“Not just yet,” he said, closing his eyes for a moment, and she could feel the tremor of pain and something else shiver over him. “Give me a minute.”
She stood very still. And then she sighed, dropping her forehead against his shoulder, and slid her arms around him. And they stood there, for countless moments, with the smell of death all around them in the fog-shrouded night.
“Do you think they’re all right?” Holly kept her voice casual as she toyed with the glass of whiskey. She was lying stretched out on one uncomfortable sofa in the deserted common room of the dingy, second-rate hotel Maggie had deliberately chosen, and one slender, high-heeled foot was dangling over the armrest. Her toenails were painted a pinky-lavender, a perfect match for her silk caftan, and Ian Andrews glowered at them every ten minutes. It was now almost two o’clock in the morning. The two of them had been sitting there in monosyllabic discomfort since they finished an amazingly horrible dinner at ten-thirty, which made it … twenty-one glares, she computed triumphantly. Or was it two hundred and ten … ? What the hell. She drained her whiskey.
“How should I know?” Ian demanded, pacing back to the front window. He’d been as restless as a caged tiger the entire evening, storming from the window to the doorway, perching for a moment on the other sofa, then moving back and forth. He’d taken two hours on one game of patience, drank more than his share of the bottle of Irish whiskey, and in general been a less than charming companion.
Holly sighed. “Shouldn’t they be back by now?”
“They should.”
“What do you think happened to them?”
“Maybe they got caught.”
“Reassuring, aren’t you?” she drawled.
“I’m not here for your reassurance. If you want someone to hold your hand you’ll have to look elsewhere.” He stalked back across the room and threw himself down on the sofa again. His strong body knocked the table, the cards slid to the floor, and his own glass of whiskey took a dive toward his lap. He caught it deftly enough, cursing, and glared at Holly. Number twenty-two, she thought. They were coming more frequently now. At this rate, even if Randall and Maggie made it back safely they might return to discover their accomplices’ bodies, locked in a death struggle.
“What are you grinning at?” he demanded.
Holly let her aquamarine eyes sweep over him with insolent cheer. “Just trying to figure out the best way to murder you,” she said sweetly.
He didn’t even blink. “Plenty have tried.”
She believed him and suddenly her amusement fled. “Have you ever killed anyone?”
He didn’t bother to look at her, or doubtless it would have been glare twenty-three. He stared down at his glass of whiskey, contemplating it as if it held the secrets of the universe. For a moment she didn’t think he was going to answer her, and she couldn’t blame him. As usual she’d been astonishingly tactless.
He lifted his head, his green eyes meeting hers. “Yes.”
Might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, she thought. “How many?”
He could have thrown his half-full glass of whiskey at her, and she wouldn’t have blamed him. She had no right to ask him these questions, but the alternative was to worry about Maggie, and she couldn’t spend another minute doing that without going crazy.
He didn’t throw the glass, he drained it and set it down on the table in front of him. “I’ve been a soldier. I’ve been in wars. People lose count.”
“Do they?”
“Does it turn you on, lady?” he countered roughly. “Do you get all hot and bothered hearing about blood and death and violence? I’d be more than happy to tie you up and beat you if that’s your fancy. Just don’t expect me to screw you afterward.”
“You’re a pig, Ian.”
“So I’ve been told.” Dead silence reigned in the room, an uncomfortable silence. There was a sullen peat fire in the blackened hearth, and the hiss and spit seemed unnaturally loud. Ian was staring into that fire, unmoving. “Seven,” he said.
For once Holly stopped her unruly tongue. It was too alien a concept, the deliberate ending of seven lives, and she simply sat there, trying to absorb it.
“And it’s going to be eight,” he added.
Holly raised her head. “I hope you don’t mean me?” she said lightly.
“No. I don’t kill women, either for duty or pleasure.” He shrugged. “Timothy Seamus Flynn is going to be number eight.”
“What about a trial? What about innocent until proven guilty?”
“That’s an American concept. The first chance I get I’m going to kill Flynn,” he said.
“Unless he gets you first.”