Now You See Him(17)

His fist tightened on the black telephone. "No one calls me a coward. They'll be dead in a week. You have my word on it."

"I hope that's good enough, Seamus. For your sake." And the connection was severed.

Seamus stared at the phone for a moment, then began to curse. There weren't many people he was afraid of, in this life or the next. But the chill, disembodied voice half a world away terrified him as no one else's could. Francey Neeley was going to go up in a blaze so huge they'd see it over in Ireland.

And her buddy, the Cougar, was going with her. Or his own life wouldn't be worth living.



Seven days later, Francey could feel Michael's eyes on her from behind his mirrored sunglasses as she sipped from her second glass of wine. She didn't know whether he was passing judgment or not. She didn't care. She'd tried tranquilizers the first few weeks after Patrick's bloody death, then given them up when they made her too sleepy. An occasional extra glass of wine tended to take the edge off when she was feeling nervous, paranoid, worried.

There was a gentle trade wind blowing off the Caribbean as she sat outside Marky's Cafe, and she lifted her face slightly, reveling in the breeze. She ought to be getting used to him by now. He'd been on St. Anne's for more than a week, and this was the fourth time they'd come to Marky's for lunch. But instead of getting more comfortable with him, she found her uneasiness growing.

Maybe it was as simple as the fact that she was attracted to him. Overwhelmingly so, when she'd thought she would never be interested in men or sex again. She'd realized it early on, with the feel of his surprisingly muscular arm beneath the loose white suit, with his dazzling smile that had an almost nuclear meltdown capacity. She'd realized it even more during the quiet moments, during their long drives in the absurd red sports car, with their companionable silences and easy talk about nothing whatsoever.

She didn't want to be attracted to him. She preferred safe friendship to the hot spice of desire that trickled through her when she least expected it. She tried to concentrate on her paranoia. Every time they went out driving she had the absolute certainty they were being followed. There was nothing to base that fear on. It was never the same car, nor the same driver, they were never bothered, never tailed too closely. When she was being reasonable she told herself it was simply that the tourist season was heating up. More strangers on the road. She wasn't often reasonable.

When she didn't think about who was watching them, she tried to think about whether or not she should trust him. She had absolutely no reason not to. But something kept her holding back, even as she smiled and laughed with him.

For instance, the photograph. Marky hired a down-on-his-luck artist to take photos of the tourists. It was a lucrative sideline, and Andre was very subtle about it. So subtle, in fact, that Michael never even noticed his picture was being taken, and Michael was the sort of man who noticed things.

She'd stopped Andre from offering it to him. On a deceptive trip to the ladies' room she'd taken him aside and asked for the photo herself. Andre was French and worldly-wise. He'd simply nodded, and Michael never knew of the photo's existence.

There was no reason why he should mind. Why he wouldn't want his picture taken. He was exactly who he seemed to be, a weary, wounded man, recovering slowly in the bright Caribbean sunlight, a man with charm and sensitivity, a harmless, gentle man who probably didn't view her in a sexual light at all. Who probably never lay awake at night listening to the sound of the waves outside, to the wind through the trees, to the heat and longing that swept through the house like a mistral, making her dream of skin and sweat and muscle and…

"Penny for your thoughts," he said, watching her. "I do believe you're blushing, Francey. They must be highly erotic thoughts. Is there someone here…?" He glanced around them, at the locals clustered inside at the bar, at the middle-aged couples near the door.

"Not erotic," she said firmly, looking at his hands on the green bottle of Dutch beer. Long-fingered, deft hands. Narrow palms. With scars. "I was thinking about what's on our agenda for this afternoon."

He raised a questioning eyebrow behind the mirrored sunglasses. "Don't you want to go swimming? You've promised me the water is absolutely tepid. If you'd rather not…"

"It's not the water, it's my bathing suit," she said flatly.

He waited patiently for an explanation, his hand still on the beer. That was one of the things she liked most about him. And found the most irritating. His seemingly inexhaustible patience. It always ended up with her saying more than she needed or wanted to.

"I didn't expect to enjoy myself when I came down here," she continued. "So I didn't pack a bathing suit. I bought one once I realized…well, once I realized how nice the water was." She was going to say once she realized she wanted to live after all, but she'd stopped herself in time. After all, Michael Dowd was a virtual stranger. A sympathetic, kindly, attractive stranger, but not one who needed to be privy to the darkest days of her life.