The problem was, he did remember. He knew all the faces, every sound as their life left them. He knew the finality of it, and it gave him no sense of power, as it did for people like Claudia or the other operatives, like Matthew Ryder. He usually just felt empty.
But he hadn’t killed when he’d been around Evangeline. Evangeline, who could put her arms around him and hold his head against her breast, who could take him into the warm, wet, peace of her body and bring him to a ferocious climax that was life itself, a spit in the eye of death.
He was hard, and it was a good thing she was too wiped out to notice, or she’d probably throw up again, and he wouldn’t blame her. He rose, surreptitiously adjusting himself. First off he had to find Merlin, and then he had to get rid of the body and wipe out any trace of their short, fierce battle. Then maybe he could take care of the slash in his side that had finally stopped bleeding.
She hadn’t noticed that either—a good thing. She was on the ragged edge already, and it would give her a good target to punch. She was ruthless, thank God. That ruthlessness might very well keep her alive.
The drug he’d given Evangeline would likely knock her out for hours, which would give him more than enough time to deal with things. They needed to get the hell out of there—while Clement liked to work alone, he was no more than a hired gun. His Eminence and the Corsini family had sent Clement after him—somehow they had found Bishop’s connection to Evangeline. Clement’s employers would expect a report, and if they heard nothing, they’d know that Clement had failed. And then they’d send someone else.
But for the next few hours Evangeline could sleep while he took care of business.
He looked down at Clement’s body, and remembered the slashes on Evangeline’s chest. He slammed his boot into the man’s head, just because. Then he went in search of Merlin.
Chapter Eight
It was dusk when Evangeline awoke. Bishop had turned on one of the lanterns and set it on the dinette, and he was busy with something. His back was turned to her, and his shirt was off. She stared at him for a long sleep-dazed moment, and then realized something heavy was beside her. She turned, and Merlin lay there, in one piece, wagging his tail slowly. She reached out a hand to touch his head, and he snuffled and slept on.
“Clement clubbed him on the head and left him for dead. Lucky for him Merlin’s got a harder head than most humans.” Bishop’s tight voice came from the dinette, but he hadn’t turned to look. He was still doing something with his back to her, and she stared at him.
He had scars on his back. She remembered some of them from five years ago, and he’d given her the easy excuse of an accident-prone life when she’d asked him. She’d kissed and licked every one of those scars.
He had new ones. A slash across his hip that had healed to a pale pink line, and a deeper score just below his shoulder blade that would have come much too close to his heart. He could have died and she never would have known.
Never would have cared, she reminded herself. She didn’t need this new information about the man who’d lied to her, tricked her, robbed her. Presumably he’d graduated to bigger targets, who were more lethal, since his penny-ante time with her. The stakes were a lot higher than a measly pair of diamond earrings. What he’d stolen from her hadn’t been thirty-thousand-dollar earrings—it had been her trust, her heart, her soul. Her reaction to his betrayal had been just as lethal—she simply hadn’t had the ability to claim revenge. Whoever had sent the dead man must be another one of his victims.
“Are you admiring my back, Angel, or did you have something to say?”
She didn’t move. “Was he another one of your victims? What did you steal from him?”
“From whom? You mean Clement? No, he was just a middleman. A hired gun, so to speak.” Bishop’s voice was cool, clipped, as if killing a man was an everyday affair.
“Then who was it you robbed?”
“No one.” He turned to look at her, and she realized with a mixture of sickness and awe what he was doing. He had a slash across his ribs, and he was sewing himself closed.
She sat up too quickly, and her wounds screamed in protest, her head spun, and Merlin stayed asleep. “That man hurt you.” It was a stupid thing to say—obviously he had.
There was an air of hidden tension about him—the violence of the afternoon still hung in the air, but he answered her anyway. “I should have been faster. I was trying to get him away from you before I killed him.” He paused. “Violent death is never easy to witness, and I was trying to spare you. But would you fucking listen? Of course not.” He stabbed himself with the needle again, not even wincing.
“Why are you doing that? Aren’t there any more butterfly bandages?”
“This one’s a little too deep for bandages, and you don’t have surgical glue or staples on hand, which would have made things a lot easier. I didn’t expect we were going to run into this kind of trouble when I came after you.”
“You came after me?”
He looked up again. “You didn’t think it was an accident, did you? I thought you were brighter than that. Clement and his buddies were looking for a way to get to me. I thought disappearing into the Canadian wilderness was a smart idea, and then I could meet up with you when you were crossing the border.” He stabbed the needle in again, and Evangeline winced.
“And you expected a warm welcome from me?” She wasn’t about to show him any sympathy, even with the odd mood he was in. Tension was coming off him in waves, and it was washing over her, but she had every intention of ignoring it. She wasn’t going to tiptoe around his feelings.
“Not particularly. I’ve always been a realist. But I figured I could handle you.” He pulled the thread through, pulling his torn flesh together, and then wiped the blood off with a paper towel. He was doing a lousy job of it and she wasn’t sure how he could even reach the end of the long slash.
She pulled the sheet from beneath the sleeping dog, and Merlin didn’t move. She wrapped it around herself, tying it at the neck so it made a makeshift toga, and then slipped out of the bunk, her feet on the floor of the camper.
Weakness shot through her, and for a moment she thought she was about to collapse. She heard Bishop curse. “Get back in bed,” he snapped.
As if she was going to obey his orders. She held on to the stove, then the narrow kitchen counter, as she made her way back to him, and he glared down at her with profound distrust. “What do you want, Angel?”