Force of Nature (26 page)

“Applaud?” Jules asked.

“Yup,” Robin said, adding “Thanks, Giselle” as a woman with a tray brought him just what he needed—another drink. “We’re going to give Jenny a birthday to remember.”

Robin had been right about the noise level in the kitchen. There was a built-in sound system, with speakers wired into the ceiling, and the music was up extremely loud. But louder still was the reaction of the crowd.

And it was a crowd that was growing larger every second, as Burns’s dinner guests came to investigate the noise and stayed for the entertainment.

If a man taking his clothes off to a Billy Preston song from the 1970s could be called entertainment.

Annie seemed to think so. “God, he’s hot.”

Ric looked at her. She was serious. He leaned in to speak directly into her ear. “He’s gay.” And ironically Jules, the one person who’d probably truly get off on this, had left the room.

“That doesn’t matter,” Annie told Ric. “It’s the fantasy.”

He looked back at Robin, who was taking forever just to get his shirt off, playing it humorously coy as he moved to the music. And okay, from the glimpses of his upper body that he’d given the crowd, it was obvious that the actor was ripped. He put his hands on the button to his pants and dozens of women shrieked their approval.

“So it’s a man-as-meat kind of thing,” Ric mused.

Annie laughed, genuinely amused, and it was hard as hell not to think about the black lace that was in his pants pocket, damn near burning a hole in his leg. It had been impossible, all evening, for him to look at her and not think about the fact that if her panties were in his pocket—and they certainly were—then she wasn’t wearing them. As in not wearing anything. At all.

She was wearing his jacket now, too, still claiming she was cold. And although that meant she was even more covered up, the effect was oddly the opposite. The jacket was almost as long as her skirt, and from behind, she looked as if she were wearing his jacket and nothing else.

Certainly not her panties. Which he knew were in his pocket.

His brilliant plan to get her to safety—as well as safely out of his apartment—had been seriously screwed by her blatant disregard of his instructions:
Don’t go anywhere alone.

Of course her blatant disregard
had
saved his ass.

It had also aroused Foley’s suspicions. The man had been watching them ever since. And that was why Ric had nixed their plan to have Annie split up with him in a very public display at the party’s end. He didn’t think Foley would buy it.

Yeah,
that
was why Ric had nixed the plan. It had nothing to do with the fact that it also meant that Annie would have to come home with him.

“Well, I don’t know about the birthday lady,” she was telling him now, “but for me, it’s more of a fairy-tale fantasy. A hot guy, going to a lot of effort to attract a woman’s attention—”

“More like forty women.”

“The fantasy,” she told him patiently, “is a fantasy. Which means you’re allowed to pretend the thirty-nine other women aren’t there. It’s just you and the hot guy—which is the real fantasy, right? But the odds of ever actually being alone with a hot guy, let alone one who’s going to go to this kind of effort to turn you on…”

“So it
is
about sex,” Ric said, which was a mistake, because talking about sex wasn’t going to help him stop thinking about sex, about going back to his apartment with Annie, alone, about locking the door behind them and pulling her close and kissing her the way she’d kissed him just a few short hours ago. Only this time he wouldn’t stop. This time he’d just keep kissing her until he’d backed her up against the wall and pushed her skirt up and wrapped her legs around his waist as he pushed himself hard and deep inside of her.

“Hell, yeah,” Annie was saying, clearly oblivious to the fact that in his mind he was damn close to making them both come. “Because sex is an important part of any fairy-tale relationship.”

Robin Chadwick lowered his zipper another fraction of an inch, and the crowd nearly drowned out the music. Ric forced his gaze away from Annie and down at his watch. Jules had been gone just over three minutes now. It wasn’t quite time yet to get squirrelly. But it was getting close.

“But the fairy-tale hot guy isn’t just some handsome, princely stud,” Annie continued, after heartily applauding Robin’s efforts. “He’s sensitive and he’s funny and he’s willing to grocery-shop and do the laundry. And he always says
I love you, too
, and you live happily ever after.” She snorted. “Like I said, pure fantasy.”

“So why is that a fantasy?” Ric asked as Annie whooped when Robin revealed he was wearing sky-blue boxers. “I mean, okay, the idea of living
happily
ever after is simplistically optimistic, but my parents seem to have achieved something pretty close.”

“Yeah, well, most people don’t even try,” Annie told him.

“Ah,” he said. “Maybe
that’s
what makes it a fantasy. It comes without any of the hard work.”

His own fantasies were along those same lines. He’d spent a great deal of the evening imagining Annie sweet and tight around him, imagining the sounds of pleasure she’d make, the way her eyes would look filled with desire, the rush of his blood through his veins. But not once did he go beyond the immediate gratification to the conversation they’d surely share afterward.

“Remind me sometime to tell you about the first few years that my parents were married,” Ric told her, checking his watch again. “Right now, though, I need to…”

She nodded, understanding, her full attention on him, not on Robin nor his boxers. “I should go with you.”

“No, you shouldn’t.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I should. Just because Foley’s not in the room doesn’t mean he’s not in the room. Check behind me. At one o’clock.”

Sure enough, Foley’s extra-large co-worker was standing over there. He wasn’t watching them right that moment, but he’d surely noted their presence. And he’d therefore note if and when they were gone.

“Pretend that you’re jealous,” Annie instructed, turning back to watch Robin. “That I’m a little too into this whole Robin Chadwick stripping thing.”

“Like you’re not?”

She glanced at him, amused. “So convince me. Make me believe that if we go back to the scene of our previous tryst, you’ll entertain me just as thoroughly.”

Damn. He didn’t want to do this. He didn’t want to put her in any more danger than she was already in just by being here. But she was right. If he went down that hallway by himself, he’d be putting them all into jeopardy…

Which is what they’d also be in if Jules didn’t get his ass back here in the next few minutes.

It was a lose/lose scenario, with both options sucking equally.

And Annie wanted him to convince her…

Ric gave up and grabbed her wrist. He pulled her back, into the entry of the hallway to the servants’ wing, and pushed her up against the wall a little bit harder than he should have.

“Sorry,” he said, because his back was to anyone who might be watching. What they could see was her face, and the placement of his hands. Her skirt was short enough for him to reach just beneath the edge, her thigh cool and deliciously smooth against his fingers.

She drew in her breath sharply, her eyes wide.

“I’m going to kiss you, okay?” Ric told her. “And we’re going to move back farther into the shadows. I’m going to need your help though, because every time I kiss you? I get kind of useless and…can’t seem to do much more than kiss you.”

Annie laughed and kissed him, and, God, she was so sweet, her body impossibly soft as she molded herself against him. He concentrated, though, and they moved back—more like staggered, really.

Ric kissed her, harder, more deeply and it seemed as if it took both forever and a fraction of a heartbeat, but they finally rounded the corner. They were in the part of the hallway where they could no longer be seen from the kitchen, and it was time to not kiss her anymore, but God damn if he could make himself stop. They were in danger. He knew they were in ever-growing danger. They had to find Jules. But his hand was now between her legs and he was mere inches from—

“Whoa, hey there, kids, sorry!”

Jesus God, it was Jules and he was practically standing next to them.

Ric and Annie sprang apart. Or rather, he sprang back from Annie—he’d nearly had her nailed to the wall.

“Ow!” she said as he pulled his hand away, which was never a good sound to hear from a lover’s lips—even if it was someone who was just pretending to be a lover.

“Are you okay?” Ric asked her. She nodded as she straightened her clothes, her face pink. He turned to Jules. “Are you?”

He nodded, too. He wasn’t happy—it was clear just from looking at him that he’d found what he was searching for.

“Sorry I took so long. I got an important phone call, so I came down here to get away from the noise,” Jules told them, just in case anyone was listening as they walked back toward the kitchen. The music had ended, but he still had to speak loudly to be heard over the babble of voices and laughter.

“Ric was having some issues with Robin and his blue silk boxers,” Annie told him.

“Robin and his…” Jules caught sight of the boxers in question and stopped short.

Robin Chadwick stood in the middle of the room, surrounded mostly by women, totally comfortable with the fact that he was shirtless and pants-free. He’d even taken off his socks and shoes. He was smiling and laughing, posing for pictures and signing autographs on cocktail napkins and even on the arms of the bolder of the women.

But then he looked over and caught sight of them.

Them? Try Jules.

In fact, Ric felt so invisible, he used the opportunity to pull Annie aside. “Are you really okay?”

She nodded, but it was clearly not a complete yes. “I got a little scraped up when…I’ll tell you later,” she said. But then she met his gaze. “Maybe after we get home you can, you know, kiss it and make it better.”

And no, the room didn’t actually tilt. And Annie didn’t actually soul-kiss him and drag him back with her onto her bed, opening her legs to him so he could lose himself in her sweetness and heat.

That was just him. They were in the kitchen at Burns Point. The only bed was in his head, in a room labeled
WISHFUL THINKING.

“Yeah,” Ric said, quickly glancing over at Jules, who’d been waylaid by Gordon Burns himself, who’d pulled the FBI agent over to Robin. Everything seemed to be fine—the three men were laughing. “Wow. Right. About that. I’m…not sure if it’s the dress or the makeup or what, but I’ve apparently reached the end of my ability to resist. You. I’m kind of picking up the sense that you’re feeling something similar—”

“I’m not,” she said with such venom he had to take a step back. Everything warm and welcoming in her eyes had turned to a different kind of heat. “Oh God, I am, but I’m
not.
Shit, I don’t want to sleep with an asshole.”

What had happened to kiss it and make it better? “You don’t want to—”

“You,” she said, lowering her voice. “I don’t want to sleep with
you
, but at the same time, I really, really do, and if we’re alone tonight, we’re going to, aren’t we?”

She was staring at his mouth, as if, if they were the only ones in the room, she’d be kissing him.

“I’m pretty sure we are,” Ric said, because he knew if she kissed him again he’d be toast. “And you’re right. It would be a mistake.”

Across the room, Robin Chadwick had his pants back on but his shirt hung open. He and Gordon Burns shook hands.

“Ladies,” Robin announced, “it has been beyond fun, but it’s time now for me to go. Happy birthday, Jen.”

Jules caught Ric’s eye.
Limo’s out front
, he mouthed.

“We need to go,” Ric told Annie.

“Call Martell,” Annie ordered Ric as she marched past him. “Tell him we need him to babysit. At your place. Immediately.”

C
HAPTER
S
IXTEEN

“A
sex tape,” Ric repeated as the limo headed south on Tamiami Trail. “With Annie?”

Robin opened up the refrigerator and took inventory of both that and the liquor cabinet, as Annie cracked up. There was Coke and there was…plenty of rum. Score.

“Ew,” she said. “Am I allowed to say
ew?
” She looked at Robin. “Not that the idea of…”

“Don’t worry, I’m not offended. I get a heavy whiff of
ew
myself from the idea of getting busy in a studio with Gordie Junior directing.” Robin imitated Junior’s tough-guy accent, which the thug-wannabe had probably learned from watching
The Sopranos. “Fucka harda, Chadwick, fucka harda.”

Jules spoke for the first time since they’d put up the privacy shield that separated them from the driver, and run Ric’s bug sweeper across them, getting the all-clear. “Not everyone in this vehicle is from Hollywood,” he said sharply, “so watch your mouth.”

Suddenly Jules had a problem with his language? “It was a joke.” Robin looked at Annie. “You knew it was a joke, right?”

She nodded, also more than a little mystified.

“It was actually a multilevel, layered kind of joke,” Robin continued, “because there’s this underlying implication that I think it’s okay to make a sex tape, as long as it’s not Gordie Junior who’s directing.”

“Will you please button your shirt?” Jules implored, impatience and annoyance dripping from him.

Robin looked down. His shirt was, indeed, still hanging open. “Why are you mad at
me
?” he asked Jules as he buttoned it. He’d thought the connection they’d shared during dinner was a step toward at least an acknowledgment that this spark between them was something real, something solid.

But now Jules just shook his head, refusing even to look at Robin.

“As freaky as this sex-tape thing is,” Ric said, “it’s good. It’s another connection to Gordie Junior.”

“Yeah, and you know, he wasn’t married to the idea of it being with Annie,” Robin told him. “Any random starfucker would do.” He looked at Jules. “Am I allowed to say
starfucker
since I buttoned my shirt?”

“How drunk
are
you?” Jules asked.

“Sadly,” Robin said, “too drunk to comprehend your sudden hostility, but not drunk enough to not care.” He turned back to Annie and Ric. “Jules gave Junior his card and let him think we were interested.” He took a Coke from the fridge and popped open the top. “Anyone want anything?”

All three of them shook their heads. Robin knew that Jules was enormously upset about the evidence they’d discovered—the room that was Peggy’s that had been, as Ric had put it, sanitized. But why he was now taking it out on Robin was a total mystery.

“Didn’t we accomplish our mission?” Robin asked. He turned to Jules. “Or am I wrong, and you didn’t find what you were looking for…?”

“Oh, I found it,” Jules said grimly. “Peggy left a message, on the metal window frame. It was hidden until the window was cranked open, and even then I had to really look to see it. She was good. She must’ve known the room was going to be stripped.”

Holy God. That meant Peggy had known she was going to be killed. No wonder Jules was freaking out.

“What did it say?” Annie asked. “Her message?”

Jules shook his head. “It was written in some kind of code. I’ve already passed the information on to the analysts. I’m waiting for a call back, but it could take a while.”

“You’re certain she’s dead?” Annie asked.

“I’m pretty sure she wrote it in blood.”

“Ah, God, babe, I’m so sorry,” Robin breathed.

“Yeah, me, too.” Jules looked away.

They rode for about a half mile in gloomy silence. But then Robin reached for the plastic cups.

“Okay,” he said as he put four into the limo’s built-in cup holders, pouring a few fingers of his Coke into each of them. “I didn’t know Peggy Ryan. I never met the woman. I couldn’t tell you if I would’ve liked her, although I suspect I wouldn’t’ve, because word is she was something of a hard-ass, not to mention homophobic.”

He tossed the empty can into the recycling, and took the rum from the cabinet. “But regardless of that, she has my respect. She gave her life for our country, for our freedom, for our safety.” He opened the bottle and poured a healthy amount of rum into each cup.

“Haven’t you had enough to drink?” Jules asked.

Robin stopped pouring. “Are you going back to work after we drop Annie and Ric?”

Jules sighed, a long drawn out exhale of frustration. “Yes,” he said. “I probably am.”

Which meant that, once again, the conversation that Jules refused to have with him was going to be postponed. “Then, nope, I haven’t.”

Robin resumed pouring. It was either have another drink or bring the subject up now, in front of Ric and Annie, as he’d threatened earlier. But tonight had clearly been tough enough for Jules. And Robin was just not that cruel.

“Besides, this isn’t a drink,” Robin added, putting the rum away, and distributing the cups first to Annie, then Ric, and then Jules. “It’s a toast.” He had to put the cup into Jules’s hand, wrapping his fingers around it. “Would it kill you to drink a toast?”

Jules was silent, but he’d finally taken the damn thing, so Robin picked up his own cup, and held it up. “To Peggy Ryan. May her final courageous message be one that saves thousands of lives.”

“To Peggy,” Ric and Annie unisoned.

Robin looked at Jules.

“To Peggy,” he said.

The soda was cold, but the rum warmed Robin. Warmed and fuzzed and made the prospect of going home alone both more and less bearable. Funny how that worked.

Truth was, he was a little disappointed that Annie wasn’t coming to the hotel with him. He’d been looking forward to having some company. Someone he didn’t have to pretend around. Someone to talk to, someone who knew Jules, too.

Dolphina had taken the night off. She was attending the wedding of a friend in Orlando and wouldn’t be back until tomorrow afternoon. So when he went home, he really would be alone.

“So what happened?” Robin asked Ric and Annie now. “You know, the whole change-in-plans thing.”

They looked at each other. They were sitting about as far apart as two people could sit on the bench seat, and still be in the same limo.

“Go ahead,” Ric told Annie. “I’m interested in hearing what happened, too.”

“Okay,” Annie said. “Should I start with the part where I saved your life?”

Apparently Jules didn’t have the monopoly on being pissed off.

“Or should I start a little earlier?” Annie continued. “I know. I’ll start where I saw Ric heading down the hall to the kitchen. So I know he’s going for it, right? He’s going to find Peggy’s room. A few minutes later, I’ve just come out of the ladies’ room, and he’s still not back, and I see one of Burns’s security guards—a really scary guy named Foley. He’s got these zombie eyes—really freaky, like he’s already dead. He was obviously scanning the crowd, looking for someone. I noticed that he kept looking at Robin and Jules. I was still lurking over by the bathroom—I know he didn’t see me. And I just…I somehow knew that he was looking for Ric and maybe even for me. I saw him speak to another guard, who pointed at the hall to the kitchen, where Ric had gone. I was afraid Foley was going to go after him and oh, I don’t know, kill him? So I went outside, and ran around the side of the house, and I climbed up onto the servants’ deck. Which wasn’t as easy to do as it looked on paper.”

She pulled back the sleeve of Ric’s jacket, which she’d been wearing since dinner, revealing a scrape on her arm that was still oozing blood. So
that
was why she’d claimed to be cold despite the tropical heat.

“Shit, Annie.” Ric took her arm and turned on the overhead light to get a better look. The heel of her hand looked raw and sore, too. He looked at her questioningly, in some kind of wordless exchange to which she nodded an almost apologetic response. “Shit,” he swore again.

Robin snuck a look at Jules, who was, to his surprise, watching him.

“I’m really sorry,” Robin told him silently, even as Annie spoke to Ric.

“I’m okay”—she pulled her arm back—“although I’ve ruined the lining of your jacket.”

“I don’t care about that,” Ric said as Jules just looked at Robin, as Robin saw a breathtaking echo of everything he himself wanted right there in Jules’s dark brown eyes. “Christ, Annie, how many times did I tell you not to go off on your own?”

Annie made an exasperated noise. “I didn’t think it applied to a situation in which you were about to disappear, the way Peggy Ryan did.”

“You don’t know that would’ve happened.”

“You don’t know that it wouldn’t’ve,” she countered as Robin continued to hold Jules’s gaze, his heart in his throat. “Can’t you just acknowledge that I did something right?”

“You put yourself at incredible risk!”

“It was worth it!” she shouted back at Ric, and Jules finally looked away. “You’re here, I’m here, we’re all in one piece!”

“Guys,” Jules said, once again the peacekeeper.

“What if you’d fallen?” Ric asked. “What if you’d been followed?”

“What if Foley had figured out you were looking for Peggy Ryan”—Annie was not ready to let him win—“and he killed you, and then he killed the rest of us, because we came to this party with you, and then, because you screwed it up and the FBI no longer had access to Gordon Burns and his despicable plans, this terrorist gets into the country and blows up freaking New York City?”

Ric was finally silent.

“It was worth it,” Annie said again, more quietly now. “And I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it when I said you, you know, screwed it up, because you didn’t. It wasn’t your fault that Foley went looking for you.”

Robin reached for the rum, needing desperately to top off his drink.

“Burns’s security team is extremely well trained,” Jules pointed out, but Ric didn’t seem convinced. “If they weren’t so highly skilled, we would’ve been able to get onto the property long before this. And here, Robin, why don’t you just finish mine?”

Jules was holding out his cup, so Robin took it.

“Foley thought we’d had a…romantic assignation out on the deck.” Annie continued with the story. “So he let us go.”

“Annie made it look as if she was, um, appeasing my jealousy,” Ric explained. “You know, about her and Chadwick. She was actually very convincing. I thought Foley would get suspicious—more suspicious—if she suddenly did a one-eighty and walked out on me an hour later. That was why the change in the plan.”

“Good call,” Jules said.

“Yeah, right,” Ric said, with a glance at Annie.

“Anyone want to know what
I
found out?” Robin asked, and they all turned to look at him in surprise. “What? Just because I’m an actor I’m an idiot? My only contribution was when I took off my clothes? Thanks a lot, team.”

“That
was
quite a contribution,” Annie said.

“No one thinks you’re an idiot,” Jules said in a tone that was loaded with subtext that screamed
what an idiot.

Robin took another sip of his drink, making them wait for it. “So what
I
did, was talk to the serving staff, pretty much all night—every chance I got.”

No one was impressed. Or maybe they were all just too busy being mad at one another. Although Jules seemed to have forgiven Robin. Except now all he looked was exhausted.

“The staff,” Robin repeated. “Including the three women who hold full-time, live-in positions at Burns Point, two of whom worked closely with Peggy Ryan?”

Now
he had their attention. In fact, Jules took a small pad and pen from his inside jacket pocket so he could take notes.

“Okay,” Robin said. “There’s three of ’em, right? Maria, Terese, and Mona. They’re all mature—well over forty, which was the first thing I noticed. I thought it was kind of interesting. Burns is richer than God, and he’s a widower, why not have a staff of buxom twenty-year-olds?”

“He seems kind of formal—straight-laced—to me,” Annie volunteered.

“He’s also got a longtime ladyfriend,” Robin said. “Ella Whittier, who lives out at Lakewood Ranch.” When Ella had introduced herself to him, she’d grabbed his ass. And that was
before
he had his clothes off. “But I don’t think she’s the reason his staff are all prospective members of the Red Hat Society. One of the temps—the girls who were passing around the hors d’oeuvres and cheer—her name was Giselle. She’s done a lot of parties at Burns Point. She told me a few years back she was going to ask about a permanent position, but another of the girls told her not to bother. I asked why not, and she told me that as of six years ago, Burns has only hired older women because, get this—the younger ones had a habit of disappearing. One theory is that Gordie Junior knocked them up, and they were paid off and sent away. The other theory’s not as nice, but probably connected to the fact that, also six years ago, one of the staff—a nineteen-year-old girl—drowned in the family pool. Junior was looked at hard, for that one, too.”

“I remember that,” Ric said. “It was found to be an accident. I wasn’t on the case, but I followed it. The girl’s family was sure it was foul play—she was an excellent swimmer.”

Jules nodded. “I know about her, too. But you’re saying there were others?”

“Maybe it’s just urban legend,” Robin said, “but yeah. At least four. Giselle said she always jumps at the chance to work a party at Burns Point because the money is insane. But she also said that she’s careful to steer clear of Gordie Junior. She kind of said his name like she was saying Jack the Ripper.”

“I’ll have Yashi and Deb look into any other disappearances that happened at that time,” Jules said. “I’m not sure where this is going to go but…This is good information. Thank you.”

“And you thought all I could do was strip,” he said. “So, you want the rest of it?”

Jules smiled at that. “There’s more.” He didn’t quite phrase it as a question, but Robin nodded anyway. “Definitely.”

“When I was signing autographs,” Robin said, “I asked Mona and Terese how long they’d worked at Burns Point. Turns out Terese has been there three years, but Mona’s new. She told me she was hired to replace someone who had to leave rather suddenly last week. Which had to be Peggy, right? Apparently the excuse for her hasty departure was that an elderly parent broke a hip. Terese, who worked with Peggy, was a little tongue-tied, so I got her chatting. I asked her what it was like working as a live-in for such a long time, and she told me that she had nothing on Maria, who was a lifer.