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  Ha! In truth, Mary, Jeff, and Trisha are beside themselves about surprising Jack, as is our ward, Evan. (He is the son of the deceased president-elect Catherine Martin, who was implicated in the murder of her husband, Robert, which was carried out by my ex-Carl. Yes, I know—even a messy divorce pales by comparison!)

  “Well, then, count me in.” He draws me in for a kiss.

  I linger in his arms, but only for a moment. As much as I’d prefer to stay in them forever, if I’m to pull off this charade, I must leave now. Reluctantly, I pull away.

  But Jack is not ready to let me go. “I miss you already,” he says.

  His words put a smile on my face, but from the look in his eye, he’s not teasing.

  Egad, now I feel guilty.

  To cover up my feelings, I whistle as I walk out the door to my real destination—the Hotel Bel-Air—I don’t look back. Otherwise, he’ll see the blush on my face and know something isn’t right.

  Within twenty-four hours, he’ll thank me for what I’m doing.

  At least, that’s what I tell myself so that I’m not tempted to call the whole thing off.

  “Mrs. Smith? It’s a pleasure to have you with us.” The tone of the front desk clerk is deferential even as his eyes sweep over me curiously.

  He’s wondering if I’m a celebrity incognito, but he can’t easily place me. My hair is upswept into a wide-brimmed hat with netting that scrims my profile. My large sunglasses also obscure my face. My black leather jacket and fitted jeans over beige Gianvito Rossi leather V-neck peep-toe booties give me the polished look of a moneyed socialite. Even my perfume, Joy by Jean Patou, is the ultimate scent: equal parts old wealth and anonymity.

  With a few clicks, the desk clerk confirms the room I’ve reserved—the Swan Lake suite—is ready for occupancy. He snaps his fingers. “One of our bellmen will escort you to your suite.”

  As if by magic, a broad-shouldered blond Adonis appears by my side.

  With a demure smile, I wave him away. Other than my purse, all I have with me is a small suitcase. “Thank you, but no need. I’ll just take my key.”

  The desk clerk nods. “Your cottage is out the back terrace, the last one on the far side of the pool.”

  Our eyes meet as he hands me a key card. Yes, I’m annoyed by the derision I see there. He has me pegged as a call girl.

  Considering what I have planned, he’s not that far off.

  My heels tap sharply on the tiles as I saunter out the terrace door.

  The room is perfect for what I have in mind.

  Its ten-foot high walls, adorned with excellent replicas of a Klee, a Jackson, and a few other modern artists, are textured and creamy beige: a gentle contrast to the stark white overstuffed sofa facing the fireplace and deep hues of the lush intricately designed antique Persian rugs.

  Colorful glass chips, heated by the gas flame burning beneath them, flicker in the marble fireplace.

  A large sterling silver tray on the sideboard makes for a fitting bar. It holds cut-glass decanters filled with expensive liquors: Macallan Whiskey, Hendrick’s gin, Henri IV cognac, Diva vodka, and Wray and Nephew Jamaican rum.

  Sheer curtains, hung over the full-length paned windows, give the room a hazy glow.

  A full-length mirror runs the length of the hallway leading to the en-suite bedroom. The doorways into every room are arched. The marble friezes that run a foot below the suite’s ceilings curve upward before creating a ledge for the suite’s recessed lighting.

  Yes, this is the perfect setting for my purposes: unadulterated sex.

  My preparation for the role of sex kitten lover is always exacting. This time, though, the adrenaline rush is different.

  I’m doing it for Jack.

  Metallic sandals, clasp my ankles like bracelets: a fitting reminder to us both since tonight I am his slave.

  My nails, oxblood red, are the same hue as the gloss on my lips.

  My hair, now swept to one side, can be released from its clasp with a mere flick. He’ll enjoy doing so, but his hands won’t stop there.

  My gown is simple: Versace, gold sleeveless, ruched dupione silk that hugs me like a second skin. A slim spaghetti strap is bejeweled with tiny diamonds. A princess neckline crosses my chest diagonally, from over one shoulder to the far side of the backless dress.

  Another spray of diamonds will beckon his eyes downward to a slit in the gown, high enough to reveal my left thigh. I’ve no doubt it will taunt his hand to wander through it. There, he’ll discover nothing beneath it to hinder his probing fingers.

  They will find me moist and wanting.

  In anticipation, I wait for him.

  He texts me:

  Coming your way. It’s been a hell of an afternoon. Our next assignment is a doozy. Cyberattacks all over U.S. public utilities, hospitals, etc.

  I sigh to myself. Tonight, I don’t want to hear about it. My subtle way of moving him off the subject of work is to text back with the ultimate tease:

  Hotel Bel-Air, Cottage Suite 15.

  He responds:

  Interesting choice.

  I remind him:

  The anniversary of your birth is an occasion that deserves a little TLC, wouldn’t you agree, Mr. Smith? Park in the alley out back of the cottage.

  I can’t have him running into any guests who may arrive early. Knowing Aunt Phyllis’s lousy sense of time, it could be her and the kids.

  He texts back a happy face, followed by:

  And all this time, I thought you’d forgotten! Be there in 40 minutes.

  Which means he’ll be at least an hour earlier than expected. Perfect! We’ll have much more time for fun and games.

  Afterward, I’ll have to rouse him from the bed. I’ll claim to be famished, and then I’ll shrug off his inevitable suggestion that we order room service on the pretense that I want to listen to the jazz combo playing in the lounge while we enjoy the hotel’s excellent filet mignon.

  Instead, we are to be guided into one of the lounge’s alcoves, where our friends and family have gathered and are waiting to shout happy birthday to him.

  Jack will be shocked, annoyed, and then resigned to my covert plan. Having made love first will have put him in an amenable mood.

  Even when we’re surrounded by those closest to us, I’ll be thinking of the next time we can be alone again wrapped in each other’s arms.

  I know he’ll be doing the same.

  Jack has yet to arrive. What the hell is keeping him?

  No doubt, it’s the godforsaken Los Angeles traffic.

  Every tick of the clock on the mantel has me jumping out of my skin. I’m freshening my lipstick by the mirror over the fireplace when, finally, I hear a gentle rap on the door.

  It’s about time! As late as it is, if we’re interrupted—

  Well, I don’t even want to think about the look on Jack’s face.

  I'm disappointed to see that it’s only Adonis the Bellman. He stands next to a rolling cart bearing a bucket of champagne, flutes, and a caviar service. “Compliments of the hotel,” he assures me.

  For what I’m spending here tonight, it damn well better be.

  I open the door so that he can wheel it in. “Please set it up there, by the bar.”

  He nods. As he rolls the cart in that direction, he adds, “The front desk asked me to relay the message that, as you requested, you and Mr. Smith will not be disturbed by any other guest who may ask for you.”

  Good, because Jack would not appreciate that. Not on his birthday.

  And certainly not when he thinks we’re spending a quiet night, just the two of us.

  Relieved that all is going as planned, I smile sweetly at the bellman. “Thank you! Please wait. I have something for you…” I walk back toward the mantel to grab my purse for a tip.

  Through the mantel’s mirror, I see the bellman’s sleight of hand: a gun is pulled from under a shelf hidden below the cart’s tablecloth.

  By the time he turns around to take aim, I’ve li
fted the marble-based clock off the mantle and heaved it in his direction.

  He yelps in pain when it hits his shoulder. Still, his first shot just barely misses me as I drop behind one of the two facing sofas.

  He too crouches low so that I can’t see him. He doesn’t realize I can watch him through the hallway’s mirrored wall.

  Silently and slowly, he makes his way to the left of the sofa, thinking he’ll flank me. “Mrs. Smith—or should I call you Mrs. Craig? In any event, let’s not play games, shall we?”

  While keeping my eyes on him, I reach behind me and grab the ash shovel beside the fireplace. By nudging the mesh fire screen to one side, I’m able to slide it under some hot glass crystals.

  Just then, Adonis spots me. He aims—

  But not before I fling the crystals at him.

  As they hit his face, he curses. Blinded and burned, he takes a step back.

  Quickly, I grab the fireplace poker. Grasping it in both fists, I run at him—

  And stab him with all my might: low, but with the poker angled up, so that it enters between his ribs and to the left of his sternum—

  Piercing his heart.

  But by then he’s got off one last shot. My eyes follow its trajectory: wild and upward. It ricochets off the curved lip on one of the wall’s marble frieze moldings—

  Before tearing into me with a thump.

  I gasp in agony as it rips open my abdomen. When I look down, I notice that the gold of my gown instantly deepens to bright red. Awed, I touch it. What I feel is damp and warm, whereas the rest of me is suddenly ice-cold.

  I seem to have shed my body like an unwanted coat. As its falls to the floor, I think, so, this is how I look when I’m asleep.

  My body is as loose as a marionette whose strings have been cut. My hair, clasped to one side, fans out from behind my head, which now rests on the rug closest to the hearth. My brow has lost the tiny wrinkles I’ve earned while battling life’s tribulations. My skin is the color of pearls.

  And yet, I smile slyly, as if I hold dear to a secret.

  Somehow, my essence—my very being—is left hovering above my body. The presence of my assailant is hanging in mid-air as well. I float to him. I put my hands around his throat and hiss, “Who are you? Who sent you to do this to me?”

  He whispers back, “It’s payback…”

  I then watch, astonished, as his soul blackens like a rain cloud.

  A moment later, it dissipates into thin air.

  His mournful howl reverberates long after the rest of him is gone.

  But I’m still here.

  Or am I?

  2

  Every Breath You Take

  Recorded by The Police. Released May 1983, the song spent twenty-two weeks on Billboard’s Greatest Hits chart, reaching Number One.

  She takes his breath away—

  Literally. Here’s how:

  Way #1: A plastic bag over his head. The long ones taken from the dry-cleaning of one of your little black dresses are perfect!

  Start by binding his hands and feet to the bedposts. (Yes, you can let him think this is your favorite form of foreplay.) Then, very quickly, put a plastic bag over his head, pull it tight, and twist it so that it’s devoid of air. It shouldn't take long: say, two minutes, max.

  Feel free to file your nails. By the time you’re finished, he will be too.

  Way #2: Tape his mouth—and nose shut. Again, the foreplay ploy will make this easy to believe. Once again, start by tying his hands behind his back. Duct tape is suggested, since it’s wide, thick, and sticks.

  It may take a while for him to expire, so feel free to polish your nails. He—and they—should be done around the same time.

  Way #3: Shove him into the refrigerator and lock the door behind him. Try drugging him first, since he probably won’t believe you’re playing “Naked Hide-and-Seek.”

  If need be, use a bungee cord to hold the fridge door shut.

  Considering how much pure oxygen he needs per minute and how much a fridge holds after he’s stuffed into it, he should expire within an hour and forty minutes.

  This is enough time for you to put on your makeup, do your hair, and put on that cute little black dress before you sashay out to pick up your next victim.

  Time has stopped still—and yet, it still moves at Warp Speed.

  The hands of the clock on the mantle move so slowly that if I didn’t know better, I’d guess it was broken. At the same time, a dragonfly zips by the window. She stares at me, nods, and then zooms away.

  Not even a minute has passed when I hear a knock on the back door. It is playful: to the tune of Shave and a Haircut, Two Bits.

  When I don’t answer, it opens anyway with a click.

  Jack stands there, grinning with lusty anticipation. His eyes scan the room in search of me.

  Instead, he sees Adonis’s limp and bloody corpse.

  His eyes narrow when they come across Adonis’s gun just a few feet away from it. Jack pulls out his gun. Ducking warily, he circles the room. He takes the risk of breaking the silence by shouting frantically: “Donna!”

  Finally, he sees my body on the far side of the couch, crumpled on the floor. He rushes over.

  Usually, when Jack kneels beside me, it’s to murmur sweet nothings or a naughty innuendo into my ear—

  Unlike now, as his whispered prayers alternate with anguished swears.

  Usually, his touch is much gentler than the two-palm press he now applies to my abdomen in a desperate attempt to stop the blood flowing out of me.

  When he realizes he can’t, he grabs a pillow from the couch and places it over my wound. Whipping off his belt, he tightens it around me, so that the pillow stays in place while he grabs for his phone.

  I know the number he calls: Ryan’s. When the line goes live, he doesn’t wait for Ryan’s voice. Instead, he says, “It’s Donna! She’s been shot! I’m taking her to UCLA Med Center… Yes, Hotel Bel-Air! How did you know?” Awed by Ryan’s response, he stares down at me. “Oh? I see.”

  Worst birthday surprise ever.

  Knowing my boss and our company’s procedures in such matters, Arnie will soon hack into the hotel’s security feed in order to loop benign video to cover Jack’s and Adonis’s paths to the cottage.

  Abu will soon be here: lugging a laundry cart containing everything needed to clean the suite of any evidence of Adonis’s visit, and mine too. Afterward, it will be used to wheel Adonis to a dock. There, a boat awaits. It’s his one-way ticket to his final resting place: somewhere deep in the Pacific.

  What exactly is my condition? Am I alive, or dead?

  I guess I’ll soon know.

  Jack clicks off and then picks me up. Holding me tight, he heads for the cottage’s back door.

  He doesn’t feel my arms around him, or the dampness of my existential tears when my face touches his.

  I love you, Jack.

  If there is no traffic, UCLA Medical Center is only a seven-minute drive from the Hotel Bel-Air. Unfortunately for us, it’s rush hour.

  That doesn’t deter Jack from driving like a mad man: careening around the drivers too stubborn to hug the curb when they hear his blaring horn. At least Hilgard Avenue is two lanes in both directions, giving him the access he needs to zip down the hill—

  In the hope that there is still time to save me.

  Jack has placed my body in the front passenger seat, which reclines all the way back. While steering with his left hand, he presses his right palm against the pillow.

  Jack’s prayer is silent, but I hear it anyway:

  Please, dear Lord, I need her here, by my side. Don’t take her away from me.

  The triage team secured by Ryan is waiting for us as Jack pulls into the UCLA Medical Center’s emergency entrance.

  They place me on a gurney gently but also at lightning speed. Jack watches as they swarm over my comatose body. “Her pulse is faint. GSW perforated the abdomen. Large caliber, but the angle is odd: down into the left
upper quadrant”—With the utmost care, the lanky bearded ER doctor rolls me over—“but no exit wound. She’s in hypovolemic shock.”

  A grimace darkens Jack’s lips when, without a second thought, a male nurse strips off my gown with a pair of trauma shears. And, yes, Jack winces when a female RN staunches the blood flowing out of my abdomen with antiseptic packing and adhesive. Agonized, he watches as they hook me up to an IV line of antibiotics and cover my nose and mouth with an oxygen mask.

  He runs alongside them as they ferry the gurney down a hall to a surgical suite, answering all of their questions to the best of his ability. He knows my blood type is A-positive, that I have no allergies to antibiotics, and that I don't take any medications; that I was conscious to receive his text an hour before he arrived at the hotel; and yes, he is my next-of-kin.

  He is my husband.

  He is the love of my life.

  By now, they’re vaulting into the surgical suite. Barred by the male nurse from crossing the threshold, Jack slumps against the wall.

  At that moment, my husband realizes that his hands are covered in my blood.

  A tear rolls down his cheek.

  I love you too, Jack.

  I hover high above my surgical team as Dr. McLanky leads them in what seems to be a frantic ballet. Applause comes only when and if they save my life.

  From what he shouts at them, and what they yell back, this is shaping up to be a very big if.

  I’ve lost so much blood that I look as if I’ve been carved from alabaster.

  In other words, I already look as if I’ve died.