Fair Game (24 page)

He got up and went to her purse, which she had dropped on the chair next to the door. He took it into the bathroom and shut the door, examining the bag’s contents by the light over the sink.

The ring held several keys, only one of which was small enough to fit the lock on the box. Holding his breath, he crept back to the desk and tried it.

The lock yielded, and the lid of the box sprang up smartly.

He released his breath in an audible sigh. He set the key ring aside and put the purse back on the chair, then returned to the computer.

He rifled through the disks quickly, reading the labels. He located one marked “Building Plans” with the dates of several fund-raisers and dinners following the words. He booted it up quickly, and saw diagrams and schematics as he scanned from page to page. He set the machine to copy the document onto one of the blank disks he’d brought with him, and then flipped through the rest of Meg’s disks as it did so. He found two others that looked promising and copied them also.

The machine hummed along; the keyboard was virtually silent and the rest of the process relatively quiet. He couldn’t be sure he was getting what he needed, but if he didn’t this time, he would just have to try again. And soon.

He ran into trouble when he was shutting down. In his haste to log off, he entered an incorrect command and the machine beeped loudly to alert him of it, flashing a remedial instruction.

Meg rolled over, mumbling, as Ransom shot to his feet, standing to block the glowing computer screen.

“Wassa madder?” Meg said, her words slurred from sleep and the dope he had given her.

“Nothing,” Ransom replied soothingly. “Go back to sleep.”

“Heard something?” she muttered, peering drunkenly through the darkness at him.

She had been wearing her glasses that night, and now they were lying on the bedside table. He knew that without them she wouldn’t be able to see across the room, even if it were fully lit and she had her wits about her, which she certainly didn’t.

“That was me, in the bathroom. I’m sorry.” He waited, still afraid she would recognize the sound she’d heard, a sound she heard routinely every day. But he knew she couldn’t remain conscious for long; the drug would pull her back under soon.

“Come back to bed,” she finally said sleepily, her head lolling on the pillow.

“In a minute. I’ll be right there,” he replied, relieved that she was clearly succumbing to the dope.

Ransom waited tensely until she subsided and he could hear that she was breathing deeply again. He went back to the machine and shut it down carefully, sweating profusely.

That had been close. Meg was in love with him, but she was the furthest thing from stupid. It would have been difficult to explain to her why he’d felt an irresistible urge to play with her computer in the middle of the night.

He pocketed the copies he’d made and relocked the box of disks, slipping the key ring back into her purse. Then he took off his pants, pulled back the sheet, and climbed into the bed.

Meg turned to him instantly, and he held her in his arms until the bedside clock read six.

He got up, and she opened her eyes. She was apparently a light sleeper.

“Got to go,” he said, bending to kiss her forehead as he buttoned his shirt.

“Can’t you stay for breakfast?” she asked, sitting up, a lock of dark hair falling over one eye like a comma.

“I’ve got an early meeting on the mall project,” he lied quickly, reaching for the rest of his clothes. “I’ll call you tonight. You’ll still be here, right?”

She nodded, falling back groggily. What was the matter with her head? It felt as if it was filled with cotton.

“Eight o’clock,” he said.

He was through the door before she could comment.

The only person he saw on his way out was the desk clerk.

Ransom had never felt worse in his life.

* * * *

Martin was up at six-thirty, drinking room-service coffee and hoping that Ashley would emerge from her room before too long. She had nothing to attend until the luncheon at one, but sometimes she stayed inside working for hours on end. He had resolved that today he would ask her what was going on with Dillon.

It was still none of his business, but if he had to wonder about it any longer, he would surely go mad.

Dillon had vanished after the auction, when he and Capo had seen him leaving in a huff, and Martin wondered if the lawyer’s disappearance had anything to do with him. The phone calls had stopped, the gifts no longer arrived, and Ashley attended everything alone.

All in all, from Martin’s point of view it was a very interesting development.

He had showered and shaved in the separate room Meg always reserved for that purpose, but now he was back in Ashley’s suite, waiting. He could hear the water running in the room next door as Capo got ready for the day ahead.

Martin finished the last of the coffee and thought about ordering more. He was living on coffee and cigarettes, and had lost eight pounds since starting this tour. His cheekbones stood out like a fashion model’s, and he looked like a man visited nightly by an incubus, a man expiring of a surfeit of passion.

Which was almost the truth. He could hardly bear to be around Ashley, for fear of what his expression might reveal, but when he was away from her it was worse, as he was tortured by his ignorance of what she might be doing.

His only consolation was that he wasn’t away from her much.

A waiter knocked and went past Martin into the bedroom with a tray at seven-thirty. At eight o’clock, he heard her on the phone with one of her cronies in the Justice Department, and at eight-thirty she appeared, wearing jeans and an oxford cloth blouse.

“Good morning,” she said, coming through the connecting door.

“Hi.”

“Has Meg been in yet?”

Martin shook his head.

“Dad must still be having breakfast. Did you eat?”

“Coffee.”

She surveyed him disapprovingly. “You should eat more. You’re getting thin, and I think we’re responsible. The schedule we’re forcing you to keep would run anyone into malnutrition.”

“You’re keeping the same schedule,” he pointed out to her.

“But I get a regular infusion of pastrami sandwiches,” she said, and he smiled.

“Holding out on me, huh?”

“Could be.”

“If I find out you’re hitting those greasy spoons with anyone but me...” He let the threat hang in the air, and she grinned.

“Let me order you up some breakfast,” she said, reaching for the phone extension on the TV table.

“I don’t want anything, really.”

“Stubborn, eh?”

“It will just go to waste.”

“What will the police commissioner say when we return a skeleton to his ranks?”

The mention of the end of his tour brought sobering thoughts for them both.

“Ten more days,” Martin said.

Ashley nodded slowly.

“Then I go back to Philly,” he added.

She nodded again, not looking at him.

“What happens to you?” he asked softly.

“I keep on with... this,” she said, gesturing around her.

“And with Jim Dillon?” he said, looking into her eyes.

She was silent.

“What happened to him, Ashley?” Martin called her that only when they were alone together.

“We had... an argument.”

He saw that she wasn’t going to be more specific, so he prodded, “What about?”

“Just a difference of opinion.” She was having trouble holding his gaze; she was a lousy liar.

“Must have been a major one.”

“You could say that.”

“Ashley, was the argument about me?”

There was no mistaking the flush that spread up from her neck to her cheeks.

“Why do you ask that?” she murmured.

“The way he looked at me when he left the boat the night of the auction,” Martin replied.

“How did he look at you?”

“Like he wanted to kill me.”

“All right, yes. The argument was about you,” she conceded uncomfortably.

“What did he say?”

“He wanted me to call the police department and request that you be replaced,” Ashley responded.

“Why?”

“He thought there was something between us,” she answered. “I told him that we were friends, but he couldn’t understand that. He was jealous.”

“Is he that insecure?” Martin asked.

“He never was before,” she replied.

“You never gave him reason.”

“I didn’t give him reason this time.”

“Yes, you did,” Martin told her in a low tone, taking a step closer to her.

She closed her eyes. “Tim, please.”

“You know you did,” he said huskily.

She didn’t answer, her mouth working.

“Are we just going to go on this way?” he said, pressing her. “I’m about ready to jump out of my skin all the time, we’re tiptoeing past each other like a couple of burglars, and when I think of leaving and never seeing you again...”

“Shh.” She put her finger to his lips, and he kissed it.

She moved her hand and touched his face, running her index finger over the hard line of his jaw.

“It’s like a miracle to be able to touch you, after wanting it for so long,” she whispered.

“You could always touch me,” he said, taking her hand and placing it against the pulse in his throat. “Any time.”

“If only it were that easy,” she murmured, her eyes filling.

“Why should it be hard?”

“You’ll lose your job if your captain finds out you were doing anything more than guarding me,” she said.

“What have I done?”

“Oh, Tim, don’t be naive. This wasn’t supposed to happen, and you know it.”

“What does that mean? Your daddy won’t like it?”

Her hand fell away.

“Is that it?” Martin insisted.

“If you really believe that, then you don’t know me at all,” Ashley replied.

“Then what? Why is it so impossible? Damn it, Ashley, why are you looking at me like that?”

“Do you think I don’t know the contempt you feel for all of us?” she said quietly. “I’ve felt it myself, seeing us through your eyes. You think we’re all rich parasites who’ve never done a day’s work, and you think my father is about as qualified to be President as you are to teach at the Sorbonne.”

“That has nothing to do with you.”

“Of course it does! This is what I am. I come from the Fair family, and I want my father to be President! He may not be perfect, but he’s better than anybody else who’s running now, and he’ll do the best job he possibly can.

“Ashley, this isn’t about your father. Don’t confuse the issue.” He took her chin in his hand and forced her to meet his eyes. “Can you face the idea of never seeing me again after I’m through here?”

She bit her lip, her eyes searching his.

He reached for her and pulled her into his arms. When he kissed her, the satisfaction was so intense for both of them that they remained for a long time locked in a fierce embrace, like teenagers who are loath to lose contact for fear the magic may never happen again.

When Martin finally lifted his head, Ashley wrapped her arms around his waist and buried her face against his shoulder.

“Come down to my room with me,” he said huskily.

“What room?” she whispered, luxuriating in the feel of his hard body under her hands.

“Where I shower and change. It’s empty.”

She stepped back from him and looked up into his face. He was regarding her with a fixity that told her he was feeling exactly what she was.

She nodded.

“I’ll go,” he murmured. “Come after me in five minutes.”

He left without looking back at her. Ashley stood rooted, her heart pounding, wanting to race after him but forcing herself to remain until he was gone.

She was in love with him, but she didn’t want to be. It was all wrong, they would never be able to make a future together, but she had never felt anything as powerful as the need to follow him and be with him. It overrode everything else.

When she had waited long enough she slipped down the hall, as furtive as a thief, and when Martin heard her footfall he opened the door and let her in. As soon as she entered, he closed the door and locked it firmly behind her.

They fell into each other’s arms. Ashley found herself pulling at her shirt and his almost in a frenzy, trying to undress both of them at the same time. He kept kissing her, as if he could never get enough of her mouth, and they were half undressed when the phone rang on the table beside the bed.

“Ignore it,” Ashley whispered urgently.

But he was still a cop. He set her aside and picked up the receiver, saying into it breathlessly, “Yeah?”

He listened, said, “Got it,” and hung up the phone.