“Claude’s wish has come true. He is me. And I will live his life for him. Far better than he ever could have lived it himself.”
She was silent for so long that he turned and looked. Her eyes looked haunted. “What?” he demanded. “What is it?”
She swallowed several times before she answered, a sure sign that she was going to risk telling him the truth. “When you tell me so many details, I’m afraid that you’re planning…” Her voice trailed off.
“That I plan to kill you?” He was touched by her honesty. “Every man needs someone with whom he can speak freely, no?”
“Of course,” she said automatically. “But—is this wise? To risk this new identity, just to punish Connor McCloud for—”
“Do not question my wisdom ever again.”
He got up and began to pull on his clothing. Tamara reached for her blouse. “No,” he said. “Stay that way. I like to see you naked.”
The blouse dropped silently from her trembling hand.
He glanced at her computer. “What were you doing, at this hour?”
“I was checkng McCloud’s car,” she said. “I got a call from Marc. The McCloud brothers descended upon Billy Vega tonight like avenging angels. They snatched Cindy and left Vega in a bloody heap.”
He blinked. “Ah. That changes things.”
“Yes. It also appears that McCloud has undermined what you were trying to accomplish with Barbara Riggs. She’s rallied. To the point of smashing all the windows out of Vega’s car with McCloud’s cane.”
He began to laugh. “You can’t be serious.”
“I promise, I am. He’s at the Riggs house now. The house vidcams showed him creeping up the stairs, to play with Erin.”
He stared out the window as he buttoned his shirt, letting his plans shift and flow into new patterns. Barbara and Cindy Riggs were doomed anyway, a few days more or less hardly mattered. But this news of Billy Vega’s defeat gave him an amusing idea that could move the whole thing briskly forward. “Call Georg, Tamara,” he said.
She rummaged on the devastated desk for her communicator, and pressed the button. “Georg? The boss wants you in my office, please.” She clicked the line shut, and reached for her skirt.
“No,” he said silkily. “Stay just as you are, please.”
Her constant smile faltered. It was faltering quite often lately.
When Georg walked into the office, she gasped, so startled that she forgot her nudity. Georg had shaved his head and brows, and plucked out his eyelashes. Blue veins traced across his smooth skull; his blue eyes were feverish in deep, bruised pits. He seemed a ghoul, a misbegotten thing that had crawled out of a sewer. The man who was no longer Novak nodded in approval. “I see you have followed my instructions. Did you exfoliate?”
“Three times a day,” Georg said. “Just as you said. I am ready.”
He embraced Georg, and kissed him on both cheeks. “Excellent. You are a vicious, loyal hound, and tonight, you will taste fresh blood.”
After Novak explained what was expected of him later that night, Georg turned to Tamara. Scarred lips drew back from his ruined teeth as he looked her up and down. “When I return, I will want sex,” he said.
The man who was no longer Novak shrugged. “Obviously,” he said. “You will be happy to oblige him, of course, Tamara?”
Tamara hesitated, longer than usual. He waited…ah, there it was. That bright smile, ever at the ready. “Of course,” she said faintly.
He advanced upon her again once Georg departed. Tamara’s smile was a challenge. She tried to hide behind it, but he knew how much she loathed being intimate with Georg. He knew that power and danger excited her, that she was testing her limits, that she was too intelligent not to sense how close she was to death. Layer upon layer of lies, and twisted motives. Her complexity aroused him.
He opened his clothing and availed himself of her body again. He wished to get past all of Tamara’s layers, all the way to her tender, shrinking center before he added her to his legions of angels. She must be punished, for thinking she could hide her secrets behind a smile.
Punishment exalted. His angels knew this, and so would she. The Riggs family would learn it, the McCloud brothers would learn it.
Just as he had learned it. The day was always with him, frozen in his memory. The day that his father had strangled his mother. She had betrayed him. He had been five years old, too young to understand the nature of her betrayal, but not too young to understand empty eyes, slack limbs. He understood death. He understood punishment.
His father had not been a heartless man. He had wept, had cradled his dead wife’s body in his arms and sobbed.
“Never betray me,” he had begged his small son. “Never.”
“Never,” the little boy had whispered. “Never.”
Someone was clutching, clawing at his hands. Wild-eyed. Red hair, green eyes, gasping mouth wide open. Tamara. He realized, with a start of surprise, that his hands were clamped around her slender neck.
He let go of her, and got to his feet. These odd fugue states occurred when he was under stress. But after all, he had died only six hours ago. That was a stressful event.
Tamara lay curled and gasping on the floor, clutching her throat.
He fastened his trousers. “Be ready for Georg when he returns,” he said as he left the room.
Chapter
20
Connor sat on the porch and watched the sunrise turn the clouds a rosy pink. He was so happy, it terrified him. Anything that made him feel so open and soft had to be suspect.
Morning advanced, people came out of their houses dressed for work, herding their kids into car seats. It was a normal working day for the rest of the world. None of them knew that the universe had just shifted on its axis. Erin, the most beautiful girl in the world, was his future bride. He could barely breathe, he was so switched on.
The door opened behind him. He leaped up and turned. His foolish smile slipped a notch when he found himself face-to-face with Barbara Riggs’s suspicious glare. He thought about the squeaky bed, and made sure she wasn’t holding any blunt objects that could be utilized to bash his head in.
She looked different today. Nicely dressed, hair styled, made up. She looked like the old Barbara he remembered from before the fall.
“Uh, good morning,” he ventured.
She gave him a curt nod. He wondered if he was supposed to make small talk. If so, too bad. He didn’t have any to offer.
Finally she took pity on him and opened the door wider. “There’s fresh coffee in the kitchen. You may have some, if you’d like.”
Her tone implied that he didn’t deserve a cup of fresh coffee, but he still forced himself to nod and smile. “Thanks, I would.”
This, of course, meant following her into the kitchen, sitting down with a cup of coffee and confronting another screaming silence. All those years of deadly quiet meals with Eamon McCloud had not prepared him for the frigid quality of Barbara Riggs’s silence.
Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore. “Uh, how’s Cindy?” he asked.
“Still sleeping,” she said. “So is Erin.”
“That’s good,” he said. “You all needed your rest.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “Are you hungry?”
Actually, he was ravenous, but her cool gaze made him feel self-conscious about it. As if being hungry were some sort of moral failing. “I’m fine,” he said. “Don’t worry about it.”
She got up, with a martyred look. “I’ll make you some breakfast.”
Erin came downstairs some minutes later, dewy and fresh from a shower, and found him digging into his third stack of pancakes and link sausages. Her face colored a deep rose pink. “Good morning,” she said.
There was no bra under that skimpy tank top, he noticed. His glance switched her brights on. They went hard and tight against the stretchy fabric. He could feel those raspberry-textured nubs against his face, his lips fastened around them, tongue swirling, suc
kling.
He looked down at his pancakes. “Uh, great breakfast, Barbara.”
She shot him a narrow glance and turned to Erin. “Want some pancakes, hon?”
“Sure,” Erin said. She poured herself some coffee and dosed it with milk. “What’s on your agenda for the day, Connor?”
“I need to track down Billy Vega,” he told her. “I don’t like leaving you alone, but I’d rather do it on my own.” She didn’t need to know the rest of his plans. Which included planting microwave beacons in her stuff so he could keep tabs on her.
“You really think Novak might have hired him to control Cindy?” Barbara asked.
He gave her a noncommittal shrug. “Just ruling out possibilities. I want you all to stay right here with the doors locked. And I want you to keep that revolver while I’m not with you, Erin.”
Erin winced. He braced himself for Barbara’s disapproval, but Barbara nodded, a martial glint in her eye. “I have a gun, too,” she said. “A Beretta 8000 Cougar. And I know how to use it, too. Eddie taught me. Anyone tries to touch my girls, and I will blow their heads right off.”
Erin coughed and set her coffee down. “Good Lord, Mom.”
Connor grinned his approval and raised his coffee mug in a toast to his future mother-in-law. “Excellent. This place is guarded by kick-ass Amazon warrior goddesses. I’m outclassed. Practically redundant.”
Barbara passed Erin a plate of pancakes. “Hardly that,” she said primly. She forked some sausage links onto Erin’s plate, hesitated, and dumped the rest onto his own, a clear mark of favor. “You certainly made yourself useful last night. Your brothers, too.” She pursed her lips, uncomfortable. “I, ah, haven’t thanked you yet, for your help.”
Erin hid her face behind her hair. Her shoulders shook. “Don’t thank him, Mom,” she said. “It has a very strange effect on him.”
He choked on his coffee and kicked her under the table. She covered her face and tried unsuccessfully to muffle her giggles.
Barbara regarded them with chilly hauteur. “When you two are finished chortling over your private joke, I don’t suppose you’d care to explain what’s so funny?”
“No,” he said hastily. “She’s just yanking my chain. You’re more than welcome, Barbara. Anytime.”
Barbara’s lips twitched, as if she were suppressing a smile. “Eat your sausages before they get cold,” she snapped.
He cheerfully obliged her, sneaking hungry glances at Erin as she tucked in her pancakes. She was so amazingly pretty. Gorgeous shoulders, cute rounded arms, all soft and luscious. And those tits, high and quivering against that tantalizing tank top. Her regal posture just did it to him: her head so high, her back so straight, shooting him secret, heated glances from under her eyelashes. It drove him nuts.
Erin dipped her fingers into pancake syrup and peeked to make sure that Barbara’s back was turned. Her lips curved in a seductive smile as she licked her fingertip. She drew the next finger into her soft, rosy mouth and sucked it, circling her pink tongue around the tip.
Color flared in his face as if he were thirteen again. He stared down into his empty plate and scrambled for a diversion. “Uh, would you mind if I took the cell phone when I go?” he asked. “I want you to be able to reach me at all times.”
“Of course,” Erin said. “I charged it up last night.”
He nodded his thanks and gulped down the rest of his coffee. “I guess I’d, uh, better get going, then.”
“I’ll miss you.” Her smile made him want to fall to his knees.
“I’ll come back as soon as I can.” He fled the kitchen before he could start babbling, too flustered even to thank Barbara for breakfast.
Erin padded after him. “The cell phone is plugged into the outlet by the couch,” she told him. “Let me get it for you.”
She handed him the phone after he shrugged his coat on, and disarmed the alarm for him. They gazed at each other. There was so much to say, they were both speechless.
Connor touched her cheek with his fingertip. “Erin. Last night was really intense. I need to know if we’re still, uh…I don’t mean to pressure you, but I don’t want to float around on cloud nine all day thinking it’s a done deal if you’ve got second thoughts. If you need time, I’ll back off. I won’t like it, but I’ll do it. So tell me if—”
“I love you, Connor.” She went up on tiptoe and pulled his face down to hers. Her lips were so soft and sweet, his whole body was racked by a shudder of delight. “It’s a done deal.”
That was as much as he could take. He pulled her soft, pliant body against his. Her tits pressed against his chest, his hands were full of the satin richness of her hair, her mouth was a pool of honey and spices and juicy, sun-warmed fruit. She arched against him and—
“Ahem. Have a nice morning, Connor.”
They sprang apart at Barbara’s crisp tone. Connor twitched his coat shut. Erin hid her reddened mouth with her hand.
“Thanks, Barbara. I’ll, uh, be on my way,” he mumbled.
“I think that would be best,” Barbara said.
He was almost to Seth and Raine’s place before his jeans fit normally. He was so jazzed, he practically danced up the wooden steps that led to the side kitchen entrance. He disarmed Seth’s high-tech security system with practiced ease and let himself in. For the first time, Seth and Raine’s altar crammed with wedding and honeymoon photos didn’t make his lip curl. The whole world should get so lucky. If everybody felt like this all the time, earth would be a paradise. No war, no crime. Everybody bouncing off the walls, singing all day long.
Connor had spent enough time in Seth’s basement workshop arsenal to know his way around. He rifled through the disks until he found Seth’s latest version of X-Ray Specs, and dug through the numbered drawers, pulling out a handful of beacons housed in little plastic envelopes. He filled his pockets with them, tucked one of the receivers under his arm, and scrawled a note of thanks, leaving it on Seth’s computer keyboard.
Next stop, Erin’s apartment.
Erin’s cat presented him with the first of several moral dilemmas. The animal started yowling the moment he let himself in the door with the help of his ATM card. It twined around his feet, trotted to its food bowl, and sat down. Luminous golden eyes regarded him expectantly.
“But I can’t feed you,” he protested. “If I feed you, I’ll be busted. Erin will know that I was here. I’ll bring her over later and she can feed you then. A little patience. You’re too fat, anyway.”
The cat licked its chops, bared its fangs, and meowed. His conscience pricked him. “Maybe some dry food,” he conceded. “Just a little to tide you over.” He searched through the cupboards until he found a bag of cat food, and dumped a small amount into the bowl. The cat sniffed at it and gave him a you-have-got-to-be-kidding look.
“I told you,” he explained. “No wet food. It’s not my fault. I’ve got nothing against you personally.”
The cat curled sulkily down over the bowl and began to crunch.
The second dilemma was actually more a practical one than a moral one. Planting beacons on one’s girlfriend during warm weather was as difficult as it was morally iffy. It was easier to hide stuff in heavy outerwear, and her purse and wallet and tape recorder, which were his best bets, were all with her at her mother’s house. The Mueller report would’ve been good, if she’d kept it in a briefcase, but it was just a manila folder full of loose papers and photos, no way to hide the thing. He tagged her organizer, stitched beacons randomly into her jackets and blazers. That was as much as he could do until he got a whack at her purse. He wished Seth were around. Seth was born devious.
His eyes kept returning to the small jewelry box that sat on the dresser. He opened it and poked around until he found a ring he’d seen once on her ring finger, a silver and topaz thing. He slipped it onto his little finger, memorized how far it came past the joint, and voila, he had a point of reference for the jeweler. What slender, tiny fingers she had.
&n
bsp; The third moral dilemma stared him in the face when the phone rang and the message machine clicked, whirred, and began to play back its contents. Erin must be calling her machine. She hadn’t invited him to listen to her private messages, yet here he was. He could hardly put his fingers in his ears. Besides, she was his future wife. Her phone messages were the least of what he had the right to know about her.
So he stood like a statue in the middle of the apartment while the cat crunched its snack, and let her messages flow by him.
Click, whirr. “Hello, Ms. Riggs, this is Tamara Julian from the Quicksilver Foundation. It’s four on Monday afternoon, and I want to schedule a meeting with Mr. Mueller, who is arriving midday tomorrow. Call me as soon as possible, please. We have a narrow window of time in which to arrange this. Please call my mobile phone number.” Tamara recited the number.
Click, whirr. “Hello, Erin, this is Lydia. My goodness, you have been playing with the big kids on the block, haven’t you? I just talked with the people from Quicksilver, and they told me about your work on Mr. Mueller’s Celtic collection and their plans for the Huppert. I’m so excited! Rachel and Fred and Wilhelm and I have called an emergency lunch meeting, and you must be there to help us strategize! And Erin, I do hope you won’t hold what happened a few months ago against us. I had no choice in the matter, as you know. It was the board who insisted on your dismissal, not the four of us. We have nothing but admiration for your skill and your determination. Call me, Erin, right away. At home tonight, if you like. Any hour is fine, even if it’s late. I’m sure I won’t sleep a wink tonight. Buh-bye!”
“Two-faced bitch,” Connor muttered. “Get stuffed.”
Click, whirr. “Ms. Riggs, this is Tamara Julian again. It’s seven on Monday evening. Call us, please.” Click, whirr. “Ms. Riggs, this is Nigel Dobbs, hoping against hope to get in touch with you. You have the number.” Click, whirr. “Erin, this is Nick Ward. I need to talk to you right away.”
Cold ran through his body as he listened to Nick recite his phone number. His euphoria vanished. He looked around the room, the bed still in disarray, yesterday’s breakfast dishes still on the table. His stomach clenched like a fist. He shouldn’t have left her alone. He didn’t want Nick to talk to her. Nothing Nick might say could possibly be to Connor’s advantage. All Nick would do was create confusion.
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