In Their Footsteps / Stolen: In Their Footsteps / Stolen. Tess Gerritsen

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СКАЧАТЬ shop, he noted. Judging by the rest of her outfit, she’d no doubt choose her knickers in black, as well.

      Jordan continued walking in the direction of Place Vendčme.

      Across the street, the woman was parralleling his route.

      This is getting tiresome, he thought. If she wants to flirt, why doesn’t she just come over and bat her eyelashes? The direct approach, he could appreciate. It was honest and straightforward, and he liked honest women. But this stalking business unnerved him.

      He walked another half block. So did she.

      He stopped and pretended to study another shop window. She did likewise. This is ridiculous, he thought. I am not going to put up with this nonsense.

      He crossed the street and walked straight up to her. “Mademoiselle?” he said.

      She turned and regarded him with a startled look. Plainly she had not expected a face-to-face confrontation.

      “Mademoiselle,” he said, “may I ask why you’re following me?”

      She opened her mouth and shut it again, all the time staring at him with those big gray eyes. Rather pretty eyes, he observed.

      “Perhaps you don’t understand me? Parlezvous anglais?”

      “Yes,” she murmured, “I speak English.”

      “Then perhaps you can explain why you’re following me.”

      “But I am not following you.”

      “Yes, you are.”

      “No, I am not!” She glanced up and down the street. “I am taking a walk. As you are.”

      “You’re dogging my every step. Stopping where I stop. Watching every move I make.”

      “That is preposterous.” She pulled herself up, a spark of outrage lighting her eyes. Real or manufactured? He couldn’t be sure. “I have no interest in you, Monsieur! You must be imagining things.”

      “Am I?”

      In answer, she spun around and stalked away up the Rue de la Paix.

      “I don’t think I am imagining things!” he called after her.

      “You English are all alike!” she flung over her shoulder.

      Jordan watched her storm off and wondered if he had jumped to conclusions. If so, what a fool he’d made of himself! The woman rounded a corner and vanished, and he felt a moment’s regret. After all, she had been rather attractive. Lovely gray eyes, unbeatable legs.

      Ah, well.

      He turned and continued on his way toward the Place Vendčme and the hotel. Only as he reached the lobby doors of the Ritz did that sixth sense of his begin to tingle again. He paused and glanced back. In a distant archway, he spied a flicker of movement, a glimpse of a blond head just before it ducked into the shadows.

      She was still following him.

      

      DAUMIER ANSWERED the phone on the fifth ring. “Allo?”

      “Claude, it’s me,” said Richard. “Are you having us tailed?”

      There was a pause, then Daumier said, “A precaution, my friend. Nothing more.”

      “Protection? Or surveillance?”

      “Protection, naturally! A favor to Hugh—”

      “Well, it scared the living daylights out of us. The least you could’ve done was warn me.” Richard glanced toward Beryl, who was anxiously pacing the hotel room. She hadn’t admitted it, but he knew she was shaken, and that for all her bravado, all her attempts to throw him out of her suite, she was relieved he’d stayed. “Another thing,” he said to Daumier, “we seem to have misplaced Jordan.”

      “Misplaced?”

      “He’s not in his suite. We left him here hours ago. He’s since vanished.”

      There was a silence on the line. “This is worrisome,” said Daumier.

      “Do your people have any idea where he is?”

      “My agent has not yet reported in. I expect to hear from her in another—”

      “Her?” Richard cut in.

      “Not our most experienced operative, I admit. But quite capable.”

      “It was a man following us tonight.”

      Daumier laughed. “Richard, I am disappointed! I thought you, of all people, knew the difference.”

      “I can bloody well tell the difference!”

      “With Colette, there is no question. Twenty-six, rather pretty. Blond hair.”

      “It was a man, Claude.”

      “You saw the face?”

      “Not clearly. But he was short, stocky—”

      “Colette is five foot five, very slender.”

      “It wasn’t her.”

      Daumier said nothing for a moment. “This is disturbing,” he concluded. “If it was not one of our people—”

      Richard suddenly pivoted toward the door. Someone was knocking. Beryl stood frozen, staring at him with a look of fear.

      “I’ll call you back, Claude,” Richard whispered into the phone. Quietly he hung up.

      There was another knock, louder this time.

      “Go ahead,” he murmured, “ask who it is.”

      Shakily she called out, “Who is it?”

      “Are you decent?” came the reply. “Or should I try again in the morning?”

      “Jordan!” cried a relieved Beryl. She ran to open the door. “Where have you been?”

      Her brother sauntered in, his blond hair tousled from the night wind. He saw Richard and halted. “Sorry. If I’ve interrupted anything—”

      “Not a thing,” snapped Beryl. She locked the door and turned to face her brother. “We’ve been worried sick about you.”

      “I just went for a walk.”

      “You could have left me a note!”

      “Why? I was right in the neighborhood.” Jordan flopped lazily into a chair. “Having quite a nice evening, too, until some woman started following me around.”

      Richard’s chin snapped up СКАЧАТЬ