The Lady Vanishes (9 page)

After a few minutes, she realized he wasn’t following and turned around. He was standing where she’d left him, his eyes fixed on her rear end, and she groaned and turned around again, aware of his gaze with every step.

MILTON MADE SURE HIS COAT WAS CLOSED,
concealing his current predicament, and followed behind Regina, holding her groceries in one arm. Her perfect little ass twitched at him as she marched away, and he had to hurry to catch up with her before she reached the gated staircase that led to her loft.

“Can I take you to lunch?” he asked finally, wishing his hands were free.

She slid him a glance that he couldn’t quite make out, but it didn’t look promising. “No, I’ve had enough insanity for one day.”

“Insanity. That’s what you call that?” He called it magic, but to each his own. He did feel a little crazy, out of control, like he’d just survived a trick that had gone wildly awry.

“Yes,” she said firmly, just as they arrived at the stairs leading up to her loft apartment. “That’s exactly what I call it.”

She stopped and faced him. “Thank you for the ride home.” Her eyes widened briefly for no reason that he could tell, but after a moment she swallowed and set her jaw. “I’ll take that bag.”

Milton glanced at the bag of groceries he carried. He’d intended to insist on taking them up to her apartment, hoping that it wouldn’t take much convincing to get her to take off her clothes. She seemed to guess what he intended, however, and was just as determined to make sure that he didn’t set one foot across her threshold.

“All right,” he said, handing the bag over and shoving his hands in his pockets. “If I call you tonight, will you answer?”

She paused with her foot on the first step. “I’ll answer. But you should know, Mr. Shaw, I’m not going to go out with you. Not for lunch, or dinner, or coffee.” It felt ridiculous to hear her call him Mr. Shaw. She’d kissed him. Technically, she’d made out with him.

Agitated, Milton removed three small balls from his pocket and began juggling them with one hand. “Why not?” He made one of them seem to change color, and then another, and another, until there seemed to be a swirling rainbow of color in his hand.

She watched the trick with wide eyes, her mouth falling open a little, and Milton knew that at least some part of her was fascinated by the idea of magic. Some part of her wanted to be fascinated, wanted to be tricked, and if she gave in to that interest, even a little, she would be his, he just knew it. He stopped, making all the balls disappear, and waited for her response.

She blinked rapidly and took a startled breath. Shaking her head slightly, she turned away from him and quickly jogged up the steps. “I’m just not interested, Mr. Shaw. Find someone who is. I’m sure there’s a line of woman dying to be your inspiration.”

Milton shoved his hands in his pockets and watched her climb the steps. If this was disinterested, God help him if she ever decided she really wanted him. He was liable to start writing bad poetry and building avatars that looked like her.

Whistling softly, to no particular tune, he strolled back toward the street, where Shane waited. He might just do that, anyway, but he didn’t think it would convince her to go out with him. So what would?

“Sir?” Shane said gruffly.

“Yeah.” Milton nodded and walked around the limo to the back passenger seat, getting in quickly. Shane had left the car running, so it was warm, but Milton didn’t pay that much attention to it. Shane opened the partition and met Milton’s gaze in the rearview mirror.

“The office?” he asked, his South Boston accent making the word sound like “ahhfice.”

Milton nodded, then shook his head. “No, Harvard Square.”

He didn’t have to explain to Shane why he wanted to go to Harvard Square, an intersection across from Harvard Yard popular with buskers and street performers. Shane knew that if Milton was headed there, he intended to perform. It was about lunchtime, and even in the cold, the businesspeople, tourists, and college kids would be out and about watching the shows. There was snow on the ground, but it had stopped raining . . . mostly.

“You’ll freeze,” Shane pointed out. A man of few words, Shane, and always to the point.

Milton nodded.

Shane headed northeast, toward Beacon Hill, while Milton pulled out his phone and texted a friend of his, a private investigator named Burris Miller, a ridiculously tall man who liked to make beer. A former cop turned tech junkie, he did most of his sleuthing over the Internet. He didn’t give the man any details, just a name, Carter Burke, and a question mark. Burris would figure it out.

He wasn’t sure it was a smart idea to see if he could find Regina Burke’s father, but he was curious if he could. The man had used his encryption software to evade the government and steal millions. Milton was interested to see if he could get it back. And if he could . . . maybe Regina would think well of him.

The thought plagued him as Shane drove toward Harvard Square. Milton pulled out a small black mask and a top hat from another cabinet in the limo, and held both in one hand. When they were a few blocks away from the square, he had Shane pull up to a corner a few blocks away so he could walk the rest of the way, not putting on the mask or the hat until he was closer.

Regina Burke and her beautiful mouth lingered in his head as he negotiated with a sharp-eyed kid running a game of three-card monte for a small table and an extra deck of cards. He hadn’t brought a table or any of his normal supplies, so he’d have to rely on sleight of hand for most of the tricks. It wasn’t his best skill—Roland was actually much better—but it would do, especially today, when his mind was occupied with thoughts of the beautiful doctor.

He shuffled the cards rapidly in his hands, then made one levitate, grabbing it out of the air as if keeping it from escaping. He pretended not to notice the glances he received, and unlike the kid, he didn’t keep up a constant patter. He smoothly moved into another trick, spreading the cards like a fan and then pretending to drop them, scattering cash instead, much to the delight of the audience.

A small group of women bundled tightly against the weather stopped to watch him, their cheeks pink from the cold.

“Ladies.” He swept them a bow. “You look like visitors to Boston. Are you sightseeing?”

They nodded, already smiling in response to the gleaming white grin he bestowed on them.

“Well, I’d like to try something I’ve never tried before; if I mess up, I never have to see you again, right? You’re not staying in Boston?”

They promised they weren’t.

“Okay, then. I’m good at card tricks, pretty good, but not at mind reading. I have a piece of paper here, and a pencil. I’d like to try it, just this once. Can I read one of your minds?”

“You can read mine,” an older woman with a healthy bosom and bright green eyes volunteered and laughed bawdily.

Milton wagged a finger at her. “None of that, this is a clean show. I want you to think of a shape, any shape, and concentrate on it. Hold that image in your mind.”

She nodded and Milton pretended to concentrate, then he bent and seemed to scribble something on the back of the receipt from Uncle Pete’s. He held up the receipt so the women couldn’t see the side he’d pretended to write on.

“What shape did you imagine?”

She smirked at him. “An octagon.”

He smiled and opened his opposite hand to distract them and quickly drew an octagon on the paper with a small piece of graphite taped to his thumb. As soon as he finished, he flipped the paper around. They gasped and laughed, delighted, and he took a small bow again.

The key was opening the palm of his right hand while he wrote. Their eyes had followed the motion and their brains had missed the hasty scribbling of his thumb—an octagon, most people chose triangle. There was always a key to misdirection, and Roland had taught him all of them. Milton was simply glad he’d timed everything correctly. He’d been thinking about the perfect curve of Regina Burke’s lips. Why wouldn’t she go out with him? What could he do to convince her?

Startled by his own distraction, he shuffled the cards quickly, and moved smoothly into his next trick, a complicated card trick matching red and black suits of cards without seeming to do anything.

He laid the cards out quickly; it would have to be something she cared about, something more important to her than whatever was keeping her from going out with him. He refused to believe she wasn’t attracted to him. No woman let you hold her down and kiss the shit out of her if she wasn’t attracted. At least, he didn’t think they did.

Other than his best friends, Roland and Nick, and his mother, not many people knew about the stubborn streak that ran through Milton Shaw. Once he’d made up his mind, it was made up, and very little could be done to change it. That kind of focus made him a brilliant programmer, and an excellent magician, but his brains didn’t seem to help when it came to women. He was too intense, they said. Of course, not many women had said that since he’d become insanely wealthy. Now it didn’t matter how intense he was—if he crooked a finger, beautiful women came, and they were willing to do anything.

Not her,
he thought and smiled, looking down at the board. The cards were grouped together by color and his audience was clapping in admiration.
I want her.
To Milton it was that simple, and that dangerous.

“AND THEN HE JUST KIND OF GRABBED ME
and it was like I’d been drugged. I wanted him and couldn’t think about anything else,” Regina finished with a somewhat deflated sigh. It was Sunday morning, and Regina hadn’t slept well. Milton Shaw had indeed called her, and, just as she’d promised, she’d turned him down. He didn’t seem to be giving up, though. He’d sent her more flowers this morning.

“Wow.” Her therapist, Rose-Lindsey Cooper, fanned herself. “That was great. I wish I had some popcorn and a margarita.”

“Rose-Lindsey,” Regina chided. “My therapy sessions are not supposed to be entertainment.”

Shrugging, Rose-Lindsey adjusted herself in the flowery armchair that she preferred. She was a large woman with an affection for turtleneck sweaters and knitted hats. She was prone to knitting during their session, though Regina supposed they could hardly be called sessions when Rose-Lindsey didn’t actually work as a counselor any longer and Regina didn’t pay her. The rest of Regina’s friends had abandoned her when her father had stolen all that money and disappeared. Some people had stayed loyal, but none more so than Rose-Lindsey, who’d been her counselor at sixteen and had remained a good friend, even after Regina no longer had any money and was struggling through medical school, even after she’d quit counseling and opened up a shop that sold knitwear and beautiful sweaters.

They met at Rose-Lindsey’s home in Back Bay, a tidy one-story in an older neighborhood, where she lived with her longtime partner, an artistic woman named Leena.

She frowned a little, thinking about how long they’d known each other. “Rose-Lindsey, why have you kept seeing me all these years?”

Rose-Lindsey blinked at the abrupt change of topic. After a moment, she gathered her knitting from the basket at her side. “I don’t know that I ever actually thought about it,” she mused. “Before your father disappeared with all that money, you were a fairly normal teenager. A little intense at times, as your father could be, but so charming that I don’t think most people even noticed.”

Regina’s frown deepened. “I was charming?”

Pursing her lips, Rose-Lindsey nodded. “But then the Feds were at the door, your mom abdicated all responsibility for you or your sister, and you just changed. I’ve never seen anyone adapt so quickly or so abruptly to complete and utter devastation, but you did. Suddenly, you were serious, almost grim.”

Regina grimaced. That had not exactly been her favorite moment in life. She barely remembered it, actually. She’d just done what had to be done to take care of her mother and her sister.

“Everyone dumped us,” Regina muttered. “Our attorneys, the accountants, everyone. I’ve never felt so ashamed or so low in my life. And then that man who attacked me. I’d never been hit before, not like that.”