Death is Forever

right?”
    “His skull wasn’t fractured. His brain is working just fine. As soon as he was back on his feet, he called to ask me two questions. The first was where Hans Schmidt is.”
    Her mouth dropped in shock. “Why in God’s name would Cole want to find Hans?”
    “To kill him,” Windsor said impatiently. “Why else?”
    “I…that’s…” She shook her head, too stunned to speak.
    “So I told Cole where Hans was. Name, rank, serial number, and exact address of the hospital where Hans lives in unholy matrimony with a respirator and a feeding tube sewn into his gut.”
    She tried to say something. She couldn’t. In seven years her father had never mentioned Hans Schmidt’s name.
    “Seems the sorry son of a bitch had an accident about seven years ago,” Windsor said with icy satisfaction. “One of those nasty little tricks of fate. A car wreck. Glass everywhere, including in every inch of good old Hans.”
    “An accident,” she repeated hollowly.
    “He’s completely paralyzed,” Windsor continued in a soft voice. “Well, not completely. He could still blink his eyes, if he had any eyelids. He could see, if he had any eyes. He could talk, if he had a tongue. He could come, if he had a pecker and balls. But he doesn’t have any of those things. His brain waves are fairly normal, so his mind is intact. Lucky Hans.”
    Wing’s breath went out in a stream of rapid Cantonese.
    “Cole thought it over,” Windsor continued calmly, “and decided that Hans would look on death as a favor, and Cole wasn’t feeling particularly generous. He wishes Hans a long, long life. So do I, baby. So do I.”
    “An accident,” Wing said in English. “How…convenient.”
    Windsor looked at him. “Nothing personal. A message had to be sent to the opposition about civilian dependents being mauled by professionals for no better reason than sadistic pleasure. I got to choose the message. It was received. Not one dependent has been touched in seven years.” He looked back at his daughter. “The second thing Cole wanted to know was if the letter Jason Street had with my signature on it was a forgery.”
    “Why?” she asked, her voice thin.
    “Probably the same reason he wanted to know where Hans was,” Windsor said dryly. “You may have walked away from Cole, but he hasn’t walked away from you. I’ll tell you the truth, baby. I’m damned glad the note was a forgery. That’s one tough man you have.”
    “He’s not my man. All he wanted was the mine.”
    “I don’t believe that and neither do you.”
    “You would if you’d heard the tape.”
    “I heard several versions of it,” Windsor said impatiently. “All of them were true as far as they went. They just didn’t go far enough. People keep forgetting that Cole Blackburn is as independent as an avalanche. He didn’t just wag his tail and line up for the Chen family’s diamond-studded collar and leash.”
    “How do you know?”
    “Simple. I went up to his office to have an off-the-record chat with him before I ‘met’ him with Nan Faulkner. I asked Cole why he was doing it. He told me that a woman who could take photographs like you was worth more than her weight in fancy diamonds.”
    Erin made a small, startled sound.
    “So I’ll bet he took the IOU from Wing,” Windsor said, “and went along with the game to prevent the Chen family from forging another IOU and cutting a deal with someone who wouldn’t care if you lived or died. It’s what I would have done if I’d been Cole and cared about your survival.”
    Wing smiled wryly. “Uncle Li recently arrived at the same conclusion. You and Cole are a lot alike, aren’t you?”
    “In some ways,” Windsor agreed. “But not in one. I’d rather die than be down in that damned black hole right now, racing the monsoon rains for a bucketful of diamonds, watching the water level around me rise and rise and rise until there’s no way out but death.”
    Erin’s hand shot out and grabbed her father’s wrist. “What are you talking about?”
    “You heard me.”
    “But Cole knows how dangerous it is! He wouldn’t risk his life for more diamonds, no matter how many!”
    “Why not? What else does he have going for him? The woman he would have died for—and damn near did—walked away from him. That leaves him with second prize, the richest diamond strike ever made and the most expensive slice of hell ever owned by man.”
    “You’re wrong,” she whispered, forcing the words past