Never Say Die. Tess Gerritsen
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“Oh, we could start off with the weather. Move on to politics. Religion. My family, your family.”
“I assume this is all leading up to something?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Let me guess. An invitation to your room?”
“Is that what you think I’m trying to do?” he asked in a hurt voice. “Pick you up?”
“Aren’t you?” she said. Then she turned and once again walked away.
This time he didn’t follow her. He didn’t see the point. Leaning back against the rail, he sipped his beer and watched her climb the steps to the dining terrace. There, she sat down at a table and retreated behind a menu. It was too late for tea and too early for supper. Except for a dozen boisterous Italians sitting at a nearby table, the terrace was empty. He lingered there a while, finishing off the beer, wondering what his next approach should be. Wondering if anything would work. She was a tough nut to crack, surprisingly fierce for a dame who barely came up to his shoulder. A mouse with teeth.
He needed another beer. And a new strategy. He’d think of it in a minute.
He headed up the steps, back to the bar. As he crossed the dining terrace, he couldn’t help a backward glance at the woman. Those few seconds of inattention almost caused him to collide with a well-dressed Thai man moving in the opposite direction. Guy murmured an automatic apology. The other man didn’t answer; he walked right on past, his gaze fixed on something ahead.
Guy took about two steps before some inner alarm went off in his head. It was pure instinct, the soldier’s premonition of disaster. It had to do with the eyes of the man who’d just passed by.
He’d seen that look of deadly calm once before, in the eyes of a Vietnamese. They had brushed shoulders as Guy was leaving a popular Da Nang nightclub. For a split second their gazes had locked. Even now, years later, Guy still remembered the chill he’d felt looking into that man’s eyes. Two minutes later, as Guy had stood waiting in the street for his buddies, a bomb ripped apart the building. Seventeen Americans had been killed.
Now, with a growing sense of alarm, he watched the Thai stop and survey his surroundings. The man seemed to spot what he was looking for and headed toward the dining terrace. Only two of the tables were occupied. The Italians sat at one, Willy Maitland at the other. At the edge of the terrace, the Thai paused and reached into his jacket.
Reflexively, Guy took a few steps forward. Even before his eyes registered the danger, his body was already reacting. Something glittered in the man’s hand, an object that caught the bloodred glare of sunset. Only then could Guy rationally acknowledge what his instincts had warned him was about to happen.
He screamed, “Willy! Watch out!”
Then he launched himself at the assassin.
Chapter Two
AT THE SOUND of the man’s shout, Willy lowered her menu and turned. To her amazement, she saw it was the crazy American, toppling chairs as he barreled across the cocktail lounge. What was that lunatic up to now?
In disbelief, she watched him shove past a waiter and fling himself at another man, a well-dressed Thai. The two bodies collided. At the same instant, she heard something hiss through the air, felt an unexpected flick of pain in her arm. She leapt up from her chair as the two men slammed to the ground near her feet.
At the next table, the Italians were also out of their chairs, pointing and shouting. The bodies on the ground rolled over and over, toppling tables, sending sugar bowls crashing to the stone terrace. Willy was lost in utter confusion. What was happening? Why was that idiot fighting with a Thai businessman?
Both men staggered to their feet. The Thai kicked high, his heel thudding squarely into the other man’s belly. The American doubled over, groaned and landed with his back propped up against the terrace wall.
The Thai vanished.
By now the Italians were hysterical.
Willy scrambled through the fallen chairs and shattered crockery and crouched at the man’s side. Already a bruise the size of a golf ball had swollen his cheek. Blood trickled alarmingly from his torn lip. “Are you all right?” she cried.
He touched his cheek and winced. “I’ve probably looked worse.”
She glanced around at the toppled furniture. “Look at this mess! I hope you have a good explanation for—What are you doing?” she demanded as he suddenly gripped her arm. “Get your hands off me!”
“You’re bleeding!”
“What?” She followed the direction of his gaze and saw that a shocking blotch of red soaked her sleeve. Droplets splattered to the flagstones.
Her reaction was immediate and visceral. She swayed dizzily and sat down smack on the ground, right beside him. Through a cottony haze, she felt her head being shoved down to her knees, heard her sleeve being ripped open. Hands probed gently at her arm.
“Easy,” he murmured. “It’s not bad. You’ll need a few stitches, that’s all. Just breathe slowly.”
“Get your hands off me,” she mumbled. But the instant she raised her head, the whole terrace seemed to swim. She caught a watery view of mass confusion. The Italians chattering and shaking their heads. The waiters staring openmouthed in horror. And the American watching her with a look of worry. She focused on his eyes. Dazed as she was, she registered the fact that those eyes were warm and steady.
By now the hotel manager, an effete Englishman wearing an immaculate suit and an appalled expression, had appeared. The waiters pointed accusingly at Guy. The manager kept clucking and shaking his head as he surveyed the damage.
“This is dreadful,” he murmured. “This sort of behavior is simply not tolerated. Not on my terrace. Are you a guest? You’re not?” He turned to one of the waiters. “Call the police. I want this man arrested.”
“Are you all blind?” yelled Guy. “Didn’t any of you see he was trying to kill her?”
“What? What? Who?”
Guy poked around in the broken crockery and fished out the knife. “Not your usual cutlery,” he said, holding up the deadly looking weapon. The handle was ebony, inlaid with mother of pearl. The blade was razor sharp. “This one’s designed to be thrown.”
“Oh, rubbish,” sputtered the Englishman.
“Take a look at her arm!”
The manager turned his gaze to Willy’s blood-soaked sleeve. Horrified, he took a stumbling step back. “Good God. I’ll—I’ll call a doctor.”
“Never mind,” said Guy, sweeping Willy off the ground. “It’ll be faster if I take her straight to the hospital.”
Willy let herself be gathered into Guy’s arms. She found his scent strangely reassuring, a distinctly male mingling of sweat and after-shave. As he carried her across the terrace, she caught a swirling view of shocked waiters and curious hotel guests.
“This is embarrassing,” she complained. “I’m all right. Put me down.”
“You’ll faint.”
“I’ve never fainted in my life!”
“It’s not a good time to start.” He got her into a waiting taxi, where she curled up in the back seat like a wounded animal.
The emergency-room doctor didn’t believe in anesthesia. Willy didn’t believe in screaming. As the curved suture needle stabbed again and again into her arm, she clenched her teeth and longed to have the lunatic American hold her hand. If only she hadn’t played tough and sent him out to the waiting area. Even now, as she fought back tears of pain, she refused to admit, even to herself, that she needed any man to hold her hand. Still, it would have been nice. It would have been wonderful.