At the Edge of the Sun (Maggie Bennett 3)

But it was Randall staring down at her, his face dark with emotions she couldn’t even begin to read. Randall was here in Venice at the Palazzo Carboni, and Mack was dead. She waited for the grief and anguish to wash over her, and nothing came. She prodded again, like touching a sore tooth to make sure it still hurt. Nothing. Randall’s blue-gray eyes were dark with a passionate concern she couldn’t ignore, and his thin, sexy mouth was grimmer than ever. Grim with repressed emotions. She wanted to hold out her arms to him, to call him to her, but some last lingering bit of self-protection held her back.

“What happened?” he demanded gruffly, sitting on the bed beside her.

“Happened?”

“I found you passed out on the floor of my room, bleeding to death, snow filling the room, my suitcase strewn from one end of the room to the other …” His voice was tight with anger and something else. “So what happened?”

“I heard a noise in your room and I thought it was you. It wasn’t.”

“And?”

“It was a very pretty teenage girl rummaging through your suitcase. She took one look at me and dived for the window. I went after her but she managed to cut me before escaping.”

“It’s not that bad a wound. Little more than a scratch, as a matter of fact,” he said.

She looked down at her neatly bandaged forearm. “It hurts like hell.”

“I’m sure it does. Do you want me to kiss it and make it better?” he said in something that was almost a drawl from the coldly proper Randall Carter.

Maggie looked up at him. She had two choices. She could make the wise decision and give him a clipped, cool dismissal. Or she could lie back in the bed she’d once shared with Mack, lie back with the cold and the wind and the darkness all around and hold out her arms to him. For a cold man he was capable of a great deal of fiery warmth. For a dark man he managed to chase away the shadows that tormented her. Slowly she leaned back against the pillows that cushioned her body, and her mouth opened to suggest he do just that, when the telephone beside her bed shrilled into life.

So much for seductive lassitude, she thought, breathing a sigh of gratitude as she grabbed the telephone off the hook. “Pronto,” she said, and knew that even Randall could hear the relief in her voice.

“Maggie?” It was Holly’s voice, and yet it wasn’t. Her usually light tones were thickened with tears and something else. Something Maggie recognized as pain. “Maggie, they’ve got me. They’re … they’re hurting me. Maggie …” Her voice was cut off and the muffled female voice that took her place sent chills down Maggie’s spine.

“You wish to see your sister again, Miss Bennett?” The voice was charming, with a delicate Italian accent.

“Yes.”

A small, soft laugh on the other end. “Then you and your friend will be pleased to come to the Calle del Porco tomorrow afternoon. There is a little glassware shop called the Banquetto, and we’ll be waiting for you. That is, if I didn’t cut you too deeply.”

“We’ll come now!” Maggie said desperately.

“It will do you no good. We won’t be there. Tomorrow at three, Miss Bennett. Your sister will be safe until then, if you do as I say.”

“Now, damn you!”

“I give the orders. Just be glad Flynn isn’t here, Miss Bennett, or your sister wouldn’t survive the night. Ciao.” And the phon

e clicked into silence.

She raised desperate eyes to Randall. “They’ve got Holly.”

“So I gathered.” He was damnably calm, sitting there.

“They’ve hurt her,” she said. “They’re going to hurt her some more.”

“Probably.”

“Don’t just sit there,” Maggie shrieked. “We have to rescue her!”

“How? They’ve made arrangements for us to meet them, haven’t they?”

She hated the reason in his voice. “At the Calle del Porco tomorrow afternoon. It’s a little glass shop. But we can’t wait, Randall. They might kill her.”

“Maggie, you know as well as I do that they won’t be there now, or she wouldn’t have given you the address. And I don’t think they’ll kill her. She wouldn’t be any good as a bargaining chip if she were dead. It’s Flynn who kills for the fun of it—most of the other terrorists put their cause ahead of their personal hobbies.”

“Hobbies?” Maggie echoed in disgust. “You’re talking about my sister’s torture and murder like it’s collecting stamps or something.”