A Dangerous Widow (A Dangerous Series) (19 page)

“Then are we good here?” she asked.

Instead of answering directly, Ben looked
uncomfortably at her before saying, “Maybe all of us should sit down and talk.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

“Rhoda, why don’t you tell us what you
know?” Nick asked when Rhoda sat down beside him.

“Michael was murdered—I know that with
every fiber of my being.
 
As I told
Kate, a woman wearing a black ski mask shoved him down that staircase.”

“Do you know what she looked like?”

“I don’t—I can’t see beyond the
mask.
 
But ever since I last saw
Kate, there’s something about that woman that has been troubling me.
 
I see death all around her.
 
I think she might be an assassin.
 
Worse, I think the person who had
Michael murdered contacted her last night.”

“Last night?” Ben said.
 
“When last night?”

“While you were at the party.
 
Because here’s what you don’t
know—whoever had Michael killed was at that party last night.
 
I’m as certain of that as I am about the
circumstances surrounding Michael’s death.
 
Whoever hired that woman to murder Michael was right under your
nose—and likely watching your every move.
 
Do I know who that is?
 
I don’t—but last night my mind
went to Kate for a reason, and when I focused on that reason, I sensed
everything that I’m telling you now.
 
And by the way, about that woman—she’s the one who sent you the
canary.
 
I felt that the moment I
passed the box in the foyer, and now the stink of her is all over me.”

“Then she’s been hired to kill me…” I said.

“I think she has,” Rhoda said.
 
“But there’s something about the box
that puzzles me.
 
Why am I seeing an
‘M’ hovering around it?”

“An ‘M’?” Nick said.

“I’m seeing an ‘M’ for some reason.”

“Flip it upside down,” I said.

And when I said that, Rhoda’s eyes
widened.
 
“A ‘W’.
 
Of course I’d get it wrong—it’s
the first initial of her name, and I suck when it comes to names.
 
Did she leave a note of some sort?
 
Something she might have touched?
 
Signed?”

“She did,” I said.

“I need to hold it,” Rhoda said.
 
“If she touched it, her energy is on
it.
 
Would someone please get it for
me?”

“I’ll get it,” Ben said.

When he returned with the card, he asked
Rhoda to hold it along its edges between her thumb and forefinger.
 
“There could be prints on it,” he
said.
 
“That’s a long shot because
whoever typed this up likely wore gloves, but I’m not about to count it out.”

“You’re wise not to.”

When she took it from him, she closed her
eyes and seemed to drift off for a moment before she started talking again with
her eyes still held shut.

“I’m seeing that black ski mask again,” she
said.
 
“And Michael.
 
It’s the same movie I’ve seen playing
out in my head over and over again—her drop-kicking him.
 
Him falling.
 
Lydia screaming.
 
And there’s ‘W’ again in her ski
mask.
 
She makes me go cold, which
suggests to me just how cold she is.
 
She’s completely without feeling—a sociopath or a psychopath.
 
And she’s smart—I can feel that in
my gut.
 
What’s so bizarre is that she’s
surrounded by men lying in caskets.
 
Has she killed these men?
 
I
think that she must have, but now everything is starting to fade.”

“Rhoda, I need you to stay where you are,”
Nick said.

“Be quick.”

“Was Lydia murdered?”

Rhoda’s head rested back against the sofa
and turned to one side as the card she was holding fell to the floor.

“Murdered…?” she said, almost in a
whisper.
 
She seemed so far away to
me now, it was if she were in a trance.
 
“Lydia, what happened to you?” she called out.
 
“Come to me.
 
Give me a sign…”

The tension in the room was so high, it was
unbearable.
 
I looked over at Ben,
who was staring intently at Rhoda.
 
I looked at Nick, who appeared as if he wanted to pull whatever Rhoda
couldn’t reach straight out of her.
 
But then Rhoda’s eyes began to flutter and her body started to tremble.

“Yes,” she said in a low, hollow voice.
 
“I didn’t see it before, but yes, Lydia
also was murdered.
 
And this
woman—this ‘W’—was hired to kill her, too.”
 

*
 
*
 
*

“Rhoda,” Ben said after she’d had a moment
to collect herself.
 
“Do you know
how Lydia died?”

“All I know is that it was murder.”

“How do you know that?”

“How do I know anything?
 
Sometimes I just sense it.
 
Sometimes I see it—and while it’s
a mystery to me why I see or sense anything, it’s rare that I’m wrong.”
 
She sat up on the sofa.
 
“Right now, I need all of you to listen
to me.”

“Go on,” I said.

“You’re going about all of this wrong,” she
said.

“How?” Ben asked.

“The answer to finding out who hired ‘W’ to
kill Michael and Lydia begins and ends with ‘W’.
 
I don’t know how this is going to play
out for you, but I do know that somehow it’s going to be she who tells you
who’s responsible for their deaths.
 
Forget about everyone else, because they’re just a waste of your
time.
 
You need to focus all of your
efforts on finding her, because somehow she’s going to get to Kate, and it’s
going to happen sooner than any of you are imagining.”
 

And then Rhoda suddenly turned to me.
 
“You have an event of some sort tomorrow
night, don’t you?”

She’s seeing more…

“I do.”

“Don’t go.”

“I have to go.
 
It’s the spring fundraising event for
the Red Cross.
 
Since I’m the
Director of Corporate Gifts, tomorrow night is all on me.
 
My team and I have been planning this
for two months now.
 
And I have a
speech to deliver.
 
I’ve personally
asked friends of mine to come and donate, which they’ve agreed to do only
because I’ve asked them to do it.
 
I
can’t back out now.
 
The Red Cross
needs that kind of money.”

“But don’t you understand?
 
‘W’ is going to be there.”

When she said that, I was taken back.
 
“How?” I asked.
 
“This is an invitation-only event, and
because a handful of diplomats will be there, the security will be tight.”

“Not tight enough for her.
 
I don’t know how she’s going to get in,
but I can feel it in my bones that she’ll be there.
 
Check your guest list and start
questioning it, because somehow she’s going to find a way inside—I’m sure
of it.
 
This is a big event, yes?”

“Five hundred people.”

“After her note about toying with you, I’m
not sure how far she’s willing to go in a crowd that large, but she’s going to
try something.
 
I’m just not sure
what that is.”
 

She sighed.
 

“Look, at this point, I’m exhausted.
 
I’ve already taken in too much, and now
things are becoming a blur.
 
But
I’ll be rested by morning, and if I wake up knowing more, I’ll call you immediately.
 
I’ll do my best for you, Kate.
 
I promise you that.
 
I often can see plenty, but there comes
a point when I’m so drained, I see nothing at all—like now.
 
But my gut is begging you to stay home
tomorrow.”

“Ben will be with me,” I said.
 
“And so will Nick and his team.”

“You don’t know what you’re dealing with.”

“But she’s only one person, isn’t she?
 
Or does she work with others?”

“It’s just her, but I’m warning you that
when it comes to this woman?
 
She’s
dangerous.
 
She’s a master at what
she does.
 
And she will kill you if
she can.”

BOOK TWO

THE WIDOW

CHAPTER NINETEEN

She was being followed.
 
She was aware of it.
 
And she was prepared to act when
necessary.

It was nighttime in Manhattan.
 
Past eleven.
 
As she’d promised him, she was walking
down Fifth dressed in a sexy red dress concealed by a long red overcoat, which
was so light, the breeze picked it up and away from her, revealing long, toned
legs sheathed in dark hose.
 
On her
feet were her favorite pair of red, three-inch Chanel spiked heels—which
not only looked good, but which she’d also once used to pierce through a man’s
throat.

She wished that she could use that tactic
tonight, but her orders were to make this death look accidental.
 

Many of the powerful corporate CEOs she’d
been hired to kill generally had a dark side, but tonight’s hit—a man by
the name of Sam Everett—took the cake.
 
He was a full-on pervert.
 
And according to him, he had the entire
evening planned.
 
She still wasn’t
sure how she was going to kill him, but she knew from their conversations alone
that she wouldn’t be short on options.

 
Before she left her apartment, she had
reread the script he’d sent her via email.
 
Tonight, they would meet ‘accidentally’ on Fifth, and share a
‘smoldering moment’ on the sidewalk.
 
And then—because she apparently wouldn’t be able to resist him and
because ‘that’s how attractive you’ll find me’—she’d just give herself
over to him Finally, he’d take her back to his apartment and they’d have
sex.
 

Rough sex.
 
The S&M sort.
 
The very kind of sex he’d been having
for the past several years with other women.
 
But it finally caught up with him when
he stupidly forgot to shut down his private email account on his computer.
 
When his wife of over twenty years came
upon it, she’d read every word of his sick betrayal of her, and came to only
one conclusion.
 
She wanted him dead
for it.

For a million dollars, Jade was happy to
help her out.

As she continued down Fifth, she became
hyperaware of her surroundings.
 
The
Park was to her right.
 
The cool May
breeze carried with it the smells of the city—exhaust from the cabs
darting past her to her left, the damp foliage off to her right.
 
At last, spring had arrived.
 
It was right at her back, not unlike the
sound of his shoes keeping time with hers as they strolled down the sidewalk.

Jade listened to the sharp, aggressive sound
his heels made when they struck the cobblestones.
 
She’d been working this case for the
past two weeks, secretly following him until she had a handle on his nighttime
proclivities.

Every other night, he could be found at one
of the city’s exclusive gentlemen’s clubs.
 
To get inside, all Jade had to do was turn up looking like a siren—and
hand the doorman ten large bills.
 

So much for exclusivity…

Sam Everett had taken to her at once, and
Jade knew why—she was an exotic beauty of Asian/Caucasian descent.
 
Many men found her to be stunning, which
she’d used to her advantage more than once.
 
Two nights ago, when she’d first met
Everett at the club, he’d bought her a drink, and they’d fallen into a
conversation as well as a heated flirtation.
 
When she lied and told him that she was a
high-end prostitute, things quickly escalated to the point that they were at
now.
 

Presumably, tonight they’d sleep together.

“Do you like it rough?” he’d asked her that
first night.

“I do.”

“How rough?”

“Rough enough to need a safe word—not
that I’ll likely use it.”

The breeze again, this time stiffer, kicking
up her coat and fluttering it behind her as if it were a blood-red cape.
 
She’d first become aware of him when she
crossed Fifth from Sixty-Sixth Street, where she kept an apartment.
 
But that was five blocks ago, and now it
was time to put an end to this and follow through with the explicit directions
he’d given her.
 

She stopped at the corner of Sixty-First
Street, paused for a moment as if she was wondering who was walking behind her,
and then turned to face him.
 
When
she did, she followed every detail of the instructions that he’d laid out for
her.
 

When their eyes met, her lips parted and her
breath caught in her throat.
 
She
looked at him as if he was perhaps the best-looking man she’d ever seen.
 
And she had to give it to him—at
fifty-two, Sam Everett had aged well.
 
With his thick head of dark hair just starting to go gray at his
temples, he was tall, well-built, and good-looking.
 
But egos were egos, weren’t they?
 
And since age had stolen away the likely
more handsome man he’d been in his youth, his ego needed to be stroked
sometimes—even if he was a powerful real-estate mogul worth hundreds of
millions.

“Are you following me?” she asked as she
fingered her long, black hair away from her face.

“What if I am?”

“If you are, I’d like to know why.”

“Because I think you’re hot,” he said.
 
“And the way you’re dressed now?
 
Alone in the city looking like
that?
 
I think you might be looking
for something.”

“I don’t understand…”

“You’re looking to get fucked, aren’t you?”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.
 
So, why don’t I fuck you with this?”

When he said that—and despite the
traffic roaring past them on Fifth—he parted the black overcoat he was
wearing and exposed himself to her.
 

“My God,” she said when she looked at it.

“You want it, don’t you?”

“But I don’t even know who you are.”

“Does it matter?
 
Look, I have an apartment not far from
here.
 
Want an adventure?”

All of this was so corny and ridiculous, she
had all she could do to keep a straight face, but she nevertheless powered
through it.

Anything for a million…

“What kind of an adventure?”

“Why don’t I grab a cab and show you?” he
said.
 
“I think you know what I have
in mind—at least partly.”

“I can’t just get in a cab with someone I
don’t know.”

“I saw the expression on your face when you
saw the size of my cock.
 
You want
it—I know you do.
 
Many women
do.
 
So, it’s up to you.
 
No names.
 
Nothing more than a
one-night-stand.
 
What’s the harm?”

“First, let me touch it,” she said.

He parted his coat, and Jade had to bite
down hard on her revulsion as she dipped her hand inside and grabbed it just as
he’d asked her to.

“It’s so thick,” she said.

“It’ll split you open.”

“It’s the size of my wrist.”
 
That was a lie, but it was part of the
script, so she went there.
 
“I’m not
sure that I can handle something like that.”

Discreetly, he zipped up his pants, and moved
in to kiss her.
 
And as their lips
met, she gave herself over to him as a whore would have.
 
He then took her by the hand, went out
onto the street, and hailed a cab in which they sped away into the night.
 

*
 
*
 
*

When they arrived at his apartment building
at Park and Forty-Ninth Street, Jade noted the address as they left the cab and
stepped toward the shimmering hi-rise.
 
At the entrance, there was a doorman, who quickly tossed aside the
cigarette he was smoking as they approached him and the gleaming glass doors.

With Everett’s hand firmly holding hers,
they entered the building.
 
Jade
swept her handbag of secrets over her shoulder, and lowered her head so that
her hair fell in her face as they breezed past the doorman and whatever
security cameras were trained on them.
 
One quick elevator ride later, they were in Everett’s expansive
apartment.

His hunger for her was instant.
 
With a swiftness that excited her if
only because she knew what was to come, he removed her coat and tossed it and
her handbag on the foyer’s floor.
 
When his mouth met hers, his tongue probed so deeply into her mouth,
Jade knew that she needed to match it with her own intensity.
 
This was a job.
 
She’d been here before—and soon,
it would be over.

Touch as little as
possible
, she
reminded herself.
 
If
there’s no choice, remember what you touched so you can wipe it down later.

“The bedroom,” he said.

“I need my bag,” she said, breaking from his
script.
 
“To freshen up.
 
Is there a master suite?
 
I want to be ready for you…”

“Of course there is.
 
But why aren’t you ready now?”

“You’ll see,” she said.
 
“Maybe I have a few surprises up my
sleeve for you.
 
You know, to keep
things interesting…”

He smiled when she said that and Jade, with
a sense of relief, scooped up her handbag and followed him into the bedroom,
where he turned on the lights—and then dimmed them.

“I want to take off your dress,” he
said.
 
“I want to see you naked.”

“And I want to see you naked.
 
Because after seeing how big you are, I
know that the rest of you is only going to be dessert.”

“You’re naked beneath the dress, aren’t
you?”

And we’re back on
script.
 
“How did you know?”

“Because I know a whore when I see one.”

“A whore?”

“A filthy whore.
 
Isn’t that what you are?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about…”

“I think you do—otherwise, you
wouldn’t have come here.
 
Not that I
have a problem with that.
 
I love a
good whore.”
 
He nodded at her
dress.
 
“Let me take it off you.”

She dropped her handbag and tentatively
lifted her arms.
 
After he removed the
dress, he enfolded her in his arms and started to suck on one of her nipples.
 
Jade looked around the bedroom, which was
enough to make her raise her eyebrows as she tossed back her head and let out a
fake moan.
 

This was everything he’d promised her.

In the corner of the room was a leather
sling anchored to the ceiling by shiny metal chains.
 
Along the wall to her left was a board
festooned with a various host of handcuffs, dildos, paddles, whips, ball-gags,
leather masks, feathers, and the like.

Total perv
, she thought.
 
No wonder his wife
wants him dead.

“Now, you,” she said.
 
“I want to see you naked.”

“Freshen up first,” he said.
 
“I’ll be naked when you return.”

*
 
*
 
*

The key to pulling this off as quickly as
possible was to see if he wanted to be dominated.
 
If he wasn’t open to that, then her
evening would become a hell of a lot more complicated.
 
Because, if he was a true dom, she’d
have a fight on her hands.
 
He was a
big man—fit, not fat—and likely outweighed her by a good hundred
pounds.
 
If she wasn’t careful with
him and she wasn’t on point, he could overpower her.

And that’s something she couldn’t allow to
happen.
 
The risks of something
going wrong were too high.

So, don’t fuck it up, Jade…

She stood in front of the bathroom mirror,
applied a fresh coat of lipstick, and then lifted her hair so it hung straight
down her back.
 
Satisfied with how
she looked, she pulled a pair of handcuffs out of her handbag, and left the
master bath with them concealed behind her back.
 
When she entered the bedroom, she found
him on the bed, and she saw that he was indeed naked.
 
Flat on his back, with his cock
throbbing hard against his stomach.
 
After she tossed her handbag on the chair closest to the bed, she
dangled the cuffs in front of him.