Once, she’d actually had to crack the ice in the toilets to relieve herself.

Foolish foolish Caroline, thinking that this Christmas would be any different from past Christmases, hard and lonely.

The light elation she’d had since waking up had vanished utterly. Things had seemed…so different. For the first time in a long while, there was a lot to look forward to—the zing of attraction she hadn’t felt in years, a couple of days just lazing around, flirting, having fabulous sex.

Instead, a couple of grim days trying to just stay alive in the freezing cold was what she had to look forward to.

“Relax,” Jack murmured, and ran a finger down her cheek.

Easy for him to say. Though, come to think of it, maybe he knew exactly what it was like to have to huddle for days seeking warmth. He’d fought in the Hindu Kush. She distinctly remembered him saying that. She knew enough geography to know exactly where the Hindu Kush was—the foothills of the Himalayas. So this was something he could do.

It’s just that this wasn’t a mission to some godforsaken outback, where hardship was the norm. It was a home he’d paid good money to live in, and he had the right to expect comfort.

Caroline had wanted some lightheartedness back in her life, after so many years of struggle and darkness. She’d been so looking forward to a couple of days of flirtation and lightness and…well, yes, sex.

She’d been planning on drowning him in good food and raiding the Lake wine cellar. What good were all those bottles of Syrah and Valpolicella doing down there in the dark?

And instead, here she was, in a repeat of the horrors of the Kippings. Cardigans pulled out, polite smiles, strangled conversation trying to avoid the stark truth of a freezing home.

Jack studied her features, then turned on his heels.

He was leaving.

Caroline didn’t blame him a bit.

“Jack?” It came out a small croak.

He turned.

This was so hard, after all her childish yearnings. Merry Christmas, indeed. Caroline forced herself to stand upright and caught herself twisting her hands. She let them drop by her side. This was hard, yes, but she’d been doing hard for a long, long time now.

“Do you—” She had to swallow past the tightness in her throat. “Do you want your money back?”

She’d surprised him. He looked totally blank for a moment. There was something about his face that told her he wasn’t often surprised. Then he frowned in puzzlement. “Why would I want that?”

“Because—because you’re going to spend the Christmas weekend in a freezing-cold house. That wasn’t what you paid for. I imagine you want to leave.”

He searched her features. “You’re upset,” he said. “So you get a free one.” He turned around again.

Caroline stood, swaying a little, blinking with surprise, holding her arms around her midriff. Already the temperature had dropped a couple of degrees. “So…where are you going?”

“To go get the toolkit in the garage,” he said, without turning around, “so I can fix that damned boiler.”

JFK Airport

“ENP Security, how may I help you?”

Deaver turned into the plastic shell of the public phone at Kennedy. “Yeah,” he said in a heavy, nasal Midwestern accent. “Can I speak to Jack Prescott? This is Pat Lawrence, tell him we met at Intersec in Dubai last year.”

Coming into Customs as a foreigner had been beyond weird, but it had gone smoothly. Security was primed to question Middle Eastern males, not Finns. The photo likeness had been enough for Deaver to be waved through.

First order of business, find Prescott. The Old Man had died, Prescott would be the new CEO of ENP. Deaver had to find out if he was in North Carolina still.

Axel’s documents would hold for a while, but soon he’d need more.

He prepared to be put on hold. The ENP secretaries wouldn’t put anyone through to Prescott immediately. They’d make him jump through hoops. Deaver had a phone card and was willing to wait it out, though.

“I’m sorry, sir,” the secretary said, instead of Hold please. “Mr. Prescott is no longer with the company.”

Deaver straightened. “What? That’s ridiculous! Of course—”

“The company has been sold to Orion Security and Mr. Nathan Bodine is the new CEO. Have a nice day.” The dial tone came on.

Fuck! Deaver stared at the phone, jaw clenched, breath coming in spurts. The son of a bitch had sold the company. His father barely dead in the ground, and the bastard handed over his life’s work, just like that. Well, of course. Fucker had a fortune in diamonds. He wasn’t going to go to work every day when he had a fucking fortune in his hand.

Deaver angrily punched out another number. Prescott’s home line. Secretive bastard had never given him his home number. Deaver’d had to lift it from company files.

Eight rings. He was about to hang up when a recorded female voice answered. “The number you have dialed is no longer connected.”

Son of a bitch had run! Simply pulled up stakes and disappeared!

Deaver hadn’t factored that in at all. Prescott had thrown him to the dogs and stolen his money, but it hadn’t occurred to him that he would disappear with it.

Prescott was a close-mouthed bastard and didn’t have friends—or at least men he’d have confided in—in the company. Even if Deaver wanted to take the chance of showing his face in Monroe, he’d probably come up with nothing. No one would know where Prescott had run off to.

Deaver knew. Fucker had gone to his woman, this Caroline Lake. Find her, find him, find the diamonds.

He needed to regroup, and he needed ID and weapons.

There was a man in New York named Drake, lived out in Brighton Beach. Drake could get anything, anywhere, as long as you had the price. Deaver would hang out in Manhattan, get himself kitted out with new ID, while he searched the Net for Caroline Lake.

Deaver punched in a Brighton Beach number and waited.

“Drake,” a smooth bass voice answered.

Summerville

“Caroline, go back upstairs. Please.” Jack kept his voice gentle, but he wanted to growl in exasperation. The unheated basement was dank and damp and cold. It would take him at least another half hour to get the piece of shit Caroline laughingly called a boiler going.

She was standing next to him anxiously, eager to help though she couldn’t distinguish a lug wrench from an eyebrow pencil, shaking with the cold. Her nostrils were pinched and white, and her hands were milky blue even though she surreptitiously tucked them under her armpits when he wasn’t looking. He couldn’t stand seeing her like this.

“No,” she said, through chattering teeth. “That’s okay. I want to help.”

“You know what would help me?” He put down the screwdriver and pried away the backing plate. “You’d really help me if you went back upstairs where there’s still some warmth left. Your teeth are distracting me. They sound like castanets.”

“Sorry.” She clenched her jaw.

He sighed. “That was a joke. Obviously not a very good one.” He wrenched the plate open and contemplated the rusting wires and leaky pipes with disgust. “Please go up, I can’t stand seeing you like this. I mean it.”

“If you can stand it, I can. I mean you’re a soldier. Were a soldier. Don’t soldiers stick together?” She edged closer to peer past him into the bowels of the boiler, as if looking into the face of a long-despised enemy. “So that’s the inside of the beast? Doesn’t look like much, does it? I mean considering how much damage it causes.”

Jack clenched his own jaw. No, it didn’t look like much. It was the worst, oldest, crappiest boiler he’d ever seen, and he couldn’t believe she was trusting this piece of shit to keep her warm. It should have been tossed onto the garbage heap ten years ago.