The Devil She Knows - By Diane Whiteside Page 0,19

A cat prowled past, secure in the knowledge he could either outfight or outrun any attacker in the long, narrow space.

Gareth flipped his knife, the blade Portia had given him, end over end, as he’d done since before midnight. His throat was drier than if he’d walked across the Mojave.

Inside, the rooms were warm and dry, glowing with crimson velvet and oak. Here, the walls were chipped brick and plain iron fixtures, good enough for working folks. Fancy brocade curtains in the windows overhead screened the paying customers from any uncomfortable glimpses.

A beat cop yawned and warmed himself with more coffee from the hotel’s stock. Two doormen leaned against the hotel wall, their uniforms brighter than any intelligence in their eyes.

Gareth tossed his knife again. Ten inches of California-made steel whirled like a galaxy through the mist.

Portia was a grown woman. How could he forget that, the way she looked in her wedding dress?

Don’t think about that; don’t imagine what that beast was enjoying.

He had to let her make her own choices, no matter how much he knew they’d cost her.

His bowie went higher on the next toss.

He’d promised her he’d wait for her all night, in case she changed her mind. He kept watch here, where he could see both her window and the rear door. Plus, he’d bribed the doormen to tell him if anything happened at the front.

The sun blazed across the steel, as deadly to his hopes for the future as any desert sunrise. Bright as the flames rising above that Kentucky sky fourteen years ago and leaving the ground below just as barren of life.

Hope twisted through his gut like a hangman’s knot and vanished.

Gareth threw his blade into the hotel’s doorframe, where it hung like a shattered bird.

The cop jumped up, startled into lucidity. “Now, now, young fellow,” he began.

Gareth strode past him without a glance and retrieved Portia’s gift, which he’d need at his next job for Donovan & Sons.

William hadn’t been able to find anybody who’d work in Southeast Asia. But halfway around the world should take Gareth far enough from his memories of Portia.

God willing.

Chapter Nine

Hanoi, August 1882

Gareth jolted awake, nightmare pillars of smoke pursuing him like jackals back to consciousness. His heart beat against his ribs hard enough to break them open, the same way he’d fought to get one more shot off in his dream.

Dead men’s ghosts still sank into his flesh as if their souls sought to take root in his own. Their eyes were picket fences he couldn’t escape, while crimson rivers of blood streamed faster and faster from their death wounds.

Sweat broke out across Gareth’s skin, bitterly cold despite the humidity hunting every crevice like magma. Rain pounded on the roof and dived through the gutters into the sewers, almost loud enough to drown his gasps for air.

He was an adult now. He hadn’t wept since he’d dug his mother’s grave and The Nightmare hadn’t roared through his dreams for months, until tonight.

So why the hell could he remember those satisfied pigs, snorting around his family’s corpses? His stomach jolted into another knot.

Maybe it was the omnipresent scent of charcoal from all the local cooking fires that reminded him of racing toward the smoke rising through the Kentucky woods. Running until he puked, but never reaching his destination.

Where the hell was the damn light?

He flung his arm out and sent papers flying onto the floor. China shattered with a loud crash when his knife smashed into it. He barely managed to grab the hurricane lantern an instant before it toppled onto its side.

Cursing like the mule packer he’d once been, he sat up on the edge of the delicately carved bed. His pulse still drummed stupidly fast. It was an insane beat since he’d finished delivering all those critical railroad supplies, despite the every hazard corrupt politicians, foul roads, and filthy weather could hurl at him. Donovan & Sons would be very well rewarded.

His hands shook, as if he’d drunk himself to sleep. Not that he’d chosen that escape, of course. He’d realized within a month of Portia’s wedding that whiskey wouldn’t ease this pain.

He ground his teeth and looked for matches.

Chau peeked around the corner, her enormous brown eyes alight with concern above her thin silk robe. Despite the few months they’d been acquainted, she was confident around a disturbed male as only a previously well-pleasured woman could be.

At least he could do some things well.

Even so, words only trembled on her lips and never