“You know you are.” She looked him in the eye. “I’m going to go, Lassiter. My job. My choice. Your job is to find a way to get Patrick away from that camp or at least get a plan together that will do it.” She smiled. “And then you’re to get me away from Nicos at Montego Bay Airport. I’ll be very annoyed with you if you fail to do that.”
“I can imagine you would be.” His hands were kneading her shoulders. “I’ll offer him anything he wants, dammit.”
“No, you won’t. He’d enjoy it too much and refuse you anyway. You’ll have to take me. And you’ll send Cambry to deliver me to him. Nicos hates you. He might decide you’re too tempting a target not to swoop up. Purely from a selfish viewpoint, I have to point out that then I’d be lost, with no one to help get me away from him.”
“‘Purely from a selfish viewpoint’?”
She gazed at him and shook her head. “You’re thinking that I’m some kind of sacrificial lamb? No such thing. If I didn’t have to behave in accordance with who I am, I wouldn’t be forced to do this. That’s true of everyone who has to be what they are. I’m just a little … different.”
“I’ve noticed.”
She smiled. “I guess you have. But this time who I am is telling me that it’s time I righted wrongs and put the nightmare behind me. Purely selfish, Lassiter.”
“Yeah, sure. Well, it sounds like something else to me. And I don’t know if I can—”
His cell phone rang.
He went rigid. “That’s the text. I don’t believe there’s much doubt who would be texting me at this hour of the morning.”
The pain was starting, Margaret realized. He hadn’t even answered yet and the pain was there.
He punched the access button.
He jerked back as if struck. “Shit.”
So much pain. She couldn’t stand it.
She had to stand it. She had to stop it.
She stepped closer and looked down at the photo in the text.
Patrick. Of course it was Patrick. He was hanging from the branch of a tree by his arms, which looked as if they’d been pulled out of the sockets, his feet not touching the ground. His face was twisted in unbearable agony.
Below the photo was her name, Margaret, and the time and place for the meeting: 12:30 P.M., Puerto Morelos.
Pain.
Her own pain, Lassiter’s pain. Oh my God, and Patrick’s pain. She bent double as the waves of agony poured over her, drowning her.
“Margaret!” Lassiter was there, holding her, his hand pressing her face into his shoulder. “For God’s sake. Stop shaking.”
“Sorry.” She could barely get the words out. “Too … close now. I know you shouldn’t have to deal with … all this pain. You have so much pain. He has so much pain.” She couldn’t stop the shuddering that was tearing her apart. “Shouldn’t have to know what I’m feeling. It’s not right. I’ll try to—”
“Shut up,” he said gruffly. “I wasn’t sure that I understood all that empathy business you told me about. But I understand now.” He held her tighter. “Dear God, I understand. What the hell can I do to stop it?”
“It will be better … soon. Too … close.” Her arms slid around him, trying to stop his pain, which was now her pain. “Sometimes … it’s like an avalanche that picks up everything in its … path,” she whispered. She could barely get the words out. “But … we have to … stop … him from doing that to Patrick. You have to … call Nicos now. You have to tell him that you’ll have me at Puerto Morelos on time. But only if he sends you a photo of Patrick in thirty minutes that shows he’s been taken down … from that tree. And you want another photo of him right before delivery to make sure he hasn’t cheated you.”
He stiffened against her. “I can’t do that.”
“Do you want to look at that photo again?” Her voice was suddenly fierce. “I don’t want to see it ever again. I’d make the call myself, but he can’t know that I have any feeling for you or for Patrick. He has to think I’m just a bargaining chip. He’d use it against me. He’s done it before.” She pushed away from him and looked into his eyes. “But I’ll have to do it anyway if you don’t. I have to stop the pain.” She dropped down on the sand and linked her arms around her knees, rocking back and forth. “Now call him.”
He stood staring at her.
She had to brace herself. This pain he was going through was almost worse than that first blast when he’d opened the text.
Then he muttered a curse and began to place the call. “Nicos, you bastard, take him down,” he said roughly when Nicos picked up. “She’ll be there tomorrow on time. What the hell do I care? But not unless you stop playing your games with Patrick. Take him down. I want a photo in the next thirty minutes showing that you’ve done it. Another at eleven tomorrow morning, right before the delivery.” He met Margaret’s eyes. “I’ll be glad to get rid of her. She’s caused me nothing but trouble. When this is all over, I’ll expect you to be ready to negotiate for Patrick. I’m already putting together a package I don’t think you can refuse.” He disconnected and asked her roughly, “Satisfied? I believe he was.”
“We’ll know in thirty minutes.” She was glad she hadn’t had to hear Nicos’s voice this time. “And you sounded … sincere.”
“You mean like a son of a bitch.” He dropped down beside her. “A prick of the highest order.”
“It’s the only kind of person Nicos understands.” She reached out and touched his arm. “It was the right thing to do.”
“The hell it was. There was no right thing to do.”
Pain, again.
She got on her knees, then moved over him and sank into his arms. “It was right. You’ll see. But I know it hurts, too.”
He went still. “What are you doing?”
“Contact helps. Hold me, Lassiter.”
He hesitated and then his arms closed around her. “This isn’t a good idea.”
“Yes, it is.” She lay there, feeling his warmth, feeling a little of the pain ebbing away. “Too close to pain. Too close to death. This is life, Lassiter.”
“More than that,” he said thickly.
“Just hold me.”
“I’m holding you, dammit. Now stop shaking.”
“Better. See? Not so much. You’re better, too.”
Warmth. Opening. Easing.
Pain still there, but not as sharp.
Minutes passed.
Pain fading, but something else …
He was still stiff; she could feel the tension.
“Do you want to have sex? That could help, too.”
He went rigid. “What?”
“Sex. It’s renewing. It’s one of the greatest forces of life and reminds us that—”
“No.” He pushed her aside and sat up. “I knew this wasn’t a good idea. What the hell are you doing?”
“If you don’t want me that way, then I understand. I just thought—”
“You just thought after I’d turned you over to Nicos only minutes before, that you’d offer to screw me because it would be good for me?”
He was angry. She’d obviously made a mistake.
“I thought it might be good for me, too.”
“Don’t say that.”
She nodded. “If that’s what you want.”