The room took on a different feel. With Ackley blocking the doorway and Amy holding a gun to my head, things weren’t looking up for Brodie and me. Brodie must have felt it, too, because his demeanor changed. He no longer took any interest in my shirt. He was too busy wasting time.
“Evelyne, is that your world famous goose I see on this table?” he asked.
“With an apricot glaze, yes it is. Do you remember it?”
“How could I forget? Heaven on a plate. Would you mind terribly if I helped myself to a piece?”
Amy waved her gun around. “Be careful, Brodie.”
“The most careful, Evelyne,” he said. Ever so slowly, he leaned over and reached for the goose, ripping off one of the legs with his hand. Sitting back down, he took a bite and made a lot of yum yum noises. “Still the best, Evelyne.”
“You’re not going to let him just sit there and eat, are you?” demanded Ackley. He shook with frustration, the gasoline swished around in the can, spilling out droplets of liquid onto Ackley’s shirt and the carpet. “I’ll drag him out now and set him on fire. Or at least let me shoot him. I can do it right here. I’ll make minimal mess.”
“He’s not going anywhere, Kevin,” said Amy. “We can at least let him eat a bit of goose before he dies.”
“Ackley doesn’t like me,” Brodie said with his mouth full of Amy’s goose. “He blames me.”
“Blames you? Blames you for what?” Amy was honestly interested. Her gun dipped from my temple to my ear, as she leaned forward, eagerly waiting Brodie’s explanation.
He took another bite of the goose leg. “He blames me for—” he said and waved toward Ackley’s face. We stared. His skin was rippled and blackened, oddly distorted over the entire side of his face. His eye drooped under the weight of the damaged skin.
“Damn right I blame you,” Ackley roared. The gasoline swished as he spoke, like background music to his rant. “You ordered it. I’m a monster because of you. I was drummed out of the SAS because of you.”
Brodie grabbed some more goose and took a bite. “Obvious issues with taking responsibility for himself,” he said to nobody in particular.
“Sounds like middle child syndrome,” I chimed in. “My uncle Morty had the same thing.” I didn’t have an uncle named Morty or any uncle at all, for that matter. But if I did, I figured he would have middle child syndrome and a fifty-fifty chance of having a wart problem.
“Morty blamed everybody for a troubling wart problem,” I said, putting the two lies together nicely.
“I knew someone like that,” Brodie said.
“Not normal warts,” I pointed out. I could go on about warts all day. “He had clusters of warts. He had them on his elbows, wrists. Terrible clusters on his feet. Warts on top of warts. He couldn’t wear normal shoes because of it. He had to wear Birkenstocks, which was awkward because he was a card carrying Republican. Anyway, he blamed the warts on his older brother, Jordy, even though Jordy had his own problems with his webbed fingers and that little toe that stuck out from the side of his foot. Birkenstock made a lot of money from that family. But anyway, Jordy never blamed his problems on anybody. He was the oldest child. He didn’t have that middle child problem.”
“Exactly,” Brodie said, his mouth full.
“I’m not a middle child,” Ackley said.
“Hmmm …” I said, doubtfully.
“I should have cut your tongue out when I had the chance. Shut up, or I’ll make toast out of you.” Ackley shook the gas can, and some of the gasoline spilled. At this rate, I thought hopefully, there wouldn’t be any gas left to do the job.
“You two are acquainted.” It was a question, but Brodie spoke it like an accusation.
“What’s it to you?” Ackley sneered, giving Brodie a menacing look.
“Iain and Miss Williams are involved, Kevin. We were mistaken about Jake,” said Amy. She gestured with the gun when she spoke. I scooted to the edge of my chair away from her.
Ackley smiled like he had stumbled on his first Christmas. “Yeah, we’re acquainted,” he said to Brodie. “I love the feel of her tits in the palms my hands. She’s got nice, firm tits. Real ones, not too small.”
I waited for the inevitable explosion of Brodie’s head, but much to my surprise, he remained composed when he spoke again. “I don’t think I like you talking about her like that.”
“Maybe I should say a few words about her snatch,” Ackley mused.
“Maybe I should make the two sides of your face match up. How did we do it last time? A hot iron?”
“A blowtorch. You let them take a blow torch to my face!”
I gasped, drawing Brodie’s attention.
“Genius here went out and got a conspicuous, revealing tattoo on his face. A big tattoo,” he explained. I nodded my understanding. I had already seen Brodie’s scar from the same mistake.
“The blowtorch didn’t make Ackley any more intelligent, unfortunately,” Brodie said. “I must say, Emmett, I’m a little surprised that you took him on. You usually like to surround yourself with people with at least half a brain. Modesty intended, of course.”
Gairloch shifted in his chair. “I’ve had to shift my priorities, Iain. I’m interested in loyalty now. Cerebral aptitude doesn’t do me any good if the brains don’t stick around long enough to be useful.”
I jumped in. “Sticky brains. We’ve gone through this before. Sticky brains are important.”
“If you like Ackley so much,” said Brodie. “I’m surprised you didn’t send him to take me at Abby’s apartment instead of sending one of my own men.”
Gairloch took off his wool cap and smoothed out his thick, white hair. “When was that, Brodie? I did no such thing. I put a hit on you in Chechnya, that I cannot deny, but I sent no one to Miss Williams’s home.”
Brodie raised one eyebrow. “We had a deal, Emmett. You agreed that this would be my last mission. Chechnya had unique risks. I earned my retirement.”
“I was your finale,” I said.
“Don’t flatter yourself, Abby,” Amy said. “Iain has been wanting to retire for years.”
“I’ve been more than loyal over the years,” he pointed out.
“Family never breaks up.”
“Ha!” Everyone stared at me. “I said that out loud, didn’t I? It’s just that I haven’t had much luck with family,” I explained.
The issue of family really got Amy’s hackles up. She took a step toward Brodie, menacing him with the gun. “Neither has Iain. Emmett discovered him in a rather Dickensian orphanage.”
“Not this again,” he moaned.
“I heard there were rats and a rather unfriendly headmistress with a fondness for paddles.”
“No on the rats, yes on the unfriendly headmistress,” he corrected. “Evelyne, I may not know much about family, but I do know that family members don’t put hits out on each other.”
“Ha!” I looked around the table. “Was that me, again?” I took another swig of the wine. Brodie flashed me a smile, knocking me off guard. I smiled back and had a rush of dirty thoughts. In the moments before I was to be brutally murdered, he could still make my uterus hum.
“I’ll set Miss Williams on fire first so Brodie can watch. Then I’ll shoot him in the gut and set him ablaze,” Ackley said as if it was a done deal.
“Yes, sounds good,” said Gairloch. Chatting time was over. They were ready to get right to business. “I am weary. Take her out to the back and light her up.”
Those would be the last words I would ever hear: “Light her up.”
“Shouldn’t we wait until after dessert,” I asked, choking back sobs. “Amy went to so much trouble.”
I never heard the answer. Brodie moved in a blur. From somewhere, he pulled out a Taser and shot it at Ackley. I heard a crackle as Ackley went rigid. Amy aimed her gun at Brodie, but she was distracted when Ackley burst into flames. He must have ignited when the Taser hit the gasoline on his shirt.
The fire wasn’t limited to there. Almost instantly, he was a hideous fireball. He was head to toe flames. I had the crazy thought that I could roast marshmallows on any part of his body.
We watched in disgusted fascination as he flailed his arms, dropping the gas can to the floor and letting the gas spill across the carpet. He screamed an ungodly high- pitched wail for a second but was cut short by the fire that overtook him. There was no hope of putting the fire out. It gathered strength from the gasoline, building in size. The smell of burning flesh made me gag.
Ackley spun around, hitting the furniture as he moved, spreading the fire to the table, the carpet, and the curtains. Gairloch and Amy stood paralyzed, unsure what to do, but Brodie didn’t hesitate. He jumped up and over the table, grabbed me by the hand, and pulled me away at a fast run.
Down the hall, I turned for a moment to see the fire spreading up the walls. “Faster!” Brodie yelled.
I was already running as fast as I could. My heart pounded out of my chest. Brodie dragged me by the hand like he was pulling a reluctant dog on a leash. I knew I was slowing him down, and I thought I should yell out “Save yourself” or something equally altruistic, but I didn’t want to be burned alive. I wanted him to save me, and I didn’t want to lose him again.
I felt the heat at my back. The windows in the room behind me exploded from what was quickly becoming an inferno. “Faster!” I yelled. Brodie sped up. I flew through the air, tethered to his hand. Finally, we reached the front door. Brodie gave it a kick, and it flew open.
The rush of fresh air signaled my freedom. Brodie beeped his automatic car key, and we ran to a waiting sports car. He gunned the engine down the driveway. In the side view mirror I saw Gairloch’s mansion go up in flames. I hoped, uncharitably, that everyone inside died.
We drove in silence for fifteen minutes before I told Brodie to pull over to the side of the road. I stumbled out of the car and gave in to my nausea. I retched up the wine and the Snickers and settled into dry heaves, which had no intention of stopping. Brodie knelt beside me, his hand on my back.
“Slow, deep breaths, Princess,” he said. His voice was soft and sure, and it calmed me immediately. I did as he said. The retching finally stopped. I sat in the dirt and breathed through my nose. Brodie found a bottle of water in his car, and I rinsed my mouth. After a while, I found my voice again.
“Would you believe that I never threw up before I met you?”
Brodie nodded. “Nice to know I have that effect on women.”
“I didn’t become hysterical this time.”
“No, you were quite calm.”
“I didn’t want to get slapped again. So, I tried to keep it together.”
“There wouldn’t have been much danger of me slapping you again, Princess,” he said.
“Oh, no?”
“You see, I’ve kissed you since then. I would be crazy not to choose the kissing option over the slapping option to calm your hysteria, no matter how perilous kissing Abigail Williams might be. Mind you, you won’t get me to kiss you now, just after you vomited up that god-awful mess.”
He put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me into him. “Oh, what the hell,” he muttered.
He turned his head to face me and captured my mouth. His beard was rough from two days’ growth, but his lips were velvety soft. He explored my mouth with his tongue, making my head swim. There was an urgency to the kiss, a need to connect in order to confirm that we were still alive. There was also something deeper, which I didn’t allow myself to investigate. We sat, locked in our embrace for a long time, neither of us willing to break it off until a car came too close and honked its horn at us.
“You smell good,” I said. “Like wood smoke.”
“That’s not me, Princess. It’s you. Some of your hair got singed in the back.”
***
We drove south, away from London. Brodie kept his eyes on the road and both hands on the steering wheel. He was deep in thought, which was fine with me. Let him do the thinking. I was done. I wanted to sleep for days and never think again.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yes, my hair was singed, but I didn’t get burned.”
“No, not that.” He clenched the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white. “I noticed your shirt. Are you okay? Did that jerk—”
“It’s not what you think.”
Brodie’s eyes never left the road. “I wish I could have ripped his throat out. I would have liked to feel him die under my hands.”
“It wasn’t like that, Brodie. He didn’t touch me like that. He hurt me, but not like that.”
He exhaled and loosened his grip on the wheel. “You don’t have to lie to me to protect me. You don’t have to say anything. You don’t have to answer to me. I’m just concerned, that’s all.”
“I’m not lying. I’m not trying to protect you. That’s your job. You protect me,” I said, which was sometimes true.
“I wouldn’t have to protect you if you didn’t get yourself into so much trouble.”
“Excuse me, need I remind you it’s your fault I get myself into trouble?”
“You went to Gairloch’s on your own. I had nothing to do with that. When I saw you there, I nearly had a heart attack. I only came after him when I thought he sicced one of my own men on me at your place. I was forced to terminate one of my own men, Princess. So, I was finally going to end it good and proper with Gairloch, and there you were.”
“I was looking for you,” I explained. “I went to him for help.”
“You don’t go to Gairloch for help,” he said. “You go to Logan. Common sense, woman.”
I told him about Logan. I told him about Ackley and escaping to the safe house. I told him how Amy betrayed me, how she was really Evelyne Wilhelmina Glod, how she said she was sending a doctor, but she sent Ackley instead. Then I told him that Logan was dead. I didn’t want to tell him so soon. I wanted to break it to him gently, but he gave me no choice.
But he didn’t believe me. Without a written report from a coroner, he simply refused to believe that Logan was dead. I described his injuries. The bullet wound in his leg, the point-blank shot to his chest, and no, he wasn’t wearing a bulletproof vest because he was half naked. Brodie didn’t care. He turned the car around and pushed the accelerator as far as it would go.
***
I paused at the door of the room at the safe house. I didn’t want to see Logan like that again, lifeless, covered in blood. But Brodie was fearless. He stormed into the room and headed directly for the couch. I followed slowly. Logan was still lying there, just as I had left him.
Brodie examined him briefly. Nodding, he lifted Logan into his arms. “Let’s go,” he said.
Brodie stole a larger car parked on the street, and we drove to a nondescript clinic where Brodie knew the staff. He placed Logan on a gurney and gave some orders along with a roll of cash. Within minutes, they wheeled Logan away.
I turned to Brodie, every question written on my face.
“Jake doesn’t die,” he explained.
***
Brodie was right. Logan didn’t die. Twelve hours of surgery later, they wheeled him into the recovery room, where Brodie and I waited. Brodie bought me a shirt from one of the nurses. He also found us sandwiches and hot coffee. I didn’t think I could eat, but after one bite I realized just how hungry I was. I wolfed my sandwich down and was surprised by how much better I felt from a little food and a hot drink.
Logan was a miracle. I watched his chest rise and fall as he slept in his hospital bed. He breathed on his own. But he was weak and injured, and his recovery would take a long time. The doctor told Brodie how lucky Logan had been to be in such good shape. That’s what probably saved him.
Brodie and I sat vigil at his bedside. In the early hours of the morning, Logan spoke.
“Sorry, Iain,” he said. His voice was just above a whisper, thick and raspy like it took enormous effort for him to speak. Brodie took his hand.
“Good to see you,” he said.
“I didn’t get her out like you ordered.”
Brodie shook his head. “I shouldn’t have asked you. I should have done my own dirty work. You didn’t stand a chance at Gairloch’s.”
“I let you down.”
“Shut up now. You’re supposed to rest. We’re all fine. What’s done is done.”
“Abby’s fine, then?”
“I’m here, Jake,” I said, moving so he could see me. “I’m peachy. See? I have a shiner, but otherwise I’m fine. As a bonus, Gairloch’s house burned down. Ackley died. Probably Gairloch is dead, too. I finally met Evelyne, by the way. I’ve been meeting so many strange people lately.”
“What’s a shiner?” he asked and fell back to sleep.
We sat on the chair next to Logan’s bed, I on Brodie’s lap. I nestled my head against his chest. Fatigue washed over me, and I let my eyes droop. I could feel Brodie relax, as well, relieved now that he had spoken to his friend and knew he would be all right.
“That’s a bit like the pot calling the kettle black,” he said.
“What is?”
“You meeting a lot of ‘strange people lately.’ That’s funny coming from you.”
“I do believe you’re teasing me, Iain Brodie.”
Brodie rubbed my arm. “Do you mind it terribly?”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way. Do you remember way back when I called you a jackass?”
“It does ring a bell. And bastard. You called me that, too. Also something about me fucking mothers, if I recall correctly.”
I cleared my throat. “Well, I was wrong.”
“Glad to hear it, Princess.”
“You’re not a jackass or those other things. You’re a pretty good guy, as mercenaries go.”
“Retired mercenary. Lay your head, Princess. It’s time to rest.”
***
Going back to my editor job was out of the question, if I ever really had a job in the first place. Going back to my apartment—even to retrieve my belongings—was also a bad idea.
Gairloch’s demise was nowhere in the press, which made Brodie nervous. Nevertheless, there wasn’t any dire need to flee. Gairloch had a lot of cleaning up to do. He would be far too busy to hunt us down in any kind of hurry. Still, it wasn’t smart to tempt him with our presence.
The bigger problem was the Taylor murder. Brodie was still a wanted man in Britain. Sticking around could prove fatal.
It was time to go to New York, but this time Brodie and Logan would go with me. With Logan unable to fly or be moved much at all, Brodie had a different idea. By noon, we were headed south in the back of an ambulance with a personal doctor for Logan. It poured rain the whole way.
***
“Oh, my God, it’s the Titanic!”
“It’s not the Titanic, Princess. It’s the Queen Mary 2.”
“It’s the Titanic, Brodie. Look at the size of it.” I put my arms out, separated at a distance from each other to illustrate the size of the ship docked in front of us.
“It’s the Queen Mary 2, Princess. It’s written on its bow. See? They made a movie about the Titanic. This is not the same ship.”
“I saw the movie, too. This is exactly the same thing. It’s got the smokestack, it’s really big, and it’s the same color.”
“The Titanic had more smokestacks, and besides it sank about one hundred years ago. It was a big news story. Perhaps you heard something about it.”
“I’m telling you, Brodie, this is the Titanic.”
He cocked his head to the side and raised an eyebrow. “Have you ever seen a cruise ship before, Princess?”
“Well, just that one in the movie.”
“Have you ever been on any kind of boat before?”
“I almost took the Staten Island Ferry once. And the one you kidnapped me on. I was on that one.”
Resigned, Brodie beckoned me with his hand. “Princess, this is your lucky day. Come aboard with me. Today we sail on the Titanic, a seven day voyage across the Atlantic to New York on the biggest cruise ship ever built.”
He stood aside for me to walk on the gangplank before him. It was better than the Titanic. It had a casino and Pilates classes. However, we didn’t have time for that right away.
First, we settled Logan into his suite with his doctor. The ride in the ambulance took a toll on him. Luckily, his doctor had a never-ending supply of Demerol on hand, which made Logan almost happy to have been shot multiple times.
A hospital bed was brought on board and placed in the living room of Logan’s suite. Everything was marble, silk, and lots and lots of money. I bet if I squeezed the sofa cushions hard enough, gold coins would pop out.
The doctor was as impressed as I was. I caught her scanning the room, her eyes stopping on the gold fixtures and china vases. I was sure Brodie had given her a huge amount of cash to take the job, no questions asked, but after seeing the suite, she was probably wishing she had asked. Asked for double the salary, that is.
I shared another suite with Brodie. Ours was even bigger and more opulent than Logan’s. It had two floors, two huge marble bathrooms, a living room, dining room, and a butler named Sayid, who drew my bath and hung up my clothes.
“Just how rich are you?” I asked Brodie.
“Money is like the tide, Princess. It comes and goes.”
I looked around the suite. “It must be high tide.”
Brodie shrugged.
“Where did the clothes come from again?”
Brodie stripped down before getting into the bath. I caught myself staring open-mouthed, little droplets of spittle gathering at the corners of my mouth and threatening to drool down my chin.
“I have people. Come on in.” He entered the bath with a contented moan. The smell of lavender rose from the stirred water. It was more than big enough for both of us. I quickly undressed.
“What does that mean: ‘I have people.’ Aren’t you retired?”
He soaped up my back and got to work cleaning off two days of grime and filth. I leaned back against him so that he could reach around to my front.
“As far as Gairloch and Montou are concerned, I’m retired. Scratch that. Montou doesn’t exactly know that I’m retired. I was going to let Gairloch tell him. Montou probably thinks I deserted.”
“If memory serves, Montou isn’t the forgiving type.”
Brodie grunted. “He’s the—how did you put it?—the psycho killer type. I don’t fancy he’ll be much of a problem, though.”
“So, you’re retired for them, but you still have these mysterious people.” Trying to get information out of Brodie was like to trying to open a can without an opener.
He soaped up my legs with long strokes. “I might have set up a side business. Something of my own.” His hands moved up my thighs.
“Something on the side?”
“There’s always something on the side.”
“You missed a spot,” I said, guiding his hand in the soapy water.
***
It turned out that dinner was a black-tie affair, just like in the Titanic movie. Brodie’s “people” supplied me with several cocktail dresses and some overpriced shoes to replace those I lost in our escape from London. They also left me with an interesting choice of lingerie.
“Holy moly,” I said, holding up three pieces of string and a Band-Aid. “Is this what I think it is?”
“It’s a thong,” Brodie supplied.
“You’ve had experience with this sort of thing?”
“Some. Have you?”
“No, never! I have two rules in my life. One is to never wear a thong. The other is to never watch an Adam Sandler movie. Both of these rules have served me very well in my life.”
“I kind of enjoyed the last Adam Sandler movie,” he said, earnestly.
“The experience you had with thongs in the past,” I asked, suddenly suspicious. “Did you enjoy it?”
“It wasn’t bad.”
I held up the thong. It looked like some archaic torture device. “You like how women look in these things?”
Brodie shrugged. He was going the noncommittal route, but he was normally a black-and-white kind of guy. He eyed the panties in my hand with what could only be described as longing. He wanted me to put them on, but he was playing the diplomat.
“All right, fine.”
I put them on. The string went right up my butt. I squatted and spun my hips, trying to get a comfortable angle, but it was no use.
“I hear you get used to them,” Brodie said.
“Oh, you do, do you? You sure know a lot about women’s panties.”
“I’m a good listener,” he said. “I’m the sensitive type.”
Brodie ogled my lower half. His eyes turned big and black, and his predator’s look was in full force. I didn’t dare look in the mirror, but Brodie seemed to be pleased. I decided to give the thong a chance and keep it on for the night.
***
The dining room was spectacular. I expected Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers to appear at any second and start dancing. We were shown to our table by the hostess. I was still having trouble walking. Every couple of steps, I did a little shimmy, trying to get the thong to descend even a centimeter out of my butt, but no such luck.
Brodie didn’t seem to notice my distress; he was busy scanning the room. He was dressed in a tuxedo, and he looked like a medieval knight squeezed into twenty-first-century glam. But that wasn’t the most surprising part of the evening.
“Cynthia, is this the most amazing coincidence or what? Look what the cat dragged in!” I would have recognized that voice anywhere. It was the southern, crack-selling congressman.