The children, however, did require a stop at some vending machines for crackers and chocolate milk, which Riley made damn sure were eaten and all traces disposed of before they were allowed anywhere near the Mercedes. He and Redfield had then escorted everyone downstairs to the garage via a special express elevator.
It was while he was helping to find places for three pet carriers and two kids in the back seat-his suggestion that the carriers might ride better in the trunk had been loudly overruled-that Riley had managed, though he still couldn’t figure out how, to get his finger within range of that damn parrot’s beak. That had brought about a short but chaotic delay in their departure while Jake went in search of a first aid kit and Summer tried her best to calm hysterical children and livestock while simultaneously assessing the damage to Riley’s person.
“It’s not broken-hardly even bleeding. You’re lucky,” she had pronounced when order had been restored, more or less. Riley, experiencing sensations similar to those caused by slamming a finger in a car door, had seen no reason to answer that “A parrot’s beak can easily snap small branches-and bones,” Summer had explained in a tone half instructive, half scolding, as if Riley were a not-very-bright child. “You should never, ever put your fingers in a parrot’s cage-especially one who doesn’t know and trust you.”
But to tell the truth, he’d hardly been aware of his injury just then. He’d been watching Summer, watching her capable hands as they gently examined his finger, watching a frown of concentration etch a deep crease between her brows, watching a stray strand of her hair float in the breeze of her breath.
He’d discovered he liked seeing her in this mode-relaxed, confident, less tense than she had been up to now. He wondered if it had even occurred to her that she was holding his arm, tuxedo sleeve and all, imprisoned between her arm and body, and that when she shifted to find a better hold, or better light, she’d turned herself neatly into the circle of his arm, with her back turned to him and her head bowed low over his wounded hand so that her nape was unself consciously bared to him. He could have counted the hairs that had escaped from her haphazard ponytail, he thought, if there’d been more light If there’d been less, he would only have had to lower his head a little, shift his arms a few degrees…and his mouth could have savored the taste and texture of the velvety skin drawn taut over the vulnerable bumps of her spine…
Absurd notion. She was his client, a mother, and absolutely off-limits. But it had been a very long day and an unexpectedly unsettling evening, and he supposed he must have somehow been reminded of Miss Louisiana and her uncanny resemblance to Maureen O’Hara. Thinking of what might have been.
Agent Redfield had returned about then with a first aid kit, and Summer had made short work of bandaging up Riley’s finger, all the while tweaking his masculine ego with remarks about the insignificant nature of the injury. He’d consoled himself with the thought that naturally she’d say that-it was her bird that had inflicted it, after all. Technically, she was liable for the damage. Not that he’d have said so. Just a minor legal point.
They’d left the FBI garage in a convoy-Redfield first, with a mannequin sitting beside him in the passenger seat of the tan sedan as decoy for anyone who might have observed the departure with interest-and no one present questioned the need for such a precaution. After five tense minutes, Riley’s Mercedes rolled silently out of the garage, with its passengers crouched low and hidden from the view of any of those watchers who might have remained behind. It was then, as he’d guided the big car down an alley that seemed as dense and dark as a tropical jungle, through streets where humidity drifted in the car lights like dust and hung overhead in a gauzy yellow shroud, that he’d realized that all thought of his wounded finger, incipient headache and the sensuous Miss Louisiana had faded from his mind. The night was like a sauna, but the sweat that trickled down his spine was cold. Evil was out there, somewhere. He could feel it. Unlikely as it seemed, evil had touched this woman and her children. And because he had committed himself to keeping them safe, it had touched him, too.
That was when it had first come to him, the question she’d suggested to him, the question he’d been asking himself ever since: What in the world was he getting himself into?
Riley knew evil very well. He knew what it was to be stalked by it, to he hidden and chilled while evil hunted him through the long, dark night. But it had been a long time since he’d made a solemn vow to himself that he would never live in that kind of fear, or in the proximity of evil, ever again-thirty years, as a matter of fact. Ironically, thirty years almost exactly. He’d conducted his life ever since with that vow as his guiding light, had chosen to go into civil instead of criminal law because of it. Because he had no desire to rub shoulders with the criminals and predators of this world, he’d seen enough of those. Not that civil law didn’t provide him with ample opportunity to witness more than his share of wrongdoing and shady dealings and other shabby aspects of human nature. But in his practice, those generally had more to do with avarice and greed than with pure, out-and-out evil. And as it happened, other people’s greed had provided Riley with the means to insulate himself against evil. He’d done a damn good job of it. Until now.
What had he done? And why?
There in his study, in the blessed silence of the wee hours of morning, Riley sipped his brandy and thought about it. But the only answer he could come up with hung in his mind like a pale oval moon. Summer Robey’s face. Summer Robey’s eyes…
For the first time in many years, Riley awoke with his skin prickly and clammy, breath thick in his throat, heart pounding. Danger! Something was there-right there, surrounding him. He could hear it rustling…feel its warm, moist breath.
Already charged with adrenaline, he opened his eyes. His fingers digging deep into the arms of the chair were all that kept him from exploding out of it. There before him, inches away, a face hung like a small, oval moon.
Voices whispered hoarsely. “See? I told you he was awake.”
“Well, he is now.” A second moon appeared beside the first, this one a little farther away. “You woke him up, that’s what you did.”
“Did not.”
“Did too.”
“Uh-uh-Beatle did. See?”
At that point Riley realized that something was prodding him-very lightly-in the groin. Then on his abdomen… belly…ribs…chest. A third face appeared, a goblin face-dark, almost black, with huge, round buggy eyes. It was much smaller than the first two but so close to his own it eclipsed them both. Something cool and wet-a tongue!-slapped across Riley’s lips…then his nose. Aagh-into his nostrils!
He swiped at it, a maneuver that only seemed to excite the tongue’s owner, who apparently viewed the slap as some sort of game. Tiny feet danced an eager tattoo on his belly and chest as Riley threw up his hands in a futile attempt to defend himself. But he was simply no match for that tongue, which feinted this way and darted that way and managed to hit its targets with unerring accuracy.
Finally, somehow, he managed to sputter, “Umph-get…it…off.…of…me!” And just like that, the onslaught ceased.
Then, for a few moments, Riley simply sat-or more accurately, lay-half in and half out of his favorite chair with his legs sprawled across the ottoman, the bathrobe he’d wrapped himself in just before settling down with his brandy so few hours ago hitched up around his neck and gaping open on his chest. He lay there, breathing hard and glaring at the three small faces, which had prudently moved back a step out of range.