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Without waiting for an answer, she spun to her right and caught Vaughn in the kneecap with a bone-jarring kick. Knocked off his feet, he juggled the automatic pistol as he went sprawling.
Griffin fell on Vaughn and pinned him down. He grabbed for the gun with one hand and used the other to slam the arms dealer’s head into the floor. Even with blood gushing from a cut above his left eye, Vaughn still fought fiercely to break Griffin’s hold without losing his grip on the weapon.
Darcy danced back out of the way and did a frantic search for something small but heavy enough to strike Vaughn over the head. Before she found one, he arched his back and, still struggling for control of the gun, shoved the barrel into his mouth.
She screamed, “He’s going to shoot!”
With a sickening jolt, Griffin gasped the horror Vaughn intended, and dove to the side a split second before he fired. Blood and bits of brain splattered the wall near the bed, but only a few drops sprayed across Griffin’s shoulder.
Thoroughly disgusted, he sat back and fought to catch his breath. “Son of a bitch,” he swore. “He meant to take me with him and right in front of his own daughter.”
Darcy gagged and clapped her hand over her mouth, but even with all the commotion, Astrid lay perfectly still. While Darcy’s ears continued to ring from the gun’s loud report, the darling girl hadn’t even flinched.
“Griffin,” she called fearfully. She reached over the bed rail to feel for a pulse in Astrid’s neck, and her skin felt unnaturally cool. “I think she may have already been dead when we came in.”
Griffin shoved himself to his feet, came to the bed and searched for a pulse in Astrid’s wrist. Her hand was limp in his grasp, and he laid it down gently. “She was such a sweetheart.” He sighed.
“Yes, she was, but where is everyone else? Why didn’t anyone come running when they heard the shot?”
“If we’re lucky, they cleared out hours ago.”
“The body count is now up to three, and you’re relying on luck?”
“Good point.” Griffin stepped over Lyman Vaughn’s legs to pick up the gun. He checked the clip, then clicked on the safety. “Come on, let’s search the house and make certain we’re alone.”
“I hate to leave her here with him.” Darcy stroked Astrid’s pale cheek in a tender farewell, but before she’d reached Griffin, the front door flew open and half a dozen heavily armed men rushed in.
Dressed in black with helmets and body armor, when they saw Lyman Vaughn’s body and Griffin holding a gun, they halted in midstride. A stocky man with intense dark eyes waved the others off toward the rest of the house and greeted Griffin in French.
Relieved some apparently friendly forces had finally arrived, Darcy shoved Vaughn’s chair around to the end of the bed and sat. She wondered what Vaughn could have been saying to Astrid when they’d entered. He must have known that she’d died in her sleep, but he’d been dry-eyed. She’d known Astrid only a single day and had been touched by her death. How could her own father have been immune from that pain?
Griffin handed the Frenchman Lyman Vaughn’s Glock, knelt by Darcy’s side and took her hands. “Interpol agents followed us from the airport. Lucien just assured me that if we hadn’t left here by noon today, he and his men were coming in. But you were never here, do you understand?”
She could smell Vaughn’s bloody corpse, and it would become an indelible memory. “I don’t care what the ‘Le Swat’ team leader says. I’m never going to forget this.”
“No one expects you to.” He placed a kiss in her palm and folded her fingers over it. “But you mustn’t tell anyone you visited this house, nor met Lyman Vaughn. In his obituary in the French newspapers, he’ll be referred to by the alias Simon Jordan and described as an internationally known financier.”
“Will they also report that he fell from the roof?”
“No, I imagine there will be a discreet reference to health issues and suicide.”
Fluent in English, Lucien nodded in agreement. Unconcerned with gathering evidence at the crime scene, he shoved the Glock into his belt, removed his helmet to wipe his shaved head with a handkerchief, then replaced it.
He continued to observe Darcy with a suspicious gaze, but if this were his idea of a timely rescue, she definitely thought he needed a new watch. “You’re worth a dozen of him, you know,” she whispered to Griffin.
“Thank you, but I must have your word on this. You’re not to tell Christy Joy, nor your parents, nor, God forbid, write a tell-all book about this and give an interview on the Today Show. I’m sure you can understand why.”
“Of course, the freedom of the civilized world depends on my keeping quiet, so you can tell Lucien here he won’t have to take me around back and shoot me.”
“Darcy! None of us would ever harm you, but Vaughn has associates who kill for sport, and you don’t want to be on their radar.”
“What about you?”
“No one will know I visited this estate either. I’ll readily admit to being in Paris this week, and the register at the Hotel Meurice will prove we stayed there. It was a brief pleasure trip, nothing more.”
“And what about Astrid? She ought to have a funeral, and who else will give her one?”
Griffin turned to Lucien. “What do you know of Astrid’s mother? Will she claim the body?”
