Wilderness of Mirrors (38 page)

There was a stunned silence on the other end of the line.

“Herre Mortensen?” Eirik asked again.

His employer was incredulous. “But she isn’t…I mean I didn’t think she… ” Eirik waited patiently until his boss finished with, “Keep her there, Eirik, do you understand? Do what is necessary, but if you value your life, you won’t lose her. I’ll get there as soon as I can.”

“Don’t you want to know where I… ” Eirik began, but a muffled click stopped any further conversation.

He pocketed the cell and thought about the woman’s long legs. A pity he couldn’t hurt her. He liked long legs and liked them even more when their owners struggled and screamed as he broke them.

Mads Mortensen turned his back on his desk and stared at the painting behind it. It wasn’t priceless like the ones from the Gardner theft. It wasn’t even very good; after all, he was no painter. But it did capture her likeness. Remarkably so, he conceded.

A voice interrupted his musings. “Your tea, sir.” It was his ever-punctual valet, a man as silent as the steam drifting off the porcelain teapot.

“Leave it on my desk.”

The service touched down with a whisper of compressed air. “Would you like anything else, sir?”

“No. I have everything I need.” As Mads considered with a faint air of surprise, it was finally true.

He’d found her at last.

And this time, no one would be there to rescue her.

His valet exited, aware that Mortensen’s usually dour expression had undergone a subtle change. The valet shuddered as he closed the door to the opulent office, sincerely hoping Mortensen’s favorable mood had nothing to do with the ethereal woman whose green eyes stared out longingly from their canvas prison.

I
t was late when Christian returned to his trawler’s cabin. He had stopped in at a pub to swap stories and demolish a plate of fish and chips until exhaustion finally caught up with him. Yet now, several hours after he’d returned, he still tossed in the confines of his cabin’s bunk.

Light ebbed and flowed in front of his eyelids. Yellow and orange snowflakes twirled outward from the center of his pupils, opening like the petals of a rose. He reached for one, but his hand came away empty. Undaunted, he extended his fingers toward another.

He stopped trying when it formed an eye.

Green and perfectly oval, it reproduced itself, becoming wide enough to dominate any remaining space. Unchanging and unblinking, twin orbs now stared back at him. Christian struggled to look away, but the eyes held him captive.

His mouth grew acrid and he felt an edgy, claustrophobic sensation steal over him. His breath shortened and his heart thudded as he tried to escape the gaze.

Panic squeezed his throat. His feet hit the ground, firm and cold beneath him, and he struggled to wade forward. The eyes were calling for him to halt. But he dared not. Not until they were far away, distant enough not to stare into his soul. He placed one foot down, then the other ahead of it.

The sound of breaking glass and the thump of his body smashing against the floor woke him. Shaken, he looked around, relieved to find he was in his dark, but familiar cabin, the web-like shackles of sleep broken.

Heart still pounding, Christian untangled himself and flipped on a light. He made his way to the galley, loosening fear-stiffened limbs, and reached for the bottle he hadn’t touched in fifteen days. He unstoppered it with rattled fingers. Then lifted the single malt to his lips and drained several long gulps before self-loathing stopped him and he tossed it down.

What the fuck was wrong with him?

At sea, he was fine. Busy, confident, almost happy. At least enough to avoid the numbing comfort of whisky. But on land when his men headed for the comforts of flesh? On land he was alone with his nightmares.

“Come drinking wi’ us, Cap’n,” they had urged.

Occasionally, he had indulged them. But it was always the same. He’d find himself alone with a beautiful woman, desperate for her touch, and the eyes would come. That’s when he’d started drinking. Sometimes it worked and he had a few hours of respite. But when he slept, they’d resurface along with ghastly visions.

Visions that made him scream.

Visions that woke his companions.

Christian could see their pale, dawn-touched faces, even now. Sheets clutched to their chests, eyes wide and fearful, they’d murmur a few words and leave before the sun fully rose.

But that hadn’t been the worst of it.

Staring out over the darkened harbor, Christian rubbed his wind-burned face with calloused hands.

There had been one woman, a Swedish accountant with golden skin, pouting lips and provocative eyes. They’d met in The Blow Hole, one of Lerwick’s outdoor beer gardens, and ended up back at his flat.

He hadn’t been drunk, but it didn’t matter. When they’d slept at last, the eyes had come, and with them a snake. He’d finally come awake to the sensation of liquid dripping down his face and chest. He was standing, shards of a broken vase surrounding him, in an ever-growing puddle of water.

“What happened?” he’d asked.

She was on the other side of the room, naked, shaking, a chair between them. “Christian?” she’d breathed uncertainly.

He had tried to smile, to reach for her, but she gathered up a blanket and wrapped it hastily around her torso.

“What’s the matter?”

Her blue eyes had sprung wide. “What’s the matter? You tried to strangle me!” She managed with great effort not to scream the last word, her eyes darting back and forth to his cheek.

He’d fingered his face, drawing his hand away, sticky with blood. The misty memory was coming back…she’d clawed his cheek and he’d grabbed her wrist. But there was something more…

He had picked her up and carried her toward his bed. But the room whirled around him, and it took him precarious moments to regain his balance. She was laughing in delight, her arms wrapped around his broad shoulders, her tongue trailing against his collarbone. He lurched toward his goal and chanced to kick a silver torc lying by the chair. It spun lazily and rested upright after a few slow turns.

Then the coil of cryptic symbols brightened and the torc lunged with the speed of a snake. Intangible fangs bit into his leg. As the venom dragged bitter cold through his body, he collapsed headlong onto the stone floor.

“You were… ” his companion paused, “screaming in your sleep. I tried to wake you… ” Her voice faltered again briefly. “I…I scratched you when you moved. Your voice…it was…not like it is. You weren’t…well, you were speaking Norwegian. You called me…Sigrid.”

“What?”

His genuine surprise seemed to relax her somewhat. “You were shouting at me, saying that it was my fault, saying that I’d hurt him.”

An image burst before Christian’s eyes. One of a small boy, head bent, arm clutched in pain. But Christian didn’t know such a child. “Hurt who?” he had growled; she was making no sense and his head was aching.

Her eyes were slits of sudden rage. “How the hell should I know? You grabbed me! It hurt, so I slapped you and that’s when you tried to choke me!” She touched the red marks on her neck in illustration. “If I hadn’t been able…able to reach your stupid vase…I’d be…I’d be… ” She’d broken down completely then - sobbing as she dressed, teary eyes never leaving him - and backed out of his flat.

Since that night, he had kept his distance from women.

Women?

Fiona!
The name struck him with the force of a nor’easter, and he scrambled to pull the mobile from his discarded overalls. He called her number, depressed when it went straight to voicemail.

“Fiona, it’s me, Christian. I’m so sorry, lass. I forgot to… ” He hit end when he realized it was too late for apologies. Picking up the half-empty bottle of Oban instead, he drained the rest of its golden measure.

Lunch had been a nightmare, and not for the first time, Fiona was ready to quit and disappear to a place where she could start over. No more pity, no more Sunday morning therapy sessions, no more sleeping on the floor of the inherited Brownstown because being on a mattress held only one memory.

The salmon had gone over like a lead balloon, a party of six had canceled due to last minute Wicked tickets, and the sous chef had run out of cream. Speeding across the pier and down a side lane toward the grocer’s, Fiona swore a blue streak when she skidded on the snow. “Fuck Christian Ollason and his goddamned salmon!”

Her arms windmilled, and when she finally regained balance, she caught sight of the blond stalker from her now-distant morning. He was a few yards behind her, feigning interest in an outdoor postcard stand, and he didn’t seem to realize she’d seen him.

Her anger evaporated as she silently inventoried her options. She had taken a shortcut between two brick office buildings, and the doors facing her were locked. Going back wasn’t possible, and the alley to her left ended at a desolate dock.

Her throat tightened.

Until she remembered the little water taxi which catered to locals wanting to avoid traffic.

She glanced at her watch and realized the boat just might be there. Spinning down the passage, she kicked off her boots and broke into a run. Footsteps sounded behind her, lending her speed she didn’t know she possessed.

The pounding grew louder, and she could almost feel the man’s breath on her neck when the taxi popped into view. It was waiting, buttoned against the chill of the day with a plastic top. She leapt through the triangular flap and sprawled beside the shuttle’s startled driver. “Go! Someone’s following me.”

The driver–a comely Irishman of about sixty–took one look at her shoeless feet and another at the menacing figure bearing down on them. “Mary, Mother of God. Right. Now hold on. He’ll not get an Irish girl if I can help it.”

They cleared the harbor in a haze of smoke. A few long moments later, Fiona straightened, her body shaking with cold and fear. “What makes you think I’m Irish?” she asked, holding first one foot, then the other, in an effort to regain warmth and nerves.

He tilted his head as if she were pulling his leg. “You were speaking Gaelic, love.”

Fiona’s skin prickled. Gaelic? Why now?

Her bag answered her thoughts with an electronic version of Wagner’s Flight of the Valkyries, and she stooped to retrieve her cell. There was a message. She pressed play and listened dumbstruck to the deep, sexy voice that poured forth.

The taxi driver, hearing every word, gazed at her with a gleam in his eye. “He sounds like someone who could kick the ass of that blond Nazi back there. Would you be heading to see him?”

Brushing an errant piece of hair from her mouth, Fiona shook her head numbly. “Me? No…he…I mean…he’s Scottish…as in…he lives in Scotland.”

Logan Airport loomed into view, and the driver shook his head despondently. “Ah well, that’s where they usually live. We’re here. Would you like me to call the police?”

“I… ” Fiona sucked her lower lip between her teeth. What the hell was she going to do? She couldn’t go back to the restaurant. What would she tell the police? They’d shake their heads in that knowing way. Trauma from her kidnapping. Thinks she’s seeing one of the fishermen who used her like joy riders in a stolen Porsche. “No. I’ll be fine. He won’t know which terminal I’ve gone to.”

“Okay then. Take care of yourself.” With that, he offered Fiona a hand, which she politely declined, and she stepped out onto the airport dock.

“Thank you.” She held out a fifty-dollar bill.

He grinned at the generous payment. “Well, you’ve obviously got money and from the sound of his voice, you won’t be needing your clothes!” He waved a final time and disappeared before his words could sink in, leaving Fiona speechless beside a chugging bus.

“Where to?” the driver bellowed.

She stepped up onto the bus and glanced out at the snowy terminals. Far. She had to get far away from the man with the gun. “I don’t know…how about British Air…Departures?”

“Right, no bag?”

She shook her head. “No bag. No shoes.”

The driver tugged the door closed with a contented grunt. “Well, sit down, it’s slippery and I don’t want you to fall.”

S
he bought her ticket with cash from her deceased father’s account.

That way her stalker would lose her trail.

Or perhaps not, she countered, sitting in first class so she could monitor everyone who came aboard.

Why had Christian suddenly called her? Why had he broken that barrier? She picked up her cell and listened once more to his message.

“Fiona, it’s me. I’m sorry, lass, I forgot to…”

His voice was heady with compassion, disquiet and ale. Was he a drinker? Did he too struggle against unseen enemies?

Lass. She’d never been called that. Most words, yes. Not that one. It was new, snow-like with freshness. She could answer to lass. It held no promises, no threats.

His lass.

Or not. Did he have a wife? Girlfriend? Boyfriend?

She stared out into 32,000 feet of blackness and saw something else. Something unbidden.

A man, tall and shirtless, stared through a stone casement until the whisper of silk shifted his attention. From over his shoulder, he watched a woman approach. Her fingers slid around his muscled torso, and he closed his eyes.

The raven-haired lady pressed her mouth against the plates of his spine. “What troubles you?”

He pulled her hands tight to his chest and rested his head against the curve of her forehead. “Nothing. Well, nothing of import,” he amended.

“Tell me.”

He inhaled, deepening the hollows between his cheekbones and jaw. “I feel empty, like all the time and effort spent getting to this point meant more to me than victory. We are home now, freed from war at last, and yet I feel edgy. Restless.”