Intimate Betrayal (23 page)

“I know it’s ridiculous, but no, she didn’t. I have one, of course. And I asked her many times to make one. I even made appointments
for her with our lawyer, but she refused. She was superstitious about wills.”

“Why?”

“Because her parents were killed in a boating accident the week after they executed their wills. One of those freak things.
But she was convinced that making a will was bad luck, and she even tried to prevent me from making mine. She was afraid I’d
die as soon as I signed it.” He paused. “This all came out at the trial.”

She looked at him. “I didn’t follow the trial that closely,” she admitted.

“I’m glad. It was awful, sitting there in court and hearing the story of my life told to strangers, presented as truth, having
only a shadowy resemblance to my own perceptions.”

“I guess truth is subtly different for all of us.”

“The prosecution wasn’t even trying to present the truth,” he said bitterly. “All they cared about was making up a story that
convinced people I was a heartless killer. They did a pretty good job of it, too.”

He stopped the car in front of a dark structure. No lights were on in the place, although a couple of floodlights shone on
the perimeters. From what she could see through the driving rain, it looked glassy and airy, an usual and striking piece of
architecture.

“What was the extent of Francesca’s estate?” she asked.

“Compared to the average American, it was substantial,” he said. “This house is worth a fair amount, and the land has value.
She also had a respectable portfolio, much of it inherited from her parents and wisely invested.”

“I don’t remember her estate’s being much of an issue in the news during the trial.”

“No, it wasn’t, because her separate holdings were negligible when compared with mine. No one ever thought I murdered her
for her money.”

“No, they figured you murdered her to prevent her from divorcing you and getting half of
your
money.”

“Exactly. We were married for twenty years—the entire period of my building of Powerdyme. We had no prenuptial agreement,
and with California’s joint property laws, she would legally have been entitled to half my fortune. Two billion dollars, in
other words.”

Annie laughed a little shakily. As a motive for murder, two billion dollars was hard to refute. No wonder the prosecution
had been so determined to nail him.

“So, instead of that, when she died, her entire estate-went to you?”

“Actually, I gave her money to charity. It’s what she would have wanted done if she’d
had
a will. She spoke of it often—she wanted Barbara Rae and the United Path Church to be her beneficiaries. Francesca loved
Barbara Rae.” He paused then added, “I think everybody at the church was pretty shocked to learn that Francesca hadn’t made
a will. They were relieved when I turned the money over to them anyway.”

“So the cathedral building committee benefited from Fran-cesca’s death?”

“Actually, it benefited a lot more from her
life.
She raised most of the building funds herself.”

And a substantial portion of it, Annie knew, had been raised from Matthew’s own pockets.

“You’re a generous man, Matt.”

He shrugged. “It’s easy to be generous when you’re as rich as Croesus. I have far more money than I know what to do with.”

“What, exactly, are we doing here?” she asked as she trailed after him through the empty house. It was kind of spooky. What
furniture remained was covered with white dust sheets, creating an array of odd, ghostly shapes. In the library, Annie stood
by the French doors looking out over the Bay, where waves were crashing against the rocks.

Matthew came to stand beside her in the dark. She hadn’t realized he was so close, and at his touch on her shoulder, she jumped.

“You’re nervous, aren’t you?”

She hadn’t told him yet about what had happened in the bell-tower elevator. That was for later. She hadn’t wanted to dampen
the fire that was running between them.

“There’s someplace special I want to take you tonight,” he’d said when he’d picked her up at her house. He’d shown up driving
the Porsche instead of the dark sedan, and she’d laughed because it was the third different car she’d seen him in. The limousine
he’d used after Giuseppe’s funeral didn’t count, he told her, grinning. That had been hired.

“Yes, I’m a little jumpy, I think,” she admitted.

“Why? Because you’re alone with me in a deserted spot?”

It was going to take him a while to believe that she trusted him. But that was okay, she told herself. Trust
should
come slowly.

She tipped her head back and smiled archly at him. “Yes, indeed. I feel like a maiden from the distant past. And you, dark
lord, have abducted me to your fortress by the sea.”

His eyes gleamed. “I can get into that.”

“Can you?”

“Absolutely.” He grasped her wrists and pushed them behind her back. “Lock your hands together, wench, and keep ’em that way,
on pain of some very nasty punishment if you break position.”

She obeyed, holding still for him while he ran his palms over her breasts, then, slowly, unbuttoned her blouse and pushed
it back off her shoulders. She wore no bra, and his eyes admired her breasts for a long moment before repeating his caresses
on her soft, naked skin.

“You look very vulnerable like that,” he whispered.

“I feel very vulnerable.”

He bent his head and touched her lips. “I like it. It’s giving me a kinky surge of power.” He grinned. “Now I know why abducting
maidens used to be so popular.”

She smiled back. Was it a game… or a way to show her trust in him? Either way, it seemed to be working!

“Kneel,” he ordered.

She gulped.
Kneel?

His fingers lightly tugged on one nipple, then tightened.

“Ahh,” she gasped, then giggled.

“Don’t think about it, wench. Just do it.”

She knelt, trying hard to be graceful while still holding her hands behind her back. She looked up at him and saw a kind of
bemused pleasure on his face, as if he couldn’t quite believe this was happening but was thrilled about it anyway.

“Wow,” he said. He dropped to the floor beside her and pulled her into his arms. “I’d take you into the bedroom but I don’t
think I can wait that long.”

She laughed joyously as they tore at each other’s clothes.

Annie saw a different side of Matt that night in the isolated beach house. The first night they’d been together, he’d been
beside himself and nearly out of control with passion, but tonight he was very controlled, very demanding. He showed her what
a master of sensuality he truly was, and how helpless she was to resist him.

That night she started to feel that anything he demanded of her, at least in the bedroom, she would willingly do. Kneeling,
she soon learned, was just the beginning.

There was an edge to him that was so commanding that it seemed unthinkable to thwart him. He swept her away. He didn’t ask,
he laid claim. She could no more have refused him than she could have prevented the sun from rising in the morning sky.

She gleaned that he liked to rule in the bedroom and that he relished her trust and her surrender. And yet, he was deliriously
attentive to her needs and her desires. In a low, sexy voice, he ordered her to tell him her fantasies,
to tell him things that she had never said to another living soul. Not even Charlie had known the contents of her most erotic
imaginings. She’d been too embarrassed to discuss with him scenes and images of forbidden activities, some of which seemed
too dark ever to discuss with anybody.

But nothing, she quickly learned, embarrassed or startled Matt Carlyle. Indeed, his own dreams and yearnings, as he described
them to her, were every bit as wild and outrageous as hers. “I want your honesty,” he said, his voice low and intense. “No,
more than that. I demand it. It’s what I ought to have insisted on with Francesca. No secrets. Nothing hidden. You lie naked
before me, but it’s not enough. I have to see your naked heart, your naked soul.”

“You ask too much,” she whispered.

“I know. But I will have what I ask for, just the same.”

“I’ll give you all I can.”

He swooped over her, pinning her with his hard, bare body. “And I’ll take everything you can give.”

“Look,” she said to him sometime during that endless night. “Did you see that?” Rising, she went to the window that looked
out over the cliff on the north side of the house.

“What?”

“I thought I saw a flash of light.”

He joined her at the window and peered out, trying to see through the fog and the slashing rain.

“Probably just lightning,” he said.

He pulled her slowly into his arms. His big hands moved
sensuously over the muscles of her back and shoulders. His headxame down, and he kissed her on the mouth.

Annie responded warmly, but her feeling of unease persisted. The flash had looked like headlights, from a stationary vehicle,
coming on and then immediately being doused. She pulled back a bit and whispered, “I have the most eerie feeling. As if we’re
being watched.”

He smiled. “Even if you were right, there wouldn’t be much for anyone to see. Too dark and too foggy.” He kissed her more
deeply, his tongue tangling with hers. “Relax, Annie. Relax.”

Matt dreamed that he was out on the coast road, looking up toward the house, which was a vague, ghostly mass in the fog and
rain. In the dreamscape he saw a dark, late-model sedan begin, slowly, to close in from the shadows. Its engine purred too
quietly to be heard above the noise of the storm, and its headlights were not on.

The driver was staring up at the house and vowing that Matthew Carlyle would never be happy again.

That he would suffer.

That he would lose everything that had ever mattered to him.

That he would die.

Matt tossed restlessly in his sleep. He was with Annie. He
was
happy again.

The driver didn’t like that. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. It didn’t fit the plan.

The plan was to destroy Matthew Carlyle.

And if someone else—like Annie Jefferson—interfered with the plan, she too would have to die.

He woke with a start, his heart pounding. He pulled Annie close and held her very tight.

The following afternoon, back at his Pacific Heights estate, Matt was enjoying cooking somewhat mangled pancakes for his laughing
new lover when he heard the front door bell. He glanced up at the clock on the wall. Two o’clock on a Saturday. Who the hell-

Mrs. Roberts, the housekeeper, came into the kitchen, her face impassive as always but her eyes alarmed. “Sorry to bother
you, sir,” she said, trying not to look at Annie. “There are two people at the door who say they’re detectives with the San
Francisco police.”

Matt felt the old familiar sinking in his stomach. He glanced at Annie and he could see the concern racing through her. She
was empathetic, he knew—she had shown that to him over and over again last night. But she could have no real inkling of what
it was like, to him, to hear those words.

Still, four months of sitting impassively in a courtroom under orders not to betray the slightest emotion that could
influence the jury against him had trained him well. He was able to quiet the wild racing of his heart and nod calmly to Mrs.
Roberts. “Show them in, please.”

“Oh, Matt—” Annie began as the housekeeper left the room.

“Shh, don’t fret. They were bound to get around to me sooner or later. As we said, they can put me at the crime scene. They’ve
got my fingerprints all over the scaffolding, and I assure you, the San Francisco police have my fingerprints on record. Hell,
they’ve probably got them in a special display case.”

Mrs. Roberts reentered, two detectives in tow, a male and a female. Matt satisfied himself that he didn’t know either of them.
They hadn’t been assigned to Francesca’s murder.

They introduced themselves, and Matthew was polite. He was about to introduce them to Annie when she cut in, “It’s okay. I’ve
already met Detectives Sullivan and Foster.”

Sullivan did most of the talking. “We’re investigating the murder of Giuseppe Brindesi,” she said. “Did you know him, Mr.
Carlyle?”

Matt leaned back against the kitchen counter. “Coffee, detectives?” he said.

They both shook their heads, although Sullivan glanced eagerly at the steaming coffeepot. Both detectives looked as if they’d
been up all night.

Matt thought with some amusement that he and Annie probably looked the same. But happier.

“Look, Carlyle,” said Foster. “You know the routine. Let’s not beat around the bush. We have your prints all over that scaffolding
in the cathedral. You care to explain that for us?”

“Do you see my lawyer present, Detective Foster?”

“At the moment, we’re not charging you with anything.”

At the moment.

“So, what, am I expected to do my civic duty and have a friendly little chat with you outside the presence of my attorney
while you and the DA’s office try to put together another trumped-up case against me?”

“There’s no need to be alarmed, Mr. Carlyle,” Sullivan interceded quickly. “Several of the workmen on the construction site
have already explained your presence at what’s now become the crime scene.” She glanced at Annie.” ’As did Ms. Jefferson,
of course.”

“Then it seems to me, Detective Sullivan, that even if my lawyer were present, there would be no necessity for me to answer
any of your questions.”

“We’re trying to establish a time line and to understand various subtleties about the case,” she said.

“Well, you certainly have my best wishes. I too would like to see the killer brought to justice as quickly as possible.”

“That’s why we were hoping for your cooperation, sir. Perhaps your insights will assist us.”

Matthew felt his anger rising. What kind of an idiot did they think he was? These people—or others from their department—were
responsible for the eighteen months of fear and misery he’d endured at the hands of the state. Whatever innocence he’d had
in dealing with the American justice system had been blasted forever. They were damn lucky he didn’t throw them bodily out
of his house.