the kitchen. Let me do what I do best.”
And Horn thought that finally McKendrick was being honest with him. Now that it was too late. “Beth…”
McKendrick shook his head. “Beth doesn’t get a say in this. When it’s all sorted, she and I are going to have a long discussion about what she’s done. I don’t know what came over her. I understand that she was hurt by Patrick’s death, and again by finding you here, and some of the things you’ve said didn’t exactly help. But to deliberately try to get someone killed … I don’t know. Maybe she needs to talk to someone.”
Horn wasn’t even listening. He was staring at the screen. Shock emptied his voice. “You said he wouldn’t hurt her…”
When McKendrick realized what Horn was saying, he spun back to the monitor.
The man in the courtyard had finally run out of patience.
CHAPTER 15
AT FIRST SHE DIDN’T STRUGGLE because she thought it was all part of the pantomime. She tried to look frightened—it wasn’t difficult, surrendering herself to the hands of a man who killed for money would have made anyone nervous—and hoped her father would give in before she got a stiff neck. She wondered about squealing a little, or whimpering, but she was afraid of over-egging the cake. She always felt Mack didn’t really know her well, but he knew her better than that. She wasn’t a whimpering sort of girl. She was a knee-in-the-groin sort of girl. A climber. Maybe not in the same class as Patrick and Nicky Horn, but a climber nonetheless.
Which is how she came to be in the courtyard. Hanratty’s man hadn’t broken in and got her: she’d climbed down, from her room beside William’s, above the lockdown. While McKendrick was in the hall she couldn’t raise the shutters, but that wasn’t a problem for someone who knew how to rappel and kept her old ropes coiled in a rucksack at the bottom of her wardrobe.
She could have waited. Like Horn, she believed that a professional would breach any security sooner or later. But she also believed, like McKendrick, that the longer the hit man could be kept at bay, the greater the chance of something happening to alter the balance of power. Her father was pinning his hopes on it. Beth wasn’t willing to take the risk.
So she dropped herself easily down the side of the castle, bringing her rope after her. Later, she knew, Mack would want to know why. The best she could come up with right now was that she’d seen a chance to get past the waiting man and taken it, only to find herself trapped. Mack might wonder about her motives, but she was hoping he’d be so relieved when the siege ended without any harm coming to his family that he wouldn’t inquire too deeply.
A quick confab with Hanratty’s man out of sight of the remaining cameras, then they took their places in the courtyard and waited to be noticed. As she waited, Beth pictured the scene inside the hall. Mack would be watching the screen intently and racking his brains. But she was confident he wouldn’t think of anything that would enable him to rescue her and keep Horn safe. She had only to stay calm, avoid doing anything stupid, and wait. Wait for the security shutters to rise and the front door to open.
Though Beth didn’t expect her father to sue for peace as soon as he saw what had happened, Hanratty’s man seemed to. He hissed in her ear, “What are they doing in there?” and she sighed and said, “Arguing, probably.”
“About whether your life is worth more to him than Horn’s?” The man was obviously shocked.
“About whether there’s another way to handle this. Mack hates being beaten. He won’t give in to threats until he’s convinced himself there’s no alternative. He was never going to fling the door wide as soon as he saw I was in trouble.”
The man shook his head in a kind of wonder. “Other people’s families…!” As if he considered himself a pillar of society except for the minor detail of being a hired killer.
“Give him time. He’s arrogant, not stupid. When he sees he has no choice, he’ll do what he has to.”
They weren’t exactly whispering, because there was no sound pickup on the security cameras. They were talking without moving their lips.
“In my business,” the man said grimly, “time is a luxury. Scream.”
Beth sniffed disdainfully. “I don’t do—”
The first she knew he had