Ice Storm - Anne Stuart [58]
He stepped out of the shadows, and the man spun around, firing, his semiautomatic sending a spray of bullets across the walnut paneling.
It was the last straw. One shot with the elephant gun in his hand and half the man’s head was gone.
Chloe was going to be pissed. He didn’t know how much they could hear, but he couldn’t let them come down to this mess.
He worked fast, getting most of the blood and bone cleaned up, sprinkling sawdust from beneath the table saw over the mess once he’d dragged the bodies out. There was no disguising the bullet holes in the paneling, but at least he could spare his loved ones the worst part.
He hated to make them wait, in the darkness, not knowing, but in the end it was better this way.
He dumped the bodies at the edge of the woods, making sure no one else was wandering around. Just three of them to take him out. Whoever had sent them had made a very grave error.
He switched on the generator, then raced up the stairs two at a time. Chloe fell out of the closet, into his arms, pale but in control. Sylvia, his fierce and passionate young daughter, was for once perfectly calm, and Swede was asleep.
Bastien had blood on his clothes, but at least he’d washed the hands he put on his wife. She didn’t flinch.
“I took care of him,” he said, wanting to keep the body count down for her peace of mind.
“Him?” she echoed skeptically.
“Them,” he admitted, regretting that he hadn’t been able to question any of them, to find out who’d sent them. There was nothing on their bodies to give him any clue. “How long will it take you to pack?”
“With your help, maybe half an hour. Where are we going?”
“To get help. From the only people I trust.”
Chloe looked down at her somber daughter. “We’re going to visit Uncle Peter and Aunt Genevieve, sweetheart. Go get your favorite toys.”
Sylvia moved over to her toy shelves with that unnerving calm, and Chloe looked up into his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he said, feeling helpless for the first time in the last brief, bloody hour.
She kissed him on the mouth, and if her eyes were bright with unshed tears, she ignored them. “I’m not,” she said. “You did what you had to do.”
He held her so tightly that the baby woke up with an annoyed squawk. Resting his forehead against Chloe’s, Bastien let out a long, shuddering breath. And then he pulled away.
“Let’s just go,” he said. “We can buy things on the way to the airport.”
She nodded. And ten minutes later they were speeding down the road, into the darkening night.
14
After two hours of Mahmoud puking, first into the toilet, then dry heaves into a trash bin, a towel and the rapidly emptied fruit bowl in the cabin, Isobel decided she wasn’t going to wait any longer. The storm had picked up, the huge ferry was responding to the waves with enthusiasm, and night had fallen. No sign of Killian—with luck he’d been washed overboard, leaving her stuck with Mahmoud. Even a psychopathic child soldier was preferable to her nemesis, but not one racked with nausea.
He was too weak to fight her when she scooped him up. He was nothing more than skin and bones, and she cursed Killian under her breath. If he was going to keep the damn kid with him out of some twisted form of penance, he might at least see he was properly fed.
Mahmoud tried to punch her as she juggled him in her arms. He was probably seventy-five pounds—light for a human being, damned heavy if you weren’t used to it. Isobel pumped iron, practiced yoga and ran. He was still a strain.
The nurse’s office was located on a lower deck. The few people who were out and about weren’t looking particularly happy with the rough seas, but they didn’t pay any attention as Isobel carried her small charge onto the elevator.
When the door slid open Killian was there, and she stepped out, dumping Mahmoud in his arms and stretching her shoulders. “He needs a doctor.”
Killian looked down at the bundle. “I take it he doesn’t like boats?”
“You could say that.” Mahmoud began