Do Not Disturb (71 page)

When Lucas saw Sian struggling through customs with two battered suitcases and a groaning briefcase, she looked distinctly travel-worn. Notwithstanding their kiss in London, he’d never been the biggest fan of her looks, but he didn’t think he’d ever seen her looking quite so preternaturally pale as she did now. Her dark hair was greasy and hung long and lank to her shoulders. As for the clothes she was wearing—combat shorts, tatty sneakers, and a faded orange T-shirt covered in coffee stains—they were only a small step above bag lady.

“You look tired,” was all he said, relieving her of both suitcases. Uncharacteristically, she let him take them without a fuss. Her shoulders were killing her, and she was too drained to take a feminist stand about it today.

“You’ve been pushing yourself too hard.”

“Yeah, well, I had to, didn’t I?” said Sian grudgingly. “You made it pretty clear you wouldn’t wait around for me to get the rest of the evidence together. It had to be this weekend or never. I haven’t slept in two weeks.”

“Me neither,” said Lucas. “Jesus.” He frowned at the heavy bags in each hand. “What the hell did you pack in here? Lead?”

They’d reached the elevator, and he put down both cases while he pressed the call button.

“No.” Sian grinned triumphantly. “Tapes.”

“Tapes? What tapes?” The lift arrived and they stepped inside.

Sian looked at him witheringly. “Anton’s high school reunion. Jeez, what do you mean
what
tapes? It’s the sexual stuff, you
idiot. Your hors d’oeuvres for the party tonight, before we pull out our big guns.”

“You do have the big guns, though?” said Lucas nervously.

“Relax,” said Sian. “I got it all. This stuff is just interviews with some of the girls from his homes who went on the game. All on the record, mind you. Sixteen hours of audio, five and half of visuals. You would not
believe
some of the stories. It goes way beyond what we thought.”

“We’re gonna have ten minutes up on that podium tonight, total,” grumbled Lucas. “Maybe less. Honor and I have it timed to the last second. What are we supposed to do with five hours of footage?”

“Hey, you wanted pictures, remember?” said Sian. “Don’t fucking whine when I bring them to you.”

Why was he being so negative? He ought to be ripping her arm off. This stuff was white-hot. It would certainly focus people’s attention, so by the time they got to tonight’s real shock they’d have a captive audience.

The elevator doors swooshed open at the fourth floor. Lucas walked over to the car and began loading the bags silently into the trunk.

He knew he was being churlish. If Sian had brought another nail to hammer into Anton’s coffin, that was great news, and the American press were bound to salivate more over a sex scandal than any other sort of wrongdoing. This was a nation that had impeached their own president over a blow job, for God’s sake. But part of him resented the fact that it was Sian’s work, her research, that was ultimately going to bring Anton down. In his mind, tonight was the culmination of his revenge, his private, personal battle against the man who’d set out to ruin him.

“We’ve got the whole afternoon,” said Sian, climbing into the passenger seat beside him. “We can edit it.”

“I suppose,” he grunted. “We’re cutting it a bit close, though, don’t you think?”

Sian struggled to keep a lid on her anger. She’d flown halfway across the world to get these tapes and the rest of her evidence here on time. A little pat on the back might have been nice.

“You don’t have to worry,” she said bitterly. “I’ll do all the editing. I already know where the money shots are.”

“As it were,” said Lucas, raising an eyebrow.

Despite himself, a smile had started to creep across his features. Despite herself, Sian returned it.

“I spoke to Ben earlier, by the way,” said Lucas, changing the subject. “He wished us all luck.”

“I wish he was here,” said Sian, her tiredness making her drop her guard of indifference.

To her amazement, Lucas stretched out an arm and wrapped it around her shoulder in sympathy.

“I know you do, sweetheart,” he said. “So do I.”

It wasn’t until they’d pulled out of the airport and onto the expressway that Sian remembered the other thing she had meant to tell him.

“Oh!” she said suddenly. “There’s something else. I can’t believe I didn’t tell you before.”

“What’s that?” asked Lucas, keeping his eyes fixed on the road ahead.

“The Palmers fire,” said Sian. “You know, you asked me to check it out?”

Lucas looked up. She had his attention now.

“Well I did,” she said. “And I’m pretty sure I know who started it.”

P
ETRA ADJUSTED THE
vintage Dior brooch at her décolletage and admired her reflection for one final time in the mirror. The gown she had chosen for tonight, a black Narciso Rodriguez column dress, was elegant rather than sexy, a deliberate statement designed to contrast with Saskia’s vulgar, neon-pink Dolce & Gabbana minidress. Honestly, if that woman got any tackier you could use her as human flypaper.

Anyway, it worked. Petra’s white-blonde bob and flawless milky skin looked even more striking against the severe black taffeta. The overall effect was positively regal, appropriate given that tonight she intended to show Saskia up in front of Anton and their many illustrious guests as the cheap pretender to her throne she really was.

Outside, the party was beginning to warm up. Twisting her office blinds a fraction, she could see the swelling crowd, and in the midst of them, Anton, glad-handing the media and more important corporate guests. Only two hours ago, he’d been in her office, arguing furiously with her about Saskia. She was still livid that he’d had that fat slug issue invitations to Lucas and Honor behind her back, and had let him know her views on the subject in no uncertain terms.

Anton always got turned on by confrontation. But after this afternoon’s fight he’d been positively foaming at the mouth, so desperate was he to fuck her. For once, Petra had resisted and decided to make him wait. Submission in the bedroom was all very well, but after all the shit he’d pulled with Saskia, he needed to be taught a lesson. By the time he’d stormed out of her office, with a hard-on the size of Canada bulging visibly in his suit pants, he was angrier than she’d ever seen him. But she wasn’t worried. Later tonight, once the party was over, he could have what he wanted. And by then he’d want it so badly he’d be prepared to make ample recompense. Saskia’s remaining hours in his employ were now officially numbered.

She opened the blinds a little farther. Only a few big-ticket names had turned up so far: Teri Hatcher was here with her new boy-toy, and Oprah and Stedman were deep in conversation with the head of Random House at the entrance to the Moroccan marquee, sipping the Dom Perignon that Petra had insisted on. (Saskia had wanted the irredeemably tacky Cristal, of course.)

Petra was quite relaxed about the paucity of celebrities. Stars always liked to make an entrance, and that meant turning up late. But she could tell Anton was fretting. In yet another of her craven bids for his affection, Saskia had put together a cringe-making mini biopic,
A Magnanimous Magnate
, which was scheduled to run at ten thirty. In his typical German way, Anton was obsessed about the thing starting on time, but he also wanted as many VIPs as possible to be there to see it.

Gliding back outside to join him—if she left his side for too long, Saskia would swoop in to try to play hostess, and she wasn’t having any of that—Petra drew him to one side for a pep talk.

“You must try to relax,” she whispered in his ear. “The film is for the media, not the guests. If you run around looking antsy and like you’re not having a good time, believe me, so will everyone else.”

“I’d be a lot more relaxed if you’d opened your fucking legs two hours ago,” he hissed back.

Surreptitiously she allowed the back of her hand to brush against his crotch. “Temper, temper,” she said. “Good things come to those who wait. Didn’t your mother ever tell you that?”

Meanwhile, back in the kitchens, Sian was battling with her own nerves. Honor had done a meticulous job stage-managing the plan for tonight. With the help of some of the disaffected Herrick staff, she’d managed to wangle a job for Sian as a temporary waitress and get access to the detailed timing of the night’s festivities. All Sian had to do was follow instructions. But as everything was based around the timings Honor had been given, they could only pray that Petra hadn’t had a last-minute change of mind and reshuffled something. This was the part that worried Sian.

“We’ll be OK,” Lucas had tried to reassure her this afternoon, while simultaneously mocking the hell out of her French maid’s outfit. “Petra’s a compulsive organizer, and Anton’s even worse. Trust me, they don’t do spontaneous. They’ll stick to the schedule.”

Sian prayed he was right. Yanking down her much-too-short skirt—she was sure Lucas had had a hand in ordering her uniform, which had clearly been intended for a child or one of those miniature Filipino women, not a strapping Irish Jersey girl like her—she picked up a tray of canapés and ventured out into the grounds.

But as soon as she turned into the Japanese garden, she caught her breath and dived for cover behind the nearest shrub. There, right in front of her, was Lola’s brother, Nick. He had his arm around the waist of a vacuous brunette, a twig-like giantess who could only have been a model, and his whiny, insistent, arrogant voice cut through the general buzz of conversation around him like a chainsaw.

“So you see, I’m all on my lonesome,” he was saying. “My folks have officially become East Hampton’s first agoraphobics. And my sister’s too caught up with Super-yid to care about anything else. They’re probably at home making matzo balls together.”

The twig laughed dutifully. Crouched behind the bush, Sian’s heart was pounding. Nick being here was bad enough. If he saw her, he’d blow her cover in an instant. But since when was Lola in town? Lucas hadn’t mentioned anything, and the last Sian had heard, the whole Carter family was avoiding East Hampton like the plague.

“Come on.” Nick led the girl by the belt of her dress toward the marquee, much as one might a recalcitrant puppy. “Let’s check out the Russki’s attempt at La Mamounia. I bet it’s lame.”

Once she was sure he’d gone, Sian reemerged, brushing the dirt and leaves off her apron and legs. Please God, don’t let Lola and Marti show up tonight. Any more stress and she was going to go completely bat-shit.

On the other side of the gardens, at one of the myriad outdoor bars, Petra shimmered beside Anton like a towering black shadow. Saskia, she noticed happily, was still stuck behind the newly built podium, sorting out technical difficulties with the sound system. Petra watched her scurrying around among the technicians like a fuchsia-pink mother hen—the tiny dress she was wearing made the absolute worst of her chunky, shot-putters’ thighs, and even from here you could see her breasts spilling over the top of it like cookie dough. Better still, she appeared to be having a perfectly miserable time.

Much as she would have liked to spend the entire evening watching Saskia squirm, Petra was distracted moments later by another voluptuous blonde. Along with her sister, she was making quite an entrance, preening and pouting in front of a vast
bank of cameras, whose flashes were going off one after another like sheet lightning. “I don’t believe it,” she muttered furiously to Anton, under her breath. “Tina Palmer’s here. With Honor. I thought you said they weren’t coming?”