Taking her arm, Von Holden led her across to another door. Opening it, he reached inside and turned on the light. Inside was a room made of wood and stone, twenty feet square. In the middle was a pool of churning water, a cutout from the stream, with stone benches all around. Pointing to a wooden door, Von Holden said, “In there is a sauna. All very natural and good for the health.”
Joanna could feel herself blush and at the same time feel the heat rise within her.
“I didn’t bring anything to change into,” she said.
Von Holden smiled. “Ah, but you see, that’s the marvel of Uta’s designs.”
“I don’t get it.”
“The dress is form-fitting, and made to be worn without underclothing, is it not?”
Joanna blushed again. “Yes. But—”
“Form always follows function.” Von Holden reached up, gently fingering one of the golden tassels at Joanna’s shoulder. “This decorative tassel.”
Joanna knew he was doing something, but she had no idea what. “What about it?”
“If one were to give it the slightest pull . . .”
Suddenly Joanna’s dress undraped and slid as elegantly to the floor as a theatrical curtain.
“You see, ready for bath and sauna.” Von Holden stood back and let his eyes run over her.
Joanna felt desire as she never had, more—if it was possible—than the night before. Never had the presence of a man felt so devastatingly erotic. At that moment she would have done anything he asked, and more.
“Would you like to undress me? Turnabout is fair play, isn’t that how it goes?”
“Yes . . . ,” Joanna heard herself whisper. “God, yes.”
Then Von Holden touched her, and she came to him and undressed him and they made love in the pool and on the stone benches, and afterward in the sauna.
Love spent, they rested and touched and caressed, and then Von Holden took her again, slowly and purposefully, in ways beyond her darkest imagination. Looking up, Joanna saw herself reflected in the mirrored ceiling and then again on the mirrored wall to her left, and those visions made her laugh in joy and disbelief. For the first time in her life she felt attractive and desired. And she savored it and Von Holden let her. The time was hers, for as long as she wanted.
In a dark-paneled study on the second floor of Anlegeplatz’s main building, Uta Baur and Dr. Salettl sat patiently in armchairs and watched the exercise on three large-screen, high-definition television monitors receiving signals transmitted by remote cameras mounted behind the mirrored glass. Each camera had its own monitor, thereby providing full coverage of the action being recorded.
It’s doubtful either was physically stirred by what they saw, not because they were both septuagenarians, but because the observance was wholly clinical.
Von Holden was merely an instrument in the study. It was Joanna who was the focus of their interest.
Finally, Uta’s long fingers reached over and pressed a button. The monitors went dark and she stood up.
63
BY OSBORN’s watch it was 2:11 Monday morning, October 10.
Thirty minutes earlier he’d climbed the last stairs and taken the hidden elevator to the room under the eaves at 18, Quai de Bethune. Exhausted, he’d gone into the bathroom, opened the spigot and drunk deeply. After that he’d removed Vera’s bloodsoaked scarf and cleaned the wound in his hand. The thing throbbed like hell and he had a lot of trouble opening his hand. But the pain was welcome because it suggested that as badly as he’d been cut, neither the nerves nor crucial tendons had been severely damaged. He’d taken the tall man’s knife between the metacarpal bones just below the joint of the second and third fingers.
Because he could open the hand and close it, he was relatively certain no permanent damage had been done. Still, he would need an X ray to tell for sure. If a bone had been broken or splintered, he’d need surgery and then a cast. Left untreated, he ran the chance it would heal misformed, thus converting him to a one-handed surgeon and all, “but ending his career. That is, if there would be a career left to resurrect.
Finding the antiseptic salve Vera had used on his leg wound, he rubbed it into his hand, then covered it with a fresh bandage. After that he’d gone into the other room, eased down on the bed and awkwardly taken his shoes off with one hand.
He’d waited a full hour after McVey’s exit before sliding off the furnace and climbing the darkened service stairs. He’d gone carefully, a step at a time, half expecting to be surprised and challenged by a man with a gun in uniform. But the moment hadn’t come, so it was evident that whatever police were still on guard were outside.
McVey had been right. If the French police caught him and put him in jail, the tall man would find a way to kill him there. And then he would go after Vera. Osborn was caught, with McVey the third and final part of the triangle.
Loosening his shirt, Osborn shut out the light and lay back in the dark. His leg, though better, was beginning to stiffen from overexertion. The throbbing in his hand, he found, was less if he kept it elevated, and he arranged a pillow under it. As tired as he was, he should have fallen asleep immediately, but too many things were alive in his mind.
His abrupt intrusion on Vera and the tall man had been sheer coincidence. Certain she was at Work and the apartment would be empty, he’d chanced coming down simply to use the telephone. He’d agonized for hours before finally coming to the conclusion that the most realistic thing he could do would be to call the American embassy, explain who he was and ask for help. In essence throwing himself on the mercy of the United States government. With luck, they would protect him from French jurisprudence and perhaps, in the best of all cases, consider the circumstances and exonerate him for what he had done. After all, it was not he who had killed Henri Kanarack. More important, it was an action that would put the focus entirely on him and remove Vera from the shadow of a scandal that could ruin her. His own private war had been going on for nearly thirty years. It was neither fair nor right that his personal demons bankrupt Vera’s life no matter whatever else they might have between them. That was until he had opened the door and seen the tall man’s knife at her throat. In that instant the simple clarity of his plan vanished and everything changed. Vera was in it whether either of them wanted it or not. If he went to the American envoy now, that would be end, the same as if the police had him. At the very least he’d he held in protective custody while things were sorted out. And because of the publicity over Kanarack/Merriman’s murder, the media would be all over it, thereby telling the tall man Or his accomplices where he was. And when they got him, then they would go after Vera, as McVey had said.
Lying in his pigeonhole at the top of Paris, his hand throbbing above him in the dark, Osborn’s thoughts turned to McVey and his offer to help. And the more he weighed one against the other, wondering if he could trust him, whether the overture was genuine or just a ruse to lire him out for the French police, the more he began to realize there was very little else.
At 6:45 A.M., McVey lay on his stomach in his pajama bottoms with one foot sticking out from under the covers, wanting to sleep but finding it impossible.
He’d played a hunch because it was all that was in his hand. Without Lebrun’s presence, the French inspectors would not have permitted him to question Vera Monneray at any length. So he hadn’t even tried. Even had Lebrun been there, he would have had trouble exacting the truth of what had happened because Ms. Monneray was smart enough to hide behind the respect of
Even if he’d been wrong and she had, out of fear or anger or outrage—he’d seen it before—chased after the tall man, blazing away with the gun as she’d said, her statement about not seeing the car killed her story. Because someone had most definitely gone out into the street and fired at it as it sped away.
If she’d admittedly done as she’d said, why would she lie about not seeing the car unless she’d arrived too
