Now You See Him(16)

"Daniel's a very generous man," Francey murmured. "How did you happen to meet him?"

"Mutual friends," he said blandly.

She was too sharp. He had a long, involved, totally believable scenario he was prepared to spin for her, and he chose not to bother. She wasn't really expecting explanations, and one of the first mistakes people usually made in his line of work was to lie too elaborately when they wanted to cover up.

"So there're the cliffs and the town," he said instead. "I'm not sure I'm ready for souvenir shopping. What are our other options?"

"I think we've already had enough of the bay," she said, a small, wistful smile curving her mouth. "But we could drive to the dunes on the west end of the island. Or we could do all of the above, ending with lunch in town."

Where there was a town, there would be public telephones. He needed to check in with Cardiff, much as he disliked the notion, and he certainly wasn't going to trust either the phones at Belle Reste or anything as easily compromised as Cecil's cellular phone. "Sounds perfect," he said, flashing his practiced smile.

He was unprepared for her reaction. She stared at him, her mouth open slightly in amazement, then swerved just as she was about to go sailing into a ditch.

"Stupid," she muttered under her breath.

He was inclined to agree, not in the mood for another car accident, but he didn't say so. "What's wrong?"

She kept her face averted, eyes staring at the cement roadway in front of them. "You look different when you smile," she said flatly, surprising him.

He knew he did. It was one of his stocks in trade, a boyish, engaging grin that could seduce the most hardhearted of females. And despite his initial, logical suspicions, he was coming to realize that Frances Neeley was one of the most softhearted creatures he'd seen in a long time. Did that mean he wanted to seduce her?

"Yes, well, I'm not always so grumpy," he said easily, brushing past the awkward moment. "I can really be quite charming when I set my mind to it."

"I'll just bet you can," she murmured, mostly to herself.

He glanced at her again, at the slender wrists, the narrow ankles, the clean, smooth lines of her beneath the sundress. She even had nice breasts, fuller than her slender body would suggest. He could spend a pleasant time between those long, shapely legs and have ample justification for it. Women liked to talk after they made love, and they babbled on without paying any attention to discretion or common sense.

He might, he thought, feeling his body react as he went with the fantasy. There was only one problem. What if he was wrong? What if she were everything he'd first suspected? What if he had sex with her. And then had to kill her?

He didn't have much of a soul left, after some fifteen years in the business. But no matter who and what she was, no matter how evil she turned out to be, he didn't think what little kernel of decency still resided inside his burned-out hull of a body would survive. And then he might as well be dead himself.

Very deliberately he toned down the wattage of his smile, keeping it distant, friendly, deliberately asexual. She wasn't looking at him now; her attention on the roadway, and he had the notion that she was almost afraid of him. Wiser than she realized, he thought. She should be afraid of him.

He pushed his sunglasses up on his forehead, surveying the lush countryside around them as she sped forward. "Give me a tour of the island," he said, "and I promise to be the perfect tourist."

She did glance at him then. At his innocent smile, guileless blue eyes. And it was with chill despair that he realized she didn't believe him. But did that distrust come from a fanatic's belief in evil? Or an innocent victim's fear?

But she covered up her doubt as easily as he covered up his duplicity, and if her smile wasn't as unguarded as it should have been, most people wouldn't notice.

But he wasn't most people.



"You botched it." The voice on the other end of the line was flat, cold, the Irish lilt a chilling counterpoint.

"We could have taken her out anytime during the past month or so and been gone before anyone realized it," the man protested, clutching the telephone in one meaty fist. "When you do two at once you run greater risks."

"Don't second-guess me, Seamus. I'd be there myself if I could, and you know it. I send my most trusted men, and what happens?"

"We'll get them. Both of them. It'll just take time…"

"It's taken too much time already!"

"You didn't give the word until two days ago. The accident caused too much suspicion. We'd best wait a week or so before we try again."

"Are you a coward, Seamus? Afraid you boys will be caught?"