Dammit, but she smelled good. Like a glass of golden sunshine, warm and slightly floral and very heady.
“What are we going to do now?” she asked, frowning at nothing. “We have to find Carlo. Not just because he’s probably Victor, but he also has Ellis, or at the very least knows where Ellis is.”
It was on the tip of Merrick’s tongue to tell her to return to the safety of his home, but in time he remembered her anger at being dominated. He very much disliked the idea that she would put him in the same group as the men in the cult, but at the same time, he wanted her protected and kept safe from the viciousness of which he knew Victor was capable.
It was as if she were a little bird, standing on the edge of the nest, trembling with excitement at the world that lay beyond, but with fledgling wings that he wasn’t sure would support her.
“I know you are concerned about your friend. Would it make you feel better if I asked the thief taker to search for him?”
She sighed with obvious relief. “It would, it really would. I want to go help him—Ellis—but I don’t know where he is, and I don’t know how to help him if I can’t find him.”
“I will have him direct his search for your friend, although, being mortal, he will be harder to track,” Merrick said.
She beamed at him, making him want to kiss her again. “Thank you. That would make me worry less to know Savian was on the trail.”
“While he’s searching, it would be helpful if you could make yourself available to being contacted, say at the hotel in Nice where Carlo tracked you,” he said slowly, picking the words carefully so that she didn’t feel like he was telling her what to do. “In case he wishes to speak with you. With your mobile phone not functioning, he will need some other method of contacting you.”
Tempest had been about to protest the idea of returning to Nice, but paused instead to consider it. “That makes sense, although do you really think it’s likely he’ll try to call me?”
“If he went to the trouble of kidnapping you, yes, he will want to find out if you are in Nice or are somewhere else. And assuming he took a train out of the area, he can’t check on you himself.”
She squinted up at him. “Do you believe that’s what he was doing at the hotel? That he followed me there specifically to kidnap me?”
Again, he had to pick his words carefully. “I believe his plan is to use you to get to me, yes. As for following you ... describe again what happened after you and the dog got away from his car.”
She ran through the events again. At the end, he nodded to himself. “Let me see your phone.”
“It’s broken,” she said, pulling it out of her pocket and handing it to him. “It won’t even turn on.”
“I don’t believe it needs to.” He pried off the back cover, flipping it over to find exactly what he expected to see. He held the back cover out to her, nodding toward it. “There’s a tracking chip here.”
“A what, now?”
“It’s a chip that allows someone to track the location of this phone. Did you, at any time, leave your phone while you were in your cousin’s house?”
She thought for a moment. “Yes. I left it in my room the first day I was there, when I went to the pool. And of course, I took a couple of showers. And now that I think of it, I left it upstairs when we had dinner. But would that be enough time for someone to doctor my phone?”
“Certainly. The question is why they would do so before they had an idea you were connected with me.”
“I didn’t even think of that,” she said, her fingers tightening on his arm. “I know I’ve been sheltered until the last four months, but that’s not normal behavior, is it?”
“No.” He puzzled over the question for a minute. “You did not mention seeing C. J. Dante at all, did you?”
“No. Were you thinking he knew you and I had met, even if we hadn’t really met?”
“Possibly.” He glanced at his watch. “It could be something as coincidental as general paranoia on his part. You did contact him out of the blue.”
“Good point,” she said, nodding. “But if he knew where I was, and that I was with you, why didn’t he try to get us at your house?”
He smiled. Oh, it was a grim smile, to be sure, but he felt he deserved credit for mustering up any form of smile. “My house has protection against such things. The best they’d be able to do is trace us to the town, and then you would effectively disappear. Likely they waited until they had a strong signal they could follow.”
“Which was in Nice,” she said, sighing. “Who would have thought Carlo had that in him?”
Merrick said only, “What do you wish to do? Go back to Nice or somewhere else?”
She slid a look up at him that had him wanting to shut them both away in a room for a day or two. Possibly a few years. “What happened to Bossy McBossypants telling me that I’m going to your house and will stay there and be safe, because clearly when I go out on my own, things happen like I get kidnapped?”
“You are a grown woman.” He ignored the spurt of fear that accompanied the reminder of just how close she had been to a man who very well might turn out to be the murderous Victor. “If you do not wish to return to Nice to be available for contact, then I can hire someone to do the same.”
She seared him with a scornful look. “Are you kidding? This is my adventure. I’m not letting someone else have it.”
“Tempest—” he said warningly.
She stopped him with an upraised hand. “I know, I know—it’s not all fun and games, and Cousin Carlo is probably a super-bad man who hurts people, so I shouldn’t be flip about it. And I’m not, although it sounded like I was. I’m very well aware after the last few hours that he does not have my best interests at heart.”
“Good. See that you stay that sensible.”
“I plan to. This isn’t just a ploy to get me out of the way?” she asked when they maneuvered through the incoming crowds to the ticketing area. “Because I’m so going to have some things to say to you if it is.”
“He knows where to find you. The hotel is definitely not a place of safety,” Merrick pointed out. “Sending you there is risking your life, so, no, it’s not a ploy. It’s a way for you to help locate a man who has the potential to destroy a great many people.”
“I am so with you on that,” she said, lifting her chin and looking determined. “And I’m glad you’ve finally realized that I’m the ideal person to help find Carlo, so if you’ll tell me what train to take, Kelso and I will head back to Nice.”
He bought her a ticket and was just giving her instructions when Savian appeared and headed their way. “Be sure to pick up a new mobile phone and send me the number. And don’t leave it anywhere.”
She smiled and gave him a swift kiss that he felt like the kick of a mule in his gut.
Dammit, he would not fall for this woman. His life was simply too dangerous for that.
Chapter Thirteen
“Well, this is just as anticlimactic as all get-out.”
Kelso panted at me. I patted his head, and obligingly stopped skulking around the building across the street from the Hotel Mad Goats, and ignored Kelso while he had a little personal time on the grass verge. I was a bit disappointed, to be honest, that there were no men in black cars parked obviously on the street, or street vendors who just happened to lurk outside the hotel’s entrance. Instead, it was business as usual with the bright lights of all the nightclubs and restaurants making the town positively glow, while a dull throb of bass came from a bar a few doors down. People dressed in varying degrees of fashion wandered up and down the streets, laughing, calling to one another, and generally creating a party atmosphere. There was nothing sinister about any of it.
I checked the cheap phone I’d picked up at the Nice station to see if Merrick had texted back a response to me telling him my new number, but the phone was just as uninspiring as the rest of the evening.
“And just when I was set to be Bond, Jane Bond,” I told K
elso when he was finished, using a bag from the Nice station shop to scoop up his offering and deposit it in a nearby trash can, before glancing around one last time.
No one cast so much as fluttered an eyelash our way. We peered in through the glass door of the hotel, but the lobby was empty. The same clerk was at the desk, though, and he looked just as bored as he had the first time I’d seen him.
“Hi,” I said, giving him a firm look and a friendly smile. “Bonjour.”
“Bonsoir,” he answered, pursing his lips slightly.
“I have here a note from my ... er ... boyfriend, Merrick Simon, authorizing me to use his room.” I handed over the piece of paper that I’d made Merrick write before I got on the train. “You see it asks you to give me a key of my own, and honor any requests of a room service nature. Speaking of which, my dog and I are starving. Do you still have my luggage?”
“Oui, madame.” He read the note and made a face that expressed polite disdain.
“Good. If you would bring those to my room—which is Merrick’s room—then I can feed my dog. I’d appreciate it if I could get dinner, too, if it’s not too late.”
He looked scandalized. “But it is only ten of the clock, madame! Of course food is available.”
“Sorry. Silly me and my American ways. I’ll just go up to the room and consult the room service menu, then.”
I will say this for Merrick—he might have picked out a weirdo hotel to stay at, but the accommodations were mighty fine. The room was a decent size, with a high, airy ceiling, a huge bed on a pedestal and swathed in mosquito netting, pale blue furnishings and accents, and a large balcony with a complete set of patio furniture.
We checked out the room, consulted the menu, and placed an order for scampi and salad, and a big plate of chopped beef for Kelso.
“Now, I want you to use your nose,” I told him. “If you smell anyone like Carlo and Giovanni, let me know. Bark, whine, do your best Lassie telling someone that Timmy is once again in the well—I always wondered why that kid was always falling in—just so you make it clear that you smell one of the baddies.”
Kelso tipped his head at me.
“You are so cute. I can’t believe someone just dumped you on the side of the road. Oooh. That must be dinner.”
We dined, and by the time I crawled into bed, and invited Kelso up to snooze with me, there was still no answering text from Merrick. I decided to prod him.
To: Merrick
Are you staying at a hotel? Are you finding the trail? Will you come back here? Warm me if you do because I put chair in front of door.
From: Merrick
I’ll warm you, all right.
To: Merrick
That was a typo, silly. Although can I add a hoobaby? I think I will. Hoobaby. Did you find the trail?
From: Merrick
No. Savian called in two sprites and another thief taker while he searches for your friend. The sprites should pick up the trail for us.
To: Merrick
Um. Do I want to know if sprites are little fairylike creatures with wings, and bags of fairy dust?
From: Merrick
No bags. They use saltshakers these days. Distributes the dust more efficiently.
I gaped at my phone in openmouthed surprise.
From: Merrick
Close your mouth. And go to sleep. I won’t be back in Nice until morning at earliest.
I gaped even more, finally turning to Kelso. “How on earth did he know my mouth was open?”
Kelso chose that moment to lick his genitals, and thus offered no insight worthy of consideration.
I fell asleep making a mental note to grill Savian about these sprites that Merrick mentioned, and whether they could make people fly.
The sound of a chair falling woke me up even before the light flashed on, instantly blinding me, and causing me to blink wildly while clutching the nearest weapon I could find, which just happened to be Kelso.
“Woof,” he barked, then promptly ruined the effect of killer guard dog by wagging his tail, and rolling onto his back when two men strolled into the room.
“Help!” I screamed, and, releasing the dog, threw myself across the massive bed to where both my cell phone and the hotel phone were sitting. “Help, help! Aidez-moi!”
Before I could blink, one of the two men was sitting on the side of the bed, pinning my arms down so I couldn’t reach the nightstand.
“Now, now, none of that, my sweet,” the man holding me said, his voice rich with a French accent. He had black hair that was swept back off his brow in movie star fashion, and a matching light dusting of beard stubble. He was dressed completely in black, and would probably be considered quite handsome, but I didn’t think he held a candle to Merrick’s austere gorgeousness. “We don’t want people to get the wrong impression, do we?”
“On the contrary, I think I do want them having the wrong idea. I want them all to have the wrong idea. Who are you?” I asked, squirming in the bed when I realized with my arms captured as they were, I couldn’t pull the sheet up. I was wearing a deliciously wicked nightgown made from a lovely apricot satin, and positively dripping with champagne lace. I knew it would have my father spinning in his grave, not just because of the price, but because it left little to the imagination where it concerned my front parts. “Let go of me! And stop staring at my breasts.”
“Really?” The man glanced from my chest to my face, laughter visible in his eyes. “You wear that, and don’t want me to look?”
“Let go of me,” I repeated, trying to kick my legs out from under the sheet at the same time I twisted my arms in his grip. “If you don’t, I’ll have my dog attack, and he goes for the noogies first. They taught him that at attack-dog school.”
“Would this be the same dog that is currently having his belly scratched?” The man loosened his hold on my wrists, allowing me to jerk my hands free. Instantly, I grabbed the sheet and hauled it up to my chin, glaring first at the man sitting next to me, then at the other man at the end of the bed, who was, indeed, scratching Kelso’s hairy white belly.
“What are you doing here? If you intend to kidnap me, I will warn you that I won’t go easy. I will scream the hotel down, and Kelso—for the love of heaven, dog, stop moaning in happiness. These are intruders! Kelso will attack if I give him the command to do so.”
“Do you know—” The man sitting next to me spoke in a companionable voice. “That sort of a threat simply makes me feel like a gag would be a good idea. What do you say, Ciaran?”
The other man slid a glance toward me and shrugged. “Not into that, myself, but if it makes you happy, I have no objections.”
I had gasped in horror when the first man mentioned a gag, but when the second man didn’t try to dispute such a heinous idea, I immediately switched my attention to trying to figure out how I could escape the room.
“It’s not my preference at all. At least, not for sex, which is what I assume you’re implying.”
Would it be better to try to knock the man next to me out with the lamp, and then call down to the desk for help, or should I smash him with the lamp, then run out of the room, racing down the hallway trailing expensive satin and lace in the best gothic heroine fashion?
“Assuming makes an ass out of you and me,” the second man said with the air of one delivering a bon mot. I stared at him in surprise. What sort of kidnapper trotted out the type of saying that a grandmother might use? The man didn’t seem to think anything of it, though. He just glanced around the room while still scratching Kelso. “Are you sure you got the room number right?”
Pickle juice! The plan for calling the front desk was clearly out, because if I bashed the man sitting on the bed on the head, Mr. Likes Dogs was sure to do something other than stand there and scratch Kelso’s belly.
It would have to be the bash and dash plan.
“Fairly certain, yes.” The man sitting next to me looked at me, his eyebrows high. “And who might you be, my lovely one?”
/> I took a deep breath as if I was going to answer him, instead suddenly lunging forward, shoving him off the bed at the same time I grabbed for the lamp and yelled, “Your worst nightmare!”
The lamp was bolted onto the table. I lay half off the bed, staring in horrified surprise at the lampshade that came off in my hand.
“Hardly that,” the man who had been with Kelso said, strolling over to stand over his buddy. “I know the sorts of nightmare Han has, and they don’t often include scantily clad redheads. What do you intend to do with that shade? Beat him about the head and shoulders with it? I applaud your intentions, but have doubts as to the effectiveness of the plan.”
“I ... the lamp ...” I gestured toward the object in question with the lampshade. “It’s stuck on the nightstand.”
The man on the floor was laughing openly, wiping his eyes before accepting his friend’s hand and getting to his feet. “I can’t say that I’ve ever been beaten up with a lampshade, but if anyone can do it, my money is on you.”
“Well, poop nuggets! You don’t have to be so smug about it.” I thought about throwing the shade at the two men who were now looming over me, but decided that would do no good. Instead, I resolved to make the biggest scene ever when they tried to take me out of the room. Unless there was some other method of escape. My gaze roamed around the room, looking for inspiration.
“Now, perhaps you wouldn’t mind answering a question or two—” The second man paused, and frowned, then leaned forward a little and sniffed. “Han.”
Perhaps if I made it out onto the balcony, I could climb down the three floors?
“Hmm?” The man in black was brushing off the white dog hair that he’d no doubt picked up from his time on the floor.
“Take a whiff of her.”
Climbing down from the balcony didn’t seem very likely—hey! I turned my gaze back to the two men, and glared. “I beg your pardon! There is nothing to whiff about me. I had a long soak in the tub after Kelso and I had dinner.”