“You have most of his bio there. Heckett grew up in Manhattan. His father was a banker, a loan executive most of his life. His mother was a nurse. He has an older sister who married a Canadian who owns a tour company in Vancouver. Guns weren’t part of his growing up. He never owned a weapon. He never was part of a shooting club and was never in the military service. It’s not brain surgery. The man was no expert with a thirty-eight. It’s not easy to accurately shoot someone with a pistol from that distance.”
She nodded sadly. “Unless we can prove he hired someone, Lieutenant, it could turn out to be true reasonable doubt. You’d be handing him his ticket home.”
“You don’t want me to distort the facts, do you?”
“Of course not. I’m just . . . it’s my job to anticipate arguments and envision how those arguments might affect the jury.”
“I know. I’m going to get you the hit man before the trial starts.”
“You are?”
“I have a lead,” he said. “Don’t worry.”
“I’m not sure I can do that.”
“What?”
“Not worry.”
He nodded. “Okay, worry, but I’ll get him.” He glanced at his watch. “I have to get moving. Sorry. I know they probably have a great dessert list here.”
“Never eat it. Hate sugar highs,” she said.
He smiled. “Same here.”
Her mobile vibrated. “Excuse me,” she said, and answered. “Armstrong.” She listened for a moment. “What? Yes, that is surprising. I’m meeting with him right now, matter of fact. Yes, he’s filled me in, but I think we need to talk. There’s more information, an amendment to his original report. Okay, I’ll see you then.” She ended the call.
“Problem?”
“That was Eleanor Rozwell.”
“So?”
“Simon and James are not asking for a postponement. They’ve replaced Warner Murphy already, and the replacement, an attorney named John Milton, is on the case. Maybe he’s read the forensics report and made the same conclusions you’ve made. He could have more time if he wants. He’s either brilliant or arrogant,” she added.
Matthew nodded and stood. “More often than not, brilliance cannot exist without arrogance,” he said.
“Yes, but this gives you less time to find the hit man.”
“Worry,” he said. “It motivates me.” He turned to leave.
“Wait,” she called.
“Yes?”
“Something else you said . . . the attorney, Warner Murphy. You really suspect his death is connected in some way?”
“I do, but I’m not sure about that yet, and I have nothing to go on except my instincts.”
“You have a lot on your plate,” she said.
He smiled. “So do you. Thanks for lunch,” he told her, and headed out of the restaurant.
She watched him leave and then sat back, glancing at the report and thinking about Lieutenant Blake’s new information. What had happened to her slam-dunk introduction to the New York court scene?
Something dark and heavy had come rushing in and over her. It was as if all the light and hope were sucked out of the room for a moment.
She looked around sharply, having the sense that someone was watching her. She panned the room, studying every man and woman gazing even remotely in her direction. Funny, she thought, I’ve never had this sort of paranoia when I was involved with any of my former cases, and yet it feels like more than just an overactive imagination. Shadows, eyes, voices, and even the clatter of dishes and the sounds of the traffic outside seemed different. It was as if she had stepped out of this world.
She shook her head. “Get hold of yourself, Michele Armstrong,” she muttered.
These were thoughts and feelings better left for Aunt Eve, she told herself, and signaled for the bill.
6
Alexander James thought he had died and gone to sex heaven when John Milton introduced his personal secretary. Why would a woman so startlingly beautiful, with so voluptuous a figure, settle for a legal secretary’s job and work at it for as long as John said she had, when she could easily walk onto any film set, get paid huge sums for modeling, or capture the heart of any wealthy bachelor in moments? Of course, he suspected she might be John’s girlfriend.
“Alex, this is Nora Adamson,” John said. “She’ll be fulfilling my personal secretarial duties here as she did at my previous firm.”
Alexander rose quickly to come around his desk. He wanted to be closer to her. He was actually drawn to her more by her extraordinary almond-shaped blue-gray eyes than by her perfect figure, with breasts that seemed to rise and threaten the buttons of her pearl-colored blouse with every breath she took. He felt held by those eyes, captured, and was unable to look away or hide his fascination. He was rarely so obvious when it came to beautiful women, but right now, he was practically panting. She held out her hand, and he actually trembled when he brought his to it. Her fingers seemed to burn their way to his blood, carrying the heat not to his heart but instantly down to his startled prick. He feared he was losing control of the pulsating threat.
“A pleasure,” he said. He looked at John with an expression of feigned accusation. “How can you conduct any business with such a beautiful woman so close?”
John smiled. “It’s a challenge, I’ll admit, but Nora’s talents go much deeper than her obvious beauty. She can see the weakness in a defense or prosecution almost as quickly as I can. And she has an incredible memory for details.”
“Mr. Milton exaggerates a little, but thank you for the compliment, Mr. James,” Nora said.
At least, he thought she had said it. It seemed more like a soft whisper, melodic, a caress of his ears, warming him like lips moving over his chest, down over his stomach and to the inside of his thighs.
And that perfume she was wearing . . . he had never smelled anything like it. It seemed to circulate in his brain and make his lips salty and wet. He could spend the rest of the day, months even, standing here looking at her and taking in every detail of her very being.
“Please, call me Alex. We’re like family here,” he said. She was still holding his hand. He tried to swallow after he had spoken, but he couldn’t. Every muscle in his body was tight and focused, like the muscles of a panther about to strike. Something utterly primeval in him was threatening to burst out. The small pause of silence was thunderous.
“Alex,” she said, like some obedient slave. Now he couldn’t keep his eyes off her full, perfect lips and the way she formed his name, holding the “X” sound just a little longer. His name never sounded so melodic. How coarse and common was the way his wife, Margaret, pronounced it, often making it sound more like profanity, especially when she was either upset with him or disagreeing with him. “Al’x,” she’d say, sucking in the second syllable and grimacing as if it choked her. In seconds here, he regretted his marriage and his spoiled children.
“Nora and I are going to start reviewing the file on Heckett and the case itself, Alex. I’ll have some thoughts for you before the end of the day.”
“Please,” Alex said. Nora finally released his hand, and strangely, it felt ice-cold, just as cold as it would feel if he had stuck it in the freezer. He grasped it behind his back and rubbed it. “And don’t hesitate to ask me anything,” he told Nora.
“I won’t,” she said. Maybe he imagined it, wanted it, but he thought she had added “ever hesitate.” Her smile was blazing. She started to turn away.
He felt panic. “You explained our employee package to her, John?” he practically cried, hoping to hold her there a little longer.
“Nora doesn’t need any explanations. If anything, she’ll explain it to me,” he added, and laughed.
Nora held her smile but brought her right hand up slowly to the base of her throat. He nearly salivated at the way her fingers moved ever so gently across and then down to the top of her cleavage, like a woman who was dabbing herself with perfume in preparation for a tryst.
“Yes, w
ell, I’m here if you need me.”
“Alex, you have plenty to do with the Marcus case. The man is too free with his comments to the press. You had better tighten the reins. I’ve had clients like that and practically had to tie them up and gag them before trial.”
“I know, I know. Some people are their own worst enemies,” he said.
John smiled that wry smile he was rapidly becoming famous for here. “Most people, Alex. Most people are their own worst enemies.”
He opened the door and left with Nora, her body moving with a swing and a rhythm like Alex had never seen.
“What’s wrong with you, making a fool of yourself over a pretty woman?” Alex asked himself as soon as he was alone. “That’s not just another pretty woman,” he replied. She had him talking aloud to himself. For Christ’s sake, stop acting like a teenager, he thought, but the possibility of concentrating on the Marcus file diminished rapidly. He kept looking up and envisioning Nora Adamson standing there. Finally, he sat back and closed his eyes.
In his fantasy, she returned and, without a word spoken between them, began to disrobe, peeling her clothes away with such grace that he saw nothing pornographic in the stripping. Naked, she walked around his desk and approached him. He turned his chair to face her, and she knelt down, unfastened his pants, and dipped her hands in smoothly, gently slipping her fingers into his briefs and cupping his testicles, her fingers stroking his stem. The blood rushed through it, hardening him. He hadn’t been this hard since his teenage years, he thought. It was miraculous. She brought her lips to the tip but didn’t take him into her mouth. She played over him, tasting him. He moaned. She moved to the insides of his thighs just the way he had imagined earlier. She was working him ever so slowly. His heart was pounding, pumping his hot blood. His mouth filled with the salty taste of first kisses. His whole body was shuddering, and then—
The intercom buzzed. He opened his eyes, the fantasy popping like a soap bubble.
“Mr. Broadstreet is here to see you, Mr. James,” Rose Blum announced.
He looked down. His pants were open while he had been fantasizing, and his own hands were in his underwear, cupping and stroking his testicles and penis, not some imaginary Nora Adamson. Shocked, he sat up quickly. “One moment,” he replied, his voice unable to disguise the panic.
He worked quickly to zip up, but he could feel the sweat around his neck and knew his face was flushed. He reached for some water and wiped his face with his handkerchief.
What the hell had happened?
He took deep breaths and looked down. His erection wasn’t receding. If anything, that part of his body was in a small rage. When he was a teenager and he or one of his friends had an erection like this, they’d always chant, “Wear baggy pants.”
There was no joking now. How was he going to stand up and shake Steven Broadstreet’s hand? The man was too sharp of an investigator not to take note of his failure to do so. He hyperventilated, forced himself to think about the client and the file, and started to feel some relief. Until he looked down again.
How hadn’t he noticed it the first time?
He’d had an orgasm.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” he said aloud. If he could smell it, Broadstreet would. The panic circled him like a tiny tornado. He felt his head spinning. He couldn’t see anyone now!
He lifted his receiver.
“Yes, Mr. James?” Rose asked.
“Would you put Mr. Broadstreet on, please?” he said, and waited.
“Alex?”
“Steve, I hate to do this to you, but I need a favor.”
“Sure, what?”
“Can you come back in, say, two hours? I’m deep into something unexpected here, something personal. If it’s difficult, we’ll reschedule for another day.”
“No, no problem. I’ll come back,” Broadstreet said. “Are you all right? I mean . . .”
“Yes, I’ll be fine. Thank you. Thank you,” he repeated, and hung up quickly.
He rose and went into his private bathroom, where he stood looking at himself in the mirror. His face was still a little flushed, but it was calming. He began to take off his pants to do what he could to rescue the rest of the day.
Two doors down the hall, John Milton sat behind his desk, looking at Nora Adamson. Neither had spoken a word since they had left Alexander James’s office.
John smiled. “You did well, Nora. I’m as proud of you as a father could be.”
Nora smiled, but she looked a little uncomfortable in her clothes, scratching her arms and squirming.
“Need a break?” he asked.
She nodded.
He closed and opened his eyes after about ten seconds. Nora’s clothes were neatly spread on the chair in which she had been sitting. Suddenly, there was a small movement under them, and then she appeared, stretching her six-foot-long body before curling around her clothes. Her tongue protruded, and her head swayed.
John smiled, his eyes full of pleasure and happiness. “Is there something wrong with me?” he asked one of his favorites. “I think you’re more beautiful like this.”
She slipped off the chair and snaked around his left foot, moving up his leg. He stroked her head. She lowered herself to his lap, and he leaned over to continue reading the forensics report on the Strumfield murder.
His phone vibrated, and he dug it out of his inside pocket. “John Milton,” he said. He just listened. He never said good-bye. He closed the phone. “Houston, we have a problem,” he declared. “Sorry, my love. I have something I must do.”
Nora made a quick retreat back to her clothes, and he closed his eyes, held them shut, and then opened them to see her sitting across from him in her human form.
“I have to leave. No rest for the weary,” he said.
“Tell me about it.”
“Now, now, no regrets, my dear. Regrets sound too much like remorse, and you know how I feel about that.” He stood up and looked around. “This is such a dull office. The whole place is as dreary as heaven. But fear not, sayeth I. It shall not be long before we change it.”
Nora laughed and stood.
“Work on that detective’s interview of Cisley Strumfield. Unravel it for me.”
“Okay,” she said. She took the papers and started out.
“Oh.”
She turned.
“Don’t do anything more with our Mr. James today. I don’t want him to have a heart attack. Too soon,” he added, and laughed.
She smiled and went out.
He pulled out his phone and speed-dialed Charon. “I’ll be right out,” he said. “We have an appointment.”
Charon never said hello and never said good-bye. The line went dead, and John put his phone in his inside jacket pocket.
On the way out, he paused to speak to Kaye Billups. Anyone could see she wasn’t comfortable talking to him, but he was now an associate. She had to be as pleasant as she could be, even though the man disturbed her in ways she didn’t understand.
“And how is our Mother Kaye doing this afternoon?” he asked.
Her lips trembled. “I’m fine,” she said.
He looked around the lobby. “I miss those flower baskets, don’t you? They added so much color.”
She couldn’t speak. She looked down at her keyboard.
“How many children do you have now, Kaye?” he asked.
She looked up quickly. “What do you mean, now?”
He smiled. “How many children do you have?” he repeated.
“I have three boys and a girl. And they’re all healthy and doing well.”
“I’m glad. They’re wonderful once you get over the shock of their being born,” he said.
She had no reply. She watched him walk out and sat back. If she didn’t know better, she would think that he knew about her abortion in college.
Of course, that was ridiculous. Wasn’t it?
John looked back at the agency entrance from the elevator and thought, She’ll be the first one who will
want to go once I take over, or perhaps she’ll go sooner.
But that was how it should be. Her replacement was waiting to join Nora.
In time, they would all join Nora.
How perfect this all was now, and just when he was starting to get bored with the battle.
The elevator door opened. He got in and pressed the button for the lobby. Then he looked at his reflection in the metallic walls. It was distorted, but he could still make out a pair of wings melting.
When he stepped out, he looked like someone who had just heard very bad news. His rage propelled him past other visitors to the building and employees of other companies that had their offices here. No one spared more than a glance at him. Something made them turn away quickly.
He was soon calm again. He smiled at the doorman and slipped into the rear seat of his limousine. Charon closed the door, and he sat back, preparing himself, like a fireman, to put out some smoldering ashes. He conjured up Stoker Martin and told Charon exactly where to go.
It was like a game of chess after all.
And he was about to say, “Checkmate.”
7
As she entered the loft apartment, Michele heard what was now familiar chanting coming from the dining room. She saw that it was lit only with candles and paused in the doorway to look in at her aunt, who was holding hands with two other women, all with their eyes closed, their voices in a chorus of “Ommm.” Her aunt sat at the head of the table and was wearing an indigo headband with an eye over her forehead, a long multicolored tie-dyed dress, and several bracelets with different-colored crystals on both wrists. She nodded gently, keeping her eyes closed but letting Michele know she knew she had come home. Smiling to herself, Michele continued to her bedroom on the west end of the loft. Half of her rather large bedroom was her home office.
When her aunt had heard that Michele would seriously consider moving in with her, she had the space redecorated. The two large windows with industrial frames were softened with newly installed light walnut paneling that carried over the frames. Beige cotton curtains were hung, and an electrician was brought in to update the outlets and provide a high-speed broadband and Wi-Fi service. Another two telephone lines were also brought in, one for a dedicated fax and another for Michele’s landline. That was it when it came to updates, however.
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