Envy (38 page)

Noah folded his arms across his chest and smiled as he enunciated, "It's fiction, Daniel.

It wasn't by accident that I wrote _The _Vanquished from that humble, hillbilly-righteous point of view. I created characters with high-minded ideals, not because I adhere to them, or even believe in them, but because I know that's what sells books.

The average Joe and Judy want to believe that valorous people do exist, that evil can be overcome by good, that virtue is a reward unto itself. They get off on that kind of bullshit.

"_The _Vanquished was bloated with the sentimental, southern sappiness that my parents spoon-fed me. I was forced to stomach it when I was growing up. So I used it. I poured it all into that novel so I could close the cover on it and leave it there forever.

"The dewy-eyed heroine," he continued scornfully. "The flawed but valiant hero.

Their blood-stirring, star-crossed love story.

Every word of it was tripe disguised by pretty prose. It didn't mean shit to me, except for the royalties it earned and the reviews that brought me to the attention of publishers and ultimately paved the way into your office."

"Why ultimately to me?"

"Because, Daniel, you were the only supremely successful publisher with a marriageable daughter, who, to my good fortune, had gone on record claiming that _The _Vanquished was her favorite book."

Even knowing Noah's true nature,

Daniel was stunned by this declaration. "You freely confess to being that callous? Is that how you honestly feel about your profession, about people, and life in general?"

"And then some."

Daniel shook his head sadly. "Such a sad waste of talent."

"Come on, Daniel. Let's not weep over my hypocrisy. We publish a gritty

police series that's written by a flaming fag.

#He takes breaks from writing about his #####657

tough, heterosexual hero to get fucked up the ass by his young assistant. One of our religious book authors has been convicted of tax evasion and insurance fraud.

"Hypocrisy? On your Christmas party list are several hopeless alcoholics, a

brother-and-sister writing team whose oh-so-close relationship would scandalize the mothers who read their books aloud to their children. We publish one cocaine addict for whom you've footed the bill of a rehab clinic at least twice that I know of.

"All of them write very good books, and we publish them. I don't see you getting squeamish over their addictions and aberrations when the profits come rolling in. Those profits pay for your weekly massages, and this house, and chauffeured limousines, and all the other niceties you pompously enjoy up there in your ivory tower."

"You've made your point," Daniel conceded angrily. "I've never denied keeping an eye on the bottom line. I pride myself on having been a good businessman. I've fought countless corporate battles against unscrupulous foes and outlasted economic crises that naysayers predicted could not be withstood.

"And yes, there have been times when, for the good of Matherly Press, I've had to be disingenuous.

I've resorted to guile when I felt it was necessary." His eyes pierced through the darkness separating them. "That's why I was able to detect it in you, Noah. And once I got a whiff of it, it became obvious to me that you reek of it."

Noah crossed his legs at the ankles and leaned indolently against the newel post. He looked over the sheets in his hand, although he couldn't have actually been reading them. Except for flashes of lightning, it was too dark to read. "I'll admit that some of this is less than flattering."

Daniel wondered how much he knew. Was this only the initial report? He couldn't

remember what had been committed to paper and what the investigator had told him over the telephone that morning, promising that he would receive a written update as soon as it was available.

Noah said, "If you believe this, I'm a wretched human being. I actually admire your ability to keep a civil tongue when speaking to me."

###"It hasn't been easy." ##########659

"No, I suppose not. I assume you're most upset over my traitorous alliance with WorldView?"

Daniel chose not to disabuse him. Better to let him continue entertaining his misconceptions.

"I can forgive that before I can forgive your mistreatment of Maris."

"She knows, by the way," he said placidly, dropping the sheets and letting them scatter. "About the affair with Nadia."

"I know."

He was obviously taken aback. "She told you?"

"No, but her unhappiness with you and your marriage has been apparent for some time."

"She's been happy enough," he said with a blasé flick of his hand. "She loves her work more than ever, now that she's working with this new author.

He's handicapped, and that really appeals to her.

It's important to her to feel needed."

So he didn't know about Parker Evans!

Daniel happily clung to that secret knowledge.

"Maybe I didn't cater to the nurturing aspect of Maris's personality," Noah continued with a nonchalance that Daniel found nauseating. "I'm self-sufficient to a fault.

That caused a few minor tiffs. But your precious daughter wasn't too dissatisfied with her life. Not until she caught me with Nadia."

"Her happiness came from within herself. She was happy in spite of you, Noah, not because of you. You even sabotaged her chance of being truly happy."

Noah snapped his fingers. "You're referring to the vasectomy."

"Yes," Daniel said bitterly. That had been one of the most disheartening discoveries to come from Sutherland's report. "The secret vasectomy. As I recall, you cited business obligations as your reason for not accompanying us to Greece."

"Maris had in mind for us to screw our way through the Mediterranean and return pregnant. I invented a plausible excuse for wiggling out of the trip and used the time you were away to have the procedure that ensured I wouldn't have to worry about birth control again."

"I was puzzled when I first read about the vasectomy," Daniel admitted. "Wouldn't a

#child have secured your ties to us and the #########661

Matherly fortune? And therein lay the answer."

He looked Noah full in the face. "You didn't want a child competing with you for a share."

Noah uncrossed his ankles. "That's the first thing you've said during this conversation that's incorrect, Daniel."

"You deny it?"

"Not at all," he said blandly. "You're wrong in that I'd ever settle for a measly _share."

Daniel snorted with contempt. "Don't count your chickens yet, Noah. That document I signed tonight is worthless."

"You think so?" he asked smoothly.

"I was only playing along, seeing how far you would go. What I really find galling is that you attached Howard Bancroft's name to that document.

He would never have drawn up a--was

"Oh, but he would," Noah said, interrupting.

"He did. Rather than let it be circulated that his father was a Nazi officer who was personally responsible for exterminating thousands of his kindred."

Daniel received that news like a punch to the gut.

"You used that to coerce him?"

"So," Noah said with a slow smile, "you knew about his whoring mother?"

"Howard was my friend." Daniel practically strained the words through his clenched teeth. "He confided in me years ago. I admired him for making his life into what it was instead of letting what he couldn't change defeat him."

"Well, it did, didn't it? In the long run, he couldn't live with the tragic truth."

"A truth you threatened to spread," Daniel said, seeing the clear picture now.

Noah shrugged and smiled beatifically.

"See, that's the difference between you and me, Daniel. Come to think of it, between me and just about everybody. You go after what you want, but you fall short of total commitment. Your conscience has drawn an invisible line, and you never step across it. You're shackled by principles and ethics. And while that moral demarcation is admired, it's terribly restricting.

"I, on the other hand, suffer no such impediment. I am willing to do whatever it takes to get what I want. I stop at nothing, and I let nothing stand in my way. My credo is:

#Find a man's weakness, and you own him. ###663

To achieve the goal I've set for myself, I'll go to any lengths."

"Even to talking a man, a good man, into committing suicide."

"I didn't talk Howard into anything. He thought that up all by himself. Although I'll admit that he did me a huge favor when he stuck that pistol in his mouth. What do you suppose he was thinking about when he pulled the trigger? Heaven?

Hell? His mother with her legs spread? What?"

Daniel's beloved friend Howard had suffered untold heartache over his terrible secret.

All his life he had tried to atone for it with good deeds, kindness, and tolerance. At last, he had come to terms with it.

Then this travesty of a human being had tortured him with it. Worse yet, he could stand there and smile about it.

Daniel realized he was looking into the face of a pure, unrepentant depravity. Noah's indifference to the evil he had done enraged him.

Tears of godly wrath blurred his vision. Heat blasted through his veins as though the temperature of his blood had reached the boiling point in a matter of heartbeats.

"You are despicable," he growled, and charged up the last two steps.

CHAPTER 30

Parker was the first thing Maris saw when she opened her eyes, and nothing could have pleased her more. He was sitting in his wheelchair beside the bed watching her while she slept. Even before stirring, she smiled into her pillow and asked drowsily, "How'd you manage to get up and into your chair without waking me?"

"Practice."

She sighed and stretched luxuriously, then sat up and drew the sheet as high as her collarbone.

"What time is it?"

"Time for you to clear out. Unless you want Mike to catch you flagrante delicto."

He was wearing only a pair of boxer shorts.

His shoulders and arms, as she knew, were well formed, the muscles taut and defined. His belly was flat, and beneath it, his sex was appreciably full, even while relaxed.

Beyond his lap were his legs. Last night she had

#made a point to show no interest in them ####665

because of his self-consciousness. Apparently, their lovemaking had convinced him that his apprehension was unnecessary. He wouldn't be sitting here now with his legs exposed, making no attempt to cover them, if he didn't want her to see them.

So she looked.

And it was impossible to conceal her reaction. She stopped just short of gasping out loud, but the sudden catch in her breath couldn't have been missed, especially since he was watching her so closely.

His features were rigidly set. His eyes were shuttered. His voice sliced like a razor. "I warned you that it wasn't pretty."

"Oh, my darling, you were terribly, horribly hurt."

She slid from the bed to kneel in front of him.

_Shark _attack was the first thing that came to mind.

She'd seen pictures of victims who'd

barely escaped with their lives, having huge chunks of their flesh mangled or ripped away.

Parker's scars could be compared only to something that vicious.

The worst of them was a hollow as large as her fist where a section of his quadriceps had been gouged out. From there a scar cut a gully half an inch wide down the entire length of his right thigh and curved around toward the back of his knee. On his lower legs was a network of crisscrossing scars, some raised and bumpy, while others looked like flat, shiny ribbons of plastic that had been stretched between puckered skin. His calves were disproportionately small and flaccid. He was missing the smallest two toes on his right foot.

Overwhelmed with compassion for the agony he must have suffered, she timorously traced one of the raised scars with her fingertip. "Do they still hurt?"

"Sometimes."

She looked up at him sorrowfully, then leaned forward and kissed one of the worst of the scars that snaked up his shin. Reaching down, he stroked her cheek. She lifted his hand to her mouth and kissed the palm.

He said, "Now that your morbid curiosity has been satisfied, can we get in one fast fuck before breakfast?"

She yanked her head back. "What?"

"I think you heard me."

As shocked as if he'd struck her, she stood up, reached for her nightgown, and held it against

#her, a flimsy shield. "What's the ####667

matter?"

"Nothing except an early morning woodie that needs your attention."

She shook her head in befuddlement. The coarse language wasn't that startling. But he wasn't being naughty for naughtiness sake. No flirtatious wink accompanied his words. He was being purposefully, hurtfully crude. "Why are you acting like this?"

"This is what I'm like, Maris."

"No, you're not."

He gave a dismissive shrug. "Okay, whatever." He pushed his chair backward, then turned it away from her and headed across the room toward the chifforobe. "I've got something for you."

"Parker?" she called in exasperation.

"What?"

"Why are you acting this way? I don't understand.

What happened between last night and this morning?"

"You don't remember? Well, let's see.

Between last night and this morning, I'd say your orgasms outnumbered mine about two to one, but after your fifth or sixth, I honestly lost count. Of course, with women it's sometimes hard to tell when one leaves off and another starts, or if they're even for real. But if you fake it, honey, you fake it convincingly."

He'd opened the door to the chifforobe and removed a box from one of the interior drawers.

Now he spun around and faced her, grinning cruelly as he looked her up and down. "And I'll say this for you, Mrs. Matherly-Reed.

You're tight. As a goddamn fist. And wet as a mouth. Very nice. I wonder why your husband went out for it."

Tears of mortification filled her eyes.

Angrily she swiped one away as it slid down her cheek. Hastily, she pulled on her nightgown, the only article of clothing available. "I don't know what's the matter with you, but I won't continue this. I can't match you for vulgarity."

"Sure you can. You've got an expansive vocabulary. Maybe not one as colorful as mine, but if you put your mind to it, I'll bet you come up with something suitable to say. Maybe on your plane ride back to New York. I assume you're leaving."

###Not even deigning to answer, she headed ##669

for the door. "Wait!" He rolled his chair over to her. "_Envy. The final draft."

He practically thrust the box into her hands, so she had no choice but to take it. She looked at it, then at him. "It's finished?"

"Has been. All along. From the beginning.

What you've been reading in installments is the polishing draft."

She gaped at him. Words failed her.

"I never submit a partial manuscript, Maris. No one sees my book until it's finished. I wouldn't have sent a prologue unless I had a book behind it."

"Why, Parker? Why?"

Deliberately mistaking her meaning, he shrugged. "Personal policy. That's just the way I work."

Maris felt as though the spot on which she stood were eroding rapidly and that at any second it would disappear out from under her altogether. But she wasn't going to sink without a fight.

"That's just the way you work?" she repeated, raising her voice to a shout. "What the hell was all this for, Parker? Or is that even your name?

How many do you have? What in hell has this been about? Why the lies, the games?"

"They seemed like fun at the time. We both got laid. Several times last night you moaned,

`Yes, yes, harder, faster, Parker.`

X-rated things, too. Sounded to me like you were having fun."

For several beats, she just stared at him, wondering at what point he had become this sarcastic stranger. Then she hurled the box as far as she could throw it. It upended in midair, the lid came off, and some four hundred

manuscript pages scattered in that many directions across the polished hardwood floor and Aubusson rug.

Maris stalked to the door and jerked it open.

Mike was standing on the other side of it, one hand raised, about to knock. The other was holding a cordless telephone. "Maris." There was no surprise in his voice. He had expected her to be with Parker. Her emotional state, however, seemed to alarm him.

Looking beyond her shoulder, he took in the situation at a glance. The look he gave Parker went beyond reproof; it was that of a hanging

#judge about to hand down the sentence. ########671

Stiffly, he extended the telephone toward Maris. "For you. I hated to disturb you, but the gentleman said it was an emergency."

She took the telephone from him with a shaking hand and stepped out into the hallway. Mike went into the bedroom and closed the door behind him. Maris leaned against the wall and took several seconds to compose herself. She breathed deeply, sniffed her nose hard, blinked away tears.

Then, clearing her throat, she said,

"Hello?"

"Maris?"

"Noah?" His voice was strangely muffled and subdued. She barely recognized it.

"It's imperative that you return to New York immediately. I took the liberty of making your travel arrangements. A ticket is waiting for you at the Savannah airport. Your flight departs at eleven-ten, so you haven't got much time."

Her dread was so absolute, it felt as though her heart had been replaced with an anvil. She was suddenly very cold. She closed her eyes, but tears leaked through. It would have been useless to try and hold them back. "It's Dad, isn't it?"

"I'm afraid so, yes."

"Is it bad? A stroke?"

"He ... God, this is tough. Telling you like this. You shouldn't have to hear this news over the telephone, Maris, but ... he's dead."

She cried out. Her knees buckled and she sank to the floor.

Parker was at his worktable in the solarium, but he wasn't working. Instead he was staring out at the ocean. He broke his stare only occasionally, and that was when he compressed his bowed head between his hands in abject despair and self-loathing.

He'd heard Mike when he returned from the mainland, but he didn't seek him out, and Mike didn't come to him. He'd gone straight upstairs and had been moving around in his room ever since. It sounded as though he were pacing.

Parker had been replaying in his head his last conversation with Maris. If you could call it a conversation. His stomach knotted when he recalled the horrible things he'd said to her. Her stricken expression haunted him.

She might be consoled to know that he was as miserable

#as she, but he doubted it. The only way ##673

she might be consoled was if he were drawn and quartered and the pieces thrown to a herd of ravenous wild pigs. Starting with his mouth. His foul, abusive, nasty mouth.

The afternoon dragged on interminably. It was hot and muggy outside and that oppression had eked into the house to contribute to his feelings of suffocation.

Or was the weather to blame? Maybe he was being smothered by remorse.

"I stayed with Maris until they boarded her flight."

Parker hadn't heard Mike come into the solarium. He sat bolt upright and glanced over his shoulder toward the door. Mike was standing as stiff as a girder in his seersucker suit.

"It took off on time," he added.

As soon as Maris could pack her things, she and Mike had departed for the mainland. She left without a word to Parker, but he hadn't expected her to tell him good-bye. He didn't deserve it.

He didn't deserve a _kiss _my _ass, or a _go _to _hell, or even a _screw _you. Her leaving without even acknowledging him had been more eloquent than any epithet. Eloquent,

classy, and dignified. Typical of her.

Hiding behind the drapery, he had watched her departure through the dining room window. She had looked very small beneath her wide-brimmed straw hat. She'd also worn sunglasses to conceal her weeping eyes from prying strangers. The tan she had acquired on the beach seemed to have faded with the news of her father's death. She had looked pale and vulnerable, fragile enough to break from the air pressure alone.

Yet there was a brave dignity about her that suggested an enviable inner strength.

Mike had stowed her bags in the trailer of the Gator, then assisted her into the seat. Parker saw her lips move as she thanked him. Then he watched until the utility vehicle disappeared from sight through the tunnel of trees. He would probably never see her again. He had expected that.

What he hadn't expected was that it would hurt so goddamn much.

He had believed himself to be beyond the grasp of pain. After what he had endured, he had imagined himself immune to it. He wasn't. He had decided to anesthetize himself with several belts of

#bourbon, but the first one had made him so ###675

sick, he'd thrown it up. He didn't think there was an analgesic that would be effective against this particular kind of pain.

Now his back was still to Mike. He kept his stinging eyes on the surf. "Maris was worried about her father last night. Maybe she had a premonition."

"I wouldn't be surprised. They were very close."

After Noah's call, she had been in a state of complete emotional collapse, but she'd had the wherewithal to tell Mike that her father had fallen down the stairs of their country house. She'd been told that he had died instantly of a broken neck. It had happened during the middle of the night.

The noise had awakened Noah. He had

rushed to Daniel's aid, but when he couldn't get a response out of him, he called 911. The rural emergency service had reached the house in a matter of minutes, but it didn't matter--

Daniel Matherly was dead.

Noah had refused to accept the paramedics'

word for it. The ambulance ran hot to the small community hospital. Doctors there pronounced Daniel dead, making it official and

indisputable. Noah had seen no point in calling Maris until daylight.

"She probably feels guilty for not being there," Parker said.

"She said as much on the way to the mainland."

"How was she when she left?"

"How do you think she was, Parker?"

He frowned at Mike's snide comeback, but he didn't challenge it. He had asked a stupid question with an obvious answer. "She probably felt like she'd been run through a thrasher."

"You certainly did your part."

Unlike its predecessor, that cutting remark demanded to be addressed. Parker came around.

"Are you suggesting that I've been a bad boy?"

"You know it without my saying so."

"What are you going to do, Mike? Park me in the corner? Ground me for a month? Restrict my TV time? Rap my knuckles with a ruler?"

"Actually, I was thinking that you're the one who should be run through a thrasher."

Parker agreed that that was the least he deserved,

#but, while it was okay for him to think it, ####677

he resented hearing it from someone else. "Getting Maris into bed was part of the plot. You probably guessed that."

"I guessed it. That doesn't mean I liked it."

"Nobody asked you to like it."

"Did _you?"

"Did I what?"

"Like it."

A scathing retort was on the tip of his tongue, but he foundered under Mike's incisive stare. Turning his head away, he mumbled,