Now You See Her Linda Howard(28)

"And you call me a fool," he sneered. "There's no way to tell if she gave me the originals. And even if there were, she could have any number of copies made."



"Then you'd better think of something." She was breathing hard, her nostrils flared. "And you'd better think fast."




Chapter 7


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Richard didn't have a downtown office. Instead he had converted the bottom floor of his town house into a small office complex: an office for him, with the state-of-the-art computer with which he worked his market magic; small offices for his two assistants; a tiny kitchen; two bathrooms, one connecting to his office and the other shared by his assistants; and two rooms for storage and files. The arrangement was extremely convenient should he want to work late into the night or even all night.

Every day, he had one objective: to make as much money as possible.

He had spent most of his adult life amassing wealth. He enjoyed the challenge of anticipating and outguessing the market, but the pleasure was only moderate. He had known poverty and he hadn't liked it, so when he was old enough to do something about it, he left home, joined the army, and set about learning skills that would enable him to make money. He hadn't learned quite fast enough. Pops, his grandfather, had died before Richard could do much to alleviate the grinding poverty of the little farm in western Virginia where he had been born and raised. At least his mother's last years had been better; if she planted a garden, it was because she wanted to, not because she had to in order to eat.

Poverty ground you down, turned you into a social parasite, or it made you tough. Pops had eschewed welfare as charity, and instead worked his small acreage as well as taking any other work he could find. Richard's mother had taken in sewing and ironing. When he himself was old enough he had not only helped with the farming chores but hired himself out for small jobs such as cutting the grass, helping cut and haul hay, the odd carpentry job where function mattered more than appearance.

He had only a vague, maybe wishful image of his father, and a grave in the small country graveyard to visit a few times a year, but from his grandfather he had learned that men didn't lie around all day drinking beer and collecting what the old man called "damn government handouts" once a month, men got out and worked. So Richard worked, and worked hard. Survival of the fittest. You either surrendered, or you fought like hell to better your position.

He'd never been ashamed of his poor country roots, the roots that made him strong, though Candra was embarrassed enough by his origins to insist he say only that he was "from Virginia. " If he had let her, she would have invented an antebellum mansion in his background and had one of his ancestors signing the Declaration of Independence.

He had taken steps to ensure he was never poor again. His investments were varied, to weather the hiccups and burps of the market, and he had put money into gems and precious metals as a hedge against a market crash. It was a high, a challenge, a game, to gather tiny details of information and decide which stocks would increase in value and which were in trouble. He seemed to have a sixth sense for it, and he had long ago gained the amount he had set in his mind as "enough," but he kept playing the market, and kept getting richer.

It was eating at Candra's soul that she couldn't get a bigger share of his wealth.



The thought of her brought a bitter taste to his mouth. He supposed he had loved her, in the beginning, though she might have been just a challenge, like the market. From a distance of over ten years he couldn't remember exactly how he had felt about her, though he knew what had attracted him. Candra had been—still was—very attractive, with impeccable social credentials backed by old money, and blessed with an outgoing, friendly personality. If anything, she was too friendly, especially with other men.

Their marriage had already been in trouble when he first learned about her affairs, and by that time he simply hadn't cared enough about her infidelities to do anything about them. She thought he knew about only one lover, but he was far from a fool. He had made it his business, over the years, to find out about all her lovers. He knew about Kai. He knew about Carson McMillan. He knew about all the artists she slept with, which social acquaintances found their way into her bed. After he stopped caring, he used her occasionally for sex, and used a condom, even though she was on birth control pills. She had never asked why. He supposed she knew.

Unfortunately, condoms sometimes tore. Two years ago, one had, and combined with some antibiotics she had been taking, that had been enough for her to get pregnant. Not that she had told him, not at the time. Instead she had gotten an abortion.

He wanted children, had always wanted them. When they were first married, Candra had wanted to wait, and he had agreed because his financial position hadn't been as strong as he wanted it to be before he had any children. By the time he felt prosperous enough, Candra had already begun taking lovers and he had lost all desire to have any children with her. But when she told him what she had done, threw the words at him like weapons, everything inside him had hurt at the thought of that small lost life, and from that second on he hated her.

He hadn't spent another night under the same roof with her, but packed her bags and carried her to a hotel, with her crying and cursing, and swearing that she hadn't really done it, that she had only said so because she wanted to hurt him. And he had rousted a locksmith out in the middle of the night and had the locks changed on the town house. Candra had been forced to make appointments to pick up the rest of her belongings, a humiliation that had galled her soul.