There was more honesty, more emotion, in that heated, desperate kiss than in any he'd give her before. He still held her wrist, but she slid her other arm around his waist and clung to him desperately, feeling buffeted by the winds of fate and anger.
And then he released her abruptly, flinging her wrist away, stepping back. "Goodbye, Francey," he said, biting the words off as if they pained him. And a moment later he was gone, the heavy door closing silently behind him.
She didn't move, wondering almost absently whether she was going to cry.
No tears came. No fury, no pain, no recriminations. Just a deep, thick calm, wrapping around her. Tinged with joy.
He loved her. She remembered the words from her drugged stupor, and she felt them in her heart, in his rage, his anger, his need for her. He loved her fully as much as she loved him.
And there wasn't a damned thing she could do about it. To remain on Malta would be to put her life in danger and, therefore, his. The best thing she could do was leave, tomorrow, and wait for him to come to her.
He hadn't said he would. He had told her to forget about him. He might even have thought it was possible. But it wouldn't be for him. Sooner or later, he would have to come to her. And she would be waiting.
It had never been dark in the prison cell. Bare light bulbs had glared in her eyes all night long, and the thick, stench-laden air had sunk into her lungs. She'd come to cherish the darkness. The silence. A town that closed down early. Or maybe it was later than she realized. Only an occasional car drove by outside, beneath the small balcony, and there were no voices, no sounds of street quarrels or lovers' laughter. Moving around the room, she turned off the lights, plunging it into darkness. She didn't bother to check the door. She knew she hadn't locked it, and she told herself she didn't care. She stretched out on the bed, on top of the covers, and lay very still. It was as dark and silent as a tomb, with only the fresh salt breeze reminding her that she was alive. Alive. And it wasn't until she was almost asleep that she realized why she hadn't locked her door.
It hadn't been apathy, lack of concern that the people who wanted to hurt her, the members of the Cadre, the mysterious Cardiff, might hurt her. And it hadn't bad anything to do with her recent intense hatred of locks and keys.
It had to do with the deep-seated, unshakable hope that Michael Dowd would change his mind, come once again to her in the shadows, and make her feel alive.
Their plane was due to depart from the tiny Maltese airport at one-thirty in the afternoon. They were to change in Rome, then fly straight on to the United States without stopping, passing time zones and governments without even being aware of them.
Francey threw out the sand-washed silk clothes she'd walked the streets in, threw out the sandals that had carried her away from the embassy. She dressed without thinking, not noticing the texture of the silk this time, not noticing the flattering drape of the cloth. She left the hotel room without a backward glance, meeting Daniel in the lobby and accompanying him out to the airport in complete silence.
He still didn't look well. Whatever drugs Elmore had given him hadn't done the trick, and his color was just as bad as it had been before. He kept rubbing his upper arm in an unconscious gesture, and occasionally he stumbled. By the time they'd managed to check in for their flight at the tiny airport, he was sweating profusely in the cool, air-conditioned atmosphere.
"Boarding in half an hour, Miss Neeley," the flight attendant announced.
"Damned island," Daniel muttered as he sank into a chair. "The runway's too small for my jet. I hate flying commercial airlines. I hate it."
Francey tried to dredge up some sympathy and failed completely. "It can't be that long a flight to Rome. If you want, you can wait there for your jet while I go on ahead. I have no problem with flying commercial airlines. I simply want to get home."
"I'm coming with you," Daniel said, wheezing slightly.
"Why? So I don't get into any more trouble?" she asked tartly.
He shook his head, closing his eyes in sudden weariness. "I haven't done well by you, Francey. When your mother died, I promised I'd watch out for you, make sure you were all right. I've failed at that, failed miserably."
"You did your best," she murmured soothingly, the hard knot of her anger buried deep inside. It wouldn't do any good to accuse Daniel of betrayal. His motives, his beliefs were his own.
"I should have told you, warned you…" he said, rubbing his upper arm.
"Yes," she said. "But it's past that now. Shouldn't I be looking ahead? Shouldn't both of us?"
He sighed. "He told you, about Caitlin, didn't he? I'm glad. I wish I'd felt I could, but I promised your mother…"