She seemed to believe me, for concern suddenly came over her face and she leaned forward to kiss me, saying softly, “Nick, I wouldn’t tell anyone. Not even Sherima. I was afraid that you were using me. I don’t think I could…” The sentence trailed off as she buried her face on my chest, but I knew what she had been going to say, and I wondered just who had used and hurt her so deeply. Touched, I lifted her face and pressed my lips gently over hers again. Her response was more demanding as her tongue played against my lips, and as I opened them, darted inside to become a probing, teasing demon that brought an instant reaction from me.
Finally breaking off the embrace, she asked, “Nick, can I stay here with you for the rest of the night?”
I wanted to get on the phone to AXE and arrange for another collection — the man in the bathroom — so I said lightly, “There’s not that much of the night left, I’m afraid. The sun will be up in a couple of hours. And what if Sherima wakes up and finds you gone?”
“I told you she’d be out for hours yet.” A pout settled on her face as she said, “Don’t you want me to stay… now that I know all about you?” The pout had turned into a hurt expression and I knew she was thinking that she’d been used again.
Gathering her in my arms, I rose and carried her to the bed. “Get those clothes off,” I ordered, smiling. “I’ll show you who wants you to stay.” As I began to undress myself, I picked up the phone and told the desk to waken me at seven-thirty.
I was up and had completed my exercises when the wake-up call came. I picked it up on the first ring, thanking the operator quietly so I wouldn’t waken Candy. I wanted a few more minutes of privacy before I sent her back to Sherima’s suite.
For one thing, I had to get dressed and slip out to the balcony to retrieve my makeshift alarm. After I dumped Candy on the bed, she had insisted on going into the bathroom before our Iovemaking started. She wanted to remove her makeup, she explained, but I felt certain that her intense curiosity made her want to check out where I had hidden the dead man.
I had used the opportunity to take a long piece of black thread from the spool I always carried in my luggage. Tying one end of it around a glass from the kitchenette and racing out and over the wall to Sherima’s balcony door, I knotted the other end to the handle. It was invisible in the darkness. Vaulting back to my side again, I set the glass on the top of the divider. Anyone trying to open Sherima’s door would pull the glass off to shatter on the balcony floor. Since there had been no crash during the few hours before daybreak, I knew no one had attempted to reach Sherima that way. And no commotion had come from the hotel detective in the hallway.
When I returned to the room, I saw that the demands we had made on each other during more than two hours of passion before Candy finally dropped off to sleep showed on her face, bathed in the morning sun that glowed through the balcony doorway. She had made love with complete abandon and had given herself with an intensity that outdid all our previous encounters. We had come together again and again, and after each peak, she would be ready again, her caressing hands and teasing mouth almost daring me to prove my affection anew, to wipe out any thought that I was merely using her.
I bent over and kissed her soft wet lips. “Candy, it’s time to get up.” She didn’t stir, so I moved my mouth down her slender neck, leaving a trail of quick, pecking kisses. She moaned softly and brushed a hand over her face as a childlike frown passed swiftly over her face. I slid a hand under the sheet and cupped it over her breast, massaging gently as I kissed her on the lips again.
“Hey, gorgeous, it’s time to get up,” I repeated, raising my head.
She let me know she was awake by reaching up and slipping both arms around my neck before I could stand up. She pulled me back to her, and this time, she was the one planting tiny kisses over my face and down my neck. We ended up in a long embrace, and I let her go, finally, to say:
“Sherima will be waking up soon. It’s almost eight o’clock.”
“No fair sending me away like this,” she murmured, leaning back against the pillows and blinking her eyes against the bright morning sunlight. She turned her face to me and smiled coyly, then looked down at my pants.
“You’re dressed,” she said. “That’s not fair either.”
“I’ve been up and dressed for hours,” I teased. “Did my exercises, wrote a book, toured the District, and had time left over to catch a short movie.”
She sat up, filling die room with her laughter. “I suppose you’ve branded a whole herd of cattle, too,” she said between giggles.
“Well, ma’am,” I said, “now that you mention it—”
“Oh, Nick, even with everything that’s happened,” she sighed, her face becoming soft, “I don’t think I’ve liked a man’s company as much as I do yours — not for a long, long time.”
The smile was gone from her face and she had become serious again, a pensive expression settling over her brow. She sat against the pillows for a moment, listening to whatever her mind was saying to her. Then just as suddenly, she turned those bright hazel eyes to me again, and I saw a smile flicker at the corners of her mouth.
“Sherima won’t be up yet,” she grinned, starting to lie back on the bed. “At least for another — oh — half hour…”
“Oh no you don’t!” I said, jumping from the chair I’d taken. “This time I mean up!”
I had far too much to do this morning to give way to Candy’s tempting invitations. Stepping to the bed, I leaned over and pulled the covers down, and in the same movement, rolled her over onto her stomach and swatted her on her bottom.
“Ouch! That hurt!”
I doubted that I had hurt her, but she did jump out of bed.
“And now,” I drawled, “we have to get you back to your room.”
At first, she tossed me a puzzled expression, then, looking at her negligee and peignoir lying over a chair, said, “Oh, that’s right. I don’t have my keys.”
“That’s right, so it’s out the way you came in.”
As she slipped into her negligee, she seemed to suddenly remember her other enormous appetite. “Nick — what about breakfast?”
“A bit later. I have some phone calls to make.”
“All right. Now, how do I discreetly return to my room?” she asked, pulling the peignoir tightly around her.
“Like so.” I lifted her in my arms and carried her to the balcony, then lifted her across the dividing wall. If there were any other early risers looking out their windows in the Watergate that morning, they must have thought they were seeing things. When she had lowered herself to the floor, she leaned back over the wall and kissed me quickly, then turned and. ran through the door and into Sherima’s room.
Returning to my own room, I crossed to the telephone and began punching out Hawk’s number. I was just about to punch the last digit when my door chime started to ring madly and a pounding rattled the door panel at the same time. Slamming down the receiver, I ran to the door and threw it open. Candy stood there, her face ashen and her eyes brimming with tears.
“Nick,” she cried, “Sherima’s gone!”
Chapter 8
I dragged Candy back into Sherima’s suite and slammed the door behind us. I had enough problems without inviting curious guests to show up in the hall or to call down to the front desk to find out why a girl was screaming at that hour. Candy stood by the door to Sherima’s quarters, wringing her hands and repeating, “It’s my fault. I never should have left her alone. What’ll we do, Nick? What will we do?”
I was doing something already. It was obvious from the appearance of the former Queen’s sitting room-bedroom that there had been no struggle there. I came back out into the foyer where Candy was huddled against the doorway, still repeating her litany of despair. A quick look into her room showed me there had been no struggle there, either. Obviously, Sherima had been carried off while she was still partially drugged by the tranquilizers. But how had her abductors gotten her out of the hotel? And what had happened to the Watergate security man who was supposed to have spent the night in the hallway? I had to check on his whereabouts, but I couldn’t risk having the moaning Candy follow me out into the hall again. I had to keep her busy.