The right side of the car hopped onto the sidewalk, where Herbert nearly clipped a man walking his terrier. Herbert managed to swerve back onto the road, though his right front fender clipped a parked car. The collision tore the fender down and caused it to scrape noisily against the asphalt.
He stopped. Afraid the chrome might rend his tire, Herbert threw the car into reverse to try to rip the fender free. It came loose with a slow groan and a loud squeal, then clattered to the street.
Herbert looked in his side mirror to make sure he could pull away again. The scene was surreal. Pedestrians were running and cars were now racing past. And before he could safely return to the now-disordered flow of traffic, the van pulled up beside him, on the left. The figure in the passenger's seat faced him. He stuck a submachine gun from the open window and trained it on the car.
He fired.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Dressed in a short black skirt and jacket, with a white blouse and pearls, Nancy looked as if she were walking from a mirage. Hazy, slow, rippling.
Or maybe she looked that way because of the tears in Hood's eyes.
He winced, shook his head, made fists, felt a thousand different emotions with every step she took.
It is you. That was the first.
It was followed by, Why did you do it, damn you?
Then, You're more breathtaking than I remembered.
And, What about Sharon? I should leave, but I can't.
Finally, Go away. I don't need this.
But he did need it. And as she drifted toward him, he filled his eyes with her. He allowed his heart to fill with the old love, his loins to fill with the old lust, his mind to fill with the precious memories.
Hausen said, 'Herr Hood?' Hausen's voice seemed muffled and soft, as though it were coming from a hole far, far below him.
'Are you all right?' 'I'm not sure,' Hood replied. His own voice seemed to be coming from that hole.
Hood didn't take his eyes off Nancy. She didn't wave, she didn't speak. She didn't look away and she didn't break her poised, sensual stride.
'It's Nancy,' Hood finally told his companion.
'How did she find you here?' Hansen wondered aloud.
The woman arrived. Hood couldn't even imagine what he looked like to her. He was shocked, open-mouthed, teary, his head moving slowly from side to side. Hood was no silver knight, he was sure of that.
There was a vague look of amusement on Nancy's face- the right side of her mouth was pulled up slightly— but it changed quickly to that wide, knee-weakening smile he knew so well.
'Hello,' she said quietly.
The voice had matured, along with the face. There were lines to the sides of the blue eyes, on her once- smooth forehead, along the upper lip— that beautifully curved upper lip, which rested on a slightly bee-stung lower lip. But they were not detracting, those lines. To the contrary. Hood found them almost unbearably sexy. They said that she had lived, loved, fought, survived, and was still vital and unbowed and alive.
She also looked fitter than she had ever been. Her fivefoot- six-inch body looked sculpted, and Hood could imagine her having gotten into aerobics or jogging or swimming.
Gotten into it and throttled it, made it do exactly what she wanted to her body. She had that kind of discipline, that kind of will.
Obviously, he thought with a flash of bitterness. She was able to walk out on me.
Nancy was no longer wearing the cherry-red lipstick he remembered so well. She had on a calmer watermelon color.
She was also wearing a hint of sky-blue eye shadow— that was new— and small diamond earrings. He fought a nearly losing battle to put his arms around her, to crush her to him from cheek to thighs.
He settled for: 'Hello, Nancy.' It seemed an inadequate thing to say after all this time, though it beat the epithets and accusations which came to mind. And as one who had been martyred by love, he found the saintly minimalism of it appealing.
Nancy's eyes shifted to Hood's right. She offered Hausen her hand.
'Nancy Jo Bosworth,' she said to Hausen.
'Richard Hausen,' he said.
'I know,' she replied. 'I recognized you.' Hood didn't hear the rest of the exchange. Nancy Jo Bosworth, he repeated. Nancy was the kind of woman who would have hyphenated her name. So she isn't married.
Hood felt his soul begin to glow with joy, then burn with guilt. He told himself, But you are.
Hood jerked his head toward Hausen. He was conscious of moving it like that, of jerking it. Otherwise, it wouldn't have budged. Facing Hausen, Hood saw a look of compassion bordering on sadness in the man's eyes. Not for himself but for Hood. And he appreciated the empathy. If Hood weren't careful here, he was going to ruin a lot of lives.
Hood said to Hausen, 'I wonder if you would give me just a minute.' 'Certainly,' Hansen said. 'I'll see you back in my office.' Hood nodded. 'What you were saying a moment ago,' he said. 'We'll talk more. I can help with that.' 'Thank you,' the German said. After snapping a polite bow at the woman, he walked away.
Hood looked from Hausen to Nancy. He didn't know what she saw in his eyes, but what he saw in hers was deadly. The softness and desire were 'still there, still an electric combination, still damn near irresistible.
'I'm sorry,' she said.
'It's all right,' Hood said. 'He and I were nearly finished.' The woman smiled. 'Not about this.' Hood's neck and cheeks went red. He felt like an ass.
Nancy touched his face. 'There was a reason I left the way I did,' she said.
'I'm sure there was,' Hood said, recovering slightly.
'You always had reasons for everything you did.' He put his hand on hers and moved it back to her side. 'How did you find me?' 'I had to return papers to the hotel,' she said. 'The doorman told me a 'Paul' had been looking for me, and that he was with Deputy Foreign Minister Hausen. I called Hausen's office and came right over.' 'Why?' hood asked.
She laughed. 'God, Paul, there are a dozen good reasons. To see you, to apologize, to explain— but mostly to see you. i missed you terribly. I followed your career in Los Angeles as best I could. I was very proud of what you'd done.' 'I was driven,' he said.
'I could see that, which is funny. I never thought of you as ambitious that way.' 'I wasn't driven by ambition,' he said, 'but by despair.
I kept busy so that I wouldn't become Heathcliff, sitting up at Wuthering Heights waiting to die. That's what you did to me, Nancy. You left me sick and so confused that all I wanted to do was find you, make whatever was wrong right again. I wanted you so badly that if you'd run off with another man I would have envied him, not hated him.' 'It wasn't another man,' she said.
'It doesn't matter. Can you begin to understand that level of frustration?' Now Nancy blushed slightly. 'Yes,' she said, 'because I felt it too. But I was in terrible trouble. If I'd stayed, or if I told you where I'd gone…' 'What?' Hood demanded. 'What would have happened? How could anything have been worse than what did happen?' His voice cracked and he had to fight back sobs. He half-turned from her.
'I'm sorry,' Nancy said more emphatically.
She came closer and stroked his cheek again. This time he didn't remove her hand.
'Paul, I stole the blueprints for a new chip my company was going to make and sold them to an overseas firm. In exchange for the blueprints, I got a ton of money. We would have been married, we would have been rich, and you would have been a deadly-great politician.' 'Is that what you think I wanted?' Hood asked. 'To be successful on someone else's efforts?' Nancy shook her head. 'You never would have known.
I wanted you to be able to run for office without worrying about money. I felt that you could do great things,
