jump him, turning her easily, twisting her arm behind her back. A second later she was down on the floor, his knee in the center of her chest, and she was staring up at him with mute shock. Madame Lambert set her encrypted PDA down on the table beside her untouched glass of wine. She prided herself on being able to make the hard decisions and do them in public—she was enjoying a solitary dinner at a quiet little restaurant not far from the office, and she had no trouble sending and receiving the information she needed. No, she wasn’t enjoying her solitary meal, she amended, picking up the glass of very fine wine and taking a sip. Right now she wasn’t enjoying much of anything. She had just sent orders to Peter Jensen that he would have to kill the young woman who’d gotten in the way. And it made her sick inside. Peter would do it, of course, no questions asked. And he’d do it in as humane a fashion as possible. But each death, no matter how justified, left a psychic wound that never healed over. The death of an innocent would be far worse. She’d known Peter too long to be happy about that. But they were running out of time, and Harry Van Dorn would never give up a thing, no matter what they did to him. The only chance of derailing things was for him to die. That was the problem with sociopaths like Harry, Isobel Lambert thought, taking another sip of wine. Torture was useless when the victim enjoyed pain, and even someone with Peter’s expertise wouldn’t be able to break him. Besides, once again there was the price to be paid for committing such acts. A clean execution was one thing. Torture was another, and there was a limit to what the human psyche could take. She was afraid Peter Jensen was reaching his limit. Killing the girl might put him over the top. But she had no choice. And neither did he. 6 Genevieve couldn’t catch her breath. Even on that padded, carpeted floor, he’d thrown her so hard the wind had been knocked from her, and his knee on her chest didn’t help. She gasped, and then the air came back, and with it her anger. She moved fast enough, catching his ankle and attempting to dislodge him, but he was stronger, harder than anyone she’d ever practiced with. And this wasn’t practice. Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/anne-stuart/cold-as-ice-39773405/?lfrom=688855901) на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.