“Like you?” she hissed. “You’re wanted by the FBI and you have, or, I guess, had an ex-wife who was trying to kill you.”
“Neither of those things were caused by me.”
“That’s true, isn’t it? You’re just an angel. An angel who interferes in my life until I have no life.”
“I’m trying to protect you.”
“Protect me from what? From whom? What I want to know is who’s going to protect me from you!” With that Emily turned and started to walk away from him.
He caught up with her. “Where are you going?”
“To the dance floor.”
“No you’re not,” he said as he caught her arm in a firm hold. “I can’t let you go out there in this state. There’s no telling what you’ll do out of sheer defiance.”
“ ‘In this state?’ ” she quoted. “Are you calling me hysterical?”
“I’m saying you’re different tonight. I don’t know if it’s the dress or the rubies but I think you want to do something bad. Or maybe not bad, just…”
“Naughty?” she asked, one eyebrow arched.
“Yes, that’s the word.”
“I do want to do something…something outrageous. This is my one and only night to be Cinderella and I want to dance at the ball. Is that so difficult to understand?”
“Of course not. All right then, let’s go. I believe I can—”
“Don’t do me any favors. I can find my own dance partners.” But when Emily tried to move, he blocked her way onto the dance floor. “Would you please move?”
“No, I will not. I don’t know what’s come over you tonight but I think you should change your thoughts. Maybe this party is overwhelming you.” Abruptly, he stopped and stared at her. “Emily, you look like you’re about to cry. Should we go home?”
Truthfully, Emily’s tears were of rage. This could be her one and only chance to dress like this, to attend a party like this and he was not going to take it from her. She glared up at him. “You don’t mind if I go to the rest room, do you? Or is that too exciting for boring little me?”
“No, of course not,” Michael said and he had that universal look that men have when they have no idea what they’ve said or done that’s wrong. “I’ll wait here for you,” he said, giving her a weak smile.
Once in the rest room, Emily tried to calm herself. Did everything have to be a disappointment? She’d loved Donald, only to find out that he wanted her for something other than what she thought. She had come very close to falling in love with Michael, but she knew he wasn’t hers and never would be. And now she kept thinking, after he left, what was she going to do?
“You don’t look like you’re having a very good time,” said an older woman sitting beside Emily at the long marble-topped dressing table. She looked as though she’d been to a thousand parties like this and now found sitting in the ladies’ room more interesting.
All Emily could do was nod as she reapplied lipstick. She was afraid that if she said anything, she might burst into tears. Her night of adventure was being taken from her. What was she going to tell Gidrah? That she left the party an hour after they arrived?
“Is that big hunk scowling outside yours?” the woman asked.
“Want him?” Emily snapped back, making the woman smile.
“That bad, huh?”
More than anything in the world, right now Emily wanted another woman to talk to. “He’s jealous,” she said, instantly falling into that camaraderie women often share when they will tell a stranger their most intimate secrets. “He put me at a table in the back and won’t let me dance with anyone or even to talk to anyone else. Except to some ancient old man who wants to tell me of all his good deeds.”
“You ought to get away from him. I had a boyfriend like that once and he wanted to lock me in an ivory tower.”
“What did you do?”
“Got away from him long enough to interest another man. With your face and figure you could get any man you want.” She took a pair of glasses from her handbag then leaned forward to look at the rubies around Emily’s neck. “And, honey, with those things you should be able to get the attention of any man in the room.”
“Really?” Emily asked, feeling a bit better. “Who’s the contractor who builds for Wentworth and Mortman?” Emily knew she’d hit pay dirt when the woman drew in her breath sharply.
“You do like to start at the top, don’t you? He’s David Graham.”
As Emily touched up her lipstick again, she tried to sound nonchalant. “Tell me, are any of those three married?”
The woman looked at Emily with new interest, seeming to appraise her. “Look, honey, let me give you some advice. If you’re going after any of the Lethal Three you ought to know something about them.”
Leaning forward eagerly, Emily said, “I have all the time in the world and I’d love to hear everything.”
Smiling in a way that let Emily know that the delight of the woman’s life was gossip, she opened her mouth to speak, then had to wait while another woman came in, used the rest room, washed her hands, checked her makeup, then left.
“All right, there are three of them and each is unique, or at least different from each other. One is a wolf, one is a nice guy and the third is shy, never married. Keeps to himself. But all three are sharks when it comes to making money.”
The woman took a deep breath, glad for the eager audience Emily gave her. “The shy one doesn’t say much but when he talks people listen. He loves money, has every penny he ever made. He’ll love those stones you’re wearing. No one knows much about him—could be gay for all any woman knows about him.
“The nice man is a real barracuda. Smiles as he’s foreclosing on widows and orphans. After a meeting with him you leave smiling and it’s hours later that you realize he’s taken everything you own. He’s had three wives and is looking for number four. But I warn you that there are hundreds of applicants to be number four even though the first three wives got not a dime out of him.
“The wolf has never married either. Instead he leads women on, makes them think he’s about to propose then one day he doesn’t call. No reason and no guilt. He’s a cold bastard. I’ve heard that two women have committed suicide after being dumped by him.”
The woman lowered her voice as she heard laughter just outside the door. “The three men are always together. The women they date—if they do—change and if a woman so much as breathes a word of complaint because she has to share her breakfast table with the other two, she’s likely to find a dear Jane letter the next day—if she even hears from the bastard ever again, that is.”
Abruptly, the woman stopped, checked her makeup and looked as though she were about to leave.
“But which man is which?” Emily asked.
Standing, the woman smoothed her skirt which was a gorgeous opalescent white satin. “I can’t give away all my secrets and that one’s for you to find out.”
“Are you trying to win one of these men?” Emily asked, thinking that a woman her age wouldn’t have a chance.
But the woman didn’t seem to think that Emily’s question was an impossibility. “No. I got a new husband last year. He’s eighty-two so I think I’ll wait this one out. Where’d you get those blood drops? Inherited?”
“Uh, yes,” Emily lied. But then she did receive them indirectly from a person long deceased.
“Well then, go for Wentworth. He likes people to think his father plays polo.”
“He doesn’t?”
“It’s a secret but his father buys and sells slums. Those stones will impress him.”
Light was coming back into Emily’s eyes. A few weeks ago she’d thought of herself as nothing but a boring little librarian but now that there was a chance for a bit of an adventure, she wanted it. Maybe Michael was right and this dress and the rubies had transformed her. “But what about…?” she said, nodding toward the door.
The woman opened her purse, took out a vial of pills then shook out three. “
When my old man gets feisty I give him one of these and he’s snoring in seconds. The next morning I tell him he was fabulous, the greatest lover I ever had. Give that hunk of yours three of these and you’ll be free to do whatever you want. But you better get him someplace where he can sleep first, ’cause when he goes, he’ll go fast.”
As Emily looked at the pills in the palm of her hand, she saw freedom. This would be her one and only chance to play at being a spy or whatever she wanted. If she could meet the men and figure out which one was…. Well, she didn’t want to think what he was trying to do, but she did want to know why. What did a small-town librarian know that could make a rich, powerful man come after her? And it wouldn’t be as though she were in any danger because who would recognize her? She looked as different from her ordinary self as a visitor from another planet. Tonight not even her own mother would recognize her. So wouldn’t it be nice, just for one night, to be someone glamorous and take on a potentially dangerous job? Just for one night?
“Thank you,” she whispered to the woman, her mind full of the possibilities before her.
“If it works out I want a front row seat at your wedding.”
“Oh, it’s not like that at all,” Emily said, grinning. “If it works out you won’t be invited to my funeral.” With that cryptic remark, she left the rest room and ran smack into Michael.
“Are you all right?” he asked, hovering over her.
“Never better. Shall we go? Oh, wait, could we possibly take a glass of champagne with us? I’d like to have at least one glass.” She hoped she looked suitably depressed and that her lower lip was pouting in a pretty way.
Michael narrowed his eyes at her. “You have something in your mind. What is it?”
“Nothing special. There, thank you,” she said as she took two tall flutes of champagne from the tray of a passing waiter and handed one to Michael. “Shall we go?” She looped her arm in his and gently pulled him toward the door and the waiting cars.
Fifteen minutes later Michael had drunk his champagne, at Emily’s insistence, and was passed out on the back seat of the limo. She tapped the glass behind the driver, and with the world’s biggest smile, told him to return to the party.
Chapter 22
THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT HAVING ON THE RIGHT dress, the right jewels and being in the right place to show them off that does something to a woman’s ego. As Emily walked through the crowd of people she didn’t feel like an imposter; she didn’t feel like a small-town girl mistakenly mixed in with the society crowd. She felt that she belonged. Irene had always complained that Emily kept her great figure hidden under too many clothes, but now nothing was left to the imagination. Every curve and most of her lush bosom were exposed; she could see and feel the looks of appreciation from the men. The women looked at her in calculation. They looked her up and down, and stared hard at her jewelry. Emily realized that every one of these people knew that the rubies were real.
It didn’t take a Sherlock Holmes to figure out who were the three men she’d been told about. They sat together, smoking, drinking, watching the crowd, part of it but separate.
For a moment Emily stood back and looked at them. It was better not to think that one of them had tried to kill her. It was better to think of the present, that she was at a dance and all she wanted to do was find out as much as she could.
She took a deep breath, then was pleased to see a man smile at her since even more of her bosom had edged its way over the top of her dress. She smiled back at him and when he raised his glass in salute to her, she almost laughed aloud.
Feeling full of the power of her newly found abilities, she made her way toward the table of the three men, and as she walked she unclasped her necklace.
“Excuse me,” she said as enticingly as she could to the man whose back was to her, then when he moved his chair to allow her to pass (although there was plenty of room) she seemed to trip on nothing and fell forward, catching herself just before she fell into the man’s lap. Her necklace unclasped and fell straight down into Emily’s bosom.
“Oh my,” she said, clutching both the rubies and a great deal of flesh. “I am ever so clumsy.”
“I don’t mind,” the man she’d almost collided with said, rising to help her up. “Would you like me to see to that?”
“Would you? That would be so kind.” While the man refastened her necklace, Emily wondered how she should handle the situation. Unless she said something interesting she knew they would not invite her to sit down with them. But what? How does a woman interest such powerful, mega-rich men as these?
“Thank you,” she said, smiling at the man, then when he sat back down, she drew in her breath for courage. “So which one are you? The shy one, the wolf or the one who is nice on the outside but terrible inside?”
For a moment Emily thought she’d overstepped the boundaries but then the tall blond man laughed. “I’m the nice one,” he said, then motioned to an empty chair. “Won’t you join us?”
“Not unless you promise not to foreclose on my house,” she said, batting her lashes at him.
“It’s a promise. Now, may I introduce my friends? This is Charles Wentworth and Statler Mortman. And I am—”
“David Graham,” Emily said, smiling invitingly. “I’d know you anywhere from the description I was given.”
Emily’s heart was racing as she sat at the table with the three men, one of whom might be a murderer. But just to be around men of such power and mystique was like nothing she had ever experienced before. Charles Wentworth was openly staring at her necklace in a cold, appraising way. “I’ve never had it appraised. How much do you think it’s worth?” she said daringly.
“Half a mill at least,” the man said as he took a deep draw on a cigarette.
“If he says that then it’s worth twice that much at least,” Statler Mortman said, and the way he was looking at Emily made her sure he was the Wolf—and when she looked into his eyes she understood why so many women fell for him. “In fact I’ll give you a check for seven-fifty right now.”
It took Emily a moment to realize that he meant seven hundred fifty thousand dollars. “Oh my,” she gasped. “You’ll turn my head. I’m just a small-town librarian and this is my first ball ever. Isn’t it lovely?” Looking away, she gazed at the dancers as though she were interested in them.
“So, Miss Librarian, where did you get the stones?”
“A ghost told my guardian angel where they were and he gave them to me. The angel, I mean.”
Not one of the three men cracked a smile and, suddenly, Emily’s blood seemed to freeze and she wished she hadn’t drugged Michael, wished she had left the party when he wanted her to.
Charles Wentworth took another very deep draw on his cigarette. “And where is your angel now?”
Better to keep this light, she thought. “He’s around here somewhere. You know how guardian angels are, always watching and protecting.” No one smiled.
“What’s your name?” Statler Mortman asked.
“Anastasia Jones,” she said quickly. “My mother wanted something to perk up the last name she married. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to—”
“But surely, you can’t deny me at least one dance with the most mysterious woman here,” Statler said, his eyes going to her bosom.
“Me? Mysterious? I couldn’t be less so. I’m just—”
“Cinderella at the ball,” David said, smiling. “So you must have a dance and let everyone see you in your beautiful dress and your fabulous jewels. Don’t you see that every woman here is eating her heart out in envy over rubies like those? I’m sure no woman since Imperial Russia has had jewels like those.”
Nervously, Emily put her hand to her throat. For all that the other two men made her feel like something to be served on a plate, this man was so, well, so nice. What was it the woman had said? That he forecloses on widows and orphans, wasn’t it?
“Come on, Miss Smith, what would one dance hurt?”
He w
as so persuasive that Emily took the hand he held out to her—and didn’t notice the way he confused her name. What could happen on a dance floor? she thought.
But ten minutes later, Emily was dancing and thinking how she’d leave soon and join Michael in the car when someone rammed into them on the dance floor and she felt a sharp prick in her right hip.
“Oh my, did I do that?” Emily heard a woman’s voice say, but Emily was swaying on her feet and didn’t connect a voice and face. “Too much champagne,” she heard a man say, then felt herself swooped up into strong arms and carried away. Such a lovely dream she was having, she thought as she snuggled her face into the man’s strong chest and closed her eyes. She was Cinderella and she was being carried off by Prince Charming.
When Emily awoke it wasn’t to a dream but to a nightmare. Her head hurt but when she tried to raise her hand to her forehead, she found that her hands were tied. Groggily, she opened her eyes and tried to focus. She seemed to be in a large, dirty room; there was trash on the floor and what looked to be a couple of rats scurrying across the back of the room. When her vision and her head cleared a bit, she realized that she was seated in a chair and her hands were tied behind her, her feet tied to the chair legs. The only other thing in the room was a beat-up old metal desk. There were no windows, just one heavy metal door to her right.
It didn’t take a great brain to figure out that she was in an abandoned building and, unless a miracle happened, no one was ever going to find her.
She was just about to bawl herself out when the door opened and in walked the three men. Daylight came in with them and Emily wondered if it was the day after the ball or the day after that. From the feel of her head, it could be a week later. She was still wearing her beautiful red dress but it was torn and dirty now. She didn’t have to look down to know that the rubies were missing.
For a moment the three men stood with their backs to her as though they didn’t know she was in the room.
If I’m going to die I might as well find out why, she thought. She wanted to ask an intelligent question, but the only word that came out was, “Why?” and that hurt her throat.