Merlin sat guard while Bishop went into the darkened kitchen, unerringly found his favorite Scotch and a glass, and carried both back into his bedroom. He had a lot to think about, and a glass of Scotch would keep him company while Evangeline slept like a virgin in his clean white sheets.
Damn everything.
Chapter Eighteen
The darkness surrounded Evangeline like a cocoon, thick and warm and smothering. The air was hot and humid, and somewhere in the distance she could hear the soft patter of rain overhead. She didn’t know where she was—but it was not in the bed she’d started out in, the bed she’d been taken from.
Claude was dead. She knew Merlin was lying in front of the door—she could hear the steady sound of his breathing. She could smell Scotch, but it wouldn’t have taken that to know that James was nearby. When had he become James again, and not the snide “Bishop”? When had she wanted to know he was near?
Always. She was a casualty of his murderous business, one she still didn’t comprehend, and he had an overdeveloped sense of honor, a need to keep her safe that had nothing to do with real emotions or caring. She was collateral damage, all right, and for some reason he felt it was his duty to save her.
“Go back to sleep.” His voice was soft in the inky darkness. “You think too much.”
She started, feeling guilty, almost as if she’d spoken her thoughts out loud. “It that possible?” Her low tone matched his.
“To sleep, or to think too much?”
She ignored his response. “I make my living from thinking. It’s the way I solve problems, put my life in order.”
“I use a gun for that.” The words were flat, emotionless.
“He’s dead, isn’t he?” The question came from nowhere.
“I told you he was.”
“He drowned? In the river?”
“He drowned,” James agreed in a lazy voice. The Scotch must have relaxed him, at least marginally. “After I shot him and Merlin tore half his gun hand away. He’d have to be Rasputin to survive.”
“Good dog,” she murmured, perfectly comfortable with the gory image, and she heard Merlin’s tail thwap against the floor in response.
“We’ll leave at first light for New Orleans. It’s a short drive—you can sleep in the back while I drive. As soon as we get there I’ll pass you off to Ryder, who’ll have a safe house for you.”
She ignored the pain that hit her. He’d pass her along, first chance he got. Of course he would. “Why do I need a safe house? If Claude is dead, then I should be fine. I could go back home.”
There was a hesitation, and she tried to guess what was going through his mind. Maybe he was trying to find a way to tell her that he didn’t want her to go, that she needed to stay for some trumped-up reason, that he needed her . . .
“The bad news, Angel, is that Claude had absolutely nothing to do with Clement’s attack, so that’s still an issue.”
“What is?”
She heard him sigh. “The Corsini family wants to get its hands on me in the worst way, and they know the best way to do it is through you, thanks to Claude’s help. He wanted you dead for the last five years, ever since you stumbled into Corsini’s execution in the church in Italy, and I refused to let him kill you. I should have realized he was no longer going to play by the rules.”
“Rules? There are rules in what you do?”
It was odd, talking in the dark like this. It was as if they were old lovers, curled up in bed together in the middle of the night, able to say anything they wanted. Except they weren’t lovers; they weren’t even touching, though he was closer than she’d first thought. He couldn’t see her face; she couldn’t see his. What was said in the dark, stayed in the dark.
She slid up in the bed, realized she was stark naked, and slid back again. Her face hurt, her shoulders ached, but she felt warm and clean and safe. Vaguely she remembered the bathtub, his hands on her, but then it was all a blur.
She heard James shift in the chair, the clink of a bottle against the lip of a glass, the splash of liquid; then the rich aroma of Scotch filled the air.
She had the suspicion he was killing time, putting off answering her question, but she was warm, relaxed, and infinitely patient. “Believe it or not, the organization I work for has certain rules.”
“The Committee, you said.”
He made a disgusted sound. “I told you that, did I?”
“What kind of rules?” she persisted. “You don’t kill women?”