“Why shouldn’t I? You think his last words were going to be more lies?”
“Bud Willis’s last words are bound to be the most malicious and evil that his malicious and evil mind can think of. Truth would have nothing to do with it.”
“Why are you talking about him in the present tense? Don’t you think he’s dead?”
“You saw him die, Maggie. I didn’t. I never believe anything I don’t see with my own eyes.”
She shivered. “He couldn’t be alive. And if by any chance he was, he’d be in some hospital somewhere. We both know he’d been pretty well smashed up from that three-story fall onto a concrete floor. I don’t think he’d be roaming the world selling information. Someone must be using his name. Someone who knows how it would affect us.”
“Someone with an odd sense of humor, perhaps? Flynn’s definitely a strange one.”
“Probably Flynn himself,” she agreed. “Did you learn anything else?”
“We’ve got two possibilities. Flynn’s cutting short his little vacation and heading back to Europe. He’s either gone into the mountains near the Syrian border, or he’s gone to Rome. We’re going to have to split up.”
Maggie shifted in the narrow bed, and his hands tightened on her for a moment, until he realized that she was simply settling herself more comfortably, not trying to pull away. “Dare I ask how we’re going to separate?”
“Ian and Holly will head toward Rome.”
“And we’ll go into the mountains?”
“It seems the logical thing to do,” he said, and his breath was warm and soft on her upturned face.
“What if Holly and I go to Rome and you and Ian head into the mountains?” she countered.
“Forget it. What would you do if you found Flynn?”
“Kill him,” she said flatly.
“Maggie, I know as well as you do that you’ve never killed anyone in cold blood. Even if you could do it, you’d be bound to hesitate, and that’s all Flynn would need. I’m not going to give him the chance to kill you too.”
“How many times do I have to tell you—”
“That you can take care of yourself?” he finished for her. “Are you willing to gamble your sister’s life on that?”
She opened her mouth to protest, then shut it again. “All right,” she said finally. “We’ll go into the mountains. We’d better get some sleep. I don’t suppose you feel like sleeping on the floor?”
“Neither of us is going anywhere, Maggie.”
She considered denying it, but he was making no advances. He seemed content merely to hold her and she hated to admit it, but she was content to have him hold her. Just for now, just for the duration of this cold, dark night. She sighed, and some of the tension left her body. “You’re a pain in the butt, Randall,” she murmured sleepily, nestling against him.
“That’s a step up from whatever it is you’ve been thinking of me,” he replied. “No, don’t tense up again. You’re right, we need our sleep. Let’s not fight any more.”
“Okay,” she said, yawning.
“Just tell me one thing.”
“What?”
“What was Bud’s deathbed confession?”
eight
Maggie lay in the narrow bed, watching the morning light filter into the room through the cracks in the shuttered window. She didn’t move, didn’t alter her breathing, she just lay there, pressed between the plaster wall and Randall’s sleeping body, and cursed her stupidity.
She hadn’t told him what he wanted to know. She still wasn’t quite sure why. Sooner or later she’d have to confront him with Bud Willis’s claim that Randall had paid him to murder Mack. But not now, not when she wasn’t ready to face his answer. If he lied to her she’d know it. If he told the truth she might not be able to bear it. So she was being a coward, hiding from the truth when she prided herself on her ability to face anything. And the most foolish thing of all was that she’d spent last night hiding in his arms.
It was pure human nature, the survival instinct that made her want to edge closer and wrap her long legs around him. Waking next to a warm body, when all your defenses are down, naturally made you want to make love. She could have been lying next to anyone and woken with that urge.