Cold as Ice - Anne Stuart [83]
Isobel Lambert was going to have to call in help from unexpected places, and she wasn’t happy about it. She was someone who believed in keeping promises, and once someone left the Committee they were free, as long as they showed their usual discretion.
But these weren’t ordinary times. Everyone she had was working on breaking the Rule of Seven, and the clock was running out for them. Two more parts were coming together through painstaking hard work— Harry Van Dorn had neo-Nazis working on some kind of mess at the memorial at Auschwitz, and he actually thought he might get away with blowing up the British Houses of Parliament despite the watchfulness of English security. He’d overstepped his capabilities on that one—even though foolproof security was practically impossible, he hadn’t realized that the Committee specialized in the impossible. They’d picked up Harry’s chosen suicide bombers in a random sweep, and the transit workers had very kindly decided to call a strike on the nineteenth and twentieth of April meaning no one could get to work. Problem solved.
But that still left Peter Jensen stuck in the middle of America with what sounded like a pain-in-the-ass companion, and no way to use agency resources to get him out.
There was only one person she could turn to. He might not do it for her, but he’d do it for Peter. He’d probably put up a fight, refuse to help her, but in the end she knew he’d do the right thing, as he always did. They’d saved each other’s lives countless times. It was time for Bastien Toussaint to do it again.
17
“I’m hungry,” Genevieve said.
“I’m happy to hear violence doesn’t impair your appetite.”
She wanted to slap the snarky son of a bitch, but she was too worn out. Her stomach was twisting, she felt weak and shaky, and she was so hungry she was tempted to sink her teeth into Peter’s leg. She wasn’t going to say a thing about his shoulder. He could bleed to death for all she cared, and they could go careening off the freeway head-on into a semi and then she wouldn’t have to worry about being hungry ever again.
“He shot you,” she said grudgingly.
“Kind of you to notice. Don’t worry, it’s just a graze. Stings like crazy but it’s already stopped bleeding. I just need a little first aid.”
“Don’t expect it from me. And I’m not worried. I just want to make sure you can still drive.”
He smiled, the rat bastard, and she remembered his mouth all too vividly. She jerked her head away again and closed her eyes. It was the middle of the night and there were people everywhere. The bright lights of a thousand cars all around her, the noise and color of the freeway were an assault on her deprived senses, and part of her wanted to crawl back into a dark, safe hole and hide.
“What do you want to eat?”
“A cheeseburger,” she said dreamily. “The biggest, greasiest cheeseburger in the world, with French fries and Diet Coke.”
“No Tab?”
“I think that’s beyond you at the moment,” she said. “Diet Coke will do in a pinch.”
Before she realized what he was doing he’d crossed four lanes and taken the exit, amid screeching tires and honking horns. By the time they’d made it safely off the freeway and she’d caught her breath, she glared at him. “Do you have a death wish?” she demanded.
“I thought we’d already established that.”
“Well, don’t include me. I’m not ready to die.”
Again that small smile. “Glad to hear it. Otherwise it would be a waste of time and money to feed you.”
He was pulling into a drive-through hamburger place, one of the West Coast chains, and she looked at him suspiciously. “What about McDonald’s?”
“This is better. Trust me.”
“Trust you? You’ve got to be kidding me.”
He said nothing, merely pulled up to the window and gave her order. He got the food, put it in her lap and drove away, into the night.
She was too busy wolfing down her food to pay much attention to where he was going. He hadn’t gotten back on the freeway, and