MasterStroke (19 page)

Ultimately, though, positing what-if scenarios and examining each possibility like she had the ability to turn back the clock and start all over again was indulging in yet another form of fantasy. It didn’t get anybody anywhere.

She was the person she was and had very little control over it. It emotionally exhausted her to continually second-guess her existence. The easiest option was to carefully fold her fears into little origami swans and maroon them on a high shelf in her subconscious where she could ignore them.

With a lot of time and an equal amount of money, she could have, through therapy, dealt with these issues but she had an abiding distrust of such things. The first step would have been to admit she had problems. The second, to discuss them at length. Sandrine had an aversion to both. She didn’t unburden herself to friends, not even Mariel who, with her almost superhuman flashes of insight, probably already knew much of what motivated her. And she certainly wouldn’t talk so freely to a complete stranger. It wasn’t her way; Sandrine considered it nobody’s business but her own.

In part, it was a result of her English upbringing. While her American friends seemed to thrive on personal confessions, whether to each other, late at night in dark bars after too many Cosmopolitans, or to therapists, she had a very different and entirely British approach: in essence, she was ashamed to admit she had problems. Maybe if she was Catholic, it would be different but religion she lumped in with relationships and mental health professionals, inwardly squirming at the thought of any of them.

Yet, as she locked so much of herself away, she reasoned that there had obviously been some kind of pressure building. How else to explain the way she’d fallen for Jack so quickly? How suddenly she’d ditched so many of the constraints that had long safeguarded her existence.

The high walls of her self-containment had been breached, the ice in her blood had heated to almost boiling point and the person she had become in the last few weeks was almost unrecognisable. She’d never let her libido overshadow her before. Where once her desire was kept in complete control, it was now dominated by another person. And she not only enjoyed the change, it left her wanting more and more.

Jack had sublimated her with no resistance whatsoever. There had been little preamble, just an almost instant emotional and carnal recognition of desire. She wanted him long before she recognised that fact. On their first date, at his apartment for dinner, she’d adopted the role of submissive without a second thought, as if it was something she’d been building towards all her life.

He’d tied her hands, blindfolded her and made her stand before him naked from the waist down. It was a humiliation that had set her nerve endings afire, excited her so wildly she’d orgasmed to the point of exhaustion.

It was so out of character and so completely threatening to her self-image, no wonder she had been distraught afterwards. Once she’d accepted she was equally responsible for the events of that evening, she relaxed enough to admit how much she’d wanted it all.

Then her own physical needs had taken over and she’d pushed them into realms unknown and unrealised. She was becoming a sex slave, a realisation that made her draw a shuddering breath and spiked a wet heat between her legs. She could actually feel her labia puffing out, blossoming, opening up to his memory just as surely as if he was standing in front of her.

“I’m becoming Jack’s fuck toy,” she said quietly and the words tumbling from her lips excited her even more. Then she shook her head, trying to banish the ideas from her head.
I’ve have to focus. I’ll be a sticky mess if I don’t stop right this second. And there are more serious issues to consider.

Sandrine took several deep breaths and thought more intensely of the circumstances of the last few weeks. Her mood swung in the opposite direction, spearing her illogically towards misery. Looking at it in this light, Sandrine believed herself in worse shape than she’d ever been in the past. She’d given herself, her love, her peace of mind, to a complete stranger, had offered herself up like the ultimate emotional sacrificial lamb, and she had no idea what was going to happen.

She could lose everything. It was a measure of how little judgement she had these days that she been entertaining the thought of Jack’s S&M dungeon.
What have I been thinking? How could I be so stupid?

Jekyll or Hyde? Rational human being or a monster ruled by recklessness? Two opposing sides to the one person, born of conflict and edging ever closer to disaster. It wasn’t a situation Sandrine had faced before and she was beginning to fear she was deranged.

The danger was not just about her, Sandrine reminded herself soberly. The Russians, the strange and disturbing results of Mariel’s investigations into Jack’s background, Marcus, the bookstore. It made Sandrine’s head swim,
How are they all connected? Marcus could well be in big trouble, as could all of us
.

As she traced one aspect to another, she drew a comparison with the optical illusions in the illustrations of M. C. Escher, where staircases gave the impression of ascending and descending simultaneously, with everything doubling back on itself. She’d first been fascinated by them when just a child. Later, a girl she shared a dorm room with at college had one above her bed and Sandrine would often use it to focus her concentration while studying. As confusing at it was, she always marvelled at the precision of the drawing and the way it so effortlessly defied logic.

Then a quote from Conan Doyle popped into her head.
When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

Sandrine’s mind habitually worked in roundabout ways, teasing her with riddles plucked from her readings. She’d never been good at cryptic crosswords, actually not very good with crosswords of any kind, and puzzles such as these could be annoyances that took days to pick through.

Is there a link between the Escher and Sherlock Holmes’ quote?
she wondered.
My subconscious certainly thinks so.

The obvious one, which she found herself unwilling to consider and even openly hostile towards, was that everything was related, including Jack. That Sandrine’s knight in shining armour was tainted, that he hadn’t just appeared out of the blue at just the right time to save her. The inference was – and this was an idea that caused a creeping chill up her spine – that Jack knew much more about this than he was telling. He may even be actively involved in it all.

No
, she countered.
It’s not possible. He’s protected me, kept me from harm.
Sandrine liked to think of herself as a good judge of character and there was nothing about Jack that raised any suspicions at all.

But she barely knew anything about him, she concluded. Jack lived extremely well and, if his surroundings were anything to go by, he was independently wealthy. His warehouse apartment, his cars, clothes and taste for the finer things in life, didn’t come cheap.

He gave only the sketchiest indications of what he did for a living. He’d said he was a facilitator, although exactly what that meant she had no idea. Something about finding things for other people, tracking down art or objects for collectors, for which he obviously took a fee.

On which side of the law did he operate? She’d blithely taken it as a given that he wouldn’t do anything underhanded or illegal but she knew enough about the art world to know that where money was involved, there would also be criminal activity. Did he steal what he wanted? Bribe? Extort? Or worse?

Again, she dug down into herself and found it unbelievable that he could do anything like that. It just didn’t seem feasible.

Yet, he so naturally evaded the Russians in the shopping mall. He’d taken control of the situation with an insanely cool detachment. There was no hesitation or fear on his part. She marvelled at how easily he’d thought of the ruse in the cinema, spiriting her away from danger. And how carefully he’d maintained the charade by returning to the mall later, the shopping bags, wandering the stores until the Russians found them again. It was elaborate but so simple in its execution, like something out of a spy movie.

It didn’t seem likely that Jack would be actively involved in all of this, she concluded, if he’d gone to such labyrinthian lengths.

Byzantine
, the word popped into her head.
Like a spy movie.
Maybe she was getting her cinema allusions mixed up. It wasn’t a matter of whether Jack the cowboy was wearing a white hat or black. Spies could be good and bad all at once, interchangeable depending on the circumstances, selfless or devious without a moment’s hesitation.
Whatever it takes to get the job done.

A chill spread through her again. Confusion swirled with the intensity of a hurricane. She couldn’t think straight. After all the maybes and possiblys and what-ifs, she was no closer to a final decision than she’d been at the beginning. She had only her instinct for a guide and even that was totally disoriented.

So what it boils down to is that Jack either is or isn’t involved
, she reasoned angrily.
What a genius solution! Girl, better get a grip or you’ll soon be suggesting Heathcliff is behind it all.

Chapter Twenty Five

The buzz of her cell phone brought Sandrine back to the here and now. Jack announced he was at the door to the loading dock. Without being too obvious, she checked that the Mercedes was still parked across the road, then walked back through the store, unlocked the storeroom and did the same to the door to the back alley.

Jack was dressed in tight narrow-legged blue jeans, a deep scarlet turtleneck sweater and black leather jacket. With surprise, Sandrine registered the fact that the familiar physical thrill of seeing him was no longer as strong as it was.

That’s what comes of thinking too much
, the voice within her remarked drily. She stood back from the doorway and Jack hurried in, locking the door behind him.

They stood looking at each other for a few seconds. Sandrine remained in place and there was something about her demeanour that made Jack hesitate. Then he scooped her up into his arms. She could feel his strength and heat, and his masculine aroma assailed her. She hugged him back but in an almost distant way.

“My beautiful girl, it’s so good to see you.”

He tilted his head slightly, gave her that wide-eyed look of an enquiring puppy eager for a treat. Sandrine was aware that he could sense a change in her but there was little she could do to mask the hesitation that overcame her.

“It’s good to see you, too, Jack.” Her words were a few degrees cooler than she intended.

“Is everything OK?”

“Yes, fine. There’s a dark Mercedes across the road as usual. The store has been quiet. I’ve just had lots of time to think.”

“Ah,” was all he said. A sparkle came into his eyes. “No need to worry. It will all be OK.”

“Oh, I hope so, Jack,” she answered in a rush of emotion, folding herself into his arms and kissing him long and lingeringly.
It was no good
, Sandrine berated herself harshly.
He walks in the door and I forget all my concerns. It’s impossible to doubt him when he’s so close.

“It will be, gorgeous. Trust me on this. Now, could I please have a look at what the courier delivered?”

Sandrine busied herself opening the safe. She brought out the art portfolios and laid them on one of the large packing tables and pointed out the other boxes of books.

“I’ll have a look through these. You better go back out to the shop. Let me know if we have any visitors.”

Jack was slipping into a pair of white cotton archivist’s gloves as Sandrine closed the door to the storeroom behind her.

The next two hours sped by quickly. A number of customers come in and Sandrine was busy locating requested books, chatting and ringing up purchases. One of her regulars, an elderly lady who lived up-state and made most of her purchases by telephone, called and there followed a rambling, often confused conversation that centred around her watching
Field Of Dreams
on television the evening before.

She wanted to know if there were any books by the reclusive African-American author who had given the stirring speech on baseball to Kevin Costner in the film. Sandrine had never seen the movie, and had an aversion to sport in any case, but knew the answer immediately only because Marcus had once told her about it.

As she explained to Mrs Wright, in the movie, the author was played by James Earl Jones and many people assumed the reclusive writer to be James Baldwin, who had fled prejudice in the United States while still in his early 20s and spent most of his life living in France. But the book on which the film was based openly identified the author as J.D. Salinger.

So, she asked Mrs Wright, would you like books by James Baldwin or J.D. Salinger? There was a hesitation on the end of the line. Oh, the old lady said, I’d like the author with that beautiful deep voice. “I so liked him in
Driving Miss Daisy
,” she concluded.

On other days, she would have been delighted with the way the conversation progressed but instead she gently asked the woman to call back when she’d made up her mind and rang off. Casting a glance out to the street, where the dark windows of the Mercedes gave no indication of who, if anyone, was inside, she walked back to the storeroom and quietly unlocked the door.

Jack was bent over the table examining one of the artworks with a magnifying glass. Two of the portfolios were stacked neatly to one side and the contents of the other were set aside as well. The object of Jack’s attention was a pastel portrait of a young girl, beautifully rendered with an autumnal depth of clarity. Sandrine had noticed it when she’d looked through the works earlier. It had caught her eye for several reasons and she’d lingered over it.

It was totally unlike any of the other pieces, either in style or execution and there was no indication as to the identity of the artist. The subject was positioned full-face, staring out with an expression of wistful intensity, her eyes alive and purposeful. Every line, every shadow, each of the muted colours, was precise and strong and beautifully determined. It was so realistic, it was uncanny. This was a very special piece and it obviously captivated Jack as it had Sandrine.