Never Trust A Lady

Suddenly feeling as if he had rocks under his butt, Hawk shifted and growled like a bad-tempered dog, “All right, let’s cut the crap. Out with it. Get it over with.”

He felt her legs twitch as she gasped, “I beg your pardon?” But she said it on a little ripple of laughter, and he had a feeling she wasn’t really all that surprised.

“You’re wondering what the hell this is all about,” he went on, his voice still guttural and harsh with diverted emotions. “You said I owe you an explanation. So go on. This is your chance. Ask your questions.”

There was a pregnant little silence, and then a solemn, “You’ll tell me the truth?”

He gave a short, hard laugh. “Well, I’ll try.”

Questions. Jane took a bite of cookie and chewed thoughtfully. Funny, up until the moment she’d stepped out of that taxicab in Georgetown, all she’d been able to think about was questions. And boy, had she wanted answers! She’d been feeling angry, victimized, threatened and just plain scared.

But ever since that tussle with Aaron Campbell, well, how on earth to describe it? She’d felt…exhilarated. And at the same time, calm. Right now she felt strong. Confident. And yes, Tom was right, in a strange way, she was sort of enjoying this. She was alive, uninjured, and it didn’t really matter what the explanation was for whatever it was she’d stumbled into: never again would Jane Carlysle be able to say that nothing ever happened to her!

“I’m not sure I know where to begin,” she said finally. She frowned, trying her best to inject a degree of sternness into her voice and thinking that what it reminded her of was when the girls were little, and she’d been forced to discipline them when actually she was secretly entertained by the mischief they’d done.

It wasn’t that she didn’t still want-need-answers and explanations; goodness no. But somehow the urgency was gone. She felt strangely at ease with Tom Hawkins now-this mystifying stranger she hadn’t even met before yesterday, and whose bundled bare feet were now snuggled cozily under her elbow. She wasn’t sure she could have explained why, it was just a feeling she had. The feeling she was going to have all the time in the world to learn about this man, including the answers to questions she hadn’t even thought of yet.

“I guess,” she said at last, dabbing cookie crumbs from her lips with the tip of a forefinger, “you could begin by telling me who you are.”

Chapter 8

“Interpol?” For one wild instant she thought he must be joking. But for some reason, she didn’t follow up on her initial impulse to laugh.

The flashlight’s beam slashed across her blanket-covered legs. When it steadied, and she saw that Tom was reaching for something inside his jacket, she jerked slightly and frowned; that gesture reminded her of something, but she couldn’t think what. Then he pulled out a wallet-no, an ID case-and without a word handed it to her and trained the light on it. She studied it carefully and then gave it back, heart thumping.

“My goodness,” she said faintly.

Her thoughts were racing. So he’d told her the truth, about being a policeman, at least. And this was what he meant by “not in this jurisdiction.” But who’d have thought…Interpol? It seemed so exotic to her, like something out of a movie, or a spy novel-James Bond stuff.

Her head was spinning, and she couldn’t think which question should logically come next. She also felt a little testy. She wished he’d just explain, dammit. But she could tell by his silence that she was going to have to drag this, whatever it was, out of him, piece by piece. She had an idea that the habit of secrecy was deeply ingrained in this man.

But it hasn’t always been so. Oh, yes, somehow she knew that. Once he’d had a friend, a best friend, with whom he’d shared his innermost thoughts, his secrets, his anger and pain. A friend for whom he still grieved.

“But why…” Her throat was suddenly filled with gravel. She cleared it and tried again. “Why are you here? What do you want with me?”

Then her breath caught, and she blurted it out in a rush, even though she was sure she already knew the answer. “It’s the painting, isn’t it? I was afraid of that. It’s valuable, after all, isn’t it? And of course it’s stolen. I knew I liked that painting too much. Damn.”

She felt Tom’s knees move restively beside hers. “It’s not stolen,” he said gruffly. “And as far as I know, it’s not valuable.”

“Well, it certainly is to someone,” Jane snapped, impatient with the stingy way he was doling out information. “Aaron Campbell, for starters. Not to mention the person who was in my hotel room last night. Which reminds me…” She was relieved to feel the anger, finally, which was much more comfortable and a lot less complicated than what she’d recently been feeling toward the man whose legs lay so firm and warm against hers. So relieved that she fired her suspicions and questions at him recklessly, and without her usual diplomacy. “You being there, that wasn’t any accident, was it? So, who were you following, Agent Hawkins? Was it Campbell, or me?”

“You, of course.” His voice, in response to her anger, was hard and without expression, though it took on a note of dark irony when he added, “I’d rather hoped we’d left Mr. Campbell behind.”

“Okay, so who is he?”

She heard the soft hiss of an exhalation. “I wish to God I knew.”

“But you do think it was him in my room last night?”

“Let’s just say I hope it was.”

“You…hope? Why?”

There was another sigh, a whispery sound like wind-driven sand. He said almost gently, “Think, Carlysle. Would you rather have one other player out there somewhere, dogging our trail, or two?”

“Player?” The word exploded on a puff of air, as if something had squeezed her chest. She wondered what had become of her former serenity and confidence; all of a sudden, her mouth was dry and her heart was hammering against the wall of her chest. “What is this,” she demanded, “some kind of game? You know, dammit, for somebody who’s supposed to be enlightening me, you’re making me awfully confused!”

“I’m trying,” he muttered, shifting again. “To enlighten you, I mean. It’s just…not easy to explain.”

She wished he’d stop moving. It made it hard for her to hang on to the anger. She muttered unsteadily, “You’re making this sound very complicated.”

“Trust me, it is. And there’s a lot I can’t tell you.”

There was a long pause. Jane listened to the monotonous drone of eighteen tires on asphalt, fighting for the calm that had deserted her, searching for an anchor of normalcy in a world that had suddenly become unreal. As if, she thought, she’d somehow stepped into a movie-a Hollywood thriller, something starring Sylvester Stallone, or Arnold whatever-his-name-was.

But the painting. That was certainly real. And dammit, it was hers.

She cleared her throat and said with a great deal more firmness, both in her voice and her resolve, “Okay, then, tell me about the painting. If it’s not stolen, and it’s not valuable-”

“It’s not the painting.” There was another, shorter pause, during which she heard a familiar crackle, which she identified as the wrapper on a pack of cigarettes. Then the crackling ceased and his arm relaxed, coming to rest on the mound of her swaddled feet. She heard him sigh; evidently he’d decided that under the circumstances he was going to have to get through this without the aid of nicotine. She could almost feel him girding himself, and the words came as if each one represented a victory in a small, private tug-of-war. “I-we have…there’s reason to believe that a piece of information was, uh, hidden somewhere on or in that painting. A piece of information that would make it very valuable indeed to…certain people.” He subsided, seemingly exhausted by that effort.

But if he thought he was finished, Jane had news for him. “Information? Hidden? In my painting?” She fired the volley at him without drawing breath. “What sort of information?”

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you that.” He sounded every inch an officer of the law. Jane had to resist an urge to kick him.

“That’s ridiculous,” she said in exasperation. “If there was something you wanted in my painting, why didn’t you just say so? If you’d only told me who you were and what you wanted, don’t you think I’d have been more than