Blush

by Suzanne Forster

  By eight p. m. on a typical midsummer evening, London's famed Piccadilly Circus was overrun with a rainbow assortment of touristy types, all in pursuit of some harmless revelry. Tonight the crowds that thronged the headless Angel of Charity statue were lighter, but no less primed for excitement. Laughing and consorting, distracted by the general commotion, they barely seemed to notice the Bent-ley limousine purring quietly on a side street in front of the Cock 'N Bull pub.

  Inside the idling silver yacht of a car, Webb Calderon was trying to end what had been a brief and ultimately unsatisfying liaison with a lithe, beautiful young Frenchwoman, who knew very well that she hadn't done her job.

  "You like to be massaged, n 'est-ce pas?" she purred, her engine as soft and shivery as the limo's. Admiring him with her eyes, she visited the myriad caressable parts of his body, including the white-gold waves that swept back from his high forehead and curled in sexy, uncontrollable wisps at his temples ana nape.

  He'd had comments on his eyes all his life, on their eerie, marble-gray, perforating quality, but his hair was the feature women had always seemed to love best, fortunately for him. The fact that they couldn't keep their hands out of it had saved his life once, though that was a part of his past, and his youth, that he rarely allowed himself to think about. He was sure some scorekeeper in his mind had recorded every sound, every scream.

  "Celeste knows pressure points, " she suggested brightly. "The one inside the ankle? It gives pleasure for hours. " Honey-haired, blue-eyed Celeste drew up the schoolgirl pleats of her skirt, kicked off her Penny loafers, and showed him the tattoo on the inside of her ankle, a delicate cluster of ripe, red cherries.

  "You press there," she informed him proudly. "Oo-la-la! C'est magnifique!"

  She'd apparently been briefed that "innocence" was his thing, but he had to wonder whether her outfit had been the escort service's idea, or if she'd scoured her own closet for the short plaid skirt and blazer. It might have been more effective if she hadn't been closer to thirty-five than twelve. Still, she was flawless, as beautiful as she was skilled, and he had no desire to blame her for the hurried, pointless oral sex. He, himself, had rushed things.

  "Do you know the magique wand?" she asked.

  He stayed her hand as she produced a foot-long, ultra-slim vibrator from her bag, the soft red leather valise that all Cherries escorts carried. "I've had the pleasure, " he told her. "The wand is an amazing thing, and so are you, Celeste, completely amazing. But I've got a... headache tonight. "

  "Mais oui, monsieur? Are you sure?" Her sigh said that what promised to be one of life's greatest rewards—pleasing him—had just been denied her. She didn't pursue it, however, as that might have resulted in an awkward situation. Instead, she began to quickly and quietly gather up her things.

  She was exquisitely trained in the subtleties. Webb, himself, might not have spotted her as a professional if he hadn't known. Cherries, the escort service she worked for, maintained an elite selection of female courtesans from all over the world—arguably the most elite—and the service bristled if you referred to their lovely employees as call girls. They also provided male talent on request, but stopped short of anything kinky or zoological. At one point they had catered exclusively to royalty, opening their doors to the czars of art, culture, and commerce only as recently as a decade ago.

  An international art dealer himself, Webb had discovered interesting uses for the service that had nothing to do with sex. Tonight was one of those occasions. Magic wands and prolonged pleasure were not foremost on his mind, but if he hadn't let Celeste ply her trade, she might have questioned why she'd been summoned and perhaps even become curious about the "gift" she'd been instructed to leave with him.

  A faint but persistent beeping drew Webb's attention. The interior of the limo had been arranged conference style. Lush chamois-leather seats formed two semicircles that faced each other and the glass-topped console in the middle held flutes still bubbling with Cristal champagne and a wicker basket of gourmet snacks.

  "Excuse me a moment, " he told Celeste, opening a cabinet door in the console. As he picked up the cellular phone that was mounted inside, the escort curled her long legs beneath her and gazed out the window at the passersby. Webb caught a lingering whiff of cherry blossoms, the aromatherapy scent she'd used earlier.

  "Calderon, is that you?" a man demanded as soon as Webb flipped open the mouthpiece.

  Webb recognized the voice as Lake Featherstone, a southern California art collector and one of his most prominent clients. The Featherstones had made their fortune in retailing and owned a chain of more than nine hundred furniture stores around the globe, though the empire was now being run by a partner of the deceased patriarch rather than by a blood Featherstone.

  Rather than by Lake, Webb added silently. He spoke softly into the phone. "Is there some problem? You sound bad. "

  Silence was his answer. "Jesus, Webb—" Lake's pressured sigh was audible through the static on the line. "Augusta's been kidnapped. Somebody snatched her right out from under our noses, and I don't know what the hell to do. "

  "When did it happen?" Webb would have skipped the compassionate friend routine and come right to the point even if Celeste hadn't been in the limo. Formalities gave away too much information, and Webb knew Lake well enough to know that his chief concern was not for his stepsister's safety. His client needed to be reassured that his insular little world wasn't going to explode in his face, though Webb had every reason to think that might be the case.

  "Around ten-thirty this morning—" Lake's voice faded in and out. "I was at the club. "

  "Do you know who did it?"

  "No idea, but it doesn't appear to have been some crazy scheme of Augusta's. One of my security people tried to intervene and nearly got himself killed for his trouble. The kidnapper tricked him with an exploding gun, all but kicked his fucking head off, and then dropped him with some kind of sci-fi tranquilizer device. "

  Webb smiled. Lake never used that kind of language, but that wasn't what had amused Webb. Exploding guns and sci-fi tranquilizer devices sounded suspiciously like an operative once known as The Magician. The gears had been set in motion, Webb thought, pleased that he could still wield such influence with a few phone calls, that his net was ever widening. Gus Featherstone had better tread carefully, very carefully.

  "Was there a note?" he asked.

  "A ransom note? No, nothing. Lily's beside herself, and I've got police all over the place. What will I do if they produce a search warrant and tear the place apart? What the hell will I do?"

  Webb glanced over at Celeste and saw that she'd taken a deck of cards from the console. The thought flashed through his mind that she should not have done it. She should not have touched the cards.

  "You're one of the victims, Lake, " Webb reminded his client, keeping an eye on Celeste as she opened the pack. "You're not a suspect. They'll investigate the crime scene and undoubtedly Gus's room. As for the rest of the estate, it should be a superficial sweep at most. "

  "You smart son of a bitch!" Lake's burst of laughter had more to do with recovering his composure than with humor. "I hope you're right this time. When will you be back?"

  Webb had galleries in London, New York and Beverly Hills. Out of necessity he also had a residence in or near each of those cities. But he spent about half his time at his hacienda in Santa Barbara. "I'll catch a flight out in the morning. "

  "Good, " Lake said, seeming to calm. "The kidnapping's all over the news, Webb. The media got ahold of it. "

  Webb wasn't surprised. Gus Featherstone was news when she blew her nose. "Just take care of anything that needs to be taken care of, do you understand? In the event that they do turn up with a search warrant at some point, be prepared. Don't leave anything to chance. "

  "Yes... all right, I understand. "

  With that Webb hung up the phone and turned to Celeste. She was studying the card she'd drawn from the deck. "Do you read Tarot?" he asked her.r />
  She glanced up, startled. "No, do you?"

  "I'm more of a collector," he explained, smoothing the sleeve of his black silk jacket. To her credit she hadn't removed or wrinkled a single article of his clothing. "That particular deck is a reproduction of Amerigo Folchi's Pistoia deck. Beautiful, isn't it? There's something primal about his images. "

  "Yes... there is."

  "Which card did you draw?" he asked.

  She glanced down at it, a delicate shudder passing through her. Her flaxen lashes quivered, then flicked up, and she searched his eyes, her own vibrantly blue. If he hadn't seen what she was holding in her hand, he would have read her sudden intensity as passion or excitement.

  "This is the Death card, isn't it?" She handed him an archetypal image of a skeletal figure, sumptuously robed, and holding a gleaming scythe. "Does it mean I'm going to die?"

  Webb was quiet for a moment, studying the sinister representation. "Not at all," he told her. "It could mean the death of something that isn't working in your life, change for the better. "

  She busied herself with arranging her bag and smoothing her skirt. The fragrance of cherry blossoms rose from her efforts like a gentle mist. "I see, " she said, and he realized with some interest that she did see—but didn't believe him.

  When she was ready to leave, he reached around her and opened the limo door. "Take care, " he said.

  He caught a glimpse of her expression as she let herself out of the car and it struck him to the core. Her soul was in her eyes. If he thought it was possible to love anyone, he might have loved her at that moment.

  Once she was gone, Webb picked up the gift she'd left. The Hermes bag contained a gleaming alligator briefcase with a combination lock. Webb touched out the number and the case clicked open. It was empty but he'd expected that. He'd been given this same gift many times.

  He caught the telltale roughness immediately as he ran his fingers around the perimeter of the lining. Someone had become recklessly curious. The secret compartment had been breached. Too bad, he thought, allowing himself a moment of regret. It all came and went so quickly. It all meant so little.

  As the big car pulled away from the curb and crept into the oncoming traffic, Webb heard the shriek of failing car brakes. The sound was a piercing cry for mercy, but the concussion of metal and bone that followed it was infinitely worse.

  The limo came to a stop. "Sir?" the driver called back. "There's been an accident. It's the young lady we just let out. "

  The sweetness of cherry blossoms hung in the air.

  Webb reached out his hand, unsteady. For a moment he didn't know how to answer. He'd forgotten the sanity-saving drill. He glanced around the limo, searching for something, and then, to his great relief, he found it.

  The Death card was still lying on the console, emanating the arcane power and evil that so many associated with it. But Webb knew the truth. Men were the sole architects of evil. It wasn't a card that had executed his family in front of his eyes in a South American gulag when he was nine years old. It wasn't a symbolic image of death that had tortured him with water and live electric current until he was dead in every way but the physical. It was a monster, a human monster, an entire army of them.

  He picked up The Reaper, slipped it back into its proper numerical place in the deck, and closed the lid. The cards didn't predict evil, they mirrored it.

  "Keep going," he told the driver.

  Chapter 4

  The Mojave could be one hot bitch of a seductress when she was so inclined. Parts of her were as erotic as a lover's sigh. Stretched naked and sun-drenched for miles on end, her ripe golden hues and curves rivaled the most luscious woman's body. But surrender to her charms and she was deadly. She could drown you in a flash flood, smother you in the tidal waves of a sandstorm, or roast you alive and pick your bones clean any day of the week, without breaking a sweat.

  Jack Culhane had a love-hate thing going on with the California desert, as he did with most everything else in life. He wasn't bothered by her bent for wanton destruction. Violence of one kind or another had been his stock in trade for years, though he took no particular pleasure in it. It was the desert's capacity for wanton voluptuousness that disturbed him. The soft, sensual curves of pink and gold, the gentle drift of her dunes. She undulated before him like a woman in love, a woman in languid need. She promised something he'd lost all feeling for years ago, something he didn't seem to know how to get anymore... satisfaction.

  Sex wasn't the problem. It wasn't about being with women. It wasn't even about satisfying them. It was himself he couldn't satisfy. There hadn't been any pleasure in the physical act since the carnage that had erupted five years ago, a nightmare that took the lives of his wife and child and ripped any semblance of meaning from his life. He rarely allowed himself to think about that desolation now, except to remember how savagely he wanted to find the men responsible. That much nostalgia was permitted.

  His focus shortened and turned inward, blurring the horizon to a golden shimmer as he navigated the endless highway to hell. It had already occurred to him that his surly mood had something to do with her, the female stashed opposite him in the cab of the Blazer. He'd been trapped in his own getaway car for the last hour and fifteen minutes with a Barbie doll hostage who had an annoying nervous habit. She was huddled inside his huge raincoat, staring out of the side window, and absently clicking her hot-pink fingernails against her teeth. That might have been the stuff of some men's wet dreams. It wasn't his.

  Celebrity gossip held about as much interest for him as mail addressed to Occupant, but he'd been researching Gus Featherstone and her family for some time now, and the way he saw it, the press had nailed her. She was a self-absorbed brat. As for the rest of it, she was run-of-the-mill beautiful as models went—shoulder-length dark hair a la Cindy Crawford, exotic eyes, and an undeniably sensual body. He'd even come across an old Esquire article where she'd been given an award for her butt—perkiest ass or something.

  Fortunately, flashy stuff had never attracted him. Still, something had been eating at him for the last hundred miles. His thigh muscles were as tight as if he'd been standing, and his hands felt restless. Maybe it was the desert. Maybe he'd been staring at hillocks too long.

  The rising whine of the Blazer's radiator cap pierced his thoughts. Apparently the Mojave was overheating his car engine, too. He punched a button on the dash to shut off the air-conditioning, then cranked down the window, plunging the cab into a bake oven of gritty heat. The force of it was suffocating, but at least it was a distraction.

  Augusta Featherstone, the society fashion model, you know the one I mean? The beautiful brat, the conniption queen? Somebody wants her kidnapped. It's not about money, it's a grudge against the family's retailing empire— political shit. The interested party wants a pro to make the snatch, then he'll take her off your hands. You game? It's worth some real dough....

  That was the way the call had come in. Jack had taken the rest of the information from a liquor store phone booth in San Pedro, which was a half-hour from his normal base of operations and outside his area code. It was a precaution he'd insisted on. Everything else about the exchange had been sloppy. Dangerously sloppy. The call hadn't come through normal channels, the anonymous contact had given him more information than necessary about the mark, and he'd referred to Jack by the name Jack hadn't used in years, his real name. If the job had been about anything else, about anyone else, Jack would have hung up on the asshole.

  The coldness that stirred inside him now was gallows laughter. As it was he'd said yes immediately. He'd been waiting five years for this break. He'd planned his life around it. He would have planned his death if necessary. He'd long suspected that someone connected with the Featherstones had been involved in his five-year nightmare, and Augusta Featherstone, unwittingly or not, was going to help him solve that mystery. If she wasn't his chief suspect, at least she had the keys to the kingdom.

  He'd taken what safety measures he
could, including covertly changing the rules once he'd accepted the job. He'd struck on a different day, at a different time, than had been prearranged. He'd changed the hideout destination, and he'd employed terror tactics to frighten the holy hell out of his hostage and put her in a vulnerable state of mind.

  He'd enjoyed that last part.

  The only surprise had been her reaction. She should have been on her knees the entire time, pleading with him not to hurt her, offering him money, her body, anything to save her life and win her freedom. She hadn't acted like a typical hostage at any point along the way, except when she'd thought he'd killed the guard. He wasn't sure what that meant, but he was going to find out.

  He glanced at her now, aware that she was shifting around in the seat again. "What's the problem?"

  The clicking sounds ceased and from out of the depths of his coat came a mumbled, "I have to go to the bathroom. "

  "Suit yourself, but I'm not stopping. "

  Her head popped up and she glared at him with almost as much loathing as when she'd pulled her blindfold down. "How much farther until we get wherever we're going?"

  "Hours. " This wasn't true, but what the hell.

  "Hours? I'll wet my pants!"

  "Take the raincoat off first. "

  Her furious sniff brought a smile. It actually surprised him when he glanced into the rearview mirror and saw himself. There was a slant to his eyebrow and a dark twist to his mouth. Hell, he felt halfway good for the first time since he'd driven into the land of endlessly rolling hips and thighs, breasts and buttocks—Nature's ode to Jack Culhane's frustration.

  The speedometer needle jumped up to ninety as his foot kissed the gas pedal. A sign flashed by: BISHOP 200 MILES.

  They would soon be out of the hills and into the crusty basins of the lowlands, where the eye could see nothing for miles but dry lake beds, spiny Joshua trees, and white, arid salt flats. He consoled himself with that. Beyond the flats and looming to the south was the blast furnace heat and bleached animal bones of Death Valley.