Privilege (Special Tactical Units Division 2)

Take what had happened last week. She’d answered two calls on her cellphone, said “Hello,” and received no response. Just silence. Of course she’d had calls like those once or twice before. Everybody got them.

But because of Texas, when the third call came in, she’d rushed to her carrier’s nearest store.

“They’re just hang-ups,” the guy at the store had said after checking her phone. “Well, not real hang-ups. You know, nobody actually hangs up a cellphone, but that’s what we called them back in the day. Some jerk dials around, usually at random, and when he gets an answer, he hangs up. Disconnects.”

Bianca had explained that she’d been the one who’d had to disconnect. The person who’d made the calls didn’t.

“Kids,” the guy said, rolling his eyes. “Little SOBs—pardon my language—with too much time on their hands. Look, if you want to change your number we’ll do it, but…”

The “but” was exactly why she told him thanks, but no thanks.

Changing the number again meant notifying everybody she’d notified just a couple of months ago. That time, she’d told her family she’d had to change her number because the person who’d owned it before had turned out to be a guy with a bad financial history.

“I’m getting calls from all kinds of credit agencies,” she’d said, and they’d all said yeah, getting a stranger’s bad number was a hassle.

What excuse could she use now?

The same one wouldn’t work twice. Even if it did, Alessandra wouldn’t be fooled. She would know something was up and then, absolutely, she’d break her vow of silence and the Wildes and the Bellinis and Tanner would all be involved.

Everybody but Chay.

Bianca blinked.

Dio, she was thinking about him again! Ridiculous. She hadn’t thought of him in weeks. Not since that night in California. Not once. Not for a minute. Not for a second. And she never would. Never, ever…

Thunder roared. A jagged spear of lightning illuminated the room. Bianca jerked back from the half-open closet so quickly that she bumped her head on the door.

“Dammit,” she whispered.

No umbrella. No jacket. A storm of epic proportions outside. What the hell. She could stay here until it ended. All she had to do was call Cuppa Joe’s. Ask one of the baristas if he’d please see whether there was a man sitting at the table in front, the one nearest the counter that held sugar and sweeteners, milk and cream. The man would be holding a copy of today’s New York Times. And if somebody like that was there, would the nice barista please hand the guy the phone and—

Another flash of lightning. Another roar of thunder.

The lights flickered. And Bianca held her breath.

East Side Associates had a small conference room. At the conclusion of her first week here, her new colleagues had thrown what they’d called a Welcoming Party on her behalf. All the associates, including the one she was replacing had shown up as well as some of their spouses and partners.

That part had turned out to be…interesting.

For starters, the guy she was replacing had smiled too broadly, pumped her hand too hard, and several glasses of wine later, he’d marched to where Bianca stood and informed her that if she thought she could fill his shoes, she was wrong.

“Choosing someone as inexperienced as you to take my place,” he’d said, loudly enough to silence all other conversation, “is ridiculous!”

Dr. Epstein and the man’s partner had taken him by the elbows and hurried him out the door.

“Sorry about that,” Epstein had said.

“No, that’s okay,” Bianca replied, because what else could she have said?

It had been an insightful experience, if not a pleasant one.

There’d been other insightful moments that evening too, but nobody had ever said psychologists and psychiatrists lived trouble-free lives.

One associate’s wife had taken Bianca aside and said brusquely that her husband liked to flirt and she hoped Bianca would not be foolish enough to take him seriously. The warning had been surprising, to say the least, because the man in question was in his eighties and about as flirtatious as a clam.

The husband of another associate had offered to refill Bianca’s wineglass and as he did, he’d said—in the same conversational tone he’d used in suggesting more wine—that he and his wife had an “arrangement,” and if she were so inclined, Bianca should feel free to give him a call sometime. Wink wink.

Bianca hadn’t responded. What could she say to that, especially when what little she already knew of the wife suggested that the woman would have been astounded to hear that her husband believed they had any sort of arrangement?