the Third Twin

37

JANE EDELSBOROUGH LOOKED A LOT BETTER NAKED THAN she did dressed.

She lay on a pale pink sheet, lit by the flame of a scented candle. Her clear, soft skin was more attractive than the muddy earth colors she always wore. The loose clothes she favored tended to hide her body; she was something of an amazon, with a deep bosom and broad hips. She was heavy, but it suited her.

Lying on the bed, she smiled languidly at Berrington as he pulled on his blue boxer shorts. “Wow, that was better than I expected,” she said.

Berrington felt the same, although he was not crass enough to say so. Jane knew things that he normally had to teach to the younger women he usually took to bed. He wondered idly where she had learned to be such a good lay. She had been married once; her husband, a cigarette smoker, had died of lung cancer ten years ago. They must have had a great sex life together.

He had enjoyed it so much that he had not needed his usual fantasy, in which he had just made love to a famous beauty, Cindy Crawford or Bridget Fonda or Princess Diana, and she was lying beside him, murmuring in his ear, “Thank you, Berry, that was the best it’s ever been for me, you’re so great, thank you.”

“I feel so guilty,” Jane said. “I haven’t done anything this wicked for a long time.”

“Wicked?” he said, tying his shoelaces. “I don’t see why. You’re free, white and twenty-one, as we used to say.” He noticed her wince: the phrase “free, white and twenty-one” was now politically incorrect. “You’re single, anyway,” he added hastily.

“Oh, it’s not the fucking that was wicked,” she said languorously. “It’s just that I know you only did it because I’m on the committee for tomorrow’s hearing.”

He froze in the act of putting on his striped necktie.

She went on: “I’m supposed to think you saw me across the student cafeteria and became entranced by my sexual magnetism?” She smiled ruefully at him. “I don’t have any sexual magnetism, Berry, not for someone as superficial as you. You had to have an ulterior motive and it took me about five seconds to figure out what it could be.”

Berrington felt a fool. He did not know what to say.

“Now in your case, you do have sexual magnetism. Buckets. You’ve got charm and a nice body, you dress well and you smell good. Most of all, anyone can see that you really like women. You may manipulate them and exploit them, but you love them too. You are the perfect one-night stand, and I thank you.”

With that she pulled the sheet over her naked body, rolled onto her side, and closed her eyes.

Berrington finished dressing as quickly as he could.

Before he left, he sat on the edge of the bed. She opened her eyes. He said: “Will you support me, tomorrow?”

She sat upright and kissed him fondly. “I’ll have to listen to the evidence before I make up my mind,” she said.

He ground his teeth. “It’s terribly important to me, more than you know.”

She nodded sympathetically, but her reply was implacable. “I guess it’s just as important to Jeannie Ferrami.”

He squeezed her left breast, soft and heavy. “But who is more important to you—Jeannie or me?”

“I know what it’s like to be a young woman academic in a male-dominated university. I’ll never forget that.”

“Shit.” He took his hand away.

“You could stay the night, you know. Then we could do it again in the morning.”

He stood up. “I’ve got too much on my mind.”

She closed her eyes. “That’s too bad.”

He went out.

His car was parked in the driveway of her suburban house, next to her Jaguar. That Jaguar should have been a warning to me, he thought: a sign that there is more to her than meets the eye. He had been used, but he had enjoyed it. He wondered if women sometimes felt that way after he seduced them.

As he drove home he worried about tomorrow’s hearing. He had the four men on the committee on his side, but he had failed to win a promise of support from Jane. Was there anything else he could do? At this late stage there did not seem to be.

When he got home there was a message from Jim Proust on his answering machine. Not more bad news, please, he thought. He sat at the desk in his den and called Jim’s home. “This is Berry.”

“The FBI fucked up,” Jim said without preamble.

Berrington’s spirits sank further. “Tell me.”

“They were told to cancel that search, but the order didn’t get through in time.”

“Goddamn.”

“The results were sent to her by E-mail.”

He felt afraid. “Who was on the list?”

“We don’t know. The Bureau didn’t keep a copy.”

This was insupportable. “We have to know!”

“Maybe you can find out. The list could be in her office.”

“She’s locked out of her office.” Berrington was struck by a hopeful thought. “She might not have retrieved her mail.” His mood lifted a little.

“Can you do that?”

“Sure.” Berrington looked at his gold Rolex. “I’ll go in to the college right now.”

“Call me as soon as you know.”

“You bet.”

He got back in his car and drove to Jones Falls University. The campus was dark and deserted. He parked outside Nut House and went in. He felt less embarrassed about sneaking into Jeannie’s office the second time. What the hell, there was too much at stake for him to worry about his dignity.

He turned on her computer and accessed her mailbox. She had one piece of mail. Please, God, let this be the FBI list. He downloaded it. To his disappointment, it was another message from her friend at the University of Minnesota:

Did you get my E-mail yesterday? I’ll be in Baltimore tomorrow and would really like to see you again, even if only for a few minutes. Please call me. Love, Will.

She had not got yesterday’s message, because Berrington had downloaded it then erased it. She would not get this one, either. But where was the FBI list? She must have downloaded it yesterday morning, before security locked her out.

Where had she saved it? Berrington searched her hard disk for the words “FBI,” “F.B.I.” with dots, and “Federal Bureau of Investigation.” He found nothing. He searched through a box of diskettes in her drawer, but they were just backups of the files on her computer. “This woman even keeps a backup copy of her goddamn shopping list,” he muttered.

He used Jeannie’s phone to call Jim again. “Nothing,” he said abruptly.

“We have to know who is on that list!” Jim barked.

Berrington said sarcastically: “What shall I do, Jim—kidnap and torture her?”

“She must have the list, right?”

“It’s not in her mailbox, so she must have downloaded it.”

“So if it’s not in her office, she must have it at home.”

“Logical.” Berrington saw where he was heading. “Can you have her place …” He was reluctant to say “searched by the FBI” on the phone. “Can you have it checked out?”

“I guess so. David Creane failed to deliver, so I guess he still owes me a favor. I’ll call him.”

“Tomorrow morning would be a good time. The hearing is at ten, she’ll be there for a couple of hours.”

“Gotcha. I’ll get it done. But what if she keeps it in her goddamn handbag? What do we do then?”

“I don’t know. Good night, Jim.”

“Night.”

After hanging up, Berrington sat there for a while, looking at the narrow room enlivened by Jeannie’s bright, bold colors. If things went wrong tomorrow, she could be back at this desk by lunchtime, with her FBI list, charging ahead with her investigation, all set to ruin three good men.

It must not happen, he thought desperately; it must not happen.