The Arrangement. Suzanne Forster

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СКАЧАТЬ the breakfast he hadn’t eaten sat on the counter just behind her. In his peripheral vision, he could see her pilfering pieces of the fruit and stuffing them in her mouth like a starving child. He wasn’t sure she even realized what she was doing.

      He turned, catching her as she crammed three of the orange sections into her mouth at once. She froze at the sight of him. Her knees seemed to buckle. Heat flushed her cheeks and she gulped hard, apparently swallowing the entire mouthful.

      “Alison? If you’re hungry—”

      “No, it’s not that. Sometimes I panic and forget myself.” Her eyes took on that anguish again. “Do you see?” she said. “Do you see now? I’m not ready.”

      He did see, but there wasn’t much he could do. They had to go. Julia was extending an olive branch after four years of silence. Alison’s accident had been the catalyst for Julia’s change of heart. She’d wanted to see her only daughter, the child she nearly lost, but this was much more. She’d invited them to stay at Sea Clouds, the Fairmonts’ compound on the cliffs near Mirage Bay.

      The three-story Mediterranean mansion had been in the family for generations, but had been used primarily as a vacation home to escape the harsh East Coast winters. When Julia’s husband, Grant, died, she’d begun spending more of her time at Sea Clouds, and now it was her permanent residence.

      Andrew needed this opportunity. If Julia rescinded the invitation, he might not get another chance to enter that house, up close and personal with the Fairmonts—one of whom he suspected had set him up for a fall.

      Andrew used the smallest key on his chain to unlock the drawer. Inside was the six-month-old edition of the Mirage Bay newspaper he’d found in his P.O. box yesterday, rolled up and bagged in plastic. He’d been having the Mirage Bay paper mailed to him since Alison’s accident, but this edition wasn’t courtesy of the newspaper’s subscription service. This was personal. Someone was calling him out.

      He unrolled the paper and laid it on the counter. Alison had just left in a huff and he didn’t expect her back, but he’d locked his office door all the same. If she saw this, he would never get her on the plane to southern California. The paper’s date was February third, and the lead story was about her disappearance from Bladerunner. But the article had been marked up by whoever sent it. Words had been circled with a permanent marker to create an ominous message, clearly intended for him.

      I know what you did. Soon the police will, too.

      You won’t get away with it this time.

       How much are your secrets worth?

      It smacked of a blackmail attempt, but the sender hadn’t given him any contact information. Andrew couldn’t risk dismissing it as a bluff. He had plenty to hide and too much at stake, and the sender seemed to know that.

      He picked up the plastic casing the paper had come in and examined the mailing label. It didn’t have the newspaper’s logo, which added to his theory that a private party had sent the paper, and if not for the blackmail aspect, Andrew would have said it was Julia Fairmont. He didn’t think it a coincidence that her invitation had arrived within days of the newspaper message, and she had more reasons than most to want him out of the way.

      He’d come between her and her only daughter, and even if Julia didn’t buy the media hype about the Villard curse, she undoubtedly had some concerns about Alison’s safety. She might also think he was trying to use Alison to get his hands on the fifty-milliion dollar trust fund.

      How much are your secrets worth? The clumsy attempt at blackmail brought Bret Fairmont to mind. There’d be no other reason for Bret to expose him, certainly not to protect his sister. There was no love lost there. Unfortunately, the blackmail aspect opened the field up to suspects Andrew might not even know. Anyone could have seen something, heard something, although why would they wait all this time? And the second line must refer to Regine, which meant the sender knew something about his past. But then, who didn’t?

      He put the paper back in the drawer and locked it, but he was still mentally embroiled in the quandary. What were his secrets worth? Christ, there wasn’t enough money.

      He passed the drafting table on his way to the windows. For some reason, the bright blue horizon called up a vision of the first time he’d met Alison, twelve years ago. He’d flown to the west coast to live out his dream of commissioning a sailing yacht from Voyager Yachts, one of the country’s foremost luxury boat manufacturers. Andrew had no idea that Voyager had been owned by Grant Fairmont while he was alive, or that the exclusive marina had been one of Alison’s hangouts.

      She’d been there that day, flitting like a butterfly around the shipyard, a shapely sixteen-year-old in a bikini, flirting madly with the college boys from the rowing club next door. She was underage and too young for Andrew anyway, but that didn’t stop her from flashing him a melting smile every chance she got.

      He saw a lot of her over the next year as he commuted between the coasts to watch the sailboat’s progress, and eventually Andrew realized he was smitten. His intentions were serious by the time he slept with her, but when she took him home to Mama, everything changed. No one was good enough for Julia Fairmont’s daughter.

      Andrew continued to see Alison anyway, even after Bladerunner was done and had been shipped back to Oyster Bay. On her eighteenth birthday he gave her the bracelet adorned with musical charms to encourage her singing aspirations, only to have Julia demand he take it back. She also offered to write him a check if he would name his price. He’d refused the bracelet and the money, but he’d ended the relationship. Julia had been right. He wasn’t good enough.

      It was the last time he saw Alison until she moved to Manhattan the following year to attend Julliard. By that time he was involved with Regine, his protégé, and Alison’s unexpected visit to the rooftop apartment where he and Regine lived was not a welcome surprise. But Alison had sworn she only wanted to meet Regine, that she was a huge fan.

      Andrew stared out the window, looking hard at the horizon.

      Who’d sent him that threat? And what were they trying to accomplish?

      He’d even asked himself if the sender could have been part of Alison’s plan to frame him, if there’d ever been such a plan. Maybe the accomplice had decided to finish the job, with or without her. That seemed like a stretch, but Andrew had to pursue every lead—and he was going to start where it had all begun, in Mirage Bay—whether Alison was ready or not.

      His first shot put a gaping hole through the perp’s heart. Bullet number two drilled right between the thug’s eyes. And then, just for good measure, Special Agent Tony Bogart shot the guy’s balls off. It was the wrong order. If you were going for a quick, efficient kill, you aimed for the head first. Targets shot in the head did not shoot back. But Tony was letting off steam. This was his release valve for the pressure cooker of law enforcement. Better than taking it out on live suspects, which was frowned upon by the brass.

      Another perp sprang up before Tony could eject the spent magazine and jam .40 Glock semiautomatic. The thug came straight at him, howling like a banshee. The clip jammed.

      Tony flicked his head and sweat sprayed like raindrops. With a hard snap of his wrist, he Frisbee’d the gun at the target carrier system in the ceiling. It hit the drive motors and gummed up the works, stopping the paper assailant in his tracks.

      Laughing, Tony pulled a .45 caliber pistol from his thigh holster and blew the bastard away. Four holes in his forehead. СКАЧАТЬ