Page 39 of Close Up

“Maybe someone who might wonder why you suddenly disappeared from Adelina Beach?”

“Just some clients. But when they find out that my studio was destroyed in a fire I think most of them will understand and reschedule. Forget my personal life. Do you really think we’ve got a shot at identifying the arsonist in the photos I took last night?”

“It’s a possibility,” Nick said. “In addition to watching the fire that he set he would have wanted to see if you died in the blaze.”

“If he was hanging around he knows we both escaped.”

“Yes. He must have been unnerved by the loss of his little black book of poems. And now he’s bungled his last commission. Got a feeling that will rattle him.”

“Now we wait to see if he gets desperate and reckless?”

“Right.” Nick flexed his hands on the steering wheel. “It’s Pell’s job to identify the guy and catch him. My job is to keep you safe.”

“You saved my life tonight. I’d say you’re doing your job just fine.”

“The job isn’t finished yet.”

“It strikes me that a bodyguard ought to cultivate a more positive, optimistic outlook. You know, so that the client doesn’t get too scared.”

“In my experience, scared clients tend to follow orders better than the carefree, never-take-anything-seriously kind.”

Vivian glanced down at the hem of her nightgown peeking out from beneath her trench coat. Then she looked at Nick. His hard profile was shadowed with the stubble of a morning beard. His hair was tousled and his shirt was wrinkled and smudged with soot. They both smelled of smoke.

“The front desk staff at the Burning Cove Hotel is going to get a shock when we check in,” she said. “We look like we spent the night in a sleazy nightclub and then wandered into a very bad alley. We don’t even have any luggage.”

“I think we can assume that the front desk staff at the Burning Cove is very well trained. Given the nature of their clientele, they’ve probably seen it all. I’ll bet they won’t even blink at the sight of us.”

“But we’re supposed to be posing as newlyweds, right?”

“So? We decided we couldn’t wait to get to the honeymoon suite at the Burning Cove. We spent our wedding night at a convenient beach.”

She wondered how he had spent his first wedding night. Depressed and mortified because he had been unable to consummate themarriage? Or was his bride the one who had been unable to deal with the physical side of things? Maybe he had discovered too late she was mentally unbalanced? There were not a lot of reasons for granting annulments. They ranged from humiliating to horrifying.

“Before you ask,” Nick said in the same too-even tone he had used when he had asked her if there was a man in her life. “Technically speaking, my marriage that wasn’t a marriage lasted about three weeks. The reality is that it ended on the wedding night.”

“I see,” she said gently. “I’m sure it was complicated.”

“You have no idea.”

Chapter 16

The failure was devastating. Inconceivable. First the loss of the journal and now a fumbled commission. A man could only take so much stress.

Jonathan Treyherne’s fingers trembled so badly he could barely get the key into the lock of his front door. When he finally made it over the threshold he whirled around and slammed the door shut. He took several deep breaths, trying to come to grips with what had happened.

The gas bomb should have worked. If the hastily concocted plan had gone well it would have appeared as if Brazier and her lover had died in a house fire. An accident. People died in house fires all the time. In addition Brazier was a photographer. That meant there were bound to have been a lot of chemicals and film lying around. The chemicals were not highly combustible but most people, including most cops, didn’t know that. As for the film, it was notoriously unstable and flammable.

Yes, the strategy had been put together without a lot of forethought. Nevertheless, it should have worked. But Brazier and the man hadmade it safely out of the house and now they were gone. Vanished. There was no way to know where they were at that moment; a hotel or an auto court most likely. He would find them eventually. He had to find them. There were only five days left to complete the commission. He had never missed his own, self-imposed deadlines.

He had been distracted by the theft of the journal. That was the problem.

He turned on the light and studied his reflection in the hall mirror. Nothing had changed. Good breeding, an elite education, and a handsome inheritance had endowed him with the perfect camouflage. He was every inch a member of the upper class, descended from an old, established East Coast family. No one suspected the hunter beneath the surface.

Under that charming façade, however, the hunter was howling. His book of encrypted poems had disappeared from the safe less than forty-eight hours after he had undertaken his most recent commission.

He was finding it increasingly difficult to suppress the rising panic. In his frantic effort to identify the thief he had wasted time spying on his elderly housekeeper and gardener. He had broken into their little cottage and torn the place apart. He had found nothing to indicate that they were anything but what they appeared to be—hardworking, respectable, and utterly oblivious to the true nature of their employer. In his frustration he had fired both of them.

He was equally certain that none of his former clients knew who or what he was.

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