Under the Sheets (Capitol Chronicles Book 1)

by Shirley Hailstock

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Under the Sheets & White Diamonds

  Lies and Liars - Boxed Set

  By Shirley Hailstock

  Copyright: Shirley T. Hailstock

  June 2014

  ISBN: 978-1-939214-11-9

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This e-book is published by Shirley T. Hailstock. It is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher: Shirley T. Hailstock PO Box 513, Plainsboro, NJ 08536-0513.

  Photo Credit: Shirley T. Hailstock

  Photo Credit: canstock.com

  Photo Credit: sxu.com

  Photo Credit: MorgueFile

  Contents of Books

  Under the Sheets

  White Diamonds

  Under the Sheets

  Dedication

  To Marilyn McGrillies and Patricia Hahn, who be­lieved in Robyn and Grant from the beginning and who helped in ways even a wordsmith cannot express.

  Table of Contents - Under the Sheets

  Under the Sheets - Prologue

  Under the Sheets - Chapter 1

  Under the Sheets - Chapter 2

  Under the Sheets - Chapter 3

  Under the Sheets - Chapter 4

  Under the Sheets - Chapter 5

  Under the Sheets - Chapter 6

  Under the Sheets - Chapter 7

  Under the Sheets - Chapter 8

  Under the Sheets - Chapter 9

  Under the Sheets - Chapter 10

  Under the Sheets - Chapter 11

  Under the Sheets - Chapter 12

  Under the Sheets - Chapter 13

  Under the Sheets - Chapter 14

  Under the Sheets - Chapter 15

  Under the Sheets - Chapter 16

  Under the Sheets - Chapter 17

  Under the Sheets - Chapter 18

  Under the Sheets - Chapter 19

  Under the Sheets - Chapter 20

  Under the Sheets - Chapter 21

  Prologue

  Most people came to Las Vegas for the gambling, but Robyn lazed outside the casinos in the arid heat of the desert. The pool had emptied of guests since she’d done her fifty laps. Susan was inside at her rehearsal, and Robyn had been given free rein to use the hotel fa­cilities for any of her needs while she was in Las Vegas. She stretched out on one of the blue-and-white lounge chairs that framed the pool of the Mountain View Resort. Huge sunglasses protected her eyes from the glare bouncing off the water. Her one-piece bathing suit gave her a modicum of decency. In the quiet, her mind went back to Washington and her job. She pushed the thought aside. She wouldn’t think about the Major Crimes Bureau now.

  Closing her eyes, she rested a moment. Then, in­stinct told her she was no longer alone. She could feel someone looking at her, staring at her. Without remov­ing the lenses, she searched the rows of chairs. She saw him at the end of the pool: a man in a blue uni­form, his arms casually folded over the back of a lounge chair, and his eyes staring directly at her. Robyn stared back. She felt compelled to. She was used to seeing uniforms, due to her work at the FBI, but this was not a military man. His uniform was that of an airline. She couldn’t make out which one.

  He pulled his gaze away and let it be caught by the beauty of the distant hills. He was so still, like a bronze statue. Suddenly, Robyn wished for her camera to capture his solitary profile. Few people, who came to this gambling mecca, took the time to notice the awesome beauty of the landscape. She followed his gaze, entranced by the burnish gold and red colors that painted the rugged horizon.

  He must be a different kind of man, she thought as she gazed at him openly through her concealing glasses. He was lean and tall, over six feet. His shoul­ders were straight and broad, giving him an athletic look. His hair was cut short and capped by a captain’s hat.

  "There you are, Robyn." She jumped, not expecting to hear her name. "You’ve been out here entirely too long." Susan plopped down on the chair beside her, still in her leotard and footless stockings. Her body completely blocked Robyn’s view of the man who’d stared so openly at her.

  Robyn checked her watch. "It’s only been an hour."

  "An hour here is vastly different from an hour in Ocean City, Maryland."

  "Just a few more minutes and I’ll be in," she sat up, shifting to see if the man was still there. He was gone. Robyn checked the area, but she didn’t see him. He must have left as quietly as he’d arrived.

  "There isn’t time," Susan was saying. "We have a lot of work to do."

  "Work? I didn’t come here to work." Her mind was still on the uniformed officer. Where had he gone? She wondered if she’d see him again.

  "I’ve got you a job in the chorus line," Susan an­nounced.

  Robyn stared at her for a moment then burst into laughter. Susan’s face was sober and after a moment, Robyn’s sobered, too.

  "You are kidding," she stated positively.

  Susan shook her head slowly.

  "Susan, I can’t dance."

  "Yes, you can," she contradicted. "We were in the same dance class for five years, and I know you still go twice a week."

  "I don’t mean I can’t dance. I mean, I can’t dance in a show.” She spread her hands in exasperation.

  "Why not?"

  "I’m on vacation."

  "That’s not a reason."

  "I don’t want to dance."

  "Of course, you do." Susan rejected her reason.

  "No, I don’t," she protested.

  "Well, you have to. I’ve just spent half an hour con­vincing Bob Parker you’re the best person for the job, and you can’t let me down."

  "Susan Collins," Robyn shouted, coming to a sitting position. "We are no longer in school. You can’t keep getting me mixed up in sophomoric pranks."

  "This is not a prank, sophomoric or otherwise. One of the dancers came down with something."

  Robyn thought she was being intentionally vague.

  "She’ll be out a day or so. We only need you for one night, maybe two."

  Robyn knew what that meant. Susan had been her roommate through four years of college. They had shared the same apartment until Susan left to get mar­ried almost eighteen months ago. When her marriage broke up after a year, she gave up her teaching posi­tion and came to Las Vegas. She got a job as a dancer and had been here for the last eight months.

  "Why can’t you go on without her?" Logic rallied to Robyn’s aid.

  "This routine requires that we pair off."

  "Then, why doesn’t one of the girls sit that dance out? Like you. If you could get the night off, we’d have time to talk before your date." Robyn pulled her glasses off, excited at her counterplan, but Susan was already shaking her head.

  "A missing pair would create a hole. It would be obvious something was wrong. We’ll have all day tomorrow to talk. I don’t have a rehearsal until five o’clock." Susan’s large brown eyes pleaded with her.

  “Don’t you guys have understudies
or something to that affect? This can’t be the first time this has happened?”

  “We do, but hers is out too.”

  “That sounds suspicious.”

  “It does, but regardless of the reason we need a stand-in. You’re it.”

  Robyn knew before she said it that she was going to agree. If she didn’t, Susan would argue until she got her way. "I’ll do it, Susan." Robyn stopped her friend’s happiness with a restraining hand. "But I promise you, if I make a fool of myself, I’m holding you responsible."

  ***

  The darkness of the lobby was a stark contrast to the brightness of the sun. Grant stood a moment to let his eyes adjust. He turned back to check the two women by the pool. They had the same color hair, although copper highlights bounced off of the hair belonging to the one in the bathing suit. Soft, natural curls flowed over her shoulders to the middle of her back, moving like synchronized swimmers as she bobbed her head up and down. She was sitting up now without the glasses that had covered her face like a mask. He stopped in his motion of turning around. She was beautiful. He’d seen her body while she slept, and her face was just as ravishing. Yellow roses came to his mind. Yellow roses that have been tanned a golden brown, exactly as he liked it. A dis­covery he’d made this very day.

  She sat straight, and her legs were long and shapely. Suddenly, she smiled, and Grant was swept away by the intensity he felt. The two women got up and walked toward another entrance. He watched them with a smile—one in a striped dance costume with a white drape around her hips., the other in a bathing suit of bright red. Her legs seemed to go on forever. The angular jut of the building blocked his view as they rounded a corner and disappeared.

  "There must be a woman out there," David greeted him with a slap on the back.

  Grant moved around to face his friend who leaned toward the door. He knew David wouldn’t see anyone. The woman he’d been watching was well out of sight.

  Grant didn’t tell him about her. For the moment, he wanted to keep her a secret. He didn’t know why. He and David had been friends since the air force, and there was little they didn’t know about each other. But when he’d seen the woman from his balcony methodi­cally swimming lap after lap, he’d been fascinated by the beauty of her body slicing through the water.

  Without changing his uniform, he’d gone to the pool. And there he’d found his nymph lying on a lounger in the afternoon sun. Why he hesitated in ap­proaching her he didn’t know. He had no problem with women. They seemed to flock to him. But this one looked so serene, as if life hadn’t wiped the idealism from her features yet. For the time being, he only wanted to look at her.

  "I got the tickets," David said.

  For a moment, Grant didn’t know David had been speaking to him. "What tickets?" he asked.

  "For the show tonight." Four red tickets extended from David’s hand like flat fingers. "It’s the best show in Vegas. Lots of girls and singing and girls and danc­ing and girls and girls and girls," he repeated the lit­any.

  Grant laughed as they headed for their room to get out of their uniforms. The show was hours away. They had time to shower and get in some gambling before David saw his girls. And Grant knew he had a date with one of the flight attendants but now couldn’t remember her name. He also knew David had set him up with someone and would feign surprise when she suddenly showed up. He didn’t care, he told him­self, but when they reached the elevator he looked back toward the pool and thought of dark brown hair with copper highlights.

  ***

  This was certainly a better place to work than the Assassination Bureau. Robyn Warren stood back­stage, a three-pound headdress of pink fur balanced on her head. In moments, she’d be on stage for the second time in her twenty-five years. The first time had been two hours ago. She rubbed sweaty hands down her hips and waited. The curtain went up, and the lights rose, bathing sixteen scantly clad women in a blinding white light.

  With a smile plastered to her face, Robyn listened to the music and counted the beats, as she performed the newly memorized steps. A single sound of tapping feet worked in unison to the music of 42nd Street. It was exhilarating. Blood pumped through her system, mix­ing with adrenaline, restoring the energy her afternoon of rehearsal had depleted.

  She felt her nervousness leave her. She could tell by the twinkle in the eyes of the other dancers when they passed each other forming a set of four circles that blended into one larger circle and finally opening into a straight line that she was a part of the group. The audience applauded in the middle of the routine. The sound was deafening to her ears. For the first time she looked beyond the footlights, wondering if the man from the pool was somewhere out there. It was hard to see anyone with the lights in her eyes. Besides she didn’t know anyone here, except Susan, who was dancing on her left. Robyn had only been in Las Vegas two days. The man by the pool was a stranger. They hadn’t even said hello.

  The dance ended much too soon, and she followed the line of bobbing fur backstage to change for the next number. There wasn’t much time for musings. As soon as they had switched from pink to white lace, she heard the call of five minutes. It meant they were to line up backstage, according to a preset sys­tem. She stood between Vera and Susan, the three of them were the same height.

  The second outing on the stage seemed shorter than her first visit. She was breathless from the exhilaration and excitement. Susan had been right, she loved being out there. Almost before she knew it, she was back in the dressing room. The noise level was high as every­one tried to get dressed for their dates. Robyn moved aside. Susan had quickly dressed and was the first to leave the room. Smiling at Robyn and telling her she’d see her back at the apartment. She disappeared through the door. Her dress changed and her face re­made without the heavy greasepaint worn against the harsh lights of the stage, she looked happy and beautiful.

  By the time Robyn was dressed, the room was clear. She flipped the switch, throwing the room into darkness and leaving behind the smell of sweat, perfume, and makeup. From the top of the stairs, she saw him— the man from the pool. While there were people mov­ing around him, carrying scenery and lights, he stood still. His black suit, distinctive against the surround­ings, made his presence commanding. His white shirt made his skin darker by contrast. Robyn smiled when he looked up at her.

  "You must be lost," she said, as she came down the steps.

  "I don’t think so." His voice was deep and dark like a warm night.

  "If you’re waiting for one of the dancers, I’m afraid you’ve been stood up." She could not imagine anyone forgetting about a guy whose brown eyes were so warm they could melt ice. They followed her all the way to the bottom step.

  "I’m waiting for you," he said quietly.

  "Me!" She didn’t know this man, although she wouldn’t mind getting to know him. From the distance she had to look up, she confirmed his height to be just over six feet. His hair was short and neat. While she hadn’t seen him in a hat, the uniform told her there was one. Yet no defining bank marred his hair or skin.

  "I saw you by the pool. . .and on the stage, both times," he said.

  She smiled, pleased that someone had come to see her one and only performance

  "We were staring at each other," she said directly.

  "My name is Grant Richards." He stood up slightly straighter, as if he were coming to attention.

  "I’m—"

  "Robyn Warren," he finished for her. "I asked one of the other dancers," he explained to her questioning look.

  "We don’t know each other." It was a statement. She’d remember him and not because of any training or her ability to remember almost everything she’d ever seen.

  "A situation I’d like to remedy." His smile exuded charm.

  He took her arm and locked it through his elbow. Several minutes later, Robyn found herself sitting in the casino’s restaurant and having a late dinner with one of the most gorgeous men she’d ever met. He told her he’d been a copilot for Trans
-Global for nearly four years. By the time dessert and coffee were served, she’d learned he’d grown up in a series of foster homes, before going to stay with an aunt. He and his friend, David, were here for a few days before they had another flight. She told him she worked for the government.

  "I didn’t know the government had a need for long-legged girls in bejeweled pink tights."

  Robyn laughed. "They weren’t bejeweled. They were sequined." She explained how Susan had con­vinced her to replace a sick dancer in tonight’s show.

  "Well, since you don’t dance for a living, what do you do for the government?"

  Robyn dropped her head. "I’m nobody important. I’m an analyst in a small Washington department." She was deliberately vague. She’d been taught to re­veal as little as possible about her true purpose at the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

  "Washington, D.C.!" Grant seized the word. A large smile displayed his even teeth.

  "Yes," she nodded, lifting her coffee cup. The liquid was lukewarm.

  "I live in D.C., too. My home route is between DC and Reagan National Airport.

  The thrill that shimmied up Robyn’s spine couldn’t be stopped. She’d only met Grant a few hours ago, yet she was sure she could fall in love with him.

  "So where’s Susan, now?" he asked.

  "She had a date." Robyn came back from her musings. "And where’s David now?" she asked, as the waiter served more coffee.

  "He had a date. I lost him when I went to the sec­ond show."

  "Why did you stay?"

  He leaned forward, taking her hand in his. "After I saw you, I was devastated. How could I leave?" His eyes twinkled with mischief.

  Robyn blushed, knowing he was teasing. "How could you tell us apart? Up there, we all look the same." It was a common complaint of the dancers. With the makeup and costumes, it was difficult to tell one from the other. And with her coloring, she blended in easily with Susan’s complexion. "I could argue that." This time there was no teasing in his tone. It was deadly serious.