Never Trust A Lady

Chapter 2

Hawk couldn’t figure out how she’d managed it He could see th he guy on the floor was already stirring, so whatever she’d used, it hadn’t been lethal, which in his estimation made the operation that much more admirable. He could think of several ways it could have been done, both electrical and chemical; it was the timing that had him stumped.

She was good, no doubt about that. She’d fooled him, and there weren’t many, living or dead, who could say that.

The Middle Eastern guy, now, the fainter-Hawk had spotted him for a player right off the bat. It hadn’t been hard; the guy looked about as much like an antiques lover as a fox looks like a chicken.

Those two women, though-he’d never have figured them for a game like this. Two nice suburban ladies looking for bargains, that’s how he’d had them pegged. Although the tall brunette was a fox, all right, and the older one-come to think of it, that one did sort of resemble a chicken, a plump little gray hen. But what in the hell was she to the other one? Mother, friend or aunt, maybe-surely not an accomplice. In any event, Hawk figured she was probably just along for window dressing, part of the camouflage. Effective, too; he hadn’t given them a second glance.

Though, to be honest, there’d been a time when the younger woman might have turned his head and quickened his pulse, those first few years, the bad years when the glimpse of any tall, slender woman with short dark curls and a certain way of walking, a way of holding her head, her chin just so, could spin him around, trembling, like an electric shock straight to the heart. He’d gotten over that, thank God. Just as he’d gotten over waking up in the night thinking he’d heard a child crying.

He straightened, suddenly alert. The dark-haired woman was on the move, squeezing past people’s knees with polite, apologetic “Excuse me’s,” making her way to the center aisle. He watched as she came toward him, his whole body tense with concentration, little electrical currents of excitement coursing through him. He could feel his skin ripple with it, feel his hair rise. If he’d been a cat, his tail would have twitched. He was the hunter, watching the unsuspecting prey-dangerous prey, to be sure, but at the moment the advantage was all his.

But she was edgy; he could tell by the way she licked her lips as her eyes darted toward the crowd of Good Samaritans gathered around the man on the floor, by the way her hands clutched the straps of her shoulder bag, as if she expected someone to try to snatch it from her. Sensing his presence, perhaps, like a leopard sensing the lion.

From his hiding place behind a rack of Oriental rugs he studied her, paying attention to things that couldn’t be easily altered by a disguise. For instance, it was the particular shape of her eyes and the way they were set-not too deeply, but not prominent, either-that interested him, rather than the fact that they were the greenish-gray of deep sea waters, dark-lashed, with a little fan of smile lines at the corners.

Those lines and another set, like parentheses, around her mouth told him she was probably somewhat older than he’d thought-late thirties, maybe even forty. Which made it unlikely her hair color was entirely natural. That rich dark mahogany had been a good choice, though, maybe it even had been her natural color once upon a time. And the style suited her-short, but softly curling on the back of her neck and feathering around her face in a way that set off her cheekbones. He’d remember those cheekbones.

Nice body, for forty or any age. She wore her clothes well, with a certain style and natural elegance that was as much a product of health, vitality and good posture as it was proportions. Her clothes seemed of good quality but not designer, expensive but not ridiculously so-brown wool slacks and rust-colored turtleneck, tan tweed blazer with leather trim on the lapels and pockets. Nice shoes-some kind of short boot with a bit of a heel, comfortable-looking but elegant, too-and matching leather bag. No rings on the fingers that were still wrapped in a death grip around the strap of the shoulder bag, which didn’t surprise him; she had the self-indulged look of the well-off recently divorced.

Overall, the effect was simple, tasteful, and… What she had, Hawk realized suddenly, was that indefinable something called class.

He still couldn’t quite make the woman as Loizeau’s killer, though of course he couldn’t rule out that possibility, either. Whoever she was, she wouldn’t catch him off guard again.

He waited until the double doors that led to the foyer had closed behind her before he left his cover among the Oriental rugs and followed. The crowd of compassionate busybodies around the fainter was dispersing as he passed. The gentleman himself had moved to a chair, where he sat slumped and sullen, engaged in a conversation with one of the Rathskeller people that appeared to consist, on the unfortunate man’s part, mostly of monosyllables and head shakes. He appeared both dazed and furious; his skin still had the waxy, old-ivory look of someone in imminent danger of losing his lunch.

Hawk almost ran his quarry down in the foyer-literally. He’d assumed it was the ladies’ room she was heading for so purposefully, so he wasn’t expecting it when he pushed full tilt through the double doors and found her standing only a few feet on the other side. She had her purse open and was frowning at something in her hand-her checkbook, it appeared.

He pulled up just shy of plowing into her. As startled as he was, she looked up, straight at him, and murmured a breathy apology. He managed a curt nod, maintaining just enough poise to reach for his cigarettes as something of a distraction while he moved a safe distance away from her.

His thoughts were in turmoil. Dammit, she’d done it again. Caught him by surprise.

That didn’t make him happy, but it wasn’t nearly as unsettling as the impression he’d gotten from that one brief look into the woman’s eyes. A sudden widening…brightening…an impression of breath caught and held, like a child tearing paper off a birthday present. Young eyes. Innocent eyes.

A soft, throat-clearing sound penetrated the tumult of his thoughts. He turned toward its source, a cigarette poised halfway between the pack and his lips. The woman was gazing at him, the parentheses of lines around her mouth and the fan at the corners of her eyes both deepening as she shifted her gaze meaningfully toward a prominently displayed No Smoking sign.

Ah, hell. With a nod that was just barely polite, Hawk turned his back on the lady and strolled down the foyer toward the front entrance. One look through the glass doors assured him that the icy drizzle that had snarled traffic on the beltway that morning and caused him to miss the auction preview was still falling. That fact made his desire for a cigarette that much more compelling, and did nothing to improve his temper.

He considered his options while he gazed out at glistening gray walkways bordered by bowing daffodils and beds of drenched pansies, tapping the cigarette restlessly against the pack. He could feel the woman’s presence there in the foyer behind him. Feel her watching him. Studying him, as a moment ago he’d studied her. It wasn’t a feeling he liked.

Deciding that no nicotine craving was worth letting the woman out of his sight, and getting wet and chilled to the bone in the bargain. Hawk dropped the unlit cigarette into a trash container near the doors. He was tucking the pack into his pocket, when the woman’s voice startled him once again, wafting from the far end of the foyer like a puff of a breeze on a still spring afternoon, unexpectedly warming, amused and sympathetic.

“It is a bother, isn’t it?”

“I beg your pardon?” His own voice was hard-edged, partly with suspicion, partly in self-defense.

She gestured with her left hand, with the checkbook she still held. “Smoking. They do make it as difficult as possible for you these days, don’t they?”

Hawk gave an all-purpose shrug and moved toward her, his mind spinning with possibilities. He paused when there was still some distance between them and said warily, “You’re not a smoker.”

The lines around her mouth appeared briefly, a rueful little smile that didn’t touch her eyes. “Not me. Married to one for twenty-one years, though.”

“Ah.” He nodded and turned a shoulder toward her-not impolitely, just a firm but gentle closing.

Which she ignored. Her voice came again, same friendliness, same sympathy tinged with amusement. “I take it you’re here with someone.” He turned his head, looked at her along one shoulder, eyebrows lifted. Her smile asked pardon for the liberty. “Somehow you just don’t look like the antiques type. Are you here with your wife?”

Hawk shook his head, again unprepared for the apparent openness, the casual friendliness of the woman. Then he muttered, improvising like mad, “I’m meeting someone. A…friend.” He made a quick movement with his head toward the outer doors, conveying, he hoped, a touch of annoyance. “Apparently she’s late.”

The woman nodded in a commiserating sort of way. “Probably stuck in traffic. It’s really nasty out.”

“Yeah,” said Hawk. “That’s probably it.”

And then, for a change, she was silent. It was a curious, almost expectant little silence. She seemed to be studying him again, but he didn’t want to risk making eye contact with her to find out for sure. There wasn’t much he could be certain of where this woman was concemed, but all his instincts were telling him he didn’t want her gazing into the windows of his soul.

She took a step toward him. He tensed. Then, “Hi-I’m Jane Carlysle,” she said, and held out her hand.

It would have been impossible not to take it. It was a strange sensation, Hawk discovered, shaking hands with someone who might be a cold-blooded and accomplished assassin. Wouldn’t be the first time he’d done it, of course; he wasn’t sure why this time was different. But he could feel those currents of excitement racing around under his skin. Feel his perceptions sharpen and his chest tingle, as if he’d just sucked in a lungful of crystalclear, bone-cold air.

“Tom-Tom Hawkins,” he said, and watched her smile lines deepen once again.

He doesn’t smile, thought Jane. A shame, too; she had a feeling he might be quite nice-looking if he did. Not that he was unattractive as he was-quite the contrary. It was just that there was something rather off-putting about his rugged, slightly asymmetrical features…a certain hardness to his mouth, a coldness in the eyes. She thought that if he would only smile it would make all the difference in the world. She thought she would very much like to make him smile.

Before she could wonder why that should be so, before she could even begin to wonder how to go about it, she saw the man’s eyes shift and darken, foreshadowing the touch she felt an instant later on her elbow.

“Excuse me, miss, uh, ma’am?”

Turning, Jane recognized the very same individual who, only a short time ago, had been bidding furiously against her for her precious painting. The man she’d last seen stretched out on the auditorium floor surrounded by curious auction-goers and concerned employees of Rathskeller’s. The “Arab terrorist”-though at the moment he didn’t look capable of terrorizing anyone. His hair was mussed, his tie askew and his olive-toned complexion had a decidedly greenish tinge, all of which played strongly to her compassionate nature and mother-hen instincts.

Reftexively, she put out a hand to touch his arm and, in a voice husky with concern, said, “My goodness, are you all right?”

The man waved that aside with an impatient grimace. He glanced around, then took Jane’s elbow and maneuvered her a couple of steps closer to the auditorium doors and away from the third party present. That accomplished, he lowered his head and said in a low voice, “Can I talk to you a minute? About that picture…”

Jane’s heartbeat quickened. Chilly little currents of unease stirred across the back of her neck and shivered her skin with goose bumps. For some reason, she found herself looking over her shoulder, searching for the unsmiling stranger named Tom Hawkins, as if he represented some sort of haven, or rescuer. She was relieved to find him over near the windows, only a polite distance away, scowling at his watch.

She turned back to the “terrorist,” mentally fortifying herself the way she did when she was forced to be firm with one of her daughters. “Sir, I’m sorry about what happened to you, but-”

“I’d like to buy it from you.” Keeping his hold on Jane’s elbow, the man reached inside his jacket and pulled out a wallet. The fingers on her arm were tense as wire. “I’ll pay you cash. What was the final bid? I’ll top it by a hundred.”

Jane’s breath caught; jolts of alarm shot through all her nerves and muscles. Instinctively, she took a step backward, jerking her arm free. “I don’t want to sell it. I just bought it.”

“Please.” The man held up both hands, palms out, almost, it seemed to her, in supplication. “I know you probably think I’m nuts. Maybe I am nuts.” He made an unconvincing attempt to smile. “The thing is, well, darn it, I really wanted that particular painting. See-it’s my fiancée-she just fell in love with it. I was going to get it for her as a surprise. That’s why money’s no object, okay? I was willing to go as high as it took.” Another of those stiff, almost painful-looking smiles. “If I hadn’t passed out like that don’t know what happened. I mean, I’ve never had anything like that happen to me before.”

“Maybe it was the excitement,” Jane suggested, her natural compassion now struggling with an inexplicable sense of guilt. It made her feel awkward, almost embarrassed. “You know, if you’re not used to auctions…”

The man’s smile was wry, and much more believable than his previous attempts. He snorted and said, “Maybe,” in such a tone of gloom and disappointment that Jane began to feel sorry for him.

But dammit, she loved that painting, too. It was hers-she’d won it fair and square. “I wish I could help you,” she said with a helpless shrug. “I really do. But I just-”

“Ah, come on,” the man pleaded, opening his wallet. “I told you, money’s no object Try me-name your price.”

Jane gave an incredulous laugh. This whole thing was just so bizarre. Again she glanced over her shoulder, searching for the tall, angular form of the man called Tom Hawkins. Yes, he was still there, over by the windows, standing with his back to her, looking out at the rain, restlessly jingling things in his pockets. And yet, she had the strangest feeling he was listening to every word, missing nothing.

“I’m sorry, Mr…”

“Campbell-Aaron Campbell,” he offered eagerly, as if he hoped the name might head off the inevitable.

Campbell? “I’m truly sorry,” she said, making her refusal as kind and as firm as she knew how, girding herself against her own generous instincts. “I wish I could be unselfish about it, but it happens that I’ve fallen in love with that particular painting myself. I know how much you must want it, but I also know that if I did give in and sell it to you, I’d very much regret it. I’m sorry…” She was backing away from him now, a hand upraised as if to physically ward him off. “I’m sorry.”

Still he persisted, following her beseechingly, holding something out to her-a business card. “If you should change your mind-”

“I won’t. Really. Please… I’m sorry,” Jane gasped. Discovering that the auditorium doors were there at her back, she groped for the handle and pushed through them, throwing out one more anguished, “I’m sorry. ” The last thing she saw as the doors swished shut was a look of black and impotent fury.

Inside the auditorium, the auctioneer’s voice droned on.

“There you are,” said Connie, appearing at her elbow. “I wondered where you’d got to. Everything all right, dear? You look a bit whacked.”

“Oh, I’m fine.” Jane was already finding it hard to recall what it was, exactly, that had been so unsettling about the confrontation with the persistent Mr. Campbell His eyes, perhaps. Something about his eyes…

“You won’t believe it,” she said to Connie with a short, incredulous laugh. “That man-the one who was bidding against me for the painting? He just offered to buy it from me. He told me to name my price. Can you imagine?”

Connie’s glasses tumbled from their customary perch on the end of her nose, coming to rest before reaching the limits of their tether on her ample, sweatered bosom. Her eyebrows shot up. “You didn’t sell it to him, did you? Oh, my dear, after all that!”

“No, of course I didn’t,” Jane assured her with a huff of indignation. “Are you kidding? I love that painting. I’d never sell it. So-how are you doing? Buying lots of good stuff?”

She straightened as she spoke and pushed away from the doors, but the nerves on the back of her neck and between her shoulder blades still prickled with a strange awareness-she’d never felt anything like it before and couldn’t think what else to call it-awareness of the two enigmatic and vaguely upsetting men she’d left on the other side of them.

Hawk turned away discreetly as the gentleman he’d just heard identify himself as Aaron Campbell plunged past him, through the glass doors and out into the rain. Under different circumstances, he might have allowed himself a smile; to say Mr. Campbell was pissed was like saying a hurricane might be a little windy. Hawk half expected to see steam rising from under the coat collar the man had hastily turned up against the drizzle.

He considered following Campbell- But it was the Carlysle woman who had the painting, and judging from the fire in his eyes, Campbell didn’t seem like the type to give up the game so easily. A sudden vivid image of the shopkeeper Loizeau staring up at the ceiling with his three vacant eyes wafted through Hawk’s memory. An image of the tall brunette in those same circumstances wanted to follow, but he blocked it with a reflexive rejection that surprised him. For some reason, the thought of those sea-gray eyes clouded and empty of all light and life made him feel queasy, like a bubble of indigestion lodged at the back of his throat. He told himself it was only because he couldn’t see her as Loizeau’s killer, and if she wasn’t, then she didn’t deserve to die. No matter who she was, or where she fit into the picture.

And that was the next thing he had to find out. Who in the hell was this Jane Carlysle? Watching the slick way she’d neutralized Campbell during the bidding, he’d figured her to be a player for sure. After seeing her up close, talking to her, he’d thought, okay, not one of the bad guys-CIA, maybe. Even, God forbid, the FBI. He’d been thinking maybe it was time for a little team effort, a limited pooling of resources. As long as the good guys won, right?

Now, though, after seeing her with Campbell, he was beginning to consider a whole new possibility. One that made the bad taste at the back of his throat even more bitter. What if Jane Carlysle was exactly who and what she appeared to be-an innocent antiques lover who just happened to have fallen in love with that particular painting? What if-jeez, stranger things had happened-Campbell really had fainted? Sure wouldn’t be the first time an innocent had gotten caught in the crossfire of someone else’s war…

Enough. The grimace with which he banished that thought was more of annoyance than pain. God, he wanted a cigarette.

The young woman at the reception desk looked up as he approached, elegant eyebrows arched in welcome. “Yes, sir, may I help you?”

Hawk glanced at his watch and made his smile as charming as he knew how. “Sorry to bother you, but I wonder if you can tell me-I think this is where I’m supposed to meet my wife. She called me this morning-major crisis-apparently she’d gone off without her credit cards.”

The woman laughed in mock dismay. “Ooh, a real disaster.”

Hawk did his lopsided smile again, accompanying it with a chuckle. “For me it’s more of a disaster when she has ’em. Anyway, I don’t seem to be able to locate her.”

“Have you taken a look inside? Perhaps she’s gone back to the auction.”

Hawk nodded. “I checked a while ago. Didn’t see her, but it’s a pretty big crowd. I wonder, would you mind checking her registration card for me? Just to make sure she’s checked in.”

“Certainly. Name?”

“Carlysle-Jane.”

“Carlysle…let’s see…how is that spelled?”

Hawk’s heart lurched. Shoot. Well, hell, he had a fifty-fifty chance. He had his mouth open to take a stab at it when the woman said, “Oh, yes, here it is. Jane Carlysle-from Cooper’s Mill?”

Hawk exhaled and put the smile back on. “That’s the one.”

The receptionist plucked the card from the file and placed it on the desk in front of her. Hawk tried not to crane too obviously. “Well, according to this, your wife plans to pay for any purchases by check.”

“My wife? Can’t be! Let me see that…” And as he’d been certain she would, the receptionist obligingly turned the card around. He leaned over and gazed at it long enough to commit Jane Cartyste‘s-with a Y-North Carolina driver’s license to memory, then straightened with a sigh. “That’s her, all right. Well. I guess I’d better find her and see what she wants to do. Maybe she’s already paid up and gone. Is that possible?”

“For that, you’d have to check with the office-that’s through the auditorium, door to the, um, right of the stage. She’d need to pay for her purchases there, then pick them up in holding. That’s in the backstage delivery area-there’s a loading dock there, for large items. I suppose your wife might have gone out that way, if you-”

Hawk muttered. “Thanks, I’ll check,” as he turned away. He pushed through the auditorium doors on a surge of adrenaline, nerves already kicking in to full battle readiness. He was pretty sure he knew now where Campbell had been going in such a hurry.

“Look. there he is again,” Jane said in a loud whisper, tightening her grip on the shopping bag containing her precious Roy Rogers cap pistol as if she expected an imminent mugging. “The man I told you about, the one who was bidding against me, the one who tried to-to bribe me.”

Connie’s slightly protuberant blue eyes glittered dangerously. She shifted, moving closer to Jane, her stocky body lending unspoken support. “Yes, yes, I see him. Never mind, dear, stand fast, don’t let him intimidate you. You won the battle, fair and square.”

“Right,” said Jane, breathing through her nose. She watched, hovering anxiously, while a Rathskeller’s employee carefully wrapped the painting of the ballroom dancers in layers and layers of brown paper. It was the last of the lot, thank God. Connie’s purchases-and there had been a good many of them-had already been loaded into her van, which was conveniently parked near the foot of the loading ramp.

It was there that Jane had spotted the ubiquitous Mr. Campbell, leaning against the fender of an anonymous black sedan, arms folded and ankles crossed, seemingly oblivious to the cold and wet. Watching. Waiting.

Jane shivered and turned her back to him. “I wish he’d just give it up,” she said crossly to Connie as she accepted her wrapped parcel from the young employee. “I’ve already made it perfectly clear to him that I’ve no intention whatsoever of selling this painting. I love this painting. You know, people like that seem to think they can have anything they want if they just pay enough money. He gives me the creeps-oh!” Turning with the painting in her hands, she’d clumsily barged right into someone. “Oh-I’m so sorry. Please excuse me, I…” And then she stopped, bemused, completely forgetting what it was she’d meant to say.

“We meet again,” Tom Hawkins said with a smile.

Well, okay, so it wasn’t much of a smile-a lopsided quirk of the lips that didn’t soften the forbidding terrain of the rest of his face one iota. She found it oddly endearing. “Mr. Hawkins,” she breathed, her own smile blossoming without reservation. “Tell me, did you ever find your friend?”

He gave his head a rueful waggle. “The girl at the front desk suggested I try back here, but…” His shrug had the same elusive charm as his smile. “I don’t see her anywhere, so I guess I must have missed her. Oh, well…”

“I’m sorry,” said Jane, which was a bald-faced lie.

“Me, too.” He gave another little c’est la vie shrug, then, as if suddenly remembering his manners, stepped forward to take the paper-wrapped parcel from her. “Here, let me give you a hand with that. Where are you ladies parked?”

“That won’t be necessary,” said Connie in her iciest and most dismissive upper-crust British.

It was a tone designed to give frostbite to a penguin, but its effect on Tom Hawkins seemed to be quite the reverse. By no stretch could the smile he turned on Connie be considered rueful or lopsided. And it did affect the terrain of his face-all of it. It touched his features like the sun coming up on an Arctic landscape, squinting his eyes and lighting his skin with color and warmth. Jane didn’t know about Connie, but her own reaction to that smile was about the same as if she’d taken a slug of Canadian whiskey, neat.

“Thanks,” she gasped over the beginnings of Connie’s protest. “That’s very kind of you.” She edged around her friend with a whispered, “It’s okay,” and fell into step with the man, who was already starting down the ramp with her burden.

“That’s us right there, the dark blue van.” She waited while he wedged the painting into the back of the van. She surrendered the bag containing her Roy Rogers cap pistol when he turned to ask for it. When he had tucked that away, as well, she heard herself witlessly babbling profuse thanks, saw herself poking out her hand with a lamentable lack of grace, realized that she was as out of breath as if she’d been the one doing all the toting and lifting.

“My pleasure-glad I could help.” Without the smile, his face was once more grave and careworn, though not so forbidding, perhaps, as she’d first considered it. And his handshake was firm, and very warm.

“Anything else to go in here? No?” He slammed the van’s doors, tested them to make certain they were closed properly, then nodded politely to Connie, who was protectively hovering. “There you go, you’re all set. You ladies drive carefully now.” With a brief nod to Jane, he turned and started back up the loading ramp. Halfway up, she saw him pause to light a cigarette, hunching over his cupped hands to shelter against the drizzle.

“Who was that?” Connie demanded as she turned the key in the van’s ignition, her tone sharp and battle-ready.

Jane chuckled, and realized at once how artificial it sounded. How exhilarated she felt-but that was just from the cold, wasn’t it? And so breathless-which was easily explained, especially at her age, by the ordinary bustle and fuss of settling in and buckling up. Oh, but she had found that man attractive-and what was wrong with that? It had been a long time since she’d felt that particular buzz, and she’d damn well enjoyed it.

“A man I ran into in the lobby,” she said in a bright and casual tone that was as fake as her smile. “He was waiting for a girlfriend, I rather imagine. It doesn’t look as though he’s made connections yet.” With patent insincerity, she added, “Poor guy.”

“Well, one can’t be too careful,” Connie said as she edged the van out of the line of parked cars. “These days, you never know.”