Now You See Her (35 page)

She sat up and pulled it on, then settled back into his arms. “Okay, now I can sleep.”

“It's about time,” he grumbled, but she heard the amusement and physical satisfaction underlying his tone, and she went to sleep feeling more secure than she ever had before.

She came awake with a jolt, heart hammering, every muscle tense.

She couldn't have been asleep long. She had the sense that very little time had passed, certainly no more than an hour. Something had wakened her, something that made her skin prickle, her reaction much as it would have been had she slept in a cave thousands of years ago and woke to the sound of a tiger prowling at the cave entrance. She listened intently, wondering if the comparison was apt. Was someone in the apartment?

Her mind replayed the undefined, unfamiliar noise. She hadn't imagined it. It hadn't been loud, nothing more than a scrape, a whisper of a sound. Like a footstep. Like a window sliding up. Either of those, or both. Coming from the studio.

She shook Richard and felt his instant alertness. “I heard something,” she whispered.

He moved like oiled silk, rolling naked, soundlessly, out of bed. As he stooped down, he motioned for her to join him, holding a finger to his lips to indicate silence, both gestures plainly visible in the colorless light coming through the window.

She tried to imitate how he moved, without any jumps or jerks that would make noise. She got out of bed without any betraying squeaks from the mattress, only the whisper of the sheet marking her departure. His T-shirt, which had been bunched
around her waist, settled down over her hips but did nothing to protect her from the cool night air washing around her bare legs. She noticed the chill and then promptly forgot it, her attention riveted on the open door of the bedroom, expecting at any moment to see a dark, menacing form come through it.

Richard stooped down to the small bag he had brought, never looking away from the door as he reached inside the bag. When he straightened, light glinted dully on the big weapon in his right hand. With his left, he reached out and tucked her behind him.

Gripping her wrist to make sure she stayed with him, and behind him, he glided soundlessly to a position behind the door, but not so close that it would hit him if someone shoved it completely open. Then they waited.

She couldn't hear him breathing, but her own breath seemed to echo in her ears and surely her heart was pounding hard enough to be audible. Carefully she breathed through her mouth, to eliminate even that small sound. And she listened.

She could hear the clock ticking in the living room. She heard the distant wail of a siren. She didn't hear a repeat of that scraping sound.

But Richard didn't relax, didn't move from his alert stance. He was closer to the door, his body blocking her; did he hear something she couldn't?

Then she felt, sensed, someone just on the other side of the doorway, not stepping into the bedroom but looking into it.

The door opened back toward the wall against
which the bed was positioned. Because of that, he couldn't see the complete bed, just the foot of it, unless he came further into the doorway. Sweeney was acutely aware of the empty bed. Would he look at it and know they had heard him and were somewhere in the apartment, or would he assume no one was at home and she simply didn't make her bed? Would he stroll into the bedroom, or—

The door crashed back against the wall, the sound exploding in the dark silence.

Richard dropped, already moving before the door hit the wall, his grip on her wrist dragging her down with him. An explosion deafened her, blinded her. Another one, nearer, came so close on the heels of the first one the sounds almost blended into one. A strange percussion hit her, a small burst of air blasted against her skin.

Gun shots.

Her realization was immediate, but by that time there was nothing but the tinny ringing in her ears and the sharp smell of cordite burning her nostrils.

Her hearing and sight began to clear. She saw him now, flopping in the doorway. She heard him, a guttural, inhuman groan. The air fluttered out of his lungs like a balloon going flat, and then she smelled him.

She gagged, but fought back the bile that rose in her throat. “Are you all right?” Richard demanded, his voice harsh with urgency as he spun on his bare heel to face her.

“Yes,” she managed to croak. He stood from his crouched position and went to the bed, switching on the bedside lamp.

She squinted, almost blinded again. Before her eyes adjusted to the light, Richard was on the phone, his gaze locked on the body sprawled in the doorway. “This is Richard Worth,” he said quietly, to whoever was on the other end of the line. “Kai Stengel just broke into Sweeney's apartment and tried to kill us.”

Kai?

Stunned, Sweeney blinked several times and looked at the body, then wished she hadn't. Kai sprawled facedown in the bedroom doorway, his head turned toward her and his eyes open, set in the emptiness of death. There was a small, almost neat pool of blood under him, but the doorframe and the wall behind him were splattered with blood and gore.

“Don't bother,” said Richard. “I shot him. He's dead.”

As he replaced the receiver on the hook, Sweeney rose shakily to her feet and turned to him, instinctively wanting to go into his arms. She froze. Dark red rivulets streaked down his arm and chest, streaming from the top of his left shoulder.

“Oh, my God, you're shot!”

He glanced down at his shoulder. “Just a little,” he said calmly, catching her as she launched herself at him.

She fought free of his grasp and pushed him down to sit on the edge of the bed. “You can't be just a little shot,” she said fiercely. “It's like being pregnant; you either are or you aren't. Stay here.”

She whirled and ran. Her first aid supplies were in the bathroom vanity cabinet. She had to step
over Kai's body to get out of the room, but she hesitated only a fraction of a second. Richard was bleeding, and the urgent need to take care of him overrode everything else. She was careful where she put her feet, but she didn't slow down.

When she returned, laden with her first aid kit and a towel and washcloth, Richard had pulled on his jeans and was stepping into his shoes. “I told you to sit down!” she all but roared at him.

“No, you didn't. You told me to stay here. I'm here.”

His mild tone infuriated her. But he sat down on the bed again and let her press a gauze pad to the top of his shoulder. “It's just a burn; it won't even need stitches.”

He sounded so remote that she gave him a sharp glance. His face was expressionless, his eyes cool and watchful as he looked at Kai. She remembered that he had been an army ranger, and suddenly she knew that he had killed before, that this was the way he operated in a firefight.

After a moment she lifted the pad and saw that he was right; the wound across the top of his shoulder was a raw streak that sullenly oozed blood. Sirens wailed, coming closer and closer; they sounded as if they were right outside, then the noise abruptly stopped. Sweeney picked up the wet washcloth and began cleaning the wound. Richard took the cloth away from her. “I'll do it,” he said, and slipped his free hand under the T-shirt to pat her bare butt. “You'd better get some clothes on, unless you want the cops to see this pretty ass of yours.”

She scowled at him, but went to the closet and
took out a pair of jeans, pulling them on without bothering to put on underwear. She was just in time; it took the first responding cops only a minute to get inside the building and up to her apartment. Richard made his escape while she was zipping and snapping, stepping past Kai to get to the front door before the thunderous pounding broke it down.

Four uniformed cops poured into the apartment. Sweeney had a glimpse of avid expressions on the faces of her neighboring tenants as they milled in the hall outside her door, then Richard pulled her into the kitchen, removing both of them from the scene so the cops could do their work.

The next few hours were a tumult. Detective Ritenour arrived hard on the heels of the uniformed cops, beating the EMTs by a couple of minutes. He was dressed, but his shirt was wrinkled and his tie hung crookedly. Richard had called the detectives instead of 911. More uniformed cops arrived, and the emergency medical team, and Detective Aquino. Her apartment was full of people. Radios crackled. More people arrived.

Richard kept her in the kitchen, seated with her back to the door so she couldn't see any of what went on behind her. Two of the medical team looked at the wound on his shoulder and applied an antibiotic salve and a bandage. He finished cleaning him-self up at the sink, scrubbing away the blood with a wet paper towel, and refused any further medical treatment.

Aquino and Ritenour took their statements. They found the window in her studio where Kai had
entered. There was no question about Richard firing in self-defense.

“I think we'll find he killed Mrs. Worth,” said Aquino. “When he saw the painting Ms. Sweeney was doing, it must have been a real shock to him. Took him by surprise, otherwise he would have tried to do away with you then,” he said, looking at Sweeney. “Then I guess he thought he could pin the whole thing on you by telling us about the painting.”

“But how did he know you didn't arrest me?” she asked, bewildered.

Aquino shrugged. Ritenour answered. “He could have called the precinct, or maybe he was watching. How doesn't matter. He obviously came here tonight intending to kill you, only you heard him raise the window, and you weren't alone.”

Aquino said sourly to Richard, “It's illegal to own a handgun without a license in the city of New York.”

Richard shrugged, not a flicker of discomfort from his wounded shoulder showing on his face. “I have a license,” he said.

Aquino looked even more sour. “It figures. You did a damn good job. That was a clean hit to the heart. You've had training, haven't you?”

“Military,” Richard replied. “Army.”

“Yeah?” Ritenour said. “What unit? I was in the army.”

“Rangers.”

Sweeney saw their expressions change, and they sat back in their chairs.

“The bastard didn't have a chance,” Ritenour said softly.

C
HAPTER
    T
WENTY
-T
WO

“Y
ou're at the end of your rope,” Richard said roughly, tilting her face up. She was paper white, as much from fatigue as stress and shock; her eyes were dull and circled by shadows so dark they looked like bruises. “Get some clothes; I'm taking you home with me.”

Aquino got to his feet. “I'll take care of that. She don't want to go into the bedroom. Is there anything in particular you want?”

She shook her head. Normally she would never have allowed a stranger to paw through her clothes, but right now she didn't care. He was right; she didn't want to go into the bedroom. She might never go into it again. “There's a satchel on the top shelf in the closet. Just throw some things in it.”

“You'll need to sign a statement,” Ritenour said to Richard, “but that can wait a few hours. Get some
sleep if you can.” He paused. “The media will be all over this, you know.”

“Yeah, I know.” Richard rubbed his jaw. “Is there any way we can keep the painting out of the news?”

So Sweeney wouldn't be a tabloid sensation, he meant.

“Maybe. I don't see any need to mention it. The reporters will probably play up the lover angle, make it sound like some sort of lovers' quarrel.”

Candra's parents had already been hurt enough by her death, but now the sensationalism would double, and her relationship with Kai would be analyzed and dissected in public. “I wonder why he killed her,” Ritenour said, almost to himself. “We may never know.”

“If he did,” said Sweeney, speaking through a blur of exhaustion.

Both men gave her sharp looks, Richard's lingering longer than Ritenour's. “What makes you say that?” asked the detective. “If he didn't kill Mrs. Worth, then he had no reason to worry about the painting, and no reason other than that to try to kill you.”

She shrugged. She didn't know why she had said it. She tried to imagine Kai's face in the painting, but that brick wall was still there, refusing to allow the image to form.

A few minutes later Aquino returned with the bag. “One of the policewomen packed it,” he said, as if he wanted her to know he hadn't been handling her underwear. “I thought a woman would know better what another woman needed.”

“Thank you,” she said. She reached out to take it,
but Richard's hand was there first. If the weight of the bag bothered his shoulder, he didn't show any sign of it.

“No sense in calling a taxi. One of the patrolmen can drop you off at your house.”

Richard nodded and cupped Sweeney's elbow. “I'll call you later in the morning.”

“Make it real late,” Aquino replied, and yawned. “I'm going to try to get some sleep. My advice is take the phone off the hook and get as much sleep as you can.”

“I need the painting,” Sweeney said as Richard began steering her toward the door.

“Sweetheart, there's no need—”

“I need the painting,” she repeated, digging in her heels and dragging him to a halt. She couldn't think straight; she was swaying on her feet, but she knew she couldn't leave the painting behind.

“There are reporters outside—”

“I'll wrap it in a cloth.” Tugging free, she trudged into the studio and took the painting down from the easel. She always kept lengths of cheesecloth for cleaning up and for covering the paintings, and she wrapped the painting in that. Richard was right beside her every step she took, watching her worriedly, but she was too tired to reassure him. She had just enough strength to do what was necessary, and getting the painting was necessary.