TISCHLER CAME OUT OF THE bedroom fifty minutes later and handed her phone back to her. “It came out fairly clear. I was surprised it was that good.” He paused. “I’ll pack up my equipment and get out of here. You’re sure you wouldn’t consider letting me take the bottle back to the university?”
She shook her head. “But I promise I won’t damage it by opening the bottle and exposing it to air.”
“I won’t risk it. I’m going to leave a small portable metal container with you. It’s got an oxygen gauge. I’ll put the bottle in the container. All you have to do is press the button and it will take out the oxygen and keep the container airtight.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m not doing it for you. I’m trying to preserve a precious historical artifact from being destroyed.” He turned and started back toward the bedroom. “Besides the fact that you appealed to my curiosity, and I’m taking a chance that you’ll keep your word.”
“I’ll keep it,” she said absently, already accessing the photo on her cell phone.
He was right. The photos were amazingly clear. He had given her two of the script on the scroll and one of the coins themselves.
She handed the phone to Jock. “We got lucky. They’re astonishing.”
His lips curved in a faint smile as she gazed at the photos. “You might say almost miraculous, wouldn’t you?”
“I’ll take a miracle or two.” She took the phone back. “Now all I have to do is convince Roland that he should-”
Her cell phone rang.
Private number.
She tensed, then punched the button.
“I’ve been very eager to talk to you, bitch.” The man’s voice was mocking. “And I’m sure you’ve been waiting for my call with bated breath.”
“Millet?”
“You guessed. I thought you would. I had to keep myself from calling you before this. You’ve caused me a good deal of trouble, and I wanted to vent. But then I told myself wait, anticipate, let the bitch suffer. I took a great deal of pleasure thinking how frantic you must be about your Eve Duncan.”
“How is she? How badly is she hurt?”
“Not too badly. Yet. But I plan on entertaining myself with her after I hang up. She may be in considerably worse shape by the time the two of you are reunited.”
“Don’t hurt her.”
“But I must. Still, there’s a possibility that she could live if we could come to an agreement.”
“You’re talking about a trade.”
“Consider the situation. Look at all the innocent people that you’ve forced me to kill just so that you could keep on living. Do you want me to have to kill Eve Duncan? You know you’ve sinned. You may even be forgiven if you give yourself as the Offering.”
“I haven’t forced you to do anything. If you weren’t totally unbalanced, you’d realize that you’re the sinner. Murder is the ultimate sin, Millet.”
“I’m beginning to tire of talking to you. I think I’ll seek other amusement. Do you wish to speak to your Eve before I take her away?”
And she knew what that amusement would be. “Don’t hurt her. I’ll consider a trade. You can’t expect me to jump at the chance of having you stick your knife in me.”
“That’s not good enough. I don’t have time to let you hem and haw before you give in to the inevitable. The members mustn’t have a major disappointment at the last moment. I have to make preparations. Six hours from now, I’m going to send out a message to them either confirming that you’ll be the Offering or announcing a new sacrifice. I’ll give you those six hours, and no more, for you to tell me that you’re going to pay for your sins. After that, I’ll announce to the members that Eve Duncan will be the Offering.” He added, “They won’t be as pleased as having you, but she has a certain notoriety that will make the sacrifice titillating. It’s always exciting to bring down a star in any field. The most popular Offerings are always the rich, the famous, the brightest. You didn’t answer me. Do you wish to speak to Eve Duncan?”
“Of course, I do.”
“I’m turning up the volume so that you can share every precious word with me,” Millet said.
The next moment, Eve came on the line. “You know that I don’t want you to give in to this monster. I’ll work it out.”
“No, we’ll work it out. How is your wound? Did they change the bandage?”
“No, but I’ll survive. Stop fretting, Jane.”
“Fretting? I’m not fretting. I’m scared to death. I never dreamed that I’d get you into this mess.” She paused. “Though even if I had dreamed it, I wouldn’t know enough to get you out. I don’t know where you are, how to get to you. I feel helpless, Eve. Like I did when I was a kid, and I’d come running to you to make everything all right.”
Eve was silent. “I’ll try to do that now, Jane. But I imagine that in the end, it will be up to you.”
“Very touching.” Millet was back on the line. “But she’s right, it’s up to you. I’ll call you in six hours. I hope she’ll still be able to speak coherently.” He hung up.
That last threat was meant to drive me to panic, Jane thought as she hung up. It came close to succeeding.
“Did she understand what you were saying?” Jock asked. “It was pretty obscure.”
“It was the best I could do. He was listening to the conversation. I think she understood that she wasn’t alone, and I wanted her to find a way to let us know where she was in the temple.” She shook her head. “But I can’t be sure. I’m not going to rely on it.” She got to her feet and moved to the window and stood staring out into the darkness. She had to take a moment to steady her nerves before she dove into what she knew must be done. Professor Tischler was loading his equipment into his car, she noticed. He must have left the house while she was on the phone talking to Millet. She hadn’t even realized that he had passed through the room. “Eve called Millet a monster, and that’s what he is. He wants to hurt her, Jock. I can’t let him do it.”
He crossed the room to stand beside her at the window. “He won’t do anything critical. She’s important to him.”
“Critical? I don’t want him to touch her. But I can’t stop it. I’m not there. He won’t listen to me. And he believes anything he does to her will help bring me down.”
“Then what are you going to do?”
She reached for her phone. “I think it’s time that I brought someone on board who he will listen to.” She looked up the number in her directory and dialed.
“How delightful to hear from you,” Roland said. “Though I admit I expected it. My friend, Millet, said he was going to phone you and make you an offer you couldn’t refuse.”
“It wasn’t an offer, it was a threat. You knew it would be.”
“Millet is a little on edge. Time’s running out for him. If he doesn’t produce you after he promised the members, then he’ll lose prestige. He’s seen other Guardians start that slide, and it scares him. He doesn’t want someone to suggest that he’d make an excellent Offering.”
“I can’t imagine a more fitting ending for the bastard.”
“Neither can I. But he has his uses, and he’s not sharp enough to cause me any real problems.” He paused. “But you didn’t call me to listen to my assessment of Millet. You have your own by now. What is it? Begging? Pleading? Tears?”
“He’s going to hurt Eve. He may be doing it now. I want you to stop him.”
“Do you? But you have to understand that Millet derives a monumental amount of pleasure out of exercising that side of his character. It’s one of the ways I have of controlling him. So it wouldn’t do for me to attempt to curb him.” He chuckled. “As a matter of fact, I recall I once suggested that Eve Duncan would be a wonderful candidate for his games.”
“You bastard.”
“You’d do better with pleading than name-calling. Though neither is going to do you any good. I’ll have to let Millet run his course unless you can persuade me that it would be to my advantage to stop him.” He added softly, “You know what I want, Jane. I think you’re on the trail and may be very close. If you’re close enough, then we may have something to talk about. I do hope that’s the case because otherwise Eve Duncan doesn’t stand a chance. I won’t lift a finger.”
“I didn’t expect anything else of you.”
“Then tell me what I want to know. Are you going to be able to find the coins?”
“No.” She paused. “I’ve already found them.”
He inhaled sharply. “The hell you have.” Then he said, “You wouldn’t be trying any desperation tactics, would you?”
“I am desperate, or I wouldn’t have called you. That doesn’t mean that I’m not telling the truth. I’m going to send you three photos.” She pressed the button on her phone to make the transfer. “Look at them, then we’ll talk.”
“Oh, I intend to look at them…”
She waited.
He came back on the line. “Interesting,” he said cautiously. “But that doesn’t mean I can be sure they’re authentic. And I can’t decipher the script on that scroll.”
“I couldn’t either. But I’ve been informed that in the upper right-hand corner is the name Judas followed by the letters I and S. You’re a powerful man who has been hunting for the Judas coins for years. You have to have contacts who can look at these pictures and tell you whether or not they’re counterfeit. Call them and tell them to get the hell over there right away.”
“I’ll consider it.”
“Don’t consider it, do it,” she said fiercely. “I’ll not have that son of a bitch torturing Eve because you can’t get your act together. And if he kills her, there won’t be a chance in hell of your getting your hands on the Judas coins. I’ll throw it into the ocean before I let you have that pouch.”
“No reason to become so upset. I believe I can accommodate you.”
“No more than an hour, Roland. And while you’re checking up on me, find a way to keep Millet busy and away from Eve.”
“Don’t give me orders, Jane.”
“One hour, Roland.” She hung up.
“You were very tough.” Jock handed her a cup of tea. “I was impressed. Now sit down and relax for a little while. It’s been a roller-coaster night for you. But I think that Roland knows that he’s been in a battle.”
“Only a skirmish.” She sipped the tea and dropped down on the couch. Yes, she would try to relax. It was the intelligent thing to do. Certainly not the easiest thing when her nerves were strung this tight. “But the war has officially begun.”
ROLAND CALLED HER FIFTY-FIVE minutes later. His voice vibrated with excitement. “Where are they?”
“You got a confirmation on the coins?”
“I got a highly probable. The expert I called in said the script appeared to be carbon-based as was common during that period. But it’s not the correct number of coins.”
“Don’t be greedy. I could tell you where the other two coins went.”
“Where?”
“I could tell you. I won’t do it without a cast-iron deal.”
“Where is that pouch?” he asked. “And I’ve been told that writ of sale could disintegrate if care isn’t taken.”
“Safe. Hadar stuffed it in a bottle near the Field of Blood. I couldn’t chance opening it, so I had someone do opaque digital X-rays. It’s now protected in an airtight container. If you want to verify, you’ll have to have your expert do a digital scan when I hand it over. I guarantee it will remain intact if you agree to my terms.”
“You’re not in a position to dictate terms. You’re too vulnerable. Millet has Eve Duncan, which means I have Eve Duncan.”
“Those are my terms. I want Eve freed, and I want both of us to walk away from this nightmare. If you can find a way to rid the earth of Millet, I’d consider it a bonus.”
He was silent for a moment. “And I get the coins and the scroll with no conditions?”
“With no conditions.”
He suddenly chuckled. “Good God, I wonder if Eve Duncan will ever appreciate how valuable her life has turned out to be. You’re willing to give up billions.”
“Her life has a value you can’t even imagine, Roland.”
“I couldn’t be happier that you feel that way. In fact, I’m positively giddy. Do you know how long I’ve searched for those coins?”
“You told me it was years. I don’t give a damn. When can we arrange a trade that doesn’t involve either Eve or me ending up on that slab in the temple?”
“I’ll have to think about ways and means. You may well get your bonus if I can’t figure a way to pluck Eve out of Millet’s hands.”
“You’d better think fast. Millet gave me six hours to agree to his terms. I only have a little over four hours left.” She paused. “Did you call Millet and tell him that Eve’s not to be touched?”
“If I gave him orders, then he’d be certain to do the opposite. I phoned and let him brag a little, then said that you’re obviously an overemotional woman, and if you saw signs of mistreatment, you might blow up and ruin the trade. He can’t afford to have that happen. He’ll back off.”
“You told the truth. I’m very emotional, and I’ll react accordingly. You might remember that when you make your plans on getting Eve out of Millet’s hands.”
“I remember everything about you.” His voice lowered silkily. “You’re an unusual woman. I enjoy emotion. I was disappointed that I had to throw you to Millet to butcher. I much prefer the prospect of getting together with you at some future date. I could show you a few very exciting games.”
“In your dreams.” She hung up before she realized what she had said. Dreams, again. That response had come out of nowhere.
“He’s going to cooperate?” Jock asked.
“He’s telling me that he is. He could go either way. He wants the coins so bad that he can taste it. But if he thinks he can get the pouch without endangering his position within that cult, then he’ll have no compunction about serving me up to Millet.” She added wearily, “I realize we can’t trust him. I just had to have his help with Millet to keep Eve safe while we scramble to help her.”
He smiled. “And are we prepared to scramble?”
“Yes, call Gillem and tell him that I’ll need a helicopter to take me to Damascus.
His smile faded. “You’re going to Caleb?”
She nodded. “That pilot, Faruk, is the key. I have to make sure that Caleb doesn’t break the man before he can unlock the doors to the temple.”
“I’d prefer to go with you.”
“Why? To protect me from Caleb? I thought you were over that.”
“I don’t believe he’d hurt you intentionally. But he’s volatile, and it might happen. I can’t predict what he’s going to do. It makes me uneasy.”
She couldn’t predict Caleb either. “He can get Faruk to tell us about the location and layout of the temple. He may be able to use him to take us in with some of those members he’s supposed to be flying in. That’s worth being a little uneasy.”
“But you don’t want me with you.”
“We’ll need what amounts to an army if we have to attack that temple. Wait until you hear from Venable that they’ve arrived in Damascus, then join them. Millet will have all his top goons there for the Offering.” She smiled. “You’d make a fantastic general, Jock.”
He shook his head. “That’s MacDuff. I’m better at guerrilla tactics. You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.” She did not want to have to referee any conflict between Caleb and Jock. She could handle Caleb better on her own. The intimacy that was growing between them wasn’t easily understood. Not even by me, she thought. She couldn’t afford any interference. Every moment was a challenge. He held a power she had to learn to wield if she was to get through this nightmare.
And, together, they could find a way for her to dream again.
Day Seven
CALEB STROLLED UP TO HER helicopter as it came into the small airport on the outskirts of Damascus, where he’d told her to land. “I’m flattered.” He helped her out of the aircraft. “I only left you a matter of hours ago. You obviously couldn’t wait to be with me again.”
“You’re right,” Jane said dryly. “Waiting for anything isn’t on my agenda at the moment.”
“And you wanted to be here to remind me that I mustn’t follow my natural instincts. You didn’t trust me.” He reached out and gently touched her cheek. “How wise you are, Jane.”
Her skin was warm, tingling beneath his fingers. She wanted to step closer…
She shook her head to clear it and stepped back. “I thought I could be more useful here than waiting in Tel Aviv. As I told you on the phone, everything is in motion now.”
He glanced at his watch. “And in an hour you should be receiving your call from Millet.”
She nodded. “He’s not going to allow me much time. I’m not going to be able to stall him. We have to find a way to get Eve out before whatever time he gives me runs out.”
“That’s why I’m here, isn’t it? Faruk? It shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Can you get him to actually take us to the temple?”
“As I said, no problem.”
Hope suddenly surged through her. It was the first bright beacon in all the hours since she’d found the coins. “Then we’d better go find him. Did you check his home address on the Net?”
He nodded. “But we won’t bother to go there. After all, you’re pressed for time.”
“What do you-” Her gaze narrowed on his face. “This airport. Faruk uses this airport?”
He nodded. “He has two cargo planes parked in that hangar over there.”
“You couldn’t have just told me that’s why you wanted me to come here?”
“It was convenient. You had to land somewhere.” He glanced away from her. “And maybe I was a little irritated that you tied my hands. I didn’t feel like sharing.” He smiled. “Not that way.”
Intimacy.
Push it away.
“Too bad. This isn’t about you… or me. It’s about Eve. Have you contacted Faruk yet?”
He shook his head. “He’s not here. He went to downtown Damascus after he came back from dropping off Millet and Eve. He should be back soon. I spent the last hour or so talking to mechanics and Nasra, the receptionist at the office, gathering information. Faruk seems to be pretty ordinary. Early forties, unmarried, quiet, doesn’t talk much to the other pilots or mechanics. He’s considered a good pilot. Definitely not a troublemaker.”
“Just a good-old-boy cult member who likes to watch people stabbed to death.”
“How often have you read stories about serial killers whose neighbors say they can’t believe their friend is the same man who did those killings?”
“Point taken. Where do we wait for Faruk to appear?”
“Definitely out of sight.” He drew her into a hangar a few yards from the small brightly lit main office. “If your picture was circulated among the cult members, Faruk has probably seen it.” He leaned back against the metal wall. “We don’t want to put him on his guard. It will make things difficult.” He saw her expression and smiled. “No, I’m not on the attack. I’ll handle him gently. You’ve slapped my hands. How could I do otherwise?”
“Let me count the ways. You let me come blindly on his turf. You weren’t worried about his recognizing me then.”
“I was on watch. And I knew he wasn’t due back yet. I took a chance.” He made a face. “Though maybe I wanted an excuse to go after him. Who knows?”
“All I want from him is information. Faruk’s a pilot, not one of Millet’s killers. He’s no real danger.”
“We’ll see.” He was studying her. “You look as if you’ve been stretched on a rack. One touch, and you’d break. How long do you think you can go on?”
“Until we get Eve back.” She gazed out at the tarmac. “And I won’t break.”
His intent gaze remained on her face. “It makes me angry seeing you like this, you know.”
Her gaze shifted back to his face. “Why?”
He shrugged. “I’ve been wondering that myself. I thought I’d left all that protective bullshit behind me. But it appears that there are some tendrils of emotion that can’t be uprooted. You… stir me.”
She stared at him, speechless.
“I just thought you should know.” His lips twisted. “You’re always saying you don’t understand me. Now you can see in what direction I’m heading. I don’t think it’s just the sex. I wouldn’t have let you take me off the hunt for Faruk if it was only that.” He held her gaze. “Though I could be wrong. I keep thinking of all the ways I want to have you.”
She was suddenly vibrantly, physically, aware of everything about him. His hand resting on the doorjamb, the muscles of his chest and shoulders relaxed but possessing a catlike readiness, his eyes… Her chest was so tight that she couldn’t breathe. “And that’s supposed to make me understand you?”
“Maybe not. I thought I’d try. Sometimes, I think, I get lonely. Though I thought I’d put that behind me, too.” He suddenly chuckled. “But understanding me might cause you to shun me even more. Maybe I should count my blessings.”
She was feeling an aching, almost tender, impulse to reach out, to comfort. It bewildered her. Surely no one on earth had less need for either of those emotions. He had even laughed at himself as he had said those words. Somehow that only made them more poignant. “ I… don’t shun you.”
“Because I keep coming at you. It’s easier for you to come to terms than push me away.”
Damn, he could read her. “Right now I can’t deal-”
“He’s here.” Caleb straightened, his gaze on the hangar across the tarmac. “Tall, a little plump, mustache. That’s the description I got from Nasra, the receptionist.”
Jane’s gaze focused on the man in neat gray trousers and brown leather flight jacket who was unlocking the door of the hangar. As Caleb had said, Faruk looked very ordinary.
If anything about this nightmare was ordinary. “What happens now?”
“Nothing radical. I do a little tentative probing, then I go talk to him. You don’t have to-” He stiffened, staring at Faruk.
Her gaze flew to his face. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” He left the hangar. “Stay here. I should be back in a few minutes.” He strolled across the tarmac. “Captain Faruk, may I have a word with you? I spoke to the receptionist at the front office, and she said that you might be just the man I need to fly a very valuable shipment of rugs to Rome.”
Faruk turned and smiled. “Nasra is a smart woman. I’m the best, and I could give you a good price.”
“I’m sure we’ll be able to come to an agreement. I already feel a closeness that you-” Caleb bent double, his face contorted with pain. “No!”
Jane stiffened. What on earth was-
Faruk was staring at Caleb in bewilderment. “What’s wrong? Are you ill?”
“Stomach.” Caleb was stumbling back, his face white as a tombstone. He gasped, “Later.” He turned and half ran, half reeled across the tarmac. The next moment he lurched into the hangar and fell against the wall where Jane was standing.
“Make sure-he’s not following. Mustn’t-see you.” His face was beaded with sweat.
Jane tore her gaze away from Caleb to glance quickly across the tarmac. “Faruk’s just standing there, looking confused. What the hell is wrong?”
“Can’t talk-give-me a minute.” He slid down the metal wall and leaned back, breathing hard.
Agony. The muscles of his neck were distended, his teeth clenched.
She grabbed his hand. “Shall I find a doctor?”
He shook his head.
“Dammit, what can I do?” She started to get to her feet, but his grasp held her locked to his side. “Let me go. I’ve got to-”
He shook his head. “No good.”
“There has to be some-”
“Be quiet.” He was shaking. “Quagmire.”
“What? I don’t-” Then she remembered what he had told her on the plane when she’d asked him if he ever ran across anyone he couldn’t mentally manipulate.
Quagmire. Intense pain. Smothering.
I went too deep and was unconscious for two days.
“Quagmire,” she repeated. “Faruk?”
He nodded jerkily.
“Dear God.”
“A minute. Give-me a minute.”
She didn’t know if he could stand another minute of that pain, she thought desperately. The skin was drawn tight over his cheekbones as he fought the spasms. She had never felt so helpless.
She couldn’t help him.
She had to help him.
She had to do something.
She slid her arms around him and drew him close. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.” She stroked his hair back from his face. “I can’t take this. Tell me what to do.”
He didn’t answer. Lord, he was cold. She held him closer and tried to share her warmth. “Relax. We’ll stay like this for a while and you’ll be okay.” She prayed she was telling the truth. “Just relax…”
Five minutes passed.
Fifteen minutes.
He was no longer shaking.
Thank God.
Twenty minutes.
He lifted his head and looked down at her. “Hello.”
“Hi.” She drew a relieved breath that came from the depths of her being. “You scared me.”
“I can tell.” The corners of his lips quirked. “At the moment I don’t feel in the least bit shunned. But I don’t believe I want to go through that again. We’ll have to work on some other kind of solution.”
She rolled away from him, sat up, and gazed at him searchingly. He might be joking, but he was still very pale. “I didn’t know what to do. Are you better?”
He nodded. “It wasn’t bad. I got out soon enough.”
“That wasn’t bad?” She shook her head. “It seemed damn bad to me.”
“Maybe I was just making a bid for sympathy,” he said lightly as he slowly sat up. “You know you can’t trust me.”
He still wasn’t entirely normal. She wanted to touch him, stroke him, make all the pain go away. “Stop joking. This isn’t funny.”
“No, part of it was hell but the last part was kind of nice. There’s always a balance.” He put his hand out to the metal wall and levered himself up. “But I think I need a drink. Let’s go find a bar.”
“We don’t have a car.”
“Of course we do.” He took her elbow and headed for the entrance. “One of the mechanics I talked to insisted that he lend me his car while I was in the city.”
“How convenient. Another long-lost best friend?”
“You’ve got it. I think I saw a little coffee bar about two miles down the road. Let’s see if they have anything stronger under the counter for the Westerners.”
THE COFFEE BAR WAS SMALL, with only a few tables and almost empty except for four Arabs who stared at Jane coldly when they walked through the door.
“Prejudice seems to be raising its ugly head,” she murmured. “The locals don’t approve of women outside their homes. So much for freeing the masses.”
“Do you want me to have a talk with them?”
“No!” She sat down at a corner table. “I don’t want you to hunt, and I don’t want you to manipulate. I just want you to rest and have your drink.”
“How protective you sound.” He motioned for a swarthy, young waiter, who was glaring at Jane. “It wouldn’t hurt me. Faruk was one of those freakish exceptions. What do you want?”
“Just a coffee.”
A few minutes later the waiter set a whiskey in front of Caleb and a tiny glass brimming with steaming black coffee before Jane.
“That looks stronger than my whiskey,” Caleb said. “Want to switch?”
“No.”
He downed the whiskey. “You’re smart. Foul stuff.” He motioned the waiter for another one. “But it keeps the blood going.”
“Is whiskey a cure-all for this…” She searched for the word again. “This quagmire.”
“No, it just causes the chill to go away.” He looked down into his whiskey. “I’m sorry, Jane. I told you it would be no problem. It was a big problem.”
“You’re sorry? How could you help it? You’re the one who went through more pain than a victim of the Spanish Inquisition. What if you’d gone into shock?”
“I didn’t.” He frowned. “And there has to be a way to control it and do the job. I’ve just been too wary to play around with it. It’s so rare, and it was easier to walk away.” He grimaced. “Or crawl away. I wasn’t a very admirable specimen, was I?”
“Play around with it? That’s like playing Russian roulette with every chamber filled with bullets. You just have to wonder which one is going to kill you.”
“There has to be a way.”
Dear God, he was actually serious. “The way is to use Faruk like a normal person would do it. Maybe we can bug his plane when he takes those other members to the temple.”
“Millet will kill Eve as soon as he knows the temple is under attack. We’ll still need the layout of the temple if we’re to get to Eve before he knows we’re there.”
She knew that he was right, and the alternative of blundering around searching for her was terrifying. “I thought about trying to get Roland to give me the information as part of the deal, but I couldn’t trust him.” She paused. “But there’s something else that could work.”
He studied her, then smiled faintly. “The other reason why you came to Damascus after me. You need me to help you dream.”
“I can’t take a chance on doing it on my own. What if my sleep isn’t deep enough to dream? You kept me asleep for a long time. We have to do it together.”
He shook his head, still smiling. “And is this your idea of how a normal person would handle the situation? My, how your viewpoint has changed.”
She couldn’t argue. “Everything is different now. I’m just trying to keep everyone alive.”
“So am I,” Caleb said quietly. “That’s why I think I should work on overcoming this-”
“No!” She finished her coffee. “Let’s get out of here. It’s almost time for Millet to call me, and I don’t want to take it here with all these men in the bar looking daggers at me.” She stood up. “One bastard at a time.”
JANE AND CALEB HAD BEEN sitting in the car outside the bar for only fifteen minutes when Jane’s phone rang.
“Have you been waiting for me?” Millet asked. “I imagine you’re very torn. It’s not every day that anyone is given the opportunity to make the ultimate sacrifice to save another. You’re very special.”
“And you’re very nuts.”
“Ugly.”
“Did you hurt Eve?”
“I’d like to say yes, but I decided that I should save myself for you, Jane.”
Relief surged through her. Roland must know Millet very well to be able to manipulate him to this extent. “May I talk to Eve again?”
“No, I’m not feeling generous. No contact until the exchange.” He paused. “If there is to be an exchange. Is Eve going to live, Jane?”
“Yes.” She moistened her lips. “But I don’t trust you. You’ll kill Eve, too, if you get the chance. I’m not going to walk into your trap until I’m sure Eve is out of it.”
“I have no use for Eve Duncan.”
“That doesn’t mean you wouldn’t enjoy tearing her limb from limb. I’ve seen your work, Millet.”
He chuckled. “Yes, you did. I was exceptionally artistic when I was working on Celine Denarve. I did enjoy that evening enormously.”
Poor butterfly, caught, pierced, pinned.
“It’s not going to happen to Eve. What are your plans?”
“I’m going to have you flown here to the temple and send Eve Duncan out on the same plane.”
“Good God, do you think I’m that gullible?”
“No, but I thought I’d try. Sometimes desperation robs one of common sense. Suppose we meet somewhere in the desert and do the exchange. That should be safer for both of you.”
“I’ll consider it.”
“Arrogant bitch.” His voice had harshened. “If I weren’t short on time, you’d have no choice at all. I’d kill Duncan, then go after you. It wouldn’t be long before I’d have it all.”
“But I do have a choice. Not much of one, but I’m not giving it up.”
“I need you at the temple by seven tomorrow night for the Offering. The exchange has to take place in time for me to get back to the temple before that. Five, six, at the latest. Do you understand? I need an Offering and I won’t quibble about taking Eve Duncan if I can’t have you.”
“I know you won’t.”
“I’ll call you in four hours, and you’d better have set a place for the transfer. I’ll need to send my men ahead to make sure you’re not setting a trap. That wouldn’t be wise, Jane. One sign, and I slice your Eve’s throat.” He hung up.
Her hand was shaking as she pressed the disconnect. It was what she had been expecting, but the violence and ugliness was striking hard at her. Millet’s vicious intensity had been like an exploding bullet. Everything had been leading up to this time and she had a crazy feeling that it was inevitable that Millet would triumph no matter what she did.
Tomorrow was the first of April.
Judas’s birthday.
The day of her death.
“Jane?”
She turned to look at Caleb in the seat next to her. “Four hours. I have to tell him where we’ll meet in the desert. He wants the exchange by five tomorrow evening.” She tried to keep her voice even. “He doesn’t want me to be late for the Offering. That wouldn’t be polite.”
Caleb muttered a curse. “He got to you.”
“No… Yes.” Her lips were trembling. “He’s such a monster. They’re all such monsters. Sometimes I can’t believe it. Blasphemer. They keep using that word. Cults and sacrifices and archaic words that shouldn’t even exist any longer. They should all be in the Dark Ages. It doesn’t seem real. I thought it was bad the night that Celine died, but it’s been going on so long. Tomorrow will be eight days, Caleb. Every minute has been like a dagger stabbing at me.” She tried to keep her voice steady. “I’m ready for it to be over.”
“And it will be.” His hands were gently cupping her face. “You’ll go through it all and come out clean and bright. It will be fine. I promise you.”
“I’ll be better soon.” She should move away from him, but she felt warm and treasured with his hands cupping her cheeks. She needed to feel as if she was more than the pawn in Millet’s dirty game. “I have to think how we’ll be able to handle this. I should call Roland, but nothing is clear right now.”
“It will be clear soon.” He was looking down into her eyes. His own eyes were dark and soft, and she couldn’t look away from them. So much gentleness, so much sensuality, so much intensity, that she was caught, held. It was flowing over her, around her, within her.
His hands left her face and moved to her shoulders. “Stop fighting. You don’t have to be strong right now. It’s not going to make any difference. I’m the only one here, and I’ll never judge you.” He was pulling her close. “You helped me. Now let me help you.”
She could hear his heart beneath her ear, and she didn’t move. She was safe, wonderfully content, enfolded in velvet darkness.
“That’s right, Jane,” he whispered. “Come dream with me…”