Chapter Four
Shaw woke. The boy was gone, leaving nothing behind but twisted sheets and Shaw’s lingering sense of worry.
Out of sight, out of mind. You don’t need the fucking distraction.
Shaw scowled at the underside of the thatched roof for a moment and thought hard about not thinking about Green-eyes.
Fuck it.
Shaw rose and checked his e-mail. Callie had been quick to reply: I will make enquiries. C. The answer was short, sweet, and to the point, just like Callie. Shaw was the face of the operation, but Callie put everything together behind the scenes. She was his Girl Friday. He’d made the mistake of telling her that once as well, and the only reason she hadn’t ripped his head off for being a chauvinistic prick was because they’d been on different continents at the time.
Shaw closed his laptop and looked out the wide window to the ocean. It was blue today, that brilliant, luminous Pacific blue he’d hoped for the day before. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Surf broke over distant reefs, crowning them in white foam. He let his gaze drift out to the horizon. Shards of sunlight pierced his vision, and Shaw reached for his sunglasses.
Beautiful, Shaw thought as he gazed at the view, and dangerous, and suddenly he was thinking of Green-eyes again. He pulled his thoughts back to the view with difficulty.
It was earlier than he was used to waking. His watch told him it wasn’t even six a.m. Shaw was at nature’s mercy here. He would wake with the sun and sleep with the night. His body clock would set the pace here, not his Tag Heuer. He might have found the thought strangely relaxing if his host wasn’t a monster.
He showered, shaved, and dressed.
Breakfast awaited him on the table on the bungalow’s veranda. Fruit, toast, and cereal, and a fresh pot of coffee. The service here was better than at any resort. There was even a newspaper beside the tray, the New York Times. It was only a day old.
Shaw flicked through it without really reading it. It spoke again of Vornis’s sense of luxury. Vornis didn’t care about the cost of getting the New York Times to an isolated Fijian island every day. It didn’t matter that Shaw had a smartphone and a laptop and news at the touch of a button. It was all about appearances for men like Vornis. The newspaper was a symbol of wealth and power for his guests, and Shaw respected that.
There was a card on the table as well. Come up to the main house when you’re ready to talk business.
Shaw swallowed down the last of the coffee. Showtime.
He returned inside and checked his outfit. Chinos, a linen shirt, and canvas shoes. Island chic. He’d rather be in board shorts and bare feet, but this was Vornis’s tropical paradise, not Shaw’s. Shaw thought of the New York Times. Appearances were everything.
He checked the lock on his laptop case, knowing it was secure. Even if someone broke into the bag, and he didn’t doubt they would, the laptop was protected with so many levels of encryption that it would take months to get anything off it. Callie had set that up for him as well.
Shaw moved on to his suitcase, turning it upside down and opening it to access the false panel. It wasn’t exactly creative, but it had served his purpose. Customs agents were looking for drugs and explosives, not paintings. A piece of rolled-up canvas didn’t attract their attention at all. The sniffer dogs went right past it.
Shaw drew the painting out and tucked it under his arm. He locked his suitcase again and headed outside.
A pair of security guards stood on the beach. Muscles, dark uniforms, sunglasses, and sidearms. Shaw forced himself to see security guards, not mercenaries. Men, not atrocities. They looked at Shaw as he left the bungalow, and he nodded a greeting at them.
“Beautiful day.” He smiled, and they nodded and smiled back at him.
Out of sight, out of mind. Don’t think about what they’ve done to Green-eyes.
Don’t think about what they’re going to do to him.
Jesus, don’t give him a fucking name either.
Focus. Just focus.
The main house was only a few minutes away, and it was a pleasant walk along a meandering path shaded by palms and bordered by lush ferns. The sand crunched under his shoes as he walked. So beautiful here, Shaw thought, so peaceful.
Out of sight, out of mind.
Shaw recognized duality. He worked with it every day. He could still differentiate between hypocrisy and necessity, couldn’t he?
Game on.
Intersecting sharp angles of steel and glass came together under a brilliant sky to make up the main house. The structure glittered in the sun, and Shaw was glad he’d remembered his sunglasses. This was what he’d expected from Vornis all along, a show of decadence and wealth.
Shaw was admitted by the same woman who’d brought him dinner the night before.
“Mr. Vornis is in his study,” she said, nodding up the stairs. “Please go ahead.”
“Thank you,” said Shaw, looking at her questioningly.
She pursed her lips, but a slight flush darkened her cheeks. “Irina.”
“Thank you, Irina,” Shaw said with a smile, heading up the stairs. Charm the women, befriend the men, and debase the toys. Shaw knew exactly how to do business with men like Vornis.
Vornis was waiting for him, and Shaw didn’t waste any time. He crossed to the desk and placed the painting down. Vornis came to stand beside him.
“Jeune garçon au gilet rouge.” Shaw unrolled the canvas. “The Boy in the Red Vest, by Paul Cézanne. Painted in 1895.”
Vornis rubbed his chin with his fingertips. “And stolen in 2008.”
Shaw shrugged.
Shaw didn’t know a lot about the painting’s providence. He didn’t have to. What did it matter to him if the painting had gone through a lot of different hands in the years between 1939 and 1945? Something about Jeune garçon au gilet rouge would always stink of the death camps to Shaw. He was just the last in a very long line of profiteers.
The painting wasn’t to Shaw’s taste. A boy in a red vest sat at a table with his face cupped in his hand. His white shirt wasn’t white at all. It was green and brown and purple and yellow, but all of those colors together gave the idea of light and shadow caught on a white shirt. The boy’s face was the same. A palate of different colors made up the planes of his face. It was almost messy, almost splotchy, Shaw thought, until he took a step back and brought it into perspective again. Like one of those Magic Eye pictures that suddenly coalesced into something recognizable.
It wasn’t the nicest painting Shaw had ever seen, but that didn’t matter to him. It didn’t even matter to Vornis, he suspected, who was only interested in buying a name. The painting was a symbol of wealth and power to Vornis. He wouldn’t appreciate it purely as a thing of beauty. In a museum, he wouldn’t even glance at it. Vornis needed to own things. The Boy in the Red Vest, mute and pretty, was not that different from Vornis’s other nameless boy.
“At the time of its theft, it was valued at ninety-one million.” Shaw let his hands linger on the edges of the canvas. Funny that a little bit of paint could be worth that much. “I wonder if it’s worth even more now.”
Vornis laughed at that and moved to stand beside the desk. He drew his bushy brows together as he studied the painting, and Shaw wondered for a fleeting moment if he’d misjudged Vornis. Maybe he saw the painting after all, not just the price tag.
“You liked my little present last night?” Vornis inquired as he gazed at the painting.
Shaw stepped back to give him space and light. “Very generous, thank you. Nothing like a good fuck to get over jetlag.”
“I have always found it so,” Vornis said.
Shaw wondered what Vornis thought of him now. It shouldn’t have rankled if Vornis thought they were the same. That had been the point of the charade, after all. But Shaw had always tried to believe he was better than his clients. He needed to.
Shaw looked out the window. From here he could see the rooftop of his guest bungalow down on the beach. He could see palm trees and shaded paths, sand so white that it almost blinded him—none of Cézanne’s ambiguity there—and the endless brilliance of the Pacific. It was beautiful here. Spoils to the victor, he supposed. You don’t get a private island in the Pacific by playing fair.
Vornis saw him looking.
“This view,” Shaw said, shaking his head. “It’s better than a Cézanne any day.”
“You’re not an art lover, then, Shaw?”
“I like a good painting as much as the next man,” Shaw said, seeing an opportunity and taking it with a teasing smile. “I just don’t see how a bit of paint on canvas is worth ninety-five million.”
“Inflation these days.” Vornis shrugged. “Blink and it’s gone through the roof! A drink, Shaw?”
They sat in leather armchairs totally unsuited to the climate. The main house, modern and hermetically sealed, hummed as cool air whispered through the vents. The leather armchairs were cool to the touch, almost chill, but Shaw preferred the bungalow. He could see the ocean from here, but he couldn’t hear it. Couldn’t smell it.
Shaw wondered if Vornis ever swam in the ocean or if the Pacific was like another expensive painting to him: something to look at to make himself feel rich and powerful. What a waste. Shaw couldn’t wait to get into the ocean. There were no stingers here, and the reef sharks were small and generally shy. The only real predator on the island was Vornis.
“Thank you.” Shaw took the drink Vornis handed him.
Vornis eased himself down in the opposite chair. He seemed almost relaxed today, more relaxed than Shaw had ever known him, but Shaw knew his generous mood could change in a heartbeat. He’d seen it happen before. And every time he’d seen it, Shaw had wondered if one day he’d be on the receiving end. He wasn’t afraid of Vornis, not exactly, but he was always wary.
“Extraordinary,” Vornis murmured, his gaze settling on the painting.
Drugs were only the thin edge of the wedge with Vornis, Shaw knew. Vornis had married into the trade. The plantation in Colombia had been his father-in-law’s. Vornis himself favored money laundering and organized crime, trafficking over production, or at least he had until he’d stepped on too many toes in America. He’d disappeared from the radar for a while, appearing several years later with some new associates. There was big money in terrorism. It had more links with the corporate world than it did with the scrawny, impoverished kids who were convinced to strap bombs onto their bodies. Men like Vornis were in it for the money, not the ideology. And there was a lot of money to go around.
Shaw wasn’t really here for the Cézanne. He was here to make valuable new contacts, and Vornis was the best way. This was the opportunity of his career.
“I will pay you ninety-five,” Vornis said, “if I can bring in an expert to verify the Cézanne is genuine.”
“Deal,” said Shaw.
Vornis smiled at him, but there was nothing friendly in the way he twisted his lips and showed his teeth. It was the approximation of a smile. There was no real warmth behind it. There was nothing there at all. “And you are welcome to remain my guest in the meantime.” Vornis’s gaze lingered on his face, and Shaw felt his nerves tighten. That quick thrill of sick anticipation. There was nothing like it. He fucking loved it, and that wasn’t right. There was a pathology at work that Shaw didn’t question. It made him good at his work.
Very good.
Shaw ran a hand through his hair, tugging it slightly, tightening his fingers just enough so that a man of Vornis’s tastes would freely make the association. Not an invitation, no way in hell, but if Vornis was suddenly imagining his own fist in Shaw’s hair it was no accident.
Vornis’s black eyes flickered.
Shaw had always known that Vornis found him attractive. Not because Shaw was particularly stunning, but because he was young, masculine, and self-confident, and Vornis liked strong things that he could break. He was a sadist, pure and simple. Green-eyes was proof of that.
It would never happen. No way in hell would Shaw let Vornis cross that line with him, but if Vornis wanted fuel for his nasty little fantasies, then Shaw was happy to provide it. Shaw took any advantage he could get, always.
And now Vornis was trying to sweeten the deal. “I have some associates visiting later in the week. You might like to meet them, Shaw.”
“Associates?” Shaw asked, swirling his glass to hear the clink of the ice cubes. He didn’t want to sound too eager. There was no telling what Vornis would ask for if he knew how much Shaw wanted this. He’d chased this rumor for months because this, finally, would put him in the big league.
“Men who are always glad to meet a trusted facilitator such as yourself,” Vornis said.
Shaw leaned back in his seat. “You’re not my only client, Vornis. I have appointments next week.”
That was a lie, but Vornis didn’t need to know it.
“I suggest you clear your schedule,” Vornis said. He upended his glass with his blunt fingers and swallowed the rest of his drink down. “You will not want to miss this opportunity.”
Shaw nodded like he was really thinking it over.
Vornis’s dark eyes settled on his face. They reminded him of a shark’s, flat and cold. “It will be worth your while.”
Shaw swirled his glass again. The condensation on the side made his fingers damp. “Okay.”
Vornis leaned back.
Shaw shook his head and laughed as though it had just occurred to him. “Jesus, I didn’t even bring a book. What am I supposed to do to kill time on a fucking island?”
Vornis had always liked Shaw’s self-deprecating sense of humor as well. He leaned forward again and raised his eyebrows. “How about what you did last night?”
There was no mistaking the flash of interest in the man’s eyes. A sadist and apparently a voyeur. But Jesus, the last thing Shaw needed was to spend more time with Green-eyes. The last thing he needed was to get distracted and start feeling sorry for the kid. No, he reminded himself, it was okay to feel sorry for him, but it would be unacceptable to try to do anything about it. Shaw knew where the line was.
Shaw moistened his lower lip with his tongue, all for Vornis’s sake, and felt a chill as Vornis’s eyes followed the path of his tongue. This was a dangerous game.
But he needed this.
“Yes,” Shaw said, ignoring his misgivings. “All right. I’ll stay.”
* * * *
Shaw took his laptop down onto the beach and sat in the shade of a palm. He was wearing board shorts and a singlet. The sand burned his toes pleasantly. He sent a quick e-mail off to Callie, to advise her of the change in plans. Well, the change in Vornis’s plans; it had been Shaw’s intention from the start to stay on as long as he could and meet some of Vornis’s other associates.
The beach was almost deserted. A pair of armed guards trudged through the sand a few hundred meters away. They were dressed in black fatigues, and Shaw smirked at that. No wonder all of Vornis’s security detail looked so mean. They were melting underneath their uniforms in this heat.
Shaw wondered whom he could expect to arrive at the island at the end of the week. An art expert, obviously, but who else? Would it be hoping for too much that Guterman was one of Vornis’s guests? Guterman was the head of a private bank that apparently laundered funds for a major terrorist organization. He would be a very valuable man to know. Shaw had wanted to meet him for years, but Guterman guarded his privacy. So would Shaw, if every intelligence agency on the planet had him in their sights.
Maybe Bashir would be here as well, or Atmadja, or Hale, or Ruiz. His heart beat faster at the thought of them. Shaw closed his eyes and smiled. Fuck, he was as good as having a wet dream about terrorists. But these weren’t the guys who spouted hate on the news. These guys were above all that. These were the guys with the money who gambled against world governments. Serious fucking money.
Shaw felt a shadow fall across his legs and opened his eyes. He sighed when he saw the boy standing there, dazed and gorgeous. Ready for the taking, except Shaw still had some morals. Not many, but some.
Shaw closed his laptop and slipped it back into his bag
“Sit down, Green-eyes,” he told the boy and wondered why the kid didn’t run screaming for the ocean instead. Or at the guards, forcing them to shoot. Shaw would have. Because the kid had to know, didn’t he, that there was no other way off the island?
Whatever they were injecting into his veins, it did the trick.
There was nothing in the boy’s blank face to show that he remembered Shaw from the night before. That was probably for the best, Shaw reasoned. The last thing he needed was the boy thinking he was some sort of soft touch.
The boy settled into the sand. His gaze flicked to the ocean and stayed there, hypnotized by the waves that rolled back and forth on the sand. The sunlight shone in his green eyes.
Shaw leaned back against the palm and studied the boy’s back. He saw a web of faint welts, old scars, and thin, new bruises. Vornis had certainly taken his revenge for what had happened in Colombia. Passing him on to someone new was probably only a variation on his old cruelty: let the boy suffer all over again from someone who wanted to take it from the beginning. Jesus, the kid was dead the moment Vornis was bored with him. And Vornis would make sure he felt it.
Shaw tried to ignore the sudden wave of pity that washed over him like the ocean.
How easy it would be to find a boat. There had to be one on the island somewhere. There would be lifeboats on the yacht at least. How easy it would be to find a boat and launch it in the night and take Green-eyes away from this place. So easy, but Shaw couldn’t do it. He’d worked too hard to get to this point. No pretty face was worth that. No scarred flesh was worth that.
Shaw reached out and ran his fingers across the boy’s shoulders.
Maybe it was the tenderness of the touch, but the boy didn’t jump. He leaned back slightly to allow Shaw better access and exhaled heavily. Shaw moved his hand down the boy’s spine, feeling the pads of his fingers graze against the Braille map of cruelty that was the boy’s body. Shaw kept his touch light. Even if the boy was beyond caring, Shaw didn’t want to hurt him.
Green-eyes was a mystery, and Shaw’s problem was that he loved to unravel those. He always had. Give him a puzzle to solve or a secret to ferret out, a maze to navigate, and he was happy. His mother had always said he was too clever for his own good, and Shaw supposed that was what had led him to his strange career path. It wasn’t the danger he liked; it was the intrigue. Sometimes the danger brought him out in cold sweats in the middle of the night, not that he’d ever tell anyone that. He’d chosen this life. He’d made his own bed.
The boy drew in another breath, and this time it was shaky. That was probably reality knocking. He must have heard it sometimes. Underneath the drug-induced stupor, it probably screamed at him.
Green-eyes would never make it off the island alive. Shaw pitied him for that. His flesh was warm to touch, but it wouldn’t last much longer. Shaw felt every intake of breath, every fragile beat of the boy’s heart underneath his fingertips. It was a crying shame.
“You didn’t hurt me.”
Shaw started when the boy spoke but, always conscious of being watched, he kept his hand on the boy’s back. What was that accent? Vornis was right. American, no question. Midwest, even? Shaw had a good ear for accents. The boy’s was disguised under his low whisper but still recognizable.
“And I won’t,” Shaw murmured, “if you shut your mouth and play the part.”
The boy dropped his chin to his chest.
“Good boy,” Shaw said, hating the sound of the words. He doubted they could be overheard on the beach, but they could be seen. And you didn’t speak to a fuck toy.
He wondered what was running through that pretty head. Probably nothing.
Shaw let his hand drop at last, and the boy turned his head to look at him.
Jesus, those eyes. They did it to him every time. Shaw didn’t know if he wanted to spirit the kid off to safety or hold him down and fuck him senseless. Those brilliant green eyes, that jaw, those full lips, and that dark hair that eight weeks ago might have been a buzz cut but was now starting to remember how to curl. He looked like something Raphael might have painted, something rapturous and glorious and beautiful. Shaw almost laughed at the old cliché: he might not know art, but he knew what he liked. Just looking at the boy, silent and compliant, Shaw felt his cock stiffen. Then he remembered the poor fucking kid was going to die here.
Shaw felt the pity cross his face.
The boy saw it and latched on to it. Shaw hadn’t hurt him. Shaw felt sorry for him. Probably that was all it took to earn his devotion, the sorry bastard.
His green eyes wide, the boy twisted around and leaned his face toward Shaw’s.
Shaw got a hand on his thumping chest and pushed him away. “No.”
Showing affection was the worst thing the kid could do.
Confusion washed over the boy’s face.
“Not here,” Shaw said in a low voice. “You don’t even look at me, understand?”
The boy nodded quickly and turned away again.
Shaw castigated himself for letting it show. He didn’t have to hurt Green-eyes, but, Christ, he didn’t have to offer him a shoulder to cry on either. Vornis had only loaned him the kid to scratch an itch, and the nastier the itch, the better. This wasn’t a fucking romance. Romance didn’t come with a sports bag full of torture gear.
Shaw shook his head. He’d probably have to mark the kid at some point as well, to make it seem real. It would have been easier if Green-eyes didn’t already trust him not to hurt him. It was wrong, earning that amount of trust so quickly, so unquestioningly. It wasn’t the sort of trust anyone should give away. Even dogs that had been kicked half to death were wary the first time a kind hand touched them. The kid was just so desperate.
Shaw closed his eyes and thought of Molly. Molly was Callie’s fault. Callie’s sister was a vet, and when the yellow Lab puppy had been brought in with half an ear cut off, scorch marks on her belly, and all her ribs busted, she should have been put down. That would have been the kindest thing. How Shaw had ended up agreeing to take the bloody animal, he didn’t know. He’d been taking a break at the time, and he’d been at a loose end, and he’d never been able to say no to Callie.
That first week had been torture, for both of them. Molly had peed everywhere, and Shaw couldn’t yell at her for it. She had been too afraid of him, and seeing that small animal cowering even when he tried to tempt her with treats had been heartbreaking. Now, a year later, Molly was the rambunctious, naughty dog she was supposed to be. And Shaw missed her. She stayed with Callie when he worked overseas. She was their baby. Shared custody and visitation rights, just like the real thing.
And, strangely, all the reprehensible things he had to do, all the awful things he’d seen, Molly somehow made it better. Shaw wasn’t a monster. He’d rehabilitated an abused dog. He wasn’t a monster. Molly loved him so much she could burst with joy when she saw him. He wasn’t a monster.
Shaw shook his head. And Vornis wasn’t a monster either, because he liked art. Jesus, everybody had some delusion they clung to pathetically to convince themselves they were better than the next guy.
And why was he even thinking of Molly? He should have been keeping his head in the game. It was because of Green-eyes. What did he imagine? That they could sail away, and back home Shaw could put down newspaper for the kid and make shh-shh noises until he could sleep without whimpering? There was too much at stake here for stupid fantasies.
True, somebody probably wanted Green-eyes back. And information was the most valuable currency in the world. Callie would find out where the boy came from, and Shaw would contact his people when his own business here was finished. Then, if Green-eyes was still alive, they could come and get him themselves. And maybe not fuck it up like they had in Colombia.
That would soothe his nagging conscience. He’d make the call once he was gone, and even if it only offered the kid the slimmest chance in the world, it was still better than nothing. It was more than the kid had any right to expect.
Shaw stretched. It was getting too hot to stay under the palm. He wanted to retreat to the cool of the bungalow. Maybe he’d have a shower, put the fan on, and lie on the bed for a few hours. He had a week to kill. He might as well catch up on some sleep while he was here.
He stood, brushing the sand from the back of his shorts.
The boy looked at him warily, expectantly, through his dark lashes.
Fuck. That went straight to his cock.
“Come on,” Shaw said, leaning down to pick up his laptop bag. “You’re with me.”
The boy followed him.