Blood Oath Part 6

Then he understood that it was Jan, and he remembered how he'd tried to save her, and his grief for his lost father was replaced by thanks that she had lived. "You made it," he was saying. "Christ, you can't imagine how I was afraid!" She stood close, leaning toward him.

"Jan, I love you."

But her hair had darkened, and her face was now more slender, but with sadder eyes. This woman wasn't Jan, and yet he knew her. "Please, you have to rest," the woman said.

He saw that she was pinning down his hands. He squirmed to free himself.

"You must relax," she told him. "You'll disturb your bandages. You'll strain your ribs." He felt a pressure on his forehead, felt a stabbing in his chest.

Pain swarmed through him like the sting of hornets.

"Jesus." In agony he looked, and there were doctors, there were nurses. But he couldn't understand what they were saying. French. That's right. They're speaking French.

"Where's Jan?"

The room was silent.

Houston peered from one face to another. Then he settled on the woman whom he knew, who wasn't Jan. "Simone?"

She nodded, sad-eyed. Houston swallowed. "Jan?" She shook her head regretfully.

"She isn't!" Houston shouted. "No! She can't be!" She kept staring at him.

Freezing terror gripped his heart. A raging panic swelled within him. He thrashed from the bed. "Tell me where she is!"

The room exploded into motion. Doctors and nurses scrambled toward him. Houston struggled with them, straining to get past them. "Jan! Where?"

Pinp.r.i.c.k. No, a needle. To his left, a nurse. A hypodermic pierced his arm. He felt the spurt of liquid reach his blood.

"No! Jan! I have to "

He felt dizzy. He clutched at his skull. He fell back on the bed. Simone leaned down. She pulled the sheet up beneath his chin. Her face distorted, lengthened, wavered, as if she were under water. "I'll be with you," she said.

But in Houston's mind he saw the water rus.h.i.+ng toward him. He heard a distant anguished scream. The darkness took him, and he drowned.

Part 2

Chapter 13.

His grief consumed him. He did not care where he was or how long he had been unconscious or how badly he'd been injured. For desperate days he convinced himself that none of it was real, that Jan was still alive, that he had suffered through a nightmare. But his memory insisted, and his grief was unendurable. He was certain that his mind would crack. He couldn't bear the agony. Then something ruptured. Sorrow numbed him, sapping strength and hope and will to live. His tears distorted everything. The ceiling seemed to ripple.

He was on a bed in darkness. He heard water rus.h.i.+ng. Rumbling?

Thunder.

It was night. A streetlight showed the rain streaming down the window, casting its mosaic shadow on the ceiling.

Houston, groggy to begin with, felt that he was under water. At the same time, he, vertiginous, appeared to stare down from a great height. His mind could not sustain the contradictory perspectives. Bile rushed scalding from his stomach; he fought back vomit.

Lightning nickered, and he saw the room: the ornate woodwork on the walls, the hulking ancient bureau, the huge brooding sofa.

Thunder rumbled. To his right, a scrollwork door came open. Light spilled in. A woman's shadow filled the doorway. But she wasn't any nurse, and this was not a hospital. He heard a fire crackling from a hearth in the other room.

The woman approached him. Silhouetted, she was featureless. Reminded of his dream, he felt disoriented, frightened by the way she seemed to float.

He stared at her. His stomach burned. My G.o.d, yes, she was Jan! His heart raced uncontrollably. Abruptly it convulsed. She turned in profile toward the window.

In another flash of lightning Houston recognized her face.

"Simone?" His voice was tortured.

She spun, startled, peering toward him in the darkness.

Choking, he wiped his swollen eyes. "I thought you were " He couldn't say Jan's name. In agony his throat seized shut.

She stared at him, concerned. She nicked on a corner lamp. Its glow was warm, reflecting off a mirror that was clear and deep beyond belief, with gold flecks gleaming from its frame.

He blinked, confused. His throat was raw. "Where am I?"

"The hotel. My father's room."

She came across to him. She broke the seal on bottled water, poured, and held his hand to help him drink. The water tingled, sweet and cool. He felt his swollen tongue absorb it.

"Not too much at once," she said. His lips now felt sensation, sharp and stinging.

"I was in the hospital." He slumped back on his pillow. But his statement was also a question. He was not sure if he actually had been there or had dreamed it.

"There was nothing more the doctors could do for you, except to watch. My father said that we could watch you here. He feels the obligation. He is still ashamed."

"Because that man was in our room?"

"This is my father's home. His guests are his responsibility."

"There wasn't any way he could have known. He's not to blame. . . . But thank him for me." Rain lashed at the window. "Tell me everything that happened."

"We were hoping you'd tell us," she said. "A farmer found you on the riverbank.

He gave you up for dead, but when the ambulance arrived, a doctor managed to revive you. The police searched up the river, and they found where you had crashed the guardrail at the bridge. A team of scuba divers swam down to your car." She rubbed her shoulder, glancing toward the window.

"And?"

"I'm sorry. Your wife was still inside."

He closed his eyes.

"On the radio, we heard the news about your accident. My father couldn't leave, but he insisted that I go to you. The rest you know. As soon as it was feasible, I brought you here. A doctor visits you. Your head was injured. You sustained a small concussion, and your ribs were fractured. You can feel the tape that binds them."

"Someone ran us off the road," he said, remembering. She stared. "A van. A big black square-faced van. The bridge was one-lane, and the b.a.s.t.a.r.d tried to pa.s.s us."

"The police have asked to speak with you."

"They won't do any good. I didn't get the license number. They won't find the van."

"Somebody drunk or in a hurry."

"No. It was intentional." She stiffened.

"Someone meant to do it." Houston glared.

"You're still confused. Your mind's fooling you."

"A stranger hid inside our room. He could have phoned or sent a message. But he came to us in secret. I can't prove he was even there. When I described the man, your father didn't recognize him. Did your father ask around the village?"

"No one knew the man."

"All right then. So the stranger sent us to a town a hundred miles away, and on the road we had an accident. If I had died, you never would have known the way it happened. But I lived, and I can tell you it wasn't an accident. That driver meant to push us off the road. It was deliberate. There wasn't any reason for that van to try to pa.s.s us."

"But it makes no sense. Who'd want to kill you? Why?"

"Pierre de St. Laurent." Houston watched the way she studied him, as if she thought he was crazy. "Yes, I know," he said. "It's thirty-seven years ago. Who cares what happened then? Someone does. A lot."

"You need to rest."

"No, listen. Promise me. You have to take me there. To Ron-cevaux. I want to see who lives at that address."

"I can't encourage you to "

"Promise me."

"We'll talk about it later." She stared, troubled, toward the window.

"What's the matter?" Houston said.

"It's not the right time."

"Go on and say it."

"There's a question I have to ask. I wish I didn't." Houston frowned at her.

"You have to make arrangements." Houston didn't understand. "Your emba.s.sy made inquiries. Your wife, yourself, you have no parents and no children. There was no one who could sign the doc.u.ments."

"For what?"

"I have to ask you where you want her buried."

"Jesus." Houston couldn't hold the tears back. He was crying. He kept on. He thought he'd never stop.

Chapter 14.

The coffin slowly sank beneath the floor. He shuddered. Something rumbled underneath him. Then the coffin disappeared. The trap door eased up, whirring, to the level of the floor. It snapped into place. The rumbling stopped. The room was still.

He told himself, Don't think about what's going to happen next. But then he heard, or thought he heard, a different noise, more ominous, below him: something roaring like a furnace.

Houston had to get away. He turned from purple velvet drapes, from waist-high posts joined by ropes that surrounded the place where the coffin had been set.

His shoes sc.r.a.ped on the floor.

Simone, in black, was close behind him, standing with her father, who was dressed in mourning. Houston squinted at them, muscles tensing in his cheeks.

The man in charge stepped near to Houston, soberly consoling. If monsieur would come back in the morning . . .

Houston, nodding, murmured, "Thank you." But his throat was so grief-swollen that his voice cracked. His eyesight dimmed. The room turned gray. He feared he was going to faint. He listed, reaching toward Simone. She grabbed his arm.

Monsard quickly took his other arm. They helped him toward the exit.

He was vaguely aware of walking down a hallway. Then a door came open, and the sunlight glared on him. Dizzy, he peered down to s.h.i.+eld his eyes. The steps, the sidewalk, then the gra.s.s. He slumped on a concrete bench, his head between his knees. "I'll be okay," he told them.

But his grief came racking out of him. He thought for sure his heart would break.

Then someone held him tightly. Houston blinked up through his tears. Simone sat with her arm around him. Houston's sobs tore through him. "You have to understand. That's how Jan wanted it."

"There's no need to explain."

"She made me promise. What else could I do? I had to honor what she wanted.

Cremation." Houston clenched his fists and moaned. "If I'd buried her in France, then what would I have done when I was home? I'd want to see her grave. I'd have to come to France to see it." He pawed at his eyes.

"And what if I'd buried her at home? I would have flown home with the body, and it's possible I never would return here." He strained to breathe.

Simone leaned back from him. Her voice was gentle. "That's so bad? Considering what happened here, I wouldn't think you'd want to see this place again."

"I have to stay," he told her.

"Why?"

"Because somebody wants to stop me asking questions. If I leave, then he accomplishes what he intended. I won't let him have that satisfaction."