The Sixth Station(109)

“Good.”

He then put brought his “gun” hand up to my chin, tipped my face to his, and kissed me deeply.

“But, what about the…”

“Damate, shizuka ni shite,” he laughed, and kissed me again as he pushed me back onto the bed. I didn’t resist but still couldn’t help saying, “I don’t know about…”

“Taci din gura,” he whispered in my ear, kissing it, rolling on top of me and opening my mouth with his tongue. I responded by taking in his kiss and pulling him even tighter into me.

He pulled back slightly and studied my face like he’d never seen me, really seen me before, ran his hands through my crazy hair, and said, “Dormi mecum?”

“Latin?”

“Latin,” he grinned in a smile so wide I could see the split between his front teeth.

“If that means what I think it means,” I whispered back, “then most definitely.”

“Baby…” was the only thing he whispered as he gently rolled me on top of him and unzipped my new-old Chanel dress, slid it off of me, and tossed it onto the floor.

Oh, baby is right.





34





I woke up at 7:30 and reached for him, but his side of the bed was empty. Not that he had a side, really, because last I remembered I had been falling asleep in his arms in the middle of the bed. We’d been so wrapped up in each other that there hadn’t been enough space to slip a piece of paper between us.

He must be in the bathroom.

I got up, wrapped the sheet around myself, and walked toward the bathroom. “Pantera, you in there?” I knocked. No answer. I knocked again. Hard.

“Pantera!” Nothing. I checked the sitting-room area. Nothing. Then panicked, I looked for the plastic bag with my scarf. It was not on the table where we’d left it. I searched the entire suite. Nothing. The scarf was gone, and so was he.

You’ve been had, lady!

At first I fumed. Then I got very scared.

The wall safe!

I rushed to it and opened it with my combination. I rummaged around. Passport. Diary. Wallet. Tablet. Everything was still there—except the missing piece of the biggest puzzle the world had ever known: the scarf holding the DNA of the man they claimed was the son—more precisely the clone—of Jesus himself. Or perhaps he was, as Bill Teddy Smythe had claimed, the son of Satan. And if so, I had just slept with the devil himself.

How had I been duped this way? I had been careless on a grand scale.

We didn’t even use a condom! Idiot! Calm down. At least you can’t get pregnant. Right. But what if he’s carrying some terrible disease? What were you thinking? Oh, right, you weren’t thinking!

I plopped back down on the bed and tried taking deep breaths to calm myself down. My hands were shaking. Was it fear, rage, or hurt? Rage. Definitely rage.

Jerk! You are smarter than this. Much smarter. Son. Of. A. Bitch! He will not outsmart you. He will not.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw the message light on the room phone blinking. I hadn’t heard it ring. Maybe Pantera had turned off the ringer? Why? I picked it up and hit the key for “voice mail.” Him. Two hours earlier.

“This isn’t what it seems.”

Yes it is.

“In fact, I am—hell—I can’t stop thinking about you. Really…” He hesitated.

“Really”—what?

“Don’t worry. I have the scarf. I am taking it right now for testing. I cannot, and will not, put you in further danger; you are safer without me now.”

Then: “Now I understand why it was necessary for them to implicate you in the murder. And why they had to assassinate Sadowski. He was, of course, well known to them—but they needed to get the FBI, CIA, Interpol, and whoever else they could get on board officially to hunt you using all their resources. Once they were involved, there wouldn’t have been a border crossing in the world you would have made it through after a day or two.

“They want the scarf and they need you dead.

“The Son of the Son picked you out of all the women in the world for a reason. You were where you needed to be when you needed to be there. That proved that you are the one.

“And now you are the only one who can stop them—with the absolute evidence that Demiel is God, not human.”

Not human. Does he mean the DNA will show he’s a clone? And?

“That scarf will tie back to the source blood. But make no mistake: Everyone, and I do mean everyone, is on their payroll.”

Whose payroll? Trust no one.

He continued—all business now: “I got a white scarf from a local shopkeeper who was kind enough to open up for me this morning.…”

When—at dawn?

“You’ll find it among the towels in the bathroom. I took the liberty of removing those stray hairs from your scarf. At least I hope they were yours—they were brown. I put them back in the bottom of your bag. Please put the new scarf back in your red satchel, and be sure to get lint and other bits from the bag on it. It must look used. And of course stick those few brown stray hairs on it as well.”