Honey Read online

  She looked between Carlson and Wilkes; the latter had just completed a sound check. “Are we done?”

  Carlson shook his head. “Not quite. You’ll need a safe word.”

  Even under these circumstances, Honey couldn’t resist. “A safe word? I wouldn’t have figured you for the type.”

  Carlson’s ears turned bright pink. “Something you can easily work into the conversation in the unlikely event that things go south, and we need to get you out of there.”

  Small surprise, the first word that came to mind was a name. Audrey.

  And why not? The actress was the closest Honey had ever come to having a patron saint. Knowing that invoking her name would bring her the necessary aid and exit strategy made her feel watched over and safe—or at least as safe as someone concealing a recording device to entrap her violent and apparently felonious former lover could be expected to feel.

  She only hoped she wouldn’t need to use it.

  “Audrey?” He looked predictably puzzled.

  “Trust me, Drew hearing me say ‘Audrey’ will be the most natural thing in the world.”

  “Remember the script we went over,” Carlson counseled. We need him to incriminate himself explicitly.”

  Honey nodded. “Assuming he doesn’t throw me up against a wall on sight, I’ll get you your evidence.”

  Carlson cracked an actual smile, the first she’d so far seen. “You’re confident, that’s good.”

  “Of course I’m confident. Men like Drew live and breathe to do one thing when they’re alone with a woman like me.”

  Blushing, the agents traded sheepish looks.

  Taking pity on them, Honey supplied, “Brag.”

  *

  Eyes on the parked Con Edison truck, Marc pulled up the hood of his gray sweatshirt and fell back, blending in with the other pedestrians packing the city sidewalk. Dressed to the nines, Honey descended from the vehicle’s rear, walked over to the curb, and flagged down a taxi to take her the few blocks to the Waldorf. Standing back as she got in was one of the hardest things Marc had ever had to do. Playing dumb earlier while she’d continued lying to him hadn’t proved any picnic, either. Instead of going to work as he’d told her, he’d hung around, staking out his building. As soon as she’d left, he’d followed her.

  Now he waited for the cab to whisk her away and then made his way over to what must be the FBI surveillance SUV. Reaching it, he rapped his knuckles on the rear passenger side door. A couple more knocks brought the heavily tinted window rolling down.

  A dark-haired man wearing sunglasses poked his head out. “Can I help you with something?”

  “I don’t know, can you? I’m looking for my girlfriend. I just saw her step out of this van.”

  “Sorry, pal, you’ve made a mistake.”

  “I don’t believe I have. My name’s Sandler, Doctor Marcus Sandler.” He reached up and dropped his hood.

  The guy’s eyes bugged. “Jesus, did anyone see you? Never mind, get in!”

  Marc didn’t have to be asked a second time. He grabbed the handle, slid the door back, and climbed inside.

  He glanced around, giving his eyes a moment to adjust from the sunlight. The vehicle’s interior looked like a compact version of the bridge of Star Trek’s USS Enterprise. Though he’d known they were setting up a sting, the sheer quantity of surveillance equipment took him aback. Closed-circuit TV monitors lined the console. Six side-by-side cameras afforded a 360-degree panorama of the hotel block as well as its interior. Videotape decks, video printers, a power periscope, motion detection and logging devices galore—if Honey’s safety hadn’t been at stake, Marc might have geeked out on the sheer coolness of it all.

  Feeling eyes on him, he turned back to the agents. “Which one of you is Carlson?’

  The dark-haired man stepped forward. “I am.”

  He and his blond partner were both in dark suits. A third man, shaggy-looking and wearing headphones and a zip-up jacket, sat with his back to Marc, gaze glued to the monitor before him. “I’ve got her coming outta the elevator.”

  Glancing over the guy’s shoulder to the screen, Marc saw Honey step off a hotel elevator and head down a carpeted hallway. Based on the way she kept patting one side of her headpiece, it was a pretty good bet that’s where the recording device was concealed—damn!

  “How much do you know?” Carlson’s question had him dragging his gaze away from Honey.

  He straightened and turned around. “Enough to know you’re trying to nail Winterthur using my girl as bait.”

  The blond agent spoke up. “Until a few weeks ago, she was Winterthur’s girl.”

  “That was then, this is now.”

  Marc thought back to the foiled fancy lunch meant to celebrate the start of their future together and a wave of regret washed over him. Since meeting Liz and learning of the sting, he felt almost as if he and Honey were star-crossed lovers from an Edith Wharton novel. As with Ethan Frome and his Mattie or Newland Archer and his Countess Ellen, Fate with a capital “F” always seemed to find a way to drive him and Honey apart.

  Only Marc wasn’t having it.

  He looked back to the nearest monitor as Honey approached a busy banquet room. “If you won’t pull her out, then put me in, too.”

  Whatever happened, Marc was determined that Honey would know it wasn’t only her FATE group friends she had to rely on. She had him.

  “I’m afraid that’s out of the question. We’re professionals, Doctor. We’ve got this.”

  “But, I’m a veteran at this. I’ve worn a wire before.”

  “How so?”

  Marc hesitated but only for a moment. “My brother was dealing drugs, and I turned state’s evidence against him. Because of me, he’s in prison.”

  Until now, Marc had never admitted that to a living soul. He was pretty sure his mother at least suspected, but they never spoke of it, not directly. Even though betraying his brother had been in the service of doing “the right thing,” a part of him had never fully forgiven himself. Every time he saw his mother’s gaze list toward the empty chair at the dining room table, he felt another chunk of his soul chip away.

  The agents exchanged looks, no doubt impressed at what a heartless SOB he was. Marc tensed, waiting.

  “Okay, but you can’t go in like that. Nobody’s going to buy that you’re an investor.”

  Marc glanced down at himself. Along with the hoodie, he wore track pants and his running shoes and carried a backpack. For once his fashion failure was in the service of stealth. Had he left the house in a suit, Honey would have surely noticed.

  “And Winterthur’s already met you at the hospital fundraiser in February.”

  Jesus, how long had they been following Winterthur and, by extension, Honey?

  “So, set me up with a disguise.” Marc looked over Carlson, the taller and more broad-shouldered of the two. “What suit size are you?”

  The agent blanched.

  “I am the captain of my fucking universe!”

  The voice, Winterthur’s, had them staring at the monitors once more. He stood at the front of the thronged banquet room, screaming his “greed is good” shtick into the microphone. Judging from the rapt faces in the audience, he had his “investors” right where he wanted them. Marc scanned the image, studying the setup. Attendees sat at eight-top tables or hung out by the platform steps or at the bars set up in back. Servers, skimpily clad and masked, ferried drinks from the service bars to the main table. So far as Marc could see, they were all women—but did it necessarily follow that they had to be?

  Carlson broke in on his thoughts. “Tell me, Doctor Sandler, just how do you imagine we’re going to get you in there now without jeopardizing this whole operation? Why should we even try?”

  Despite the dire circumstances, Marc managed a smile. “Because I have a very special set
of skills, agent.”

  “Right, you’re a doctor. If someone chokes on a chicken bone from the buffet, I guess we’re all set.”

  Marc looked up. “I wasn’t speaking about medicine.”

  “No? Then what?”

  “I waited tables in college.”

  *

  “Do you see what I see? Because I see a lot of wealth in this room!”

  Standing onstage in front of the logoed backdrop, microphone in hand, Drew stoked his audience’s enthusiasm. Roars rose up from the floor of round-top tables. In reserved seating nearest the stage, Honey resisted the urge to cover her ears.

  “Feel it. Own it. Say it with me: I am the captain of my fucking universe.”

  Obediently the room chorused: “I am the captain of my universe.”

  He’d been drinking heavily since she’d shown up two hours earlier, slugging back scotch between the other presentations. Sweating out his Macallan 25, he scowled. “No, not just universe—your fucking universe. Say it again.”

  Louder this time, the shout rose up: “I am the captain of my fucking universe!!!”

  The back-and-forth reminded Honey of the evangelists who used to come to town in the summers, pitching their tents and portable bleachers on the fairgrounds, selling salvation at ten dollars a ticket. Drew was cut from the same cloth, only he was worse, much worse. The tenters had hired local kids to put flyers on car dashboards, but Drew and his flunkies used their phones to invade people’s homes, sinking in their hooks, not letting go until they’d siphoned off their money—and their dreams.

  “Whew, that’s better.” Drew paused to wipe his forehead, not with the silk handkerchief folded in his suit pocket but with the back of his hand as if to show that he was no snob, that though he might be a fancy Manhattan “wealth manager” he was still a man of the people. “I don’t know about you, but all this shouting’s making me thirsty. You folks thirsty?”

  One of the relatively few attending female investors, a fiftyish woman in a polyester pantsuit, turquoise bowtie blouse, and with an asymmetrical nineties-era bob, lifted her beer bottle and shouted, “Hell’s to the yes!”

  Drew let out a laugh. “That’s the spirit. Drink up, everybody. You’ve earned it.”

  Sipping her Pellegrino from a champagne flute, Honey conceded that was the one true statement he’d so far made. Every investor in the room had paid for the “privilege” of their presence with blood, sweat, and tears. Unless she succeeded in getting Drew’s confession on record, they’d be paying permanently.

  The current event alone must cost a small fortune. Bankrolling it with his investors’ money, Drew had spared no expense. Upon arrival, each “guest” had been given a lavish goody bag of high-end booze, bath products, and tech gadgets. Models circulated between tables wearing elaborate feathered and bejeweled masks, beaded bikini-style tops and bottoms, stilettos—and nothing else. The earlier brunch buffet had included seafood, carving and omelet stations, as well as limitless Bloody Marys, mimosas, and Bellinis.

  Later on the agenda came a sit-down dinner in the famous Starlight Room. He’d also reserved the Presidential Suite for the after-party. It was conspicuous consumption, decadence done to the extreme, a smoke-and-mirrors ploy that sickened Honey. How she could ever have consented to be part of this, not the pump-and-dump scheme—she honestly hadn’t so much as suspected—but the lifestyle, a world where things were done because they could be gotten away with, regardless of whether they were right or wrong, good or bad, healthy or polluting?

  Drew’s voice riveted her back to the stage. “Are you with me, people? C’mon now, let the Drewster hear you say it.”

  “Yeah, Drew, we’re with you!”

  Drew glanced Honey’s way and grinned. Playing the proud girlfriend, she plastered on what hopefully passed for a bedazzled smile and raised her glass to him.

  Seemingly satisfied, he turned back to the audience. “Good. Now we’re going to take a well-deserved break. Those bars on either end of the room are open for a reason, so go get yourselves another cocktail because when we start up again, I have a very special surprise for you. So if you haven’t already, check your boundaries at the door because, ladies and gentlemen, you are in for one helluva show.”

  Honey spied a few nervous looks and self-conscious smiles, but after several hours of boozing, most attendees had drunk the Kool-Aid along with everything else the open bars had to offer. Scanning the sea of flushed faces, Honey wondered if the whistleblower was among them. If so, he—or she—must be feeling much as Honey did. The possibility made her feel somewhat less alone.

  Nursing her pretend champagne, she watched Drew descend the side stage stairs. Glad-handing a path through the tables of investors, he made his way toward her.

  Frank Dawes grabbed a fresh drink from the tray of a passing server and joined him. She hadn’t set eyes on him since the night he’d come close to raping her—with Drew’s blessing, no less. Beyond shooting her a few fuming looks, he’d so far kept his distance. They drew up at her reserved table, Frank eyeing the empty seat on either side of her.

  “You’re looking good, Honey,” he said, checking out the cleavage revealed by her low-cut dress.

  Honey sent him an openly icy stare, grateful that her deal with Carlson and company didn’t require cozying up to her would-be rapist. “And you, Frank, unfortunately, look exactly the same.”

  His fat face twisted into a frown.

  “That’s enough, you two,” Drew intervened, sliding into the seat beside Honey. “Frank, mind finding the catering manager and telling him to send over another bottle of Macallan? We’re running dry.”

  Frank lobbed Honey a seething stare. “Why not send little Miss Hepburn here? Maybe she can blow him and get us a discount—a deep discount.”

  Aware of Carlson’s surveillance team listening in, Honey felt her face heat. Refusing to rise to the bait, she held her head high, her shoulders back, and her smile in place.

  Drew draped a proprietary arm about her, and she resisted the urge to move away. “Seriously, buddy, I need a few minutes alone with Honey.”

  “Suit yourself, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He speared Honey with another look. “I’m watching you, bitch.” She opened her mouth to answer but before she could, he strode away in a huff.

  “Don’t listen to him. He gets this way when he’s stressing.” Drew leaned closer, his scotch-stale breath blowing across her face. “I want you to know I’m glad you’re here.”

  “So am I,” she lied. Mindful of her mission, getting Drew’s recorded confession, she fished, “W-what is Frank stressed about? Everything seems to be going so well. Isn’t it?”

  “Of course it is. Everything’s going great. Look, I even got my girl back and looking more gorgeous than ever.”

  He gave her yet another appreciative once-over, and Honey forced herself not to fidget. Though the Stella McCartney dress wasn’t her usual style—the figured black lace showed through to a thigh-high cream-colored underskirt—it was a perfect choice for the occasion, suggestive, even teasing, a dress designed to whet appetites, not sate them. Though the FBI was prepared to foot the bill, to avoid arousing Drew’s suspicions, she’d agreed to purchase the dress with his credit card. Once tonight was over, she planned to give it away, perhaps to Liz.

  His gaze finally left her legs and returned to her face. “But I gotta say I was surprised to get your message. I really thought you were gone for good.”

  Thinking how close she’d come to free, Honey swallowed against her throat’s thickening. “So did I.”

  One sandy eyebrow lifted. “What changed your mind?”

  She shrugged, though his arm still banded her. “I suppose I … hadn’t counted on how different life would be without you.” Different as in glorious, liberating, spectacular.

  His lips lifted in a smug smile that her palm itched
to slap away. “Yeah, well, now you know, so no more running away. And threatening to blow the whistle on me with my wife—that wasn’t cool. I’ll admit it, you really had me by the balls there.”

  “I’m sorry.” The apology, though empty, tasted bitter nonetheless. She took a sip of water, wishing she might rinse her mouth. “Since I’m here, maybe you could explain how all this … stock business works. HG Enterprises sounds so grand. I hadn’t realized you’d named a company using my initials. That’s really … lovely of you. What does it do, exactly?”

  He opened his mouth, as if to answer, and then closed it again. “Don’t worry about it,” he finally said, reaching for his drink.

  Clearly he needed more scotch—and a little push. “HG Enterprises doesn’t do anything at all, does it? It’s a made-up company, isn’t it? What is the term? I just learned it the other day.” She paused, pretending to ponder. “Oh yes—dummy corporation. Isn’t that what it’s called?”

  His arm fell away but not before she felt him tense. “Lower your voice!”

  “Sorry, but I’m right, aren’t I?” She’d better be, because so far she’d been the only one of them doing any talking for the record. “The stocks you’re selling aren’t even penny stocks, are they? They’re worthless.”

  “Since when are you so interested in my business dealings?”

  For a few frozen seconds, Honey’s heart stopped. She’d gone too fast, been too brash, too transparently obvious. Drew was many things—violent, vindictive, and apparently as crooked as they came—but he was far from stupid.

  She slipped on a smile. “In the spirit of ‘new leaves and new beginnings,’ I thought I should take more of an interest in what you do, that it might … bring us closer.”

  Saying the latter nearly brought up her breakfast. The moment she got his incriminating admission on record, she meant to clear out as fast and far away as she could. Once she was free and clear, she promised herself she’d tell Marc everything, not just about the sting operation but about her past, too. He deserved the truth from her, regardless of what he chose to do about it.