Simon Clark
Doncaster, England
July 2005
Chapter 1
I
There are those who have and those who do not. The majority of Black Stone Bay, Rhode Island, had it in abundance. Along the shoreline that looked out over the Atlantic Ocean, a long run of mansions stood at attention or sprawled across their massive lawns, regarding the world with blind glass eyes that hid treasures most people would have thought excessive in the extreme. In the summertime, the bay ran thick with yachts and luxury sailboats, with a few smaller speedboats just to add a little balance.
The land could easily have accommodated a hundred times as many houses, but most of the people in town would never allow that to happen. A few had tried to change the minds of the people in power. They had all failed.
Of course, not everyone in the town was disgustingly wealthy; it just looked that way to the uninitiated. Someone had to serve those who ruled and it would hardly be convenient if the hired help had to drive for several hours to get to work. The flow of tourists that poured into Black Stone Bay to see the sights, eat at the numerous restaurants, and blow their money was as large as would be anticipated in any town that had ample seaside views and spacious hotels. That was to be expected, during the summer at least, and sometimes even in the fall, when the leaves changed.
And they needed servants, too; local help that could be hired at a reasonable rate. The town had a lot of blue-collar laborers; it just knew how to hide them from plain sight.
All in all, Black Stone Bay was relaxed and tended to stay that way. The people—whether inordinately wealthy or merely well-off—lived their lives from day to day with the usual numbers of problems and solutions. Certainly the people attending the two universities had their own concerns.
Neither the Winslow Harper University of Arts and Sciences nor the Sacred Dominion University were known for allowing anyone to stay in their programs without being exceptional. The student bodies paid dearly for the privilege of attending and they worked hard or they lost their money. Both of the schools were Ivy League caliber—or “Potted Ivy” as the locals called them with tongues firmly planted in cheeks—and both were acknowledged for their excellence on a yearly basis. All in all, however, the people were comfortable with their positions in life; maybe not always happy, but comfortable.
Mary Margaret Preston, or Maggie if she knew a person well enough, could have told anyone who asked all about the people of Black Stone Bay; she’d lived there all her life. The young lady in question actually attended Winslow Harper and was in the top five percent of her class. Like most of the students, she worked her ass off to keep those grades. Unlike the vast majority, she also worked a job to pay her way. Maggie had more sense than to work at a restaurant, a bank, or in any number of jobs that would have left her financially strapped and worried about paying the outrageous tuition fees. She had managed to find employment that let her choose her hours and paid well enough that she seldom felt financially desperate.
Maggie was a prostitute. Not a hooker. Hookers don’t make the sort of money Maggie did. She had no illusions about the work. It was a job, and it paid well. There were risks, to be sure, but most forms of employment have risks. And in the long run it was a means to an end.
Maggie had always been careful. She came from a large family—was the baby, in fact—and was the first member of the clan to ever actually make it to college. She might want children in the future, but they weren’t on her current agenda and she didn’t intend to add them to her roster of things she had to do. Also, the list of diseases she wanted nothing to do with was large, and a good number of them were sexually transmitted.
Protection was worn or nothing happened. She had Tom to make sure of that. A ridiculous portion of her money went to Thomas Alexander Pardue—Monkey Boy to Maggie, but never to his face—to ensure that he picked the right sort of clients for her. Failure to pay his exorbitant rates could also result in a few tragic encounters with Tom’s fists or even a knife blade. Maggie tried not to dwell on that part of their arrangement. He’d done things to a few of the girls over the years and she knew he’d do it again if he didn’t get his way.
In exchange for his fees, he got her a clientele that could afford to pay handsomely for her services and worried about getting caught with her as surely as she worried about her career choice being exposed. The thing about getting a good education from a superior school was that the university had an ethics committee. If she was busted and they found out, she could lose her place at the school and her standing in the society she wanted to join.
Of course she’d been of professional use to most of the committee, so that wasn’t really too much of a problem, but she liked to keep up appearances.
Maggie knew the score. She was a good student and she was a call girl. The two worked well for her. Both were temporary. She liked sex, but she wasn’t a raving nymphomaniac. She also looked at actual relationships as something entirely different from the work she did. For the present time she did not date, had no desire to date, and would not let herself fall for anyone. Not even the dozen or so very powerful men who’d offered to make her life incredibly comfortable. She was doing just fine without their help, and saw no reason to give up her chosen lifestyle.
Monkey Boy knew the score too, though he kept trying to break the rules. Sometimes she had to let him succeed. She was still recovering from his latest need to show her who was the boss.
She could always tell when he was in that mood. He’d start by offering her drugs that she refused. Sometimes he’d insist, and she would take them, but not nearly as often as he wanted. In most cases she was able to handle the matter with a fake-out. Sleight of hand was a useful skill and one she’d learned from her uncle, who was an amateur magician. Uncle Albert was a sweet old man, and not nearly as warped as most of her family thought he was. He was just . . . eccentric in the extreme.
Now and then, as with earlier tonight, Tom insisted on “sampling the wares.” That was his way of saying he wanted to get laid. The thing about it was that Tom only felt it proper that the girls protest first, the better to have an excuse for knocking them around a little. He was smart enough not to leave marks, but it hurt when he decided to do his thing. She was also pretty sure the only way the creep could get off was if the girl he was using struggled and complained.
The good news was that he didn’t make demands too often, at least not of her. Maggie made too much money for him to slap her around a lot, and he wasn’t as horny as he was greedy. She was also smart enough not to get hooked on the shit he served to some of the girls. They were the ones that he took advantage of whenever he wanted. Once they wanted another fix, they would do whatever he told them to do. She didn’t play that game. He knew it, she knew it. He just needed to feel big from time to time and that meant doing what he insisted was his right.
Some day she was going to pay someone to kill the bastard, but for now he served a necessary purpose for getting her what she needed. It was all about the future, you see. Maggie focused on what she wanted in the future to the exclusion of almost everything else. It helped smooth out the rough spots, like Monkey Boy.
So she was a little sore, yes, but that was all right. She had a new client tonight, one that was promising to be very lucrative, too. He was also a rarity, because he wanted her to come to his house.
His house, as if the black stone mansion on the Point could be called a house. Maggie drove her Ford Focus up to the gates of the palatial estate and didn’t even have to wait for long. The automated iron barrier slid out of her way smoothly as she reached it, and she moved further into the place.
She let a low whistle out past her full lips and admired the architecture. “Damn. I want one of these.” Most of the houses on the cliff walk were accessible; meaning that people could, if they were polite about it, actually move over the lawns and see the exteriors of the homes without any difficulty.
This place was not like most of the homes; it had more in common with a medieval fortress, with its heavy black stone walls around the actual perimeter and a main building made of the same dark granite that earned the town its name. The house had been there for as long as she could remember, but this was the first time she had ever seen it close up. It was stunning, to say the least. From what she’d heard when she was younger, there were something like 80 rooms in the place if you counted the extensions for the servants’ quarters. That the lawns were flawless was a given, the hedges just so, and the ancient trees on the property were at least as old as the United States of America in most cases.
She didn’t have much time to actually look the entire place over before the door to the massive structure opened. Not one to ignore an obvious hint, she shut down her car and climbed out, ready to meet her new client.
He stepped through the door and smiled at her, a man of average height, reasonable build, and dark hair. There was nothing overly impressive about his features, but he carried himself like a king, with confidence and a casual acceptance of his authority over all around him.
He wasn’t like most of the guys she dealt with. Half of them came off as cocky; the others came off as nervous or just plain horny. Very few of them ever seemed relaxed about the situation.
“You would be Maggie, yes?” His voice was deep, but the words were softly spoken.
“That’s me.” She smiled as she spoke, not bothering with false pretenses or putting any seductive tones in her way of talking. For all she knew the man she was looking at was the butler.
He did not move to greet her, but stood within the threshold of the front door and waited for her to come to him. Even that was a bit of a change from the norm. Half the time the men she dealt with practically rolled out the carpet for her. She didn’t mind, but she noticed. It was important to understand what was expected of a client, especially one who was still an unknown quantity.
“Come in, please.” He stepped back and left her room to get past him without trouble. She looked around, letting herself take in the décor and the furnishings with a quick glance. It was all very nice. Most of the furnishings were museum quality and laid out with a meticulous eye for design and there were around a hundred places where people could be hiding. She didn’t like that part at all. Just because the man was supposed to be safe didn’t mean she was willing to assume the situation was what it was supposed to be. Tom had made mistakes before and girls had been hurt. Maggie had no desire to become a statistic.
The furnishings had obviously been laid out some time ago. Everything was spotless, but the rugs over the hardwood floors hadn’t been set down recently and the furniture on top of the expensive rugs pressed down on areas that had become accustomed to bearing their weight.
Maggie waited until the door was closed before she looked the man over more carefully. His age could have been late thirties to early sixties. He had that sort of face; lots of character lines, but not a lot of wrinkles. Nice clothes, but obviously not meant for power lunches or the like. This was him being casual. That was okay. She preferred that.
She took her time studying him, knowing full well that she was being studied in return. She looked in the mirror every day and knew what he was seeing. Her hair was dark and naturally curly, but she made sure to add a touch of gel to keep it in control. Her face was almost heart-shaped: wide, high cheekbones and large dark eyes above a nose that was straight with a slight upward tilt. Her mouth was generous but just missed being pouty, and her chin was strong. She had an athletic figure from several years of gymnastics and dance that her father insisted would make her a better woman in her adult years, and she’d made it a point to keep herself in shape. She was also, to use Monkey Boy’s favorite term, built like a brick shithouse. Today she was dressed in a white cream blouse and dark blue jeans. She looked good. She knew it. It came with the territory. After half a minute of looking her over from head to toe, he moved closer and took her hand.
“I hope you don’t mind if we eat first. I like to get to know people.” He had an accent, and she was normally very good with deciphering the way people spoke, but she couldn’t for the life of her decide where he came from.
“We do whatever you want to do. And thank you, you have a lovely home.” The words were calculated. First she made sure he understood that this was business and then she complimented his choice in domiciles. If he wanted to pay her rates and have dinner, that was fine. If he wanted her to perform her services, that was okay too. If he wanted her to move in tomorrow and marry him the week after, that was no longer an option. This way, he at least understood where she was coming from.
She walked with her host into the dining hall—she couldn’t justifiably call it a room—and took the seat he offered her. The food laid out before her was the sort normally found only in the finest restaurants. That was okay. To her way of reckoning she’d certainly earned a nice meal.
Before she could settle in comfortably, he was next to her, sitting to her right, and he watched as she took small bites of the food placed before her. The lobster was fresh and cooked to perfection. So was everything else.
He did not speak as she ate, but merely watched her. A lot of people might have been nervous, but not Maggie. She’d been in far stranger situations and, if the man got off by observing her eating habits, that was his prerogative.
When the meal was finished, he poured two brandies and they sat in what she assumed was his study. The books along the walls were not, as she had seen in several places, set there for decoration. It was obvious that either the man in front of her or someone else in the house read, and often.