The Dark Glamour (666 Park Avenue 2)

around the world. She would have done so immediately, except that she was in New York, and Malcolm hadn’t been in New York for more than a few hours between the night they had planned their escape and the day it had all gone to hell. In other words, First Trust Bank of New York, on the corner of Rector and Trinity, almost had to be a bank where Malcolm was known, where he had a reputation from even before it came time to plan his and Jane’s escape. And that made it too risky for Jane to walk into.
    Or it had, before the incident in the coffee shop.
    The air went out of Jane’s lungs in a rush, and she sat heavily on the floor. Malcolm’s arrival had turned her life upside down and inside out and into some sort of diagonal twisting direction that didn’t even have a name. ‘Too perfect to be true’ had been a major understatement: in the space of a few short months, her Prince Charming had turned out to be a murderous mama’s-boy who had been willing to ruin and then, eventually, end Jane’s life to make up for his little sister’s accidental drowning decades before. He had changed sides over time and tried to protect Jane, but in spite of his good intentions, she had had to rescue him from his vindictive mother in the end, which cost her valuable escape time and led to the now-infamous car crash on Park Avenue.
    Nonetheless, he had ultimately tried his best to keep her safe, and whatever the little key was guarding was probably something she could use now. She knew that Malcolm had spent the month before their wedding setting up safe houses around the world for the two of them – in fact, he was probably in one of them at that very moment. She allowed her mind to wander longingly for a minute or two, wondering what kind of life he had imagined the two of them sharing.
Something beachy,
she guessed idly,
or maybe the desert.
After her eighteen years in bleak Alsace, six in rainy, dreary Paris, and a New York winter that involved multiple near-death experiences, Jane hoped that Malcolm would have thought ‘sunny’.
    She took a long moment to picture him in an unbuttoned white linen shirt, his tan glowing and his golden waves of hair throwing off light like a second sun. In spite of her better instincts, she felt an almost physical ache to be with him, wherever he was. She would never be the naïve girl who had fallen head-over-heels for him again, but it was impossible to completely forget their powerful chemistry . . . and the amazing curl of his smile.
    He wanted to take care of me,
she reminded herself, running her fingers along the edges of the key.
Even if he’s not here to know about it, I should let him try.
    ‘First thing tomorrow,’ she declared out loud, and the words sounded good in her ears. A restless sort of shifting noise filtered up from the room below hers, but apparently her voice wasn’t loud enough to warrant more banging.
    Just wait until I put the furniture back,
Jane thought ruefully, eyeing the jumbled mass against the door. Sahara would thump and shout herself into a premature stroke.
It’ll keep,
Jane decided. The bed wasn’t especially comfortable anyway, and although it felt good to have a plan, it felt even better to have a plan
and
a barricaded door.
    She replaced the key in her passport, slid the passport back into her bag, and then propped the bag under her head like a pillow and stretched out on the floor. She didn’t really expect to sleep, but as soon as her eyes closed, she lost consciousness. For the first night since her escape from 665 Park Avenue, Jane didn’t even dream.

Two
    T HE BANK FELT more like the lobby of a posh hotel than anything. The glass doors vaulted into high glass ceilings, and the teller lines wound discreetly among exotic trees in pots and tinkling fountains. It was actually rather intimidating, Jane admitted to herself, but she drew her spine perfectly straight when it was her turn at the window. She set the key on the grey marble counter that separated her from the teller, a woman with a slick black bun and aggressively rouged cheeks. Jane opened her mouth, but suddenly realized that she didn’t remember how her hastily rehearsed cover story was supposed to begin. ‘H-hi,’ she stammered, and then stopped.
    Fortunately, the teller took just one quick look at the key and seemed to know exactly what to do. ‘I’ll call the manager, miss,’ she announced in a clipped tone, and pressed a button on the console in front of