LITMIR.BIZ

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warning, though his tone and expression scared her most.

      Maybe she should have ignored Mac’s advice and taken a chance on being shot. Something told her it might have been wiser than taking a chance on Mac.

      They’d located them in the attic, which Mac found promising. It showed him that even unarmed Zukah considered him dangerous.

      The window was barred and behind it lay a sheer drop, at least forty feet straight down. The only way out was through the door that Yves and Jean-Luc would more than likely lock as they left.

      As he looked around, the Frenchmen remained standing immediately inside the threshold, Yves armed with Mac’s own Glock.

      Narrowing his gaze to laser intensity, Mac dismissed Jean-Luc’s status and took a dig at Yves’s manhood. He glanced down at Roxie to emphasize her lack of inches. “Well, I’ll be…don’t tell me you’re in awe of an unarmed man and woman?”

      Yves’s glance slanted in Jean-Luc’s direction. “We will leave you in peace. What can you do? There is no way to escape. We will quell any attempt you make. So save your energy.”

      “Never entered my mind,” Mac lied. “I’m willing to stay here as Zukah’s guest until the boss man arrives to negotiate the deal. Just remind him that, though my resources are almost limitless, my patience has a use-by date.”

      He let the indictment hang in the air for a moment then turned the tables on them. “We’ll expect breakfast around seven-thirty, eight o’clock at the latest. Lock the door on the way out, we’d like a little privacy.”

      Before they could leave, Roxie asked, “Hey, this place is like an icebox. What do we do for heat?”

      Yves smiled, the first one to cross his face since he’d followed the Algerian into Mac’s apartment. “You have each other,” he mocked, earning a ferocious look for his trouble.

      Walking desultorily, Roxie left Mac’s side and sat down on one of the small blue-painted wooden chairs on either side of a table that had been placed in front of the uncurtained window.

      Though his back was to the door, he heard it close, listening with interest to the tumblers clicking in the old-fashioned lock.

      So, two covert agents alone at last.

      He wondered which one of them would break their cover first?

      Mac shrugged off the notion it would be him, but he hoped Roxie knew better than to reveal the nature of her mission while every little thing they said was most likely being recorded.

      “Are you always so confrontational when a guy’s holding a gun on you?” she asked as she unbuttoned the top button of her coat.

      Mac raised his eyebrows in mock surprise. Maybe she wasn’t as green as he’d thought. “Talk about me? I saw you cut those guys off at the knees with a glance.”

      Her small heart-shaped face scrunched into a grimace. “It’s a French thing,” she said reverting to English. “Those guys should be used to it. I learned that look at my grandmother’s knee.”

      “Did she teach you to cook as well?”

      “As a matter of fact, she did.”

      “Now, that’s what I call an asset.”

      She pouted, leaning one elbow on the table, as if the sleep she’d had as they traveled hadn’t done much good. “I should have known you were one of those guys who believe in keeping their wives barefoot, pregnant and chained to the kitchen…and talking about plumbing, did anyone mention a bathroom?”

      “No one did, but since there is only one possibility, I’d try that door in the corner next to the armoire.”

      No sooner said than she was off. “Hey,” she called out, her voice echoing. “There must be a tower on the corner, this room curves on three sides.” Then the door clicked shut behind her.

      And then there was one, he thought, remembering an old black-and-white movie set in a remote house.

      Mac shivered. Roxie was right about it feeling colder up here, colder still now Roxie had left the room. Her personality could almost be termed sunny when she wasn’t pretending to be scared out of her wits.

      He gave the low-ceilinged room the once-over, not that he expected Zukah to be that obvious in his placement of listening devices.

      The furniture was about what one would expect in an attic, remnants no longer wanted downstairs. The brass bed was set against a backdrop of faded yellow wallpaper.

      Its size hardly made a dent in the open floor space.

      Mac sat on the edge of the bed to test the mattress and it complained. Quilts had been piled on top to disguise a thin mattress on an even thinner wire-sprung base. But it was chilly enough to make the down-filled covers necessary.

      He huffed out a breath that hung in the air like mist.

      It wouldn’t surprise him if they were near a river, the Loire maybe, for he hadn’t noticed the loaded minivan being tested by many hills.

      The bed creaked as his weight came off it.

      What were the odds of Roxie allowing him to share? That way he wouldn’t be forced to sleep on the lumpy easy chair Zukah had provided, or, God forbid, lie on the floor?

      What would it take to convince her that just because she was female and breathing, he had no intention of hitting on her?

      When her eyes lit up, she seemed pretty enough. That’s when she wasn’t hiding behind her coat collar.

      In fact, once he’d gotten over the annoyance of her arrival, and hauled her out of her jam, he’d wondered if MI6 were so short of volunteers, they’d begun giving their secretaries assignments.

      He laughed to himself, imagining her toffee-nosed SAC saying, “Take a note, Roxie. Collect a semiautomatic on your way out, you have a mission in France.”

      Yeah, and that was likely. As far as he could see, she hadn’t been armed with anything larger than her cell phone. And for the first time he paused to wonder, why not?

      Roxie sat on the commode with the lid down. All she’d wanted was a little privacy to have a nervous breakdown. And now thank heaven, she was over it.

      Charles would be having fits tomorrow when she didn’t call in.

      She stood up, swiped at her cheeks with the backs of her knuckles, hoping her outburst hadn’t left streaks of mascara.

      The mirror was old, freckled with green-mottled patches where dampness had invaded the backing, but it was clear enough to show the giveaway red blotches under her eyes.

      Compared to some French bathrooms she’d visited, this one was large, but somewhat utilitarian. It had been a surprise to twist the faucet and feel the water run hot.

      The metal bath was so ancient its claw-foot style had been in vogue and out again at least twice since the original was cast.

      However, she was pleased to note some thoughtful person had jerry-rigged a shower over the bath, as well as a circular rod and curtain. That was as far as privacy went.

      The first thing she’d discovered on entering the bathroom was it had no lock on the door.

      Soap and clean towels were piled on the counter by the basin, so she hung her coat on a hook on the back of the door until she tidied up.

      Just as she’d thought, her shoulder-length brown hair was curling at the ends. She tucked the long, loose waves that fell over one eye behind her ear as she washed her face, washing off the results of her disastrous evening while listening to Mac moving around in the next room.

      Sucking in a deep breath, she held it till she had no choice but to let go or explode. She’d taken so long that any moment now he would come looking for her.

      And she wasn’t certain how to

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