Lethal Seduction (57 page)

“It's late. Were you asleep?”

“I was watching television, must've drifted off.” A loud yawn. “What's up?”

“I'm in Vegas.”

“What're you doing there?”

“I'm here on a story, but . . . something bad has happened.”

“What?” he said, sounding more alert.

“It's . . . it's my friend, Jamie. She uh . . . she was in her room at the Marigiano, and . . . she was in bed with this guy—who happens to be Joel Blaine, the son of Leon Blaine.”

“And?”

“We think he might have had a heart attack, 'cause he's dead in her bed, and we don't know what to do.”

“Who's we?”

“Jamie and Natalie. My friends from college.”

“So you're telling me that you're standing in a hotel room with your girlfriends, and there's a rich guy's son dead on the bed?”

“Yes, and I'm calling you because you're the only person I can think of who might be able to help us.”

“Oh, I'm good for helping with a dead body, huh?” he said dryly.

“Michael—I'm begging for your help. We're kind of desperate.”

“What's your room number?”

“It's 503.”

“Stay tight. Don't move. Within fifteen minutes I'll have somebody at your door.”

“You will?”

“His name is Vincent Castle. You got that—Vincent Castle. He'll take care of everything. Is that good enough for you?”

“Yes, Michael,” she said, and clicked off the phone. “It's taken care of,” she said, turning to Natalie and Jamie.

“What're you
talking
about?” Natalie said.
“Nothing's
taken care of. The three of us are still in here with a dead body.”

“I trust my father.”

“Oh, so now you trust him? Last week you didn't want anything to do with him.”

“Things change.”

“Man, you can say that again.”

“Anyway,” Madison said, “I think it's best if you go to the restaurant and tell everyone Jamie's gotten the flu or something and won't be joining us. That way they won't get suspicious.”

“This is a fucking nightmare,” Natalie wailed.

“I know. But we're going to work it out.”

•

“Congratulations,” Varoomba said, zeroing in on Antonio, batting her overextended false eyelashes. “I was
sooo
impressed with your moves tonight.”

“Mama mia!”
Antonio crooned, checking her out. “You gotta have some pretty cool moves of your own.”

“I've been told that,” she said coyly, thrusting her boobs toward him.

“What is it that you do, gorgeous?”

“I'm a specialty dancer.”

“No shit?” Antonio said. A knowing wink. “Mebbe you'll show me your specialty
privately?
How about later tonight, chickie?”

Varoomba glanced across the room at her grams and Chas, laughing and joking and putting their arms around each other.

“Yes, Champ,” she said, flirting outrageously. “It'll be
my
pleasure.”

•

“I want to leave tonight,” Leon said abruptly. “Alert the pilots, tell them to get the plane ready.”

“What about Joel?” Marika asked.

“He can get a commercial flight back tomorrow. Leave him a message.”

“And his girlfriend, Carrie?”

“She can look after herself,” he said curtly.

Marika gave a small, triumphant smile. “I'll arrange everything, Leon. The limo will pick us up in half an hour.”

B
Y THE TIME
there was a knock on the door, Madison had managed to get Jamie dressed, packed and ready to leave.

“Who is it?” she said tensely.

“Vincent Castle.”

She looked through the peephole and observed a tall man standing there. Releasing the chain, she let him in.

Jesus Christ! Vincent Castle was a younger, even more handsome version of Michael. Mid-thirties, he had black, curly hair, olive skin and dense green eyes.

She stared at him. He stared back at her with the same startled expression. “So you're Madison?” he said, entering the room.

“That's me,” she said, trying to regain her composure.

“And this is Jamie?”

Jamie nodded nervously.

“Jamie,” Vincent said. “I have somebody waiting outside to take you to the airport. We've already booked a seat for you. Now all you have to do is go back to New York and forget this ever happened. Not one word to anyone. Do you understand?”

She nodded again.

“And when I say anyone,” Vincent added, a touch menacingly, “I mean
anyone.”

“She gets it,” Madison said, giving Jamie a hug. “Everything will be okay. Go straight to my apartment. I'll call you tomorrow.”

As soon as Jamie left, Madison indicated the body on the bed. “Don't ask me how,” she sighed. “But I can assure you—he's definitely dead.”

“Were they having sex?” Vincent asked, checking out the room.

“They were about to, but apparently he couldn't uh . . . get it up. According to Jamie, a couple of heavies gave him a beating in the parking lot—something about him owing money.”

“So this is Joel Blaine, huh? Leon Blaine's son?”

“Jamie didn't kill him,” Madison said, still reeling from Vincent's uncanny resemblance to Michael. “He must've had a heart attack.”

“You understand that this is not good PR for the hotel,” Vincent said, picking up the almost empty champagne bottle. “Which is why I'm going to deal with it.”

“Are you connected to the hotel?” she asked.

“Let's just say I'm an investor,” he said, discarding the bottle in the trash.

“I know this'll sound crazy,” she said. “But you look so much like my father.”

“I know,” he said, picking up the two champagne glasses and throwing them in the trash too.

“You do?”

“Hey—you also look like him. The female version.”

“How do you know that?”

A shadow of a smile. “Happy birthday, Madison.”

“And how do you know it's my birthday?”

“C'mon, Madison, you're a smart girl, surely you've figured it out by now?”

“Figured what out?”

“We're family.”

“Family?” she said blankly.

“You'd better sit down, I'm about to rock your world.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Don't you
get
it? I'm your brother.”

“I . . . I don't have a brother,” she stammered.

“You do now.” A long, steady beat. “I'm your half brother, the one Michael never bothered to tell you about.”

“Oh . . . my . . . God!” she gasped. Was this another one of Michael's surprises? Did she know
nothing
about her father?

“We'll have to talk another time,” Vincent said, all business. “Right now I have to deal with this uh . . . incident.”

“It's not an
incident,”
she said furiously. “It's an accidental death. And I'm not so sure we shouldn't call the police. Maybe his death has something to do with his getting beaten up.”

“Whatever,” Vincent said coolly. “But nobody wants publicity, so here's what I want you to do. Go back downstairs, enjoy your party, get on a plane tomorrow and leave Vegas. Don't even think about this again. Can we trust Jamie to do the same?”

“You can't casually inform me you're my half brother and expect me to leave it at that,” she said, outraged.

“Why?” he answered calmly.

Goddamnit, he even
acted
like Michael.

“Because you can't, that's why,” she said churlishly.

“Okay,” he said. “Here's the Cliff Note version. My mother was in Michael's life before Beth. He never wanted Beth to know about her and me, so he moved us to Vegas, where he visited every month. We had a great relationship, only we weren't allowed to mention his other family. When we heard about Beth's murder, it made things bad. And then came Stella. I don't know why he had to keep us a secret then, because there was no Beth to get upset. But he got off on leading two separate lives. It was his secret. It was the way he wanted it. Satisfied?”

“No.”

“Too bad.”

“And tonight, when he called—”

“He didn't instruct me
not
to tell you.”

“Michael is more of a stranger to me every day.” She sighed. “I have no clue who he really is.”

“Yeah, Michael. He's something else, right?”

She wasn't about to get into a discussion about her father with a total stranger—brother or no brother. “Uh . . . what will you do with . . . with Joel?”

“That's not for you to worry about. It'll be taken care of.”

“And how do
I
take care of finding out I have a brother I never knew about?”

“One day we'll get together and talk. But not now, 'cause I have business to attend to. You go downstairs and enjoy your birthday.”

She nodded wearily. “Yes, Vincent. But you must understand that now I know you exist, we are very much unfinished business, and I intend to find out everything.”

“Got it,” he said, totally unfazed.

She hurried downstairs in a daze, and as she entered the restaurant, Natalie and the group stood up and began singing “Happy Birthday,” while an obliging waiter wheeled out a huge cake with thirty candles she didn't want.

Her eyes met Jake's. He was the only honest man in her life, and she wanted to be with him more than anything. She rushed into his arms.

He held her close and whispered, “Happy birthday, sweetheart.”

“I told you, no cake,” she scolded.

“Not my fault,” he said. “I'm just an idle bystander. And I didn't buy you a present, but I do have something nice to tell you.”

“What?” she murmured.

He held her very close. “I think I love you.”

“You
think
you love me?” she said, gazing up at him. “You
think
you love me. What kind of crap is
that?”

“Okay, let's just say that I definitely do.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, that's not so bad.”

“It's not, huh?”

“I can live with it.”

“You can?”

“I can,” she said, thinking,
What a night! It couldn't get any weirder.

“And you?” he said.

“What
about
me?”

“Got any feelings
you'd
like to share?”

“Uh . . .”

“Come here, woman.”

And he soul kissed her, long and hard, until she could barely breathe.

Finally she felt safe.

J
OEL
B
LAINE
vanished into the night. For weeks and months, Leon Blaine waited for a phone call from his son's kidnappers, demanding an enormous ransom, but none came.

He was as puzzled and mystified as everyone else, but not that sad.

Six weeks later he married Marika in a civil ceremony conducted on a yacht cruising off the coast of Sardinia.

She did not sign a prenuptial.

•

Carrie Hanlon returned to New York and had quite a hectic time playing the abandoned and bewildered girlfriend of the missing heir to the Blaine fortune.

It was better than being simply the most famous supermodel in the world.

She received two movie offers, a lucrative cosmetics contract and six hundred proposals of marriage.

She never did meet Martin Scorsese.

•

Varoomba moved in on the champ big time. He had a thing for lap dances, and she gave the best.

After several steamy weeks of togetherness, she relocated from New York to Antonio's brand-new Hancock Park mansion in L.A.

The press went crazy about them. They became the new hot couple in town, and they both luxuriated in the publicity.

•

Chas rediscovered Renee with a vengeance. She might be an older broad, but she stood up to him every inch of the way, and he delighted in the challenge. She sold her phone-sex company in Vegas and started a new one in New York.

Chas backed her all the way.

•

Dexter obtained the quickest divorce he could get, promptly married Gem and signed a contract to star in a low-budget action-adventure film set in Sicily. Annie, his agent, advised him to do it because she was anxious to get him off her daily phone list. Little did she know that the cheapo movie would become a cult hit, and Dexter Falcon the biggest action-adventure star in the world.

•

Rosarita almost lost her mind trying to puzzle out what had happened. Did Joel die instead of Dex? Had the poisoned drink somehow gotten switched?

But if that
had
happened, where was Joel's body?

She lived in fear that he'd turn up one day and accuse her of attempting to murder him.

In the meantime, she suffered a miscarriage after fighting for a cab in the rain outside Bergdorf's with a skinny socialite in a black mink coat.

It simply wasn't her year.

•

Jamie, petrified of what the outside world held, reconciled with Peter for exactly six weeks. Then she caught him flirting shamelessly with a shirt salesman at Barney's, and she knew the time had come to be brave and move on.

She tried to put Vegas and all that had occurred there behind her. And she never drank again.

•

Natalie resigned from her highly popular TV entertainment show and got a very lucrative gig on talk radio as a shock jockette, catering to women in a humorous, honest and cutting-edge way.

Her show was a huge success.

•

Madison took time off and accompanied Jake on a trip to India and the Far East. They experienced a magical time together, forgetting about the frenetic worlds of Vegas, New York and L.A.