After the Darkness

Chapter Twenty-Three

JASMINE DELEVIGNE ADMIRED HER NAKED BODY in the mirror. She was twenty-four years old, with smooth cafe au lait skin, long, slender legs and a new set of perfect silicone breasts, a birthday present from a powerful client. Cupping them lovingly in her hands, Jasmine thought, No. He's more than a client. He's my lover. I adore him.

It was unlike Jasmine to get attached to the men who paid to share her bed. The daughter of a French businessman and a Persian princess, Jasmine Delevigne didn't need the money she earned as a hooker. She did it for the thrill. Just knowing that rich, powerful men, men with beautiful wives and even more beautiful mistresses, found her irresistible, so intoxicating that they would pay for the privilege of bedding her, gave Jasmine an incredible high. It was years since she'd dipped into her trust fund. Her Fifth Avenue apartment, her vintage MG convertible, her wardrobe full of couture dresses and thousand-dollar-a-pair shoes; Jasmine's perfect body had paid for them all. Other people might call her a whore. People like her father, who lavished all his attention on Jasmine's mother and never noticed his daughter's efforts to please him. But Jasmine didn't care what they thought.

I'm a feminist. I fuck who I like, when I like, because I like. I answer to no one.

She wandered into her dressing room and picked out some underwear. Chocolate-brown, silk La Perla panties and a matching camisole. Classy and feminine. Just how he likes it. It had been weeks since Jasmine had seen him and she was excited. There were others, of course. All her clients were good-looking, successful men, and all of them were good in bed. Jasmine Delevigne was the best, and she only worked with the best. But none of the other men had gotten to her the way that he did.

The buzzer rang.

He's early. He wants this as much as I do.

Jasmine opened the door coolly, like the princess that she was.

"Hello, darling."

He grabbed her by the throat. "Take your fucking clothes off. Now."

Jasmine's pupils dilated with excitement. I've missed you so much.

"PLEASE! NO!"

Gavin Williams tightened the knots around Grace Brookstein's wrists. Then he lifted the cane and brought it down hard across the backs of her legs. Two livid red welts joined the others. Gavin Williams smiled.

"I'll ask you again, Grace. Where is the money?"

She was crying. Begging. Lenny Brookstein's wife, his most treasured possession, was begging him, Gavin Williams, for mercy. But Gavin Williams would show no mercy.

Let the sinners be consumed out of the earth, and let the wicked be no more.

He felt himself getting hard. He lifted the cane again.

"Excuse me, sir? Are you okay?"

Gavin Williams's fantasy evaporated. He was back at his desk at the SIBL, the Science, Industry and Business Library on Madison Avenue. The librarian was standing over him. Stupid, meddlesome bitch. Why couldn't she mind her own business?

"I'm fine."

"Are you sure? You look very flushed. Would you like me to open a window or something?"

"No," Gavin snapped. The old woman got the point and returned to her seat.

It was ridiculous, being forced to work in a public library. After Harry Bain had summarily dismissed him from the Quorum task force, Gavin's bureau chief had insisted that he take a paid leave of absence.

"You're stressed out, Agent Williams. You need some time off. Happens to all of us."

It happens to weak idiots like you, you mean. Not to me.

"I'm fine. I'm ready for service."

"Take the vacation, Gavin, okay? We'll call you in a couple of months."

A couple of months? Gavin knew what was going on. John Merrivale had been conspiring against him. Poisoning the well. They all think I'm crazy. Obsessive. But I'll show them. When Grace Brookstein leads me to that money, they'll be eating their words. I'm close. I can feel it.

Gavin Williams pulled an antiseptic wipe out of his briefcase and started cleaning the spot where the librarian's fingers had touched his desk. Then he closed his eyes and tried to recapture his fantasy: Grace Brookstein, at his mercy, tied up like an animal.

It was no use. She was gone.

"SIR, TAKE A LOOK AT THIS."

Mitch leaned over the younger detective's computer screen.

"You asked me to do some digging on Senator Warner. This e-mail just came in from vice squad."

Mitch read the e-mail.

"No one ever followed this up?"

"It appears not, sir. Senator Warner's a big supporter of NYPD causes."

I'll bet he is.

"This is all off-the-record. My buddy in vice was doing me a favor. I told him we'd handle it sensitively."

"Do you have an address for the girl?"

"Yes, sir. It's a pretty swanky address, too." The detective clicked to another window. "Do you think maybe we should send a female officer out there first? We don't want to spook her."

JACK WARNER SAT IN THE BACK of his limousine, feeling the adrenaline course through his veins. Being with Jasmine again, touching her, fucking her, gorging himself on her body...it was the best feeling in the world. Knowing that the whole of America idolized him as a Christian conservative, a walking embodiment of righteous ness and family values, only added to the thrill. Jack remembered Fred Farrell's advice to him, about his gambling.

"I get it. It's a turn-on. All this risk. But is it as much of a turn-on as being the next president of the United States? That's what you have to ask yourself, Jack. You could lose everything."

Ah, yes. But that was the thrill, wasn't it? Knowing you could lose everything. Fred Farrell knew about the gambling and the extramarital flings. But he didn't know about Jasmine. Only one person had ever known about Jasmine.

And that person was a rotting, worm-eaten corpse by the name of Lenny Brookstein.

JASMINE DELEVIGNE POURED TEA FROM A silver pot into two porcelain cups. She handed one of them to the policewoman.