 
### REMBRANDT BE DAMNED

By K.G. LAWRENCE

Book 2 of the Proteus Group Series

#

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To Sharon for everything you give to me.

To Frank, Alex, Ursula, Isabelle, Paul and Tiggr for everything they gave me.

### Table of Contents

Other Books by K.G. Lawrence

Wear Something Red

Jellyfish

About the Author

# Chapter 1

Within the hour, Jaxon Trevelyan would fall overboard onto a dead man. At the moment, he stood on the aft deck of the RBD Dagger concentrating on not becoming any queasier than he already was.

The Dagger belonged to Jerome Remington, one of the most powerful sharks-in-a-suit in New York City. He was President of Remington Bakersfield Draper, or just RBD. If you didn't know who they were and what they did from their headquarters in Lower Manhattan that was your problem.

"There you are," Cissy said as she came out of the salon. "I've been looking all over for you."

Cecilia (Cissy) Remington was the reason he was on the Hatteras 100RPH trying to make his stomach behave as the yacht pitched about on the Atlantic.

They'd met three weeks ago at an exhibition of his best friend's newest paintings.

She'd started with, "If that's his mad slash of brush work, it looks more like his plop and dribble technique."

Mad slash of brush work had become the catchphrase description of Sean Hennessey's style after his drunken appearance on the cable program New York City Arts.

He had countered with, "It's his own."

"It would have to be. I don't believe anyone else would bother with it."

She had changed into white slacks, a navy blue sweatshirt with the North Shore Yacht Club emblem on it and deck shoes but no socks. Her new earrings, her bracelet watch with a face so small one needed a magnifying glass to read it and the ring on her right ring finger matched the color of her sweatshirt. She went without a necklace on this jaunt.

"I can't go very far." Every word was going to be a challenge. Who knew what might come out with it?

She had pointed to a portrait of a nude girl. "Is that supposed to be his tribute to Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring?" She'd squinted and looked closer. "What is that?"

"Naked virgin with a squid stuck in her hair."

"And that, I suppose, is his rendition of Rembrandt's Slaughtered Ox."

"It's Canadian Back Bacon, actually."

Cissy kissed his cheek. "You didn't tell me you were such a landlubber."

He'd defended Sean's reputation admirably, or so he'd thought. "He likes to poke fun at other painters."

"Well, that Long Island Shore landscape is atrocious. I've seen more artistry in crop circles."

Sean Hennessey had painted that atrocious landscape to poke fun at his best friend's two landscapes of the eastern shores of Long Island after Hurricane Sandy had struck.

"Because," Sean had told him, "you're so bloody religiously serious about it all."

What he had meant to say to her in response was, "Why don't you shut your lovely lips before I make them fat." What he had said was, "He does mock quite a few of the masters, yes."

"We agree then. He makes a mockery of painting as art."

Then she had turned her invective on him, including remarks about what his level of artistic skill must be like, considering she had never heard of him or any exhibition of his works.

He looked past Cissy at the other guests gathered around the bar. Seventeen people were on the yacht, not counting the crew. None of them seemed to be having the difficulty he was with the Atlantic.

"I didn't know I was until tonight."

He had left the gallery rather than throw his punch in her face.

She had followed him out to continue their argument, or so he'd thought. Instead, she'd asked him out on a date. He'd politely declined and walked back to his studio. She'd sidled up beside him, slipped her hand into his and they'd spent the rest of the evening and most of the next day screwing their brains and artistic disagreements out. In between bouts of vigorous, physically hazardous sex, she had examined his paintings and declared that she loved them, that he had real talent and that she was exactly who he needed in his life.

They'd had hot, sticky, dirty, wicked sex—Cissy's term—at her penthouse condo on Central Park West—at 2300 square feet, it was four times the size of his apartment and about twenty times more expensive—every night since, which included a couple of times each out on her east terrace and then her south terrace.

Cissy invoked in him the same awe and admiration he had previously reserved only for Rembrandt's works. Her beauty was natural and undeniable. Straight blonde hair hung to the small of her back when it wasn't whipping around in passion or sprawled about her when she was looking up at him with green eyes, a small, elegant nose and those thin lips he could only conclude were perfect. Her body, lean and firm and far suppler than his, did everything she asked of it with fluid obedience.

When they weren't busy throwing his spine out and then putting it back into correct alignment, she was constantly telling him about all the wonderful things that were going to happen to him as both a man and an artist now that she was in his life. One of those wonderful things was supposed to be this cruise on her father's yacht on the last Saturday of April.

"Maybe the lobster didn't agree with you."

The Dagger was out of the North Shore Yacht Club at Manhasset Bay. Jerome Remington and his guests had spent the day coming down the East River to New York Harbor. The Dagger then sailed up the Hudson to pick up him and Cissy at the North Cove Yacht Harbor at 7:00 pm. The Dagger was on time. He and Cissy came from her condo by taxi after dining there and were ten minutes late, which had nothing to do with NYC traffic. The plan was to sail out past Sandy Point for a short excursion into the Atlantic before hugging the east coast of Long Island to disembark at the Freeport Bay Marina. There, they would dine late, spend the night and return to Manhattan tomorrow.

"It isn't the lobster."

He gripped the railing and looked out at the faint lights of Brooklyn coming on against the setting sun. They had been on this damned aquatic rocking horse for only an hour and he wasn't sure how much longer he could hold on to supper before making more room for their planned late dining. The smell of salt and foam wasn't helping him keep it down. The chill in the air that made him shiver only increased his queasiness.

She kissed his mouth; a great act of courage. "I'll get you something for it. I know just what you need."

She glided back into the salon and descended a set of circling stairs down to the galley and staterooms.

Jerome Remington, two other men and an African-American woman dressed as neatly and appropriately as Cissy were having a quiet but strained conversation near the bar. Remington, the woman and the tall, thin one of the two other men were focusing their conversation on the fourth member of the entourage: an older, shorter, heavier man nowhere near as vital as the trio against him. He was constantly gesticulating as if trying to hold them all off and offer his apology at the same time. The quartet, at the suggestion of the woman, moved away from the bar and headed below using the same stairs Cissy had used.

"Don't you look casual," a high, nasal male voice said, "and I'd say a bit green around the gills."

The man, six inches shorter than him, held out his hand. "Adrian Remington. My two seaworthy mates here are Bryce Kessler and Eugene Draper. We've been waiting for three weeks to meet you, but my devious sister has been keeping you to herself. We thought we would seize the opportunity while she was away."

Jaxon shook hands with men in their mid-twenties, all wearing similar yachting gear, complete with red, white and yellow windbreakers with the yacht's name and the three-banner RBD emblem on them. He wore faded jeans, old Nikes, a grey American Museum of Natural History sweatshirt over his blue Empire State Building T-shirt. It was his casual wear. He wore it a lot.

The three men were drinking martinis. They were tipsy but not in the same way he was.

Over the top of Adrian's head, he spotted the man Remington had been intimidating come up the stairs alone, go straight to the bar and order a drink.

Adrian, his straight blond hair slicked back over his head, stepped away to look him over, nodded and flashed a smirk at his two buddies. "I see she hasn't started dressing you yet. But just wait, she'll turn you into a Ken doll soon enough."

Adrian had the same slender build as Cissy and was just as tanned. It made Cissy appear healthy, composed and graceful. It made Adrian appear emaciated, even with the tan, and effete.

While the bartender mixed the drink, the African-American woman came up the stairs and snuck up behind the man.

Jaxon gripped the railing harder when the Dagger suddenly pitched upward and dropped back down an instant later.

Adrian reached up to put an arm around Jaxon's shoulder as he sipped his martini. "You strike me as a nice guy, Jax, which means you're only going to finish last with this crowd, and with Cissy. I'll give you a month or two, tops. She'll lose interest quickly, she always does."

Bryce, about his height and ten pounds lighter at 6'1" and near 180, said with sage wisdom as he lifted his martini to his mouth, "Always." He finished the cocktail in one gulp, ran his fingers through his thick bush of blond hair two shades darker than the Remington siblings' color and headed back to the bar for another martini all in one smooth motion.

Bryce, Adrian and Eugene might look a little bit more casual and seaworthy if they had some regurgitated steak and lobster on their jackets, chinos and deck shoes.

The woman put a hand on the man's shoulder, whispered something into his ear and waved off the prepared drink.

"You paint stuff," Eugene said, "isn't that right?" As short as Adrian and the heaviest of the three, he clearly came from similar wealth, but on him the clothes still had an ill-fitting, hand-me-down appearance to them. He was the dowdy tagalong of the trio.

"I paint."

She took the man by his arm, giving every impression she could and would twist it behind his back if she had to, and led him back to the stairs. The guests politely looked away, but conversations paused until the pair started down.

"I understand it's very clear stuff, comparable to Rockwell's work for The Saturday Evening Post. There's no doubt what it is and no doubt what it isn't . . . art, right?"

Adrian asked, "What exactly is it, Jax? What do you paint?"

Eugene answered for him, "Landscapes, stuff like that. I understand you've painted almost every bridge in New York, and the rivers, and the derelict areas, inspiring stuff like that."

"Is that right, Jax?" Adrian plucked the olive out of his glass and popped it into his mouth. "And it's art, right?"

"Art is so subjective, though," Bryce said and ran his fingers through his hair again before taking another sip of his martini. "Jaxon's paintings of what's left of the Domino Sugar factory and the Red Hook Grain Terminal aren't half bad."

He hadn't noticed Bryce return.

"Damned by," Eugene muttered.

Adrian put his arm around him again. "She does like struggling artists, Jax, I'll give her that. So, what does that make you? You're not an American in Paris because you're not in Paris and your new patron is actually younger than you."

Eugene finished his drink. "He's a Canadian in New York."

"I didn't know that. You're from Canada?"

Jaxon nodded.

"Whereabouts? Would I know it?"

"Abbotsford, British Columbia."

"Abbotsford, British Columbia." He smirked again at his two buddies. "Never heard of it, Jaxon, old man, but I'm sure it's a place to be proud of." Without looking, he held the empty glass out for Eugene to take back to the bar for a refill. "I'll bet your high school yearbook had you as the one most likely to live off women for the rest of your life."

"I don't have a rich father."

Adrian tried to yank him into a headlock, which only forced the twerp up onto his toes and brought his face close enough for a head butt. "First, she'll always be heartbreakingly too busy and unable to see you that night or for the foreseeable future. Then she won't return your calls. Then what?" He shrugged, still squeezing hard on Jaxon's neck. The force was more downward than sideways.

Jaxon clung to the railing and didn't act on his impulse to grab Cissy's pipsqueak of a brother by the waist of his chinos and just . . .

Eugene returned and handed over the martini, which required Adrian let go of him to take it.

"Oh, yes, after you've driven yourself mad with worry, she'll call you and tell you she just has to see you right away, which will delight you until you find out she only wants to tell you there's someone else."

"You'll be number seven," Eugene said. "I think it's seven."

Adrian counted on his fingers, Bryce and Eugene joined him.

"Seven or nine," Adrian said.

Eugene and Bryce were smirking the way Adrian had as the trio finished their martinis together. Adrian suddenly stiffened. Eugene and Bryce suddenly looked west at the last of the sunset and lowered their martini glasses as if trying to hide lit cigarettes from their parents.

Jerome Remington and the woman had come back up to the salon. They spoke to the bartender and were handed a number of towels before returning below deck. Cissy came up the same stairs holding a glass of water a few seconds later. She scowled when she saw who was with him.

"Uh-oh." Adrian cringed, but there was no real concern behind it.

Cissy brought him the drink. She was taller than her brother by a couple of inches. "This should help."

He drank what was clearly not water. It was bitter, sent frigid bugs scampering down his spine and convulsed his stomach. When he tried to thank her, he belched in her face loud enough to be heard over the Dagger's twin diesels, the wind rushing past and the slapping of the water against the yacht's hull.

"Fog's rolling in," Adrian said. He tried to lower his voice but it just cracked. "Best we get this tug turned around before it gets too thick."

"You three are the only things thick around here."

Adrian tried to give her a kiss, but she gracefully dodged his projectile of a face, which sent him staggering for the port side of the yacht. Bryce and Eugene were just able to catch him.

"Have a good evening, dear sister. And you, too, Jaxon, old boy, enjoy it while you can."

He waved at them both before taking his two buddies for more martinis. The guests near the bar moved off as the trio approached.

"Pay no attention to him," Cissy said. "Half the time he doesn't mean what he's saying because half the time he doesn't know what he's saying."

"And the other half?"

"He's usually unconscious or off somewhere with those other two."

He noticed movement to their right before he could ask how far back seven or nine took her.

Captain Pierre de la Tour came to them from the salon. He took off his cap when he reached them and said to Jaxon, "Mr. Remington will see you now, sir."

# Chapter 2

"I thought we were going to meet him together."

She kissed his cheek and shrugged. "Father has his ways."

Captain de la Tour said, "If you will come with me, please, sir. Mr. Remington does not like to be kept waiting."

Cissy took his glass and encouraged him with a gentle push from behind. "I'll be waiting here, darling."

The captain led him down the circular stairs to the lower deck and then forward to Remington's master bedroom suite. Remington and the three who'd been with him at the bar stood around a circular table. The captain nodded to Remington and left.

"Jaxon Trevelyan." Cissy's father came to him with his hand held out. "Jerome Remington. I'm very glad to finally meet you."

He was taller than Cissy by a couple of inches, not slender like his two offspring, had dark hair and hard, blue eyes. His grip was strong, his hand felt rough. Like shark skin should feel, Jaxon supposed

"Let me introduce my colleagues. This lovely young woman is Nyla Rowe, our Chief Operations Officer. I'm quite sure we would be dead in the water if not for her captaincy."

It was the first nautical metaphor he'd heard since boarding the yacht.

"She has incredible organizational skills, a talent for details that bewilders me, a superb analytical mind, and she's tough enough to shrivel your balls. For all I know, she may be running the company in ways I'm not even aware of."

"That's what makes me perfect for RBD because you're only concerned with results." Rowe shook his hand. Her grip was as strong as Remington's, though her skin had no roughness to it. "That's an interesting spelling of your first name, Mr. Trevelyan."

Her strong jaw line set off an oval face. Large brown eyes and hints of epicanthic folds imparted a sultry quality to her countenance highlighted by properly shaped eyebrows, proudly flaring nostrils and full lips covered in red lipstick that went with her nail polish. Her black hair was long and pulled back from her face into a high bun that made him think of a Nubian queen. Unlike Cissy, she wore no jewelry and her watch was a very bland digital-faced device for practical purposes only.

"Actually, it's a misspelling of my intended first name."

"How so?"

"When I was born, the computer at the hospital that was supposed to record all of my particulars for legal registration was broken. They had to fill out the form by hand. And wouldn't you know it the doctor's writing was illegible. When the form was submitted to vital statistics, whoever transcribed it read the scribbled 's' in my name as an 'x'. I have had to bear the shame of it ever since."

Rowe, her confident eyes capable of holding as firmly as her handshake, said, "It's unique."

The rail-thin man stepped forward. "Morris Triton, Jaxon, good to meet you." His handshake was as rough as Remington's. Their eyes were level with each other's.

"Morris is my partner in crime masquerading as the CEO of Remington Bakersfield Draper."

The man they all seemed to have been picking on earlier still appeared as cowering as he had at the bar. "I have no humorous anecdote for my name, Mr. Trevelyan. I'm John Smith."

"Speaks for itself, doesn't it?"

There was no humor in the man at all. He rolled his r's but that was the only hint of an accent he gave away.

Remington chuckled and moved to prevent Smith from stepping forward and shaking his hand. "If you will excuse John, he was just about to rejoin our other guests."

Smith left the suite almost bowing as if a peasant who had just be granted leniency from his lord. Probably most people at RBD had the same reaction after an audience with any one of these three.

Nyla Rowe went to a small bar and poured a drink from a pitcher. She brought the martini to Jaxon.

He declined. "I'm afraid the Atlantic and I have been arguing over what I am made of since the beginning of the trip. One of those may force me to reveal exactly what that is."

Rowe smirked at him the same way Adrian, Bryce and Eugene had—and Cissy, too, when she'd pushed at him, now that he thought of it—and returned the martini to the bar. "We can't have that."

"So, Jaxon," Remington said, "Cissy tells me you're an artist, that you have just completed your MFA at Columbia, that you have an apartment in Brooklyn and share a studio in Chelsea with three other artists, and that, as with all talented but as yet undiscovered artists, you are struggling to make ends meet."

Rowe was drinking the martini he'd refused. She was looking at Triton over the top of the glass. If eyes were windows to the soul, those two souls were intolerant of artists as precisely categorized as Remington had just done to him.

"New York, ya just gotta love it."

"Perhaps I could help you with your monetary issues."

Had this been one of Cissy's wonderful things planned for him? She'd been evasive when he'd asked her for details of what she was doing on his behalf.

Rowe finished the martini and said, "He means a job, Jaxon, that's all."

Remington chuckled. "Of course that's what I mean."

Triton said, "He wasn't offering to buy you off to get you away from Cecilia. She can handle herself, I assure you."

Remington asked, "Is that what you thought?"

"It wasn't that. I've known Cissy for three weeks. In that brief time I have been overwhelmed by her enthusiasm and drive to help me. I appreciate everything she's done, but, as with all talented but as yet undiscovered, struggling artists, there is a difficult balance between accepting help and giving in to it."

"I'm not sure I follow you on that."

Rowe said, "He means enthusiasm and drive, indeed assistance of any kind, if it is before he is ready as an artist, may do more damage than good. Is that right, Mr. Trevelyan?"

"Partly. Both the artist and his work must be ready. And I'm not just talking about enough work for an exhibition, but work that is ready to be exhibited."

"You have your MFA," Triton said. "How much more do you need to be ready?"

"If I knew the answer to that . . ."

"I think I understand," Remington said. "I won't insult you by pretending I understand the artistic temperament, but I do understand preparation, imagination and hard work. I understand there is a commonality to achieving excellence in all things, and that the artist, perhaps above all others, needs a unique environment to develop that regime and get the results they hope to achieve. I'm just offering the opportunity to keep a roof over your head, food on your table and clothes on your back until you do."

An empathic and generous shark-in-a-suit; who knew? "What kind of job?"

"Security guard," Remington said this without any hint of mockery, sarcasm or bile. This offer was his noblesse oblige. At least he wasn't offering him a job as a waiter or chauffeur. He probably offered those jobs to struggling actors. "RBD always needs security guards. You could work whatever shift you want, pick the one that best suits your artistic timetable."

Thank you, Cissy, thank you so very fucking much.

"Sounds good."

"Marvelous, and don't you worry about a thing. Nyla will take care of getting you processed and fitted with a uniform."

Rowe was smirking again like Adrian had. A few highlights of steak and lobster bits in her bun would augment her appearance nicely.

He wondered if Adrian rather than Cissy had a hand in this offer. That trio struck him as great practical jokers to rival Sean. But Remington was right about him needing the money. New York was a fantastic city. In his opinion, it was the best city in the world and he never wanted to leave it, but New York City sure as hell wasn't easy to live in.

"Now," Remington said. "If you will excuse us, Jaxon, the three of us suffer from OCD and still have more work to do."

With that the audience was over.

Jaxon didn't bow or crouch or nod or acknowledge RBD's royalty in any way before he left the master bedroom suite and returned to Cissy. He found her on the flybridge aft deck reclining on a lounger and talking to a woman about her age.

Rather than get off the chaise, Cissy reached up, pulled him down and kissed him. She then handed him the drink she'd prepared for him. "Don't worry, darling, it just tastes sweet. It has no alcohol in it."

He sipped a bit of it rather than risk offending her. She had gone to the trouble of making him another drink she was sure wouldn't upset his delicate tummy. While he loved New York City, he was really beginning to hate the Atlantic Ocean.

The drink was sweet and fruity, but instead of achieving what it was supposed to, it only made his stomach flutter the same way drinking diet pops did if he didn't eat something with them. The butterflies in his stomach—wriggling worms, really—that had disappeared during his audience had returned with hot stingers attached to them that kept stabbing into his delicate internal parts.

"This is Constance Penelope Smythe, from Saint Albans. We've been best friends since we were eight years old."

Constance Penelope Smythe got up from her chaise and shook his hand. "Call me Penny; it's not such a mouthful."

She was model tall but not model thin. Her tanned shoulders were broad and muscular. A sapphire sundress revealed equally tanned and muscular arms and legs. She had been a rower at one time. Her posture was erect and strong. Cropped tawny hair was cut so it wouldn't get in her way. She wore sandals on her long, bare feet.

"It's hard to have fun on the water when your stomach won't cooperate. My first few times, I had trouble swallowing anything."

"It's not swallowing that I'm worried about."

Penny smiled small, white teeth that suited her. She didn't need row after row of huge, dazzling beacons to enhance her beauty. "You'll get your legs. For now, just try to focus on points and not take in the whole."

"You may find this hard to believe right now, but I worked on a fishing boat for two seasons off the coast of British Columbia. I had no trouble then with—"

"Man overboard!" The alarm came from someone on the deck below.

The yacht shuddered and pitched when it came to a stop as fast as it could. Penny caught him when he staggered.

He, Cissy and Penny headed down to the back of the lower deck, tucking in behind and following the captain and crew at the main deck level. The captain ordered everyone else to stay where they were.

Adrian, Bryce and Eugene were already on the lower deck holding martinis and looking over the side. They ignored de la Tour's command to get back, but did so when Jerome, Morris and Nyla arrived.

Captain and crew went about the job of bringing the man back on board.

"Oh, God," Cissy said when she looked over the side, "the boat must have struck him."

He looked over.

The crew had snagged Smith with a pole and a rope and had just lifted him out of the water. His forehead was bashed in above his right eye. The skin had been abraded as well as peeled back to expose the skull, which had both large and hairline fractures on it.

"Oh, sh—" There was no point to focus on when he looked out at the darkness surrounding the Dagger. The lights of the yacht became bright shards of red, white and yellow that stabbed at his eyes. The salt and diesel smell rushed into his lungs and churned his stomach.

He heaved, vomited onto Smith and fell over the side onto the body. Smith cushioned the impact, but he still bumped forehead to wounded forehead just before they both dropped into the water.

Salt water rushed into his mouth as he thrashed about grabbing for anything. His hand found purchase on Smith's suit coat, but it was slippery and his fingers couldn't keep hold of it. He pulled himself out of the water only to slip back under just as he was taking a breath. More salt water rushed into his mouth. The sparkling lights above him were drifting away. His body wanted to cough out the sea as he kicked for the surface. His hands found Smith's belt. He pulled hard to get his head above the waves just as Smith's body began to roll. He went under again.

If he didn't cough out the water they'd be pulling two bodies out of the Atlantic.

Something pushed against his back then wrapped round him. An octopus? He reached for tentacles and felt arms. A moment later, he felt legs knock against the back of his as someone took them both up to the surface.

His head rose into the cool, salty air. He coughed hard enough to scratch his throat.

"I got you," the man said.

The Dagger was about fifteen yards away, the only brightness in the night, a splotch of silvery red paint on a black canvas, except it bobbed up and down.

He coughed when the man spoke again and the man had to repeat himself.

"Just relax, sir. I've got you. They're coming."

He squinted against the spray of foam and saw splashes approaching them. Two men were coming to help bring him in. He coughed violently again when he tried to thank the man holding him up. The Dagger and its lights started to come into focus. The gentle pitching of the yacht settled his stomach. He looked for Cissy.

The other two crewmen put a lifesaver around him that was secured to the Dagger by a rope and they all started swimming back. Cissy came into focus as she reached over the side. Penny came into focus as she took hold of Cissy's shoulders and backed her out of the way.

Smith bobbed up and down in the waves like an abandoned air mattress. They had temporarily secured Smith to the port side of the Dagger with three ropes so they could come get him.

Three yards to go and the Atlantic splashed a wave into his face that had him coughing and gulping for air again.

Adrian, Bryce and Eugene were alternating between coming to the side to check the progress of the rescue and recovery and then stepping back to laugh even harder.

The three men took him astern to get him up onto the back platform three feet below the lower deck. Captain de la Tour, Triton and Rowe were coming down the stairs with one other crewman to assist getting him back on board.

He reached for the platform and grabbed hold tight enough to make his shivering hands ache. When he turned in the water to thank the trio that had jumped in to retrieve him, he saw Smith come floating around from the side of the yacht. He tried to say something, but his trembling tongue and lips wouldn't form any words. As de la Tour, Triton and Rowe hauled him up onto the platform, he pointed and grunted.

The three men splashed after Smith while someone took off the lifesaver and threw a blanket around him. Cissy and Penny came down to the platform despite being hollered at not to. Cissy hugged him. Penny returned to the lower deck.

The trio of rescuers brought Smith's body to the platform as Triton and Rowe also returned to the lower deck. Cissy held on tightly to him.

Jaxon looked up at the lower deck, at Rowe's irritation with what she would see as his weakness, at Adrian and his buddies laughing at his predicament, at Jerome Remington's concern about who his daughter had brought into her life. The boat lurched down when the crewmen rolled Smith onto the platform behind him. He dared to take a glimpse at the body as Cissy tried to usher him up to the lower deck.

"Oh, sh—"

Gravity pulled on him as the Dagger dropped away. With another heave, he vomited again, slipped out of the blanket and Cissy's grasp onto Smith and they both slid off the platform back into the Atlantic.

# Chapter 3

Captain de la Tour brought the Dagger back to the North Cove Yacht Harbor. NYPD Harbor Patrol escorted them in. Two detectives and an ambulance were waiting.

Jaxon sat on a bench near the berth where the Dagger was moored. He had changed into clothes from one of the yacht's crew and still had the blanket around him. The Atlantic had swallowed him twice and a good deal of it was still sloshing around inside his stomach to replace what he had lost during their argument. It had sprayed salty foam into his lungs. The chill of it wouldn't leave him.

He watched the two detectives taking statements from the other guests and the crew. Jerome, Cissy, Penny, Adrian, Bryce and Eugene had already given their statements. The ambulance had taken Smith away about ten minutes ago.

Footsteps approached from the parking lot but it wasn't Cissy.

Rowe asked, "How are you doing?"

He coughed before he could speak.

"That good, huh? Maybe you should have drunk that martini."

"I'm doing better than Smith. What were you all talking about?"

"That is none of your business."

"Do you think he fell overboard, jumped or was pushed? Did someone hit him or did he collide with the Dagger after he was in the Atlantic? Did Adrian cut the body loose just to see if it would still float?"

"Have you talked to either of the detectives yet?"

"He looked frightened when he was with you three, like you were ganging up on him."

"Where's Cissy?"

"She's with Jerry and her bro. It's a family tradition in the face of threat or trauma to circle the wagons. She'll be back in a few minutes."

"Just relax, be cool and answer the detective's questions when he gets to you."

"What else would I do? If you're worried I saw something I shouldn't have, like a knife in his back before it fell out, you can be assured that I didn't."

"Why would I be concerned about something like that?"

"Just wondering out loud; like with that Adrian cutting loose thing."

"Don't." Rowe knelt down to be at eye level. "There's an opening in the graphic arts section of our marketing department. It's probably a better use of your talents, though I can't imagine they're that impressive."

"Thanks."

"Don't be too grateful. You don't know what I have in mind for you yet."

She walked back to the parking lot when the older of the two detectives started their way. In just a few seconds, their conversation became a very animated but hushed argument. The detective bristled at something she said. After a few more seconds of them glaring at each other like boxers about to fight, he nodded. They both looked his way for a moment before leaving together. If it was a matter of taking each other's worth, Rowe appeared to have won that round.

Jerome, Cissy and Adrian came to him.

Remington asked, "What did you and Nyla talk about?"

"She wanted to know how I was feeling."

Cissy asked, "And how are you feeling?"

"I can still feel the planet turning, but at least I'm connected to it again."

Adrian stood to Jerome's right and a step behind being the silent and dutiful son. Cissy was on her father's left with her arm looped together with his; an interesting family portrait.

She said, "And what else did you two talk about? She was with you for longer than it would take to just find out how you are feeling."

Was she jealous of Nyla Rowe? As ridiculous as that notion was it did warm him.

"She thought there might be a position for me in the graphic arts section of RBD's marketing department. She said it would better suit my impressive talents."

"See what I mean?" Remington smiled down at him. "She might actually be running the company behind my back."

Adrian appeared as ill as he had felt on the Dagger.

Jaxon could think of nothing comforting to say to him.

Rowe and the older detective came to them.

"Detective Hewitt," Remington said, "is there something else we can help you with?"

"You can all go now."

Jaxon asked, "Don't you want my statement?"

"It's been an upsetting night for you. Ms. Rowe told me what you've been through and I'm sure you didn't see any more than anyone else concerning Mr. Smith's fall overboard. Go home and get some rest. I will call you in a couple of days to take a statement."

It was a straightforward and tragic incident, Smith had just fallen off the boat, but Rowe clearly had some influence over the NYPD. Sending him home to wait a few days before giving a statement was not standard NYPD procedure for something like this.

Cissy helped him up. "I'll take you home." She gave Rowe a disingenuous smile. "Thank you for finding something more appropriate for Jaxon's talents."

Rowe smiled exactly the same way before escorting Hewitt back to his partner. They talked a great deal as they went. Hewitt appeared to be coming around to whatever she was telling him.

"Max will be here in a few minutes," Cissy said.

He felt warmer by the second as Cissy escorted him to the parking lot. His ears still had water in them, so he might have only imagined Cissy hissing as they passed Rowe and Hewitt.

Captain de la Tour came to them. "Is there anything I can do for either of you?"

"I could use something hot to drink."

He said to Cissy, "Your brother, Mr. Kessler and Mr. Draper will be staying on the Dagger tonight."

"That's a party waiting to happen. What about the other guests?"

"I believe, Mr. Trevelyan, they have all gone home." He headed back to the yacht.

Cissy said, "You don't keep anything to yourself, do you?"

"God, I'm thirsty."

She headed back to the yacht and miraculously returned with two hot chocolates to counter the wind that was coming in from the harbor. April in NYC had been unusually cold this year. Though it had warmed up the past three days, the nights still got chilly quickly. They found shelter on a bench on the leeside of a stone wall and drank up. She huddled close to him and said nothing while they waited.

They had reached a level of comfort in their relationship that required no small talk or forced conversation until Max arrived. Manhattan was the antithesis of a deserted island. Part of the most boisterous and enthralling city in the US, in their silence he could imagine they were the only two on it right now.

When Max arrived in the BMW 760Li, Cissy insisted on opening the door for him and helping him get settled. She put on his seatbelt.

"I can do that."

"Nonsense," she said and kissed his cheek. "What you need right now is some tender loving care. I'm going to take you to my place and give you all that I have."

They drove back wrapped together in the blanket and that same comfortable silence.

Once out of Battery Park City, Max took them past the new World Trade Center up through Tribeca, Greenwich Village and Chelsea, the Garment District to 8th Avenue and then through Columbus Circle to Central Park West and on to 88th and Cissy's condo in the Upper West Side.

Along the way, Cissy had taken hold of him and ducked under the blanket, but then had thought better of it, brought her head up and just snuggled against him until Max parked in front of her building.

Cissy was sincere, he knew that, and he did look forward to everything she was going to do to and for him. He just couldn't shake the notion that Rowe's offer of a better job was somehow a tacit request for him to keep to himself whatever suspicions he had about what might have happened to Smith. With that in mind, Cissy's earnest efforts would likely be as much in vain as Grace Kelly's were with Jimmy Stewart in the early scenes of Rear Window.

Rowe probably just knew he would be of greater use in Graphic Arts for whatever she had in mind. And Grace Kelly did eventually win over Jimmy Stewart. She only had to almost get murdered to do it.

# Chapter 4

Cissy's efforts to put last night behind them were tireless and irresistible. The image of Smith's damaged forehead finally stopped flashing through his memory, the taste of saltwater that had persisted even after getting away from the Atlantic cleared. She had a breakfast of toast, coffee and scrambled eggs ready when he finally dragged himself out of bed.

"Smells delicious," he said, kissed her, sat on one of the four stools at the raised island counter and ate quickly.

They finished their coffees with Cissy beside him looking out the living room window across Central Park West at the Jacqueline Kennedy-Onassis Reservoir. The south terrace presented a view of Lower Manhattan's skyline. He'd been too preoccupied the previous times to appreciate the views.

"It's just the two of us today."

"Just the way I like it."

By ten o'clock, she had prepared a basket and had them on their way to Central Park for their third Sunday picnic. Central Park was frenetic, bright and shiny and kept reminding him of every prediction Adrian had made on the Dagger.

He had to set aside the thoughts that kept popping into his mind or he was going to miss even more of Cissy's conversation. Fortunately, she passed off his inattention as just some lagging aftereffect of twice falling onto a dead man and almost drowning in the second biggest ocean in the world. But she was his balm and he was unrelenting at taking everything she had to offer. He selfishly put himself into her hands and let her take charge.

When Cissy was in this mode going with it was the best strategy. The only issue, selfish as it was but consistent, was how to get to his studio this afternoon. He was determined to spend some time at his work. The past three weeks had been dreamy, otherworldly even, and spooky because of that, but he had neglected his work.

Melanie Trudeau was pressing him for quantity with quality. She'd had nibbles about both purchases and exhibitions to follow through with his success at Columbia, but the necessity for money that was forcing him to take a job at RBD would only result in less time available to him for painting. He had to keep sacrosanct his commitment of always painting on Sundays. Mel would brain him if he didn't meet her expectations.

But Cissy and her way swept him off his foundation of commitment, which was at the moment constructed entirely of Jell-O, and transported him to his favorite part of New York's dizzying array of sites to enjoy.

They crossed Central Park West at 86th Street and just started meandering along the paths across the Great Lawn after first walking about halfway along the reservoir. For a time, it seemed like they were headed to the obelisk, but a turn then took them closer to the Delecorte Theater and eventually past Belvedere Lake. They continued like this on their quest for a new perfect picnic spot.

A trio of women pushed on strollers as they jogged past. On The Ramble, they watched a pair of New York mounted police officers posing for pictures with five middle-aged women. One of the women appeared to be having trouble keeping her hands off the dismounted officer, who was also a woman.

By eleven o'clock they were near Strawberry Fields with a blanket on the grass and the basket with their brunch open. Cissy had stocked it with cuts of cheese and two ham sandwiches with mustard on multi-grain bread. There was a thermos of coffee and two reusable plastic cups. A plastic container held strawberries, slices of banana, pear and apple. Cissy had prepared a creamy dip for them. Another container held sliced vegetables and a homemade Greek dressing.

It was going to be a warm day in New York, a cloying eighty degrees by mid-afternoon. The mounted police would try to stay in the shade as much as possible. For now, the breeze was still refreshing.

He felt the tightness in his shoulders ebbing away as he bit into his sandwich. Cissy dipped a strawberry into the creamy white concoction she'd mixed up for it, plopped the whole thing into her mouth and then took a sip of coffee. How she managed to do all that while smiling at him and not spill or drool anything was beyond him. She would stick with the fruit and vegetables and leave the second sandwich for him.

The day was going to get away from him, but that didn't matter. For perhaps the first time since he and Cissy had got together, he was starting to relax around her. The sex had been fantastic and Cissy's attention, almost as cloying as a hot, muggy day in New York at times, was welcome nonetheless. But he had been in freefall around her.

Uncertainty with a new relationship, sure, that was to be expected; additional insecurity once he found out who exactly Cecilia Remington was, check; anxiety and panic when he researched Jerome Remington and RBD, understandable; a bit of resentment with Cissy's steadfast confidence at stepping into his life as a struggling artist and taking it over, that, too, was understandable; but every moment he was with her, his center just disengaged from the rest of him and surrendered to her.

His days as a physics student before switching to art kept intruding with interpretations of what he was feeling. He was an electron bumped up at Cissy's slightest prodding from his stable, lower-energy state orbital cloud of probability and uncertainty. They capitalized frequently on the energy released as he returned to his stable state, which, now that he thought of it, he wasn't in all that often in Cissy's presence.

Cissy didn't understand his stupid joke about boosting him into higher energy states and the risk of them creating an ionic bond they might be unable to break. If she'd known what he was talking about, she would have insisted theirs was a covalent bond because they were sharing what was between them not forcing one to give everything up so the other could take it all.

His meandering thoughts were a terrible burden sometimes.

In the morning of the day after, he had assured himself that was why he was queasy last night. He had spent two seasons on a fishing boat off the coast of British Columbia and had been confronted with far worse conditions than what he'd encountered last night.

He swallowed hard when he looked at Cissy smiling back at him. How would a relationship that was three weeks old hold up to a declaration that one side of it made the other side of it so nervous that he became seasick and made a pathetic spectacle of himself?

Cissy said, "I'm so happy your appetite is back. I was worried all my efforts would be for naught."

Of all the reassuring and encouraging and affirmative things he could have said, he asked, "Do you think Smith fell overboard or was pushed?"

"Pushed?" She said this as if he'd just accused her. "What could possibly make you think he might have been pushed?"

He had just proven that with all his shortcomings as an artist he could still manage to paint himself into a corner with just a few simple strokes of the English language. How could he tell her that he suspected Triton, Rowe and her father might have frightened Smith enough that he could have thought jumping overboard three miles out into the Atlantic was preferable to remaining on the Dagger? How could he tell her that he couldn't shake the impression that one of those three might have gone after Smith once his audience with them was over and tossed the poor bugger overboard to protect whatever that meeting was about?

Artists were supposed to put their interpretation of reality into their work, not necessarily superimpose it over a new relationship. He was going to have to dissipate a whole lot of energy later if he hoped to return to his stable orbital cloud.

"Jaxon, I asked you a question." That tone was reminiscent of their argument at Sean's exhibition. Cissy would never raise her voice. She would instead get quieter as she became more aggravated, forcing him to lean closer and come within her reach.

Relationships could feel like drowning. He had a reference point for that after last night. He suddenly had to cough.

Cissy was behind him faster than he could see her move. She patted his back and embraced him, ready to perform the Heimlich manoeuver if she had to. "Did it go down the wrong pipe, darling?"

"Sorry." He took a drink of coffee that was still too hot and swallowed before his reflexes could make him spit it out. The burning scorched the roof of his mouth and flowed like magma down into his stomach. First almost drowning, now death by coffee, he wasn't going to survive another three weeks with Cissy. His eyes watered and he coughed hard enough to knock her away from him.

People walking by were noticing. Most just took a quick glance and went right back to their activities. An African-American woman and man jogging by came over to them.

Off-duty paramedics would be called upon to save a coffee-burn victim from choking on his own stupidity in Central Park after escaping the briny clutches of the Atlantic only the night before. New York City loved absurd performance art.

The woman became Nyla Rowe as his blurry vision cleared, as if she and her running companion were emerging from some forest shrouded in mist. That could be a suitable setting for a painting; just get rid of the joggers. He filed that into the part of his brain that kept track of such ideas, like that painting of a lone sequoia he took two years to complete and then had donated to King Gregor's Bar in payment to Anatoly for all those free meals while he was attending Columbia.

Aimless, rambling trains of thought and asinine physics metaphors when he was stressed were his curse.

"Good morning," Rowe said.

Cissy had regained her grip on him and Jaxon wondered how it appeared to Rowe and her partner. Did they think he and Cissy were having a lover's quarrel, about to go at each other with uncontrollable passion, practicing wrestling moves?

"Sick again, Trevelyan?"

Rowe exchanged smiles with her running buddy, who stood over six feet tall and had the build of a decathlete. Telepathically she was transmitting all the data she had on Jaxon Trevelyan that was relevant. The smile lasted for less than a second by his estimation.

This part of his relaxing morning in Central Park was not going to be entered on the credit side of his NYC ledger.

Cissy came to his defense. "A bit of sandwich went down the wrong way, that's all."

"Can we help with anything?"

"Thank you, no."

Jaxon waved that he was all right. When he looked up to say something, his eyes watered over and he started coughing again. The roof of his mouth was going to develop one terrific canker sore. Eating and swallowing was going to be a delightful experience for the next week or so.

Rowe exchanged another micro-second glance with her decathlete friend and started jogging away.

He called after her, "What did you say to that detective about me?" Another paroxysm of coughing had him toppling to his side and taking Cissy with him when she tried to keep him upright.

Rowe returned and stood akimbo looking down at him. This time she didn't seem to need to glance at her partner to transmit what she thought of the man coughing at her feet.

With Cissy's help, he stood up. He coughed once to clear his throat. "What did you say to the detective that put him off?"

"I told him you'd be a waste of time as a witness because you'd suffered a trauma of your own by trying to drink up half of the Atlantic Ocean."

"Did Smith jump or was he pushed?"

"Neither. He was drunk, which was what we were talking to him about. I believe you saw me run interference with him once. We were trying to convince him to ease up and go lie down. Obviously, he didn't do as we asked. He likely went to get another drink before going out onto one of the decks. He was a sullen drunk who went off to be alone when he was intoxicated and unwilling to stop. Somehow he fell. You remember what it was like last night; not exactly calm seas out there. Maybe one of the larger waves sent him overboard."

He asked Cissy, "Is that what you think?"

"I didn't know the man."

"I don't know what you're thinking happened last night, but I hope that imagination of yours puts something worthwhile on canvas."

Rowe and her companion ran away. She appeared more imperious than she had last night even in running gear. There was a more natural sense of power to her as she was now.

"I don't think I'm going to last long at RBD."

Cissy was checking for bits of unwanted Central Park clinging to either of them. "Why do you say that?"

"I don't like her and I'm sure that goes both ways; not exactly the basis for a good working relationship, is it?"

"You will find most of the people at Remington Bakersfield Draper don't necessarily like the people they are working with, but that's RBD. Father's goal isn't getting a harmonious workforce; it's getting the most out of that workforce no matter how they feel about each other. Nyla Rowe is simply the evolutionary result of that corporate selection pressure at work."

"I thought you didn't understand science."

"I understand it well enough and I understand people, and one can borrow metaphors from anywhere."

"I love the way you warp the fabric of space-time to keep me orbiting near you."

"Are you telling me I produce a huge gravity well?" Her blue eyes glinted.

"God, I'm dead."

"By God, do you mean God or the Higgs boson?"

"That's not what I meant."

"I'll forgive you this time, but say something like that again and you're going to have a long, lonely evening of science metaphors with only your hand to keep you company."

He took her into his arms and kissed her. "It's time for you to meet Anatoly and Viktor."

# Chapter 5

King Gregor's Bar was on the ground floor of a cast iron building on a corner of Spring Street near the western limit of Soho. It was surrounded by fashionable boutique stores, bodegas and other restaurants. King Gregor's Bar was the gritty—given its deadly menu—amid the refined, health-conscious, leafy alternatives in this gentrified neighborhood.

Anatoly Gorodetsky, the owner, and his friend, Viktor Yushenko, emigrated from Russia seven years ago because, as he put it, they loved Russia, but they hated who was running it. Gorodetsky was likely close to seventy years old—he never admitted to any age—had a face like weathered granite and came from good but short Russian stock. His frozen-explosion of dark hair was thinning quickly now. His barrel chest expanded into a stomach carrying thirty pounds too much padding, though Anatoly would insist it was solid muscle.

He was the type of man who would puff on his cigar wearing a sweat-stained T-shirt under his stained apron while cooking over his grill. But he understood that customers would be put off by such an appearance even in the gritty King Gregor's. He left the cigars in the back for his breaks, kept his aprons hospital white as best he could and wore bright, Hawaiian shirts over his tees.

Viktor, the taller one but just as gruff looking, and just as overweight, had knee problems, so he stayed mostly in the kitchen and prepared the more complex gritty selections of their Russian menu from there.

When Jaxon and Cissy arrived just after one o'clock, the bar was a little less than half full. Two couples of the Sunday lunch crowd exited the bar as he and Cissy entered. One of the men shared his studio.

"Hey, Jax," Trevor Yung said, "how's things?"

"Couldn't be better."

"Using the studio today?"

He glanced at Cissy. "Do you need it?"

Trevor shook his head. "Nothing urgent, but I would pop in for a bit if you weren't using it."

The three other artists who shared the studio with him, Trevor Yung, the sculptor of the group, Heather Frampton and Sean Hennessey, who actually owned it and covered most of the bills, had agreed to let him have it to himself on Sundays unless one of them had something on the go with a clear deadline or else an irresistible idea overtaking them.

"After I've had some lunch."

"Not a problem. See ya round." He continued out the door.

Trevor didn't introduce the woman he was with. He didn't introduce Cissy.

He guided Cissy to his booth in the corner, nodded to Anatoly as he passed and scanned the bar for anyone else he might recognize.

Once they were seated, Cissy asked, "Are all artists that abrupt?"

"Trevor's just exercising what we call the group privacy policy. Four artists working in the same studio, though it is quite large and we can all block off our own corners of it, nonetheless overlap with each other. In the interest of fair critique but diplomatic non-interference, we've all agreed not to interfere with each other's lives artistically or privately unless invited. The manifest behavior from such an agreement is fleeting greetings unless one or the other overtly requests interaction."

"From that verbose explanation, I'm to presume you had no overt compulsion to introduce me to your friend."

And the paint in his corner had just about dried too. Crap!

Partial truths might work here. "Trevor and Sean are the two hardest ones to nab on the fly because, being the two that actually have established careers, they are also the ones with the most on the go. That was probably just Trevor rushing off to somewhere. He did ask about the studio for today so I'm assuming he's up to something and will soon be invoking a special Sunday access request to have it to himself."

"He may not be the only one."

This time, he'd painted his very own corner of relationship purgatory with glistening red paint, something close to the color of blood gushing from a deep, self-inflicted stab wound.

"It's the truth." You aren't learning a thing, are you?

Cissy reached out and stroked his cheek, which felt more like she was lining him up for a good smack. "One day, you're going to need a studio of your own."

"I certainly hope so."

It would probably just make matters worse if he conceded to her that he actually enjoyed sharing a studio with other artists given that he hadn't bothered to introduce her to Trevor. It was one of the most satisfying things in his life to sit around drinking cheap wine and insult each other with criticisms of inadequacy, poor technique and a blunt, hobgoblin eye for beauty. Heather had introduced that last phrase to their lexicon of meaningless esoteric bohemian patter on the quest for ever elusive truth.

"I can help with that."

"We've talked about this. I will earn my own or do without."

"Suit yourself, but I consider it a mere act of faith on my part. You will realize your dream. I just think it will come quicker if you are not surrounded by distractions."

"I don't consider them or their work distractions."

Viktor peeked out the kitchen door and waved at him. He gave him a thumbs-up sign when he spotted Cissy.

Anatoly's arrival ended the risk of another debate over what art and talent are and another opportunity for him to ruin the day entirely.

"Hello, my good friend."

Anatoly had thickened up his already thick mumble-like accent for the benefit of his good friend's female companion. Anatoly was not deterred at all by any level of beauty and refinement in a woman, or his lack of same as a man. As a matter of fact, the more beautiful a woman was the more Anatoly was likely to try and seduce her in front of her male companion.

Cissy brushed hair back from her delicate and refined face, smiled at Anatoly and scrunched along the bench of the booth as if she'd just spotted a cockroach coming toward her.

Anatoly took that gesture as an invitation and slid in beside Cissy. "This must be the lovely young woman you've been neglecting us for."

"I better be."

"Anatoly Gorodetsky, this is Cecilia Remington."

Anatoly wiped his hand on his hospital-white apron, which did seem to ease Cissy's apprehension a bit, and offered it to her. At least he just shook hers when she offered it in return rather than slip into his Rasputin-like charm further and raise it to his lips.

"And she is lovely." He kept hold of her hand.

For Cissy, it was akin to that cockroach getting onto her arm. Her eyes usually only got that wide when she was about to orgasm, and that wasn't likely what was happening to her at the moment.

It better not be.

Anatoly let go of Cissy's hand.

She raised it to cover her mouth. "Please to meet you, Anatoly. This is a charming place."

Anatoly grinned. "I know just what you two should have. Leave it to me."

Once Anatoly returned to the grill behind the bar, Cissy said, "How long did you say he's been living here?"

"He tells me it's been seven years."

"Curious. I would have thought his accent would be thicker if it's been only seven years."

"Thicker?"

"I know what you're thinking, darling, but that artificial thickening of his accent doesn't come close to the real thing. I wouldn't be surprised if Anatoly is capable of speaking English as clearly as you and I." She smiled at him. "As clearly as I am speaking to you now."

Cissy spotted the painting of the lone sequoia hung up behind the bar near the cash register. "Is that yours?"

"It was payment for all those free meals. I don't think he cares about it, he was just helping me out."

"He should care about it. It's fantastic. What made you decide to paint just one tree festooned with moss like that and leave the rest of the canvas blank?"

"It was at the time, I suppose, a comment on the vanishing natural beauty in the world; a last tree standing sort of thing." Three weeks in and he was lying to her about his paintings. But this one he just had to lie about.

"If he doesn't start caring about it soon, I'm going to have to have a little talk with him."

Anatoly brought them syrniki topped with apple sauce. He left the sour cream and honey in small bowls on the side.

After they walked the four blocks to his studio. It was on the top floor of five in another cast iron building and included a neglected terrace garden. Three of the walls were ninety-percent glass. The three big skylights Sean had installed added to the brightness and heat on clear, sunny days like this one. The floor was a yellow-hued hardwood.

Cissy looked around at the four corners, at the ropes and blankets and drapes hung over them that gave the artists privacy when they wanted it. She then walked slowly over to his corner.

He followed her and watched her look over his works.

"It was too dark in here last time to get a good look at them." She smiled at him and brushed back her hair. "I thought candles were all you could afford then. I wondered how you would work at night."

"I haven't had much time to work at all since I met you."

"You say the nicest things sometimes."

She picked up a painting of the Brooklyn Bridge that he'd painted from near the South Street Seaport across from the Heartland Brewery. It framed the underside of the Manhattan side of the bridge and the walkway leading to it. The setting sun had provided a unique illumination.

"This must have been difficult."

"Honestly, it's from a picture. There was no way the light would have lasted long enough to paint it on the spot."

"And you weren't ever likely to get exactly that lighting again."

"I went back many times for the subject matter details, but I used the photograph and memory to capture as best I could the nuances of the light. Those yellows, greys and browns and that one streak of reflective silver aren't even close to what was really there at the time. The center of the bridge had vanished into the glare."

She picked up and scrutinized a number of other paintings before coming back to him. "You are going to be famous someday, believe me. Why are there no people in your works?"

He was on the Atlantic again. "For now, I'm going with landscapes. I've been told I have an eye for such things."

"That you do." She stepped away from him and began unbuttoning her blouse. "I can model for you if you'd like a diversion into figurative painting for a change." She continued to undress.

"You might be the wrong kind of diversion for me."

"You do say the nicest things sometimes."

She removed her blouse, her bra, her slacks, socks and panties. "See anything inspiring?"

They had hot, sticky, dirty, wicked sex on a pile of drop clothes. Smudges of paint were all over both of them when they were finished the first time. Each of them took turns making impressionistic art with the smudges on the body of the other before having hot, sticky, dirty, wicked sex a second time before finger painting again.

Cissy looked down at what he'd sketched on her stomach with three shades of green, titanium white and saffron. "A field of lovely van Gogh grass and flowers leading to yellow shrubs."

"I could transfer that to canvas if you like."

"How?"

"I could press a blank up against you."

"Don't you dare; you are the only thing in here I want pressing up against me."

"I could take a photograph."

"Don't you dare do that either. You share this place with three others."

"They'd never recognize you in that heavy make-up."

She just scowled at him.

"Okay, I'll do it from memory."

"You better not. I only want you to know who these yellow shrubs belong to."

"Blonde shrubs." He lowered his head to the shrubs and began kissing.

"Just hold your horse for a moment. I have to make a call." She called Max and told him to bring the package over.

"What's in the package?"

"You'll see. Now, where were you?" She placed her hand on the back of his head and pushed him down. "Oh, yes, right there."

After two more times without the post-coital finger painting, they just lay together on the floor as the sun set and let the shadows cover them.

Cissy leaned in and kissed his chin. "Be careful around Nyla Rowe. She uses up people as easily as father does."

# Chapter 6

Jaxon arrived at the offices of Remington Bakersfield Draper on Cedar Street at 8:00 am wearing the black pants, blue shirt, a two-tone blue striped tie and the navy-blue jacket that Cissy had Max purchase and deliver to the studio yesterday now that he wasn't going to be just a security guard. They fit him like they were custom made, accentuating his athletic build.

As they'd gone through the clothes, he'd said, "Just call me Ken."

Cissy didn't get it. She had Max drop him and the clothes off in Brooklyn before taking her home.

He'd been sure to shave and put a comb through his pine-blond hair. It wouldn't do to be unkempt his first day at RBD. He was making no promises with regards to his personal appearance after the first week, though; artist rebelling against convention and restraint.

The full elevator stopped on the seventh floor. With everyone jostling to get out, he ended up the last one to exit. A courier in a shabby, blue uniform similar in hue to his jacket scooted past him into the elevator as he stepped out.

"Sorry, buddy, but this is a priority." The man put on his cap displaying the Keystone Couriers emblem on the front to match the crooked ones at the top of his jacket sleeves. He waved at Jaxon as the elevator doors closed, which prompted the courier to push the button for his floor again.

Interesting that RBD would tolerate such messy attire on a courier. It was hard to imagine Rowe, Remington or Triton accepting such an appearance in someone they dealt with.

Three elevators opened onto a floor that offered a lounge three times larger than his apartment floating on a sea of grey carpet highlighted by geometric swatches of red, green and blue that made him think of islands of litter floating somewhere out in the Pacific. Employees on their break or clients waiting for their meetings could look out floor-to-ceiling windows offering glimpses of the New York Stock Exchange, Battery Park and the East River. A counter in the center of the floor defined the reception area, which presented three receptionists to check in with. According to a message left on his phone by Nyla Rowe, he was supposed to check in with a receptionist named Camilla Best.

Camilla was the middle receptionist. She looked up with a bright smile that should be illegal this time of the morning.

"Jaxon Trevelyan," she said through those criminal teeth. "Good morning, sir." She pointed along a hallway. Windows on the left looked across Cedar Street. Offices lined up on the right. "Nyla Rowe is at the end of the hall, around the corner and the first door on your left."

He pointed to confirm he'd got her simple instructions correct.

Camilla's smiled ceased. She lowered her head, pushed a button on her switchboard and greeted the caller with, "Remington Bakersfield Draper, how may I direct your call?"

He followed the directions given to him past only one elevator door on the other side of reception, turned right at the corner and opened the door with Nyla Rowe's name and title on it to find Rowe sitting at her desk.

The office was about twice the size of his apartment. Its walls were decorated with textured coverings the color of port above oak wainscoting and sectioned by vertical oak trim rising to the crown molding. Seven pictures, three of them original paintings, the other four prints, circled the room in the sections, leaving four of them empty, not counting the doorway section. The desk was a dark, ornate antique thing that was essentially theft proof by anyone without a crane because of its size and weight.

"I was wondering what you'd be wearing," she said and got out of her chair. She gestured for him to take a seat in one of the chairs by her desk. She wore a brown pantsuit that matched the color of her skin. Her blouse was white. She had no tie.

"I've always believed it would be rude to arrive naked my first day at work."

She nodded like that was the one wisecrack she would permit him.

"Let's get something straight right at the beginning, shall we? I don't think much of artists in general or you in particular. You're one of those nice guys that gives truth to the maxim, aren't you?" Adrian had said the same thing to him on the Dagger. "You're too soft, oh so sensitive, an ar-teest. Whiners like you make my skin crawl. You're going to do nothing more with your life than live off rich women while you dally away on abysmal paintings and delusional aspirations of greatness delayed only because the mundane and ignorant hoi polloi doesn't recognize your genius. I can't think of anything as sad or as inconsequential as a failed artist . . . sorry, a failed would-be artist."

Rowe would fit right in with their studio discussions.

"I'm glad we're off to such a great start."

"I'm not finished. How can you begin to create representations of reality when you can't even cope with it?"

He rose up from the chair and gripped the back of it. "Does your girlfriend like it when you butch up and play rough?' Mel would eviscerate him if she ever caught him saying something so vile, and he would deserve that. "And you are right about one thing. I've had enough coping with you."

He left Rowe's office and returned to the elevators.

Anatoly had always offered to let him work there. The pay would be pitiful, but he wouldn't have to put up with the reality of Rowe's behavior toward him. His options were to stick his tail between his legs and go back to Rowe's office, stick it between his legs and accept Anatoly's job offer, or move out of his measly apartment and move into the studio. That last option would go against the conditions everyone had agreed to: an occasional crash was okay, a short stay was acceptable until you found somewhere else, but permanent residency was verboten.

He could live with Sean, but he'd never live that down. And he'd be dead of cancer from second-hand smoke within three years.

The elevator arrived, the doors slid open. That Keystone Courier guy he'd almost banged into earlier brushed past him on the way out.

"Sorry, buddy, but this is a priority." The man, still as rumpled as before, rushed along the same hall he'd taken to get to Rowe's office. He just missed colliding with Rowe as she came around the corner and approached the elevators.

Once he stepped into the elevator and turned around to push the button for the ground floor, Rowe waved for him to come back to her. She had stopped at reception with every expectation that he would comply.

Because Cissy would be disappointed to hear of it, he didn't put his best finger forward, but instead stepped back out of the elevator and joined her at the reception counter.

"Are you ready for the tour now?"

She didn't smile to be friendly or offer an apology. He was going to have to accept what she'd said and move on from there or turn around and call back the elevator.

Options: tail tucked, take tour; tail tucked, become waiter; tail tucked, abandon measly apartment with little chance of getting another one in NYC in his lifetime. There was always the bridge option.

"Lead on McGruff."

She walked past the elevators, indifferent to whether he came with her or not, and turned a corner at the opposite end of the floor from her office. He caught up to her once he'd made the same turn.

"We have three floors in this building until we move to the RBD towers in December. This floor is the only one open to the public. The two above us are only accessible by that elevator you passed on the way to my office and two sets of stairs at this end."

She took him along a corridor with offices on both sides until they reached the floor-to-ceiling windows at the end that looked out toward the East River. One expanse of wall had on it a tall, black and white picture of the rubble and dust from the World Trade Center bombing with a caption below it: WE WILL NEVER FORGET.

"Did you know anyone?"

"My dad was one of the first responders. He lost a lot of colleagues and friends." She took out a card and swiped it through the electronic lock on a heavy metal door. "This way."

The stairwell wasn't the fire escape set. This set started on this floor and only went up to the next two floors. It was well lit by the tall windows at the landings.

"Why offer me a better job than Jerry had in mind, then cut into me like that my first day here?"

"Can you keep your mouth shut?" She looked back down at him as she ascended four steps ahead of him. "What am I asking; of course you can't."

He grabbed the back of his neck. "Ouch, that hurt. Can you quit yanking so hard?"

She stopped on the first landing and waited for him. The brilliant sunshine coming in from behind created an aura around her and reinforced his first impression of her as Nubian royalty. To her people, she commanded the heavens and earth. To this newbie shmuck, she had a tight hold on a very short leash.

With that same countenance she'd displayed at the reception counter, Rowe was telling him that in her world at RBD she could say or do anything she wanted to anyone and that was all there was to that. No one would ever dare accuse her of harassment of any kind or abusive behavior toward them. This was RBD. That was to be expected from its executives. Look at what happened to John Smith, and that was a weekend pleasure cruise.

"You're just full of little bon mots, aren't you?"

"I've been told countless times that it's a matter of faulty phrenology. I'm still trying to smooth out the bumpy parts. At present, there is no known cure."

"I can give you a shot for it right now."

"Yes, I can keep my mouth shut if I have to."

She took a deep breath. Apprehension, distrust or regret; it was impossible to tell.

"Of the whole Remington family, Cecilia is the best one."

"We have just found some common ground between us."

"Shut-up."

"You were saying."

"She's kind, humane—rare in this branch of the Remington clan—and unselfish, her charity and you being perfect examples of her better traits. She's the only one of them I like and I don't want to see her get hurt."

"She speaks highly of you, too. What's at RBD that could hurt her?"

Rowe continued up the stairs to the next floor.

Once he caught up to her, she swiped the card through the lock, opened the door and said, "This is our International Business Department."

They entered an open-floor layout with quads of desks dotted throughout. As on the floor below, floor-to-ceiling windows let in plenty of sunshine.

Where reception would be on the floor below, this floor had a conference room with three tables placed end to end in the center that could accommodate thirty to forty people. At one end of the room, folding chairs sat in three rows aimed at white boards and a television about one hundred inches across mounted on the wall. At the other end, four tables were pushed together to form a rectangle. A scale model of the new RBD towers complex being built a few blocks closer to Tribeca rested on top of it. Four men, two of them African-American, and two women, one of them African-American, were discussing assorted modules from the model. Their conversation was very energetic.

A group of six more people entered the conference room and sat down at the last of the row of tables at the opposite end from the tower group.

"That bunch," Rowe said, "is overseeing our move into cargo container shipping."

"Why shipping? RBD has been mostly financial and real estate."

"We still are, but containers and shipping is our expansion and diversification for the future. We've spent the last year purchasing land in Los Angeles, Houston, London, Tampico and Merida, Mexico, and Panama City. RBD has recently purchased controlling interest in a number of cargo container companies as well as container shipping companies. We also bought a few independent ships outright.

"That was what Smith was doing on the Dagger. He was a consultant, an expert on the cargo container shipping industry. He was facilitating our entry into that sector by acting as an intermediary in our negotiations and acquisitions. He helped lubricate some of the more difficult takeovers and purchases of both ships and contracts."

"He was certainly well lubricated on the Dagger."

Without acknowledging in any way that he'd just spoken, she continued with her AGM presentation. "We currently control eleven percent of all container shipping throughout the world and plan to increase that to twenty percent within the next five years through aggressive investment and expansion of our fleet."

"Ship builders must be happy to hear that."

"They should be. We purchased three of them, one in France, one here and one in Liberia. That one will need a lot of updating before it will be of any real use to us. We may just keep it as a registry and dry dock service center."

She pointed to the section above her office. "That is Accounts and Financial." She pointed back to the stairs they'd just come up. "That is Real Estate and Legal. Around that corner are Morris Triton's office and Jerome Remington's office and their support staff. On the other side are Personnel, Security and IT. The Marketing Department where you'll be working is right above us."

"How long have you been with RBD?"

"Just over a year." She took him back to the stairwell.

Before entering, Jaxon peeked around the corner at Triton's and Remington's offices. That courier came around the opposite corner from where Personnel, Security and IT were and entered Triton's office. Every time he'd seen him, the man had been in a hurry, but he hadn't been carrying anything with him out or in.

# Chapter 7

The Marketing Department had the same quad workstation layout as the floor below. It also floated on the same ancient sea of industrial grey with the same litter of red, blue and green highlights as on the other two floors. There were the same floor-to-ceiling windows providing the same view, the same conference room in the center of the floor for staff meetings and such, and the same office layout to the west side of the floor. The east end, however, had a long corridor that ended at a T-shaped intersection instead of more glass and offices. Only overhead lights illuminated that area.

Rowe pointed that way. "That is storage, restrooms, mechanical and electrical, maintenance and supplies. On the other side are the cafeteria and miscellaneous operations under my command."

Rowe would describe them as under her command not her supervision. She could have just as accurately described them as being under her rule.

She pointed to the offices. "Your immediate supervisor is Ferdinand Juarez. That's his office over there."

She led him to an empty quad of desks. One of them had a white drawing board on a stand beside it.

"This one's yours. I've had some basic supplies brought over. Feel free to get whatever else you need. Your orientation meeting will start at eleven and last about three hours, including your lunch break. I'll come get you. Ferdinand will be with you shortly."

She left and exited into the stairwell rather than take the special elevator that had just arrived to unload three people.

What could Rowe have meant by not wanting Cissy to get hurt? The obvious answer was Jaxon Trevelyan. Despite her overt contempt for him, however, that wasn't what her concern sounded like. She seemed to have wanted to tell him something that didn't have anything to do with him, but second thoughts had prevented her. Did it have something to do with John Smith?

A woman close to his age and wearing a suit with a blazer and skirt the same blue as his jacket came to him as soon as the door to the stairwell clicked closed.

The floor had been quiet enough that the click reverberated through it. Like disturbed crickets, everyone then went back to contributing to the ambient background noise that characterized RBD's Graphic Arts.

The woman, her ginger hair held back in a ponytail, purple tentacles of a tattoo reaching up the left side of her neck from under the collar of her sky-blue blouse, smiled at him. Light sparkled in the diamond attached to the left side of her nose.

What would Rembrandt have made of that icon of the modern age? Would he have put it into the light or turned it into the shade as if trying to hide a blemish?

She held out her hand. "Elaine Kline. You must be Jaxon."

"Unless someone else has been using my name, I must be." He shook her cool hand.

Her slender fingers tickled his palm when she broke her grip.

"You have a strong aura. It's the first thing I noticed about you. I can see them, and yours is exceptionally bright, bright enough for almost anyone to see if they'd just look at you properly."

Rowe's aura in the stairwell would have likely sent Kline running for cover.

"Those have been exactly my thoughts for years."

"It tells me you are going to do something important at RBD."

"Here wasn't where I thought I would be doing it."

"But." She squinted, probably temporary blindness from his aura.

He waited. She said nothing. He waited. She said . . .

"But what?"

"I also see a slight fluctuation in intensity now and then, a little dimming here and there."

"Let's just keep that between ourselves, shall we?"

"Listen." She sat on the corner of his desk and leaned closer. "I just wanted to warn you about Juarez." Her blouse gaped, giving him a direct view of small breasts unencumbered by a bra and highlighted by diamond studs through the nipples to match the one in her nose.

He glanced down at his desk then quickly looked back up straight into Kline's green eyes. They were lighter than Cissy's, still attractive but without the allure hers had. "Any assistance and helpful instructions would be appreciated."

She licked her lips, smiled wider and ran her tongue over her very white teeth. For Elaine Kline, to be successful in business in New York City, one needed a good suit, a strong, bejewelled nose and an intimidatingly wide, white smile.

Jaxon looked at the drawing board and blinked. As expected, an afterimage of Kline's smiling face superimposed itself over the white for a moment before abandoning him.

He was always staring at people, at the structure of their faces in particular. He tried to envision portraits of them and decide which would be the best features to highlight and which would be best left shaded. A side effect of this obsession was seeing faces in the strangest things: carpets, the leaves and shadows of shrubs, tire treads.

He'd received countless dirty looks, challenges and threats in reaction to his gaze. It certainly didn't help any when women were concerned. The face slap total from the stare was eight, but that was still an average of less than one per year despite the increased occurrences of the past two. Any explanation he'd try to give about an artist's eye was misconstrued by the vast majority of them, and that was probably how it should be. Cissy didn't mind him looking at her that way.

If anyone ever demanded proof of results from his artist's stare, however, he'd be screwed.

"Juarez is known as Mr. Butt-plug to everyone here. And Blake thinks he's the one really in . . ."

She leaned back, straightened her blouse—she had known then what it would do when she leaned over—and stood up.

Two men were coming toward them, one about four inches over six feet and quite pasty, the other man about four inches below six feet and Hispanic. They both likely weighed the same, somewhere around 270-280 pounds.

"Speak of the devils," he said to Kline. "Very dim auras the both of them, wouldn't you say?"

She only continued to fuss with her clothes when the two men finally arrived at the quad.

Juarez, in a grey, tailor-made Armani suit, his black hair slicked down on his head, a thin, black moustache over thick lips and almost no chin that blended into a sagging neck, offered his hand. The shadows of a Rembrandt-like portrait would darken the top of his head even more and hide most of his swarthy face.

"Jaxon Trevelyan, with an 'x', so I understand, welcome to Remington Bakersfield Draper."

"Good to be here."

"Blake Finnegan." The tall one offered an equally large hand but a weaker grip. His suit, also grey, hung loosely on him. He'd been heavier in the past and hadn't refitted himself because he wasn't confident he could keep the weight off.

Finnegan was big but not muscular except for a troll-like thick neck and a prominent brow ridge a decorative plate could perch on. His dark eyes were beady little things far too small for their large, drooping sockets and the pouches below those. They were almost all pupil.

Rockwell would have loved Blake's dog-eyed face, an older, heavier, surlier half-brother to Willie Gillis. Rembrandt's later style of a more straight on pose, coarser brush strokes and harsher lighting would suit Finnegan's facial features best. Both artists would have needed to use large canvases.

"Just what are you doing here?" Finnegan yanked on Jaxon's hand when he took his back.

"I love New York," Jaxon said.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Are you telling me you don't?"

"I'm not telling you anything."

"Then we have a one-way street here because I'm telling you I love New York and you have nothing to say for yourself or the city."

Finnegan furrowed his fatty brow and came closer. "I've been here seven years. I graduated at the top of my class with an MBA from Penn State and started here right out of school."

"It must have been a hard seven years if you don't like New York."

Pale, whitish Blake Finnegan—Jaxon couldn't be sure there wasn't some albinism in him—couldn't actually turn a true red, more like a blotchy pink, especially in the cheeks and around that thick neck of his.

"I didn't say I didn't like New York."

"Admit nothing, that's a good strategy in a hostile environment."

"Yeah, well, what good do you think those Fine Arts degrees of yours are going to do for Remington Bakersfield Draper?"

Finnegan was that fat kid at the park who complained that his ice cream cone was too small just before dropping it and demanding his parents buy him two more, which they would then do out of fear he might either scream vociferously all day and whine incessantly or try to take some other child's cone, or worse, just eat the other child, cone and all.

"I've been the lead on the Montgomery Financial Investments contract from the beginning, and the new Uehara-Zamamoto one's mine, too."

"I'm sure mom and dad are very proud."

Finnegan didn't know what to do. An act of violence in front of Juarez and Kline, and all the prairie dogs who had started sticking their heads up from their quads to see what was going on as he got louder, might cost him at least the new Uehara-Zamamoto contract, possibly the Montgomery Financial Investments one, too. Most of the dogs could smell an opportunity in the air and were probably rooting for the new, yappy puppy.

It might be best to let Finnegan cool off a bit and re-establish his bearings.

"Do you have any Risperdal or Propranolol you can take?"

Juarez stepped between them. "I can see I'll have to keep a close watch on you two, particularly that brash sense of humor of yours, Jaxon."

"With an 'x'."

Juarez guided Finnegan back to his office. They talked in a hushed, agitated whisper as they went, which reminded him of Rowe talking to Detective Hewitt. Juarez had to tug Finnegan back into line twice when he tried to return to the new guy's isolated quad.

Kline sat down on the corner of his desk and again leaned over. "Those two make quite the pair."

"Have they set a date yet?"

She puckered her lips as if she were going to lean even closer and kiss him.

He pushed his chair back a few inches. "How was my aura? It wasn't too bright, was it? Tell me it didn't flicker. I'd hate to think it flickered in front of those two."

She straightened up. "Juarez worked his way up to head of this section. When he first arrived, he was enthusiastic and supportive, but a few disastrous projects led to some harsh criticism, the loss of his bonus and turned him into Mr. Butt-plug. Now, no ideas get to the higher echelon unless they go through him as his own. And Blake will . . ."

Kline suddenly slipped off his desk, fixed her suit, gave him a small wave and smile and scurried back to her workstation, clearing his line of sight to reveal Rowe coming toward him from the special elevator.

"It's time," she said and returned to the elevator without bothering to check if he was following her.

His orientation session also included two other new employees: a man who would have been his partner if he'd gone to Security and a woman joining the clerical staff at Reception. She'd do well. She had large, sparkling white teeth, so Kline might be on to something. The orientation lasted over two hours around their lunch break, which he took in the cafeteria on the Marketing Department floor. The first part was giving an oath of fealty and confidentiality to RBD before completing all the paperwork required to become an employee.

A green card or work visa wasn't a problem for him. He had dual citizenship via both jus soli and jus sanguinis. His mother was American, born in Attica and raised on a farm east of Boonville near the Adirondacks. His father was a Canadian businessman who married her in Ottawa. She gave birth to all three children in New York before the family moved to Abbotsford and his father became a religious fanatic. She had returned to that farm with his older brother and sister when she and his father had divorced.

After the paperwork was completed and after their lunch break, he and the other two new recruits were entertained with a video about the origin of Remington Bakersfield Draper as a construction company and its subsequent evolution into a diverse, multifaceted international business. Adjectives like dynamic, exciting and innovative were used frequently throughout the presentation. Adjectives like cutthroat, guerilla and predatory were not.

A feature on the new RBD towers complex currently under construction provided a virtual tour of what the finished product would look like. The last film, a short eleven minutes long, informed them of RBD's promising future as it expanded into cargo containers and shipping. A teaser ending showed a cargo plane bearing the letters RBD on its fuselage taking off from JFK.

The new security recruit was gathered up first by a person responsible for the next phase of his orientation specifically related to his promising future in RBD's Security section. The new clerical recruit was gathered up next by Camilla Best. They exchanged brilliant smiles and took no notice of him when they left.

Juarez came to get him. He led him back to his workstation and showed him how to sign in to his computer and create an alphanumeric password of at least eight characters.

"You have to change it every three months," Juarez said.

That thought caused a blip in his heart rate. If he were still here three months from now, the risk of losing momentum would be unmeasurably high by then. He could already feel the warm drag of friction against him.

Juarez then took over the mouse and called up the projects GA was working on. "Have a look at them. Tomorrow we'll decide what ones you can help with. By all means, let me know if you get any ideas about any of them."

As well as the two Finnegan had boasted about, RBD's Graphic Arts section of the Marketing Department had over one hundred projects in progress. Most of the contracts were for website layouts, logos, building site plan diagrams, brochures and the like.

The surprise was to find a number of contracts, most of the bigger ones, were for foreign companies, and most of those companies were in Africa, South America or the Middle East. But the largest contract, which included not only RBD's Marketing Department, but also its International Business Center, Public Relations and Legal Departments, was from a company called Carlsberg Gulf Bayswater Enterprises. Based in Cape Town, South Africa, it also had offices in London, England; Barcelona, Spain; Mumbai, India; Monrovia, Liberia and Singapore.

CGBE appeared to be a wholly-owned subsidiary of RBD, purchased to supervise and manage RBD's entry into the international cargo container shipping business. It was CGBE's speciality.

"Keep it in the family."

John Smith, a vice-president at CGBE, had probably done most of his lubricating work out of its various offices.

To his surprise, he found researching the contracts fascinating; not so much for the graphic arts part of the contracts, but for the extent of RBD's presence in the global business world they revealed. He spent the whole afternoon reading and rereading everything he could find.

His only interruption came when Finnegan, in his shambling, knock-kneed gait, came over to his quad, which, on second glance, was isolated from every other quad by at least one empty one. He offered a second piece of advice to the insolent pup.

"Watch yourself, Jaxon. This is a rough company, and I've seen specks of dust here that are tougher than you."

"Yes and there's one on your shoulder making its way to your jugular as we speak. I'm not the expert you are, but it looks pissed."

Finnegan grunted, brushed off his shoulder and returned to wherever his workstation was.

Neither Rowe nor Juarez came to let him know it was quitting time. He just sensed a commotion, looked up from his isolated quad and saw all the other wage slaves heading for the stairs or the elevator. People got out of the way of Finnegan. Jaxon's impression was that it was more of a least-resistance avoidance reaction than out of fear of the man.

Cecilia was waiting for him in the lobby. She wore a simple white dress with a matching jacket to protect her from the breeze coming off the water.

He noticed Keystone courier guy leaving the building. The man was carrying a package under his arm about the size of a shoebox and wrapped with brown paper.

So much for the international business giant that was Remington Bakersfield Draper. After a day of work, all RBD had to show for itself was one little, indistinct package to be delivered by a shabby courier.

"We're going to celebrate your new job." Cissy kissed his cheek. "I know just the place."

That's when the argument started.

# Chapter 8

Shafts of sunlight shining through the spaces between the buildings brightened alternating sections at street level, New York City's own chiaroscuro stroll of light and shadow that he tried to capture in his paintings. It could wash out color and detail in places to resemble a centuries-old painting in need of repair and make them vivid and dazzling in others. People passing through became ghosts only to be reborn into the next ray of brilliance.

He and Cissy exited with the other RBD employees, most of who were scampering for the subways, and stopped in one of the bright spots.

Cissy shielded her eyes and looked up at the clear sky over Manhattan. "Why don't you want to go to Melloni's? It has an excellent menu."

"You know why. I'm good with King Gregor's."

"We're supposed to be celebrating." She looped her arm with his, took him across the plaza to Cedar Street and guided them toward William Street. "Let me treat you to dinner."

"Why don't we compromise and go to O'Hara's? It's close."

"I want my first time at Melloni's to be with you. It will be our special place."

"Special in that it is unaffordable."

She fell silent.

"You win." He was going to have to get used to saying that. He hailed a cab and they headed for Midtown.

When they entered Melloni's on 51st Street, the headwaiter only gave them a glance before running his long, perfectly manicured finger down a list and tapping it against that list when he found what table they were to be seated at.

"Good evening, Ms. Remington. It's so nice to see you finally make it here."

"Thank you, Hans."

Hans wore a tuxedo and puckered lips. He pressed together long, boney fingers into a pointer to accompany a polite and arrogant nod that he used as a greeting.

He nodded to Jaxon. "This way, please."

Melloni's was just over four months old. Two famous chefs had gone into partnership, had almost killed each other and members of their staff, had gone through a half-dozen investors, been sued by a number of contractors, but had opened last New Year's Eve with government dignitaries and local celebrities attending. Reviewers gave Melloni's five stars and declared it to be one of the five best restaurants in New York City.

Coming here had to be Cissy's treat. He couldn't possibly afford it, nor pull enough strings to get a reservation—having no strings at all he could pull in NYC that would do him any good whatsoever.

Hans the headwaiter used his pointer fingers as a wedge to plow through the waiters in their way as they proceeded to their table. He personally seated Ms. Remington and the appendage attached to her so that the sun would be in the appendage's eyes. He then nodded again to Jaxon and plowed back through the waiters to his post as guardian of the entrance.

A waiter appeared at their table, set down two long-stemmed glasses, opened a bottle of Bollinger and poured. Jaxon didn't catch his name because he only greeted Ms. Remington.

Cissy lifted her glass, waited patiently for him to do the same, then they clinked them together. "To your temporary financial security until the world starts clamoring for your work."

Could he get out of RBD before he had to make a mandatory change to his password?

She took a sip of champagne before putting her glass down. Squinting against the sun in his eyes, Jaxon drank all of his.

He looked around the restaurant as much to keep the sun out of his eyes as to see what the big, new sensation in NYC dining was all about. It was still early. Most of the tables were empty.

"Who did you have to kill to get reservations?"

"Father took care of that."

Had Smith been the requisite sacrifice to the god of exclusive New York City restaurants?

"I'm sure he did."

"Silly. He and his cronies have already been here twice, including opening night." She looked around. "Adrian, Bryce and Eugene have also been here. They brought mother and nana for nana's birthday."

"I suppose Nyla Rowe's been here with your father."

A barely perceptible sigh escaped her control. "It's possible."

"And that doesn't ruin it for you?"

She reached over and patted his hand. "Why should it matter to me if Nyla Rowe came here with anybody?"

The waiter glided over to top up their glasses before gliding away.

"When do we get menus? I'm famished."

"That's all been taken care of. Hans, our waiter and the chef get together and decide what would be just right for each customer shortly after they come in. It's part of their charm."

"Did they pick your father's meal for him?"

"What do you think? Melloni's owners know who they can't go up against without risking absolute destruction."

"I'm sure your father would rank right up there with Godzilla. I hope their charm for me includes meat."

Cissy took another sip of Bollinger. "I have purchased some more clothes for you to keep at my apartment."

"My apartment is closer to work." That was a terrifically appreciative thing to say, and incorrect, too, dumbass.

Cissy looked down at the table and took a bigger sip of champagne. "You can move them if you like."

"I only meant that for the first little while, it might be better to stay at my place until I get my routine down." He took hold of her hand. "You know how we self-indulgent artists can be about punctuality. Keep them available for once I've settled."

She perked up. "Not too settled, I hope. You are going to be a painter."

"I thought I already was a painter."

She squeezed his hand. "Of course you are. But you will risk tonight, won't you? Coming here wasn't the only thing I had in mind to celebrate."

She scratched the back of his hand when she pulled hers free. She drank the rest of her Bollinger.

The scratches she'd left on his back yesterday at the studio began to itch.

Cissy's meal was a colorful mixture of sliced fruits and cheeses sprinkled with some white powder that Cissy confirmed was just another cheese finely grated over everything. She had three sauces to dip the fruit and cheese into.

The headwaiter, waiter and chef at least got the meat part for him correct. Strips of steak expertly brazed were smothered in peppers to give them a hot kick. The sautéed mushrooms left a delicate aftertaste. But Brussel sprouts? He was a peas, carrots and corn guy. Brussel sprouts looked too much like brains extracted from tiny, invading aliens.

First the headwaiter, then the waiter checked to make sure Cissy's meal was satisfactory. A second bottle of Bollinger was opened and poured. The waiter made sure their glasses were kept full until that was gone too.

As they nibbled on their dessert of chocolate shavings over strawberries and cream, Cissy asked, "Do you believe animals have feelings?"

"Mommy alligators and crocodiles respond to their young's calls when they hatch."

"That's just instinct. Evolution has hardwired them to do that."

"Do you believe animals have feelings?"

"I've been wondering about what separates us from the other animals. Religious arrogance has tried to convince us that lower animals have no soul and are incapable of feelings. I don't accept that. I have no trouble believing humans have a greater range of emotions—I doubt a dolphin would be affected by your paintings—but I refuse to dismiss emotions in other animals as whimsy or impossible."

"Unless it trashes my work; I would say that was proof of little or no emotional sophistication."

"It's only speech that separates us and leads to that arrogance. Somewhere back in our ancestral line, the biochemical reactions we now know are produced during emotional responses governed us the same way they do other animals. Then we started developing language. As our language evolved, we became more adept at describing to each other what we were experiencing. We labelled our emotions, assigned varying degrees of intensity to them. We shared with others and established generally accepted conventions of what it means to be angry, frightened, in love."

"I have no problem accepting the development of language as a major contribution to our emotional evolution, but I'm just not sure how that compares to the possible emotional depth of other animals."

"The evolution of emotions and language together created a positive feedback loop between those biochemical reactions inside us and our increasingly complex descriptions of how we feel. We have the ability to express the myriad kinds and intensities of feelings, but we've also developed the arrogance to exclude other animals from such discriminating capacity. Their biochemical reactions are second rate because they don't go around talking about them all the time. We can love our dogs and cats but they're only loyal to us or obedient."

"Dogs and cats can express themselves quite well in ways beyond just loyalty and obedience. Cissy, what are you driving at?"

"I've had too much champagne, darling." She wiped her finger through her glass and licked it. "Or not enough, I'm not sure." Only delicate brush strokes would capture the magic of her green eyes. A careless, overly detailed approach risked obscuring the depth within them and producing little more than a glassy stare. "I just want to lay with you, with my head on your chest listening to your heart. Regardless of what we might say or not say to each other, we both know it means something to each of us. Just because animals can lay with each other but are incapable of saying I love you, doesn't give us the right to believe they don't, or worse can't experience what we experience."

"I'll punch out anyone who disagrees with you, be it human, animal or Brussel sprout." He held up his glass of champagne, waited for her to raise her empty glass and then clink them together. "You are marvellous. This dinner was marvellous. Thank you."

The sun had moved behind a building across the street, so the last fifteen minutes of their time at Melloni's wasn't nearly as blinding. When they were done, they just got up and left. No one brought them a bill. No one stopped them at the door. Hans ignored them other than to nod as they passed.

Once outside, he asked, "Does that triad also decide whether or not to charge us?"

"That was taken care of when the reservation was made."

After a long, tedious day at his new job, and with the greater portion of two bottles of Bollinger inside him, he was as tired as the shadows were dark. He just wanted to return to his apartment and fall onto his bed, but Cissy's eyes were still magical and now expectant as well. He'd been on a tightrope with her since their disagreement about where to dine. Trying to beg off the rest of the evening would appear ungrateful and selfish.

Cissy buttoned her jacket and cuddled up to him. The Remington's BMW across the street started, made a U-turn and pulled up to the curb in front of them. He held open the door for her.

After she was seated, he held out his hand for a tip.

She slapped it away. "Not here."

Once he was seated beside her, the limo pulled away from the curb and Cissy went into his arms. When she kissed him, her tongue explored his mouth, her hands pressed against his chest for a moment before one shot down past his belt.

"Would it be unbecoming if I had a second dessert right here and now?"

She started to pull down his zipper then stopped, sat back and smoothed her dress. "No. I must wait. There's something else I bought for you today. I want to show you that before I have my way with you."

"I've always loved the way you have your way with me."

"You haven't seen anything yet."

"Be honest, am I going to die?"

She giggled a bit. Cecilia Remington wasn't brought up to be giggly. "I have a portable defibrillator on hand." She smiled serenely at him. "I also have a dose of adrenaline ready if it's required. It has a very long needle. It is my understanding that I must plunge it into your heart, which seems fitting should you disappoint me."

"You don't need a needle to pierce my heart."

"That's very dear, darling, but I am so glad you decided to become a painter rather than a writer."

"Hey, one picture, a thousand words."

"Be quiet now and kiss me."

The rest of the drive went by with their lips locked together; however, he almost fell off the tightrope shortly after they arrived at Cissy's building.

Just before Max opened the door for them, Cissy asked, "What progress has Melanie Trudeau made with your works?"

As they entered the lobby, he replied, "She's shopping them around, as they say, making contacts with galleries, showing them off, trying to organize an exhibition."

The doors of the elevator to her penthouse opened a moment after Cissy put in the key and turned it. "Perhaps I should speak with her. I know people. I could help make the right contacts."

"Mel doesn't need your help to make the right contacts. It's her job to know the right people. It's my work that must convince them to do something about it."

The elevator ascended swiftly. As they entered her condo, she said quietly enough to force him to lean closer, "I'm sure the Trudeau Edgerton Agency knows plenty of the right people, darling. I'm just offering to introduce them to people they might not know as well as I do. Some of them own some of the most prestigious galleries in the city."

Quickly recovering his balance, he said, "I can certainly use all the connections I can get. I'll tell her of your offer."

"We could do lunch together."

"Let me broach the subject with her first and see what kind of progress she is making on her own."

"If you think that would be best." She took him into the living room and sat him down on the chocolate-brown sectional sofa. "It's time for your other present. I'll only be a moment."

Jazz music started as Cissy went to her bedroom. He didn't recognize the song, but it had sustained trumpet notes, a moaning trombone and a slow bass line to capture the underlying melancholy that always existed at night amid the vibrancy of New York City's streets.

When Cissy returned to the living room, the lights lowered to nearly off.

"What do you think?"

She was still dressed in white: white stockings with a white garter belt; shear white panties; white stiletto heels and a sparkling white mask across her eyes with points on each side reminiscent of devil's horns. While the Remington de rigueur of family expectations had not raised her to be giggly and had saddled her with 'Cissy' as the short form of her name, it had done nothing to hinder her development as an independent, sensual woman.

As a painting, this Cissy would be the opposite of the sequoia. Whereas the tree was the lone object surrounded by a white canvas, Cissy would be the bright white subject against a subservient black background. There might be just a hint in those shadows of a whip and shackles, however.

"You had better get the defibrillator ready."

# Chapter 9

Neither the defibrillator nor the adrenaline injection was used. What would have been the point? Despite Cissy's inspired outfit and her ardently playful efforts, they had made love only once before his first day at work and the Bollinger caught up to him. The adrenaline would have kept his heart going had that been necessary, but it wasn't going to rouse him.

Cissy, marvelous and beautiful as always, had coffee and a bagel ready for him when he dragged his sorry ass into her kitchen. The coffee burned against the canker sore that had doubled in size overnight. They said little to each other because he had only seven minutes to get to the 86th Street station for the Broadway-7th Avenue line if he was to get to his second day at RBD on time.

If not for the clothes she had bought for him to keep at her place, he'd be wearing the same damn thing two days in a row. At his place, he had a change of shirt ready.

She kissed him deeply, placed her hands on his chest and said, "Max is waiting for you. I will see you for lunch."

Dressed in his Cissy-condo clothes, browns she thought went well with his hair, he took the elevator down to Central Park West and got into the back of the BMW.

"Good morning, sir," Max said as he merged the BMW into traffic.

"Max, it's just me. Don't call me sir."

On the way to RBD he thought of how Cissy was anticipating everything for him. What was that thing that eventually bred contempt?

Juarez was at his quad when he stepped out of the special elevator with three others. He had spread out diagrams all over the desk.

"Good morning," Juarez said.

"Hey."

Juarez pointed to the diagram on top. It was a landscape drawing. "This is going to be the courtyard for the Santa Fe law firm of Mesko, Wong and Amera." He tapped a pile of printed papers. "These are the plants and materials they intend to use in the construction and a list of features they want included in the design. See what you can do with it. I'll check back with you in a little while."

Juarez returned to his office. Finnegan was watching them from his quad four quads over.

He now knew where the belligerent would come from.

He flipped through the architectural blueprints, the landscape diagrams, moved aside what he didn't need at the moment and got started.

He used the drawing of the site's elevation changes as his template. There were three planting mounds planned on an otherwise flat one-half acre parcel, two at the front of the law office on the west side and one on the north side. The south side of the parcel was for client parking and would only need a few plants on the knoll separating it from the sidewalk. The east side had the entrance from Saguaro Street and the employee's parking. Nothing but asphalt was required there.

Why was RBD in Lower Manhattan doing preliminary designs for Mesko, Wong and Amera in Santa Fe?

"Good morning." Kline was already sitting on the corner of his desk when he turned.

"Hey."

She was wearing a black skirt with a slit up the front, a simple white, short-sleeve blouse and no jacket. She had changed the stud in her nose from a diamond to a small emerald to match her eyes, earrings, a wide bracelet on her left wrist that had a small, white watch face on it and an emerald ring on the middle finger of her right hand. The purple and black tentacles of her tattoo seemed to tighten their grip on her neck when she leaned over. He could discern no aura about her whatsoever. The tentacles didn't even glow a tiny bit.

Determined not to give her the Jaxon stare and find out if she'd changed the other studs too, he glanced out the windows when she leaned over and put her hand on his shoulder.

"What did you get?" She only glanced at the plans before shifting her gaze back squarely on him.

"The Mesko, Wong and Amera courtyard. Why are we working on a contract for someone in New Mexico?"

"We get them from everywhere. I don't know how we do it or who does it, but Ferdinand sure doesn't go out and get them." She moved her hand along his shoulder to his neck and touched a finger to his ear. "Last week, Blake and I finished up plans for a playground in Karachi."

"Who do you think might be doing it?" He got up from his chair and flipped through the other plans for Santa Fe.

Undeterred, Kline slipped off the corner of his desk and sidled up beside him, leaning slightly into him as she feigned looking at what he feigned looking at. She put her hand back on his shoulder.

"I'd put my money on Triton. It could be the big guy himself, but I don't think so. He's too busy enjoying his new toy to bother much with the day-to-day anymore."

"His toy?"

"The towers, they're his tribute to himself. The rumor is he's going to complete that monstrosity, somehow get his face on it so he can stare out at Manhattan forever, like a stupid sphinx or something, then cash out everything he has in RBD and retire to an island. Some think he's bought Jamaica or Ireland. I think it's New Zealand." She patted his shoulder, leaned in and whispered into his ear. "Gotta go. Your auras a little dim this morning. If I can help tweak it in any way, just whistle."

She sashayed back to her quad. Her black stilettoes were about an inch lower than the white ones Cissy wore last night.

"I didn't think you'd come back," Finnegan said.

This must be something like how the Germans felt once they realized they were fighting on two fronts. Finnegan was cold, hostile Russia.

"How goes the hunt for ferocious dust bunnies, Finn?"

"Do not call me that."

"You can call me Jax or Trev, I don't mind. What's a contraction between work colleagues, eh? A bagatelle, that's what, nothing of consequence, a minor matter of informality, that's all."

"Watch your back, mighty mouth." Finnegan returned to his quad.

Both Kline and Finnegan made him want to brush himself off. Working in RBD's Graphic Arts was going to keep personal hygiene front and center in his thoughts at all times.

Twenty minutes of going over the plans for the courtyard, drawing in plants, benches, wood and brick walkways had Jaxon finally concentrating on the work before him. If he thought of it as one of his landscapes, envisioned how he wanted the final rendition to look, he could focus and block out the ambient commotion of GA. The plan was taking shape.

His desk phone rang. No one had instructed him on any special greeting he was supposed to use.

"Graphic Arts, Jaxon Trevelyan."

"Mr. Trevelyan," Cissy said, "I've been considering getting a tattoo and I wondered if you had any opinions on what kind I should get and where I should put it."

"I can do that for you."

"You'd get too much pleasure out of sticking a needle into me."

"It's only fair after you walked all over me last night. That was some accupainture you applied."

"That was purely for medical purposes to relieve your tension from your first day at Remington Bakersfield Draper."

"Your ass, it was."

"Is that where you think I should put the tattoo?" She wasn't a giggler, but she could get a little chirp in her voice.

"On second thought, someone else should do it. I'd probably lose my concentration or just get the shakes."

"You do say the sweetest things." She sighed. "Darling, I can't make it for lunch. I hope you don't mind."

"What's up?"

"Penny called. She wants to get together to talk about family matters, hers mostly. She sounded quite upset. I think I'm going to be providing moral support for well into the evening. You're not too disappointed, are you?"

"We'll continue this conversation another time. I have some suggestions to make about the tattoo. They're perverted and motivational and would fit perfectly on your inner thigh."

"You are a dream come true, darling. I'll miss you. Bye."

Had Cissy grown tired of him already? Even Adrian gave them a few months depending on how happy, satisfied and interested he kept her. Repetition, routine, familiarity, contempt; it was a short gauntlet.

He had fallen asleep—passed out was a more precise description—after only one time last night; not exactly the passionate evening Cissy had dressed up for. She was very enthusiastic for such things.

How long would he last at RBD if Cissy no longer wanted anything to do with him? He wouldn't have to think up a new password.

Juarez and Finnegan were hovering behind him when he snapped out of his reverie. How much of his conversation with Cissy had they heard?

"How's it going?" Juarez rose up on his toes to see over Jaxon's shoulder.

Finnegan just stepped up to the desk and stuck his finger into the diagram Jaxon was working on as if he were trying to poke out an eye.

"Do you know how hot and dry it gets in Santa Fe? About the only plants you can put there are cactus."

"They'll have a drip irrigation system installed. It saves water and will leave less of a stain than you do on your pants."

Juarez interceded by pulling Finnegan back from the desk. "Blake, Jaxon has a list of plants. He knows what he can and can't put there." Juarez then said to him, "It is only your second day, but I expect you to show your colleagues respect."

He stood up. "I will if he will."

"Starting right now, Jaxon, I mean it. You may be the boss's daughter's boyfriend, but I can still fire you."

Juarez escorted Finnegan away.

"And another spiral of self-destruction comes to an end."

"Don't worry about those two," Kline said.

Was this how it was going to be all the time, alternating attacks from Butt-plug and Bladderbot, and then Flirtgirl? Was anyone else but those three working in Graphic Arts?

He sat back down and pulled his chair to his desk, banging his knee against the left door. "Do they do that to everyone or just the new guys?"

Kline sat down on a chair from an empty quad and walked herself over. The slit widened as her skirt hiked up along her thighs.

He turned back to his work.

She stood up behind him and put her hands on his shoulder. "You shouldn't be this tense only your second day." She began massaging his trapezius muscles before sliding down between his shoulder blades. "Ooh, you have a nice set of hard, knotted muscles there. And your aura is very hot right now. I can help relieve that."

"Thanks, but I think I better concentrate on what's in front of me at the moment. I still have all these lovely plants, benches and walkways to finish."

"I'll leave the offer open." She leaned down and brushed her lips across the back of his neck before leaving him alone.

He went back to his work, but no longer experienced the satisfying parallel between it and painting. He'd expected some resentment toward Cissy's boyfriend Hegetting a job at RBD and being fobbed off on the Graphic Arts department without any prior consultation or warning; he would have felt the same way. But despite the reputation for rude, aggressive people, most New Yorkers were more polite than most other people; studies and his own experiences living here had proved that.

That reputation, that mythology, however, seemed to have all been poured into a concentrated manifestation in GA. He imagined an oily black slick originating below Finnegan's quad and spreading throughout the Industrial Grey Sea.

His only hope was that it hadn't reached the cafeteria.

The moment the commotion started, his first response was to see if either Finnegan had broken away from Juarez and was charging back to his desk, or if Kline was about to pounce on him again, having first undone a couple of buttons on her blouse to add even more subtlety to her approach.

When neither appeared in his field of vision, he stood up to get a better look. The number of other heads sticking above their quads confirmed again that Juarez, Finnegan and Kline were not the only other people working in Graphic Arts. Every head was turned in the same direction: the elevator that had just disgorged Nyla Rowe, Morris Triton and Jerome Remington.

The trio was coming his way, causing every protruding head to turn in his direction. He gave everyone a royal wave—a Canadian thing as a result of so many visits from the British monarchy. As the trio came closer, Finnegan and Juarez tucked in behind them, flotsam and jetsam caught in their wake to go with the red, blue and green litter floating on the IGS.

Remington carried a tube under his arm, the kind used for blueprints. When the trio arrived at his desk, Remington glanced down at what he was working on. It wasn't interest; it was a demand to get that stuff out of his way.

Jaxon shuffled the diagrams aside as Remington took the cap off the end of the tube and slid out its contents. Jaxon then stepped back to let Remington unroll the plans onto the top of his desk.

Everyone in Graphic Arts had gathered around.

"This," Remington said, "is the plaza at the front of our new towers complex on Warren Street."

Murmurs of reverence ricocheted among the crowd.

The octagonal center tower loomed in the background with two of the four shorter towers that were connected at its angled corners also visible. The three towers created the sides of the triangular plaza. The center tower formed a truncated point; the wide base was along Warren Street.

Benches, plants, paths, a courtyard and a center fountain had already been drawn on the plans along with people; a fortunate break for him.

Remington stabbed his finger into the fountain the same hard way Finnegan had attacked his work. The paper crinkled in pain. "What we need right there is something that conveys what the company stands for. Right there, Jaxon, we are going to put our new logo. Those three letters will show the world who we are, where we are and where we're going."

Unable to think of anything else, and certainly nothing smart that would elicit a kick in the shins from Rowe, he said, "It's a good central location. Everyone coming to the towers will see it."

"It will be our call sign, our beacon to the world."

More murmurs hissed through the crowd gathered around his desk. How much could they say about just three bloody letters?

"I want you to design it. Give me something new, something powerful, something inspiring and intimidating."

Had someone in the crowd gasped?

Finnegan's blotchy pink head almost blew off. Normally swarthy Juarez went pale and appeared ready to faint. Rowe, with a subtlety Kline would never master, moved closer to him in case he needed to be caught.

Triton's conceited smirk conveyed the impression that he knew the assignment had just doomed the new guy to failure and an early termination both at RBD and with Cissy.

Second day on the job and he was already put in charge of three letters of the alphabet. It had to be a set-up.

"I'll come back in forty-eight hours. You have two days to amaze me, Jaxon."

The crowd dispersed like the King's guards were riding through it brandishing swords. Remington and Triton headed back for the elevator.

Rowe said to him, "Join me for lunch in the cafeteria at noon." She then caught up to Remington and Triton and they got back into the elevator, which someone had been holding for them.

He said to Juarez, "Can I get you a paper bag or something? Do you need to sit down?"

Finnegan said, "Do you know what just happened? You were just handed the most important project this department has ever seen. Those three letters are going to be this company's symbol for decades to come."

"It's a big responsibility, I know. It may even be more than I can handle, so I'd really appreciate it if you took the rest of the alphabet. I have my hands full."

Having regained some composure, Juarez stepped in front of Finnegan and asked, "Any ideas yet, Jaxon? Any thoughts on what you might do?"

"First, I'll concentrate on getting their order correct. Maybe I'll go with R . . . B . . . D. Whaddya think?"

Finnegan had huge, doughy fists clenched and ready for action.

"Seriously," Jaxon said, "I'll probably research any previous logo iterations, read over RBD's mission statement and any other literature about how it describes itself and its future. Then I'll probably just doodle with them for the rest of the day, let them come out of the end of my arm in a natural flow, organically, ya know, just let what's going to happen, happen, then see what kind of mess I've got myself into."

That seemed to mollify Juarez, though Finnegan was still in fight mode.

Juarez once again took Finnegan in tow. "I'll check in with you later to see how you're doing. I'll reassign the Santa Fe account to someone else." Juarez gathered up the paperwork.

"Thanks."

Self-pity was a needless burden and made for a tedious personality, so he just doodled with Remington Bakersfield Draper's three titular letters until noon.

# Chapter 10

He passed six quads near the center of the IGS to get to the passage between the staff room and Juarez's office that led to the cafeteria. Graphic Arts had a large staff. The set of quads near where he sat were the only empty ones.

Rowe, as imperious as ever, was seated erect and alone at a table eating a fruit salad and cheese. It likely didn't have the flamboyance of the similar meal Cissy had eaten for dinner last night at Melloni's unless they also did take-out.

He bought himself a freshly made egg salad sandwich and a diet Dr. Pepper before joining Rowe.

"Detective Hewitt still hasn't contacted me about John Smith," he said as he sat down across from her, "if that was his real name."

"That's all wrapped up. NYPD is satisfied it was an accident. John Smith was his real name."

"Why an accident?" He took a big bite of sandwich. The pepper was appreciated, but there was too much salt and both stung against the canker sore. He took a drink of Dr. Pepper to wash it away. It didn't help much.

"He was drunk and probably fell overboard much the same way you did. It wasn't rough seas, but it was pitching a bit. You remember that, don't you?"

He swallowed; which only increased the pain and made him wince. "It's interesting that an expert on cargo container shipping had no sea legs."

"No one does if they're drunk enough."

"Smith worked at Carlsberg Gulf Bayswater Enterprises."

For a moment, she looked at him not as if he was an irritation she had to endure. She put the last piece of mango into her mouth. "He was from the Cape Town office. How's it going between Cissy and you?"

Was Remington making her monitor them?

"Fine, lovely, actually, why?" He took another bite of the sandwich and endured another explosion of pain along the top of his mouth.

"I told you, I like her. I don't want to see her get hurt. And before you get defensive, I'm not talking about you. She can handle you. When I asked you if you could keep your mouth shut yesterday, it was concerning what I may tell you about RBD, or require of you to do for me."

"My plates pretty full right now, what with three capital letters to gussy up and all that."

"RBD could be heading for more dangerous challenges than just coming up with a new logo."

"Mouth shut, ears open."

"I have noticed some irregularities in RBD's daily operations. It may turn out to be nothing, but it could be something very dangerous. I need to know I can count on your help if I have to step in to prevent disaster."

"You have the full support of Graphic Arts. What would you like me to draw?"

"Always the smartass, aren't you? What does Cissy see in you?"

"Can't imagine, but you can count on me, though I'm not sure what help I can be with problems at RBD."

"I was thinking of Cissy. I have to investigate further, but if there is a problem, she could get hurt."

"What is it, someone embezzling money, some insider trading scandal on the horizon, a Ponzi scheme—they've been popular of late—shady real estate deals? I know of this law firm in Santa Fe."

"You don't need to know the details; it's probably better that you don't. You just need to be ready if I come to you." She took out her phone and checked the time. "I have a meeting with Jerome and two of our offshore managers."

"Looking for a replacement for Smith?"

"As a matter of fact, yes; life and business do go on." She got up. "Keep this to yourself for Cissy's sake if not mine, understood?" She left without waiting for his smartass reply.

Whatever trouble Rowe thought might be coming, if any was coming at all, clearly it brought a risk to RBD and specifically Jerome Remington. If Remington went down, that affected the whole Remington family, which would affect Cissy. In the highly competitive world RBD operated in any number of things could happen. The problem was if the brown hit the fan and took down RBD and father, what could he do to protect Cissy?

Rowe could just be yanking his chain again. Were Rowe and Remington concocting something to test his loyalty to Cissy and RBD? Did they want to push him until he turned tail and ran? Giving him a job at RBD might look like a stroke of good fortune on the surface, but it also presented father the opportunity to keep a close eye on daughter's current fling. He could be using Rowe and her suspicions to do just that.

Adrian had claimed Cissy had a modus operandi for how her romantic relationships went; a series of distinct phases before they all ended. Did Remington sense some greater danger with her new one? Was he worried the Remington's would get stuck with an artist as a son-in-law?

He set down his sandwich. That was the first time the thought of a lasting relationship with Cissy that might include marriage had occurred to him.

"Try saying something irreverent now, smartass."

Rather than cut across the center of the floor as he had to get to the cafeteria, he exited the southeast doors and walked along the hallway that led to the storage and supply rooms. The longer way back would give him time to consider what Rowe had told him and what had just occurred to him about his relationship with Cissy.

Rowe could be doing the chain yanking all on her own. If she did like Cissy best and thought, probably like everyone else, that he was the worst possible thing for her, she wouldn't hesitate to say or do anything and everything to protect her.

It still came back to the same point, however. If Cissy had distinct stages to her relationships that always led to the same inevitable end to them, why worry this time? Were those close to her detecting some difference in her with this relationship? Were they seeing some greater—perhaps lasting—level of feelings from Cissy for him than for her previous flings?

He stopped. His stomach kicked as the heat and flush spread up his neck to his cheeks. Cissy might have fallen in love with him and he found himself hoping she had.

He turned right at the corner to take the next hallway. What he saw pushed his musings aside and made him step back around the corner, duck down and take another peek.

Finnegan and Kline had just come out of a storage room. Finnegan made sure the door locked behind him with a beep before tucking the rest of his shirt back into his trousers. Kline turned her skirt to get the zipper on it lined up at the back.

Bladderbot had his own Mata Hari. Had he assigned her to go all ho-down for the new guy to keep watch on whatever he was doing, to gather all the intelligence she could?

Was Butt-plug in on the mission? Did he even know what was going on in his precious Graphic Arts? Had Flirtgirl already coaxed everything she could out of him?

Whatever they were up to, it was likely with the goal of sabotaging his work on the new logo. Internal corporate espionage to benefit Finnegan's career plans.

"That's a small twist."

He watched for Finnegan and Kline to turn the corner at the other end of the hallway before continuing his walk back to his quad. The pair had separated by the time he came around the corner back to the sprawl of quad islands dotting the IGS.

"Let's take stock, shall we," he muttered as he sat down at his desk and looked at the diagram of the RBD plaza.

First working day and he gets the new RBD logo assignment that Finnegan and Juarez, perhaps everyone in GA, knew was coming and would kill for. Rowe was trying to recruit him into her service by warning him that RBD might be on the verge of some disaster that could harm Cissy as collateral damage. And Finnegan and Kline were probably out to get him over three letters of the English alphabet that they thought were so freakin' important and he could care less about.

And the revelation about Cissy's feelings could all be some ridiculous fantasy on his part. It wasn't like he had never made that mistake before.

He shook his head and got out some blank paper. The diagram of the RBD plaza was to scale and had a line box where the new logo was to go that defined the limitations to the height, width and depth of it. Ignoring the scale for now, and after briefly reviewing what he'd done before lunch, he started doodling again with the three letters.

Whatever challenges trying to sketch out a landscape on a whole canvas, the various views of the New York skyline at dawn, dusk or midday, the devastation on Long Island from Hurricane Sandy presented him, he had the whole canvas to use and he could take creative liberties in order to create the effect he wanted.

He had inserted the old World Trade Center in one skyline landscape only to abandon that. He could move a tree in Central Park, ignore or change the cars parked at Battery Park. He had put in a boat wreck on the coast of Long Island after Sandy that hadn't actually been there. It added to what he'd wanted to convey in the painting. He'd been satisfied with the result.

But what could he do with just three letters? As his level of frustration, demoralization and demotivation escalated, he had to admit to himself that while Cissy was the most precious person in his life, perhaps a few minutes with Flirtgirl in the storage room might loosen up some ideas. That was assuming he didn't suffer spontaneous combustion from guilt afterwards.

Having subscribed to the bohemian, libertine lifestyle any indecent, self-important artist should pursue, faithfulness by either party hadn't been a priority in previous relationships. With Cissy, however, monogamy seemed to be the correct—only?—course to hold.

"What is it they say: try thinking outside the box? Okay, what does that get me besides a bigger headache? Oh, I know, RBD is so last century, let's go with KRX instead. There's a lot more potential there, or maybe an S, nice and sinewy.

"KRX sounds more like a high-end, blistering, hot-licks rock guitar, or maybe some special, tricked-out rally car. RBD sounds like a constipated accountant. Enough with thinking outside the box, what would Sean do?"

"Sean Hennessey," Rowe said from behind him, "he's your best friend, isn't he?"

"He'll deny it."

"He's the successful one."

"Did you find a replacement for John Smith, maybe a Bob Jones?"

"It won't be one of those two." She stepped up to his desk and looked at his doodles.

He'd actually done a lot of variations.

She pointed to two of the simpler designs. "Those look promising. Just keep in mind our corporate image and what Jerome said earlier. You'll find the right one."

"Is that image before or after the trouble you have concerns about happens?"

"That may come to nothing. Just focus on the logo, I'll worry about the other stuff." She started to leave but turned back to add, "I may have something else in mind for you here. I'll see how you handle this first."

She left via the stairs. Staff followed her out or headed for the elevator. He'd spent the whole afternoon doodling and getting paid for it.

Reality was freakin' unreal sometimes.

# Chapter 11

Rather than go to the gym, losing another opportunity to get back to a productive routine, he walked down William Street to the Wall Street station and caught the 2 train to Brooklyn. At the end of the line at Flatbush Avenue and Brooklyn College, he walked along Avenue H to Ocean Avenue and home. His apartment was on the fourth floor of five in a building with creaking stairs, rattling handrails, peeling paint and a broken elevator.

The manager, Amrit Singh Reyat, was pleasant enough, but useless. The peeling paint on the walls and the elevator were proof of that.

When he reached the second floor landing, Hazel Legrand, 94, 4'8" tall now that she stooped, opened the door of 204 and stepped out in a threadbare, pink housecoat that revealed her very frail legs. She wore a wet towel wrapped around her head. Steam came off it.

"Hello dear," she said with a sultry tone that just shouldn't be possible at ninety-four.

He pointed to the steaming towel. "What's that for?"

"You should know, dear. This," she patted the towel, "helps contain my power of transformation and prevents any unintended transcendence to other planes of existence."

"If you do find yourself suddenly transcending when that cools off, mind your head." He started up the stairs.

Before stepping back into her apartment, Hazel said, "I left something for you at the door, dear."

Oh, crap!

His immediate neighbor was Bobby Lee Brooks from Amarillo. He had been an All-American receiver for Oklahoma, had played a couple of years in the NFL before a severe concussion and his drinking ruined both his career and his marriage. His daughter, Claudia, twelve, had come to live with him after her mother died of a drug overdose. Bobby Lee was hostile, plain and simple.

As always, Bobby Lee could sense when his neighbor had come home and opened the door to confront him. Claudia stood behind her father and waved at Jaxon when he reached the landing.

He waved back. "Hello, Claudia, Bobby."

Bobby Lee pushed his daughter back into the apartment. "You keep your eyes off her, boy, you hear me, or I'll smash your skull in, plain and simple. You hear me, boy?"

Bobby Lee extended an arm across the doorway to prop himself up. Claudia snuck a peak out from under his arm, smiled at Jaxon and waved again.

He didn't know what Claudia's mother had looked like, but she had to have been pretty because Claudia, plain and simple, hadn't got her good looks from her daddy.

Jaxon tried one more time. "Bobby, I don't use models. And if I did, I would never entice Claudia into my studio and molest her." He winked at Claudia. "I only do landscapes."

Rather than be, like, totally embarrassed to death, Claudia took her father's intoxicated defense of her virginity, purity and innocence with great humor. She could see the endearing protector in his deranged threats to the ar-teest and every other adult male in the building as proof that daddy loved her. And she was as protective right back. Bobby Lee needed his daughter more than she needed him.

As far as he could tell, while Bobby Lee barked like a soused terrier at him every day, he treated Claudia well. She had confirmed that for him one day when he and Amrit took her aside to ask about her.

If anything, he became maudlin and mawkish with his expressions of affection—that, she found, like, totally embarrassing—before he usually passed out on the sofa or she got him off to bed.

He had never heard Bobby Lee shouting at Claudia through walls that would let you hear a housefly buzzing about next door. What he had heard with increasing frequency was sobbing. Bobby Lee was more likely to harm himself than Claudia.

Like many children who didn't succumb to the hopelessness of having addicted parents, she was mature and self-sufficient beyond her age. Though only twelve, she looked grown up, indeed had a pretty and expressive face, the lovely curves of a young woman and would be an excellent model for an artist once she was legal. She was self-possessed and strong, that part of her character was both necessary and reinforced by caring for her father. But she had been withdrawn when she first arrived after her mother died. What would happen to her if she lost her father, too? She had no other family.

"You just better not try anything, boy. I'll bash you senseless, plain and simple, if you do, and that's the truth."

"The plain and simple truth, I get that."

"Get it and remember it, boy."

Bobby Lee closed the door with Claudia sneaking one more smile and wave at Jaxon before it slammed shut.

At the foot of his apartment door, he found the present Hazel had deposited. It was a brown paper bag with a dark, wet stain near the bottom. He unlocked and opened the door, picked up the wet bag, careful so it wouldn't split open, and entered an apartment with the same peeling-paint fresco as the hallways.

He immediately put the bag in his sink and opened it. Four black bananas and two cantaloupes with soft, jellied spots on their peel greeted him with the wonderful aroma of decay. Because morbid curiosity always overruled common sense and took control of him when he encountered Hazel's gifts at his door, he reached into the bag and tried to take hold of one of the cantaloupes. His fingers easily penetrated the peel into the fruit and added a whole new putrid fragrance to the bouquet that was already stuffing his nostrils.

He placed the bag into his container for compostable material and secured the lid. Most of the compostable waste he put in there came from Hazel.

Hazel Legrand was a retired dancer from the days of burlesque—all she would tell them of her past—and insisted on leaving little gifts in the form of rotting fruit at his door in gratitude for helping her with her groceries and little jobs around her apartment that Amrit never got to.

While Sean and others had warned him about possible malicious intentions on Hazel's part, he knew her offers were sincere. Hazel had arthritis throughout her body and bent, swollen fingers that could barely grip anything. She suffered from AMD and glaucoma and for relief smoked marijuana as frequently as a soldier in the trenches of World War One smoked cigarettes. She couldn't likely see, feel or smell anything untoward about the gifts she left for him. She was probably reassuring herself every day that she alone was seeing to it that the nice, young, Canadian foreigner two floors up was getting his daily requirement of fruit (fruit slurry).

She hadn't as yet assumed any responsibility for his vegetable intake. Maybe she was properly aging it all before making her delivery. He might still have broccoli pureed by putrefaction to look forward to sometime in the future.

Both he and Amrit had tried to put her off leaving fruit at his door for public health reasons, but Hazel Legrand was also selectively deaf.

With Cissy abandoning him for Penny Smythe, dinner consisted of reheated Kraft Dinner and a fried piece of ham. He'd decided the moment he entered his apartment that it was the right meal for him this evening. Take that, Melloni's. He had a Labatt Blue after finishing his meal and took another with him to the loveseat of dark-green corduroy. Cigarette burns had left scorched holes on the right armrest with sharp, twisted nylon thorns protruding from them.

He'd promised himself it would be the first thing to go once he started earning money with his art. That promise, like a few other ever so important ones he'd made to himself when he came to NYC, was still on hold and might just be rotting as badly as Hazel's gifts.

The building he lived in had no security of any kind at the front door. Jaxon supposed that was one of the promises on hold in Amrit's life. And because there was no security, Sean Hennessey, his jockey-sized, successful-artist friend from Ireland, could come right on in, climb the stairs up to the fourth floor and enter his apartment with a lit cigarette hanging from his lips.

Jaxon promised himself he would start remembering to lock and bolt the door when he came in.

"Hey," he said and took a swig of Blue.

"Be right there." Sean went to the fridge and helped himself to a Blue.

He then sat in the rocking chair Jaxon had brought from his mother's house, discarded his cigarette into a jar lid on the floor that he used as an ashtray and took a large gulp of beer.

"Ah, that hits the spot. How's the block progressing? And how's the RBD experience working out for you?"

Sean wore his artist's uniform of jeans to go with a red, saffron and green plaid cotton shirt over a black T-shirt. Sean wore black, white or green T-shirts, no other color. His hair, the color of mangy grizzly bear fur, stood up in wavering patches all over his head like herds of cowlicks suffering from Bovine spongiform encephalopathy.

They always talked about life as a series of experiences. Doing so was supposed to prevent the onset of desperation upon the realization they had ceased living and had instead settled for a merely biding-time existence. Artistic conceit and artifice, to be sure, but, hey, everyone needed some sort of battle cry to keep going sometimes.

Jaxon finished his beer and retrieved the bottle of Canadian Club whiskey. He grabbed two glasses from a rickety white cabinet near his single bed. The bottle was three-quarters full. He poured two drinks and handed one to Sean.

"Brown vodka," Sean said and took it, finished his Blue, then clinked glasses with Jaxon. "Well?"

Jaxon drank the whiskey in one swallow. It stung against the canker sore. He coughed when he said, "Today's day of work was brought to me by the letters 'R', 'B' and 'D'."

Sean chuckled and finished his whiskey. He didn't choke and cough. "Do they have a contract with Sesame Street?"

Jaxon poured two more drinks. "Remington wants a new logo for his new plaza, something that symbolizes what RBD is and where it's going in the future."

"You could always make them flaming letters or toilets."

He finished his second whiskey, which reached out to the tips of his fingers with a numb tingle. He coughed again. "I have an MFA from Columbia and what am I doing with it?"

"At the moment, you're getting drunk and whining to your best friend like a true Canadian wimp."

Rowe would feel vindicated by that statement.

Sean got up and poured the third drinks. "If you had any toughness in you, you'd punch me senseless again and throw me out the nearest bloody window. Then you'd sell the farm your mom left you to get some money and go live in the woods until you'd painted every bloody tree there."

"This advice comes from New York City's artistic world's greatest—and shortest—sellout ever."

"You must think of something original. I can't stand having that cheeky minx's bloody parrot on my shoulder all the time."

They finished their drinks together as silent, insulting toasts to each other.

Sean poured their fourth ones, emptying the bottle, before plunking himself back onto the rocking chair.

"Needs new cushions," he muttered and held up his glass. "To the Canadian wimp, a nice wimp, though."

"First of all, dual citizenship; second, I'm tough enough."

"Yeah? What about our last discussion on the topic at King Gregor's? When I said you weren't tough enough to make it as an artist in this fine city, what did you do?"

He sipped the whiskey and tried to make the crook in Sean's nose line up with his chin. It wouldn't. Each of them had broken their noses a number of times. One of Sean's breaks was his doing, which made them even, though Sean had cheated by using a coffee pot as a shillelagh to get his score. "I don't remember."

"That's because after Anatoly and I exposed you for the wimpy fraud that you are, you picked a fight with three sailors and got the bloody snot beat out of ya. Where did all your MMA experience vanish to? It took an old Russian bartender and a drunken Irish pixie to save ya."

"I got two of them before the last one hit me with that bottle. And besides all that, you're too cynical to ever be a good artist."

"Where's the other bottle?"

Jaxon pointed to the cabinet. "Lower shelf, left side. I wanted to be sure you could reach it."

Sean staggered to the cabinet and retrieved a full bottle of Jameson Irish Whiskey. "Finally, the good stuff." He poured each of them another drink. He almost missed the rocker when he sat back down.

"I am not cynical, I'm worldly, which trumps naïveté and simplicity every time, which is what you are. As your cynical brother would put it, exhibit A, your honor, have you seen Jaxon's attempts at portraits lately? I submit to you, would that this be concrete, irrefutable evidence that he is naïve, simplistic, immature and far too timid to ever achieve his goals. He is himself one big excuse after another for not getting anywhere."

"Same to you, fella."

Sean lit up another cigarette and took a long drag.

"Your honor," he said through a cloud of smoke, "I retract my last statement. He does show exceptional promise in the literary world, perhaps children books, though I'm sure his abilities as an illustrator are pure rubbish. With but those meager words, I shall entreat you to enter his miniscule intellectual world. He is a complex mix of dull and boring with a touch of tedium thrown in for good measure."

"Is it true you tried out for the lead in Spiderman, the Musical?" He finished his whiskey. "You are a short-stroking hypocrite."

"That's fabulously wealthy and popular short-stroking artist to you, pilgrim." Sean blew smoke at him and straightened up as best he could. He gripped the arm of the rocking chair as a brace, but it just rocked forward and sent him slipping off onto his knees. "Change of topic. How's it going with Cecilia? Have you come back to bed to find someone's taken your place? Has she dumped you yet? Is that why you're all alone in this bloody squalor you call home?"

"She's with her friend, Penny, no, she hasn't dumped me yet, and I'm not alone. There are the cockroaches and you. Notice how I mentioned the cockroaches first?"

"And the block? You didn't answer me the first time."

"I never answer you."

"Do you still have that dream? At last count, how many mocking faces are in it just staring back at you? You'd think they would have burned themselves into that feeble bundle of nerves that passes for your brain by now. Or is it that those faces have scorched what few synaptic connections you do have in there? Man, you can't even paint your bloody dreams. What kind of fucked-up bugger does that make ya? If you don't get over IT, you will end up cursed with regret and the lament of all bloody failures: I should have . . ." Sean began crawling over to the whiskey on his hands and knees. "Need another."

Jaxon poured more whiskey into Sean's glass.

"She is too good for you, even I know that." He took out the cigarette so he could finish his drink.

"So everyone keeps telling me. She hasn't, though."

"She doesn't know you well enough yet."

"That's what I'm afraid of." He finished his drink.

Sean sat back on his ass with a thud Neal Armstead in the apartment below would hear, feel and complain about.

"You are such a bloody loser. You're in love with her." He burped when he laughed. "Don't you know that you're only supposed to become fond of them at most? If you fall in love, you're doomed. You'll accept compromise, obscurity, castration. There will be no more experiences for ya."

He took a long drag and blew out smoke but left the cigarette between his lips as he spoke. "I'm doing everything to everyone I can get my hands on. I'm never going to have a mid-life crisis because, with luck, I'll be bloody well dead long before then. You should have seen the two I was with the other night. I'm sure neither of them was much older than that cutie next door, but they were hot."

"You go near Claudia and I'll break more than just your bloody nose, plain and simple."

Sean put down his cigarette and grabbed hold of the Jameson bottle. He clenched it between his teeth and tilted his head back to finish the whiskey; his stupid 'no-hands' trick.

Through clenched teeth, he said, "This is to all the nicker, knacker knockers out there I haven't yet had." He dropped the bottle to the floor. That would elicit another complaint from below. "You'll never make it or go to the bridge. You're bloody dead meat, my—"

Sean fell over onto his side.

"FUCK!" He growled, which made him cough again. "Shit."

Claudia could have heard him cursing. She could have heard the whole, bloody conversation.

This was not the routine to fall back into. He'd left this one behind before Cissy had come into his life, but here he was only the second night they hadn't been together since they'd met and he could barely move. This was not on Cissy and he couldn't let her become a trigger for a backslide event like this.

He slipped off the loveseat and crawled over to his bed. As was the routine in the past, he pulled off the extra blanket he kept folded up at the end of the bed and threw it over Sean before disposing of the cigarette. After placing a pillow under Sean's head, he staggered back to his bed, fell onto it and immediately began snoring.

# Chapter 12

The canker sore was raw and stinging when he woke. To the tip of his tongue it felt to be the size of a sesame seed, to his pain receptors it was closer in size to Columbus Circle. He'd missed three calls from Cissy last night. She had left voice messages about her stressful evening with Penny, though she provided no details. Her last call was a text message: pls cll ASAP. C.

He tried calling her back, but she didn't answer. Adrian had predicted she would start having reasons to not see him and not return his calls before finally calling him with an urgent need to talk to him just to break up with him. Except in this case, he was the one not returning her calls.

Sean was still on the floor, still in the same position as when he'd passed out and still snoring. He could leave an infuriating message if he picked him up and put him to bed.

Leaving his successful-artist friend where he was, he hurried through preparing for work and left. His Monday clothes were still at Cissy's. All he had here to go with his brown suit was his change of shirt from light green to light blue.

Claudia was in the hallway waiting for him as she usually did and blew him a kiss before ducking back into her apartment.

At work, his quad was clear. Flirtgirl, the second crazy Irishman he had to contend with and Juarez were keeping to themselves, or so it appeared. When he reached his desk, he noticed the paperwork on it had been moved. Someone had been snooping, but everything was still there and in order, just shuffled around a bit from someone taking a look at each sheet to see what he'd done.

He had no problem using the Building Information Modelling programs Autodesk Revit and AutoCad Civil 3D by Autodesk that RBD used for its plans of the new towers complex; he just preferred to do his preliminary work by hand. He'd scan his work into the programs today and lock up his hand work whenever he left his desk from now on.

Another difference between painting at the studio and working at RBD: while it was common for each of them to cover sensitive works of art—or certain works of art each of them but Sean was sensitive about—everyone respected each other's privacy. If you wanted to work out in the open, fine, if you wanted to draw the blankets or drapes to close off your corner, no problem. At RBD, leaving work out was an invitation to be spied on, maybe even scooped, sabotaged or robbed.

Working in the real world sucked.

His phone rang the moment he sat down. "Hello."

"Good morning, darling. I missed you last night. What were you doing? Why didn't you return my calls?"

"Sean came over. We got drunk and spent the evening making up dirty limericks about you and putting tattoos all over your body until we passed out. I do tell him everything."

"Bite your tongue."

That would certainly do his mouth a lot of good. "I like it better when you bite it."

"Shh, you don't know who might be listening."

"How is Penny?"

"Not well. Her brother and his family got mixed up in some cult in New Mexico a few years ago. They left when the leader was killed. Two weeks ago, Michael started getting threatening emails and phone calls. The police have been unable to find out who is behind it."

"Is the cult still active?"

"Not as far as Michael or the police know."

"But they think the threats are from cult members, current or former."

"According to Michael, the threats indicate knowledge of the cult's dogma and a conviction that he, Trudy and Christine have violated its doctrines and need to be punished."

"What can I do to help?"

"That's sweet, darling, but the police are doing all they can. I'm sure they will find out who's behind it sooner or later."

"That's what Penny hopes, isn't it?"

"She's trying to convince Michael to bring his family home but the estrangement between he and his father is very intense."

"Are we on for lunch?"

"Wouldn't miss it. Let's try O'Hara's."

"Great idea, see you at noon."

Cissy's phone call relieved some of the doubts that just kept creeping through his thoughts. He might be able to exorcise those doubts more effectively, though, if he could just pop Adrian in that smirking mouth of his for inserting them in the first place.

He checked to see if Juarez, Kline or Finnegan had snuck up on him while he was on the phone. They hadn't. He couldn't decide which was creepier, sneaking up on him or leaving him completely alone. Had one of them planted a hidden camera and microphone at his desk? Were Finnegan and Kline hiding in that storage room listening to what he said and watching what he did in between episodes of messing up their clothes?

He scanned the desk, stuck out his tongue and started to stick his finger up his nose when the phone rang again. "Jaxon Trevelyan."

"Jaxon," Melanie Trudeau said, "I have some good news. I've sold two of your paintings. How does that feel?"

"Fantastic. It makes me want to run home and kick Sean right in the head. What two?"

"Those two you did of the devastation on Long Island from Sandy. They're going to be part of an exhibition of pictures and paintings depicting nature's fury at the Archibald Gallery starting next month. We've got our foot in the door, so to speak."

"Cool." He wouldn't ask how much. Mel would tell him in good time and pestering her about the amount would only upset her.

"You should get back to your studio and get busy. Working is going to be too much of a distraction. It will occupy too much of your time."

She did not just tell him he'd made enough to forego working at RBD, though. "I'd never argue with you about that."

"Good thing. And don't let that Remington woman sidetrack you either." Mel could be very blunt, but at least she hadn't warned him that Cissy was too good for him.

"She's my muse, Mel."

"Don't be stupid. Cissy Remington could only be your muse if she made you miserable—that's how you work—and her focus is to make you content and settled." Her warning was beginning to sound like everyone else's from the artistic side of his life.

Maybe Nyla Rowe could be his muse, then. She certainly had Mel's prerequisite talent to be a good one for him.

"I want to see you for lunch."

Frying pan: Butt-plug, Bladderbot, Flirtgirl; fire: Mel and Cissy together for lunch; fuck me.

"I have a date at O'Hara's with Cissy. You're welcome to join us."

That should put her off. If Mel wanted to shred him about shirking his art, and she certainly sounded like she did, she would prefer it to be just the two of them so she could drive it in deep and twist it mercilessly without being interrupted by anything as distracting as Cissy wanting to mop up his blood.

"See you there." She hung up.

"All right, fine, just bend me over the desk now and get it over with." He returned the receiver to its cradle.

"What would you like me to use on you?" Rowe stood behind him with her hands on her hips. The queen was about to pronounce sentence on the beggar-thief. He was going to have his hands cut off, or something else she'd prefer to see gone.

Frying pan, fire, hell on earth. "What a lovely morning."

"Very sunny, yes, where are you with the new logo?"

He showed her the same doodles she had taken a quick look at yesterday.

She grunted. "I may have been too kind to you."

"You can't fight your nature."

Rowe raised her right hand as if she were about to smack the back of his head.

"Do me a favor." She flipped through the diagrams and pulled out one of the lobby in the central tower. Three storeys high, it had a mezzanine on the second storey for shops and restaurants. Escalators conveyed people up and down. "Put a few more features in this one. It looks spare to me."

"What did you have in mind?"

"Surprise me." She walked to the stairs and left.

He spent half of the next hour scrutinizing the lobby diagram, comparing the colors of both the painted walls and the columns. The plinths of each column were dark-grey marble veined with blue. A torus of similar hue led to a column of lighter-colored marble with lighter blue veins that had another ring around it halfway up. The entrance was a curve of floor-to-ceiling glass with the columns set back fifty feet and supporting the front edge of the mezzanine where people could stand at the railing and look down at the entrance.

The lobby floor was a mix of tiles, stone and wood inlays. The predominant colors were earth tones: browns, greens, blues and ochre. Lush, thick vines with yellow and white flowers were painted as twisting around the columns. Remington was trying to elicit a sense of entering a Greek or Roman temple (his temple).

Unable to think of what to put in the diagram, he set it aside and went back to doodling with RBD. After scribbling every permutation he could imagine, he got up and went for a walk.

His thoughts meandered along with him as he passed through the archipelago of quads. He greeted other employees in GA and was greeted in return. Some wished him well with the new logo project. Others wanted to get a peek at the final product before he showed it to Remington. No one warned him that he was headed for failure and destruction.

Eric Coe did show him a few doodles of his own. They were not encouraging or inspirational because they resembled a number of the ones he'd already tossed into his waste basket.

He still hadn't encountered Juarez, Finnegan or Kline by the time he turned the corner into the hallway that took him past the supply and storage rooms. He stopped in his tracks not because Finnegan and Kline were coming out of the storage room again fixing their clothes but because Remington, Triton and scruffy Keystone courier guy were at the door about to go in. The courier carried a large manila envelope under his arm. It was stretched to ripping by its contents. Remington swiped his card, keyed in the code on the lock, opened the door and the three men entered the room. Jaxon waited for the door to close and lock with a beep before he continued on his walk.

He felt a slight pang of sympathy for that trio should they be greeted by Finnegan and Kline doing the nasty in there. As he passed the door, however, he heard only muffled conversation between the three men that resulted in a short burst of laughter before he was out of earshot.

Aimlessness still dogged him when he arrived back at his quad. With a conviction that he'd done about all anyone could do with 'RBD' and no idea what to put in the lobby that would surprise Rowe other than introduce a giant crocodile munching on visitors dressed in togas, he had created another block to creativity. He was standing at the wall again.

He was becoming the wall.

The blank rigidity holding him in place was becoming an all too frequent sensation since leaving Columbia and making a go of it on his own. It washed out everything, leaving only white emptiness before him. It had taken away faces and at times threatened to make it impossible to even lift a brush. He might one day never get past deciding what color to start with.

If he added too many more obstacles in his way, despite Mel's recent good news, he'd have to change careers before his one as a painter even got going. Perhaps he could snag that messy guy with the bulging envelope on his way out and see if there were any job openings at Keystone Couriers. It obviously had a relaxed dress code, which would suit his wardrobe better than working at RBD did.

"There's always the mail room." Being a security guard would take care of his work clothes problem and pretty well barricade him on the wrong side of the wall for good.

Accomplishing nothing could make a day drag, but fretting about accomplishing nothing when there was a deadline looming made time go by swiftly. He had just started cursing Einstein and his stupid theories when he noticed people getting up to go to lunch.

Though it would make him late, and not surprise either Cissy or Mel, he waited for most of his colleagues to leave before going back to the hallway and waiting to see if Remington, Triton and the courier came out of the storage room. While he had been experiencing the relativity of the space-time continuum conundrum, the trio could have come and gone an infinite number of times. Physicists probably had an equation that explained it all, or else it was unsolvable. When the trio didn't emerge or come around the corner within his five minute relative-time limit, he headed for O'Hara's.

Physicists were always making up lies in the guise of thick, incomprehensible theories promising everything and supported by unending equations of nonsense to get more funding.

Being late meant Cissy, who was always punctual, and Mel were already seated at the table when he entered O'Hara's. They leaned closer together when they spotted him, exchanged words, nodded and laughed as he came to them.

Cissy, impeccably casually dressed in a grey skirt and pink blouse, rose from her seat to hug him and kiss his cheek. "Congratulations, darling, I'm so excited." She wore sandals on bare, tanned feet.

Being the idiot he was, he wondered if she'd borrowed the sandals from Penny, who had much bigger feet.

Mel, in her usual skirt suit of navy with a white blouse, patted his arm when he sat down. "From me, too, Jaxon."

O'Hara's provided menus and let the customers decide what they wanted. Their orders out of the way, there was the awkward silence he had expected right after their waitress left.

Mel ended it when she said, "The Archibald Gallery particularly liked the vivid realism of your paintings. Ted Archibald attended your showing at Columbia. He compared your work to Rockwell's illustrations, but with a darker sense of reality. That boat wreckage was a killer detail for him."

At the moment, all that mattered was the paintings had sold. Archibald could have said they reminded him of his toddler's work in his highchair with ketchup and mustard and he'd still have taken it as a compliment. Validation, no matter how minor, carried quite a jolt.

"I'm thrilled about the sale," Cissy said, "but I'm not sure Jaxon's future lies in that style of painting. Realism is fine, you certainly know what you're getting, Vermeer comes to mind, but I know you've seen the other styles Jaxon uses. Closer to the Renaissance masters might be best in the long term."

"Anything Jaxon does can be good if he keeps his focus. The variety of styles isn't the problem; it's the body of work, the quantity." She said to Jaxon, "If you were already established, you could perhaps take your time, and I would be the last to press you, but a first exhibition in a New York City gallery is going to require more works than Columbia did."

Their orders arrived. Cissy's and Mel's discussion didn't affect their appetites. Nothing could ruin his appetite.

"Darling," Cissy said, "that shirt doesn't really go with the brown."

Mel chuckled. "Don't look at his socks, then."

Then it was back to discussing his work.

"I couldn't agree with you more, Melanie. Jaxon needs to keep producing. It would be best if we could use as little of his work from Columbia as possible. That risks implying he hasn't made any progress since then." Cissy pushed her plate aside. "I have a few ideas for an exhibition of his works."

"Really?" Mel pushed aside her empty plate. "Such as?"

"I just think if more people were involved in the process, we might set up an exhibition sooner rather than later, subject to Jaxon having his work ready, of course."

He was halfway through his burger and suddenly couldn't eat another thing. Something hot and sharp was drilling up into his brain through the canker sore.

"And by more people, you mean?"

"I believe more could be done for Jaxon. I know some people, some are in Albany and Boston, and some are right here in New York. They are associated with various galleries and could be resources for us."

"I appreciate the offer, Cecilia, and I'm all for doing everything we can to arrange an exhibition for Jaxon. For now, you keep after him to stick with his work, I'll continue at my end trying to exploit my resources. Once Jaxon's closer, we can revisit our options."

Ever-so-polite smile fixed in place, Mel then excused herself in order to get to a one o'clock appointment uptown.

After she was gone, Cissy said, "Are we on the right track, darling? Is Melanie Trudeau the right agent for you?"

"You said it yourself. Right now I barely have enough work for an exhibition, especially if you discount my paintings from Columbia. And yes, I think Mel is the right agent for me. I know she's approaching retirement. She was candid about that when she presented her card to me at Columbia, but I believe she's doing all she can for me. I just need to help her out with a solid collection of work. An agent can't do much if you don't produce something worthwhile, can she?"

"I'm just not sure settling for the first agent to present her credentials was your best move. She did seem open to my offer of making other contacts, though."

"As open as Mel is ever going to be."

"I think I will go ahead and put out some feelers. I have a couple of directors in mind." She took hold of his hand, raised it to her lips and kissed it. "I'm sorry, darling, I would love to celebrate with you tonight, but Penny has asked if I could come over again. She is having a very difficult time of it."

"Are you sure there isn't something I can do?"

She kissed his hand again. "Just keep busy with your painting. That's the best thing you can do." She kissed his hand again. "I am always amazed that such huge, rough hands as these can produce such beautiful work." She leaned closer. "I would also like to point out that your hands are not the only huge, rough parts of you that amaze me."

Still holding his hand, they got up and left O'Hara's. Max pulled up in the BMW and stopped the same moment they reached the curb. He kissed her good-bye and watched her drive off before walking back to RBD. On the way, he imagined what a painting of the inside of O'Hara's would look like with all the settings and furniture bathed in light coming in through the windows, but with no people present. That image was quickly replaced by one of it in shambles after Mel and Cissy's next discussion of how his career should proceed.

# Chapter 13

Despite his intention to lock up his work, Jaxon returned to a desk still covered with the diagrams that Finnegan and Juarez were looking over.

"Shit."

He clenched his fists but instantly opened them again. Responding with wisecracks was irritating enough to everyone, but they would likely tolerate them, mostly. If he decked Finnegan or Juarez, however, Rowe would have no choice but to fire him. And Finnegan, his likely target, would also likely press charges. Bladderbot was a big crybaby, after all.

"See anything you like?" He patted Finnegan on the shoulder. "See anything that makes you excruciatingly envious?"

Finnegan just grunted. "I don't see anything."

Juarez backed himself and Finnegan away from the desk. "You don't seem to have accomplished much."

Jaxon checked the pile of diagrams. His two sheets of doodles were missing. He spun around with his fists clenched again. "Where the fuck are they?"

"Watch the language," Finnegan growled.

Juarez bristled. "Are you accusing us of taking your work?"

Jaxon glared at them, sized up each one of them, considered the moves he had to make if he wanted to take Finnegan out first, the ones he had to make if Juarez was to be first.

Behind Finnegan, he noticed everyone standing up at their quads. Kline was standing up at hers waving a piece of paper in her right hand and pointing to it with her left.

Finnegan took a step toward him.

A shot to his ribs or a roundhouse kick to the head would be worth getting fired for. A criminal record would only add to his reputation as an artist. It hadn't hurt Sean's career any.

Kline began bouncing up and down and waving the paper with great agitation. She appeared to be trying to throw it at him but wouldn't let go of it.

Finnegan took another step closer.

A shot to the Adams apple might seriously injure him. A frisson crackled through Jaxon from head to toe. He opened his hands and unclenched his jaw, but stood his ground.

Finnegan raised a fist and leaned forward. One quick shot with the fingers and he'd have trouble ever speaking again.

Kline shot him a scowl of frustration and shook the paper like she was trying to break some small animal's spine.

"Sorry. I must have misplaced them. I'm sure they're here somewhere." He held out his hand to Finnegan. "My bad."

Finnegan kept his fist ready, but he wasn't going to do anything. He was also a big, trembling sack of bluster and bluff.

Juarez took his hand. "Amazing how much stress three letters can cause, isn't it?"

He exhaled an exaggerated sigh. "At first, I thought, okay, no big deal, this is nothing, but then it set in, right? This is going to be my contribution to RBD's identity for years to come." He smiled and offered his hand to Finnegan again. "Unless I screw it up."

Finnegan didn't take his hand but he did lower and release his fist. He offered a begrudging nod of understanding.

"Can we see what you've done?" Juarez said.

"Tomorrow morning, if that's okay? There are two or three that I want to concentrate on for the rest of the day before I get your opinions on them."

Juarez did what he usually did, he escorted Finnegan away.

Kline immediately came over and handed back the two sheets of his doodles.

"Thanks. Dim aura today, I guess."

"You're very sloppy." Her stern, motherly scowl softened back to pretty concern. "Eric spotted those two heading to your desk the moment you left for lunch. I distracted them while Eric scooped those up."

"Again, thanks. Why?"

She blinked, fixed some hair behind her ear. "I like you, Jaxon. I like your rugged looks and that crooked nose of yours, those gruff hands that look more like they should be sculpting than painting." She fixed more hair. "You are a paradox to me and I don't usually see that in a man. It's intriguing."

"And don't forget my aura. It may not be at its best today, but . . ."

She put a hand on his shoulder. "But you haven't got clue one about how to look after yourself in here. Those two will eat you alive if you give them even the slightest chance, not because GA is so fucking important to them but because it isn't. Juarez has been stuck here for years. He knows where Finnegan wants to go in RBD and he's attached himself like a barnacle to the best chance he has of getting out of here. They will destroy you because it will make them look better."

"How will sabotaging the new logo design help them?"

"See what I mean? Not a clue. Those two nitwits are zeroes, keep that in mind. So, to them, if everyone else is negative, that makes them look better, superior."

"You have a good understanding of them."

"Most victims here do. I'm just trying to make sure you don't become their last meal before they find their way out."

"Why?"

She smiled and shrugged. "They don't intrigue me at all." She stroked his cheek before returning to her desk.

This was like a tiger shark warning a seal pup that two great whites were swimming nearby.

"I love New York."

He checked for Eric's head to be above his quad. When he saw that it was, he held up the papers and waved thanks to him. Eric nodded and sat back down. He then retrieved Eric's scribbles from his waste basket next to his similar ones and smoothed out the paper beside his two sheets of doodles.

For the rest of the afternoon, he tried every variation he could think of. He designed an RBD logo with identical letters upside down as if reflecting in water, tried them backwards the same way and then angled them to resemble the prow of a ship.

He made a triangle with the letters at the points. The sides of the triangle would represent what each of the original partners brought to the company and the connection between them. The problem with that was Remington was the only one still alive and he had forced out Bakersfield and Draper in a hostile coup during the subprime real estate market collapse. Remington wouldn't approve any logo design that had a deceased B above his R.

Doing the letters at a forty-five degree angle put either the R or the D at the top. Remington might like it in one direction, though his letter would be at the bottom, but he might not like the implication in the other direction that RBD was on the downward slope in business.

He did a circle with RBD curving up and down, a cross with the B in the middle, other variation using repetitions of the letters until one hodgepodge mess ended up with seven copies of each letter in it and looked like some smudgy perception test. Spot the old crone or the beautiful woman. All of them ultimately were too busy and muddled, too much like unwieldly models of the chemical composition of something or just OMG WTF.

He heard the clicking of heels on the marble at the center of the floor that became muted steps once Rowe reached the IGS.

She came to his desk. "These are them?" She pulled the paper closer and reviewed the iterations of his designs. "These two look promising." She pointed to the two alternatives he was considering. "They're simple, direct and clear. Jerome will like that."

"Will these be lighted from within or will there be lights shining on them?"

"What does that matter?"

"It affects the shading. If they're lit from within, then the materials will have to be light and translucent."

"I believe Jerome wants a solid logo, stone or marble, something strong and hard. Any lighting would shine on it, not be part of it."

"Thanks."

"You're welcome." She turned to leave.

"What do you know about Graphic Arts?"

"You work here."

"As brilliant as that insight is, what else do you know about its dynamics?"

"GA is not my concern, but I am aware that it has the lowest morale in RBD. It's no mystery what the cause is."

"Good, because that cause may be attempting to sabotage work on the new logo, which will cause some friction, friction which could cause abrasions, as in knuckles against jaws."

"You're a big boy now." She turned to leave.

"What do you know about the locked storage room?"

"What I know is you're full of irritating questions."

"So you don't know anything about it?"

"What's to know? It's a storage room."

"Then why would Jerry, Moe and Scruffy go into it?"

She came back to his desk. "Keystone Couriers provides secure delivery of sensitive and confidential material. Everything is taken to a central clearing site in Queens. From there it is delivered in unmarked vehicles."

"I supposed they were just getting more envelopes or plain brown wrapping paper for the courier. I could see how Jerry and Moe would want to do that personally for Scruffy rather than just send someone from their support staff to do it. But if you're concerned about something going wrong at RBD, it wouldn't hurt to take a look around in there."

An eyebrow rose, a smile formed then vanished. She left him to his letters.

# Chapter 14

The ambulance was just driving away when he arrived home. Amrit, Bobby Lee and Claudia stood at the entrance watching it leave. It didn't turn on its lights or siren. Claudia was wiping her eyes as he came up the stairs.

Amrit said, "I went down at three for some tea and brownies and found her on the floor. They couldn't revive her."

Bobby Lee patted his shoulder. "I'm sorry, man. I know you two were close."

Claudia hugged him tight for a few seconds before taking her dad back to their apartment.

"She'd left you some bananas and apples after you went to work this morning," Amrit said. "They were fresh this time. Your friend took them."

He watched the ambulance turn the corner.

"I should clean up in there a bit. Her niece is coming by tomorrow from Hoboken."

Jaxon followed Amrit up the stairs. Amrit entered Hazel's apartment on the second floor. Jaxon continued and started up to the fifth floor before catching himself.

His apartment door was ajar. A blank canvas from the studio rested on a stand at the end of his bed. A note from Sean taped to it said: Get busy, you bloody, sodding slacker.

He sat on the rocker and just let numbness overtake him. He'd almost assaulted a colleague or two today. He'd be a bit paranoid from now on in the freakin' Graphic Arts section of RBD's Marketing Department over three freakin' letters.

He was starting to see conspiracies in storage rooms because Rowe had mentioned a concern that something might be going wrong at RBD. In fact, she didn't actually claim that, just that something wrong might be happening at RBD.

"What is the freakin' difference?"

Flirtgirl had chosen his side in this ridiculous competition over the new logo. He intrigued her. She and Finnegan frequented the storage room Remington, Triton and Keystone courier guy used. He knew what Finnegan and Kline were doing in there, and knew also that Kline could just be setting him up for a betrayal, but what about Jerry, Moe and Scruffy?

Cissy wasn't coming to see him for the second night in a row after they were all but inseparable for three weeks straight. It shouldn't be significant, sooner or later even new lovers had to raise their heads and start dealing with the rest of their lives again, but her behavior was very much in keeping with Adrian's predictions.

"And Penny is being such a drama queen over a little tiff between her bro and daddy so she can monopolize Cissy for herself because she's just jealous of us. See? This is what you guys were talking about at the studio a month ago. Reality can twist you every which way. Just paint it as best you can but ignore it as much as possible."

Someone knocked at the door. Not only had he not locked it again, he hadn't even thought to close it.

Rowe was standing in the doorway when he responded to the knock.

She entered and walked past him into the apartment. "I thought I'd come by and let you know what I found."

He followed her to the blank canvas. "And what did you find?"

"A room full of office furniture, storage cabinets and shelves in it with stuff stored on them."

"Is it contraband office equipment?"

She frowned at him before looking at the canvas. "What is this?"

"A polar bear in a snow storm; it's a standard, like painting a bowl of wax fruit. I prefer wax fruit because the real stuff always goes bad before I'm—"

There would be no more of Hazel's gifts unless she could teleport them from her new transcendent plane of existence.

"I suppose I'm supposed to say something sarcastic like it's your best work yet."

He sat back down on the rocker. "That is also a standard. Why did you come all the way to Brooklyn to tell me you found only what you were supposed to find in a storage room?"

She sat on the corduroy loveseat. It didn't dare make a noise when she moved on it. "That's exactly why I came all the way to Brooklyn. If the storage room only has what it's supposed to have, it should be of no interest to the President and the CEO of RBD. If they needed something from it, they would send someone from their support staff to get it as you suggested. More likely, someone from their support staff would automatically retrieve any needed supplies from the room without having to be sent. They should have no reason to ever go there."

"Maybe they were just showing Scruffy around."

"Keystone couriers are always coming and going. They're nothing special."

"No more special than a storage room, I suppose."

"If they were showing him around, what would they be showing him in the storage room? And, again, why would Jerome and Morris bother to show a courier around?"

"Maybe he's looking for a used desk or a set of shelves for home."

"There's something about that storage room, I'm sure of it."

He saw no reason to tell her about Finnegan and Kline. If Rowe was right about someone, like, say, the President and his CEO being up to something wrong at RBD, what those two were doing in there probably had nothing to do with it. If there was nothing wrong going on at RBD, then ratting out them to the Chief Operations Officer would likely get them both fired. He had no concern about Finnegan's welfare at RBD, but unless Kline turned out to belong in the lowest level of Hell, he had to behave as if she was an ally. He could always rat them out later just to prove a point.

"You think they're hiding something in it."

"I only took a quick look. I'll have to be more thorough the next time."

"Or it could be nothing."

She sat back. The loveseat remained silent. "Or it could be nothing."

"What made you start thinking there might be something going wrong at RBD?"

Someone knocked on the door. Claudia came in with a bouquet of carnations before he could get off his rocker.

"It's all they had," she said when she handed them to him.

"Thank you." He took the flowers and hugged her, then went to the kitchen to get his one vase.

Claudia held out her hand to Rowe. "I'm Claudia Brooks. I live next door."

"Nyla Rowe. Jaxon and I work together." She shook Claudia's hand.

"I have to cut the stems to get them to fit."

"I'll do it." Claudia came to the table and took the scissors. She whispered to him, "Does your girlfriend know about her? Is she one of your models? She's very beautiful."

"Yes, no, and yes, she is." He was a little surprised at how easily that last part came out of him. "She is just what she says she is. As a matter of fact, she's my boss, in a way."

Rowe said, "In a way, I'm everybody's boss."

"Cool. I wanna be like you."

He returned to the rocker and left Claudia to tend to the flowers.

Once she was finished, she kissed him on the cheek and said to Rowe, "It was nice to meet you."

"It was nice to meet you."

"Thanks for the flowers," he said to Claudia's back and her wave over her shoulder on her way out.

Once the door was properly closed because Claudia was in charge of it, Rowe asked, "An admirer of your work? Is the polar bear for her?"

As easy and surprising as it had been to agree that Nyla Rowe was beautiful, it was as difficult to just tell her why Claudia had brought him the flowers. His throat felt dry and scratchy, his hands went cold. He'd never find wet, stained brown paper bags at his door again. His canker sore erupted with burning, stabbing pain. He swallowed hard and grimaced.

Rowe sat imperious and waiting for an answer. Then her countenance softened and she asked, "Someone in the family?"

"A neighbor."

"From the flowers and Claudia's affection, I presume you two were close. I'm sorry for your loss." She got up. "I will keep an eye on Finnegan and Juarez for you. If you see anything else unusual, let me know immediately."

He just sat in the rocker after Rowe left and looked at the carnations Claudia had placed in the center of the dining table. When his cell phone buzzed in his pants pocket, he realized he'd started rocking back and forth.

"Hello, darling."

"Hey. How's Penny tonight?"

"Much better. She's persuaded Michael to return to New York."

"That is good news."

"I'm so sorry for not seeing you these past two evenings."

"Penny is your friend and she needed your support."

"I'll make it up to you tomorrow night, I promise."

"I'll hold you to that."

"Good night, darling. See you tomorrow."

"Bye." He hadn't moved his gaze from the flowers the whole time he was on the phone.

He got out Union by Toni Childs, his mother's favorite album. She had left it behind for him at the farm. Once it was in his old Onkyo CD player, he went straight to the last song: Where's the Ocean. It had always made her weepy.

He then retrieved his kit from the coffee table, opened it and started sketching the flowers. He added cantaloupes, bananas and apples and a round tabletop under it all. After he had the flowers and the fruit the way he wanted them, he added two brownies on small plates, each accompanied by a chocolate chip cookie, and two cups of tea on saucers.

# Chapter 15

He didn't wear his suit jacket or a tie. He'd had enough of that.

Juarez and Finnegan wasted little time getting to his desk after he'd settled and opened his locked drawer. Juarez led the way, as would be expected from the manager of GA, but he also gave the impression of restraining Finnegan from charging.

"Good morning, Jaxon," Juarez said, "how about those two promising designs."

"How about them?"

"Let's have a look."

"I don't think so." He closed the drawer.

Finnegan said, "You told us you wanted our opinions."

"I've changed my mind. I work better alone."

"You can't do that."

Juarez held Finnegan back.

"Have you ever seen the Charlie Brown cartoons?"

"What a stupid question. What's that got to do with this?"

"Does that mean you haven't?"

"Everyone in the whole goddamn world has seen them."

"Then you know what Lucy told Charlie after she still pulled the football away when he tried to kick it even though she'd signed a promise not to."

"Huh?"

"You should always get promises notarized."

Finnegan went blotchy again. His cheeks quivered and his thick neck pulsed like he had gills.

Juarez said, "I demand you show them to us or I'll suspend you. This department is not a one man show."

A look around GA confirmed he, Finnegan and Juarez had become the thing-to-watch attraction. He also noticed Keystone courier guy come out of the stairwell and turn the corner on his way to the storage room.

"If you will excuse me, gentlemen, I was told to call Nyla Rowe if there were any problems with the logo." He picked up the phone.

Juarez had to push hard on Finnegan to get someone that massive to move.

"Nyla Rowe."

"That courier is here again."

"Is he alone?"

"Yeah."

"Keep an eye on him. I'll be right there."

He got up from his desk, noticed Juarez and Finnegan take notice of his leaving and headed for the storage rooms. And with that, he officially became Rowe's operative in what could be her own special RBD delusion. Maybe Remington and Triton were up to something behind her back because they wanted to squeeze her out. Maybe that was the something wrong she picked up. She was really just suspicious that they were trying to find a way to get rid of her. If so, choosing her side had just started the clock counting down on how much longer he was going to be here.

Cissy would be thrilled to discover he'd lined up against her father.

When he got to the corner of the hallways, the courier wasn't there.

Nyla came around the far corner from the cafeteria and stopped.

He shrugged.

She pointed to the storage room with a gesture of inquiry.

He shrugged.

After throwing up her hands at him, she went to the door, swiped her card, punched in the code and opened it. She glared at him for a few seconds before losing her patience again and jerking her head for him to come to her. She entered the room first.

The courier wasn't there. Black metal shelving units of various sizes were the single most prevalent items in the room. Grey and brown metal filing cabinets with various numbers of drawers were the next most numerous. The congestion created a grid of restrictive pathways through the clutter and made the room seem smaller than it should be.

He'd miscalculated. The most prevalent things in the room were Finnegan's tough motes of dust floating everywhere.

They searched every aisle between the shelving units and filing cabinets to confirm the courier wasn't in the room. Most of the shelving units, whether only deep enough to hold paper or books or large enough to hold boxes for desktop computer towers, printers, faxes and the like, were empty.

The few that had anything on them contained exactly what would be expected in a storage room for a company like RBD.

He returned to the entrance. Rowe made another quick search, including the aisles he had been responsible for, before joining him at the door.

"Did he come back your way in the hall?"

"Once I spotted him, I kept him in sight until he went around the corner, then I kept watch on the corner as I approached."

They exited the room. Rowe made sure the door closed and locked with a beep the same way Finnegan had.

He checked to make sure his shirt was tucked in. He then checked each corner at the ends of the hallway to make sure no one was peaking around them because the only thing better for him than siding with Rowe would be rumors circulating through RBD of them behaving like Finnegan and Kline.

"Could he have come around the corner I used before I got here?" Rowe took the nine steps required and looked around the corner.

"It's possible, but it's also possible he could have gone into any of these other rooms." He counted six other doors. "Only one of the others is locked: Mechanical and Electrical."

"I'll check them later."

"What are we looking for?"

She glared at him again, but she didn't seem to be looking at him so much as going over something in her mind. She was considering what more to tell him. "I'm not sure."

"But you think Jerry, Moe and Scruffy have something to do with it?"

Her glare didn't last as long this time. "I have no idea."

"But John Smith had nothing to do with whatever you are suspicious about?"

Her eyes locked onto his. Her eyebrows scrunched; that was the only way to describe them. If Rembrandt had painted her like that, most of her face would have been dark and viewers of her portrait would have thought she was either in a state of great anguish or had suddenly become possessed by a demon. He preferred her as the confident, imperious Nubian queen.

"I'm not sure anymore."

"I'm going back. Remington is coming to see what I've done with the new logo. This may be my last day at RBD."

Rowe came with him. He didn't get the sense she was providing moral support so much as she was uncertain what to do next. When they turned the corner, Kline was standing at his desk.

New York City was tough, hard, cold, fantastic and undeniable. It kicked you, crushed you and ignored you. It could even embrace you. But—come on!—even in New York City, how can a graphic arts department have this much intrigue? At least having Rowe with him was likely to scare Kline away.

Kline remained where she was, however, and smoothed her clothes when he and Rowe arrived. She looked everywhere but at them.

"It's okay, Elaine. I've kept Ms. Rowe up to date on my progress with the logo, every damn aspect of it."

Kline sighed and whispered, "They're getting desperate. They're arguing with each other, a very bad sign. They might resort to anything."

Rowe said, "Like what?"

"Anything."

Rowe asked him, "How many versions do you have?"

"If you're asking how many I would present to Remington, I have it down to two. If you're asking how many I've done in total, how many stars are there in the sky?"

"Do you have back-ups?"

"Not really, no."

"Do you have a plan B, a second team that you can show Juarez and Finnegan?"

Picking up what Rowe had in mind quicker than he did, Kline said, "Good idea."

"I can get a couple." He took out his sketches and rummaged through them. He pulled two others out. "What do you think?"

She didn't make a face. "They'll do." She said to Kline, "Go fetch our two pit bulls." When Kline left, she picked up the two alternatives and said to him, "Follow my lead and for God's sake, sound convincing."

"Slick."

"I'm nefarious by nature."

"No real surprise there."

Kline didn't take long to return with Finnegan and Juarez because they had been loitering outside Juarez's office watching what was happening at his quad.

Rowe handed the sketches to Juarez and said, "I believe Jaxon has something to say to you."

"Those are the two designs I think are ready for Jerry to review."

The first logo had the letters constructed from chain links alternating in the black, green and white colors of the company.

"At first," he said, "I thought the links represented the strength of RBD and harkened back to the company's origins in ironworks and construction. It was when they forged RBD's reputation for toughness."

"I like the connection to RBD's past," Juarez said, "but these days, chain links are common and can be misconstrued as having other meanings."

Jaxon touched his finger to his nose. "My thoughts exactly once I set it aside for a bit, so I tried a variation of the strength and toughness heritage with the second one."

The second logo was made up of stick figures of humans. "Now, it's only a crude, preliminary mock-up."

Finnegan snorted. "You can say that again."

"It's only a crude, preliminary mock-up, but it goes to the real heritage of RBD: its people."

"It looks fiendish," Rowe said. "Once the figures are completed, it would look like people being bent and twisted in torture."

Thinking of Remington, Triton and her with Smith had prompted the design.

"We definitely can't go that way," Juarez said.

Finnegan and Juarez smiled exactly the same way, as if they simultaneously realized the golden boy was shooting himself in the head in front of Rowe. The two great whites had just smelled blood and sensed wounded prey thrashing about.

"Right you are the both of you, so, how about these two?"

He trumped the first two with one logo of the letters superimposed over a drawing of the new RBD towers complex and a second that just had the three letters with poles at the tops flying the banners that symbolized RBD's main business ventures: shipping, real estate and financial.

"I like that second one," Rowe said. "I like the way you picked up the banners posted on each floor. Jerome came up with those, you know."

Kline said, "I definitely like that one better. The first one is great at capturing RBD's future, but it's a bit busy, don't you think?"

"I like it," he said, "but I must admit I've been bouncing back and forth between the two of them."

Finnegan, with a slightly diminished version of that toothy, predatory grin still on his face, said, "I didn't think you would come up with something very good, but they're both acceptable. I prefer the second one as well, though they are both significantly better than those first two."

"Well," he said, "looks like we have a winner. We'll give the other one the congeniality award."

He put the second pair of drawings in his desk's left drawer and locked it up. He gathered all the other candidates and slipped them into the right cupboard that didn't lock.

Rowe took out her phone and called Remington. She talked quietly and briefly before hanging up. "He'll come by at two o'clock this afternoon. He's looking forward to seeing what you've got for him."

Everyone dispersed, leaving him holding the keys to his desk drawer. He went back to doodling with RBD because artists were OCD perfectionists at their core. When he finally got up to stretch out the stiffness spreading through his neck, everyone was going to lunch and Cissy was coming straight for him.

She kissed him and looked down at his desk. "That looks wonderful. Is that it?"

He turned it over and covered it with other papers. "It's one of them. How did you get in here?"

"I was visiting father. Come on, we have reservations for lunch at O'Hara's."

"You can make a reservation for lunch there?"

She took his hand. "I can."

They took the elevators with everyone else to the lobby and walked out into a warm but breezy May afternoon in Lower Manhattan. He felt his face warm in the sun followed by a caress from the cool, flirtatious wind off the water. New York City always invigorated him when he was outside. New Yorkers walked everywhere as much because this was a great city to walk in as because traffic was impossible.

Cissy just stopped. "What is he doing here?"

Sean Hennessey jogged across the plaza to them. "Good, I didn't miss you. I've come for lunch."

"Great. We're on our way to O'Hara's."

"Yes," Cissy said, "please, do join us."

Jaxon was sure he could see her breath.

# Chapter 16

They settled at O'Hara's and placed their orders quickly.

Sean said to Cissy, "If you keep frowning like that, those furrows will never come off your lovely forehead."

"I am not frowning."

"Maybe you're in pain, then."

"That's a bit more accurate."

"Can I get you something?" Jaxon looked for a waiter.

"It's just a headache. It came on suddenly once we were outside. I'll be fine."

Sean patted her hand. "You just need to eat something. You look past peckish on the way to famished."

She smiled at Sean, but didn't bite him or kick him under the table. She did look at his hand as if she were trying to shoot laser beams out of her eyes at it.

Sean chuckled and took it away. "Jaxon has once again demonstrated that while he may have great potential as an artist, he has the social graces of a bloody . . . well, he doesn't have any. I'm Sean Hennessey." He offered his hand again. "I understand I was responsible for bringing you two lovely people together."

She shook it lightly before pulling hers back. "Yes, we did meet at one of your exhibitions; that lurid one on the seedier side of town."

"You were just passing through, I'm sure."

He said, "I wonder what's keeping our food."

"Jaxon defended you valiantly. You have a very loyal friend."

"That's why I haven't bothered to get a bloody dog."

"I understand the exhibition was a big success for you."

"On two counts."

Jaxon made a fist. If Sean was going to start bragging about the two women he bedded together after the show, he would have to punch out his best friend for the third time this year. Another broken nose would just give him more character.

Cissy said with that same frosty tone, "I heard a major national drug store chain put in a large order for prints of your work to hang in their pharmacy section next to the anti-smoking posters. You know the ones; they show people who have died from cancer and other appalling diseases."

He laughed loud enough to draw attention from the other patrons. "Timor mortis contrubat me."

She would not be deterred. "And a major auto repair chain wants to hang them next to those risqué calendars in their greasy shops."

The food arrived, but Cissy didn't quit.

"I particularly appreciate your recent slapdash works under the theme of modern civilization. I'm amazed at how your paintings can be so garish and dingy at the same time. They exude a saprophytic quality that should make them all the bloody rage at Halloween." She did a passable Irish accent.

Sean just laughed louder before taking a long drink of beer. "My trifles come as treasures from my mind. They are but fine knacks for the ladies. The virgins and the doves do worship me."

Now he was trying out his fractured poetry on her.

"The pigeons, too, I imagine if you stand still long enough." Cissy pointed to his beer. "You have paint on your hand. Some hydrochloric acid should take that right off."

Sean held it out to her. "Couldn't you just lick if for me?" He said to him, "You didn't tell me she was a straight-A student at—"

"Say it and I'll punch you right in the face."

"Tell me, Cissy," Sean said, "do the rich inherit their artistic tastes or is that just something else they retreat to a bloody clinic in Europe to have injected into them?"

Jaxon took a bite of his burger. A corner of it jabbed into the top of his mouth, forcing a grunt out of him.

Cissy, smile frozen in place on her smooth, lovely face began on her salad.

Sean finished his beer, caught the waiter's attention and ordered another one.

"I like you, Cecilia."

Oh, crap, he was using her full name. He had a nasty zinger ready for her that was going to lead to a fistfight or he was going to go after her even with her boyfriend sitting there. Either way, a fistfight was likely inevitable. And if he started singing lines from Paul Simon's song, there was going to be a proper Irish donnybrook in O'Hara's and not even his shillelagh would save him. No one here was going to be spared.

"Did you know Jaxon was an honors student in physics before he changed over to painting?"

She glanced at him. "Actually I do."

"Once he realized there was no way to explain everything with any certainty, he quit and picked up his brushes again. I'm sure it was for the best. Physee-cyst has always sounded to me like some bloody thing bubbling up on your arse that needed to be lanced."

He never let up on that joke. And that accent of his, that stupid, melodic Irish accent and that bit of boyish, rambunctiousness, that pixie tenor to his timbre and his singsong delivery smacked of knowing something you didn't, and the joke was on you. And he was using it on Cissy.

If he resorted to that stupid, no-hands drinking straight from the bottle trick, well, hell, it was straight to the floor with him, then, on his scrawny, pimply, bloody arse.

Jaxon curled his left hand into a fist. It wasn't jealousy per se; it was more of a requirement between him and Sean to let the lecherous leprechaun know he couldn't get away with being so bloody obvious in front of him.

His fist popped open and he could only stare at his best friend, however, when he heard what came out of him next.

"Cissy, you are a treasure, and I envy Jaxon for finding you. At first, I thought you were one of those wealthy artist groupies, the kind who is convinced she's discovered the next big thing until she gets tired of his bloody big thing and discovers the next one. But you're not, are you? You really do believe in him."

"I do and Jaxon will not be going in your direction."

"I quite agree. I'm the hot stuff at the moment. I'm the campy, diminutive, avant-garde rock star of the New York art world. Almost every woman, particularly bloody virgins, wants to lift her shirt for me and cuddle all night long. I can't help that."

Cissy stopped eating her salad and just stared at Sean.

"It's what I do because I have to, but if our friend here can just get a decent start, he'll still be going strong when I'm dead drunk in an alley somewhere and no one even remembers my name. Fifty years from now, Jaxon's work is going to sell for billions of dollars; mine, if I'm lucky, will still be in those greasy auto repair shops right next to the risqué calendars and those adorable bloody pets playing cards."

The impish prankster smiled broadly. The zinger he had in mind was for both of them. He made them wait for it while he drank half of his second beer first.

"You love in this, and dwell in lover's eyes." Sean then leaned over and smacked the back of his head. "Jaxon bloody well loves you, too, dear Cissy."

Cissy's lips parted, as close as she would ever get to gaping.

Sean fell off his chair laughing, a shrieking banshee leprechaun. Almost everyone was looking at them. Since starting up with Cissy, it seemed he couldn't do anything in public without drawing the attention of a crowd.

Two waiters rushed over to help Sean back to his chair and made sure he hadn't injured himself.

"You two make the cutest couple," he said as the waiters returned to their work. He giggled. "I could just pinch your cheeks." He finished his beer.

Cissy moved the kale around on the plate with her fork.

Jaxon took a long drink of water in an attempt to lubricate his dry, collapsing throat and stinging, throbbing mouth.

"Give up?" Sean was waving to request another beer.

"We surrender," he said hoarsely.

Cissy looked up at him and smiled. There was no chill in her voice anymore when she said, "Uncle."

"I did warn you he was sneaky and damn near invulnerable."

"I feel so warm," Sean said. "Just let me pinch them once."

"If you even try," Cissy said, "I will stab you with my fork."

"I'm done." He finished his third beer in one gulp but without the stupid trick, got up and, before Cissy could make a move with her fork to defend herself, bent over and kissed her cheek. "Gotcha."

He slapped the back of Jaxon's head again as he went past. "Now there's a lassie for ya, laddie, and dat's a fact." The giggling pixie hooted as he went through the front door.

Cissy went back to moving her salad around.

He took one last bite of his burger, chewed it vigorously. The pain in the roof of his mouth rose up to behind his eyes like someone had just struck the gong on that carnival test of strength apparatus. He swallowed with difficulty. His cheeks burned, as did his ears and neck. His hands were cold.

With her head bowed, Cissy looked up at him and smiled that smile again.

"Don't let him get to you. He has a penchant for putting words in people's mouths just to stir things up."

She raised her head with that smile still in place. "Is he always that accurate?"

God, she was beautiful. "I'd say he hit the bull's-eye this time."

"I would say so too."

They finished lunch and headed back to RBD. Cissy held his hand and clung to his arm.

He kissed her forehead. "Now that's out of the way, what are you doing this afternoon?"

She raised his hand and kissed it. "I'm still lining up donations of money and food."

"How is Penny doing?"

"About the same as last night; she's anxious to have them back home. What are you doing?"

"Do you remember our talk about whether or not animals have feelings?"

"Yes."

"Do you think they can feel as giddy and foolish at the same time as we do now?"

"I bloody well hope so. You didn't answer my question."

"Your father's coming by at two o'clock to see my new logo design. I have two I hope he likes."

"Do you have a favorite?"

"I hadn't really thought about it."

"Only show him one. No matter how good they might be, and I'm sure both are, father will view your presentation of two as being indecisive. He's very black and white that way. If he's charged you with a task, you have to be confident in your results. Father hates every shade of grey there is."

# Chapter 17

Cissy waved at him from the lobby as the elevator doors closed. He rose up to the first floor of RBD, the upper limit of that particular elevator, not because it couldn't go any higher, but because Remington had insisted it be assigned only for RBD use and restricted to that floor. He took the other elevator seconded for RBD's exclusive use up to Graphic Arts. He did all this by rote because he kept running through his smorgasbord of emotions that Sean had presented him.

He loved Cissy, okay, fine; he'd known that their first evening together. He'd argued with a woman he'd met at his best friend's exhibition, had then had wild, passionate, wicked, dirty sex with a woman too refined and beautiful for him—forget the too rich part for the moment—including out on her apartment terraces when the temperature was barely above freezing.

He had just jumped off the edge right into it. He'd spent the next three weeks enjoying and hording every delectable inch of her and every moment they spent together only to spend the time when he wasn't with her worrying about their relationship. He had Adrian to thank for some of that worry. He hadn't lifted a brush or sketched anything until last night when he drew the flowers and his remembrance of Hazel.

Nothing like screwing yourself into the ground, digging your way out to binge on the pleasures only to screw yourself back down again once she's gone. If that isn't love, what is?

He'd read an article about addiction that explained the addiction came not from the high of whatever you were on, but from a desperate need to find relief from the misery you felt when you came down, ergo drinking the other night with Sean after abstaining since New Year's Eve.

Now you're comparing your love of Cissy with addiction. Thinking like that would definitely mess it all up eventually. Round and round and down we go.

Rote got him back to his desk. The open drawer snapped him out of his attempt to auger all the way down to Hades.

The sharks had taken the bait, but the hardest part of the plan would come at two o'clock.

Finnegan and Juarez weren't lurking nearby. The door to Juarez's office was closed and likely locked, possibly even barricaded.

Kline came over and sat on the corner of his desk. "You've noticed, then."

"It was hard to miss."

"I forgot Juarez had a set of keys for every drawer. Your quad's been empty for so long it slipped my mind."

"I was counting on him having keys. I couldn't make it too easy."

"I only hope Remington doesn't like them." She slid off his desk, kissed the tips of her fingers and then touched them to his cheek. "And that he likes whatever else you came up with. Be confident; your aura is very powerful right now."

"Can you get Eric over here when Remington comes?"

"Sure."

"Keep your distance. If it goes badly, don't come over. If Remington gets to me with a smile on his face and my aura still intact, you and Eric come join us."

"Why?"

He kissed the tips of his fingers and touched her cheek. "I help my friends out as much as they help me."

Kline blushed and left.

There was nothing to do but pick one of his two alternatives per Cissy's advice and wait the twenty minutes until Remington was due to come by. He was still going back and forth between the two options when the elevator doors opened.

Remington, Triton, Rowe and Keystone courier guy exited the moment it did. The two great whites dressed in blue Armani came out of Juarez's office holding the pilfered logo designs.

Offering them as their own didn't slow Remington and his entourage one bit. Remington looked at what Juarez and Finnegan showed him and listened to an almost identical spiel to the one he'd given them. A bemused smile spread across Remington's face as his hand went up to silence the sharks.

Triton was as inscrutable as ever. Rowe kept glancing between Jaxon and the courier. It was always the same courier from Keystone, always in the same shabby uniform. Had Remington seconded him for exclusive service to his office?

He heard clearly the last of Remington's rejection as the group reached his quad.

"The banners are a thing of the past. Unless those are Jaxon's logos, and I certainly hope they are not, I think I will see what he has to show me."

The sharks were dispatched. They could hardly fob the design back off onto the seal pup after taking credit for it. Now the difficult part began.

"Good afternoon, Jaxon. What have you got for me?"

Finnegan and Juarez were conniving shitheads, and as such, only required a few seconds to realize they'd been set up. Finnegan's blotchy complexion made him look like an amateur kabuki player who didn't know how to apply his make-up properly. Juarez just stood with his arms at his sides. A dead white in Armani blue and he knew it. There was nothing left for him to do but go belly up, sink to the ocean floor and let glowing, translucent creatures devour him.

Jaxon removed the top sheet of paper to reveal a diagram of the plaza with the RBD towers in the background. On the mount where the logo would go, the three letters curved together to form a sphere that contained a silver globe within. The sphere rested on a torus that exhibited the full name of the company on a plaque in capital letters: REMINGTON BAKERSFIELD DRAPER.

"Why this?" Triton said.

"To philosophers and mathematicians—even to the universe, some would say—a sphere is the perfect shape. Here, the inner sphere represents the core strength of RBD: its workforce. The larger sphere of letters represents RBD's extended global reach now that it has added cargo container shipping to its portfolio."

Rowe asked, "Why silver?"

"That can be changed. I left it as an unadorned, perfect sphere, as I said, to represent the core strength of RBD, but we can changed the color to whatever we want."

He took a deep breath and pointed to the letters. "We have the company colors of black, green and white in the larger sphere. The full name on the torus is embossed on a plaque. It's hard to see, but." He took out a magnifying glass and handed it to Remington. "If you take a look at the burnished metal that will hold the complete name, you will notice a map of the world will be etched onto it to indicate RBD's presence everywhere. It will be clearer on the larger scale mock-up."

Rowe gave him a nod of approval. It kept him from hyperventilating.

"What we have is RBD as a formidable player in the world of international business. From its core strength to its global reach, RBD doesn't just stand for Remington Bakersfield Draper; it stands for Reliable, Bold . . ."

Remington stopped inspecting the design with the magnifying glass. "And?"

"Caught me on that one. At the risk of sounding indecisive, I couldn't make up my mind between Determined, Dedicated, Dynamic, or . . . ?" He shrugged.

Elaine and Eric had been watching from her quad. He signalled for them to join the group.

"Dynamic," Remington said. "It describes our future."

"Reliable, Bold, Dynamic; works for me."

At that Rowe frowned.

"Elaine and Eric should be credited with assists. Elaine gave me feedback throughout the project. Eric came up with the plaque design with the classic flat map of the world on it."

"The project is complete," Remington declared. "RBD has its new logo. Well done, all of you." He shook Eric's hand, then Elaine's.

When he took hold of Jaxon's hand he pulled him aside. "Join me at my club for dinner tonight. Max will pick you up out front at six."

Remington, Triton, Rowe and Keystone courier guy all left. Again, someone had held the elevator for them. Rowe didn't look at him as the doors closed.

Juarez hadn't moved since realizing he'd been duped. Finnegan's mouth had gaped a few times as though he was going to say something, but he had otherwise remained a mute spectator to his defeat until Remington and entourage had left.

"Fuck you, Trevelyan," Finnegan growled, "fuck you to hell and back."

"Same to you, buddy, plus infinity and beyond." That last part had always stomped his foes into doggy poop when he was ten years old. There was no reason for it not to work just as well in RBD's Graphic Arts.

"Fuck all of you." Finnegan grabbed hold of his barnacle and towed him back into the manager's office. He slammed the door shut.

Eric said, "Thanks for the credit, Jaxon."

"I did steal your plaque design, so it was only fair."

Eric shook his hand before returning to his quad.

Kline said, "That was—"

"Please do not say nice. I hate it when people say I'm nice. It's like sticking a post-it note to my back. Ridicule soon follows."

"How about generous?"

"I can live with that."

"You should know, though, that you've just created two bigger enemies than before."

"No good deed."

"Juarez is going to be terrified now that he'll lose his job or you'll be put in charge unless he can take back some cred, which will most likely involve somehow making you look bad."

"Not going to happen. I don't think I'm going to be here much longer."

His desk phone rang. Kline returned to her quad.

"Jaxon Trevelyan."

Cissy said, "How did it go with father?"

"He's invited me to join him at his club for dinner."

"Wonderful. Come to Personnel right away."

"What are you doing in—?"

She'd already hung up. 

# Chapter 18

He went to Personnel right away.

Cissy was standing at a desk talking to a woman.

"Jaxon, this is my other best friend, Bethany Ross."

Not an athlete like Penny, Bethany was barely over five feet tall and under one hundred pounds. A head of luxurious chestnut hair made him think of what Hazel might have looked like at that age.

Sean would think she was just the right size for him, though he didn't usually concern himself with attributes like height in women when he went into full seduction mode. He called himself the shamrock Casanova. Only best friends would tolerate hearing boasts that conceited and stupid.

"Are you related to the flag lady?"

"About eighteen times removed on my father's side."

"I've just asked Bethany to keep an eye on you for me while you're here."

"You're going to have to be quick then. I've been invited to the club after just three letters. Wait till you see what happens when I get through with the rest of the alphabet."

"I have to rush off, I'm afraid," Cissy said. "We have a big charity gala planned for summer solstice, lots still to do." She kissed his cheek. "Congratulations, darling, I'll call you later to see how your evening went. Sean was right."

She waved at them just before getting into the elevator.

"Doesn't she trust me?"

Bethany said, "About what?"

"Oh, good, someone else to spar with."

"Congratulations on your triumph with the new logo. I mean that. Now you enter his inner sanctum."

"I hadn't worried about it until you put it that way."

"You're going to meet some of the most powerful people in New York, maybe anywhere."

"Would it be too embarrassing if I fainted here at your desk or should I wait until I get to the club?"

"I'm serious, Jaxon. Jerome Remington is a ruthless man."

"I figured that out on my own."

"I mean ruthless to the fullest extent you can imagine that word means. I grew up with Cissy. I've watched her father in action. He could make a Nazi Gestapo officer or our best interrogators at Guantanamo cringe."

She crooked her finger for him to come closer. "I once saw him grab someone by the throat at a party. He squeezed until the man passed out. No one there had the courage to intervene. He knows he can do just about anything he wants because he has the power behind him. He could probably bring down Washington if anyone ever tried to stop him."

Had he squeezed Smith too hard before dropping him over the side? "While I do appreciate the hyperbole, no one is that powerful."

Bethany took hold of his wrist and pulled him even closer. "Just keep your mouth shut at the club. Then do yourself and Cissy a favor once you're out of there, keep it shut."

"Oh, wait, I know this one, forever, right?"

She dug her nails into his wrist. "When you paint, are you trying to represent reality, just describe it, give your impression of it or explain it?"

"I'm usually better with essay questions, but if I had to choose, I would say understand it. I can hardly explain reality if I don't understand it. By painting representations of it, I am describing my idea of it as well as my impression of my idea of it, or, more precisely, revealing its impression on me and my ideas."

"That doesn't make you dizzy?"

"Only on yachts out in the Atlantic."

"If you hope to continue your relationship with Cissy and your pursuit of the highest level of enlightenment to the point of knowing truth in your painting, keep your mouth shut about anything you are told or overhear tonight."

She let go of his wrist and went back to work as if he had just disappeared in front of her. She had left scratch marks but hadn't drawn blood.

Just one, that's all he wanted, just one person in this world that was Cissy and Jerome Remington, RBD and his need for money who didn't have sinister suspicions, warnings or intentions. Even his best friend's prank on them of declaring what neither one of them had the courage to say to the other seemed less the exhilarating release now than it had at lunch.

"I blame John Smith," he muttered on the way to the elevator. "He started all this."

He returned to his quad in Graphic Arts.

The aftermath of his triumph with the new logo design was, as expected, anti-climactic. Finnegan and Juarez were still cloistered in Juarez's office trying to figure out how best to prepare the seal pup for dinner. As a result of their smashing their heads together repeatedly, he had nothing new on his desk to keep himself occupied. Everyone else in Graphic Arts was busy with whatever they were working on. Even Kline hadn't been watching for his return so she could come back over.

After clearing out the losers and his preliminary drawings, he went over to the floor-to-ceiling windows and looked out on the plaza. Keystone courier guy was crossing it carrying a package the size of a shoebox wrapped in plain brown paper.

On the way back to his quad, he noticed Kline and Finnegan talking together at her quad. She nodded at him but waved him off when he started over to her. Kline had the diplomatic talent of straddling the fence between warring factions in GA and come out a little spanked but otherwise unscathed. Finnegan would be looking for as much comforting as he could get and she'd give it until he moaned helplessly in her arms.

By the time he was back at his desk, Kline and Finnegan were furtively headed down the hallway to the storage room. If they were using the same storage room as Remington and Triton, how had they managed to so far avoid colliding with each other? Was there some secret code posted outside the room when it was in use by one or the other that he and Rowe had missed? That was an absurd idea. Remington and Triton would never agree to something like that.

Restless, and rather than risk confronting Finnegan and Kline, he went down to the International Business Department to spend the last fifteen minutes of work and the hour he had to wait before Max arrived seeing what the rest of RBD looked like. His concern about sinister things and people at RBD popped up again about fifteen minutes after everyone had left for the day when he saw a man in IBD acting even more furtively than Finnegan and Kline had.

The man was black, in his early thirties, over 6'6" tall and athletically muscular. He was looking everywhere as he went from desk to desk checking for something. The desks were also arranged in quads, but their shades-of-tan dividers were taller than the ones in GA. It wouldn't be possible to play prairie dog in IBD because anyone trying to see over the dividers would have to be at least as tall as the man sneaking around.

Keeping watch on the man, Jaxon made his way to a desk and called Rowe's office. After four rings, he got her voicemail. He hung up rather than leave a message.

The man had made it past two supervisors' offices to the opposite end of the IBD floor. The offices were defined by grey, padded dividers two feet higher than the ones used for the quads, but they didn't reach the ceiling and there were openings only, no doors, as entrances. The supervisors and staff would have little privacy in those offices for any confidential conversations. It would be hard to conspire against RBD in them.

Jaxon tucked in at the end of a set of shelves.

The man hadn't found whatever he was looking for. He hadn't taken anything from any of the desks. He hadn't sat at any of them until now. He turned around to come back across the floor but stopped at the third quad on the way and sat down.

Jaxon had to sneak past three quads at his end before he could regain sight of the man, who was searching the desk top and trying the drawers and doors.

He rummaged through the one drawer he could open but still didn't find whatever he was looking for. The other desk drawers and the doors to the cabinet beside it were locked. His agitation increased as he searched through everything on the desk again. He dumped the pens and pencils out of their holder, checked under the phone as well as the bottom of it. He lifted the blotter to look under it.

Was this Rowe's concern? Had people reported thefts from their workstations? That would be a matter she would likely refer to Security to investigate. Had people reported attempts to break into their desktops? Had some reported successful hacks of their passwords and unauthorized use of their computers? Despite being told not to, people often wrote down their passwords, which was what this guy could be looking for.

What would Rowe think of him if he delivered a solution to her? Would Remington invite him to lunch at the White House?

But this guy was big.

He was confident he could handle someone bigger than him if the guy was pudgy and soft like Finnegan, but this guy was big and hard and strong and might not just give up and come quietly. The man had a firm jawline, a broad face with prominent cheekbones that could break knuckles, a shaved head and he looked like he could give just as hard back, maybe harder.

His triumphant day could end with him being beaten into a coma or worse. The yin-yang of the universe was fickle.

In ten minutes, Max would arrive for him. He could tell Rowe about the man tomorrow. He could tell Remington what he'd seen when he got to the club and let Remington take care of it. It was the prudent thing to do.

Being prudent would have to wait, however. The man had just spotted him and was coming his way quickly.

Jaxon folded his hands into fists and went toward the man every bit as quickly. On the way, he spotted any number of things he could use to make his blows harder.

"Can I help you with something," the man said with an African accent.

Jaxon's hands opened and he stopped.

The man came to him with his hand held out. "My name is Nyu'tenga Equaene, but everybody just calls me Nyu. It stuck from college."

Jaxon shook his hand. "Jaxon Trevelyan from Graphic Arts; everyone there just calls me asshole. Ah, what are you doing?"

"I could ask you the same thing."

"I'm waiting for Jerome Remington's car to take me to his club."

It was a calculated risk. Letting Equaene know he knew Remington might scare him into cooperating or fleeing, or it might prompt him to attack. The desk to Jaxon's right held a spherical paperweight made of marble. He could duck under any swing and grab it for a weapon.

"You know Jerome Remington?"

Okay, not everybody at RBD knew Remington's daughter's new boyfriend had got a cushy job in GA.

"I know him."

Equaene's voice lowered though they were the only two there. "I think something is wrong here but I haven't been able to find any evidence yet."

"Who are you?"

"I'm from Nairobi, Kenya. I attended Duke University on a basketball scholarship."

"Oh, you're that Nyu Equaene."

"I played forward. We made it to the final four my senior year, but lost to Michigan State in the semi-final."

"You didn't get many calls go your way in that one."

Equaene shrugged and said, "Part of the game."

"How did you end up here?"

Equaene looked around IBD. "I have an MBA in international business studies. I'm on a two year internship in this department to get experience. I'm hoping to join my country's diplomatic corps one day. I speak English, Swahili, German, French, Russian and Farsi."

Was Equaene hoping he would pass that resume on to Remington? "And you're only an intern? I'm barely qualified to deliver the mail here compared to you."

There was a lot of relief in Equaene's laughter. "Jaxon, can I trust you?"

"It's a little late to ask that now, don't you think?"

Equaene frowned.

"Yes, you can trust me. What is the problem?"

"I don't know yet."

Equaene and Rowe were cut from the same cloth of paranoia.

"What do you suspect?"

"Something doesn't seem right with some of RBD's overseas business ventures, but I can't find a paper trail. Everything is perfect."

"Ah, therein lays the rub." It wasn't even a good imitation of Sean.

"But not everything is perfect. Quite by mistake, Jaxon, I found out RBD has initiated business ventures in Kenya, Ivory Coast and Angola, but I can't find anything more about what they are. Everyone I've asked claims not to know of any such ventures. And now I can't find that report again. It's gone from our mainframe."

"Could they be keeping it secret until they're ready to make an announcement? Perhaps that report was on the mainframe by mistake. Someone discovered the error and had it removed."

"I can only speak for Kenya, Jaxon, but no one there knows anything about RBD operating in my country. My brother works in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. He also can't find anything."

Carlsberg Gulf Bayswater Enterprises would be the likely RBD subsidiary for developing future business ventures in those countries. Perhaps it was all part of RBD's expansion into cargo container shipping. All three nations had coastlines and ports. CGBE was already in South Africa and Liberia. If the report Equaene found contained highly sensitive details about ongoing negotiations or contracts or even just plans, it was reasonable to assume whoever was in charge of the report wouldn't want those details prematurely known either inside or outside RBD.

It wasn't unreasonable to assume the secrecy required would preclude informing government officials in three countries that currently did not do any business with RBD until absolutely necessary. Timing is everything in everything and particularly in new business ventures. There could be nothing more here than a slip up that was quickly rectified.

"I have to go."

"Can you tell Mr. Remington of my suspicions?"

"Let's keep this between ourselves for the moment, at least until you get something tangible. See what you can find out about the activities of Carlsberg Gulf Bayswater Enterprises in Africa. There might be something in that. If you do find anything, come to me with it first."

Equaene nodded. "It is good to finally have an ally. I feel much better now."

"That makes one of us."

# Chapter 19

He didn't bother to look out through the dark privacy glass of the BMW to see where they were going. Despite what thoughts were charging through his mind—as well as a jumble of apprehension and confusion that if he tried to paint it, would look at lot like The Scream—Remington's club wasn't going to be in some secret, isolated location that required a password, a special handshake and a drop of blood or retina scan before he was permitted entry. The only thing that vaguely registered with him was crossing a bridge and the time that passed before he reached his destination.

His little universe had inflated after meeting Cissy like the bigger one had in the moments after the big bang and he felt it. He'd been hurtling at speeds and in directions he couldn't possibly anticipate or control. His world had become nebulous and despite the satellites of people that had coalesced into orbit around him, lonely.

He was wrong about the password. Max pulled up to a gatehouse and had to say something like 'it's always clearest before the lightning strikes' before the gatekeeper responded with some nonsensical counter phrase and opened the gates. The BMW then proceeded along a curving driveway that would eventually lead back to the gates. The club was in a three-storey mansion that could be antebellum or even antediluvian and was in need of repair. Scaffolding was all along the outside.

The sun was setting behind the mansion. They had taken at least one bridge, so they had left Manhattan and were possibly in New Jersey or on Long Island.

Max opened the door to let him out at the bottom of six steps leading up to the entrance. "Enjoy your evening." He got back into the BMW and drove away.

Two doormen waited there to grant or deny him entry. At the top of the stairs, he saw that the two doormen were women, blondes that looked like twins except one was six inches taller than the other. Both were gorgeous in their black pantsuits. Their identically long, straight hair flowed down from the black berets on their heads.

"Good evening, Mr. Trevelyan," the shorter one said with a husky voice that should have thirty years of smoking and coughing behind it, "if you will just give us a moment of your time, please."

The taller one could look him straight in the eyes. She produced a blue suit jacket to match his pants and put it on him. The shorter one looped a pre-knotted matching tie around his neck, tucked it under the collar of his shirt and tightened the knot without jamming it into his throat.

The taller one said, "Enjoy your evening, Mr. Trevelyan."

The women opened each door they were responsible for and motioned for him to enter.

The shorter one called after him, "The men's room is to your right should you wish to freshen up, sir."

Believing that was not just a courtesy to a newcomer and not wanting to be tackled by two Barbie dolls if he didn't, he went to the men's room. It was a glistening cavern of stalls, urinals, sinks, tile, lights, stacks of towels, and mirrors extending the length of one wall. It was at least twice the size of his dim apartment and about ten times larger than his man's room.

When he exited the men's room, a brunette in an iridescent-blue, strapless evening gown was waiting to escort him.

"This way, Mr. Trevelyan," she said and took his arm as if she were his date to the prom.

They proceeded up a long flight of stairs to the second floor, turned left at the top and then left again and along a balcony that overlooked the entrance to get to the last door of six near the front of the mansion.

The brunette detached from his arm. "Enjoy your evening, Mr. Trevelyan." She left it for him to open the door.

He entered a room very much like what he would expect to find in the Diogenes Club of Mycroft Holmes. Dark wood fashioned library shelves that contained hardcover books, though probably nothing arcane, historically alternate to accepted dogma, magical, apocryphal, nor likely even read. They also contained nothing less than a dozen flat screen televisions varying in size from just over twenty inches on the diagonal to fifty-inchers. Bathing the room in flickering light were either news programs from around the world with English subtitles in banners running across the bottom or market reports from major business centers: Hong Kong, London, Tokyo, New York, Chicago, Toronto, Rio di Janeiro.

The room was larger than his apartment by a factor of six and had hardwood floors only slightly lighter in tone than the vertical pieces of wood. It had separate countries strewn about. There were the white-haired, old-world cronies diagonally off to his right. All of them could pass for Mycroft's contemporaries, most were asleep. Some needed dusting.

The country of Billiardsville was an expanse of thirty feet across from the withered, silver-heads and was populated by men closer to his age. Most had removed their H. Huntsman, Fioravanti or Jon Green suit jackets and rolled up the sleeves of their Ralph Lauren Black Label shirts to play. They drank only Crown Ambassador Reserve beers from Australia and were probably placing wagers on the game before them, upping one player's bet of Sweden with Greece and Lithuania, and double or nothing for the Riviera because of its abundance of gorgeous women and clothing-optional beaches.

And speaking of gorgeous women, three of them in identical iridescent-blue, strapless evening gowns stood quietly off to the side waiting to provide more beers, other beverages or whatever was requested of them between shots.

The country he was expected to visit was at the far end of the room from where he'd entered. Its singular geological feature was a fireplace large enough to roast a whole buffalo in. Remington, Triton and men barely less white-topped than the inhabitants of Diogenesia sat around the fire. There was no rotisserie set up in the fireplace and no animal bones scattered about the plush chairs they all sat in so he hadn't missed dinner.

The setting was something Rembrandt's more affluent subjects would have placed themselves in for their portraits.

A chair beside Remington was ready for him. A martini sat on the table between the two chairs. He should have swung by Billiardsville on the way and snatched up a beer no matter how much it was going to make his mouth hurt.

"Glad you could make it," Remington said before finishing the last of his martini.

"Wouldn't dare miss it."

A redhead, buxom and tall, in the uniform gown of the club's female employees, emerged from shadows made darker for being outside the nimbus the fire cast around Remington. She took the glass and left another martini in its place.

Remington held it up to make a toast.

Rather than ask the redhead to fetch him a beer—she had already merged back into the shadows—he picked up his martini.

"Nice work on those letters, Jaxon." Remington chuckled then spoke up to the others. "Here, here."

The other men raised their drinks and toasted Jaxon.

As Jaxon sipped his martini, which stung more than the beer likely would have, he noticed two of the men drank beers rather than the clear stuff; all was not lost. Triton drank beer.

Remington finished his martini and set down the glass, which was promptly removed and replaced by the redhead from the shadows. If she were any more efficient, he'd only get a glimpse of her spectral hands.

"How does it feel to enter the inner sanctum?" His bemused smile seemed a bit lopsided, like one side of his face had just suffered from a stroke.

"I'll let you know once I've been through the initiation. Please tell me you banished hazing centuries ago."

Remington, lopsided grin a little wider, shifted his gaze to the fireplace. "Right after we quit burning witches."

Jaxon saw no human bones protruding from the ashes.

Remington got up. "Come on, Jaxon, it's time for dinner."

Remington's club entourage, eight other men, rose as one and followed them into the shadows where the redhead had dissolved. Tall, massive doors opened with a push from the disappearing, reappearing redhead to reveal a dining room as big as the men's room but with a length of tables capable of seating fifty to sixty guests. The end to their left was set for Remington's party, the rest of the tables were merely covered in white tablecloths. Six chandeliers provided dazzling illumination.

The club members had obviously decided shadows were not allowed even in the nooks and crannies of this room. They were all banished to the continent of Library.

Remington sat at the head of the table. Jaxon sat to his right per his gesture, Triton sat to his left. The other seven men took their seats only after Remington was seated.

This was his royal chamber. Jerome Remington came here to be King. He brought men, possibly women every now and then, who knew how to behave around him in these surroundings. They would afford him the proper respect and deference, the proper fawning and subservience. Jerome Remington was no King Arthur here. This was no round table gathering. If you didn't behave properly toward him in this domain, you'd be dispatched forthwith.

Jaxon felt a sudden tightness around his neck as if the tie had hitched up of its own accord. Remington ruled the roost here. His whims and desires, his pleasures and judgments and reckoning with anyone who joined him here held sway. And Remington had the court jester sitting to his right, noose already in place.

Women dressed in waiters' outfits of iridescent-blue pants, white shirts and sparkling black bowties served them. Like at Melloni's, someone had already decided for him what he was going to have for dinner.

The meals arrived shortly after they were seated. Everyone was having the same thing: prime rib with mixed vegetables and mushrooms on the side.

One waitress brought a tray of drinks for Jaxon to choose from. The only choice he was going to have this evening, he assumed. He took the Coke and immediately regretted that, but remembering what Cissy had told him about her father not liking indecisiveness, he didn't call her back. What if the court jester burped at the King's table?

With a mouthful of beef, Remington said, "You know, Jaxon, I don't give a shit about that new logo you designed. It's nothing compared to where RBD is going. Of course, if it had been truly awful like the ones you fobbed off on Juarez and Finnegan, I would have had you thrown out one of our very tall windows." He laughed with his mouth wide open and full of well-chewed meat. "But don't let that discourage you. It's a pretty good design and I did enjoy all that bullshit you spouted trying to sell it to me."

"Then why am I here?"

"I like you. How's that for irony? You get sick on my yacht and fall over the side onto a dead man, twice. You have an impudent mouth on you that just won't quit—I understand you piss off Rowe almost every time you open it—and you had the balls to kick Juarez and Finnegan right in theirs. What's not to like?"

"If you put it that way, can I have a raise?"

"Join us in the Hamptons this weekend. We're having a family get together. And I have a proposition to discuss with you."

"Does it involve that raise?"

"You'll find out on the weekend."

# Chapter 20

It may have just been coincidence, but no one finished their meal after Remington finished his, forcing him to wait.

Jaxon spent the time it took to complete eating contemplating what proposition Remington might have for him. Remington could offer to buy him off from his relationship with Cissy. Remington could arrange an exhibition and see that he got a sizeable sale from it as long as he promised to go forward from there without Cissy. He could offer him Juarez's position, or Rowe's. He could just threaten him with permanent residency in a cargo container at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

He would explain to Cissy, "I'm sorry, sweetheart, but he never arrived home from the Hamptons. I don't know what happened to him. He's just vanished. But rest assured, we will dredge the Hudson and the East River if we have to."

Jaxon allowed himself that the proposition couldn't be that dangerous or Remington would have made it while he was perched on his throne in the confines of his little kingdom. And Remington had admitted to liking him.

The meal over, Remington led his entourage to another Private Members Only room about half the size of the library, just as full of shadows, and equipped with two big screen televisions on one wall. Each one featured scantily clad women pole dancing.

Remington no longer seemed to care if his invited guest remained at his side in this chamber. He continued to another, much smaller, fireplace with Triton and two other men.

Jaxon found a comfortable chair that put his back to the televisions and sat down. The issue now, if Remington had finished with him after his declaration about the new logo, his invitation to the Hamptons and his tease about a proposition—which Remington would believe he had—how much longer did he have to remain to show an appropriate amount of respect before bailing from this mausoleum of riches and decay?

Not that you're overly judgmental, are you?

A man somewhere in his fifties sat down across from Jaxon in a chair that allowed him to see both television screens and the energetic women appearing on them.

"You're Jaxon Trevelyan, Cissy's new beau, aren't you?" The man spoke with an impeccable English accent. He leaned forward, his eyes fidgeting between the two screens, and held out his hand. "Neville Lassiter, but everybody here calls me Kit. I'm the token representative from the English aristocracy to Jerome Remington's court, a very low member of the aristocracy, I might add." He chuckled self-consciously. "You could properly call me a limey trashplant, I suppose."

Lassiter's offered hand fidgeted as much as his eyes. Jaxon missed with his first and second attempts to grasp it.

"I quite enjoy myself here." He settled back into his chair. "I've always appreciated all the perks and fringe benefits a rich life can offer you."

"Do you work for RBD?"

"Goodness gracious, what a way to put it. No one at my level works for any company. We consult, dear boy, that's what we do."

"You consult?" He wanted to grab Lassiter by the neck and stick fingers in his eyes, which moved about like they were frantic birds captured in cages as Lassiter tried to keep track of the dancers. The screens jittered as two points of reflection in Kit's wet, brown eyes. "About what?"

"Oh, this and that, this and that." He waved off the question. "The list of things would be much too long to cover in one evening, my boy, particularly one as special as this."

Lassiter suddenly looked straight at him, his eyes fixed and unblinking. Jaxon could no longer see the reflections of the two televisions in them. They had been turned off.

"Won't be long now, my boy. It's going to be quite a memorable evening."

"If it's a long list, just tell me some of what you've consulted with RBD about."

Lassiter said, "Oh, not trivial stuff, I assure you, but it's hard to pin down what exactly I do. I guess you could say I talk to people, that's all, but it's the right people, you understand, not just anybody. I talk to people who can help get whatever needs doing done. Really, my boy, it's quite simple. If, say, you want something done in London, you can come to me and for a small fee I will see what I can do to help. Yes, yes, London, Athens, Cairo, Nairobi, those are my special skills, my areas of expertise, as they say."

"And you make a good living talking to the right people?"

"I am a full member of this club, my boy. That should tell you."

"How do I get a job like that?"

Neville (Kit) Lassiter laughed his head off. He just put it back, opened his mouth as wide as it would go, revealing a truckload of fillings and yellow teeth, and roared with laughter the same way Sean had at O'Hara's after pranking him and Cissy. He also farted as loud as a foghorn.

That caught Triton's attention.

"Not just anyone can do a job like mine. First of all, one must come from the right background and have the right lineage, if you get my meaning. There just aren't that many of us in the world, my boy. Those Freemasons have nothing on us."

He'd just proven what an ignorant sod he was. "I don't imagine they do."

Lassiter pulled forward in his chair. He wasn't just going to confide something to him; he was going to brag about it. "Would it surprise you to know that most of us here had a hand in packaging that subprime real estate market collapse of two thousand eight?"

Had they all been working at Lehman Brothers?

"The lead up to that meltdown netted all of us billions of dollars, my boy." Lassiter slid back in his chair and ducked his head as if he expected to be struck.

Triton said from behind Jaxon, "Neville, I suggest that you stay away from the martinis for the rest of the evening, keep your mouth shut and your sphincter clenched. You have raised enough of a stink in here already."

"Sure, Mr. Triton, anything you say. I was just telling Jaxon about some of our recent exploits."

"Do not make me repeat myself, Neville." Triton returned to Remington, who was watching them and did not resemble the jovial monarch at the dining table anymore. Triton bent over and whispered in his ear.

Remington nodded. His severe countenance did not change.

Triton straightened up and signaled someone. A bell tinkled as if they were all being summoned to a second meal. The lights dimmed, music started, a blend of African, Asian and Middle East origins.

Two women dressed not in iridescent-blue evening gowns but simple skirts of red and green to go with white blouses entered the room and went straight to King Jerome, who was standing in wait for them. Each one kissed him before kissing each other. Then they each took hold of one of his arms and left with him.

Remington had in his seraglio at least two mistresses who knew each other and were more than fine with that.

Women in blue gowns entered and took up positions circling the room. There were now more women present than there were men.

"Worth the wait, my boy, wouldn't you say?" Lassiter licked his lips as he ogled each of the women.

Remington ruled not an exclusive club for executives but a high-priced brothel. He was King of Pimp, the Sultan of Sleaze. Whatever he could be called, he felt secure enough to flaunt this in front of Cissy's new boyfriend without concern for what the consequences might be.

Was this part of some elaborate and devious plan to drive him out? Extend him an invitation to spend the weekend with the family in the Hamptons, but force him to attend knowing this secret and conflicted about whether or not to confide in Cissy. Would Cissy believe this of her father? Was that the wedge Remington was planning to use to pry them apart?

The music stopped. Double doors were opened from the other side by the two blondes from the mansion entrance. They waited until slow, thumping music started before entering the room and beginning to undress as the floorshow.

Triton headed for the doors they had entered through as the two women took off their blouses. The shorter blonde had larger breasts and a darker tan. At the door, Keystone courier guy appeared and whispered something in Triton's ear as the two blondes took off their pants.

Triton spotted him not being distracted enough. Once the courier left, he started back for him but Lassiter, Earl of Blabbermouth, and another of the men intercepted him.

The only word of their agitated conversation he caught over the thumping music sounded like Adin or Aladdin or Actin.

Triton and the other man left. Lassiter returned to stand next to him.

"What was that all about?"

"Nothing to concern yourself with, my boy." Lassiter patted his back. "Jolly good show, wouldn't you say?"

"All we need now is a candy bowl full of little blue pills."

"We have that, my boy. It's in that cabinet next to the fireplace right beside the cigars. As a matter of fact, now that you mention it, best I prepare myself, wouldn't you say?" The Duke of Dumbfuck headed for the cabinet.

The two blondes were down to their underwear and had turned their attention from dancing to each other. The short blonde wore an almost identical white outfit to what Cissy had worn Monday night. They were very deliberate with their hands and mouths on each other. As their exhibition of intimacy lowered them to the floor, the other women, all naked underneath, removed their blue gowns and began draping themselves over the men.

He slipped into a shadowy corner to avoid being targeted by one of the women. A nice, clear video of him in the middle of an orgy would be just the leverage Remington would use against him.

Some of the men and women went about their pleasure without bothering to find another room. Two of the men simply dropped their pants to their ankles and stood aglow in their own magnificence while being attended to. Others left through doors he hadn't noticed before.

While the two blondes appeared oblivious to anyone else in their tangles of passion, Jaxon was surprised when the shorter blonde, her mouth clamped on the taller one's mouth, looked straight at him and pointed to her right.

He shook his head to indicate no thanks.

She broke mouth-to-mouth contact and arched back to let the taller one caress and kiss her breasts. Keeping her eyes on him, she pointed again with greater insistence.

This time he looked to where she was pointing and saw a stack of what appeared to be red silk robes on a low cabinet.

He fetched a robe but hesitated bringing it to her in case it was a trick to get him involved.

The two blondes rose to their feet, kissed each other and snatched up their clothes. The tall one exited the room while the shorter one came to him.

In that smoky voice, she said, "Not your cup of tea, Mr. Trevelyan?"

He handed her the robe and looked for an Adams apple.

She dropped her clothes and put it on. "Do you prefer men?"

"My girlfriend does, particularly one man. It's embarrassing to admit, but I'm old-fashioned that way."

The shorter blonde smiled and opened her robe to expose herself to him. "You must be, or else one of the biggest liars I've ever met." She closed her robe.

"I'll bet you've met a lot of those."

"Tracy." She held out her hand.

He hesitated.

"Don't worry. That was just an act you saw us doing; we were getting paid to establish the proper atmosphere. I don't do guys either, though we would have received a nice bonus if we could have gotten you to join us."

"Won't Remington be angry that you didn't?"

"Morris Triton made the offer."

Writhing bodies were strewn about the room. One of the men with his pants down around his ankles, and two naked women on their knees before him, beat his chest and hollered like Tarzan.

Tracy, her voice getting even deeper, started laughing. "What a piece of work is man?"

"How do I get out of this?"

"We'll give you a ride home."

Tracy and Wendy changed back into their street clothes, jeans, T-shirts and running shoes, before joining him in the entrance hall. Overnight bags contained their other outfits.

Wendy kissed his cheek. Her voice was relaxed and southern. "I do go both ways. You're lucky Tracy took pity and came to you first." Both women laughed. "I don't think we've ever before seen anyone as uncomfortable here as you. I did notice you were still up for it, though, despite your discomfort. I was impressed." She reached for him.

He dodged her grab. "Have you two looked at yourselves in the mirror lately? It's a guy thing."

She kissed his cheek again then Tracy's and shrugged. "It could have been fun."

Tracy slapped her arm. "Leave him alone." She said to him, "Don't mind her, she's a terrible flirt."

He bit his tongue to keep from saying anything. The roof of his mouth felt like he'd just bitten into a cactus. He deposited the jacket and the tie on the floor of the entrance hall and followed Wendy and Tracy to their car.

Once they got him back to Brooklyn without crossing a bridge, Tracy said, "Do yourself a favor and forget what you saw this evening."

"Everything but you two; g'night."

As Tracy drove the GTI away, Wendy hollered back at him through the open window, "Say hi to Sean for us."

"Bollocks."

# Chapter 21

After less than three hours rest, he headed off to work in the city that never slept, but, like him, seemed to be dragging itself around like death warmed over this morning. Being unable to get to sleep until after two o'clock had let him at least make progress on Hazel's picture. He had transferred the drawing to canvas and it was now ready for the brush. He'd take it to the studio as soon as he could.

He had also sketched a bar scene that had popped into his head, but had stalled when he got to the stage where people needed to be added. He blamed fatigue, but even though he knew what he wanted, could easily envision it as the final image, it just wouldn't come out through his hand. He'd thrown the sketch pad against the wall and gone to bed at that point.

His dentist once told him the human mouth healed three times faster than any other part of the body. Still, though it felt a bit smaller and less sensitive, the canker sore was taking its own sweet time going away. Dentists probably lied as much as physicists.

A palpable buzz greeted him when he arrived at RBD. While people went about their work, there were more occasions of them stopping to chat briefly with each other rather than just exchange greetings and continue on their ways. The receptionists at the counter were gabbing away instead of keeping busy. In Graphic Arts, the prairie dogs were poking up over their quad dividers talking to each other as if they had just seen the largest predator ever fly overhead.

He scanned the IGS to see if Remington, Triton or Rowe were sailing nearby. They weren't, and neither were Finnegan and Juarez. Elaine was talking to Eric. They both waved back at him when he greeted them. Others waved to him as well without a pause in their conversations. Eric and Elaine came to his desk once he was seated.

For a sleepy few seconds, he wondered if the buzz was about him. Had word got out about his visit to the club? Did everyone else but him know what really went on there? Had rumors started about him cheating on Cissy? By the time Eric and Elaine reached his quad, he had shaken away his foolish and selfish concern. He wouldn't generate this much buzz at RBD despite his success with the irrelevant new logo.

Eric asked, "Pretty awful, isn't it?"

Maybe they all knew about the new logo sham. "Sorry?"

Elaine said, "One of our new ships was attacked by Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden last night."

"They're still trying to get all the details," Eric said, "but CNN reports three cargo ships were attacked by six pirate ships. Three crewmen were believed killed, but we don't know if they were on our ship or one of the others."

Aden could have been the word he'd heard last night. Keystone courier guy could have been telling Triton about the attack. News like that would have forced both Triton and Remington to leave their little—not really so little—pleasure dome. Why had Scruffy been the one to deliver the news?

Elaine said, "Rowe and Triton are scrambling to gather information from our ship's manifest. How was your evening at Remington's club?"

"You aren't missing anything."

Eric and Elaine left once his desk phone started ringing. He sighed with relief when it wasn't Cissy.

"Come to my office," Rowe said and hung up.

His phone rang again.

"Jaxon Trevelyan."

Cissy said, "Good morning, darling."

A sign of how messed up his life was getting was hearing Cissy' voice sent a chill down his spine. Intentional or not, Jerry was working him over good.

"Good morning."

"Father told me he invited you to join us for the weekend. That's marvelous."

Just wait until she heard the rest of it and learned who drove him home. Remembering that reminded him that Sean was going to have another laugh at his expense.

Cissy wouldn't laugh about it.

"That must have surprised you," she added.

"All of yesterday surprised me." That sent another shiver through him. "I have to get to Nyla Rowe's office."

"I just wanted to let you know that I will be swinging by to see Bethany again. I have a busy day ahead, particularly now that you're coming to visit, but I'll call you when I get there."

"Looking forward to it, bye."

He took the elevator down, turned right once he exited it to get around the hallway corner and found Rowe standing in her office doorway with her arms folded in front of her.

"Bosses daughter," he said on his way into her office. "Could hardly hang up on her and she's such a gabber."

Rowe closed the door. "You heard about the pirate attack."

"Gulf of Aden; news report says three crewmen were killed."

"The details are sketchy, but what we do know is six units of pirates, each one in high-speed, heavily-armed boats penetrated the escort and attacked three cargo ships, including ours. Two other pirate boats created a diversion first. It was well planned and executed."

"What did they get?"

"We don't know yet. The Atlantic Journey is our smallest ship. It carries only a few cargo containers. The pirates would be pressed for time even with the diversion, so they would target whatever was in its hold for smaller stuff they could unload quickly. Captain Pinchot is checking for what's missing and will send the report as soon as his inventory is complete. They made a big mess below. It will take the better part of a day."

She went to her desk. "That's not what I called you here for." She opened the center drawer of her desk, withdrew a key card and tossed it at him. "That will get you into the storage room. The key code is seventeen, eleven, ninety."

"There's nothing in there."

"Graphic Arts supplies are in that room so it won't look suspicious if you go there frequently. I can't keep going there without drawing attention to myself."

"Why would anyone suspect you of anything?"

"What if Morris or Jerome catch me going in or out?"

"What's the code again?"

"Seventeen, eleven, ninety is Cissy's date of birth."

If he passed Nyu off to Rowe, he could bow out of all this sneaking around, but then he'd be out of the loop and that increased the risk of not being able to help Cissy if they did find out something was wrong. And remaining one of Rowe's operatives might provide him with something he could use as leverage against Remington should he try anything against him.

"I know that."

Exiting the elevator at Graphic Arts put him on a collision course with Finnegan and Juarez as they came out of Juarez's office.

"Did you two even go home last night? Tell me you didn't accidentally lock yourselves in."

Finnegan threw back his shoulders. "Think you're pretty smart, don't you?"

"You called me pretty. I had no idea. But you should know; I am seeing someone. I hope we can still be friends, though."

Finnegan stepped forward with a fist ready. Juarez didn't try to stop him this time.

He put a hand on Finnegan's soft chest. "I'm not in the mood, Finn. So, unless you want a broken rib or two, either back off or you can have the first swing at me because after that, I make no promises."

Finnegan's blotchy, quivering neck seemed to congeal into something resembling a thick column of cherry-swirl pudding as he looked down at Jaxon's hand.

Juarez said, "It's easy to talk tough when you think you've won."

"I'll let you two in on a little secret if you promise to behave and go to bed on time." He took his hand off Finnegan. "Despite appearances, I won absolutely nothing yesterday. Remington doesn't give a shit about the new logo."

"But that was our biggest project. Everyone wanted it."

"Believe me, I'm the one who got it and I got it good. The joke is on me, fellas."

Finnegan said, "You're not kidding, are you?"

"I'm too tired to kid you guys right now. Come see me after I've had my nap, maybe I'll change my story."

He left each of them looking like they had just been victims of wedgies and returned to his desk.

Three weeks of being inseparable from Cissy, of wild, crazy, dirty, marvelous sex, of realizing—okay, being pranked into admitting—that he loved her as much as she loved him, but they had gone on that damned yacht. Sliding, circling, flushing, falling, it didn't matter how he looked at it, he'd been going down ever since and he was gaining momentum.

"I still blame John Smith."

After falling overboard, he'd hardly had a moment to recover. He hadn't painted, though two sketches were at least some progress. Rowe, Remington, Finnegan, Juarez, in her way, Kline and even Triton appeared to have all painted targets on his back—okay, Kline's target might be lower. It was hard to get a clear sense of what was happening in his life at the moment.

"I am so screwed." That was clear.

He headed for the storage room. When he turned the corner, he caught site of Keystone courier guy going around the corner at the cafeteria end. He jogged to that end but couldn't find him. The man could have gone into the other special flight of stairs that opened at this end, though he would need a key card for the door. He could have gone through the cafeteria to cut across the center of the floor past the staff room back to the elevators. It was a common route used by people on this side of the building.

Rather than continue his search for the courier, he went to the storage room, swiped the card, keyed in Cissy's date of birth and pushed the door open when the lock released.

The room looked exactly the same dusty way it had when he and Rowe had gone through it. He searched along a perimeter path between rows of shelves for an empty space that might indicate something had recently been taken. He looked for anything that appeared disturbed or moved or else smudges or tracks in the dust. Finding such a spot, however, would in no way be proof Keystone courier guy had taken something from there. He looked for anything that appeared to have been recently shelved.

It was a hopeless task. He was a painter, not Sherlock freakin' Holmes.

The closest thing he found was at the back: a credenza about eight feet long that had one of its sliding doors open and a top that had two clear spots surrounded by dust. The inside of the credenza was empty, no supplies, no broken equipment being stored, no bodies, though it could hold at least two if they were tucked in neatly. He couldn't remember if anything had been on top of it when he and Rowe had investigated.

The only photographic memory he had was for whatever scenes were floating around in his foggy brain as potential paintings. Nothing in the storage room had flashed any inspirational impression into his mind unless he wanted to paint a dusty, confined space that would surely catch the eye of some dreary and morose patron of the arts.

The door to the storage room clicked. Had it just finally closed and locked? He hadn't bothered to make sure when he came in. If so, where was the beep? The voices he heard confirmed at least two people had just entered. The next voice he heard confirmed it wasn't Remington and Triton.

Kline said, "We have to be quick."

He backed up along the path that had brought him to the credenza as Kline and Finnegan came straight from the door to the back of the room. He ducked behind a corner just as Kline stepped into view. Finnegan was close behind her. He winced and almost stumbled when she stopped.

Finnegan didn't hold a grudge against Kline for siding with him on the logo. Or maybe he had forgiven her after being told the new logo was of no real consequence, assuming he believed the truth. Or maybe he was just mesmerized by what part of him Kline was holding on to as she led him to sit on one of the clear spots on the credenza before lowering herself to her knees. The credenza sagged, groaned and creaked as loudly as Finnegan sagged, groaned and puffed.

As quietly as he could, though the noises from Finnegan and the credenza did mask most other sounds in the room, he made his way back along the perimeter trail through the storage shelves to the door and exited storage-room-slash-tryst-station number one.

# Chapter 22

Juarez hadn't brought him any work to do, including returning the Santa Fe law firm account. He wouldn't be able to concentrate on it. His predicament kept interfering with any attempt to turn and sustain his attention on anything. While everything seemed to be going too fast, nothing had really happened.

Sean had pranked them about being in love, but neither one of them had yet to say it to the other. He had done nothing wrong at the club, but he'd have a hard time explaining to Cissy without the problem of believability coming up, and he would effectively be forcing her to choose between him and her father.

Rowe had him acting as her proxy investigator inside RBD when she probably had no idea what it was she suspected was wrong. It was more reasonable to think Remington, Triton and Keystone courier guy were just arranging the delivery of something before Remington and Triton went off to some meeting or lunch. They had all just stepped into the storage room on their way to get an envelope. The one the courier had been carrying at the time had been close to splitting open.

Remington and Triton would both have cards and Remington would certainly know what the key code was. Those shelves in that cramped and crowded sex nest certainly had stacks of envelopes and stacks of boxes containing envelopes. And he hadn't seen Remington or Triton go back into the storage room again. It was more logical and sensible to think it was a onetime occurrence, a matter of expediency only.

What would happen if he got caught in there with Finnegan and Kline again? What if Remington and Triton were there the next time because they were using the room for something off the record? Believability would again be an issue trying to explain that away, and all for nothing.

There were also Nyu's suspicions, but what were they? Nyu didn't have any clearer idea than Rowe did. It was still possible Nyu was the something wrong at RBD. Or else Rowe was.

Or he was, now that everyone would believe. All of this could be Rowe's elaborate mind game to end his relationship with Cissy. She liked Cissy and was convinced he was the worst thing to ever happen to her. She could be doing this all on her own. He and Rowe could be what were wrong at RBD. She was making him see things in everyday, ordinary corporate behavior that weren't actually there. She could have recruited Nyu to assist her. And if she was doing it for Remington, as she had said on the yacht, he didn't care how she did what she did. He was only interested in results. Did Jerome really like him?

"Shit."

To take his mind off all this meaningless nonsense, he began sketching on a blank sheet of paper. What started out as a few angry slashes of lines quickly became a stylized view of the Lower Manhattan skyline from out the windows of GA. It included a glimpse of the East River across to Brooklyn. This would have to be a larger painting to accommodate all the details, perhaps a mural, which would require a wall—or a cave because there was a simplistic, primitive quality to it—bigger than any in his apartment.

That cinched it, his apartment definitely suffered from an inferiority complex.

Kline had returned to her quad, which he hadn't noticed. Finnegan wasn't with her, but he couldn't have had a heart attack in the storage room because no emergency medical response team had raced into GA. Kline talked briefly with Eric and two women at his quad—he would have to get to know more people in GA—before coming his way.

He stashed the skyline sketch into his locking drawer.

Her smile was wide and bright and friendly, but he knew where that mouth had been just twenty minutes ago.

"Blake told me what you said about the new logo. Is that true?"

Had Finnegan sent her to find out as penance for her betrayal of him? Had she not already done enough for him in the storage room?

"Remington told me last night at his club. I have no idea if it's true."

"Listen, do you have a minute? I'd like to talk to you in private."

"We're private right here unless you were planning to shout at me." He couldn't take his gaze off her mouth. Special knowledge could be a real distraction.

She offered him that wide, bright, friendly smile again. "I wasn't planning on doing much talking."

She sat on the corner of his desk and appeared to be reaching for the top button of her blouse, which made him wonder if she actually did consider his quad private enough to eschew bothering with a trip to the storage room. It was, after all, hers and Finnegan's special place. Come to think of it, it could be a special place for Remington and Triton, too, which led to all kinds of other disturbing considerations. And it had now become a special place for him and Rowe. She dropped her hand before it reached her button, got off his desk and stood as still as a fawn hiding from a cougar.

Fawn's had no scent, but Kline's perfume provided a clear strawberry vector straight to her position.

Rowe and Triton had exited the elevator and were coming over to his quad. Without Remington, they didn't have enough clout to demand that someone hold the elevator for them.

With two apex predators coming her way, Kline knew better than to do anything that would attract their attention. She had good survival instincts, which might explain her and Finnegan.

A glance from Rowe released her and she was gone before the two executives reached him.

"Let me guess, Jerry wants me to tweak the new logo a bit."

Triton said, "Mr. Remington is happy with it as is."

"I'm relieved to hear that."

Rowe said, "Morris and I will be flying to the Hamptons in the helicopter with you. We will be tracking the updates on the pirate attack from there. We leave here at five sharp."

He had just thought Max would be taking them. "I didn't bring anything with me."

"Meet me in the parking lot in ten minutes," Rowe said. "I'll take you to get what you need."

Rowe and Triton returned to the elevator. Kline did not come back after they were gone. Why come to his desk to tell him they were coming with him to the Hamptons? Rowe could have just called him on his phone.

"Question everything, motives, reality, your sanity."

Rowe was waiting in her silver Mercedes GL 350 when he got to the underground parking lot.

He remained quiet as she navigated the SUV out of the parking lot and into mid-morning traffic on the way to Broadway.

At the first red light, she asked, "Did you find anything in the storage room?"

"One empty, creaky credenza and millions of particles of angry dust in suspended animation, that's about it."

She pulled ahead slowly but didn't make it through the light before having to stop again. "I know all about you, Jaxon. I know you were a mixed martial arts fighter, a middleweight. You won a couple of tournaments. You were on your way up to a bout for the championship when you gave it all up and worked on a fishing boat for two seasons before going to university. You took only two years to get your honors degree in a double major of physics and mathematics at the University of the Fraser Valley in your hometown of Abbotsford. Then you left that behind to become an artist, no doubt because that's your true calling. You got your BFA, also at UFV, before getting your MFA at Columbia. Your mother was American and is now deceased. Your father was Canadian, went crazy with religiosity and died of a self-inflicted gunshot while you were at Columbia. By that time, you hadn't spoken to him for over three years. You don't speak much to your brother, who is a dickhead special prosecutor, or your sister, who plays oboe in the symphony, even though both of them live here."

They made decent progress through a number of intersections before getting stuck in congestion again just after reaching Park Row.

"You and Hennessey have a common violent background. He was a boxer, but after failing to make the Irish junior national team, he slid into trouble with Dublin gangs until his painting got him into the Slade School of Fine Art at University College London."

"You sound more like a cop every time we talk."

"That's because I am a cop, FBI Special Agent working undercover to be more accurate."

Slip, slide, circle, flush, wee! "So, this car isn't really yours."

She just shook her head. "I've been undercover at RBD for over a year."

"And all you have to show for it is a storage room with a creaky credenza and lots of dusty shelves. Didn't you hook up cameras and bugs and stuff like that?"

"We did, but they found them within two days, now Security sweeps the whole place every night and every morning."

"I repeat; all you have is dusty shelves and an aching suspicion."

"That's what my supervisor thinks too, but I know something isn't right there. RBD is involved in fraudulent international business schemes with two other companies in New York. I just haven't been able to find anything that proves it."

"Do you have special agents in those companies as well?"

"And they're having more success than I am. They're close to having enough evidence to round up their suspects. But even they haven't been able to find anything that connects to RBD. They haven't got that crucial bit of information that makes the case tight."

"Maybe there isn't any. Maybe RBD is just a big, powerful company and that's all it is."

She shook her head as she drove onto the Brooklyn Bridge. "Not only is it connected, I believe it is the command center for all this. And if I don't find any evidence of that soon, all three operations will collapse. RBD closes the circle."

"You must be desperate if you've recruited an oh-so-sensitive ar-teest who you despise into your operation."

"Of course I'm desperate. I haven't been able to recruit any help at RBD because I couldn't possibly know who to trust until you came along."

"Is Nyla Rowe your real name?"

"Yes."

"You went undercover using your real name?"

"It was a slip of the tongue when I met Jerome at the set up. I was stuck with it then. I was supposed to be Elizabeth Rollins. All my background stuff had to be adjusted."

"HQ must have been happy about that. What's next?"

"I only have a short time left before my supervisor pulls me out. If I can't find anything soon, the whole operation gets shut down. I'll be using the weekend in the Hamptons to investigate there for anything. I want you to concentrate on Cissy, but I need to know I can count on you. And before you make some irritating comment, yes, I meant it when I told you I cared about Cissy and don't want to see her get hurt."

"You're not going to ask me to sneak around, are you?"

"Not unless I have to." She stared out the front window of the Merc while they waited for a delivery truck stalled at mid-span to be towed away. "I'm breaking national security protocol telling you all this, so I might as well tell you what got the operation started. There were two incidents of domestic terrorism in Oregon a few years ago. Both incidents were perpetrated by the same man and his militia. Our investigation turned up something called the Proteus Group, which might be planning other such acts. We believe they may have covert agents in place at each company."

This was the perfect time for the young artist full of all kinds of unrealized potential to bow out. "Someone else at RBD thinks something isn't quite right there. He's an intern from Kenya in the International Business Department."

"Nyu'tenga Equaene."

"Everyone just calls him Nyu, it stuck from college."

"What'd he tell you?"

"Like you, he only has suspicions at the moment. He thought he'd found something, but then he lost it. I think you two should get together."

"No."

"No?"

"I don't want anyone else at RBD to know who I really am."

"Tell him you're really Elizabeth Rollins."

"Just let me know what he finds out. I need to make sure it isn't a set-up, that they aren't suspicious of me, or us."

"I love New York."

"If he turns out to be an asset, you did good work finding him."

"And if he doesn't?"

"We're here. Be quick about it." She parked in front of his apartment building.

Claudia was sneaking out of her apartment and closing the door as quietly as she could when he reached the fourth floor.

"Why aren't you in school?"

She put her finger to her lips. "He's just gone back to sleep." She wiped her bloodshot eyes. "He's had such a bad headache all morning. I couldn't leave him alone. Why are you here?"

"Weekend in the Hamptons, have to pack."

She stopped to hug him and kiss his cheek before skipping down the stairs. "Just getting some air. Sounds wonderful."

Packing was easy. He just threw his toothbrush and every scrap of clothing he owned into his one suitcase.

Claudia was coming back from talking to Rowe when he exited the building. She hugged and kissed him again. "She's very smart and very beautiful. I love her eyes."

Once he was back in the SUV, Rowe said, "She's very smart."

"And beautiful."

"She is that, too, very lovely eyes. Our helicopter leaves from the Downtown Manhattan Heliport at Pier Six at five-fifteen. From there we fly straight to the Remington residence. Jerome has a pad. We should arrive in plenty of time to prepare for dinner at eight."

Once they were back at RBD, Rowe said, "Leave your bag." Then she said, "I do not despise you."

On the way up to GA, he tried considering his options but he didn't have any. Rowe had rejected taking Nyu as his replacement for reasons she intransigently considered valid. A weekend in the Hamptons was going to be fraught with furtive behavior and trying to keep track of all the secrets he needed to keep from the woman he loved.

His desk phone was blinking to advise him of a message. It was from Cissy, telling him she was with Bethany in Personnel and to come by as soon as he could.

Bethany spotted him first and waved. Cissy kissed his cheek right where Claudia had kissed it.

"Penny will be joining us for the weekend, but I can't convince Bethany to come."

"I'd love to, but I just can't this time."

Cissy hugged him and kissed his cheek again before whispering in his ear, "I do love you, darling." Then she said, "I'm off home to get everything prepared. I want to make sure this weekend is perfect for us."

"I can't wait." He kissed her and whispered in her ear, "I love you, too."

He didn't feel as nauseated as he had on the Dagger while he and Bethany watched Cissy almost dance away to the elevator. The Personnel Department wasn't pitching as much, but there seemed to be a sudden lack of air in the place. His temples throbbed. The good news was the canker sore did seem to be finally healing. It only felt like one porcupine quill was stuck in it not a dozen.

Bethany said, "She told me what your friend did to you two. I've never seen her so happy. You know this weekend will be perfect unless you find a way to screw it up."

"My thoughts exactly."

"I see you survived your night at the club."

"Why shouldn't I survive my night at the club?"

"It doesn't take much imagination to figure out what a bunch of rich, selfish, spoiled white men might be up to when they're not planning stock manipulations, tax-evading income trusts, hostile takeovers and pyramid schemes. I'm sure expensive whiskey is just the start of it."

"I didn't do—"

She held up a hand. "I don't want to know what you did or did not do, and Cissy better not ever find out." Her eyes were the same steely blue as Jerome's. Hazel's eyes had been a soft and inviting dappled brown.

# Chapter 23

They reached the Remington estate in Sagaponak by 7:20 pm. Cissy showed him to his room, which was about the same size as his apartment, though the bathroom was much bigger. He shaved and showered, put on his other new blue suit that Cissy had bought for him, his other white shirt and his other blue tie and came down to dinner for eight o'clock. Cissy was waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs in a pleated blue skirt that came close to matching the color of his suit and a blouse that was only a few shades lighter than her skirt.

She took him in hand to the dining room. Adrian, Bryce and Eugene, the junior entourage, crossed the entrance hall without acknowledging them and entered the dining room ahead of them.

Jerome, Morris and Nyla, the senior entourage, stood together near a window with Florence engaged in a serious conversation. Had they heard any more about the pirate attack?

Esther Sutton, Cissy's maternal grandmother, was already seated at the dining table.

Esther and Florence had passed on to Cissy their genes for trim, fit bodies and refined features. Each one provided a glimpse of what Cissy might look like when she reached their age. They were both lovely.

Adrian, Bryce and Eugene had immediately turned right and went to the spot in the room farthest away from his father. There they remained until it was time to eat.

Jerome sat at the head of the table, Florence sat to his right. Triton sat to his left next to Adrian, who sat beside Cissy across from him. Eugene sat next to Cissy. On his side of the table, Nyla sat beside Florence and next to him. Bryce sat to his right. Nana Sutton sat at the other end of the table.

The meal was baked salmon that came with asparagus, glazed yams and Portobello mushrooms sautéed in a wine sauce. A slice of lemon was provided for the salmon.

Given that he still had a sizeable canker sore, he should have left the lemon alone.

They were all just beginning their meals when he tried squeezing a bit of lemon juice onto his fish and instead squirted it all over his shirt, his face and into his eyes. His instinctive reaction to rub his stinging eyes resulted in hitting his glass of water with his elbow, knocking it over and sending water splashing onto Rowe.

Cissy rose from her chair, dabbed her napkin into her water and quickly came around the table to help him. When she took hold of his arm to pull his hand away, another splatter of lemon juice trickled into his right eye. He jerked back against the stinging, knocked Cissy to the floor and struck Bryce in the nose with his elbow, sending him backwards in his chair to land beside Cissy.

"I've got this," Rowe said as she pushed back her chair, stood up and took hold of his wrists. "Don't move."

He let Rowe pull his hands away and dab his eyes with the wet napkin Cissy had dropped.

Adrian and Eugene had roared with laughter the moment this fiasco started. Eugene may have choked some on his wine. Before Bryce could join them, he'd been struck in the nose and gone down. Once the back of Bryce's head bounced off the floor, Adrian had to excuse himself and leave the room. Eugene obediently followed him out. Their laughter echoed throughout the entrance hall.

"How does it feel?" Rowe dabbed his eyes with the napkin.

A drop of lemon juice trickled along his cheek, took a quick turn and made it to the corner of his mouth. When he started to speak, said drop slipped in and launched a two-pronged attack on his canker sore and the back of his throat.

He started coughing and gagging. His fist hit his plate. What contents didn't stick to his hand bounced into the air. A number of glasses of water or wine toppled over, forcing everyone to push back to avoid getting struck or splashed. Two crystal glasses—no doubt heirlooms—shattered against the hardwood floor, which caused nana to gasp in horror.

Rowe grabbed the back of his neck and squeezed hard. He stopped thrashing about. His coughing stopped after only a couple more hacks. His stinging canker sore brought more tears to his eyes to help flush out the lemon juice still in them.

Rowe lifted him out of his chair still squeezing his neck, helped Cissy to her feet and then led him to the door. "I'll clean him up."

At the door, Jaxon grabbed hold of it, turned and said, "If there is anyone I didn't get, rest assured, you're next."

Jerome laughed almost as loud as his son had.

Rowe, still holding him by the back of his neck, took him to the main floor bathroom and shoved him in. She came in behind him and closed the door to just a crack.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"Oh, I don't know. I just thought I'd blind myself so I could get more in touch with my other senses."

"I ought to knock you on your ass."

"Is there any more room on the floor? I thought I had it covered." His eyes still stung when he tried to focus on Rowe.

She wetted a cloth with cold water. "Stand still." She wiped his face roughly as if he'd made a mess with a chocolate bar. She lightly dabbed his eyes, squeezing the soaked cloth between her thumb and finger to send water running into them. She handed him a towel after tossing the cloth into the sink.

"Thanks." After drying his face, he checked his clothes. He had miraculously not squirted any lemon juice on any blurry thing he could barely see other than his shirt.

Rowe pressed a towel to her dress of white and black diamonds. The diamonds started out small from the solid black at her shoulders and got bigger as they descended. A Rorschach stain of water the size of a dinner plate darkened a lower white diamond near the hem four inches above her knees.

"It might be better if you change clothes," he said.

"Yeah, you too." She tossed the towel onto the counter.

When they exited the washroom, Cissy, Adrian, Eugene and Bryce were waiting outside it. Bryce held his head back and was pressing a bloody napkin to his nose.

"Well played, old boy," Adrian said with a bad English accent made worse by the chuckling that came with it.

Bryce took the napkin from his nose. "Nice shot, Jaxon."

"You should see me on my good days."

"The world," Adrian said, "would never survive."

Adrian and Eugene left Bryce to clean up and returned to the dining room.

Cissy said to Rowe, "Thank you for your help."

"I'll just go change." Rowe went up the stairs.

Cissy checked his eyes. "How are you?"

"Aside from humiliated and mortified, I'm good." He shook his head. "Great start, wouldn't you say?"

"It gets better. You have to dance with mother after dinner."

"You mean it didn't all end up on the floor?"

"Not all of it, no."

"What do you mean I have to dance with your mother?"

"I thought my meaning was clear. It's a tradition we have at the Hamptons. Any guests here for the first time have to dance with father if female, with mother if male."

"Sounds simple enough."

"If you dance with father, yes; he only waltzes. Mother was a champion ballroom dancer before she married father. There's no telling what she will want to do with you after your performance at the table."

"Does she pole dance?"

"No, darling, but I do."

"My life is too good to be true."

She took his arm. "We had better get you into a new shirt and return for dinner as quickly as we can. They will be waiting for us."

Her tone was tinged with disappointment and impatience that was understandable after what had just happened, but he couldn't shake his stupid notion that it might be as much because Rowe instead of her helped him clean up.

Rowe had changed into a light-blue blouse and navy skirt and was waiting with everyone else when they re-entered the dining room. The outfit's resemblance to Cissy's seemed to him more conspiratorial than coincidental. Cissy's subtle scowl when she looked at Rowe could indicate she was experiencing a similar thought.

He had changed into his other, other white shirt. Cissy had handed the stained one over to a servant who miraculously appeared when they exited his bedroom. It would be either cleaned or replaced and returned by special delivery.

There was little evidence left of his moment de catastrophe. Broken glasses had been cleaned away, replaced and refilled with whatever had been in them. Spills had been sopped up and the cream tablecloth replaced with another just like it. The salmon steamed with reheated readiness.

His plate had been returned without a new slice of lemon; best not to tempt fate again.

The second attempt at dinner proceeded as it should. By the time it was almost finished, levity and sensible conversation had returned as if nothing had happened. Serious conversation about the pirate attack dominated while they ate dessert.

Adrian asked Rowe rather than his father, "Is there any more information about what happened?"

Adrian never seemed to talk to his father, nor vice versa; at least not that he had ever seen.

"Nothing more yet; we will get the captain's report sometime tomorrow."

Jaxon sipped port from a small crystal glass that matched the two he'd sent to shattered oblivion. Adrian had poured one for each person after they'd left the table and had brought the glass to him. To the best of his memory, it was the only gesture of politeness Cissy's brother had shown him since meeting him.

Jerome clapped his hands loudly. "Time for our tradition of welcoming first-time visitors with a dance; Nyla, you are with me." He offered his arm to Rowe. "Jaxon, you have the pleasure of experiencing one of my wife's many exquisite talents."

Jaxon finished his small glass of port and offered his arm to Florence.

When she took it with a gracious but wary smile, he said, "I promise not to squirt anything into your eyes."

"That," she replied, "leaves open so many other possibilities to us." She squeezed his forearm with her free hand. "I'll lead," she whispered.

He never had any doubt about that. For some reason, though, he believed the soundtrack of his life should be playing strident violin music.

Everyone fell in behind Jerome, Nyla and Morris as they went to the cavernous family room at the back of the house. Floor-to-ceiling windows along the back of the room revealed a swimming pool outside, not Olympic-sized but still really big. Lights sparkled off the water and set patterns dancing on the family room ceiling. They'd be fun to try to paint.

Adrian went to the set of shelves beside the fireplace and turned on the music, a waltz.

Jerome and Nyla took the floor first. He and Florence let them waltz around for a bit before Florence gently tugged on his arm to lead him onto the floor. Once he put his arm around her, she pinched his ass.

Adrian and his boys touched their glasses together as if they'd just won a bet. Bryce still hung on to a white facecloth in case his nose started bleeding again.

As he and Florence danced, his legs began to feel numb and wobbly. It was like being back on the Dagger. This was ridiculous. The idea of dancing with Cissy's mother hadn't bothered him. The ace up his sleeve was that he had studied every style used in ballroom dancing his senior year in high school because that had been the theme of his graduation ceremony. He had mastered the steps easily enough and that part of his memory was reliable. He and Cissy had danced together naked one night while they were taking a break from that other gyrating thing couples do. Unless Florence wanted to do a seguidilla, he could do this.

Mrs. Remington pressed against him. "Steady, Jaxon. It's only a waltz." She pressed her cheek against his. "You feel very muscular. I like that in a man."

The music changed from a waltz to a foxtrot. Jerome and Nyla had vacated the dance floor for just them. Three steps into the change of tempo, he staggered a bit.

Florence scowled at him and pulled him to follow her lead.

The room and everyone watching them were getting blurry.

The tempo of the music changed to a tango. When Mrs. Remington stretched out his arm with hers, pressed into him with her hips and turned them, his failing legs failed. He went down, pulling Florence on top of him.

Adrian, Bryce and Eugene were holding onto the mantle of the fireplace buckled over with laughter. Bryce was pressing the blood-stained facecloth to his nose again.

Florence squirmed on top of him and whispered, "You're a buffoon." She bit his earlobe before Jerome and Morris lifted her off him.

Nyla and Cissy helped him to his feet and had to hold tight to keep him up when his legs folded again.

Adrian, Bryce and Eugene were leaving the room as he finally got his feet to stay under him. Adrian displayed a small vial to him just before ducking out the door.

"What's wrong, darling?"

Rowe said, "Another one of your brother's practical jokes. He spiked his port." She whispered into the same ear Florence had nibbled on, "I saw the vial, too. I'll explain everything to them." She said to Cissy, "We better get him to his room."

They had trouble getting him up the stairs. Nyla was strong and took most of his unsteady weight. Cissy provided what stability she could and cooed encouragement into his other ear.

"You just need to lie down for a while." Then, to the extent that Cissy could growl in anger, she said, "They will pay for this, all three of them."

They got him to his room and dropped him onto the bed. Nyla helped Cissy pull back the blankets and get him in the correct position, then left Cissy to tend to him. With little help from him, she got him out of his clothes turned onto his right side and under the blankets.

Once the blankets covered him, he broke out into a sweat and tried to kick them off only to get tangled in them.

Cissy got onto the bed and threw the covers aside.

"Hot." He had to concentrate on resisting the salmon trying to regurgitate out of him in its inexorable drive to return to its spawning grounds.

She went to the bathroom and brought back a cool, damp cloth for his temple and a bucket for the salmon. "It's okay, I'm here. Just let go. It needs to pass through you."

He could have done without her last two sentences.

She refreshed the cloth and placed it back onto his temple. She then lay down behind him and massaged his back. "I love you." She put her arm around his waist. "I've got you."

He roused at 2:00 am. Cissy was still beside him. After he turned and kissed her, she got up, undressed and crawled back into bed with him. They made love and fell asleep in each other's arms.

In the dream, those footprint cut outs used in dance classes appeared before him to help choreograph his movements as he kicked the faces of Adrian, Bryce and Eugene to pulp that resembled regurgitated salmon before he then drowned each one of them in the pool. Cissy had to sooth him again when he woke up thrashing to kick free of Adrian's dead-man's grasp that was trying to pull him back underwater.

# Chapter 24

Head large, hot and full of pain, hands numb, feet prickly; that's how his inner homunculus presented itself to him when he woke up from an entirely different dream that had his hands around Adrian's neck while he played snap with his vertebrae. Cissy had slipped away and returned to her room.

The room didn't spin when he walked to the bathroom so much as it tilted to his right and caused him to stagger into the closet door. He watched his right hand go up and press against the wall, but it took a few seconds before that suffering little man inside his head could register the pressure of him using it as a brace.

A cold shower brought back normal feeling to his hands and feet but only made his head pound all that much more. He'd felt worse than this only once before, and it wasn't on the Dagger. A quick, hard kick to the side of his head in his last MMA bout put him out for two hours. When he'd regained consciousness, the world was spinning twice as fast as it normally did and the blurry, sparkling, hammering, debilitating migraine didn't go away for a week. Migraines had plagued him ever since.

He took what precautions he could now to prevent triggering them and promised himself to make Adrian, Bryce and Eugene pay if one came along if it took the rest of his life. He always got melodramatic and righteous when it came to the prospect of suffering one as a result of someone else's behavior.

The Remington family had adopted that old English Gentry tradition of serving themselves at breakfast. When he entered the dining room, Rowe was helping herself to scrambled eggs, bacon, two slices of toast with marmalade and a large coffee.

The sight and smell of the food relieved some of the pain that kept spreading around from the back of his head past his hot temples to his eyes. His stomach gurgled but didn't make him anymore nauseated than he already was.

Rowe said with a small, quick smile, "How are you?"

"Find anything yet?" He picked up a plate. The scrambled eggs should be making him run for the bathroom, but they beckoned his stomach to come closer. A soft probe by his tongue did not set off any burning, acidic pain in the roof of his mouth, just stinging at the center of the canker sore.

"Jerome kept us busy last night. I haven't had a chance to look around." She put a spoonful of eggs on his plate and gave him a cursory look of 'are you sure'?

"Pile it on. What about the pirates?"

"Still no more information from Pinchot?"

She poured him a cup of coffee, put jam on two slices of toast but left it to him to take as many sausages as he wanted.

As they went to the table, he asked, "Where is everyone else?"

"Jerome, Morris, Florence and Esther have already eaten. Cissy isn't up yet."

That made him smile. "Where are our practical jokers?"

"I told them to stay away until lunch."

"I don't need you looking after me."

"I was looking after them. I know your background, remember? I know you've struggled with your temper your whole life. I don't want you giving any of them a kick to the head, putting a choke hold on one of them or tearing their arms from their sockets and ruining my investigation here."

He took a mouthful of egg. "It's a dream I have."

"Promise me you won't hurt any of them."

"I don't do that anymore."

"I've seen those big, hard ar-teest hands of yours. I've noticed how you carry yourself, the muscle development on your shoulders and your arms. The bio from your MMA days described you as one of the strongest fighters and hardest hitters ever. What it doesn't mention is that you quit fighting after you almost killed your sparring partner. I'd say you're about twenty pounds of muscle heavier now. You don't likely train as if you were going to run a marathon and I'd bet you can still press somewhere north of four hundred pounds a few times. You could still do a lot of damage if you wanted to, like with those sailors at King Gregor's."

"One of them hit me over the head with a bottle; that was the end of it."

"No, that's what your friends told you happened. The truth is one of them hit you with the bottle to stop you. According to witnesses, two of the sailors were down and you were choking the other one. They couldn't get you off him until Viktor conked you on the noggin. When the police arrived, you were unconscious in the kitchen and the sailors refused to press charges."

Rowe had finished her meal; he was barely a third of the way through his.

"Just behave yourself and I'll do what I can to keep them from targeting you for any more pranks." She got up and put a hand on his shoulder. "Don't do anything that will make it easy for them." She left her plate.

As Rowe exited the dining room, a servant entered and cleared away her plate. When the servant left, Penny came in and helped herself to large portions of scrambled eggs, bacon, sausages and tomato juice.

She sat where Rowe had been. "Got in late and missed eating; I'm famished." She stuffed egg, bacon and sausage into her mouth one after the other. "I heard Adrian got in his own initiation of you for your first visit."

"I've been told he does that a lot."

"You should consider yourself lucky that all you got was a mickey fin in your port. I think Adrian is going to be far worse than Jerome if he can ever find something to focus on."

"You don't see him as the proverbial chip, then?"

Penny grimaced. "More like spawn of. How do you think a boy who has no conscience but has an inferiority complex because of his father's neglect and judgemental scorn for anything he's ever tried to do might develop?"

"Do we need to call in a priest, one of those specialists the Vatican won't admit to having?"

A slightly smaller grimace preceded what she said next, "Adrian has never been able to win Jerome's approval. While trapped on that frustrating and destructive path, he has watched his role model turn absolutely everything about personal and professional relationships into intensely twisted competitions that have to be won at any cost."

"He doesn't strike me as all that tough. He needs Bryce and Eugene to prop him up."

"Granted, he's not Jerome. If Jerome sees a fly on the wall, he doesn't have to just kill it with a swat, he has to obliterate it, crush it out of existence and then reshape his world as if it had never existed. He does the same thing in his personal and professional life."

"But Adrian won't or can't do that."

"You're underestimating him. He plays the narcissistic, ineffectual sop. He plays practical jokes and has Bryce and Eugene flitting about him giving the impression he has to be constantly reinforced. But he would sneak up on that fly, stick a pin in it where it landed, pull off its wings even though it couldn't possibly escape and then proudly leave it there forever for all to see. Jerome is ruthless, savage, in-your-face; Adrian is insidious and cruel."

"The scariest 'but' is about to pop up, isn't it?"

Penny's brief smile seemed tinged with a memory of something disturbing. "We could go on about him all day and never really get close to figuring him out any better than the professionals did."

"He's seen a lot of them?"

"He's had all the evaluations. He's been in therapy. None of it has been of any use." She leaned closer to him. "Cissy and I snuck a look at the last psychologist's report on Adrian when we were fourteen. Adrian would have been twelve then." She checked to make sure they were alone.

"Did it call for one of those secret Vatican priests?"

"Almost. The psychologist described Adrian as being incapable of any insight regarding the issues of his callous and impulsive behavior. Their sessions were unproductive, a complete waste of time. Can you imagine? This was a professional pronouncing that he is giving up on a boy of twelve. In their final session of six, Adrian still wanted to talk only about the topic he had introduced in their first session. He refused to engage in conversation about himself or anything else but that."

"Good lead in, what was the topic?"

"Women's bums. We laughed when we read that, but then we read on. Adrian was fixated and preoccupied with the various shapes and sizes of women's bottoms. He could go on at great length, getting very excited and breathless as he discussed the variety of them. He had catalogued no less than four hundred distinct nuances—Adrian's exact term at his age—to the female derriere. He expressed a preference for wider hips, a thigh gap and bubble cheeks. He called them his special slappers."

"With so many it must have been hard for him to choose."

"It would normally be little more than a humorous anecdote to see a twelve-year-old boy obsessed with women's butts, except it was just the most recent in a series of obsessions. The worse one was when he was six and kept setting fires. They lost their two pet dogs then. The psychologist warned that Adrian would eventually develop even more dangerous obsessions."

"Father must have been proud."

"Jerome went after him for suggesting that. He discredited him, ruined his career. He's a dean of arts at a community college in Wyoming now. It was the last assessment of Adrian that Jerome and Florence bothered to get. They've kept a close eye on him since then, though, as has Cissy."

"What does he do?"

"Like you, he works at RBD. Jerome keeps all three of them on special assignment, whatever that means. Morris is responsible for supervising them."

"That would explain his cheerful nature." He looked down at his empty plate. His stomach gurgled.

"Go ahead, eat all you want." She smiled with cheeks bulging. "It's going to be a long, fun day."

He filled his plate again and returned to the table. "Cissy told me about your brother."

She put down her fork. "I hope he's still coming back."

"I thought that was settled."

"When Michael and father are involved, nothing is certain until it actually happens. There are a lot of issues between them."

"Cissy mentioned their estrangement."

"Our two families have a long heritage. My family's earliest record is of a Judge Horatio Smythe, who was supposed to have been instrumental in prosecuting witches, but, in fact, was a British agent sent to make sure the colonies remained with the crown."

"And how did that work out for him?"

"Hung by the neck until dead, I'm afraid, but he left a big family that played a major role in the fight for independence alongside the Remington line. Both families reaped the rewards afterwards, too."

"A new country just ready for the taking."

"And our ancestors took as much as they could get. That's what Michael walked away from. He even changed his name from Smythe to Carpenter, mother's family name. Father hasn't forgiven him for breaking the line."

Cissy entered the room and poured herself a cup of coffee before coming over to them. She sat down beside him and kissed him. "How are you feeling?"

"Fantastic now; two lovely ladies all to myself, one of whom—"

"Are you sure you want to finish that sentence in front of Penny?"

Penny got up and kissed him. She said to Cissy, "I just wanted a taste for myself." She smacked her lips. "Not bad, a little salty and sour but still sweet at the core. He must be quite the sugar rush."

"He certainly is."

"See you in an hour." Penny left.

"What exactly do you have in mind for your piece of male confection?"

"You'll find out, but first we're riding horses."

"Wonderful. Is one ready for me or do I have to whisper it to my will first?"

"Do shut-up, darling, and go change. I put some riding clothes out for you."

Florence and Bryce were standing at the entrance to Bryce's room when he came around the corner. Florence took hold of Bryce's hand, kissed him and pulled him into his room.

If he had needed to vomit upon rising from his bed, everything since that moment would have happened a few minutes later. He wouldn't have seen what he'd just seen. The list of secrets he had to keep from Cissy just kept getting longer. And Rowe might just find something here that identifies what is going wrong at RBD and confirm that father was behind it all. It wouldn't be surprising, just another thing added to The List.

He'd give good odds to any bet that he was the only person who ever regretted not puking his guts out his first morning in the Hamptons.

The riding was mostly enjoyable. His horse, Riley, was older, well behaved and knew the route they took well enough that he only had to hold on. The only moment of concern was when Cissy and Penny reached some landmark significant to them and decided once more to race for a tree about a quarter-mile up ahead. Riley started trotting when the other two horses started galloping and he starting bouncing up and down like an indecisive Jack-in-the-box. But Riley was a wise old horse and soon returned to a comfortable walk. Shortly after the race, which Penny always won, they returned to the Remington estate.

Cissy excused herself at the stables. "I have to help prepare the lunch." She kissed him and trotted off.

He and Penny went back to the house to change.

"On average," he said, "how many times per day do you change while having a restful weekend in the Hamptons?"

"There are no foreign dignitaries visiting, present company excluded of course, so probably only three or four this time. It can get as high as seven or eight."

"And your brother foolishly gave all this up?"

"He would tell you he gave up nothing, but it's no more or less phoney than most other aspects of life."

"By that you mean the lower strata of society?"

"I mean yes it's full of money, glamor, power and artifice. You just have to take what you want of it and ignore as much of the rest of it as you can. That's what Michael could never do. He hated all of it and he never found something he could latch on to."

"That's what your father can't forgive."

"Rejecting it all was rejecting father, though he'd tell you it was Michael failing to appreciate what he had and not being tough enough to find his own path, or some nonsense like that."

"Should those two be getting back together? Sometimes it is better to just let go and move on."

"And how was your relationship with your father?"

"The short and sweet of it, he was a hyper-religious control freak who drove my mother away. She took my brother and sister with her when she returned to New York. As soon as I could, I left, too."

"You also rejected your heritage."

"I just thought I was leaving a crazy bastard behind. I didn't see any particular heritage there."

"Nonetheless."

"Nonetheless, I suppose."

"Did you ever talk to him again? Did you ever try to reconnect with him?"

They had reached the house.

"He mellowed a bit before he died. He didn't go on and on about divine retribution as much anymore. Then he blew his brains out."

"My father hasn't mellowed one bit. He still thinks he's divine."

Back in the guest wing of the mansion, he came around the corner just as Florence exited Bryce's room.

She smiled at him. "Have a nice ride?"

"Can't complain. You?"

She grabbed hold of his arm and squeezed hard. "Don't you judge me; I know about his Tiffany and that other one. I know what goes on at that club of his. And I know you were there."

"It appears we each have something on the other. And I wasn't judging you. I just don't know when to keep my mouth shut sometimes."

"Well, I do, and my advice is here is an excellent place to do exactly that." She loosened her grip on his arm. Her face, that lovely, older representation of Cissy's, took on an expression of pain and vulnerability. It would make a very sad portrait. "What am I to do? I've become the punch line of a bad joke. My husband has replaced his forty-eight-year-old New York matron wife with two twenty-four-year-old models. I take my own moments of pleasure in this marriage when I can." She let go of him, straightened up and displayed her most engaging and gracious hostess smile. "If you will excuse me, I must change for lunch."

Lunch was entertaining and gratifying. He had Cissy to thank for that.

Family and guests gathered on the patio between the house and the pool under an unseasonably warm sun. Sandwiches, salads, refreshments, condiments and such were set out as a buffet on a center table in the shade of an attached umbrella made up of segments the RBD colors of black, green and white. Four other tables equipped with identical umbrellas were available for use once you had your sandwich, salad and beverage.

Adrian, Bryce and Eugene always ate ham and cheese sandwiches with mustard containing chopped chives. Tomato juice was their luncheon drink on these weekend retreats. Cissy knew all this when she went to help prepare the food.

The burning in their mouths started right after they took their first bites of sandwiches. Adrian took a large gulp of tomato juice, which only made it worse. Bryce and Eugene followed his lead too quickly to avoid Cissy's double-whammy revenge.

Cissy whispered to him, "Chopped jalapeno peppers to go with the chives and a dash or ten of tabasco sauce to spice up very bland tomato juice."

Adrian and his boys were experiencing increasing distress and began to turn various shades of red. Every attempt to speak or swear at Cissy just ended in fits of coughing. They soon fled to the kitchen to get water when they saw none was available outside.

"You spiked their Grey Poupon. Would it be okay if I took you right here in front of everybody?"

Cissy put a finger to his lips. "Tonight, darling, I have something special in mind you can do to thank me."

# Chapter 25

Adrian, Bryce and Eugene were just as scarce in the afternoon as they had been in the morning. Cissy and Penny teamed up to play him and Nyla for a couple of sets of tennis. Penny and Nyla were excellent players. Cissy was skilled enough to be of some use to Penny. Each time a ball went by him or struck the net after he'd hit it, he wished he were back bouncing up and down on Riley.

After he took his second shower and made his fifth change—and third into clothes Cissy had brought for him—he found Florence waiting for him when he exited his room.

"Jaxon," she said, "I hope we can forget—"

"Forget what?" He offered his arm.

Cissy appeared particularly pleased when he returned to the patio for dinner escorting her mother.

The Remington family enjoyed barbequed burgers and hotdogs just like everyone else. They had an array of regular and diet pops but absolutely no alcoholic beverages.

Adrian, Bryce and Eugene watched Rowe put ketchup and mustard on her burger and take a bite of it before they risked getting their own.

Rowe came to him, Penny and Cissy. "I thought you should know one of our crew is missing. The Atlantic Journey's manifest indicates the pirates stole food earmarked for refugees in Turkey and Afghanistan."

Penny said, "They'll sell it on the black market."

"Or just keep it. They need supplies, too, and we provided them with a floating grocery store. Either way, it wasn't the auspicious start to our move into shipping that we'd hoped for."

Adrian, Bryce and Eugene came over to them.

Adrian said to him, "You do like to surround yourself with women to defend you, don't you? Even at father's club you—"

Rowe took hold of his right wrist when he stepped up to Adrian.

"How's the burger? Can I get you a drink?"

Penny stepped forward. "Boo."

Cissy said, "Please, Adrian, it's a lovely evening."

Adrian bowed to his sister and the trio left.

Cissy stepped in between him and Rowe as Rowe let go of his wrist.

Rowe said, "I better see if there are any further updates."

Cissy said little for the rest of dinner. He wasn't any better at conversation.

The evening was spent downstairs in the theater room. It contained a large projection screen, five rows of three reclining chairs in each, complete with cup holders, and first Casablanca, then Lawrence of Arabia. Both were favorites of his, but they should have watched only one of them. Everyone slept through at least some of Peter O'Toole's acclaimed performance.

As he dozed, he was struck by how much Jerome resembled O'Toole with that long face, high cheekbones and penetrating blue eyes, but with coarser skin and black hair turning grey at the sides. Jerome also probably didn't mind that it hurt to put out a burning match with just his fingers.

Once Remington brought the lights back up using his iPad remote app, everyone quietly rose from their seats and shuffled out of the theater.

He took Cissy to her room, but she stopped him from coming in with her.

"Be patient, darling," she whispered, then nibbled at his earlobe.

After Florence's similar tasting of him, it wasn't as stimulating as it should be. Everything else Cissy had them do once she finally came to him was as stimulating as it should be until they got to the pool.

Cissy roused him from his sleep at 2:00 am. She wore a sheer negligee that she dropped to the floor to reveal that beautiful, naked wonder he couldn't get enough of.

She held out her hand. "Come with me."

Naked, she took them down the servant's stairs, out the side of the house and along the path to the stables. Halfway to the stables, illuminated by only a half-moon, she stopped them, dropped to her knees and took him into her mouth.

She looked up and murmured as she caressed the back of his legs, stopping to grasp his hips so she could take in more of him.

When she let go, he lifted her and lowered her onto him. She wrapped her legs around his hips, kissed his chest and then his neck.

"Can you walk with me on you like this?"

"Right now I can and will do anything you ask."

"Keep going. I love the feeling of you while you walk."

He carried her past the stables, following her guidance when their tongues weren't dancing together, until they reached a copse of shadowy trees that separated the Remington estate from its neighbor.

"Stop." She got off him and pulled away. Once down on her hands and knees she presented herself to him.

He dropped behind her, entered her easily, completely.

She raised her head and shook it as he pushed into her. "Harder. Harder."

He grabbed her hips and pumped as hard as he could.

"Yes, like that. Harder."

Her hand caressed his thigh before she reached for herself and pushed back into him. He pulled her up, briefly cupped her breasts before sliding his hands down along her stomach to join her hand between her legs.

"I love you."

He bit into her shoulder, a lion holding his lioness. She reached back, grabbed a handful of his hair, shuddered and moaned. He grabbed her by her wrists to hold her up and pushed as hard as he could until the surge started. He continued right through the contractions and the release, right through his own trembling until she moaned as she always did again.

They settled on the ground with him still inside her. They were both drenched in sweat. No one could call it perspiration after what they'd just done. It was animal sweat, plain and simple, a lion and lioness at the edge of the savannah overcome by instinct and completely unwilling to resist.

The grass, as meticulously manicured as Jerome Remington's fingernails, tickled his skin with every move he made.

He kissed the back of her neck. She shivered and moaned.

"I love you," he said.

She moaned again. "After you've rested, we'll go to the pool. I want to be wet all over with you inside me."

"I don't need to rest."

"I can tell."

They rose to their feet and she led him back to the pool holding something other than his hand. A flash memory of Kline guiding Finnegan to the credenza the same way intruded into the moment. He stifled a chuckle to avoid ruining the mood.

"If it stays like that for more than four hours, I'm going to be very sore and we're going to have to take you to the hospital."

"You didn't spike my drink, did you?"

"No, darling, I'm all you need."

Back at the house, they slipped into the backyard and then into the pool at the shallow end near the family room. Cissy was on him before he had time to adjust to the cool water. She kissed him, her tongue invaded his mouth. The pain her probing brought just heightened his desire for her. She pushed him deeper until he had to tread water. She wrapped her legs around his hips again and leaned back to float.

"This is as close as we can get to making love in zero gravity," she said. "I imagine us floating above the world, looking down at the all of it as we fuck our brains out."

He loved it when Cissy said that word. It seemed so inappropriate coming from her that it couldn't help but be stimulating. Everyone said it far too often. Cissy knew how to still give it meaning and impact.

The lights in the pool and on the patio came on. Adrian, Bryce and Eugene sat at one of the tables. Adrian held up his phone to record them.

"Cut," he shouted. "That's a wrap. This is going to be a big hit on YouTube."

He and Cissy made their way back to the shallow end of the pool and got out. Cissy showed no self-consciousness as she went to another table and gathered up the robes she had brought out earlier for them.

Bryce and Eugene watched every move she made until she had her robe on.

He went straight for the trio, who were both laughing over their final triumph and also confused about his open aggression coming toward them while he was still naked. His hazel eyes glinted green and the muscles in his arms and chest were flexed.

Adrian aimed his phone at him and laughed even louder. "I'll give you credit, old boy, I finally know what Cissy sees in you."

He stopped in front of Adrian.

"You didn't hurt her with that did you, Jaxon? I mean, she is a bit delicate, don't you know."

He grabbed Adrian's phone away from him, tore it to pieces and tossed the pieces into the pool. Before Adrian could react or offer any resistance, he picked him up from his chair and tossed him into the pool.

Bryce and Eugene backed away from him.

"Which one of you wants to die first?"

Cissy was bringing the second robe to him when he took the two steps to reach Eugene.

"That's enough," Rowe said from the glass doors to the family room.

Everyone else looked over at her.

Adrian was in the water. He'd already hit Bryce once with an elbow. Only frumpy Eugene had been neglected. Jaxon punched him in the chest, sending him staggering back over a table.

Cissy and Rowe reached him at the same moment. Rowe tried to grab him by the arms. Cissy tried to drape the robe over his shoulders as if he had just finished his bout. But he was just getting started.

He grabbed Rowe and yanked her out of the way. If he could get to Eugene, he could still break something.

The robe fell off him.

Rowe tried to hinder him. "Jaxon, stop this." She twisted free of his grasp, jumped onto him from behind and put a choke hold on him. "Just stop it, now."

He grabbed her by her hair and one arm, pulled her over his shoulder and lifted her. Cissy's scream stopped him from slamming her to the patio deck.

With Rowe in his arms, he turned to see the shock and fear in Cissy's eyes.

Adrian was pulling himself out of the pool. He didn't look much different than his sister.

Cissy's voice trembled. "What are you doing?"

Rowe calmly said, "Jaxon, listen to me. You've had your 'Hulk smash' moment, now put me down. They are nothing. You are not going to be like them."

He put Rowe down and let Cissy put the robe on him.

"This childish bullshit has gone on long enough," Rowe said. "Everyone go to bed."

Cissy took him back to his room. She was silent the whole way.

He dropped onto the bed. "I'm sorry."

"I've never seen that side of you before."

"I'd hoped you never would."

"You were a beast. You threw Adrian into the pool as if he were a child. I thought you were going to toss Nyla through a window."

"They just wouldn't let up. I don't care what they do to me, but the thought of them posting that video on the internet, of hurting you. I just lost it."

"I can handle my idiot brother and his two bratty boyfriends." She kissed him. "But I do appreciate you defending my honor." She crawled onto the bed, rose up onto her knees and came to him. "I was just wondering." She kissed him again before he could answer. Her tongue was warm and soothing and maddening.

"What?"

She undid the belt on her robe and let if fall off her shoulders. "Could I perhaps see some more of that beastly side of you?"

# Chapter 26

He woke up with Cissy spooned against him and his arm around her.

When he tried to pull away, she took hold of his hand and murmured, "No, let the world go on without us. We'll just stay like this forever."

"I won't bother bringing up all the practical issues of that."

She pressed into him with her hips. "I don't give a rat's ass about practical issues."

"Where are you learning phrases like that?"

"You talk in your sleep. Now stick that thing in me." She pressed against him again and wriggled. "Ooh, at least the smart part of you knows how to treat me in the morning."

He slid into her. They made love slowly. She cooed and murmured and shuddered at the same time he grunted and pulled her tightly to him.

This was what he wanted to take from his weekend in the Hamptons. Let Adrian and Eugene sit around fuming about their humiliations yesterday while they tried thinking of ways to get even. With any luck, they'd just get massive headaches; poetic justice in there somewhere. Let Florence take a moment of pleasure with Bryce and console him at the same time. Let Rowe, who seemed to be spying on him and Cissy more than anything else, sneak around in vain searching for her imagined wrongdoing at RBD.

Only he and Cissy together mattered. Indeed, let the world be obsessed with rats' bums and get on without them.

Cissy broke the enchantment when she pulled away from him and groaned. "Father has booked a tee time of eight-thirty at the East Hampton Golf Club. Heaven save us from his wrath if we're late for that."

"I don't know how to play golf." He reached for her and missed as she slid off the bed.

"Father doesn't either; he only thinks he does. This is your one big opportunity to see just how mortal he really is." She slipped the robe over her shoulders and tied the belt with two knots. "I will be there to help you."

She came to his side of the bed, kissed him and had to hop away from another grab for her. "I will see you downstairs." She pranced out of the room on her toes.

Rowe made her contribution to the destruction of his euphoric Hampton's fairy tale weekend with Cissy when he came out of the bathroom naked after showering to find her sitting on his bed waiting for him. She had straightened the sheets.

"Can't get enough of me? Or is it Cissy you're interested in? You do like her best, you said so."

She stood up and slapped him. "You are an asshole."

"You are a perverted voyeur who doesn't know when to quit."

Her face flinched with a minor flicker of hurt when she said, "I wasn't spying on you. If you must know—"

"I must." He started getting dressed.

"I was trying to see what was on Jerome's laptop. He and Morris had a meeting on their own and won't tell me what it was about. While I was in his office, I heard voices, came into the family room and saw you stomping naked over to Adrian. I thought you were going to kill him."

He pulled on a white, short-sleeve top. "Not in front of Cissy."

Rowe said, "If you ever manhandle me like that again, I'll kick your balls out through the top of your head."

"Believe me, I'd rather put my hands on the top of a hot stove than ever touch you again."

Rowe stepped closer to him.

"If you're going to try kicking my balls, Special Agent Rowe, you will find out firsthand just how much trouble this asshole has controlling his temper when Cissy isn't around."

Cissy knocked on the door before coming in. "I heard shouting. Actually, everyone heard it. Is there a problem?"

"Nyla was just giving me some tips about my golf swing."

Rowe left.

Cissy came to him. "What was she really doing here?"

If he told Cissy who Rowe was, she might go straight to her father. And she would then know he'd been keeping at least one big secret from her. "She was lecturing me about my behavior last night."

"That is none of her business." She kissed him and patted his chest. "Don't let her ruin this weekend for us."

"Nothing can do that." He lifted her up. "I'm hungry, but I could put off breakfast for a bit longer."

"Put me down, silly. We have a golf game to get to."

"If one of my clubs slips out of my hands and strikes Rowe, say, right in the back of the head."

"It will be an accident."

Penny drove him and Cissy to the East Hampton Golf Club. Jerome made the pairings.

"Nyla is a scratch golfer," he said, "so she and Jaxon will go together. I'll take Penny. Cissy, you and Morris will start us off."

After the four ahead of them had teed off, Nyla put his ball on a tee to let him go first. Cissy lingered to watch.

"Just swing through it with a smooth stroke," Rowe said. She took a stance beside his ball and swung once to demonstrate what she was saying. "See? Like that; one smooth swing. Get the club head down first and line it up. Then be as smooth as you can. You swing through with your arms and you drive through with your hips." She demonstrated her swing again, accentuating it and the drive through with her hips.

Cissy gave him an encouraging nod.

He lined up the club with the ball and took a couple of practice swings to get his alignment correct. He then swung and made good contact with the ball. It sailed straight through the air, which was good, for about a hundred feet, which was pitiful.

"That was a good swing," Rowe said with some surprise in her voice, "but you raised the club a bit as you pushed through and didn't get under the ball. Get that part right and you can easily double your distance."

Cissy kissed his cheek before trotting away to catch up to her partner.

His second stroke sent the divot farther than the ball and prompted chuckles from everyone plus an avalanche of advice and instruction, complete with confusing body language for emphasis.

After the third hole, his swing improved significantly. His putting, however, never did. At the ninth hole, with everyone else at least twenty strokes ahead of him, Rowe decided it was time for a more hands-on lesson on putting.

"Wait, not like that." She came up behind him, put him in a proper putting stance, reached around and put his hands in the proper position on the club with hers over them. "You've got the brute force part down pat."

"You were just dying to say that, weren't you?"

She kneed him gently in the back of his legs. "But you're tensing up too much to get a good putt." She pulled the club back. "Keep your shoulders loose and your core flexed to stay steady and in control. Keep your eyes on the ball, but take a quick look at the hole, note the rise and fall, the curves of the greens, the length of the grass, judge the force and then tap it." She pressed against him and swung the putter. "Like that." She let go and stepped away.

Cissy didn't give him an encouraging nod. Penny's face was undecipherable.

As best he could, he followed Rowe's instruction and repeated the swing. It was a putt of eleven feet up a slight rise that led to a gentle downward slope to the hole. The ball would follow an elliptical path. Rowe had just made a similar putt from fifteen feet to go three under par.

The ball followed the elliptical path it was supposed to, rolling up then down the slope and came to rest four feet from the hole.

"Well done," Penny said and clapped.

"Good stroke," Rowe said, "you just needed a bit more oomph."

It was the one hole he got close to par on: a bogey.

Rowe gave him no further instruction after that other than a hand gesture at each hole to give him the lie of the green from where his ball landed.

Cissy didn't give him any more nods. She hardly looked at him. Her back nine fell apart.

On the fifteenth hole, a par three, while Cissy was putting for par, Penny gave him the advice he didn't need. "No matter what, do not take any more instruction from Nyla."

He went to Cissy once she'd retrieved her ball from the hole. "Well played."

"Thank you."

"Watch your back. I'm only forty-four strokes behind and there are still three holes to go."

"You have no chance of catching me." She took her clubs and joined Triton on his way to the sixteenth hole.

"See what I mean," Penny said as she passed.

"Is there any history of voodoo in the Remington family? She looks like she wants to put a curse on me."

She smiled back at him. "She's already done that."

Rowe brought over his clubs. "What was that all about?"

"Did you find anything on Jerome's laptop?"

They followed the others to sixteen.

"No."

"But you still think Jerome is behind whatever it is you've been unable to find in almost a year of looking."

"Thank you for reminding me of my failure."

"My pleasure."

"I just don't know. Finding nothing doesn't tell you very much."

"It might tell you that there isn't anything wrong at RBD other than the usual aggressive business dealings." He left her to catch up to Cissy at sixteen.

"Getting more instructions from Ms. Rowe?"

Rowe came over to them. "As I was just saying to Jaxon, I want to apologize for last night. I couldn't sleep. I was taking a walk when I heard the commotion. I'm afraid I've been out of line with my criticism." She took hold of Cissy's hand. "I think maybe I'm a little jealous of what you two have," she smiled warmly, "if last night was any indication."

Cissy being Cissy, she brightened right up. "We were a little out of control. It's very embarrassing."

"From what I saw, you two should be bragging."

"If this is leading to some kind of jokes about me that involve putters or balls, you two can just stop right now."

Rowe and Cissy exchanged glances the way women do, that arcane sisterhood knowledge that passed between them to confirm their complete understanding of and disdain for fragile, blustery male egos.

I deserve that.

Rowe kept her distance for the rest of the game.

Her gesture to diffuse Cissy's jealousy, as unnecessary as it was, was appreciated, but any relief was tempered by the knowledge that while Cissy hadn't the slightest reason to be jealous of them, she had every reason in the world to distrust them.

I deserve that, too.

They returned to the Remington estate in time for lunch.

Upon their arrival, Jerome summoned him to his side. "Come with me." When Rowe started to come too, he said to her, "Do me a favor, Nyla, and look after the helicopter."

# Chapter 27

Remington and Triton escorted him to Remington's home office. Triton went to look out the window, Remington went to his desk. His laptop was closed and pushed to one side.

"This," Remington said and pointed to the blueprints laid out on his desk, "is going to be our new home. We'll be moving closer to the coast near East Hampton."

He came over to the desk and looked down at plans for a mansion consisting of three floors above ground. According to the plans, it would be over 60,000 square feet. He didn't bother doing a comparison between it and his apartment; elephant, flea.

"It's four thousand square feet larger than Roger Faulkner's new place." He said this more to Triton than to him.

Triton continued to look out the window, though he did nod.

"Do you want me to design a logo for it? I think it's large enough for four letters, but five might be too much."

"The end result, Jaxon, is I'm going to have a bigger house, and I'm going to own his company as well by the time it's finished. Then I'm going to tear both his home and his company apart."

Triton left.

He hadn't seen any signal pass between them. Triton just seemed to know it was time for him to go.

"Doesn't say much, does he?"

"Morris is a dedicated and highly focused man. He is very spare with his words, but they always carry a great deal of meaning and significance." He patted the plans again. "What do you think?"

Was Remington only asking him about the plans for the new mansion, or also about his declared intention to personally destroy a man named Roger Faulkner?

"How much do you think is enough?"

Remington flipped through the blueprints. "You don't understand. I suppose people like you never will. Cissy tells me it has something to do with that artistic temperament of yours."

He sat down and held his hand up to indicate his current office, which was also bigger than the flea apartment.

"See all those portraits? That's the Remington family line." He leaned back in his chair as he swept his hand at the paintings. "The Romans knew how to revere their ancestors. They appreciated what their manes contributed to the familial line and where they came from. I'll tell you this, Jaxon, anyone of position in the long line of powerful families, I guarantee, they knew their heritage."

Remington swept his hand in acknowledgement of his ancestors again. "Ours is here in these portraits."

He looked at each portrait in turn and thought he recognized the work of some famous painters in them.

"Our very first portrait," Remington said, "of the first Remington patriarch of significance, so our family legend goes, is apocryphal. The tale has been handed down for generations, but with no proof."

"More's the pity."

"Indeed it is, Jaxon, indeed it is. Sir Thomas Remington, so the tale goes, had his portrait painted by Hans Holbein the Younger in fifteen twenty-nine. There is a notation of the commission in our family archive, but alas, if it did ever truly exist, it was lost to Remington mythology."

Had Adrian and Cissy been required to study the Remington family history? Had they then be tested to evaluate their worthiness to remain members of the family? Had Adrian come up short in Jerome's eyes on that, too?

"Sir Thomas started it all, then?"

Thomas Remington had started the patriarchy on its path of demanding if not commandeering only the best.

Remington said, "It would have been wonderful at the time to have had Raphael paint his portrait. But what would have been even better would have been to force Michelangelo to do one of us."

If Sir Thomas Remington began the family tradition of dominating behavior and the insatiable acquisition of wealth and power, Italian Mannerists like Agnolo Bronzino or Jacopada Pontorino would have been more appropriate choices to detail the opulence.

He preferred Sofonisba Anguissola's portraits for their vivid complexity and authenticity.

Another of the portraits could have been the work of John Singleton Coley. The realism of the painting emulated his style.

Jaxon went to the portrait to check for a signature.

"Take a good look at the one to the right of the Coley," Remington said. "That is Percival Godfrey Remington. What's your impression?"

"It can't be a Rembrandt."

"Well done. Most people are entirely fooled at first. In truth, Percival Godfrey Remington was, if not the black sheep of the Remington line, certainly its biggest fraud."

"How did he get a portrait to resemble so closely a Rembrandt?"

"He tried to get the real thing at first. In sixteen fifty-six, he went to Rembrandt during the Dutchman's period of financial difficulties. But even at his lowest ebb, Rembrandt abandoned the commission. Rembrandt is reported to have said to Sir Percy: 'I have never suffered such a wriggling, twitching subject unable to remain as presented for more than a few moments before beginning his constant fidgeting again.' His note to his wife was even more damning: 'If there ever was a soulless man, a man so totally lacking in any spiritual quality, that man is Sir Percival Godfrey Remington. To attempt to paint him would be tantamount to attempting to capture the essence of nothing. He lacks any emotional substance that I can discern. There is nothing but an abyss to that man's inner self. He is completely empty. Painting his portrait is a fruitless pursuit that I fear will only lead to failure, madness and the damnation of my soul.'"

Rembrandt had just certified the first known sociopath of the Remington line. His remonstration reminded Jaxon of Sean's maxim on portraiture.

"If it is too detailed but offers nothing of the essence of or insight to the subject, then it is little more than a death mask. Any bloody fool with a decent supply of plaster can do that. A portrait must equal the subject's life, either the ideal of that life or the reality of the burden of it. We don't want all bloody, smiley faces on every wall now, do we, you rancid bugger?"

Sean usually threw in that last part just for him.

"After the note, Hendriekje Stoffel and Rembrandt's son, Titus, insisted he discontinue his efforts despite Percy's persistence and offer of more money."

"What happened to Rembrandt's preliminary work of him?"

"We have his notes and his six initial drawings of Percy in the archive. He clearly did struggle to capture the man. Imagine that, Rembrandt, a man at the peak of his power as a painter, possibly the greatest portraitist in history, and he couldn't do it. Rembrandt was defeated by a Remington."

Percival Godfrey may have been Rembrandt's greatest failure. This was only known in the inner circle of the family, but it was an obvious source of pride for some of them.

"Have you ever painted a self-portrait like Rembrandt did?"

"Just one. It scared the hell out of me."

Remington chuckled. "Rembrandt did more than one, I think. Cissy tells me you studied him. What's your opinion of Sir Percy here?"

"Whoever painted this portrait was familiar with Rembrandt's style and technique. Was he a student?"

Jerome shook his head. "Rembrandt forbade any of his students from taking Percy's commission. He and Titus also worked tirelessly to dissuade colleagues from taking the commission for fear the end result would too much resemble something of his as, in the words of Titus: 'that monster intended.'"

Remington cracked the lopsided grin he'd displayed at his club. "Percy did get his revenge. He demanded the notes and the six preliminary drawings of him for his commission. He then worked with the Amsterdam painters' guild to whisper a threat into an ear here and there when Rembrandt was selling off his collection to raise money. As you know, Rembrandt didn't get as much as he'd hoped for. That was Percy's doing."

"So how did he get painted like this?"

"Except for the six drawings, it did appear he had wasted the trip. Upon his return to London, however, he was introduced to Lowell Pembrooke, a graduate of Oxford who had travelled extensively throughout Europe studying with the Renaissance masters. Pembrooke had nothing original of his own to contribute to the period, but he could copy perfectly just about anyone else's style."

"Percy still tried to pass it off as a Rembrandt."

"He did at first. Not only did he claim it to be an authentic Rembrandt, he also claimed that Rembrandt's Portrait of a Foreign Admiral was actually based on the first rendition of his portrait and was inspired by his modelling for Rembrandt. Subsequent to that, in response to outcries and confrontations, he claimed it was by van Dyck and then Carracci."

"It does look a bit like a caricature with that overly prominent nose and those big ears, plus the garish details and colors that would have been present when it was first completed. I could see it being viewed as the worst of the baroque style."

"You'd have thought Percy wanted to be the Pope himself. But he did finally admit Pembrooke had painted it. After that, Pembrooke made a decent career of doing portraits for the lower English aristocracy in the style of their favorite master. But if you look at the top right corner of every Pembrooke painting, you will see his stylized 'P' with wings attached."

"A testament to his divine talent?"

"It was Pembrooke's way of mocking the masters, who were outraged by his copies of their styles. He was ascendant over them. If you ever go through the collections of famous portraits in England, don't just look at the signatures, check to see if part of the top right corner has been cut or torn away. That should tell you something of the painting's authenticity. Pembrooke maybe should be as highly valued as the painters he copied."

"What happened to Percy?"

"He squandered the Remington family fortune on bad investments in London. He then rebuilt it after he immigrated to Salem, Massachusetts by using his connections and his special knowledge of other recent, affluent arrivals as well as established citizens."

Piecing together Penny's history lecture with what Remington had just said, he could imagine Percy reacquiring wealth and power as a spy and blackmailer in the colonies.

Remington pointed out a portrait of a man very similar to Percival in appearance but without the exaggerated features.

Sean was not a fan of the baroque period, particularly the religious iconography of it. He derisively called it painting's e-period: elaborate, excessive, exaggerated and eccentric in overly complex design and detail. It made a cluttered mess on the canvas.

He usually just scoffed, "A bloody waste of paint."

His painting of the sequoia could be viewed as anti-baroque. It could also be viewed as his ultimate failure.

They walked over to a portrait of Lionel Andrew Remington.

"An attractive bloke, don't you think?"

Compared to whom? "Percy's son?"

"Grandson, actually, but almost the spitting image of his grandfather only with softer features, wouldn't you say?"

"Which one do you prefer?"

"I'm in Cromwell's camp. Give me the warts and blemishes and all that is actually there."

"Plastic surgeons must hate you."

"Andy almost ended the Remington line when he went mad and tried to kill his whole family. He became caught up in the witch hunts. He also became convinced his daughter, Rachel, was involved with a local coven and was turning his family, indeed the whole town, against him.

"He threw Rachel into their well and shot his wife dead. His two sons, Charles, twenty-one, and George, nineteen, caught and subdued him before he could continue his rampage at their neighbor's farm. That's Charles in that painting there shortly after he moved to Boston and became a very rich man. George died two months after the tragedy in a fistfight in response to an accusation that his father was the one who had fallen under the influence of witchcraft."

"I see some of you in Charles."

Jerome shrugged and continued to the next portrait.

"This is Gerald Percival Remington. In eighteen twenty-three, Gerald went to France to have Theodore Gericault paint his portrait on horseback. The only problem was Gerald was terrified of horses. He had fallen off one when he was ten and it had trampled his left leg. He walked with a limp and always with a cane after that.

"Notice how he has his hand in his jacket in the way of Napoleon? That is sheer coincidence. Because of his fear of horses, he was too shaky on top of one. Gericault suggested he do that to keep himself erect so he would look more regal and in charge. Gericault worked quickly on the preliminary painting, then sent Gerald sailing back to Boston. The painting was delivered a year later, but poor Gerald never lived to see it. Three months after returning home, he was killed in a carriage accident."

He preceded Jerome to the next painting: Edward Robertson Remington. It was done by Thomas Eakins. A frank painting, it captured what Rembrandt had probably refused to paint of Percival: demonic cruelty and determination. The light and shadow on the man's heavy brow, cold-blue eyes, lopsided sneer and protruding jaw was perhaps the most unadorned and uncensored portrayal of the darkness passed down through the Remington men.

"Not a lot of women in the portraits."

"Most of those are in our library or the hallways." Jerome pointed to one of only three in his office. "This is my great, great aunt, Razmena Judith Remington."

Her face was dour, almost another caricature of the Remington features along the lines of a Honoré Daumier, yet she was painted wearing a typical diaphanous gown and wore a jewel-encrusted diadem around her head of curly ginger hair.

Sylvia Crane-Remington, Jerome's great-grandmother, was a bright, impressionistic beauty in the style of Mary Cassatt. The frozen child in blue on her lap resembled an androgynous blending of Adrian and Cissy. Those two might have been difficult to tell apart between eight and ten years of age.

Jerome said, "I can almost see your thoughts, Jaxon, and yes, they are likely by who you think did them except for my earlier disqualification. I dare say I could sell my family history for hundreds of millions of dollars. What do you think Rembrandt's drawings of Percy would fetch?"

The modern painting of Jerome's father, Thomas Gerald Andrew Remington, had no signature on it that he could see, only the year of the painting, 1938. The meticulous and detailed iconography in it was of both the Rockwellian everyday stuff, though it was impressive everyday stuff, and the unmistakable tally of Remington wealth.

The only painting in the room that wasn't a portrait per se was of a Remington husband and wife in the baroque era dancing together in a huge, ornate ballroom, probably at their wedding. It captured perhaps the only truly happy moment that particular Mrs. Remington was to have in her life.

Jerome returned to his desk, flipped to the third page of the blueprints and slapped his hand onto it. "They're all going into my new office."

Jaxon looked down at an even bigger office than the one he was in.

"See that spot right there?" He sat down and pointed to a fireplace. "That is where the portrait of Cecilia will go. And I want you to paint it. How about it, Jaxon? Think you have it in you to join this august group of portraitists?"

The featureless portraits closed in around him as Remington receded.

"If it goes well," Remington said as he got up, "we will see about portraits of Adrian, Florence and me. I'd also like one of all of us together." He patted Jaxon on the back and started them for the door. "There's just time for a bit of lunch before you fly back to Manhattan."

He remembered eating something at lunch. He remembered Cissy telling him she would drive back with Penny after they finished some work they needed to complete for their charity's summer solstice gala. He remembered Rowe explaining something about Triton remaining at the estate with Jerome to monitor updates on the pirate attack.

On the helicopter flight back, Rowe may have tried to tell him something about her suspicions, but she spoke quietly to make sure the pilot didn't hear her and it didn't matter anyway.

He just kept seeing a blank space above a fireplace in Remington's new office. It would have been easier if Remington's proposition had been only for him to put two coats of paint on every wall of the new mansion by himself.

In a curving line, he could see Cissy's hip when she turned on her side to face him. A couple of squiggly lines beside each other and there was that soft indent behind her knee that she loved to have kissed. The upswing of her breasts tipped with those pink, delicious nipples, the cords of muscles rising along her neck were all there in his mind. But once he got to her beautiful face, as clear and cherished as it was to him, everything went blurry, fragmented and fell apart the moment he tried to sketch it.

Sean had been wrong to suggest Cissy's appreciation of art was artificial. Cissy had developed her artistic tastes at her father's side. But of all the secrets he was keeping from Cissy, Jerome Remington had just found the most brutal way to force him to reveal his most closely guarded one.

# Chapter 28

Staying home sick wasn't an option. Rowe would probably just come fetch him once she found out. At least that little blighter was gone from his life; not Sean, the canker sore.

RBD GA was starting its normal day of work when he sat down at his desk. The Santa Fe diagrams had been placed on top of it.

Juarez came by to say only, "I need those completed by the end of the day."

Elaine came over. "How was your weekend in the Hamptons?"

"The usual, skeletons, closets, home movies, hot Poupon," was all he told her before getting to work on the plans.

Just before his morning coffee break, Cissy phoned him.

"Good morning, darling."

"Hi. Where are you?"

"At home; I just stepped out of my shower."

"I'll be right over."

"Penny's with me. We arrived quite late last night or I would have called you."

The helicopter had them back at Pier 6 just after three o'clock. He and Rowe had shared a cab back to Cedar Street where she got out. He had refused to register anything she kept nattering to him about the pirates and what was wrong at RBD and going back into her office to investigate further. He had the cab drop him off at the studio.

Sean wasn't there and he'd wondered if the bloody runt had hooked up with Wendy and Tracy again. If he had, he was probably trying to persuade Tracy that he was the man worth crossing over for. Sean wouldn't see her sexual orientation or her husky voice as deterrents.

Aggravating thoughts like that about Sean, Nyla, Adrian, Jerome and Morris, and even Cissy had sabotaged his efforts to paint. He'd barely deposited a dollop of white, green and red onto his palette when he'd given up and gone back to Brooklyn.

"I was pretty wiped when I got home. I just crashed."

She wouldn't have been able to rouse him out of another drunken coma.

"Darling, I've made a reservation at Le Bernardin for dinner."

"One of my favorites, though I've only been once."

There was no need to tell her he had gone with Sean to celebrate the coming exhibition they had met at.

"I'll pick you up at five. I love you."

"Love you, too."

That perk got him out of his chair and on the way to the cafeteria. There was more energy in his step than he thought was going to be possible when he'd got up off the floor this morning. He decided to take the longer route to the cafeteria to stretch out the stiffness in his legs: a big mistake that was going to lead to so many others.

When he turned the corner, Keystone courier guy was coming out of the storage room. He swung a set of keys around his finger before stuffing them into his pants pocket. He hesitated to see if Remington, Triton or both came out after Scruffy but they didn't. He hesitated for another moment before remembering he'd waved at Elaine as he passed her quad. She and Finnegan couldn't be in there.

He hurried to the end of the hallway as the door to the other set of special stairs closed. He opened it with a swipe of his card, heard the courier going down and went after him. As he came out of the stairwell, the courier entered Triton's office.

The courier was back out in less than a minute carrying another wrapped package the size of a shoebox. This one also had twine tied around it. Both Remington and Triton stepped out of the office to confirm the courier was headed for the elevators before stepping back inside.

Jaxon took out his phone and called Rowe as he watched the courier stop to wait with others.

When she answered the phone, he said, "Scruffy has just taken another package from Jerry and Moe."

"What's he doing?"

"Waiting for the elevator."

"Follow him."

"You follow him. He's your problem."

"Morris and Jerome are due in my office any moment to update me on the pirate attack."

The elevator arrived. Remington and Triton came around the corner.

"They're coming now."

"Don't let them see you."

"Shit."

He hung up and jogged over to the six people waiting for the same number of people to exit. He stood directly behind the courier, close enough to see the Keystone Couriers emblem on the man's right sleeve at shoulder height. It had been sewn on by someone who wasn't very good with a needle and thread. The yellow thread was thick and the stitches were spaced unevenly along the edge of the crooked emblem.

Why are you worrying about stitches?

The courier was the second one to enter the elevator after a woman. Jaxon entered last and turned around directly in front of the courier. If Remington had someone hold the elevator, he'd be spotted.

But Remington and Triton had stopped together to talk a few feet away, content to take the next elevator.

The courier stayed on until they reached the lobby.

It occurred to him as he followed ten feet back that if the courier had a vehicle, this was going to be a short tail job unless he jumped onto the rear bumper.

"You could just swing overhead if you weren't fresh out of webbing."

Following Keystone courier guy was almost like going home. Man and package boarded the 3 train at Wall Street Station, crossed over to Brooklyn, got off at Clark Street and then took a bus down into the heart of Red Hook.

From the stop, the courier walked a half-mile to a dilapidated industrial park called the New York Harbor Yards near the East River. He had all the appearance of someone familiar with the area and the route that took him to an opening cut in the chain link fence next to a sign warning against trespassing. He stepped through it as casually as if he was just passing through a doorway, proceeded across a field of tall grass just turning green again with new growth and then through a maze of rusting cargo containers stacked two high.

Crouching down to use the grass as cover, Jaxon slipped through the fence. He ducked behind a container at the end of a row of ten when the courier took a quick look back.

Another call to Rowe brought a delayed answer.

"Nyla Rowe speaking, how can I help you?"

"I assume that's code for you're not alone." He watched the courier turn and vanish at the end of a row of containers three rows further along.

"Yes, I'll do that as soon as my meeting is over."

"I've followed Scruffy to the New York Harbor Yards in Red Hook. It looks like he's been here before. Call me back as soon as you can."

Once he got to the end of the containers where the courier had turned, he peeked around the corner to look across an expanse of concrete. White lines defined spaces used by transport trucks for parking. The man was ninety feet away waiting at a long, white single-floor warehouse near one of its six loading docks. All of the doors to the docks were closed and secured by chains and locks. The New York Harbor Yards was about fifteen abandoned acres. There hadn't been activity here for years.

The man looked around, thoroughly bored.

Three seagulls noisily took flight from the top of the cargo containers Jaxon was stopped at. He had to squeeze between two of them when the courier came back to investigate. If the man came around the corner and along the containers, he'd easily find his follower.

Jaxon stood on a pallet turned on its edge. Through the small crack between the stacked containers, he watched the top of the courier's head approach. The courier stopped at the end of the row. When Jaxon dared to peek out from his tight hiding place, he saw the courier looking up for the birds.

Three other seagulls squawked as they flew overhead toward the harbor, keeping the courier's gaze fixed on the sky as he returned to the loading dock.

The man took out his phone and made a brief call. He kept checking the time on his wristwatch after putting away his phone. He had started pacing by the time two vans came around the far end of the warehouse escorting an SUV between them. All the vehicles were black. All three had diplomatic plates on them, but Jaxon was too far away to make out the numbers.

He took out his phone to get pictures as two big men in suits, sunglasses, earpieces, the whole security set-up got out of the front van. After they had checked out the immediate surroundings, one of them nodded and touched his earpiece.

For a moment, Jaxon wondered if they could be Rowe's men, but that thought vanished when a man got out of the SUV. Shorter than the two bodyguards by a head, he was mostly hidden behind them, but he was middle-aged, fat and Asian.

Jaxon took as many pictures of the meeting as he could before he had to duck back when one of the bodyguards looked directly at him. When he looked again, he saw the courier reach in between the two men to hand the package over to the Asian, who had taken a step back and was now surrounded by two bodyguards in front and two equally large ones behind from the van at the rear.

The four bodyguards were also there to protect the Asian's identity.

He found a path between the containers to slip through and got one more row closer. When he reached the end of the row and peeked out again, the two rear bodyguards were gone and the Asian was getting back into the SUV with the package tucked under his arm.

The courier held up his hand and tried to step closer, as if expecting something in return, but the two men still in place closed ranks to block him. The courier tried looking around the barrier standing in his way and said something to the Asian in the SUV.

A dark back window opened. A pistol equipped with a silencer slid out and fired three times. The SUV and the van at the back then left, leaving behind the original two bodyguards looking down at the dead courier. They waited for the other two vehicles to exit the New York Harbor Yards, checked their surroundings again, then picked up the body and tossed it into the back of their van.

"Shit." He took a few more pictures as he backed up.

The two men were about to get into the van when his right hand made contact with scrap metal leaning against a container. He caught the junk before it could fall to the ground, but it scraped against the rusty container and launched another group of squawking seagulls into the sky above him.

One of the lengths of metal had his blood on it. It had torn a two-inch-long gash into his right palm. He held it close for a better look as the van doors closed. Footsteps told him both bodyguards were jogging over to check out what made the seagulls take flight. He pulled himself up to look through the gap between the stacked containers again and spotted two guns equipped with silencers coming his way across the concrete lot.

Any attempt to run back to the opening in the fence would just leave him exposed on the grassy field. The only chance he saw was another space between four stacked containers that was barely wide enough to get into. If he could slip through it, he could get behind the two bodyguards when they came down the row.

He clenched his fist as hard as he could when he noticed blood dripping on the ground. After smearing the blood with his foot, he ran for the containers as the two men came around the corner. He squeezed into the gap. A belt loop on his pants caught on something.

A black and white cat came prancing into the gap behind him as he freed the loop from its snag. It bristled and hissed as it backed up.

"Over here," one of the men said. Footsteps indicated one of them was jogging toward the gap.

Jaxon slipped out the other side and around the corner of the container. He left a bloody handprint behind in the gap as he did.

The cat meowed as the man reached it. When Jaxon looked around the corner, he saw the cat stretched out at the man's feet purring to be petted. The man obliged by scratching the cat under its chin.

He chuckled and cooed, "Good kitty, were you making all dat noise? Were you going after de birds? You interrupted our work." The man had a clipped accent, not quite European, closer to Australian but without the twang at the finish.

The cat continued purring for a few more seconds before bouncing to its feet when the man straightened up. It suddenly recoiled, hissed and fled just before two muted gunshots fired bullets at the concrete where it had been laying.

"Stupid, fooking cat." The man took a quick look around before gathering up his partner and returning to the van. He made a call on the way.

Jaxon squeezed back into the gap and watched the two men get into the van, which then came straight toward him. As it passed, the bodyguard in the passenger seat kept looking forward or he would have spotted more than just a cat returning.

After first waiting until he couldn't hear the van anymore, then waiting for a while longer to see if it was coming back, he stepped out from the gap.

The cat hissed at him before starting to purr.

He sat down on a stack of pallets. "You are a fooking idiot. You could have been shot."

The purring cat was thin but healthy, new to being homeless and well socialized. It hopped up onto his lap to get the kind of attention it was used to.

When he took out his phone, the cat pawed at his hand to get him to pet it again. It wore a tattered, red collar but any name tag once attached to it was now missing.

"Didn't you see what just happened? I have to make a call."

The cat, unconcerned about what humans did to each other, didn't think a call was necessary. It settled on his lap with its paw on the bloody hand holding his phone.

"Don't get comfortable." He transferred the phone to his left hand and got a claw in his wrist for that trick. He called Rowe's number and took a deep breath, which did nothing to slow his heart.

Rowe answered with, "What have you got?"

"Scruffy is dead. He's been making deliveries to an Asian diplomat who has bodyguards who don't like cats; that's about it."

"What the . . . where are you?"

"Still at the same old industrial park with the same old cat on my lap; I don't know its name, but it's very friendly." Frequently having to gasp for breath slowed down the rest of his report to her.

The cat reached up to paw at his chin because he wasn't paying enough attention to it.

"The Harbor Yards, that's an RBD site," she said. "We purchased it as part of our move into shipping."

"There are close to a hundred rusting containers over here. You might want to check them out for any interesting contents."

"Send me the pictures and stay where you are. I'll send a unit."

"Tell them I'm the one with the cat. I don't want any fooking rookie taking a shot at me."

"We'll be there as fast as we can."

"What do I do if they come back?"

"Is it a tough cat?"

"I would say no."

"Then hide," she said, as if he were too stupid to think of it for himself.

"I still love New York."

The cat rested its head in his unwounded hand.

The FBI unit arrived within five minutes of his phone call. A tall, African-American agent named Bennett Fox led the team. Fox only asked him to show the unit of two men and three women where the incident took place before they went about their work.

He and the cat waited together for Rowe to arrive forty-five minutes later. The cat fell asleep on his lap.

She first talked to Fox and his unit before coming to him.

"Tell me everything."

He told her everything again but didn't feel as breathless this time. He demonstrated the bodyguard's accent using that special word and Rowe punched him in the arm before he could explain himself. She then made him walk through what happened once he'd reached the Harbor Yards. He played the roles of himself, the courier, the Asian and the two principal bodyguards.

The cat, after scratching him when he woke it up, scampered after them the whole time and played itself.

"I don't think I've left anything out," he said, "but you could double check this part of my story with Sylvester here."

When Rowe looked down at the cat rubbing up against his leg, the cat looked up at her, hissed and ran away.

"We need to find out what was in that package and who the diplomat is?"

"The correct word is you need to find that out. I need to get back to my life, the one that doesn't threaten me with death, only with utterly humiliating failure."

"We need to keep this quiet for now. They can't know we know what happened here."

"Someone's just been killed." It was getting hard to breathe again.

"But why now? You'd seen this same courier with Jerome and Morris three or four times previous to this. You'd seen him carrying packages just like the one he had today. We can assume he'd been making similar deliveries, probably here and to the same person. Why kill him this time?"

Doing another atrocious imitation of Sean, he said, "Tis a puzzlement but tis your puzzlement."

"You don't get it. Jerome and Morris have been using the same courier, the same man, to make these deliveries. At least one of them knows what's in those packages, maybe both do. Was this murder planned? If so, did they know it was going to happen? If not, what is going to happen when they find out? This is our chance. We need to see what they do next."

"I need to get out of all this. Murder takes it well beyond the range of an unwilling and overmatched amateur operative. You follow them from now on. You get paid to do that."

"If they knew the courier was going to be killed after this delivery, then they are up to something even more dangerous, something that requires the elimination of potential witnesses. If they didn't know their man was going to be murdered, then they are unaware of the increased danger from the other side. Either way, what happens next is crucial to discovering what they're doing. And any increased danger to Jerome Remington is an increase in danger to Cissy."

"You are one manipulative—"

"I'm not trying to be manipulative. I told you why I brought you into this."

"Bring Bennett Fox into it. He's almost as big as those bodyguards. I'm sure there's going to be an opening in GA as soon as I get back."

"I couldn't possibly have known it would become this dangerous, there have been no killings at the other two companies."

"Not yet there hasn't."

Rowe didn't say anything for a few seconds. "If Remington's colleagues are eliminating the lesser players, there soon could be. And if Jerome and Morris are involved, there's no telling how far they are willing to go. If they are unaware, there's no telling what kind of danger they are in or, for that matter, people close to them. We could use this threat to turn them."

"I stand by my comment."

"Fine, be an asshole, but I still need you and you are not getting out of this just yet."

"You have a murder at the New York Harbor Yards; RBD's recent expansion into shipping; the pirate attack on the Atlantic Journey; a fat Asian diplomat who kills shabby couriers; John Smith so upset about something that he couldn't stay away from the booze even after Jerome and Morris threaten him; Nyu'tenga Equaene's disappearing report on future business ventures in African countries with coastlines and ports that aren't even aware of such plans." He took another deep breath. It made him dizzy. "I see an aquatic theme emerging that you should be able to make something of. You don't need me anymore."

"What happened to your hand?"

"Some of the scrap hanging around here is ornery."

"Come with me." She took him to her SUV, opened a first aid kit from the back, cleaned and bandaged his right hand.

"What about Nyu?"

"Let me think about it a bit more." She looked around for the cat before saying, "Come on, we have to get back."

# Chapter 29

On the drive back to Remington Bakersfield Draper, Rowe made him recount twice what had happened at the Harbor Yards.

"I'm getting a sore throat saying the same thing over and over. If I keep doing this, I'll end up with fooking laryngitis."

"I wanted to make sure you hadn't forgotten anything."

"Smallest fooking detail important; I get that. Do you want me to paint it for you? I'm good at remembering images, though they can get a bit distorted."

"We'll see what your phone pictures show. And stop saying that word that way."

"I'm trying to identify the accent. There's also a short video clip—about eight seconds—that shows them putting the courier into the van. It's probably too blurry. They might just look like sasquatches."

"I'll send everything off for enhancement after I've taken a look." They entered the underground parking at RBD. "Take another look in the storage room when you get back."

"You don't listen particularly well, do you?"

"And remember, you were out with me. It was a boring meeting with suppliers."

"Not at all, actually."

Just as the elevator doors opened Rowe said, "Would it make any difference if I told you I regret getting you involved in all this?"

"You do know you've made my life a bottomless pit of despair."

She got into the elevator and pushed the button. "Big fooking baby."

Nyu'tenga Equaene was coming into this mess whether Rowe wanted him or not.

No one was waiting at his desk when he returned to Graphic Arts. No one was being a prairie dog. If he was quick and quiet, he could get to the storage room without being noticed.

Once inside, a gang of dust thugs tried to attack his face. He swatted them away with his injured hand. "Back off, I'm not in the mood."

The room was as cluttered and cramped with shelves and supplies as every other time he'd been in it. Not one bit of space was unused. It could be another distortion of reality because of what he'd just been through, but this was becoming the most claustrophobic room he'd ever been in. Because Rowe had been so determined to get in another look, he took the time to search every shelf in the room, lifting and moving boxes or equipment that were easily moved just in case something was hidden underneath—like, say, flattened shoeboxes that had to be assembled—or behind—like, say, a cupboard or safe or removable panel to a cubbyhole full of flattened shoeboxes.

He had to pause twice and hang on to the shelves when he began shaking and felt short of breath. They'd just shot Scruffy and then thrown him into the back of the van like he was no more than a bag of bark mulch for their flower garden.

The dusty futility of the search led to wondering about how this evening with Cissy was going to go. What would knowing what he knew about her father do to their relationship? When the brown hit, and that was coming soon, and she found out what role he had played, what would that do to them? Would she understand he was trying to protect her? Would she forgive him?

He had to hold on through another bout of shaking.

With his hands covered in dust and his nostrils full of it, he abandoned his search after checking about seventy-five percent of the room. He noted what shelves still needed to be searched, sneezed a number of times and left.

Finnegan was at his quad waiting for him. "What were you doing in the storage room?"

It was probably just another distortion of his perception, given what he'd been through earlier, but Finnegan appeared to be thrusting his chin out, presenting it to be socked. The perverse thought occurred to him that a broken jaw was nowhere near as bad as being shot three times by a gun equipped with a silencer fired by a short, fat Asian diplomat from a black SUV.

Relativity did have some merit, then, but reality applied so many twists and turns, it was a wonder trees could grow straight up.

"I asked you a question, Trevelyan."

He sat down. "I have a note from Principal Rowe's office."

"You can't just go sneaking around everywhere. It looks suspicious."

"I didn't know you had reserved the room for your personal use."

Finnegan stepped forward. "What do you mean by that?"

"Finn, you need to work on your core before you just collapse into a sticky pool of blubber—and treat yourself to a bit more fiber—and you also need to treat your fellow human beings with a little more respect and courtesy. I know this cat who could teach you a few things about friendliness. You might start by purring instead of growling."

Finnegan raised his right fist, but stepped back when Jaxon got up from his chair.

"You know I'm only here temporarily, right? So even you can do the math. It makes no difference to me if I get fired for knocking you on your ass, but you have some notion that you're going places at RBD. Now, the way I calculate it, you can take your best shot, get those nasty prions beat out of your head before they're of any real danger to you, and I think I can still get you a job cleaning up at this little bar I know. Or you can do something more productive with those hands like molesting Ms. Kline or just drawing something."

Finnegan's blotchy flag of skin revealed that he might be willing to risk ending up paralyzed for life or working at King Gregor's, but all those gusts of second thoughts were trembling across his thick neck and buffeting his resolve. He turned around and walked away.

Both Elaine and Eric were watching the exchange between them. Elaine went after Finnegan.

Even if Rowe ordered him to finish his useless search, he was not going back into the storage room again today and get stuck watching Flirtgirl console Bladderbot.

Eric nodded a query about his emotional status.

He nodded back a lie that he was fine and sat down. The moment he picked up a pen to work on the Santa Fe exterior diagram, he kept seeing the body of the courier lying wherever he set it on the plans. Mesko, Wong and Amera wouldn't likely appreciate plans that included bodies strewn about their flower beds or acting as speed bumps at the entrance to the parking lot.

He tried organizing his thoughts about what had happened since that night on the yacht, but that was as productive as trying to draw was. When his phone rang, he just stared at it. What if it was Rowe calling down with more orders? He picked up just before the ring that would have sent the caller to his voicemail.

"Jaxon Trevelyan."

"Jaxon," Melanie Trudeau said, "how are you?"

"Can't complain, how are you?"

"Remember when I agreed to represent you that I told you I was nearing retirement?"

"Is this your last day?"

"Hardly, but with that in mind, I am handing you over to one of our newest and brightest agents: Theresa Wentworth. She has an MFA from Columbia same as you. She says she remembers you being a year ahead of her."

"I remember her too," he lied.

"Now that you've sold two works and are building up some momentum, Theresa will provide that extra bit of energy, focus and commitment to keep after you about your exhibition."

Just wait until Cissy found out about this hand off.

"She's with another of our new artists, Callie Hawks, but she will be in touch with you in a few days to set up a meeting to discuss where you want to go and what she can do to help you get there. You have a winner in your corner, Jaxon, I mean that. Theresa's going to be running the whole show in a year or two. And I'll be here supervising for a while longer. I'm still on your side, that's a promise."

What he wanted to say had something to do with sticking it in deeper and giving it another twist just to be sure. "Good to know."

"Keep painting, Jaxon. I'll get Theresa to call you as soon as possible." She hung up.

He smashed the receiver back into its cradle. It bounced out and dangled over the side of his desk.

Nyu picked it up and put it back in place. "Not good news, then?"

"I resist gender-profiling generalizations even when the woman I thought I could trust tries to cut them off. So, how about them Yankees? I think they have a real shot at the pennant this year."

"They have no bullpen. Unless they can develop someone or trade for a couple of strong middle-inning relievers, they will be lucky to win half their games."

"What brings you to Graphic Arts?"

"Do you know Nyla Rowe?"

"I've seen her about."

"A couple of hours ago, she called and asked me to find the complete manifest for the Atlantic Journey. She will be in meetings for the rest of the day, she said, so I was to email whatever I found to her and to you."

Rowe had been listening to him after all. She probably hadn't told Nyu who she really was, though.

"And what did you find?"

"Very little, I'm afraid. It appears the food shipment that was stolen was through the United Nations humanitarian aid program via the Remington-Smythe Foundation. But as with the other stuff I am investigating, the paper trail ends there. There is no documentation confirming UN authorization or association of any kind. There is no documentation confirming where the food came from or that it even went through the Remington-Smythe Foundation."

The List was going to bury him.

"Still no luck with the Kenya, Ivory Coast or Angola line either? The report hasn't magically reappeared?"

"It's still missing and my brother hasn't found anything at his end. I'm beginning to doubt I ever saw it."

"I'm sure you saw it, and I'm sure he'll find something at his end . . . eventually." That sounded better than 'before it's too late'.

"I'll keep you up to date." Nyu headed for the elevator.

This was probably how Nyu had felt last Thursday when he declared his relief that he finally had an ally at RBD. He couldn't be sure what possible difference it would make, but three people were now working together on something that was definitely wrong and had led to murder—a horrible way to confirm Rowe was right—and none of them had any idea what it was.

What was in that shoebox-sized package? Had Scruffy even known what he was delivering?

Ignorance was not bliss. Knowledge may be power, but in this case their attempts to gain any more could come at a terrifying cost.

The clock on his desk phone displayed 2:45 pm. He hadn't eaten anything since that late lunch in the Hamptons yesterday.

All his intentions were going nowhere. He'd intended to go straight to the studio and make the most of what was left of Sunday but gave in to drinking instead. He'd intended to tell Rowe this morning that a big ape at the top of the Empire State Building was asking for her, but ended up following a man only to see him murdered, only to barely escape himself, only to be dragged further into Rowe's intrigues by having Nyu reveal that the humanitarian aid the pirates stole had gone through Cissy's charity, which only added to that long list of secrets to be kept from her. He didn't feel hungry.

Cissy called him at 3:30 pm after he'd returned from the cafeteria with a granola bar; loudly gurgling stomach had finally trumped numbing dread.

"I thought it might be nice to go someplace simple and familiar. I want to talk to you about something important. Why don't we go to King Gregor's instead?"

"That's a fantastic idea. I want to talk to you about a lot of things. See you on the plaza at five." His stomach pinched and started gurgling again as soon as he hung up. His hands were cold and trembling.

Did the change in venue mean Cissy couldn't even be bothered to treat him to a sumptuous meal before decapitating him? All he warranted was a gritty, greasy Russian dive before she pulled the lever on the guillotine?

Somewhere, Adrian was watching him in his magic mirror and giggling himself sick.

# Chapter 30

The first thought that occurred to him when he exited the building at five o'clock was the pressure had finally got to him. As he walked across the plaza to Cissy waiting at the fountain, he was sure he saw two huge men in suits and wearing sunglasses who resembled the two bodyguards from the Harbor Yards. They were standing across Cedar Street watching him.

Cissy kissed him when he reached her. "Do we walk or call a cab? Max won't be available until after we've dined."

The men were gone, as was most everyone else who had exited with him. Overreacting to men in suits wearing sunglasses in the heart of the Financial District on a warm and sunny spring day was understandable after what he'd been through. Altered perception was just another of Adrian's pranks. It had to be Adrian's fault otherwise he'd have to blame life in general for this.

"Let's walk."

As they started along Cedar Street, he looked back to see no one following them.

"What happened to your hand?" She inspected the bandage on his palm.

"A stray with too much cattitude scratched me while I was out for a walk. Your charity sends humanitarian aid to Africa and the Middle East, doesn't it?"

She took hold of his arm. "That's what we'd like to be doing, but it's not just a simple matter of putting the food into boxes, attaching labels and shipping them out. We are still in the process of recruiting donors. Even with the help of United Nations affiliates, there have been obstacles to getting the proper documentation and permission. With luck, we should be prepared to send out our first shipment right after our summer solstice gala."

"You haven't sent anything yet?"

"Where are you, darling? I believe that is what I just told you."

"Sorry, I was distracted by what you said. It just seems stupid that it's so complicated to send humanitarian aid to where it's needed."

"If it were easy, there would be no starvation in the world. This is a big, complex planet. Nations are able to mobilize preliminary emergency responses fairly quickly if the region is free of strife. They have their supplies and teams ready. They go in, tend to the victims with the basics and stabilize the situation as best they can. The Remington-Smythe Foundation would come in later to provide ongoing aid as well as support for repair and reconstruction. We're new to the international stage. It's going to take time and a great deal of effort before we earn a place within the sphere of responders."

She probably talked like that to the donors she was trying to woo. He didn't catch most of what she said because he kept looking back. He had caught the crucial segment, though.

What was in those boxes the pirates had taken? And who was shipping them as humanitarian aid using Cissy's charity as a cover?

"We're here, darling." She had to tug on his arm to prevent him from walking past King Gregor's.

She had to do that not because of what questions were running through his mind but because when he looked back again to the corner they had just come around, he'd seen Blake Finnegan duck back in an attempt to keep hidden.

She tugged on him again. "Are we going in or not?"

"You go in. I'll just be a second." He stuck his hand into his pants pocket. "I think I dropped my keys back there."

"I'll help you look."

"No. If I know Anatoly, he'll savor every moment alone with you so he can rub it in my face later."

"Don't be long." She kissed his cheek and entered the bar.

He jogged back to the corner but Finnegan wasn't there. Instead, he saw what looked like those two bodyguards just standing one block away as if waiting for the lights to change. When they did, both men stayed where they were looking his way.

He returned to King Gregor's. Cissy was sitting in his corner booth smiling up at Anatoly as he regaled her with some big Russian lie.

"Ah, Jaxon," Anatoly said, "I was just telling Cecilia what an atrocious lover you are to leave her at the mercy of a Russian Cossack with no moral center. In another few seconds, I would have won her over to my heart and you, my neglectful fellow, would have lost the best thing in your life."

Even joking, Anatoly was still quite the marksman.

Cissy said, "He's an even bigger liar than you are, darling. He was trying to tell me there really was a King Gregor, who happened to also be his ancestor. He is of royal blood minus a royal bank account."

"You see?" Anatoly slapped him on the back. "She already knows I am better for her than you are in every way."

He slid in across from Cissy. "Gregor is his cousin. He collects recyclables in Brooklyn, mostly the ones left under bridges. Menus, please."

Anatoly waved as if a swarm of wasps were circling overhead. "Nonsense, I know exactly what you two need. Leave it to me." He traipsed off into the kitchen.

"Is there a sign stuck on my forehead telling the world to make my dietary decisions for me?"

"I didn't put it there. Did you find your keys?"

He pulled them out of his jacket pocket. "I was mistaken. It was my mind that I dropped."

"I thought that noise was a load of wet cement spilling at a construction site nearby." She reached over and took hold of his hand. "You do seem a bit distracted."

"I need to get back to painting. Being with you is the best thing in my life, our Russian liar was telling the truth about that, but I haven't put anything to canvas but one sketch since we—"

"I agree. I love everything we do together, no matter what it is, but I have been monopolizing you far too much. I want to be your muse, darling, not the one who brings your career to an end. We need to set up a schedule for you. I need to give you time to work."

Every thought that tried to form disintegrated before completion. Some crumbled into dust and others blew away as if made of smoke. One thought had something to do with a foolish impulse to jump up onto the table and burst into song, but it flittered away as an array of dancing notes.

"Symbolically appropriate for off-Broadway, I suppose, if not a bit too Disney."

"I'm sorry, darling, but I don't follow you . . . again."

His stomach heaved. "I'm just going to check with Anatoly. If he's going to be very much longer, I think I will hike up your skirt, yank down your nickers and have beastly sex with you on the table while we wait."

She blushed, though that glow to her skin wasn't from embarrassment. "Do tell him to take as much time as he needs."

"I'll be right back." He kissed her forehead after sliding out of the booth and proceeded to the kitchen.

Anatoly was about to uncork a bottle of wine when he came in.

"You are going to love this, Jaxon," Anatoly said.

"Can I talk to you for a moment?"

"Of course you can. How can I help? Did you want me to shoo all the other customers away so you two can have a more intimate dinner?"

"No thanks, I can make an ass of myself without any help from you."

"This is true." His accent did get thicker as he pulled out the cork. "Then what can I do for you, my anxious friend?"

"This is going to sound insane, but I think Cissy and I were followed here."

Viktor stopped preparing the meat for their meal and came over. Anatoly set down the wine.

"What would make you think that, Jaxon? What would make you think something like that might even happen?"

"It's one of those long-and-borings and I'll tell you about it later." He described both Finnegan and the two men.

"Perhaps her father does not think as much of you as you imagine he does."

"I'm sure of that."

"Nevertheless, my friend, we will check for you. Now get back to that lovely and precious girl of yours."

Back at the booth, Cissy asked, "Is there something on your mind?"

There was one thing not on The List he could tell her about, though it would still upset her.

"Mel called me today. She's fobbed me off onto one of her new agents, Theresa Wentworth."

"That's outrageous."

"Theresa's very good. She's inexperienced, but then so am I. She does have a lot of energy and enthusiasm and a passion for everything artistic. She has an MFA from Columbia, too."

"She and I are going to have a long talk about just what's best for you and how she can focus that passion of hers to be of the most help."

"Sweetheart, I think every agent in New York City, whether for artists, performers or writers, would tell you that no good has ever, ever, ever come from a loved one's sincere, good-intentioned interference."

"None of them have met me."

Anatoly brought them beef stroganoff, one of Viktor's most popular dishes.

"This evening is so refreshing," he said as he poured the wine into Cissy's glass, "that I just had to take a quick look outside while waiting. But I was astonished to find no people out enjoying a very healthy walk, no lovers arm in arm, no business men with their jackets off, not a single soul." He scratched his ear, like some baseball coach's signal. "Enjoy your meal and the ambience of King Gregor's on the house. I am sure this is going to be a special night for you both."

Cissy stood up and kissed his cheek. "You are a marvel. I will meet you here at two o'clock. Be alone, be naked and have a rose between your teeth." She did an excellent Russian accent, not too thick.

Anatoly roared as he returned to the kitchen. Every one of his customers laughed. When Anatoly laughed, even the dead smiled, and the living were just swept up into it.

"His accent wasn't artificially thick this time, except when he was lying earlier," Cissy said with a smile on her face that usually went with her not-embarrassed blush. "He's more masculine now, quite sexy and attractive for a man his age."

"I guess I will have a lot of time to paint from now on."

She just shrugged with that smile still on her face.

The meal was delicious. The wine was a bit sweet but it went well with what they were eating.

Anatoly did not flirt with Cissy as if her boyfriend wasn't there when he retrieved the dishes at the end of their meal. He brought out a bottle of cognac and poured them each a small glass of it. He drank his quickly before checking on his other customers and then returning to the kitchen.

"Have you talked to Theresa Wentworth yet?" She sipped her cognac.

"I was told she would be setting up a meeting with me in a few days."

"I am also going to be at that meeting."

Anatoly came back to them. "What a fascinating and vibrant city New York is on a spring evening such as this. Just when I was beginning to think it was as much like a ghost town as any abandoned gold mine city in Arizona could be, it comes to life with people out enjoying the evening. With so many out there now, I think I will have a busy night. I have even seen those elusive businessmen who compulsively work late. They have put on their sunglasses and are enjoying an aperitif across the street. That is a wise precaution. I wish I had been as sensible when I was a younger man. I might not be looking forward to cataract surgery in a few years if I had."

Cissy drank the rest of her cognac.

"You will have to make allowances," he said to her. "He learned English by reading Shakespeare."

"Verily," she said and had probably decided a tryst at 2:00 am with a sagging, naked Russian liar holding a rose between his teeth wasn't such a good idea anymore.

Anatoly poured another cognac for each of them, drank his and went back into the kitchen.

The two men fitting the descriptions of who seemed to be following them earlier were outside. How could he convince Cissy to leave through the kitchen? He might be able to get Anatoly to insist on showing it to them before suggesting in his longwinded way they leave through the back. Anatoly also knew now that he hadn't been imagining things.

Cissy slid out of the booth and dropped a twenty dollar bill on the table.

"He said it was on the house."

"He didn't say anything about not tipping. Besides, I think he should be recompensed for all that charm."

Anatoly exited the kitchen. He had removed his apron. "Where to now, my dear friends?"

Cissy said, "I told Max to bring the car to RBD at seven-thirty. Should I have him pick us up here?"

"What you need is a walk after such a meal. If you wouldn't mind some company, I would love to walk with you for some of the way to stretch my legs before I am trapped here for the rest of the night. Viktor can handle things for now."

"That sounds delightful." Cissy took his arm and Anatoly's and strolled out onto the sidewalk with them.

The two men in suits and sunglasses were sitting at outside tables at a bistro across the street. They made no quick moves, but they did get up from their chairs. One made the espionage faux pas of touching his finger to his ear.

Anatoly had also spotted them.

"And where to after Max picks you up at RBD?" Anatoly patted Cissy's hand but he was looking at Jaxon.

Cissy said, "I thought we'd just go for a drive, but I am open to suggestions."

"Driving around on a lovely night like this is an excellent idea. Be sure to open your windows to let in all of New York."

They went six blocks farther before Anatoly said, "I am truly reluctant to leave your good company, but I must return to the bar. Viktor is only good alone for about thirty minutes before he gets cranky. It's his knees. They give him all kinds of trouble sometimes."

"Thus, verily," he said as he looked back to see the two men were still behind them.

Anatoly hugged him, kissed both of Cissy's hands and headed back to his bar.

He watched Anatoly pass the two men without even a glance.

"He is a very nice man." Cissy kissed his cheek. "Come on, there's only a few more blocks to go and there's something very important I want to talk to you about."

Seconds after turning at the next corner, sirens approached. Two police cars, an ambulance and a fire truck sped past them. They turned the corner and continued toward King Gregor's. Their sirens soon stopped.

Cissy clutched his arm. "You don't think it could be Anatoly, do you?"

The same thought had occurred to him, but whereas Cissy probably worried Anatoly had suffered a heart attack, he was worried Anatoly had tried something heroic.

"Wait here."

"I'm coming with you."

They trotted back to the corner.

Cissy sighed. "I don't mean to sound insensitive to the misfortune of others, but thank God it isn't Anatoly."

Anatoly was in the crowd of spectators watching the paramedics wheeling two covered bodies to the ambulance. Police were interviewing witnesses. One officer was bagging two revolvers. A CSI unit arrived just as police were ordering the crowd to move back.

Anatoly looked their way, gave his head a solemn shake and came to them. "What a tragedy on such a fine evening. I had just turned the corner when I noticed these two young men seemed to be in distress. One of them just fell down, a victim of a stroke, I would think. The other one knelt down and then fell over dead as well but only a moment later. No doubt a heart attack felled him. It is one of the great paradoxes of our modern age. Two perfectly healthy looking young men, colleagues at the same company, I'm sure, out for a walk together before going home to their families." He shrugged. "Who knows, perhaps they were on their way to my bar for a quick drink." He leaned closer to them. "But that is the paradox of which I speak. It is your decadent western diet, too rich in sugars, fats and calories. I would bet neither of those men would have believed you if you had told them they needed to take better care because death was silently stalking their every step."

Cissy said, "Now you just sound ghoulish."

"After seeing this, I may change to a Mediterranean style menu, maybe more salads and heart-safe meal options." He kissed Cissy's hand. "Do enjoy the rest of your evening, you two. I think you are my two most favorite people ever."

He walked back to the crowd.

"There's blood on the sidewalk. Where did that come from?"

"Maybe the first one hit his head?"

"And the guns?"

"They might have been security guards. They were big men."

"Maybe I should call Max."

"I think that would be for the best."

They walked clear of the commotion before Cissy called Max and provided directions to where they were.

While they waited, the shadows lengthened across the street, dusk obscured the details of their surroundings. He could envision three paintings profiling the stages of the day. The problem was the last one could end up being hardly any more than a series of dark smudges of greys, browns and blacks. The idea was to use shading in painting, not just paint shading.

Cissy shivered and hugged him tighter. "I'm a bit flustered. I had an important question to ask you, but this evening isn't going as I'd planned."

He put his arm around her. "New York, ya gotta love it."

Max had to negotiate the traffic jams created by the deaths of the two men. It took twenty minutes to cover less than a mile. Cissy told him to just drive when they got into the BMW.

She snuggled up to him. "What did you want to tell me?"

"You go first," he said. "Mine can wait."

"I do love you. You know that, don't you?"

"You mean you were only kidding all those other times you said it? You're vicious."

She poked him in the ribs. "I'm serious."

"I do know that, and you know I wasn't joking either."

"I know you want to make it on your own. I respect that, but I can help you. I want to help you."

"I've never doubted that either."

"How would you have felt if we'd met while you were at Columbia? How would you have felt if we'd met shortly after you'd quit fighting?"

"What if we'd met while I was still fighting?"

"Nonsense, I would have had nothing to do with you then." She kissed him, lingering at his lips, her hand hot against his chest. "How would you feel if I weren't rich? What if . . . ?"

"What if what?"

"What if we were married?" She kissed him again, a long, warm, tender kiss, one to convey her feelings and at the same time keep him from saying something stupid.

"I'm not sure I follow you."

"Darling, don't be evasive. If we'd been married when you were just getting started at Columbia, if I weren't so frightening because of my father and my money, would you still turn away my offers to help you with your career? The reality is I would have likely been the one working at a normal job to keep a roof over our heads, food on the table and clothes on our backs while you painted. What's the difference between that situation and this one except I have lots of filthy money?"

"That's not the only difference."

"Marry me and then there will be only one issue standing in the way of me helping you. And I'm sure we can reach some agreement about that, too."

"This is your important question?"

"In so many words."

"That was a lot of words, and it's a tempting offer."

"I would hope so. What's your answer?" She might have started trembling.

"Yes. Now ask me a tough one."

She nuzzled against him and kissed his neck. "What did you want to talk to me about?"

"It doesn't compare and it doesn't matter. The question now is when?"

She sat back, her face shone, her green eyes glistened. "We'll work all that out. There are so many people I must tell first." Her face changed. Doubt? Though she was facing him, she wasn't looking at him.

He couldn't bring himself to ask what she was feeling. As horrible as almost getting caught by two killers at the Harbor Yards had been, and then discovering they were following him and all that meant, he couldn't face whatever was making her face change like that.

"I'd like to go home now."

"We'll go anywhere you want."

Her beautiful smile returned, but there was nowhere near the level of joy in it that had been there only moments ago.

# Chapter 31

He'd just become engaged to a woman he, plain and simple, didn't deserve. He had a list of secrets he was keeping from her that just kept getting longer and more dangerous. Now he was straight out lying to her as they lay together in her bed with her head resting on his chest. They had made love three times, twice as slow, prolonged explorations of each other, taking turns tending to the other before joining together for their final pleasure, once just a grunting, animal exertion of lust.

"I'm too wired to sleep," he said.

Her head rose and fell with each breath he took. She ran her hand from his chest to his groin.

"I still have a few tricks that might help. I was hoping to save them for our wedding night, but what the hell."

"From now on, plug your ears when I talk in my sleep. Besides, I want to make it to our wedding night in one piece. You can do what you want to me then."

"That sounds wonderful." She rolled off him and sat up. "Just let me get a drink of water first."

He rose up on his elbow. "I have all these ideas going through my head. I was thinking of going to the studio and sketching them while they're still clear."

She leaned back and kissed him. "Then you should go. You need to do what you must when the creative force takes hold of you."

"You've been listening to Anatoly too much."

She laughed, slid away from him and put on her robe. "Just go before I tie you to my bed forever."

"Now that we're engaged the real you comes out."

"I'm a Remington chick. It's time you knew who you were getting stuck with, how much I love naughty leather outfits and inflicting pain to get my pleasure."

He got off the bed and began dressing. "I was more worried about you finally discovering what you were getting stuck with and how much pain I was going to cause you."

"Payback is the realm of women. Get out of here. I have a sleazy and promising date with Anatoly and I need to wash you off me and out of the way before I go."

He called a cab, kissed Cissy's breasts good-bye, then her mouth, got his lip bit in the process and went to the studio. He called Sean to come over as soon as he was there.

"I've got two girls with me right now," Sean groaned with a mixture of irritation and pleasure, "and one of them is very talented. It would be a sin to ask her to stop right in the middle of what she's doing. She might hurt herself, or me."

"If they're legal, tell them to keep each other entertained until you get back. If they're not, send them home now or I'll call the police. This is important."

Sean cursed him as only a reprobate lecherous, alcoholic, Irish artist could and hung up. He was at the studio in less than a half-hour.

"This had better be good," he said when he came in. "I had plans of becoming a cannibal tonight."

"Don't interrupt until I'm finished."

Sean interrupted him as soon as he revealed that Rowe was FBI.

"Not here." He took out his phone and made a call. "Are you still at the bar? Good. We'll be right over."

Viktor let them in while Anatoly poured out four vodkas at the bar. After handing out the drinks, Anatoly picked up the bottle, took them into the kitchen and sat them at the table.

"Now, Jaxon, Sean tells me you have a fascinating story for us. After what happened last night, I am eager to hear how you came to that circumstance. My only hope is that you leave out no detail no matter how trivial you think it might be."

"I'll bet you can't say anything in eight words or less, can you?"

"When required, I can. Now tell us your tale."

"That was nine words. What happened to the two men? Strokes and heart attacks don't leave pools of blood on the sidewalk."

"I would say it was a professional hit. I did not get a close look, but it would appear they were shot from behind. It could have been at close range or by sniper. Cecilia didn't need to know that. Now, Jaxon, quit stalling, your story, please." He poured another drink for himself.

Jaxon started with the night on the yacht and the accidental death of John Smith.

Viktor said, "And who is this John Smith?"

"A business associate, he was supposed to have been very drunk, which was what Jerry, Moe and Betty were supposed to be getting after him about, but, to me, he looked terrified."

"Maybe not an accident, then." Anatoly refilled everyone's glass.

Sean had already refilled his glass once on his own. "Tell them about Rowe and the club and Kit Lassiter."

Anatoly said, "Let him finish with no more interruptions."

He told them about the logo assignment, Remington and Triton and Keystone courier guy, the storage room, the club, the weekend in the Hamptons, Rowe being an undercover FBI agent and the killing of the courier at the New York Harbor Yards by an Asian diplomat, where he first saw those two men. The energy inside him ebbed away as he talked until he felt weary enough to slide off his chair. The three vodkas he'd drunk didn't help.

"And that," Anatoly said, "brings you to last night and the unfortunate end of those two men."

"And to Cissy's proposal of marriage."

Viktor and Anatoly sat up in their chairs and smiled at each other. Sean belched into uncontrollable laughter.

"Congratulations." Viktor shook his hand.

Anatoly then shook his hand. "Delightful news indeed."

"Jerome Remington wants me to paint her portrait."

While Viktor and Anatoly didn't recognize that disclosure as the punch line, Sean did. His laughter became mocking, high-pitched wailing of delight.

"See ya on de bridge ya daft bugger." He held his side as he reached for the bottle of vodka.

Anatoly snatched it away from him and stood up clutching it as if he were going to smash him over the head with it.

"You do not understand the danger our friend is in."

Sean shot back with a hint of derision, "You don't understand that he can't do portraits. It's a block he's had since coming back from Amsterdam"

Sean stood up and snatched the bottle back.

Viktor said, "You are a nasty, little, drunken prick."

"That is incorrect, you cheap immigrant laborer. I am a nasty, little prick all the time. I'm just louder about it when I'm drunk."

"Can we ridicule me later? I could use a little help right now."

Sean's raucous laughter softened to a chuckle after he took a swig of vodka straight from the bottle.

"Just to sum up for the thick heads in the room, your future father-in-law, should you live so long, likes you, invited you to partake in the perks of membership at his club, which included the lovely Wendy and Tracy, who, like the idiot you are, you turned down. He may have pitched some poor bugger off his yacht, is probably doing something illegal that this stupid, bloody bitch, Nyla Rowe, who's used her own name while undercover, has been unable to find after almost a year in place. She recruits you as an operative, has you follow some courier guy only to see him get whacked by an fat Asian diplomat and packed away into a van by two men who end up following you and Cissy before getting whacked themselves with bullets to the back of their heads." He burped loud and long. "Did I miss anything?"

"Cissy and I are engaged."

"The bridge may be your only solution, mate."

Anatoly said, "What is all this bridge nonsense?"

"Suicide," he said. "It's seen as a drastic but sometimes vital career move for many artists, if you take that sort of stuff seriously."

Viktor said, "That is not an option for you."

"I can't believe I'm saying this," Sean said, "but I agree with Viktor. Look, Jax, you literally had to fight your way into a career as an artist. You told me it was the most important thing in your life."

"I told you it was the only thing that mattered to me."

"I remember. You used that stupid digital metaphor. In binary code, I believe you told me, a one is on or yes or true and zero is off or no or false." He squinted and chuckled. "I'm a little fuzzy on the last part, probably because you and I were drunk when you told me."

"I told you being an artist was my one; everything else was a zero. I should have kept my mouth shut."

"That was it! You told me your one was living in New York and being a painter; nothing else matter. You told me just before you confided in me that you can't paint people anymore." He burped and laughed a bit louder. "What was it you said happens?"

"All I see is some inchoate blotch where a face should be."

Viktor said, "Sean is a fool. You will get over that, Jaxon."

Sean said, "If you live long enough."

Viktor pointed to the sequoia. "That is a brilliant bit of painting, Jaxon. You just have to put in as much effort and concentration with faces."

Sean slipped off his chair laughing the way he had at O'Hara's after pranking them. "That bloody tree started out as a self-portrait. That's why there's nothing else on the canvas."

Anatoly asked, "Is that true, Jaxon?"

"It was the last portrait I ever tried to do, right after my father died." He hadn't revealed that last part to even Sean before.

Sean said through a giggle that reminded him too much of Adrian. "If you look closer, I swear you can still see his ugly mug and those dead eyes staring back at you from the bark. You could always do Cissy as a Venus fly trap."

He grabbed Sean and dragged him to his feet.

Anatoly and Viktor separated them.

Anatoly said, "Don't listen to this pile of shite. You will paint faces again, my talented friend. Now, you say this Nyla Rowe is an FBI agent, correct?"

"When she's not trying to ruin my life, yes."

"Call her right now. Tell her what's happened."

"It's almost four in the morning."

"She's FBI; she should be used to such calls. And she needs to intervene with the two men as soon as possible."

He took out his phone and went through his blurry list to find her number.

"Jaxon," she said.

"Nyla." Starting with her first name should get her attention more effectively. "Something happened last night that may help your case."

He put his phone on speaker for the others to hear and told her about everything from the moment he'd spotted the two men on the plaza to them being taken away in ambulances. He told her he thought they'd been victims of a professional hit. He did not tell her of Anatoly's involvement, where he was or about Cissy's proposal to him.

"You should have called me first thing."

"Sorry. I'm new at being an operative."

"You did fine. I'll take care of everything. Get some rest; we have a lot of work ahead of us." She was gone.

"Well done," Viktor said.

"Now call your brother," Sean said.

"What good would that do?"

"He's the biggest prick in New York next to you, but he is a special prosecutor, politically connected and ambitious. Get all this information to him as back-up in case . . ."

"I agree with our drunken Irishman," Viktor said.

"As do I." Anatoly put the bottle of vodka away. "It would be best to have someone sneaky and greasy enough to cover your ass with an even bigger ass."

"That's Werner, but he won't help me."

"You're family, he will help. And you're not going to give him any choice. Go home and make the call."

He took a frightening cab ride back to his apartment. The driver, an Iranian, spent more time watching a soccer game on the small television he had attached to the dash instead of the road. He cursed and swerved about every two minutes.

He called his brother, Werner Trevelyan, at five o'clock.

"What do you want?"

"How are the wife and kids? You look good. Did you lose some weight? Now, shut the fook up and listen or I'll kick your goddamn head off."

# Chapter 32

Sleep was out. After setting up a luncheon appointment with his brother, he'd tried sketching. He'd even tried drawing Cissy's face, the former look of joy from last night in the BMW not the latter look of . . . At 6:00 am, he broke the pencil in half, shaved and showered, dressed and commuted to Manhattan.

He kept looking back during his walk from Wall Street to RBD. He thought he spotted two men in suits following him from the station, but there would be lots of men in suits on their way to work at this time of the morning. Some of them were bound to have also come from Brooklyn and be going in the same direction he was going, even to the same building.

Finnegan and Juarez were absent when he got to Graphic Arts. Eric and Elaine and a few of the others in GA waved to him when he came in, but no one wanted to talk to him. A curt message on his phone summoned him to Rowe's office. When he got there, Rowe was looking out the window.

She wore a slate-grey pantsuit with a turquoise blouse and black shoes with low heels.

"You're being promoted," she said without turning around. "You're my new personal assistant."

He sat down at her massive desk and put his feet up on it. "I always knew I was a rising star in the corporate cosmos."

"Alliteration always sounds forced to me."

"Always comes easily to me."

She came to her desk. "You'll be a falling star out that window if you don't put your feet down."

He sat up straight. "What does a personal assistant to the Chief Operations Officer of Remington Bakersfield Draper do? You should know right up front that I'm not very good with coffee, hair or toenails."

"He keeps his mouth shut and follows orders."

"I knew there'd be a catch."

"After yesterday, I want you as close to me as possible so I can keep an eye on you." She checked the small clock on her desk. "Nyu will be here in a few minutes. Until then, let's go over everything that happened yesterday again."

"Did you retrieve the two men?"

"Yes, and we also retrieved something both interesting and disturbing along with them, but we'll get to that. Start from the moment you reached the Harbor Yards."

Professional operatives probably didn't feel like they were the criminal being interrogated until they broke every time they had to repeat their report; lucky them.

He told her again, still leaving out Cissy's charity information, but this time including her proposal to him.

"Congratulations," she said as curtly as her message on his phone had been, "then what?"

"I did some sketching—not very happy with any of it—shaved and showered, came to work, got your message, came to your office, told you everything that happened from the moment I reached the Harbor Yards again, ending with doing some sketching etcetera."

"You are the most inherently annoying person I have ever met."

"Rising star. What is the interesting and disturbing something you got along with the two bodies, or was that also me?"

"The bullets used to kill the two men weren't exactly bullets."

"If it was stardust, it didn't come from me. I'm not old enough to create heavier elements in my core yet; still bright, hot stuff. What were they exactly, and why is that disturbing?"

"We normally wouldn't get such a quick hit on NIBIN, but these came up instantly. You know the difference between a bullet and a shotgun shell."

"Rising stars know all kinds of things; that is one of them."

"These were somewhat in between each. They were more like the old flintlock ordnance, a round pellet barely larger than the pellets found in a shotgun shell except they weren't lead. They were glass that fragmented once they entered their targets. Each man had three of these glass pellets fired into them from behind."

"I would have thought glass pellets would break up in the barrel and come out fragmented. And the killer would have had to stick around to get three into each of them."

"If they were fired with gunpowder, they very well might fragment, but these were fired with something like an airgun. Our best guess is they are carefully etched to fragment upon hitting their target. Both men were shot at close range, but there were no powder marks left."

"The killer has some kind of special airgun that shoots small etched glass three pellets at a time. Untraceable, then."

"Unless we get the weapon, we have nothing to match them with."

"That is disturbing."

"That isn't the disturbing part. These glass pellets have been linked to numerous unsolved murders all over the world dating back to nineteen-ninety-six. They've been flagged on NIBIN and by Interpol, as well as in China, Japan, Russia and South Korea. They've been linked to political assassinations, gang killings, even the elimination of agents in the field."

"How many unsolved murders?"

"Long as my arm, that's how many. The last killing was ten years ago in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It was linked to the apparent murder of some crazy cult leader, but only his blood and glass fragments were found at the scene. His body was never recovered."

"Could there be more than one killer? Two professionals were gunned down side by side. Even this young star knows that would have to happen pretty quickly. Are there two guns like that?"

"There could be. Using two guns at once is also a signature of some of the killings. And while most of the glass has been in the form of pellets, there were also the unsolved 'Thirty-cents Murders' six years ago in Soho. They haven't been officially linked to the other ones, but glass shaped as regular bullets about an inch and a half long were used in those killings. Four gang leaders had met to negotiate the division of Soho, Tribeca and the Garment District for drug and prostitution distribution. They were all killed. Three dimes cushioned by felt pads were used to protect the glass from the power of the compressed gas that expelled them."

"And our two guys were shot from behind."

"At close range by someone shorter than them and pointing the weapon upward. The pellets entered just at the base of their skulls, fragmented and exited out the tops of their foreheads. They had nothing left above their eyes."

"Who killed them?"

"There could be another party interested in what's happening. I have no idea who that could be at the moment."

"Did that other party kill them to protect me?"

"They may have killed them for their own reasons. They may not be aware you're involved or don't care that you are."

"Personal Assistant is good. I want you to keep an eye on me, too."

Nyu knocked on the door as he entered the office.

Rowe said, "What have you to report?"

"I am still unable to find that file on our system." Nyu sat down in the chair beside Jaxon and shook his hand. "My brother thinks he is closing in on something at his end."

He said, "I do have one bit of information I was holding on to for the right moment. The Remington-Smythe Foundation hasn't sent so much as a cracker to anyone. They're not inner circle with the UN yet."

Rowe said to Nyu, "Keep searching. I'll see what I can find in the secure files I have access to."

Nyu got up to leave.

"Wait," he said. "Nyu needs to know the danger he could be facing if he's going to be part of this posse."

Nyu, logically, asked, "What danger?"

He told Nyu about his day yesterday. Rowe told him about glass bullets and a list as long as her arm of unsolved murders linked to them.

"So be careful," he said, "because your arm is long enough to add a few more names to it."

"Bugger," Nyu said and left.

"Come on." Rowe headed for the door.

"Where to, boss?"

"We're going to take another look at that storage room, specifically, the portion of it you didn't get to."

# Chapter 33

Once inside the storage room, they went straight to work in the section of it he hadn't searched yesterday. They had no more success with that part of the room than he had yesterday.

"There has to be something," Rowe said, "otherwise, why come in here?"

"It may have been a onetime situation. They may have only popped in here for privacy."

"Don't be ridiculous. They could have used either of their offices for that."

"Maybe they really did just need to grab an envelope."

They wandered along the aisles between the shelves. Every now and then Rowe checked a shelf but it looked more like she was trying to find a pen she didn't even care about than some spectacular bit of evidence that would crack her investigation wide open, or whatever a spectacular piece of evidence was supposed to do for an FBI undercover investigation.

She said, "What do we know?"

"I still blame all this on John Smith."

"You might be close on that. We know something isn't right with RBD's new shipping enterprise. Somali pirates stole small containers marked as food that's part of the United Nations humanitarian aid program for the Middle East. That food was supposedly donated by the Remington-Smythe Foundation, except they haven't begun doing anything of the kind yet."

They walked past a set of shelves stocked with boxes of paper used in dot matrix printers.

"I still blame John Smith."

"What if Jerome and Morris weren't just talking to him about drinking too much? What if Smith was drinking too much because he had found something wrong with RBD's entry into the shipping industry? He had brought it to their attention that night on the Dagger. They were with him for over an hour before I was asked to join them."

"He would then have been the first murder committed to cover up whatever is going on. The courier was the second." And that would confirm Jerome and Morris were willing participants in murder.

"That's if we assume no one else has been silenced between those two."

"What is the illegal cargo? What would Somali pirates take?"

"Anything they can carry, but what if the cargo was intended for them?"

"RBD, a short, fat Asian diplomat and Keystone Couriers are shipping weapons to Somali pirates."

"That is possible, but it could still be anything. And the Somali pirates could be acting as couriers themselves."

"Which is what John Smith might have found out."

"The evidence of a connection to Somali pirates is here at RBD. It's likely in this room."

"What we've discovered in this room is Remington Bakersfield Draper's secret burial ground for dot matrix printer paper; that's all, folks."

"There's something here, we're just not seeing it."

"There is no criminal cartel dealing in the illegal smuggling of unused dot matrix printer paper. Or is that just another government cover-up by claiming it's really drugs?"

"Weapons are the most likely cargo."

"There are no weapons in this room. Everything I've ever read indicates pirates, spies and terrorists have not yet resorted to paper cuts as forms of torture."

"But there has to be—"

Voices stopped at the door.

"Hide," she said.

"There is nothing suspicious about us being in here." He looked around for a hiding spot anyway.

"What if it's Remington and Triton?"

"Here." He took her to the credenza. The sliding door to it was open.

"I'm not hiding in there."

"Fine. We'll just tell them we were getting printer paper."

The electronic lock beeped. The door released with a loud click.

"You first."

He slipped in and lay on his side. Rowe lay in front of him and slid the door shut.

"This is crazy," she whispered.

He whispered back, "Of course it is because everything else happening at RBD is so goddamn sane, isn't it?"

A man and a woman were whispering as they came toward the credenza.

"There's no one here," Kline said.

Finnegan grunted. "I saw them enter the room."

"Maybe they left when you came to get me. You shouldn't have waited so long. If you thought something was wrong, you should have gone in or come get me right away." Kline sat on the credenza.

"Keep still." Rowe wriggled as if she were trying to take more of the blankets.

"What does it matter that Nyla and Jaxon came in here?"

"I told you. Triton thinks they're up to some kind of corporate espionage. He's never trusted Rowe because she came in and took over the COO position too easily."

Finnegan could have also been following him and Cissy last night.

"She's qualified. Does it bother you that a beautiful black woman is smart enough to run a company this big?"

"It bothers me that she and that arrogant prick may be stealing secrets from RBD for our competitors. Triton asked me to watch out for them."

"And doing that isn't going to hurt your career any, is it?"

He whispered into Rowe's ear, "Someone's been sloppy if Triton's suspicious."

She nudged him with her very hard elbow.

The credenza creaked.

Kline said, "There's no one in here now but us." The credenza creaked again when she wiggled further back onto it.

"This is going to get very awkward."

Rowe carefully slid the door open a crack just as Finnegan stepped closer to Kline. Kline's bobbing foot struck the door, forcing Rowe to jerk back and hit him in the nose with her head.

"Sorry. What are they . . . ?"

Kline moaned and cooed, the credenza creaked and sagged.

Rowe hissed, "Shit."

The credenza's legs scratched along the floor.

He whispered, "That's probably over four hundred pounds on top of us. I don't know if this thing can take our combined weight."

Kline moaned and sighed. Her shoes dropped to the floor. "Yeah, right there, like that. Come on, teddy bear, give it to me the way I like it. Ooh, that's it."

The credenza began to buck from side to side.

"I didn't think he was that athletic."

Both Kline and Finnegan were grunting and moaning. Kline sounded passionate, Finnegan sounded exhausted.

Rowe said, "What is that?"

"What is what?"

Kline called out. "Oh, my little teddy bear, yes, like that, oh, yes."

"Do you have an erection?"

"It is a little cramped in here."

"You better control yourself or I'll reach back there and break it off."

"That shouldn't be a problem with your icy fingers."

"Asshole."

The credenza started staggering across the floor. The flimsy metal buckled behind his ear with a loud crack.

"Hang on."

"To what?"

"On second thought."

Kline moaned. Finnegan's moan sounded like a last gasp of life. The credenza, having crossed about three feet of floor, just bounced in place.

The metal walls buckled again, jabbing a crease into his spine.

He nudged forward.

Rowe nudged back against him. "Hold still. I swear I'll—"

The electronic door lock beeped.

"Shit." Kline rolled out from under Finnegan, dropped to her hands and knees and scrabbled to retrieve her shoes. "Shit." Her flushed face passed the opening in the credenza door.

Grunting and panting, Finnegan fell as much as jumped off the credenza, staggered into it and sent it skidding into the wall.

The impact knocked him into the back of Rowe and her into the sliding door.

Triton growled as he came to Kline and Finnegan, "What is she doing here?"

Finnegan stammered, "I saw Rowe and Trevelyan come in here together. I asked Elaine to be my witness if I caught them doing anything."

"You were supposed to keep what you're doing quiet."

Kline said with certainty and force, "We can both keep quiet, Mr. Triton."

"Where are they?"

"They must have left," Finnegan said. "There was no one here when I returned with Elaine." He said that as if trying to blame Kline for his mission failure. "We were taking a look around in case . . ."

"Did they take anything?"

"Not that we could see," Kline said.

Finnegan said, "I will keep watching for them, sir."

Jaxon could imagine Finnegan saluting with one hand while holding up his baggy trousers with the other.

"Never mind that, I have something else for you to do."

He whispered, "I hope it's a delivery."

"Did you hear something?" Triton walked away, but it was impossible to know from inside the credenza what direction he went. "It sounded like talking."

Kline said, "I heard nothing, Mr. Triton."

Finnegan, probably still saluting, said, "I think it came from the hallway."

"Get out."

Kline and Finnegan obeyed that order as fast as they could.

"What's he doing?" Rowe pressed back against him, an instinctive reaction when Triton approached the credenza.

His head began to pound when he inhaled the aroma of her and her perfume, felt her buttocks against his groin, her heat radiating into him, her shallow breathing and racing heartbeat against his chest. Serried like this, he couldn't help but react instinctively as well.

She turned her head as they listened to Triton walk through the room. "You are disgusting."

When the credenza had hit the wall and knocked him forward, his hand had ended up on her bum. "That I am."

Watching them in his magic mirror, Adrian would appreciate this situation most of all even if it was just a nostalgic moment for him.

He slowly lifted his hand off her and tried to wriggle back a bit. Rowe might interpret his action as taking advantage of the situation rather than just trying to terminate physical contact. "Sorry."

Triton stopped moving. His leg was visible through the opening in the door. Had he heard them?

Rowe's hand settled on his thigh and squeezed lightly. If he was reading her correctly, she was trying to reassure him.

Triton stood at the credenza long enough for Jaxon to come up with the absurd notion that they might run out of air. Then he just turned and left. He did stop somewhere on the way to the door for about twenty seconds, which was when Jaxon began sweating. He made what could have been a rapping noise against the walls before leaving the room.

Another absurd thought occurred to Jaxon that Triton had just tapped out some Morse code message to them confirming he knew they were there.

Rowe slid open the door once the electronic lock closed, climbed out and straightened her clothes.

Jaxon came out and pushed the credenza back into place. It moved easily but noisily. The flimsy metal wall at the back of it had two creases from buckling. One crease had folded inward to protrude against his back. One front metal leg was also buckled and stuck out like it was trying to trip anyone who came by.

"Wait five minutes," Rowe said, "then go back to your quad through the cafeteria. Your office next to mine won't be ready until this afternoon." She left.

He stopped in the cafeteria for a strong, black coffee and a granola bar, but stayed to eat an order of pancakes and sausages instead.

There were no messages on his voicemail from Cissy when he got back to his quad. He called her apartment but was deflected to her voicemail; likewise when he called her cell phone. Another absurd thought was that she had been with Adrian watching everything in his magic mirror. Theresa Wentworth called fifteen minutes into his stewing over being unable to either sketch or contact Cissy.

"Good morning, Jaxon, how are you?"

He exhaled one short guffaw. "Marvelous. How are you?"

"I'm very excited about us working together. I've always loved your stuff and I have a lot of ideas about where to go with it. How are the works in progress coming?"

"You know, just one damn thing after another."

"Fantastic. I'd like to get together with you next Monday at your studio if that's all right with you. We can go over what you have, what you're working on and what ideas you're considering for the future."

"Next Monday can't come soon enough. We can meet at ten."

"That won't interfere with your job, will it?"

"I was planning on taking the day off to paint."

"Great idea, keep at it and I will see you Monday at ten."

Kline came to his quad. She didn't have flirting on her mind. "You need to watch out for yourself, Jaxon. Everyone knows about your promotion. It's happening too soon. Everyone thinks you were here to spy on them."

She'd found a unique way of introducing the topic.

"Not everyone. Why are you with him?"

She sighed. It was a small, simple, heartfelt response. "Everyone needs someone. Right now, he needs me. In a little while, who knows?"

She sighed again, which made him want to take hold of her hand and offer some level of comfort, but the offer itself could be embarrassing for her and offensive if she thought it was from pity.

"I believe you and Blake could have hit it off if not for everything that's happened to him. He's normally quick-witted and quite funny. You two would have had us all laughing all the time. We could use that."

"But for everything that has happened to him."

"He used to be very sensitive and considerate."

"Now he's out to get me."

"Survival of the most bitter, I suppose."

"Why should he be bitter about me? He knows I'm only here temporarily. I'm no threat to him."

"She hasn't told you, then."

What else had Rowe being doing behind his back? Had she recruited Finnegan as a double agent?

"Who hasn't told me what?"

"Cissy didn't tell you she and Blake used to be together?"

Everyone had a past, and he was hardly in a position to blame Cissy for keeping secrets she thought were better kept secret. She might have thought she was protecting him the same way his secrets were supposed to be protecting her. And what did it really matter? But still, Cissy had known he was coming to Graphic Arts. Telling him about Blake Finnegan being in her past would have prevented any current sense of being blindsided.

He looked around GA to see if the dogs had their heads up in anticipation of seeing Cissy's new boy toy, the spy, melt or explode. It seemed worse that no one was watching them. They all knew what was coming and couldn't bear to witness it. Not even Eric was watching.

"They met a year after he started here. It was only for a few months. Apparently her brother and his friends tormented him relentlessly." Kline finally sat on the corner of his desk and leaned forward, though still with no intention of flirting. "He used to be seventy pounds lighter. I think he kept hoping they would get back together, but Cissy moved on to others."

"And then me."

"He's an adult, he's moved on, too, but with Cissy still this close and you ending up here, he does backslide every now and then." She got up. "I don't think he really wants to hurt you, but Triton has a hold on him now and it's making him think crazy things." She reached over and stroked his hand. "Watch yourself."

She returned to her quad.

Rowe called him. "Your office will be ready at two." When he didn't respond, she said, "Keystone Couriers hasn't had a contract with RBD for the past three months. I called to see what they were doing about their missing man. They informed me Morris Triton canceled their contract."

"That explains the stitching."

"What stitching?"

"Sorry, it slipped my mind. When I was in the elevator with the not-Keystone courier guy, I noticed sloppy stitching where his emblem was attached to his uniform sleeve . . . his fake uniform sleeve."

When Rowe didn't respond, he said, "Triton is on to us."

"He may only be suspicious because I've promoted you to my personal assistant. It's too fast and too obvious for him."

"Do you have enough to launch a raid or whatever it is you were intending to do?"

"We don't have a body or the identity of the diplomat. Your video isn't clear enough to identify the courier as the one being loaded into the van. We don't know if our suspicions about why Smith was on the Dagger are correct and we still can't find anything here. The only concrete thing we do have is the phoney Remington-Smythe Foundation link to stuff stolen by Somali pirates. I don't want to go with only that because you know who it will lead to."

"What do we do?"

"Go to lunch."

# Chapter 34

The taxi he took to get to the Upper East Side and his luncheon appointment with his brother was the same one that took him home from Anatoly's bar last night, with the same driver still more interested in a replay of the same game from last night on his small dash-mounted television than the traffic in front of him. At one intersection, the driver had to take the cab up onto the sidewalk to avoid hitting the car ahead of him.

"Watch where you're going," he hollered.

The driver hollered too loud to hear his passenger when his team scored. He just turned back onto the road and continued on his way.

With all the danger ramping up around him, it would be life's last practical joke on him to kill him in a taxi on the way to see his estranged brother. Life did have to compete with Adrian and Sean after all, so it had to bring its A-game.

At the next red light, Jaxon shoved money through the slot, got out and walked the last five blocks to MATCH 65, which made him late, which suited Werner just fine because it only reinforced his opinion of his useless little brother.

Werner was already eating his lunch when Jaxon entered MATCH 65: two grilled steak sandwiches covered in caramelized onions and Swiss cheese accompanied by a side of fries.

As soon as Jaxon sat down, Werner said, "How did you get into this much trouble in less than two weeks?" He just kept shoveling the first sandwich into himself and grabbed up a handful of fries to go with it. One cup of coffee was empty.

Werner, thirty-six, resembled his father, right down to that self-righteous scowl on his face. Whereas he and his sister, Ruth Alcott, had frames more closely matching their mother's athletic one, Werner was 6'5" and close to 300 pounds. Werner and Blake resembled brothers more than he and Werner did.

He'd always wanted to smash in that sanctimonious scowl, had frequently tried to when he was younger, only to get the crap beat out of him.

"Can you help me or not?"

"I don't know what you expect me to do. I'm a federal prosecutor, not an estate lawyer, and I'm sure as hell not your nanny." He kept shoveling.

Jaxon ordered the Belgium waffles and a coffee. When the waiter left, he said, "Do you know anything about the FBI's undercover work at RBD and those other two companies?"

"Why should I know anything about that?"

"Remember how you used to use that hippopotamus body of yours to sit on me and pound on my face if I so much as looked at you the wrong way? Remember how you used to slap Ruth to get her crying, wait for her to stop and then slap her again? Remember how you used to throw darts at us?"

"You're the same scatterbrained idiot as always."

"I knew you were going to end up a lawyer."

He took a large slurp of coffee from his second cup. "This is a waste of my time."

"Amazing how a growth spurt can make all the difference to someone's life, huh? You still outweigh me. Shit, you still outweigh Ruth and I combined, but I believe you remember what happened then."

"What are you talking about?" The second sandwich was disappearing rapidly.

"How would you like to do an instant replay for the sports fans among this crowd? Now, I know it won't be the same as when I tossed you out our living room window, the drop isn't as far so you're not as likely to break your leg this time, but there are more people here to enjoy the spectacle of a special prosecutor flying through plate glass."

"You got the farm. What more do you want?"

"Any information you have or," he made a tossing motion, "phfft, out you go."

"Still trying to solve all your problems with violence, I see."

"You know me, kick, punch, strangle, break; repeat as needed."

Werner put down the second sandwich. Once he started gormandizing, Werner rarely stopped until he was finished no matter what came his way. That he stopped could be viewed as a victory almost as satisfying as seeing his pompous, wrecking-ball ass sailing through that window would have been.

Ah, well, you can't have everything. And Werner, a federal Assistant Prosecutor, had to know something about the FBI's multifaceted investigation.

"I can't tell you much," he said after wiping his mouth. He kept his gaze on the second sandwich as if he were concerned it might stampede away. "It's a massive investigation, worldwide, and it involves an international crime syndicate whose existence has just recently come to light."

That had to be the Proteus Group Rowe had mentioned.

"What has Agent Rowe told you?"

"Very little because she hadn't found anything before I started working there. We've learned a few things in the past couple of days that indicate RBD, specifically Jerome Remington and Morris Triton, could be involved with Somali pirates."

"It's much bigger than just that. What have you got?"

Much bigger meant much more dangerous, thus the elimination of the lesser players had begun. Finishing last in this particular event would be permanent. Perhaps there was a glass pellet with an etching of his likeness on it to make sure it fragmented when it struck him from below and behind, or else there was a bullet out there with his name on it—more likely it would have 'RBD' carved into it. What was the point to killing him if there wasn't some ironic humor to the deed?

His waffles and coffee arrived.

He dug in to his meal as he recited what had happened, including the phoney shipping of humanitarian aid from the UN via the Remington-Smythe Foundation.

He and his brother could happily kill each other and feed the body through a chipper, but, as politically ambitious as Werner was; he was also a good lawyer. Werner had prosecuted several high profile federal cases over the years, including the fallout from the Colter Militia incident in Oregon that Rowe had also mentioned.

As soon as Rowe had revealed the existence of the Proteus Group to him, he'd known Werner would be in the loop and likely knew even more than Rowe and her immediate supervisor did.

"As I said, I can't tell you any more than she already has for national security reasons."

"If you told me, you'd have to kill me."

"Don't tempt me." He went back to his sandwich before it skedaddled. "What are you going to do with the farm?"

"The animals mom fostered are gone, but that's all I've done with it so far."

"Typical. Have you made out a will?"

"I've been meaning to."

"Do you know why she left you the farm? Because she left you behind. Do you know why she left you behind? Because she knew you would be too much for her on her own. She knew you belonged with him." He took another large mouthful. "I'll have something drawn up. Ruth and I should have inherited it."

"The last time I talked to her, she told me she was fine with me having it."

"She lied." He stuffed his mouth with the last of the sandwich. "Send me what you've found out. I'll do what I can for you if any of it comes to me. Now get out of my sight."

# Chapter 35

He took the subway back to Wall Street and walked up William Street to Cedar Street and RBD. Despite lunch with his brother, he was surprised that his thoughts remained focused on what Kline had told him about Blake and Cissy. He hadn't completed a 180 turn on Finnegan by the time he got back to his quad, but his perception of the man was changing.

Tormented, pranked and humiliated by Adrian and his entourage, Finnegan had endured the gauntlet for as long as he could for Cissy's sake. Kline hadn't disclosed how the relationship dissolved, but Adrian's predictions that night on the Dagger were likely accurate descriptions of what had happened. Adrian had just neglected to include the role he'd played in making his predictions come true.

His new obsession was ruining every relationship Cissy entered into.

You did not give up a high-paying job in New York City just because the boss's daughter, her brother and his friends had dumped all over you. It was easy to understand Finnegan's animosity toward him and his difficulty moving on without the occasional slide to a stop with RBD throwing Jerome, Adrian, Cissy and now him in his face on a regular basis. In retrospect, some of what he'd said to Finnegan could have been interpreted as more poignant taunts than he'd intended.

What was that saying? People who failed to learn from their past mistakes were destined to repeat them. Was he Cissy's next mistake?

But, at the moment, Blake Finnegan was still third in line behind Jerome and Morris as his greatest enemy at RBD. Nyla Rowe could pass them all, though, if she kept tossing him in the way of murderous Asian diplomats.

At two o'clock, he went down to his new office beside Rowe's.

Rowe was standing at the window as she had been in her office this morning, except she was facing the door waiting for him to enter. She had also changed her clothes.

Her pantsuit, turquoise blouse and black shoes had been replaced with a form-hugging, sleeveless, pale-yellow dress with a midsection of white and green diamonds circling her like a belt. Rowe had a form worth hugging, too. Her shoes were black high heels with straps around her ankles, which seemed to perfectly draw one's gaze to her calves and very slowly take it up all the way to her full lips highlighted with port-wine red lipstick, and her large, round, brown, imperious eyes. Her forehead was as smooth as her legs. She wore her hair long and straight. Her arms were as muscular as Penny's.

He shook his head as he came to his desk. "Get some dust on the suit?"

"I didn't think you'd notice." She came to his desk.

"I'm noticing now."

Her face scrunched in anticipation.

"Just so you know, that is not a zinger and none come to mind. You look awesome. That's straight up."

"You're my personal assistant, not my personal—"

"Can we have a little reciprocity, Agent Rowe, if you please?" He sat down at his desk and held out his hands to measure the width of it. "It's almost fifty percent bigger than the one I had at the quad. Is the salary increase that big, too?"

"What did your brother have to say?" She started to sit on the corner of the desk, but that form-hugging dress didn't have enough give in it. She pulled a guest chair closer and sat down.

He watched her left ankle wrapped in straps bob about when she crossed her legs. Inside his head, that insane, distorted little man was trying to scratch out his own eyeballs.

"He only acknowledged that he was aware of the scope of your investigation. He didn't tell me anything I didn't already know."

"He's an even bigger jerk than you, but he is a good prosecutor. I've worked with him before."

"I need to know, are you wearing a gun, and if so, where?"

"I knew it couldn't last. The autopsy on John Smith didn't tell us much, but it was only a perfunctory one because of the assumption going in that his death was an accident. I've requested a more thorough toxicology report."

"What about those two with the glass fragments in what's left of their heads?"

"No clear identification yet, but something found on one of them indicates they're from South Africa. We've sent what we've got to both SAPS and SASS for further research. We should know within twenty-four hours."

"That was the fooking accent I heard."

Nyu knocked on the door and came in. "My brother thinks he may be on to something about that diplomat. He's pursuing possible connections to both Somalia and South Africa."

Rowe didn't even flinch. "When will he know for sure?"

Nyu shrugged as he watched Rowe's bobbing foot; another fan of high heels with straps around the ankles.

"I suppose international espionage would bring out the silliest fetishes." When they both glared at him, he slid down in his chair and simpered. "Nothing."

Nyu said, "It's a question of getting the Somali and South African governments to cooperate. That will not be a fast process."

Rowe got up and went to Nyu. They made an attractive couple.

That miniature lunatic inside him had begun furiously kicking at the back of his forehead.

She said to Nyu, "Tell your brother to tell South Africa the FBI is involved in the investigation. I don't think that information will help with Somalia."

"I agree with you on that."

Rowe and Nyu exited the office still talking together.

"Carry on," he muttered, "I'll stay here and look out the window. RBD executives do that a lot."

His desk phone rang after he'd stared at it for ten minutes, having never made it to the window.

"Hello."

"Jaxon," Cissy said, "I have some terrible news." She took a number of deep breaths. "Michael, Trudy and Christine have been murdered." She gasped. "I'm taking Penny to JFK to catch a flight at four to Las Vegas. I haven't decided whether or not to go with her yet."

"Go with her. She's going to need someone."

"They were butchered. It's all over the news. Someone cut them to pieces."

"Pick me up on the way. I'll come with you."

"Thank you for the offer, darling, I'll call you as often as I can. I love you." She hung up before he could respond.

Rowe didn't come back, Cissy didn't phone back. He sat at his desk for the rest of the work day staring at the window.

At five o'clock, he went to the UFC Gym on Gold Street and worked out as hard as he could with the weights and the punching bag.

Bobby Lee and Claudia were on the landing when he came home. Claudia waved hello.

Bobby Lee said with a slurred drawl, "Whatcha doin' paintin' in your 'partment, Jaxon? You know you're not supposed to paint in there. It's a gawdawful stink you're making, boy."

"I don't paint in my apartment, Mr. Brooks. I know the rules."

"Well you just stop it, y'hear me? I can smell that shit all night long. I can barely get any sleep thanks to you." Bobby Lee took hold of Claudia's hand. "Come on, baby, time for some supper."

She gently pulled her hand free. She spoke softly and slowly to her father with a trace of the same drawl, "I'll be right in, daddy, I just need to fetch up the mail."

"And you, you keep your eyes and hands off my little girl." He went back into his apartment but left the door open.

Claudia, scarlet, said, "He knows you're a painter, he knows oil paints stink so he's convinced he can smell it."

"Every night?"

She came to him. "He's getting worse. I don't know what to do with him." She rubbed her arms. "He's so sad and he cries all the time now. He gets such terrible headaches. He just lies on the sofa and moans."

He embraced her. She started crying the moment he did, though she tried to be as quiet as she could.

"I'm so scared. I'm losing him." She trembled against him.

"Will he be okay for a while?"

"He doesn't have much sense of time anymore. He'll just sit there until I get back."

"Come with me."

She tiptoed to her apartment door and closed it to just a crack.

They went into his apartment. Claudia spotted his sketch pad on the table.

"What's this?" She picked it up.

"It's how I remember Hazel."

"But she's not in the picture."

"Yes she is."

"I'd love to see it once it's painted." She went to his loveseat and sat down. "Can you do a drawing of me?"

"I don't do people."

"Please." She looked at the floor and rubbed her arms again. "I stole food from Yin's Market today. It'll be another week before daddy's money comes. It was just two apples, that's not too bad, is it?"

He brought in the sketch pad with him and sat in the rocker across from her. "Sit still or you'll be all blurry."

Claudia sat with her hands on her lap, her shoulders back and her chin up. She turned at a slight angle and fixed her gaze on a point on the wall behind him.

"Your girlfriend is very beautiful," she said.

"Yes she is."

"She makes me think of movie stars. Are you going to marry her?"

"That's the plan."

"I'll be one of your bridesmaids if you want."

"I think I'm in charge of getting the guys. Do you want to be one of the guys?"

"Cool."

When he was finished, his heart skipped before he turned the pad around to show Claudia.

She giggled. "The face looks a bit like me, but I didn't think I was that skinny."

"It's a caricature. It captures your essence." The glass bullet could have a caricature of him etched on it. Sean would be happy to do it for them.

What if one of them had a caricature of Cissy on it?

"You did Hazel as either flowers or tea cups, I'm not sure which. Are you saying I'm a stick person?"

"It's just a sketch."

She took the pad and set it down. After another quick look at her caricature, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. "Who is that famous painter you studied, that old Dutch guy?"

"Rembrandt."

"Well, it may not be a Rembrandt, but I love it. Can I have it?" She pulled him over to the loveseat to sit with her.

He sat back and let her cuddle with him.

After just sitting with her head against his chest for a while, she said, "He's a good father; he just can't do much anymore."

"What was he like . . . before?"

She sniffed. "He wanted to be a writer when he was through with football. I guess it got through with him first." She wiped her nose. "He used to read his stories to me. They were mostly just about everyday people facing everyday problems. He was self-conscious about them. He said the plots didn't go anywhere. But those people jumped off the pages at me, Jaxon. They got into me and they'll never come out. It's about all I have left of him now." She patted his chest. "Sorry, I got your shirt wet."

They stayed together on the loveseat until she fell asleep. He carried her back to her apartment and put her to bed. Bobby Lee had fallen asleep on the couch. Jaxon pulled the blankets over him before going out and buying some groceries.

# Chapter 36

He still hadn't heard back from Cissy by the time he reached RBD. Nyla Rowe was again waiting for him in his office.

"First of all," she said, "I apologize for what I said in the credenza."

She wore blue slacks, a white blouse and sensible shoes. Dangling turquoise earrings went with a turquoise necklace.

At the moment, it wasn't appropriate to ask if turquoise was her favorite color.

He made her wait for a reply until he was seated. "It wasn't an optimal situation." He pushed aside the work on his desk. "Is this stuff even real?"

"Just a bunch of forms, documents and directives to be distributed throughout the company; you have to look the part."

"Any word on the autopsy or those two men yet?"

She brought a sheet of paper from behind her back. "SASS came up with something for us. One is Oscar van der Welden, thirty-six, from Cape Town, a former military intelligence officer who became a freelance advisor and mercenary to a variety of guerilla leaders throughout Africa. His partner is a German, Klaus Hammerschmidt, twenty-nine, with a similar background, except he was a special-forces commando. He was discharged under suspicion of feeding military secrets to neo-Nazi groups. He was never charged with anything, though."

His phone rang. "Hello."

"Darling, it's me," Cissy said. "We've just got up."

"What's happening?"

"We still don't know very much. The detective leading the investigation wouldn't let us into the house or let Penny see them. He told her there was very little left of them but blood."

"How is she holding up? How are you holding up?"

"We've got each other."

"I can be there in a few hours."

"No. I don't know when I'll return, but I'll call you again later."

"Bye."

"Would it help if I called them?"

"I don't know." He told her what Cissy told him. "When you were telling me about the glass bullets, you said a cult leader was supposed to have been murdered with one in Santa Fe."

"Yes, but the body was never found."

"Penny's brother and his family had been involved with a cult in Santa Fe. They had got out of it and moved to Las Vegas. They were coming back here because they were being threatened by someone familiar with the cult."

"I'll see what I can find out."

"Back to van der Welden and Hammerschmidt. If I were a professional like you, I guess my next question would be: who were their last known associates?"

"They ended up in South Africa together and disappeared."

"How do two mercenaries with their backgrounds end up being bodyguards to an Asian diplomat?"

"South Africa has the most private security companies in the world because of its high crime rate. Those two would have exactly the skills needed and the companies sometimes don't ask too many questions."

"Or they just don't care."

"SASS is still investigating. We've enhanced the pictures and video you took with your phone, but only got a partial plate number."

"My turn to apologize."

"No need; that's still something. The problem now is we have to tread lightly on this. I've contacted the State Department to pursue that angle. They will bring in NSA and CIA if necessary. We will brief ICE-HSI."

"In all the shows I've ever seen, this is where conflicts between branches of law enforcement and national security arise. It usually entails security taking over and either squeezing out law enforcement or sneaking around behind their backs to do questionable things themselves."

"It makes for sensational tension in a show, but in reality, it's a matter of jurisdiction. We collaborate, cooperate and coordinate our combined efforts."

"I'm not judging, but that was some righteous alliteration. All you guys talk like that to each other when you collaborate, don't you?"

"Yes, and it's very irritating."

"That's how you got Detective Hewitt to back off."

"We've been working with the NYPD from the beginning."

"I'm not sure I want to be part of something that's this much bigger than myself."

Nyu entered the office.

"I should have bet you he would stop knocking."

Rowe smiled, though that smile could have been for Nyu.

"No news on the diplomat," Nyu said, "but my brother has other contacts concerning Somalia and South Africa and the Middle East. He would not disclose who or what they were."

Rowe handed over the paper on the two men. "Get this information to him, it might help."

"Does this happen a lot? One party provides something small another party gives something small in return?"

"We're very close now. All we need is a few more pieces and everything will fit together."

Nyu said what Jaxon was also thinking, "I find that hard to believe. I don't see that we are connecting anything. I have still found nothing here and my brother has still found nothing at his end."

"He will. We have two deaths, the diplomat, van der Welden and Hammerschmidt, the Somali pirates, false labeling and more. Something is going to connect all of it and then we'll have them."

Then he would have to face Cissy with all the secrets he'd been keeping from her. This was some pep talk.

Nyu scanned the paper. "I will send this right away."

After Nyu left, he said, "What if they do something first? Whoever is behind this knows I was at the Harbor Yards. Those two mercenaries were following me."

"Jerome and Morris are behind this at this end. You probably weren't in any danger while you were with Cissy. Jerome wouldn't allow any harm to come to his daughter."

"That's a comfort. She's in Las Vegas. And then there's whoever killed those two. They probably don't answer to Remington, or the Asian, for that matter."

"If you want out, I'll understand. Nyu and I can take it from here. Go to Vegas, be with Cissy."

Where did that offer come from?

"It's a little late for that. Unless you can arrest Remington and Triton and everyone else they're involved with in one operation, I don't see how I'd be any safer. And there is no guarantee against someone else in their group being willing to hurt Cissy no matter where she is. And, just to keep it out there, there's that third party with glass bullets and their own agenda."

"Now you're thinking like a professional. It is cliché, I know, and I'm sure you would probably have some incomprehensible and annoying way of expressing it, but we are only missing that crucial domino to get them all falling."

"Until then we are treading water, running in place, losing traction, still can't see the forest for the trees, jerking—"

"That's enough."

Someone knocked on the office door.

"Come in," Rowe said.

Triton entered the office. "Good morning, Nyla, Jaxon."

"Good morning," she said.

"Timber," he said.

"Jerome would like to see you, Nyla. While you're with him, I wonder if I might borrow Jaxon for a little while."

"He's all yours." She left the office without looking back.

# Chapter 37

The first thing he noticed when they entered Triton's office was the package on Triton's desk. It was identical to the last one the courier had delivered to the diplomat.

"Have a seat," Triton said as he sat down. "The first order of business is to offer my congratulations on your engagement to Cecilia."

"Thanks."

Triton leaned back in his chair. "I was surprised to hear such news again. After all, she's been infatuated with so many men. Maybe this time, however, it's for real."

"One can only hope."

"She's been engaged before. Twice, I believe, I would stay thrice, but she was engaged to the same young man twice after a tiff led to a brief split between them. It wouldn't be fair to count that engagement more than once. That was the longest one, off and on. It lasted close to three months. I don't remember if they ever set a date before it ended for good."

Had he given this same father-by-proxy information to Blake Finnegan? Was Finnegan one of her two former fiancés?

"He was a good lad that one, came from a good family, rich so there was no chance of him being interested only in her money. He was a bit hot tempered, if I recall, and promiscuous, too. I'm sure you can understand what kind of problems that would have caused."

"Terribly inconvenient personality traits." Had it been Sean? Was that why Cissy hated his work?

"But not his only one, I'm afraid." Triton hadn't so much as glanced at the package, the only thing on his desk aside from his phone. "He's in an exclusive psychiatric care facility now."

Couldn't be Sean, then; he had his own place. "Where's the other one now, the one who was only engaged to her once?"

"That was Michael, Penny's brother."

Penny hadn't bothered to mention that when she'd provided her family history to him.

"He had a similar creative temperament as you. Yes, I would say there are a lot of similarities between Michael and you. It's tragic what happened to him and his family. I'm still in shock, and I very much understand why Cissy would want to accompany Penny to Las Vegas."

Cissy's list of secrets was getting longer, too.

"Michael liked to work with his hands, which gave him a common-man sensibility. If my memory is correct, he's the one who broke off the engagement, changed his family name and moved to Santa Fe to become a very common man there. She was devastated. She took days to get over him."

Triton could pontificate as much as Anatoly could and jab almost as well as Sean did.

"Have you ever been to King Gregor's bar in Soho?"

"No." Triton got up but didn't go look out the window. "As I see it, your quest is to break either record. Your challenge is to last less than a week or greater than three months. If you get to the point of setting a date, you will have triumphed."

He shook his head. "But what am I saying? Everyone can see that you and Cissy are deeply in love. By the by, I know there is no date set, but do you think you can finish her portrait in time? I believe Jerome wants it to be his wedding present to her."

If Triton was trying to infuriate him, he was wasting his time; he didn't have any strength behind those jabs.

"I thought that one with Michael would take, but I suspect Michael perhaps found out just what he might have gotten himself into, and given his more basic outlook on the world, which had already alienated him from his father, he decided that kind of life, even with Cissy at his side, was not for him."

Let him rattle like an impotent snake. He'd failed to set him up at the club with Wendy and Tracy. Any day now he was going down as the number two domino. Either Nyla Rowe would take him into custody or her new personal assistant was going to, plain and simple, break his fucking neck.

"Nonetheless, my sincere congratulations and best wishes to you both. I'm rooting for you." He sat back down at his desk. "Now, let's get down to proper business matters." He put his hand on the package. "I have something by way of a personal favor to ask of you." He slid the package toward Jaxon. "I need you to make a delivery for me. I'd do it myself, but I'm expected to join Jerome, Nyla and our other executives for a staff meeting."

He just stared at the package when Triton took his hand off it.

"I wouldn't ask you to do such a simple thing, but my usual courier is unavailable today." He pushed the package closer. The twine around it twisted as he did. "I'll return the favor in the near future."

"Won't Nyla want me at the meeting as her PA?"

"I'll let her know you are on special assignment for me. She'll understand, and she'll surely want you to get all the experience you can. After all, she's not the only one here who can teach you about the diversity of commerce that is Remington Bakersfield Draper."

Triton definitely sounded like Anatoly but without the jovial, Russian charm.

Jaxon took the package.

"I am sorry to impose on you, but it is rather urgent that this package get to its destination quickly. With my usual courier missing, I'm turning to you for help. I know it seems a rather simple task, but it is important, I assure you, and I want someone I can trust to complete the job."

"Sure, no problem. I'll just let Nyla know what I'm doing."

They both got up.

"I'll take care of that for you." Triton placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. "I lost track of how many of these little favors I did for the old man when I was new here. And look where I am today."

Triton escorted him to the elevator, pushed the button and waited with him for it to arrive. Once it did, Triton ushered him into it. He then handed over a folded piece of paper and held the elevator.

"The address is on the paper. Please hurry, Jaxon you have only fifteen minutes to get there on time." He looked at three men coming toward the elevator and deflected them away with a nod. "After you make the delivery, take an extended lunch at Melloni's on me. I'll call and reserve a table for you."

Triton pushed the button for the lobby and stepped back to let the door close. "Thanks again, Jaxon."

The folded paper had a different address from what he'd expected. It wasn't the New York Harbor Yards he had to get to. The delivery was to be made at Grand Central Station.

# Chapter 38

Grand Central Station as the delivery spot was of some comfort. GCS was always busy with people, not a place where a short, fat Asian diplomat would shoot the courier. At least, that was how it was supposed to be.

According to Finnegan, Triton suspected him and Rowe of some prosaic corporate espionage. What if that was correct?

Just to keep the trains of absurd thoughts arriving on time, he considered the possibility that Rowe was the real mastermind behind all this. She never did show him her badge and he didn't think to insist on seeing it. She could be CIA, not FBI. Elizabeth Rollins could be her real name. She was using RBD's resources to ship weapons and equipment to operatives overseas. Rowe could have fabricated the records to fake authorization by the UN and then send the shipment using Cissy's charity as cover.

"Why recruit me, then?"

Rowe needed a fall guy and had picked him for that role. She would be dealing with the Asian and having people killed. She would have told the Asian he was at the Harbor Yards.

Triton could just be getting rid of one of the suspects to search his office or set up surveillance in it. If that were the case, however, why bother to have him make the delivery? RBD was having an executive staff meeting. As Rowe's new PA, he'd be stuck in the conference room while Triton had Finnegan go through his office or Security set up surveillance.

Rowe wasn't CIA. The courier had been delivering these packages for Triton and he'd been murdered.

"Ding, ding, the Great New York Atlantic Paranoia Express has just arrived at Grand Central Station; every lunatic wishing to catch a ride to an exclusive psychiatric care facility, please board the train immediately."

Or he could just stay in the elevator talking to himself. New York City could accommodate that, too.

The one certain possibility of having him make the delivery was that Triton might still want him out of the way—permanently—and he was sending him to the people who could do it, even if they were down two men.

That same damn taxi pulled up to take him to Grand Central Station. That was a bad omen. Once in the cab, which screeched as the driver pulled away from the curb, he called Rowe.

"I can't talk right now," she said.

"Is Triton there?"

"He just came in."

"He's sent me to Grand Central Station to make one of those deliveries."

"Don't let them take you anywhere. Stay out in the open with lots of people around you."

The cab took a hard right turn onto Broadway, knocking Jaxon against the door. Four new air fresheners hung up in it had the cab infused with a cloying evergreen scent.

"I have to go, the meeting's about to start."

The cab driver cursed when the wrong soccer team scored. The cab swerved between slower traffic, stopped with a shudder at a red light at Broadway and Fulton. Police sirens coming along Fulton kept them there for three light changes before they got through the intersection. Even this maniac wasn't going to get him to Grand Central Station on time.

As hectic as it was, New York City didn't care about anyone in a hurry. Instead, it took a perverse delight in putting every obstacle it could in anyone's way if they tried to get somewhere quickly by automobile.

When the cab driver started going again, he looked back at him, laughed and said, "Don't worry, I take good care of you. You's a good tipper."

As they proceeded through heavy traffic and almost every red light there was, Jaxon held up the package and shook it. The contents didn't rattle much. The package weighed seven or eight pounds. He shook it again. The muted rattle didn't sound like metal or anything else hard and dense. It could be paper or something small heavily protected by packing peanuts. In this digital era, it could be an external hard drive or more likely a USB flash drive. The packaging itself could be a disguise.

It wasn't likely to be money. With electronic transactions available, even with the risk of leaving a permanent digital trail, and with financial institutes willing to provide the most sophisticated encryption and protection of privacy, someone at the level of a diplomat wasn't likely demanding to be paid in wads of small, used, unmarked bills for whatever service he was providing.

"Too cliché," he muttered and realized his thoughts had just congealed around the idea that Triton and Remington were likely dealing with the diplomat because they needed something done for them that only he could do. Was the diplomat facilitating RBD's transition into the cargo container shipping business the way Smith was supposed to have been doing? Had Smith taken them so far and the diplomat taken over from there? Had they decided Smith was no longer necessary because the diplomat could do Smith's part of the job as well as his own?

"Why pay both of them?" Had Smith become a liability?

He was thinking more like Nyla Rowe now than Jaxon Trevelyan. Sooner or later, though, he'd fail to anticipate something crucial that would save his life. Just such an event was likely going to take place at Grand Central Station, possibly in front of dozens of people.

They had already killed one courier for reasons meaningful to them. Though they would prefer to get him somewhere private first, they were capable to killing him in front of as many people as might be there. The list of ways they could kill him without being seen and then leave him to be discovered well after they were gone, like his list of secrets, was just too long.

The cab lurched to a stop, then lurched forward and weaved violently across lanes of traffic. The driver had only two positions for the gas pedal: full on or full off.

"Almost there, sir," the cabbie hollered back at him before exploding with a burst of obscenities at the television screen fastened to his dash.

Jaxon watched the referee hold up a yellow card and point to a player from the cabbie's team. The referee and his whole family had been cursed for generations with the faces of pigs, the odor of camel dung, and an uncontrollable desire to mate with . . . He hadn't caught all of the last part.

"Here we are, sir." The cabbie brought his yellow rocket to what started out as a smooth stop until the tires hit the curb. Somehow, this herky-jerky driver had managed to get them from Broadway to Park Avenue South and then to the taxi stand at 43rd Street and Vanderbilt without being hit or hitting anything until the curb.

He passed enough cash to leave a large tip before getting out because he now knew how good the cabbie was at invoking curses. He didn't need an Iranian New Yorker's curse plastered all over his back while trying to make his delivery without getting murdered.

Before entering GCS, he called Rowe again. This time he was sent straight to her voicemail. "I'm at Grand Central. It seems like as good a place as any to die."

The crowd inside GCS wasn't as big or as bustling as it should have been. Big gaps of quiet provided plenty of areas where the diplomat and his crew could take him for privacy.

GCS was one of NYC's sites that was on his get-onto-canvas list, but the arching windows and ceiling, the railings, the MTA ticket counters, the benches, the people, color and noise, including a unique NYC rumble from within and without, just weren't . . . not at the moment, anyway.

The main concourse clock displayed 9:53 am. Some train was probably due at ten. Triton might have known there would be a lull at the station at this time of day. He was three minutes late. The diplomat was nowhere obvious.

Had he already left? Was their delivery and exchange timetable so tight as to have no flexibility at all? Too damn bad for them, then.

He checked the folded piece of paper Triton had given him. It gave no other instructions but to get to Grand Central Station by 9:50 am. It did not identify who the recipient was or where he'd be in the station. Was this even the diplomat's turf? He might be the Harbor Yards drop. Someone else could be stationed at the station.

Did Triton expect him to automatically know who he should give the package to? If that were the case, then this situation was most likely an attempt to get rid of him. Both sides knew who was on the other side and also knew something of what they were up to. Triton could have given his description to the diplomat or whoever covered Grand Central Station.

"If you applied this much imagination to your paintings, you might actually be able to do faces again."

Why couldn't Triton just take the usual criminal businessman route and hightail it off to some country that didn't have an extradition treaty with the US. North Korea was supposed to be lovely this time of year.

He walked around the station, stopped at a Hudson News kiosk and saw the headline on the New York Times that caused his heart to race.

Somali pirates had struck again in the Gulf of Aden near Djibouti.

He bought the paper, unfolded it and read the second headline. There had been a series of pirate strikes. In the Caribbean, pirates had attacked a cargo container ship. In the South Pacific, in the Celebes Sea, another cargo container ship had been attacked and boarded by pirates.

The ship attacked in the Gulf of Aden was from RBD, as were the ships in the Caribbean and Celebes Sea. Every ship had lost at least one crewman. The pirates were fast and violent. No word on what was taken, but the pirates had all left after getting whatever they'd come for rather than commandeer the ships for ransom, as was the usual modus operandi of pirate attacks.

NATO patrols in the Gulf of Aden had all but eliminated pirate attacks there, but here was another precise strike against an RBD ship to coincide with ones in other parts of the world. Word was getting out to the pirates.

He started back for the clock still reading the paper. When he looked up, the diplomat was coming toward him from the 45th Street passage surrounded by four men in black suits. The two men who'd replaced van der Welden and Hammerschmidt were larger and black—they could be from South Africa as well—and led the way.

Did the diplomat have a pool of bodyguards to take from just waiting in Cape Town or Pretoria?

Pick your useless tongue up off the floor of your gaping mouth and say something smartass.

"You're late." He shoved the newspaper into a paper recycle box. "It's almost ten, man. I gotta get back to work." He held up the package. "Which one of you gets this?"

The Asian stepped out from between the four men. "You were not here at the specified time."

"Yeah, well, New York, ya know. Ya can't just, ya know, get around like it was the sticks, ya know. I mean, have you seen the traffic out there, man? It is murder, ya know."

One of the black bodyguards, only about six feet tall, but over three hundred pounds, stepped forward and reached into his suit jacket.

Without looking back, the Asian held up his hand. The bodyguard stepped back beside his partner.

"Look, can you just take this? I'm missing an important staff meeting and my boss is going to kill me when she finds out I bailed just to deliver some cookies to a prospective client; no offense, ya know what I'm sayin'? I mean, she's a real bitch momma, ya know. She'll grind up my balls into her herbal tea if I don't get back before the meeting ends."

It had to be wild panic. New Yorkers and personal assistants didn't really talk like that. Maybe they'd take pity on him because they'd see him as some kind of imbecile whose voice kept going up an octave.

The Asian took the package. "Are you not curious about what is inside or why we're making the exchange at Grand Central Station?" He had a thick—not fake—oriental accent, but he could be Chinese, Japanese or Korean. His face was too fat to discern any ethnically defining feature.

"Couldn't care less, man, ya know. It's not my package. I'm just doin' a favor 'cuse the regular guy's missin', ya know."

All five men smiled at his last comment. They had a sense of humor, no matter how twisted it was.

"Are we done here?"

The Asian handed the package to the bodyguard who had stepped forward. He then turned back to Jaxon and said, "We are sorry for any inconvenience we may have caused you. Allow us to make amends. We will give you a ride back to Remington Bakersfield Draper."

"That's okay, man; I can get back on my own."

The Asian took hold of his arm. "It is the least we can do." He gripped hard just above the elbow. "I insist."

The two lead bodyguards moved apart and stepped forward. The two behind fell in step at the rear as they came to surround him and the Asian. It had all the appearance of an amoeba engulfing its prey. They started moving as one organism toward the 42nd Street passage.

He might be able to take out one of these four even though they had the training to subdue and kill as quickly as possible, but not all of them. If he grabbed the Asian, they might not—

One of the back bodyguards prodded him when his pace lagged.

"Hey, buddy," the cabbie called as he approached the amoeba from Zaro's Bakery, "do you still want me to wait?"

Nyu, Bennett Fox and two other men entered the main concourse from Vanderbilt Hall. That foursome veered off toward the ticket counters as a feint to pinch off the Asian's escape.

"I told you, man," he said to the Asian, "I got this covered."

The Asian let go of his arm, reached into his jacket pocket, withdrew a USB flash drive and handed it to him. "If you would be so kind, please see that Mr. Triton gets this. He's expecting it."

"Sure thing."

The Asian and his amoeba left Grand Central Station.

He said to the cabbie, "You have a great sense of timing."

The cabbie shook his hand. "Special Agent, Solomon Crane."

"Don't take this wrong, but you don't look like a Crane."

Crane laughed. "My mother is an Iranian Christian. She immigrated when the Shah was overthrown. My father is an Idahoan spud. I was born and raised in Pocatello."

Fox and the other two agents went after the diplomat.

Nyu came to them. "Nyla texted me from her meeting and gave me a phone number to call."

Crane said, "She's had me looking out for you since you picked up those two from the Harbor Yards Monday night."

"Do you even like soccer?"

"Portland Timbers rule, man. Come on, we better get you back."

"What do I do with this?" He showed Crane the flash drive.

"I've got something for that in the trunk."

# Chapter 39

Crane drove back to RBD mostly like a regular human being other than his tendency to take his eyes off the road as he kept looking back to regale Nyu and him with stories of the undercover jobs he'd done since joining the FBI. He was discreet about the details of his stories, but not his driving and his cursing opinions of those who got in his way.

Nyu saved him the trouble of saying anything once Crane dropped them off at the plaza.

"I'll get the information from the flash drive to Nyla as soon as possible." Crane, back into character, then screeched away from the curb, eliciting honks from a refrigerated meat truck and a real taxi driver.

Nyu wiped his forehead. "I thought he was going to get us killed us before we got back."

They went straight to Rowe's office. Rowe was standing outside it with Triton.

Nyu ducked back. "She doesn't want them to know I'm involved. Call me when it's clear." He returned to IBD.

He joined Rowe and Triton.

Rowe was stern. "What the hell was that all about?"

"Ah . . . ?"

"Your job is to stay on my tail. You go where I go unless I tell you otherwise. You're my personal assistant, not his." She then said to Triton just as sternly, "You understand what I'm saying here, right, Morris?"

"I do apologize, Nyla, but it was rather urgent. And if you will remember, I did ask if I could borrow him."

"Yeah, but you didn't tell me it would be for something so menial. If your precious special courier wasn't available, you should have used someone from the mail room."

"It won't happen again," he smiled, "without full disclosure on my part."

She shifted her glare to Jaxon.

"I was just doing a favor."

"Thank you, Jaxon." Triton turned to leave.

"Just a mo, Moe." He took out the flash drive. "Mr. Moto asked me to give this to you."

"Thanks again, Jaxon." He took the flash drive and left.

Rowe took hold of his arm the same hard, tight way the Asian had and took him into her office. She took him to a chair and sat him down.

"You're fired for insubordination." She sat down at her desk. "Sign these papers and you will get a generous severance package that should support you until your exhibition sends your career rocketing into the heavens."

He stood up, grabbed the chair, but didn't fling it at her as he wanted to. "They were going to kill me."

"You were under surveillance at all times. There were two agents watching your every move. We had their vehicles surrounded. Nevertheless, your assessment is correct. We're very close now. They've blinked."

"I did say I was one of the brightest stars, didn't I? It must be my glare."

She shoved the papers across her desk to him when he came to her. "If I fire you, you can get away from this. I have a team who can hide you at a safe house until we take them down. That should happen within the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours."

He glanced at the papers. "That's a lot of money for a severance package."

"It's in keeping with what a PA could expect."

"I was only on the job for one day."

"You've earned every penny of it." She came to him. "I'm sorry for having taken you this deep. Nyu and I will finish the rest of it."

"Why does Nyu get to stay?"

"If I had my way, he'd be out, too, but the Kenyan government has requested he remain involved. It's the price we have to pay for their cooperation."

"They were going to kill me and then most likely dump me beside Scruffy somewhere. I'm nailing someone's hide to the wall for that. Then I'm going to paint cute little animals all over it to cover the cuts and bruises."

"You don't have any say in the matter. I've taken enough crap for putting a civilian in harm's way and now you're a bigger liability than ever. Triton will get a report from the Asian. He'll know—"

"There were more pirate attacks on RBD ships."

"I know. We talked about it at the meeting."

"Call Nyu."

"Huh?"

"He told me to call him when we were clear of Triton, and this is your office."

He returned to the chair and sat down.

Nyu came to the office quickly, rushing in as if the Asian and his amoeba-in-black were after him. He held up his phone.

"I was able to get pictures of them. I've already sent them to my brother. He thinks he knows who the Asian is. I've sent them to your phone," he said to Rowe, "to forward to your people."

"Thanks."

"Rowe wants to kick me off the team."

Rowe's phone rang. She went over to her window and mostly just listened.

"You have done enough. We can take it from here."

"Are you two . . . ?"

"Are we what?"

"Never mind."

Rowe came back to them. "Fox's unit lost them once they got to the Bronx. Those diplomatic plates are fakes."

"So our Asian diplomat may not be a diplomat at all."

"I will get that information to my brother right away." Nyu left the office.

"Sign the papers," Rowe said, "and clear out."

"Kiss my ass, Agent Rowe."

"I can arrest you."

"I can paint in jail; belly of the beast and all that. And if you arrest me here, you will blow whatever is left of your cover."

"Why are you arguing with me?"

"What did you tell me to get me to cooperate in the first place?"

"Cecilia."

"You remember. I'm touched."

"I will protect her, I promise."

"Three days ago, you still had no idea what was going on here. Who did all the legwork for you? Who almost got himself killed for you?" Rowe didn't deserve this—mostly—but someone was going to take the brunt of what was pent up inside him. It was petty, but there it was. "I'm in to the end or I go straight to Jerry and Moe and tell them who you really are, Betty."

"I'll have you charged as an accessory."

"Accessory to what? You don't have the courier's body and those other two were killed with a blast of glass from the past from murders that were never solved. Oh, and your bloodhounds lost the phoney diplomat, his four bodyguards and the three vehicles they were driving. Take a good look at your hands. Do you see anything in them that I didn't put there for you?"

Remington came into the office. "My, my, you two have some very energetic conversations. I could hear you down the hall."

"She left the damn seat up again in the executive washroom and she used the last of the toilet paper. I do not know why it's so bloody difficult to take the time to get a plush new roll."

Remington laughed as hoped. "I just wanted to congratulate you, Jaxon, on both your engagement to Cecilia and your new position, and also to ask you how the portrait is going." He offered his hand.

He shook it. "Thank you, thank you and just fine."

Rowe asked, "Any further word on Michael?"

Remington seemed to go pale for a moment as he shook his head. "Nothing yet. Cissy is to call me tonight. I believe she will be calling the two of us." He left.

"You can stay to the end," Rowe said.

"Sorry for all that fooking shit I said."

"You wouldn't be you if you didn't say fooking shit like that. And you were right. I've made too many mis—"

"Can I see your badge?"

"Huh?"

"Can . . . I . . . see . . . your . . . badge . . . please?"

She retrieved it from a locked drawer in her really big desk and displayed it to him.

"What now, boss?"

"This is that moment of calm, if you want to call it that. There are a number of things we're waiting for, you know what they are. If Nyu's brother can identify that Asian, I think it will all come together and we can move in."

"And if he doesn't get anything?"

"We'll crack the files Solomon copied from the flash drive sooner or later. We're still on course to wrap it up tomorrow or the next day."

"You're telling me this is where I clean my rifle, check my ammunition and prepare to go over the hill."

"I said you can stay till the end, but we will be the ones going over the hill."

"Just promise me I'll get to punch someone in the face before this is all over."

"You pick him out and I will hold him for you."

# Chapter 40

Though Jerome had confirmed Cissy was in Las Vegas helping Penny cope with the murder of her brother and his family, Adrian's predictions about his relationship with her once again kept running through his thoughts like a naked, giggling madman. According to Adrian, Cissy would claim some dramatic reasons for not being able to see him. Murder was dramatic. She would keep up with this charade until she just had to see him, which would be only a prelude to dumping him.

He worked out at the UFC Gym again, a little harder when he thought of the Asian, a little harder again when he thought of Adrian's smug confidence about his sister's capricious relationship with him. He tried to moderate his efforts because he was sore from yesterday, but those thoughts kept defeating his discipline. Surges of adrenaline ran amok within him. The punching bag almost came off its chain when he kicked it for the last time.

His MMA coach had always harangued him about letting his emotions control him instead of the other way around.

"Mixed martial arts fighting," coach Hart would yell at him, "is about controlled rage more than in any other combat. Let rage control you and you will walk right into a punch or a kick. You will be an easy out. You defend yourself, deflect and protect until the other guy tires himself out or gives you an opening. Then you hit as hard and as fast as you can with everything you got."

Crane didn't suddenly show up at the gym to take him home when he came out. Had another agent taken over? Had the Asian eliminated Crane? These were the concerns and suspicions he was stuck with until this was all settled one way or another.

He constantly checked to see if he was being followed. By the time he reached his apartment, his neck was stiff and all those spikes of adrenaline had left him exhausted.

On the landing of his floor, he paused to look at the Brooks' apartment door. It was open a crack. He went to it but stopped two steps before getting to it. The television was on, the volume was low.

He took notice of no moist, stained brown paper bag waiting at his door, went into his apartment, showered and then heated up some Italian wedding soup. He got through his meal without thoughts of the Asian, Adrian or Cissy causing any more spikes. He got his bowl, spoon and the pot rinsed and into the sink before Claudia knocked on his door and came in.

"Thanks for the groceries," she said and went straight to the loveseat. "Dad's having a good day. He says thank you, too. He promises he will pay you back."

"That's not necessary." He sat in the rocking chair.

She shrugged. "I'll wait a couple of days and then remind him he's already repaid you. It will make him feel good."

She pointed to one of his two paintings hanging on the wall. It was a city scene he'd done when he was fifteen, a copy of some artist's painting whose name he'd forgotten. A wide bridge crossed a river into the city. People were on the bridge and the streets either out for a walk or shopping at vendors' stands. The buildings were three or four storeys high and painted in earth-tone colors. The city was indistinct but was supposed to be from the nineteenth century. Sooty smoke rose from distant chimneys. He alternated between thinking of the scene as London or Paris or Berlin or Rome. Paris was the most frequent winner.

The other painting was the Lower Manhattan skyline from across the East River at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. It included the Brooklyn Bridge, a modern take on the one he thought of as Paris most of the time.

"How'd you get it to look like that?"

"First, I started with a blank canvas."

"Jaxon, don't be stupid. You know what I mean." She pointed as if she were trying to thrust her hand into the painting.

"Are you trying to direct traffic? It's just a painting."

"You know, from front to back. How do you get it to go back to those smoke stacks?" She thrust her hand out again.

"It's called perspective. You can see it as a point vanishing at the back of the painting or, if it makes more sense to you, the city is exploding from that point."

"Something like the big bang, only the city and its people already exist. They don't have to take billions of years to form from stardust." She tilted her head to the side as she thought.

"You could say that."

"So perspective is something like a black hole." She squinted as she looked at the painting.

"It all depends on how you look at it."

"How many times have you said that to someone?"

"None of your business."

"So, like, your painting can either go into that black hole or come out of it. That means it could be sucked in at one point and ejected out at another."

"The information could be lost once it's sucked into a black hole."

"Sometimes it escapes, like your paintings from that point at the back. See? It's really so small but that perspective thing makes it look bigger, like it's going on forever."

What Claudia had just said brought him tantalizingly close to eureka, but it receded back into that black hole she was talking about before he could get to it.

He'd spent hours looking at the Night Watch over three days of visiting the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The pilgrim paying homage to the master, he was trying to understand and steal every aspect of Rembrandt's technique as possible. Claudia's black hole analogy reminded him that the painting was initially called the Night Watch because it was so dim, but it was actually a painting of a militia emerging from a dark courtyard into daylight. They were being expelled from darkness in full form and development and prepared for action.

Somewhere in all those alternate universes, a New York City had emerged from a black hole where that Jaxon Trevelyan hadn't come back from Amsterdam only able to paint that one damn tree. He'd be happy if at least one of him could do faces.

Being twelve and a genius, her profound and impenetrable logic suddenly shifted. "There are people in your painting and they don't look like sticks."

"I was fifteen when I painted that."

Ruth had praised his first serious effort. Werner had ridiculed it as a cheap, cartoonish copy.

"And they're only figures, impressions of people, a representation of the crowd that would go to that market."

"Just make them bigger."

"It's not that simple."

"Why not?"

Claudia laughed at whatever expression was on his face, bounced up from the loveseat and kissed him. "I love you, Jaxon. You're kind, brilliant, corny, strong and insecure. You say the silliest nonsense and you're completely confused by the simplest things." She hugged his neck and kissed him again before skipping out his door.

"Why not?"

He kept staring at his painting, but that nascent sense of about to discover something important wouldn't return. None of his market rabble suddenly turned around in the painting and held up a placard with writing on it that said: It's simple, you confused idiot, why didn't you see it sooner?"

His phone rang. It was Cissy's number.

"How's it going there?"

"Penny will be staying here for a few days. There were three identical murders here on the same night. Detective Jonathan Wright is investigating all of them. A man named Marcus Cross knew Michael, Trudy and Christine as well as the other victims."

"Is he a suspect?"

"I don't think so. Detective Wright told us Cross is a bit crazy and spends a lot of time in the desert, but he may know something about who killed them. Wright's exact phrase was 'who had them killed'. All the victims had at one time been members of the same cult. Marcus Cross' father also had some history with that cult and its former leader. That's all Wright would tell us."

"What's the danger to you two?"

"There is no danger, according to Wright. Jaxon, I miss you terribly."

"I miss you, too." He understood why people often used that tired old phrase 'more than you can know'.

"I will be home tomorrow afternoon."

"I'll pick you up."

"Max will pick me up. I will see you at RBD. Love you. Bye."

"Bye. Love you, too."

She had already hung up. He admonished himself not to read something into that. She was upset, dealing with her own tragedy along with Penny's.

He took a cab—not Solomon Crane's—across the bridge and got out at Broadway and Canal Street to walk the rest of the way to King Gregor's. Before he did, however, he hung around the corner to see if black vans or SUVs, badly driven cabs or huge men in suits were coming after him. He saw none of that, but did see what, for a moment, appeared to be Cissy and Bethany and two men entering the bistro across the street.

He jogged across the street, got honked at, which seemed like a friendly hello in NYC at night, and stopped at the entrance. No matter where he looked, he couldn't spot the two couples anywhere inside the brightly lit and busy restaurant.

Ten minutes later, after not being shot at from a black SUV speeding by, after not being intercepted by an eight-legged amoeba wearing a dark suit, he entered a very busy King Gregor's.

Anatoly came to him. "Ah, Jaxon, we were hoping you would drop by. Your booth is ready."

Within minutes of being seated, a plate of pelmeni was placed before him along with a beer. Anatoly and Viktor both sat down with him.

"You must bring us completely up to date," Viktor said.

"You're limping more today."

Viktor threw up his hands and cursed in Russian. "Stupid knees, they are wearing out. I will need to replace them again soon."

"That will be his third set," Anatoly said. "I've tried to tell him it's a waste of time, but he won't listen to me." Anatoly then patted his hand. "Enough with that; what have you to tell us?"

He told them about the glass bullets, which brought raised eyebrows and tiny smiles to their faces, and then about the delivery to Grand Central Station. He told them about the murders in Las Vegas, but didn't provide much detail about any of it.

"Three murders in one night," Viktor said. "That is horrible."

Anatoly said, "You are leading a truly fascinating life these past two weeks, Jaxon, and also a very frightening one. But I detect a reluctance to confide in your two good friends tonight."

"You know how it is. If I tell you, I'd have to kill you, or else Nyla would have us all locked up for reasons of national security."

Anatoly wiped his hand on his apron before holding it up to Jaxon and nodding. "Then we will trouble you for details no further for now, my distraught friend."

Viktor had trouble getting up from the table.

Anatoly clucked his tongue and shook his head. "You are a very stubborn and vain man. Where are they?"

"In the kitchen in the corner by the table."

Anatoly rolled his eyes, hastened—a good word for someone like him—to the kitchen and returned with Viktor's two canes.

"I hardly ever need them," Viktor protested as he took them and got up. He struggled to get back to the kitchen.

"That is our friend Viktor for you. He has these specially made for him after his last knee replacement and they cost him a lot of money, then he sets them aside in a corner of the kitchen and forgets them. Viktor is a very foolish man, Jaxon. But then aren't all men very foolish?"

They left him alone after that other than to bring him a couple of beers.

He kept looking into the darkness outside the bar, almost expecting to see Cissy walk by arm in arm with her next fiancé, not because he didn't believe she was really in Las Vegas, but because Anatoly was right. He was a very foolish man.

Had two of the Asian's men followed him to King Gregor's? Had two of Nyla's agents followed him and the Asian's men to the bar? If they all dressed up as clowns, they could be in the next Christmas parade. We are all foolish men.

He gave up looking out the windows and instead scanned the customers in the bar. Were any of them FBI or the Asian's men?

He recognized some to them, so they'd been coming to the bar along with him long before Cissy, RBD and Nyla Rowe had stepped into his life, which wasn't his life anymore so much as it was Cissy's, RBD's and Rowe's now.

A few of the crowd caught him looking and nodded or waved their acknowledgement back at him. They were familiar with his presence here, too. One woman offered him a broad smile and an affirmative nod as her gaze shifted to his painting of that grotesque sequoia Anatoly loved so much. Neither he nor the tree smiled back at her.

Instead, he looked down at his empty plate, didn't remember eating any of the pelmeni, took out his phone and called Sean. He was sent straight to voicemail.

"It's me, slut-bug pick up." When Sean didn't, he added, "You better be painting because if you're just fucking, I'm going to pound that pumpkin on your shoulders to mush and make a pie out of it." He hung up.

He wasn't drunk on only three beers, but he was getting closer. One of Anatoly's special vodka mixers could do the trick.

As if he had ESP, Anatoly came over with the drink. He sat down and handed it to him.

"You have had your quiet time, my friend, but I do not believe it was peaceful."

"You know what, fuck it all to hell. Anatoly, my dear friend, I am going to be exactly what you said we all are. Grab your ass and hold on tight because I'm going to tell you everything."

He told Anatoly every detail he could remember. Once the first two vodka mixers were in him, he may have even made up a few extra details. It felt like adding an awning to that window in his painting when he was fifteen. The wall in the original painting was a vertical, featureless expanse. He'd painted in a pastry store front on the ground floor and put an awning over the window. A kid looked out that big front window while stuffing pastry into his mouth.

Ruth had thought it made the picture come more alive. It captured the energy of such a street busy with people. Werner had tried to spit on his embellishment. It was the first time in his life, though not the last, he'd tried to kill his brother.

"It is closing time," Viktor said when he came over on his two thick canes. He was probably using them only to keep Anatoly from nagging him.

Anatoly escorted him out the front door, bade him good night and closed up. He then gathered up Viktor, sat him in the booth and repeated to him what he'd been told.

Solomon Crane drove up in his cab.

Jaxon got in. "Have you been out here all night?"

"Someone has." He pulled away from the curb and drove without any undercover personality. "I think it's courageous of you to want to stay in until the end, Jaxon, but you're engaged to a lovely young woman. You should grab her and run. Now me, I have a wife and three kids, all girls, four, six and nine, all of them my precious sweethearts. They think it's funny that I'm a cop driving a cab that takes bad guys to jail. But you, Jaxon, you're just starting out. You have done all Agent Rowe could fairly ask of you."

Cissy wouldn't think what he was doing was funny.

"But if you're determined to stay on be ready. The main event is coming, Jaxon, the top of the fight card. I know you know what I mean."

They completed the drive back to his apartment without theatrical driving and in silence. Whatever he'd thought he was getting close to with Claudia was as elusive as ever, but he got what Crane was telling him. Rowe and her colleagues had to get psyched up every bit as much if not more than he ever did for a bout, but, God, look at what they had to so sometimes. One day, Agent Crane might not come home to his sweethearts who thought it was funny that daddy was a cop driving a cab that took bad guys to jail.

# Chapter 41

Both Nyu and Nyla had important reports to make at their morning briefing in Nyla's office. Nyu went first.

"Our Asian diplomat is Tetsuro Takahashi. He was born to a Japanese diplomat and his Thai wife in Bangkok. He is a lower echelon Thai diplomat stationed in South Korea, but he travels extensively between there, Somalia, Russia, South Africa and Thailand. He is suspected of being the Genie, a man who gets pretty white girls and other exotics for exclusive social events in Africa, the Middle East and Asia."

Had the Genie anything to do with getting those women for Remington's private club? Was that how Remington and Triton became involved with him?

Nyla then gave her report. "Those three phoney diplomatic vehicles were found in Trenton last night in response to a fire alarm. They were almost completely destroyed, as were the three bodies found inside the SUV."

"The Genie?"

"It was a very hot fire. Accelerants were used, possibly thermite with aluminum to increase the heat. Identifying the remains is going to be difficult if not impossible, as is determining how they died."

Would glass bullets survive such a fire?

"I contacted Smith's colleagues at the Cape Town office of CGBE. Bernard van Houten told me Smith had found something wrong with the GPS tracking of our cargo ships. According to van Houten, Smith was here to report his concerns to Jerome and Morris. The Monday you started, CGBE received a message from here that the problem had been corrected."

"Corrected so the pirates could get the exact coordinates for their attacks on our ships," he said.

"Probably."

Nyu said, "I will see what more I get from my brother."

After he was gone, Nyla said, "I'm going to our field office to coordinate the three raids. We'll know when it's all going down by the time I get back."

"Any luck with the flash drive?"

"It has three folders on it. I'm told the encryption isn't that difficult, just time consuming. They might have something for me by the time I get there."

"And what should I do until you get back?"

"Go to your office and stay there."

At the door, he asked, "How much authority do I have as your personal assistant?"

"What do you mean by authority?"

"How much clout do I have?"

"You can't fire anybody if that's what you're asking. But you can give orders as long as they are consistent with what my office would be doing. Why?"

"Just curious. You do realize I haven't done a damn thing for you as your personal assistant."

"That is not exactly true."

He returned to his office to find a large envelope on his desk. His will was inside along with handwritten instructions from Werner to make sure it was acceptable to him. If so, sign it in front of two witnesses who must also sign it and get it back to him ASAP.

When Rowe ducked in to tell him she was leaving, he waved it at her. She came to the desk probably believing he had some new information to show her.

"How much more than you do you think he knows?"

She looked over the will. "He really is a bigger dickhead than you."

"He's nature and comes by it easily. I'm nurture and had to learn how to get even close to his level."

She checked the will again. "Is this acceptable to you?"

"Damn if it isn't. It's pretty much what I would do. Werner and Ruth get the farm, which is all Werner cares about. All my other stuff would either go to Ruth or be distributed to charity . . . unless you want it."

"Sign here."

He signed where he was supposed to.

Nyla witnessed it. "I'll get Nyu to witness and sign and have it sent back." She took it with her when she left.

"Awfully decent of you, old chap," he said to her back.

He called down to Graphic Arts.

"Blake Finnegan."

"Hey, Finn, how's it dangling, buddy? I wonder if you could toddle on up to my office for a brief confab. Round up Elaine and Ferdinand along the way, will ya?"

"Why should I do that?"

"Did you happen to see two other men following us Monday night?"

He began sputtering his denial, but gave up and said, "I saw lots of people. Again, why should I come see you?"

"Every threat is also an opportunity, Finn. It's up to you to do what you will with this one." He hung up.

Finnegan, Kline and Juarez entered his office less than ten minutes later.

"Nice digs, huh?" He gestured for them to take seats. "It is amazing what you can accomplish when you start out with just three letters of the alphabet, a dream and a bit of determination."

Juarez was the last to sit down.

His money had been on Finnegan.

"What is this all about, Jaxon?"

"First of all, I just wanted to say that I don't hold a grudge for all that bullshit you tried to put me through. Why hold a grudge when we all got the worst of it?"

Finnegan got up. "I don't need to listen to this."

"Yeah, Finn, you do, unless you want to go down with the ship. Think of this as one rat reaching out to another as a professional courtesy."

Kline took hold of Finnegan's arm and tugged him back into his chair.

She didn't look any happier with him than the other two. "Why are we here?"

"If a credenza is properly built, it can hold two people inside it, though it is a snug fit, lots of friction. But with almost eight hundred pounds to support, it gets a bit unstable. I don't suppose any of you know what metal fatigue is, do you? Sometimes it will even start dancing across the floor."

It wasn't any surprise to see the furtive glances exchanged between Blake and Elaine. The surprise was the purple rage that burst out on Ferdinand's face. Elaine had been a very busy girl in Graphic Arts.

"Uh-oh, this is turning out to be more awkward than I anticipated."

"It's your word against ours," Finnegan said.

"You don't know what's really going on at Remington Bakersfield Draper, but if you will give me a few minutes of your very valuable time, I promise you will leave this room with a level of enlightenment you couldn't possibly imagine." He also had to quit listening to Anatoly so much.

After he told them selected bits of the truth, enough of the pertinent facts to get the concept across to them, he gave them as much time as they needed to grasp it all.

Juarez took out his handkerchief and wiped his forehead. "Why are you telling us this?"

"If any of it's true," Finnegan said.

Elaine touched his hand. "You know it is. It all makes sense now. This is why Triton asked you to do what he did."

"What did he ask you to do?"

"He suspects you and Rowe of corporate espionage. He told me he'd suspected Rowe since shortly after she'd arrived because she was always asking nosey questions and always sneaking around. He thought you might just be a patsy, but he still needed to stop both of you. He said he was only trying to protect Cissy from being hurt. Then you get promoted to her personal assistant." Finnegan gave him a brief, apologetic smile. "You can see how it looked."

"What did he tell you to do?"

"This morning, he told me he knew how to stop Rowe. He was going to give her exactly what she was after."

"And what is that?"

"It certainly isn't anything close to what you've just told us. He gave me a flash drive and told me to upload the file into her computer. I've done that. Now he plans to confront her when she returns. They are going to catch her with whatever is on the file and fire her on the spot."

"You three should all come down with the flu or food poisoning and go home." He said to Elaine. "And give Eric the heads up." He winced at the unintended pun.

Finnegan stood up. "But Ferdinand and I are supposed to be at Triton's side when he takes Rowe down. I was going to be his new personal assistant after this."

Kline said, "We'll all stay, Jaxon. I will tell Eric."

Juarez patted his lip again before putting away his handkerchief. "What's going to happen to RBD?"

"It will still be here because it's too big to just disappear and it does do legitimate business. But there are going to be a number of executive positions coming open."

"What can we do to help?"

"Return to your work, control your auras and practice ducking. We all know what's going to happen when Nyla gets back. We just need to act like we didn't know there was a surprise party planned."

The trio headed for the door.

Finnegan was the one who asked, "Why?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Try me."

"You all have intriguing faces."

Elaine blushed.

"What the hell does that mean?"

She took hold of Finnegan's hand. "It means he likes us, you idiot." She herded the two bewildered men out.

He called Nyu to his office and told him about Triton's plan. He then called Nyla and put the phone on speaker.

"What is it now?"

"They are going to fire you this afternoon. Can I have your chair? Mine's too hard."

He told her of Triton's plan.

"Good," she said. "They're worried I'm getting close to something. They have to get rid of me before I find it. They will lower their guard after I'm gone." She then surprised him. "Good work, Jaxon. That showed some real initiative."

"You heard that last part?"

Nyu nodded. "What do you suppose it means?"

"The last time she said something like that to me I almost got killed."

# Chapter 42

All he had to do was stay in his office and wait. They were ready for Triton's trick play. Nyla and her colleagues were preparing to raid all three businesses and begin the next phase of their investigation, a phase that didn't need him. In twenty-four to forty-eight hours, his part in all this insanity would be over. Cissy was coming home. He could concentrate on repairing and salvaging his relationship with her.

She was going to be furious with him and that was understandable. He had kept more secrets from her than he could keep track of. He had betrayed her father, who had brought him into RBD and the family. The man truly did like him. He would have helped put him behind bars and create the biggest threat to the future of RBD and the Remington family. Cissy would wonder if she could ever trust him again.

In twenty-four to forty-eight hours, the most ineluctable part of his life would begin. He told himself he was only thinking like this because of what he'd been through in this undercover operation. Being rattled, panicky, terrified was the exact opposite of wearing rose-colored glasses. Perception of danger became magnified. Threats were everywhere.

FBI agents were trained to keep their focus in situations like this. He had the training to stand up to a foe plain and simple in his intentions. He could defend against and counter what was thrown at him. He could read his opponents eyes and body language and anticipate his next move most of the time. But how could he defend against, counter and anticipate if he saw nothing that gave him even the slightest clue of what was coming next?

Cissy was tangible. She was arriving this afternoon. She would come to RBD. He anticipated her arrival in terms of whether it would come before the big sham of firing Nyla or after.

Would Cissy see reason—whatever that was at the moment—or side with her father no matter what criminal charges he faced, including human trafficking of pretty white girls for social gatherings in Africa, the Middle East and Asia? Would she even believe her father could be part of something so reprehensible?

People often wouldn't see fault in the ones they loved. Would he be that lucky with Cissy?

And what did Rowe have, anyway?

She had conceded that her own surveillance at RBD had been unsuccessful. Their cameras and microphones had been quickly discovered. Remington and Triton had Security sweep RBD regularly after that. She hadn't even been aware of the storage room until he had spotted the three men going into it.

And the only thing they had learned about it was it had reams of paper for old dot matrix printers and served as a rendezvous for Finnegan and Kline. It was clear Remington and Triton were careful while at RBD about discussing anything to do with whatever illegal activities they were involved in.

The murdered courier had vanished. The two mercenaries from South Africa killed by glass bullets only added more mystery. His own delivery to Grand Central Station had been a big non-event. Had that been a gun at his back or just the bodyguard giving him a push when he dawdled? While he appreciated Solomon Crane, Nyu and Bennett Fox playing cavalry, they still didn't know what was in the package and nothing had happened to him.

The three phoney diplomatic vehicles had been destroyed shortly after they'd been found out and included three cremated people who might never be identified. And they hadn't cracked the encryption on the flash drive files Crane had copied.

The other side had more on their adversaries than Rowe had. Triton and Takahashi knew he'd been at the Harbor Yards and seen the courier murdered. They had tried to take him out twice since then. They were eliminating evidence and people. Rowe may think she was only one step away from catching them, but it seemed more like they were pulling away from her and quite ably covering their escape.

If they took him out, the only witness to the courier's murder, the only witness who had gotten a close look at Takahashi and his bodyguards was gone. Two of those bodyguards were dead. If two of the cremated remains were the other two bodyguards from the Harbor Yards—the third set likely being Scruffy—then getting rid of him would leave only Takahashi, the man who pulled the trigger.

Staying in his office and waiting meant everybody knew where he was. Anyone could get to him at any time.

"Quack, quack."

He got up and went to his window to go through the motion of being a junior executive at Remington Bakersfield Draper.

If he could just hit someone right now, he'd feel much better. Eric had been a good ally in Graphic Arts. He'd step up and take one for the team. But it wouldn't be fair to Eric. It also wouldn't be fair to call Finnegan back just to pop him in the snout after recruiting him to the cause. Sean probably wouldn't come over even if he could get in touch with him. New York City's exalted, artistic little punk was unreliable, never there when you really needed to break a jaw.

Adrian, Eugene and the mother-loving Bryce entered his office.

"There is a God." He clenched his fists and headed straight for them

"Hey, Jaxon," Adrian said, "how'd you like to go on a field trip with us?"

While Adrian hadn't noticed his body language, Eugene and Bryce had. They backed up to the door.

"We're on our way to check out the construction of the towers. I thought you might want to have a look." Adrian finally noticed his fists when he was two steps away. He held up his hands, smiled and backed up to his buddies by the door. "Whoa, Jaxon, I call a truce. You made it clear last weekend that you don't like being pranked. Think of this as my peace offering."

Adrian held out his hand. "And congratulations on your engagement to Cissy. I have never seen her happier."

Eugene and Bryce were waiting to see if he'd take hold of Adrian's hand or throat. He had altered their perception as much as Rowe's investigation had altered his.

He shook Adrian's hand. "How long will it take?"

"That depends. If there are no problems, we should be back just after lunch."

Eugene and Bryce offered their hands to congratulate him. It would have felt more sincere if they had just stood up to him and taken their beatings like men.

"Let's go." He followed the three men out of his office.

Triton was waiting for them in the hallway.

"Nyla was supposed to be doing this," Triton said, "but as she is not available, you can take her place as her personal assistant. I presume she won't bite off our testicles this time for borrowing you to do her job."

"She'll be okay. We had a long talk about possessiveness and that conceit of believing you are actually in control of anything."

As they headed for the elevator, he spotted Nyu standing in the waiting area watching them.

# Chapter 43

They drove to the site in two chauffeured silver Cadillac Escalades. Morris, Adrian and Eugene rode in the front Escalade. He, Bryce and the architect, Myles Winston, mid-forties, trim, with wire-frame glasses and a black goatee in place, rode in the second one. Winston rode shotgun.

Triton could be planning to do something at the site. He might have someone waiting there, but Triton wasn't likely to try anything and risk collateral damage if he stayed close to the boss' son.

He kept checking the traffic as often as he could to see if Crane was making his characteristically dangerous-driving attempt to trail them, or if other agents were behind them in unmarked vans. He'd settle for suicidal couriers on bicycles weaving in and out of traffic.

The new Remington Bakersfield Draper headquarters was a complex of five towers. An octagonal center tower rose to sixty-four storeys and was aligned on the site so that its short corners faced the four main compass points. Two towers of twenty-four storeys each were attached at the north and south corners, two thirty-six storey towers were connected at the east and west corners. The twenty-four storey towers were connected by corridors to the center tower at the eighth, sixteenth and twenty-fourth floors. The taller towers connected to the center tower at ground level, the tenth, twentieth and thirtieth floors. The four shorter towers were rectangular in shape.

The whole complex was about eighty percent complete. Construction on the shorter towers was essentially finished. The two other corner towers had cranes at their tops bringing up materials. One had three floors left to do, the other had four. It was the one the internal memo circulated last week had advised was having some trouble with the quality of the cement, so had fallen slightly behind schedule.

The central tower still needed to add sections to its last eight floors, but was progressing nicely according to that same memo. RBD would continue because it also did legitimate business, even if a recently promoted PA ended up taking a dive off the top of one of the towers. Not to worry; it just adds charisma to whichever tower hosts the event to have the ghost of a former employee haunting it.

The central tower and the two thirty-six storey towers were designated primarily for hotel, professional and commercial use.

Once they had parked at the construction site command center and got out, Winston, Triton and the foreman, Rafe Emory, as trim as Winston but about ten years older, and completely bald on head and face, made sure they were all outfitted with hardhats and orange safety vests. The orange would make it easier to track his failure to defy gravity. Emory then gave them all a quick site safety lecture before Winston and Triton started them toward the center tower.

Triton took them past frames, forms, wheelbarrows and other construction paraphernalia. At a section of the plaza that circled the complex, he pointed to the concrete forms in place surrounded by newly laid out sod and said to Jaxon, "That is where your three letters will go, right in the middle of that fountain. Everyone will see it when they pass by or upon entering the plaza from any side."

He could haunt the fountain and plaza, too, though he would probably be restricted to the site; no taking his cranky, ectoplasmic ass uptown for the nightlife.

They continued to the central tower.

Adrian hung back with him. "Doesn't it make you proud?"

"It will be my biggest work of art in New York City."

Adrian chuckled. "I'm the one in charge of all this, but Morris always has to take the lead when he comes by. That crippled old dog doesn't have any sense that he will be done here soon."

The yappy young mutt didn't have any idea what the crippled old dog was up to. "Are you going to fire him?"

"I can't do that yet, but he and father have had their turn chewing on this city's bones. It's time for a new alpha with sharper teeth to take over at Remington Bakersfield Draper once this complex is complete." He giggled before getting into the construction elevator for the central tower.

They went up to the fifty-sixth floor.

On the way, Adrian gave him the highlights of the complex's future. "It's taken three years and over two billion dollars, but we're almost there. The top four storeys of this tower will be our new headquarters. The top four floors of all corner towers will be luxury condos starting at just over six million for a seventeen-hundred-square-foot one-bedroom to twenty-three and a half million for a thirty-four-hundred-square-foot three-bedroom penthouse with den and loft spread over two floors. Most of the other floors will be hotel suites.

"The east and west towers will have retail and commercial on the first three floors. Terrace apartments cover the remaining floors until you get to the top four."

Winston countered with, "The terrace apartments may not occupy every one of those floors. We may need more hotel suites. The final decision hasn't been made yet."

Adrian whispered to him just before the elevator reached its destination, "They will be."

Triton, Winston, Emory and Adrian went over to a makeshift table of plywood and sawhorses to review the progress of the construction work.

Eugene got stuck halfway between that group and he and Bryce and just stopped where he was.

Bryce said to him, "Flo told me you saw us together."

"And you saw Cissy and me. I'd call us even."

Adrian waved him over. "You're taking Rowe's spot, so you should be in on this."

Winston made the report, flipping through the plan drawings as he did. "We're on schedule on all the towers save the one. We sent a few crews from north and south to catch it up. On this floor, the staff rooms, the cafeteria and its kitchen and the washrooms are ready for the plumbing. Electrical and heating, ventilation and air conditioning are right on schedule."

Winston pointed to scaffolds strewn about the floor and the exposed wiring and ductwork above them.

Had the Genie been helping RBD with its labor or contractor needs? Had he granted their wish to provide cheap labor or corner-cutting contractors to provide substandard products and shoddy workmanship?

Would the RBD towers eventually come down as Jerome Remington and Morris Triton were going to? Was he going to end up an orange-vested spectre haunting a giant pile of rubble?

"Let's have a look around." Adrian pulled Jaxon away from the table.

Emory said, "It's not safe in the cafeteria. Sections of floor still need to be installed."

He pointed to the yellow safety tape and plywood barricade in place at the entrance to the hallway leading to the cafeteria and washrooms. Yellow posters on the plywood used big, red letters to warn of danger and ordered only authorized personnel in proper safety gear could enter.

"We'll be careful."

Adrian gathered up Eugene and Bryce on the way.

He and Bryce moved the plywood aside and they proceeded down the dim corridor to the cafeteria.

"I think," Adrian said once they entered the cafeteria, "if Morris had his way he'd have you dropped into one of these gaps."

"I was sure he was warming up to me."

Adrian giggled, went to the edge of a missing section of floor and looked down as he waved for them all to join him.

He hung back. Were these three members of Jerome's stable of collaborators? They didn't present the challenge the Genie's bodyguards would if they tried to do something, but one of them might get lucky with him near a gap in the floor. He counted six gaps, each one about eight feet square.

"Come on, Jaxon," Adrian said, "you should see this."

Eugene and Bryce had bucked up at his reluctance to come to the gap; however, they didn't appear to have gained enough confidence to take him on even outnumbering him three to one.

He walked slowly over to the trio, taking a look as he did at the stainless steel sinks, ranges and refrigerators that had yet to be installed in the kitchen. He spotted some pipe he could use as a weapon.

At the gap, Adrian said to him, "Morris doesn't like you very much. He doesn't like your promotion to Rowe's personal assistant. A guy like you making that kind of progress that quickly scares him, which, I suppose, makes you one of us now."

Adrian patted him on the back as he looked down through the gap. It was a drop of twelve feet to the floor below straight onto bland, industrial-beige carpet.

Adrian pulled him back. "We don't want any accidents that would make Morris feel better, do we?"

On the way back to the table, he asked, "What do you three do at Remington Bakersfield Draper?"

Did they suspect anything? Could he even risk asking such a question?

"Right now, I'm in charge of this debacle. Only father would create such an inefficient sprawl of buildings to suit his ego on such valuable New York City property."

"What would you have done?"

"My plan had the corner towers fully attached to the central tower and all of them taller. We could have doubled our floor space."

"But dear old dad wouldn't listen."

"This is the last time. All that stuff they're doing is for Morris' benefit. Myles and Rafe keep me current with daily reports. When we're not babysitting this self-indulgent edifice for my father, we're out looking for new business opportunities. Morris and father think this building establishes them as a preeminent force in this city, but they're almost finished here. I'm going to do things with RBD no one will ever forget."

If Rowe had her way, Adrian would get his chance sooner than he expected.

"I know I sound like your typical conceited young buck, but come on, Jaxon, isn't that what we all are at our age? Don't you believe you're going to force the world to bow down before you in awe and admiration?"

Bryce said, "Or in fear and apprehension."

Eugene said, "If not for Adrian, they'd still just be building things like this instead of expanding their reach throughout the world."

"You had a role in RBD's expansion into shipping?"

"A small one, I assure you, much to my regret. In my many travels to explore the world of free enterprise, I stumbled upon people who wanted a new player on the seas and were willing to put their rather substantial financial support behind such a player. I introduced them to father, Morris and a few of their old cohorts at his club. The rest of it just took off as much by itself as from anything I did. In the process I got squeezed out so father and Morris could play with their ships at sea. Personally, I think it's happening too fast and I have my doubts about who we are getting involved with at the other end. No one at RBD has any idea of how to manage shipping. We could get seriously burned, but I'll let those two go down in flames, then I'll step in and set our course right again."

A few of the old boys were coming up with some unique ideas. Once the fire was out, Adrian and his entourage of young bucks were going to need all the hubris they could muster to right RBD's course. In keeping with their preferred nautical metaphors, Adrian could find himself captain of little more than a charred, smoking dingy.

He was coming close to almost feeling sorry for him.

Back at the makeshift table, Triton, Winston and Emory had completed their review. Winston was rolling up the blueprints.

Adrian checked the time on his phone. "I told you it wouldn't take long. We'll have a bit of lunch and get you back before Rowe even knows you were gone."

# Chapter 44

On the way back, they stopped at O'Hara's for lunch. It had all the earmarks of a planned spontaneous action. Morris and Adrian were the exuberant hosts at the table.

"Just think," Triton said, "a year from now, we won't even remember being at Cedar Street."

He held up his diet Coke. "Here's to all bright and shiny new things."

The others raised their glasses and said in unison, "Here, here."

As they held their glasses high for the toast, he saw a clear shot at Triton. If he just swung sideways with the edge of his hand, he could catch Triton in the chest, throat or jaw. A hard enough blow to his chest could bruise his heart, stop it entirely or just make it skip; to the throat and he'd crush his trachea; to the jaw, he wouldn't likely break it, but he could send him tumbling back into the metal dessert trolley a waiter had just placed against the wall behind him. That might crack open his skull.

Adrian, Eugene and Bryce would be taken by surprise. If any of them tried to help Triton, they'd give themselves away. If none of them did, he could tell Adrian all about how Jerry and Moe were likely to gut RBD before he ever had a chance to recreate it in his own image.

Triton said to him, "Jaxon, you can put your glass down. We're finished with the toast."

Bryce was the only one of the others who didn't chuckle. Eugene turned sideways on his chair to hide his face.

"Just a moment, I'm sure another one will come to me." He held up his glass higher for a count of two before setting it back on the table. "No, it's gone."

Adrian slapped his back. "Maybe we should have you write the dedication to the new towers."

The luncheon took on the nonsensical atmosphere of a drunken pirate crew celebrating their haul of booty. He cursed himself for the persistent nautical metaphors that kept occurring to him. They had just lined up for presentation since that night on the Dagger and wouldn't go away. He blamed Adrian for bringing them front and center again.

Back at RBD, the one they were abandoning by December and would forget within a year, Adrian, Bryce and Eugene came in with Jaxon and Morris rather than return to their globetrotting pursuit of future opportunities. The trio accompanied him back to his office.

Rowe hadn't returned yet.

Cissy was there waiting for him. She came straight to him as if her brother and his buddies weren't there. She hugged him and kissed his cheek.

Adrian said, "Nothing for you darling brother?"

She touched her cheek to his before returning to Jaxon's embrace. "I'm not in the mood for any of your games."

They hadn't been together since she'd proposed to him Monday night. They'd been followed then and the two who'd followed them had been murdered with glass pellets. Now he was sharing her with her brother and his two stooges, all of them conceited, arrogant and clueless.

Before he could ask them to give him a few moments alone with Cissy, Adrian said, "None come to mind, dear sister. Now, if you will excuse us, I will see how father is doing. I think this afternoon is going to be full of excitement and I don't want to miss a moment of it."

As soon as they were gone, Cissy brought him up to date on what was happening with Penny in Las Vegas. She didn't have any more significant details than they had already talked about.

"It must have been very difficult for the both of you."

"Penny is devastated." She rested her head against his chest. "I don't understand how people can be so violent."

"New York doesn't have a monopoly on crazies."

"I have to get back to work. Will I see you tonight?"

"You can see me anytime. You could stay here for now."

She kissed him. "I'd love to, darling, but I really do need to get back to work. It will do me some good to get my mind off Penny's situation and back on ours."

"Can you do me a favor when you're there?"

"Anything."

His breath caught when he looked into her trusting green eyes. "Check your records for any aid to the Middle East being shipped through your charity."

"I told you before we are not at that stage yet."

"Just check for me, please?" His insides were dissolving.

"Why?" She stepped back from him.

"Our report on the pirate attack indicates they took containers identified as food. They were designated as humanitarian aid by the United Nations and shipped from the Remington-Smythe Foundation."

"That's just not possible."

"That is why I need you to check your records. Someone is using your charity's good name to smuggle contraband."

"What kind of contraband?"

"We don't know."

"Who would do that?"

"Whoever it is, they have phony documentation that authenticates both United Nations authorization and your charity's identity. We need to find out who they are as fast as we can before the Remington-Smythe Foundation becomes irrevocably associated with illegal activities."

"Is it someone here? Do you know who it could be?"

"They haven't told me everything. I just wanted to warn you ahead of the issue reaching your doorstep."

"I'll ask father, he'll know."

"No. I wasn't supposed to tell you anything."

"He'll understand. You were just trying to protect me."

"He might not understand as well as you think."

She staggered back a few steps as if he'd hit her the way he'd imagined hitting Triton. "You're telling me my father is using my charity as a front?"

"I don't know."

"Who told you this, Nyla Rowe?"

"Yes."

"And you believe her just because she made you her personal assistant?"

"She has some compelling evidence that she has taken to the authorities."

"And she's so much more credible than my father." She staggered back a few more steps and shook her head. "I have to go."

"Cissy, wait. Believe me, I didn't want to tell you, but I couldn't just stand by and let you get hurt."

"Of course you couldn't. After you'd betrayed my father, you simply had to come after me next. You can't help yourself. It's that beastly killer instinct inside of you. It's stronger than your feelings for me." She left.

He followed her out and called himself every name he could think of because he knew he was acting more like Rowe wanted him to than how he should be behaving with Cissy. He was making sure she wasn't headed for her father's office. He'd have to stop her if she was.

What was he going to do, snatch her up and stash her in that credenza in the storage room?

Cissy went straight to the elevators, hiding her tears as best she could from anyone who might look at her. The elevator arrived quickly and she got in alone.

He watched the elevator unload and reload with passengers five times to make sure Cissy didn't return. The fifth time, Rowe exited it.

Once inside his office, he told her what he'd told Cissy.

"I wish you hadn't," Rowe said, "but I understand why you did. It must have been difficult."

"No worse than the rest of my second week at RBD: saw a man get murdered and vanish; got engaged; almost got killed twice, though I understand from your perspective that a miss is as good as a mile; betrayed my fiancé and her father for the sake of your investigation. How's your week gone?"

"Not as well as I'd hoped. The flash drive was a ruse. When our technicians finally cracked the encryption and opened the first folder, it looked like we had them. There was information on plans for RBD's future worldwide operations, but as they drilled deeper, they triggered a Trojan horse that opened the other folders to release a cascade of computer attacks throughout our field office system. They had to shut down everything and they're still searching and cleaning."

"When is the raid?"

"There's a problem with that. Two of the bodies found in the fire were the principals working with us at the other two companies. Without their testimony, it will be hard to make charges stick. My supervisor wants to wait a few more days to see what else comes up here or at the other two companies."

"I told Cissy because I thought the raid would come by tomorrow at the latest."

"The Genie would give us what we need, but he's as elusive as ever."

"Maybe Adrian could be a resource for you." He told her what Adrian had said about Jerome and Morris at the construction site. "He might be willing to help get daddy out of the way sooner rather than later as long as Remington Bakersfield Draper remains intact for him to play with."

"It's going to be hard to recruit him once they fire me. Try as best as you can to feel him out. If you think he's a go, contact me. I can still get the raid set for tomorrow if Adrian is onside with us, especially if he can bring supporting evidence with him." She headed for the door. "Time to get the show started."

"Break a leg."

She left the door open to allow him to see her enter her office.

For longer than it took the elevator to return five times, he waited before Remington, Triton and two security guards passed his door. Adrian, Bryce and Eugene followed close behind. Juarez and Finnegan followed at the rear.

Had they told Triton what he'd told them? If they believed Triton was the one telling the truth, and they would certainly believe Triton was the one who controlled their fate at RBD, then they would think everything he'd told them was his cover for being a spy along with Rowe.

Did Finnegan believe he liked them?

He slipped out of his office next to Juarez and Finnegan.

"Et tu, you two?"

Juarez motioned for him to be silent and whispered, "You know Triton invited us to this charade before you got to us. We couldn't very well turn him down."

Finnegan said, "You had better be telling the truth, Jaxon, or . . ."

"There is no or, Blake. Just keep everything to yourself and watch each other's back." He hadn't become only Rowe's sham personal assistant, he'd become her second in command at RBD.

They got to Rowe's office door together and stopped.

Adrian, Eugene and Bryce were inside standing off to the right. Adrian displayed that mischievous smile he wore when he was setting someone up for a prank. Eugene and Bryce were as solemn as military officers standing witness to a dishonorable discharge.

Triton, playing the general, said, "Nyla Rowe, I have the sad duty to inform you that we have learned you have contravened Remington Bakersfield Draper's confidentiality rules and placed secure information concerning RBD's future plans on your computer. This is in direct violation of our charter's security rules, section thirteen, subsection seven, part four, clause seven-b."

Jerome nodded for Finnegan and Juarez to come into the office. "You, too, Jaxon, you should be part of this. Close the door, please."

Triton stepped up to Rowe's desk, took control of her mouse, guided it through a number of standard RBD program files and stopped at the file he was looking for. He clicked on the icon. The prospectus on RBD's business plans for the next five years came up on the screen.

Jaxon could see what looked like a map of Africa with countries highlighted for future RBD business. This could have been what Nyu had found before it was removed to keep it secret. It also could have been little more than an elaborate set-up of Rowe from the beginning or a failsafe in case she—and now they—got too close to something they shouldn't.

Rowe said exactly what she was supposed to say, "I would never contravene our charter. Someone put that on my computer."

Jerome said, "Nyla, our investigation indicates only you could have put this information on your computer."

The two security guards came to the desk and stood beside Triton.

He said, "We have no proof of whether or not you have leaked any of this information to competitors for financial gain. Quite frankly, we are not interested in what you may or may not have done with the information. Having it on your computer is sufficient grounds for immediate dismissal."

Rowe stood up and played her part before the witnesses. "You may not want to press charges, but I will sue you for wrongful dismissal. My lawyer will make you look like you set me up and fired me because I'm black and your only woman executive."

Triton held out his hand as if he expected her to return her epaulets or rank insignias. "Your keys, please, Ms. Rowe."

She took her company keys off her key ring and handed them to Triton. She then handed over her identity card.

Of all the absurd thoughts he could have had throughout this performance, the one that occurred to him was a hope that they didn't go through the same preposterous theater when they came for him. Just a straightforward third attempt on is life would be sufficient. Adrian, Nyla, Jerome and Morris were the game players. He was just a fighter with a beastly killer instinct boiling up inside him.

Adrian's chuckle became a high-pitched, girlish giggle before Jerome's scowl made him almost snap to attention. Even that was a mocking gesture, though, Adrian's shot right back at his father.

Morris and Jerome stepped aside. The two security guards went to Nyla, flanked her and marched her out.

She started to bow her head as the disgraced executive about to be paraded out before her underlings. Then she held it up in defiant pride as the black woman being railroaded by old, rich, angry white men intimidated by her gender, intelligence and capabilities. She did not look at him as she passed.

Another absurd thought: she looked just how she should look, a portrait of the Nubian queen she was.

Adrian was enjoying the spectacle, but Eugene and Bryce didn't seem to have the same enthusiasm for this ultimate prank.

He exited Rowe's office to watch security take her into the elevator. She looked at him only once the doors started closing.

Adrian, Eugene and Bryce came to stand beside him.

"Tough thing to watch," Adrian said.

"You should prepare for a quicker takeover of the company than you anticipated." He nodded toward Rowe's office.

Jerome came to the door and closed it to have privacy with Morris.

"In keeping with what we were talking about at the construction site, two of the old dogs at RBD have learned some new tricks that might just sink the ship before you get to be captain."

He was drowning in nautical metaphors.

"As is the case most of the time, I don't follow you."

"Call your sister. Better yet, go be with her. The Remington's may need to circle the wagons soon." He shot a glance at Bryce. "Your father and that crippled old dog who thinks he controls everything are up to something nasty."

"Can you be more specific?"

"Cissy can, but I will tell you this. Nyla Rowe wasn't the one trying to destroy Remington Bakersfield Draper. She was trying to catch the ones who are."

It didn't seem right to experience the level of satisfaction running through him at Adrian's reaction, or that of Eugene and Bryce. He wasn't going to do anything to mitigate it, however.

"Thanks for the warning." Adrian's voice sounded more like that of an adult than he'd heard before. "Want to come with us? You can fill me in on the details she doesn't know."

"I don't think she wants to see me right now. You will know why after you've talked to her."

"I'll make her understand that you were only looking out for her. Thanks again."

Adrian headed for the elevators. Bryce and Eugene fell in behind him.

At least he'd done something for some members of the Remington family. Cissy might eventually appreciate that.

Rowe's office door opened. Remington came straight to him. "A disturbing situation, to be sure, Jaxon, but this in no way reflects on you. We've been watching Rowe for months."

He returned to his office.

"Jaxon," Triton said from the office doorway, "come in here, please." Triton closed the door once he was inside. "You wouldn't be my first choice as a personal assistant, but I'm afraid we're stuck with each other in the short term. I will be the acting COO for the time being. I hope we can work together."

"I hope so, too."

"I expect loyalty, obedience and commitment from the people working for me. I hope I will get that from you."

Was Triton going to keep up the pretense and ask him to make another delivery, this time to the Harbor Yards, as proof of his obedience and commitment? If so, kick, punch, strangle, break would snap him out of his fantasy quick enough.

"I hope so, too."

"If you will excuse me, I have to review all of Rowe's files to bring myself up to speed."

Jaxon went to the reception waiting area rather than return to his office. At the moment, he wanted to be out in the open where lots of people could see him.

Everyone at reception was talking about the performance that had just taken place. Camilla Best appeared to be the main gossip monger and had most of the staff gathered around her station at the counter listening to her every sage word. A major shake-up had started at RBD. How were Remington and Triton going to handle the public relations fallout when all of this became the business news of the day? Who else was going to get axed?

A number of the staff looked his way a few times. The thought that came to him was entirely unoriginal: If they only knew what was really happening. At least it wasn't nautical.

When he started back to his office, he saw the confirmation that he was now all alone at RBD.

Nyu'tenga Equaene was being escorted out by two black men dressed very much like the Asian's bodyguards. Nyu spotted him looking at them and signaled what appeared to be a warning for him to do nothing that would expose any collaboration with the Kenyan international business intern.

Cissy had walked out on him. Nyla and Nyu had been escorted out of the building. Finnegan and Juarez had slinked away unnoticed after the show.

His phone rang. "My guess is we now know for sure that what was on the flash drive was indeed a digital IED from the start with your name on it."

"I would agree with that," Rowe said.

"Where are you?"

"Back at Federal Plaza. How did it go with Adrian?"

"I sent him to talk to Cissy about the Somali pirates. He seemed genuinely grateful. I'll contact him later to see what his reaction is. I think he might come onside."

"Don't wait too long. We need time to prepare for the raids. How are you doing?"

"I'm just marvelous." He told her what happened with Nyu.

"I'll get on that. Keep a low profile for the rest of the day. Two agents will pick you up when you leave."

He returned to his office, locked the door and slid the back of a chair under the knob. Whoever came to see him was going to have to break their way in.

# Chapter 45

Two agents presented themselves to him on the plaza when he came out.

"I'm Agent Nelson," the blond one with a build similar to his own said. "This is Agent Dexter."

The redhead, a couple of inches taller and twenty pounds heavier shook his hand first.

Both men were younger than him.

"Where's Crane?"

Dexter said, "He's with Special Agent Rowe reviewing our options. Where to?"

They flanked him the way the security guards had flanked Rowe and escorted him to their black Ford Explorer SUV. He called Sean's number on the way and left a message for him to come to the studio. He called Cissy but didn't get an answer. At the studio, Dexter took the back alley. Nelson agreed to take the front and leave him alone only after first taking him up and checking both the studio and the fire escape at the front for anyone or anything that shouldn't be there.

He called Cissy again once he was alone. This time she answered.

"Hello." She sounded like she was responding to a stranger, though her phone would display his number.

"I'm at the studio. Can you come over? We need to talk."

"I don't think I could bear to hear any more of what you would tell me."

"Has Adrian talked to you yet?"

"I haven't seen him since I left you."

"He was supposed to go see you at your charity office."

"I'm at home now. He's not come by. He hasn't called."

Maybe he had gone to see Florence. If the Remington family was going to circle the wagons, maybe Adrian thought the matriarch needed to be briefed first. Maybe he was gathering evidence they could use against his father. He might find doing that more enjoyable than just talking to his sister, who was only going to be able to tell him about the problem with her charity.

"Come over, please. We don't have to talk about anything. You can just hit me until you get tired of it."

"I don't think so."

"I didn't mean to hurt you."

She sniffed and took a moment. "I know it isn't you hurting me."

"You found something."

"I can't access the whole file because part of it is protected by a password, but I found enough to confirm your accusations."

Did she think he believed she was part of her father's cabal?

"Cissy . . ."

"Please, just leave me alone for a while." She hung up.

He yelled as loud as he could and tossed his phone against the wall, shattering it to bits. His outburst brought Agent Nelson racing up the creaking stairs with his gun out.

"Don't you just hate those time-share offers for luxury resort condos on the coast of Vietnam?" He picked up the pieces of his phone.

Nelson smiled. He'd been thoroughly briefed on the personality he'd be protecting. He returned to his post.

Jaxon listened to the stairs creak as Nelson went down. Before Nelson could have reached the bottom, he heard a loud exchange of voices and creaks quickly coming back up. Sean came in to the studio.

"You are such a bloody fuck-up," Sean said. "I don't like being frisked before I can enter my own bloody studio."

"Does he have soft hands?"

Sean sat down on one of the two old armchairs they had in the studio. "Hard as bloody frying pans. What's with the protection provided at taxpayers' expense?"

He told Sean about everything that had happened after Monday night, all the while sensing Cissy receding from him.

"Fucking Christ almighty, Jax, you should be a trashy novelist, not a mediocre painter." Sean got out of the armchair and retrieved a full bottle of Jameson from his cupboard in his workspace. He opened it and drank a large gulp straight from the bottle. He took a bigger second gulp before handing it over.

Jaxon took a burning swig before handing the bottle back. "This is not the answer to everything."

"No, but there aren't any bloody naked virgins lying around the place, are there? This will bloody well have to do." He took another big drink. "To all the delicate, soft and supple virgins in the world; they don't know any bloody better."

"That's your secret, then, is it, ya wanker?"

"What was that?"

"What was what?"

"That noise, you squashed turd. Are you bloody deaf?"

From the back alley, something knocked over a garbage can. Sean put the cap back on the Jameson and set it down carefully.

"Who's out back?"

"Agent Dexter."

"I think he just went down."

The sound Sean's acute hearing had picked up the first time came again from the bottom of the stairs: two muted gunshots. The stairs creaked loudly as someone heavy started coming up.

He was getting what he wanted, a straightforward third attempt on his life. "Careful what you wish for."

"Rowe must be a bloody virgin. She gave you two fucking, bloody virgins right out of the academy. They didn't know any bloody better, either."

Sean moved quickly and quietly to close the door. There was no lock on it, so he did what he could to block it with the chair naked, shivering models usually sat on.

"Move your bloody big arse. Get to the fire escape."

The door knob rattled as the man outside pushed against the chair blocking it. Just as they heard someone on the fire escape outside, bullets came through the door and the chair dropped away. In seconds, one of the Asian's bodyguards was crashing through the splintering door as another was coming in through the fire escape.

The two men came in shooting. He and Sean dove in opposite directions. He ended up under the table that held his painting supplies. Sean landed under Trevor's pedestal. Sean wasn't going to have any cover once the men refocused their aim. He wasn't going to have much more cover where he was.

As he reached up to grab something off his table, Sean tossed a marble plinth along the floor and took out the feet of the bodyguard who had come in through the interior door.

His hand grabbed a jar full of his brushes and he flung it at the other bodyguard when he looked under the table. The jar missed, but the man had to duck away from it. Sean pounced on the fallen gunman and stabbed at him with something. He scrambled out from under the table, grabbed his palette and jabbed it straight at his target's throat.

The man knocked the palette aside as Jaxon heard more muffled shots, but that move made him lower his gun.

Jaxon kicked and made contact with the man's chest. It was a long reach, he didn't get the impact he wanted, but the man was still knocked back a few steps, was in pain, and had dropped his gun. He jumped for the man and aimed a kick at his head.

The man ducked under that kick, got hold of him and tried to slam him into the wall.

Jaxon spun around, caught the man's arm, swiveled away and swung him into the wall beside the fire escape door. While his attacker was dazed, he got a stronger hold of his arm and his neck from behind, kept him bent over and ran him to the window at the rear of the studio. He pushed hard to send the man out through the glass and down to the alley below.

The man hit the same garbage cans Agent Dexter had when he went down.

Sean and the other bodyguard were both lying near the door. The dead bodyguard had one of Trevor's chisels in the front of his neck. Sean had a bullet wound in his abdomen that was gushing blood.

"Bloody hell," he groaned. "No bridge for me, mate, I'm going to be bloody famous forever. Tell everyone I killed both of them." He held out his hand.

Jaxon took the keys from him.

Sean coughed. "That big one is to my stash in the Bronx. Don't sell it all at once. Let the demand and prices go up as my legend builds."

"Shut-up." He pressed hard against the wound but couldn't stop the bleeding.

Blood came out of Sean's mouth when he said, "But this is only going to work if you take those bastards down, shithead." He coughed and jerked. "Stop being such a timid bloody slacker and paint what you want, not what you think every bugger on earth will love. They're only bloody faces, mate. You just have to look at them the right bloody way. Get to the Russians. They can—" He gasped and just stared up at Jaxon.

The last thing Sean would ever say to him about painting delivered him to where Claudia had nearly taken him last night. He had it now. He knew what the secret was. It was all just a matter of perspective.

Footsteps started coming slowly up the stairs.

He went through Sean's pockets and took out his phone. "All the bloody virgins will weep, mate, I promise you that."

He picked up a chisel and went out the fire escape door. The muffled pops of a gun equipped with a silencer sent three bullets after him.

# Chapter 46

The fire escape presented two options. He could go down to the street or up six feet and along their makeshift bridge to the flat, tar roof of the building beside theirs. Three more bullets sent him up and over to the neighbors. Once across, he hid at the metal shed housing the elevator gear and watched for which way the third assailant was going to go.

The man, someone he hadn't seen before, searched the studio. He checked Sean and the man who killed him as he went. He went to the broken back window and looked down at the two bodies lying in the alley with the garbage. He then looked straight at the window Jaxon was watching him through.

The sun was more than halfway down. It still provided plenty of light, but the shadows created against its glow did a good job of concealing whatever was in them. He was in a shadow cast by the taller building across the street.

He held his breath and ducked back a bit as the man came to the fire escape door. This guy wasn't the giant the bodyguards were. He was less than six feet tall with a slight build and he was most likely Thai. He wore a fedora pulled forward on his head and a coat over his suit; a Thai agent noir. He aimed one pistol equipped with a silencer at the fire escape door as he approached it. His left hand hung at his side and also held a pistol equipped with a silencer; a two-fisted, silencer-equipped, Thai noir hit man. He was probably born in Yonkers or Queens and had watched too many movies growing up. New York City certainly could produce someone like him.

Was this overdressed assassin a wannabe who'd remained outside only to make sure no one slipped away? Or was he the lieutenant in command of the assignment?

The man was cautious as he reached the fire escape, but that didn't reveal anything one way or the other. If the man kept up his overly cautious pace, however, the sun would be completely down before he ever got outside to see there were two options for escape. After looking out all the windows again, he stepped onto the metal landing of the fire escape. He had brought up both guns at the ready.

At the Harbor Yards, he'd only seen the gun sticking out of the window. He hadn't actually seen the Genie pull the trigger. This guy could have been the one who shot the courier. He looked the type who would be courageous enough hidden inside a blacked-out SUV to kill someone.

Only the top of the sun was above the horizon. Intense glare and shadows crisscrossed everything.

The man looked down the fire escape, at the setting sun, down at the street, back into the studio. He put his left pistol into his overcoat pocket, took out his phone and made his call. He spoke Thai.

This gunslinger was not experienced. He may well be the lieutenant, but he was not a soldier, not for something like this. The conversation was energetic. The man yapped as fast as he could, as if offering every excuse he could think of for letting his quarry escape, perhaps even blaming the bodyguards for getting killed and shirking their duties.

If the gunman remained distracted long enough, he could sneak up on him. Two guns made him look impressive, but he hadn't yet displayed any prowess with them. He'd twice fired three times at his target for complete misses.

He had Trevor's very sharp sculptor's chisel and hadn't yet displayed any prowess with it. The prudent thing to do was wait to see what the Genie's apprentice did after he got off the phone.

The gunman put his phone away, took off his fedora, which shortened him by another inch, and wiped his brow. He was probably a featherweight under that overcoat, maybe 5'4" and no more than 125 pounds. Those guns must be heavy for him.

The phone call hadn't made him any more decisive. The man put his hat back on, stuck his hands in his pockets and just looked out at the sun finally setting.

Jaxon kept to the shadows and snuck along the roof. The problem with trying to launch an attack was getting across the rickety bridge they'd made and dropping six feet. And what if the gunman was waiting for reinforcements?

He envisioned a helicopter suddenly arriving overhead and shining a bright spotlight down on him. Men scattered about on neighboring roofs could then open fire on him.

They were both stuck with the same paralysis of not knowing what to do next. He knew one thing the Thai didn't, though. In early spring, the sun always provided one brilliant flash between the two buildings across the street straight into the studio as it set. He had painted it as a bright wash of orange, yellow and white with small streaks of silver.

The Thai was looking straight at the gap the flash would come through.

He knelt at his end of the bridge.

When the flash came, he closed his eyes and looked away. When he opened them the Thai was holding his hand up, had squeezed his eyes shut and had turned his head away from the bridge.

Jaxon sprinted across and jumped down the six feet before the Thai had finished rubbing his eyes. He landed on the smaller man's shoulders, collapsing him against the wrought iron railing. The man stopped moaning and grunting after three punches to his face. Jaxon glanced in at Sean, picked up the Thai and threw him off the fire escape. The man yapped all the way down, as if trying to persuade Jaxon to somehow bring him back, until he landed in the middle of the street. The sound of impact reminded him of the time he and Sean had dropped a mattress out a fifth-floor apartment window on moving day.

Rather than go down the fire escape, he went back over the bridge and kicked in the flimsy door to the roof. He exited the building at the back, checked Dexter and the bodyguard to make sure they were both dead and then started running as fast as he could.

He arrived at the back of King Gregor's out of breath and barely able to put any force behind his knock. His knuckles were bloody.

Viktor was cursing in Russian when he opened the door, but called for Anatoly the instant he saw who it was. Anatoly helped him into the kitchen and sat him at the table before fetching him a small vodka mixer.

"Drink up, collect your thoughts, take slow, deep breaths and tell us what has happened."

He drank some of the mixer before telling them every detail of what had happened since arriving at RBD this morning.

Viktor said, "God, Jaxon, do you ever have an ordinary day at that place?" He handed him a towel for his bloody hand.

"I wish." He finished the vodka mixer. What he'd just been through had completely burned up the Jameson. The mixer made him shiver but otherwise its effect on him wasn't what he'd hoped for.

"I can get you another," Anatoly said.

"Maybe later." He took out Sean's phone. "Shit."

"What is it?" Viktor looked to the back door as if he expected someone to come charging in through it. He aimed one of his canes as a sword to repel any attacker.

"Quiet." He closed his eyes, which only brought flashes of Cissy's stricken face when he'd confided in her, Adrian's perpetual mocking grin, Sean dead on the studio floor in a pool of his own blood, a flash of bright orange, yellow and white followed by a frame of blackness before him, a Thai featherweight screaming all the way down until he landed on a mattress in the middle of the street. "I'll have that other drink now."

He punched in Nyla's phone number, hesitating before remembering the final two. When she answered, he said, "There's a room inside the room."

"What are you talking about?"

"Perspective. There's a secret room inside the storage room. I'd always felt claustrophobic in there even though from the outside it should be quite large. I'd just thought it was due to all the clutter."

She talked briefly to someone before coming back on the phone. "I got the toxicology report on Smith. He'd been drugged."

"One of Adrian's concoctions."

"Meet me at RBD in fifteen minutes."

"How do we get in?"

"I had copies made of the keys. I'm counting on them not having changed the codes so we can use your identity card to swipe the other locks."

"Jesus! Nyla, listen to me carefully." He told her about warning Adrian and sending him to see Cissy, about Cissy finding evidence at her charity. "She's at home."

"I'll get a unit over to her place right now."

He told her about the studio attack and the deaths of her agents and Sean.

"Jaxon, I'm so sorry for all this."

"See you in fifteen."

Anatoly asked, "How can we help?"

He drank the vodka mixer. "Got any glass bullets on you?"

# Chapter 47

The plaza was well lit. The illuminated water in the fountain sequenced through the colors of the rainbow. People walked across it on their way out for the evening, to the subways or to meet others before heading somewhere else. Nyla wasn't there. He spent the time waiting for her observing the people coming and going and watching for anyone who wasn't just coming and going. He shivered when the breeze picked up.

Nyla arrived by herself and came straight to him, also checking the plaza as she approached.

"Nyu is fine," she said. "Those were Kenyan officials escorting him out for his own protection. They have further intelligence on what the Genie may be up to. They are sending everything to our State Department as well as to Russian, Somali, Ugandan, Syrian, Israeli, South African and Chinese officials."

"Sounds like something big."

"Very. Shall we go?" As they walked across the plaza, Rowe said, "Fox's unit found Hennessey, Dexter and Nelson, but the other bodies were gone."

"And Cissy?"

"Crane's on that. She wasn't at her apartment. We haven't gotten any answer to our calls."

He stopped. "I'm going to find her."

"She's probably just out or gone back to her charity to look for more information. I've called in more units and advised NYPD. We will find her."

"What if Adrian finds her first? I sent him to her."

"He's her brother. No matter what part he's playing in this, he won't hurt her. Jerome won't let him."

"God, what if they're all in on it?"

"What if who is all in on it?"

"Jerome, Adrian, Florence and . . . Would they leave her out if they were all in? Maybe she's the mastermind. She left me so quickly because I told her we were closing in. She had to delete all the documentation and shipment records. God, what if . . . ?"

Rowe just looked at him and held out her hand. "Give me your card. You can wait here."

"She couldn't be. She just couldn't be."

"Would it help if I slapped you? There is no way Cecilia or Florence is involved in this other than as victims."

When he just stood there wondering if Rowe really did believe what she'd just told him, she took hold of his arm and got them going again.

"How was it between you two when you called her earlier, when she told you what she'd discovered?"

"How do you think it was? Her fiancé is working undercover with the FBI to bring down her father. And then she finds out that he's right. That's usually a little hard on a relationship."

"Do you really think she would have told you anything if she was involved?"

They entered the lobby. The building security guard at the counter just nodded when Jaxon showed his identity card to him.

"Late night, huh?" The guard pushed a button to unlock the wrought iron gate that otherwise barred the way to the elevators.

He pointed to Rowe. "Slave driver, you have no idea what she makes me do."

Inside the elevator, Rowe's voice was like fingers on a chalkboard when she said, "I didn't think it would come to anything like this. I thought they were maybe doing some money laundering or embezzling or fraudulent stock manipulations. Even when we learned they were connected to the Proteus Group, we still thought it was only about money at this end."

"What's the Proteus Group again?"

"Forget I ever mentioned them."

"Just like I'll forget how much you've done for Cissy and me."

They exited the elevator, got into the special elevator to RBD and went up to Graphic Arts. As they passed his quad, he noticed his former desk was covered in rolls of paper plans. It shouldn't be ominous that no one expected him to come back.

At the door to the storage room, he swiped his card through the lock and keyed in Cissy's birthdate. He punched in the last two digits hard enough to crack the plastic surround. The lock released with a beep and the door popped open.

Nyla put a hand on his chest. "I need you to stay in the moment and concentrate. Do not go off on one of your cockamamie stream of consciousness episodes. Keep close to me and do exactly what I say when I tell you."

The lights were on. Nyla led the way.

"Wait." He slipped back out and looked from side to side along the hallway.

At each end, the special stairwells for RBD use only would cut into the storage room. He stepped back into the room and looked to his left and then his right. To his left, he could see the intrusion of the stairwell walls. Shelves went along the wall that intruded, but instead of turning the corner when the intrusion ended to go to the perimeter wall, they continued along a straight path creating a cordoned-off section of the storage room in behind the shelves. He'd searched that area a number of times. To his right, a set of shelves spanned along the intruding wall of the other stairwell and continued all the way to the back of the room. Only there was a wall behind the shelves the whole way not a cordoned-off space for more shelves.

"Over there."

He pointed out the differences between the two ends of the room. The shelves nearer the back were a few inches higher than the ones beside them though the units were identical. Casters at the bottom of the shelves raised them exactly the amount of the difference.

He grabbed hold of the shelving unit that contained boxes of dot matrix printer paper and gently tried to pull it away from the wall. It moved easily to reveal a flush door with only a simple lock to keep it closed and secure.

"I don't suppose you have a key for that one."

Rowe held up one finger for him to be quiet and pointed to the floor with her other hand.

A thin line of light was visible at the bottom of the door. A shadow passed across the light three times. The muted footsteps reminded him of the sound of silencer gunfire.

They backed up.

He whispered, "Do you think they heard us."

The muted sound of footsteps came past the door again, followed by the muted tearing sound of a paper shredder.

Rowe took out her gun. "Stay behind me or I'll shoot you before anyone in there can."

"That's the Betty Rollins I've grown to love and respect."

She put her ear to the door for a few seconds, felt along it with her hand, then backed up. "I don't think it's all that sturdy." She held her gun ready and nodded to him as soon as they heard the paper shredder start up again.

He kicked down the door.

# Chapter 48

Nyla charged in first shouting to identify herself, holding up her FBI badge and holding her gun out in front of her. The moment she confirmed only Remington was in his secret operations room trying to destroy all the electronic equipment and files, she nodded for him to enter.

He ran past her straight to Remington and punched him in the head. Remington staggered back into a wall of communications gear and rebounded into another punch, this one to his nose. As Remington's legs buckled and Rowe started hollering for him to stop, he punched Remington in his right eye.

Remington fell to the floor like a landed fish on a pier. His legs twitched a bit.

Rowe pushed him away. "What is wrong with you?"

Remington moaned and rolled onto his side but he didn't wake up. His mouth, nose and right eye were bleeding and turning purple.

She had to restrain him when he took a step forward.

"You are a piece of work, you know that. One minute, you're overthinking and catastrophizing everything. You wrap yourself up in worry tighter than a baby in swaddling clothes. Then you're just fucking nuts." She put a hand on his chest again. "Feel better?"

"No, not much."

"Care to explain yourself?"

"No, not much."

"Now we have to wait until he wakes up. Get some water while I take a look around."

"How do I do that?" His left hand was bleeding again.

"I don't care, find a cup or something, wet some towels, bring it in your hands; just get some goddamn water." She started investigating the room.

He went to the washroom after propping open the door to the storage room with a box of dot matrix printer paper, filled two paper cups with water after first washing off his left hand and returned to Remington's operations center.

"Give it to him." Rowe didn't bother to look at him.

He drank from one of the cups while he poured the water from the other onto Remington's face.

Remington sputtered and coughed and put up his hand to protect himself.

"Too late, asshole."

Rowe got between them and helped Remington to his feet.

He straightened up, brushed himself off and affected an air of superiority and indignation until Jaxon stepped closer with a bleeding fist ready. Remington stepped back.

Rowe shrugged. "I guess I'm the good cop this time." She arrested him and read him his rights, then said, "Let's have it."

Remington pointed out the communications equipment, the three computers in a row on a table, two laptops, one open, and a bank of six monitors along the wall.

"I imagine you've pieced together most of it or you wouldn't have found this room."

"You and Triton were using RBD's new shipping enterprise to smuggle contraband using Somali pirates as your delivery boys."

He shook his head at Rowe's statement. "It's hardly as simple as that. We had agreements with pirates all over the world, as well as crime syndicates, terrorist groups and corrupt governments. Believe me, Agent Rowe, you have no idea how many customers we have."

"What were you smuggling?"

"Everything. They only need to tell us what they want, where they want it delivered and when and we get it there on time."

"The Somali pirates?"

"We had to first provide them with modern, high-tech equipment, faster armored boats, better weapons and instant intelligence on what NATO patrols were doing. Those patrols have severely curtailed pirate actions in the Gulf of Aden, but with our satellite guidance," he pointed to the monitors on the wall, "we can distract them or run interference while the targeted ship is singled out and attacked. The pirates know exactly what is on the ships and what they are supposed to take. We are as well-equipped and coordinated as any Navy Seal unit could ever hope for. Did you know we have plans to add submarines to our fleet?"

Remington felt his jaw, checked his teeth. "I think you knocked two loose."

"Only two? What about Cissy? Do you have any idea what you've done to her by using her charity as a front?"

When he opened his bruised mouth to speak again, Jaxon struck him in the temple with a right cross.

Remington bounced off the wall behind him and timbered to the floor.

"Jesus." Rowe checked Remington's pulse. "You don't listen particularly well, do you?"

"Not at all, actually, just like you. And you did promise I could hit someone." He inspected his right hand. "I think I broke a bone."

"Good, if that will get you to stop." She turned Remington over. "Get some more water."

He grabbed two mugs from desks on the way to the washroom. He tore the cloth towel from its dispenser, tore two strips off it using his teeth and bloody left hand and tied the middle and index fingers of his right hand together. He then washed the blood off his left hand and wrapped another piece of towel around it to cover his skinned knuckles.

Remington had a bloody hard head.

He returned to the operations room with two mugs full of water.

Rowe took them from him before he could reach Remington. She set them on the table that held the three computers before inspecting his right hand.

"You need a splint."

She took out a plastic splint from a first aid kit she'd found and bandaged his two fingers together with the middle finger properly protected. She then applied antiseptic gel to the knuckles of his left hand and put bandages on them.

"How could I possibly have ever thought Cissy would have any part in something like this?"

"Everything you're thinking and feeling is a perfectly natural response to all this. Are you going to hit him again?"

"I'm good."

"Promise?"

"Not a chance."

Rowe sighed. "Here goes, then."

She poured the water from one of the mugs onto Remington. When he sputtered and coughed back into consciousness again, she sat him up on the floor and propped him up against the wall. She then gave him the other cup of water to drink and stood up next to Jaxon.

"You did not appear to be directing another operation when we came in."

He said, "Jerry, it's time you considered sparing your family any more pain."

Remington finished the water and nodded, which made his eyes roll up for a moment. "That was exactly what I was doing when you two came in here." He set down the cup. "I had hoped to net a substantial profit from this operation, take Florence back from Bryce and head down to South America. Morris and our backers, I'm afraid, wouldn't allow that. Once you're in, there is no getting out. When I found out they'd used Cissy's charity as a front, I decided it was time for me to vanish." He said to Jaxon, "I know you won't believe me, but it was my intention to send all the information to Nyla after we got away."

"You're right."

"You can believe this. I saw a change in Cissy with you. I really believed—no let me correct that—I knew it was different this time for her. You were the one." He stood up.

"The Proteus Group," Rowe said.

"You've heard of them."

"Mostly just rumors and from a couple of incidents in Oregon."

"Then you have no idea what you're dealing with. Those couple of incidents in Oregon you are referring to were as much a distraction from their real agenda as what we're doing here."

Remington pointed to the open laptop on its own stand.

"That has everything you need on it about our partnerships, what we were smuggling and to whom, and what we were getting in return. It proves Cissy had no part in this. If I'd been any good myself at all this bullshit, I suppose I would have destroyed it first thing."

He said, "Maybe there was some other reason for not destroying it first thing if you wanted out. Who else is involved with you and Moe?"

"Morris and Kit brought in someone, but I don't know who it is. He keeps to himself and only deals with those two."

Rowe said, "The Genie."

Remington's phone began ringing.

"Put it on speaker," Rowe said.

He did as he was told. "Hello."

Adrian said, "Hello, father. We were wondering what was keeping you."

His face, bloody as it was, lost all its color. "Adrian?"

"We're all here, father. My buddies, Morris, a new business associate you need to meet, and, oh yes, your darling daughter. Now be a good father and bring the money and the laptop with you as you were supposed to. And don't forget that very special code key you have in your possession. You have fifteen minutes. And one more thing, father."

Cissy cried out in the background.

"This was not the time to lose your nerve or develop a conscience and turn yourself in to that bitch." He giggled.

Remington dropped his phone and just stared past them.

Two of the Genie's bodyguards stood at the doorway aiming Uzis at them.

# Chapter 49

They were the two black ones who'd replaced the ones executed with glass pellets. One of them picked up the duffle bag, the laptop and took the code key from Jerome. The shorter, heavier one guarding them took Nyla's gun and cell phone and then Sean's cell phone from him.

"Let's go," he said.

They took them down to the underground parking and loaded him and Nyla into the back of a new black van. Jerome rode shotgun while the shorter, heavier one, the one who had been more than willing to shoot him at GCS, remained in the back to guard them, the duffle and the laptop.

Nyla just kept looking at the floor of the van as they made their way to the new towers complex.

Once there, they parked the van in the part of the underground parking designated for deliveries of materials and supplies. The elevator was waiting for them with its doors open.

"You," the one guarding them said, "take the duffle."

"He's injured," Nyla said. "I'll take it."

He jabbed his Uzi at her. "He'll take it."

Once Jaxon had slung the duffle's strap over his shoulder, he got a prod from the bodyguard to get him into the elevator.

The bodyguard driver inserted a key and turned it to unlock the controls. He pushed button fifty-six.

The absurd thoughts kept lining up and intruding on his focus on what was happening to them. Was this a fourth attempt to kill him or just a continuation of the third attempt that began at the studio? He was going to fail Sean because he was going to get himself killed. Sean's immortal fame depended on him surviving this and bringing down all the culprits. If he struck one of the bodyguards with the duffle, would it be enough to knock him out? Would Nyla's FBI training kick in and prompt her to take on the other one. Could she even disable someone that big?

If everything before had seemed to be happening too fast, it was nothing compared to now. He couldn't think of anything he could do.

Remington turned to him and said, "Don't let them hurt Cissy."

"I'll kill them all if I have to." He wanted to say that, but he just nodded and adjusted the strap on his shoulder.

The two bodyguards glanced at each other and smiled.

The elevator doors opened.

Adrian, Eugene, Bryce and Morris stood at the makeshift table with Tetsuro Takahashi and his two other bodyguards.

The bodyguard who'd prodded him into the elevator prodded him again to get him out of it.

He said to Nyla, "They must grow these guys in a greenhouse."

She said nothing and kept her gaze on the floor. Had his Nubian queen been so completely defeated that she was giving up without even a fight?

Adrian opened his arms to welcome them. "I'm so glad you could all make it. And Jaxon, I want to thank you for that very wise advice you gave me about Cissy." He stepped up to the table and opened a laptop. "That was an impressive punch-up, old man. You would make the National Hockey League proud. And dear Cecilia got to see you at your best again, this time using her father as the punching bag."

Cissy came to her father and embraced him before inspecting his injuries.

Jerome said to her, "Don't blame Jaxon, sweetheart. I deserve far worse than this."

She said to Jaxon, "After we'd talked, I went back into our records and found out who hacked us. He got to me before I could call you back."

"I'm sorry."

She just nodded. Her neck was bruised on both sides.

The bodyguard driver put Jerome's laptop, the code key, Nyla's gun and the cell phones on the table beside Adrian's laptop. The prodding bodyguard took the duffle from Jaxon and brought it to Takahashi.

Triton picked up her gun and aimed it at her. "I never did like you, Nyla."

She raised her head. "Right back atcha, Moe."

Takahashi opened the duffle and checked the cash. Satisfied with the amount, he bowed to Adrian and Morris. The bodyguard produced two bags and Takahashi began transferring the money to them. Another bodyguard came over to help.

The other two bodyguards kept their guns aimed at him, Nyla, Cissy and Jerome.

Adrian bowed to Takahashi, bowed to them and continued to play the mastermind host. "Do you want to know what's next, or do you want to be surprised?"

He imagined Jerome's bruised and bloody face superimposed over Adrian's and believed he could paint a portrait like that. He could make portraits like that of all of them.

"This evening has brought to an end one phase of our operations, but it was only a short-term endeavor anyway. We will disappear tonight and let Ms. Rowe's colleagues dig as deep as they can for as long as they want. They will find nothing."

He giggled as he, Bryce and Eugene came to them. Adrian almost pranced.

"But I can't just go and leave you three hanging before one of Mr. Takahashi's legion of protectors add you all to the foundation of Remington Bakersfield Draper's exciting future." The son of a bitch giggled again.

Sociopaths were bad enough, but gloating sociopaths were intolerable. Of course, the little prick had a lot to gloat about. After almost a year undercover, Nyla had found nothing. After almost two weeks of increasingly dangerous work, clandestine meetings in credenzas and developing the rapport they now had, they hadn't come close to uncovering Adrian as the mastermind and they had walked right into this leading with their chins. It was enough to make anyone giggle.

He was still a prick for rubbing it in their faces.

"The most fun I had was watching Nyla scrabble around RBD getting nowhere. Everything she did was useless because we weren't doing anything there. Even that secret room was mostly just a blind in case you stumbled onto it. And guess what? You did!"

"You brought in the Genie," he said.

"Kit introduced him to Eugene on one of our many sojourns out in this big, wide world to set up our shipping enterprise." He smiled at his father. "I don't think Eugene has ever forgiven you for squeezing out his eponymous father. He jumped at my offer to bring his family back into the firm." He giggled. "Yes, Tetsuro Takahashi is the Genie. And as all good genies can do, he was more than capable of granting other wishes as long as the price was right."

"Smuggling contraband is a feint," Nyla said, "just something to keep us from discovering what you're really up to."

Adrian bowed again. "Our backers are experts at feints. It's one of their main modus operandi to keep their most precious secrets secret. They are always willing to make sacrifices in pursuit of their greater goals. As a matter of fact, they love making sacrifices. It's part of their charm."

Cissy said, "I don't understand any of this."

Adrian giggled. "I don't imagine you do."

"Your brother is going to kill us and hide our bodies in this construction site."

"Oh, come now, Jaxon don't be a poor loser. I simply had to prank you one last time. And let's be a bit more accurate, shall we?" He pointed between the four bodyguards until he settled on the two he wanted, another part of his performance. "I'm not going to kill anybody. Those two gentlemen right there are. The rest of us have a private flight to catch that will take us to one of our chain of luxury hotels."

Cissy said, "This is all about hotels?"

"Special luxury hotels," Adrian said. "We will have a string of them throughout the world, all connected to a secure, self-contained electronic financial services center."

"A money laundering system," Rowe said.

"Catering to only the most exclusive of clients, they will be able to luxuriate in the Alps, on the Persian Gulf, the South China Sea, the South Pacific, various exotic locales in South America and know they can rely on our very discreet financial services to place their resources anywhere in the world to invest in any venture they care to support. Who knows, your very own CIA could one day become our biggest client."

Triton, still aiming Rowe's gun at her, check his watch. "It's time to go."

Adrian waggled a finger at him. "So very cliché but still so very accurate." He picked up Jerome's laptop and tucked it under his arm. He slipped the code key into his pants pocket.

The two bodyguards carrying the bags flanked Takahashi. Bryce and Eugene flanked Adrian. The two bodyguards Adrian had picked came closer to the four hostages.

Triton came closer to Rowe. "You may feel a little pinch." He fired three times at her as she ducked away, hitting her once in the right side. He then aimed at Jerome as Rowe fell to the floor.

Before he could fire again, however, window glass shattered. Roaring wind quickly invaded the floor. Triton's head snapped backwards, the back of it exploded. He fell against the makeshift table and slumped to the floor.

In seconds, more windows shattered, the two bodyguards assigned to kill them went down moments after red laser dots appeared on their chests.

The howl of the wind reverberated through the floor loud enough to give the impression of being inside a jet engine. Jaxon wondered if they were all going to be sucked out of the tower.

Jerome and Cissy went to Nyla.

Takahashi and his two remaining bodyguards headed for the stairs. One of the bodyguards fell when he was shot in the back of the neck. Takahashi untangled the bag from him and fled into the stairwell with his last remaining bodyguard.

Adrian, Eugene and Bryce were crouched over and using stacks of building material for cover as they made their way to the service elevator. When they crossed a gap between the stacks, Eugene suddenly grabbed the back of his right thigh and fell. Adrian shrugged down at him as he and Bryce continued for the elevator.

Having been the only one to remain standing once the sniper had started shooting—it was only his second week as an operative—he started running after Adrian and Bryce.

Adrian saw him before Bryce did and veered off into the cafeteria. There was another stairwell at the other end of it.

Bryce dropped to his knees, held up his hands and looked down at the laser dot focused on his chest.

"Help your buddy," he growled, "and don't make me have to come after you." He pursued Adrian into the cafeteria.

Adrian couldn't have made it to the other stairwell yet because the gaps in the floor would have required him to slow down in the dim lighting. He didn't see him crossing what would eventually be the area for all the tables. That meant the giggler with no conscience was hiding.

He entered the kitchen area and searched amid the appliances and plumbing fixtures slated for installation. He spotted the bloody footprints three strides in. A series of five red smudges lightened with each step until they vanished. Adrian must have stepped in some of Eugene's blood when he took a moment to shrug at him.

The kitchen was a galley design industrial in size. The counter for taking and delivering orders was to his left. Adrian could have hopped over it and crouched down on the other side under the counter or he could have continued out the other end of the kitchen that would take him to the small room the staff would use. Going to the staff room wouldn't get him closer to the other stairwell and would box him into a room with only one way out.

He hopped over the counter to find Adrian crouched below it with the laptop still tucked under his arm.

Adrian smiled up at him as if he'd just been caught in a game of hide-and-seek. He giggled. This socio-brat was one of the masterminds working for the Proteus Group. He was a giggling, psychotic Moriarty who the Proteus Group had probably decided was expendable shortly after meeting him. They did love making sacrifices.

"Fuck this."

He grabbed Adrian, lifted him, almost dropped him when pain shot out from his right hand along his arm, and threw him back into the kitchen area. He leapt in behind him and punched him twice in the face to get him closer to resembling his father.

Adrian's head bounced off the floor with each blow. His eyes rolled up. He dropped the laptop, giggled again and spit out blood, which reminded Jaxon of Sean's last few breaths.

"I thought you were a nice guy." With another burst of giggling, Adrian swung the laptop at his head.

A quick rise of his arm knocked it away, but Adrian had one last prank to play. A click opened a switchblade knife that slashed the edge of his left hand when Adrian swung again. Another slash cut into his left forearm. Adrian never stopped giggling.

His own defensive reaction to the attack put his wrapped fingers in exactly the right position. He grabbed Adrian's knife hand at the wrist with his left and jabbed his splinted fingers into Adrian's right eye. Another quick jab into Adrian's throat and Adrian's giggling instantly became gagging. He dropped the knife.

Jaxon grabbed for something, found it and lifted a stainless steel double sink over his head.

"NO!" Cissy stood at the kitchen entrance. "You'll kill him."

"He had Sean killed. He tried to have me killed." He raised the sink higher. "He was going to kill us all."

"He's still my brother. Please don't do this to me."

That last phrase had in it all the pain and heartbreak she had been subjected to today. It sounded like an accusation that he was the cause of it all.

He tossed the kitchen sink away. It struck a stainless steel gas range with a painfully loud clang and left a dent in the side. Adrian's face was a twisted, bloodied and bruised Picasso-like Cubist portrait reflecting in that dent.

He brought Adrian up with him.

"Nyla needs our help." Cissy led them back to her father and Agent Rowe.

On the way, he shoved Adrian down beside Eugene and Bryce. "Stay or you'll get worse than that." He pointed to Jerome. He then retrieved Nyla's gun from the nearly headless Triton and their phones from the table. He handed her stuff back to her.

She aimed the gun at the trio and made her call while he checked the wound in her right side. The bleeding had almost stopped.

"It went right through," she said through clenched teeth. "I think it missed my kidney." She looked at his left hand and arm dripping blood on the floor but didn't say anything.

He returned to the kitchen and retrieved a pile of cloth towels intended for the washroom dispensers.

Cissy tore one into strips and wrapped his hand and forearm.

"They're on their way," Nyla said.

Rather than run back and do what he'd threatened to do when he looked at the trio and saw that smirk on Adrian's face, he helped Cissy and Jerome stanched the trickle of blood from Nyla's wound with a wad of towels front and back. They wrapped her middle with other towels tied together.

Cissy said to her, "There's little blood at the back. I don't think it hit any major artery."

"Lucky me."

He took an Uzi from one of the bodyguards. "They might come back."

"They won't."

Hollering came up the stairwell Takahashi and his bodyguard had taken but no shooting came with it. It got louder and closer before stopping altogether. After about five seconds, the stairwell door burst open. Crane, his unit and an FBI SWAT unit came charging into the area.

While SWAT spread out to search the floor and his unit took Adrian, Eugene and Bryce into custody, Crane came to them. He waved to his man at the stairwell, who then opened the door again.

Nyu and his two Kenyan officials entered the room behind two paramedics. One went to tend to Eugene.

"They arrived before we did," Crane said of the paramedics. "They claim someone called for them and told them to wait for us to bring them in."

"It wasn't us," Nyla said as the other paramedic tended to her.

Nyu said, "Takahashi is dead. We found him and his bodyguard on the tenth floor landing."

"What about the money?"

Crane said, "What money?"

"He had two diplomatic bags full of cash."

"We didn't find any bags. There were only the two bodies and fragments of glass on the landing."

The paramedic helped Rowe to her feet.

"Get crews up on the roofs across the street." She glanced at him and smiled, which became a grimace when she took her first step.

He said, "Look for three dimes and pieces of felt on the landing."

"Huh?"

"I'll explain on the way down." She patted his right hand. "I made too many mistakes and I missed too many obvious clues. But recruiting you was one of the smartest things I did. I owe you more than I can ever repay."

"Does that mean I don't get that severance package?"

She shook Nyu's hand before Crane and the paramedic helped her to the elevator. SWAT and the rest of Crane's unit gathered up Adrian, Bryce and Eugene, who was helped by the other paramedic. They all went down together.

Nyu and his two compatriots and one FBI agent remained with them. The agent guarded Jerome.

Cissy took him aside. "Thank you for all you did."

"I'm sorry I couldn't tell you."

"Nyla told me how she recruited you into this, how you stayed even though you were almost killed twice because you were trying to protect me." She wiped her eyes.

"It's all right. I know what the 'but' is that's coming at the end."

She took hold of his injured hands. Her last touch was tender and warm. "You need to take care of these, darling. There is too much talent in them to be so reckless." She kissed each of them.

The elevator returned.

"I better go with father."

The agent, Jerome and Cissy went down.

Nyu asked, "If it wasn't the FBI, who was the sniper?"

"Either a clean-up detail or a guardian angel; take your pick."

"Who killed the Genie?"

"Aladdin, Sinbad, Ali Baba; I never could keep them straight."

Crane returned with the elevator. "We'll come back for the bodies."

Near the fountain that would have displayed his new RBD logo, he, Nyu, his two associates and Crane watched the ambulance take away Nyla and Eugene. The FBI took away everyone else.

Nyu patted him on the back. "You have been of great assistance to my country, Jaxon. If you ever require a favor, you only need ask."

The Kenyans left.

Crane said, "Need a taxi?"

He took him to the hospital to get stitches, x-rays and a proper cast and waited around to take him home.

Jaxon made sure Bobby Lee and Claudia were doing well before getting to work sketching.

# Chapter 50

Sunday, ten bright, warm days after the Remington Bakersfield Draper take down, nine days after the raids on Lassiter and Beecher Consultants in Manhattan and Eastern-Atlantic Shipping and Trading in Red Hook, seven days after the raid on The Hercules Club in Astoria, Jaxon entered King Gregor's at noon. There were no customers in the place.

Anatoly was attending to the booths. Viktor was cleaning at the bar. Anatoly spotted him first.

"Jaxon, my dear boy, where have you been? We read about what happened at the new towers, but there was nothing about you. We were so worried."

Anatoly came to him at the entrance, set the back-at clock sign to one and locked the door. "Come, sit down. You must tell us everything of what happened. We have to know."

He made a fist when his left hand started shaking. "I've only come for lunch."

"Nonsense. You will tell us every last detail. You simply have to." He pointed to the cast on Jaxon's right hand and the bandages on his left hand and arm. "How did you injure those marvelous hands of yours?"

Viktor struggled over using only one of his thick canes to meet them at his booth with a diet Coke. "I will have some lunch for you in a moment. Do not tell any secrets while I am away." He limped into the kitchen.

"How is he doing?"

"He is a stubborn old man; that is how he is doing. I told him his days of taking the stairs were gone, but he won't listen to anything I say." Anatoly made a very rude gesture. "He is like the wall that you waste humanity's greatest evolutionary achievement on. He just grunts at whatever I tell him and does what he likes." He gestured again in the direction of the kitchen and muttered something in Russian.

Viktor soon came back with syrniki, honey and apple sauce. It smelled delicious and evil.

"So," Viktor said with a groan as he sat down. "There really is no hope at all for any reconciliation?"

He swallowed a chunk of syrniki covered with applesauce and avoided any nautical cliché about ships that had sailed away in opposite directions. "I don't see any."

"That is a shame," Anatoly said. "I do believe even though you two were only together for a short while that she was very good for you."

The second chunk stuck a bit going down. "I do believe you are right."

"We have heard rumors that there is maybe another love in your life now."

He choked on the third bit of syrniki and applesauce he'd just stuffed into his mouth. He clenched his fist again under the table.

"Have I said something wrong?"

"She's only twelve years old."

Both mean leaned over the table with mouths agape.

"Her name is Claudia Brooks. She lived in the apartment next to mine with her father. He died last Tuesday of an aneurism and she has no other family."

"You have adopted her, then," Viktor said.

He shook his head and stopped before putting any more of the food they were keeping him from into his mouth. "Children's Services put her in a group home after her father died. When I came back to my apartment Wednesday to retrieve the rest of my sketches I found her hiding there."

"Then you adopted her."

"Nothing is that simple, Viktor, and certainly nothing about fostering an adolescent girl when you are a single male my age, and not family, goes that fast. She is back in the system."

"What a shame. She seems really fond of you."

Anatoly declared, "You would make an excellent father."

"And I'm sure you two would make excellent parents. Maybe I should bring her to you."

Viktor chuckled. "A little girl of our own, how charming."

Anatoly waved him off. "She would just end up stuck looking after two silly, old Russians, and it sounds like she's done enough of that in her life. What happens next?"

"She's promised to stay in the group home and stay in school while my application to foster her is reviewed. There are a number of obstacles, but Children's Services has agreed to a second supervised visit next Saturday at the farm."

"This I like," Anatoly said. "It is good that a child be with who she loves and who she needs. I'm sure this will all work out for both of you. New York City has a way of taking something from you and giving something back in return."

"I sure hope so. I need her eyes for my painting."

"Jaxon, I do not understand this," Viktor said. "Why do this fostering of her just to take her eyes out?"

"I can take my business elsewhere if you two are going to keep making fun of me."

"He's just cranky because of his knees." Anatoly sat back. "I told him he should not have gone up those stairs."

The two to them allowed him to finish the last few mouthfuls of his lunch as they watched three couples come to the door one after the other, read the clock sign, peer in anyway and then leave. Two of the couples scowled, one couple spotted them at the table and waved cheerfully. They'd be back at one.

Anatoly said, "Is that where you've been, at your mother's farm?"

"I needed a little time by myself."

"Agent Solomon Crane came looking for you."

Viktor rubbed his left thigh. "We could only get out of him that the Genie is indeed dead and only after we had, how you say it, called him a bluff by telling him we already knew who the Genie was and that he was involved with your Mr. Remington. He told us glass bullets were used on him. Is that true?"

Anatoly asked, "Is it also true that money was taken?"

"Adrian Remington brought in the Genie. He and Triton had paid him the last quarter of his fee of one million dollars that night." Adrian had reduced his father to a courier by then.

"This Crane fellow told us Agent Rowe has been put in charge of a task force going after that group you told us about."

"The Proteus Group. Tell me, did Crane by any chance ask you two to work for him? You're so very good at getting information out of people."

"We're good listeners," Viktor said. "Is it true you will not have to testify? Are they going to give you that witness protection spell?" He waved his hands as if trying to conjure something.

"I came here for lunch, not to be interrogated."

Anatoly gripped his forearm. "But, Jaxon, we must know everything you know. Have we not been your supporters all through this ordeal? Who went with you and looked out for you when you were being followed? Do we not deserve the complete story in return for that?"

"Agent Crane and my brother came to me at the farm. Werner will be one of six federal prosecutors on the case. He and the FBI arranged for me to give a statement, but they believe Rowe's testimony, plus the testimony of Jerome Remington and Neville Lassiter will be sufficient. Lassiter hasn't shut up since they picked him up at LaGuardia. He was trying to get on a private plane with Lex Beecher using fake identities and EU passports they had purchased in Malta. Werner will present the proposal to keep me out of it to the three judges for their ruling this Wednesday. Is that what you want to know?"

This was the gentlest interrogation he could be subjected to and it included a delicious meal.

"And in answer to your question, they offered witness protection but I don't think that will be necessary."

"I miss Sean," Anatoly said. "This place will never be the same without him. I'm sorry, Jaxon, if I am causing you any more pain, but we are friends, correct? This is what friends can say to each other."

When he thought of Sean getting shot, he thought of Nyla getting shot. The bullet struck Nyla only a few millimeters farther to her right side and only went through skin and muscle: a flesh wound. He shook his trembling hand and kept it concealed it under the table.

"You are two of the three best friends I have ever had."

Anatoly was right. This city always gave you something in return for what it took from you, though it wasn't always obvious what it was at first.

"And Sean's work?" Viktor again rubbed his thigh and grimaced. "The newspapers say there is a warehouse full of it."

"It's a storage unit, not a warehouse, but it might as well have been one. That bloody Irishman could paint. There are more pieces of work in there than he'd sold so far. Theresa, Daniel and I have arranged two exhibitions of his works and two private showings of some of his more esoteric stuff to customers who have already purchased similar works of his in the past."

"Jaxon, what does esoteric mean for Sean's work?"

"It's his abstract and impressionism pieces. My impression is that he was falling-down drunk when he mad-slashed them."

The two Russians laughed. Sean would have appreciated that response most of all. Everyone else was going to take his paintings too bloody seriously just because he was dead.

His phone rang. "Hello."

"Jaxon, it's Theresa, can you meet me in Central Park at one?"

He looked at the clock behind the bar. "How about one-thirty?"

"That's good. I have some wonderful news. See you then."

"Who was that?"

"You guys never let up, do you?"

They just looked at each other and shrugged.

"My new agent wants to meet me in Central Park at one-thirty, okay? Happy now?"

Viktor grimaced again when he straightened his leg. "Now tell us more about your adventure."

"There's not much more to tell. A sniper who was not from the FBI took down Morris Triton and Takahashi's men. He and his last bodyguard, as you already know, were killed with glass bullets. The shots came from below, as if someone was waiting on the stairs for them to get to the landing. Whoever killed them also took that money. The FBI think the sniper used some vintage Russian rifle. I suppose they base that on the bullet casings they found."

Viktor said, "A Dragunov?"

"That sounds about right."

"Yuri used a Dragunov," Anatoly said.

"Okay, now you're just pulling my leg. Who the hell is this Yuri guy?"

"Yuri Labidova, Jaxon. He is legendary throughout the world of international espionage. Ask Agents Crane or Rowe about him if you don't believe us."

"And what will they tell me that you two can't?"

"He has never been identified. American intelligence first became aware of him during President Kennedy's administration. He would have been a very young man then, barely in his twenties, too young, some in the KGB insisted."

"Pull the other one."

"We are not pulling anything that is attached to you, Jaxon. Yuri was very active in the United States during the Cold War. A number of fantastic events have been attributed to him. His first assignment was behind the scenes during the Cuban missile crisis. Yuri, though he was known by another name then, was the principal liaison between our government and Kennedy's people. That was the beginning of his legend."

"That's not what the history books say."

Viktor said, "It was the way Mother Russia wanted it."

"He was rumored to be Lee Harvey Oswald's handler."

"Did he take the second shot?"

"He very well could have, Jaxon, for he was a trained sniper, but there was no second shot."

Anatoly smiled widely. "The joke in Russia was Area Fifty-one was his winter home. Good joke, though, don't you think?"

Viktor said. "There was the Three-Mile Island nuclear disaster. Some say Chernobyl was his work, too, in revenge for betrayal by the Kremlin. This is sheer nonsense."

Viktor waved off a man rattling the door to come in. "Every Russian intelligence agent knows the tale of Yuri Labidova. It gives them great amusement at the expense of America, but you must give us our brief moments of pleasure. We are Russian and have so few of them."

"Yes, but you have stupendous lies to keep you going. This is just farce. There is no Yuri Labidova; there never was."

"It could well be farce, Jaxon, but what is the devil's greatest accomplishment?"

Yuri Labidova wasn't as unbelievable as he claimed. In the world of international espionage, which was farcical in the first place with its moral ambiguity, shifting goals, alliances and targets, a Yuri Labidova was a logical consequence; a purported super spy. If it was at all possible to develop such an asset, all sides would pursue that option.

"He convinced humanity that he doesn't exist."

"Make no mistake, my friend, Yuri existed, but part of his plan, part of the Kremlin's plan, was to make Yuri's existence seem impossible to the very people looking for him."

Anatoly said, "He became known as the Russian Wraith because no one could find any trace of him except for the incident itself. He appeared to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time. He was unattainable by anyone. And everyone loves giving nicknames to such mysterious and wonderful people."

Viktor watched another couple walk past the door. "CIA, NSA, MI6, even NATO intelligence all eventually concluded that he could not possibly exist. But he retired many double agents. He was relentless. He was a marksman and he was after Tetsuro Takahashi for years. The Genie was the one who got out of his way."

"You mean the one who got away."

"The Genie was responsible for a bombing in Moscow in nineteen ninety-eight. Yuri spent the last few years of his career hunting him. Unfortunately, he missed him on the two occasions he got close."

"You two know an awful lot about the Russian Wraith."

Anatoly said, "We will let you in on a little secret about him, Jaxon. Yuri Labidova was not a remarkable man. Yuri Labidova was two remarkable men and a woman. That was how he could be responsible for so many incidents. That was how he could remain so unbelievable."

"What happened to him . . . her . . . them?"

Anatoly shrugged. "Retired, died, gone home, who knows if any of them are even still in the United States."

"But this Yuri Labidova was an excellent sniper."

"Oh, now, Jaxon, only one of them was. They all specialized, but together they made Yuri a versatile agent. I understand one of them was an expert at what would be called work that required him or her to get very close to his or her target. Another was a documents and logistics expert. That one was probably in command of the unit."

"And one of them liked glass bullets."

"We can neither confirm nor refute that."

Viktor said, "Sometimes they worked together and sometimes all of them worked independently at the same time. That would keep Western intelligence out of balance."

"Well, he, she or they, if any of them are still around, can relax. The Genie is dead. His, her or their last assignment is complete." He pointed to the painting behind the bar. "I have to go. Let me work on that a bit more."

"No, Jaxon," Anatoly said. "The bar has become very popular and we have had a very profitable year. I am sure it is that wonderful painting of yours that helps bring all the people in. Everyone has to have a look at it and ask about it and who did it."

Viktor said. "When you are famous, they will line up outside more to see the painting than for our very unhealthy menu, I am sure. Perhaps we shall change King Gregor's from a dirty, filthy spoon to an art gallery full of nothing but your paintings. You will have to go to Mother Russia to paint some scenes for display. We would have to insist you do that."

"But it is just one stupid tree in the middle of nothing."

Anatoly rose from his chair and picked up the empty dishes. "No, Jaxon that is not a stupid tree in the middle of nothing. That is you in New York City making something from nothing." Trust Anatoly to say something like that. "It remains as it is. Now go, you have an important appointment."

"Be sure to come back and tell us how it went before you return to your farm."

"I still think I should do something with it."

"It is time you left, Jaxon. Don't make me shoot you." Anatoly took the dishes into the kitchen.

"Or me." Viktor aimed his thick cane at him and shooed him out the door with a wave of his hand.

# Chapter 51

Unlike Anatoly and Viktor, Theresa had already seen his hands from their first meeting last Monday. She had come to the farm. They had talked all day and night about how they could work together to develop his career. She had done most of the talking until it was too late to return home. She had spent the night in the guest room and returned to the city Tuesday with four of his paintings in the back of her rental.

They met at Cleopatra's Needle across from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Theresa probably thought there was some symbolism to meeting there, but nothing came to him. She was waiting on the spot she'd picked when he arrived.

Close to his height, she had the same long, straight, fine hair as Cissy except it was black with a highlight of blue sheen to it. She had blues eyes, not green, a darker complexion and more obvious curves to her frame from the thirty more pounds on her.

She took hold of his left hand and inspected it. "It's looking much better. How is the finger?"

"I still have four good ones." After Adrian's nick of the tendon of his baby finger it wouldn't move much or straighten completely.

She got right to business. "Daniel called last night. Two more of Sean's paintings have sold, one for two-point-five million and the other for three. You get ten percent of that per Sean's will."

Sean was a prankster even from the beyond. He and Hazel were probably having a good laugh at his expense. He hoped so.

"And you get fifteen percent of what I get per our agreement."

"I've sold two more of your paintings, as well, those two Rockwellian ones of your farm." She watched two birds fly toward the obelisk before adding, "They sold for fifty thousand each."

"Fantastic."

"Daniel helped. He thought one of the people looking at Sean's works would be interested in yours."

"Does he get fifteen percent, too?"

"We came to an agreement over that. The other good news about your sales is the buyer has agreed to leave the paintings with us for your exhibition at the Archibald Gallery, which is now set for three days in late June."

"Fantastic, also."

She pointed to the Metropolitan Museum. "One day, we'll get you into someplace like that."

"I'd die to get in there. Marry me."

"Mel was right, you're impossible. For one thing, I don't love you only your work."

"I'm willing to try a more business-like approach. I haven't had much luck with women who love me."

"Poor baby, now, back to topic. I want to haunt you with your past."

"And you said you didn't love me."

"First, I remember you and a few of your buddies put out what would loosely be called a graphic novel that pilloried all your professors and stripped naked just about every female student in Fine Arts. I was the zaftig one with the scorpion tattoo on my behind. Martin told you about that, didn't he?"

"That was a vile exchange student named Valeri Yerkoff. He was obsessed with women's bums. Me and my buddies took him out back and set him straight before we sent him packing."

"I don't care. I know these people who are starting Red Comet Publishing. It specializes in graphic novels. They're open to you doing some of the work if you're interested as well as reviewing submissions for them."

"How did you ever . . . ? Never mind, marry me."

"You wouldn't by any chance have an idea for a graphic novel, something gritty, sexy and violent? We could publish it under Valeri's name."

Theresa believed his hand injuries came from being careless while working around the farm.

"I might be able to think of something."

"I've gone out on a limb with what's next. I also remember that mural you and Valeri did while at Columbia. You remember that one, the depiction of college student life in all its myriad debauchery?"

"A shiver just went down my spine. Were you stalking me at Columbia?"

"I took some pictures of it while I was a debauched student there. I've been showing them to businesses around the city, just putting it and you out there, talking you up as the next sensation. No one saw the subject matter as appropriate, but they did like the artistry in it. Three businesses have expressed interest in having murals in their lobbies. You did most of the background in it, didn't you?"

"Most of it, yes."

"I'm sure we can get contracts if you're willing. I talked to Mel about this before bringing it to you. We were thinking you could do scenes of New York City life—you're fantastic at that—or whatever the company wants. But it's up to you."

He held up his two injured hands.

"You worked with others on projects at Columbia. Would you be open to doing that again?"

"Who do you have in mind?"

"Callie Hawks. She's done murals too. These would be big projects. I thought with you and Callie working together, they wouldn't seem so daunting. Callie has already told me she's willing. Excited to work with you would be an appropriate description of her response to the idea."

"I've seen her stuff. She's very good."

"Perfect, I'll get right on those."

"What about the exhibition?"

"The paintings I took from the farm and the works in progress you showed me are all brilliant. I can't believe how much you've done with those injured hands and there isn't a miss among any of them. We'll also have on display the two you've sold. They will generate extra interest once people see who bought them. Businesses are going to want a Jaxon Trevelyan mural on their walls to boast about."

"That would be a Hawks and Trevelyan mural to boast about. Is there room at the Archibald for some of Callie's works?"

He had just made more money from Sean's paintings than his own, but that was fine for now. A thought he would have found inconceivable a week ago made the situation acceptable. The more of Sean's works and his sold, the more money he made. The more money he made, the easier it would be for Children's Services to overlook the other impediments to fostering Claudia.

Anatoly was right about that, too. Plain and simple, he needed someone who loved and needed him.

"Callie's going to love you. I'll get to work on that, too. Mel said you were full of surprises." Theresa stepped closer. "May I?"

"Sure."

She kissed his cheek then whispered into his ear, "The scorpion is on the front at about the same latitude." She kissed his cheek again. "You are a very talented artist. We are going to make sure everyone knows that. If you can get another six to twelve done, preferably larger ones, we should have plenty for the exhibition. You still have a month."

"What about the murals?"

"Those would start after summer. I'd make sure of that. And Callie is willing to get them started on her own if we have to go that route. Then you'd be on the walls for everyone to see as they came and went. We're going to spread your genius around for all to see."

"More likely, we'll be shoving it in their faces."

"I don't see any problem with that."

He kissed her cheek. "Sean would have loved you."

"Sean Hennessey was a gifted painter, but your work is better. It has more substance, more angst—a little more than I'd like to see sometimes, but we can talk about that another time—more balls to it." She turned bright red.

"Forget Sean, I love you. Marry me."

Like any good agent of a crackpot artist, she ignored him. "There are some government building contracts in the works, too, if you're interested. You just have to think bigger and scale up your perspective, that's all."

"If that's all, no problem, marry me."

"I have to go. Are you going to keep the farm?"

Claudia loved being there yesterday.

"For the next while that is where you can reach me."

"I'll bring my pajamas next time. Let me know when you're coming to the city." She headed for Fifth Avenue to hail a cab.

Crane did not bounce off the curb in his yellow demolition-derby-mobile to pick her up.

All he had to do was scale up his perspective. His perspective had been stretched, twisted, torn and suffered from blunt-force trauma, but such was the life of an artist whose future was about to be smeared all over lobby walls in New York City skyscrapers.

He could just imagine what Sean would have to bloody well say about that.

He walked along the trails circling Turtle Pond to get to the Great Lawn Softball Field 2 and went into what Sean had called either his rambling, metaphysical-farteesta trance, or just another mental jerkoff session that would get him nowhere.

Did time go only in one direction or was all of time just out there like an expanse of ocean with every possible drop of it available for the taking no matter which direction you went? Access to infinitely possible moments were eliminated, however, with each glance away or decision made that took you in a different direction. Thoughts could observe, warp or clarify the path. One moment it was there, the next it was gone, no longer accessible. Turning back was an illusion and impossible for such limited creatures as human beings.

It was also impossible to take any other path but the one you were on. It wasn't necessarily pre-determined it just closed in around you as you went about your business of living.

Limited senses formed a catalogue of experiences while traveling along a series of timelines from one crux point to another. Some of these points brought little more than arbitrary or ricochet impacts. Others were nexus points crucial to where you went next. Memory was an inadequate construct of intellect to make sense of the catalogue and then ascribe significance and meaning to the experiences within it. We relied on barely conceivable associations to trigger what we believed to be vivid recall. Déjà vu was self-delusion.

Even though Sean was turning in his grave and offering one stiff finger in response to his empty train of thought, he encountered two such moments of self-delusion in a matter of only a few seconds when he first spotted Cissy having a picnic with someone and then Nyla Rowe jogging with the same man she'd been with two weeks ago.

# Chapter 52

That someone with Cissy was Blake Finnegan, who, if his new perspective on his sense of déjà vu was correct, now held the distinction of being the man before and the man after.

Bethany Ross soon joined Cissy and Blake. She brought her own blanket, basket and man.

"New York, ya gotta love it."

This city could be vile and artificial, decadent and vibrant, enervating and invigoration. It was dark and brilliant. It was full of people struggling to make their life here because they won't live anywhere else. He had lost Cissy, but he hadn't lost New York. He just had to keep telling himself that.

He should just leave. It was a free country, but this déjà vu was giving him an intense headache. Instead, he backed up behind a shrub in full spring growth and alternated his gaze between Cissy and Nyla.

The man jogging with Nyla was as black, tall and athletic as he'd been two weeks ago. The only difference he could see was they were wearing different running gear, though the shoes were likely the same ones, and they were jogging slower than the last time. Nyla's flesh wound was probably behind their change of pace.

When he looked back to the picnic, Cissy, Blake and the other man were there, but Bethany was missing.

She couldn't have known what her tap on his shoulder from behind would do to him. She couldn't be held responsible for what he'd gone through at RBD, for having seen Sean murdered, for having killed two men, for knocking Jerome senseless, twice, for wanting to and almost killing Cissy's brother. But her innocent touch almost accomplished what Adrian and the Genie had tried to do four times.

He spun around and staggered backward into the shrub as his shaking hands came up to both protect himself and in preparation to lash out. His shift into a fighting stance made Bethany step back.

"Jaxon, it's only me."

From her tone, he must have looked like someone who had just woken up from his catatonic state screaming.

She recovered quicker than he did and came to him with her hands up. "Are you all right? I'm so sorry."

He managed to get out, "Not your fault." Then he looked down at the ground and watched it drop away from under him the way the Dagger had.

She caught him, took him over to a bench and sat him down. She sat beside him and patted his leg.

"Just take slow, deep breaths. Nothing is happening to you. Nothing is going to happen to you, not here, not now."

Children's Services would certainly be impressed to see him in this state. He'd lose Claudia before he ever got her. This was rapidly changing from a nexus to an open wormhole leading straight down.

Whatever New York was going to compensate him with for this, it owed him big time.

"My God, Jaxon. Just look at me. It's all right. I'm here. I've got you."

Now New York was taking all the air away from him and trying to crush his chest.

"Jaxon, Jaxon." She covered her mouth. Tears formed and dropped from her eyes. "Don't you recognize me?"

He managed a nod as he took big gulps of air and raised his shaking hand to his chest. Then he could nod some more and the air came into him with less effort. The heat at the back of his head and the chill in his trembling fingers began to equalize.

"Holy shit." He swallowed hard and gulped in air just as a precaution against any further shortages. "That was . . ."

"Scary as hell." She put her hand over the one on his chest.

His breathing returned to normal. His heart skipped a few more times and fluttered once before joining his lungs in operating within normal parameters again. His hand still suffered tremors.

"I saw you duck back. I know it must be hard to see Cissy like that, but I would hate to think we were chasing you away. This is the first time we've been able to get her to come here since . . ." She wiped away her tears. "We would never want our enjoyment to be a source of pain for you."

New York had just tossed him an acceptable token.

He took her hand from his chest. "Don't tell her I was here, please?"

She got up. "I better get back. Are you sure you will be all right?"

"I'm good."

"Can we come to your exhibition? That won't be too difficult for you, will it?"

He just looked up at her and hiccupped when he took another big breath.

"She's been keeping tabs on you. You know how she is, and she does really believe in you. That hasn't changed."

He nodded. When she turned to leave, he asked, "What about Penny?"

"They found the man who had her brother and the others murdered. He was hiding in a cave. Marcus Cross killed him. She's remaining in Las Vegas with Marcus for now. Do please take care of yourself, Jaxon." She went back to the picnic.

New York wasn't about to let up on him just yet.

Nyla and her partner came jogging past the bush he'd hidden behind. That would have been nothing special if they'd kept going, but a few steps past the bush Nyla grabbed her right side and stopped jogging. She waved off her partner, indicated it was only a stitch and started walking it off. She spotted him on the bench as she took a look around the park.

She said something to her partner that kept him on the path while she came over.

He didn't stand up. "I see you're recovering nicely."

"How are your hands?"

"Do you think Yuri Labidova ever used glass bullets? Did you know Yuri had been after the Genie? It was his last case, the one that got away. The Genie was Yuri's Moby Dick."

She sat down beside him. "Who told you about the Russian Wraith?"

Thank you, New York. "So he did exist."

"Officially, no he didn't. He was thought to be responsible for so many things that his existence became impossible to believe. He couldn't have done all that was attributed to him. The official word was that he was nothing more than Soviet propaganda and misinformation to lead us astray."

"There was a bombing in Moscow that was attributed to the Genie. Was that impossible, too?"

"It was a warehouse. According to Russian police, one of the mobs held their women captive there. Korean, Thai, African and Russian bodies were found."

"That was what the Genie specialized in."

"The theory was corrupt officials warned the mob about the police closing in on them. The mob was just going to move the women, but the Genie took it upon himself to eliminate witnesses and any evidence to his involvement before disappearing. Needless to say, there is no proof of any of this."

"Yuri was a sniper."

"Yuri Labidova is a myth. He couldn't possibly have done everything he was supposed to have done."

"What if he wasn't just one man but three people? They each had special skills and often acted independently, but everywhere they each went, they left Yuri's signature. Think of it as cloned James Bonds shaking vodka martinis everywhere in the world at the same time."

She looked at him as if she were about to start having trouble breathing.

NYC was balancing the ledger for the day.

"What makes you . . . ?" She got up. "One day you will have to tell me where you got that crazy idea from." She pointed as her other hand went to her side. "I saw Cissy over there. I am truly sorry about that. I'm sorry for everything you had to go through. I wish—"

"Who's the hunk?"

"That's Jaden, my brother. He's FBI too, and he's been an annoying mother hen about the wound. Keep in touch." She went back to her brother and they continued jogging.

Jaden kept looking back at him until they were out of range. Nyla did not.

This was New York City. It had endured an outrageous evening of insanity and violence perpetrated by some of its richest and most prominent citizens with nary a shrug. Ten days later, three of the principal players in that little drama cross paths in Central Park. What people did in New York made it New York. It was built by and for exactly that. Just ask Yuri.

He held his two hands up and weighed the day. The debit side was seeing Cissy, and seeing her with Blake, and that was a big weight on the wrong side of the scale. On the credit side, he had a fantastic agent who was determined to make New York City take notice of him and she wasn't worried about doing the work required to accomplish that. He always did better when he was worried about letting someone down than when he was worried someone would let him down. He still had Anatoly and Viktor and now Yuri, too. He had validation of Yuri's existence to go with Nyla's annoyance that the legendary Russian Wraith might not only have been real, but three agents who had bamboozled American intelligence for over thirty years. Oh, and by the way, he . . . she . . . they had also saved their lives.

It was time to return to the farm and get back to work. He had to do everything he could to make sure Claudia ended up on the correct side of the ledger.

# Chapter 53

He wore a toque and a hood over that and a parka over the hoody because it was Black Friday and New York City was white with fresh snow up to the ankles. He stomped the snow off his boots as soon as he was inside King Gregor's. Mel and Theresa were stuck in the booth at the far corner listening to Anatoly tell them lies about something.

Mel waved for him to join them as quickly as he could; instantly would be good.

He pushed the hood back and removed the toque as he instantly hastened to the booth. He left a mucky trail of sand, salt and melting snow.

To the relief of both women, Anatoly slid out of the booth to greet him. "Jaxon, my dear fellow, it's been so long." His accent really did get thicker around women. "I was just telling your beautiful lady friends that you don't come see us often enough now that you are a smashing success."

"I was here yesterday." He took off his parka, hung it on the hook at the end of the booth and slid into the spot Anatoly had occupied next to Theresa, the one who'd been his captive.

"Ah, yes, but that was only to gobble down a salad, of all things, then be off with you back to your precious mural."

"Turn that down a notch, will ya, I could barely understand a word you just mumbled. Besides, I have a deadline. I need to get as much done today before I go home for the weekend." He slapped the booth tabletop. "What, no menu?"

"I know what you want. I will get it for you."

"Just hold on a second. I'll decide what I'm going to have." He made them wait for a count of five. Artists needed to build anticipation and drama. "I'll have syrniki with—"

Viktor came out of the kitchen carrying his order and a diet Coke.

Even sophisticated Mel had to chuckle a bit. "We can't stay," she said.

Theresa said, "We just wanted to let you know your sales on the internet have just passed one million."

Mel smiled. "It's like sex toys. People feel more comfortable buying those little paintings online, Valeri."

"Just as long as you remember it was her idea, not mine."

Anatoly and Viktor looked to him for details.

"Mind your own business." He started eating.

Theresa was the one who betrayed him. "He does these wonderful paintings of animals, very realistic, very brilliant and vivid. His most popular ones are the babies with their mothers. Just for his protection, though, we had to agree to let him paint them under his pseudonym, Valeri. But everyone knows it's him."

"She's turned every one of my practical jokes from college into commercial enterprises. Just between us girls, I think I've accidentally sold my soul."

"Jaxon," Viktor said. "I wonder if—"

"I don't want to hear it."

"Of course, Viktor," Theresa said, "he'd love to do one for you. You just let me know what it is you want."

Mel said, "No one admits they like his work. Everyone claims it's too naïve, crass and simplistic, but all strata of people are buying them, even the prints."

"T-shirts and coffee mugs are next," he muttered.

"It's the murals," Theresa said. "They've been featured in the New Yorker, GQ, on YouTube. You can download an app from his website that lets you view all of them."

Mel slid out of the booth. "Theresa has something else to tell you."

He slipped out of the booth to let Theresa out. He then slipped back in and returned to his lunch.

"Slow down," Theresa said.

"I'm hungry." He had a mouthful of food, so it sounded more like he was mimicking Anatoly's accent.

"Not that, you imbecile." She sighed. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but we don't want to end up doing saturation bombing with your more commercial Valeri works. We can coast with the sales of prints and calendars for a while. I've lined up two more mural contracts for you and they will take up a lot of your time. Callie had a fit when I told her."

"And you still have your works exhibited at the Archibald Gallery, and they're still expecting the other three paintings we promised them." Mel tried to pay Anatoly for their lunch, but he wouldn't accept her money.

"You are Jaxon's friends. You do not pay in here . . . ever."

"See? My soul is now theirs."

Mel bent over and kissed his cheek. "Season's greetings if I don't see you again before next year. Keep painting."

Theresa kissed his cheek. "Same for me and spread it around to you know who."

Anatoly escorted them to the door despite both of them claiming they knew the way out given that it was a straight path. He then checked on the other customers in the bar before returning to him.

"We're going to close early. All the holiday shoppers have no time for eating." He slid in opposite Jaxon and took a moment to watch Viktor at the bar take the money from their last two sets of customers. "See what I mean. It is very slow today."

King Gregor's was now empty except for him. The snowflakes falling outside were getting bigger and beginning to swirl in the wind.

"Honestly, I would love to just hang, but I need to get as much done as I can before I go home. More snow is coming tonight and I want to stay in front of it. And you heard Lucifera and Satanya, I have to keep painting."

Anatoly shrugged his defeat and started for the bar. The door opened as he took over and Viktor went into the kitchen.

Nyla Rowe entered, went straight to the bar and sat on a stool. When Anatoly attempted to hand her a menu, she waved it off and pointed to the muffins under a glass cover. Anatoly served her an order of two high-fiber muffins and coffee.

He slid down in the booth and pulled the hood up to cover most of his face. He looked out the window, as much to keep his face out of view as keep track of her reflection.

Nyla pointed to the sequoia and asked, "Did Jaxon Trevelyan do that?"

When Anatoly glanced his way, he signaled to him not to let her know he was there.

"Yes, he did," Anatoly said with his inimitable charm and thicker accent. It would wear thin quickly on Nyla. "Those two paintings of Central Park are his, too." He pointed to two paintings hung one below the other on a section of wall near the door. "He donated them last September. Do you like them?"

As Anatoly kept Nyla looking toward the door, he slipped out of the both and into the kitchen.

He heard Nyla say, "Yes, I do, very much."

Viktor was listening at the pass through to the bar.

"She is lovely, Jaxon," Viktor said. "That is your Agent Nyla Rowe, is it not?"

"That's her."

He started for the back door, but Viktor took hold of his arm.

"Do not be disrespectful." He brought him back to the pass through.

Nyla asked, "Do you know where he is now?"

"Do you know him?"

"Only for a short time, but he does wonderful work and I never told him that."

She had to know he still worked at his studio. She had to know about the farm. She had to know where he and Callie were working on their current mural. Why this charade?

"He does come by every now and then, but he is so busy these days. I'm afraid I don't see him as often as I'd like."

Nyla pointed to the painting of the tree. "Would you consider selling that to me?"

"Sorry, I promised myself I'd never sell any of them. We always knew he'd be famous one day and then they would be worth a lot of money. But now I find myself liking them too much to ever consider selling them." He shrugged and glanced toward the kitchen. "There goes my pension fund."

She finished her coffee and started for the door.

"Just a moment, please." He took down the painting and offered it to her.

"I should pay you something."

"Nonsense, Agent Rowe, I insist."

"Thank you very much." She took it and left.

He came out of the kitchen with Viktor. "Why did you give her that painting?"

"Why did you not want her to know you were here?"

"Happy Thanksgiving. See you guys next week."

# Chapter 54

Despite the cold, most of the windows in the house were open to get the odor of paint out of it. The attic studio was well sealed against the house, but he'd left the door open the last time and had heard a few complaints. He would close the windows in plenty of time to heat the house back up.

The renovations were complete. The living room was the last to be finished because it had required the least work. A wall by the fireplace had been infested with ants and needed to be rebuilt. The final coat of paint applied last night in there was contributing to the unwanted fragrance.

He was just about to leave the barn when his phone rang. He didn't know the number of the caller.

"Hello."

"Hello, Jaxon," the woman said.

"Ah . . . hello."

"Jaxon, it's me, Pamela."

"Sorry, I didn't recognize . . ."

"It's not like we've talked a lot over the years."

"How are you?"

Sylvester came trotting over from one of the empty stalls and stretched up along Jaxon's left leg. He dug in his claws to finish his wake-up routine.

Jaxon changed his phone to his steadier hand.

"I just wanted to call to thank you for the invitation. Werner will absolutely never admit it, he says too much has happened between you two, but he was shocked and, I think, touched to get it."

"I wasn't trying to kill him, I promise."

Pamela laughed, which made him wonder if she was allowed to do that around Werner. "Stop it, Jaxon. He was affected, whether he will ever admit it or not."

Sylvester licked his front paws, took a swipe at Jaxon's shoelaces and then trotted out of the barn.

"Are you coming?" He exited the barn and watched Sylvester scratch against his favorite maple tree before heading out on his morning rounds on the farm.

"Not this year, but you keep sending the invitations and we will keep working on him at this end. Ruth also gets after him as much as she can. He's not going to play Scrooge every year just because he's a highfalutin federal prosecutor."

"Those are my thoughts exactly, Pamela."

"He just came in."

Jaxon couldn't tell if her voice had really trembled or if it was just the poor reception on his phone.

Pamela and Werner exchanged words. They weren't spoken loudly.

Werner came on the phone. "Jaxon how are your hand?"

"Better and better."

"I thought you should know. We've finalized our negotiations with the two Remington men and Lassiter. They will get less time and serve it in a minimum security facility in exchange for telling us all they know about that syndicate."

"I heard they might be going to the Cascade Correctional Institute in Oregon with new identities."

"Were you also told what happened to Stanford Wiley there?"

"I was not made privy to any of those details. What about Bryce and Eugene?"

Having completed his morning rounds, Sylvester was headed back to the barn.

"They have nothing to negotiate with. Their trials are scheduled to begin in three months."

The trial would start shortly after the new CEO of Remington Bakersfield Draper, Howard Stafford, and its Board of Directors, including the new COO, Blake Finnegan, would launch RBD's IPO.

"I suppose Pamela has told you we have plans for this Christmas."

"She has; maybe next year."

"I'm going to put her back on. Take care, Jaxon. Happy holidays."

When Pamela came back on, he said, "Is he trying to kill me?"

"I have to go. We're on our way to Bermuda." Her voice quieted to a whisper. "Guess who took his whole family into Manhattan the other day to see your new mural?"

"He is trying to kill me, isn't he?"

"Merry Christmas, Jaxon. One day, we just need to be patient. Bye."

The Archibald Gallery's Director, Sela Newcomb, had left a message for him yesterday that the federal government had just purchased four of his larger paintings for their New York City offices. On the sly, she had revealed to him that Werner had suggested the representatives first take a look at his works before making their decision. Two businesses had each purchased a half-dozen of his other paintings to go with the murals he'd done for them.

Finn's promotion to COO at RBD might offer him some balm to ease his slide back into the role of the man before again as Cecilia Remington, so the society rumor mill went, had hooked up with someone new.

Theresa and Callie were determined to keep him in the gossip loop whether he wanted to be or not.

Cissy had changed the name of her charity to the Demeter Foundation. She had also insisted on supervising the construction and installation of his logo design for the new towers plaza. She made sure he got paid and acknowledged for it as an artist not an employee. It was the last activity any member of her family would ever be involved with at Remington Bakersfield Draper.

He already knew Ferdinand Juarez was the new Vice-President of Personnel and Elaine Kline had been promoted to Director of Marketing in Graphic Arts. She took Eric with her as her personal assistant. Thank you, Theresa.

Nyu had sent him a silly musical Christmas card from London where he was now stationed as a junior diplomat. He promised to be in New York in February to celebrate their birthdays together.

The bloody virgins still came and wept at Sean's exhibitions. He was richer dead than alive. His estate had established endowments at both University College London and Columbia. Thank you, Mel, Theresa and Daniel for making that happen.

On the front porch, he checked to see if Sylvester was ready to come back in. He wouldn't be as grumpy anymore now that the drop cloths were out of the way and he could curl up by the fireplace again for his indoor naps.

Sylvester remained in the barn and did not come when Jaxon called.

He'd fed the cows, the hens, the sheep, the three miniature horses rescued by the SPCA and being temporarily fostered at his farm until suitable homes could be found for them. He was donating all the proceeds from the sale of the paintings of them, the prints and the calendars to the SPCA of New York.

They had more than earned their keep. Spike, Flower and Mephistopheles had hundreds of thousands of friends on Facebook. Their YouTube videos once caused a site crash. After two months in residence, they weren't likely going anywhere else or he'd hear complaints about that, too, and not just from their adoring fans. That black and white feline refugee from the NY Harbor Yards loved rubbing up against their legs before settling in the barn for his outdoor naps.

New York had given him Cissy if only briefly. It had given him the whirlwind known as Theresa Wentworth, who kept snapping his neck this way and that with graphic novels—he had three in the works—the website sales of Valeri's work, his legitimate paintings and contracts for murals from all over the country.

Callie had agreed to forego her other intentions as an artist to focus on them with him, but had also insisted that next year would be the last year they would be working together. That was completely understandable.

It was loaning him Claudia over Christmas. He was close to breaking even and that was all he could expect in the end.

Once all his outside clothes were hung up, he went through the house and closed all the windows, put the thermostat back up and started a fire in the fireplace.

This was as good a time as any.

He first got out the champagne and two glasses. He then retrieved the covered painting from the attic and brought it down to the living room to rest on the mantle.

The cork popped off easily and sailed through the kitchen to land in the sink. It was a perfect shot. He couldn't have aimed it better; another reason to celebrate. The glasses weren't the right kind and she probably shouldn't have any, but it was Christmas Eve.

The snow was floating down as big, lazy white flakes in no rush to land. It would be only a light dusting by morning, but that was something else New York was providing for the holidays; exactly the right amount at exactly the right time.

He returned to the living room with the champagne and the glasses, poured himself some and took a small drink, followed by another small sip before emptying the glass.

Sure it was only near noon, but it was Christmas Eve. He blamed the snowflakes and all their pesky whispering encouragement to have a holiday libation as they drifted by.

And it did ease the trembling a bit.

He poured himself another full glass, which he resolved to drink slowly. He didn't want his head feeling any fuzzier than it already did when she got here. He took just a sip, put the glass on the coffee table and went over to the painting.

The blanket covering it fell off with just a slight tug.

A Nubian queen looked back at him. Her hair was held in a cylindrical bun wrapped in a bejewelled emerald-green scarf. A diamond tiara accented by larger rubies circled her head. The tiara was attached to the bun by a line of diamonds coming from the top of a triangle of emeralds at the front that descended onto her forehead. The diamond line ended in a ring of rubies around the base of the bun.

Her mouth was full and dark red with just a bit of a regal smile to it, though natural not frozen in place. Her big smile she'd kept mostly to herself around him. Her large, dark eyes had turned out well. Likewise, her ears and jawline were delicate yet strong as they were on her. Her nose was probably flatter and slightly larger in real life than in the portrait, but her nostrils flared with the same pride, confidence and determination on both model and painting.

A scalloped necklace made of seven rows of beads, shells and precious turquoise stones highlighted the lower part of the portrait.

He hung the painting on the two hooks he'd put into the wall last night after completing the work around the fireplace. When he stepped back, his fuzzy head and his trembling eased enough to allow him to pick up his glass of champagne.

The knock on the door came as three light raps before it opened. Nyla came into the living room, stood beside him and looked at her portrait. She took his glass and drank the champagne.

He poured some for himself in the other glass and refilled hers.

"You started without me," she said.

"Never."

She went closer to her portrait and inspected it.

He stayed where he was sipping champagne. He slid his hand into his pants pocket.

She said nothing, turned and came back to him. She finished her champagne, took his and finished it, set the glasses back onto the coffee table and then took another look at her portrait before stepping into his embrace and kissing him.

"The breasts are on the small side."

"I didn't want to exaggerate. I can touch it up. You can model for me."

"I give us six months," she said after licking his lips and kissing him again.

"I know. I'm an oh-so-sensitive ar-teest; you're an FBI Special Agent-in-charge."

"You're an illustrator. One day before you die, you may get close to being an artist. I might even stick around to see if you do."

"Does that mean you're staying for Christmas? The credenza's all set up."

"You are a sentimental fool."

She went back out through the front door and returned with one suitcase and two cloth bags full of presents. She left the suitcase by the stairs, hung up her coat and took the presents over to the tree.

"I was planning on being here for New Year's Eve." She kissed him again. "When does Claudia get here?"

"In about ninety minutes. Ruth is picking her up. Anatoly and Viktor should be here any minute."

"Good. I have some questions for them about Yuri."

"No shoptalk over the holidays. Besides, you already got that damn tree off him. Don't be greedy. Can Jaden make it? Callie and Theresa and Mel are coming."

"He hopes to get here for Boxing Day. He can only do an overnighter, though. Solomon and family will be here on the twenty-seventh. How is it going with Children's Services?"

"They were a little surprised when the FBI put in a good word for me, but they were impressed. I think that will lift it over that last bureaucratic hurdle and settle it all in time to be my birthday present."

"That wasn't officially an FBI endorsement."

"Funny how they thought it was. Have you heard from Penny?"

"Technically, Detective Jonathan Wright is my contact."

"Father Smythe was part of the gang, then?"

"Michael, Trudy and Christine were killed as a warning to them all." She kissed him again before pouring more champagne. "You said no shoptalk."

"Leave a little bit. I promised Claudia a sip for Christmas."

"I brought two more bottles with me." She handed over his glass and went into his embrace. They drank and looked at the portrait.

"Merry Christmas."

"I'll pay you back later when I put on my Santa's helper outfit and go all fifty shades of brown on your ass."

"I'd say my ledger was definitely in the black, but I don't want to offend you."

"You really are better at painting than you are with words, especially when you try to be gracious."

"Actually, I'm best at grunting and moaning."

"I'll be the judge of that. Is the credenza secure?"

"I've reinforced it, put in a cushion and nailed it to the floor."

"Get the other one."

He retrieved his painting of Claudia from her bedroom and set it beside Nyla's on the mantle.

"Why paint her as a dancing harlequin?"

"The moment I started it, diamonds kept popping into my head. She likes it."

"It captures the essence of her perfectly."

They kissed for a long time. She held him tight when his trembling got too obvious. The minutes passed, the trembling subsided with her arm around his waist as they stood together looking at both portraits.

Finally, she said, "Rembrandt be damned, those are good."

THE END

Thank you for reading my book. If you enjoyed it, please take a moment to leave me a review at your favorite retailer.

K.G. Lawrence

### Other Books by K.G. Lawrence

### WEAR SOMETHING RED

Former FBI agent, Joan McGowan, returns to Dominion, Oregon to become the sheriff. Her hopes for a new beginning for herself and her daughter, Shana, are threatened by secrets and suspicions the moment they arrive. WEAR SOMETHING RED is the first book of the Proteus Group series.

# Chapter 1 Wear Something Red

FBI Special Agent-in-Charge, Joan McGowan, and her team of Travis Meyer, Erica Jensen, Arnold Davidson, Tommy John (TJ) Eccles and Miranda Wong, rode in her van. James Torres and his team followed in their SWAT van. The lights of both vehicles were off. It was exactly 11:30 pm on a moonless August night when she entered the Crowley farm east of Portland. Maple trees lined both sides of the gravel approach road. Travis rode shotgun. He was looking at the buildings through his night-vision binoculars.

"Shit." He pointed to her left. "It looks like they have a machine gun nest on the roof of the barn."

Arnie confirmed through his binoculars. "I see a square of sandbags six high with two heads sticking up above it. One of them is watching us through binoculars. Joan, we're not prepared for—"

A fusillade of bullets penetrated the passenger side of the van. Erica cried out, grabbed her side and slumped against TJ.

"Find cover." She stopped the van and jumped out.

Another round of fire struck both vehicles as Travis and TJ dragged Erica out of the van.

She looked for the SWAT team, but had to duck back behind the driver's door when three bullets zipped past her head.

Torres and his crew were scrambling for cover. They were dragging two of their men toward the trees away from the line of fire and into greater darkness.

A series of explosions set the maple trees on fire one after another creating a line of torches that illuminated her team and made them easier targets.

Travis hollered at her though he was only two feet away, "Erica's dead. We're in the kill zone; we gotta move."

The machine gun on top of the barn opened fire on Torres' unit. Two more SWAT crew were hit.

Two others had raced back to their van and were pulling out whatever gear they could get as fast as they could. One of them was shot in the leg. Before the other could drag him away, the SWAT van exploded.

"There." She pointed to a pasture of tall corn.

Torres and what was left of his unit were already entering the cornfield. They had left three of their own behind.

Gunfire came from everywhere. Her team's arrival had been anticipated. They had been surrounded using precise military countermeasures conceived to be rapid and overwhelming.

"Joan, come on!" Travis grabbed her to get her going.

Arnie came to her, but dropped to the ground at her feet before he could say anything. TJ and Miranda had made it to the cornfield and Torres' unit.

Travis pushed Arnie off her foot. "Joan, come on!"

Gunfire began sweeping across the cornfield from all directions.

"There were only supposed to be three of them," she muttered.

"Fuck that." He tried to pull her over Arnie, but suddenly jerked back, twisted and fell sideways against the van.

She fired her AR15 into the darkness through a 180 degree arc. It sounded like she had only hit tree trunks.

Powerful explosions started going off all over the farm. Fireballs shot into the sky, adding additional haphazard lighting to the scene.

An explosion on the other side of the van rocked it into the back of her head and knocked her down onto Arnie's body. She tasted blood when she pushed herself back up. Something had struck her right cheek. The gash was about two inches long and almost as wide as her finger. Blood had run down from it into her mouth.

Torres' people returned fire sporadically, but mostly they were just trying to find better cover than stalks of corn.

She checked for the flash of the machine gun to see where it was aiming, but it stopped firing. A moment after that, the nest exploded and set the barn on fire. A brief cry of victory erupted from the cornfield before even heavier crossfire strafed it again.

There were only supposed to be three suspected terrorists at the Crowley farm. They weren't supposed to be this well trained and equipped . . . or reinforced.

She ducked under more gunfire aimed at the van and checked Travis. He'd been struck in the neck just above his bulletproof vest. He spit up blood when he tried to speak.

"San Francisco." He coughed and sagged down into death. The apology and regret in his eyes hadn't been necessary.

She peeked out from behind the driver's door toward the farm buildings. The barn was fully engulfed in flames. The farmhouse was dark.

"Joan," TJ called from across the drive. He was signaling there was cover back toward the entrance to the farm.

Another burst of gunfire swept through the cornfield. Another one of her team cried out.

A man lunged from the darkness at TJ, then another. They knocked him to the ground and clubbed him. Each one looked at her before they dragged TJ up to his knees, grabbed his hair, raised his head so he could face her and then decapitated him with one hard swing of a machete. They were doing all this for her, a display for the commander of the operation. One of them picked up TJ's head and prepared to toss it at her.

She aimed and fired. They both exploded in flames and dropped onto TJ.

Two more men running along the access road opened fire on her. They passed through the light of each burning tree and vanished into intense darkness only to reappear again at the next tree. They were dressed in the same gear as the other two: cargo pants and hunting vests. All the pockets were likely stuffed with incendiary explosives.

Martyrs to their cause: to attack at the heart of American law enforcement and security. Michael and Shana would never be told how she died. Her casket would need to be kept closed after they were through with her. The critical incident report would be classified Top Secret for reasons of national security and available for high-clearance level Internal Review Only.

She laid down on Arnie and returned fire. Neither man tried to avoid being hit. They were determined to be the one to get the commander. Radicalized young men, they were already the exalted dead.

She squeezed her eyes shut and kept firing. First one man exploded into a running fireball, then the other just ten feet from her. A piece of burning vest with two ribs and tissue stuck to it bounced off the van and landed beside her. A pair of burning legs dropped to the ground three feet to her left.

Spotlights shone down on her as two helicopters flew in.

Miranda stood across the access road just looking down at TJ and the burning remains of his two killers. She was covered in blood.

When Joan detected movement to Wong's right, she launched herself across the road, but a bullet struck her right shoulder and knocked her back against the van. She could just see Miranda moving in and out of the blazing light while fighting off two men wielding machetes. Lights came along the access road just before everything went dark.

She woke up to Deputy Assistant Director Lorne Wozniak asking, "How did we end up with this debacle? Our intelligence was valid and reliable; now eleven of our own are dead."

She was in the back of an ambulance with bandages on her right shoulder and her right cheek and an IV in her left arm. The rear door was open. It was morning.

Wozniak was questioning Torres and Wong. "Just how many were there?"

"We've counted what could be nine," Torres replied. "There may have been more. It felt like there were more."

Wong, her arms and hands wrapped in bandages, said, "They all wore vests containing thermite. There is little left of any of them but ash and smoke."

Torres glanced at her. "They used tunnels to surround us."

"Tunnels and eleven of us dead in less than fifteen minutes," Wozniak said. "You'd think we were in Iraq."

Joan laid back and closed her eyes. She was out again in seconds.

# Chapter 2

She turned off Highway 44 to enter Dominion, Oregon, looked over at Shana, fourteen, and swallowed hard. The heat of late August could do nothing against the chill inside her. Her breath caught when she started to speak.

"Mattie tells me they expect Dominion to more than double in size over the next ten years now that Do-Dads and Karyon Research are coming."

"Good, then it will have twice as many losers in it."

Joan's face flushed with heat. "There are lots of places to ride around here. The highway has a good shoulder. We could go all the way to Widow Creek and back. I'll show you some of my favorite routes once we're settled. It's going to be fantastic, you'll see."

Shana lowered her head and looked out the window. "Every friend I had is back in Portland."

"Portland is barely a hundred miles to the west. It's not like we've moved to another galaxy."

"You could have fooled me."

"You'll make new friends. You may even find a new BFF." She winced. You have to stop giving her material to work with.

"Like you and Mattie Griffin? How long has it been?"

Sweat beaded on her forehead. "Seventeen years."

"Must be a record for a BFF; seventeen years since you've last seen each other. That's longer than I've been your special treasure. And I've never heard of her. And then she calls, out of the blue, to offer you this job."

"She heard I was no longer with the FBI. She called only to advise me of an opportunity, that's all."

Of the three survivors, she had lasted the longest at the Bureau after . . . A year to the date after the Crowley Farm Incident, she was the only one of the fourteen still alive.

"And you just grabbed it." She stuck her ear buds back in.

"We're not doing this again. I've taken the job. Let's make the best of it."

She took the Mazda CX-5 downhill from the highway onto Thurlow Street to officially enter Dominion. Her ears popped as if she had just taken them through some barrier that would block any attempt to escape. Shana would love that. She could spend all eternity pointing out to her mother what a mess she'd made of their lives . . . again.

Was this the right time to be making this move? She had to make it the right time. Waiting for the perfect moment and just wishing for a few quiet years with Shana before her bold, courageous, overconfident daughter struck out on her own was too passive. She had to focus on the moment, keep to her plan and hope coming back to where her mother and father had died didn't somehow cost her Shana, too.

She looked around as they proceeded along Thurlow. Nothing seemed to be in the right place, but she'd never been familiar with this part of town.

Shana tapped the navigation screen protruding above the center console. "You just missed your turn."

Her glowing face threatened to burst into flames. Hot on the surface, freezing at her core; that was some way to return to Dominion. She pulled to the curb, checked both ways and then made a U-turn to get back to . . .

"Turn right at Middlemarch." Shana took out her ear buds. "Who names a street Middlemarch?"

"The street didn't exist when I lived here. The town didn't come this far west. That's why I didn't recognize anything."

"This must be part of their rapid growth you were told about . . . or that other galaxy."

"Shana, so help me."

"Just kidding." She put her ear buds back in. "Main Street is three blocks ahead. You turn right there." Her daughter's naturally condescending and sarcastic tone then added, "You'll probably recognize that one."

Joan sighed and turned right at Main Street.

Mattie Griffin, in her red Griffin Real Estate blazer, white blouse and grey skirt, was standing in front of her office with Harry Madsen, the retiring sheriff. A rotund man in his sixties, Madsen was the one who officially offered her the job of replacing him.

She parked and got out. Shana stayed in the car bobbing her head slightly to whatever song was coming out of her ear buds.

Mattie, thirty-six, her hair short and neat and back to its natural tawny color, still looked like she could perform every wicked cheerleader move as easily now as she could back in high school. She held out her hand but quickly pulled it back.

"Oh, I'm being so silly." Mattie hugged her. "It's good to see you again, Joanie. I've missed you very much."

Joan glanced at Shana's bobbing head as Mattie squeezed her hard.

Shana glanced back, deigned to smirk at her and mouthed, "Seventeen years."

Mattie released her and stepped back, bent over slightly and waved hello at her head-bobbing daughter. "She's certainly pretty, and tall, too, from the looks of her."

"Six feet one inch," she said.

Madsen asked, "How old did you say she is?"

"Fourteen."

Madsen only shook her hand and tipped an imaginary hat at Shana, who had her head down and her eyes closed.

"I just wanted to let you know I'll be hanging around for a bit longer. I still have a couple of cases I'm investigating. But I will do my best to stay out of your way. Take the weekend to get yourself settled. I'll drop by the office and fill you in on Monday." With first a wave to her and Shana, then to Mattie, he walked off.

What was Madsen up to? Was he lingering so he could look over her shoulder despite having promised when he offered her the job that he wouldn't interfere? Was he going to stick around just to meddle? Monday, she would set him straight about that first thing.

"What two cases?"

Mattie shrugged. "You know the one. It's made us famous: Stanford Wiley and his Ponzi scheme."

"He embezzled lots of money."

"Oh, it's much more than that. He bilked thousands of clients out of billions of dollars. I think it's supposed to be the largest haul ever. No one really knows how he did it and not even your former employer can find any of it."

"Why is Madsen still involved?"

"I believe someone there asked Harry to stay on the case."

Her ears joined her face for this new burst of heat.

Mattie said, "Never mind about that for now. I'm sure Harry will bring you up to date on Monday. Who knows, he may even ask for your help. After all, you'll be in charge then."

Mattie could be right. Madsen could be exactly what he said he was. Harry Madsen, Kate Eiger, the former mayor and Leonard Jones, the current mayor, had interviewed her for the job. Madsen had been the most challenging at times because of his experience, but once the interview was over he had also been the one to tell her the most about the changes to Dominion since she'd left. He remembered her and Mattie and their troupe of girls causing minor havoc as teenagers, especially during that summer at Quarrelle Lake. He had behaved as if she were already the sheriff, though there were still two other candidates for the job yet to be interviewed. One, so he'd told her, had more relevant experience as a sheriff.

"Shall we go?" Mattie was trying to usher her back to her Mazda.

"Sorry."

"It's a lot to take in right now, but you'll settle quickly." She chuckled. "It's like riding a bicycle."

"What's the other case?"

"Just a local missing person; Albert Nguyen vanished about three weeks ago."

"Why is that a case? Are there suspicious circumstances?"

"He delivers produce to local stores and restaurants. I can't see anything suspicious in that. Harry's most likely hanging on to it because he and Albert were friends." She led Joan to her Mazda and then pointed to her silver Mercedes C350 Coupe across the street. "Follow me. It's an old house, a Victorian design that needs a lot of work."

"What kind of work?"

"Nothing serious, just the kind of renovations you told me you like doing." She hurried to her Mercedes, waved and got in.

Joan got into the CX-5, started it and made a U-turn to tuck in behind the Merc.

"I guess," Shana said, "all sheriffs are allowed to make U-turns anywhere, anytime. Oh, wait you're not the sheriff until Monday."

She scowled at her daughter, which brought a wider grin to Shana's face than she could manage in response to Mattie's greeting. There had to be a good military college in the Ural Mountains, there just had to be.

Following Mattie took them back through the same territory she had traversed after first entering the city.

"You remember this part, don't you?" Shana said with a sardonic tone that would make that famous Vulcan greeting sound like an insult.

She just responded with a snarling smile and wondered about Madsen's two remaining cases. She knew about the Wiley case. She knew about the billions of dollars that no one could find. Looking up as much as she could with the expectation that she would be brought into the case as sheriff; she had soon run into roadblocks from her former superiors with the explanation that she was no longer privy to information on FBI cases.

Madsen was still privy to information on FBI cases. Why ask him to continue rather than pass the case to her? She may not have enough relevant experience for sheriff work, but she certainly had enough FBI experience to know how to work that type of case.

Before she'd been cut off, Colin Foster had told her Wiley's schemes even threatened national security. Would Madsen know what that threat was, or was his handler at the FBI keeping him on a short leash?

Nestled in a crescent-shaped valley on the west side of the Cascade Mountains sixty miles south of Mt Hood, Dominion had grown from a Department of Forestry fire monitoring station prosaically nicknamed Firetown to be incorporated in 1928. During her time here, the only outsiders who ever came to Dominion were the campers, and later the cabin folk, who came for the area's one natural treasure: Quarrelle Lake. Campers favored the Midnight Fire Campgrounds at the north end of the lake, the cabin folk resided just west of that in Cabin Country, away from where Dominion's boisterous children, including her troupe in her day, hung out in the south at the end of Ditchburg Road.

Dominion had done a competent job of keeping up with change even after two of its main employers, Timber Brewery and its companion Treeline Winery, closed their doors just before she left seventeen years ago. According to Madsen, all 6,897 citizens of Dominion were excited about the coming of Do-Dads and Karyon Research and the plans to develop both summer and winter sports facilities for tourists. There were plans to expand Cottage Country to go with ambitious plans to revitalize Dominion's core. And in amongst all this anticipation, Stanford Wiley, a local financial advisor, had developed an internet-based investment con to both embezzle billions of dollars and then hide it where no one could find it.

Shana said, "Unless you want to change your mind and leave, which is all right with me, you better make the turn."

Mattie had moved to the left-turn lane at the corner of Lafleur and Madigan, two streets new to her.

She quickly checked, saw that no other car was coming and slipped the Mazda in behind the Merc.

"I suppose sheriff's get to do that all the time, too."

Joan glanced at the Cascade Mountains to the north and east. If she took Shana up the old forestry road and dumped her, it would take her at least two days to get back on her own.

Mattie turned left when the light changed.

Joan had to wait for two cars coming the other way before she could follow.

Shana muttered, "That must be rush hour."

She floored the gas pedal as she made her turn. The CX-5 didn't have enough power to win a race with a running Harry Madsen, something she couldn't imagine him even doing anymore, but combined with the sharp left turn she'd just made, it created enough centrifugal force to knock her daughter into her door.

Shana sneered at her before continuing her search for some song on her smartphone. She had stopped slouching, however.

"Sorry."

"No you're not."

"Ours is a special relationship."

"Whatever." Shana found her song, started it and put her head back against the headrest. She closed her eyes and hummed along to the songs every now and then.

Joan stayed behind Mattie as they passed through a newer neighborhood—newer in that it wasn't there when she'd moved away after the murder-suicide of her parents.

Finally, Mattie reached Yew Street and pulled over to park.

Joan parked behind her. It was an older neighborhood, but well maintained. Smaller homes and tract houses dominated the area. The occasional newer home, and even a couple of new ones currently being built, stuck out amid the modest residences like ostentatious neighbors. These homes weren't built to last forever, but seeing old ones go down always seemed cold and sad. It was a sentiment she and Shana and Michael shared.

She remembered this area of Dominion. Riley Hitchcock, the biggest liar in her class, who had always claimed to be related to the famous movie maker, had lived on Oak Street a few blocks away. The first time she had ever exposed her breasts to a boy was to Riley in his basement when she was fourteen, her daughter's age.

Shana was a gorgeous young woman with long, fine brunette hair like her mother, a tall, lean, athletic body, brown eyes sparkling with shards of bronze in them that were only going to break more hearts as she became a full grown woman, and breasts that were perfectly sized and perfectly shaped for her frame. While Riley Hitchcock had been fascinated and thrilled, he'd also been a bit disappointed at her lack of substance at fourteen. He would have fainted if he'd seen Shana topless.

Mattie was out of her Mercedes and standing by the gate before Joan had turned off her Mazda.

Her throat felt dry. The list of things she and Shana needed to talk about was just getting longer with every day she put it off.

"Oh, look," Shana said in an almost flawless imitation of Mattie's voice. "It's even got a white picket fence. Isn't that delightful?"

How could she have even heard Mattie with the window up and those damned buds stuck in her ears?

Shana was a mother's dream come true, but surely a quick smack up the side of her head might be enough to bring about a change in her attitude. The risk was that it would probably just get worse. And she would never hit her daughter anyway so it was an empty threat.

Joan got out, surprised to see Shana also getting out rather than remain in the Mazda. Having to stretch out cramps and find relief from a numb bum was a great motivator.

The Mazda was a bit short for Shana's length, especially with the rear of it full of stuff pressing against the back of her seat. It also drove like a go-cart, complete with point-and-shoot handling and transferring to its occupants everything the road had to offer by way of bumps and noise.

Mattie started her spiel the moment they got to her. "As I told you in my email, this house had been tied up in probate, but that's settled now and the executors are eager to clear the estate. We'll finalize the paperwork once the other executor is back from Eugene. Shall we go in?"

As she looked at their new home, Joan realized she hadn't been inside a house in Dominion since the night her old home burned to the ground with mother and father inside. She had spent the last few weeks in a motel room, having lost everything in the fire, before leaving to attend UCLA.

"That neighborhood we passed through," she said.

"Fleetwood Grove."

"Named after the dowager, Abigail Fleetwood, who spent her husband's fortune reclaiming areas he had clear cut to make."

"See? It's all coming back to you."

Shana said, "Just another thing to look forward to."

Mattie's smile didn't waver a bit. "Albert Nguyen lives there."

"The man who disappeared?"

"See?" Shana said. "You remember that, too."

"Shall we?" Mattie took hold of the gate.

### JELLYFISH

A ghost ship carrying an unusual cargo and a dead crew that resemble mannequins is found adrift in the Pacific Ocean near the Farallon Islands. It is only the first of a set of bizarre clues that point to a bioterrorism threat to San Francisco. For Jacqueline Duquesne her job of collecting antique articles for her employer could lead to her death. Look for Jellyfish, the third book of the Proteus Group series Spring 2016.

# Chapter 1 Jellyfish

Vlad Drăculea was dead.

Father Antonio Rossetti, a loyal servant of God and the Vatican for forty-one years, chaffed in the heavy white robe he was required to wear as he looked down at the pieces of wood on the table before him.

He finished his second glass of wine.

Vlad had been a vile man, but no man had been more justified in his behavior. And he had been an effective soldier for His Eminence. The time had come for the Holy Order of Loyal Pius Brothers to honor the agreement between the house of Drăculea and Pope Pius II.

Father Bernardo Alessandro was late.

At thirty-six, Alessandro was the youngest of them and had been a priest for less than a year. He was to bring it from the Piazza Santa Maria La Nova under escort of six soldiers of the Papal army assigned to the Catterdale de Santa Marie Assunta church. He should have arrived hours ago.

The hooded white robe, the red sash around the waist, bare feet and no hair anywhere on the body were the required vestments for this mix of holy and pagan consecrating ritual. They had also been required to adorn their flesh with symbols.

Father Rossetti looked down at Christ's cross on the top of his right foot, the sacrifice on the path to God. On the left foot, each of the brothers had painted a date tree to symbolize their toil on earth. There were to be no symbols on their bare faces and heads.

The chalice for Christ's blood was drawn on the back of Father Rossetti's right hand. Looking at it caused him the most anguish over this ritual. The image of the box designed and constructed by Andrea Alonso for the Pope—the box that now lay in pieces before him—was inscribed on the back of his left hand. He was required to carve symbols on each piece before putting the box back together.

Both hands trembled when he poured and drank his third glass of wine.

The tremors would make the task of carving the symbols on the wood difficult. Younger, steadier members of the brotherhood were more capable with the chisels, but he was the head of the order and this part of the ceremony was exclusively his responsibility. He had to see it through.

Tonight, though, even three glasses of wine couldn't bring the shaking under control.

He picked up a chisel and grabbed the first section of wood. The prescribed order in which the specific symbols for each piece were to be carved was listed on the vellum pages of the codex beside his empty glass. Each page contained a vivid—almost garish—illustration of a symbol.

Two priests entered his chamber the moment he began his work and came to stand at the other end of the table.

Father Buonfiglio Napoli and Father Camillo Vincenzo had been reluctantly sent from the Vatican to assist with this detestable but obligatory ceremony.

Father Napoli, forty, a short, furtive man, whispered, "Do we have to go through with this?"

A man of slight stature, Napoli presented a frail, stooped and insignificant character. How did he become involved in something like this?

"Pay no attention to him," Father Vincenzo said. "He has been complaining since we left Rome."

No two men could be such opposites. Father Vincenzo had been a soldier before coming to Rome. A head taller than any of them, his shoulders almost twice as wide as and far more muscular than the measly Napoli, Vincenzo was hard, direct, fierce, loyal, composed and resolved. Every move he made was deliberate and strong. Vincenzo had exhibited the steady hand to outline in ink each symbol on each section of the box that he was required to carve.

It was a pity Napoli was unable to draw some of Vincenzo's strength for himself.

Of all his outstanding features, and that aura of strength about him, however, his eyes were disturbing. They penetrated and dissected and mocked every time they took hold of someone. Father Vincenzo gave all the appearance of someone preternaturally possessed of both this earth and some mysterious knowledge of the ages beyond what mortal man could comprehend.

Wondering again if Father Vincenzo was really an angel sent to see through to its end this obligation left to them by Pope Pius II, Father Rossetti poured more wine into his glass, adjusted the two large candles to bring their flames closer, adjusted the reflective glass to better illuminate the pieces before him and continued with his work. "His Eminence decreed that he may rest in the Piazza Santa Maria La Nova. But his heart must be returned to his homeland."

"But, Father Rossetti," Napoli whispered, "it is a dark, pagan ritual older than Christ himself." Napoli had barely raised his voice above a whisper from the moment he arrived. "This man was a demon, Father. I would rather his heart were impaled for all to see the same way his victims were cruelly displayed to the world."

Vincenzo took hold of Napoli by the back of his neck. "Look there, Father. Perhaps it will help you to remember what this man did for us." He turned Napoli toward the wall of skulls. Nameless heroes, the Vatican's holy fallen warriors, rested in niches carved into the mountain stone that made up the rear wall of this monastery.

Rossetti started on the fourth symbol. Carving had done what the wine couldn't. His hands had become steadier with the wood, chisels and knifes in them. Another consideration passed through his mind and his beliefs. Was Vincenzo exerting some influence over him?

Father Napoli was only expressing the doubts Rossetti had experienced as well. The Codex of Drăculea from Vlad's homeland was written near the end of Christ's life. It dictated what they must do to properly honor the agreement. It contained the symbols he was to carve onto the pieces of the box and identified which ones went where. The codex had been written by the first priests of Wallachia who had accepted the word of the one true God and the sacrament and then had folded this new enlightenment into their existing pagan beliefs.

How many generations of such distortions would it take to completely obliterate the Son of God's original message, and in the process create an enduring and apocryphal legend for the brutal man they were attending to tonight?

At best, he could only hope the correct man was remembered to have had love for all in his heart.

Once released from Vincenzo's grasp, Napoli came to him mewling, "We should not be doing this."

"I am but a loyal servant of—"

The doors to the old Franciscan monastery creaked and scraped and began to swing open before them. Twice, it stopped before opening completely to reveal the two wounded men at its threshold.

"My God." Vincenzo rushed to Father Alessandro and the wounded soldier holding him up.

Father Rossetti and Father Napoli remained at their end of the table.

Alessandro clutched the leather sack under his right arm. His left was draped over the blood-covered soldier as they staggered together into the monastery.

Vincenzo took hold of Alessandro from the soldier, who then fell to the stone floor holding his left side.

Half of an arrow shaft protruded from the soldier's lower chest.

"Help him," he whispered to Father Napoli.

Napoli bowed and shook his head. "We should abandon this folly. They will surely have followed them. We will be killed."

Rossetti poured another glass of wine for himself. "We must perform the ceremony before they get here, then. Do as I ask, Father, please." He drank the wine in one gulp and began to assemble the box. The carvings weren't complete, but they had no more time.

Napoli, a completely ineffectual man, staggered over to the soldier as if also wounded. One step away, he hesitated, as if convinced he would be struck down once he touched the man.

Father Vincenzo brought Father Alessandro to the opposite end of the table.

Rossetti remained where he was and pulled up the hood of his robe once the box was completely assembled. He then pulled the key out from the top of the box. "Do you have it?"

Alessandro nodded weakly and came along the edge of the table with Vincenzo's help. He held the sack with its round object inside up to him. His neck was covered in blood.

"The Black Army's Elite Guard of the Holy Crown of Hungary ambushed us. He does not want it returned to Wallachia." He proffered the leather sack to Father Rossetti.

Rossetti averted his eyes to focus on the box instead and made only the minutest gesture of acceptance.

The aroma of honey wafted out of the sack when Alessandro placed it beside the box.

"We must hurry," Alessandro said. "They will be here soon." He sagged into Vincenzo's arms.

Vincenzo set Alessandro down onto a chair and returned to Rossetti.

The box was simple enough, carved out of a block of Wallachian oak—Vlad's favorite wood for making the stakes he impaled his victims on—and then intricately cut by Alonso into the segments of the puzzle he'd just completed. The hinges and lock were of brass. The curved lid was unadorned with jewels so as not to detract from the elegant carving of the winged dragon crouching atop it that also served as a handle.

A gift from Pope Pius II before His Eminence died, it had been used to deliver the ransom paid to free Vlad, had been emptied of Drăculea's family heirlooms. Now it would hold for all time the darkest part of him.

"Father Rossetti," Vincenzo said and tugged on his sleeve, "let us be done with this and get it away from here as quickly as possible."

He glanced at Alessandro struggling to take his last few breaths. Father Napoli had remained where he was praying while the soldier died on the floor at his feet. They were all going to die for this disgusting man.

"Yes, let us do exactly that." He opened the lid of Vlad Drăculea's jewelry box and then held his hand out to Father Vincenzo.

Vincenzo handed over the small leather pouch he had been commissioned to bring with him.

Rossetti opened it as Father Alessandro died and slid off his chair. Napoli had fallen to his knees before the soldier and was still praying.

"Leave him," he said when Vincenzo started for their fallen brother. He didn't look into the small pouch; he just turned it upside down, poured out the soil into the box and placed the key into the brass lock once the pouch was empty. He didn't raise his voice when he said to Napoli, "Bring me your charge and we will finish this."

Napoli looked up from the soldier unable to mask the fear in his eyes. Before he could respond or rise to his feet, they heard the horses galloping into the monastery's courtyard.

"Hurry." He held out his hand to Napoli. It was trembling again.

Father Buonfiglio Napoli started crying. "Please, Father Rossetti, we must flee."

"Bring me your charge, you pathetic man."

Napoli scurried to his feet and back to Rossetti. He handed over the amulet provided by Vlad's daughter, Maria.

Rossetti brushed away the soil and set the amulet into the box. "Now the last of it." He glared at Napoli.

Shrinking back, Napoli struggled to push the large leather sack over to Rossetti.

"Give it to me."

"No, I can't." Napoli covered his face. "I can't."

Vincenzo took the heart from the sack and handed it to Rossetti.

Outside, monks screamed as they fell to the soldiers. They had no weapons or fighting skills. All they could do was put themselves between the attackers and the doors.

He placed the heart into the box, grateful that he had been spared the need to recite any of those vile, ancient words, closed the lid and locked it. "Take it."

"But Father, you are supposed to return it."

"I'm too old. I will remain here. Take it now and leave. You must hurry."

He closed the codex, bound it with the two leather straps attached to it and then handed it and the pouch that now contained the keys to Vincenzo as well. "You must complete the ritual before it is assigned to its place of keeping. Do not fail in this."

Brother Vincenzo placed the box, the pouch and the codex into the sack blessed to carry them. "God be with you, Father Rossetti, I will not fail you."

"It will not be me you fail, my dear brother. God be with all of us."

Vincenzo crossed himself before fleeing through the hidden door at the back of the monastery to join the escort of six men waiting in the woods to the north.

When Napoli started after him, Rossetti called to him. "Come stand beside me, Father. We are in His hands now."

The last of his brother's fading moans in the courtyard could barely be heard over Napoli's whimpering as he squirmed over to him.

Three soldiers of Matthias Corvinus' Black Army entered the monastery. To show their respect they had sheathed their swords.

The Captain made the sign of the cross and asked, "Father, where is it?"

"It is gone." Father Rossetti put his arm around the small, shivering man beside him, took a firm hold of Napoli's shoulder and fixed his gaze on the Captain's eyes.

Those eyes would be no match for Vincenzo. The ritual would be completed, the agreement would be honored.

The three soldiers drew their swords.

His legend, and his curse, have begun, Rossetti thought, may God forgive us.

# Chapter 2

Jacqueline Yvette Duquesne entered her penthouse apartment in Vancouver's West End just after midnight to find the message light on her phone blinking. Algernon had insisted she keep a landline phone and he was the only one who would use it to leave her a message.

"Merde."

She took the time to put her suitcase in the bedroom, undress, relieve herself and get into her bathrobe before she returned to her phone and played the message.

Algernon Devries' crackling voice said, "Jacqueline, my dear, get your lovely ass down here to San Francisco as fast as you can. I've sent my jet to YVR to pick you up."

"Merde."

Algernon Devries had been her mentor, but he was no father figure. He was in reality quite the creepy old man at seventy-three. She had been with him for twelve years and had sampled—been a victim off, actually—his proclivity for sexual games involving audience participation. That one time had been enough to lead to an ultimatum of understanding between them of just what she would and would not do for him from that moment forward. He had accepted her terms without reservation and had apologized for misinterpreting her enthusiasm for experiencing truly new adventures.

Algernon's apologies, gracious on the surface, always hit like a major insult.

The surprise here was that Algernon had never before summoned her to him like this while she was already on assignment for him.

He couldn't suddenly be impatient to get the pistols; that wasn't Algernon's way. He preferred the anguish of anticipating and waiting for her and any new gift she was bringing to him. But even narcissistic Algernon Devries, with his perfect alabaster skin, knew that time was running out on him. He was becoming more impatient to fill his bucket before he kicked it.

The thing to do after a message like that was to just get her lovely ass to the airport as quickly as she could. She was already packed, but . . .

She used her hard line to call Algernon. He'd be up at this time of night because the man was part vampire and rarely went to bed before sunrise.

On the third ring, Algernon answered, "Are you on your way?"

"Ralentir, vous vieux fou." Slow down, you old fool.

"Your accent gets sloppy when you're tired. Are you on your way?"

"It's almost one o'clock. I just got in after fourteen hours in the air. I am exhausted."

"Nonsense."

"They weren't where they were supposed to be. I had to go to Belgium, and there was only one pistol left. I'm still looking for the Chamberlain manuscript, but I have information that indicates it might be in Leeds."

"Forget those. I need you here by morning. Get your little butt in gear."

"I need some sleep."

"Sleep on the plane. You will arrive at about five-fifteen. There will be a car waiting for you. Being Saturday, there won't be much traffic. It will take another forty-five minutes to get to my house at that time of morning."

Algernon always had to verbalize all the timing details even though she was every bit as adept at calculating things like that after years of weary travelling on his behalf. For Algernon, however, it was some part genius, some part autism and a big part obsessive-compulsive. He could no more keep quiet about such details going through his head than she could just stop breathing once and for all.

"Algernon, what is it?"

"We found the amulet about six months ago and that led us to someone who knew . . . never mind that. I don't want to talk about it over the phone. We've got it now; that's all that matters. Get a move on ma chère fille."

"We? Who else—"

"See you at six, do not be late." He hung up.

"Merde, merde, merde."

Working for Algernon had made her rich. He'd left her to her own methods to accomplish what was asked of her, but his one inviolate rule was that she came immediately when he summoned her.

This last assignment had taken her to her birthplace, Montreal, then to Reykjavik, Riga and Belgrade before ending up outside Bastogne on the Ardennes Plateau to acquire one of Algernon's priorities for the past three years. It was late November. The clothes in her suitcase were for the snowstorms she'd encountered in Europe.

Algernon's jet would just have to wait.

She showered first. Then she removed her winter clothes from the suitcase and replaced them with more appropriate wear for November in San Francisco. There wasn't that much difference between what came out and what went in.

She also removed the one pistol she had purchased. It had belonged to some obscure member of the aristocracy at the time of the French revolution. The aristocrat was actually from Spain, one Manuel De La Rosa, who had reportedly killed seven men in duels with them and then had used them to unsuccessfully defend his family during a robbery by the revolutionary rabble in Paris. She had failed to find Clive Chamberlain's original 1668 manuscript about the true age of dragons in England, rumored to have been commissioned by—that idiot, Algernon told her—King Charles II.

Packed and closed, she took her suitcase back down to the lobby of her building to wait for the cab. She boarded the Gulfstream G450 at 1:48 am.

Twelve years of doing anything and everything he'd asked of her was long enough. She was grateful for the adventure and the wealth it had brought her, but this was the last of it. She would help find the manuscript if Leeds provided anything she could work with. She would see what it was that excited him so much, but she was finished with all these treasure hunts. She was going to tell Algernon exactly that the moment she entered his mansion.

####

Jellyfish will be available at your favorite on-line book store in January 2016.

**About the Author**

Follow me on Twitter @Lawrence_KG

