Wishing to God he had a pair of tweezers, he tore off a piece of the brown wrapping paper and dropped the numbered sticker onto the middle of it, then folded it into a credit card-size packet and tucked it carefully away in his wallet. If he ever got out of this damn truck, he’d see that the boys at Quantico got a look at it. Who knows, maybe they’d get lucky, turn up a print, although in reality the chances of that were pretty slim.

No, his best bet was going to be to backtrack to that auction house, try to pick up the buyer of the other painting. The original number 187. Unless the guy had pulled a multiple switch, in which case he’d have to track down every one of those damn paintings. He was going to have to call in help, of course, but even so, the odds were, by the time they got to it, the key to Jarek Singh’s computer files would be long gone on its way to the highest bidder, in another sort of auction altogether. The thought of that happening chilled him to his very bones.

“Any chance of you remembering that other number?” he asked without much hope. He felt very tired.

Jane made a small sound, either a sigh or a stifled yawn. “Probably not. I have a terrible memory for numbers. But I could look it up in my catalog for you, if you like.”

Hawk, whose last remaining hopes had collapsed with her first sentence, didn’t know whether to strangle or kiss her. Well, to be truthful, he did know. And it was surprising the hell out of him, the way that notion kept popping into his mind.

“That would be nice,” he said with polite irony. Then he added, as she instantly began digging in her tote bag again, “I didn’t mean now. No point in it. Why don’t you wait until we’ve got some light?”

“Oh-okay.” She paused, her hands and the flashlight draped over her tote bag, to say thoughtfully, “So, I guess whoever bought the other painting, the one with my number on it…must have this disk, or whatever. Is that what you think?”

“Looks like it.”

Jane was silent, chewing her lip, her shadowed, unreadable gaze directed away from him, staring at nothing. But something about her seemed to radiate tension; Hawk’s own heightened senses picked it up, like the subtle vibrations of electricity near power lines. A tiny chill of warning crept across his skin, the way it always did when he knew someone was lying to him. But he thought, No, not Jane. And ignored the sensation, putting it down to nerves, frustration, his own general antsyness.

“If we could just get out of this damn truck!” The vehemence in her voice as she spoke his own desire out loud surprised him; she’d seemed so unflappable up till now.

“Yeah, well, nothing we can do until they stop,” he reminded her. “Meanwhile, why don’t you turn that thing off, save the batteries? Try and get some sleep.”

She made a funny, high sound, like a laugh-as in, “Are you kidding?” But she didn’t say a word about being hungry, or thirsty, or wanting to use a bathroom, or any number of other things she must have been in need of. He knew he sure was-all of the above.

The light went out. A few moments of silence ticked by, filled with the rhythmic thrumming of the truck’s tires on pavement. And then she began to sing softly, huskily, “‘Hello, darkness. my old friend…”’

It had been one of Jen’s favorite songs. She’d loved Simon and Garfunkel.

What the hell’s going on? Hawk’s heart was pounding. Who the hell was this Carlysle woman, anyway? And why was it every time she opened her mouth, one way or another she seemed to say something that made him feel as if he’d been punched in the gut?

I sure didn’t count on this, he thought as he stared into the blackness above his head.

And then he wasn’t certain what he meant by that. Because he hadn’t counted on a lot of things. He hadn’t counted on Jane Carlysle, for one, and the way he kept seeing her face in his mind, and thinking about how good it would feel to touch her. To make love to her, yes, but also, and much more incomprehensibly, just to hold her, and go to sleep with her wrapped in his arms.

He also hadn’t counted on running into memories of Jen every time he turned around. It couldn’t help but occur to him to wonder if the two were somehow connected.

For almost seven years he’d kept those memories locked away in the deepest, darkest dungeons of his soul, ruthlessly squelching every attempt they’d made to break free. Now, suddenly, ever since the moment this woman had entered his life, somehow or another things kept reminding him of Jen.

He didn’t know why, either, she didn’t look at all like Jenny…well, except maybe in a superficial way. Both had dark hair worn short and curly, and were on the tall side of medium height. But Jen’s eyes had been golden brown, warm and intriguing, the color of brandy, not the sea. And where Jane had a certain quietness about her that seemed to invite confidences, Jenny had been feisty, with that arrogance he’d fallen for the very first time he’d laid eyes on her.

He found himself smiling even now, in the darkness, thinking of the way she’d pranced out on that diving board…

Smiling? How was it that a memory of Jenny could make him smile? But hurt, too, way down deep inside. What was happening to him?

Whatever it was, he wasn’t ready for it. The timing couldn’t be worse.

“Carlysle?” There was no answer. But even though he thought she was probably asleep, he went ahead, in a voice he didn’t know. “Just wanted to say thanks.”

There was more he’d meant to say, more he should have said, but hell, she wasn’t going to hear it anyway. Just as well. Evidently she’d been tired enough to override all her discomforts, after all. Let her sleep, he thought. He’d take the first watch-he didn’t want to risk being asleep when the damn truck finally did stop.

Chapter 9

Jane was very tired but too keyed up to sleep. It had been a long time since she’d experienced so many emotions, a roller coaster of emotions, in such a short span of time. Right now she didn’t know what to feel. She didn’t know what to think.

And she didn’t want to think. The notion that had come to her was so…unthinkable. And so persistent. It kept tapping her on the shoulder, trying to get her attention, and she kept pushing it away, telling herself, No…it can’t be. It’s ridiculous. I won’t believe it.

But how else to explain everything? It all fit.

She supposed that what she felt more than anything, besides hungry, of course, was frightened. She actually had knots in her stomach-though that could have been hunger. But she didn’t think so. And she kept shivering, with a deep-down-inside cold that had nothing to do with the temperature of the van.

“Carlysle?” Again Tom Hawkins probed the blackness with what he probably imagined was a whisper. “Hey-you cold? You’re shivering.”

She didn’t want to answer, afraid that if she did she might have to give voice to her thoughts. Terrible thoughts. Impossible thoughts. She fought to control the trembling, tried to make fier breathing slow and deep and even.

She heard rustlings, felt Tom moving around next to her, felt the faintest brush of air against her cheeks. And then something warm came across her arms and chest, settled around her shoulders, enveloped her like a warm bath, seeped through her insides like a cup of cocoa on a cold morning, It smelled strongly of tobacco, and old leather and man. It was Tom’s jacket. He’d taken off his own jacket and put it over her.

A curious warmth crept over her, and again it had nothing to do with temperature. It was more like a sunrise, the warmth that comes from light, touched with wonder, a revelation of sorts. When had anyone ever done such a thing for her before? She tried hard to remember. Certainly David never had.

It’s the little things, she thought for the second time that day.

And then she wondered if she’d been wrong about that, and whether maybe those things, the thoughtful little gestures, like holding a cigarette so the smoke doesn’t blow in someone’s face, the caring touch of a jacket selflessly shared…maybe those were the biggest things of all.

She’d never been able to explain, to her own or anyone else’s satisfaction, just what it was that had driven her to tell David, on the eve of their twenty-first wedding anniversary, that she wanted a divorce. She remembered that David had asked her, still in shock and disbelief, “Why? What have I done? Have I ever abused you, been unfaithful to you? What?” So many of her friends, and even her mother, had suggested she was only suffering the normal discontent of middle age. How she’d come to loathe the term “midtife crisis.”

Oddly enough, it had been the two people closest to, and most affected by, the breakup who’d been the most supportive of her decision. As much as they loved their dad. Lynn and Tracy had always seemed to understand. Never once had they contributed to Jane’s already overwhelming burden of guilt She’d always wondered if it was perhaps because they’d been old enough to witness and judge from a woman’s perspective rather than a child’s. Because, already experimenting with relationships of their own, they’d sensed on an almost instinctive level the soulcrushing loneliness she’d suffered in hers.

Married. Jane had been the most “alone” person she knew, a single in a world of couples. She’d never even known what it felt like to be a couple. Other married people she knew always seemed to refer to themselves as “us,” or “we.” Jane had never thought of herself and David that way. How could she, when every decision, all the work and worry and responsibility involving the children and household had been hers and hers alone? David’s world and only concern had been his work, his business, and it had been a world he’d kept separate and secret from his wife, guarded as jealously as a miser hoards his riches.

After so many years, she’d stopped questioning the way things were between them, even made little jokes about it: “Oh, yes, David and I get along great, as long as we don’t do anything together!” And she’d known all along that something, something important, was missing.

But this is what I wanted, she thought as she lay awake in the swaying moving van, steeped in the warmth and wonder of Tom Hawkins’s old leather jacket. This is what I meant when I told David I wanted a chance before it was too late. A chance…to feel loved. A chance to feel cherished. Valued. This.

The “little” things? But that’s what makes it all work. Things like this. Now I know.

And she thought how ironic it was, and how damned unfair that she should have to learn this from a stranger, a man just passing through her life, this man from Interpol with eyes like broken promises and a face that looked as if it had been caught between a rock and a hard place.


The van had stopped again. It had done so before, briefly, but not under circumstances where it would have been advisable, or even possible, to attract someone’s attention by pounding on the doors. Twice they’d gone over scales, and once over what Hawk was almost certain was a very long bridge, or perhaps a causeway. Since then their progress had been slow, stop-and-go, which made him fairly sure they were no longer on the interstate, and therefore, logic told him, most likely nearing their destination.

And then the truck’s tires had rumbled across something holtow-sounding-another bridge perhaps? But no, too short to be a bridge. And now at last the van sat almost motionless, the floor vibrating with the idling purr of the tractor’s powerful diesel engine. Far off and very faintly, he heard a door slam.

“Carlysle,” he said hoarsely, nudging the part of her closest to him, which he suspected was, once again, her bottom. Thumbing on the flashlight, he confirmed that yes, she had scooted herself down and was sleeping curled on her side with her head pillowed on her tote bag, and that it was indeed her fanny tucked in cozily against his thighs.

He leaned across the swell of her hip and pulled the collar of his jacket away from her face. She stirred, and he said again, “Cartyste-hey, wake up. Rise and shine.”

And then, for some reason, he left the light there and watched her come awake, watched her features warm and liven and become magically, uniquely Jane, while thoughts and emotions flitted through his head like bats in the twilight. Thoughts that came and went too quickly to identify, emotions he wouldn’t have wanted to hold on to even if he could have managed to capture them. I want…I wish… No! I don’t. I don’t.

He realized that she was squinting, blinking in protest at the light, and moved it to one side. “Hate to wake you,” he said gruffly, “but it looks like we may be getting out of here soon. Thought you might want to, uh, make yourself presentable.”