by MJ Rodgers
“Which is why her name didn’t surface in the subsequent investigations that looked for wives who had left their husbands. But you knew there was a third woman who had been turned against the man she loved by Fabulous Fantasies.”
“I knew only that was what Norman Powers hired me to find out. He was hurt and angry at Karlie for leaving him for no apparent reason. When he heard about the suit Harper and Temark had brought against Fabulous Fantasies and learned that their wives attended the same weekend his fiancée had, he began to wonder. He decided to find out for certain “
“How long have you been working for him?”
“My team has been on the case for the past four months. I had a female operative make Karlie’s acquaintance and ask about Fabulous Fantasies. Like everyone else who had been to the park, Karlie spoke about it in glowing terms. She told my operative she had been through the Femme Fatale program.”
“Which is how you knew which program to have your operative go through when she visited the park.”
“But as I mentioned earlier, she learned nothing by going through the Femme Fatale tapes. She returned from her weekend stay still very much in love with her husband and proclaiming Fabulous Fantasies to be a great getaway. Until your brother withdrew his representation from Linbow, my team bad pretty much chalked it up to coincidence that Karlie Kasen decided to end it with her fiancé at the same time Patsy and Fran decided to divorce their spouses.”
“Except now we know it wasn’t coincidence. Now we know these three women received a program that was intended to manipulate their emotions against the men in their lives.”
“Yes,” Zane agreed. “It’s the only explanation that fits the facts surrounding these fantasies we’ve gone through.”
“I still have a question, though. If Karlie Kasen went through fantasies such as you and I have been experiencing, then why did she talk about Fabulous Fantasies so highly afterward? And why didn’t Patsy and Fran ever mention their negative fantasies?”
“Damn. That is a good question.”
“I have another. I was extremely angry at Peter in that fantasy—even mad enough to kill him. But now that the fantasy is over, so is my anger. What sustained these women’s anger at the men in their lives after they left the park?”
“Another good question. Far too good. You’re very hard on a guy’s theories.”
“No, I’m sure you’re right about the negative emotions having been imprinted in these fantasies. It’s the only reasonable explanation for what I’ve been feeling. We’re just still missing some answers here. And to quote what a brilliant detective told me recently, until we have all the answers, we have no answers at all.”
He smiled and gave her a very warm kiss.
The telephone in the room pealed, and A.J. slipped out of his arms. She reached over to the nightstand, picked up the receiver and offered a cheery hello.
Zane listened to her carry on what appeared to be a very natural conversation with a cousin named Piper, who had called to invite A.J. over for Sunday dinner.
A.J. had grabbed a pad and pencil and begun feverishly writing almost the instant she started speaking. Zane knew she and her investigator were carrying on one of those coded conversations she had alluded to earlier.
“Anything important?” he asked when she hung up the phone.
In answer, she passed the pad of paper to him.
He quickly read the message.
Sacha Woodson Montgomery is Woodson’s daughter from his first marriage. Since Sacha’s divorce eighteen months ago, she has lived with her mother.
“Sacha Montgomery? As in the Montgomery who challenged Woodson’s chairmanship of his conglomerate and lost?”
“Must be. Zane, Piper says she divorced her husband eighteen months ago. Does that ring any bells with you?”
“A whole slew of them. It was just about eighteen months ago that Montgomery challenged Woodson for the chairmanship of his financial empire.”
“And lost. Could he have lost because his wife divorced him at that critical time, maybe taking with her financial holdings he needed to fight Woodson?”
“Yes, A.J., this could be the answer we’ve been looking for. Woodson could have paid Linbow to design a special virtual reality program for his daughter that would deliberately turn her against her husband and doom Montgomery’s challenge to his empire. I’m becoming convinced that’s exactly what happened.”
“But if the program was designed for Woodson’s daughter, how did Patsy get it? And Fran? And Karlie?”
“Maybe Linbow used them as guinea pigs to see if it would work.”
“These guys are really pond scum. We have to get them.”
“We can, once we get Patsy’s disks safely out of here,” Zane said. “They’re our proof of all this.”
“Will we be able to review them like those programmers were doing in the cave room? You said these CD ROMs present a very advanced technology.”
“With a sample of them in the right people’s hands, it shouldn’t take too long to understand the way they work. And since we now know there is a negative emotional overlay encoded into these disks, that should help pinpoint the search.”
A.J. checked her watch. “It’s dinnertime. Are you hungry?”
There was a very telling gleam in his eyes as he pulled her toward him. “Very. But all the appetizing stuff is right here.”
Their lovemaking was much slower this time, deliciously, delectably slower. And tender, so patiently tender. His slow, gentle touches drew out feelings so deep A.J. didn’t even know she had them inside her. No man had ever touched her like this, as though the cusps of his fingers and the tip of his tongue were there only to please her.
He had said make love. She believed it now. He did make love to her. This physical intimacy between them was like nothing she had ever felt before.
She had always spurned the shallow idea that a woman needed to be with a man to be fulfilled.
But being with this man, this incredible man, filled places inside her she realized had been empty for a lifetime. Parting from him was going to hurt later. A lot. She knew that. But she also knew that this moment—this glorious, miraculous moment—was worth it. He was worth it.
When they finally both lay on the warm rumpled sheets, satisfied and smiling, it seemed perfectly natural to A.J. to be buried beneath the bulk of this strong, smart, stubborn man, listening to his heartbeat as her soul sung in tune to its beat.
She wasn’t even surprised when she fell asleep.
LINBOW LOOKED at the fingerprint identification readout and crumpled it in his hands. “Real smart, Clarise. You let a damn private investigator onto the island. And now you say he’s not in his room and you can’t even find him!”
Clarise faced Linbow with a frown on her face and in her voice. “He has to be with that Margaret Lane woman. Everyone else has come out to dinner.”
“I thought you said there was no connection between them? I thought you said the fact that their names were linked was too obvious?”
“So I was wrong. Can we concentrate on how we’re going to get him? Please.”
“It’s dinnertime. Patrons are going back and forth in the hallways. We can’t go charging into the Lane woman’s room now. Someone could hear.”
“I know, I know. We’ll wait until everyone else is comfortably engaged in their VR fantasies. Then we’ll go in and take them. It’s not like they’re going anywhere.”
“And then what are we going to do with them, Clarise?”
“Well, Lex, as I see it, if we want to save our skins, there’s only one thing we can do with them, isn’t there?”
“IT’S NEARLY eight o’clock,” A.J. said as she tucked in her blouse. “We’ve missed dinner entirely. While you go call your office to check in, I’m going to grab some fresh fruit and maybe a couple of soft drinks out of the recreation room.”
Zane finished tying his shoelace and looked at her.
She stood before him, cool, calm,
confident—every inch the competent private investigator again. That strong, beautiful, sensual body and that wild woman lover he had become so intimately familiar with over the last several hours were both duly covered up and in disguise.
He wanted them back again. Just for a moment. Just to reassure himself they were real.
He stood and opened his arms to her.
When she came right into them, wrapping herself around his waist and resting her head against his chest with a sigh, his heart took a crazy leap.
He had believed himself to be immune to the dangers of ever falling in love again. He was so certain that because he had had it so perfect once, it could never be that way again.
He was right. The same perfect love he had once known could never be resurrected, no more than Lynn or the man he’d been with her could ever be resurrected.
But he was wrong, too. He could love again. And it could be perfect. The love he felt for A.J. was perfect—for the man he had become. For the woman she was.
When they had made love, he had been so arrogantly sure she loved him. Her telling him later that what had passed between them was only a pleasant interlude had come as quite a shock.
Quite a disturbing shock.
Still, it had been seven years since Peter had left. Could that hard-earned independence of hers—which had drawn him to her in the first place because it was so nonthreatening to his highly valued single status—be his nemesis?
He shook his head at the irony.
“What does that head shake mean?” she asked as she looked into his face.
Meeting those pale blue eyes staring so clear and beautiful into his, he knew he’d never be satisfied unless he had her love. He also knew that he was no longer a patient man.
“A.J., there is something we need to talk about. I—”
Zane never got a chance to finish his sentence because suddenly the door to A.J.’s room burst open.
Zane let A.J. go and whirled in alarm. He was even more alarmed to see Lex Linbow, Clarise and Tripp stepping into the room, each holding a gun.
“Come on, Coltrane,” Linbow said. “You, too, Ms. Lane. It’s all over.”
A.J. STRAINED against the straps that secured her arms, legs and middle to the bed in the small cave at the back of the complex. After searching her, Clarise had secured her there and left.
A.J. had always hated confinement, but the worst thing about this confinement was that she didn’t know where they had taken Zane. She could just see the watch face on her wrist. An hour had gone by. Where were they? What were they doing to him?
The walls reverberated with the slamming of the hallway door leading into the complex.
“Damn it, Clarise,” Linbow’s shout immediately followed. “They got into the cave! They got that Harper woman’s disks! They’ve been going through them. And do you see these photos he has of my island? Do you? They reveal all of my sensors! Every damn one!”
“Relax, Lex. We got the disks back. And these photos aren’t going to be helping him anymore. Nor are any of these gadgets he’s got on him. Now come on. Let’s get him tied up with the woman and get on with this.”
Tripp lead Zane into the room where A.J. was strapped to the bed. Zane winked at her, and a tight ball of tension eased in A.J.’s chest. He was okay.
Zane was forced to lay on the adjacent bed, a gun at his head. Clarise strapped Zane’s arms, legs and middle securely to the bed. They were in a rough spot. But at least they were together.
“People know we’re here,” A.J. said.
“Of course they do, Margaret,” Clarise said, sounding remarkably unconcerned.
“She’s not Margaret Lane,” Deann said as she stomped in with a computer printout in her hands. “I just ran her prints through the computer. She’s Ariana Justice, Adam Justice’s sister.”
“So that explains it,” Clarise said. “Here trying to find out something to help the brother and bnnging the P.I. boyfriend along for backup, are we? You’ve been remarkably resourceful. Tell me, how did you know which disks were Patsy Harper’s?”
“What disks?” A.J. asked with pointed nonchalance.
Clarise laughed. “I think I could get to like you, A.J. That’s what they call you, isn’t it?”
“Doing a little moonlighting as a spy, Deann?” Zane asked.
She smiled at him. “You should have coupled with me. The offer is still open.” She turned to Clarise. “Why don’t you give him a program that—”
“No, Deann,” Clarise said, cutting her off. “This is not a dating service. Now run along and enjoy your fantasies. Tripp, see that she gets back to her room.”
Deann left after one last look at Zane and a small sigh of disappointment.
Linbow waved an impatient hand. “We don’t have a lot of time, Clarise. Woodson will be here soon. Get on with it.”
Get on with what? A.J. mentally asked. She glanced at Zane. She could see his right hand straining against the straps. Stall for time, his eyes seemed to be saying.
“I can understand why you ruined Sacha’s marriage, Linbow,” A.J. said. “But why Patsy Harper and Fran Temark’s?”
“You see, they know,” Linbow raged, the ready anger reddening his face. “Damn it, Clarise, this is all your fault. I told you to destroy those damn disks months ago.”
“And destroy the wealth of emotional data I’ve still yet to extract from them?”
“But they’re dangerous to have around! These two got hold of them. Someone else could, too!”
“No, they couldn’t. These two are good. Very good. And they’ve shown us where the complex is vulnerable through that second cave at the back. Once we cement it closed, no one else will be able to breach our security.”
“I’m not taking that chance. You’ll destroy those disks. All of them. Including Sacha’s.”
Clarise flashed Linbow an irritated look. “They’re safe now, Lex. And the data they possess is important to my work.”
“I don’t give a damn about your work. You’ll do what I say, or I’m telling Woodson that you lied to him and that you still have Sacha’s disks.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Oh, yes, I would. And when he finds out you didn’t destroy Sacha’s disks, you know he’ll destroy you.”
The threat hurtled out of Linbow and settled in the room like a miasma of bone-chilling cold.
“I’ll destroy them,” Clarise said in as subdued a tone as A.J. had ever heard from her.
“And take care of these two.” Linbow spat out the words as he headed for the door. “Make sure I never even hear about them again.”
Clarise exhaled heavily as Linbow left. She faced A.J. and Zane. “Such a waste. But, well, you heard the orders.”
A.J. fought the sudden crawling feeling in her stomach. She had to concentrate on stalling for time, on giving Zane a chance to break loose. Not on the possible ways Linbow’s orders might be carried out.
“I don’t understand, Clarise,” she said. “Why did Linbow turn Patsy and Fran against their husbands?”
“It was just a mistake,” Clarise said. “Somehow the wrong master program was punched in when the Femme Fatale disks for Harper and Temark were ordered that first weekend we opened. Hell, we didn’t even know what had happened until months later when the guys getting divorced slapped the suit on us.”
“It was Sacha’s program they got, wasn’t it?” A.J. asked.
“Yeah. I made Sacha so mad at Montgomery that she took him to the cleaners in her divorce and gleaned away enough stock to allow Woodson to win his battle.”
“And it worked on the other women, as well,” A.J. said.
“Incredible, really. I never realized when I designed it that the program would end up being so universal. There’s still so much to learn about the changes the women’s own imaginations made to their disks. I’ve barely had time to scratch the surface. My mouth positively waters when I think what I might learn by studying the psychological interplay of your personality on
Patsy’s disks.” Clarise paused to sigh. “Oh, well. Can’t be helped.”
“What are you going to do?” A.J. asked.
“What do you think? He’s left me no choice. I’m going to have to destroy the disks.”
“I meant with us.”
Clarise laughed. “Oh, don’t worry, A.J. You’ll be dispatched in a civilized manner. I have a nice program for you and Mr. Coltrane. When you wake up tomorrow morning, you’ll be back in your rooms and won’t remember a thing of what really happened this weekend. You’ll be convinced that no one here at Fabulous Fantasies has anything to hide. And oh, yes, just to be certain you don’t ever discuss this weekend with each other and discover any possible inconsistencies, I’ll make sure you also go away hating each other’s guts.”
“That’s how you did it, wasn’t it?” A.J. asked. “You gave those wives a posthypnotic suggestion that the anger they felt in their fantasies would surface when they returned home to their husbands.”
“You would have gotten it, too, if you had ever stayed with one of those fantasies through to the end. What allowed you to disengage from them early?”
“You’ll never know, Clarise.”
“No? Those towels stuck in the vents in your room were a dead giveaway. When your nose cleared, the smells weren’t right for your fantasies, were they?”
A.J. said nothing. She hoped Clarise would misinterpret the silence. She did.
“I knew it,” Clarise said. “People rarely notice when they can’t smell things. But if they do smell something out of place in what they perceive to be their environment, it’s like an alarm going off in their brain, telling them things are not right. That’s why I told Lex we had to ensure the moisture content throughout the building was high enough to block the passages into the smell center of the brain.”
“And that’s why all the food was bland, since taste relies so heavily on scent,” A.J. said.
“Yes. For the moment, scent and taste are drawbacks to the VR environment. But we will have those problems solved one day. Now you two just relax while I go get your special programs. Won’t take but a moment.”
