“No need to clean up the mess, Brodie. I’ll do that.”
It was a deep, pleasant voice, cool and oddly resonant, and Sarah knew who he was even before she jerked around to find him standing only a few feet away.
Duran.
SEVENTEEN
Not an average man.
He was tall, athletic; physical power was obvious even though he wore a dark trench coat open over a sober business suit. He was dark, his hair the true black of a raven’s wing, and strikingly pale and almost iridescent greenish eyes looked out of an extraordinarily handsome face.
Sarah was vaguely aware that both Brodie and Tucker had drawn guns and leveled them at the man, but he was looking at her. And she recognized him.
“I’ve seen your face,” she said slowly. “I’ve seen you. In my visions.”
He didn’t look surprised, merely nodding, and he stood relaxed and apparently at ease despite the guns pointed at him.
rodie said, “I’ve been waiting for you to turn up, Duran.”
Those pale eyes flickered toward him, then returned to Sarah’s face. “My apologies, Miss Gallagher.”
“Why?” she asked blankly.
“This has been badly handled from the beginning. There was no need for so much…trauma.”
“I suppose my dying in the house fire would have been much less traumatic for everybody involved?”
He smiled. “Exactly.”
She knew it wasn’t wise to try, but she let her senses reach out anyway, very carefully.
Immediately, she felt he was a dangerous man, yet that was only an intuitive judgment rather than something definite. She sensed no threat from him. In fact, she sensed…nothing. Not even shadows.
It was as if whatever made him the man he was—his personality, his spirit, his soul—were encased in something she simply could not penetrate.
Not, at least, without touching him.
Tucker said, “If you think you’re going to get your slimy hands on her now, think again.”
Duran glanced at him, then shrugged wide shoulders. “With a small army protecting her, I imagine you’re correct, Mr. Mackenzie.”
Tucker looked a bit surprised, and distinctly unbelieving, but since it wasn’t the moment to bring him up to date on what they knew and had surmised, Sarah merely said, “I won’t stop looking back over my shoulder. Just so you know.”
Duran smiled again, and there seemed to be a flicker of honest amusement in his pale eyes. “Noted.”
They could hear, faintly, the sounds of sirens approaching, and Duran added dryly, “It seems the local officials have finally taken note of the fire. Your people have pulled out; I suggest you do the same.”
“And just leave you standing here?” Brodie demanded. “Why the hell shouldn’t I drop you now and save myself a lot of trouble down the road?”
Duran looked at him and, pleasantly, said, “I have a mess to clean up. And we both know you aren’t going to shoot me, Brodie. The only man you could kill in cold blood would be the man who killed your wife—a crime you know I’m not guilty of.”
“What about Cait?” Brodie demanded harshly, not reacting in any visible way to the mention of a dead wife.
Duran shook his head slightly. “None of my people killed her.”
“Do you expect me to believe that?”
“I don’t care what you believe.” Duran’s voice remained pleasant. “But if I were you, I’d look inside my own house. For a traitor.”
Brodie’s finger tightened on the trigger for an instant, and his face was stone. But then he swore and said to Sarah and Tucker, “Let’s get out of here. Now.”
They left Duran standing there, and when Sarah glanced back, it was to see him looking down at Varden’s unconscious body with a singular lack of expression.
The rendezvous point was about two miles away, and when Sarah, Tucker, and Brodie arrived at the clearing not far off the road, they found another Jeep waiting for them.
Murphy was sitting on the hood. A tall and very athletic woman with short, spiky blond hair and fierce green eyes, she looked like somebody the Navy SEALs might have trained, especially since she was wearing fatigues.
Sarah had met her only briefly and Tucker hadn’t met her at all, so introductions were in order. As seemed to be her nature, Murphy was taciturn, merely nodding at Tucker, but then she said something that stopped them in their tracks.
“We’ve lost Leigh.”
“What are you talking about?” Brodie demanded.
Murphy’s voice was flat, hard. “She started the fire, as planned. And then—I don’t know what happened. All I know is that I saw her inside the church, just as the roof started to cave in. Nick and I checked it out, but there was so much heat and smoke…He stayed back there to lurk in the woods and see what the cops find.”