Twist of Fate

  “Are you really interested?”

  “It might be the only way of getting rid of you.” She stirred the coffee and tried to ignore the ache in her leg.

  “It’s great to feel so wanted.” He resumed his seat and stretched out his legs.

  Hannah drowned her comment beneath a sip of too-hot coffee. For instant the stuff wasn’t bad. Gideon must have made a lot of it in his past.

  “Someone’s after me, Hannah.”

  She nearly choked on the thick brew. “After you!”

  “A man named Hugh Ballantine. He’s dedicating his life to crushing me. Do you think I should be flattered?”

  “I realize that the business world, like the food chain, requires predators but it’s much more fun for the rest of us when they hunt each other instead of people like my brother.”

  He winced. “Coming from a woman who was anxious to save me from myself not so long ago, that’s a little harsh, don’t you think?”

  “I tend to be a little short-tempered when my leg is bothering me.”

  Gideon put down his coffee cup, an air of sudden determination in his eyes. “Move over to the sofa. I’m going to massage that knee for you.”

  “Over my dead body.” She calmly sipped her coffee and ignored him.

  “Hannah, if I hurt you, you can just tell me. I promise I’ll stop.”

  “Ah, but I don’t trust you, remember? What good is a promise from someone you can’t trust?”

  “You tell me. You’re the one who was using a marked deck the night I took you out to dinner.” He took the coffee cup from her hand and more or less hauled her to her feet.

  Sensing the inevitability of the situation, Hannah surrendered. She allowed herself to be settled on the sofa, her leg stretched out along the flower-print cushions. Gideon went down on one knee and touched her leg through the khaki pants with a gentleness that was astounding.

  All the difference in the world, Hannah thought in relief. Vicky’s touch had been powerful and painful. Gideon’s hands contained strength and power but he knew how to control both. Beneath his massaging fingers the tight muscles of her leg began to relax. The next thing she knew, Hannah began to relax inwardly as well.

  “So tell me about the guy who wants to crush you,” she heard herself say before she could think.

  “He’s the son of a former partner of mine.”

  “Former?”

  “His name was Cyrus Ballantine. He was about fifteen years older than I was and he was a brilliant businessman. I learned a lot from him. Just about everything I know, in fact. We went into business together. We formed an investment syndicate.”

  Hannah closed her eyes as the warm relief of muscle relaxation took hold. This sort of thing could become addictive, she decided. “What happened?”

  “It’s a long story. I won’t bore you with all the details. In the end, after a great deal of skillful maneuvering, my good friend and mentor, Cyrus, left me holding the bag of a bankrupt syndicate while he walked away with most of the assets and used them to set up another investment syndicate. The whole thing was really brilliantly handled,” Gideon added reflectively as his fingers found the long muscle just above the knee and went to work on it. “I never knew what hit me until the dust had settled.”

  Hannah slanted him a curious glance. “Where’s Cyrus today?”

  “Looking out at me from his son’s eyes.”

  “The father is dead?” she pressed.

  “His son thinks I killed him.”

  Hannah thought about that. She felt the strength in Gideon’s hands, considered the layers of steel in the man, and decided that Gideon might be capable of murder under certain circumstances. “Did you?”

  “Cyrus Ballantine died of a heart attack a couple of years ago,” Gideon told her shortly. “I never touched him.”

  “But the son thinks you did?”

  Gideon moved his head in a slow nod. “He holds me morally responsible for the heart attack.”

  “Why?”

  “Because after Cyrus left me behind in the mud of financial ruin, I decided to take revenge,” Gideon explained. “At the age of thirty, I dedicated my life to it. I hounded the man, moving in on the companies he wanted and grabbing them first, even if it cost me far too much. I systematically destroyed his reputation as a man who could find the shrewdest investments. Within three years I was the one his clients came to when they wanted to hand their money over to someone who knew where to put it. Cyrus Ballantine filed for bankruptcy a few years ago. He never really came out of it. He was no longer a winner and he couldn’t handle that.”

  Another piece of the puzzle that was Gideon Cage suddenly fell into place. Hannah realized with a strange twist in her stomach that she had subconsciously never stopped working on the problem, not even after she had assumed she wouldn’t see him again. Now, at least, she knew what had tripped the initial switch that had locked him on target. He had been like a guided missile for nine years, unable to veer off course even though the first target had long since been zapped. “You achieved your goal.”

  “It’s not hard to achieve that kind of goal if nothing else in the world matters.”

  Hannah shivered a little.

  “Am I hurting you?” Gideon stopped his work on her leg.

  “No.” She waited a moment longer before speaking. She turned the details of his tale over and over in her mind. She reached for one intricate piece of the puzzle after another, building a more and more complete picture of the man who was massaging her leg with such unexpected skill. But no matter how many elements she added, she couldn’t bring the whole image into focus. Something eluded her. “So you turned around and destroyed Cyrus Ballantine. You took your revenge for his betrayal.”

  “Yes.”

  “And now his son is coming after you.”

  “Some people would call it justice,” he said dryly.

  “It’s not justice, exactly. Merely a sort of internal logic built into the system, I think. The only way to break the pattern is to step out of the system.” Hannah smiled briefly. “But I’ve already told you that. You’re a captive of your own way of doing things. You’ve made it clear you don’t particularly want to change. You’ve become addicted to the power and the constant winning.”

  “So I’m stuck with my fate?” he asked, looking amused.

  “You’re like one of those professional gunfighters of the Old West. You may be the best there is, but sooner or later someone younger and just as mean will be coming along. The only way he can prove himself is by trying to take you. Look at it this way. You may be able to crush Cyrus Ballantine’s kid instead of being crushed by him. You’ll probably come out on top again, Gideon. I have great faith in your predatory abilities. I’ve seen you at work. How old is the kid?”

  “Thirty. The same age I was when I went after his father.”

  “Well, it should be interesting. Maybe I could sell tickets,” Hannah mused. “This could be a real cock fight, you should pardon the expression.”

  His hands stilled on her leg. “I think,” he said slowly, “that I came here looking for something more than that from you.”

  Hannah opened her eyes and found herself unable to look away from the night darkness of his gaze. There was a tension in him that she hadn’t anticipated. How could he work such magic on her leg when he, himself, was almost vibrating with an inner tautness? Another piece of the puzzle. Her voice gentled slightly even though she refused to allow herself to feel any pity. This man had created his own world. Now he had to live in it. “Then you’re out of luck, aren’t you? What could I possibly do for you besides give you a discount on one of the tickets to the slaughter?”

  “I’m not sure.” His fingers flexed lightly on her knee. “Give me a little counseling?”

  “Why? What’s bothering you about this whole situation, anyway? It’s the way your world works. You must understand it better than anyone. You’ve chosen it, you’re good at what you do, and you don’t want to change th
ings. Why come to me for advice?”

  She knew she was challenging him, pushing him harder than she should have but she couldn’t seem to stop. The damned internal logic of the situation, she decided glumly. After having let him make a fool of her, she was compelled to reap what small retaliation might be available.

  “Maybe,” said Gideon slowly, “I came to you because I wanted an objective viewpoint.”

  “Objective! After what you did to me how could I possibly be objective? Try again, Gideon.”

  “Jesus Christ!” He released her leg, got to his feet and stalked across the room to peer out at the tiny balcony. “I don’t know anyone else I can talk to about it. I wanted a little professional advice. Maybe I came to you because I don’t want to have to crush Hugh Ballantine.”

  “Why not?” This was getting dangerous and Hannah sensed it. And she missed the soothing touch on her knee.

  He swung around, his voice turning harsh. “Don’t you understand? I know where he’s coming from. I sat across from him in a bar last night and I knew exactly what he was thinking. I knew every emotion that was driving him.”

  Hannah understood. She simply hadn’t wanted to admit it. Understanding too often led to sympathy and she couldn’t afford compassion with this man. “He’s where you were nine years ago, isn’t he, Gideon? You’re seeing not just the image of the man who betrayed you, you’re seeing yourself when you look at him.”

  “Damn right!” He rubbed the back of his neck with his hand as if unknotting muscles that had bunched in preparation for a battle. “It’s starting to eat at me. I know it’s asinine to let myself think like this. Much simpler to just wipe Ballantine off the map. Safer, too.”

  This time Hannah couldn’t repress the flicker of compassion. Talk about asinine! She had long ago learned to accept the softness in herself even though there were times, such as now, when it was wholly unwarranted.

  “I think it must be the season for it.” She leaned her head back against the cushion.

  “The season for what?”

  “Seeing ourselves in someone else. You look at Ballantine and see a man at the same crossroads you were at nine years ago. It bothers you because you know what happened after the first big, satisfying kill. If it’s any consolation, I’ve recently met someone who disturbs me in a slightly different way. I see her and I see the bright, professional cultural anthropologist I could have been if I’d taken a different path a few years ago. It’s an odd sensation. Up until now I’ve always told myself I made the right choice when I dropped out of graduate school. But when I see Vicky Armitage I’m not so sure. Maybe we’re both going through a midlife crisis, Gideon.”

  “Maybe we both need a vacation.”

  “You’ve just had yours, remember? You were in Vegas,” she pointed out.

  “I mean a real vacation. A change of pace.”

  Hannah ran her palm lightly over the arm of the sofa, unsure of where this was going. “Personally, I plan on taking one. Tomorrow.”

  Gideon gave her a whimsical smile. “I don’t suppose you’d invite me along on your trip?”

  “Are you kidding? That would be rather like a goldfish inviting a shark to go swimming, wouldn’t it? Not at all relaxing for the goldfish. Besides, you wouldn’t enjoy it. There aren’t any casinos on Santa Inez.”

  “I don’t feel like gambling this year. I just spent a day trying it and it didn’t work.” Gideon moved back toward her, sinking down on one knee beside her again. “Is the leg any better?”

  “Surprisingly, yes.”

  “What’s so surprising about it?” He went back to work on the muscles, sending another wave of relaxation through her.

  Unconsciously Hannah let out a long sigh of relief and closed her eyes again. “I didn’t think a man with your hands would have any gentleness in his fingers.”

  “You think I wash my hands in blood every day?”

  “No, just a couple of times a week.”

  He let that ride, kneading and gentling for another few minutes before asking, “How did the accident happen?”

  “I don’t have much recollection of it. The doctors said that was normal. I was unconscious for a while and probably lost a few minutes of memory. It’s quite common, I’m told. I was coming back late at night from a friend’s house. She and her husband live east of here, up in the mountains. I know it was raining and that I probably swerved to miss another car. The police said I may have drifted over the white line and panicked when I saw someone else’s headlights coming at me, then overcorrected and sent myself off the road. I’ll never know for sure, and the rain was so heavy that it made the accident difficult to reconstruct afterward. Wiped out most of the tire tracks. There is, however, a rather gaping hole in the guard rail where it happened.”

  “That’s your Toyota parked on the street downstairs? The red one?”

  Hannah nodded, not opening her eyes. The bliss of an ache-free knee was overtaking her common sense. Funny what pain, or conversely, the lack of it could do to you. Anyone who had the ability to remove physical pain must have some redeeming qualities. “That’s it. The one with all the primer on it. Finally got it back from the body shop last week. They’re going to paint it while I’m in the Caribbean.”

  “From the locations of the primer coating I would have guessed you’d been sideswiped,” Gideon remarked.

  Hannah found the energy to open her eyes. Her mouth tilted slightly at the corners. “That’s what Tommy said, too.”

  “Tommy?”

  “The guy at the body shop who pounded out the dents. But the police think I did the damage going through the guard rail and sideswiping a tree, not another car.”

  “Did the cops spend a lot of time on the case?”

  “No. It seemed to them a pretty clear-cut example of a single-car accident. They were more concerned with whether I’d been drinking.”

  Gideon’s fingers tightened fractionally, just enough to remind Hannah that underneath the new comfort zone there was still a lot of sore tissue. “Had you?”

  “Only a considerable quantity of unfiltered apple juice. My friends in the mountains are back-to-nature freaks.” Hannah wondered how long Gideon would be willing to go on massaging the leg. She would be willing to pay a very high fee for this kind of service. “You’ve got good hands,” she murmured after a bit. “Maybe you missed your calling.”

  “That thought’s been worrying me a lot lately,” he told her. “Think I could have made it in the field of massage?”

  “Either that or the field of hand-to-hand combat.” She stretched luxuriously, sitting up with reluctance. “There’s a fine line between the two. I’ll give you credit for knowing where the boundary is. Vicky Armitage sure as hell didn’t.”

  Gideon eyed her as she carefully swung her feet off the sofa. He sat down beside her. “Would you have dinner with me this evening, Hannah?”

  She blinked owlishly, instant suspicion flaring in her. “I can’t.”

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  “Can’t,” she told him firmly. “My brother and some friends are giving me a bon voyage party this evening.”

  “You look grateful for the excuse.”

  “I am.” She smiled faintly. “We goldfish learn early that when a shark invites one of us to dinner, chances are we’re the entrée.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  HE WASN’T DRUNK, Gideon decided, considering the matter objectively as he pushed open the glass door and stepped out onto the sidewalk. He’d had enough Scotch to relax him, help him unwind, but he wasn’t drunk. Unfortunately, he wasn’t feeling particularly relaxed or unwound, either. Gideon shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket and wondered how Hannah’s bon voyage party was proceeding. Probably quite nicely. Hannah undoubtedly had a lot of good friends. Gideon reminded himself that he wasn’t among them.

  Behind him the restaurant’s glass door hissed shut, cutting off the warmth and sophisticated ambience inside as neatly as if imprisoning it under a bell jar.
Not a bad analogy, Gideon told himself as he turned and walked toward the street corner. The entire restaurant seemed to have been made of glass, although he hadn’t gotten any farther than the stylish salmon-and-gray toned bar. The view had been spectacular, each gigantic glass window framing a scene of Elliott Bay at night.

  From the cozy bar area with its gleaming machine that dispensed any number of exotic wines by the glass, Gideon had been able to watch the lights on the ferries that plied the night-darkened water. Occasionally a huge cargo ship had coasted slowly past, moving toward port with a litter of small tugs hovering anxiously around it. Very scenic and a little unreal when viewed from the safe confines of the upscale bar.

  Now, if he wanted atmosphere with more of a touch of reality he could try one of the places on First or Second Avenue that he had walked past earlier that evening. Those places weren’t made of glass. They tended to be black holes in the old buildings that were making a last stand against the downtown revitalization programs. Defiantly, the worn, brick facades held their own against the expensive condos and office buildings that were slowly but steadily encroaching. The black holes would provide lots of interesting, highly realistic atmosphere, all right. Gideon was willing to bet that Hannah had never actually been inside a place like one of those. It would be interesting to see her practice her guidance counseling techniques on some of the inhabitants.

  There was a biting nip in the early summer air. A real change from the June heat of Vegas and Tucson. The lightweight linen sport jacket Gideon wore wasn’t much protection. The garment would be just right for an evening out on a Caribbean island, however. Gideon thought about that, turning the idea over in his mind as he crossed the cobbled street that led through the Pike Place Market. It wasn’t the first time the notion had slipped into his mind. A part of his brain had been playing with the idea all afternoon, ever since he had left Hannah’s apartment. It was probably her import shop decor that had started him thinking about islands. That and the fact that he’d seen her airline tickets lying on the kitchen counter when he’d made coffee. It was easy to make reservations on an airline. All a man had to do was pick up the phone.