Hot Ice

and she held her breath as she watched him drop to the ground below.
    Doug felt his legs sing briefly. A quick glance around showed him that no one had seen his leap but a fat, battle-scarred cat dozing in a patch of sunshine. Looking up, he signaled to Whitney. “Toss down the packs.” She did, with an enthusiasm that nearly knocked him off his feet. “Take it easy,” he said between his teeth. Setting them aside, Doug braced himself beneath the window. “Okay, now you.”
    “Me?”
    “You’re all that’s left, lover. Come on, I’ll catch you.”
    It wasn’t that she doubted him. After all, she’d taken the precaution of slipping her wallet out of her pack— and making certain he saw her—before he’d climbed through the window. In the same way, she remembered that he’d switched the envelope to the pocket of his jeans. Trust among thieves was obviously the same sort of myth as honor.
    Whitney thought it rather strange that the drop looked so much longer now than it had when he’d hung by his fingers. She frowned down at him.
    “A MacAllister always leaves a hotel by the front door.”
    “We ain’t got time for family traditions. For Chrissake come on before we draw an audience.”
    Setting her teeth, she swung a leg over. Agilely, but very slowly, she twisted herself around and lowered. It only took her an instant to discover she didn’t like the sensation of hanging from the window ledge of an inn in Madagascar one bit. “Doug…”
    “Drop,” Doug ordered.
    “I’m not sure I can.”
    “You can, unless you want me to start throwing rocks.”
    He might. Whitney closed her eyes, held her breath, and let go.
    She fell free for hardly more than a heartbeat before his hands clamped around her hips, then slid up to her armpits. Even so, the abrupt stop took the breath from her.
    “See?” he told her when he placed her lightly on the ground. “Nothing to it. You’ve got real potential as a cat burglar.”
    “Goddamn it.” Turning, she examined her hands. “I broke a nail. Now what am I supposed to do?”
    “Yeah, that’s tragic.” He bent to pick up the packs. “I guess I could shoot you and put you out of your misery.”
    She snatched her pack out of his hands. “Very droll. I happen to think walking around with nine fingernails is extremely tacky.”
    “Put your hands in your pockets,” he suggested and started to walk.
    “Just where are you going now?”
    “I’ve arranged for a little trip by water.” He slid his arms through the straps until the pack rested comfortably on his back. “All we have to do is get to the boat. Unobtrusively.”
    Whitney followed as he wound his way around, keeping to the backs of houses, away from the street. “All this because some fat little policeman dropped by to say hello.”
    “Fat little policemen make me nervous.”
    “He was very polite.”
    “Yeah, fat little polite policemen make me more nervous.”
    “We’re being very rude to the nice lady who took our pig.”
    “What’s the matter, sugar, never skip out on a bill before?”
    “Certainly not.” She sniffed, racing along behind him as he crossed a narrow side street. “Nor do I intend to begin. I left her twenty.”
    “Twenty!” Grabbing her, Doug stopped behind a tree beside Jacques’s store. “What the hell for? We didn’t even use the bed.”
    “We used the bath,” she reminded him. “Both of us.”
    “Christ, I didn’t even take my clothes off.” Resigned, he studied the little faded frame building beside them.
    While she waited for Doug to move again, Whitney glanced back wistfully toward the hotel. Another complaint sprang to her mind before she saw a man in a white panama crossing the street. Idly she watched him until sweat began to pool at the base of her spine.
    “Doug.” Her throat had gone dry with an anxiety she couldn’t explain. “Doug, that man. Look.” She grabbed his hand, turning only slightly. “I swear he’s the same one I saw at the zoma, then again on the train.”
    “Jumping at shadows,” Doug muttered but glanced back.
    “No.” Whitney gave his arm a quick tug. “I saw him. I saw him twice. Why should he turn up again? Why should he be here?”
    “Whitney…” But he broke off as he watched the man stroll down to meet the captain. And he remembered with sudden clarity a man jolting out of his seat on the train in the middle of the confusion, dropping a newspaper onto the ground, and looking him straight in the eye.