Part 41 (1/2)

”I don't want alcohol in this house. Under no circ.u.mstances whatsoever. Is that clear?”

She nodded.

”Now. All I'm asking you to do is to spend some time over the next few days thinking. Think about what you want out of life. Think about what makes you happya”truly happy. I know it has a lot to do with Haleya”I think you're a wonderful mother, I really do. But look beyond her, if you can, and try to think about what you want. Can you try to do that?”

Mary Lou couldn't keep her mouth shut any longer. ”This is about Alyssa Locke, isn't it?”

He sighed. ”No, it isn't. I'm taking a shower.”

”She doesn't want youa”she's with someone else now. You told me that yourself!” She followed him out of the kitchen and into the hall. Her voice was shrill but she couldn't seem to make herself shut up.

From the other end of the house, Haley woke up and started to cry.

”Yeah, see, but you don't want me, either,” Sam said, his voice surprisingly gentle, his eyes not unkind. ”Not really.”

”You are so wrong!”

”Am I?” Sam asked as he went into the bathroom. ”Maybe you should think some about that, as well. I'm going to be late and you are, too, if you don't get going.”

He shut the door.

Heart racing, Mary Lou went in to Haley. She had to stop and sit down, putting her head between her knees to regain her equilibrium, before she got the little girl out of the crib.

She hadn't been this panicked, this uncertain about her future since those unsettling weeks before her wedding day.

Husaam slid down in the driver's seat so that Mary Lou wouldn't see him as she loaded the kid into her car.

She looked upset.

Of course, she looked upset most morningsa”who wouldn't, with that a.s.shole Sam Starrett for a husband?

And yet Mary Lou was no prize. He'd thought she might bea”he'd actually started to genuinely like her. She was pretty and stacked and none too bright. He didn't like women who were rocket scientists. But then...

He still couldn't get over the way she'd so casually pulled up her s.h.i.+rt and fed Haley out in the churchyard, where anyone could see.

That was no way for a married woman to behave. If she were his wife, he'd have her beaten for indecency. She had no right to go and flash the world. No right at all.

And what was with this man who was following her around? This wasn't the first time he'd seen this loser with Mary Lou. Clearly, he was after something.

He'd had him checked out, but background checks could be falsified. He himself knew that quite well.

Still, the information he'd found seemed to be real.

Ihbraham Rahman, born in Saudi Arabiaa”not too far from the city where Husaam had spent much of his childhooda”had became an American citizen in 1990. He owned a share in a Lincoln dealers.h.i.+p in Anaheim with three younger brothers, two cousins, and an unclea”none of whom were even remotely tied to any terrorist activity. And why should they be? They'd embraced the American Dream and were making it pay off.

Not that there wasn't strife in their lives. Apparently Ihbraham had quit his job at the dealers.h.i.+p a few years back, ditched a fiance who was the only daughter of the ailing owner of a nearby BMW dealer, and ran off to reinvent himself as a landscaper, courtesy of the twelve-step program.

The fiance was still carrying a torch and the brothers still had hopes of turning Rahman Lincoln Mercury into Rahman Lincoln Mercury BMW.

So what was Ihbraham doing with Mary Lou?

Obviously, he was sniffing out an easy targeta”looking for an easy lay. And there was no doubt about it. Mary Lou Starrett was ripe and ready for the picking, thanks to her husband's neglect.

She got into her car, and Husaam followed her along the same route she always took to her baby-sitter's house, letting her get way ahead of him. There was no chance she'd see him. None at all.

He was going to have to make it clear that if Mary Lou wanted some extramarital s.e.x, she wouldn't have to look to the hired help. He was willing to do whatever he needed to doa”even sleep with her, what a hards.h.i.+pa”to make sure Rahman didn't mess up this operation.

It was bad enough when Mary Lou had sent her car in to have the trunk lid replaced. His clients had been ready to bolt after she'd discovered one of the weapons he'd put in the trunk of her car.

But Husaam doubted she was bright enough to put two and two together and come up with a plan to a.s.sa.s.sinate the U.S. President. Still, if she told someone else what she had seen...

But she hadn't told anyone. He was willing to bet his reputation and his very life on thata”and even use her and her car as a delivery vehicle one last time, even though her trunk now locked.

A lock wasn't much of a problem in the first place, and it was less of a problem because he now had a key.

No doubt about it, this was going to be some of the sweetest, easiest money he'd ever earned.

Muldoon woke up alone in Joan's bed.

He could hear the sound of the shower running. Light was coming in through a crack in the curtains, and when he turned to look, the clock on the bedside table read 5:24 A.M.

h.e.l.lo, morning after.

He briefly closed his eyes. Please, G.o.d, let this time be different.

He'd woken up shortly after 0200 to find Joan sprawled bonelessly on the bed beside him, her head on his shoulder, her hand resting almost possessively over his heart.

That was the timea”were she just some random woman he'd met in a bara”that he would have slipped out of the bed, put on his clothes, and left, leaving his phone number if she'd mentioned she'd be in town for a few days, or just a notea”It was funa”if she'd made it clear right from the start that there would be no tomorrow.

Only rarely did he stay until dawn. He'd learned the hard way that the morning after could be fraught with all kinds of peril and pain.

The morning after was the part where he either had to leave or be left. It was the time in which there would be a slight change in the voice of last night's warm lover. There might be a second or two of uncomfortable silence before she cleared her throat and spoke just a shade too politely, or maybe a tad too cheerfully.

Either way, he'd learned that it meant that the nighta”and their brief relations.h.i.+pa”was over.

Was it any wonder that he'd made it his MO to leave before being shown the door?

At 0210, he'd gotten up to go to the bathroom, careful not to wake Joan. Or so he'd thought. When he came back into the bedroom and climbed into beda”no way was he leaving her until he absolutely had toa”she'd snuggled up against him, resuming her same position with her head on his shoulder.

Only her hand had slipped down to his stomach and then lower and...

Muldoon lay there now, tangled in the sheets, smiling up at the ceiling. He should be tired after a night with so little sleep, but really, he couldn't remember the last time he'd felt better.

He had two immediate options. Stay here in bed until Joan got out of the bathroom, or go in there, maybe join her in the shower.

Getting it on in the shower would put an entirely new spin on the concept of a morning after. It would be the Energizer Bunny version of the morning aftera”where the night before just kept on going and going.

He got out of bed, aware that he'd run out of condoms. He'd tucked only a small handful into his jacket pocket before leaving his apartment, but they'd used them all.

Yes, all. Give me an A, give me an L, give me another L, what does that spell? A night filled with a mind-blowing amount of laughter and heart-stopping pleasure.