“But what about Dany?”
“We’ll have her safely away by the time your backups get here. Just tell them to be quiet.” McNab still didn’t move, and Blackheart gave him an overenthusiastic shove. “Go ahead. I’m going to do something about the alarm system.”
“Why?” Ferris had the temerity to ask.
“Because I don’t want the alarm going off if somebody makes a false move. Whether I like it or not, I’m in this just as deeply as Porcini and Dany, and it’s my neck I’m saving, too.”
“All right, I can accept that,” Ferris said. “What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to go back to the cloakroom and hide down behind the counter. Keep your eyes on the Van Gogh at all times, and don’t move until you hear my voice.”
“The hell with that. I’m not going to sit passively by, doing nothing.”
“Watching the most valuable work of art in the city isn’t doing nothing.”
“I’m not—”
“You are!” His grip on her arm was viselike, just short of bruising, and she had no choice but to allow herself to be hustled ignominiously back to the cloakroom. He shoved her down onto the floor, glowering at her. “Stay put. It will all be over in a few minutes.”
“Go to hell, Blackheart.”
He grinned, and once more she recognized the reckless excitement that was throbbing through his veins. “Only if you’re there, dear heart.” And he disappeared into the vast darkness of the museum.
Ferris hadn’t even seen where McNab had gone to call in reinforcements. It didn’t matter. She wasn’t going to sit there and babysit an oil painting that no one seemed to want, no matter how much it was worth. The stone floors were icy beneath her stockinged feet, and the shadows and dark shapes looming up made her skin crawl. She had only the faintest recollection of where the fabulous jeweled eggs were kept, and in the dark they’d be harder still to find, but she was damned if she was going to sit and cower while everyone else had all the fun. She’d suffered too much already. She was going to see this thing through to the end.
At the center of the museum was a great hall that had once been filled with armor, stuffed elephants, Rodin sculptures, and anything else that wouldn’t fit into a smaller room. That hodgepodge had mostly either been tossed or relegated to other spaces, and the great hall had been divided up into fifteen or twenty smaller rooms, their partitions reaching halfway up the stone balconies on either side. The Faberge eggs were in one of the twenty, but Ferris couldn’t even begin to guess which one.
Unfortunately she didn’t have to.
“There you are, bella.” A burly arm snaked around her neck, pulling her back against a strong, sweaty body. “I thought you might show up sooner or later. Where’s the boyfriend? He’s not going to do you much good, any more than that stupid cop could stop me. There are some things that are just meant to happen, and this is one of them.”
“Let me go!” At least, that was what she tried to say. With his muscled forearm across her throat, the words came out in a muffled oomph.
Even someone of Marco’s self-absorbed intellect could figure out what she was saying, given the circumstances. “I’m sorry, but I need you,” he said, half carrying, half dragging her up a flight of stairs. They, like almost everything else in the damned building, were stone, and banged against Ferris’s shins as she flailed and kicked.
When they reached the top he flung her forward, so that she sprawled facedown on the equally hard floor of what was doubtless one of the balconies overlooking the great hall. She stayed there for a moment, absorbing the impact of the unforgiving stone, trying to figure out how she was going to get out of this current mess.
Marco locked the balcony door behind them, then crossed to the railing and began fiddling with something Ferris couldn’t see. “Now if your lover had just left well enough alone, we wouldn’t be in this predicament. There was a heat sensing device surrounding the doorway to the room with the eggs, and it would have been a simple enough matter to use some fire extinguisher to pass through. But no, he had to add infrared. Therefore—” he reached down and hauled her to her unsteady feet “—we have to go in from the top.”
A wire stretched across the vast, cavernous expanse of the great hall, reaching to the opposite balcony. Even in the shadowy darkness Ferris could see Dany’s absurd white clown’s face at the other end, standing by the wire. “I hate to say this,” Ferris whispered, “but what’s this ‘we’?”
“But you’re going with me, of course. Otherwise, how can I trust my lethal ex-partner not to loosen the rigging? Daniella!” he shouted across the room. “See who I have with me! Your brother’s girlfriend decided she would help me out. Not that I gave her much choice, you understand. But if you unfasten the rope you don’t just send me to my death. You send her, too. Capisce?”
“I understand.” Her voice was dull, its tone accepting.
“So you will make sure the rigging stays taut, won’t you, cara? Once I get the eggs and make it safely back to the other side, then you will be free. I’d love to teach you another lesson, but I’m afraid I don’t have the time. But don’t worry. Your handsome cop will arrest you, and you’ll have plenty of time in American jails to think about all the mistakes you made—the biggest of which was thinking you could fool me.”
He climbed up onto the balcony, balancing lightly over the great drop beneath him, and Ferris began to sweat. He’d changed from his spangled spandex into a loose-fitting jumpsuit, and he looked fully as graceful as Blackheart ever had. And then, to Ferris’s absolute horror, he reached down and hauled her up onto the wide stone balustrade beside him.
“I’m afraid of heights,” she said through chattering teeth.
“That is a great deal too bad. Because you’re coming with me.”
“Where?” she demanded, mystified.
“Out there.” He gestured to the taut wire in front of them as if it were a boulevard.
“I can’t. I’ll fall.”
“Perhaps. But not if you’re careful. Don’t worry, I don’t intend to make you walk it yourself. That takes years of practice to perfect. I’ll simply carry you. As long as you keep perfectly still and don’t struggle, we should be fine. Otherwise I’ll drop you. And it’s a long ways down.”
“You can’t do this.”
He jerked her arm, hard, and tossed her over his shoulder with effortless disdain. “I’m about to. I’ve done high wire acts with trained chimpanzees who don’t weigh any more than you do. If they can survive, I expect you can. If you fall, just close your eyes and pray.”
Ferris was already doing just that, praying with all her might as Porcini stepped out into space.
“Ferris, I’m sorry,” Dany called in a low voice. “I didn’t mean to get you into this.”
Keeping her head down and her eyes shut wasn’t helping matters, so Ferris lifted her head to look at the clown across the vast expanse that was slowly diminishing—too slowly. “Why did you run?” she asked, her voice a raw thread of sound. Porcini’s shoulder was digging painfully into her stomach, and her fear strangled the breath in her throat, but if she was about to die she might as well die enlightened.
“I couldn’t let all of you risk your futures for me,” Dany replied miserably. “Particularly Stephen. I love him. I couldn’t let him destroy himself over me.”
“But we could have helped you,” Ferris said earnestly.
“If I were you, cara,” Marco wheezed into her ear, “I wouldn’t shift around too much. I was mistaken—you’re a little heavier than a chimpanzee.” He stopped where he was, looking around him. A huge marble column stood nearby, some relic of an ancient temple. The flat, pitted top of it was perhaps twenty-four inches square.
With a sickening whoosh of air Porcini swung her limp body over his head and deposited her on the top of the column.
For a moment she clung to him in panic, but he pulled away, and she felt her balance begin to give, could see the floor, miles away, looming up to meet her.
She pulled back, overcompensating for a moment so that she swayed backward. Finally she held still, clinging to the tiny bit of space like an angry cat, doing her best to control her rapid breathing, her trembling limbs, her very heartbeat.
“Now you be a good girl and stay there, cara. And if Danielle obeys my orders and doesn’t try to murder me again, everything will be just fine.” He looked across at the clown figure waiting on the opposite balcony. “Are you ready, Danielle? Send me the rope.”
There was no further hesitation. Though Ferris’s brain was fogged with fear, she could just make out the rigging Danielle was sending toward Marco’s waiting figure. A rope and pulley sort of affair, sliding across the taut wire. Marco looked calm and alert, as casual as if he were standing on a boardwalk and not a thin line of wire. He caught the pulley when it reached him, tested it for a moment, then dropped off the wire, letting himself down the rope toward the room twenty feet below.
Ferris found herself holding her breath. The best thing in the world would have been for him to fall, but right now, in her precarious position, she didn’t want to see anyone fall. She had the horrible certainty that if Marco fell, she’d fall too, in some sort of sick empathy.
She could just see him beyond the partition. He was within ten feet of the floor, within ten feet of the beautiful, intricate eggs that Ferris hated with a very real passion, when the building was flooded with light.
She blinked, swaying on her tiny platform, for a moment unable to see a thing. She heard McNab’s voice, strong and sure and very angry. “Nice of you to drop in, Porcini.”
Marco had already begun to scuttle back up the rope like a fat black spider. A few more feet and he’d be out of their reach, with the only hostage available a stupid fool stuck on the top of a Grecian column.
McNab reached into his coat and pulled out the biggest gun Ferris had ever seen in her life. “If you don’t want a bullet right where it would hurt most, Porcini, you’ll get your thieving, woman-beating butt down here,” he drawled.
Marco ignored him, shinnying up the rope at an astonishing speed. Without further hesitation McNab cocked the pistol, and the sound of gunfire echoed through the stone-walled building.
Marco shrieked, tumbling to the floor. He landed as well as he could, an aerialist used to falls, but the stone floor knew no forgiveness, and he lay there, moaning, the rope still clutched in his hand.
A wave of relief washed over Ferris. McNab hadn’t shot Marco; he’d somehow managed to hit the dangling rope.
“Fancy shooting,” Blackheart murmured, hauling Marco upright.
“I’m considered something of an expert,” McNab said modestly. “I’d better read him his rights.” Quickly he did so, saying the familiar television words that went straight through Ferris’s brains. All the while Marco remained silent and sullen, glaring at his two captors.
“I think I hear your reinforcements,” Blackheart mentioned.
“Damn,” said McNab. “You realize he’s going to get deported? He’ll have a nice cushy ride back to Madrid to stand trial.”
“Cheer up. Spanish jails aren’t noted for their pleasant atmosphere.”
“True enough. There’s just one small problem,” Stephen said politely.
“What’s that?”
“If I hit him, I might jeopardize his arrest. Police brutality and all that. And he really needs to be hit for what he did to Dany”
“Oh, allow me,” Blackheart volunteered courteously.
“Be my guest.”
Blackheart advanced on the larger, quivering Marco. The blows were swift, efficient and downright dirty. “This one is for my sister,” he said between his teeth. “And this is for trying to feed my lady to the tigers.”
A second later Marco was back on the floor, groaning very, very loudly. The two men ignored him, just as they ignored the two women overhead who were watching them. “I never thought I’d have you for a brother-in-law,” McNab said, shaking his head.
“We all have to make compromises in this life. My sister is worth it.”
For the first time McNab looked up, into Danielle’s white-painted face. “You know,” he said, “I believe she is.”
“Blackheart.” Ferris’s voice was plaintive. Now that the worst danger is over, she could react to her own predicament with at least a touch of asperity. “Would you consider getting me down from here?”
His grin was absolutely heartless. “I’d consider it. However, it’s nothing more than you deserve. I told you to stay put.”
“I know.”
“What kind of future will we have, if I’m not able to trust you?”
“I know,” she said miserably.
He didn’t move for a long moment. “I guess you suffered enough. I’ll get you. Stay right there.”
“I’m not moving,” Ferris said fervently.
She had a perfect view of the proceedings. She got to watch a moaning, whining Marco being carted away by uniformed police, she got to watch McNab race up to the balcony and pull a weeping, repentant Dany into his arms. She would even have allowed herself a sniffle or two of sympathetic pleasure, if the rest of her attention hadn’t been concentrating on Blackheart as he climbed onto the wide stone railing with, she had to admit, even more consummate grace than Marco Porcini. The tightrope wire lay in front of him, thin and deadly.
“Maybe you shouldn’t do this,” she suggested uneasily. “I can stay here awhile longer. Why don’t you go find a crane or something?”
“Nonsense, dear heart,” Blackheart said, climbing out onto the wire with surprising skill. “Sooner or later you’re going to have to admit you trust me. I can’t think of a better way for you to prove it.”
“Blackheart,” she moaned, hiding her eyes. If he was going to fall to his death on her account, she didn’t want to watch it.
He stopped long enough to catch the end of the rope and pulley, then continued. Before climbing out onto the wire he’d taken off his shoes and socks, and his long, narrow bare feet clung to the wire with almost as much self-assurance as Marco’s had. “What I liked best,” he murmured in a conversational tone as he was about to reach her, “was when Marco kept comparing you to a trained chimpanzee. I’m surprised you didn’t clobber him.”
“I didn’t dare. We both would have fallen.”
“I’ve never known you to refrain from a self-destructive act when your temper is up,” he said, stopping beside her. There was a space of some eighteen inches between them. Had they been on nice, level ground it would have been no trouble at all. Or even four feet up in the air. But halfway up in the stratosphere, such a distance was too far to cross.
“I’m not moving, Blackheart,” she said fervently. “You can’t make me.”
“I’m not going on without you.”
“Blackheart, Marco was used to lifting weights. A trained chimpanzee, an angry woman was nothing more than a challenge to him. You aren’t used to it.”
“Now’s as good a time as any to learn.”
“I don’t want to die.”
“Neither do I. Come on, dear heart. Just one tiny step. I’ll catch you.”
“I’ll knock you over.”
“I trust you, Francesca.”
What could she say? He was standing there, seemingly at ease on the thin, coiled wire, watching her tenderly. “Damn you, Blackheart,” she muttered, slowly, carefully straightening from her semi-crouching position on the top of the column. “Maybe some things are worth dying for.” And without another word she took the step.
He caught her, rocking back under the unexpected weight, and for a moment they swayed there, the wire quivering beneath them. When it finall
y held steady he moved his hands from their tight grip on her upper arms, slid down to hold her hand, and started edging across the rope.
“Just move very carefully,” he said. “And don’t look down.”
Ferris looked down. Moaning, she jerked her head back up, and spied their destination—the far side of the great hall. “Why don’t we go back the way you came? It’s shorter.” Her tone was still plaintive.
“You’d have to go first.” He kept moving, a fraction of an inch at a time, and she followed him, trying to forget about the rooms beneath her, about the Rodin sculpture that could crush her fragile bones, the crusaders’ pikes that could skewer her. “Besides, I have something better in mind.”
They were halfway across the room. The police had left with their prisoner, and Dany and McNab were nowhere in sight. They were alone on the wire in that shadowy old building. Blackheart still had the end of the rope in his hand as he halted, looking downward.
Ferris allowed herself a brief, terrified glance. They were directly above her favorite exhibit, a bedroom transported direct from a Venetian villa. She looked up again at Blackheart, and she didn’t like the meditative expression on his face. “Why have we stopped?”
He put an arm around her waist. “Hold on to me,” he whispered in her ear, his eyes alight with pleasure.
“Why?” Even as she questioned she obeyed, wrapping her arms around his narrow waist and holding tightly.
“Because,” he said, and jumped.
Her scream echoed through the building, cut off as the rope stopped their precipitous descent a scant four feet from the green damask-covered bed. Blackheart let go of the rope, and the two of them dropped onto the bed. A cloud of dust rose around them.
“I hate you,” Ferris said passionately, sneezing. “I despise and detest you, I’ll never trust you again, I—”
“You love me,” Blackheart said, odiously sure of himself. “And you’ll never distrust me again. So let’s stop arguing and take advantage of this bed.”