Red Midnight (2 page)

She’s packaged merchandise! he reminded himself dryly, and they had packaged her quite well. He gave himself a little shake. She could fit the bill, Jarod thought. Wasn’t she just the type? She could look into a man’s eyes with that liquid enticement that made the blood race. She was an angel; she was a sensually seductive woman.

Recently divorced, Jarod noticed, arched brow winging as he pondered his subject. Yes, of course. She had been married to a photographer.
Time
had run the story.

Jarod found himself wondering what she would look like without her makeup, without that wealth of gold hair floating about her features with abandoned but dignified beauty. She was very, very elegant.

It’s going to be interesting, he consoled himself. Madam Elite is going to be in for a few surprises when she crosses the border.

He moved his fingers to clear the screen, then hesitated, fascinated by the face that so enchanted. She was incredibly beautiful, and he was human and certainly male.

Erin McCabe. Was she as innocent as a man believed when staring into those silver eyes? Or was she playing the perfect game of treachery? But she was simply too stunning to be so treacherous, to live that type of devious lie.

What a fool you are, Steele, he berated himself.

Impatient, Jarod hit the keys. Catherine, he thought, you’re the woman I give my heart to…. Never any trouble … never any back talk! … Of course, I doubt you’d be much in a bikini….

But a computer also couldn’t feel; it couldn’t be soft and fragile; it couldn’t falter when confronted with a smile of sunshine and a will of steel.

“Yes, Catherine,” Jarod murmured. “You are the only woman in the world for me….”

He cleared the screen, and checked out.

THANK YOU, CATHERINE.

YOU’RE WELCOME.

He retraced his footsteps down the long hall, his dark, silvering head slightly bent in meditation, his hands thrust in his pockets. The blue ice of his lowered eyes seared to a cold flame with his contemplations.

There was a static aura to this man. He was dangerous, compelling. He played for high stakes. He was cunning; he was cautious, tenacious, vibrantly involved. And at the moment, very angry. People so seldom recognized the games they played. Perhaps Samuel Hughes had, but apparently too late. And now he had Erin McCabe to worry about. Devil or angel.

If she were just vacationing, why the hell couldn’t she vacation in Paris or Madrid?

In Jarod’s eyes, the woman already had a few strikes against her. Was she devious beyond belief? Was she simply a pawn in a great board game? Or was she merely getting in his way when things far more important than the welfare of a foolish model were at stake?

He hadn’t met her, but he knew her type. If he had his way, she’d be sent packing so fast she wouldn’t need to open a suitcase.

Strange, though, he couldn’t shake the image of her face—the computer image, or that which he had discovered he knew so well superimposed over the graphics in his mind’s eye. She was incredibly, incredibly beautiful … incredibly, incredibly sensuous.

Damn butterfly, Jarod thought with annoyance. That he thought of her as alluring and desirable infuriated him. He was entranced by her image, just as any man would be. That was natural. He could usually afford to humor himself for following normal male tendencies. But this was different. He couldn’t afford to humor himself where Erin McCabe was concerned. She was not just a suspect, but at the moment the only suspect.

H
EADS TURNED WHEN SHE
walked into the room, and not because she was recognized. Her hair was pulled into a severe chignon, and her navy business suit, though expertly tailored to the trim lines of her form, was strictly conservative, offset only by a wide silk ascot that hinted at an inability to hide completely her femininity. Finely etched matching gold bracelets on her wrists—her trademark, a personal whimsy—might have identified her as one of the world’s most seductive models, but at the moment they were concealed by the sleeves of the shirt and blazer.

Heads turned because in three-inch heels she was a sleek six feet, and she carried her height with grace. No severity of hair style could hide the exquisite angles of her china fine features, nor the unaffected assurance that made her seem to glide across the room.

As she walked into the handsome lunchroom of the St. Regis that afternoon, Erin McCabe was totally unaware of the appreciative glances she received. She spoke quietly with the maître d’ for a moment, then her quicksilver eyes began to seek a certain face as she followed the man to a table in the sunshine-lit rear of the room. Seeing her friend Mary Terrell waving, she smiled, her brows raised in anticipation and query.

Mary laughed and nodded as Erin was seated, then lifted a glass of wine and waited until Erin’s was poured to clink a toast.

“You’re all set!” Mary said excitedly. “Two weeks from today you fly out of JFK for Oslo. That first week you can do whatever you want, but Erin, you must be at the train station in Helsinki on time on the fourteenth. Russian trains are never late and they leave on time!”

Erin laughed and sipped her wine as she accepted the black leather visa and passport Mary handed her. “Mary, I’m always on time. Oh, Mary!” Her famous silver eyes blazed enthusiasm and warmth. “I do appreciate this so much! It’s going to be wonderful.”

Mary grimaced. “I hope so, Erin. I still wish you’d reconsider. Think of Paris in the springtime! The Côte d’Azur, Nice, Monte Carlo—London is beautiful in the spring—”

“Mary,” Erin murmured, shaking her head with a smiling determination, “I’ve been to all the above—”

“Jeez. Hard life!” Mary interrupted dryly, but immediately regretted her outburst. She might be the one person in the world who was fully aware that Erin McCabe
had
endured a hard life. No, not for all the beauty and glamor and travel could Mary really envy her childhood friend. She had watched Erin bury both her father and mother and then her beloved fiancé, a victim of a cerebral hemorrhage at twenty-two. She had seen Erin leave college to support her aging parents until their deaths, and give up her simple dream of becoming a teacher of social sciences and government.

Mary had also watched Erin rise to the top of the modeling field, work she had chosen when she was desperate for income, work which had become habit. And then Mary had shared her friend’s happiness when she had fallen in love with Marc Helmsly, the handsome, charming, world-renowned photographer. She had laughed and cried at the wedding that had made front-page headlines, so pleased that Erin had finally found happiness.

She had also been the one to receive Erin on her doorstep in the dead of night three months after the fabulous wedding, an Erin in shock, so profoundly hurt and disillusioned that to this day Mary didn’t really understand fully all that had happened.

Marc Helmsly had spoken to the papers; he had labeled Erin a beautiful and charming woman unable to accept the commitments and responsibilities of marriage.

Erin had made little comment. She had pursed trembling lips that would never falter again; her silver-blue gaze had become opaque, forever hiding her secrets and emotions. Her words to the press had been simple and noncommittal: she and Mr. Helmsly had made a terrible mistake—their differences were irreconcilable.

That had been six months ago. Erin had gone back to work, more beautiful than before, her unique and stunning eyes touched by a new, haunting enigma. Those eyes of deep, seductive silver seemed on camera to hold all the intoxicating mystique of the ages.

And of course, there were always the gold bracelets. No matter what the product or costume, Erin wore the bracelets that had come from the one person who had come to mean the world to her. But it had been only since the breakup with Marc that she had nervously played with the bracelets. When agitated, she absently slid them in circles around her wrists.

Mary knew why Erin had become so attached to the bracelets in the first place, and she shrewdly assumed she now knew why Erin—unknowingly—used the bracelets like another woman might chew her nails. She wished she could help, but she really couldn’t. Certain things had to take time to work themselves out.

Erin was ready for a vacation: Mary was well aware of that fact, and certainly agreeable. She knew that the glamor of Erin’s work was only the finished product. Erin spent hours and hours doing the same thing over and over to perfection in the photographer’s eye. She silently endured the elements and grueling hours. It had been good for her, it had kept her from thinking.

But the divorce was final now, and Erin had firmly cleared her schedule. A change of scenery was needed.

“Think of it, Mary,” Erin was laughing. “If I ever do get to teach, I’ll actually know what I’m talking about! The history fascinates me—everything about the U.S.S.R. is so relevant and vital to the times we live in! And Mary, you’ve been there! I remember when Ye Journey Shoppe first became a qualified Intourist office. You and Ted went, and you told me what a wonderful time you had.”

“Erin,” Mary protested with a frown, “Ted and I went with a tour. We had a Russian-speaking American guide—as well as the government Intourist guides—with us all the way. You’re going all alone, by train! I’ve warned you that you’re not going to find the majority of the citizens on the streets speaking English like in Oslo or Stockholm.”

“I know, I know,” Erin soothed her friend with patience. “I have the book you gave me, and I’ve been reading up on rules and regulations and language! Trust me, Mary, I’ll be okay. Contrary to popular opinion, I do have a mind, a rather quick one at that. You’re not letting an illiterate waif loose in the big bad streets!” Erin laughed. “I’ve survived New York for twenty-eight years! Surely, I must have acquired a certain amount of survival savvy.”

Mary smiled. “I just worry about you, Erin.”

Erin clutched Mary’s fingers on the snowy white tablecloth. “I know that, Mary, and I appreciate it. But I’ll be fine. I’ll never discuss politics or religion or government. I’ll steer clear of anything that looks remotely military, and I’ll never take a picture without permission. I won’t cross the border with anything that could be called subversive literature. And”—Erin hesitated a moment—“I’ll be so absorbed by the uniqueness of my surroundings that I’ll be able to forget the past. Mary, I need this!”

Mary felt a little clutch in her throat. Ever since that night Erin had called her in tears, asking desperately if she could come over, she had closed herself in. She had needed to talk that night but she hadn’t been completely coherent. Mary understood Erin’s total disillusionment but not exactly what had happened. And after her fit of rambling tears and a night’s sleep, Erin had sweetly thanked Mary and begged that they not discuss her marriage—or the reasons for its dissolution—anymore.

Mary had agreed reluctantly, fearing that the short-lived marriage had done Erin serious damage. In all this time she hadn’t had so much as a lunch date with a man.

But they had been through that round of discussion before. Erin would answer coldly that she simply wasn’t interested in dating, and had no desire ever to marry again. She had her work; she planned to go back to school. That was enough for her.

“Jeans,” Mary said aloud.

Erin smiled with amusement and query. “Pardon?”

“Jeans,” Mary repeated. “Remember, it’s illegal to sell your jeans.”

Erin laughed, and Mary had to admit that the sound was free and real after a long time when she had barely smiled naturally.

“Mary! Of all things. I don’t think I’m going to run around trying to sell my jeans! We’d better order,” she said, picking up her menu and turning her interest to the entrees. “I think I’ll have the beef Wellington. What about you?”

Mary grimaced. “No—I’ll have the spinach salad. Some friend you are,” she moaned. “Models are always supposed to be dieting—and here I am, the green eater. It’s disgusting. I gain weight just by looking at food!”

“Mary,” Erin protested, “your weight is all in the right places! Ted always says he wants a woman he can hold on to!”

Mary grinned slowly. “Oh, what the hell. I’ll have the beef Wellington. For Ted.”

Their waiter came to take their orders. Erin lowered her lashes and smiled as Mary ordered the Beef Wellington, chocolate mousse—and a Diet Pepsi.

Erin entered her small apartment off Central Park that night with a long sigh, slipping off her heels and edging them beneath the antique deacon’s bench in the entryway. The cool tile welcomed her weary nylon-covered feet, as did the soft pile of beige carpeting as she moved into the living room and tossed both shoulder and tote bags on the old sofa she had just had recovered in soft brown corduroy. She hesitated a minute, then decided that if she gave in. to temptation and tossed her body along with the bags on the sofa she would never get up again. And she sorely needed a cup of tea.

Erin walked into the kitchen with its cheerful pale yellow accents—a complement to the earth tones of her apartment—and filled the kettle. While she waited for the water to boil, she glanced idly around. Handsome copperware and plants hung from high decking above the island range; the overpass gave view to the comfortable living room and the plate-glass windows that let out to a small balcony—and a view of the city far below. Her home was coming along, she thought with pleasure. For years she had collected antique furniture, delighting in refinishing it herself. She knew the period of each piece she collected, and loved to envision the lives of the previous owners. It was a hobby, it was a relaxation. It was a way of reminding herself that she had come within a stone’s throw of finishing her studies and that one day she would go back.

The divorce had cost her many of her most prized possessions. She had moved her belongings into Marc’s penthouse before the wedding, and when she had moved out, the last thing on her shattered mind had been material objects. But she had had this place six months now, time enough to fill it with pictures and plants, time enough to make it home.