Since I’ve been married to Charles, Christmas is more complex, I guess you could say. Not richer—ours were that; no, just more complicated, more unpredictable. My stepson, Benny, married Susan Claver in 1994, the year you graduated from high school. There was a baby at Christmas the next year. You haven’t seen little Jennifer in a very long time. She’s not quite so cute now as she was then.
Why am I prosing on about Christmas? Who cares, really? Charles gave me an incredible ruby-and-diamond ring, five carats of diamonds, on that Christmas of 1994. I didn’t like to wear it. I’m always afraid that I’ll lose it. It bothers Charles because he wouldn’t care if I lost it. He truly wouldn’t. He just wants to make me happy.
I tell him he does. I tell him all the time how much I love him. I exhaust him showing him how much I love him. It’s funny sometimes about our sex together. He treats me like a Victorian maiden whose sensibilities couldn’t take oral sex. Once I went down on him and I thought he would expire on the spot. He looked at me like I should faint rather than love him like that. Strange, isn’t it? Dominick always—Oh, no, no more about him!
Sometimes I sense that Charles is looking at me and I sense he doesn’t believe me. I realize that he can’t know about Dominick. I would never, never tell him. I keep my journals well hidden. He’ll never know.
I sometimes think that I would give almost anything to have had one Christmas with Dominick. But there wasn’t one. There was the Fourth of July when I was twenty and he told me he loved me, and that was about it. Of course when I was pregnant with you and he made his trips back to see me, he didn’t make Christmas. He was with his wife, naturally. The only gift he ever gave me was you, my darling. You and that check for five thousand dollars. The bastard.
Rafaella fell asleep in the tub with the jets still going full blast. She came awake abruptly at a noise, her eyes flying open.
Marcus was standing over the tub.
Rafaella’s roommate at Columbia had told her that it was unnerving the way she came instantly and completely awake. She did so now. Her eyes narrowed on his face, but she made no sudden jittery moves. She wouldn’t let him get her goat again, not this time.
“What do you want?”
“To see if you’re all right. I knocked, but no answer. I got a bit worried.” He’d been looking at the book on the ledge beside the tub. It was the same one he’d seen her with that first night when he’d found her crying.
“I’m just fine. Now, get out of here.”
“Did I tell you that I like the way you’re put together? No tan, but I’m not complaining.”
The bubbles from the bubble bath were long gone. “Would you just get the hell out of here?”
“You sound angry. I can’t imagine why. I’m just being politely interested and nonjudgmental. As I was saying, you don’t have much of a tan—but I like that white stomach of yours.”
She looked at him dispassionately, an eyebrow cocked. “What is this? I didn’t think you took the final plunge. You just like to dominate, to humiliate, to prove what sexual power you have.”
“This time I’d like to make an exception,” he said, not taking his eyes off her. “After all, we’ve been out on several dates now. I just didn’t want you to think I was too easy. A man needs his respect, you know.”
He hooked his thumbs under his waistband and his shorts. He grinned at her and started pulling them down.
“All right, stop it, you ass!”
He stopped, then pulled his shorts and pants back up. “I so dislike the teasing-woman bit. I was just being cooperative.”
“If you don’t want me to throw every drop of water in this tub on you, get out, Marcus. Now.”
“I’ve already seen it all, and—” He got a sopping wet washcloth in the face.
“Rafaella! Are you here?”
Rafaella groaned. It was Coco. Marcus was calmly wiping his face with one of her towels and fastening his pants with the other. She quickly got out of the tub, ignoring him, and wrapped herself in one of the soft-as-sin Egyptian-cotton bath sheets.
“Just a minute, Coco!”
“Hi, Coco. We’ll be out in just a minute.”
Rafaella knew startled silence when she heard it. Then: “Marcus? Is that you? In there? With Rafaella?”
“I’m just wiping the water out of my eyes, Coco. Don’t come in. You’ll embarrass Ms. Holland. She’s already blushing from her eyebrows to her toes.”
“I’m going to kill you,” Rafaella said. “With a rock, I’ve decided. I’m going to pound you all over with a rock. Then I’m going to gut you like a yellowtail snapper. I’m going to debone you and then—”
“Coco is a very curious lady. I suggest you get your robe on. Use the one the resort provides. It covers up just about everything but it manages still to be real sexy. The resort provides different colors, you know. With your coloring, I’m guessing the robe is either a very dark green or a soft pale yellow.”
“Then I’m going to skin you, or is ‘flay’ a better word?”
“With your tongue or with a knife?”
“Marcus? Rafaella? What are you—? Are you in the bathroom?”
“Yes, Coco,” Rafaella called. “Please sit down. I’ll be right out.”
“Me too,” Marcus said, and tossed the hand towel to her.
He left the bathroom and Rafaella heard him say, “Good morning, Coco. Why didn’t you come to my villa? Why Rafaella’s?”
“Dom told me about the helicopter. I wanted to see if you were all right. I did go to your villa first. Then I even went to the gym and talked to Punk. Did you see that stripe in her hair? It’s mint green.”
“Yeah, the banker from Chicago didn’t like the yellow, so she had Sissy change it. So, then, Coco, you figured I’d be here, with dear Rafaella?”
“What are you doing here?”
“He’s a lousy Peeping Tom,” Rafaella said, stomping into the sitting room. She pulled the sash tighter on her pale yellow satin robe.
“I think I’d prefer the dark green robe on you,” Marcus said, rubbing his chin with thoughtful fingertips. “Not that this one isn’t nice, mind you.”
“Marcus, a Peeping Tom?” Coco stared at Rafaella with a blank expression that said it all. Not only didn’t Coco believe her, Rafaella knew she was hard pressed not to laugh.
“Rafaella’s good,” Marcus said to Coco, nodding with grave understanding. “Quite good. More of the dominatrix than I usually like, but still she’s enjoyable. Hey, what’s a little pain?”
Rafaella turned her back on him. “This thing with the helicopter, what—?”
“I don’t know anything. Marcus called Dominick a little while ago. Merkel flew over in the other helicopter to get some equipment that was here at the resort. I came with him. He’s taking one of the motor scooters back to the wreck to check things out.”
“It wasn’t an accident,” Rafaella said. “Marcus thinks someone probably loosened a bolt on the tail rotor.”
“That’s what I told Dominick,” Marcus said. “Another scare tactic,” he added to Coco. “And it worked, I don’t mind admitting. But it’s damned odd.”
“What is?”
“Your reporter’s genes getting fired up, Ms. Holland? No, don’t curse me out. What’s odd is that someone would begin now to scare me off. It doesn’t make any sense. I’ve been here over two years. Why now?”
“It’s obvious that you did something recently that scared someone,” Coco said. “What could it be?”
“I don’t know, but that’s a good point.”
Rafaella looked from one to the other, shaking her head. “I don’t believe this. You’re talking about it as though it were something about as important as the weather. We could have been killed. Someone tried to kill us! This is very serious, at least to me. Doesn’t anything shake you guys up?”
“Of course it’s serious,” Coco said. She paused, frowning. “Or,” she continued slowly, “as I said last night, someone could be trying to scare
off Rafaella. She’s been involved both times.”
“We think it was DeLorio,” Rafaella said to Coco.
Coco looked thoughtful. “Plain speaking, then. DeLorio doesn’t like Marcus, that’s for sure. He’s jealous of him.” She paused a moment, then laid her hand on Marcus’s arm. “It’s not because Paula’s so obvious about wanting to get in your pants. It’s Dominick and the very real affection he has for you. I’ve heard again and again that all Dominick wanted to do was to build his dynasty. And all he got was DeLorio, whose mother was—Well, he doesn’t really like his son, and he’s tried to. He realizes it’s his responsibility to like him. His duty. You know that, Marcus. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if DeLorio was behind both the helicopter and the gunshots on the beach the other night. He wants you out of the picture. You’re a threat to him. Maybe he sees Rafaella as a threat too.”
Marcus was staring at Coco. She’d just spilled her guts to Rafaella, like all the rest of them. It was uncanny. He started to say something, but Coco interrupted him.
“Rafaella? What’s the matter? Did that crash really shake you up?”
“Oh, no. Would you like some breakfast, Coco? I can order something and the two of us can sit out on my veranda and enjoy the early morning and—”
“I’d like some dry toast, please,” Marcus said. “And lots of coffee.”
Rafaella walked to the door, opened it, and said, “My knee is itching, Marcus, it truly is. I suggest you take yourself off while you’re still intact.”
“She doesn’t like talking afterward,” Marcus remarked matter-of-factly to Coco. “No gentleness, no sweet little nothings whispered about whether it was as good for her as it was for me, no smoking a cigarette—”
“Out. Now, Marcus.”
He nodded to Coco, walked to the door, then at the last minute grabbed Rafaella and kissed her hard, then was gone.
Rafaella slammed the door shut. She could hear him whistling through the open window.
“I’ve never seen Marcus like this,” Coco said. “He’s got it bad.”
“He’s got what? Oh, no, Coco, all that is just show, it means nothing. He likes to bait me, and I’ll admit he knows exactly which buttons to push.”
“Come on, Rafaella, you’ve already been to bed with him. I can tell; it’s how you look at each other. Your eyes give you away—that intimate look.” She shrugged, a very Gallic gesture. “And Marcus, he’s hard on women, but he’s got something and you want it. It’s—oh, what the hell!” She gave Rafaella a wicked grin, shook her shoulders in another very French shrug, rolled her eyes, and grinned. “Un homme avec, ah, un certain je-ne-sais-quoi.” She shrugged again. It was incredible.
“That sounded completely legitimate.”
“Of course. My name is Coco Vivrieux and I was born and raised in Grenoble.”
“Yes, a wonderful place to ski. But seriously, Coco, you’re wrong. We haven’t had sex together. I swear it.” It sounded like the truth because it was, and Coco bought it, temporarily.
“All right, I believe you. But—” She shook her head. “This whole thing is very strange. Now, my dear girl, the reason I’m here is to invite you over to the compound. Dominick has decided to let you do his authorized biography.”
Easy. Just that easy. Rafaella couldn’t believe it. So easy. Now what was she going to do? You’re going to get him to tell you everything and you’ll get him to let you see his papers, to show you things no one else has seen, and you’ll get him to trust you and then you’ll publish a book that will blow the damnable bastard out of the water.
No, she was the bastard. He was the bastard’s father. And she was going to have her revenge, she was going to take her mother’s revenge, and it would be in print and it would be there forever to haunt him. It would be sweet revenge.
She’d bet he’d even sent weapons and parts to Iraq. She’d expose him, oh indeed she would. Probably he’d sent Russian Kalashnikov automatic rifles and RPG-7 grenade launchers to North Korea. She wouldn’t even be surprised if he’d sent RPK light machine guns and those 38/46 heavy machine guns to Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi, one maniac that most arms dealers claimed they’d never deal with, according to the research she’d done. She was rather pleased that she still remembered the names of some of those weapons. Suddenly she had an image of herself introducing Dominick to Charles Rutledge.
“I’d like you to meet my real father, Charles. He’s an arms merchant. He claims he’s white-market but it’s a lie. He’s very smart and very shifty, so folks don’t know much about him, but he’s as black-market as they come. This is only his latest venture into crookdom. I’ll tell you so much more in my book. To know him is to love him. Just ask my mother; just ask your wife.”
Yes, Rafaella was certain that Dominick got State Department clearance once for every six crooked deals. She’d nail him but good. He could still live on his damned island, but he’d never again dare to leave it. She must check to see if there was an extradition treaty between Antigua and the United States.
“Rafaella?” Coco snapped her fingers in front of Rafaella’s face. “Where are you?”
Rafaella forced a grin. “Oh, no place very exciting.”
“Is it Marcus that’s responsible for your swoon?”
“Swoon? Good God, no.”
“You know, Rafaella, Marcus was right about one thing. Perhaps it isn’t the best time for you to be here writing this book. Maybe it would be better for you to go back home until all the mystery is cleared away.”
“Coco, I love mysteries, and this one’s a corker. You ready for some breakfast?”
Marcus held the phone tightly. “I don’t like it, Dominick.” Actually he was worried to death, but he couldn’t come across that strong.
“Sorry, my boy, but I’ve made up my mind. How’s your shoulder? You didn’t hurt it in the crash, did you?”
“No, everything’s fine. Did Merkel find anything?”
“No, not a bloody thing. It could have been tampered with or it could have been an accident. If it makes you feel any better, Merkel agrees with you. Sabotage more than likely. And I don’t like it any more than you do. Also, Miss Holland was with you both times.”
“Don’t do it, Dominick. I don’t trust her, but more than that, why risk her life? Send her away for the time being. She really isn’t—”
“Look, Marcus, you’ve told me everything you know. I told you what I’d found out. She’s a smart girl, she’s published a biography, so there’s no cause to doubt her credibility. She’s got ambition—she didn’t use any of Rutledge’s clout, and undoubtedly he offered.”
“Still, something just doesn’t feel right to me about her, and—”
“Look, Marcus, bottom line, she’s still just a woman. If I don’t like what she writes, well then, maybe I can use her in another capacity. I don’t particularly like her aggressiveness, but her body is quite satisfactory. Perhaps I’ll try her out in bed. A woman, Marcus, that’s all she is. Do keep your perspective, my boy.”
“She isn’t like Coco or Paula,” Marcus said, his voice amazingly neutral even as anger surged through him. Had Dominick lost it completely? An assassination attempt and two other attacks? What if they’d been on him? Would he bleat about scare tactics? Damnation, what a mess.
“No, not on the surface. Who knows? That pushy mouth of hers just might add a bit of spice to things, to a lot of things. Stop carping.”
“Her mother’s in a coma in a hospital on Long Island. It was a hit-and-run, a witness said, and the guy driving the other car was weaving all over the highway. I just found that out this morning.”
There was a long unbroken silence on the line.
“Don’t you think it’s strange, Dominick, that she’d be here when her mother just might be dying?”
The silence continued.
Marcus sighed. “You think about it. If you still want her to stay at the compound, I’ll bring her over this evening.”
“Use one of the motor scoot
ers. I don’t want you in a helicopter again anytime soon. Besides, now I’ve got only one that’s operational. I can’t spare it.” Dominick chuckled and Marcus frowned into the phone.
“Okay. Think about it.”
“Good-bye, my boy. Oh, by the way, Marcus, you might consider not mentioning what you learned to her. There are a few more things I want to work out. Leave it all to me.”
Marcus hung up the phone and leaned his head back in his chair. He wasn’t so sure it was all that smart to have told Dominick about Rafaella’s mother. He just wanted her off the island. He didn’t want her hurt or dead. But there was no reason for Dominick to hurt her unless—The thought of her in bed with Dominick wasn’t a pleasant one. One thing he knew for sure: Rafaella Holland would never willingly go to bed with Dominick Giovanni.
He finally managed to shake the thought out of his mind. Almost immediately the Dutchmen came into focus. He couldn’t forget them, couldn’t forget that they’d poisoned themselves. But why? To the best of Marcus’s knowledge, Dominick had never resorted to torture. DeLorio—now, that sadistic little son of a bitch was another story entirely. But, dammit, he’d been in Miami, supposedly meeting with Mario Calpas. About drug trafficking? Against Dominick’s express orders? He remembered the one and only incident when DeLorio had acted on his own and pulled off a drug deal with some Colombians. DeLorio had gotten off scot-free but the DEA had found out enough about the deal to blame Dominick and they’d sworn to get him. DeLorio had made a cool quarter of a million dollars on the deal. Marcus had watched Dominick burn each one-hundred-dollar bill in front of his raging son. He wondered then if DeLorio would snap, but he hadn’t. It was later that one of the servant girls, a teenager from Antigua, had been found raped and beaten. The girl swore she didn’t know who had done it to her. She’d been paid off and shipped back to Antigua. Marcus had no doubt it had been DeLorio. Dominick had never said a word, merely commented it was high time for his son to marry and he knew just the young lady who would suit his and DeLorio’s requirements.
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