Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A Sapphire Slipper

“The Shemale Review at the Goliath,” Kit suggested with an arpeggio of airy laughter.

“A private wake at the city morgue,” Temple put in.

“Please.” Electra fluffed her helmet-flattened white curls.

“Give me credit at least for being appropriate. No, it’s a private party at the G-Strip Club. A program of Elvis impersonators performing, with a wedding dress-garbed Priscilla popping out of the traditional cake. Elvis and Priscilla were married here in Vegas, after all.”

“A bride stripper?” Kit asked, incredulous.

“She’s only a slight flaunter, not a stripper.” Electra glanced at Temple. “Nothing an ex-priest couldn’t see on television.”

“Have you seen television lately?” Temple asked. “That blond fifties cabinet model in your penthouse doesn’t look fully functional. Network is getting as racy as cable. I will admit, though, that since the brothers helped me out as Elvis impersonators a while back, that is an appropriate form of entertainment for Aldo’s bachelor party.”

Electra waved a plump hand. “Would I let you ladies suffer a moment of insecurity? Even the Priscilla is a wholesome little wisp of a thing.”

Temple narrowed her eyes while sipping her third glass of champagne. They could all crash in Van and Nicky’s place tonight. When he finally stumbled into their pajama party, he could sleep in the bathtub. Or so Van had stated.

Of course it was a roomy two-person, jetted tub.

“ ‘Wholesome little thing.’ ” Something had penetrated Temple’s bubble-lulled brain. “Electra, you didn’t! You didn’t hire that poor, pathetic juvenile delinquent stepdaughter of miserable Crawford Buchanan’s? Quincey?”

“I did. She’s still pursuing a performing career, and it’s running away from her faster than she can cat-walk. You know our guys will be perfect gentlemen all.”

“Well, mostly,” Van conceded with a ladylike hiccup. “Nicky promised to be home by one A.M. and to bring Matt with him. To drop Matt off at the Circle Ritz, rather.”

They all glanced at the tall crystal plinth of an ultramodern grandfather clock against one wall of the huge living room. Past midnight.

“Boys will be boys,” Kit remarked apropos of nothing. “I can’t believe I’m finally getting married.”

“Let’s see,” Van remarked, speaking slowly as one mainlining unaccustomed champagne should. “I’ve been married once. You and Temple have never been married but are hurtling toward the altar, or the justice of the peace, and Electra has been married—”

“Five times.” She shrugged her floral-swathed shoulders. “It took practice in the old days. Here.” She raised her glass. Van filled it. “A toast to our blushing brides.”

“Do you blush?” Kit asked Temple.

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“Ooh! I can’t wait to take pictures at your wedding. You and Matt will make the most swooningly precious couple.”

“Aunt. You’re sloshed. Please do not apply the word precious to me and mine.”

“Not even to that old softie, Midnight Louie?”

“Especially not to Midnight Louie!”

“Where do you suppose he is tonight?” Kit’s gaze grew sentimental. “Out on the town himself, courting some feline fatale.”

“Gag,” Temple said. “I sincerely hope this champagne makes us forget everything we said tonight. A bachelor party may be a little gross, but a bachelorette party is Soupy Central. Why do I sense the guys are having a lot more fun than we are?”

Van topped off her glass, which had somehow gone dry.

“They’ll have hangovers to enter The Guinness Book of World Records , but they’ll feel pleased with themselves and their one-night rebellion. Men!”

“Men!” Kit echoed, lifting her glass. “You can’t live with them, and you can’t live without them.”

“Men,” Temple said. And smiled.

“Men.” Electra frowned. “I wish you girls better luck with ‘em than I’ve had.”

“It’s kinda nice,” Van said, sliding down onto her usually steel spine as she cosseted her champagne glass, “to know they’re having a last bit of brotherly, boyish fun tonight. Nicky could use a break from the executive suite. And Aldo . . . Kit, he is a Prince Charming. They are all.”

“To all Prince Charmings,” Temple said, lifting her glass. “Wherever they are!”

She thought immediately, with an unwanted, slightly tipsy pang, of Max.

Then she chugalugged the champagne. There was nowhere she had to be tonight. Nothing she had to do.

Nothing but relax and enjoy.

So why was she worried?

Garden of Lies

and Spies

The air outside his window was crisp, fragrant. Wonderful.

He inhaled deeply as Garry Randolph wheeled him around the terraced gardens in the clear mountain sunlight.

The man wasn’t a matinee idol, but he had a silver tongue. He’d convinced the dubious nurse that the patient could use some fresh air.

No one else wandered these high mountain meadow paths. The views at great heights above and depths below were breathtaking. He knew this must be alien terrain for him because it enchanted him so much. But Randolph would have told him the hills were alive with the sound of listening devices.

Once they were behind a sheltering stand of pines, Randolph quickly knelt and examined the wheelchair to the rims. Then he’d pantomimed a request for “Mike” to pat himself down, though the loose hospital gown didn’t allow for concealment.

Then Randolph had inspected his casts, thoroughly enough to cause pain, and felt the gown tie-strings.

“Why would my room and I be bugged?” he asked when Randolph nodded the okay for speaking.

“You’re here because someone tried to kill you.”

“Not on a mountain.”

“God, no. You’d never waste your time risking your neck just for the heck of it.”

“But I have risked my life.”

Randolph nodded. “You’ve always worked without a net, but never without an escape plan. Listen, until you’re able to get around on your own, I don’t want you knowing too much about yourself. If someone should get ahold of you and start asking questions, I want you to retain a certain amount of honest ignorance. That can’t be faked. Not even by you.”

“What am I? Who?”

Randolph shook his head. “Can’t say yet. I can say someone meant to kill you, and you survived. As soon as you can walk, we’re out of here.”

“For where?”

Randolph lowered his voice. “I’ve got some very interesting leads in Ireland.”

“That where I live?”

The man shook his head. “I’ve been your handler for seventeen years. Trust me. I know best.”

“ ‘Handler.’ I’m some kind of . . . pet? A spy?”

Randolph chuckled and patted his shoulder. “Much more interesting than that, dear boy. No, your job here is to get better and hold the foxes at bay. The longer you appear to be the victim of total amnesia, the safer you’ll be.”

“I am the victim of total amnesia!” In frustration, he launched the wheelchair forward when his legs wouldn’t do the job. The mechanism was slick. The chair shot toward the walkway’s edge.

Randolph followed and stopped it with a speed and agility that surprised him, even as his stomach twisted to feel the chair teetering on the edge of a sharp fall into the deep green valley below.

“Don’t be impetuous,” Randolph said. “You never were. I understand your frustration, but you can’t afford theatrics here. Slow and steady win the race. The longer you can play the medical staff along, the better off we’ll both be. I can get you out of here PDQ, if I have to.”

“Can the staff be trusted?”