Homecoming (18 page)
“Yes?” she whispered. “For?”
“For a few days.”
For as long as we’ve got,
he thought. “Sound good?”
“Sounds very good,” she said softly.
Several hours later, Jack threw down two cards.
“Deal me two,” he said, and watched Federica’s face carefully. Nothing but mild interest showed.
They were sitting on the bed, cross-legged. Jack found to his chagrin that his cheerfully erotic plan had gone awry. He had planned on beating the pants off her, literally. After all, he’d been playing poker with Dad and his cronies since he’d been old enough to hold a hand of cards. But it hadn’t quite worked out that way.
Of course, Federica didn’t play fair, either. When he had produced a deck of cards with an exaggerated leer, she had excused herself to go into the bathroom and had come out with four combs in her hair, two scarves and several layers of sweaters. She was still more than decently dressed, though she’d lost the combs, a scarf and her shoes. Not that it would have made any difference to the final result if she’d been dressed in only a few items. She was a killer poker player.
How had he ever thought that pretty face expressive? For the past hour, no expression had crossed her face that he could in any way interpret, whether she won or lost. And she had consistently won. He looked down at himself. He was stripped down to his briefs and one blue cotton sock.
“Aren’t you dealing yourself any cards?” he asked suspiciously as he slowly fanned out his hand. Damn. The same pair of deuces was all he held.
“No,” she said serenely. She had glanced once, briefly, indifferently at her hand and then had tapped the cards closed.
“You sure you didn’t grow up in Vegas?”
“No,” she said calmly. “Switzerland.”
“Ah.” He nodded his head sagely. “That explains it. All those banks, getting richer and richer off other people’s money. That’s where you learned your trickiness.”
Not a flicker of an eyelash. “Who are you calling tricky?”
“You. Anyone who can count shoelaces as items of clothing isn’t exactly cutting with a dull tool.”
“Well, they are items of clothing. You can’t keep your shoes on without shoelaces. Come on, Jack. Don’t be such a sore loser. Stop whining and show me what you’ve got.”
What he had was straining against the soft cotton of his briefs. Her eyes jerked up to his face and she blushed a pretty pink.
Jack was delighted that he’d managed to crack that smooth, impersonal façade. “Yeah? You want to see what I’ve got?” He held her eyes for a long moment, watching her smooth throat muscles work as she swallowed.
He fanned out the cards on the bedspread, his eyes never leaving hers. Suddenly he felt as if he were going to explode. “Pair of deuces.”
She folded her cards. “Three jacks. I win.”
“Great,” Jack muttered, and bent down to pull off his sock, wondering if he could wait long enough to lose the next hand. He had his thumbs hooked in the top of the sock when she put her hand on his.
“Wait.” Her voice was husky. She cleared her throat. “Don’t the rules say something about the winner getting to choose the…ah…particular item of clothing the loser should remove?”
Not any rules he’d heard about, but he wasn’t arguing. “Sure.”
He held himself very still as Federica moved forward on her knees until she could touch him. She wasn’t quick about it. Her hands rested on his shoulders for a moment, fingers clenching into the muscle. She felt her way over his chest, slowly, thoroughly, as if she were blind and were learning about his body by touch.
She lowered her hand slowly over his stomach muscles, then lower still, to touch the main difference between them, hard and aching. He groaned as she worked her fingers under the waistband and slowly drew them down.
Jack grasped Federica and rolled over with her, intending to get rid of her clothes as quickly as possible. As they moved on the bed, her cards slithered to the floor. Jack was kissing her, engrossed in the softness of her mouth and of her body under his, and it was only as he came up for air and saw the cards on the ground that he realized what she’d done and laughed.
“What?” Federica opened her eyes.
He looked down at her, soft and yielding in his arms. “You didn’t have three jacks, did you?”
“No.” She hooked her arm around his neck and hauled him back down to her. “I cheated.”
June 4th
EMAIL FROM: [email protected]
Dear Will,
I couldn’t believe my eyes when I came back from a lava flow—which against all geological logic is still flowing when it should have stopped two days ago—to find your message. Not a good day.
I resent you saying I’m jinxed, Will. I’m not. There was
no way
anyone could have known about that coup d’etat beforehand. We were
this close
to making a killing in banana futures.
But listen, that’s water under the bridge. I seem to have found myself in…a difficult situation. A certain gentleman loaned me some money several months ago and he is very particular about repayments. And I
can
repay him, because there will be a bonus from the Carson’s Bluff sale, and because these genetic engineering shares are going to go through the roof when the company goes public. I can’t tell you any more, but believe me, Will, this is a sure thing. All I need is a temporary loan of, say, ten thousand so I can buy a stake in the genetic engineering company. Those shares are going to increase tenfold in value in a few weeks, and I’ll pay you back the loan at twenty percent. What more could you want?
I’m going to take my fourth shower of the day and turn in. Think about it, Will.
Russell
“Hello?”
“Hello, I’d like to speak to Mr. Willard Greenlee, please.”
“Speaking.”
“Mr. Greenlee, my name is Ellen Larsen. I don’t know if you remember me. We met at the Mansion Enterprises Christmas party last year. I was there with Federica Mansion.”
“Yes, of course, Miss Larsen. I remember you quite well.”
“Good. Mr. Greenlee—
“Will.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“My name is Willard. But my friends call me Will.”
“All right…Will. As I was saying—”
“You wore a red dress.”
“I—what?”
“You wore a red dress. To the party.”
“Oh…I don’t really remember. As I was saying, Mr. Greenlee—”
“Will.”
“Will. As I was saying…Will…I’m a friend of Federica’s. And I can’t seem to—”
“You looked very pretty in that dress. You and Federica both looked very pretty. Of course, you two were the only people in the room besides me under sixty. As a matter of fact, we were probably the only ones there with all our own teeth.”
“Well, I’m flattered that you remember me, Will…I think…anyway, as I was saying—”
“I had on a green sports jacket.”
“I remember that jacket, but I fail to see—”
“You know what I was thinking, Ellen—I can call you Ellen, can’t I? After all, we survived a geriatric Christmas party together—I remember thinking it might be fun to go out and continue the party somewhere a bit more…lively, and I thought that we’d look very Christmasy together, you know…you with your red dress and me with my green jacket, but by the time I got up the courage to ask you out after the party you’d gone.”
“Well, I’m afraid I don’t have such a clear memory of the evening as you do, Mr.…er, Will, but—”
“Yeah, lotta champagne flowed under the bridge that evening.”
“It wasn’t that. I had just flown in from Paris and I was jet-lagged. By the way, I’m calling from Paris now, Will, and I’d really appreciate some information.”
“Paris? Hey, everybody seems to be traveling to glamorous places lately but me. What’s the weather like over there?”
“Lousy. It’s raining. Now, if you don’t mind I’d like some information,
please
.”
“Sure. No prob. Shoot.”
“Good. I’ve been trying to get in touch with Federica Mansion for several days now and I’m starting to get really worried. The last time I heard from her was on the 23rd of May and she was in Singapore. She was also very sick. I haven’t heard from her since, even though we had a date in San Francisco on the 3rd of June.”
“Wait. Let me check my computer files…just a minute…yes, that’s correct. Miss Mansion was in the Singapore Mansion Inn on the 23rd of May.”
“And then what?”
“What do you mean, and then what?”
“Just what I say. She was very ill when I talked to her. Did she check out of the hotel? And if so, where did she go? Did she fly back to the States? Is she in the States now?”
“She’s supposed to be in Carson’s Bluff, a small town in Northern California.”
“I know that. We were supposed to meet after she came back. But I lost track of her. Did she actually fly out of Singapore?”
“Well, you’ll have to wait a second while I check our travel records…though, um, Ellen, I’m actually not too sure I should be giving out this information. Certainly not over the phone. It might be confidential—”
“You listen to me, Mr. Greenlee…Will. I am worried sick about my best friend. She’s just slipped off the edge of the world and no one seems to care. Least of all her uncle. She could be anywhere, hurt, in pain, a prisoner. I just don’t know. But I damn well intend to find out. I know a lot of journalists, Will, and they would just
love
a story like this.”
“Hey, wait a minute—”
“It has all the elements—suspense, a missing heiress, maybe crooked business dealings. I’ll throw the works at them. And while I’m at it, I’ll make sure that everyone knows that a certain Mr. Willard Greenlee of Mansion Enterprises stonewalled legitimate attempts to locate a missing person. Am I making myself clear?”
“Very. Ooh-kaay. Here we go. Federica Mansion flew back to San Francisco on the 28th of May on Inter Airways Flight WA 3458, departure time 9:52 a.m.—”
“I know that flight. It arrives at San Francisco at 2:10 p.m. What did she do after that? Did she report to work at Mansion Enterprises headquarters?”
“I’m not too sure—”
“Will, let me tell you something you might find interesting. Fred Lawrence is the chief editor of the business section of the
International Herald Tribune
here in Paris. Fred Lawrence happens to be a very good friend of mine. I can call him tonight and tell him that there is very good reason to believe that something nasty might be going on in Mansion Enterprises. That story could hit the newsstands tomorrow morning and create a lot of trouble for everybody, not to mention affect stock prices. Am I making myself clear?”
“Yes, you are. Just give me a minute here…”
“Take your time. My flight doesn’t leave for another half hour.”
“Your flight? Are you a stewardess?”
“Flight attendant. A
very impatient
flight attendant.”
“Okay, okay. There we are…my records show that Federica didn’t show up for work. Not on the 28th and she hasn’t been here since then.”
“Did someone pick her up at the airport?”
“Oh. Well, I guess I’d have to check the car pool records for that.”
“
Do it.”
“Hold on, hold on. Yes. She was picked up by one of our drivers, Erle Newton.”
“I know Newton. He usually drives Federica. Where were they headed?”
“To Carson’s Bluff.”
“She was supposed to go off to work immediately after a
fourteen-hour flight?
When she’d been
ill
?”
“Well, I guess…I mean if you want to put it like that, well yes, that’s what it looks like.”
“Okay. So she was picked up on the…what? 28th of May?”
“That’s right.”
“On the 28th. And driven to Carson’s Bluff.”
“Well…”
“Well, what?”
“That’s where they were headed. I mean, I have it right here on my screen. Erle Newton to drive Federica Mansion to Carson’s Bluff.”
“So? When did they get there?”
“Um…I don’t really know. They were due to arrive at around ten at night. But the thing is…”
“What?”
“Er—well, nobody’s actually
heard
from Miss Mansion since then. Apparently some faxes have been sent, but the fax machines in the city offices of Carson’s Bluff seem to have been turned off. And the car is still registered as out on mission.”
“I’ve been trying to fax her, too. What about her company cell phone?”
“Off.”
“And her email?”
“Wait. I’m accessing…no, she hasn’t answered any of her emails. It’s all backed up.”
“So nobody knows if she arrived?”
“Well, actually, I heard that her uncle is pi—angry at her for not being in touch.”
“
Angry?
Her uncle’s
angry
?”
