Deadly Deals (3 page)

Bert actually grinned when he heard his cell chirp inside his pocket. Hoping it was Kathryn, or possibly Charles or Jack, kept the grin on his face until he realized one of his least favorite people was on the other end of the line. He growled a greeting of sorts and waited for Mark Paterno, the head of the Secret Service detail at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, to state his case. For all the good it was going to do him. Bert pressed a button on his special cell that would allow him to record the conversation. It was a given that Paterno was doing the same thing.

Bert decided to wait out the agent. Finally he said, “You called me, remember. So what is it you want, Paterno?â€

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“T
his is a
horse,
Agent Thomas,â€

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

New Year’s Eve!

 

W
ith the clock ticking down, the guests on Big Pine Mountain threw on wraps and ran to the center of the compound, where Charles and Myra were standing, their hands full of the sleigh bells from Baron Bell’s sleigh that they had brought back to the mountain.

The solid wall of evergreens and tall pines whispered and trembled, their scent intoxicating, while the blanket of stars overhead winked at and twinkled down on the happy guests.

In unison, the guests started to count down.

“Six!â€

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Charleston, South Carolina

 

I
t was an event, there was no doubt about it. Not that funerals were, as a rule, events, but when someone of Leland St. John’s stature bit the dust, it became one. The seven-piece string band playing in the downpour, per one of Leland’s last wishes, had turned it into an event regardless of what else was going on in the world.

Then there was the tail end of Hurricane Blanche, which was unleashing torrents of rain upon the mourners huddled under the dark blue tent and only added to the circuslike atmosphere.

“Will you just get on with it,â€

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

T
he minute the last guest walked out the door with a go-bag of food, the bereaved Toots galloped up the stairs and headed for her three-hundred-square-foot bathroom, where she ran a bath. She made two trips to the huge Jacuzzi with the pile of tabloids, four scented candles, a fresh bottle of wine, and her favorite Baccarat wineglass. She paused a minute to decide which bath salts she wanted to use, finally settling on Confederate jasmine since the scent was more or less true to the flower. She was, when you got right down to it, a transplanted Southern belle.

Toots stripped down, and the clothes she was wearing went on top of the sodden outfit she’d discarded earlier. She’d never wear them again. Then again, since she was a stickler for protocol, maybe she’d tell her housekeeper, Bernice, to leave them until her ten days of mourning were up. That way she wouldn’t be cheating. And to think she had to wear black, which really made her look washed out, for another ten days. Nine more if you counted today. Well, she was definitely counting today.

Toots sniffed at the delicious aroma emanating from the Jacuzzi. Wonderful! She lowered herself into the silky water and sighed happily. Toots leaned back and savored the first few moments of the exquisite bath before leaning forward to pour herself a glass of the bubbly that Leland had bought by the truckload for his wine cellar.

“To you, Leland,â€

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

T
oots had wakened at five A.M. every day of the week for as long as she could remember, but today, on her tenth and final day of mourning, she woke up at three, more excited than she’d been in ages. Sophie, Mavis, and Ida would be arriving first thing in the morning. Today was her “get my ass in gearâ€

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

T
oots raced around the kitchen, opening and closing drawers. “Where is my address book? I know it’s in here somewhere.â€

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Washington, D.C.

 

T
he traffic was horrendous on Massachusetts Avenue, but then it was always horrendous at this time of day. Rush hour. God, how she hated those words. Especially today. She slapped the palm of her hand on the horn and muttered under her breath, “C’mon you jerk, move!â€

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sixteen months later

 

I
t was dusk when Nikki Quinn stopped her cobalt-blue BMW in front of the massive iron gates of Myra Rutledge’s McLean estate. She pressed the remote control attached to the visor and waited for the lumbering gates to slide open. She knew Charles was watching her on the closed-circuit television screen. The security here at the estate was sophisticated, high-tech, impregnable. The only thing missing was concertina wire along the top of the electrified fence.

Nikki sailed up the half mile of cobblestones to the driveway that led around to the back of the McLean mansion. When she was younger, she and Barbara referred to the house as Myra’s Fortress. She’d loved growing up here, loved riding across the fields on Barbara’s horse Starlite, loved playing with Barbara in the tunnels underneath the old house that had once been used to aid runaway slaves.

The engine idling, Nikki made no move to get out of the car. She hated coming here these days, hated seeing the empty shell her beloved Myra had turned into. All the life, all the spark had gone out of her. According to Charles, Myra sat in the living room, drinking tea, staring at old photo albums, the television tuned to CNN twenty-four hours a day. She hadn’t left the house once since Barbara’s funeral.

She finally turned off the engine, gathered her briefcase, weekend bag, and purse. Should she put the top up or leave it down? The sky was clear. She shrugged. If it looked like rain, Charles would put the top up.

“Any change?â€

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

January 13, 1989

Dalton, Georgia

 

R
osalind Townsend, whom everyone called Lin, held her newborn son tightly in her arms as the orderly wheeled her to the hospital’s administration office. A nurse tried to take him from her so she could tend to the business of her release, but she refused to give him up.

After eighteen hours of agonizing labor without any medication, she’d delivered a healthy six-pound eight-ounce baby boy. She wasn’t about to let him out of her sight.

She’d named him William Michael Townsend. A good, solid name. She would call him Will.

Like his father’s, Will’s hair was a deep black, so dark it appeared to be blue. Lin wasn’t sure about his eyes at this point. She’d read in her baby book that a newborn’s eye color wasn’t true at birth. Nothing about him resembled her, as she was fair-haired with unusual silver-colored eyes and milk white skin.

She gazed down at the securely wrapped bundle in her arms and ran her thumb across his delicate cheek. Soft as silk. He yawned, revealing tender, pink gums. Lin smiled down at her son. No matter what her circumstances, she made a vow to herself: she would devote her life to caring for this precious little child.

Lin had spent the past seven months preparing for this day. During the day she worked at J & G Carpet Mills as a secretary. Five evenings a week and weekend mornings, she waited tables at Jack’s Diner. Other than what it cost for rent, food, and utilities, Lin saved every cent she made. She had to be conservative, because it was just her and Will. She’d allowed herself a week off from both jobs so she could bond with her son, adjust to her new life as a mother. While she would’ve loved spending more time with her son, being the sole caregiver and provider made that impossible. She’d lucked out when Sally, a coworker at Jack’s and a single mother to boot, had asked her if she would sit for her two-year-old daughter, Lizzie. In return, Sally would look after the baby on the days that she wasn’t working. Lin had agreed because she had to. There were still the days to cover, but Sally gave her a list of reliable sitters she’d used in the past. Dear Sally. Only five years older than Lin but so much wiser to the ways of the world. They were fast becoming good friends. Sally was the complete opposite of Lin—tall, olive-skinned, with beautiful brown eyes that had a slight upward slant, giving her an Asian look. Lin had called three of the sitters: two high-school girls and one elderly woman. She would meet with them later in the week. Lin was sure that if Sally approved, she would as well.

Sadly, there would be no help from Will’s father or her parents. Lin recalled her father’s cruel words when he learned she was pregnant.

“May you burn in hell, you little harlot! You’ve disgraced my good name. Get out of my house. I don’t ever want to lay eyes on you again or your bastard child!â€

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Friday, August 31, 2007

New York University

 

W
ill’s deep brown eyes sparkled with excitement, his enthusiasm contagious, as he and Lin left University Hall, a crowded dormitory for freshmen located at Union Square. If all went as planned, Will would reside in New York City for the next four years before moving on to graduate school to study at North Carolina State University College of Veterinary Medicine, one of the most prestigious veterinary institutions in the country.

“I just hate that you’re so far away from home. And in New York City, no less,â€

 

 

 

 

 

 

QUESTION:
With so many novels of yours published—many of which are
New York Times
best-sellers—did you ever imagine you would have such a prolific and successful career as a writer? How did you first get started? What put you on the path to becoming an author?

 

FERN MICHAELS:
Never in a million years did I imagine I would be where I am today. I think I knew someway, somehow, that I was going to write
something
someday in the fourth grade when I wrote a story about a tadpole and the teacher gave me a big red A. What put me on the path to writing years and years later was when my youngest son went off to kindergarten and my husband told me I had to get a job. Being a wife and mother did not qualify me to go into the outside workforce. Plus, and most important, I didn’t have a car to get to and from work. So I thought I would try my hand at writing a book. It was that simple. What was even more amazing was that the storytelling came easy to me. Please note, I did not say the
writing
came easy—it was the storytelling part that worked for me.

 

QUESTION:
Razor Sharp
marks the fourteenth book in the Sisterhood series. When you started the series with the first seven books, did you ever think it would become so successful, and you’d still be writing about the Ladies of Pinewood so many years later?

 

FERN MICHAELS:
I’ve kept the series going because so many fans wrote and asked me to continue. But even I had withdrawal from the Sisterhood when I finished what I thought was the last one with number seven [
Free Fall
] and had a long break before finally starting to write
Hide and Seek
. I lived with those characters during the first seven books for so long they were part of me. The bottom line was, those wonderful characters were not ready to ride off into the sunset, and I made the decision to continue because there were so many more stories in my head that needed to play out.

 

QUESTION:
What is it about the characters in your Sisterhood novels that allows for you to connect so deeply with readers, and how did you first conceive of these women on your pages? Is there any thread of you in any of these characters?