He’d planned to have Malcolm use Sophie while he watched, just to liven things up a bit while he waited for Chekowsky to arrive. He hadn’t counted on Malcolm destroying his surveillance equipment, but he wasn’t disappointed. Just more proof that Malcolm was as high on the food chain as he presented himself. Archer couldn’t imagine why he’d want a broken toy like Sophie, but he must be bored as well, and women like Rachel grew boring very quickly.
Archer leaned back as Rachel hunched over him, sweat dripping off her face, onto his belly. He should punish her for that, but it didn’t seem worth the effort. No, he was more interested in the thought of seeing exactly what Gunnison would do with Sophie. His Sophie. She would need to be punished for it, of course. He could feel the anticipation rush through him.
It was on ongoing conundrum. He wanted Sophie gone, but if anyone was going to kill her, he reserved the right to do it.
The answer appeared in front of him like a divine vision. He could have Gunnison kill her. The man was a machine—killing would be child’s play. He’d probably get off on the idea of finishing Sophie. Most of the men he knew liked killing women—he, for one, preferred them to men. You got more bang for your buck: tears, pleas, panic. It was no fun to kill operatives—they were stoic, giving him nothing. No, he didn’t think Gunnison would give him an argument if he asked him to fuck and then kill Sophie. The only question was whether he would let Archer watch.
He’d insist on it. After all, it wasn’t often that a host provided such singular entertainment. He wanted, needed, to see the
light in her eyes fade as she knew she was dying. He needed to watch her struggle. He shoved Rachel away from him, standing up abruptly. Gunnison wouldn’t deny him, not if he wanted a deal for the Pixiedust.
It all depended on whether Mal was someone who took pleasure in his work or simply, coldly, did what needed to be done. The latter kind of people were easier to trust—they didn’t allow anything to distract them from getting the job done with robotlike efficiency.
Archer was having his doubts. Mal was interested in Sophie, though Archer couldn’t understand why. She was nowhere near as beautiful as the other women on the island, and she was stuck in a wheelchair. Hardly the stuff of erotic dreams.
But there was something about Sophie, and always had been, even when she’d been lying through her teeth and setting him up. Something that he’d never been able to put his finger on had drawn him to her, and in the past few years he still hadn’t managed to figure it out. If he could pinpoint it, he could get rid of it, as brutally as possible.
It wasn’t her strength—he’d rendered her as weak as possible. It wasn’t her sense of humor—he’d managed to strip that away as well. Maybe it was the fact that she adored him, no matter what he did to her . . . but he was used to adoration. It bored him.
No, there was something indefinable about Sophie, and what he didn’t understand he destroyed. He’d been doing it in stages, but it was time to finish it.
Archer smiled expansively. Malcolm Gunnison had come with the highest recommendations. It would be ridiculously simple to get rid of one extraneous, traitorous bitch of a wife. Really, it was all working out beautifully.
Chapter Nine
In the end it was surprisingly easy. Sophie had more than enough time to lay out her plan during dinner, the men’s voices a backdrop in her head. There was something off about Malcolm Gunnison. Something that didn’t compute. He wasn’t one of the pretty boys Archer had brought in to test her—despite that brief kiss, he’d done no overt flirting. She had the sense that he watched her, but he was watching Archer even more closely. Like most of Archer’s associates, he was clearly a man who trusted nothing and no one, and that should have been standard operating procedure.
So why was she so obsessed with him? There was something beneath his enigmatic exterior that nagged at her. It wasn’t the threat of violence—that was all around her, in the air she breathed, in the life she’d chosen years ago when she’d been young and smart and invulnerable. It wasn’t the unexpected moments of gentleness. No one in Archer’s life was who they presented themselves to be to the world, and she’d grown used to that, having played her own role for so long. But Mal was different. She knew it instinctively, and she intended to find out why.
The smart thing to do would be to ignore him, just as she’d ignored Archer’s earlier imports. She had no illusions that Archer had brought Mal here simply to mess with her—Archer didn’t care that much. Archer and Mal had some nefarious business going on, probably Archer’s hideous biological weapon she wasn’t supposed to know anything about. The question was, did Mal have his own agenda as well?
If he did, it would have nothing to do with her. No one even remembered she was alive, or if they did, they didn’t care. Her parents had died in a plane crash when she was in her teens, and Aunt Sylvia, who’d looked after her, died of emphysema not long after Sophie graduated from Sarah Lawrence. She’d had friends in college, friends in the State Department, but they’d gone on to have their own lives, and she’d been ordered to lose touch with them once she joined the Committee.
The Committee would have purged her from its records. No one gave a damn whether she lived or died, and she knew Mal’s occasional glances had less to do with her and more to do with what his real plan was.
It wouldn’t be easy. He had to have known Archer’s men would search his luggage and his room at regular intervals, and she’d have a hard time finding out anything about him. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to try.
He was matching Archer drink for drink, and the more he imbibed the more scrupulously polite he became, while Archer just got sloppy. She knew Archer well enough to know he wasn’t as drunk as he appeared to be, and she would have been willing to bet ten years of her life that neither was Mal. Then again, the way things were going, she wouldn’t have another ten years, so that would be an easy bet.
But no one had a hollow leg, and there had to be some effect from the amount of rum he was tossing back. All she had to do was get some of her pain meds into him and he’d be out like a light, giving her the chance to search Mal’s rooms with him none the wiser.
She had some with her—when she’d discovered Marco’s affection for Vicodin she’d made it a habit to tuck some of them into a wad of tissue and keep it in her bra in case she had a sudden need to barter. How to get it to Mal was the problem. The men were ignoring her, but she could hardly reach over for his glass and toss a handful in.
But in the end it had come together with such ease that it was almost laughable. A trip to the bathroom, a sullen Rachel pushing her, gave her enough time and privacy to crush the handful of pills she had into a fine powder. She scooped every trace back into the tissue, keeping it in her hand as Rachel took her back, the wheelchair bumping over the thresholds and the slate flooring. When she returned to the dining room, Archer and Mal were out on the terrace, watching the dark, roiling clouds of the approaching storm.
Rachel, of course, sailed right past her, out to the men, her sullenness vanishing in a cloud of vivacity like strong, cheap perfume, and Sophie didn’t hesitate. Mal’s glass of fruity liquid was still mostly full, and she tipped the powder into it before heading back to the opposite side of the table, just before the men came back in. She was relatively certain she had blocked the security camera trained on the table, but in the end she was just going to have to risk it.
Most of life was a matter of luck and timing. Mal and Archer could have moved out onto the sand, finished with dinner and finished with her. They could have come back and switched to brandy or coffee, or Mal could have sensibly declared he’d had his limit of the sweet, fruity drink Elena had come up with at Archer’s behest.
But Mal had come back in, as Archer’s nonstop banter accompanied him, and when he took his seat, the first thing he did was pick up his frosty glass. And then his eyes met hers over the rim.
Sophie felt an unexpected stab in her stomach. Could that huge amount of painkillers prove lethal on top of all the alcohol he’d consumed? Or more likely the amount of acetaminophen in the Vicodin could destroy his liver or his kidneys or whatever dire thing too much of the drug did. She couldn’t let herself worry about it. She was in a fight for her life, and she had to use whatever weapons she had.
“Sophie, baby!” Archer said in a booming, slightly slurred voice, catching her attention, and she gave him her best smile, taking a masochistic pleasure in the pain it caused her jaw.
“Yes, my love?” she answered, all dewy sweetness.
“I think you should spend the night down here for a change. It’s been so long since we’ve shared a bed.” Most people wouldn’t see the malice in his eyes—but Sophie couldn’t miss it.