Tess Gerritsen - In Their Footsteps

“Are you sure you want to part with it?”

“I have another.” Daumier slid off his holster, which he also gave to Richard. “You remember how to use one?”

Richard checked the ammunition clip and nodded grimly. “I think it’ll come back.”

A policeman knocked on the door. The car was waiting.

Richard took Beryl’s arm and helped her to her feet. “Time to drop out of sight for a while. Are you ready?”

She looked at the gun he was holding, noted how easily he handled it, how comfortably he slid it into the holster. A professional, she thought. The transformation was almost frightening. How well do I really know you, Richard Wolf?

For now, the question was irrelevant. He was the one man she could count on, the one man she had to trust.

She folowed him out the door.

“We should be safe here. For tonight, at least.” Richard double-bolted the apartment door and turned to look at her.

She was standing in the center of the living room, her arms wrapped around her shoulders, a dazed look in her eyes. This was not the brash and stubborn Beryl he knew, he thought. This was a woman who’d faced sheer terror and knew the worst wasn’t over yet. He wanted to go to her, to take her in his arms and promise her that nothing would ever hurt her while he was around, but they both knew it was a promise he might not be able to keep. In silence, he circled the flat, checking to see that the windows were secure, the drapes closed. A glance outside told him there were two guards watching the building, one at the front entrance, one at the rear. A safety net, he thought. For when I let my attention slip. And it would slip. Sooner or later, he would have to sleep.

Satisfied that all was locked up tight, he went back to the living room. He found Beryl sitting on the couch, very quiet, very still. Almost…defeated.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

She gave a shrug, as though the question was irrelevant-as though they had far more important things to consider.

He took off his jacket and tossed it over a chair. “You haven’t eaten. There’s some food in the kitchen.”

Her gaze focused on his shoulder holster. “Why did you quit the business?” she asked.

“You mean the Company?”

She nodded. “When I saw you holding that gun, it…it suddenly struck me. What you used to be.”

He sat down beside her. “I’ve never killed anyone. If that makes a difference.”

“But you’re trained to do it.”

“Only in self-defense. That’s not the same thing as murder.”

She nodded, as though trying very hard to agree with him.

He took the Glock from the holster and held it out to her. She regarded it with undisguised abhorrence.

“Yes, I understand how you feel,” he said. “This gun’s a semiautomatic. Nine millimeter bullets, sixteen cartridges to the magazine. Some people consider it a work of art. I think of it as a tool of last resort. Something I hope to God I never have to use.” He set it on the coffee table, where it lay like an evil reminder of violence. “Pick it up if you want to. It’s not very heavy.”

“I’d rather not.” She shuddered and looked away. “I’m not afraid of guns. I mean, I’ve handled rifles before. I used to go shooting with Uncle Hugh. But those were only clay pigeons.”

“Not quite the same thing.”

“No. Not quite.”

“You asked why I quit the Company.” He pointed to the Glock. “That was one of the reasons. I’ve never killed anyone, and I’m not itching to. For me, the intelligence business was a game. A challenge. The enemy was well-defined-the Russians, the East Germans. But now…” He picked up the gun and held it thoughtfully in his palm. “The world’s turned into a crazy place. I can’t tell who the enemy is anymore. And I knew that sooner or later, I’d lose my edge. I could already feel it happening.”

“Your edge?”

“It’s my age, you know. You hit forty and you don’t react the way you did as a twenty-year-old. I like to think I’ve grown smarter, instead, but what I really am is more cautious. And a lot less willing to take risks.” He looked at her. “With anyone’s life.”

She met his gaze. Looking into her eyes, he suddenly found himself wanting to babble all sorts of crazy things. To tell her that the one life he didn’t want to risk was hers. When had this stopped being a mere baby-sitting job? he wondered. When had it become something much more? A mission. An obsession.

“You frighten me, Richard,” she said.

“It’s the gun.”

“No, it’s you. All the things I don’t know about you. All the secrets you’re keeping from me.”

“From now on, I promise I’ll be absolutely honest with you.”

“But it started out as half truths. Not telling me you knew my parents. Or how they died. Don’t you see, it’s my childhood all over again! Uncle Hugh with his head full of classified secrets.” She let out a breath of frustration and looked away. “Then I see you with that…thing.”

He touched her face and gently turned it toward him. “It’s just a temporary evil,” he murmured. “Until this is over.” She kept looking at him, her eyes bright and moist, her hair tumbling about her shoulders. She wants to trust me, he thought. But she’s afraid.

He couldn’t help himself. He kissed her. Once. Twice. The second time, he felt her lips yield under his, felt her whole body seem to turn liquid at his touch. He kissed her a third time and found his hands sliding through her hair, his fingers hopelessly becoming tangled in all that raven silk. She sighed, a delicious sound of surrender, invitation, and she sagged backward onto the couch.

Suddenly he, too, was falling, tumbling on top of her. Their lips met in a touch that instantly turned electric. She reached around his neck and pulled him down hard against her-

And flinched. That blasted gun again. The holster had pushed into her breast, had served as an ugly reminder of all the things that had happened today. All the things that could still happen.

He looked at her face, at her hair flung across the cushions, at the mingling of fear and desire he saw in her eyes. Not now, he thought. Not this way.

Slowly he pulled away and they both sat up. For a moment, they remained side by side on the couch, not touching, not speaking.

She said, “I’m not ready for this. I’ll put my life in your hands, Richard. But my heart, that’s a different matter.”

“I understand.”

“Then you’ll also understand that I’m not a fan of James Bond, or anyone remotely like him. I’m not impressed by guns, or by the men who use them.” She rose to her feet and moved pointedly away from the couch. Away from him.

“So what does impress you?” he asked. “If not a man’s gun?”

She turned to him and he saw a flicker of humor cross her face. The old Beryl, he thought. Thank God she’s still there, somewhere.

“Straight talk,” she said. “That’s what impresses me.”

“Then that’s what you’ll get. I promise.”

She turned and walked to the bedroom. “We’ll see.”

Jordan was not impressed by this lawyer, no, he was not impressed at all.

The man had greasy hair and a greasy little mustache, and he spoke English with the exaggerated accent of a second-rate actor playing a stereotypical Frenchman. All those “eets” and “zees” and “Mon Dieus.” Still, Jordan reasoned, since Beryl had hired the man, he must be one of the best attorneys in Paris.

You could have fooled me, thought Jordan, gazing across the prison interview table at the smarmy M. Jarre.

“Not to worry,” said the man. “Everything will be taken care of. I am reviewing the papers now, and I believe we will soon reach an agreement to have you released.”