Before Sunday could reply, she softened, said, “Besides, sugar, Preston picked up most of it at Costco. No-questions-asked return policy on all electronics.”
Sunday stayed skeptical. “What about him? What’s his fee?”
Her nostrils flared and she looked at him like he was meat. “The eager young man expects two hours of ultrakinky sex with me. He’ll use a condom. Isn’t that what you said you needed right about now?”
Sunday cocked his head, appraising her anew. “Really? I didn’t notice, is he—?”
“Approximately your height and weight, yes.”
Intrigued now, the writer saw all the possibilities. “That means?”
“Don’t you think?” Acadia asked. Her breathing was slow. “It has been a while since we indulged, sugar.”
Sunday looked into her dark eyes and felt a thrill of primal anticipation ripple through him. “When?” he asked.
She shrugged. “All he has to do now is debug the software. Says he’ll be finished tomorrow around this time.”
“Who knows he’s here?”
“No one,” she replied. “Part of the deal. A secret.”
“Think he’ll keep it?”
“What do you think?” she asked, pressing against him a moment and igniting crazy desire in him. Sunday looked into Acadia’s green eyes and saw himself at eighteen, feeling that predatory rush for the first time as he carried a shovel and slipped up behind a figure crossing a dark yard. For a second it was all so real he swore he heard pigs squealing.
“Well, sugar?” Acadia whispered.
“I’ll leave,” he said, feeling that thrill all over again. “It’s better if he doesn’t see me tonight.”
She put on a saucy look, pressed against him again, and whispered in his ear, “Acadia Le Duc is limitless. No restrictions. None. You believe that, don’t you, sugar?”
“Oh, I do, baby,” Sunday said, almost breathless. “It’s one of the reasons I’m totally addicted to you.”
Chapter
5
Much later that same day, Kevin Olmstead, a soft-featured man in his late twenties, spotted the neon sign of the Superior Spa, a massage parlor on Connecticut Avenue reputed to offer “happy endings.”
Happy endings, Olmstead thought, running his fingers delicately over his smooth skin. Despite all the craziness in his head, he still knew the enduring value of a happy ending. He had enough money in his pocket, didn’t he? He seemed to remember withdrawing cash from an ATM sometime that day.
Was that real? Do I still have the money?
Olmstead stopped, blinking, trying to get his thoughts on track again, a common problem recently. Then he dug in the right front pocket of his jeans, pulled out a wad of cash. He smiled again. He wasn’t losing the old noodle when it came to sex or money.
Excited now, he hurried toward the massage parlor.
A man in a business suit, no tie, darted out the front door, looked furtively at Olmstead, and then scurried past him. Something about the man’s demeanor activated searing memories of another massage parlor and another night.
Olmstead remembered most vividly the smell of citrus cleaner. And he vaguely recalled five bodies: three women in bathrobes, a Cuban in a striped bowling shirt and porkpie hat, and a white guy in a cheap business suit, no tie, all shot at close range, all bleeding from head wounds.
Pain ripped through Olmstead’s own skull, almost buckling him on the sidewalk. Was that real? Had that happened? Were there five people dead in a massage parlor in…where? Florida?
Or was that all a hallucination? Some blip in his meds?
Olmstead’s mind surfed to another memory: a hand putting a Glock 21 pistol into a backpack. Was it the backpack on his shoulder? Was that his hand?
He looked at his hands and was surprised to see that he wore flesh-colored latex gloves. He was about to check the backpack when the front door of the Superior Spa opened.