Double-Crossed (13 page)

“You sound like there will be more time spent. Are you intending to see more of her?” Betty shifted gears, sounding more like a lawyer. “If you are, we'll have to know everything, and we'll have to get Alan to watch you, so that he can take pics to verify lack of involvement.”

“Well, he can watch tonight. I'm taking her to dinner, Quills on Crown. Not too shabby, but not too posh, and we can easily be seen. It'll look like I have nothing to hide.”

Betty appeared to be putting it all together. “It also means that there's little opportunity for her to be crowded by the prosecution. You'll pretty much have her under control. Have you asked her about going on the stand for us?”

“I thought about it at dinner, but I've decided against it. Her books are enough and speak well of all that she did or didn't know. She's smart, and no one will believe that she didn't see trouble under her nose. The further away from the stand we can keep her, the better for all of us.”

“It might work.” Betty had a slow smile now. “It just might work. In fact, your spending time with her may come across as a kind of nonchalance. As if it never occurred to you that this could go to trial. It all just looks like tax errors.” Betty started to formulate ideas. “This may turn out to be our big break.”

“The key to this is keeping it small time. We have to think and act like this is a small deal. Because, in the end, it is.”

“Just no more fucking her, Peter. Please,” said Alan. “That's
really
not going to help.”

Peter smiled. “Of course not.”

Chapter Seven

Six on the dot, Marianne sat ready as the doorbell rang. Opening the door revealed Peter dressed in simple black: jeans and a collared shirt.

God, he's gorgeous
. His deep blue eyes rounded when he saw her.

“Ready to go? Wow, you look beautiful. Really beautiful.”

Marianne dressed in a deep bottle green strapless slip that hugged her excellent figure. Her shining horse's mane of hair flowed down her back, and she wore flat, black sandals on her feet.

Nevertheless, it wasn't the clothes. She'd come of age in the last few hours, a new woman from a different place. The deep shift occurred in Marianne's heart, and she wanted in on the tantalizing new world she'd recently discovered.

She smiled into Peter's admiring eyes. His open appreciation gave her confidence, so she flirted freely with him. She placed her hands behind her back and thrust forth her chest, schoolgirl style.

“Why, thank you, kind sir. I should let you in on a little secret. I have not been idle in the past few hours. I've”—she paused for effect—“been studying.”

Unable to move from the spot, he asked, “What have you been studying?”

“The world of BDSM.” She casually let the terminology slip from between her red lips, but they trembled, as if the weight of the words were too much for her. She reached for her black cashmere wrap, avoiding looking into his eyes. When she did, she saw desire with the faintest hint of amusement.

One day, maybe, I'll understand all his moods
, she thought.

Moving through the door, pulling it shut behind her, she stepped into Peter's space, and he didn't move away. He naturally lifted a hand behind her back as he spoke.

“Does that account for your radiant beauty tonight?”

He leaned in to kiss her softly painted lips. Smiling, she stepped back.

“I think it might. It shows, because something important has happened to me. I may be finally home.”

Peter hypnotized her with his look. “Me too.”

Marianne thrilled to his words. Everything about this felt right. She resisted falling into romantic notions of relationship and dreams of forever, despite the temptation to do so. And yet, he seemed to sense it as much as she did.

It's just too short a period of tim
e
! she thought, frustrated.
I'd be a fool to trust him too much yet
. Settling into those thoughts, she glided past him down the hall.

He'd illegally parked outside her building, so they hurried into the car. Marianne felt good driving around the streets in the passenger seat of his fine Mercedes. She'd been in luxury most her life; if Joe had one thing, it was money. However, Peter's wealth included style, something money couldn't buy, and Joe had never possessed.

As Peter sped through the city streets, chatting and concentrating on the road, she took the safe moment to study him. She glanced across from the shadows of the front seat. The secret depth of response he conjured up in her overrode everything else. Beautiful to look at, in excellent condition physically, he owned—as far as she could tell—elegant things. However, even though these may be essentially feminine qualities, the complicated masculinity in Peter gave him an inherently mannish way of being. His obvious love of beauty came from knowledge, not trends, and he had self-reliance that transcended fashion. More than money, looks, and power, although it seemed typical that Peter would have that. Marianne couldn't put her finger on it exactly.

Peter knows himself
, Marianne thought as they traveled through the inner Sydney suburbs of Paddington and Surry Hills.
He's taken what he's been given, and he's embraced it. It's not about contentment. It's about fulfillment. He is committed to fulfilling his own destiny
.

Peter said he wanted to take her to a nice restaurant in Surry Hills where he'd always been a regular. He asked her if she had been to Quills, and she said no. The Cross could be self-contained, being a world to itself, and except for work, she rarely left it. However, right now in Peter's car, driving down Oxford Street, she felt limited by that fact. One wasn't provincial in the Cross, but she did feel contained by its invisible walls.

Peter parked in front of Quills, and Marianne couldn't help noting that they parked in a two-hour spot. It looked like he meant it when he said it would be fast.

They walked into the smart, casual dining area, full of people from the trendy Surry Hills crowd.

Peter gave Marianne a squeeze and said, “You fit right in here.”

They were beautiful, in an off-the-beaten-track kind of way. In one corner, a white woman with long red hair talked with her very dark African companion, who had a head full of dreadlocks. She wore a tight, green satin Chinese dress that accentuated a large tattoo of a snake twisting around her ankle, running all the way up her left leg, well beyond where the split ended high on her thigh. In another corner was a young couple, identically dressed, with the same haircut and the same makeup on their eyes. Marianne found it hard to tell who was female and who was male, part of the new androgyny. Deconstruction!

When one of the young couple turned and gave Marianne a soulless stare, she stopped checking out the crowd, concentrating instead on Peter and the menu in front of her. Jill Gracer, a celebrity chef in Australia, kept the menu in her restaurants light and particularly Australian, largely a mix of all the cultures the city enjoys. Marianne and Peter both chose salads. Peter ordered a side of sourdough, and an excellent light white to go with their meal. Then he got right into it.

“Marianne, I want you to know that you are being watched tonight, and that you were last night.”

Marianne looked at him with an empty stare. At first, the gravity of the words didn't sink in, given the wonderful restaurant, how great she looked, and how happy she felt. Riding high on the wave that had started to roll with the research she'd done earlier that day, put her in a good mood.

“What are you talking about?”

“My investigator for this case, Alan, watched us last night. He knew exactly how long I spent at your house.” Peter smiled. “You will no doubt be pleased to know that he was with me all afternoon, so he wasn't watching you then.”

Marianne thought of what she'd done that afternoon and then remembered what she and Peter had gotten up to the previous night.

“Um, I think the damage is done. He obviously knows where I spend my time.”

Peter smiled and looked a little apologetic.

“Marianne, you're better off if we can do our job well. The hearing is Tuesday. We have to play this carefully. If it all goes according to plan, very soon you and I can date legit, without people following us.”

A grim thought descended upon Marianne. “You mean without the current people following us. That would mean Joe would have to be okay with us dating. If he's not, it won't be the people following us that are our problem.” A bleak realization settled in on Marianne. “Good lord! Who knows how many people have been following me over the past few days?”

Peter's eyes were full of sympathy. “I'm pretty sure you'll have the police tailing you. The DP is trying hard to get this case moved into another domain, and you're supposed to be the key cause to follow up on the tax case. If they can get the slightest hint from you that Joe is involved in illegal activities, they'll open up another deeper case on Joe. Then you'll be chief witness. That trial and the associated argy bargy will go on for years. We want this to stay small and inconspicuous.”

“What illegal activities are they trying to chase Joe on? I know he's a rough character, running strip joints, and there's been a little drug dealing in the past. But most of the use happened at parties Joe threw himself, not that I'm supposed to know anything about that. What I don't understand is why any of this matters to the police? They could've pursued him any time over the past ten years for this one.”

Peter's look held a mix of concern and curiosity.

“They want to investigate him because of people smuggling, Marianne, illegal immigrants from Asia.” Peter paused, and it gave her a chance to catch her breath. “I know, and you know, that you will be a very serious witness if they decide to pursue this case.”

Marianne's blood froze in her veins. A sick, creeping feeling edged its way all over her body. When she spoke, she spoke with a revealing defensiveness.

“I'm a full, legal citizen. Nothing can happen to me. I'm a proper citizen of Australia.”

Peter looked at her as though she were transparent, and he appeared to have sympathy; however, something in his eyes told her more needed to be said.

“Now you know why I'm anxious to protect you. You understand the seriousness of this situation. He's been doing it for a long time, Marianne. We're not talking about the single boat that brought you here There have been others. Many others.”

“I don't really know anything about all of that. I mean, I've wondered about my journey over here, but I never questioned how I got my citizenship. I guess because that happened so easily and so fast, I assumed…I just assumed it was all aboveboard. Joe and I've never talked about it.”

“It's where he gets the bulk of his fortune, is my understanding.”

Peter watched her closely. For some reason, this all seemed to be terribly important to him. “You really had no idea? You couldn't tell what he was doing?”

“Peter, I was sixteen when I arrived here, and I got my citizenship at eighteen, probably because I'm Anglo. As a child, I felt scared on that boat trip, and frankly, I've blacked most of it out. I only knew Joe, only had Joe, and up until the last few years, I thought that relationship a good one. Even though he treated me badly, I guess I've always felt like I owe him. Does any of that make sense to you?”

“I believe you. In a perverse way, it does make sense, though I can speak like that because you're out now. I wouldn't be this analytical if you were still with him. I'm glad that you don't know much about his activities these days.”

Marianne eyed him thoughtfully and asked a question that had been only at the back of her mind until now. “How is it that you're so comfortable working for someone like Joe? It looks like you'll thwart the state's one opportunity to look properly into the illegal operations of this person. Where do you get your moral right to do that?”

Peter's demeanor changed as he switched into lawyer mode. “It is Joe's right to have proper legal counsel, and it's my job to get him off. In a way, he has hired me to protect him. I am good at my job if I do that.”

“I'm not sure that I could live with it.”

Peter shrugged. “Morality is remarkably flexible. You know what Joe gets up to, but because he's been good to you, you also don't want to see him in jail, even though you are aware many people have died because of him.”

“I can't argue with that.”

Peter smiled. “Good, because I want to change the subject. I want to hear about Marianne and what she's learned this afternoon.”

Despite all her new sophistication, Marianne blushed. “Well, I did some shopping today. I gathered knowledge. I have some excellent reading material and even a fine DVD. I spent some time on the Internet. My,
that
is a wealth of information.”

“Tell me how you feel about it all.”

The new territory of opening up the soul in this way still felt foreign and difficult for Marianne. She paused, a fear creeping into her belly. Initially she wanted to lash out in self-defense.
Self-defense of what? What am I hiding fro
m
? The fear sat in her belly nonetheless, despite her rationalizing.

However, like last night, she wanted to get this right. The old concern that Peter and Joe could be partners hovered, although she didn't believe that he could be. Perhaps the unusualness of this situation unnerved her. If they were going to be together, she wanted him to know everything about how she felt. She'd already worked out that this game required trust. She had to trust him with herself.

“Last night was very exciting for me, and I don't mean just the sex. I'm excited by the way you see me. You were accurate about my visits to the sex shop. However, more than that, you seemed to know me better than I do myself. I found that exhilarating and a little disconcerting.”

She paused, not sure if she wanted to reveal so much straightaway.
Wow, this honesty thing is much harder than I thought
. Self-protection was always the first instinct.

“Go on, Marianne. You're safe with me.”

She looked up into his dark blue eyes. She saw understanding but also firmness in them that willed her forward.