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“I need my own bed,” she said.

Jack pulled back the covers and stood up, but she was already on him, pushing him gently toward the bed.

“Let me find my own way,” she said in low voice.

He searched for his conscience as his head hit the pillow, but Gina’s earlier remarks had him feeling foolish about waiting for Cindy while she traveled around Italy with her old boyfriend, and in his drunken, semi-dream state he was well beyond resistance. Gina started at the foot of the king-size bed and worked her way up, touching and tasting beneath his robe, demonstrating skills that he had only known as fantasies-until the caresses turned to pain.

“Oww!” Jack withdrew. “That hurt!”

“Oh, come on,” Gina smiled playfully, looking up from between his begs. “It’s a fine line, isn’t it-pleasure and pain?”

“Not that fine. I’m gonna have fucking bruises.”

“Just relax,” she said as she removed his robe. Then she swung her leg over him and sent him into a state of arousal that bordered on the uncontrollable. She was on top of him, but not touching him. She was teasing, tempting, torturing him. She kissed him on the chest, gently pulling his hair with her teeth. He winced at the pain, then felt the pleasure of her gentle kiss around his mouth. In a sudden lucid moment, it flashed through his mind that he hadn’t made love to anyone but Cindy in a long time. But this wasn’t about making love.

“Tell me,” Gina breathed heavily down his neck, her lips touching his as she spoke. “Tell me what you want.”

“I want you,” he said, caught up in her passion.

She probed and pressed with her fingers, touching him at his center of gravity. “Tell me exactly what you want,” she whispered.

“I want to be inside you,” he said.

She stared down at him, amused by his euphemism. “I want you to fuck me,” she said with fire in her eyes, then pressed her body against his and rolled, pulling him on top of her. He entered with a rush, pushing out a horrible month’s worth of anger, frustration, and rejection, taking delight in her moans and groans as her long, red nails attacked his back.

Suddenly, Jack froze. “Did you hear that?” he asked quickly, his body completely rigid.

“Hear what?” Gina said with a satisfied smile.

“That thumping noise.”

Gina answered with a flick of her tongue. “That’s the headboard pounding against the wall, you stud.”

“No. It’s downstairs.”

“Stop it,” she said sharply. “Don’t do this to me, Jack.”

“I’m not fooling around, Gina. Did you lock the front door like you said?”

“Of course.”

“And the sliding doors in back?”

“Always locked,” she replied, “when the A.C. is on.”

“That wouldn’t stop Goss-if it is Goss.” He slid out from between her thighs. “I know I heard something.” He rolled off the bed without a sound, walked cautiously toward the bedroom door, and leaned forward, listening intently. He put the robe back on and took the gun from the nightstand.

“You brought a gun into my house,” she said angrily.

“Yeah-and aren’t you glad I did?”

“No. Please, Jack. No shoot-outs. Just call the police.”

“I can’t. The phone’s off the hook.”

Gina grimaced, as if for the first time in her life she regretted her craziness.

He checked the chambers to make sure the gun was fully loaded. It was. “I’ll take a look downstairs,” he said. “You stay here.”

“Don’t worry,” she assured him.

He opened the door carefully, holding the pistol out in front of him. The hall was dark. The apartment was still. He quietly stepped out and closed the bedroom door. He heard Gina lock it behind him; there was no turning back. He peered down the stairway but saw nothing. He stepped forward and slowly descended the first four steps. From his vantage point he could see most of the downstairs, but none of the kitchen. He noticed the phone on the floor by the couch, still off the hook. He took a few more steps and waited at the bottom of the stairs. He saw nothing, heard nothing, felt only the pounding of his heart. Slowly, he crossed the living room and placed the phone back on the hook. He turned and gasped as he noticed the front door-it was wide open.

He jumped back at a sudden burst of noise from outside. Then he realized it was his car alarm, blasting from the parking lot. Instinctively, he bolted out of the apartment and raced down the steps, leaving the door open behind him. He reached his car and froze as he saw firsthand one of the more obvious reasons that even a twenty-year-old convertible needed an alarm: The black canvas top was in shreds, sliced open from windshield to rear window.

“I can’t believe this,” Jack said to himself. An instant later his head was snapped around by the sound of a shrill scream from inside Gina’s townhouse. He rushed back up the stairs and dashed inside.

“Jack!” Gina cried from upstairs-in Cindy’s bedroom.

He led with his gun as he raced up the stairs and burst into the room. Gina stood in her green satin robe, frozen beside Cindy’s brass bed. She was alone. He caught his breath and stared. The pink bedspread had been neatly turned down, revealing clean white sheets that were smeared with something bright red and wet that looked like blood. He reached down and touched it.

“Ketchup,” Gina said, nodding toward the empty bottle on the floor, which had been taken from her refrigerator.

He cautiously approached Cindy’s bed, his gut wrenching as he imagined what might have happened here tonight. He knew better than to touch anything, but he could tell there was something beneath Cindy’s pillow-something, he figured, that whoever had been here tonight had wanted him to find. He gently took the corner of the pillowcase between his fingertips. Slowly, with arms fully extended so that he could stand as far away as possible, he raised the pillow.

“Jack,” her voice trembled, “what the hell are you doing?”

He ignored her. He kept lifting, slowly, until he saw it. A flower-a chrysanthemum.

“Goss,” he said as he lowered the pillow back into place.

Suddenly, the phone rang. Jack’s eyes locked with Gina’s. Her panicked expression said there was no way she was going to pick up. “Hello,” he answered, trying to sound calm.

Four blocks away at a pay phone on the street, a man in torn blue jeans and a yellowed undershirt stood in the murky shadows of a flickering streetlight, pressing the receiver to his ear and covering the mouthpiece with a rag. “You came early to my party,” he said accusingly.

Jack took a deep breath. It was the same voice, but the tone was different. The man was breathing heavily, as if he’d been running, and his voice trembled as he spoke.

“You came early, Swyteck. And now I’m very angry.”

Jack stayed on the line but was unable to speak, paralyzed by the crazed panting of a madman so furious he was gasping for breath. “Please,” Jack said, “let’s talk.”

“I said four-thirty A.M.,” he seethed. “And I meant four-thirty A.M. This is your last chance. Be there-at four-thirty.”

Jack started to say something, but the phone went dead. His hand shook as he hung up.

“What was that?” Gina asked with fear.

He looked at her. “My final invitation,” he said.

Chapter 16

Two hours later, Miami was in its deepest phase of sleep, that eerie, silent period just after the last drunk makes it home for the evening and just before the first early bird leaves for work. There was a knocking, then a pounding at the door. Eddy Goss rose from his bed and listened, wondering if he’d really heard something. Another round of pounding told him he wasn’t dreaming. He rolled out of bed and paused, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness. He couldn’t switch on a light; they’d shut the power off when he failed to pay his last bill. He took small, precarious steps out of his bedroom and toward the door, somewhat leery of answering the knock. He reached under the couch cushion and retrieved his revolver, then pressed his face to the door and looked through the peephole. The bulb hanging outside his apartment was out, and all he could distinguish was a distorted silhouette. He recognized the dark blue police uniform, however, so he tucked the gun away. Convicted felons weren’t allowed to have guns. He opened the door and presented himself in the same cocky way he always addressed cops.