Forever

Praise for the novels of Judith Gould

"Judith Gould's
Forever
makes you want to keep
reading forever, long after the last page is turned. Once again her
characters, plot, and dealogue are as deliciously dishy as any in
contemporary fiction. What a treat!" REX REED

"As always, Gould not only offers love (with some
sex) but also insight into an unusual environment." LIBRARY
JOURNAL

"[a}] page-turning plot and deliciously evil
villains. A delight." PUBLISHER"S WEEKLY

"A romp…a smash success!" NEWYORK DAILY NEWS

"Judith Gould is a master." KIRKUS REVIEWS

"Mouthwatering." CHICAGO TRIBUNE

"Plenty of shocking surprises." COSMOPOLITAN

"[a] great escape. A tale filled with suspense…and
exotic characters." BOOKLIST

Sins

LOVEMAKERS - The Complete Unabridged Trilogy:

Texas Born

LoveMakers

Second Love

Meltemi (Greek Winds of Fury)*

DAZZLE- The Complete Unabridged Trilogy *:

Dazzle The Trilogy Vol. I: Senda

Dazzle The Trilogy Vol. II: Tamara

Dazzle The Trilogy Vol. III: Daliah

Never Too Rich*

Forever*

Too Damn Rich

Second Love

Till the End of Time

Rhapsody*

Time to Say Good-Bye

A Moment in Time

The Best Is Yet to Come

The Greek Villa

The Parisian Affair*

Dreamboat*

The Secret Heiress*

*(Available as an e-book)

www.judithgould.com

Cover design by Judy Bullard at
[email protected]

A Novel of Romantic Suspense

By Judith Gould

Copyright 1992 by Judith Gould.

Published by Vesuvius Media, LLC at Smashwords

All rights reserved. Without limiting the
rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication
may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system
or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the
prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above
publisher of this book.

Publisher's Note: This novel is a work of
fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the
product of the author's imagination or are used ficticiously, and
any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events or locales
is entirely coincidental.

This ebook is licensed for your personal
enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to
other people. All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights
under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or
transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written
permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of
this book.

The last enemy that shall be destroyed is Death.

The Second Epistle of Paul the Apostle

to the Corinthians,

Mine is yesterday, I know tomorrow.

Book of the Dead,

circa 3500 B.C.

Berlin, West Germany, 1950

The world had never seen anything like
it.

From far and wide the hordes converged upon
the city to pay their last respects to the woman they had loved. By
bicycle and train and car and boat, and a few even landed at
Tempelhof Airport by plane. Many had walked for days, carrying
their children on their shoulders. Young and old, male and female,
rich and poor, priests and sinners they came, a common bond holding
them in thrall.

Lili Schneider was dead. She would sing no
more.

She lay in state at Schloss Bellevue like a
queen, in a closed, curvaceous black coffin mounted with ormolu.
The line to view it stretched around the Tiergarten for nearly
three kilometres, and for four days it never grew shorter.

They were drab mourners in that bleak
postwar year, but even in death Lili Schneider infused the people
with colour and filled their hearts with joy. Radios played nothing
but her acclaimed recordings of Wagner and Smetana and Beethoven
and Schubert. Millions wept from grief, and millions more at the
sheer beauty of that matchless voice.

And so they came:

Mothers clutching their hungry babies . . .
Grandmothers who had lost everyone in the war, for whom Lili's
songs brought the ghosts momentarily back to life . . . Soldiers
who had been fortified by listening to her recordings on distant
fronts, where they helped give courage and kept homesickness at bay
. . .

Widows whose husbands, in happier times, had
once taken them to see Lili in operas . . . And now young frauleins
holding hands with their G.I. sweethearts.

Even at this, Lili Schneider's final
farewell, she filled the hearts of the multitudes to swelling, and
they mourned her with a fierce pride. For Lili Schneider was a
national treasure. She had been an enchantress. A dream-weaver. She
had cast her spell over an entire nation, and even death itself
could not break it.

Lili Schneider.

Lili with the face of an angel. Lili with
the voice of a nightingale. Lili with the body of a whore.

Men had worshipped her, women had adored
her. She had ruled the stages of the greatest opera houses in
Europe - not to mention the bedrooms of the most powerful men of
her day.

She belonged to Germany. And now, after an
absence of five years, she had returned. Her remains had been
shipped home to be buried in the soil from which she had
sprung.

Inside the coffin, her remains were
pathetically charred and shrivelled. The fire that had engulfed the
house in London had destroyed her completely. Gone was her life and
her beauty, but her music would live on forever.

In song she was immortal.

The funeral was truly a world event. Two
hundred thousand fans followed the cortege through the streets of
Berlin.

The mayor of Berlin eulogised her. As did
the chancellor of the new Federal Republic, who had travelled from
Bonn for the occasion. So too the commanding generals of all four
of the Occupying Forces.

All over the land - from the island of Sylt
in the North Sea to the town of Fiissen in Bavaria, from
mountaintop to seaside, from the cities to the smallest hamlets -
church bells began to toll.

In the Ruhr, the steel mills stopped
pouring.

In cinemas, the screens went suddenly
dark.

On the
Autobahns
, traffic came to a
standstill.

In the cities, trams and buses ceased
running.

In the fields, farmers laid down their
implements.

In the dock at Nuremberg, an unrepentant
Nazi war criminal suddenly wept.

Even on Hamburg's notorious
Reeperbahn
, the prostitutes sitting behind the big picture
windows abruptly pulled down the shades and walked off the job.

From Rathaus to cathouse, the wheels of
government and commerce ground to a halt.

Millions wept. And over the airwaves, the
entire country tuned in as each radio station played the same
thing: Lili's recording of the Brahms
Requiem
.

Even in those days of scratchy LPs and
static-filled airwaves, Lili's voice rose above the flaws. For
whatever she sang, she imbued with the magical spark of life
itself, giving it shape and volume and emotion and thunder.

It was pure as a mountain stream, that
voice.

As crystalline as the alpine snows.

As powerful as the
fohn
winds that
ripped through the Alps.

And could climb as hauntingly as a young
boy's treble rising in the multicoloured dust motes of a
cathedral.

Carleton Merlin, a young correspondent for
the
Herald Tribune
, had managed to fight his way to the
graveside. There, he raised his bulky camera just as Louisette
Bielfeld, Lili's beautiful sister, lifted her black veil, brushing
it back away from her face. Carleton waited as a pallbearer handed
her a small silver scoop. He waited as she dug it into the mountain
of earth beside the grave. Then, the moment she tossed a symbolic
scoopful down into the grave, he clicked the shutter and captured
Louisette's soul.

When the film was developed, he was
perplexed: Louisette was smiling, a smile as enigmatic as the Mona
Lisa's. He stared at the photograph and frowned.
Why?
he
wondered.
Why is she smiling?

Although Carleton did not know it at the
time, the moment he had pressed the shutter of his camera, would
mark the end of his life, many years later.

For Lili Schneider's power was such that
even in death it would reach across the years, across the seas -
and across the very sands of time itself.

**************

DEATH

Atlantic City • New York City, 1993

'From the legendary Pharaoh's Palace Resort
and Casino here on the world-famous Boardwalk in Atlantic City,'
boomed the slick professional announcer, 'it's the annual
forty-eight-hour Children's Relief Year-Round All-Star Telethon!
And now, introducing your host and hostess for the first six-hour
portion of the CRY telethon, won't you please help me welcome those
superstars of stage, screen, and television - heeeeeere're Shanna
Parker and Joe Belmotti!'

The live audience in the Cleopatra
Auditorium applauded wildly as the first orchestral stanzas of 'On
the Boardwalk' started up and two spotlights clicked on. Bathed in
one, Shanna Parker strode perkily out from stage left, all aglitter
in a figure-hugging gown of silver-and-blue sequins. Joe Belmotti,
tanned as a nut in his formal black tie, entered smoothly from
stage right in the second spot.

'Thank you, Jack,' Shanna purred into her
hand-held microphone. Then, porcelain smiles beaming, she and Joe
Belmotti called out, 'Hello, America!' in unison while spreading
their arms wide to encompass everybody.

'Hello, Shanna and Joe!' the audience roared
back, bursting into a fresh round of frenzied applause.

'What a nice audience!' Shanna told them
warmly. 'Let's hear it for all of you!' And tucking their
microphones under their arms, she and Joe began to clap
enthusiastically.

'And now, what do you say we hear it for the
good cause we're all here for?' Joe Belmotti added once the
applause died down.

More wild clapping followed.

'Isn't it wonderful to be here, Joe?' Shanna
asked him excitedly. 'I wouldn't have missed this for anything in
the world! You wouldn't believe the guests we've got lined up! But
first, why don't you tell all those viewers out there who are not
familiar with CRY what this wonderful organisation is all about,
and how much good it is doing each and every day?'

Joe Belmotti picked up without missing a
beat.

'And wonderful it is, the good CRY is doing,
Shanna. Did you know that every single day, millions upon millions
of children around the world are going to bed hungry or dying of
treatable diseases? That's why CRY

'Which stands for Children's Relief
Year-Round,' Shanna interjected quickly.

' - feeds and clothes millions of children,
and sends doctors and nurses out into Third World countries - and
even to pockets of poverty right here at home.'

'And, since CRY is a nonprofit agency,'
Shanna added, 'it's the pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, and
dollars which you, the good sponsors, pledge and send in which
finance all these good deeds. Without your tax-deductible
contributions, all those millions of children we're helping would
suffer. Not only that, but there are so many millions more crying
out for help right now. Now, why don't we show our friends all
across America the Pledge Room, where the first shift of two
hundred and fifty volunteers - who, I might mention, have
generously donated their time - are manning the telephones for our
pledge number, which will appear on the screen from time to
time.'

And in the Pledge Room, spurred on by the
two celebrities, the switchboard for the phone-in number suddenly
lit up like a Christmas tree.