Behind Closed Doors

Chapter 10

Victor took a sip of his brandy and stared up at the sky. The moon emerged, making a brief appearance in the ragged window in the clouds. It illuminated the water for a few seconds, and vanished again.

It was long after midnight, but he could seldom sleep when the moon was this close to full. The wind had an icy nip, but he felt so exultant, he didn't care. His niece wasn't a rabbit, after all. She needed work, but the raw material was there. Maybe she really was his daughter. She certainly didn't get her spirit from poor Peter, and Alix was all noise and bluster, not spirit or strength.

His campaign to toughen her up appeared to be working splendidly. The encounter with Mackey had done her a world of good. She had actually defied him, the naughty girl. She had thrown him out of her place. How marvelous. His whole body was pleasantly wide awake, humming with excitement Tonight was a night to celebrate.

He tossed back the last of his brandy and went inside, handing the glass to the hovering attendant. “Send Mara to my suite in ten minutes,” he said briskly.

Her soft knock sounded before he had finished undressing. He let her wait outside the door as he donned his robe and sat down in his favorite chair, positioned for a clear view of both the window and the mirror. “Come in.”

She stole into the room, barefoot, her long dark hair tousled around her shoulders. She was wearing a short robe of crimson silk, belted at the waist. She walked towards him slowly, a sultry, expectant smile on her face, and stopped a few feet from his chair, awaiting further instructions. His staff was very well trained.

He studied her at great length, liking what he saw. “Take off the robe,” he ordered.

She tugged the belt loose and shrugged. The robe slipped off her gleaming shoulders, the smooth fabric caught for one delicious, suspended moment upon her taut brown nipples. It snagged even more briefly upon the curve of her hips, and pooled silently around her feet.

Gilded toenails, he noticed. He liked that detail. He did not like the toe ring, but that could be overlooked for now. He would mention it to the housekeeper tomorrow. “Turn,” he said.

She gracefully did so, lifting her hair and arching her back. Her muscles rippled and flexed, and her breasts were perfect. The sharp, humming energy in his body coalesced. The moment was right.

Victor gestured for the girl to kneel in front of him, and then leaned back to watch as she sank to her knees, smiling at him with seductive promise. She reached confidently inside his robe, grasping his aroused penis with cool, smooth hands.

He was pleasantly impressed with her technique. The girl was skillful and sensual. The pacing was perfect, the ratio of depth to pressure very enjoyable; he felt no teeth. The way she used her hands in tandem with lips and tongue was per- feet. She was bold yet graceful, managing to be beautifully carnal in the act of fellatio while avoiding the pitfall of vulgarity, never an easy task. She made no unpleasant noises with her mouth. Above all, she displayed an unforced, pleasant enthusiasm for the task. He appreciated that, whether real or feigned.

He shifted his attention to the mirror, enjoying the picture she made. The dip of her waist swelled into buttocks that looked as if they had been polished to marble smoothness. Flawless. He would inform his housekeeper to give her a bonus. He lit a cigarette. Mara's eyes flicked up in a questioning look. He nodded, indicating that she should continue.

The dimness of the room suddenly struck him as oppressive. He flipped on the light, but this proved to be unfortunate, as it highlighted the fact that Mara's forehead was somewhat low, her nose a bit too narrow. Her makeup, under the light, seemed harsh.

He closed his eyes, blocking out the sight, and found himself thinking of his niece. Her tryst with Mackey must have been a good experience. Or, at least, extremely intense; the only kind of experience worth having, in his opinion. He wondered idly if Mara was still capable of blushing. He opened his eyes and observed her. Watching his penis slide in and out of her glossy crimson mouth, he rather doubted it.

The conflicting thoughts weighed upon him, threatening both his mood and his erection. He tried to dismiss them, but a startling thought was taking shape in his mind, so ludicrous it was impossible to ignore.

He was jealous of his clumsy, ignorant, blameless niece. She was poised on the brink of miracles and disasters. Anything could happen to her. Anything probably would. The danger and intensity of her life was worlds away from the flat emptiness that he faced every day.

He closed his eyes, deliberately allowing the warm, wet suction of Mara's skilful mouth to coax him over the crest.

He came, in a long, painful shudder. A crashing silence descended on him.

When he opened his eyes, his cigarette was a teetering tube of ash. Mara was wiping her mouth, trying to hide the apprehension in her eyes. He twitched his robe shut. “You can go,” he said curtly.

She rose to her feet. She looked faintly hurt, but was far too professional to make any protest. She left without a word.

He stared out the window. The cold inside him deepened.

Summoning Mara had been a mistake. Sometimes sex alleviated the cold; sometimes it intensified it. Unfortunately, in the initial stages of sexual excitement, it was impossible to tell which of the two it would be. He should probably give up sex altogether, he thought, with a fierce stab of regret. It was no longer worth the risk. Self-denial was tedious, but at this point, self-indulgence usually was, too.

He experienced a flicker of discomfort at how cold and abrupt he had been with Mara. She had done her best, and the situation was not her fault. She was being very well paid to get her feelings hurt, however. He brushed the thought aside, poured a glass of whiskey and sipped it, gazing at the desolate beauty of the moon on the water.

He knew what would happen now. The cold would deepen into a hollow ache. The ache would spread out, cracking him open until he was staring into an abyss of emptiness. On nights such as these, the moon was a cold, unfriendly eye that witnessed all, remembered all, forgave nothing. Sometimes he was tempted to medicate away the ache and the emptiness, but he preferred even intense discomfort to the fog of drugs or alcohol. He should not even try to sleep tonight. In such a mood, a dream was sure to afflict him. He wondered if Raine had inherited the Lazar gift of dreaming.

It was a most inconvenient birthright for a man such as himself.

He needed something absorbing to entertain him, if sex was no longer a viable diversion. He'd been on tediously good behavior since the wretched Cahill affair, and this moratorium on illegal activity galled him. Perhaps it was time to turn back to collecting. Not the treasures he had down in his vault, though many of them were indeed priceless. His real hobby was collecting people.

He had always had a talent for finding and exploiting people's weaknesses. The stolen murder weapons were just a new variation on an old theme, binding people to him with secrecy and collusive guilt. He loved the power, the sense of control.

His collection was vast and varied, but lately he had gotten bored with collecting public figures and pillars of the community. For some time now he'd been toying with the notion of collecting more dangerous, unpredictable creatures for his private zoo. Exotics, as it were. Such people's key secrets were uglier, more dangerous. Rather like his own.

That was the impulse that had gotten him involved with Kurt Novak. Novak was the most exotic creature he had ever attempted to collect. It was like swinging a poisonous serpent by the tail—one had to keep the centrifugal force in constant motion. Once collected, however, Victor would have a lever with Kurt's even more powerful father, Pavel Novak, a Hungarian, and one of the richest and most influential bosses of the burgeoning Eastern European mafia. That was a prize too intriguing to resist, with infinite possibilities for entertainment and profit.

His last attempt had been foiled by Jesse Cahill % untimely interference. Novak had been infuriated by the whole affair. Trapping and murdering the undercover agent had barely appeased him.

Victor had sincerely regretted the necessity of Cahill's death. Murder was never to his taste, and Cahill had been a likeable young man; but he had known who he was dealing with. He had rolled his dice, and lost. He was glad that he had not been present at Cahill's execution. Novak's tastes were baroque, to say the least of it.

He had seen it in his dreams, however. Most unfortunately.

To set the new game in motion, he had to gamble on one of his dreams. He seldom did so, because of the unpredictable nature of his uncanny gift. It could betray him at any time. Therein lay the risk—and the reward. His mind seized hungrily onto the idea, giving him instant relief from the ache and the emptiness. He had been formulating this plan carefully for months, ever since the Corazon dreams began.

He lit a cigarette and reached for the phone.

The scrambled line clicked open on the fourth ring. “Hello, Victor. I'm surprised you have the gall to call me at this hour.”

“Good evening, Kurt. I trust you've been well?”

“Just because you suffer from insomnia doesn't mean you have to impose it on me.” His cool, clipped voice was faintly accented.

“I apologize, but some conversations are inappropriate to conduct by daylight. They lend themselves naturally to the darkness.”

Novak grunted. “I have no patience for your mysterious ramblings tonight, Victor. Get to the point. This is a secure line, I trust.”

Victor smiled up at the luminous clouds. “Of course, Kurt. Have you heard of the recent disappearance of the Corazon pistol?”

Novak's sudden attention leaped through the phone lines like a surge of electricity. “Did you have something to do with that, Victor?”

Victor took a drag on his cigarette, savoring the intensity of the other man's interest. Dangling raw meat in front of a deranged animal such as Novak was the very best kind of sport. “I confess that I did. You can't imagine how many favors I had to call in to procure this object. I stressed a system of contacts that took an entire career to build.”

“I can imagine it. What I can't imagine is why,” Novak re- marked. “But I suppose you will enlighten me. In your own good time.”

“As an investment, of course. There are any number of possible buyers, but I wanted to offer it to you first, of course. I am well aware of the strength of the feelings you had for the young lady.”

Novak was silent for a long moment. “Have you gone completely insane?” he inquired, in a conversational tone.

“Not at all. I just thought you would like to be advised before the gun disappears forever into some anonymous private collection. It's your decision, of course, but you should be aware that the pistol is linked to another object which I am sure will be of even greater interest to you. And to your father, incidentally.”

“Which is?”

“A videotape,” Victor said softly.

“Yes?” Novak prompted him impatiently. “Spit it out.”

Victor closed his eyes, calling up the images. He began to speak in a low, dreamy voice. “She peers through the peephole, and is displeased to see who is behind it. She tells him to go, but her visitor is undeterred. He unlocks the door himself and pushes in, shoving her to the floor. Her long black hair is wet. She is wearing a silk robe. White. He tears it off. She is naked beneath it. Everything in the room is white, even the bouquet of tulips on the credenza beneath the mirror. She sees the thing he pulls out of his coat... and begins to scream.”

He paused. Novak said nothing. He went on.

“Her lover comes out of the bedroom, naked, holding a Walther PPK which he clearly does not know how to use. The mystery guest pulls a strange little pistol out of his pocket, points it and shoots, directly in the man's face. He clutches his throat, falls against the wall and slides to the floor still alive and unmarked to serve later as a scapegoat. The mystery guest turns back to the young woman, who is struggling to her feet.” He paused. “Need I go on?”

“How?” Novak hissed.

“It doesn't matter how” Victor chided him. “What matters is that several copies of that tape exist, in various places, with instructions as to how to dispose of them should I meet an untimely end. Not that I doubt your friendship, Kurt.”

“So you were the anonymous caller who ruined my perfect revenge.” Novak's voice was poisonously soft. “I wanted that man behind bars for life, Victor. For daring to touch her.”

“Even I suffer from occasional attacks of altruism,” Victor murmured. “It seemed a bit excessive to throw Ralph Kinnear to the wolves, as well.”

“Do you know who you are dealing with, Victor? Do you really dare to play with me?”

“The last time you misbehaved, your father was adamant that you keep a low profile from now on, no?” Victor asked. “His organization is having image problems as it is. To have his wayward son implicated in the grisly murder of a famous supermodel would be sure to distress him. Imagine the media furor. The mind boggles.”

Novak was silent for a moment. “How much do you want for the tapes?”

“Don't be banal, Kurt. This isn't about money. The tapes are not for sale. They will remain in my private collection. Forever.”

In the charged silence that followed, he felt something working in his system like a drug, the triumphant rush of a well-executed maneuver in a game of power. There was no videotape, nor had there ever been. He had to be careful with his phrasing when he used information that he had gathered from a dream; chronology was often sacrificed for the sake of colorful symbolism. Over the years he had learned to compensate for this variable.

“What do you want, Victor?” Novak's control was back, his voice as neutral as if he were asking what kind of brandy Victor would like.

“I want to resume my privileged place in your business circles, Kurt. I ask only that you cover my expenses. If you want the pistol, of course. Five million should be sufficient. And of course, the matter will remain between us.”

“You are crazier than I am.” There was grudging admiration in Novak's voice. “I will set up a meeting for you with my representative.”

“I went to a great deal of trouble to procure this item for you, Kurt,” Victor said softly. “I would like to meet with you personally.”

Thus entering into that select circle of people who had seen Novak's new face. The next step in the game. He waited, breathless.

“Do you, really, Victor?” Novak asked slowly. “You realize that what happened ten months ago cost me a fortune. I was forced to remove myself from circulation, to reconstruct my face. I have no interest in doing business with people with such inadequate security. If this blows up like last time, I will destroy you.”

“Understood,” Victor murmured, smiling up at the moon. His good mood was utterly restored. Nothing like a death threat from a deranged megalomaniac to chase away nagging ennui.

“By the way, I've been meaning to ask you. That lovely creature you have installed in the house on Templeton Street. I've been admiring her. She's different from your usual style.”

An unpleasant shock tingled through Victor’s body. “What about her?” he asked lightly.

“You're not the only one who minds his friends' business. I'm looking at photographs as we speak. She has that luminous, unspoiled air. Exquisite, but if I were you, I would increase her clothing allowance.”

“She's thirty-three, Kurt,” Victor said, advancing Raine’s age by five years. “You like them when they still have that teenaged glow.”

Thirty-three, hmm? Odd. She looks ten years younger”

“Thirty-three,” Victor said firmly.

“She’s fucking another man behind your back, you know,” Kurt said, with relish.

“Indeed?”

“This very night, my friend. Less than an hour ago. She looks like an angel, but she's a dirty little slut like all the rest. In the backseat of a sports utility vehicle, right out on the street. Her brawny young stud puts it to her quite roughly, my sources report. And she was very noisy in her appreciation. Keep that in mind the next time you visit her, and maybe she won't have to look elsewhere for her satisfaction”

“How kind of you to pass that along.”

Novak could surely scent his dismay, like the cunning beast that he was. Of all possible scenarios, this was one he had not foreseen: that Novak would take an interest in his niece. Most unwelcome.

“Of course, if you would like for her to realize the error of her ways, I would be delighted to instruct her,” Novak offered softly. “You know that is my very particular specialty.”

“And deny myself the pleasure?” Victor let out a short laugh. “No, thank you, Kurt. I will deal with the situation personally”

“If you change your mind, let me know. You're more squeamish than I about such things, but we can establish the parameters in advance, if you like. There won't be a mark on her lovely body, but I guarantee you, the young lady will never defy you again.”

A sickening image of Belinda Corazon's blood-spattered white carpet flashed through Victor's mind. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said.

“You know how well I'm willing to pay for my amusements, Victor,” Kurt added. “This would be worth a great deal to me. I might even be persuaded to part with that derringer that you so admired in San Diego last year. The murder weapon in the famous John F. Higgins murder-suicide in 1889, remember? I paid two hundred thousand, though it was worth twice the price. Think about it. And as to that other little matter... you'll hear from me soon.”

The phone clicked. The line went dead. Victor laid the phone down, shocked to feel the physiological signs of fear in his body. Cold sweat, tremors, abdominal discomfort, all of it. He had almost forgotten the feeling, it had been so long.

He had not been afraid for someone else for longer than he could remember. It alarmed him to realize that he actually cared about the girl. It was one thing to toy with Novak himself. He was a disappointed, bitter old man, bored with his life and his wealth, with nothing to lose.

It was quite another to expose his niece to Novak's poisonous regard Well and good to speak of toughening and tempering, but she was by no means ready to take on such a malicious opponent.

He was obscurely comforted by the fact that Mackey was so taken with the girl. He would make a formidable bulwark for her, if his primitive masculine instincts were aroused As they clearly were.

Noisy sex in the backseat of a sports utility vehicle, indeed. On a residential street. His mouth curved in an unwilling smile.

Naughty little minx. She was shaping up nicely.

“Well, well, well. Look who's finally decided to grace us with her exalted presence.” Harriet strode toward Raine's cubicle, heels clicking in a sharp, staccato rhythm.

Raine laid her purse on her desk and glanced at her watch. She was an hour late, but after what she'd been through lately, she simply didn't have the energy to be anxious about it. “Good morning, Harriet.”

Stefania appeared behind Harriet's shoulder. “Look, boys and girls,” she said with a sugary smile. “It's the flavor of the week. I hope you had a relaxing afternoon yesterday while we finished your work.”

Raine turned to face them as she unbuttoned her coat. A cool, detached part of her mind reflected that only two days ago, this situation would have made her want to throw up.

Now the two women seemed like mosquitoes, buzzing at her from afar. Annoying, but largely insignificant. “Do you ladies have a problem?” she asked quietly.

Harriet blinked. “You're late.”

“Yes,” Raine agreed. “It was unavoidable.”

Harriet quickly found her stride. “I'm not interested in excuses, Raine. I'm interested in—”

“Results, yes. Thank you, Harriet, I've heard that lecture more than once. Now, if you will excuse me, I'd be much more productive if you ail would let me get to work.”

Harriet's face darkened. “Perhaps you think you're quite special now that you evidently enjoy a private relationship with Mr. Lazar, but you should be aware that—”

“I don't think anything of the kind,” Raine said wearily. “I'm just not in the mood to be bullied.”

“Well!” Harriet's face flushed a deep, unpleasant red.

“Perhaps her majesty would be interested to know that she missed her ferry,” Stefania said. “We'll have to call Mr. Lazar and tell him you won't make it to Stone Island until the taxicab at the marina is free to run you over. He'll be without secretarial support for the entire morning. I can assure you he won't be pleased.”

“Ferry? What ferry?” Alarm pierced through her protective fog of weariness and indifference. It sank in like a knife.

Harriet felt it, and smiled a thin, triumphant smile. “Oh, yes. Your services have been requested at the island. Mr. Lazar often works from there. When he does, the support staff takes the ferry to Severin Bay, where they are met by his private boat and taken to Stone Island.”

“If you'd gotten to work on time, you could have caught the 8:20 with the others “ Stefania said “As it is, you'll have to wait for the taxicab. It'll still be quicker than driving up to Severin Bay.”

“So we'll be doing your work today as well,” Harriet snapped. “Don't bother taking off your coat. The car is waiting downstairs.”

A half-hour later she was at the marina, shivering in the cold wind that swept over the water. Trying to persuade herself that she was ready to face Stone Island, and with it, the swirling miasma of panic that surrounded it in her memories.

Her mother had lied when she insisted that they had been in Italy on the day of her father's death. She was sure of it. She closed her eyes and tried for the hundredth time to remember that day.

She must have hugged and kissed him good-bye when he'd climbed aboard his little sailboat. Probably she'd begged to be taken along, like always, but he almost never had. He liked his privacy, so he could daydream, gazing at the islands, taking nips from his little silver flask.

It hurt that she could not recall that final farewell. It should be indelibly stamped on her memory, but it seemed to have been scribbled over with heavy black ink instead. All she felt was anxiety, edging closer and closer to panic. It was going to be hard to fake being nonchalant and professional today. After years of stifling inaction, everything was happening at once. She was changing so quickly she barely knew herself from one moment to the next.

That made her think of Seth's early morning visit and her own wild, uninhibited response. Naked and sweating and straining beneath him in the backseat of his car. Screaming her pleasure right out loud. Oh, yes, she was changing, all right, at the speed of light. Heat suffused her face. She turned it to the icy cold breeze to cool it.

“Good morning,” someone said.

She spun, startled. A handsome, stylish blond man in his late thirties was looking her over with obvious masculine interest, his eyes hidden by mirrored sunglasses. He smiled. Raine smiled back, wondering if she ought to recognize him from somewhere. He had deep dimples, a winsome, charming smile. She would surely have remembered him, if she had seen him before.

Seconds ticked past. Raine could think of absolutely nothing to say to him. He continued to stare, and his smile was objectively attractive; but he emanated a strange energy, like nothing so much as a sound shield of white noise in a psychiatrist's waiting room. She could barely hear herself think over the static.

The man moved closer to her, and for no reason, she thought of Medusa, the mythical snake-haired woman whose gaze turned men to stone. He was closer now. Too close. She could see her own reflection in the lenses of his glasses. Her eyes looked big and frightened.

The corners of his narrow, ascetic mouth tilted slightly up. She was intimidated, and be seemed to like it.

Anger flared inside her, but the interchange was too small and too subtle to protest. Without saying a word the hateful bastard had made her feel like prey. “Excuse me,” she murmured, backing away.

“Wait, please. Have we met?” His voice was friendly, the faint European cadence impossible to place.

She shook her head, frozen in place. “I don't think so.”

Idiot, she told herself, furious. Miss Nicey Nice just gave him an opening and made her sound doubtful and vulnerable. Cheep, cheep, cheep, said the fluffy baby bird, as the snake stretched open its jaws.

“You work for Lazar Import & Export, no?”

That, too, was an unpleasant shock. He knew too much already. “Yes,” she said. She backed away farther.

He followed her, undaunted. “That explains it. I have done business with your employer in the past. Surely I have seen you. Parties at the island. Or meetings, receptions.” He grinned. His teeth were white and straight. Unnaturally perfect, like a cartoon character's.

“I've only worked for Lazar for a few weeks,” she said. “I've never attended any corporate social gatherings.”

“I see,” he murmured. “How odd. I have the strongest feeling that I have seen you before. May I offer you breakfast?”

“Thank you, no. I'm catching a boat in a few minutes.”

“For Stone Island, I presume,” he said. “Allow me to escort you in my boat. It will be much fester. In this way, I can do Victor a favor and at the same time have the pleasure of your company at breakfast.”

Her programmed impulse was to smile politely and offer some stammering excuse. She stopped herself, took a deep, calming breath, and jammed the program. “No,” she said.

“May I see you again some other time?”

“No,” she repeated stupidly.

He took off his sunglasses. His eyes had dark, purplish shadows around them that set off their jade green color with a weird intensity. “Forgive me if I embarrassed you,” he said. “I am often too forward when I see something I want. I take it you are not, ah, free?”

“That's right,” she said. “I'm not free.” She hadn't been free from the first breathless moment that Seth Mackey had fixed her in his hungry gaze in the elevator. Only two days ago, and it felt like forever.

But she would never be free for this man. Under any circumstances. Not in this lifetime, or the next.

“I am desolate,” he said softly.

Miss Nicey Nice smiled before she could block her automatic smile muscles. The catamaran was arriving. She glanced at it, counting the seconds until she could escape this man's vicinity.

“Would you be so good as to give your employer a message?”

“Of course,” she said politely.

His gaze swept her, from head to toes and slowly back up again. “Tell him the opening bid has just doubled. Those exact words.”

She felt like an animal frozen in the headlights of an oncoming car. “May I tell him who the message is from?” she asked faintly.

He reached out and touched her face. She jerked back with a gasp, her eyes focusing on his outstretched hand. The last joint of his index finger was missing. He had touched her with the scarred stump.

“He will know,” the man said softly. “Count upon it.”

There was a glint in his jade-colored eyes, like a flash of ancient glacial ice. He gave her a cold, unfathomably remote smile and strolled away. She stared after him, frozen into place.

If she'd known Seth's phone number, she would have rushed out, bought herself a cell phone, and dialed it. Just hearing his gruff voice would make her feel safer. Even if he yelled at her again, it would be comforting. But she was on her own.

The noise of the people disembarking jarred her back into reality. She hastened down to board the boat. Why was she so intimidated by a stranger indulging in a harmless flirtation? There was nothing so terribly sinister about the encounter. She was imagining things.

Calm reason did not bring the butterflies in her stomach into line. The opening bid has just doubled. What could it mean?

Nothing good, of that she was absolutely sure.

She swallowed hard and turned her face to the cold wind again. Being Seth Mackey's mistress had never sounded so good.