Dangerous Journey (mobi v.9/12) Read online

  Every muscle in her body was tired and stiff from the long flight, while Darius looked remarkably fresh and rested. Even his day-plus growth of beard served to add to his masculine good looks.

  When they stepped out of the air-conditioned airport, the heat and humidity struck like a physical blow. C.J. was surprised at how quickly she forgot about the miserable weather in this part of Asia. She had even looked forward to returning, simply to get away from the disappointments she found at home.

  Darius checked his wristwatch. “It’s one o’clock. We’re going to have to buy some clothes for Sarawak. I suggest we find a hotel first, then shop later. I’m sorry we have to stay here tonight.”

  “You won’t hear any complaint from me. I’m so sick of flying I could scream. My life used to be boring. Now, in the past ten days, I’ve flown halfway around the world twice. I’ve been chloroformed, locked in a cellar, involved in one gunfight, two fistfights, had my hotel room and my apartment ransacked, and have nearly been arrested. I didn’t know when I was well off!” She frowned.

  Darius looked at her in surprise, but then smiled. A smile crept across her face in response.

  Darius’s smile was nice to see; she had seen far too little of it the last couple of days. She wondered if just being back in Asia had perked up his spirits. Only here did he seem to be completely free of the ghosts of his past. Here, he could forget his disappointments. But how long could he keep running?

  In Singapore, just as in San Francisco and Hong Kong, Darius seemed to know his way around.

  They found a beautiful hotel on Orchard Road, one of the more modern, luxurious areas of the city. Darius booked two single rooms.

  Almost immediately they left the cool comfort of the hotel to do the shopping that would be necessary for their trip into the jungle.

  Afterward, Darius wanted to show her the old colonial sector, as well as the area called Kampong Glam, the Muslim part of the city.

  As they walked through the city, C.J. discovered that Singapore was lovely. The sun was low, casting a brilliant reddish glow over the skyline, making it appear to shimmer in the heat.

  “What do you think,” Darius began, “about going back to our rooms, putting on some fresh clothes and going out to dinner?”

  “I think,” C.J. replied, giving him a sidelong glance, “that sounds wonderful.”

  Once she reached her room, she was relieved to be alone. She was too aware of him, and all but ached from the strain of repressing any response to him, of keeping far enough away from him that they wouldn’t touch, of scarcely allowing her glance to meet his because she knew the longing he might see in her eyes.

  Her reaction to him was foolish on her part, well she knew. That route would lead to one thing only, heartache. She’d had enough disappointment for one lifetime; and didn’t want any more added to it.

  She showered before changing into practical khaki slacks and a white blouse, some of the newly purchased essentials Darius had said she would need in the jungle.

  When he stepped into her room, freshly shaven, his hair still damp, wearing a light yellow shirt and white slacks, she gazed at him a little too long. She averted her eyes, but she knew there wasn’t much Darius Kane missed.

  “Sit on the veranda,” she suggested. “Your hair will dry in no time.”

  “Will you join me?” he asked, rolling back the sleeves of his shirt before stepping into the warm night air.

  She nodded.

  There was a small table with two chairs. “Would you like me to call room service for drinks?” he asked.

  “No thanks.” It would be bad enough being alone with him with a clear head; the last thing she needed was liquor.

  “C.J.?” he said.

  “Yes?”

  “Do you have as low an opinion as the British do about my activities in Hong Kong?” His voice was soft, unemotional, but she felt rather than heard the quiet intensity behind his question.

  Her brow knitted. Did she? She could understand why he was doing it. He wanted the White Dragon for the reward money, and she was simply a pawn to his ambition. That hurt. “I don’t know,” she said honestly.

  “I see.” He fell silent again.

  “It’s no way to live, Darius. Not for you. You have too much to offer.”

  He gave a hard, bitter laugh. “I have nothing to offer anyone. No one cares if I’m alive or dead, and that’s fine with me.”

  “Darius!” She looked at him in horror. There was so much she wanted to say. He glanced at her, but she stared at the ground, away from the eyes that missed nothing and questioned everything.

  “No big deal, C.J.,” he said. “None at all.”

  He went back indoors.

  Had she ever handled anything so badly, she wondered. She remained alone on the veranda, barely able to breathe, the heat oppressive around her. Even though the sun had set, no cooling breezes reached her. She ran her fingers through her hair, pushing it away from her face as she rose then walked back into her room to face Darius.

  His back was to her. He sat on the edge of the bed, head bent.

  She slid the veranda door shut, then said, “Jimmy Lee told me you believe you aren’t good enough to play the piano in public any longer.”

  He didn’t turn, but his back stiffened. “I’m not.”

  “Maybe you won’t be able to perform music so difficult that only you have the skill to perform it, but that doesn’t mean you should play nothing.”

  “When did you become a music critic?” The words dripped with sarcasm.

  She wondered if she dare go on, but added, “You still have talent, Darius. I think…I think it eats away at you and that every day you don’t use it, a little of you dies inside.”

  “Oh, so now you’re going to psychoanalyze me!” He turned angrily towards her, his eyes flashing, but as their gazes met, he shook his head and remained silent. Her heart ached for him. She didn’t really understand obsession, but she knew that the great artists had it—painters, musicians, even the top athletes. They were obsessed with doing the best job they could, with being the best. Nothing less was acceptable. It was what made life meaningful to them. She lacked that fire, just one more bit of evidence that she would never be a great artist, but Darius had it—and it was killing him.

  “I’m sorry. That was wrong of me,” she said. “There’s so much I don’t understand about you, much that I simply don’t know. I wish it didn’t matter to me. I wish you didn’t matter, but you do.” Minutes seemed to go by as C.J. waited for him to speak.

  “You’re right,” he said finally. “I should tell you; I owe it to you. It may help explain why I live like I do.” He paused. “Why I suspect I’ll always live this way.” The last words were spoken so softly that she barely heard them.

  She understood what he was trying to say. She had told herself, time and again, that he was only passing through her life, that eventually she would continue on alone, just as before. That was the practical, logical way to think about this man and all that he meant to her. And she was always practical and logical. Yet, hearing him confirm it hurt more than she imagined.

  She crossed the room and sat on a chair, viewing him only in profile.

  “I was living in England,” he began, his voice unnaturally hollow. “I was married, and believe me, I was on top of the world. Orchestras had started to seek me out to perform with them, and I was negotiating a record contract. The reviews of my performances were more than I could have hoped for.

  “I know you’ve heard of wife, Nadia, generally considered one of the greatest of all Hungarian violinists. We’d met in Paris three years earlier. She was nine years older than me, and her whole life up to that point had been the violin, music and musicians. She was already well-known, though not nearly as famous as she is today. I moved in with her, and when she became pregnant, we got married. She was thirty-six, and wanted a child very badly. I’ve thought about this a lot over the years, to help myself understand what happened later.”


  The words had come tumbling out of him in a rush, as if he had to explain as much as he could as quickly as he could, but now he hesitated. C.J. said nothing as she watched the slump of his shoulders, the way his head was bent as he spoke.

  “One day—Nadia was about five months pregnant at the time—we decided to go for a drive in the country just outside London. As we drove, a car approached us. I learned later that its tire had blown. Suddenly, it was in our lane, the driver clearly out of control. I turned the wheel to get away from it, but the road was lined with trees. I stepped on the brakes too hard, throwing the car into a skid. I knew we were going to crash. All I could think of was Nadia and the baby, and I reached out, trying to brace her with my arm, to hold her as best I could…”

  He stopped again.

  “It’s lucky you both weren’t killed,” C.J. said softly.

  “Yes. I’ve been told that many times.” His voice was distant, and much quieter when he continued. “I awoke in the hospital, so covered with bandages I looked like a mummy.”

  C.J. nodded at his attempt at lightness while talking about something so painful to him.

  “When the car hit, we both went into the windshield. I had the steering wheel to stop my body, and Nadia, luckily, had my arm to protect her. When we hit, though, the windshield shattered. Fortunately, she had tucked her chin so that her cuts were on her head and not her face; she suffered only a light concussion. The arm and hand I was using to hold her went through the windshield, however, and got sliced up pretty badly in the process. All the cuts were superficial, except one. One shard of glass went through my hand, entering from the palm and coming out the back.”

  So that was it. C.J. shut her eyes and placed a hand against her chest, feeling a little dizzy. That was the accident Jimmy Lee had referred to. One piece of glass, one fluke accident, had meant so much difference in one man’s life.

  He continued matter-of-factly. “The doctors were very good. They worked hard to repair all the damage that had been done. A few scars…and a slight loss of sensitivity, a slight numbness in the fingers of one hand, caused by nerve damage. Irreparable nerve damage.”

  The full effect of his words hit her. “God, Darius, I’m so sorry.”

  “Yes. Everyone was sorry.” He sounded almost bored by his tale. “Especially me. I wouldn’t even touch the piano for three years. These days, I’ve learned to compensate somewhat.... But I can’t play like I used to. I’ll never be able to play like that again.”

  “And Nadia?” C.J. asked.

  “Nadia liked being married to a rising young pianist. For a while she liked being married to a ‘tragic accident,’ and she wallowed in the sympathy of well-meaning friends.” He sighed. “But she didn’t like being married to a bitter has-been. When the sympathy of others stopped, so did her interest. Soon after the baby was born, she began to work again, going on tour and taking the child and a nanny with her. I remained in London, alone. Motherhood suited Nadia well. It was being my wife that bored her. One day she announced she wanted a divorce. She had fallen in love with Othmar Vidyansky.”

  “Vidyansky—the pianist?”

  He gave a harsh chuckle. “That made it especially hard to take. It wasn’t a matter of being heartbroken, though; I was quite out of love with her by then. But I was bitter. Very bitter. I left, wanting nothing more to do with Europe, music, any of it.”

  He looked up briefly then bowed his head again. “That’s not altogether true. There was one thing there I didn’t want to leave, that it almost killed me to leave. That was my daughter, my Alicia.”

  He ran his fingers through his hair. “I felt like a failure, C.J. Alicia had her mother, the star, and Vidyansky would be her stepfather. Then there was me, a nobody. I had—I have—nothing to offer her but despair and a life of might-have-beens. So I forced myself to leave her...for her own good.”

  He fell silent.

  “You haven’t seen her since?” C.J. asked.

  “No. She’s better off. I’ve saved her a lot of disappointment.”

  C.J. shook her head. He was so mistaken. She thought of her own father and how much she loved him. He had his faults, plenty of them, in fact, but if he weren’t there...

  Darius looked at her. “What is it?” he asked.

  She wasn’t sure if she should say anything, but her heart couldn’t help but go out to his child. “I can’t help but suspect that if your daughter ever got to know you,” she said, her voice husky, “she would want you in her life. She would want to see you. You’re a fine man, Darius; you have a good heart. I suspect that for your little girl, the accident wouldn’t matter. You’re her father. She will want to know that you care about her. That you love her.”

  “You don’t make it easy, do you, C.J.?” His pain cut through her.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, bowing her head. She hadn’t meant to hurt him; that was the last thing she would ever want to do. But she knew, from the innermost reaches of her being, that he was wrong about his child.

  “Please, continue,” she said softly. “After you left England, what did you do?”

  He shrugged. “I traveled, drank and generally bummed round for almost two years. I ended up in Calcutta, living in a filthy hovel, drunk and miserable. Then, one day, in walked Jimmy Lee. I remember his exact words: ‘Darius Kane, it’s been over three years since your accident. That’s enough self-pity. You’re coming home now.’ He wouldn’t take no for an answer. Home meant Hong Kong. I returned there with him. That was three years ago.”

  “You’re lucky to have such a friend.”

  He nodded. “I know.”

  They fell silent as she thought about all he had told her. “So why do the British police think you’re a bounty hunter?” she asked.

  He shook his head ruefully. “That’s such a nasty name for something I don’t think is bad. I guess it’s true, though. In Hong Kong, especially around Jimmy’s friends, I’d hear a lot of things. To me, Hong Kong is the heart of Asia—everyone and everything important passes through it.”

  “I heard about some Australian bank robbers. They were traced to Jakarta, but the police were stumped. The case interested me, and I got a few leads. I went to Jakarta and discovered the leads were good ones; the robbers were caught, and I received the reward money. The Australian and British police were a little put out by one man showing them up, I guess. As for me, I thought it was pretty easy money. There wasn’t much of it, though. I used it to give Jimmy what I felt I owed him. He accepted it; he realized it was a matter of pride.”

  Expressionless, she nodded and waited.

  “From then on, I paid a lot more attention to things I heard. More cases came my way. I’ve gotten a few big rewards and, with Jimmy’s help, made some even bigger investments. The one worthwhile thing I’ve done was to set up a trust for Alicia. At least she won’t think her father took off and left her with nothing. By the tune she’s eighteen, she won’t need to be dependent on anyone if she doesn’t want to be. And that, my dear Corabelle, is the whole sordid tale.”

  “No, Darius, it’s not sordid, just...” She shook her head and bit her bottom lip. She couldn’t go on.

  He walked to the window, facing the lights of Singapore.

  He leaned his hands on the window frame as he began to speak, his back still toward her.

  “You know, Cleo, you remind me of the way I saw the world years ago, back when I was young. Before Nadia, before Europe, Asia—when I was just a kid with dreams. There’s an innocence about you I thought no longer existed in the world. I’m glad to find it still does.”

  “Am I really so naïve, Darius?”

  “Don’t mock it. It’s a good thing.”

  She walked up beside him. “I don’t want to be that way. I want…” She drew in her breath and admitted aloud what she’d been holding in heart. “I want to be with you.”

  He shook his head, a mixture of anger and hurt shadowing his face. “You didn’t understand what I was saying!�
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  “I did understand, more than you know!”

  He took hold of her arms. “I’d just be using you. With me, you’d give and give and never receive. In the end, you’d hate it. You’d hate me. I travel around Asia for months on end, tracking down heaven only knows what. Or why. But it’s my life now. It’s all I’ve got.”

  She felt the color drain from her face. “I see,” she said, the words barely a whisper, hoping he wouldn’t realize that she was crumbling inside. “It’s okay, Darius. I never expected anything from you. I simply wanted you to know how I felt.” Her words were spoken nonchalantly, as if she hadn’t a care in the world.

  He dropped his hands without replying.

  “Let’s go eat now,”—she stood straight, shoulders square, jaw firm, upper lip stiff—“before we both fall into a dead faint from hunger.”

  She picked up her handbag, opened the door to her room, took a deep breath and was halfway down the hall before Darius caught up to her.

  They left the hotel and walked along the sidewalk without speaking.

  He confused her. He fascinated her. Everything about him was unique and far beyond her experience. She cherished his vulnerabilities as well as his strengths, his dark moods as well as his humor, his macho bravado as well as his sensitive musical ability. He was a study in contrasts, the most intriguing man she had ever met. But she also saw that he was slowly tearing himself apart, tormented by his own unwillingness to accept life as it was.

  And there was nothing she could do about it.

  Chapter 14

  The next day they flew to Kota Kinabalu, to Kuching and then, for a generous fee, found someone to fly them to the jungle clearing called Bir Sakan.

  C.J. had wired ahead to Alan’s former co-workers that she was coming to pick up his belongings. As the small plane dropped toward the runway, she recognized the man waving in greeting.

  “Miss Perkins, how nice to see you again,” he said with a Southern drawl so thick she could almost touch it. He held his hand out to help her off the plane.