Never Sleep With Strangers

by Heather Graham

  “No sunshine in the dungeon,” Brett said, “but there is a sauna back there beyond the bar, next to the rest rooms.”

  “A sauna sounds good. If I ever decide to move,” Thayer said. He looked up at the entry to the rec area as Anna Lee Zane came in. She didn’t need any sunshine, her tan was already perfect. She wore a white gossamer caftan over a white bikini, and she looked stunning.

  She was followed by Dianne Dorsey, who was wearing a black open work cover-up over a stunning black suit.

  “We could just lie on these lounges all day and imagine ourselves in a very strange paradise,” Dianne said, taking the chair next to Thayer. “Brett, you brilliant novelist you, will you make me a drink as well, while you’re at it?”

  “Mine is vodka and tonic,” Anna Lee advised him.

  “Hey,” Brett protested, “what do I look like here, the—”

  “The butler, Mr. Buttle,” Jon Stuart reminded him, joining them.

  He was smiling, but in the strange light of the dungeon reflected by the pool, Sabrina thought that he looked tense and unhappy.

  “But,” he added, “since I’m Demented Dick, what do I know? Right, Sabrina?” he inquired.

  She hadn’t realized he had even noticed her there in the water. But he was staring at her, and the expression in his eyes made her uneasy. Then she started as a loud, crashing sound suddenly filled the rec room. Jon didn’t flinch; he kept looking at her.

  “Strike!” Reggie called out happily. And Sabrina realized that Tom Heart and Joe Johnston had arrived, as well, opting to bowl rather than swim.

  “So, Sabrina,” Jon said, “will you trust me to fix you a drink?”

  Now, here was a man in extremely good shape. His shoulders were handsomely broad, his waist tight and lean, his legs long and nicely shaped. And Sabrina couldn’t stop staring at him, remembering….

  She forced her eyes to his, about to refuse a drink. It was so early.

  “Gin and tonic,” she said weakly.

  But he already knew her choice, and he’d already started for the bar.

  She swam the length of the pool to step out at the shallow end. White-haired Tom Heart had left the bowlers and now offered her a towel as she walked up the steps. V.J. came out behind her, and Tom, in a courtly fashion, draped another towel over V.J.’s slim shoulders. Sabrina wrapped hers around herself and approached the bar. Dianne, Thayer and Anna Lee had already taken seats there and were laughing as Brett and Jon argued over the proper way to make a martini.

  “Stirred, not shaken,” Jon said.

  “Oh, come now, that’s a bunch of British rot,” Brett protested. “This is the way!” he said, shaking a canister. “The ice just ever so slightly melts, giving the alcohol a perfect frost!”

  “Speaking of frost,” Jon said, addressing all of them, “I’m afraid we’ve acquired a rather grim weather forecast. It has occurred to me to suggest that we nix this Mystery Week and that I move you all into Stirling so that—”

  “What?” Tom interrupted. “Nix the party now?”

  “Some bad weather is moving in pretty fast,” Jon said. “I’d like—”

  “I’m not leaving,” V.J. insisted. “Jon, dear, I’ve come all the way from California for this! A little bad weather isn’t going to drive me away.”

  “I’m not going, either, old buddy,” Thayer said firmly. “Hell, I don’t make your kind of money yet, Jon. Maybe not ever. This is my vacation with the rich and famous.”

  “So what if we’re snowbound?” Anna Lee demanded.

  Jon hesitated. “I just have a bad feeling that—”

  “Oh, Jon,” Reggie said, joining them, her elderly voice full of grandmotherly empathy. “Jon, I thought when you planned this that you’d gotten over what happened the last time. We’re all here for some fun and for a good cause, and we’re not going anywhere.”

  “Cassie fell,” Dianne Dorsey said firmly. “It was simply an accident, and that’s what the coroner said.”

  “Exactly, Jon,” Anna Lee added, an edge to her voice.

  They both defended him so passionately, Sabrina noted, and she couldn’t help thinking that either of them might have had an affair with him. Either of them might have really hated Cassandra, too.

  Jon shook his head. “Thanks, but I’m afraid there’s more to my concern than unhappy memories. Or even the snow. Remember the gunshots we heard this morning?”

  Nods and a chorus of yeses met his words.

  “I found a bullet in the grout in the stone in the hallway.

  “What?” Thayer demanded.

  “Well, Jon, this place is ancient, much older than even I am!” Reggie exclaimed. “Perhaps—”

  “It wasn’t an old bullet, Reggie. It was a new bullet,” Jon told her.

  Tom Heart shook his head in puzzlement. “Then it’s part of the game.”

  “It wasn’t part of the game. It’s a real bullet,” Jon said somewhat impatiently.

  “Adding a little spice to the mystery, Jon?” Joe queried with a knowing smile, stroking his bushy beard.

  “He’s good at this,” V.J. said in agreement. “Jon, did you ever consider acting?”

  “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re talking a real bullet, really fired in the hall, and someone might have gotten hurt. Or even killed,” Jon said grimly.

  “Okay,” Joe protested, “so maybe one of us is an asshole who made it through the airport with a gun for protection in a strange country. God knows, we’re all off-the-wall a bit. But I can’t see ruining this whole Mystery Week because some moron mistakenly fired a gun in the hall.” Joe sounded for all the world like the world-weary, no-nonsense P.I. in his books.

  “All right, then, who fired the gun?” Jon demanded, looking from one of them to the next.

  There was no confession.

  “Well?” he said softly.

  “Someone is trying to add to the mystery. No one was hurt,” Joe mentioned.

  “There’s a bullet in the wall,” Jon repeated flatly.

  “Can you be absolutely certain it wasn’t there from sometime before?” Thayer Newby asked, sounding, as he often did, as if he were grilling a suspect at headquarters.

  “I’m familiar with firearms and bullets,” Jon said.

  “I’ll take a look at it,” Thayer said. “But I, too, say it’s one of us adding a little spice to the Mystery Week.”

  “Please, Jon,” Dianne said quietly. “We all just love doing this. Don’t let what happened last time make you paranoid. Cassie didn’t kill herself. She was very beautiful but maybe not particularly coordinated. She fell, Jon. She fell, you’ve gone through hell and that’s that. It was a long time ago, we’re all having a wonderful time now and we’ll all be extremely angry with you if you make us leave!”

  “And that’s a fact,” Anna Lee said determinedly.

  “I’m just very concerned about you all, and—” Jon began.

  “Jon Stuart, you are not going to throw an old lady out on the streets!” Reggie said indignantly.

  And he was defeated. Sabrina could see his expression change as he looked at the elderly author. He took her hand and kissed it. “Never, Regina, in a thousand years would I think of putting you out on the streets.”

  “Damn straight, dear boy!” she declared, and she leaned across the bar to kiss his cheek.

  Jon set down the drink he had been making. “All right, ladies and gentlemen, let’s leave it at this. If there are any more incidents, or if it looks as if the weather could present real danger, it’s over.” He poured himself a straight shot of bourbon and hoisted it.

  Anne Lee smiled. “Hear! Hear!” she cried, and she too leaned over the bar, planting a kiss not on his cheek but on his lips.

  “Whoa, hot one!” Brett declared. “Well, I’m awfully damned glad we’re going to keep this party going, but I’m sorry, I’ll be damned if I’ll kiss you, Jon.”

  “You’ll be decked if you kiss me!” Jon warned in turn, and the whole group laughed.

&nbs
p; “You won’t deck me, will you?” Dianne Dorsey asked sweetly. “My turn,” she said, leaning over the bar and kissing him on the lips as well.

  “Hey, ladies, I’m bartending here, too,” Brett commented. “Don’t all fight to kiss me at once!”

  “Silly boy, those are surely the most used lips in history,” V.J. drawled.

  “Oh, let’s be nice,” Anna Lee said, and she kissed him, lingering just a bit.

  “Much better. Share the wealth,” Brett told Jon.

  Jon shrugged. “Well, it is my house.”

  “House!” Susan exclaimed. “He calls this a house.”

  Sabrina wasn’t sure why—she didn’t mean to be a killjoy in the least—but she suddenly wanted to be away from the crowd, away from the joking.

  And away from all the well-used lips.

  She felt strangely like an outsider. They had all known each other much longer—and much better. They had all been here when Cassandra died. They seemed to form an enclave, and she felt oddly excluded, yet at the same time a little relieved to be so. She needed to get away for a bit, to feel a touch of reality.

  Jon had mixed her drink; she saw it on the bar. But she took her towel and silently slipped away, making her way upstairs to her room.

  She showered, washed her hair, wrapped herself in a towel and curled up on the bed to call her sister. Tammy was two years her junior, an archeology major who had married one of her professors. Nothing in the world made either of them happier than digging in the dirt for ancient relics, unless it was their newborn son, Tyler Delaney. Though she was happy as a lark, Tammy was also feeling the confinement of new motherhood, and she was eager to hear all about Scotland.

  “Aren’t you having fun?” she inquired now.

  “Sure. Why do you ask?” Sabrina replied.

  “Well, you’ve already called Mom. Now me. Surely you have better things to do with your time. So tell me, what’s going on? Are you having problems with the master sleuth himself?”

  “Who?”

  “Oh, don’t play innocent with me. You know I’m talking about Jon Stuart. Tall, dark and handsome. Man of mystery with the great accent. The faster-than-a-speeding-bullet affair of your life. So, did he or didn’t he do in his beautiful, bitchy wife? Have you learned anything new over there?”

  Sabrina stared at the phone. “He was cleared of all charges, you know.”

  “Lots of people have been acquitted on all kinds of charges. That doesn’t make them innocent.”

  “No, I don’t believe he did it,” Sabrina said firmly.

  “Oooh, listen to you. So the flame is still burning brightly. He remains tall, dark, handsome and totally enchanting! So where is he, and why are you on the phone with me?”

  “Everyone’s down by the pool—in the castle dungeon, if you can believe it. Jon was threatening to call the whole week off because he found a bullet in the wall.”

  “Well, it is Mystery Week,” Tammy commented. “Isn’t that the kind of thing that happens? Mysterious clues and all?”

  “He says it’s not part of the mystery.”

  “Is he telling the truth?”

  “I imagine. He was trying to make us all go home. Reggie Hampton—she’s a tough old bird who writes adorable mysteries featuring a cat—refused to go.”

  “Good for her,” Tammy said. “Then again, maybe you should come home. That way you could quit calling us long distance.”

  “Very funny. See if I call you for a friendly chat again.”

  “How’s your ex, by the way? Brett is there, right? Honestly, I have to admit to being totally jealous. I’m sitting here with baby oatmeal, poo-poo diapers, and my boobs are swollen enough to burst. And you’re off jet-setting in Scotland with the rich and famous. Not fair. Besides, Mom always liked you better.”

  Sabrina started to laugh at the old joke, glad that she had called. “Mom never liked me better, and you’re being totally irrelevant.” She and Tammy had fought like the dickens growing up, but now her sister was her best friend, and the only person other than herself and Jon who knew she’d had a faster-than-a-speeding-bullet affair with him.

  “So how is old Brett?”

  “Brett’s fine. He’s at the pool, too, whining because he isn’t getting as many kisses as Jon.”

  “Ah,” Tammy murmured, “so that’s it. Those other writers—those hussies—are down in the dungeon kissing tall, dark and handsome. And you’re jealous, so you ran to your room and phoned home.”

  “Don’t be silly. I called to ask about Tyler,” Sabrina protested.

  “Our beautiful baby is fine. He’s an angel, too—sleeps all the time. I’m waiting for him to wake up.”

  “Think you deserved such a good baby?” Sabrina teased.

  “If you want me to suffer, I’m suffering. I’m going to have to poke the kid awake soon. I’m not kidding—this nursing thing is killing me. I think I could do lethal damage with a jet spray of milk at the moment. But back to you and Mr. Mystery. Now seriously, pay attention to me here. Why not take the bull by the horns? Sleep with good old tall, dark and handsome again, and find out if you’ve been carrying a torch all these years for something imagined or something real. Just remember that it’s Mystery Week, and make sure you know who you’re sleeping with. Don’t go sleeping with any strangers!”

  Sabrina was startled to feel an uneasy sensation sweep over her as her sister jokingly, unknowingly, echoed what Brett had said in the chamber of horrors.

  “I’m here as a professional fiction writer involved in a charity event, nothing more,” Sabrina said. Yet to her own ears, even as she spoke the lie, she froze, certain she had heard a soft clicking sound on the line.

  Had someone been listening in on her conversation?

  “Sabrina?”

  “Yes, I’m still here,” she said softly. She didn’t know why, but she felt the same deep sensation of unease again. It was unnervingly akin to fear.

  It was a big house—castle—and she was certain it had several phone lines, but not necessarily one for each guest room. Someone had simply accidentally picked up in the middle of her conversation and then hung up again.

  So why did she feel someone had been listening in?

  “Give my nephew a kiss for me,” Sabrina said quickly. “Love you. I’ll call again in a few days.”

  “Great, bye, have a good time!” Tammy said.

  Sabrina stared at the phone for a moment, then hung up. And suddenly she had the uneasy feeling that someone was behind her. She whirled around on the bed.

  She was alone in her room, but the doors to the balcony were open.

  She held tightly to her towel and rushed over to step outside.

  There was no one there.

  But she could see Jon Stuart, out on his balcony. For a moment, she was relieved to see him. He, too, had left the crowd and come upstairs. Okay, so maybe she had been jealous. And maybe she had felt out of his league down by the pool, realizing that he’d had many lovers in his life, and she had just been one of them. After all, it was rumored that he’d been having an affair at the time Cassandra died, and if so, that affair would have been with someone who was here now….

  The thought hurt. Like a knife in the pit of her stomach. She gazed at him, wondering what was going on in his mind….

  Then she realized that she was standing on the balcony with only a towel around her.

  Maybe he hadn’t seen her.

  He raised a hand in a silent salute.

  She waved back and retreated in a flash, anxious to get dressed.

  At least, she told herself, if Jon had been on his balcony, he couldn’t have been in her room. No one had been in her room. True, the balcony doors had been open, but no one had been out there, and, despite the celebrated guest list, she doubted there were any superheros among them who could have flown away.

  Of course, Jon might have been on the phone in his room, listening in on her conversation, she thought.

  No, he would have apologized, a
nd he would have hung up right away.

  Surely he would have done so. But how did she really know? Had she made of him what she wanted him to be? In fact, if she thought about it, maybe she didn’t know him at all. And so much time had passed.

  Maybe he truly was a stranger.

  And some very strange things were happening here….

  Stop! she told herself. Get dressed, and get ready to take part in Mystery Week.

  It got dark so early, and now it was almost dusk. Time to head down to the chapel.

  She loved the chamber of horrors.

  It was just so good.

  The people were so real. The fear and the terror were so real. And deep in the dungeon, with the recessed lighting, it was like a secret world where famous killers could come to life. Their victims could almost be heard in their silent yet eloquent screams.

  Walking softly through the fantastic exhibits, she felt a pleasant sense of power.

  No one knew.

  “Here!”

  She spun around at the whisper, trembling with a pleasant fear.

  For a second, just a split second, she thought that one of the wax figures had come to life, that Jack the Ripper prowled the dungeon or that a headsman was stalking her.

  The pale, purple-gray light was so eerie.

  The figures were so real.

  She could hear her heart slamming against the walls of her chest. Someone was moving, furtive in the darkness…stalking?

  Then she heard her name whispered, and delicious chills cascaded down her spine. It was him. He had come.

  Then she saw him, and she started to hurry to him, wondering at the stricken expression on his face.

  “She knows!” he gasped. “She knows, and she intends to blackmail us. Oh, God, I don’t know what to do. I don’t—”

  She threw her arms around him, hushing him, calming him. “Now tell me who you’re talking about and what exactly happened.”

  He did, and as he spoke, he shook. He was afraid. Afraid for the future, afraid for her. She had never been loved so in her life.

  “My God, I couldn’t bear it if—” he began.

  “Hush, hush, my love! Nothing bad will happen.”

  “But I don’t know what to do!”