She put her glass down and gave in to the impulse to raise her hands to her bosom, shielding her vulnerable heart from his gaze. 'I'm, ah, very flattered by your interest, but I'm not free.'
His face hardened. 'You refer to the gentleman who accompanied you to Silver Fork? Tamara and Nigel described the scene to me. I was sorry to have missed it. McCloud is his name, no?'
She nodded.
'My timing is wretched.' He turned and set his glass down sharply on the table behind him. 'You were not yet involved with him when you came to Santa Fe, correct? Or San Diego?'
'No,' she admitted.
'No. Of course not.' He dug his hands into his trouser pockets, his back still turned to her. 'From what Nigel and Tamara said, it does not sound as if you were made for each other. Mr. McCloud mistrusts the quality in you that I would treasure the most. You are tragically wasted on a man like him.'
She drifted slowly, imperceptibly away from him on her bobbing ice floe. 'You are entitled to your opinion,' she said.
He gave her a small, self-deprecating smile. 'Forgive me. I take it back. I had no right.'
'It's all right,' she murmured.
He stepped forward impulsively and seized her hand. 'Forget it. And forget my offer, if it makes you uneasy. Dine with me, Erin. We will talk of beauty and authenticity in a squalid world. A meeting of minds on a higher plane. It will be our secret, my dear. Your nervous, jealous gentleman friend need never know.'
His words pulled it all into focus. Mueller was driving a wedge between the two of them, widening the gap that was already there. She could feel Connor's fear and longing, reaching out across space, tugging at her. The tug unraveled her unnatural calm. Black dots danced in her eyes. Her heart raced wildly.
She had to find Connor. Right now. This minute. She jerked her hand out of Mueller's grip. She didn't give a damn if she seemed abrupt, or rude or childish. She had to get the hell out of here and find Connor.
'I'm sorry.' She backed away. 'I can't I have to go. Right now.'
His eyes narrowed to cold blue slits. 'So soon?'
'I have to go,' she repeated. 'Sorry. Really. I don't mean to be rude. I'll come back tomorrow to look at your new pieces if you like—'
'How kind.' His voice was heavy with irony. 'It would seem to be the least that you can do.'
She rushed out of the room and down the corridor, running on the balls of her feet so that the heels would not trip her. Tamara looked up from the foot of the stairs, alarmed. 'Erin? Are you all right?'
'I need my purse. I need my clothes. I need a cab. Please, Tamara. Help me. I have to get out of here,' she said desperately. 'This minute.'
Tamara lifted a device strapped to her wrist, and pressed a button. 'Silvio? A car for Ms. Riggs out front immediately, please.'
She looked back up at Erin, frowning in concern. 'Silvio will take you anywhere you wish to go. I'll get your things. Wait just a moment.'
They were, in fact, only moments, but they felt like hours. Erin seized her clothes, shoes, and purse from Tamara and backed toward the entrance. 'I'm sorry, but I can't take the time to change,' she babbled. 'I'll bring the dress back tomorrow when I come to assess the other—'
'The dress is yours, Erin.'
'Heavens, no. I can't possibly accept it. I have to—oh, dear God. I almost forgot. Please, take this thing away.' She pried the torque off her neck and handed the thing to Tamara. Immediately she could breathe more easily. 'I'm sorry, Tamara. I don't know what's come over me. I feel like—like I'm out of my mind.'
Tamara's eyes were somber. 'Go, then. The car is waiting.'
Erin got in and gasped out her address to the driver. She could not wait to get out of this hellish dress. She could not wait to call Connor, to hear his voice, assure herself that he was all right.
She needed it with a frantic desperation that felt almost crazy. If he was crazy, too, then fine and good. It meant they were a matched pair.
Tamara watched the taillights disappear into the dusk, and then continued to stare, her eyes straining in the gloom, but for what she was not sure. Something about that girl moved her. She would like to help Erin Riggs, if she could, but she was no longer sure if she could even help herself. If there ever had been a chance to change her mind and run, it was long past. She was alone in a boat with no oar, a wild current pulling her toward a huge waterfall. She could almost hear its thundering roar, almost feel the cold, white, foaming water, the blinding force. The sharp rocks that awaited her at its foot like teeth.
The quality of the air changed, chilly currents swirling around her as her employer joined her on the steps. He pulled his maimed hand out of his pocket and touched her face. He had taken off the prosthetic, as he always did when they were alone together and he wanted to touch her. He moved his hand until the thumb and the one entire middle finger that remained encircled her throat, pushing aside the high Chinese collar of the satin dress she'd chosen to hide the bruises on her throat. The tip of his finger found her pulse, felt it quicken. Danger had always been her most potent aphrodisiac, but this quickening no longer resembled sexual excitement. This had passed far beyond. Deep into the toxic, barren wasteland of pure fear.
'Everything is in place, of course.' It was not a question. If the answer had been no, her life would already be forfeit.
She nodded. 'The transponder on McCloud's car shows it parked in a garage near her apartment building. He's waiting for her there.'
'And she left wearing the gown. Costumed for high drama. A special bonus. Delicious. This episode should be even more piquant than I had imagined. Do you care to watch the show with me?'
She heard the implacable command beneath the polite phrasing. 'Of course,' she murmured. 'How could I resist?'
How indeed. Voices inside the barricaded part of her howled with bitter amusement. She'd been asking herself that question all week.
'Come,' he said. He removed his hand from her throat, and gestured for her to precede him down the corridor to the viewing room.
He never turned his back on her, never. It was uncanny. He must sense that she wanted to kill him, and yet he had confided all his most perilous secrets to her. She wondered why he hadn't killed her yet.
Maybe he was saving her for something special.
They entered the viewing room, with its huge wall screen. Novak sat on the couch before it, on the side with the mouse pad, and clicked on the icons until the dim, silent interior of Erin Riggs's tiny apartment filled the screen. 'It's almost a waste,' he mused.
'What's a waste?' She was quick to give him openings to hold forth. He loved the sound of his own voice.
'She's rare. So genuinely innocent. I'm surprised that a worthless specimen such as Edward Riggs ever managed to spawn such an unusual daughter. More beautiful than I had expected, too, though I expect that is partly the result of your genius, my dear.'
'I try to be useful,' she said.
'Do you?' he said. 'Come here, Tamara. Be useful.'
She sat next to him. 'She's very intelligent. She senses a trap.'
'But she doesn't recognize the source of her panic,' her employee said. 'She doesn't trust her instincts. She is ruled by her own code of conduct. She persists in thinking that the world follows rules that she can understand, and therefore, she'll be back tomorrow, right on time, like the conscientious professional that she is. If she were free of the prison in her mind, she would change her name and run.'
'But it wouldn't do any good,' Tamara said, to flatter him.
He smiled as he touched her face with his ruined index finger. His teeth seemed incredibly sharp. 'I'm tempted to take her to Paris for real,' he said. His hand trailed lower, touching her throat, her breasts. 'I would like to have sex with her. It would be stimulating, I think, to plunder all that radiant, sensual innocence.'
He seized her hand, placed it on the bulge in his trousers. She forced herself to smile. She was in for it now. Erin had aroused his most sadistic instincts. She hastened to divert him.
'She never would have gone with you willingly,' she said. 'She's already bonded with McCloud. You would've had to lure her before their affair caught fire. And once she saw your hand…' Her voice trailed off. Sometimes her
