by Stephen Frey
“Hey, why are you leaving?” he asked, snagging her wrist again.
“Because you need to start getting ready for your museum party.”
“I bet I could think of a more exciting way to spend the evening.”
Angela had seen that look on Sam’s face many times. His eyes were aflame with lust. “I’m sure you could,” she said, surprising herself.
Sex with Sam had been incredible from the first time they’d been together. No initial period of awkwardness as they’d gotten to know each other, as there had been with her only other lover, a boy in college. No having to show Sam her special wants. He’d found them himself so effectively and efficiently she’d bitten his shoulder to keep from screaming. She’d left deep and purple marks, and he’d pointed at them proudly the next morning as proof that she’d experienced intense pleasure.
And it wasn’t just the physical part of the act that had brought about such incredible pleasure. As Sam had slowly and tantalizingly investigated her body that first night, he had whispered to her, too, gently probing her mind as well. The college boy had been too inexperienced to understand the psychological component of her need, and turned selfish when satisfying her became too much of a chore. She’d accepted it by making him believe he was satisfying her when he wasn’t. That had never been an issue with Sam. Not once had she ever had to fake anything with him.
Sam had made her feel as she was convinced she never could, even during their initial encounter. And it had only become better over time. He explored her fantasies and desires, coaxing her into telling him her most private thoughts. She’d become physically addicted to him, in so absolute a way that her body had actually ached for months after the divorce. Now she simply tried to ignore those urges. She hadn’t been with anyone since the divorce, hadn’t even been tempted because she was certain the experience would be so disappointing.
“What did you think of Caroline?” Sam asked, moving close.
“She seemed nice.”
“She isn’t. She was being her usual plastic self, I can assure you. But that’s not what I was talking about.”
“Oh?” Sam ran his finger up her forearm and the feeling raced through her body, the fire spreading even as she tried desperately to throw water on the flames. “Whatwere you talking about?”
“What did you think of her physically?”
“She’s attractive.”
“She’s plain,” Sam said. “Not like you.”
“Well, I—”
“You are so beautiful.” He bent down so they were on the same level, searching her expression. “Those eyes of yours,” he said softly. “They’re like magnets to men.”
Angela looked down.
“Are you seeing anyone?” he asked.
“No.”
He put his finger back beneath her chin and lifted it again, forcing her to look at him this time. “Are you telling me the truth?”
“Yes.”
“No woman has ever come close to you, Angie.”
She ought to hate him for what he had done, and on a rational level she did. But on a deeper plane she couldn’t. “Which is, of course, why you felt you needed to cheat on me.”
“I said I was sorry for that.”
“I don’t care about sorry. Sorry doesn’t help me.”
“You have your skeletons too.”
Angela’s eyes flashed to his. “You know none of that was true,” she said, tight-lipped. “You know your father was responsible for all of that. I was never with either of those men.”
There was a long silence. “Let’s start seeing each other again,” Sam finally suggested.
“No. Not in a million years.”
“Why not?”
“For starters, let’s try the fact that you’re married. I don’t do—”
“I don’t mean in that way,” he interrupted.
She hesitated. “Then what are you talking about?”
“At some point Hunter is going to start asking questions about what happened to us. In fact, he already has. It would be much better for him as he gets older if you and I had a healthier relationship. Don’t you think?”
“Maybe,” she said slowly. This was just like Sam to throw her a curveball. She’d thought he was trying to seduce her, but he was talking about something platonic. So why was there that twinge of disappointment?
“I see you in Hunter so much, Angie.” Sam’s voice was subdued. “The way he walks and smiles. That attitude of his. It’s all you, Angie. It brings back lots of wonderful memories, I have to admit.”
Angela swallowed hard. “What are you suggesting?”
“Let’s have lunch sometime. It’ll have to be somewhere out of the way. I hope you can understand why. I can’t have an innocent lunch getting into the newspapers and being misconstrued, you know?”
She nodded.
“But I can be a good boy. I can keep my hands to myself.”
How could he have sat there in that courtroom and watched those men testify about having sex with her? If he truly loved her, how could he have allowed them to say the things they’d said? Could he really have believed their stories? “Sam, I—”
“Are you game for it, Angie? Just lunch. Maybe next week. I’ll call you at work one day and we’ll set it up. You know it would be fun.”
That was the problem. Itwould be fun. And, despite his promises, the odds were very good that he’d try to turn it into something more. “I don’t know.”
“I do. I’m going to call you. I’m going to set it up for—”
“Hello, Angela.”
Sam and Angela glanced toward the doorway at the same time. Chuck Reese stood there, peering at his son’s fingers wrapped around Angela’s wrist.
“What are you doing here?” the elder Reese demanded.
“She’s here to pick up Hunter, Dad,” Sam explained.
“I see.” He took Angela’s hand and pulled it away from Sam’s. “Son, Bill Morris called a few minutes ago about that property in Atlanta,” Chuck Reese informed Sam, handing his son a cordless phone. “He’s anxious to talk to you.”
Sam managed the family money. He’d never had any other job. “I’ll call him in a little while, Dad.”
“I’d appreciate it if you’d get back to him right away. As I said, he was anxious to talk to you.”
Slowly, Sam took the phone from his father. “All right.”
“I can’t remember Bill’s number. You’ll need to go back to the house to get it. It’s on the Rolodex in the study. Say good-bye to Angela.”
“I’ll be going myself,” she said quickly.
“I’d like to speak to you for a moment,” Chuck Reese said, blocking her way to the door as Sam headed out. “This won’t take long. Promise.”
“Bye, Angie.”
Then Sam was gone and she was alone with Chuck Reese. “Mr. Reese, I’m not comfortable—”
“How much will it take, Angela?” he growled, his demeanor turning confrontational.
“Take? How much willwhat take?”
“Let me say this as politely as possible. I’m tired of seeing you. Tired of having to deal with you. I want you out of my family for good. I want you out of Hunter’s life, and I want you out of Sam’s life. I know what was going on here when I walked in. I know my son. God help me, I love Sam, but he has a very hard time controlling himself. He seems to only want what isn’t his. I’m just looking out for him, and for Hunter. It’ll be best for both of them not to see you anymore. It’s best that I take care of them without any influence from you.” Reese drew a long breath. “There will have to be consideration for you. I understand that.”
Angela stared up at Chuck Reese, unable to believe what she had heard. “You are the most despicable—”
“How much, Angela?” he asked again, a determined tone in his voice. “What’s it going to take? Let’s start at five hundred thousand in cash. How about that?”
“You would try to buy me?” she asked incredulously. “To buy out my ability to see
my son? I’m his mother, for God’s sake. He needs me.”
“All right amillion dollars. I can have it to you tomorrow along with a contract that you will sign agreeing to give up all rights to Hunter.”
Angela stared at Chuck Reese, hatred coursing through her body. His face blurring before her. “You are the most disgusting man I’ve ever known,” she hissed, pushing past him. At the doorway she stopped and turned back, pointing a trembling finger at him. “You will never be able to buy me off. Not for a million, not for ten million,” she said, shaking her head. “I hope you burn in hell.”
As she walked quickly along the deck toward the stairway and the underground passage, she could hear him laughing from inside the room. She began to run.
John Tucker nodded to the armed guards posted on the wide porch before the farmhouse’s front door. He had also nodded in the same way to the two men at the end of the farmhouse’s long driveway, and to the two men halfway down the driveway. Colby was taking absolutely no chances with Lawrence’s safety on this trip.
Once inside the house, Tucker moved quickly along the dimly lit hallway toward the basement door. He was thinking back on the fear he’d detected in Angela Day’s eyes a little over an hour ago. The dread that had settled into her expression like a palm print in setting cement.
The hall door creaked when it swung open, as did the second step of the rickety basement stairway under Tucker’s weight. The muffled groans were becoming louder, and he took the last four steps in a single leap, then hustled toward the closed door at one end of the dank basement.
“What the hell’s going on here?” he roared, bursting into the small room.
The man they had apprehended on the lawn across from Angela’s apartment was still hanging from a thick beam, chin on his chest. One of Colby’s men stood close to the prisoner, a lit cigarette in his fingers. Tucker knew that Colby didn’t allow any of his men to smoke or drink. They were in top physical condition, and would have been terminated immediately for violating the rules. The cigarette had another, darker purpose.
“I’m following orders,” said the crew cut young man.
Tucker had been introduced to the detail as a “special assistant” to Jake Lawrence on this trip. But during the briefing in Wyoming, Colby had made certain his men understood that Tucker had no authority over them.
The prisoner was naked from the waist up, and Tucker spotted two burn marks—one on the back of the neck, and one on the left shoulder blade. “That’ll be all, son.”
“I take my orders from Mr. Colby.”
Tucker moved a step closer, confident he could overpower the smaller man if necessary. “That will be all,” he repeated loudly.
“I’m not going any—”
“Leave us,” Colby ordered, striding into the room past Tucker and nodding at the young man. “Now.”
“Yes, sir.” The man quickly exited the room.
“I thought we agreed that this guy had nothing to tell us,” Tucker said when the guard was gone. “What’s the deal here?”
Colby moved close, so that their faces were just inches apart. “Why do you care so much, John?”
“I can’t wait to see this movie, Mom.”
Angela and Hunter were hurrying through a crowded indoor mall, trying to make a nine o’clock showing. She was dead tired, but the next two days would be filled with anything and everything Hunter wanted to do. Before they’d even made it down the estate’s driveway, Hunter had told her how his granddad was planning to build a barn at Rosemary for a couple of new ponies.
“Me, too, sweetheart. We’re going to have so much fun this weekend,” she said.
“We always do.”
She smiled down at him as they neared the ticket booth. “Yes, we do.”
The theater had six screens and Angela scanned the listings, then reached into her purse for a twenty when they made it to the front of the line. She was thinking that she needed to call Carter Hill to let him know that Jake Lawrence had contacted her. She had no choice.
“Two tickets for . . . “ Angela’s voice trailed off as she glanced down. Hunter was gone. He’d been right beside her a moment ago. Her eyes snapped up, quickly scanning the theater’s crowded lobby. Another movie had just finished and people were pouring out of the theater into the mall. “Hunter!”
“Hey,” said the man behind her in line, “are you going to buy tickets or what?”
Tucker had warned her about needing to be careful with Hunter because Jake Lawrence had become involved in the situation with her son.
“Come on, lady.”
Angela felt panic setting in. Her heart was thumping in her chest; her brain was beginning to pound. “Hunter!” she yelled, people blurring before her as her eyes flashed around the area. She stepped out of line and staggered ahead, fighting to cross the river of moviegoers passing in front of her. Maybe Hunter had gone to buy candy. He was such an independent child. “Hunter!” She could hear the panic in her own voice, and it unnerved her. “Hunter!” She pushed through a family of five and made it to the food counter, but the little boy was nowhere in sight.
“Are you all right?” asked a woman holding a bag of popcorn.
“It’s my son,” Angela answered, her voice choking up. “He was right here a second ago. Right with me. Then I looked down, and he was gone.”
“Now keep calm,” the woman urged. “Everything will be okay. He’s probably right here.”
Angela shook her head and raced back out toward the mall, looking wildly in both directions, uncertain what to do. Pick one way to run and search every store? But what if that was the wrong way? Or stay right here? But what if he had walked into the mall? Or been taken? She had to do something.
“What does he look like?” The kindly woman had followed Angela. “I’ll go this way,” she said, pointing to the left, “and you go over there. But you have to tell me what he looks like first.”
“He’s about this tall,” she said quickly, putting a hand at her hip. “He’s got medium-length brown hair and blue eyes. He’s wearing a green down jacket,” she said, trying to think clearly as the words spilled out. “Thank you. Thank you so much.” Suddenly Angela felt a hard tug on the bottom of her coat.
“Mom, did you get the tickets?”
She glanced down and her eyes were met by the most beautiful sight she could have imagined. Hunter looking up at her with that wonderful smile. She knelt, tears flowing down her cheeks as relief rushed through her body. “Where were you?”
“I went to the bathroom. I thought you heard me tell you.”
“No, honey. No, I didn’t.” She grabbed him and hugged him tightly. “You have to make sure I hear you, Hunter. Please don’t ever do that again.”
Hunter nodded obediently as Angela pulled back. “Sorry to scare you,” he said, wiping tears from her face.
“It’s okay, Hunter. It’s okay.”
The man standing against a wall outside the movie theater folded the newspaper he had been pretending to read, and moved casually on. What had just happened was bad luck for him. Now it was going to be extremely difficult to get the boy away from her.
Ken Booker took a long puff from a cigar, then, for a second time this evening, read the article in theWashington Post about the lawsuit seeking $1.4 trillion. The scary thing about the suit was that someone at thePost thought there was enough to it to report on it. “Bastards,” he muttered, feeling his blood begin to boil.
He reached for the Jack Daniels highball and took a long drink. Why was he getting so worked up? The man they were supporting was very connected. And he would see to it that this could never happen.
CHAPTER TEN
The weekend with Hunter had flashed by. The way they always did. Her two days were gone, and he was back at Rosemary. It would be another month before she would see him again, and the loneliness was already setting in. It had hurt so deeply to watch him scamper gleefully back into the mansion after giving her a final hug, undoubtedly looking fo
rward to playing with the magical things that millions could buy.
Angela knew now more than ever that there would soon come a day when Hunter wouldn’t want to spend the weekend with her, a Friday when he would trudge to her car and get in because hehad to, not because he wanted to. This very morning he’d mentioned for the first time she could ever remember that he was bored.
Typically, she and Liv would have had dinner tonight—the Sunday night after her weekend with Hunter. Liv had an amazing ability to comfort her, while at the same time making her realize that she couldn’t feel sorry for herself, that she alone could effect change. The dinner-with-Liv-routine had been interrupted this evening in the name of doing just that.
“Everything all right?”
Angela nodded slowly, gazing through the candlelight at Jake Lawrence.
Tucker had called yesterday morning, asking again if she would consent to dinner with Lawrence. She had turned down the request for last night, Saturday night, because nothing could make her give up so much as a minute of her precious time with Hunter. She had agreed, however, to meet Lawrence late this evening after dropping the boy off at Rosemary.
But she had agreed with a condition. John Tucker would have to be close by at all times, close enough so that if she felt any uneasiness at all, she could get to him right away. And he could get to her.
Angela glanced at the double door of the hotel suite’s tastefully decorated private dining room. Jake Lawrence had agreed to her condition. They were alone in here, but Tucker was on the other side of those doors watching television. She’d already checked twice. William Colby was out there too, along with four of his men, two of whom were carrying weapons—and watching Tucker like a hawk.
“Relax, Angela. Everything is fine,” Lawrence said reassuringly, adjusting his black bow tie. “You know John Tucker is out there, right?”
Angela nodded again. Lawrence smiled and the dimples she’d first noticed in Wyoming appeared.
“I learned my lesson last time.” His smile faded when Angela didn’t respond. “I mean that.”