Raising the Stakes

That had won him a soft laugh. “Fool around, huh?”

“Sure. Work up an appetite for breakfast.”

“Don’t want breakfast,” she’d mumbled, just before she’d started to snore. “Jus’ want sleep.”

Remembering it, Gray smiled. What he wanted was to wake her with a kiss and do some of that fooling around, but he didn’t have the heart. Beside

s… He lifted his arm and checked his watch. Things would be starting to move back East right about now. He needed to call his secretary, ask her to pull some case history volumes from the library. He wanted to talk to one of his partners, too, a guy who was as well-versed in marital law as anybody in New York. And, just in case all the legal maneuvering in the world didn’t do the trick, maybe he should begin to think about those of his clients who would best know how to dissuade a man who didn’t want to be dissuaded.

First thing, though, he had to phone Jack Ballard. He was surprised Jack had missed finding out about Dawn’s son but then again, he’d been searching for Dawn, not for a kid. Gray wanted to know where the boy was. His meeting with Harman had left him feeling uneasy. He had the feeling that he might have stirred things up. It would be best to locate Dawn’s child, keep some kind of watch on him.

Gray sat up, eased to the edge of the bed and turned for one last look at Dawn. How different she looked from those photos…photos in the briefcase he’d forgotten in the back seat of his rental car yesterday. The memory gave him a twinge of distress even though he knew the briefcase was safe. He’d phoned Winslow during the flight to Vegas and the guy he’d paid to drive the car to Flagstaff said he’d already found the briefcase and sure, he’d send it to Gray at the Desert Song, pronto.

He collected his clothes, dressed quietly, then made one last detour to the bed. How could a man fall in love when he’d never believed love existed? How could it happen in a handful of days? He didn’t know. He didn’t care. All that mattered was Dawn. Once he was sure she was safe, he’d tell her everything. She’d be angry but she’d understand…and if she didn’t, he’d take her in his arms and kiss her until she did.

He tiptoed into the kitchen and quietly phoned for a taxi. “Tell the driver not to blow his horn,” he said. “I’ll be waiting outside.” Then he found a pencil and piece of paper, scrawled a note and went back to the bedroom. The bear he’d given Dawn sat in a place of honor on the night table, and he tucked the note under its paw.

Goodbye, sweetheart, it said. I’ll see you later.

He looked at her for a long minute before gently kissing her temple. Then he smoothed the blanket over her shoulder, made his way quietly to the front door, set the lock, and stepped out into the morning.

* * *

Outside, in the shadow cast by the indigo, a dark figure squatted, motionless.

Harman was pressed between the shrub and the wall of the house, silent and watchful. He’d been there for hours and it pleased him to think how other men would have felt cramps in their legs by now or at least a stiffness in their muscles. Not him. He’d grown up hunting in the mountains of northern Arizona. No deer, no bobcat, no wild critter could outlast him or spot him, when he lay in waiting. He knew how to become part of the scenery, how to be still as a stone…

How to be as deadly as a rattlesnake, coiled and ready to strike.

Bile rose in his throat when the door to the house where his wife lived swung open. Graham Baron stepped outside, yawned and stretched. Harman had spent a lifetime scenting game. Now, his nostrils widened as he took in the stink of sex and woman. Baron had come straight from the whore’s bed.

Harman’s hands closed into fists. The lying son of a bitch! All that crap about music boxes… Shit, all of it. Dawn had come into money. His mouth twisted. And Baron had come into her.

Ah, how good it would feel to kill him. How easy. The street was deserted. Not even a dog wandering by. He could be on top of Baron before the bastard knew it. How he’d love to feel his hunting knife slip between Baron’s ribs and watch his face as the blade pierced his heart, watch as shocked awareness turned to terror and, at last, to acceptance of his whoremonger’s fate.

Harman shuddered, licked his lips. Then he’d go inside and take care of the whore herself. No knife in the heart for her. She didn’t deserve a quick end. He’d do her slowly, let her beg for a merciful death. Just thinking about it made him hard as a rock—but it would have to wait. There were things to do before he dealt with the slut and her lover.

Baron was pacing the sidewalk, his hands in his pockets. After a while, a taxi turned up the street. Baron waved and it pulled to the curb.

“The Desert Song Hotel,” he said, and climbed inside.

A grin spread across Harman’s mouth as the taxi drove away. When the cab disappeared, he rose silently and turned a hungry gaze on the curtained window.

Yes. He could do it right now. Give his whoring wife what she deserved. Climb through the window—it had been easy to jimmy the lock last night. Climb through, come up to her, put his hand over her mouth and gag her, then tie her down, strip away her clothes with his knife and spread her legs so that he could see the place she’d always tried to deny him and then teach her the price a woman paid when she forgot the vows she’d taken.

He drew a breath, wiped the spittle from the corners of his lips with the back of his hand.

Except, his son would be lost to him. The bitch would sooner go to hell than reveal the boy’s whereabouts.

He couldn’t kill Dawn until he knew where Thomas was.

Harman smiled to himself. Dawn had never credited him with being smart, but he was. Smart enough to have let Baron start down the mountain before he climbed into his truck and tailed him to the Winslow airport and the place where rich men kept their planes, and to have one of his drinking buddies who worked there tell him where the plane Baron chartered was going. For twenty bucks, his pal had let him search the car Baron had paid him to drive back to Flagstaff, and it was worth it because the city lawyer had been in such a hurry to get to his whore that he’d forgotten his briefcase.

There were papers and pictures in it, and then he’d struck gold. The best thing in that briefcase was the name of the place where Dawn worked…and the mother lode, her address in Las Vegas.

Harman had driven like a madman, using back roads whenever he could to avoid cops and speed limits, racing through the night without stopping until he finally got to Dawn’s street. He parked a block away from her house, walked back and felt the presence of his whore of a wife even before he’d jimmied the lock on the window and heard the sounds coming from her apartment. Her voice. Baron’s voice. The grunts and groans of two animals rutting, noises she’d never made for him.

A rush of crimson flooded his vision. Harman closed his eyes, breathed deeply the way he’d trained himself to do when long hours waiting for game threatened to upset him. He had to stay calm, stay focused. He’d waited four years for this. A few hours more was nothing.