This time the woman’s tone was conciliatory. “Sorry, Johnny. I didn’t mean to bitch, but I haven’t heard from you in over a month and time’s running out. I’ve got enough money, that’s not it. But I need to know what you want me to do about our little problem. Please call me.”
There was a dial tone and the machine clicked off. A moment later, it activated again and the tape began to rewind, making way for new incoming calls and erasing five weeks of messages that Johnny Day would never hear.
Twenty-five Minutes before 10:57 AM
Rachael stood in the exact center of Darby’s sitting room, the best place in the fifth-floor condo to practice her Tai Chi. All the other rooms had the look of an exclusive men’s club with ceiling to floor bookcases, standing floor lamps, and leather furniture. This sitting room had been Darby’s domain and she’d decorated it with pink and white poof pillow couches and chairs, lightweight and easy to shove back against the wall. When Rachael had moved in, Clayton had offered Darby’s sitting room as hers to use as she wished. He seldom ventured inside and Rachael presumed the room brought back painful memories of his late wife’s illness.
Dressed in one of her seven compulsory training uniforms, Rachael faced her reflection in the mirror over the fireplace. Today’s pajama-like outfit was green, a color that would teach her serenity. She also had red for courage, yellow for vitality, blue for patience, white for purity, brown for modesty, and black for power and determination. Rachael’s dark curly hair was tucked up in a green turban to match, and she looked a bit like an oriental scrub nurse, except for her feet, which were bare and getting colder by the minute. She’d turned down the thermostat because her teacher claimed it was healthier to practice forms in a cold room.
The expensive practice tape was playing something that sounded like the soundtrack from The Last Emperor. The music, guaranteed to focus concentration and clear the mind of distracting influences, wasn’t having its desired effect on Rachael this morning. All she could think of was the Johnson case. She’d spent two arduous months in preparation, but she knew Judge Ulrich would have to be deaf, blind, and dumb to rule in favor of a slum landlord like her client.
Rachael exhaled and assumed the ready position. She’d practiced four forms already and now she was working on the fifth, something called Stork Cools Its Wings II. As the music decreased in volume and her teacher’s voice announced the form, Rachael did her best to follow the complicated instructions. The right foot steps to the side and takes the weight of the body, left toe touching for balance in front. Now the right elbow lifts to guard the throat while the left palm turns in to guard the hip, fingers pointing to the right.
Rachael frowned and shifted from foot to foot. Did the left take the weight, or was it the right? Neither one seemed to work very well. This had all looked so easy when her teacher had demonstrated it in class last week. She was concentrating so hard on maintaining her balance that she didn’t see Clayton as he came in.
“That’s quite a sight, Rachael. You look like a drunken windmill.”
Rachael turned to look at him, an action that turned out to be her undoing. Her feet got tangled and she would have fallen if Clayton hadn’t wrapped his arms around her waist.
“Not fair, Clay,” she protested. “I almost had it before you scared me.”
“Sorry, Rachael.” Clayton looked concerned. “I thought it was advisable to lend a hand before you fell flat on your face.”
Rachael smiled up at him. After six months as his mistress, the sight of him still made her a little breathless, although Clayton wasn’t really a handsome man. Of moderate height and weight, he had hazel eyes set just a little too close together and he tended to squint when he wasn’t wearing his glasses. His light brown hair was streaked with silver at the temples and rather than lend him a distinguished air, it only served to emphasize the lines in his face. Clayton was far from the Adonis that Rachael had pictured in her dreams, but there was something about him, something she couldn’t identify, that made her knees turn weak every time she thought of making love with him.
Rachael pressed her body back against his and wiggled a little, knowing precisely what effect it would have. “You shouldn’t make fun of me, Clay. My teacher says that Tai Chi will help me get in touch with my body.”
“I wasn’t aware you had a problem in that area.” Clayton’s voice took on the slightly husky tone that Rachael had come to recognize. She loosened the belt on her uniform and guided his hand to her breast. When she’d first come to work in his law firm, he’d been all business. It had taken a full three months before he’d noticed that his new junior lawyer was also an attractive woman.
Clayton gulped as her fingers found the zipper of his pants. “Are you through with your karate for today?”
“It’s Tai Chi, not karate, and I’ve done all I’m going to do for now. Just let me slip out of this and we can test what I learned about agility and balance.”
Clayton’s breath caught in his throat as Rachael shrugged out of her pajama-like outfit. Barely over five feet tall, her body was compact and utterly feminine. Her skin was darker than his even though she never used the tanning booth up at the spa, a phenomenon she’d attributed to her mixed-blood ancestry. Her father had been a mulatto laborer, and her mother an underaged daughter of a Spanish diplomat. Rachael had been given up for adoption the night of her birth, and the identity of Rachael’s birth parents had been kept in strict confidence by the adoption agency. It was one of the reasons Rachael had decided to become a lawyer. Her first court appearance had been on her own behalf and the judge had granted her access to the adoption records.
“Come on, Rachael.” Clayton reached out to grab her hands. “Let’s go back to bed.”
“What’s wrong with right here? The rug’s nice and soft.”
“But, Rachael . . . I don’t think I could be entirely comfortable here.”
Rachael saw the lines of distress deepen in his face. It was definitely time to exorcise some ghosts.
“Don’t be silly, Clay. I promise to do something that’ll take your mind off everything except me.”
She put her lips to his ear and whispered exactly what she planned to do. Clayton’s face turned red and he grinned self-consciously. “That sounds wonderful, but shouldn’t we close the drapes first?”
“On the fifth floor?” Rachael laughed. “Come on, Clay, loosen up.”
Clayton hesitated. Then Rachael’s fingers reached their goal and his reticence vanished completely.
Twenty Minutes before 10:57 AM
Jack St. James took the breakfast tray from the nurse and set it back down on the counter. “Never mind, Miss Woodard. I’ll take her tray in this morning.”
He didn’t miss the nurse’s frown as he filled a silver carafe with coffee and set it on the tray. The doctor had limited Betty’s caffeine intake, but she loved coffee and it certainly couldn’t do her much harm at this stage. She had so few pleasures left that it seemed cruel to deprive her of her morning coffee.
“Is that decaffeinated, Mr. St. James?”
“No.” Jack straightened up to his full five and a half feet and neatly faced down Betty’s nurse. This was quite a feat since Margaret Woodard was almost six feet tall and outweighed him by at least fifty pounds. A small man, slightly though powerfully built, Jack had learned the trick of intimidation early in life. All it took was an authoritative tone and an unwavering gaze.
“Since you’re taking the tray, I’ll come in to bathe her later.”