Hot Streak

Doing a little dancing skip and a hop, she put her palms together and gazed up at her mother. “Say, yes, Mom- please, please, please, please, please!”

Carey smiled at the unrestricted vitality in his young daughter. “You're going to be a great rider.” And he meant it. She had a natural fearlessness and competence, two primary components for world-class competition.

“I'll clean the kitchen for a month!” Carrie cried, “and my room too,” she added, excitement flushing her cheeks. “And I promise to practice my piano every single night!”

“I'd like to go up tomorrow, if you could,” Carey softly said, turning to Molly.

“Aw-w-right! Hear that, Mom? Two against one. Hey! Lucy!” Carrie's scream was deafening. “Let's pack!” And she was out of the room in two seconds.

“I'm not sure about this two against one,” Molly muttered. “Should we talk about this?”

“It'll just be a quick trip,” Carey lied. “She wants to go,” he cajoled. “A day or two won't hurt your business, will it? And my father's anxious to meet you and Carrie. He'd be thrilled.”

“Just for a day or so?” She debated the possibility of actually leaving her business when she never had before.

“Promise.”

“Promise, promise?”

“Absolutely.” Did a lie count when lives were at stake?

CHAPTER 31

T hey left at six the following morning. The street and sidewalks outside Molly's building were quiet and devoid of jostling newsmen, thanks to Matt Black's team. But he'd been right. It was going to cost Carey in lawsuits. Three of the reporters had screamed “sue your ass off” as they'd been hauled away.

That morning Allen contacted Sylvie at her hotel. He had a message from Carey: He'd try to find Egon as soon as he brought Molly and Carrie to a safe location. “Don't wait,” Allen told her. “He said you should return home and he'll contact you in Nice or Frankfurt.”

“What if I want to wait?” she said, her tone chill.

“Look, Sylvie, I'm not paid to argue with you. I'm delivering a message. But if you want some advice, I'd do what he says.”

“And if I don't?”

“Hey, Egon's your brother, not mine.”

“Damn him!”

“Jesus, Sylvie, he's doing you a favor.”

“He always gives orders, never asks what I might want!”

Nothing else works with you, Miss Bulldozer Queen of the World, Allen wanted to say, but instead said, “Have a good flight home.”

So that warm summer morning in June while Carey, Molly, their daughter, and her friend Lucy were being driven north to Bernadotte's estate, Sylvie was swearing her way through a hasty application of makeup after ordering her car brought round. If she knew where Bernadotte lived, she would have followed, but Carey had always carefully protected his father from Sylvie. As Bernadotte preferred tranquillity, he and Sylvie would not have mixed well.

“Ordered home like some underling, damn his arrogant ass,” Sylvie muttered, throwing toilet articles into her overnight bag. She was dressed in an Yves St. Laurent nautical-theme slacks outfit, and looked as crisp as her temper in starched white and military blue braid. “And now I'm supposed to wait by the phone. I can't stand waiting… I hate it!” she breathed hotly. But her frustration was provoked not so much by the order as by the fact she had to obey or lose her best chance of helping Egon. She trusted Carey implicitly in this situation, unlike any hired investigators she might employ. No one understood her brother better than Carey; he seemed able to anticipate the direction of Egon's erratic thought process. So she sulked and muttered and swore under her breath, but she left because she needed Carey's help.

In Rome, Rifat had just received a cable from Barcelona. It was early in the afternoon, and the palazzo housing his office was cool, despite the high temperatures outside. His temperament was cool, as well.

The cable was encouraging after Ceci's unsuccessful mission, followed by the news of Egon's disappearance.

ON HIS TRAIL. NEAR RR STATION LAST NIGHT. POINTS LEFT BEHIND.

Egon would not be at his best on drugs, Rifat mused. A pleasant thought. He anticipated a speedy capture.

CHAPTER 32

W hat's going to happen to Egon?” Molly asked after watching Carey silently contemplate the view out his window for the last twenty minutes.

He shrugged, too troubled to respond. Another five miles of suburban sprawl passed by as he tried to organize the turmoil in his mind… the major obstacle of Molly and her expected resistance, the overwhelming rush of emotion when he thought of how close Rifat had been to his daughter, the waves of fear and pity for Egon. And then, with an intrinsic decisiveness that was based more on feeling than logic, he decided now was as good a time as any to tell Molly his plans. Carrie and Lucy were in the front seat, happily chatting with Jess, and he hated keeping Molly in the dark. Taking a breath, he turned to her, his fair hair brilliant in the morning sun, his dark eyes watchful. “I'm going after him.”

The words she'd been afraid of since Sylvie had appeared. She tried to repress the shock waves of anxiety. “Isn't that dangerous?”

“Not really.”

“It's dangerous,” she said, answering her own question. “You could be killed.”

“I won't be killed,” he said, his tone even.

“Or tortured.” Molly's voice was beginning to take on the intensity he wanted to avoid.

“Look, darling-”

“I'd appreciate it,” she said very softly, little daggers of anger underlying the gentleness, “if you didn't use that phony darling stuff with me. I'm not your ex-wife who responds to darling or bitch or apparently anything else you care to call her.”

The subject has veered off track, he thought, but he preferred her frustration be directed toward Sylvie rather than toward him. “Of course. Forgive me.”

“And don't be contrite just to avoid an argument. Dammit.” She exhaled in a great sigh, knowing how childish she sounded. But death and torture? How did she and Carey end up in this mess? “Why are we even having this conversation? I shouldn't know a man who knows terrorists-or whatever you call people who try kidnapping little girls. And don't give me any of that crap about Egon's pranks, because I wasn't born yesterday. This car has bulletproof glass; I heard Jess tell Carrie. Jesus, bulletproof glass! What the hell is happening to my life? Terrorists shouldn't be any closer than the damn newspaper headlines.”

“And they won't be,” he said in the heated silence. “You'll be safe at my father's.”

“Safe,” she breathed in almost a whisper, turning so her body was directly facing his. “What the hell does that mean?”

Carefully Carey answered, “I'd like you to stay up north until I find Egon.”

“This isn't a little jaunt to see a horse, is it?” She hadn't regained her voice, and her hands were clenched into fists.

“No.”

“What if they kill you?”

“They won't.”