He hated the idea of your coming here in the first place. Now he’s going to know you’re wallowing in sin.”
A sick feeling rose in her throat. Her dad was in a nursing home back in Paterson, New Jersey. After two strokes he was paralyzed on one side and barely functional, and he’d always favored her brother.
If Pearson said Olivia was a prostitute, her dad would believe it, and it would kill him.
After delivering his threat, Pearson softened his approach.
“And there’s money in it for you, too. A lot more than you ever saw.”
“I earned good money dancing,” she shot back.
He made a snorting sound. “In a chorus line?”
“Yes! And I had a featured part.”
“Well, you had to kiss all that goodbye. So you might as well get used to being a gimp.”
The cruel gibe made her want to rush her brother and beat him with her fists. But he’d only start slapping her around, and she’d be in worse shape than she was now. From where she sat, it was too bad she’d focused all her energy on her dance career, but she’d been young and sure that she had what it took to make it.
While she was still in high school, she’d saved money from her after-school job at Macy’s. As soon as she’d graduated, she’d bought a bus ticket to Las Vegas.
With her long legs and years of dance training, she’d been instantly hired by one of the smaller reviews on the strip. Six months later, she’d applied to one of the top shows and gotten in. Her boss had told her she was on the fast track to being offered a starring role.
That was then. Her reality was a lot different now, after a drunk driver had plowed into her in the casino parking lot.
She was still trying to pay off her hospital bills and her physical therapy bills. She’d even reached the point where she knew she should apply for food stamps. Then, at least, she could be sure of eating regular meals.
Pearson must have seen the defeated look on her face, because he visibly relaxed. “It’s going to be easy. I got the idea from that guy who ran for president. The one who got caught in a hotel room in L.A. with his mistress.”
“That was a longtime affair.”
Pearson waved her to silence. “Whatever. The point is, some men have a lot to lose if they get nailed in the wrong bed with a blond looker like you. Let me tell you how we’re going to work it.”
As she listened, she clenched her fists, her mind scrambling for a way to thwart her brother’s plans.
NOAH LANDED at LAX and collected his luggage from the flight crew, then picked up his Lexus hybrid in the private lot. Once he was on the highway, he pulled his cell phone from the glove compartment, plugged it into the cigarette lighter and called home.
His man, Thomas Northrop, answered.
“I’ve landed. I’m in the car and I’ll be there in two or three hours, depending on the traffic.”
“We’re glad to have you back.” Thomas paused. His voice was sober when he began to speak again. “I’m sorry about what happened on The Fortune. I know you have to be grieving for those men.”
“Yes, thanks,” Noah answered. He and Thomas were old friends. Or at least as friendly as a man like Noah could get with anyone. “Anything I should know about?” he asked.
“You have four e-mails from that doctor—Sidney Hemmings.”
“Is something wrong?”
“He’s inviting you to a medical research conference in Las Vegas. He says that would be the perfect opportunity for the two of you to meet. He’s holding a complimentary place for you.”
“Yeah, he mentioned it a couple of months ago. I’m still thinking about it,” Noah answered. He’d been corresponding with Hemmings for fifteen years—first by mail and then by e-mail. The doctor was doing some of the most interesting work in the field of longevity and he was a presenter as well as an organizer of the international conference.
Noah was caught between his innate caution and his desire to meet the brilliant researcher face-to-face.
“I’ll think about it,” he said. He’d detected a subtle note of disquiet in Thomas’s tone. “Anything else?”
His chief of staff cleared his throat, then spoke in a halting voice. “Simon is home.”
Noah sucked in a breath. Simon was Thomas’s older son. And in following long-standing tradition, he should have been the one to take over from his father. But Simon had never been an easy child to deal with, and in his teen years, he’d exhibited some mental instability that had evolved into paranoid schizophrenic episodes.
Noah had paid for his treatment at a very expensive private mental hospital in the Bay Area. With medication, he’d been able to leave the hospital and had been living in Half Moon Bay, working at one of the many garden centers in the town.
“He quit his job and came home,” Thomas said. “I think he might be off his meds.”
“Thanks for the heads-up.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault. We’ll deal with it.”
“He’s been asking questions about you,” Thomas continued. “Questions I won’t answer.”
“I’m sorry to put you in that position.”
“As you said, it’s not your fault.”
They talked for a few more minutes about the young man as Noah drove north, looking with disgust at the brown haze hanging over the coastline.
By the time he reached Santa Barbara, the sky looked better. Continuing north of town, he turned off on a two-lane road that wound through stands of sycamores, live oaks and mounds of pampas grass.
It was a landscape he liked, a landscape he hoped he wouldn’t have to abandon anytime soon.
He had a good chance of realizing that ambition, because the location of his home was secret. When he’d changed his name twenty years ago, he’d made sure that nobody knew where the man named Noah Fielding really lived. His mail came to a post office box. His bank was out of state. And he could handle trans-actions over the Internet. In fact, there were no clues leading to his current location, and he meant to keep it that way.
GARY Carlson arrived on Grand Cayman just after Noah had checked out of his bed-and-breakfast. Gary was the brother of Eddie Carlson, the man who had been piloting The Fortune when it had gone down.
Eddie and Gary had been close, and he was having trouble coping with his brother’s death. He was also wondering why Noah Fielding felt compelled to transfer a million dollars to the widows of the men who had been in the submarine with him.
As
