Past Tense (2 page)

Shoe in place, the woman let go of his shoulder, extending her hand in a courteous gesture. Tony got up slowly, noting that she was only two or three inches shorter than his height of six feet. He saw now that she was older than he’d first guessed, probably around thirty.

“Wouldn’t you like to sit down and rest for a moment?” he asked, reluctant to let her go. “Perhaps a cup of tea? Although personally, I think coffee would be more effective.”

Her brief smile made a dimple come and go in her right cheek. “So would I, but I really must be on my way.”

He had the feeling that if he hadn’t been holding her hand she would have slipped away like a minnow under water. “But you fainted. You can’t go out just like that. It might happen again.”

She pulled at her hand, a faint desperation coming into her eyes. Her mouth compressed. “Could I have my hand back, please?”

“Only if you’ll tell me your name and let me make sure you get home all right. And I’ll give you mine in case you want to sue the hotel.”

“I wouldn’t do that.” With a strength that surprised him she pulled back and stooped to cram her things back into her bag. Slinging the strap over her shoulder, she stood and faced him. “You’ve been too kind. And it wasn’t the fault of the hotel that I fainted.”

His eyes narrowed. “Then what was it?”

She swallowed, floundering for words. Tony felt it again, the tickling at his nape that told him everything wasn’t as it appeared, as she wanted him to see it. Her smile flashed, forced past lips that trembled despite her obvious efforts to appear unruffled. “Would you believe a female weakness?”

“No, I wouldn’t,” he said bluntly. “That went out with Queen Victoria.” He couldn’t keep the frustration out of his voice. Sensing her distress and wanting to help, he reached into his back pocket for his wallet and withdrew one of his business cards. “Look, I’m Tony Theopoulos. Take this. In case you change your mind.”

Her eyes, transparent as spring rain, held his. The flippancy had faded, leaving her face open and defenseless.

“I’m sorry.” Her voice broke. “I’m sorry to have bothered you.” With a long stride that barely swayed her hips under her skirt, she walked across the lobby toward the door.

For a moment Tony stared after her. Then he shrugged. That was that—an intriguing woman, but not for him.

He turned back toward the elevators, stopping abruptly as his gaze snagged a white object on the carpet, half under a shelf of paperbacks. Bending, he picked it up, and renewed excitement danced in his stomach.

“Wait!” He spun around. Too late. The revolving door swung gently. She was gone.

He brought his attention back to the envelope in his hand. It had been neatly slit, the utility bill inside paid well in advance of the due date.

Samantha Clark.

Her name? More than likely.

Back in his office he sat down behind his desk, his work momentarily forgotten. Samantha Clark. Who was she? And what had caused her to faint, and fear to flicker through her eyes?

He hadn’t imagined it. She was afraid. Of what or whom, he couldn’t begin to guess.

* * * *

Samantha huddled in the corner of her seat as the bus rumbled through the narrow streets. Rush hour hadn’t begun and she was almost alone on the upper deck. The pronounced sway made her stomach feel queasy, but she needed a moment of privacy to regain her equilibrium.

A shudder ran through her body. It had been Dubray in the lift. She was sure of it. Yet she couldn’t believe it. If by any remote chance he hadn’t been dead, as she’d assumed in her panic six months ago, he should have been in prison.

The last time she’d seen him, he’d been lying motionless on the white marble floor in the entrance hall of her father’s house. She hadn’t fainted then, only stared in horror as the other men around him had casually taken a tablecloth from the dining room cabinet and wrapped him up in it. Two of them had carried him out to a car, while the third, her erstwhile fiancé, Bennett Price, had mopped up the bloodstains on the floor.

They hadn’t known she was there.

Or had they? The question still haunted her.

She had gone to the house to sort through some of her father’s personal things the day after his funeral. Although they’d never been emotionally close, there were certain details that only she could handle. A number of people knew she’d planned to go there that afternoon—James Michaels, several of her friends, and her aunt Olivia whom she’d met on the doorstep when she arrived at the house. After a brief greeting Olivia had left in her chauffeur-driven car, leaving Sam alone at the house.

Obviously Bennett hadn’t known she was there at the time of the incident. He had glanced up the stairs before heading back to the kitchen with the bucket and mop, but she was sure she’d been out of sight. However, if he’d investigated, he could have easily discovered that she’d been in the house at the crucial time. And he would have realized there was a good chance she would have recognized one of the men with him.

A man who was known to be dangerous if crossed.

The incident had shown her that Bennett was hardly less dangerous. She had been ready to break off their engagement a number of times in the weeks before. But Bennett had been difficult and elusive, giving her no opportunity for a private discussion. Then her father’s sudden death had clouded the issue further. In her grief, she’d realized she needed time and space to rethink her future.

A future in which she was no longer willing to include Bennett Price.

She had left Montréal, canceling the wedding without consulting Bennett, only telling him that she was going away for a while. She used her father’s death as an excuse. She had told James Michaels, the acting head of Smith Industries, the same thing, apologizing for the inconvenience. Not that it affected the business since she was no more than a rubber-stamping board member.

She’d informed the caterer that the wedding was off, but the reception should go on since there was no time to notify the wedding guests of the cancellation. She hoped that they’d had a lovely party. She didn’t doubt that she had been the principal subject of conversation—not that she cared. “Poor Samantha. She’s done it again. Picked the wrong man.”

The story of her life, but one she didn’t intend to repeat.

Stupid to have fainted. She’d never fainted before in her life, never even come close, not even when the sordid truth about Bennett had hit her in such a brutal fashion.

As the bus continued its journey through the streets, she forced herself to relax, closing her eyes for a moment.

Anthony Theopoulos. His image swam into her consciousness. His dark brown eyes, warm and compassionate, had been full of questions he was dying to ask. He was a Canadian, his accent unique among the clipped tones of the British.

She’d almost given herself away. She couldn’t be positive, but she feared she’d spoken at first in her normal voice, not the finishing school British accent she’d carefully cultivated in the past six months.

She’d thought she was safe, living under a false name, out of reach of Bennett or any of his reprehensible friends. Obviously an illusion, if Dubray was in London, and in apparent good health.

Bennett wasn’t an accomplice to murder, if Dubray had survived. Not much comfort. If Bennett had close associations with a man like Claude Germain, murder might be the least of his crimes.

One thing was certain—she wouldn’t be buying a newspaper at the Regal Arms again. Not that Dubray knew her, but if he was in London it was possible that some of Bennett’s associates weren’t far away.

The bus lurched to a stop. Samantha started, realizing she’d passed her transfer stop. Damn, she was going to be very late reaching Professor Eldridge’s house.

Making a sudden decision, she jumped up and clattered down the stairs, rushing through the doors just as the warning beep sounded.

The street teemed with people, shoppers with their bright bags, and tourists lifting their faces disbelievingly to the sun after days of rain. A pair of Goths in unrelieved black sauntered by. In the past few years London had certainly shed its conservative, staid image.

She liked the sprawling city. She liked her work and the people she met through it. Only late at night, during a rare spell of sleeplessness, did she allow herself to regret the job offer she’d given up when she fled Montréal, a prestigious position as chief translator in the French ambassador’s office.

Only rarely did she let herself give in to fear.

Slipping into a phone booth, Samantha slammed the door against the cacophony of traffic. She dialed a number, listening for the blips before inserting the coins she had ready.

“I’m terribly sorry, professor, but something’s come up,” she said when her client answered. She knew Professor Eldridge as well as she knew anyone in London, having worked with him on several projects. He’d known she would be late today. He wouldn’t mind if she took the rest of the day off.

“Eh?” The professor was almost ninety, and his hearing hadn’t kept pace with his keen interest in life. “You’re not coming, dear?”

“I can’t, after all.” Sam had to shout into the phone as a city sanitation truck stopped next to the booth, its engine throbbing like a tank panting for battle. “What about tomorrow?”

“At ten?”

“Yes, that will be fine.” Sam hung up the phone, automatically checking the return coin slot, something she wouldn’t have dreamed of doing in her former life.

Dusk had fallen by the time she returned to her little flat in a building not far from the Regal Arms. The glow from the street lamps was mellowed by halos of mist, a sure portent of approaching autumn. She liked autumn and was looking forward to experiencing it in London. Despite her extensive travels, she’d never been here during that season.

Her centrally located flat had been a find. The sellers, heirs of the old man who’d lived there, had priced it for a quick sale. Sam had recognized the bargain and snapped it up, complete with furniture, which the heirs didn’t want and were relieved not to have to move. The décor might not have been the style Sam was used to but it was good enough for now.

Idly she switched on the television news, debating whether to cook or to fetch an order of fish and chips from the shop on the corner.

A faint scraping sound drew her to the door at the back of her tiny kitchen. She opened it, smiling as Bagheera wound his sinuous body around her legs.

“Hi, cat.” She wrinkled her nose. “Been in the garbage cans again, have you?”

Damn. She’d done it again. Slipped. In England garbage cans were bins. What she’d thought had become second nature had only needed the presence of one familiar accent to transport her memory and speech patterns back home. Tony Theopoulos, unmistakably Canadian.

Fish and chips, she decided. Her eyes rested on Bagheera as he sat on the floor and began grooming his sleek black fur. She would bring him back a piece of fish for a treat. Which made her realize how quickly she’d become attached to the lean independent cat who had shown up on her back door three months ago.

It hadn’t been a question of her adopting him as much as he moving in with her. He still came and went as he pleased, but he was always there to greet her when she came home, a benign guardian who’d made her his project.

The doorbell buzzed its two-note summons, making her jump. For an instant the fright she’d had today and the hunted feeling she’d carried around for six months flashed to life.

Her mouth went dry. No, it would be too much of a coincidence to believe that Bennett had tracked her down the very day she’d seen Dubray. No, they couldn’t have found her.

Bagheera didn’t seem alarmed. After a glance at the door, he’d gone back to licking his paw and wiping it complacently over his pointed face.

The buzzer sounded again. Sam laughed in relief. It was the door to her flat, not the outside one. Probably just her elderly neighbor.

She threw open the door, bracing herself for the usual complaints about the increase in council tax and the austerity measures instituted by the present government. Her mouth fell open in a silent gasp. The man who stood in the hall with a bunch of gerberas clutched in his hand was the last person she expected to see.

Chapter Two

“They really should have better security in these buildings,” Tony Theopoulos said with a cocky grin. “An old lady just let me in. All I had to do was smile at her.”

Samantha could only gape at him. A smile as dazzling as his would have convinced the door to open on its own, she thought, consternation numbing her vocal cords. Snapping her mouth shut, she swallowed, wishing she’d left the door closed, wishing she’d never gone into the Regal Arms, wishing she could miraculously dematerialize and reappear on another planet.

Groping for words to send him away, she tried to close the door. Much as she’d appreciated his concern this afternoon, she didn’t want him here.

Claude Germain killed people as easily as anyone else might swat a bothersome fly. He made his living from the misery of runaways and other unfortunates, preying on their poverty to carry out his crimes. And she had every reason to believe that Bennett, whether or not he was directly involved, knew Germain and even benefited from those same crimes.

She couldn’t drag Tony into the mess that was her life.

Pulling her gaze up to his face, she met his eyes, her dismay growing. He would not be easily discouraged. That chin was too stubborn, as was the foot he’d wedged into the doorway as a precaution against her slamming it in his face.

Bagheera left off his bathing and strolled over to sniff at Tony’s pant leg. Then, traitor that he was, he began to purr, winding himself in a figure eight between Tony’s feet.

Tony leaned down and ruffled the cat’s ears. “Your cat likes me. Must mean something.” He looked up at Samantha. “I don’t want to intrude, but I do have something of yours you might want back.”

“What’s that?” she asked in a whisper.

“This.” He pulled an envelope from his pocket that she immediately recognized.

With a sinking sense of inevitability she pulled the door wider and allowed him to step past her. She closed it, leaning back against the oak panels.