The Wreckage - Michael Robotham [36]
She looks at him, expecting an explanation, fearing for a moment she might not get one.
“There are some groups who value me as a trophy or a hostage or a commodity that can be traded for money or weapons: Shiite death squads, Sunni insurgents, criminal gangs…”
“One bullet won’t be enough.”
“It only takes one.”
A pulse seems to shiver in her eyes.
“I don’t want anyone risking his or her life to save me,” Luca explains. “And I don’t want my mother watching my execution on the internet.”
Daniela turns away from him, facing the wall, pulling the covers tight around her. She hardly seems to breathe at all.
Luca turns off the light and lies on his bed. Listening. Desiring. Wondering why every woman he touches seems to bloom and then wither like a cut flower. Sleep comes unexpectedly. It doesn’t stay. He wakes in fright, fighting a pillow, the top sheet twisted around him. A hand on his chest… hers.
“You were having a nightmare.”
She is sitting on the edge of his bed.
“I’m sorry I woke you.”
“You don’t have to apologize.”
He knows the dream. It’s the same loop he watches on the wrong side of every night—the unbroken litany of destruction and misery. And it always ends the same way, with Nicola’s broken body almost buried beneath rubble. Only her head is exposed, her brown eyes open, blood on her lips.
Nicola once told Luca that he tried to distinguish between pain observed and pain shared. Pain observed is a journalist’s pain. His role was to watch and report without getting emotionally involved. Nicola said those who watch brutality and do nothing are no better than those who inflict it. “They are the bad Samaritans,” she said. It was a term that Luca had never forgotten. He was the bad Samaritan.
Daniela still has her hand on his chest. She looks into his eyes and leans forward, brushing her lips against his. Opening and closing her mouth, letting her lips move wider, her teeth nibble at his tongue and lower lip and her hands slide down his chest.
Pulling her down next to him, he presses himself against her, listening to her heart fluttering with the urgency of a damaged watch. Impatiently, she rolls him on top of her and he pauses with his penis resting at the entrance to her sex. He looks into her eyes, asking the question silently, Is this what you want?
Hooking her ankles around his waist, she presses him closer, sighing into his shoulder, and he begins moving, pulling the world forward beneath them.
18
LONDON
There are lights on inside the house. Ruiz doesn’t remember leaving them on. He makes Holly wait in the car. Unlocks the door. Pushes it open with one foot.
Claire is standing in the hallway. She looks like her mother—not her hair or her build but her eyes and her high forehead. Unfortunately, she inherited Ruiz’s temper. She’s talking on her mobile.
“He’s not dead—not yet anyway… I haven’t asked him. I’ll call you later.”
Ruiz looks past her into the lounge. Phillip, her fiancé, is sitting on the sofa, resting his feet on the coffee table. Blond and blue-eyed, he has a touch of Boris Johnson about him, including the foppish hair. Acknowledging Ruiz with a nod, he almost looks sorry for him.
Claire picks up her coat. “We can go now, Phillip.”
“Is something wrong?” asks Ruiz.
“Oh, nothing much,” she replies, sarcastically. “You missed the dinner last night with Phillip’s parents. We waited for over an hour.”
“Shit!”
“I spent all night trying to call you. Phillip’s parents caught the train back to Brighton this morning.” She holds up her hand like she’s a traffic cop. “Come on, Phillip. We’re leaving.”
Ruiz intercepts her at the front door.
“I was robbed. They took a lot of stuff. Personal things. Some belonged to your mum. I was trying to get them back before the wedding.”
Claire studies his face.
“When was this?”
“The night before last.”
“Did they steal your phone?”
“No.”
“What about all your phone numbers?”
“No.”
“So you could have called