Steven Womack - By Blood Written

“Not until eleven, which is a real treat. Writers aren’t used to being up in time to make seven A.M. flights.”

“You and Carol will get a break tomorrow,” Taylor said.

“By the way, how is she?”

Michael felt the muscles in his jaw knot up and fought to keep the tension out of his voice. “She’s Carol,” he said.

“You know.”

“Yeah. I guess so.”

“Sleep well,” Michael said.

“You, too. Talk to you tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Taylor said. “And Michael-”

“Yeah?” he asked after a moment.

“I miss you, too.”

Michael grinned and rattled the ice around in his glass.

“Go to bed,” he said. “Think of me.”

“Can’t help it. Good night.”

Michael hung the phone up and stood, stretching his arms high over his head and arching his back. He walked over to the large window that nearly covered the wall opposite him.

He pulled the drapes aside, revealing the buzzing, chaotic, hyper light show that was Las Vegas on any night of the year. In the distance, he spotted the beam of light coming out of the apex of the Luxor, a light so bright it was visible from the space shuttle when the sky was clear. Off in another direction, the strip ran twenty-five floors below him, lined with cars bumper-to-bumper.

Michael felt restless. He was in Las Vegas, one of the most exciting cities in the world, on a Friday night in a luxury hotel room someone else was paying for, with a very generous expense budget included. And he was alone.

He reached down and picked up a spiral-bound notebook that described and promoted the various features of the hotel. The room service menu was extensive and available any time, day or night. Just pick up the phone … Maybe there was a movie on he hadn’t seen.

Then again, maybe there wasn’t.

Michael walked into the bathroom, ran water over his face and rubbed his tired eyes, then brushed his teeth and combed his hair. He pulled a navy-blue double-breasted jacket out of the closet and slipped it on, then walked to the door of his hotel room and opened it. He stopped in the doorway, took one last look at the rumpled bed, and pulled the door behind him.

In the two years Carol Gee had been the senior publicist at Accent Press, she thought she’d seen just about every form of schizoid author imaginable. She’d once accompanied a best-selling author on a twelve-city tour in which the famous literary author managed to get himself arrested four times-twice in the same city. A mega-best-selling female author had once called her in the middle of the night from her four-room suite and demanded that Carol clean up the mess where her cat threw up. And she’d been hit on by famous authors so many times, she no longer bothered to record that in her mental diary.

Twenty-eight years old, Yale graduate, second-generation Korean-American, and with an IQ that placed her in the top point-five percent of the world’s population, Carol Gee was finally beginning to wonder what the hell she was doing with her life. All her career aspirations, her ambitions, her desire to achieve and succeed had been thrown into jeopardy by the behavior of one man: Michael Schiftmann.

Carol had never seen anyone like him. Charming and affable, even warm, one minute, he could in an instant become an over-controlled, seething cauldron of cold fury. In Detroit two days earlier, at an old Waldenbooks in a decaying strip mall, the two of them had arrived for Michael’s book signing only to discover that no advertising had been done, no announcement made, and the only notice of the signing was a handwritten sheet taped to the cash register with the wrong date listed. To add even further insult, the five cases of books Carol had overnighted to the store hadn’t even been opened. It took the assistant manager and the sixteen-year-old girl working the night shift five minutes to even find them.

This was not the first time Carol Gee had seen a book signing botched, although it was relatively rare to see one bungled this badly for a New York Times best seller. Carol was prepared to deal with it, go on to the next city, and make a note to never schedule a signing at the store again. The usual procedure was to stick around for an hour, chat up the bookstore salespeople, then sign every copy in the store so they could be sold as autographed copies, a practice known in the business as “signing stock.”

Carol had grimaced as they walked into the nearly empty bookstore only to have the teenage girl behind the cash register stare blankly and ask if she could help them find anything. Carol started to say something when Michael shot her a look, the coldest, blackest look she’d ever seen in another human being, then turned to the salesgirl.

“Let me see your boss,” he said quietly. The young girl gulped, excused herself, and disappeared into the stockroom. The assistant manager came out seconds later, a concerned look already on her face as the enormity of her problem gradually soaked in.

Michael’s voice was low and steady as he explained to the poor woman who he was and why he was there, and just how much money and time and energy had been spent in arranging this signing. The woman stammered a barely intelligible reply, then scrambled back into the stockroom and was gone for several minutes.

“Maybe we should just go,” Carol suggested.

Michael turned to her. “Not yet.”

Moments later, the assistant manager, a thin sheen of sweat on her forehead and a hank of unkempt hair down in her face, returned with a stack of hardcovers, obviously hoping to placate them by offering Michael the chance to sign stock. Michael looked at her, turned to Carol and said, “Wait here.” Then he took the assistant manager by the elbow and led her back to her office.

“What’s he going to do?” the ashen-faced girl behind the cash register asked.

“I don’t know,” Carol said quietly.

A minute or so later, Michael emerged from the office, strode quickly across the store, and met Carol at the front.

“We can go now.”

“But-” she said. Then she felt his fingers clamp down on her elbow and gently, but firmly, aim her toward the door.

The two walked out into the sparse mall crowd. As they exited the store, Carol glanced over her shoulder and saw the assistant manager emerge from her office, tears streaming down her face.

“What did you say to her?” Carol demanded. It occurred to her that she’d never talked to one of her authors like that before.

Michael continued walking quickly, staring straight ahead, with his hand still on Carol’s elbow pulling her along.

“Let’s just say that won’t ever happen again,” he said. Carol said nothing else until they got back to their hotel.

That had been two nights earlier, and ever since, Carol had wrestled with her feelings from that night. She’d been repulsed by an author’s behavior before. She’d been angry at them, frustrated by them, grossed out by them, resentful of them, and each time had managed to suppress all those reactions and emotions and do her work in the most professional manner possible. But this time …

This time was different. This time she was frightened by her author, and Carol Gee had never been frightened by an author before.

Denver had gone well, along with the side trip to Boulder, and the day had gone very well in Las Vegas. Still, Carol had kept her distance from Michael. For the first time, she was beginning to think she wasn’t cut out for this line of work.

Fatigued and stressed, she had gone straight up to her room after the evening’s signing. She was awaiting a FedEx package with the next group of airline tickets, the block of tickets for the last phase of the tour. Several of the signings in Southern California were so close together they would rent a car, and the contract for that was coming as well.