“And I’m going to help you,” she said, growing drowsy.
“Who says?”
“Me,” she whispered, turning her face and kissing his chest. “This isn’t just about you seeing Trevor Gaines more clearly so you can get him out of your system. It’s about throwing some light into the darkness, taking away some of the power of the ugly things that hide out in there. Finding out what you can and writing it all down will help you to do that. I see that now. And I’m going to help you.”
He grunted, but he didn’t argue. He just continued to move his fingers in her hair until she fell into a deep, contented sleep.
She awoke some time later to the sound of the bedroom door opening, the sound secretive. Eerie. The room was pitch-black. Ian had turned out the bedside lamp after she’d fallen asleep. She had the impression she’d been asleep for hours.
“Ian,” she whispered, running her hand over his chest, her neck prickling with anxiety. He stirred next to her, and panic took the place of her drowsy unease. Ian was definitely in bed next to her. So who had entered the room?
Suddenly the room was flooded with light from the overhead fixture. Francesca blinked in shock at what she saw. Gerard stood just inside the door wearing a dark overcoat and gloves. There was a leather briefcase hanging from his shoulder.
There was a gun in his hand.
“So sorry to interrupt your sleep,” he said, smiling. He came closer to the bed, the weapon trained on Ian.
Chapter Seventeen
Ian rose slowly in the bed, his arms bracing his upper body.
“Ah ah,” Gerard said, waving the gun in his direction. “Stay completely still, please. I’m afraid Mr. Lenault has sustained a serious head injury and is out cold. No one will help you if you try anything. I’m not afraid to use this on you, Ian. In fact,” he paused, his smile widening. “It would be my pleasure.”
“Gerard, what are you doing?” Francesca asked, still stunned at the vision of him in the bedroom at Aurore, and completely unable to compute the fact that he held a gun and had it pointed at Ian’s head.
Gerard gave her a sympathetic glance. When his gaze traveled down over her bare shoulders and the tops of her breasts, however, she shrank back, gathering the sheet at her throat and turning her body in the direction of Ian.
“I actually came for you, Francesca. There was something I discovered completely by accident recently. It alarmed me, especially after what I told you this morning about my concerns for Ian’s sanity,” he said, setting the briefcase on a chair side table. He kept the gun pointed at Ian even as he withdrew a slim computer from the case and flipped open the lid.
“What are you talking about?” Ian growled. Francesca slowly realized that he was drawn tight as a drumhead next to her. She glanced into his face as he stared at Gerard, tracking his movement. More shivers than she’d ever experienced in her life cascaded down her entire body, making her shudder. Ian was looking at Gerard with the type of loathing reserved only for mortal enemies.
“Just this,” Gerard said, tapping his finger on the keyboard, his gaze flickering back and forth rapidly between his task and monitoring Ian. “There’s something Francesca should see. Something you deserve to see,” he said pointedly to her.
“Gerard, are you crazy?” she asked. “Why do you have that gun?”
“He wants to kill us,” Ian said levelly.
Another rush of shivers ran the length of her body.
“You don’t know what I want, Ian,” Gerard said, his mouth slanting, his voice going harsh. “I suppose you thought it was easy, to think of me like James probably does, to consider me like my father—the cheerful buffoon.”
“I never even knew your father,” Ian said. “But I can tell you firsthand, James never thought of you or your father as buffoons.”
Gerard gave a sarcastic bark of laugher. “He certainly thought little enough of me, once you came along, that is. But James never knew me. You never knew what I wanted. Nobody does. That’s the way I work.”
“I suspected enough,” Ian replied, his entire focus on Gerard as he approached the foot of the bed. “Maybe not always, but recently I have.”
“You’re lying,” Gerard said dismissively. “Nobody plays a part better than me.”
“I may have been hopeful that I was wrong about you, and I admittedly didn’t predict this, but I knew something was amiss. I may have been worried that jealousy was clouding my judgment, but I recognize the stench of something foul around you.”
For a moment, Gerard blanched at Ian’s calm certainty, but then his face contorted with anger. His fury seemed to fortify him. “Always so smug. Always so sure of yourself, even when you were a freaky kid. If you’re so damn smart, how come you couldn’t figure me out years ago? You were as blind as Anne and James,” Gerard spat. “James never even guessed the truth about his precious sister’s death.”
“Are you saying you had a part in your parents’ death?” Ian asked.
Gerard just gave him a bland glance.
“If we were blind, it was because we loved you. I regret it,” Ian said. Her heart squeezed in anguish at Ian’s simple statement of fact.
“Oh please. Don’t turn sentimental on me now,” Gerard said scathingly. “You were duped, and have been forever. Might as well just admit it. But I’m not the only one doing the fooling, Ian. I knew I couldn’t rest easy, thinking of Francesca being fooled by you. She may have concerns for your sanity, but I wasn’t shocked that her misplaced feelings for you overruled her judgment when she took off in such a rush to meet you here. As soon as I discovered what you’d done to her, I knew I had to come and prove to her what you really are.”