Dangerous Ladies (74 page)

Her gaze flicked to him. “I had the best references—from Mr. Hopkins.”

“He just went to the hospital with a heart attack.” And Devlin
had
done Four an injustice.

“So I’ll get the credit
and
the painting.” Judith smiled like a warped Mona Lisa.

He glanced again at the furniture. At the windows in their dormers. The night table with the cracked marble top. The tall antique wardrobe that staggered under the influence of a broken leg. The wardrobe held potential as a weapon. . . .

“Be quiet, Devlin!” Meadow said fiercely. She turned back to Judith. “My father can throw clay and blow glass, but he can’t balance a checkbook, and you know it!” In an exasperated gesture, she pushed her hair off her forehead. “How could you leave them alone?”

“When you came out with the painting, I needed to be here to take it off your hands.” Judith’s voice was soft, emotionless. Her pupils swallowed the color from her eyes, giving them all the compassion of a snake’s.

“You were going to steal the painting from me? The painting that would save my mother’s life? Why? Why?” Meadow was almost stammering. “You have money. Why?”

“It’s a
Rembrandt
,” Judith said fiercely. “Do you know how much prestige goes to the person who discovers a lost Rembrandt? By God,
I may not be able to throw clay or blow glass like you or your father, or paint like your mother or your grandmother. But I’ll go down in history as the woman who discovered the Rembrandt.” She glanced at the painting, and her eyes gleamed avariciously. “Mr. Fitzwilliam, bring me the Rembrandt”—the gun focused on Meadow—“or I’ll shoot her.”

She’d been watching him, or listening to rumors, or both, for she knew exactly how to force his hand.

And he would give her the Rembrandt. The painting didn’t matter to him—except that it was his, and what was his remained his—but he knew very well that once she had the painting, she could escape only if she killed him, and Meadow, and his child. That he would not allow. “Get behind the wardrobe,” he said to Meadow.

He wasn’t at all surprised to see her lift her chin at him. “What am I supposed to do, let her shoot you?”

“I can run and dodge.” He used his eyes to reassure and command. “You . . . you are carrying my child.” He waited until she nodded, reluctant but acknowledging. “Now . . . get behind the chest of drawers.”

“It’s not the chest of drawers that will protect me.” She turned the large painting long side up and pulled it in front of her.

“What are you doing?” Judith’s steady hand suddenly shook. “Meadow, what the hell are you doing?”

Genius. His little darling was a genius. Judith wouldn’t shoot the painting, and Meadow had provided a distraction—for him.

He hit the floor and rolled behind a trunk.

A spray of bullets followed him. Splinters flew.

But he wasn’t hit yet.

With the three-legged wardrobe as his goal, he dodged from the trunk to a cabinet.

The shooting stopped. Judith wasn’t sure which way he’d gone.

“Judith, this isn’t what we do.” Meadow was moving.

Damn it.
He could hear her shuffling to the side. Why couldn’t she do as she was told? Why couldn’t she just stay put?

But she used her words like poison darts. “I can’t believe you’re willing to kill for a
thing
. Possessions aren’t art. It’s the soul that matters—”

If she said,
What goes around, comes around,
he was going to kill her.

“—And you know what goes around, comes around.”

“Shut up.” Judith had probably never meant anything as sincerely in her life.

He heard her footsteps moving into the center of the room, away from obstructions . . . looking for him.

She shot as he dashed toward the entrance. Toward the three-legged wardrobe.

Bullets followed him, spraying wood chips in a path . . . toward his ass.

Agony ripped his calf.

He was hit. He was hit.

Goddamn it.
Judith had put a bullet in his leg.

He stumbled. Made it to the buffet. The mirror shattered as the ammo smacked it. Glass pierced him. Shards pierced him. He didn’t care. His leg hurt so fucking bad . . . in football, some big, stupid defensive tackle had broken his tibia, but the pain was nothing compared to this. This was agony. This was hell.

He glanced down. Saw the splash of crimson on his jeans, the shredded denim, the broken flesh.

He measured the distance to the wardrobe.

He wasn’t going to have the speed he needed to knock over the wardrobe. Not and walk away alive.

So be it.
He had experienced the greatest love a man could know, all in the space of three weeks. He had created a child . . . with Meadow. If he didn’t survive . . . She would. She must.

If he threw himself across the open space, even if Judith shot him, his body would smack the wardrobe as a projectile.

He planned that it would strike Judith. He trusted Meadow to get out alive.

And he had to run before his leg was worthless.

Dimly he heard Meadow talking, talking. “The value of the painting is nothing if it’s stained with blood—”

“Shut up,” Judith said fiercely. “Just shut up and give me that painting.”

“If I give it to you, you’ll kill me,” Meadow said, “and I carry the future within me. Don’t you see, Judith—”

Devlin gathered himself to dash into the open.

As he did, the floorboards in the corridor creaked. He caught a flash of movement out of his peripheral vision.

Four, that damned fool of a Four, staggered out of the corridor and into the room, bottle in hand.

He spotted Devlin. He pointed—damn him, pointed right at Devlin—and in a slurred voice he yelled, “See, Devlin? I told you it wasn’t me. I didn’t push Meadow down the stairs.”

“Go back,” Meadow yelled.

“Fuck,” Judith said, and blasted Four with a shot.

Four screamed, spun, and dropped like a rock.

Devlin didn’t wait to see him hit the ground. Using his arms, he lunged up and over the buffet.

Judith reacted a second too late. She shot. She missed.

And he was still alive.

He smacked the wardrobe with all the force of a linebacker.

With a groan and in slow motion, the wardrobe tilted toward Judith. For a split second it hung in the air. The doors flew open. Books, dried tubes of paint, the bare ceramic base of a lamp fell out and rolled across the floor toward him.

Judith backed up, hands up to protect herself, eyes bright with fury, pistol pointed at the ceiling.

With a crash that shook the floor, the wardrobe slammed down. One door flew into the air. The cloud of dust blinded Devlin.

“Bastard!” The epithet exploded from Judith with force and virulence.

He hadn’t killed her.

He couldn’t stop yet.

But when he tried to take a step, pain ripped through him. His leg collapsed.

Through the settling dust he saw Judith. She sat on a rickety trunk, blood trickling from a gash on her cheek and soaking her sleeve. She held the pistol with both hands, and she pointed it right at Devlin.

He had nowhere to go.

His leg couldn’t go there even if he did.

He was going to die—and he hadn’t saved Meadow. She was going to die, too.

His gaze met hers.

No time for apologies. He was losing consciousness. He put his hand on his heart to indicate his love.

Meadow inclined her head and, in the most detached voice he’d ever heard her use, she said, “Judith, if you shoot him, I’m going to stab the Rembrandt.”

He couldn’t believe it. No matter how long he lived, he would never forget the sight that met his eyes.

Meadow held the painting at an angle in front of her, the large silver key poised, point down, above the canvas.

“What?” Judith whirled and stared at Meadow.

“You can try to shoot me. You might succeed. You might hit the Rembrandt or damage it.” Meadow’s amazing blue eyes narrowed until she looked . . . menacing. Very unlike Meadow. “But if you shoot Devlin, I guarantee you’re going to end up with a painting so mutilated, the only thing you’ll get credit for is screwing up a masterpiece.”

He’d never seen Meadow sound so calm.

He’d never seen anyone look so cold as Judith.

Carefully she aimed the pistol at Meadow’s head.

Meadow’s cool look of menace was reflected on his face. Picking up the base of the lamp, he used all of his rusty football skills, aimed, and threw it at Judith’s head. It hit with a resounding smack, knocking her off the trunk and out of sight.

He subsided, breathing harshly, pain-racked, covered with sweat.

He was done.

He had to trust Meadow to handle the rest.

He drifted on a sea of pain.

And when the pain turned into agony, he opened his eyes with a start.

Meadow sat beside him, eyes intent, ripping off his leg.

He was all for it if that would make the misery stop.

Dr. Apps materialized out of nowhere with a large, white-coated goon carrying two huge bags. She didn’t even say hello. She merely took over the job of ripping off his leg.

“Hang on, Devlin.” Meadow kissed a hand. His hand. “Just hang on.”

Two of the security people walked past, holding handcuffs.

The pain in his leg eased. A little.

The security people walked past again, Judith staggering between them, a round, bloody circle in the shape of the lamp on her forehead.

“Nice throw, Devlin.” The volume of Meadow’s voice wavered as if someone were changing the volume.

Devlin tried to speak, but could only shape the word with his lips.
Four?

“The emergency people say he’ll be fine.”

Devlin looked up at Meadow. He’d lost a lot of blood. He couldn’t feel his fingers. The bullet had shredded his leg. The world was narrowing to the tiny pinprick of light that was Meadow. He was dying, and he didn’t want to go. He wanted to stay here with her. He whispered, “Remember Majorca. Remember, you were walking down the beach in a sundress and you saw me and kissed me. . . .”

“Because I loved you the first time I saw you.” She smiled at him,
but her smile trembled as though she were scared. “Then I took your hand and led you down the beach to a secluded cove, where we made love.”

He couldn’t see her anymore, but he could still hear her. And in his mind he could see Majorca, and feel her hands on him, and remember falling in love with her for the first time all over again.

The story he’d made up wasn’t a lie.

It just hadn’t happened yet. . . .

A
t the sound of the scream, Devlin’s head whipped around.

His gaze followed his mother’s pointing finger. Then he ran past Eddy and Firebird, down the beach through the small, muttering crowd, and toward the waves.

“She’s making a break for it.”

“I knew she wouldn’t make it through this wedding without trying to escape.”

“Poor thing. All this trauma has been too much for her.”

In a panic he plunged into the Mediterranean, ruining his leather shoes and soaking his Armani suit to the knees. Reaching down, he caught his nine-month-old daughter as she plunged under the surface. Lifting her out of the water, he held her to his chest and headed back for shore.

She squalled and kicked at being pulled out of the waves, while from under the flower-strewn arbor he heard Meadow laughing—laughing because she had taught Willow how to swim and was proud of their fearless daughter.

Sharon headed for him, her arms outstretched. “Aren’t you a smart girl?” she cooed.

Willow wailed louder and tried to climb over his shoulder toward the sea.

“Don’t encourage her.” Devlin pulled out his handkerchief to wipe the sweat of fear off his face, and realized it was soaked with seawater.

“But of course we should encourage her,” Sharon said. “She’s learning her path, and as her guides, we should help her find her feet.”

“Maybe she could find them somewhere besides underwater,” Grace snapped. Then, in a mournful tone, she said, “Oh, look. She ruined her outfit.”

At the sound of Grace’s voice, Willow’s crying cut off as if by a knife. Her bald head swiveled around, her big blue eyes fixed on Grace, and with a gurgle of delight, she held out her arms.

“No.” Grace backed up, her hands fending Willow off.

Willow leaned forward, babbling her joy at seeing her grandmother.

“No, no.” Grace wore a stylish hat, open sandals, and a beige linen suit, ironed within an inch of its life.

“Here. Let me take her.” Sharon wore a yellow, off-the-shoulder cotton shirt and a gathered tie-dyed skirt and and she was barefoot.

Willow shook her head no at Sharon, and again reached for Grace.