“I’ll be as polite as I can be. Sometimes it’s not possible.” Caleb was moving ahead of them. “I’ll go around the back and see if I can get in the rear door.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Stay with her, Gavin. I’ll let you both in the front door.”

“I should go-” Jane stopped as Caleb disappeared around the side of the house. “Damn him.”

“Come on.” Jock took her elbow. “I don’t like taking orders either, but this isn’t the time to argue. I want to get off the street. It’s the middle of the night, but that doesn’t mean we won’t be seen.”

No, they needed to get into the house and out of view with as much discretion as possible. “But we’d be a lot less noticeable to any neighbors if we went in the back way, too.”

“Yes.” Jock’s lips twisted. “I’m sure Caleb realized that, too. But that wouldn’t allow him the time he wants inside alone.”

Her gaze flew to his face as they reached the front door. “You’re saying that you think he doesn’t want us to know what he’s doing in there.”

“Judging by what he was saying in the car, I got the impression that he really doesn’t want anyone to know what he’s doing at any given time. Of course, you know him better than I do.” He bent over the lock on the door. “But I don’t like the idea of waiting patiently for him to let us in. Does he think he’s the only one who can pick a lock?”

“The alarm?”

“Caleb should have any alarm disabled by this time. I’ll just open the door and we’ll-” The lock clicked, and he slowly swung the door open to reveal a dark foyer. “No alarm. But no Caleb either,” he whispered as he closed the door. “He didn’t exactly hurry to open the front door for us, did he?”

Jane didn’t answer as she followed him into the foyer. What could she say? Dammit, Caleb may have said he was going to give me the opportunity to share in his hunt, but he was obviously playing his own games.

Jock paused, looking around, then glided silently across the hall toward a wide, curved opening. A library or office? The darkness wasn’t as intense as Jane had first thought. The two beveled-glass panels on either side of the front door let the lights from the street filter into the hall and dimly lit the desk and bookcases against the far wall of the room. She followed Jock toward the doorway, trying to imitate his silent movements.

Not a sound. So quiet, so deadly. This is the Jock Gavin who had been trained as an assassin all those years ago, she thought bitterly. How quickly he had fallen back into the old skills. Her fault. He was doing all this for her.

It would do no good to feel guilty. She just had to work through this nightmare.

She moved after him toward the opening.

A bullet whistled by her cheek!

“Down!” Jock turned and pushed her to the floor.

Another bullet, this time splintering the spindle of the banister on the stairs beside her.

Someone was running down those stairs. Male. White shirt, dark pants.

Jock was rising to his knees, pulling a gun from his jacket.

But the man had reached the door and jerked it open. The light from the streetlight illuminated him for the briefest instant.

Tall. Muscular. Red hair.

Then he was gone.

“Damn! That’s Weismann.” Jock jumped to his feet and started for the door. Then he stopped. “I can’t leave you here. I don’t know if there’s anyone else in the house. Where the hell is Caleb?”

“Here.” Caleb came out of the room with the arched doorway. “Get going.”

Jock was out the door in two seconds.

Caleb pulled her to her feet. “I told you to wait outside.”

“Go to hell.” She was shaking. “And if I had waited out there, whoever was shooting at us would have run right into me.” She shook her head as she remembered Jock’s words. “It was Weismann. Jock must have recognized him.”

“Then let’s hope he catches the bastard.”

Jane glanced at the arched doorway of the room from which he’d run. “What were you doing in there?”

“Just a little advance reconnaissance-”

“Closing us out. That’s what Jock said would happen.”

“Gavin is a smart man.” He gazed at the door Jock had left open when he’d started after Weismann. “I hope he’s as fast as he is clever.”

“Why don’t you go after him?”

“I trust Gavin to catch him if it’s possible. I understand he’s exceptional.” He glanced up the stairs to the second floor. “If there were anyone up there with him, I’d think they’d be barreling down those steps. Of course, if there’s only Adah Ziller in the house, she could be hiding.”

“Or trying to climb out a window and get away,” Jane said dryly. “Maybe Weismann was trying to distract us.”

“It would be quite a jump for her.” He looked up the stairs again. “I think I’d better go upstairs and take a look around.”

“What were you doing in the office?”

“I told you, I thought I’d see if I could find anything interesting in case Adah Ziller proved difficult.” He looked up the stairs again. “Where are you, Adah Ziller?” he murmured. “I don’t hear a sound…”

Neither did Jane, and she didn’t like it. “Maybe she’s not here. Or maybe she wants us to think she’s not here.” She drew a deep breath. She was making guesses because she was afraid to face another ugly reality. “I’m tired of maybes.” She moved toward the stairs. “Let’s have a few certainties.”

Caleb was beside her, then ahead of her, moving up the steps. “By all means. I don’t suppose you’ll let me go ahead and-”

“No.” Her gaze was on the room at the top of the steps. “That door is open.” It was all the way open, as if jerked wide when someone had run through it. The other two doors on the floor appeared to be closed.

Which could be-

Caleb muttered a curse. He was at the top of the stairs, his gaze on the interior of the bedroom. “Damn. I was afraid of this. I had a feeling. I’m not going to be able to-” He was striding toward the bedroom. “I’m not going to tell you to stay out. It wouldn’t do any good. Just don’t blame me if you don’t like what you see.”

“What are you-” Then she saw the woman huddled on the floor, one arm flung out before her, blood that had poured from a wound in her chest.

Death.

Dear God, another death.

She sank back against the doorjamb.

She stood there in the doorway, watching as Caleb knelt beside the woman. It had to be Adah Ziller.

A pretty woman, Jane thought dully. Elegantly slim in her gold silk nightgown. Cafē-au-lait skin and black hair cropped fashionably close around her face. But her expression wasn’t pretty, it held an incredulous horror.

“She wasn’t expecting him to do it,” Jane said. “She looks… surprised. Was she shot?”

“No, it’s a knife wound.” He looked up at her. “A fresh kill. I’d say only a few minutes.”

“Right before we got here.”

“No, probably when we got here. He either saw us approach the house or heard us when we came in.”

“So he killed her? Because we came here looking for him?”

“He might not have even been sure who we were. He could have thought Millet had found him. Or even Venable’s men. Either way, he’d have considered it prudent to silence anyone who might have known anything about him.”

“She was trying to help him. She’d taken him into her home.”

“Yes.” He glanced at the gold nightgown clinging to the woman’s slim body. “And probably her bed.”

“Why wouldn’t he have just taken her with him? Why kill her?”

“Maybe he meant to do it anyway, and he just had to advance his plans a bit.” He stood up. “So he stabbed her and came down those steps firing.”

Firing at her. Firing at Jock.

The memory jarred her out of the shock that had left her dazed and bewildered. “Jock. He should have come back by now.” She turned. “I have to make sure he’s all right.”

“Jane to the rescue,” he murmured. “Nursemaid to a baby tiger.”

“Shut up, Caleb.” She started down the stairs. “He’s my friend.”