In Search of the Dove Page 20

  Talifero swung back to face the drug distributor. “Yes.”

  “She’s the chick who got that shot of Dove back in New Orleans. Only Rome came in and messed things up for me.”

  The director’s eyes held a speculative gleam as he ran his fingers down her bare arm. “And what happened after that?” he murmured. “Was Mr. Rome the benefactor of Lonnie’s largesse?”

  She pressed her lips together.

  “I was wondering if you might let me, uh, take up where I left off with her when Rome interrupted us,” the drug dealer put in.

  Talifero laughed. “Now that’s an idea! We do have the facilities for it.”

  Jessica clenched her fingers together behind her back, her nails digging into her palms.

  The director turned to her. “Would you tell me whom you’re working for if I promised not to turn you over to Lonnie?”

  “No.” The syllable was the most difficult Jessica had ever uttered. But Talifero’s question hadn’t given her any hope. She saw no reason why he would keep his word.

  “Well, maybe I’ll let you think about it for a while.”

  At that moment there was a knock at the door. Talifero glanced at his watch. He’d forgotten that he’d made an appointment with Moonshadow to discuss tomorrow’s ceremony. Well, she was going to have to know about this new development sooner or later.

  “Come in,” he called out.

  The priestess took several paces into the room but stopped abruptly when she saw the young woman with her hands tied behind her back.

  “No, my dear. You don’t have to leave. I was just interrogating another prisoner. Maybe you could give me some suggestions on how to make her more cooperative.”

  The director put a hand on Jessica’s shoulder and turned her roughly around. She found herself facing an extremely attractive and very self-contained black woman dressed in a flowing jade caftan and matching turban. Unwillingly her eyes were drawn to the smooth tawny features, heavily accented with makeup. Her eyes squeezed shut to block out the image. An illusion. Oh, God, let it be a mistake! When she opened them again and stared at the self-possessed woman, she felt a chill freeze her heart. My God, Simone! Jessica gasped.

  The priestess drew on years of discipline. Her face betrayed nothing.

  Talifero’s gaze flicked from one woman to the other. Was there something here below the surface that he didn’t understand? “You seem to have startled Ms. Duval, Moonshadow. Do the two of you know each other?”

  Jessica held her breath, her mind reeling from the shock of the unexpected meeting—here at the Blackstone Clinic of all places. She’d seen Simone in New Orleans only last week. What words would come out of the woman’s mouth? she wondered. She seemed to be an ally of Talifero. He called her Moonshadow. She’d never heard that name. What else didn’t she know about Simone?

  “Ms. Duval and Michael Rome consulted me about the voodoo charm the police found at Lonnie’s.”

  “Quite a coincidence. Where do you suppose they got your name?”

  The black woman shrugged imperiously. “I am well known around New Orleans as being an authority on such matters. Quite probably someone recommended me to Rome.”

  “I see.” The director stroked his chin. “I’m thinking about having her join Prentiss tomorrow evening at the ceremony you’ll be conducting. Would you have any objections to offering two sacrifices to your gods?”

  “None whatsoever.” The assurance in her voice was matched by the cool indifference in the depths of her ebony eyes.

  * * *

  “GET READY TO CAST OFF right now,” Michael snapped as he jumped aboard the boat.

  Holcroft looked up, startled. He and Rome had only been back at the wharf for a few minutes. “You’re not going to wait and see if Jessica turns up?”

  “She’d not going to turn up. One of Talifero’s men got her.”

  Holcroft swore. “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely. The kid she bought the necklaces from described him to me. He’s the candy man from New Orleans who tried to kill me. He must have brought Xavier back.”

  “And you think someone’s coming back for us?”

  “Exactly.”

  Holcroft was already untying the line at the bow. Michael cast off the one at the stern. “I assume you can change the name on this tub,” he said as the CIA agent started the engine.

  “Naturally. I’ll take care of it as soon as we get out to sea.”

  Neither man spoke until they had cleared the crowded harbor.

  “I’d better put in a call to headquarters,” Michael said, heading for the lounge.

  “Yeah.” And ask XP 251 what we’re supposed to do now, Holcroft added silently.

  * * *

  A BURLY ATTENDANT opened the metal door of the dimly lit little room and shoved Jessica inside. She landed on the cement floor in a heap. For a moment she lay still, struggling to catch her breath. Her head was still spinning.

  Her old friend Simone was there, apparently working with Talifero and mixed up in this drug thing. It was hard to believe, but it must be true. Suddenly pieces of a puzzle fell into place. She remembered the day Simone had come to Aubrey’s apartment. She’d tried to talk Jessica out of probing into the drug scene. The words had sounded so earnest. But she hadn’t been worried about her old friend at all. She’d been protecting her own interests.

  When she’d failed with Jessica, she’d set the trap for Michael at the cemetery. And Jessica had unwittingly helped Simone by introducing her to Michael. The thought made her head throb. Why hadn’t she been able to read Simone’s duplicity? The answer was all too clear now. The woman was a voodoo priestess. She had probably fashioned the talisman that had burned her, which meant she had powers beyond Jessica’s wildest dreams. She hadn’t come around or written after Aubrey’s death because she was already down here with Talifero.

  Now Jessica knew why she had reacted in her vision to the director’s reference to the visiting voodoo mambo. He’d been talking about Simone.

  For a long time she was too heartsick and disoriented to move. When she finally raised her face and glanced around her cell, she was startled to see that she wasn’t alone. In the corner of the room, sitting on a narrow mattress that rested directly on the floor, was a broad-shouldered man. He was wearing only a pair of faded jeans. His hair was matted and his skin was pale. There were rope burns around his wrists and ankles and cuts across his broad chest. Jed. So he was still alive. Thank God for that at least.

  She stared at him, remembering how she had been drawn into his mind, wanting to comfort him when he’d been in pain. Now, though battered by his captives, he appeared completely unapproachable on any sort of personal level.

  He regarded her with cynical interest. “Well, what have we here?” he questioned.

  “I—”

  “It was just a rhetorical question, honey,” he cut her off abruptly, his look condescending. This was probably just another one of Talifero’s tricks. “They’ve put you in here for some purpose. Probably to get me to talk.”

  He’d suffered through that tricarbotane torture without talking. He certainly wasn’t going to give anything away to this woman—no matter how innocent she looked. “Maybe you don’t know it, but we’re live on TV right now.” He pointed toward a small round opening near the ceiling.

  Jessica gulped and nodded.

  “So, whether you’re one of the unfortunate inmates of this asylum, or one of Talifero’s confederates, or even a fellow prisoner, I don’t have anything to say to you.” He crossed his arms and looked toward the cinderblock wall.

  Jessica closed her eyes for a moment, struggling to assimilate his defiant words. Jed. He’d gone through so much, and he was still fighting them. Would she have that kind of courage when they tortured her? And how could she get through to him now?

  “Do I have to sit on the cold floor?” she finally asked him.

  He shrugged and moved to one end of the mattress. “I guess not.”
<
br />   Jessica scooted over beside him. For several minutes they sat in silence. She had to communicate with him, tell him what was happening. But how? They couldn’t talk. It would be suicidal to let Talifero in on Michael’s plans. God, if she could only project her thoughts. But that power was beyond her.

  “I’m frightened,” she murmured, trying to reach him with her eyes as much as her voice. That was no lie. She was terrified, more than ever now that she knew about Simone.

  “I don’t particularly want to hear about it.”

  Another long silence followed. She might as well have not been in the room. She used the time to think of and discard ideas. Could they communicate in some sort of code?

  A workable plan began to form in her mind. After shooting Jed another quick look, she reached out and clasped his hand so that her fingers were against his large palm. When he tried to pull away, she covered his hand with her other one. “Please,” she whispered. She felt the tension in his body.

  Angling herself so that their hands were hidden from the camera, she scratched her thumb down his palm.

  From under hooded lashes, he gave her a questioning look.

  “Please, I’m frightened. Just let me hold on to you,” she repeated.

  He said nothing, but he didn’t withdraw from the contact.

  She scored his skin again. This time, instead of a straight line, she made a letter “F.”

  He nodded almost imperceptibly. He understood what she was doing.

  Slowly, writing with her thumb, she spelled out the word “Falcon.”

  She heard him draw in his breath. His blue eyes probed her face.

  With their hands still hidden from the camera, he reversed the process, spelling out a word in her palm.

  “How?”

  “Rome.”

  For the first time, hope flickered in his eyes. He studied her face, then shifted so that she could lean more comfortably against him.

  “When?”

  She rested her head against his shoulder, glad for the simple human comfort.

  “Tomorrow.”

  “You?”

  “Jessica.”

  Had he met her before? He didn’t think so. Yet there was something familiar about her, as if he somehow knew her. The Falcon must have sent her and Michael down there. He could only assume that she had gotten captured or let herself be taken in order to facilitate the rescue. But there was another explanation for her presence in this cell, he reminded himself. If Talifero had somehow gotten hold of the word Falcon, it could all be a clever trap. But then he’d also have to know about Michael Rome.

  Jed closed his eyes, not wanting her to read his sudden vulnerability. There were a thousand questions he wanted, needed to ask—questions that would take all day to spell out in the palm of her hand. But then it looked as though neither one of them was going anywhere.

  * * *

  “DUVAL AND PRENTISS have been locked in that cell together for six hours now. They’re sitting huddled together like two dogs trying to keep warm. But as far as I can tell, they’ve hardly said a word.” Talifero walked over to the sideboard and poured himself a drink. Then he turned back to Simone. “I have half a mind to take Lonnie up on his offer. Maybe after an hour or so with him, our new prisoner will be willing to talk.”

  The priestess shook her head. “I can’t allow that.”

  “What do you mean you can’t allow it? I give the orders down here.”

  “In the old days, a woman used in the ceremony would have been a virgin.”

  Talifero laughed. “I assume it’s a little late for that with Ms. Duval.”

  “But still, she must be as pure as possible. Letting an animal like Lonnie defile her so soon before the ceremony would make her entirely unacceptable to the great loa.”

  Talifero muttered an oath. “Do you honestly believe that nonsense?”

  Moonshadow drew herself up straighter in her chair. “So you consider my religion nonsense.”

  “Your religion! It’s just a tool you use to make your living.”

  “You have a rather distorted view of me, Jackson.”

  “Oh, no, my dear, I have a very clear perception of you. But for some reason of your own, you obviously have your heart set on making tomorrow’s ritual authentic, so I won’t stand in your way.” He was willing to humor the woman for the moment. He didn’t want one of her tantrums messing things up with Gorlov, and until he had control of the island, she was still a threat. But as soon as the coup was over, he was going to take personal pleasure in breaking her.

  The priestess inclined her head slightly. “In that case, I’d appreciate it if you’d move her to a cell by herself for the night.”

  “I was going to do that anyway.”

  * * *

  JESSICA SHIFTED on her mattress and tried to get comfortable. Though it was dark and quiet in her tiny cell, sleep eluded her. She tried to mentally detach herself from the claustrophobic surroundings—let her mind find Michael. But some force seemed to hold her spirit bound as effectively as the locked door kept her body from escaping.

  When two of Talifero’s goons had come to separate her from Jed, she’d struggled violently, terrified that she was going to be handed over to Lonnie. But she’d simply been taken to a solitary room and left with a bowl of water and some thin stew for dinner. She’d been afraid the food might be drugged. But after a few cautious tastes, she’d been hungry enough to finish the stuff. If that was what the patients there got regularly, she felt damned sorry for them.

  There was a metal clank at the door of her cell, and Jessica tensed. Were they coming to get her after all?

  “Jessica?” a voice whispered in the darkness. “I must talk to you.”

  She sat up. The voice was Simone’s.

  “Come over here and put your face near the crack in the door. Hurry. I must turn on the TV camera again very soon, before someone suspects.”

  “I have nothing to say to you.”

  “Hurry. I’m trying to save your life.”

  Stiffly she got up and moved to the door. “Why should I believe you?” she whispered.

  “It’s your only hope of survival. But if I’m going to help you, I must know who came down here with you.”

  So that was it. A trap for Michael. Jessica pressed her lips together.

  “Jessica!”

  “I have nothing to say to you. Go away and leave me alone.”

  “Don’t you understand? The ceremony tomorrow will be a human sacrifice. You and Jed.”

  “You’re on Talifero’s side. Why should you do anything for me?”

  “I tried to warn you off. I never intended for you to get mixed up in this, but Talifero is a powerful man. I had to obey him.”

  “Then how can you defy him now?”

  “A calculated risk. I believe I can defeat him once and for all.”

  “Why do you need to know who I came here with?”

  “So they can rescue you.”

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  “Trust me.”

  Jessica squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. She wanted to believe, but it was impossible. “I can’t.”

  * * *

  THERE WAS NO WAY he could get to sleep, Michael thought, shifting uncomfortably on the narrow bunk. He already knew what they had done to Jed. He wondered what they might be doing to Jessica and clenched his fists.

  Jessica! Had he really walked away from her in the library back at the Aviary? He remembered when she’d needed him, how her body had moved frantically against his, how his arms had tightened around her, soothed her. He remembered the taste of her mouth, her sweetness, her insistence that she was responding to him, not just the drug. Then later, when she had almost literally brought him back from the dead, how she had held him in turn, comforted him, given him everything that a woman could give a man. Given him her love.

  Her love. He pictured her face that night, the tenderness in her eyes mixed with the passion. She had given him more than
he was willing to accept. Though she had been afraid to tell him how she felt, she had still given. Unselfishly, without reserve. He had repaid her with rejection.

  Jess, he thought. Oh, God, Jess. You mean so much to me, and I never got a chance to tell you. I was afraid to open myself up to you, terrified I was just going to hurt you. I’m going to try to get you out of there. If I can, Jess. If I can.

  Suddenly the cabin was too oppressive, too closed in. He had to get out into the open air. Swinging his legs over the side, he eased himself down to the deck. A quick glance told him Holcroft was sleeping. Moving quietly so as not to disturb the agent, he climbed the stairs to the aft deck and stood looking back toward the dark shoreline. He felt as if something was searching for him in the night, and he must respond.

  The disembodied presence came across the dark water seeking him, tentatively at first and then with more assurance. He felt something—no, someone—touch his mind and knew that he was neither dreaming nor fully awake.

  Michael Rome! I dared not hope to find you here. But I should have known.

  He didn’t exactly hear words, but his mind turned the disembodied thoughts into language. “Who are you?” His heart leapt. “Jess?”

  Not Jessica. A friend.

  The sound that wasn’t sound solidified in his mind. A woman. He knew her and yet he didn’t. He tried to bring her image into focus. She blocked his efforts.

  Better not to see me. Don’t waste time trying. I can communicate like this only briefly.

  “How did you find me?”

  You were thinking of Jessica. Strong thoughts. Loving thoughts. Despairing thoughts.

  “Why are you here?”

  The ceremony tomorrow. Jessica is to be part of it—with Jed.

  He cursed softly. He had been afraid of that.

  Do not despair. You can rescue them. Directions came to him in staccato phrases and sentences. Don’t come by water. Circle Blackstone to the west and approach the ceremonial grounds from the back. Fewer guards. It will seem that your friends are being slain. A sham. There will be a diversion. Wait until then to make your move.

  “Who are you? Why are you telling me this?”

  Together we can stop Talifero.