Dangerous Alliance Read online

But this dance is about anticipation. He’s not going too deep, just letting me feel the contours of him, the strength and warmth of his erection, touching the nerve endings near the surface as I shudder. I want him, I ache to be filled by him. I want every part of him.

  I want his heart.

  With three little words you could have me completely. You could connect me to the world.

  He continues to tease, giving me a taste, driving me wild and holding off complete satisfaction.

  “Lander,” I whisper as the music changes again.

  I don’t know if he heard me; perhaps he just saw my lips move, perhaps he thought I was echoing the words of the song. The words themselves slowly break through the haze of ecstasy that I’m enveloped in as a man sings:

  The rage of love turns inward

  To prayers of devotion

  Yes, I think, rage and love. I understand now, I understand how close they are. I understand that my rage can be used for something other than anger.

  Lander releases me, and as I reach for him, almost weak with yearning, he answers by covering my body with his and the song changes to another. The lyrics now give new wisdom . . .

  And it feels like I’ve come home

  He enters me again, filling me completely now, and the consummation is so intense I let out a small cry, gripping the sheets beneath me. And as he pushes farther and farther inside me the cry builds, adding a new element to the music, making it ours. I can’t hold back. I see how close he is, see it in the way he’s looking at me.

  “Lander,” I whisper again, and this time I know he hears me because he leans in by my ear and whispers, “My queen.”

  From his lips the words have a musicality all their own. It hints at all the things I want. Passion, understanding, and yes . . . love.

  All control is gone. He rocks us with his rhythm, pushing us forward. My head and shoulders, no longer supported by the mattress, dangle over the edge.

  And we’re dancing.

  “Sweet warrior,” he whispers, and the orgasm rolls through me as it rolls through him. The blood rushes to my head, sending tingles throughout my upper body, making this climax an otherworldly experience.

  He pulls me up and we lie there in the tangled sheets, our breathing uneven and our pulses pounding. He turns onto his side, propping himself up on one arm so he can look down at me. And for several seconds that’s all he does. I know he’s thinking, contemplating, and . . . and there’s something else. Something in his eyes that I dare not name but I hope I understand.

  I just want it to be real.

  chapter twenty

  * * *

  The next morning starts early. I go straight to Travis and Jessica’s, long before either of them are expecting me and over an hour before Travis will have to leave for HGVB. But that’s the point. I don’t want anyone to have time to prepare for me. I don’t want them to be composed. And most importantly, I want to see Travis and Jessica together. I want to get a sense of the dynamic between the two of them now, after Cathy.

  But above all, I want to see if I’m in trouble. If Jessica talks to Travis about what she knows—or at least what she suspects—yesterday’s progress will be buried under the avalanche of that reveal.

  My cab is almost at the building when I see Travis walk out. He immediately gets into his waiting limo.

  My hopes of seeing Travis and Jessica together have gone out the window. Damn it! Why is he leaving for work so early anyway?

  But when he pulls away, his limo turns left instead of right. It’s driving away from his office.

  He could be going on a minor errand. Really, it could be nothing.

  But what if it’s not?

  I lean forward to speak to the cabbie through the glass. “I know how this is going to sound, but I need you to follow that limo.”

  He looks back at me with an are-you-serious? look, but then when he sees that I am he breaks into a big toothy grin and goes right into espionage mode, mimicking the limo’s every turn while following at a discreet distance.

  I’m probably going to end up following Travis to the dentist or something. He’s leaving early enough that he’s not really risking being late for work as long as whatever he needs to do lasts for less than an hour. But I have this feeling.

  Travis’s limo takes him into the heart of the Village. Not his normal hangout place. The limo drops him off at Bleecker and Sixth. I get out half a block behind him and stay on the opposite side of the street as I follow him. He walks for some time, one city block, then two, then three . . . What on earth is he doing? Travis doesn’t take walks. And what’s the point of a limo if you have it drop you off half a mile from your destination? You can take the bus for that.

  But yes, finally, he does slow his step, in front of a small apartment building. It looks nice, but it’s not a doorman building, which should make it beneath anything Travis would be willing to step foot into. But to my surprise he walks right in. In fact—and I can’t be sure about this because I’m watching from a distance—but I think he has a key to this place.

  Does Travis already have a kept mistress? I know he has no interest in being faithful to Jessica and I know there have been women. I just can’t believe that there were any women he cared enough about to spend that kind of money on . . . with Cathy being the exception, and as she’s made it abundantly clear, she’s not interested in that arrangement.

  I wait outside, across the street, kitty-corner to the apartment building. He’s in there for a good twenty minutes. When he finally comes out his shoulders are slumped and his phone is pressed to his ear. I watch as he starts to walk back in the direction he came from. I consider following him but then I see his limo pull up beside him as he puts away his phone. Perhaps that’s who he was calling.

  It’s only after the limo’s gone that I approach the building. I look at the names on the resident list, and they’re all labeled except for one. Just one empty space next to a buzzer. Gingerly I press the button, unsure of what to expect. But no one responds to my summons. It’s probably just an empty apartment. Again I study the names. Which one was Travis visiting? There’s not much to go on, a first initial and a last name at most. I’m about to randomly start pressing buttons when a new idea occurs to me. It’s silly, probably. I certainly can’t expect to be this lucky. Still . . .

  Opening my purse, I fish out the keys I found at Travis’s. They’re gold, nondescript, could be the keys to anything.

  I slip one into the lock and . . . nope. Doesn’t fit. Figures. I take the second key and try my luck with that.

  And it works.

  The key works.

  Holding my breath, I push the door open and step into the lobby. It’s actually rather nice. Nowhere near as nice as the ones in either Travis’s or Lander’s building, but that’s a high bar. I go to the wall of mailboxes. All identical, revealing nothing but the numbers that identify them.

  Still, it’s the apartment without a name that interests me most. I walk up to the fifth floor, which is the top level of this building. There are only four apartments on this floor. Three of them have welcome mats. I go to the one that doesn’t and knock. No answer. I try again, and when nothing happens I take out the other key. I open the door and then step inside.

  What I see is positively shocking.

  It’s an adorable little apartment. Travis Gable has the key to something that is adorable. How the hell is that possible? There’s lots of light, and the furnishings have a nod to deconstructionism with the purposely unevenly painted coffee table. There are throw pillows on the green sofa and a collection of white candles on the fireplace mantel. Framed photos hang on the wall and are strategically placed on various surfaces around the room.

  Every photo is of Cathy and Travis.

  And no one lives here. I know that with every fiber of my being. Not a thing is out of place, but dust covers everything. There are cobwebs by the window. There are no ashes in the fireplace. I walk into the kitchen, then the bathroom, then
the bedroom, and find more of the same. The bookcase is filled with books on the Tudors and a few modern political books that Travis would be interested in. The bed is made, and the pillows are so well plumped I have to assume that no one has ever rested their head on them. I flip the light switch on and off and realize that the electricity isn’t connected. In the kitchen I open the refrigerator and find it empty except for one very expensive, warm bottle of champagne.

  This was supposed to be the place where he would keep Cathy.

  Once, Micah had told me that if Nick Foley had been a decent man he would have set my mother up in a nice place after making her his mistress. As far as Micah was concerned, that was a sign of respect. Had Micah advised Travis on this? Or is that just the way men like Travis and Micah think?

  And did Travis really think that Cathy would be satisfied with this? I look around the apartment again. It probably cost Travis more than a million dollars just to buy the place. Furnishing it could have cost him a hundred thousand more. Still, where Cathy lives now is worth eight times as much. Which raises the question, did she really turn Travis down out of morality or did she just get a better offer?

  Probably a little of both, I decide as I close the refrigerator. Still, he had to have gotten this place at least ten years ago. And he hasn’t sold it.

  He’s obsessed with her.

  Or maybe, maybe it really is love.

  The thought hits me like a punch to the gut. I lower myself onto a kitchen chair and stare out the cobwebbed windows. I’m not sure what’s more terrifying, that Travis might really know what love is or that I don’t. And what about Lander? Would he miss me if I disappeared from his life? Would he cherish a memory, holding on to it despite all expense the way Travis has held on to this place?

  There are few things that I find heartening in this world. Being in Lander’s arms, a decent glass of wine, a good book—these are the things that comfort me. But when the book is finished, the glass drained, and the arms removed, the comfort is gone. So what’s left? A clear worldview, that’s what. I believe in a world that is filled with good guys and bad guys and people like me who may be closer to the latter group but motivated by the former. Travis, Jessica, Edmund, they’re the bad guys. My mother had been a good guy; at least that’s how I saw her. I know that other people could claim otherwise, and they would have plenty of facts to back them up. My mother had an affair with at least one married man that I know of. If I was Mrs. Nick Foley I might see Julieta Jiménez as a villain.

  But I’m not Mrs. Foley. To me Julieta Jiménez was the woman who raised me in poverty but made sure that when healthy food and warm clothing were scarce, hope was available in abundance. My mother and I gobbled up hope like it was ice cream and drank it like it was ice-cold water in the desert. And we only supplemented our highly specialized diet with love, love that we shared for one another.

  And when the bad guys took her away from me they also took away the idea of her. I loved my mother not just because she loved me, not just because she was my mom. I loved her because she was good. The landlord who was always threatening us with eviction when our rent was late, he wasn’t good. The drug dealers and gang members in our building weren’t good. My teachers at the local public school were always so overwhelmed or dejected that I couldn’t really tell if they were good or bad. But my mom was good. And if she could be good then there had to be good in the world.

  When I discovered her affair my faith in her goodness was shaken, but not lost. But when she was convicted of murder? I lost her, I lost the idea of her . . .

  . . . I lost hope.

  Only truly evil people would ever steal someone else’s hope. So when I say that Travis, Edmund, Jessica, and Sean White are bad guys, that’s not just my assumption, it’s part of my religious belief. Those people are to me what the devil and demons are to pious Christians. Travis is my devil, and no one wants to discover that the devil has a soft side. The devil is not supposed to be a nuanced character.

  I sigh and pull myself to my feet. Jessica will be expecting me in an hour. I need to search this place and see if there’s anything useful here. Maybe there’s a way to turn my knowledge of the apartment’s very existence to my advantage, although I’m not sure how. Surely Cathy already knows about it, although she may not know he still has it. I start snooping around, but other than a few dead spiders and several live ones, there just isn’t much here. Again I start pulling out the books to see if there’s anything hiding inside the pages. As I go through them, one thing that jumps out is that not all of these books are as dusty as the others. Some of them are newer. Travis has been collecting books on Cathy’s favorite subject over the years. Here’s Alison Weir’s latest on Queen Elizabeth, and he’s stocked both of Hilary Mantel’s bestselling novels featuring Thomas Cromwell. Was Travis hoping that Cathy would come back here? Was he reading them himself so he would be well versed if he should ever have the opportunity to speak to her again?

  But then what does it matter? I pull each book out, flip through the pages, and then carefully replace it. Eventually I get to the bottom shelf, which is where Travis has lined up several coffee table books. Some of them are on the Tudors, others are on art. I assume this too is a nod to Cathy’s interests. I pull out one by Susan Doran and start flipping through the pages when my attention is drawn to the wall behind that book. There’s something there. Something in the wall. Something metal.

  I start pulling out several more books and I see it.

  There’s the wall safe.

  I can feel my heart pounding against my chest as I press my fingers against it. This is what Lander wanted me to look for. His instincts told him that there would be something valuable in here. Something that could do an enormous amount of damage.

  And it’s a combination safe. I know how to break into combination safes.

  Immediately I try the try-out combination. That’s the combination that actually comes with the safe. The try-out combo is an industry standard, the same numbers for everyone. Obviously you’re supposed to change the combination after you get the safe, yet most people don’t.

  But Travis did.

  The other thing that most people who have a safe do is write down the combination and place it somewhere, usually somewhere near the safe. But considering who I’m dealing with, that too seems unlikely. Which means that opening this safe is going to be a very time-consuming job.

  But then, I’ve been waiting for more than ten years to get my revenge. Time is relative.

  Lying on the floor, getting my ear as close to the lock as possible, I start turning the dial very slowly. I’m listening for the clicks. There will be two. They won’t tell me the combination, but they will tell me where the contact points in the lock are. Again, it’s a slow, technical process.

  It takes about ten minutes, but I finally hear the clicks.

  Okay, step one done.

  My cell phone rings. I consider not getting it, but if I’m going to do this, at the very least I need to turn the sound off. I climb to my feet and fish the phone out of my bag. It’s Lander’s name on the screen.

  “Hey,” I say as I pick up. “You will not believe—”

  “Adoncia,” he says, cutting me off, “my man cracked the encryption.”

  My heart, which was beating so rapidly a few minutes ago, slams to a stop. “And?” I whisper.

  “We got them.”

  Three more beautiful words have never been spoken.

  chapter twenty-one

  * * *

  I race back to Lander’s place. Jessica can wait. When I get there the front door is unlocked and I find him in his home office, sitting in front of his computer, staring unblinkingly at the screen, frantically making notes as he scrolls through file after file.

  “Tell me,” I insist.

  “It’s all here,” Lander says, his voice edged with excitement. “Reports, emails. Here’s an email sent to my father by Sean White, referring to how HGVB has been scrubbing wire transfers from Ir
an of any mention of the country of origin so federal regulators couldn’t catch them or investigate them. Here, right here”—Lander urgently taps his finger against the screen—“in an email Sean White informs my father that, ‘The knowledge that Iranian money is passing through our American branches has been contained to only a handful of top pre-approved executives.’ ”

  “He . . . oh my God, Lander.” I stare down at the monitor but I’m just looking at a bunch of little black letters strung together; it’s as if I’ve forgotten how to read. “He wrote that,” I finally manage, “to your father?”

  “And it gets better. Here’s a memo written by my father stating, ‘Our clients in Iran are willing to increase their investments if we can find creative ways to overcome existing challenges and impediments.’ Those challenges are our laws, Adoncia. The impediments are America’s foreign policy!”

  “Who was the memo sent to?” I ask urgently.

  “You mean was Travis one of the people this was emailed to?”

  I stare at him, nodding, unable to speak, hoping against hope.

  “It’s there,” Lander says, reaching out and giving my hand a quick squeeze without taking his eyes from the screen. “Travis’s name is on the email list.”

  “Oh my God,” I whisper. It occurs to me that this time I’m not just using those words as an exclamation, I’m actually praying. For years I’ve been praying.

  And now, for the first time, I’m beginning to believe that someone has been listening. And this room, this little office tucked in the corner of a penthouse, this now feels more like a church. I should lower myself, crash my knees against the hard surface of this pretty wood floor, and bask in the glory of this bloody victory that is now, for the first time, truly within my reach.

  “There’s more,” Lander says, his fingers back on his keyboard as he pulls up another file. “In Mexico we have an account for Primo Calles. Do you know who that is?”

  “I . . . I’m not sure . . .”