Tall, Dark and Deadly Read online

  “Then let me spoil you for a few more nights.”

  “And after that,” she said sadly, “I’ll go home. And you’ll...who knows what you’ll do—or where you’ll go.”

  “Wherever my fancy leads me. It’s a big world out there. You should give it a whirl.”

  “That’s what I’m doing!” she said. “I never meant to be in the depths of the rain forest—or in Porte Ivoire, for that matter. This is all so new to me.”

  “And yet you said just now that you came to find me, Dana.”

  “You heard? Do you think that’s crazy?”

  “No. I think it’s wonderful.”

  “And true, somehow. My whole life is changing, and I keep wondering how—and why.”

  He kissed her lips. “That’s your problem.”

  “What?”

  “All that wondering.” He kissed her again, enraptured by the taste of her, the feel of her body molded against his. “All that professorial analyzing. It’s not good for you.”

  “And you know what’s good for me, I suppose?” she asked teasingly.

  “Of course I do. I know what’s good for both of us.” He covered her body with his. “We’ll put up the tent later.”

  * * *

  SOMETIME during the night he kept his word, waking long enough to get the tent up and staked before returning to her arms. They slept and woke again, making love gently and languidly.

  Just after sunrise, he slipped away, mumbling something in her ear about reconnoitering a trail. She nodded and snuggled up in the sleeping bag, expecting to go back to sleep. But it wasn’t the same without him.

  Dana stretched sensuously, touched her lips, which were bruised and swollen, then moved around in the sleeping bag, trying to get comfortable. Her lips weren’t the only place she was sore, she admitted to herself with a blush. She ran her hands along her body, holding onto the memories of the night as long as she could. She wouldn’t let the old suspicions ruin what had happened between her and Alex. It had been special and wonderful; because of it, everything was different now.

  Taking her time, Dana used a little extra water from their supply to clean up and brush her teeth. As she dressed, she found herself singing. How long had it been since she’d sung in the morning? She smiled. As a teenager, she’d sung in the shower, and from the looks of the sky, she might find herself doing just that again.

  Storm clouds scudded across the sun, and the air was heavy with the scent of rain. They’d yet to face the Congo’s torrential rains, but it looked like they weren’t going to escape them much longer. A few drops were already coming down.

  Dana ducked into the tent. She hadn’t brought along any rainwear, but she imagined Alex had, since he was familiar with the jungle weather. She pulled out his backpack and unzipped it, rummaging through the clothes. Plastic rain covers were usually folded into small bundles and stuffed into a pouch. She felt into the corners—nothing but clothes, even some of hers that he’d agreed to fit into his pack.

  But there was an outside compartment. She unzipped it and to her relief found a large leather bag. Good, she thought, he’d brought more than one. But when she opened the clasps, Dana found, not plastic raincoats, but layers of protective wrapping. Curious, she pulled away the cotton batting. It covered a heavy object, wrapped in a layer of tissue.

  Dana held it in her hands, a frown crossing her forehead. For a long moment she knelt beside his pack, holding whatever it was, weighing it in her hands before pulling away the tissue. When she did, her fingers moved slowly, carefully, as if she was dissecting the object, layer by layer.

  Then her heart jumped to her throat as she looked at her discovery, an elephant statue, about eight inches high and weighing three or four pounds, made of a shiny metal. Could it be gold? And the jewels encrusted on it, could they be diamonds, rubies and sapphires? If so, she was holding a king’s ransom in her hands.

  At that thought, a cold hand seemed to close around her heart. Of course, it was real. Alex wouldn’t have broken her out of jail to help him sneak a worthless fake out of the country. If he’d come by the statue honestly, he wouldn’t have created an elaborate subterfuge about secret agents and government terrorists to enlist her aid. It was horribly clear. He was smuggling a priceless golden statue out of the country—not secret documents!

  As she stood up, prepared to scream out her anguish and betrayal to the hovering sky, Alex opened the flap of the tent. She thrust the elephant toward him. “You bastard,” she shouted, “you lying bastard.”

  Chapter Nine

  “What the hell’s going on?” Alex’s voice was filled with anger.

  But Dana’s fury matched his as she stood before him. “There were never any secret documents!”

  “Wait a minute!” He reached for her arm.

  “You weren’t on a patriotic mission for the French government,” she went on, pulling away from him. “You’re a thief, Alex Jourdan. A thief!” She shook the elephant in his face.

  “And what do you call yourself, Dana? What do you call a person who searches someone else’s belongings?”

  “I wasn’t searching,” she defended. “I was looking for a poncho. It’s raining, or hadn’t you noticed?”

  “They’re in the other compartment,” he said, seemingly unperturbed. “As for the elephant, I can explain.”

  “I’ll bet you can. Wait, let me guess. You won this in a poker game, just like the hotel.” Her voice dripped with sarcasm. “Admit it, Alex,” she continued, looking at the jewel-laden statue. “This is stolen property.”

  “You’re wrong.” He moved all the way into the tent, closing the flap against the rain, which had intensified. “The Elephant d’Or belongs to the man who holds it in his hand at the moment.” He took it from her. “I’m that man.”

  “How clever.” She was amazed by his brazen response. Instead of showing embarrassment—or even anger—at her discovery, he managed to find a convenient excuse for himself. “And how did you happen to become that man?”

  He smiled. “It didn’t happen. It was planned. Louis—”

  “Louis?” In spite of the torpid heat, made worse by the rain, Dana felt a cold shiver along her spine.

  “Yes, Louis brought the elephant upriver from Brazzaville, and I—”

  “And you killed him for it!” All of Dana’s suspicions, pushed out of her mind when Alex made love to her, came rushing back.

  “No, Dana.”

  “Yes, you killed Louis and took the elephant. You killed him!”

  The suspicions surged into one awful moment, and she reacted instinctively, pushing past him and out of the tent, running blindly, wildly, with no thought of where she was going. All she wanted was to get away—from him. Alex had killed for the elephant and then lied to her, used her, betrayed her. Would she be the next to die?

  The rain forest gave way to swampy lowlands, and as she ran Dana felt briers and vines pull at her, grab her, wrap her in their snarled tendrils. Frantically, she sped on, heart pounding, lungs screaming for air. The rain pounded against her, washing the spurts of blood from her scratched arms and legs.

  Alex came out of nowhere, a powerful force that hit her from behind and brought her to the ground. At first she was stunned, the breath knocked out of her, but as soon as she regained her senses, Dana struggled frantically.

  It was hopeless; his body covered hers, and he held her in a powerful grip. She could taste the mud that covered her face.

  “Listen to me, Dana. You can’t run away. There’s nowhere for you to go.”

  That made her wilder, and she fought against him. “Away from you—that’s where I’ll go!” she cried.

  “All right. If that’s what you want, I’ll let you leave. But first you’re going to listen to me.”

  “What choice do I have?” she said, almost choking in the mud.

  “As a matter of fact, none.” He got up and pulled her to her feet. The pelting rain stung her face, washing away the mud. He dragged her under a
huge tree. “Sit down,” he said, “and listen to me.”

  She fell back against the tree trunk and dropped to the ground. Its enormous branches gave at least some protection from the rain. He sank down beside her.

  “I did not kill Louis,” he said emphatically. “He was my closest friend.”

  “Louis also had the elephant.”

  “That was our plan.”

  “And your supposed feud, that was also planned?” she asked skeptically.

  “Of course. We didn’t want any connection between us. When Louis removed the elephant—”

  “Removed? Is that the new word for stole?” she asked.

  “I’ll never be able to explain if you keep interrupting.”

  Dana’s response was a derisive grunt. She might as well be quiet and let him talk. “Could we at least get out of this infernal rain?”

  “I wasn’t sure you wanted to go back to the tent,” he said.

  “If I’m going to be subjected to another one of your lies, I’m damned if I’m going to do it sitting here in the rain.”

  He pulled her to her feet and all but dragged her back to camp. She half ran along beside him, cursing aloud. When they got to the tent, she wrenched herself from his grip and went inside.

  He tossed her a towel from his recently ransacked belongings. “Louis Bertrand was a man of many talents. He got to the elephant logically, by supplying the wine for a party in Brazzaville. Of course, he brought a special bottle of brandy as a gift for the host, a wealthy and particularly specious collector. The brandy contained an additive—”

  “Naturally, the evil owner of the elephant deserved to die,” she said in her nastiest tone.

  “At first you accuse me of killing Louis, and now you call him a thief and murderer.”

  “A type that doesn’t appeal to me, dead or alive.”

  “For God’s sake, shut up and listen. Louis only drugged the man. Then he removed the elephant from a cabinet where it was always stored, away from view. The next day, he took the Congo Queen to Porte Ivoire, hiding the prize in Father Theroux’s bag.”

  “He used an innocent priest to carry stolen goods?”

  “The priest never knew, Dana.”

  “That doesn’t make it right,” she argued. “It’s never right to use another person. The way you used me,” she added bitterly, “the way you used Louis to deliver the elephant. Then you killed him.”

  “I didn’t kill him!” Alex’s voice was raised to a shout; the veins in his neck protruded. His anger frightened Dana into silence. All she could do was watch him—and remember. She remembered being in his arms, making love to him, her body filled with passion. The thought of the intimacy they’d shared repelled her.

  When Alex spoke again, it was in a calmer voice.

  “Louis was my partner in this. When he reached Porte Ivoire, he transferred the elephant to me as planned, and since he and I were supposedly enemies, no one suspected that I had it. The killer thought it was on Louis or in his room. He—or she—found out differently. The search turned up nothing.”

  Dana listened without comment.

  “But the killer assumed the elephant was still somewhere in Porte Ivoire, and eventually he—or she—would find it. With Louis dead and the Congo Queen broken down, there’d be time for a thorough search. No one counted on my involvement. Or on your knowing about the Mgembe. Or on us taking off together with the elephant.”

  After a long silence she asked, “Let me see it.”

  Alex reached in his pack, pulled out the statue and handed it to her. For the first time, she examined the elephant closely. Never in her life had she seen anything so exquisite. The tiny tusks were made of ivory tipped with diamonds, the eyes of sapphires that were almost purple. She turned it in her hand. The collar was studded with rubies, and a huge emerald was embedded in the golden saddle. “It must be worth—”

  “It’s priceless, Dana. The Elephant d’Or was made by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century, either in Africa or India. It has belonged to rajas and dukes, princes, thieves, men both good and evil. Over the centuries, it has been stolen and restolen countless times, and has no real owner. No provenance. Sales slips don’t come with the elephant.”

  She returned it to him. “It belongs in a museum, not in the hands of criminals.”

  He looked at her sharply and then shrugged. “Let’s just say that Louis set it free.”

  “And paid for that with his life,” Dana replied sadly. “And you’re trying to tell me that one of the people who traveled with me on the Congo Queen murdered him? It doesn’t make sense. They’re tourists, not killers, they—”

  “Were all at the party in Brazzaville,” he finished for her. “One of them could have known about the elephant and followed Louis to Porte Ivoire.”

  “Who, Millicent, for God’s sake? Father Theroux? It’s not possible.”

  “Anything is possible when such a prize is involved. Millie has lived in the Congo for years. She knew about the legend of the elephant. Hell, everyone did. As for Betty and her boyfriend, I’m sure you’ll agree that together they’re capable of anything.”

  “But they didn’t know where the elephant was,” she reminded him.

  “Come on, Dana. An amateur could have solved that mystery. As for the murder, any of them could have learned to use a blowgun. And God knows, all of them could have used the money. But Longongo, with his contacts through the government, is my number-one suspect.”

  And you are mine, Dana thought. It would have been so easy for Alex, after getting what he wanted, to kill Louis and make it look as if she did it. She stopped in midthought. Not only could Alex be a murderer, he probably framed her, broke her out of jail, used her. And then what? She didn’t want to think of his next move.

  “You’ll never be able to sell it,” she said flatly. “Who would buy what you said yourself is a prize, a legend that people know about, probably all over the world.”

  “Remember, it’s been bought and sold many times in the past. There’re plenty of collectors out there who’d give a right arm for the Elephant d’Or.”

  “I’d think the Egyptian would want it back. Hasn’t he called the police?”

  “The police?” Alex repeated sarcastically. “The guy lives on the edge of the law. He’s hardly the type who’d invite the police into his private dealings. Besides,” he added cynically, “the police would be just as likely to rip off the elephant as anyone.”

  “No one should rip it off. It belongs in a museum,” she insisted again. “If you had any sense of right or wrong, any honor—”

  “Honor?” he scoffed. “Honor versus half a million dollars? Think again, Dana. I have as much right to this statue as anyone. It’s mine now, and I’m going to hold onto it.”

  “I’ll never understand that kind of thinking.”

  “I’m not asking you to,” he said. “I’m just telling you the facts. Now, we’d better get going. We have a timetable to meet.”

  “You have a timetable, Alex. I don’t.”

  “What do you plan to do, Dana, stay here in the jungle? Try to make your way back to Porte Ivoire and jail? Whether you like it or not, your best choice is with me.” He hesitated a beat. “Besides, I’m taking the tent.”

  His humor didn’t amuse her, not when she had been lied to and used. Not when the possibility was still very strong that she was traveling with a killer.

  * * *

  BY THE TIME they’d packed and were ready to leave camp, Dana realized that Alex hadn’t put the statue back in the same place. It was hidden somewhere else, and she didn’t ask where; she didn’t want to know.

  The rain, which had subsided for a while began again, turning their path into a stream of rushing water. It gushed around her ankles and filled her shoes, but Dana kept going, damned if she’d fall behind, even when they came to a gully that under normal circumstances would be a challenge. In the rain it was hell. But she made it across. On the far bank, she dug into the muddy foothole
s left by Alex and persevered, moving ahead—and then slipping. Just as she neared the top she slipped again—and went down, all the way down. She landed at the bottom on her backside, but when he came back to get her, offering a hand, she refused.

  After a few horrendous attempts, she finally made it out, and Dana wasn’t surprised that he didn’t bother to acknowledge the feat. He simply moved on. Doggedly, she followed, hating him, cursing the pelting rain and herself for listening to Alex in the first place. How could she have been taken in by his secret-documents-for-the-greater-good story?

  Because she’d been desperate—and in jail. Because he offered a real solution and, finally, because she wanted to believe him.

  The rain ended suddenly, and the sun blazed from a cloudless blue sky, leaving the swamp a steamy, sweltering greenhouse. Mosquitoes swarmed incessantly in air so heavy with moisture that breathing was a challenge. Dana’s clothes were wet and cloying against her skin, but she was determined not to complain to Alex. She would keep on walking until she dropped.

  He followed a primitive path, pushing through undergrowth, and she tried to keep up. If she lagged behind, the wet branches that he passed would snap back and slap her in the face.

  As she hurried along, Dana ducked under a particularly low-hanging tree and felt something land on her. She assumed it was a branch. But it was too heavy. It weighed her down, and when she fought for balance, she realized what had happened and let a scream from the deepest primal depths of fear and loathing.

  “A snake! Oh, my God, Alex, get it off. Get it off!”

  The reptile had fallen from the limb and looped itself over her shoulders. She could feel the undulating muscles beneath its smooth skin as it slithered across her shoulders and wrapped around her neck. Fighting to free herself from the reptile, she lost her balance and fell to her knees, looking directly into the wedge-shaped head and flickering tongue. She closed her eyes and screamed again.

  Alex was already beside her, and with one hand he grasped the snake behind its head. With the other he lifted it off of her, heaving it into the bushes.

  Dana collapsed against him, and for one heady moment his arms were around her. “It’s gone,” he said. “You’re all right.”