Salim nodded stiffly. Why blame the messenger for the message? That Taggart was perceptive enough to see the truth about Grace when he hadn’t was no one’s fault but his own.
He put his hand lightly on the detective’s shoulder and walked him toward the elevator.
“You’ve been most helpful.”
“Do you want me to alert the authorities, Sheikh Salim?”
“I’ll deal with this from now on.”
Taggart nodded. “If you’re going after her yourself, I can find out what kind of extradition arrangements we have with Bali.”
A perceptive man, indeed.
“Just send me your final bill—and thank you for all you’ve done.”
Taggart stepped into the elevator. Salim waited until the doors slid shut. Then he walked slowly through the living room to the window.
But why would he go after Grace himself? He had contacts at the State Department. They could bring her back; he would confront her once they did.
A blur of motion.
It was the hawk, plunging through the sky, talons extended toward a gray shape on the sidewalk. Its prey fluttered in the hawk’s grip as the bird soared upward. By the time the hawk landed on the parapet, the gray shape was still.
The hawk looked around with fierce intensity, then bent to its well-earned reward. It had done what it was bred to do.
Salim’s jaw tightened. And so would he.
He took his cell phone from his pocket, hit a speed-dial button. His pilot answered on the first ring.
“Sir?”
“How quickly can you ready the plane for a flight to Bali?”
“Bali,” the pilot said, as if Salim had asked about a flight to Vermont. “No problem, your highness. All I have to do is figure out the refueling stops and then file a flight plan.”
“Do it,” Salim commanded.
Then he snapped the phone shut, cast one last glance at the hawk and hurried from the room.
CHAPTER TWO
GRACE HUDSON prided herself on being well-traveled.
She had studied at universities that offered overseas academic programs and she’d participated in them. On scholarship, of course, because it had been tough enough working at places like Hamburger Heaven and The Sweater Stop to earn money to pay her regular tuition. But she was a good student—why be unnecessarily modest?—and so she’d spent six months studying in London and another six months studying in Paris by the time she was twenty-two.
Then she’d interviewed for a brokerage firm in New York, spent a couple of years there before moving on to another. Both companies had sent her abroad on business. London again, and Paris, and Brussels and Dublin and Moscow.
She was not new to foreign destinations.
But Bali? Bali, halfway around the globe? A place of beautiful beaches, brilliant seas, lush sunshine? When she’d first heard that was where she was going, she was amazed. She was new to her job. Was James Lipton the Fourth—her boss preferred using his full name—really going to give her such an incredible opportunity?
She’d looked at the brochure he’d dropped on her desk again.
Seventh Annual SOPAC-PBA Conference, it said. Inside was a heady list of speakers and workshops.
“Surely you know what SOPAC-PBA is, Miss Hunter,” Lipton had said in his usual cool tones.
Miss Hunter. The name still took her by surprise. She’d taken her mother’s maiden name after—after New York. The name was close enough to her real name to feel comfortable and she figured she’d be using it for a while.
Not that she was really worried about being found…
“Miss Hunter? Must I explain it to you?”
Grace had shaken her head. “No, Mr. Lipton. SOPAC-PBA is the acronym for the South Pacific Private Banking Association.”
“You can learn a great deal by attending this conference, Miss Hunter. Do you think you’re up to it?”
“Yes, sir. I am.”
Lipton nodded. “I suppose you’re wondering why I’ve decided to send you.”
What could she say to that? Nothing, as it turned out. Lipton answered the question himself.
“I am pleased with your work, Miss Hunter, and I’ve reason to believe our CFO might be leaving us soon. There’s the possibility you might be moving up. The conference is an excellent place to learn and network.”
Moving up. To a position she’d lost because she’d found out, all too late, she’d never really had it, that everything Salim had done had been for himself, for his own selfish needs…
“Miss Hunter?”
Grace had blinked. “Yes, Mr. Lipton?”
“Have your secretary make the arrangements for us both.”
“Both?”
“Of course. I’m attending as well. It’s an important event.”
Grace had her secretary arrange the details but Lipton had frowned over the results. Why a commercial flight when the company had an arrangement with a jet charter service? And the hotel rooms…Why had a regular room been reserved for him when he would need the amenities a suite would afford for private meetings and working dinners?
Grace apologized and said she would inform her secretary to make the necessary changes. Lipton said he would instruct his P.A. to handle matters herself.
Grace knew she’d lost points and promised herself she’d make up for it by making full use of the learning and networking opportunities in Bali. After all, a job she liked might be about to become one she knew she would love. And Bali… she’d always wanted to see it. Not alone. She’d wanted to see it with someone she cared for. With a lover. With…
She told herself she had to stop letting the past intrude on the present. She had a good job, there was the hint of a better one in the offing and she was lucky to get the chance to attend such a high-powered conference.
The sole drawback was that she’d have to spend the best part of a week with James Lipton the Fourth. He was occasionally brusque but she could handle that. There was something about him she just didn’t like. Not his patrician air, not his attitude of removal. It was something else, something darker, something evil.
Which was ridiculous.
Lipton was a pillar of the community. There was an arts center named after him and a stadium. His wife was on the boards of half a dozen charities.
By the time she buckled her seat belt on the chartered jet, Grace had mentally called herself every kind of fool. She didn’t have to like the man, she had only to respect his position as her employer.
That was it… At least, that was it until the plane was in the air.
It turned out that James Lipton the Fourth, that pillar of the community, wasn’t a pillar at all. He belonged at the bottom of its most rancid garbage dump. To call him a sleazebag was being generous.
Twenty minutes after leaving San Francisco, the pilot announced they’d reached cruising altitude and her dipped-in-starch employer morphed into a monster.
They were seated side by side. He had suggested the arrangement. “So we can go over some notes,” he’d said.
Logical enough.
What