“You mean fuck your patient.”
“Don’t be crude. Be there at seven in the morning. It’s the Twin Branch Arms and I’ll be in Room 7 unless I call and tell you different.”
“How do you expect me to get a cashier’s check at that hour?”
“You’re a man of influence in the community. Call one of your banker friends. You can arrange it.”
“You actually think I’m going give you that money.”
“I actually do. Good night, Pierce.” He hung up.
He smiled with satisfaction as he stood up from his easy chair and went into the bedroom to shed his robe and get dressed. Not a bad deal. He might have saved his own ass by this move, and he’d managed to stick it to Pierce.
But he had to go to the office immediately to retrieve those Avery records and hide them. Pierce had been too insistent. He wouldn’t give up easily after Gelber had held him up for that money. Perhaps he’d put the computer records in a safe-deposit box in his bank in Geneva. He’d known eventually those records would come in—
He froze.
A sound, soft, barely audible from the sitting room.
What the hell?
His gun in the nightstand. He had his hand on the cool metal when he heard another sound, closer, near the window.
Imagination?
Better be sure …
He moved toward the window.
* * *
“THE SON OF A BITCH is holding me up for eight hundred thousand.” Pierce told Stella as he hung up the phone. “He doesn’t give a damn what kind of trouble we could both be in.”
“With Nelda?”
“Not only with Nelda.”
Stella’s eyes narrowed. “But it’s Nelda who is pushing you. Why did you suddenly decide you had to send Gelber out of the way?”
“It wasn’t suddenly. I always knew that he could be a problem. So did Nelda. But the problem didn’t raise its head until Beth took off. Now Nelda wants every loose end tied up, and she’s pressuring me. The bitch won’t accept anything less.”
“And Gelber won’t cooperate without a fat bribe.”
“He thinks he’ll come out of this smelling like a rose.”
“Is that possible?”
“Yes, if he decides to hand my head on a platter to the district attorney. He could make a deal.”
“Then wouldn’t it be safer just to give him the money?”
“Easy for you to say,” he said harshly. “It’s not your money.”
“No, and I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. You need to give me a bigger allowance. You don’t like me to wear the uniform when we’re alone, but how can I afford to buy anything decent on the money you give me?”
“I don’t want you to be decent. That’s the last thing in the world I intend for you.” His gaze wandered over Stella as she sat with one naked leg over the arm of the black velvet easy chair. She was dressed in a gold silk robe that hugged her body and almost fully revealed the swelling of her breasts. Her red hair shone against the shimmering material, and she was totally and temptingly arousing. “But I like that gold thing you’re wearing. Wear it tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
“I’m taking you with me when I meet Gelber at the motel tomorrow morning. In fact, I think we’ll check into the motel before he gets there so that you can be ready for him. He thinks you’re hot. He wants to screw you.”
“Of course he does.” She smiled as she pulled the robe down to totally bare her breasts. “Isn’t he a man? But I thought you were mad at him. You want to give him a present?”
“Hell no, but I don’t want to be robbed by the bastard either. There’s a chance that I can bargain with him. I’ll bring two cashier’s checks for $400,000 each. I’ll see if I can trade one of those checks for a few months with you and your promise to do any service he asks of you.” His lips tightened. “And you’d better get him so hot that he can’t think of doing anything else but screwing you. You can do it. You can drive him crazy.”
“But only if I want to do it.” She got to her feet and stretched like a cat. “Beg me.”
“I don’t have to beg you. You belong to me.”
She took off the gold robe and dropped it on the floor. “Only when I choose. Haven’t you found that out yet? I’m becoming stronger and stronger every time we do it and you’re becoming weaker. You have more stamina than most men, or I would have left you before this.” She tilted her head. “A few months is a long time to be another man’s whore. Gelber isn’t you. I could drive him crazy. He doesn’t realize that I could break him in a few weeks.” She moved toward him. “Do you want me to do that?”
“Maybe.” His mouth was dry, and his heart was beating painfully hard. She was all silken naked sexuality and every step she took toward him was giving him an electric, tingling jolt of pure lust. “I’ll let you know.”
“You do that.” She slid onto his lap and wrapped her naked legs around his hips. “I think you’ll tell me to do it.” She rubbed her breasts against him as she made the adjustment. “Because you couldn’t do without me for more than a week or two, could you?”
“Of course I could, you arrogant bitch. You’re not—” His head went back, and he gasped as she started moving.
“Beg me,” she whispered. “I want you to beg me, Pierce. Like I’m going to make Gelber beg for it.”
“No, damn you.”
She laughed, and her pace increased. “You will, Pierce. You will…”
* * *
“SHOULDN’T JOE HAVE CALLED BY NOW?” Beth asked as she leaned back in the lawn chair and looked up at the night sky. “He and Billy have been gone over two hours.”
“Unless he decided just to come back and pick us up.” Eve lifted her coffee to her lips. “Don’t worry. Either way, I have a feeling it’s okay.”
“A feeling isn’t knowing,” Beth said. “And I can’t believe you’re taking this so calmly. They could be in trouble. Feelings don’t mean anything. I need to have facts.”
“Can’t help you there,” Eve said. “And I’m so close to Joe that I believe I’d know if anything had happened to him.” She smiled faintly. “I’d feel it. Sometimes, you have to look beyond hard-and-fast reality to find answers.”
Beth was silent a moment. “I … don’t know how to do that. All I know is reality. The reality of the hospital, the reality of school and sports and competition.” She paused. “Unless you mean when Rick asked me not to tell anyone I was his daughter. That wasn’t real, that was pretense.”
“No, that’s not what I meant. It’s not the same at all.”
“Now you sound angry.”
“Not at you.”
“Rick, again. You shouldn’t be angry with Rick. You wouldn’t be angry if you knew him.”
“It’s better not to discuss him. We tend not to agree. As I said, by looking beyond reality, I believe I’d sense it if Joe was in trouble.”
“Would you? That’s strange. Kind of spooky.”
“I guess I believe in spooky stuff sometimes. I found it was the only way I could survive.”
Beth didn’t speak for a moment. “I read about what happened to your little girl when I looked you up on the Net. I’m sorry. It must have been pretty bad.”
“Understatement of the century.”
“I know,” she said awkwardly. “I’m not very good with words. I don’t even know what I am good at yet. I just wanted to tell—you’ve gone through so much. You’ve lost a child. You’ve had a career. You found the love of your life. You’re still young, but you’ve lived through more than most people.” She said haltingly, “That makes you a person who—it makes you … rich inside … and wonderful.”
“Bullshit.”
“No, it’s true. Me, I’m still pretty much of a blank slate.”
“That only means you have all the time in the world to write your own story on it.” She reached out and touched Beth’s arm. “I hope your story will be a little happier than mine from this time forward. You deserve it. We’ll have to see that it does.”