Iris Johansen - Eight Days To Live

He screamed but didn’t release her.

She’d have to use the knife.

He suddenly arched violently backward and cried out.

What was hap-?

Then she saw the gleam of metal as a dagger exited his chest.

Someone was behind him. In the darkness, she could only make out a man, tall, lean, powerful.

“Jane.”

He knew her name, but so had the bastard on the phone. Her hand tightened on the butcher knife. She stiffened, waiting.

The man who had attacked her was falling to the street.

“Don’t make me take the knife away from you, Jane. You’d fight, and I might hurt you.”

She knew that voice and that faint Scottish accent. Relief poured through her as her gaze flew to his face. “Jock?” She stared at him in bewilderment as she lowered the knife. “What are you doing here?”

“At the moment, cleaning up Venable’s mistakes.” Jock Gavin was bending over the man lying before them, going through his pockets. “And trying to get a step ahead of the police I hear a few blocks away. You called them?”

“Yes.” She could hear the sirens, too, now. Relief was surging through her. The police were coming. Jock was here, everything would be all right. She could trust Jock. At times she felt as if they had been closer than brother and sister.

He flipped open the man’s wallet. “Henri Folard.”

She was suddenly jarred out of her shock. “Oh God, you killed him, Jock.”

“Yes.”

“You’ll get in trouble. I could only report an obscene caller. I don’t even know if we can even prove he was trying to attack me. I know you were only trying to help me, but you have to get out of here.”

“No. Tell them I was up there in the suite already, and I came down to protect you until the police got here.”

“But we can’t prove he was any threat to me. It was only an obscene-”

“We can prove it, Jane,” Jock said gently. “Look at the door.”

“Door? What are you talking about?” Jock’s hands were on her shoulders, gently turning her to face the gallery, to face the huge oak door that had slowly swung open to reveal the man who had attacked her. “What has-”

She lifted her head and looked at the door, which had swung back closed from the weight of the burden it carried. The burden that was now illuminated by the streetlight.

“ No! Oh, God in heaven, no!”

Celine Denarve, still dressed in her flamboyant red cloak, stared back at Jane, her face frozen and contorted with pain and horror. She had been nailed to a cross that had been fixed to the oak door by a huge crucifix nail. There were nails in her palms and feet.

There was another nail piercing her chest.

Jane screamed.

“EASY.” JOCK TURNED JANE around, and his hand pressed her head to his shoulder. “You were going to see her anyway, and I wanted you to get it over with before the police got here. Now don’t look at her again.”

“He… killed… her.” She still couldn’t understand it. “But she was in the taxi. I ran down from the apartment to distract him. He wouldn’t have had time to-” She buried her head in Jock’s shoulder. “She was in the taxi.”

“No. It was a trick to get you down here. There were two of them. Someone else was driving the taxi. I saw him pulling away after I killed Folard.”

She couldn’t comprehend it. “It was a trick?”

“What he did to her had to take a while. He had to have her keys and the alarm code. He probably grabbed her earlier in the evening. If he hadn’t been able to lure you down, he would have run the risk of going upstairs after you.”

She had a memory of Celine going out the door with her red silk cape flying behind her. “He was waiting for her, stalking her?”

“Yes, it’s likely. You were the big game, but they wanted you to see what they had done to her before they took you. I’d bet he’d been given his orders not to kill you tonight. But when you fought him, you were just an irresistible temptation.” He tilted his head, listening. “I think that’s the police just down the block. They should be here any minute.”

“Venable,” she said suddenly. “You mentioned Venable. He’s CIA.” She’d dealt with Venable and the CIA years ago when she’d been trying to keep him from taking Jock into custody after he’d been hospitalized. The experience had not given her any overwhelming sense of trust in the agency. But his appearance in her life at this time and place made everything even more bizarre. “What’s he got to do with this?”

“I’m working for him right now.”

“The CIA? You? Why would you be-”

“Later.”

Yes, later. She couldn’t think through this veil of horror surrounding her anyway.

Celine was dead. Celine had been butchered.

She dazedly tried to fight her way through the fog. “Why did this happen? I don’t understand any of this, Jock.”

“I know you don’t. It’s going to be okay, Jane.” He turned her to face the police car that was pulling up to the curb across the street. “I’ll give Venable a call and see if he can pull strings to make it any easier for you. But it should be pretty clear to the local gendarmes that this was self-defense. Folard even has the spike he was thinking of using on you in his hand.”

She had noticed something dark and pointed, but in the dimness she hadn’t recognized it as a spike. She felt sick as she remembered the spike in Celine’s chest. Was Foulard going to drive the one clutched in his hand into Jane’s heart? “She was such a good person. I liked her, Jock. We were friends.”

He nodded. “I know it’s difficult for you. I’ll try to get you through this as quickly as possible.”

Get her through it? He was worried about Jane. What about Celine, who had been full of joy and life only hours before?

Don’t look at her. Think of her as she’d been before she’d walked out of the gallery, laughing, joking.

Not the brilliant, helpless butterfly pinned to that door.

DAMMIT to hell.

Millet’s hands tightened on the steering wheel of the taxi as fury tore through him. He should have grabbed the bitch himself instead of relying on Folard. He hadn’t thought there would be a problem, and it was smart to let his men have a small part in this taking.

But Folard had failed. He had let her triumph. He had let Jock Gavin triumph. That son of a bitch had appeared out of nowhere.

Jock Gavin. Millet had last seen him yesterday in Rome, but here he was in Paris, interfering, putting himself between Millet and Jane MacGuire. He should have known better than to think that Gavin could be trusted when he’d accepted him into the Sang Noir. Betrayal.

He drew a deep breath and tried to control himself. It would still go well. He would continue with the grand plan and find a way to take Jane MacGuire as soon as possible. She was not only his revenge, she was to be his salvation.

But his stomach was clenching at the thought of the delay. Celine Denarve’s agony had only whetted his appetite.

He wanted Jane MacGuire.

He needed her now .

VENABLE ANSWERED JOCK GAVIN’S call on the fourth ring.

“You screwed up, Venable,” Jock said. “You promised me that you’d have someone near the gallery to protect Jane until I could get here.”

“I did my best. Presnell was supposed to be there. What happened?”

“Celine Denarve was murdered, and Millet almost got his hands on Jane. Your best sucks.”

“Shit. Is she okay?”

“No, but she’s alive. I had to kill Folard, one of Millet’s errand boys. Get busy and pull strings to keep the police from taking us in for questioning. Jane’s been through enough tonight.”