Until You (5 page)

It took nothing to offer a smile of reassurance.

"Yes, sir," Conor said quietly. "I understand."

Hoyt smiled. "Good day, Mr. O'Neil."

"Good-bye, Mr. Winthrop."

The door shut after him. Conor trotted down the steps. There was a cab parked at the curb and he hurried to it and yanked open the door. Mary Alice glared at him as he climbed inside.

"Honestly, Conor, I've been waiting and waiting. Meet me at ten, you said, and here it is, going on ten-thirty, and—"

Conor thought of Miranda's portrait. How could he have thought Mary Alice beautiful? Her eyes weren't the color of the sea; her hair didn't frame her face like ebony silk.

"—don't like to be treated this way, not one bit. If you think you can—"

What sort of man got turned on by a painting? Hell, what sort of man got turned on by a painting when he had a flesh and blood woman like this waiting for him? Conor looked at Mary Alice's blue eyes, her daffodil-gold hair. He thought about her satin thighs and the fullness of her breasts.

"—was thinking that perhaps you'd rather collect your things and go to the airport. The shuttle—"

She gasped as Conor pulled her roughly into his arms and kissed her to silence. When the kiss ended, she leaned back and smiled into his eyes.

"Oh, that's nice," she said softly. "Very nice." Reaching out, she stroked her hand over his forehead, threading her fingers into his dark hair. "I thought you'd forgotten all about me."

His smile was slow and sexy. "Not for a minute."

Mary Alice linked her hands behind his neck. "That's good, because I expect your undivided attention."

"You've got it."

"For the weekend, I mean. You do understand," she said, not unkindly. "I'm not into commitment."

Conor laughed. She was just what he needed, this woman. She was all honesty and reality and unabashed desire. As for being beautiful—a man would have to be crazy not to see that she was.

Whatever nonsense had spooked him in the Winthrop house would wither once he and Mary Alice Whittaker took another ride in her bed.

They shared a long brunch and then they took an equally long carriage ride through Central Park. In late afternoon, Conor bought a couple of bottles of Chardonnay at a store that looked more like a place that sold magic elixirs than booze and then they stopped at Zabar's for Brie, English water biscuits and smoked Scotch salmon.

They taxied to Mary Alice's apartment and while she changed to another incredibly sexy gown that seemed to be woven of cobwebs, Conor chilled the wine, lit a fire in the fireplace and tossed the throw pillows from the sofa onto the carpet. They made love slowly, by the light of the dancing flames. It was all perfect... and yet, at the last minute, Conor hesitated.

"Conor?" Mary Alice whispered as he went still above her.

He looked down at her upturned face. "It's all right," he said, bending to kiss her.

And it was all right, just as soon as he closed his eyes and substituted the inky spill of Miranda Beckman's hair for the soft strands of gold that actually lay spread over the pillows, the unfathomable green eyes for the greedy blue ones.

It was the first time in his life he'd ever made love to an imaginary woman. It was a new feeling and he was not sure he liked it, but it brought him to a shattering climax that somehow still managed to be incomplete.

At dawn, he arose from Mary Alice's bed.

"Wha' time issit?" she said sleepily.

"Go back to sleep," he said. Then he kissed her gently on the mouth, showered and dressed, and caught an early morning flight back to Washington.

Chapter 2

Monday morning and it was still raining, in New York and in D.C. But the six o'clock shuttle touched down at Dulles right on schedule.

Conor swung his carry-on bag from the overhead compartment, made his way out into the terminal along with a hurrying bunch of yawning, early-morning business travelers, and headed for the lot where he'd left his car. He slung his bag into the rear seat of the vintage Thunderbird, got behind the wheel and headed for the Beltway.

Traffic was heavy. It always was. Sometimes Conor had the feeling that everybody who worked in Washington spent half their time sitting in their automobiles, driving the roads that encircled the city.

Things eased off, once he headed into the Virginia countryside. Office buildings weren't jammed in here the way they were in town. Traffic was moving pretty smoothly by the time he reached the turn-off for the complex where the Committee had its offices. It was still raining, but that was okay.

The rain suited his mood.

The weekend that had begun with so much promise had ended on an off-key note and he had nobody to blame but himself.

Why in hell had he agreed to do Thurston's "little favor?"

"Little favor, my ass," he muttered as he took the off-ramp faster than was sensible, considering the rain. The 'bird slipped a little on the wet macadam and Conor eased his foot from the gas pedal.

Despite his assurances to the Winthrops, every instinct he possessed told him there was more to that seemingly simple note than he'd pretended. Those same instincts told him that Eva Winthrop knew it, that she knew one hell of a lot more than she'd admitted.

And then there was that portrait.

Conor's hands tightened on the steering wheel. Why couldn't he get it out of his head? It was as if the image of the girl had burned itself into his brain. All he had to do was shut his eyes and he could see that perfect oval face, those green eyes, that mane of black hair.

What kind of stupidity was that?

He was not a man given to romantic daydreams, especially about females who were, what? Sixteen? Wasn't that what Hoyt Winthrop had said Miranda was, in the painting? As for sexual fantasies—like any other man, he'd had his share. A beautiful woman strolling past, hips swaying just so. A quick glance, a smile, and he could amuse himself with some very interesting scenarios during a dull meeting an hour or two later. But he never toyed with fantasies when he had a stunning, eager-to-please woman in his arms—and yet, he'd left Mary Alice's bed in the dark hour just before dawn, not so much because he couldn't sleep but because there was something unsettling about the possibility of making it with her again while conjuring up an image of Miranda Beckman.

Conor's jaw tightened as he pulled into the parking lot. Okay, so maybe the girl's face was stuck in his head. But it wasn't his hormones that kept it there, it was instinct, the same sixth sense that told him that her mother knew lots more than she was letting on.

Miranda Beckman, Miranda Winthrop, whatever Eva's daughter called herself, was somehow part of what was going on. He wasn't sure how or why, only that the note, and the girl, were linked. Despite what he'd told Eva and Hoyt, the note meant business. And it had something to do with Miranda.

Conor trotted up the marble steps of the building that housed the Committee's offices, walked through the doors as they opened soundlessly and made his way across the lobby. He bypassed the bank of public elevators for three others that were tucked away in an alcove, keyed in the code that opened one of them and stepped inside. The doors shut and a disembodied electronic voice asked him to place his fingertips against a glowing panel in the wall. He did, and the same toneless voice asked him to select a floor.

"Seven," he said.

The elevator rose noiselessly.

On the other hand, he wasn't going to tell any of that to Harry Thurston.

For one thing, it was all speculation. For another, he absolutely, positively had no intention of getting drawn into an investigation that was none of his business. The elevator doors opened and he stepped out onto the seventh floor. There was no reason to get drawn in. The Winthrop thing was in the FBI's lap, not CIA's, not the Committee's, and surely not—

"You're late, Mr. O'Neil."

Conor sighed. For all the electronic and digital coding that guarded the inner workings of these offices, it was still a human being who decided who got through the last set of doors. Sybil Aldrich, Harry Thurston's plump, fiftyish and formidable P.A., guarded her boss's lair with unwavering ferocity.

Conor looked at the old-fashioned clock that hung on the bilious green wall beside Sybil's desk. It was 8:03. He'd phoned Harry from the plane and told him he'd be in to see him around eight.

"Did you hear me, Mr. O'Neil? I said, you're late."

"And good morning to you, too, sweet Sybil."

"Mr. Thurston expected you promptly at eight."

"He expected me whenever I showed up." Conor paused at Sybil's desk, bent towards her and took a dramatic sniff. "Mmm. What wonderful, exotic fragrance are you wearing today, I wonder?"

"It's Ivory soap. And you should know by now, your nonsense doesn't impress me."

Conor smiled. Theirs was an old routine. At least, it was a routine on his part. He was never quite certain if Sybil played at being a junkyard dog or if she really was one.

"Try and remember I take my coffee with sugar and cream this time, will you, Sybil, love?"

"Try and remember that asking a Personal Assistant for coffee is a sexist act."

"Two lumps, okay? And make sure you use cream, not that powdered stuff you pawn off on the peasants." He shot her a smile, opened the door and stepped inside Thurston's office.

The head of the Committee was seated behind his government-issue tan metal desk, his swivel chair turned so that his back was to the room and he was facing the window and the grey, steady rain. Conor walked to the desk and sat down in one of the leather chairs that faced it. The chair was government-issue, too, which meant that it was almost as uncomfortable as it was unattractive.

"Your kind of day, Harry?"

Thurston chuckled as he swiveled his chair around. He was a slender, fine-boned man of indeterminate years who would have looked more at home as a professor at an Ivy League university than as head of a group that few people inside government, and no one outside it, knew existed.

"It's a brook trout's kind of day, my boy. I was just wishing I could take the morning off and head up to a little pool I know in the mountains." Harry folded his hand on his desk. "How was your weekend?"

"Great."

Harry sighed dramatically. "It must be wonderful to be young, single and a shoe-in for the next James Bond."

Conor smiled. He dug into his pocket, took out the note Hoyt Winthrop had given him and tossed it onto the desk.

"Only if Bond's an errand boy, Harry. There's your note."

"And here's something to keep you busy, while I read."

Thurston pushed a slender file folder across the blotter. Conor picked it up and flipped it open. Inside was a summary of the background checks that had been done on Hoyt and Eva Winthrop. He skimmed the notes on Hoyt but there was nothing there he didn't already know. The man was Old Money, through and through.

The stuff on Eva was only a little more interesting. She'd been born in Argentina, where she'd met and married a young Marine named James Beckman who'd been assigned to the American Embassy. When his tour of duty ended, Beckman took Eva home with him to the States. He'd died in a car crash shortly after their daughter, Miranda, was born. Eva had gone on to cleverly parlay a door-to-door cosmetics business into a multi-million dollar company.

Conor closed the file folder and dropped it on the desk.

"Interesting," he said politely.

Harry looked up from the note. "So is this." He folded the note, tucked it back inside its envelope and pushed it across the desk. "Conclusions?"

"Could be anything," Conor said, without acknowledging that the note was sitting in front of him.

"A shopping list? A birthday message for Grandma?"

"Come on, Harry, you know what I mean."

Thurston smiled. "Humor me."

"Well, it could be from a crank, just looking to keep the President's newest appointee on his toes."

"By goosing the appointee's spouse?"

"Ask Sybil to clue you in on the subject of sexual equity sometime," Conor said with a wry smile.