The Arrangement

by Suzanne Forster

She was up, walking and talking.

  She wasn’t sleeping like the sphinx.

  Good.

  2

  She glanced down to see if her breasts were properly exposed in the plunging wrap top. Her fringed skirt hit midthigh, which was baby stuff on this street corner. Most of the girls’ fannies were falling out of their clothes, and some of the flesh was disgustingly jiggly. Not a pretty sight in broad daylight. At least she was toned. And she’d known enough to wear a skirt, the working girl’s uniform. Short skirts weren’t just sexually suggestive, they were efficient.

  A sleek silver Porsche pulled to the curb. Not very discreet of the silly bastard, she thought as she walked over to the passenger door. The window zipped down and the baby-faced thirty-something driver checked her out.

  “I was looking for a blonde, younger and stacked,” he said.

  “Aren’t you lucky.” She gave him a flirty wink and pulled off her silk scarf, exposing platinum-blond curls that would have done Gwen Stefani proud. It was a wig, but this guy wouldn’t care. He just wanted to get his apples picked, and that meant serving up as much of his particular fantasy as she could manage.

  Young wasn’t an option. Stacked, she could do something about. She cupped her breasts and pushed them up, bending toward the car window. Silly bastard, she thought as she saw his salacious grin.

  “Get in,” he told her.

  She barely had the door shut when he peeled out, leaving a streak of smoking rubber behind them.

  “The perfect place,” he announced as he turned onto a deserted side street a couple blocks up, and parked. The grin reappeared as he unzipped his pants and made himself readily available.

  “Knock yourself out,” he said.

  Cheeky little SOB was going to pay for that remark, she promised herself.

  He continued to laugh and joke as she worked him over, pleasuring him with her hands and her mouth until suddenly, he wasn’t laughing anymore. He was begging her to stop. Of course, she redoubled her efforts, and within seconds he was squealing like a baby pig.

  “Damn, woman, let me at you,” he gasped.

  He reached for her in his apparent ecstasy, and she shoved him away. “No intercourse! We agreed.”

  “Yeah, but I need to get off again. That’s how freaking hot you are, Julia.”

  “Don’t call me by my name!”

  “Oops, sorry.” He pointed past her nose, gesturing toward the badly maintained public park they’d pulled up next to. “There’s a park bench. Let’s check it out.”

  “You’re not sorry.”

  “You won’t be either, sugar. Get your sweet ass on that park bench. I’ll make a cushion out of my coat like the hell of a guy I am.”

  Moments later, Julia was sitting on the bench, spread-eagled. She tried not to scream with pleasure as he mounted her with the agility of a gymnast. He could have been doing push-ups. His hands were braced on the back of the bench as he leaned over her and pumped ferociously.

  Moans of ecstasy gurgled up in her throat, but she didn’t want him to know he was giving her the most intense sex she’d ever experienced, the little bastard. She’d refused to let him penetrate until he put on a condom, but that’s where her common sense had ended. Here she was, in a public park on a bench under a tree, and she probably wouldn’t have cared if the park patrol had driven up.

  “Say I’m the man,” he sputtered, “tell me I’m the man! Say it!”

  She got the words out, and his face contorted. “Oh, my God,” he whispered. “Oh, Jesus!”

  Julia gasped as he pulled out abruptly and ejaculated all over her breasts, soaking her wrap top as well as her skin. That, she wasn’t so thrilled about. He could have waited for her, like a damn gentleman. But that thing he’d told her to say might come in handy.

  She managed to clean up the mess he’d made with a hanky she’d tucked in her bra. In her mind the perfect square of fine lace separated her from the role she had to play in order to get what she’d come for, so to speak. She realized how sordid the situation would look to anyone who didn’t understand what was at stake, but she knew the truth, clung to it. This wasn’t an illicit afternoon tryst for her. It was a quest, and he had what she sought, the holy grail.

  As soon as she had her feet on the ground and her skirt back where it belonged, she made her pitch. “Okay, we did your damn fantasy. You got what you wanted. Now, when do I get what I want?”

  He was still engrossed in putting himself back together. “You’re pretty good, but not that good. I’m going to need another session or two, or three.”

  “Jack Furlinghetti, you dirty rotten liar.”

  “Hey, I’m an attorney, aren’t I?” He laughed uproariously and then reached over and caressed her lips with the pad of his thumb. The sound he made was the hiss of escaping steam. “You’ve got nothing to worry about,” he said.

  Julia was steaming, too, and not just from the sex. She damn well better not have anything to worry about. She’d specifically requested him because she thought he was young, gullible and would do her bidding. She didn’t want to be wrong about that.

  “I’m not going.” Alison stood in front of Andrew and ripped the envelope into shreds, letting it fall to the floor like blue snow. “I’m not ready to deal with this yet, and you know it.”

  He could hear the force in her low, shaking voice. She was putting on a good show, lots of bravado, but underneath it all she was afraid. He’d counted on that.

  He set down his pencil, unscrewed the juice bottle top and took a drink. “Don’t be dramatic. No one’s forcing you to go back to Mirage Bay.”

  “Your note said we had to go. We couldn’t put it off any longer.” Her stare accused him, and that was no small thing from this woman. Her eyes were a deceptive baby-blue that turned into blazing fire opals when she got upset.

  “Alison, don’t be ridiculous.” He rose from the stool. “It’s your family.”

  “Exactly. It’s my family. They eat their young.” Her bracelet jingled as she caught the battered copper charm in her fingers. “I’m not ready.”

  “We’re never ready for some things—marriage, children, major surgery. But we screw up our courage and get them done. And afterward, we’re glad we did.”

  “Andrew, please, you know them. They’ll crucify me.”

  “It’s your mother, your brother.”

  “And they both hate me. My mother’s been furious with me since I walked away from the trust fund my grandmother left me—and married you. What she can control she hates. What she can’t control she hates more.”

  “And your brother?”

  “Bret’s had it in for me since birth. I was the oldest and the favorite, and he was desperate to dethrone me.”

  He gave her an encouraging nod. “Congratulations. That’s you and Bret to a tee. You remembered it perfectly.”

  Her headshake was suddenly weary. “I can’t remember anything, especially when I’m frightened. My mind goes blank. I may not know what silverware to use. What if I make mistakes at the dinner table? I’ll be humiliated.”

  She was still rubbing the copper loop between her fingers. It was a dead giveaway of her nerves, and as she brought the loop to her lips, he spoke up. “I’ve asked you to take that thing off the bracelet. It isn’t one of the charms I gave you, and it’s sure to be noticed.”

  Her head came up, defiant. “So what if it’s noticed? I added it myself, and it’s brought me luck. I’m not removing it.”

  The desire to exert his will was strong, but he told himself to let it go for now. He had bigger battles to fight. “No one in Mirage Bay is going to humiliate you,” he said. “I’ll handle that.”

  “Really?” Sarcasm invaded her tone. “How?”

  “Leave it to me. I’ve held your family off until now. You’ll be fine. I’ll be there with you.”

  He’d blocked Julia’s attempts to see Alison when she was in the hospital, explaining that her presence would be too much for her fragile, recover
ing daughter. Julia had backed off, seeming to understand, but she’d also become more insistent with every passing month, and she wasn’t going to be put off any longer.

  Andrew made it a point not to look at the cabinets behind Alison, specifically at the locked drawer where he’d put the missive he’d received earlier that week. “I accepted your mother’s invitation,” he said, his tone harsh. “It’s been six months. It’s time.”

  “You shouldn’t have done that.” Tears welled, glittering like fire. “You had no right.”

  He turned away from her, not wanting to be swayed by the agony swimming in her gaze. Her eyes got to him when nothing else could. Except for the dark hair, she looked uncannily like the Alison he’d known before the accident. But that woman he could resist. This one was different. Her fears were real, persuasive. Hell, they were heartrending. And somehow, on rare occasions like this when she broke down, she managed to get to him, no matter how expertly he steeled himself against her.

  That was why he stayed the hell away from her.

  As he waited for her to compose herself, he realized that she was up to something else. The plate with the breakfast he hadn’t eaten sat on the counter just behind her. In his peripheral vision, he could see her pilfering pieces of the fruit and stuffing them in her mouth like a starving child. He wasn’t sure she even realized what she was doing.

  He turned, catching her as she crammed three of the orange sections into her mouth at once. She froze at the sight of him. Her knees seemed to buckle. Heat flushed her cheeks and she gulped hard, apparently swallowing the entire mouthful.

  “Alison? If you’re hungry—”

  “No, it’s not that. Sometimes I panic and forget myself.” Her eyes took on that anguish again. “Do you see?” she said. “Do you see now? I’m not ready.”

  He did see, but there wasn’t much he could do. They had to go. Julia was extending an olive branch after four years of silence. Alison’s accident had been the catalyst for Julia’s change of heart. She’d wanted to see her only daughter, the child she nearly lost, but this was much more. She’d invited them to stay at Sea Clouds, the Fairmonts’ compound on the cliffs near Mirage Bay.

  The three-story Mediterranean mansion had been in the family for generations, but had been used primarily as a vacation home to escape the harsh East Coast winters. When Julia’s husband, Grant, died, she’d begun spending more of her time at Sea Clouds, and now it was her permanent residence.

  Andrew needed this opportunity. If Julia rescinded the invitation, he might not get another chance to enter that house, up close and personal with the Fairmonts—one of whom he suspected had set him up for a fall.

  Andrew used the smallest key on his chain to unlock the drawer. Inside was the six-month-old edition of the Mirage Bay newspaper he’d found in his P.O. box yesterday, rolled up and bagged in plastic. He’d been having the Mirage Bay paper mailed to him since Alison’s accident, but this edition wasn’t courtesy of the newspaper’s subscription service. This was personal. Someone was calling him out.

  He unrolled the paper and laid it on the counter. Alison had just left in a huff and he didn’t expect her back, but he’d locked his office door all the same. If she saw this, he would never get her on the plane to southern California. The paper’s date was February third, and the lead story was about her disappearance from Bladerunner. But the article had been marked up by whoever sent it. Words had been circled with a permanent marker to create an ominous message, clearly intended for him.

  I know what you did. Soon the police will, too.

  You won’t get away with it this time.

  How much are your secrets worth?

  It smacked of a blackmail attempt, but the sender hadn’t given him any contact information. Andrew couldn’t risk dismissing it as a bluff. He had plenty to hide and too much at stake, and the sender seemed to know that.

  He picked up the plastic casing the paper had come in and examined the mailing label. It didn’t have the newspaper’s logo, which added to his theory that a private party had sent the paper, and if not for the blackmail aspect, Andrew would have said it was Julia Fairmont. He didn’t think it a coincidence that her invitation had arrived within days of the newspaper message, and she had more reasons than most to want him out of the way.

  He’d come between her and her only daughter, and even if Julia didn’t buy the media hype about the Villard curse, she undoubtedly had some concerns about Alison’s safety. She might also think he was trying to use Alison to get his hands on the fifty-milliion dollar trust fund.

  How much are your secrets worth? The clumsy attempt at blackmail brought Bret Fairmont to mind. There’d be no other reason for Bret to expose him, certainly not to protect his sister. There was no love lost there. Unfortunately, the blackmail aspect opened the field up to suspects Andrew might not even know. Anyone could have seen something, heard something, although why would they wait all this time? And the second line must refer to Regine, which meant the sender knew something about his past. But then, who didn’t?

  He put the paper back in the drawer and locked it, but he was still mentally embroiled in the quandary. What were his secrets worth? Christ, there wasn’t enough money.

  He passed the drafting table on his way to the windows. For some reason, the bright blue horizon called up a vision of the first time he’d met Alison, twelve years ago. He’d flown to the west coast to live out his dream of commissioning a sailing yacht from Voyager Yachts, one of the country’s foremost luxury boat manufacturers. Andrew had no idea that Voyager had been owned by Grant Fairmont while he was alive, or that the exclusive marina had been one of Alison’s hangouts.

  She’d been there that day, flitting like a butterfly around the shipyard, a shapely sixteen-year-old in a bikini, flirting madly with the college boys from the rowing club next door. She was underage and too young for Andrew anyway, but that didn’t stop her from flashing him a melting smile every chance she got.

  He saw a lot of her over the next year as he commuted between the coasts to watch the sailboat’s progress, and eventually Andrew realized he was smitten. His intentions were serious by the time he slept with her, but when she took him home to Mama, everything changed. No one was good enough for Julia Fairmont’s daughter.

  Andrew continued to see Alison anyway, even after Bladerunner was done and had been shipped back to Oyster Bay. On her eighteenth birthday he gave her the bracelet adorned with musical charms to encourage her singing aspirations, only to have Julia demand he take it back. She also offered to write him a check if he would name his price. He’d refused the bracelet and the money, but he’d ended the relationship. Julia had been right. He wasn’t good enough.

  It was the last time he saw Alison until she moved to Manhattan the following year to attend Julliard. By that time he was involved with Regine, his protégé, and Alison’s unexpected visit to the rooftop apartment where he and Regine lived was not a welcome surprise. But Alison had sworn she only wanted to meet Regine, that she was a huge fan.

  Andrew stared out the window, looking hard at the horizon.

  Who’d sent him that threat? And what were they trying to accomplish?

  He’d even asked himself if the sender could have been part of Alison’s plan to frame him, if there’d ever been such a plan. Maybe the accomplice had decided to finish the job, with or without her. That seemed like a stretch, but Andrew had to pursue every lead—and he was going to start where it had all begun, in Mirage Bay—whether Alison was ready or not.

  His first shot put a gaping hole through the perp’s heart. Bullet number two drilled right between the thug’s eyes. And then, just for good measure, Special Agent Tony Bogart shot the guy’s balls off. It was the wrong order. If you were going for a quick, efficient kill, you aimed for the head first. Targets shot in the head did not shoot back. But Tony was letting off steam. This was his release valve for the pressure cooker of law enforcement. Better than taking it out on live suspects, which was frowne
d upon by the brass.

  Another perp sprang up before Tony could eject the spent magazine and jam a new one into the .40 Glock semiautomatic. The thug came straight at him, howling like a banshee. The clip jammed.

  Tony flicked his head and sweat sprayed like raindrops. With a hard snap of his wrist, he Frisbee’d the gun at the target carrier system in the ceiling. It hit the drive motors and gummed up the works, stopping the paper assailant in his tracks.

  Laughing, Tony pulled a .45 caliber pistol from his thigh holster and blew the bastard away. Four holes in his forehead. Just call him Mr. Efficient.

  The target carrier was dead, too, but Tony wrote it off to the cost of doing business. This was a private range, and the owner knew Tony was good for the repairs, but probably wouldn’t charge him. The law enforcement gig still got him a few perks. Maybe he’d donate the Glock to Goodwill. He didn’t give second chances to guns—or women—who screwed him over.

  He holstered his pistol and grabbed a towel to mop his brow. He’d stopped using Quantico’s firing ranges. The Bureau took a dim view of their agents killing the equipment, and they’d started docking his pay. Anyone else probably would have been disciplined, but Tony was this year’s top gun. Even outside law enforcement circles, he was known as the agent who’d tracked down Robert Starr, a cunning and deadly Unibomber copycat. He’d also been key in averting another Waco-like tragedy in a religious cult in Oregon.

  Yeah, the Bureau loved Tony Bogart these days, so much so that they’d just put him on six weeks’ administrative leave and strongly suggested he take anger management classes. And all because he’d been working his ass off trying to convince them to admit him to the training program for the Bureau’s elite crisis response team.

  CIRG, the Critical Incident Response Group, was roughly the equivalent of the army’s Special Forces. Tony had the physical skills, but lacked the temperament, according to the psychologist who’d evaluated him. She’d diagnosed him with intermittent explosive disorder. And why? Just because he’d taken offense at some of her snide and insinuating questions and called her a free-associating bitch? She’d accused him of having a flagrant disregard for the rules. Ha. When was the last time she’d danced to the tune of a submachine gun’s bullets? The rules were great until they got you killed.