Now You See Her Linda Howard(45)

Money could work miracles, and he had a lot of money. He couldn't think of a better way to spend it. It was time he did something satisfying with his money, and he couldn't think of anything more satisfying than getting Sweeney in his hands, in his bed, in his life.

He was going to make some drastic changes in his life, and he was going to make them soon. Sweeney was the most drastic change, but the others weren't minor. He was tired of playing the market, tired of the life he led here. It had never been what he wanted on a permanent basis, just the means to an end.

He didn't like what he was seeing in the market, and it was time to get out. He thought he'd have at least a year, but liquidating his assets would take time, and he didn't intend to wait until the last minute to do it.

The computer problem looming at the end of 1999 looked like a bitch. From the information that passed through his hands, he knew a lot of companies weren't going to have their computer programs fixed by that time. What that would do to the market was anyone's guess, but if enough companies shut down, the market would crash. If he had been satisfied with what he was doing, with his life here, he might have tried to ride it out. Under the circumstances, though, it was time to get out.

He didn't want to try to predict what would happen, or shift his investments to companies with computer systems that were millennium compliant. He had never intended to spend his whole life playing the market and amassing wealth, anyway. All along he'd had other plans, and now it was time to put them into action.



Sweeney complicated matters, and not just because the timing was inconvenient. He didn't want a long-distance romance. He wanted her with him, and he had no idea how she felt about relocating.

Big plans, he thought in self-mockery. He tilted back his head and killed the rest of the beer. He was planning her future without even asking if she wanted to spend it with him. Hell, why not? She had disrupted his life, so turnabout was fair play. He thought he had a good chance of success, considering what she had given away that morning with her comment about being terrified something had happened to him. He grinned to himself. He wasn't above taking ruthless advantage of her feelings for him; hell, he needed any advantage he could get.

It was almost two A.M. when Sweeney stirred slightly in her sleep, a frown puckering her brow. A barely audible whimper sounded in her throat, a quiet protest from her subconscious. A few moments later she slipped out of bed, her movements so calm the covers were scarcely disturbed; one second she had been lying beneath them, the next she wasn't. She stood beside the bed for some time, her head cocked as if she were listening to something. Then she sighed, and walked silently through the dark apartment to her studio.

She had stood the canvas with two shoes painted on it against the right wall, where it was out of the way but she could still look at it. The shoes had puzzled her. Why had she painted shoes? After her initial relief that she hadn't done another portrait of death, she had gotten more uneasy as the day had gone on. The shoes weren't finished; they needed more work. Knowing that had made her dread the night, for the first time in her life.

Now she went straight to the shoe canvas and placed it on an easel. Her expression was smooth and blank as she selected her tubes of paint and began to work. Her brushstrokes were fast and precise, the narrow, tapered bristles adding detail.

She didn't work for long, no more than an hour. Suddenly she shuddered, her entire body drooping as if overwhelmed with fatigue. She capped the tubes of paint and dropped the brush in a jar of turpentine, and silently returned to bed.

She slept late again, until almost eight, but knew as soon as she woke that she had done it again. She was cold, the heat from the electric blanket somehow not transferring to her flesh, even though she knew it should. When she had gone to bed the night before, the bed had been toasty warm, such a delicious sensation she had almost purred as she crawled between the sheets. It would still be toasty warm, she knew, to anyone else, but she couldn't feel it.

Not being an idiot who couldn't face reality, she hurriedly dressed and went into the living room, where she had left the pad with Richard's number on it. As she picked up the cordless phone and punched numbers, she noticed that her hands were colorless except for her fingernails, which had an interesting bluish tint to them.

Richard answered the phone himself, and something tense inside her relaxed a little at the sound of that deep, calm voice. "This is Sweeney," she said, trying to sound cheerful, but at that moment a violent shiver seized her and her voice shook. "It happened again."

"I'll be right there."



Just like that, she marveled as he hung up. No questions, no "I'm tied up right now, but I'll be there as soon as I can." She needed him, and he was dropping everything else to be there with her. The sheer wonder of it made her chest feel tight, as if she were catching a cold. Tears stung her eyes and she blinked them back, determined not to be such a sissy again.

She went into the kitchen. The coffee was made and already cold. She poured a cup and put it in the microwave to heat, waiting impatiently for the ding. Chills raced down her spine, roughened her skin.

She felt her muscles tensing with another shudder.

She gulped down the first cup of coffee and heated another one. She had to hold it with both hands to keep the coffee from sloshing out, but still she was shaking so hard she risked scalding herself.

The attacks were getting worse, she realized; she was getting colder, faster. Maybe she should move the coffeemaker into the bedroom, put it right there on the nightstand so she wouldn't even have to get out of bed. Not that the coffee seemed to be helping much; nothing helped, except for Richard.