Eight Days to Live Read Free Page B

can’t talk you into coming with me?”
    “Not tonight. But I’d love to have dinner with you tomorrow if you don’t have plans.”
    “Then we’ll have another celebration tomorrow. We’ll go shopping and buy you a midnight blue dress with many sequins, I think. It will be dazzling with that wonderful red-brown hair.”
    “Sequins aren’t my style. And I don’t dazzle.”
    “No, maybe not usually. But you’re beautiful and people stare at you and remember your face after they’ve forgotten all the dazzle around them. But I still think we need a
little
dazzle to set my Paris whirling.” She swept toward the door, with the red silk cape flowing behind her like a banner. “Go to bed, you boring person. I’ll set the alarm to keep someone from stealing you, but don’t expect me in before dawn.”
    Jane was smiling as she got on the elevator. Celine might not be in before dawn, but she’d be up and working in her gallery by nine. As for Jane, she’d be packing and perhaps spending a few hours walking around Paris before she met Celine for dinner. She lovedthis city though she never felt totally at home here. It was too sparkling and effervescent. She had been much more at home in Scotland at MacDuff’s Run though the castle’s grandeur should have intimidated her. Particularly since her time there had been filled with the overwhelming threat engendered by that bastard, Reilly, and his hunt for MacDuff’s lost treasure.
    Why had she suddenly thought of MacDuff’s Run? Why not the lake cottage back in Atlanta?
    It must have been Celine talking about the painting and her lust for MacDuff. He had obviously impressed her. Why not? MacDuff was an impressive man, and the force of his personality was pure magnetism. She wasn’t sure that Celine had believed her when she’d told her that she hadn’t gone to bed with MacDuff. Their relationship had consisted of part ally, part adversary in the past few years. Whenever they were together, he ignited a response in her that always put her on the defensive. She didn’t need MacDuff in her life.
    The elevator opened, and she stepped out into Celine’s apartment. All blues and creams and Louis XV furniture and gorgeous bronze mirrors. Restful, but exquisite. All Celine. Not at all Jane. She’d be glad to get back to the U.S. and the simplicity and comfort of her own apartment.
    Day after tomorrow. She’d already made her flight reservations.
    For now, shower, crawl into the bed that looked like Marie Antoinette had probably slept in it.
    In a few minutes Celine would probably be at a club, flitting from table to table like the butterfly to which Jane had mentally compared her.
    Jane didn’t envy her at all.

    JANE’S CELL PHONE was ringing.
    She reached out sleepily for the phone on the nightstand.
    “Whore.”
    She was jerked wide-awake at the hoarse male voice.
    “Bitch.”
    “Who is this?”
    “Blasphemer.”
    An obscene caller. She was about to hang up when something occurred to her. “How did you get my cell number, you creep?”
    “Liar.”
    “I’m going to hang up. And then I’m going to call the police and see if they can trace you.”
    “They won’t be able to do it. I have all the angels of paradise on my side.”
    “I don’t believe angels would have anything to do with a slime-ball like you. You’d better check your information.”
    “You sit there spitting foulness at me in your little cocoon above the gallery of sin, Jane MacGuire. You think you’re safe.”
    A chill went through her. Gallery. This was no random obscene call. He was speaking in English. He knew where she was. Who she was. “I am safe.”
    “Not from me. Not from us.”
    “Who are you?”
    “I’ve left a calling card at the front door. Come and get it.”
    “No way.”
    “Never mind. I see a taxi coming down the street. It may be the whore who runs this gallery. I’ll give my card to her.”
    He hung up.
    Celine.
    She jumped out of bed and ran to the window