They’d reached the back of the house, and if there was any kind of electric security it had been turned off. They dragged their burden through the gate without incident. “That’s why he gets paid the big bucks,” Renaud said in a sour voice. “Right now he’s
sitting on the deck of the ship, drinking gin and tonics and waiting for us to get back before he takes off. Count your blessings. We’re both expendable and you know it—no one would ask questions if he just left us here to disappear along with half the island. But Jensen has a reputation of never leaving a man behind, even if he’s wounded. At least we’ve got that much going for us.”
“Wouldn’t do him any good if he did leave us behind,” Hans panted, dragging Harry onto the flagstone patio and dumping him facedown. He didn’t move. “I set the charges and I’m the only one who knows how to blow them so that it’ll look like a gas leak. He’s too careful to mess up a plan like this even if he wanted to.”
Renaud grabbed one of the heavy wicker chairs and pulled it forward. “Come on, dickshit. We need to get this done and get out of here. This place gives me the willies.”
Between the two of them they hauled Harry’s body into the chair. His head lolled back, but he was definitely still alive. He made an unintelligible sound, and Hans laughed.
“Just goes to show money can’t buy everything, Froggy,” Hans said, tying Harry’s limp body to the chair with quick efficiency.
Renaud had stepped back, watching from a distance, his back to the spot where Genevieve cowered in the bushes. “It can buy a lot.” He sounded detached, almost philosophical.
“What do you suppose he did with the girl?” Hans asked, glancing inside the house. “Think there’s anything left of her for a bit of fun?”
“Not that you’d want. He killed her last night—she was getting too yappy, he said, and there was no reason to put it off.”
“Well, I can think of one good reason, but maybe Peter doesn’t swing that way. He should have done her on the boat and dumped her overboard,” Hans said, disapproving. “He’s supposed to be the best closer there is. If he’s so fucking good, why didn’t he just off her and get it over with instead of dragging her onto the island?”
“She was going to be Harry’s excuse for coming here unannounced and sending the servants away. She got caught up in a love tryst and met a sad end.”
“Tryst,” Hans said. “It rhymes with pissed, not Christ.”
“Fuck off,” Renaud said in a genial voice.
Hans turned back to face his cohort, and Genevieve could make out a confused expression on his face. “What the hell are you doing, Froggy?” he demanded.
“Money can’t buy everything, my friend, but it can buy a lot. Including me.”
She heard the faint popping sound almost at the same time the round hole appeared in the middle of Hans’s forehead. For a moment everything moved in slow motion, and then Hans’s big body crumpled to the ground.
“Poor stupid Kraut,” Renaud muttered as he went to untie Harry. “Never call a Frenchman ‘Froggy.’”
Genevieve didn’t move, frozen to the thick, damp earth beneath her. She wanted to throw up. She’d just seen a man killed, as easily as swatting a fly, and her stomach churned in protest against such horror.
She forced herself to breathe, trying to pull her shocked wits together. Hans was dead, Harry was alive, and Renaud had been bought. By Harry. With Hans dead, the place wouldn’t be blown up; with Renaud busy saving Harry’s life she could run for it with no guilt at all.
Peter was already on the boat, ready to sail away. If he came back and found Hans’s body, would he abort the mission or reset the charges and blow the place? Or would he track Harry down and finish it himself? And finish her?
Why had he lied and said he’d already killed her? What did it matter if Renaud knew she was dead or not? For that matter, why did he leave her alive in the first place?
She started to move backward, deeper into the undergrowth, when Renaud’s voice shattered her illusion of safety.
“Get your ass out here, lady. I can’t carry Harry by myself.”
She could run. He wouldn’t have a clear shot at her, and Harry was a bigger priority for him at the moment.
Then again, he’d saved Harry. Wasn’t that what she wanted?
“And put the gun down. I don’t think you know how to use it, but women with guns are always dangerous. And stop dragging your heels. I have no problem killing you if you aren’t going to help me.”
She emerged from the bushes, setting the gun down on the flagstone patio. She didn’t want to look at Hans’s body. When she was growing up, the various family cats had brought in bird and rodent corpses as a token of appreciation, and she’d had to avert her eyes while she covered whatever was left of them with a paper towel while someone with a stronger stomach would remove them.
Hans was a far cry from a decapitated sparrow, and she felt her stomach lurch again. She focused her attention on Renaud, not the most appetizing sight himself.
“I have to get him to the far side of the island— Harry was with it long enough to let me know how to get a seaplane to pick us up. You, too, if you do what I tell you. Are you going to help me?”
“Of course. But won’t they come after us when you don’t show up at the boat and the place doesn’t explode? What if the plane doesn’t get here in time?”