was striking, the kind of woman men turned to for a second look, the kind of woman other women looked at and sighed, wishing they looked more like her. She was a Wharton graduate. Her professors had given her glowing recommendations, assuring all and sundry that she would go far in the world of finance. She believed them implicitly.
The young man looked athletic, the boy next door, clear complexion, sandy hair. Tall, at six-two, a hundred and eighty pounds. He, too, was a Wharton graduate. He also dressed well—and women stared openly, men took a quick look and turned away, vowing to do something about their receding hairlines and paunches.
They looked like the perfect couple, but they weren’t really a couple in the true sense of the word. Partners was more like it, but in time they would drift together, not out of passion but out of need.
The man was fearless.
The woman was a worrier.
They were not compatible.
The only real thing they shared was their mutual greed.
The woman held her champagne flute aloft and smiled. The man clinked his flute against hers and liked the sound. A clear ping of crystal.
“So, is it a deal or not?” the woman asked.
“It has flaws.”
“Every plan has flaws. Flaws can be corrected,” the woman said.
“That’s true. I’m inclined to go along with it. But I think I need some reassurance.”
The woman set down her glass and reached over for her clutch bag. It was small and glittery and gold in color. She opened it. There was only one thing in the small bag. She withdrew the little packet and slid it across the table.
The man blinked, then blinked again as he looked inside the dark blue covers. At first he thought he was looking at a small stack of passports. What he was really looking at was a pile of old-fashioned bankbooks. Something in his brain clicked as he calculated the last stamped numbers. He pushed the little stack back toward the woman. She, in turn, deposited them in their nest inside the clutch bag.
“Well?”
“There’s over one million dollars on those books.”
“And I did it all myself. Imagine what we could do together. In five years, we could have a hundred times that amount of money. Offshore, of course. You look nervous,” the woman said.
The man sipped his champagne. “Only a fool wouldn’t be nervous. I’m not a fool. What you’re saying is that you require my organizational skills to continue, is that it?”
She hated to admit it, but she said, “Yes, that’s what I’m saying.”
The man remained silent long enough that the woman had to prod him. “It’s risky,” he said.
“Everything in life involves risk,” she said, finishing her champagne.
The waiter approached the table and poured more. She nodded her thanks.
The man raised his glass, smiled, and clinked it against hers. “All right…partner.”
“There is one thing,” the woman added. The man’s eyebrows lifted. “This is a five-year project, not one day longer. We need to agree on that right now. On December thirty-first, five years from now, our assets are divided equally. You go your way, I go my way. If you don’t agree to it, there’s no reason for us to stay here to eat the meal we ordered. I’ll leave now, and you can pay the check.”
“Why five years?”
“Because that’s my time line, my deadline.”
The man shrugged. “Okay. Should we shake hands or something?”
The woman reached into the pocket of her suit jacket and withdrew a tape recorder that was no bigger than a credit card. She smiled. “It’s on record. We don’t need to shake hands. Oh, look, here comes our food!”
An hour later, just as they were finishing their meal, the man asked, “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
The woman twirled a strand of her hair as she stared across the table at the man she’d agreed to partner with. Her eyes narrowed slightly. “I don’t think so.” She let go of the hair between her fingers and started to crunch up her napkin and gather up her purse.
“What about the…?”
The woman froze in position. “Do not go there. I presented the deal to you, and you accepted it. There are no other perks. That’s another way of saying what’s mine is mine. Not yours.”
The man wasn’t about to give up. “But—”
“There are no buts. Any other operations I have going on are solely mine. I mentioned them only to show you that the possibilities are endless.” She was fast losing patience with her dinner companion. “Well?”
The man still wasn’t about to give up. “Can we address this at some later point?”
“No. This is the end of it.” She could tell by the man’s expression that it was not the end of it. She sighed. Greed was the most powerful motivator in the world. She was on her feet and walking toward the door. Like I’ll really share my little gold mine with someone like him.
Chapter 1
The Present
The day was hot and sultry, the sun blistering in the bright blue cloudless sky. Even the birds that usually chirped a greeting when the Sisters appeared poolside seemed to have gone for cover in the cool, tall pines on Big Pine Mountain.
“I can’t believe this heat! It’s only July, and we’re on a mountain!” Alexis said as she fanned herself with the book she’d been reading. “It’s a good thing we aren’t on a mission. We’d disintegrate.”
Nikki stood up, a glorious nymph in a simple one-piece pearl-white swimsuit, and headed for the diving board. “Don’t even say the word ‘mission,’ Alexis. We’re on hiatus. My brain has gone to sleep,” she shouted over her shoulder.
The Sisters watched Nikki as she danced her way to the end of the diving board. She bounced up, then hit the water, barely making a ripple. A perfect dive that would have been the envy of any Olympic diver who might have seen it.
After Nikki—a glorious bronzed creature—surfaced, she swam to the far side of the pool, climbed out, and walked back to the chair that sat under a monster outdoor umbrella. She immediately started to lather on an SPF 35 sunblock.
Yoko appeared out of nowhere carrying a huge tray, with plastic cups and a frosty pitcher of lemonade.
“What’s for dinner?” Kathryn asked.
“Whatever it is, it better be slap-down delicious,” Annie warned.
“Then you better get on the stick, my dear, since it is your turn to cook,” Myra said with a straight face.
The wind taken out of her sails, Annie got
