hand to her chest where his grandmother’s locket had rested for so many years. It still felt empty.
Enough. She sat up abruptly, padded over the thick cream carpet with a burgundy border, past the elegant spare desk that echoed the two-toned wood of the bed. On it, a bouquet of white and burgundy alstroemeria reflected the colors in the room; the feathery greens added a fresh, living contrast. On a slender-legged table near the window stood a giant bouquet of at least two dozen red roses. With a card. “I can’t wait to see you. Trevor.”
She smiled and rubbed the edge of the card back and forth across her chin. Dan was in the past—and possibly again in her future someday. But he didn’t exist to her here. This would be a really, really nice week.
She drew back the gauze curtains and gazed out at the cityscape, at the people hurrying along the sidewalk. It was so peaceful away from all that rush and chaos. She let the curtain fall.
What else? Drawing back the doors on the entertainment center exposed a TV twice the size of hers at home, a VCR, a DVD player and in a narrow cabinet, video-recording equipment.
Gulp.
To the left, a black lacquer tray displaying fancy bottled water, glasses and ice. A bowl of apples, clementines, kiwis and grapes, and a basket of rolls and crackers. In the minibar along with the usual assortment of booze and snacks, lay foil-wrapped French cheese, pâté and tins of smoked oysters.
Oh, this was so not what she was used to. Ginny would freak. May would have to take careful note of everything to report back to her glamour and celebrity-hungry friend. What heaven. At least for a while. Eventually it, too, would get dull and predictable, like everything familiar.
In the bathroom she discovered a huge whirlpool tub, a portable showerhead, a bathrobe, a beautifully arranged basket of high-end cosmetics, lotions, shampoo and specialty soaps—all a hell of a lot fancier than the stuff she bought from the Pick ’n Save in Oshkosh.
Total fantasy. Impulsively, she turned on the tub and left it filling. That’s what she needed. A nice soak to get rid of the travel smells, the city smells and the cigarette smoke smell that still clung to her from the woman in line at the cabstand. To refresh herself.
And if Trevor showed up in the middle of it, so much the better.
She smiled wickedly, went back into the room to undress and noticed the message light blinking on the black-and-gold old-fashioned style phone. She punched the button and unpinned her French twist. Receiver pressed against her cheek, she shook her head to let her long hair flow past her shoulders, wicked smile turned dreamy.
The machine picked up; the message played. Trevor’s voice.
She listened. Hit Replay when the computerized voice gave her the option, and listened again. Just in case she hadn’t heard right the first time. Just in case the second time through would be different.
It wasn’t.
Trevor wasn’t coming.
MEMORANDUM
To: Staff
From: Janice Foster, General Manager, HUSH Hotel
Date: Monday, July 7
Re: Beck Desmond
Most of you already know that we are hosting author Beck Desmond in 1217. I’m posting another reminder that he is not to be approached for autographs or chitchat. While strolling the various parts of the hotel, he is often deep in concentration and we don’t want to be responsible for interfering with his work. It’s an honor that he’s chosen HUSH as inspiration for the setting of his next thriller. Anyone who bothers him will be transferred immediately to the pet area for waste removal duty.
Note for Shandi Fossey, bartender, Erotique:
See if you can get me Beck Desmond’s autograph. Janice
BECK DESMOND took the phone away from his ear and stared at it with immense irritation. From the black receiver emerged the shrill heavily New York–accented voice of his agent, Alex Barkhauser, chattering away. He felt like affecting a high thin voice and saying, “Yes, dear” at regular intervals.
Except that was undoubtedly what she wanted him to do.
After a deep breath, he put the receiver back to his ear. Might be a good idea to hear at least some of what she was saying.
“…me wrong here, Beck, your books are great, you know they’re great and you know I love them. But I just feel…”
He pictured her squinting off to one side, gesturing in swooping circles the way she always did, as if she were beckoning the words out of her mouth. “Yes?”
“I just feel like we’re sitting on something that could get bigger, you know?”
“Bigger.” He let the word drop, then waited. Old sales technique his father taught him; let the silence sit and your opponent will fill it with what you need to know.
“Sharon and I think you should try more emotion in your stories, more warmth, add a girlfriend for Mack, soften him up a little. Believe me, you’ll double your readership. Women will buy you in droves. Right now you’re selling to men. Women are a huge market in book sales. Huge. This is the next big step in your career.”
Beck leaned back in the chair he’d brought with him from his condo on East 97th Street, spanned his temples with his thumb and middle finger and squeezed to try and relieve the ache. “Let me get this straight. You want me to take my hero, Mack, who has seen more of the baseness of human nature than anyone alive, and—”
“Soften him up. Give him more heart. Give him more sensitivity. Give him…”
“A puppy?”
He heard a sharp thwack, and knew Alex had slammed her palm on the desk, a sure sign his complete joke of an idea excited her. “Yes! Perfect! A puppy. Small one, the kind women love to stop and pat in the street. He could meet his—”
“You’ve got to be kidding me, Alex.” Next she’d want Beck’s ruthless detective spending afternoons shopping for shoes. “Mack is a man. No, he’s more than that, he’s the man.”
“So make him the man with the woman.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s a loner, he’s a tough guy. It’s not him.”
“Give him a woman strong enough to change him.”
“Strong enough to—” Beck reached for his bottle of Evian water and found his fingers trying to strangle it. Change him? Change the man Beck had lived with in his imagination for seven years, through more harrowing adventures, more near-fatal experiences, more death-defying risks than any mere mortal could stand? The man who’d taken down serial killers, drug lords, crime bosses, international art thieves, muggers, murderers and everything between? Change him? With a woman? “I thought women knew never to get involved with a man hoping to change him.”
“She can change him without trying. Simply by being who she is and affecting him that way. Having him become a better person because of loving
