The pieces on the game board in Victor's mind shifted, taking on an aggressive new formation. “The money will be transferred into the usual account tonight,” he said calmly, hiding his excitement.
Crowe's shadow silently withdrew. Victor reached for the case and put it on his lap. The Corazon. The heart of darkness. He could literally feel the thing pulsing between his hands, as if he were Aladdin holding an imprisoned genie. An enlightened Aladdin, who understood power, desire and violence. And Kurt Novak was his genie.
He snapped it open. The Walther PPK was still in the tagged plastic bag into which it had been placed for the crime lab, still soiled with fingerprinting dust. Its value could not be expressed in dollars, since its price involved calling in a lifetime's worth of threats and favors.
Past, present and future were as one for an object. The famous face of the luckless Belinda Corazon floated in his mind's eye. The cold lump of steel on his lap was locked forever in an endless moment of life-stopping violence. It took a person like him, tormented by lucid dreams, sensitive to the dynamics of power, to read the gun's signature.
It was burdensome to be one of two people in the world who knew the true identity of Belinda Corazon's killer. He felt a warning flash of melancholy, and snapped the case closed, determined to forestall it. He had no reason to feel guilty, he reminded himself. La Corazon had been an acquaintance, not a friend. Like many other public figures, she had attended Victor's lavish and popular parties.
One year ago he and Novak had concluded an immensely profitable business deal, and in the subsequent flush of mutual goodwill, Novak had persuaded him to arrange a private introduction to Belinda. That was the extent of his guilt. The sum total of his responsibility.
Somehow, Novak had actually managed to seize the frivolous girl's interest. Maybe it was his gift of a triple strand of black South Sea pearls, maybe it was Novak's own poisonous magnetism. Women's preferences were unfathomable. In any case, his charm had eventually palled upon her, and La Corazon had thought she could dismiss her swain as easily as she had all the others. She had paid with her life for her error.
Victor took a cigarette out of his antique silver holder and made a languid gesture with his hand. The doors opened and the attendant hastened to his side. She lit his cigarette with some difficulty in the blustery wind, and stood quietly, awaiting dismissal or further orders.
His practiced eye roamed over the young woman's face and body with leisurely thoroughness. He varied them often, to stave off boredom, and this one was quite new. He studied the girl's high, full breasts, her slender, athletic figure. She
was a brunette with long, straight chestnut hair and tilted hazel eyes. Enticing. The cold had caused the girl's nipples to harden. They were dark and taut, clearly visible against her clinging shirt. The wind whipped her hair, tangling it across her lovely face. He gazed at the girl's full red lips, halfway tempted to—no.
Not tonight. It was rare for him to feel this wide-awake, humming awareness. He had not felt so vibrant and alive since Peter’s death. It was a moment to be savored in solitude.
He smiled pleasantly at the young woman, and struggled for a moment to remember her name. “Thank you, Mara. That will be all.”
She gave him a dazzling smile and withdrew. She was lovely, really. Perhaps tomorrow he would indulge. For now, he would simply float upon the grace of this euphoria, contemplating the new pieces on his game board and how best to move them.
The game was complex, and long in the making. He knew so many intimate details about city and state officials, businesspeople and politicians that he was virtually immune to the law. And his generous donations, gifts, endowments and campaign contributions did smooth things over nicely. Victor Lazar, pillar of the community, twinkling-eyed philanthropist and thrower of fabulous parties. The faint, unsavory taint to the Lazar name just made the invitations to his parties that much more sought after. People loved to feel naughty. Yet another of life's comforting constants. The fête that would take place at Stone Island on Saturday night could prove more entertaining than ever, with these unpredictable new game pieces in play.
Yes, he had badly needed a challenge, and so did the lovely, untried Raine. She was an unknown, even to herself. It was high time she leaned the mil scope of her new duties.
Seth Mackey. So that was his name. Raine mouthed it silently to herself for the hundredth time as she let herself into the house. The office had buzzed with gossip all day, and she had sucked it up like a sponge. Whenever Harriet's ramrod back was turned, the secretaries had carried on about Seth Mackey; his looks, his style, his smoldering eyes. Evidently he was a hotshot security consultant who was going to revolutionize the inventory system with radio frequency ID technology. She'd stayed an extra hour at work trying to figure out how to fit the promotional info on the new security feature into the recently updated website pages.
She unbuttoned her coat, and noticed an envelope in the mail slot. It was from the Severin Bay Coroner's Office. Her heart leaped into her throat. The first thing she had done when she arrived in Seattle was to write and request a copy of her father's autopsy. She opened it with hands that trembled.
It was just as she had been told; a ruling of accidental death by drowning. She scanned the pages, trying to stay calm and detached. Organs and tissue samples, chemical and toxicological analysis, aspirated fluids from the stomach, thorax, bladder, vitreous fluid, and more. She stared down at the sheaf of paper, feeling cold and flat and very alone. The report revealed nothing, suggested nothing. The MD who had signed it was Serena Fischer. She made a mental note of the name.
The phone rang, and she winced. None of her friends had this number. It could only be her mother. She reached for the receiver. “Hello?”
“Well. At last I catch you at home.” The hurt, petulant tone in her mother's voice made her stomach clench. “Hello, Alix.”
“I've been calling and calling, honey, and you're never home! I've left more messages than I can count, but of course you don't call back. What on earth are you doing all day, every day?” Raine dropped her purse on the floor with a quiet sigh. After a fourteen-hour day in the Lazar Import & Export salt mines, the last thing she wanted was a conversation with her mother. She shrugged off her coat and hung it, thinking of excuses and explanations. “Oh, all kinds of things. I, ah, went on a boat trip the other day. It rained, of course, but it was beautiful. I've done some shopping. Job interviews. And I've made some nice new friends.”
“Any nice new gentleman friends?”
The hot caress of Seth Mackey's breath against her throat rose up in her memory, intensely clear. She swallowed back a giggle. Seth Mackey might be many things, but she bet that “gentleman” was not one of them. Which was fine. If she got a chance with him, she didn't intend to act like a lady. “Um, no gentlemen friends,” she mumbled.
“Ah.” Her mother sounded disappointed, but unsurprised. “Well, I don't suppose you're trying very hard. God knows you never do.”
There was an expectant pause, as her mother waited for Raine's stock response, the signal to touch off a tedious and all too familiar argument. Raine was stubbornly silent, too tired to play the game.
Alix Cameron let out an impatient sigh. “I cannot fathom why you chose Seattle,” she complained. “So backwards. Always gray and damp.”
“London is gray and damp, too,” Raine pointed out “And you haven't been here in decades, Mother. Seattle is very hip.”