Standing in the Shadows (McClouds & Friends #2)(107)

Her sensual mouth opened, closed, opened again. "Oh… I'm not sure whether I should congratulate you or offer my condolences, boss."

He considered the question for a moment. "You may congratulate me, Tamara, by removing your clothing."

Fifteen sweaty minutes later, Tamara's office was in considerable disarray, and he was feeling somewhat better, for a man six hours dead.

Tamara slid down the wall onto the floor when he detached himself from her body. She started to say something, and stopped.

It piqued his curiosity. "What? Ask me anything," he urged.

She eyed him warily. "I was wondering… how you did it."

"Ah. My transformation into Claude Mueller, you mean." He sank down beside her, naked, and threaded his arm through hers. "I met him at the Sorbonne, years ago. He fell in love with me, and became tiresome, but he was so rich, I was sure he would come in handy one day, so I tolerated him. One night, when drunk, he confessed that he wanted to be me." He smiled at her. "And the idea was born. It's never too early to plan ahead."

Tamara was rapt. "You just… stole his life?"

"Claude was sickly, and naive. He had no friends but me. It was easy to cut him off from his few social contacts. A doctor with a shady past was enlisted to make him ill, with the aid of a criminal cook. And then I arranged for his parents to be removed from the picture. No one seemed to care what happened to him then. He was weak-willed, forgettable to look at. When I finally put him into a coma, no one noticed. But I, posing as Claude, have become quite a personage on the Internet. Everyone knows of Claude's generosity, his passionate love for collecting. Everyone loves him and courts him."

"Brilliant," she murmured.

"Claude's wish has come true. He is me. And I will live his life for him. Far better than he ever could have lived it himself."

She was silent for so long that he turned and looked. Her eyes looked haunted. "What?" he demanded. "What is it?"

She swallowed several times before she answered, a sure sign that she was going to risk telling him the truth. "When you tell me so many details, I'm afraid that you're planning…" Her voice trailed off.

"That I plan to kill you?" He was touched by her honesty. "Every man needs someone with whom he can speak freely, no?"

"Of course," she said automatically. "But—is this wise? To risk this new identity, just to punish Connor McCloud for—"

"Do not question my wisdom ever again."

He got up and began to pull on his clothing. Tamara reached for her blouse. "No," he said. "Stay that way. I like to see you naked."

The blouse dropped silently from her trembling hand.

He glanced at her computer. "What were you doing, at this hour?"

"I was checking McCloud's car," she said. "I got a call from Marc. The McCloud brothers descended upon Billy Vega tonight like avenging angels. They snatched Cindy and left Vega in a bloody heap."

He blinked. "Ah. That changes things."

"Yes. It also appears that McCloud has undermined what you were trying to accomplish with Barbara Riggs. She's rallied. To the point of smashing all the windows out of Vega's car with McCloud's cane."

He began to laugh. "You can't be serious."

"I promise, I am. He's at the Riggs house now. The house vidcams showed him creeping up the stairs, to play with Erin."

He stared out the window as he buttoned his shirt, letting his plans shift and flow into new patterns. Barbara and Cindy Riggs were doomed anyway, a few days more or less hardly mattered. But this news of Billy Vega's defeat gave him an amusing idea that could move the whole thing briskly forward. "Call Georg, Tamara," he said.

She rummaged on the devastated desk for her communicator, and pressed the button. "Georg? The boss wants you in my office, please." She clicked the line shut, and reached for her skirt.

"No," he said silkily. "Stay just as you are, please."

Her constant smile faltered. It was faltering quite often lately.

When Georg walked into the office, she gasped, so startled that she forgot her nudity. Georg had shaved his head and brows, and plucked out his eyelashes. Blue veins traced across his smooth skull; his blue eyes were feverish in deep, bruised pits. He seemed a ghoul, a misbegotten thing that had crawled out of a sewer. The man who was no longer Novak nodded in approval. "I see you have followed my instructions. Did you exfoliate?"

"Three times a day," Georg said. "Just as you said. I am ready."

He embraced Georg, and kissed him on both cheeks. "Excellent. You are a vicious, loyal hound, and tonight, you will taste fresh blood."

After Novak explained what was expected of him later that night, Georg turned to Tamara. Scarred lips drew back from his ruined teeth as he looked her up and down. "When I return, I will want sex," he said.

The man who was no longer Novak shrugged. "Obviously," he said. "You will be happy to oblige him, of course, Tamara?"

Tamara hesitated, longer than usual. He waited… ah, there it was. That bright smile, ever at the ready. "Of course," she said faintly.

He advanced upon her again once Georg departed. Tamara's smile was a challenge. She tried to hide behind it, but he knew how much she loathed being intimate with Georg. He knew that power and danger excited her, that she was testing her limits, that she was too intelligent not to sense how close she was to death. Layer upon layer of lies, and twisted motives. Her complexity aroused him.