Take Me for a Ride (33 page)

Suzdal tossed his cigar into a snowy bush. “What do you want?” he asked flatly, his gaze flicking up toward the roof.

McDougal saw the telltale glint of a long black scope and had no doubts at all that the bridge of his nose was in the crosshairs of a sniper’s rifle. His mouth went dry and his guts slid greasily.

“I want you to leave us alone,” he said. “I want you to forget that the St. George necklace ever existed. And I want safe passage out of this country for myself and every one of my associates. That’s all.”

He stood for a long agonizing moment, wondering whether his face would blow apart; whether the cartilage of his nose would burst through the back of his skull; whether his head would just split like a melon. Whether he’d ever see Natalie’s face again.

Would he feel pain, or would it be over too fast?

Would they put his body through a wood chipper?

Dissolve it in acid?

Suzdal’s voice broke into these pleasant musings. “I want the documents in return.”

McDougal threw back his head and laughed, even though he felt a lot more like pissing himself. “No way. No way in hell.” Good. His voice wasn’t shaking.

“I will not leave myself open to future blackmail.”

“I’m not a blackmailer, Mr. Suzdal. I’m just a simple thief. And I’ll keep the papers safe as long as you keep us safe.”

A muscle jumped in Suzdal’s jaw. He said nothing. He glanced upward again. Several long, very long, moments ticked by.

Ask for the close. Ask for the goddamned close, McD, before your head gets perforated.
McDougal unstuck his tongue from the roof of his mouth. “Do we have a deal?”

Suzdal turned his back on him and walked toward his house. “Yes, damn you. We have a deal.”

Relief shot through McDougal like vodka on an empty stomach. Giddy. He felt giddy. He pushed his luck just to celebrate the fact that he was still alive. “How ’bout that dinner tab?”

“Go and fuck yourself,” Suzdal said crisply. “Now, get off my property before I call dogs on you.”

McDougal didn’t need to be told twice, but he wasn’t about to hike back to the city center. Too bad the man who’d driven him here was nowhere to be found.

With a shrug, Eric did his best to saunter on his rubbery legs over to the trusty Saab. He opened the driver’s-side door and collapsed into the seat. Then, with shaking fingers, he ’jacked the car again. This time he didn’t bother to leave gas money inside.

 

The Do Not Disturb sign was on his and Natalie’s room at the Savoy, but McDougal figured that was for Housekeeping’s benefit, not his own.

Adrenaline still pulsed through his veins, mixing with relief that he’d secured Natalie’s safety . . . and the tumultuous anticipation he felt. He would finally present her with the St. George necklace as proof of his loyalty to her. Proof of his apology. Proof of his love.

He couldn’t decide how to stage it, or whether it was a gesture that should be staged. Perhaps he should just be casual—go to the nightstand, pull out the box, and toss it into her lap.

Or maybe he should get down on his knees.

Should he order a bottle of champagne for the occasion?

As usual, he hated indecision. But his feelings for Natalie made him feel like a teenager again, trying to pick out a corsage for the prom. He had no experience with anything like this. His confidence had always come from knowing he wanted to leave a woman, not knowing that he wanted to stay around.

And even though she’d told him that she loved him, he sensed that she was holding something back. He sensed something dark, even tragic behind the words . . . something threatening.

McDougal took a deep breath and slid his key card into the door. The room was dark, with the curtains drawn. “Natalie?”

No response.

He flipped on the light switch closest to the door, which softly illuminated the place. She wasn’t in the bed. Nor was she in the bathroom.

“Natalie?” His heart fisted in his chest and tried to punch its way through his rib cage, again and again.

She was gone.

Holy Mother of God, she was gone.

A million horrifying scenarios poured into his mind like sewer water from a broken main.

Natalie beaten.

Natalie strangled.

Natalie raped.

Was she suffocating in the trunk of a car? Buried in the frozen ground? Floating facedown in the Moskva River?

Had Suzdal lied through his teeth, sending someone here for her even as McDougal walked with him and his damned cigar? A hefty bribe could have gotten a man past security.

Hands shaking again, Eric went to the drawer of the nightstand and slid it open. The lacquered box, in its wrapping, was still there. He pulled it out, shoved it into his jacket pocket, and, knees trembling, sat down hard on the bed.

If Suzdal had sent men for her, they would have turned the place upside down in search of the necklace. It wouldn’t still be here. The only reason Eric had left it in such an obvious place was that he’d known—or thought he’d known—that Natalie wouldn’t be leaving the room.

He forced himself to take deep breaths and focus as he looked around. There was no sign of a struggle at all. Her purse was gone, as were her coat and boots. Her suitcase was still on the floor; her toiletries still sat on the bathroom counter.

Natalie had most likely left of her own accord, against his explicit instructions, and in defiance of her promise not to do so. While fear still clawed at his throat, blood, red and angry, began to beat a tattoo at his temples. He got up and paced back and forth, a tiger in a cage.

By all that’s holy, I’ll kill her myself if someone else hasn’t. I’ll wring her slim white neck
.

He turned and kicked her suitcase, but it didn’t make him feel any better. Where was she? Would the concierge know? Should he go out and search for her? Or should he wait right here until she returned so that he could . . . could . . . What? Shake her till her teeth rattled?

I’ll teach her a lesson, by God, I will
.

Then it occurred to him, like a slap in the face, that he already had. He’d taught her how to break promises. He’d taught her how to lie. He’d taught her to deceive.

Was that the dark thing he’d sensed behind her words? It was. Natalie no longer possessed that bright, unspoiled quality, that droll naïveté that had pulled him up short when he’d first met her. There’d been something sad in her eyes when he’d left her in bed this morning, but he’d been so preoccupied with the coming face-off with Suzdal that he’d dismissed it.

You stupid bastard. You’ve ruined things for her. The girl who believed in fairy tales, in happy endings, is gone
.

McDougal had his hands together and his fingers stee pled when the hotel room door opened to reveal Natalie. He was praying for the first time since his release from his Jesuit tormentors at St. Joseph’s more than a decade before.

Even more humiliating, he had actual tears in his eyes, eyes that had always been dry and wicked and reflected unholy glee—a source of great pride.

McDougal had also always been fairly articulate, but at this moment so many words threatened to blurt from his mouth that he sounded strangled, like a cat choking on a fish.

He lunged at her, seized her despite her shriek of alarm, and wrapped his arms around her. He buried his face in her neck and spun around like a lunatic top. “Thank God, thank God, thank God . . . ,” he repeated.

“Eric,” she squeaked, “I can’t breathe!”

“Neither can I.” But he set her down. He held her by the shoulders and drank in her features, the dazed navy eyes, the sprinkling of freckles on her slightly pug nose, the gorgeous cheekbones, the pale pink of her bolster-like lower lip.

Then he set about kissing her properly, which took some time, because he had to do a safety check on every square millimeter of her mouth. He would have double-checked, but the silly girl kept trying to speak to him.

“I am
furious
with you,” he told her as he unwrapped her scarf, pulled her sweater awry, and buried his face between her breasts.

“Er . . . you are?” She sounded breathless.

“Enraged. I don’t think I’ll ever forgive you.”

“Uh . . .”

“Thank you, God. She’s wearing a dress,” were his next words. He sat down on the bed again, slid his hands up under her skirt, and ripped her panties by the seam at each hip as she squeaked again in shock.

“Eric! What are you—”

“Please,” he said thickly. “It’s not just sex. I need you. I thought I’d lost you . . .”

Wordless, she looked down at him, tears gathering in her eyes. Good tears or bad tears? He didn’t know.

“Please let me in. Please, Natalie—I need to be inside you.”

She hesitated. Then she took his face in her hands, bent down, and kissed him.

That was all the permission he needed. He freed himself from his pants, pulled her on top of him, parted her, and thrust into her.

“Ohhh.”

He held her by the hips as his eyes damn near rolled back into his head, moving in and out of her tight, wet heat. She came first, her head collapsing on his shoulder, and he wasn’t far behind.

“Um,” she said when she could catch her breath. “Will you get mad at me more often?”

McDougal let out a ragged groan. “Don’t ever scare me like that again.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

He brought his head up and looked straight into her eyes. “Would that be a promise that you’ll actually keep?”

“Depends,” she said coolly.

“On?”

“Whether you keep yours.”

“I do.” He was still wearing his jacket, even if his pants were around his ankles. How dignified. He reached into the inside pocket and withdrew the lacquered box. He placed it into her hands. “This belongs to you, Natalie.”

To his surprise, her whole body stiffened. She slid off his knees and pulled her skirt down. “Wh-what is it?”

He straightened his own clothes. Not a man alive could look sexy naked from the waist down and wearing black shoes and socks. Not even a certified chick magnet like him. “I think you know what it is, sweetheart.”

She put a hand to her mouth and shook her head.

“It’s the St. George necklace.”

“Oh, no.” Her eyes filled again, overflowed, and tears rolled down her cheeks. “No,” she said brokenly. “It’s not.”

He was puzzled by her reaction, to say the least. “It is. Open the box.”

She did open it, with shaking fingers. “I’m so sorry that I didn’t have faith in you, Eric,” she said.

“What?”

“But you’ve been a little hard to trust.”

In front of his disbelieving eyes, she pulled out a bundle of fabric that he’d never seen before, and tossed it into his lap.

He untied the corners and stared down at a jumble of coins.

“I . . . um. I repossessed the necklace, Eric. We took it to the cathedral this morning and made the exchange for my family’s belongings. That’s where I’ve been.”

His mouth opened and closed.

“I’m sorry,” she said again. “But I didn’t think you’d give it back to me—you’ve taken me for quite a ride.”

He took a moment to absorb the shock.

Natalie had stolen the necklace right out from under his nose. It was poetic justice.

It damn well served him right, but he didn’t know how to react. “You—,” he said, then shook his head. “You didn’t.” He pulled a hand over his face. “You’re not the type—”

Finally, McDougal hung his head between his knees and laughed until his ribs hurt.

“I do love you, Eric,” she said uncertainly. “Even though you’re an asshole and I’ve been really, really pissed at myself over the whole thing. I can’t help but love you.”

“Natalie,” he said, lifting his head and mopping at his own streaming eyes with his sleeve. “I don’t know what to say.”

He looked at that sweet, straightforward face of hers. “I love you, too. You have no idea how much. But I was afraid you were way too honest for me, sweetheart.”

She lifted her shoulders, then let them drop again. “Guess not,” she said sheepishly.

“Come ’ere.” He grabbed her hands and kissed her. “I may be a thief with a permit. I may enjoy a good con.

But you can trust me on this, at least: My heart is one hundred percent yours, and nobody else will ever repossess
that
.”

Natalie, Eric, Nonnie, and the colonel stood at Poklon naya Gora, Moscow’s monument to World War II. In front of it was a massive granite slab displaying the year 1945.

Beyond that, on a raised pedestal, was the monolithic figure of a dragon, its mighty head severed from its scaly body. St. George, his cloak rippling in the breeze, sat astride a rearing horse, which trampled the dragon’s body while the saint’s great spear fatally pierced it.

Natalie described the monument for Nonnie as they walked closer to it and ascended the stairs so that she could touch it, run her old hands over the gigantic sculpture.

“There’s a huge obelisk behind St. George, Nonnie, and it seems to reach all the way to the sky. On the four faces of it, soldiers emerge from the stone, men who fought bravely for Russia and its territories during the war. Their courage is immortalized for everyone to see.”

“Men like my father,” the old lady murmured. “Before he forfeited his right arm.”

“Yes.”

“You know he would have gone back to fight, Natalya? He just wanted to see us to safety. He was no coward.”

Nat slid an arm around her grandmother’s shoulders and squeezed. “I never thought he was.”