“Whom they'll never find,” Akira said. “Yes, it seems your worries are over.”
“And ours,” Rachel said. “No one will be waiting for us at Corfu. They'll try to intercept us on the way to Yugoslavia.”
“Where we have no intention of going.” Savage turned to the man. “Just make sure you get back to the mainland as soon as possible. You'll have to pretend you're chasing us. Phone in. Keep giving them false reports.”
“You bet I will. If I don't rendezvous with a team at one of the border crossings, they won't believe my story. But by then I'll have lost you.”
“Exactly.”
“There's just one thing,” the man said.
“Oh? What's that?”
“You forgot to give me my money.”
8
Ninety minutes later, when the ferry reached Corfu, they watched the man drive onto the dock and disappear among traffic.
“He might still betray us,” Akira said.
“I don't think so,” Savage said. “Rachel's instincts were right about paying him. He knows if he tells them where we really are, we'll implicate him. Papadropolis would kill him for taking a bribe.”
“So now we cross to Italy?” Rachel asked.
“Why bother?” Savage smiled. “The Corfu airport won't be under surveillance now. Let's catch the next plane to France. By tonight, you'll be with your sister.”
But Rachel looked troubled.
Why? Savage wondered.
“Then you and I catch another plane to New York,” Akira told Savage, the sadness in his eyes intensified with anger. “To force answers from Graham. To make him tell us why we saw each other die.”
9
“Excited? Of course, I am. Why wouldn't I be?” Rachel said.
They'd left their car at Corfu's airport, then taken an Alitalia flight to Rome, where they transfered to an Air France jet bound for Nice.
Midafternoon. The weather was magnificent. Rachel had the window seat, and as she spoke, she peered toward Corsica to the west, then down toward sunlight glinting off the Mediterranean.
But Savage sensed she was motivated less by attraction to the scenery than by the need to hide her expression when she answered his question.
“Because back at the ferry you weren't overjoyed when I mentioned you'd be with your sister tonight,” Savage said.
Rachel kept her face turned toward the window. “You expected me to jump up and down? After everything that's happened, I'm drained. Shell-shocked. Numb. I still can't believe I escaped.”
Savage glanced at her hand in her lap. Its fingers were clenched, their knuckles white.
“Rachel…”
Her fist became tighter.
“I want you to look at me.”
She peered closer to the window. “Eager to see my sister? Naturally. She's more than my sister. She's my closest friend. If it weren't for her… and you… I'd never have gotten off Mykonos. My husband would have kept beating me.”
She trembled.
“Rachel, please, I'm asking you to look at me.”
She stiffened, then slowly turned in Savage's direction. Her bruises emphasized her somber expression.
Savage reached for her fist, unclasped its fingers, and encircled them with his own. “What's wrong?”
“I keep trying to imagine what's ahead of me. My sister. A happy reunion. A chance to rest and heal. Oh, for sure, I'll be pampered. The best of everything. But then what? A cage is a cage, gilded or not. I'll still be a prisoner.”
Savage waited for Rachel to continue, all the while conscious of Akira, who sat at the rear of the plane, assessing the other passengers.
“My husband won't be satisfied until he gets me back. When he learns where I am, he'll put my sister's estate under constant watch. I'll never be able to leave.”
“Yes and no. There are ways to sneak out.”
“‘Sneak.’ Exactly. But away from my sister's estate, I'd never feel safe. Wherever I went, I'd have to use another name, disguise my appearance, try not to be conspicuous. Sneak. For the rest of my life.”
“It's not as bad as that.”
“It is.” Rachel jerked her head toward the passengers across the aisle and behind her, embarrassed for having raised her voice. She whispered, her words intense, “I'm terrified. What happens to other people you've rescued?”
Savage was forced to lie. Anytime someone needed a protector with Savage's expertise, he knew that their problems were only temporarily solved. He didn't cancel danger; he merely postponed it. “They get on with their lives.”
“Bullshit. Predators don't give up.”
Savage didn't respond.
“I'm right?”
Savage glanced toward the aisle.
“Hey, damn it, I looked at you. Now you look at me,” Rachel said.
“Okay. If you want my opinion, your husband's too arrogant to admit defeat. Yes, you'll have to be careful.”
“Oh, that's just fucking swell.” She yanked her hand from his.
“You wanted the truth.”
“And I sure got it.”
“The usual option is to negotiate.”
“Don't talk to me like a lawyer.”
“So what do you want?”
“For the past couple days, as horrible as they've been, I've never felt safer-better-than being with you. You made me feel… important, comforted, respected. You treated me like I meant everything to you.”
“You did.”
“As a client,” Rachel said. “And if you deliver me to my sister, you'll be paid.”
“You don't know anything about me,” Savage said. “I don't risk my life just for the money. I do this because people need me. But I can't stay forever with…”
“Everyone who needs you?”
“Sooner or later, I have to let go. Your sister's waiting for you.”
“And then you forget me?”
“Never,” Savage said.
“Then take me with you.”
“What? To New York?”
“I won't feel safe without you.”
“Rachel, three weeks from now, sipping champagne at the pool on your sister's estate, you won't remember me.”
“For the right kind of man, I'm stubbornly loyal.”
“I've had this conversation before,” Savage said. “Many times. The man who taught me…”
“Graham.”
“Yes. He always insisted, ‘Never involve yourself with a client.’ And he was right. Because emotion causes mistakes. And mistakes are fatal.”
“I'd do anything for you.”
“Like follow me to hell?”
“I promised that.”
“And you survived. But Akira and I have our own kind of hell, and we need to understand why it happened. Believe me, you'd interfere. Enjoy your sister's pool… And think of two men trying to solve a nightmare.”
“Hold still for a minute.”
“Why?”
Rachel leaned toward him, gripping the sides of his face.
Savage squirmed.
“No,” Rachel said, “hold still.”
“But…”
“Quiet.” Rachel kissed him. Her lips barely touched his, making them tingle. She gradually increased pressure, her mouth fully on him. Her tongue probed, sliding, darting. “
Savage didn't resist, but despite his erection, he didn't encourage her, either.
She slowly pulled away.
“Rachel, you're beautiful.”
Rachel looked proud.
Savage traced a finger along her cheek.
She shivered.
“I can't,” Savage said, “betray the rules. I'll take you to your sister. Then Akira and I will go to New York.”
She jerked away from him. “I can't wait to see my sister.”
10
They landed outside Nice shortly after four P.M. Savage had phoned Joyce Stone before he, Akira, and Rachel had flown from Corfu. Now, as they entered the airport's customs-immigration area, a slender man wearing an impeccably tailored gray suit stepped past other arriving passengers toward them. He had an identification pin in his lapel, though Savage didn't know what the pin's striped colors signified. A uniformed guard walked behind him.