She kissed the top of his balding head and he smiled again, breathing a deep sigh of contentment—the king, relaxing after a hard day at the office, secure in his castle alongside his beautiful queen.
Tonight, this king would die.
TONY WAS BREATHING HARD. John Miller could hear him clearly over the wire, his voice raspy and loud in the radio headset. Tony was breathing hard and Miller knew he was scared.
“Yeah, that’s right. I’m FBI,” Tony said, giving up his cover. Miller knew without a doubt that his partner and best friend was in serious, serious trouble. “And if you’re as smart as your reputation says you are, Domino, then you’ll order these goons to lay down their weapons and surrender to me.”
Domino laughed. “I’ve got twenty men surrounding you, and you think I’m going to surrender…?”
“I’ve got more than twenty men on backup,” Tony lied, as Miller keyed his radio.
“Where the hell is that backup?” Miller’s usually unshakable control was nearing a breaking point. He’d been ordered to sit tight and wait here outside the warehouse until the choppers arrived in a show of force, but he couldn’t wait any longer. He wouldn’t wait.
“Jesus, John, didn’t you get the word?” came Fred’s scratchy voice over the radio. “The choppers have been rerouted—there’s been an assassination attempt on the governor. It’s code red, priority. You’re on your own.”
No choppers. No backup. Just Tony inside the warehouse, about to be executed by Alfonse Domino, and John Miller here, outside.
It was the one scenario Miller hadn’t considered. It was the one scenario he wasn’t ready for.
Miller grabbed the assault rifle from the floor of the van and ran toward the warehouse. He needed a miracle, but he didn’t waste time praying. He knew full well that he—and Tony—didn’t have a prayer.
“I QUIT.”
The board of directors looked at her in stunned silence.
Marie Carver gazed back at the expressions of shock on the familiar faces and knew that those two little words she’d uttered had granted her freedom. It was that easy. That simple. She quit.
“I’ve made arrangements for my replacement,” she told them, careful not to let her giddy laughter escape. She quit. Tomorrow she would not walk through the front doors and take the elevator up to her executive office on the penthouse floor. Tomorrow she would be in another place. Another city, another state. Maybe even another country. She passed around the hiring reports her secretary had typed up and bound neatly with cheery yellow covers. “I’ve done all the preliminary interviews and narrowed the candidates down to three—any one of which I myself would have utmost faith in as the new president of Carver Software.”
All twelve members of the board starting talking at once.
Marie held up her hand. “Should you decide to hire an outside candidate,” she said, “you would, of course, require my approval as the major stockholder of this company. But I think you’ll be impressed with the choices I’ve given you here.” She rapped the yellow-covered report with her knuckles. “I ask that you hold all of your questions until after you’ve read this. If any concerns remain unanswered, you can reach me at home until six o’clock this evening. After that, I’ll remain in touch with my secretary, whom I’ve promoted to Executive Assistant.” She smiled. “I appreciate your understanding, and will see you all at the next annual shareholders meeting.”
She gathered up her briefcase and walked quickly out of the room.
THE OPIUM WAS working.
His pupils had retracted almost to a pinpoint and he was drooling slightly, blinking sleepily as he watched her dance.
This was the part she liked. This was where she showed him what he would never again have the chance to experience, to violate.
True, this one had been gentle. His soft, old hands had never struck her. He’d been careful not to hurt her. He’d given her expensive presents, fancy gifts. But the act itself would always be an act of violence, always despicable, always requiring punishment.
Capital punishment.
Her dress fell in a pool of silk at her feet, and she deftly stepped out of it. His eyes were glazed, but not enough to hide his hunger at the sight of her. He stretched one hand out toward her, but he didn’t have the strength to reach her.
And still she danced, to the rhythm of the blood pounding through her veins, to the anticipation of the moment when he would gaze into her eyes and know without a doubt that he was a dead man.
FREEDOM.
It hit Marie like the coolness of the air that swept through the open door at the end of the hall. It felt fresh and clean, like that very spring breeze, bringing hope and life and renewal. Through that open door she could see her car, sitting out in the parking lot, ready for her escape.
“Mariah.”
There was only one person on that board of directors who could slow her departure. Susan Kane. Aunt Susan. Marie turned, but kept moving, backward, down the hall.
Susan followed, her long, batik-patterned dress moving in the breeze, disapproval in her slate-blue eyes. “Mariah,” she said again, calling Marie by her childhood nickname. “Obviously you’ve been planning this for some time.”
Marie shook her head. “Only two weeks.”
“I wish you had told me.”
Marie stopped walking then, meeting the older woman’s sternly unwavering gaze. “I couldn’t,” she said. “I didn’t tell most of my own staff until this morning.”
“Why?”
“The company doesn’t need me anymore,” Marie said. “It’s been three years since the last layoffs. We’ve turned it around, Sue. Profits continue to rise—we’re thriving. You know the numbers as well as I do.”
“So take a vacation. Take a leave of absence. Sit back on your laurels and relax for a while.”
Marie smiled ruefully. “That’s part of my problem,” she said. “I can’t relax.”
Susan’s face softened, concern in her eyes. “Is your stomach still bothering you?”
“Among other things.” Like, for instance, the fact that Marie was thirty-two years old and since her divorce four years ago, she had no life outside of the office. Like, the fact that she still worked long overtime hours to increase profits, to expand, to hire more people, even though the failing computer software company that her father’s sudden fatal heart attack had thrust into her lap had long ago become a Fortune 500 business. Like, the fact that each morning she found herself walking into the new, fancy office building into which the company had recently moved, and she wondered, what exactly was the point? What purpose did she serve by being here, by stressing herself out enough to develop stomach ulcers over the mundane, day-to-day operation of this business?
One day she was going to wake up, and she was going to be sixty years old and still walking into that
