was right. They’d planned the takeover for midnight, and it was too damn close to risk everything for the sake of a spoiled young lawyer.
He gave up fighting. “You’re right,” he said. “So much for being a gentleman. I’ll dump her back in her room. Maybe we’ll get done with Harry before she even wakes up.”
“Yeah, you can believe that,” Renaud said, dropping his cigarette on the teakwood deck and stubbing it out. “But we both know what’s going to happen in the end. You’re going to have to kill her.”
He didn’t bother to argue. Renaud was only stating the unpalatable truth. Genevieve Spenser was in the wrong place at the wrong time and she hadn’t left when she could. She was going to have to live with the consequences.
And die by them.
It was a pleasant enough dream. She was being rocked, peacefully, like a babe in her mother’s arms, except that her mother had never been much for rocking. She was surrounded by comfort, and yet she felt oddly free, peaceful, pampered.
Something was making a low, rumbling vibration, adding to her delicious sense of comfort. She wasn’t about to wake up—it was too lovely lying there enjoying the physical sensations. There was a faint, nagging worry at the very back of her mind, but she decided to ignore it, sinking deeper into a blissful sleep.
She should have known it was coming. It always happened when she least expected it, and it took over before she could stop it. It was three years ago and she was back in that dingy little cubicle at Legal Aid in the tiny town of Auburn, New York, with her cluttered desk filled with too many hopeless cases, the industrial green on the walls stained with damp, the cold, rancid coffee and the telephone that rang and rang and then stopped like a death knell.
She should have known not to work late, alone, in that building. Too many very bad people knew where it was, and she’d made a lot of enemies in her short life. She was Joan of Arc, a heroine riding to the rescue of battered women, putting their abusive, murderous husbands in jail, helping to give the women a new chance at a decent life. She’d done such a good job of it that she was being handed all the cases involving domestic abuse, and in a poor area like Clinton County, New York, the workload was overwhelming.
But she kept at it, overworked, underpaid, foolishly thinking she was making a difference, and she never heard the footsteps down the deserted hallway. Never knew what was happening until she looked up and saw Marge Whitman’s husband looming in the doorway.
He was an ugly man with an ugly temper, and a day after he got out of jail for breaking his wife’s arm, cheekbone and shoulder, he’d been served with a restraining order. And he wasn’t happy about it.
Genevieve had a button beneath her desk to call for help if she needed it. She pressed it with her knee as she reached for the phone.
“You don’t have an appointment, Mr. Whitman, and I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” she said. She was calm, always certain she could fix anything. “If you want to come in tomorrow and discuss your case—”
“The telephone don’t work,” he said, lumbering closer. He was a huge man, burly and heavily muscled, and he smelled like beer and sweat. And rage. “And I ain’t got a case. You’ve been interfering between me and mine, and it’s time somebody taught you a lesson.”
He was right, the telephone was dead. That was when she felt her first inkling of fear, but there was still the button beneath her desk. She held it, thinking fast.
“We can talk about it during office hours, Mr. Whitman,” she said, not a trace of nervousness showing through her calm demeanor. “In the meantime I’ll have to ask you to leave.”
He laughed. He didn’t bother to close the glass door of the cubicle behind him—he knew there was no one there to help. “I think we’ll talk about it right now. And I don’t think talking is gonna cut it.”
She tried to run, but he slammed her against the cubicle, and the heavy glass shattered beneath her body. There were times when she could almost forget it, and times when it came thundering back. The feel of his fists against her face, her body, so that when she fell she landed on the broken glass, as he kicked her, over and over again, and the broken shards dug into her skin. It seemed to go on forever; just when she thought he’d finished and was leaving her, another blow came, another kick, and she moaned, her mouth full of blood.
He leaned over her, yanking her up so that her face was just inches from his. “Hell,” he said, “you ain’t even worth killing.” And he dropped her back on the floor.
She must have lost consciousness. When she woke up she was alone in the pitch-black building, lying in a pool of blood.
She’d had to crawl over the glass. She’d made it as far as the stairs and then collapsed, lying in a broken heap, unable to move, unable to speak. She could only cry.
She’d spent a week in the hospital. By the time she could talk, Whitman had disappeared, along with his wife and two children. People said Marge had gone willingly, and Genevieve had believed them. After all, hadn’t she received a bouquet of flowers with an almost illegible, unsigned note? “I’m so sorry.” It could hardly have come from Whitman.
The police looked for him, but it was a halfhearted attempt. She wasn’t dead, she wasn’t even permanently injured. Her body healed with the help of medicine and physical therapy, her mind healed with the help of the best therapists, and she’d learned to be comfortable around men once more. She’d learned to defend herself and she’d left for the safer pastures of New York City, where she could live a peaceful life.
Until she woke up screaming. Remembering.
As she did right now.
4
Harry wasn’t in the best of moods. He’d been ready to make his move on the luscious Ms. Spenser when Jensen had stuck his unwanted limey nose into the room and taken her away, and now he was feeling restless, bad-tempered and ready to take it out on someone. Preferably Ms. Spenser.
It would be no problem—the rooms were soundproofed, and even if she made a lot of noise no one would interfere. They’d either assume she was an enthusiastically noisy fuck, or that something was going on they didn’t want to know about. Either way, no one would interfere.
He had better equipment in his massive stateroom, though, and he didn’t like having to compromise. He firmly believed in indulging his whims whenever he could, and being refused even the tiniest little treat made him very cross indeed.
He was going to have to explain a few things to Peter Jensen. He’d been an excellent servant for the four short months he’d been working for him, but then, he’d come with impeccable references. The kind of people he’d worked for in the past required someone with the utmost discretion, the ability to look the other way and the willingness to do whatever was asked of him, with no arguments or questions.
Jensen had proved remarkably efficient, and it hadn’t been his fault that the young Thai girl last year had run away before he’d finished with her. He could blame that on one of the men who’d caught her in the first place, and he’d taken care of him in a fitting manner.
No, this was only a minor transgression, and once he gave Jensen a sharp reprimand he could go below and enjoy the undeniably luscious Ms. Spenser. Hell, he might even turn to fat women if he liked her curves well enough. There were some interesting variations on force feeding…
He heard a noise, and he looked up. The engines were running again, making an odd noise, and Harry had a sudden, unpleasant premonition. His horoscope said today had a potential for disaster, but whenever he didn’t like his forecast he skipped to his rising sign for something more pleasant.
He rose, wandering over to the window to look out at the shoreline, when he realized the goddamn ship was moving. He let out a scream of rage, slammed open the door and headed out on deck, only to run smack into Peter Jensen.
“You