Intimate Betrayal (17 page)

And he
had
hurt her a bit. Slapped her a few times, pinched her nipples. Oh, he’d been careful about it. He’d been real careful about
keeping his head and staying in control. At one point she’d complained about some numbness in her fingers, so he’d untied
the numb hand and massaged it and made sure the rope was looser when he bound her again.

By then she was relaxed enough to get into it. So he’d hurt her a little more, and then he’d fucked her, and they’d both come,
screaming.

Yeah, it had been wild. In fact, she was the one woman he’d actually
wanted
to see a second time. But then, she’d
been the one to say, no thanks, no way. Once was all you get, kid, back off.

Not nice of her.

Not nice at all.

Fletcher forced his mind back to thoughts of Annie.

This time he’d do the bondage thing right. He’d learned a bit from the first experience. He’d learned he could push them a
lot farther, a lot closer to the edge. That pain and arousal got mixed up in a woman’s mind. That as long as you did a couple
of things to calm them down and set their minds at ease, you could get away with stuff that most men would never even dare
dream about.

Maybe he’d tease her for a while first. Maybe he’d caress her inner thighs lightly until she became excited lying there. He
wouldn’t let her get too excited, though. He wouldn’t want her to come. No, he was going to take his revenge against all those
feminist bitches who’d given him instructions on how to maximize the quantity and quality of their orgasms. Annie wouldn’t
be
permitted
to come. He wasn’t fucking her for her pleasure. He was fucking her purely for his own.

Someday
… Fletcher thought.

He got a hard-on just thinking about it.

Someday soon.

When she got home that night, Annie found another letter. This time it had been tucked under the front door. Annie recognized
the block writing on the envelope as soon as she saw it.

He
was here,
she thought, shivering.
The person who’s doing this might be outside right now, watching the house.

She slammed the door and locked it, then drew all the curtains and pulled all the shades. Next she went through the entire
house, checking to make sure that no one had broken in, that all the doors and windows were secure. Only then did she open
the envelope.

A single page of paper slipped out. It was short this time. And it was written in the form of a mock obituary:

Entered into rest, Anne Jefferson, designer of church interiors. Suddenly. Crushed by the weight of her own prideful vision.

R.I.P.

Below that, in larger letters, were scrawled the words,
Watch out
—
you ’re next.
And then the signature;
Jehovah’s Pitchfork.

“I probably should have shown these to you before, Sam,” Annie said the next morning, pulling out photocopies of the three
threatening letters and handing them to him. “Besides poor Vico, there’s somebody else who appears to have some sort of hostile
intent toward the cathedral. That’s the latest one I’ve gotten,” she said, pointing. “Last night I turned them over to the
police.”

Sam read the letters, his expression growing increasingly grim as he read. By the time he got to the most recent one he was
looking very angry indeed. “’You’re next’? My God, Annie!”

“The hostility toward me in particular has been escalating,” Annie said dryly.

“I’ll say,” said Sam. “Jesus. It’s been one thing after another lately, hasn’t it?” He looked up at her. “How do you feel
about this?”

“Not great.”

Sam muttered a curse, unusual for him. He shuffled the letters, handling them gingerly. “Do you have any idea who might have
sent them?”

She shook her head. “I’ve been assuming it’s some random nutcase. But now that there’s been a murder, I’m wondering if there
could be any connection between the killer and these letters.”

“When did they start arriving?”

“Recently. Just a few days ago, in fact.”

“What about that kid Vico? He may be the murderer. Could he also be your poison pen?”

Poor Vico, Annie thought. Everybody was so quick to blame him. “I doubt it, Sam.”

“You don’t believe he’s a killer, either, do you?”

“I don’t know what to think.”

Sam rose and took a turn around his office. He stopped in front of the windows and rubbed the back of his neck, ruffling his
golden hair. Then he turned to her and said, “Look, this is tough on all of us. But after seeing those letters, I’m realizing
that it’s probably toughest on you, Annie. I’m really sorry about that.”

His voice was gentle, and Annie felt her eyes tear up. She bit her lip. Much as she liked Sam, she didn’t want to betray an
oversupply of emotion. She couldn’t forget Charlie’s lectures on the subject: Women cry too easily. It’s unprofessional. If
a woman is going to be accepted to work alongside a group of men, she has to adapt to their style. Men don’t cry.

Control yourself, Annie.

“I’ll be fine,” she said quietly. “A good night’s sleep will help a lot. I’m planning to go to bed very early tonight.”

“I’m worried about these letters,” he said. “I don’t want to scare you, but they sound really sick to me.”

“Well, the police know now. Presumably they’re doing something about it.”

“Have they offered you any kind of protection?”

“Well, no… but I didn’t ask for it.”

Sam reached for the phone. “Dammit, I’m going to get you some. This is ridiculous. A man has been murdered, nobody seems to
have a very clear idea why, and now you’re being threatened—”

“It’s funny, but in spite of what’s happened, I don’t feel as if the letters are really a threat to my life,” she said slowly.
“It’s more as if—this is just my intuition, of course—but it’s more like somebody is just trying to frighten me.”

His hand paused on the receiver. “What do you mean, frighten you? Why would anybody want to do that?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe for the simple reason that I’m a woman, and it’s not all that common for women to be in charge of twenty-million-dollar
construction projects.” She paused. “Sam, if you hadn’t put me in charge, who would have gotten the project manager’s position?”

He shrugged. “It would have depended on the owners, of course. It didn’t have to be one of us. In fact, it wouldn’t have been
at all unusual for them to hire someone from outside, someone who knows the construction business better than you do, in fact.”

“Somebody like Jack Fletcher, perhaps?”

Sam’s eyes narrowed. “You suspect him of being involved in this somehow?”

“Oh, God, I don’t know.” She
had
wondered about Jack Fletcher, because there was something about him that always
made her feel a little uneasy. But it was just a gut feeling and very vague. “I don’t like him much, that’s certainly true.
But that’s unfair of me, I know. I’m getting paranoid, I think. I’m starting to suspect everybody!”

“Well, actually, if you hadn’t been chosen as project manager, there’s somebody else in this firm who would have been perfect
for the job. And that’s Darcy.”

“Darcy?”

“Sure. As an architect, she already knows some of the technical details that you had to learn on the job. And she’s worked
with contractors before—in fact, I believe she did some sort of summer internship with Paul McEnerney back when she was still
in architecture school. She lacks your know-how on interior fittings of churches, though. But in other areas she is your equal,
if not your superior.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” Annie said with a smile. “The one person I don’t suspect of trying to frighten me out of my job is
Darcy!”

“Listen,” Sam said slowly. “I want you to let me know if this begins to get too nerve-racking, okay?”

“Uh, what exactly do you mean?”

“Simply that a lot has been going on—a lot of unexpected stuff. Being a project manager isn’t supposed to involve getting
mixed up in a murder investigation or having your life threatened.”

Annie felt her anger rise. Was he suggesting that she wasn’t tough enough to deal with these things?

She quickly told herself not to overreact—Sam was only expressing a sincere and legitimate concern for her. But what he could
never understand, as a man, was that a woman
in this business was always nervous about being thought incompetent.

Murder and threatening letters probably brought out the macho in most men. Men under fire were supposed to tough it out and
fire back. But women under fire were expected to wilt with the pressure.

I’m not wilting, dammit!

“I can handle it, Sam,” she assured him.

“I know you can. You’ve been great on this job, and you know it. I’m immensely proud of the work you’ve done.”

She relaxed a little. “Thanks.”

“But I promise you, I’m not going to allow you—or anyone else, for that matter—to risk your life because of a construction
project. I don’t care how many millions it’s bringing in. I’m going to have a little chat with the detectives on this case.
If they think there’s significant danger to any of my people, I’m going to pull everybody back for a while.”

“But, Sam, the construction schedule—”

“The hell with the schedule. The cathedral is close to completion, and a few more weeks aren’t going to make all that dire
a difference. If the building has to sit empty with no work going on while this crime is investigated and this killer caught,
fine. I don’t want to go to any more funerals, Annie.” He paused. “Especially yours.”

As Annie left Sam’s office, Sid Canin brushed by her and went in. He took no notice of her. In fact, ever since the other
day when he’d exploded in her office about Matt Carlyle’s involvement with the cathedral project, Sidney had been exceptionally
rude.

Annie had brushed it off as an irritation not worth fretting about. Besides, Giuseppe’s murder made everything else seem even
more trivial.

Now, though, she noticed that Sidney began yelling at Sam as soon as the door closed behind him. She couldn’t make out what
he was saying, and she wasn’t going to hang around and eavesdrop.

As she walked down the short hallway that led back to her office, she heard Sam yell back.

About an hour later, Darcy popped her head in. “More trouble,” she said. “Sam fired Sidney.”

“What?”

“Yep. Apparently it’s one of those ’clean out your desk and don’t darken my doorway again’ sort of things. Gloomy old Sid
is out.”

“On what grounds?” Annie asked.

“Sam’s not talking. Rumor has it they had a tear-up, rip-roaring fight. Supposedly Sid is saying, screw this business, screw
this city, he’s going to chuck everything and go live in New York, just like he’d planned a couple of years ago.”

Annie shook her head. “Everything’s changing,” she murmured. “And it’s all happening so fast.”

“Everything sucks,” Darcy agreed, “but it can’t change fast enough to suit me.”

Darcy began crying during Giuseppe Brindesi’s funeral and couldn’t stop. People hugged her and offered soft words of consolation;
others seemed surprised and touched that she was so upset by the death of a workman whom she hadn’t really known very well.

Darcy felt like a fraud.

She had known and liked Giuseppe, but her grief, she knew, was not entirely for him. She was mourning in part, for herself.

Things were falling apart on all sides. She had made no headway whatsoever with Sam. He didn’t seemed to be at all interested
in resuming their love affair. None of her tactics were working.

Meanwhile, Sid Canin’s summary dismissal had rattled everybody at Brody Associates. Although Darcy was not particularly sorry
to see Sid go, she didn’t like not knowing
why
he’d been fired. What had he done or not done? What had he said? If Sam had found fault with Sidney’s work, what was
to stop him from examining her’s? What if he found some flaw in her work that he could use as an excuse to send her packing
too?

Everything depended on her keeping her job. Shit, and she’d slept with the boss! She couldn’t believe the risk she had taken.
Or the new risks she kept taking every day.

And of course Giuseppe was dead—a good man, a fine craftsman, his life cut short. It was so wasteful, so unnecessary.

God, what a world.

Entering the church with the other mourners, Darcy had exchanged a hug with Sam—the same friendly, comforting hug she had
exchanged with everybody. Except it seemed that Sam had held her a little closer this time, and for longer than was strictly
necessary.

Or had she imagined it?

She could tell that he too was very upset by the murder. He was one of the speakers during the service, and his words about
Giuseppe were so warm and so emotional that he’d had most of his listeners in tears. At one point he’d choked up as he’d read
a short selection from John Donne: “No man is an island, entire of itself… any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved
in mankind.”

Listening intently, she’d been moved by his words, and proud of him.

Dammit, she still loved him so much!

She wondered about the blonde. Had he seen her again? Would he see her again soon? This coming weekend, perhaps? Or would
he use the blonde and cast her off as casually as he had done with her?

Darcy felt a confused surge of anger.

She tried to convince herself that she knew Sam’s type—
wealthy, sophisticated, single, and unable to commit to one woman. He was forty years old and had never married. In San Francisco,
that would usually suggest he was gay, but she knew better—she’d heard too long a litany of Sam’s cast-off women.

Yet, somehow, his romantic elusiveness didn’t seem to fit with his great personal warmth and friendliness. How could someone
who was so empathetic with people he barely knew not be all the
more
so with the people who were close to him?