Now You See Him(8)

The living room was regulation island decor. Wicker furniture with chintz cushions, straw matting on the floor, a huge fireplace that was used on the rare, chilly evenings. Beyond the black picture windows he could hear the pounding of the surf on the private beach below. He would have thought twice about turning on all those lights—they would be perfectly illuminated for anyone approaching from the north, and a sniper would have no trouble at all picking them off. Except that the northern approach was only by sea, and while some marksmen might manage an accurate shot while standing on a deck, the pitch and roll of the ocean would make that unlikely. And no one was going to risk making a mistake. Not at this point.

Of course, they'd already made one. Michael had assumed Frances was safe. Four months had passed, and no one had bothered her. His people had been watching her from a careful distance, but no one had approached her, no hint of threat to her well-being had surfaced.

Maybe they'd sabotaged the brakes to get at him. Maybe they'd simply found the right time to kill her. Or maybe they were being efficient, two for the price of one, and they'd just been waiting for him to come and pick her brain.

They couldn't have known for sure it would be him, though they could have suspected it. His enemies in the IRA weren't fools. He had a reputation for thoroughness, and for cold-blooded revenge. If they knew him at all, and they did, they would know he wouldn't get up from a hospital bed after Patrick Dugan had nearly finished him for good and simply go about his business.

He intended to find out exactly who and what had been involved in that abortive assassination attempt. How things could have gotten so close, who were Dugan's compatriots. And where an ordinary American like Frances Neeley fit into the nasty equation. Was she part and parcel of the Cadre's plot? Or another one of their many innocent victims?

It would make things easier on him if she was involved. There was something about her that got under his skin in ways he didn't like. But he had to keep an open mind. If he condemned her simply because he didn't want to feel anything, then he was going to be useless in the field. And despite what he'd said to Travers, he had no intention of taking a desk job. Ever.

She was probably sleeping in the only bedroom on the lower main floor. The one with access from the beach. He was going to have to put a stop to that. The safest rooms in the rambling old place were the row of four bedrooms on the second storey, overlooking the water. The rocky ledge kept boats and invaders at a distance, and the balconies were high enough to keep all but the most determined assassins away. And he had more than enough experience to boobytrap them so that no one could get close.

If worse came to worst, he could maneuver Francey Neeley into sharing his bed. He'd hoped he would be able to work the arrangements around gradually. But the death-defying ride in the brakeless Jeep had disabused him of any such notion. They weren't wasting any time in trying to get rid of one or both of them. And he couldn't assume they would be given even one night's reprieve just because the first attempt had failed.

He knew enough about her to recognize that her own glass of whiskey was taller and darker than she used to drink before she ran into Patrick Dugan. His own was on the weak side, but he didn't complain. He needed to use the next few minutes carefully, building her trust, then move in for the kill before she realized what was happening to her.

He let his hand tremble slightly as he reached for the glass. "Two car wrecks in six months is a bit more than the old ticker can take," he said in a weak voice.

Her face immediately creased in concern. "Oh, I'd forgotten. You'd just been through a car crash. That must have been doubly awful for you. I'm so sorry…"

"Not your fault. You saved our lives," he said with a brave grin. Just the sort to melt a woman's heart, and this woman looked the sort whose heart melted easily. He drained his glass, despising himself for one brief instant. "Still, I'm not used to so much excitement. In my line of work we consider things to be quite thrilling if we have a bat fly into the house."

"We have bats here," Francey said, taking an impressively big gulp of her drink. He was beginning to wonder whether she'd become a lush in the past six months, but her shudder and grimace of distaste told him otherwise. She was using it for medicinal purposes, to dull the pain and terror. He could have told her that would only work for a while. "What is your line of work?" she asked brightly, and if he were any other man he would have believed her interest.

"Math and soccer master at a boy's public school in Somerset. A place called Willingborough. Have been for twelve years."

She blinked, staring at him. "Somehow I wouldn't have pictured you as a schoolteacher," she said slowly.