Cold as Ice - Anne Stuart [36]
But only for a moment. She shrugged, clearly dismissing him. “Where did you say the kitchen was?” she asked in a calm voice.
He wondered whether she was going to try to take some of the kitchen knives. It wouldn’t do her any more good than that tiny pocketknife—she was up against professionals. “Down the hallway to the left.” He had enough sense not to renew his request for lunch. It had been mainly to goad her, keep her off balance. He was hungry; once Harry was subdued Hans hadn’t felt obliged to exercise his culinary talents, and Peter hadn’t eaten much at all. He tended to prefer it that way before a job—it kept him sharp. But it was going to be two more days until the job was finished, and he could hardly fast until then.
Genevieve had disappeared without a word, and he leaned back and closed his eyes. He wondered whether he needed to warn the men to keep away from her. He’d already made that abundantly clear, but he hadn’t worked much with either Renaud or Hans and he wasn’t entirely sure how good they were at following directions. They were only one step up from hired thugs—they weren’t hobbled by any illusions that they were working for the greater good. Even he was beginning to doubt it.
Genevieve wouldn’t be fool enough to try to leave the house and stray into their path. Not yet. She’d build up to it, and in the meantime he’d do everything he could to make sure she’d get through the last two days of her life unmolested.
He heard her coming back a few moments later, but he didn’t bother to open his eyes. He expected her to stalk down the hallway to the room he’d assigned her, but instead he could feel her approaching him, and the trade wind brought the scent of her with it, something soft and flowery and female. He opened his eyes when she drew close, half expecting to see her brandishing a heavy knife. But no, the knife was hidden beneath the loose white T-shirt, and she was carrying a tray with a sandwich and a beer.
She set it down beside him. “You’re kidding,” he said, blinking.
“Any good terrorist needs to keep his strength up,” she said. “Besides, I haven’t given up hope of negotiating Harry’s freedom.”
“And your own besides?”
“Of course. In the meantime you just have to worry about whether I poisoned you.”
And with that she disappeared down the hallway with her long, gorgeous legs and the lethal knife hidden underneath her clothes, and if she were ten years younger he was certain she would have stuck out her tongue at him.
Genevieve did a thorough canvass of the room, ignoring the pale, muted colors, the exquisite Renoir on the wall that might have been real, the bronze figure of a ballet dancer that might have been Degas, the sliding doors with the soft Caribbean breeze blowing through, and concentrated on what was important.
The sliding doors led to a small balcony overlooking a rocky part of the coast; if she managed to make it safely down from the balcony she’d likely break her neck on the rocks. If she survived that, there were sharks, currents and a couple of roving psychopaths. No wonder he hadn’t bothered to lock her in.
She pulled the knife from beneath her shirt and tucked it between the mattress and box spring of the king-size bed that would have dwarfed any normal-size room. In this Texas-scale mansion it fit right in. At least Jensen had no idea she’d taken it—he might think she was harmless with a Swiss Army knife but he’d think twice about a lethal carving knife like this one. It was very sharp—she’d cut her finger on it when she went rummaging through the kitchen. It was as if her blood had chosen that one. She’d tucked it underneath the shirt and then went rummaging through the obscenely wellstocked refrigerator. If she was going to die, at least she was going to die well