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It happened very quickly. One moment Maggie was standing there, seemingly calm and relaxed, and in the next she had Green Eyes dragged back into the tiny hallway, pressed up against the wall, her gun at his neck.
“Would you like to tell me why you’re following me?” she inquired pleasantly.
“You expect me to believe you’d shoot me?” The voice that came from that rough, belligerent face was startlingly elegant, the perfect tone of the British upper classes. The green eyes were clouded with both fury and embarrassment, and Maggie guessed quite rightly that he was outraged that he’d been bested so easily. “You have no silencer on that little toy,” he continued. “It would make a hell of a noise and a hell of a mess, and then you’d never find out anything. Why don’t you put the silly thing away?”
“It may look like a toy to you, Green Eyes,” Maggie said sweetly, “but it could still make an awful big hole in you.”
“I’m aware of that, Miss Bennett,” he said, his eyes sweeping her with insolent disdain. “But I think you have more sense than to shoot me.”
“Oh, I won’t shoot you,” Maggie agreed as her nimble hands reached inside his jacket and removed his own, much larger gun, tossing it on the carpet. “Not yet, anyway. But you are going to tell me how you know my name and why you’re following me.”
“I have no objections to that.” He glowered at her as she continued a desultory search of his body, one that allowed for no maidenly restraints. She found the knife in its ankle holster and tucked it in the pocket of the cardigan. She pulled his wallet from his pants pocket, flipped it open, and grimaced.
“Ian Andrews,” she read his identification. “British Army Intelligence, eh? Maybe I can trust you. But that still doesn’t answer my question. Why?”
“You’ve got it a bit wrong. I’m not following you.”
“All right, I’ll bite. Who are you following?” She pressed the snub-nosed barrel of her Colt closer. “And why?”
“I’m following that empty-headed sister of yours. Because she’ll lead me to Tim Flynn.”
Maggie didn’t even blink. “Why do you want him?”
“That’s my business.”
“What makes you think we’ll have any success?” She mustered the last traces of her patience. “Why can’t you find him yourself?”
“Because I’m not his lover.”
This time Maggie did blink. “And you think she is? Don’t be an idiot, man,” she snapped. “If you know that much you must know that Tim Flynn robbed our mother and left her for dead. We still don’t know whether she’s going to survive or not. Do you think my sister’s about to crawl into the sack with a monster like that?”
“I know nothing about your mother,” he said stubbornly. “I have my sources. And I know Tim Flynn has been living with your sister for the last four months.”
“He’s been living with our mother. I think you’d better check your sources—your information’s got a thousand holes in it.”
“Maybe,” he said, unchastened. “I never trust informers. But if he has tried to kill your mother … all I know is that Flynn never leaves anyone behind who can identify him.”
“Reassuring,” Maggie said, considering for a moment and then moving the gun away. “Holly isn’t Flynn’s lover, and neither am I.”
Green Eyes looked disbelieving, and Maggie’s temper snapped.
“Listen, Mr. Andrews, I don’t know what you think you’re doing …”
“Lieutenant Andrews,” he corrected. “And I’m on special assignment to track down Tim Flynn.”
“Well, Lieutenant”—she mocked his British pronunciation while she bent down to pick up his gun and dropped it into the cardigan’s other pocket—“perhaps you’ll feel like coming with me and talking with Holly yourself. If she can’t convince you nobody can.”
“Nobody can,” he said gruffly, moving obediently enough. With her snub-nosed pistol still pressed against his neck he didn’t have much choice in the matter, and the two of them moved down the hallway, back to their suite and her waiting sister.
It took Holly a moment to answer the door, and behind the thick oak Maggie thought she could hear voices. Holly would soon rediscover how deadly British television was, she thought. And Ian Andrews would provide ample entertainment. The door opened, and Holly stood there, face flushed, aquamarine eyes bright, staring at Ian Andrews with suspicion and dislike. “Who is he?”
“He says he’s Ian Andrews of British Army Intelligence, on special assignment to catch Tim Flynn. He also thinks you’ve been having an affair with Flynn and that you’ll lead him straight to him, so I don’t know how bright the dear man is.”
“What?” Holly shrieked. “Did you hear that?” she called over her shoulder. “I didn’t tell you, Maggie, but someone’s arrived.”
Maggie stood there just outside the door, and the gun in her hand felt heavy, deadly. She listened to the sound of footsteps on the parquet floor, approaching the door that Holly’s tall body blocked, listened with a horrifying sense of disbelief. The last, intense five minutes might never have existed. She was no longer aware of her quasi-prisoner, of her sister, of the hotel, of London. Jet lag must be playing tricks on her, she had to be imagining things. She looked over her shoulder down the hallway to the linen closet, tempted to run back, break it open and hide there, alone in the darkness she hated, rather than face what was waiting for her in her hotel room.
“Don’t just stand there, Maggie,” Randall Carter said in his rich, calm voice. “It’s not going to do us any good to stand around squabbling in hallways. Bring your prisoner in and we’ll figure out how we’re going to find Tim Flynn.”
