Dangerous Lover

Ten

Summerville

“Oh yeah, baby, give it to me,” she purred. “Big and thick and hot.”

“You got it, honey.” Sanders McCullin obliged, holding the woman’s skinny hips and bucking up into her. It was pleasant enough. She was very wet and was enthusiastically bouncing up and down on his dick.

Sanders couldn’t remember her name. Karla—Kara—Karen. Something like that. They’d met last night at the Zig Zag. On Christmas Eve, the bar had been bouncing and loud. She had slid over to the empty barstool next to his after the girlfriend she’d been with dumped her for a guy.

They’d been fucking for the past twenty-four hours, breaking only to eat, shower and go to the bathroom. Not being sure of her name wasn’t that hard. Honey did just fine.

Kara-Karen threw her head back, eyes closed, hips pumping.

Sanders guessed her age to be about thirty. Except for her breasts and nose, which were probably about four.

Women with breast implants shouldn’t be on top. Everything wiggled except the breasts, which looked bolted to her chest. Fascinated, Sanders watched her breasts—big stiff things that didn’t move, like water balloons under the chest wall. She was skinny everywhere except for the balloons on her chest—tits on a stick. And with her head back, he could see the signs of plastic surgery on her nose.

And…on her face? Jesus. He hadn’t noticed that at the Zig Zag, and they’d been fucking in the dark ever since. So maybe she wasn’t thirty after all.

After pumping energetically for a few minutes, she came with a great howl, cunt pulling hard on him, startling him into his own climax.

With a cat that ate the cream smile on her face, she settled back down on top of him, clearly intending to stay there, head on his shoulder.

“Wow,” she purred. “That was fantastic.”

He could smell the sex on them. Ugh. Cleanup time.

“Hey, honey, sorry. Nature’s calling.” Sanders nudged her off him and rolled from the bed, padding naked into the bathroom. As he walked past the dresser, he caught a glimpse of himself and stopped, pleased. Those hours at the gym sure paid off. He had a flat stomach and some good definition, except right now he looked…inelegant with the condom hanging off his dick. He pulled it off.

Not bad, he thought. Still holding up. The ladies sure weren’t complaining.

In the bathroom, he threw the condom in the wastepaper basket—there were four of them on the bottom.

He loved his bathroom. He’d spent $30,000 remodeling and loved every inch of it. Next to the shower was a stand-alone bathtub carved from a single block of marble that weighed one ton. The floor had had to be specially reinforced before it could be winched into place.

Sanders stepped into the shower and felt his spirits lifting at the sight of the gleaming fixtures and pale cream Valentino tiles. It was a spa-quality steam shower with thirty shower jets, a foot massager, piped-in music and a hands-free phone system.

As he soaped up with his Clinique for Men shower gel, Sanders realized that he wished the woman in his bed would just disappear before he got out of the shower. He was all fucked out and didn’t like her enough to spend time with her not fucking.

She wasn’t the brightest tool in the woodshed and she had an annoying, screechy voice. She was good in bed and gave great head, though there’d been a shocked moment when he looked down at himself afterwards and seen a black cock, as if it had suddenly turned gangrenous. It was just Karla-Kara’s trendy Goth black lipstick all over his dick, but he’d had an ugly moment there.

Karla-Kara worked at an advertising agency and talked about music he’d never heard of, films he’d never seen and bars he’d never been to. It was tedious.

He wanted her gone, so he could enjoy the big jar of contraband Crimean caviar and the bottle of two-hundred-dollar Dom Pérignon in the fridge. They would be totally wasted on Karla-Kara, whatever the fuck her name was. At the bar where he’d picked her up, she was drinking some sugary drink and eating a club sandwich.

Maybe if he took enough time in the shower, she’d get the hint, get dressed and leave.

Fat chance. She looked settled, there in his bed, as if she didn’t ever want to leave. It was really annoying. He wished there were just a button he could press and hey presto!

No more Kara. Or Karla.

He was wishing that more and more often lately after sex.

She was okay in bed, but boring and vulgar outside of it. Sanders had had just about as much sex with her as he was willing to have. He looked down at himself, checking with his dick, seeing what happened at the thought of another round.

His dick stayed firmly down. So that was that.

The thought of more sex with her was actually just a little depressing.

Nope, Karla or Kara or whatever the fuck her name was, was shit out of luck.

He’d chosen the wrong woman with whom to spend Christmas Day.

He knew the right woman, though he’d have to wait until after Christmas to get her into his bed. Back into his bed. Back into his life.

Caroline Lake.

Their time had come, Sanders could feel it. He and Caroline had been dancing around each other since they were teenagers and the time had come to make it permanent. They’d broken up a few times, the first time in their teens. Well, he was going off to college back East, wasn’t he? And he couldn’t have a small-town girlfriend dragging him down, no matter how rich her family, no matter how pretty she was.

And then Caroline had come back East too, to Boston, an hour’s train ride away. And she’d become even more beautiful. They’d had a couple of tumbles in the sheets and he was seriously thinking of an engagement ring when her parents died in a car crash.

It was impossible after that.

Robert Lake had been making some bad investments when he died, and what with the medical bills and her father’s debts, Caroline had skated bankruptcy, surviving by a hair after opening that bookshop of hers. With that and her grotesque brother, there’d been no time for him.

When Sanders had returned to Summerville, he’d often thought about getting back together with Caroline, even though she didn’t have any money.

There were a lot of advantages to Caroline. She was beautiful, cultivated, and you could take her anywhere. As Sanders’s law practice grew, he often wished Caroline were by his side when talking with big clients. She had a magic touch with people that rubbed off on him by association. The few times he’d managed to convince her to accompany him to an important event, his stock went way up.

But she made it clear that her first, second and third loyalty was to Toby and that Sanders came in a miserable fourth.

Unacceptable.

It never failed to appall him—that she’d prefer a writhing pathetic cripple to him, and to the life he could offer her.

He knew she was struggling, but that was her own damned fault. She insisted on holding on to that ancient pile of bricks that was falling down around her head and simply wouldn’t listen to reason, no matter how many times he told her to sell.

Sanders had quietly had Greenbriars appraised, and to his astonishment, though it was falling to pieces, it was worth over a million dollars. Something about the design. But still. Even more reason to sell it. It was at least seventy years old. She was sliding into genteel poverty, heading straight for ruin, and he could save her ass, give her the life she’d been used to, but she turned her pretty nose up at him and chose to stay with her crippled brother.

It still baffled him.

All she had to do was sell that damned house, put Toby in a home where he belonged and other people didn’t have to see him. Then get together with him—get back together with him, he never let her forget that she lost her virginity to him—and all her troubles would be over. He’d made that clear every way he could.

Well, Toby was dead now, thank God. This huge drain on her finances was over, not to mention the ick factor. Even now, the memory of Toby—crumpled in his wheelchair, face so scarred he looked like Freddie, hands slowly retracting into claws—was enough to make him sick.

Sanders had a very clear memory of the last date he and Caroline had had. He’d taken her to Chez Max, over in Bedford. Hundred bucks a head, worth every penny.

Caroline had been particularly beautiful that evening, dressed in a black Versace. Sanders had no idea how she’d been able to afford a Versace, but there it was. And it looked terrific on her. She turned heads.

They were getting on just fine, too. Sanders could tell that she enjoyed the elegant surroundings and the superb food. He ordered a two-hundred-dollar bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape, and they polished it off. Caroline was relaxed, so stunning he was finding it hard to keep his eyes off her.

This was where a woman like her belonged—and on the arm of a man like him.

She refused to come home with him afterwards, so he drove her home and accepted her invitation for a nightcap.

Her creepy brother was up, in the living room, watching TV. Caroline poured Sanders a drink, talking calmly, and poured her brother a glass of milk. She had to hold the glass to his mouth, and even then half of it was spewed down the front of his pajamas. He slurred badly—half his mouth was scar tissue—and Caroline waited patiently for him to finish whatever nonsense he had to say.

After, she put her hand over his, and the sight nearly made Sanders gag. Her beautiful, slender hand over that monstrous…thing.

Sanders downed his whiskey without sitting down and left, fuming. She’d essentially ignored him since they walked into the house, in order to fawn over that pathetic excuse for a human being.

Well, fuck that. Toby was finally dead. And Caroline was free.

And still poor.

“Hey, baby,” Karla-Kara whined. “Momma’s getting cold.”

Sanders rolled his eyes.

It was entirely possible he was getting too old to play the field. Hell, most of the clients he met were married, some on their second or even third marriage. He was starting to get odd looks when he said he was single.

He needed a wife. Not some bimbo who was good in the sack until it got old, which it usually did, very fast, but a wife. Someone who looked good on his arm, someone who would keep house for him. Bear him children. Good-looking, healthy, bright children.

Put that way, there was only one woman who fit the bill. Caroline.

Last month, he’d been called to Seattle to meet with a couple of businessmen who were active in politics. After a couple of hours of talk, after probing him about his opinion on some controversial issues, they’d asked whether he’d like to stand for representative in the midterm elections next year. No answer necessary, just think about it.

Sanders was made for politics. He had looks, brains, money and above all, he knew loads of people who had even more money than he did and who could be persuaded to back him. It wasn’t hard at all to see himself climbing the ranks. State representative, governor, senator. Hell, maybe even all the way up to the top.

That was his destiny. Sanders could feel the power of it tingling in his fingertips.

He was too old now to keep fucking around. Openly, at least. That part of his life was over. He needed the stability of a home life, wife and kids. A politician’s wife had to be photogenic and gracious and presentable. That was Caroline, in a nutshell.

Political wives needed stamina and loyalty. If Sanders was ever caught fucking an intern, he needed a wife who’d stand by him, cover for him. Well, if ever there was a woman who didn’t abandon her responsibilities, who had loyalty bred in the bone, who was almost too loyal, it was Caroline.

Yes, she was perfect. She’d keep him a beautiful home, make a charming hostess, bear him beautiful children, put her family’s interests before hers.

The time was finally right for them. It had taken them thirteen years to get to this point.

He’d steered clear of her over the Christmas holidays out of self-defense. Caroline got very glum and boring at Christmas-time. And she’d probably be mourning Toby—though any sane person would be rejoicing at getting rid of such a burden.

So he’d let her get all that out of her system.

Monday he’d visit the shop and get the ball rolling. How hard could it be? Caroline was alone now, and hurting for money. And probably a little lonely. People tended to avoid her. She didn’t complain, but everyone knew what her situation was. Nobody liked people with problems.

He’d be the answer to her prayers. They’d be engaged by Easter, married by June. Just in time to test the political waters for his candidacy.

He needed to get rid of Karla-Kara. She was just white noise, and now that he’d made his decision she was distracting.

Sanders dug his personal cell phone out and called his business cell phone number. A few seconds later, it started ringing in the bedroom.

“Hey, baby—the phone!” Karla-Kara shrieked.

Gritting his teeth against her voice, like chalk on a blackboard, Sanders walked into the bedroom, flipped his phone open and put it to his ear, listening to the empty sound.

“Uh-huh,” he said, listening with a frown. “When?…Does Bowers know about this yet?…Uh-huh…I guess so…It’s Christmas, in case you haven’t noticed…uh-huh…Oh, all right.” This last was said in irritation. He flipped the phone closed and picked her clothes up from the floor.

“Sorry, honey,” he told the pouting woman on his bed. “Business emergency. People are coming over in about half an hour, then we have to fly to Los Angeles.” Her bra and panties were red silk, slightly dirty. He tossed them to her. “Hurry up, I’ll call a cab.”

He was actually looking forward to Monday.

It was time.

New York

Waldorf-Astoria

Deaver had a Christmas dinner brought up by room service from Peacock Alley. Maine lobster salad, prime grilled sirloin, dry-aged for twenty-eight days, with a wild mushroom side dish and a forty-dollar bottle of Valpolicella breathing on a sideboard—150 bucks, including tip, and worth every penny.

Axel continued with his generosity and Deaver lifted a cut-crystal glass in his honor.

When the waiters had finished setting the meal out on the huge, antique oak desk, and bowed themselves quietly out of the room, Deaver breathed in deeply and savored the moment.

It was all so perfect—the linen tablecloth and napkins, the fine bone china, the heavy silverware, the crystal glasses. The delicious smells of excellent food and clean table linen.

Deaver had grown up in a trailer park outside Midland, Texas. All his childhood, most of his food had been eaten cold, out of a can, and he had had to fight the cockroaches for it. He’d been eighteen, and in the Army, before he knew that forks came in different sizes.

But that was a long time ago, and he’d discovered that he had a taste for living large. This was how he was meant to live.

An hour later, Deaver wiped his mouth with the peach-colored oversized linen napkin and gave a little belch. Perfect. Perfect meal. The first of many.

The rest of his life was going to be like this. Exactly like this—luxurious surroundings, staff, superb food and wine—except he was going to have women around. Lots of them.

No women now. Now it was hunting time.

Wrapped up in the hotel’s thick terry-cloth robe, he opened the laptop he’d bought from Drake. Again, whatever Drake delivered was excellent. It was clearly a laptop that had seen heavy use, but its hard disk had been wiped clean, and it powered up just fine. Deaver connected to the high-speed Internet access port, went to Google, then sat back to reflect, staring at the bright screen.

The Colonel had found Prescott in January of 1996, emaciated, half-dead and half-frozen behind a Dumpster. Deaver had been OUTCONUS most of that winter, freezing his butt off in Bosnia. By the time he got back to base, Prescott was a done deal. The Colonel had adopted him, he’d put on forty pounds of muscle and was studying for his GCE, intent on joining the Army.

Deaver had hated him on sight. The Colonel thought the sun shone out of his ass. Well, he would, considering his own son, the other Jack, had been a whiny wimp who’d started drinking at fifteen and managed to wreck a car he’d stolen for a joyride and got himself killed at the age of twenty, together with a family of four, before his new cocaine habit could do it for him later.

One thing you had to say for Jack—he was as straight as they come, and the Colonel had taken him like a second lease on life.

When the Colonel retired to found ENP Security, everyone had assumed that Deaver would be his second-in-command. After all, he’d served under the Colonel for almost twenty years. It was his due, damn it.

Twenty years in the Army and he had fuck-all to show for it. Everyone else was making a bundle off Homeland Security, and it should have been Deaver’s turn.

But the only thing the Colonel had offered him was a job—and a miserably paid one at that, even though it was double what he’d been making in the Army. Deaver was expecting a managerial position with stock, and he ended up being a glorified hired gun, sent immediately to Waziristan to guard a pipeline, then to Sierra Leone to guard fat mining executives.

And Jack Prescott quit the Rangers and was made executive vice president of ENP Security the next day.

It still burned.

But he couldn’t dwell on that now. No emotion when planning a mission. Love, hatred, revenge—they could get you killed quicker than gunfire. No, Deaver had to think it through, logically and clearly, step by step.

Well, step number one was to be sure that Elvis had actually left the building.

Half an hour later, it looked like he had. Prescott had sold the company to a competitor and had sold his house to Rodney Strong, a CPA, and his wife Cathy Strong, lifestyle coach.

Prescott’s phone had been disconnected, as had all the utilities. There was no record of sale of property, or utility contracts, in the name of Jack Prescott, either in town or in a fifty-mile radius.

Much as Deaver found it hard to believe, since Jack had inherited a big, expensive house and a thriving company—he’d sold everything and disappeared off the face of the earth. He’d even sold his car.

Just to torment himself, Deaver hacked into Prescott’s bank account and stared at the screen, jaw muscles jumping.

On the nineteenth of December, just before leaving for Sierra Leone and fucking up Deaver’s life, Jack Prescott had converted all his assets into a cashier’s check for $8 million and change.

The fucker!

Deaver slammed his hand on the walnut desk, cracking it slightly. He stood up and walked the perimeter of the room, trying to calm himself down.

That son of a bitch had over 8 million plus his diamonds. Deaver was going to take the diamonds back, have Prescott wire all his money to Deaver’s account in the Caymans, then break every single bone in the son of a bitch’s body, before slitting his throat.

Then he’d kill the woman.

It took fifteen minutes before he could settle back down, but when he did, it was with a soldier’s concentration. The beautiful surroundings, the staff on call, quivering to be of service, the lavish meal—they all disappeared as he focused like a laser beam on the mission.

There would be no more indulgences, no more forays into the good life, until Jack Prescott was found.

Turning to the computer, Deaver checked the car rental agencies in town and in the surrounding towns. Prescott hadn’t rented a car. He wouldn’t take a bus—what man with almost $30 million would? So he’d flown out of town, to…where?

Half an hour later, Deaver had the answer. A credit card corresponding to Jack Prescott had been used to buy a one-way ticket from Freetown to Seattle, via Paris, Atlanta and Chicago. He couldn’t find any car rental agencies that had rented him a car.

So Deaver knew two things. One, Jack Prescott was in the Pacific Northwest, and two, he hadn’t bothered hiding his tracks. He’d left a clear trail behind him, which meant he didn’t know Deaver was on his trail.

If Jack hadn’t wanted to be tracked, Deaver would have ended up playing with his dick forever. So Jack wasn’t expecting anyone to follow him. Perfect. Surprise attacks worked best.

So, Deaver thought, leaning closer to the screen showing a detailed map of Washington state, where in Washington are you? Did you go up into Canada? His eyes tracked to the top of the screen, which cut off about a hundred miles north of Vancouver. He let the thought run through his mind, examining it from different directions.

Nah. He had a valid passport, and he wasn’t on the run. If he wanted to go up into Canada, he would have gone straight there.

No, everything pointed to Prescott being a man on a mission and taking a beeline to get there. Just as soon as he humanly could, he liquidated his assets and made straight for…

Straight for the girl—now a woman. Find her, find Prescott. Deaver was sure of it.

Once more, Deaver placed the two photocopied photographs flat on the table and studied them, more intently this time. This time, they had to tell him where Prescott was, and fast.

It was entirely possible that Prescott would find a married woman with six kids, who over the past twelve years had gained fifty pounds and lost teeth and hair and didn’t remember him.

If that was the case, Prescott would disappear and Deaver would never find him, or his diamonds, again.

So he studied the photographs the way soldiers going into battle studied a terrain map—carefully and thoroughly, because it all depended on knowing what you were going to face.

The photograph had to date back to 1995 at the latest. Prescott hadn’t been linked to any particular woman since the Colonel found him. So this obsession he had was with someone he’d met in 1995 or earlier. The date on the newspaper clipping was October 15, 1995, so maybe the photograph was from that period.

He studied the high-school photo. Staged, like they all were. Deaver hadn’t had one. The old man wouldn’t spring for it, but he remembered everyone else’s at the high school. For most of them, it was their first formal portrait, and they had fixed grins, or at least the ones whose teeth were good enough to show did. The girls had slapped on the makeup with a trowel, and the boys had worn dress shirts instead of tee shirts, some for the first time in their lives.

This girl’s smile was natural, not stagy. Maybe she was used to being photographed. She looked like a million other pretty teenagers, though prettier than most. Long, strawberry blonde hair with a little curl to it. Straight, even, white teeth. Some kind of pink sweater with a pearl necklace. No indication of what her body looked like, only a general impression of slenderness.

Deaver switched his attention to the photograph of her playing the piano, dressed in a sweater and a long skirt, showing off a great body, though the face was in profile.

He looked again at the newspaper heading. ville Gazette.

Well, he had a state to start with, Washington. Why would Prescott head straight for Seattle if what he wanted wasn’t in Washington?

Deaver called up all the townships in Washington state. Seventeen cities, ninety-two townships. Four ending in—ville. None of them had a newspaper called the Gazette.

Deaver sat back, thinking furiously.

This whole exercise might be futile. Maybe he was barking up the wrong tree. Caroline Lake had been a pretty girl. If she’d grown into a beautiful woman, she’d be married by now. Hell, she might be on her second or third marriage, having changed names a couple of times. She could be Caroline Warner in Las Vegas, or Caroline Yoo in San Francisco or Caroline Steinberg in New York.

Fuck.

Maybe he should start looking for Jack, who wasn’t bothering to hide his tracks. Maybe he should just hole up here for as long as Axel’s credit card lasted until the next time Jack used his credit card.

Idly, Deaver Googled “newspaper + Gazette + Washington + 1995” and bingo! There it was. He leaned forward, surprised at the hit. Goddammit, bless the Internet because there it was in black and white, cursor blinking gently, just waiting for him to connect the dots. The Summerville Gazette, local rag for a small city called Summerville, defunct since 2002, but alive and well in 1995.

Eyes narrowed, Deaver leaned over the keyboard, Googling Caroline Lake + Summerville, Washington, and came up with ten hits, all concerning a Caroline Lake who ran a bookshop, gave prizes and played the piano in church. To be on the safe side, he clicked on images and gazed at about fifteen photographs of Caroline Lake. Prescott’s Caroline Lake. Still beautiful, still unmarried.

Jack Prescott was there, right now. He’d bet his left nut on it.

Deaver started furiously looking for online sites to book a flight immediately to Seattle, cursing because there was no way he could get there before 9:00 P.M. tomorrow night. Most flights were booked solid till after the New Year. The flights he finally found would take him twelve hours from Newark to Atlanta to Chicago to Seattle. It was the best he could do.

Well, at least he’d be there on Monday morning.

He looked once again at the photos of Caroline Lake, a truly stunning woman.

Prescott would still be in Summerville on Monday. Oh yeah. He wasn’t going anywhere.