Widow - Anne Stuart [97]
“Don’t you want to turn on the lighter?” she asked nervously.
“I’m afraid I’ve only got one usable hand at the moment. Don’t move and I’ll try not to slash your wrists.”
She held still as he hacked away at the tape. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“You told me you knew why Madame Antonella wants to kill me.”
“Because she’s not Madame Antonella. She’s Mrs. Aristide Pompasse. Always was, since 1957. You were never legally married to him, because he never got a divorce. She’s the widow, not you.”
“That son of a bitch,” she said after a moment.
“Exactly. Hold still and allow me the perverse pleasure of ripping the rest of the tape off you.”
“Back off, Maguire,” she snapped. “I’m not in the mood.” She was able to sit up, and she quickly unfastened the tape. At least it was attached to her clothing and not her skin, though the bands around her forearms were admittedly painful.
She took a deep gasp of air, then coughed. “This place smells like a garbage dump,” she said.
“Er…I hate to tell you this, love, but that’s not garbage you’re smelling.”
“Then what is it?”
He flicked the lighter on again, looking down at her. “Let’s not think about it,” he said grimly.
“We’ve got to find our way out of here before they come back.”
“If they come back.”
“Why are you being so cryptic?”
His laugh was humorless. “I’m afraid cryptic is a little too apt. This place is a crypt, and what you’re smelling is dead people. I imagine they left us here to die, as well. If we’re lucky.”
For a moment she couldn’t say anything. “And you’re such an expert?” she said finally.
“I know what death smells like. I covered battle zones in my misspent youth.” His voice was flat, emotionless, and she remembered those plaques in the bottom of his drawer.
“All right,” she said after a moment. “So we’re locked up with dead bodies. That doesn’t mean we can’t find a way out. Unless you feel like giving up?”
“No, love. We’ll find a way out. It’s probably after midnight by now, and maybe they won’t come back and check on us until daylight. Maybe not at all. But be careful. This place is collapsing all around us. I imagine the old bitch hopes we’ll bury ourselves. And the paintings.”
“The paintings?”
“Look around you.” He held the lighter up high, sending tiny shards of illumination into the darkness. “We’ve found the missing paintings. There are about a dozen here—more than we realized. Worth a bloody fortune. The journals were probably here as well—there’s a pile of ashes that looks suspicious. She must have burned them.”
“Why?”
“Too incriminating, maybe. I don’t know. We’re just lucky she didn’t torch the paintings.”
“She wouldn’t destroy them. They’re worth too much.”
“I don’t think Madame Antonella gives a damn about the money. I think she’s pissed as hell, nutty as a fruitcake, and she’s going to cause some major damage to anyone or anything that gets in her way.”
Charlie tried to sit up, then sank back with a howl of pain.
Maguire dropped the lighter, plunging the place back into darkness, and swore. “What’s wrong?”
“I’ve got a headache,” she said between gritted teeth.
“Tell me about it,” he said. “Now I can’t find the bloody lighter.”
She sat up again, more slowly this time, and the searing pain in her skull subsided to a quiet agony. “I’ll help you,” she said grumpily, getting on the ground beside him. Unfortunately she couldn’t see him, and she practically landed on top of him.
“Mind the arm!” he said with a choke of pain.
“You’re a wuss, Maguire.”
He’d found the lighter. He flicked it on again, and they were face-to-face, kneeling in the darkness, closer than she’d realized. “Come here and say that,” he taunted her.
For a moment she didn’t move. She’d thought she was going to die. She hated him with every ounce of her being. And she’d never seen anyone look so good in her entire life.
“The hell with your arm,” she said, and jumped him.
He dropped the lighter again, using his good arm to catch her. He met her hungry kiss with one of his own, and within