Night and Day (24 page)

“No, I believe she managed to trick her.”

“Good.” She had a second thought. “Or not so good. She'll be angry. She'll want to do something terrible to her.”

“I don't doubt it,” Jock said. “But Eve has Quinn, and she has a hell of a lot of strength on her own. I believe she could face down the devil himself.”

“Herself,” Cara whispered.

Jock looked at her, then nodded. “Herself.”

“And she shouldn't have to face Natalie. That's my job. She did everything to save me. I can't let it happen again.”

“We'll talk about it later.” Jock looked straight ahead. “You're not thinking straight right now. We'll go into it once were out of Russia, and you're safe.”

“I'm thinking straight,” Cara said. “Eve tried to save me. You tried to save me. It's time I did something for myself.”

Jock looked at her and shook his head. “Let it go. I don't need this right now.”

She nodded. “I'll let it go.”

“Until you decide to resurrect it.” He made a face. “I know you too well, Cara.”

“I'll let it go,” she repeated. “Could we call Eve now?”

“I believe that's an excellent idea. It will take your mind off things I prefer you not to dwell on.”

A man in a black-leather jacket falling to the floor of the carousel, his neck at an odd angle.

“Aye,” Jock said, his gaze on her face. “That and many other things.” He was dialing his phone. “And you need to know that she's safe and well.” He put the phone on speaker. “Eve, tell Cara where you are so that it will put her mind at ease.”

“At the moment, we've just landed at Helsinki. It's only an hour from Moscow, and we can come back if you need us.” Eve rushed on, “You have Cara? She's safe.”

“Not as safe as you are. But she will be, once we get out of Moscow.” He looked at Cara. “Most of the roads will be blocked, so I'll try to take her over the hills to the north. I'll let you know when we've reached somewhere we can be picked up.” He handed Cara the phone. “Cara wants to talk to you.”

“Eve?” Cara rushed on, “Be careful of Natalie. She'll want to hurt you. I think she probably does anyway, but she'll be so angry now.”

“Did she harm you, Cara?”

“No, I'm fine. But be careful, don't do anything to make her more angry.”

“I'm afraid we're past that point of no return now,” Eve said. “And I don't care as long as you're safe. So pay attention to Jock and let him get you home to me.”

“I'll pay attention. He won't let me do anything else. Good-bye, Eve.” She handed the phone back to Jock.

“I'll let you know if we need a pickup,” Jock said. “Keep in touch.” He hung up and looked at Cara. “As I told her, it's not going to be easy getting out of the city. We're going to have to do some hiking.”

She remembered what he had told Eve. “Hills?” Cara repeated. “You believe they won't expect us to go over the hills?”

“It's a chance we have to take. We're safer than on the roads. We're going to tackle the area where the tourist department built ski resorts at the edge of the city. The mountains were too far away for them, so they built their own winter-sport centers. A few of them were pretty impressive, and I've zeroed on one that's promising. Lascovic Ski Resort. It's been closed for the last eighteen months. A few ski runs, but they mainly took advantage of the natural hiking and sledding trails. It's near Khimki.”

“Promising?”

“You'll see. Though I'm hoping they'll think we might have gone on the plane with Eve. But I can't take any chances. Kaskov is going to button this city down. He's had decades to bring his bribes and influence peddling to state of the art in every government bureaucracy in Moscow. I imagine your photo will be all over the place.”

“Not yours? When I asked Natalie about you, she said she didn't know who you were. So maybe you'll be safe.”

“I'll bet she knows who I am now,” he said dryly. “Ivan Sabak will have asked quite a few questions when Natalie's plot was blown. Someone will remember seeing me at the park the day before.”

Yes, someone would remember Jock. How could they not remember him?

And that would mean his danger would be even greater.

“When do we leave?”

“We're on our way. I've got a change of clothes for us and equipment in the car. It wouldn't be unusual for a brother to take his little sister on a trip up there.”

“You said they might recognize you.”

“Then I'll deal with it.”

A man's body in a black-leather jacket falling to the floor of the carousel.

He nodded as he saw her expression. “And I'll deal with that, too. Because I have no choice. But not until we both have a chance to assess the damage.”

She didn't want to deal with it. She wanted to ignore it, to block it out.

He was shaking his head. “That would mean giving you up, and I won't do that.” His gaze returned to the street. “So make up your mind, you have to face it. We both have to face it. That's just the way things are. I would have liked it to have gone differently, but it didn't happen…”

KASKOV ESTATE

MOSCOW

“This is the man?” Natalie gazed in fury down at the photo. “Who is he?”

“We think his name is Jock Gavin. We found a few vendors at the park who had security cameras on their booths and had shots of him on the day before the exchange.” Sabak said savagely, “I'd like to slice that face to pieces.”

“How do you know what his name is?”

“I checked out Eve Duncan and the people who were on the MacDuff treasure hunt. Jock Gavin was one of them. He's supposed to be very good.”

She looked down at the photo. “He was good enough to make a fool of you. How could you let that happen?” she asked furiously. “Not only was Cara's guard killed, but she was whisked away before your sniper could finish his job. You kept telling me you had everything covered.”

“I did have everything covered. It shouldn't have happened. But I don't believe that Cara or Jock Gavin left with Duncan. Not according to my informants at the airports. They must be somewhere in the city.”

“But I was still left with a dead body that had no connection with either Cara or Eve Duncan. Now I have to find a way to explain that away to my father. Do you know how difficult that's going to be?”

“At least we have the chest with the coins.”

“Do we?” She strode toward the front door. “Go to the car and bring that box in here. I want to see it. Everything else has gone wrong. I want to make sure that the chest isn't another mistake.” A moment later, she watched him wrestle with the heavy box and drag it into the foyer. Her nails were digging into her palms as Sabak opened the wooden box, then the bronze chest. She walked forward as his hand dipped into the coins. “It seems all right,” he said. “You said there were even some other coins like that drachma.”

“Like it, not necessarily of equal value.” Her voice was trembling with anger. “I think she wanted me to make the comparison.” She bent over the coins and began to dig through them. “I think she might have—” She stopped as her fingers touched the bottom of the chest. Pure rage seared through her, so strong that she couldn't speak for a moment. “That
bitch
.” She looked down at the false bottom. “I'm going to cut her throat. She's made a fool of me. She's going to die.”

“We don't have the gold?” Sabak asked.

“You fool, of course we don't.” Keep control, don't alienate Sabak. She was going to need him. “And I don't believe that it's just a question of her keeping a portion of the treasure for herself. I think she did a substitution on these coins.” She could feel the heat sting her cheeks as she looked down at the coins. How dare Eve Duncan make a fool of her like this? Natalie always won. She couldn't remember a time when she hadn't come out on top.

Except this time.

Except with Eve Duncan.

“What are we going to do?” Sabak said.

“We're going to get what we bargained for,” Natalie said. “And we're going to teach her that she can't cheat us.” She slammed the chest shut. “In the most painful way possible.” She turned to face him. “You said you thought Jock Gavin and Cara were still in Moscow?”

“That's what my informant said at the airport where Eve Duncan took off. Eve Duncan, Joe Quinn, Jane MacGuire, and Seth Caleb. No Gavin or the kid. As soon as I heard that, I spread the word that everyone be on the lookout for them.”

“And you're going to find them,” she said sharply. “We're going to find Cara, then we'll see how clever Eve thinks she is. I'll show her that she can't try to make a fool of me.”

“I'll find them,” Sabak said. “This may be a big city, but it's a city that Kaskov controls. I'll hear, and I'll catch them. What are you going to do?”

“I'll take these coins in to some expert and have them appraised. Just to be certain. Then I'll talk to my father and see what I can do to explain away this nightmare.”

“Don't involve me,” Sabak said curtly. “I'm not going to go up against Kaskov unless I have to do it.”

“I won't involve you,” she said sarcastically. “Even though you managed to mess up a simple job that anyone should have been able to accomplish. I'll protect you.” She looked him in the eyes. “And you'll protect me, or I'll make sure that my father finds out ‘accidentally' that you were the one who was careless with his granddaughter. You wouldn't like his reaction to that. He regards Cara as his little pet, and I can point in the direction of Eve Duncan, or I can point at you. Do you understand?”

His lips tightened. “Yes.”

“Good. Then we won't have any problems.” She smiled. “And there's no reason why we can't still enjoy ourselves.”

“There's a reason.”

He turned and walked out the door.

She could not remember any man's walking out on her like that, she thought furiously. She had always been in control of any relationship. Why was she having trouble controlling Sabak?

Calm down. She had obviously made mistakes. She would go to Sabak later and make it right.

And she would have to be extremely careful in his handling from now on.

But she couldn't worry about it now. She had to concentrate on handling the most important person in her world … and it wasn't going to be easy.

*   *   *

“You're angry with me, Daddy.” Her hand tightened on her phone as she made her voice tearful. “And you have a right to be. I was only thinking of Cara. She was so sad because you had left her and gone off on this trip. I just wanted to cheer her up.”

“And you got her shot at, then taken by that bitch, Duncan.” His voice was grim. “What were you thinking? You kept telling me that you were so worried about her. It doesn't look like it, Natalie.”

“How can you say that? I'm so afraid of what that woman will do to her.” Her voice was panicky. “She actually had a sniper shooting at her. That poor little girl, just having a good time on the carousel, then—”

“But that bullet didn't hit her,” he interrupted. “So it was probably a scare tactic. She thought she could intimidate you.” He added coldly, “Well, she can't intimidate me. If you get a message from Duncan wanting money or just a general threat, turn it over to me. I'll deal with her.”

“But she wasn't talking about money before, she was just terribly angry.” Her voice lowered to a whisper. “I think she may have taken Cara to show me she could. But I think she intends to kill her, Daddy.”

“No,” he said sharply. “I won't let her do that. She took something of mine that I valued. I'll not let her keep it. I'm going after her.”

“Thank you. I knew I could count on you. But you may have to resign yourself that Cara is—”

“I never resign myself to anything. How do you think I've managed to stay on top? I can't leave Beijing right now. I'm in the middle of negotiations. But I'm going to call Sabak and tell him to pull out all the stops. I'll make sure that no one is going to be allowed to take Cara from the city.”

“I already told him that, Daddy.”

“He'll pay attention to me. You're only my daughter.”

Only
his daughter?

She smothered the rage that phrase ignited. “That's true, but I had to do what I could. When will you be back?”

“Two days. And by that time, Sabak may have found her.” He added viciously, “And skewered that bitch, Duncan, and roasted her.” He hung up.

Only his daughter. Would he have spoken so disparagingly about her before Cara had come on the scene? His entire reaction to her news had that same tone. No sympathy, just impatience. She'd done something that had deprived him of Cara, and he was angry and wanted only to get her back.

No time for Natalie.

No acknowledgment of her importance in his life.

That had to be changed, altered, erased as if it had never been.

And to do that, Cara had to be tragically killed before Kaskov got back to Moscow. Then everything would magically return to where it was before.

But just in case she might have lost him permanently, she had to see about Cira's gold and her chances of retrieving triumph from failure.

And punishing Eve Duncan for making a fool of her. Her father's idea of roasting Eve had definite merit, but she could do better than that. She had only to study what could hurt her the most, then go execute it. In fact, she already had an idea in the works.

But only two days to do it, so she wouldn't have to dodge around her father's machinations on his return.

She could manage it. She just had to solidify her base and go into high speed.