скачать книгу бесплатно
Rami had favored her in other ways. He hadn’t hated Alcantar but he’d always preferred places of sybaritic comfort.
Karim, on the other hand, could not remember a time he had not loved his desert homeland.
He’d grown up in his father’s palace, built on a huge oasis at the foot of the Great Wilderness Mountains. His companions were Rami and the sons of his father’s ministers and advisors.
By the age of seven he’d been able to ride a horse bareback, start a fire with kindling and flint, sleep as contentedly under the cold fire of the stars as if he were in the elaborate palace nursery.
Even then, twenty-six years ago, only a handful of Alcantaran tribesmen had still lived that kind of life, but the King had deemed it vital to understand and respect it.
“One day,” he would say to Karim, “you will rule our people and they must know that you understand the old ways.” Always there would be a pause, and then he would look at Rami and say, not unkindly, “You must respect the people and the old ways as well, my son, even though you will not sit on the throne.”
Had that been the turning point for his brother? Karim wondered. Or had it come when their mother died and their father, mourning her even though she had spent most of her time far from him and her children, had thrown himself ever deeper into the business of governance and sent his sons away?
He sent them to the United States, to be educated, he said, as their mother would have wished.
With terrifying suddenness the brothers had found themselves in what seemed an alien culture. They’d both been brutally homesick, though for different reasons.
Rami had longed for the luxuries of the palace.
Karim had longed for the endless sky of the desert.
Rami had coped by cutting classes and taking up with a bunch of kids who went from one scrape to another. He’d barely made it through prep school and had been admitted to a small college in California where he’d majored in women and cards, and in promises that he never kept.
Karin had coped by burying himself in his studies. He’d finished preparatory school with honors and had been admitted to Yale, where he’d majored in finance and law. At twenty-six he’d created a private investment fund for the benefit of his people and managed it himself instead of turning it over to a slick-talking Wall Street wizard.
Rami had taken a job in Hollywood. Assistant to a B-list producer, assistant to this and assistant that—all of it dependent upon his looks, his glib line of patter and his title.
At thirty, when he’d come into a trust left him by their mother, he’d given up any pretense at work and instead had done what she had done.
He’d traveled the world.
Karim had tried to talk to him. Not once. Not twice. Many, many times. He’d spoken of responsibility. Of duty. Of honor.
Rami’s reply had always been the same, and always delivered with a grin.
“Not me,” he’d say. “I’m just the spare, not the heir.”
After a while they hadn’t seen much of each other. And now—
Now Rami was dead.
Dead, Karim thought.
His belly knotted.
His brother’s body had been flown home from Moscow and laid to rest with all the panoply befitting a prince.
Their father had stood stiffly at his grave.
“How did he die?” he’d asked Karim.
And Karim, seeing how fragile the older man had become, had lied.
“An automobile accident,” he’d told him.
It was almost true.
All he’d left out was that Rami had evidently met with his cocaine dealer, something had gone wrong, the man had slit his throat and a dying Rami had wandered into the path of an oncoming car.
And why go over it again? The death was old news. Soon “tying up loose ends” would be old news, too.
One last stop. A handful of things to sort out—
A dull rumble vibrated through the plane. The landing gear was being deployed. As if on signal, the flight attendant materialized at the front of the cabin.
Karim waved her off. He wasn’t in the mood for her misplaced look of compassion. All he wanted was to put this mess behind him.
Moments later, they landed.
He rose to his feet and reached for his attaché case. Inside it was what he thought of as the final folder. It held letters from three hotels, expressing sympathy on Rami’s death and reminders that he had run up considerable bills in their casinos and shops.
There was also a small envelope that contained a key and a slip of paper with an address scrawled on it in Rami’s hand.
Had he considered putting down some kind of roots here?
Not that it mattered, Karim thought grimly. It was too late for roots or anything else that might have resembled a normal life.
He’d get an early start tomorrow, pay his brother’s bills, then locate the place that went with the key, pay whatever was due—because surely the rent was in arrears despite the lack of a dunning letter.
And then all this would be behind him.
His chief of staff had arranged for a rental car and for a suite at one of the city’s big hotels.
The car had a GPS; Karim selected the name of the hotel from a long list and drove toward the city.
It was close to one in the morning, but when he reached the Las Vegas Strip it blazed with light. Shops were open; people were everywhere. There was a frenzy to the place, a kind of circus atmosphere of gaiety Karim didn’t quite buy into.
At the hotel, a valet took his car. Karim handed the kid a twenty-dollar bill, said he was fine with carrying his own things, and headed into the lobby.
The metallic sounds of slot machines assaulted his ears.
He made his way to the reception desk through a crowd of shrieking and laughing revelers. The clerk who greeted him was pleasant and efficient, and soon Karim was in an elevator, on his way to the tenth floor along with two women and a man. The man stood with an arm around each of the women; one had her hand on his chest, the other had her tongue in his ear.
The elevator doors whisked open. Karim stepped out.
The sooner he finished his business here, the better.
His suite, at least, was big and surprisingly attractive.
Within minutes he’d stripped off his clothes and stepped into the shower. He let the hot water beat down on his neck and shoulders, hoping that would drive away some of the weariness.
It didn’t.
Okay. What he needed was sleep.
But sleep didn’t come. No surprise. After two weeks of coming into cities he knew would hold yet additional ugly truths about his brother, sleep had become more and more elusive.
After a while, he gave up.
He had to do something. Take a walk. A drive. Check out the hotels where Rami had run up enormous bills—this place, he had made certain, was not one of them. Maybe he’d drive by the flat his brother had leased. He could even stop, go inside, take a quick look around.
Not that he expected to find anything worth keeping, but if there was something personal, a memento that said something good about Rami’s wasted life, their father might want it.
Karim put on jeans, a black T-shirt, sneakers and a soft black leather bomber jacket. Deserts were cold at night, even ones that arrowed into the heart of a city whose glow could be seen for miles.
He opened his attaché case, grabbed the key and noted the scribbled address. A tag that read “4B” hung from the key itself. An apartment number, obviously.
The valet brought him his car. Karim handed him another twenty. Then he entered the address into the GPS and followed its directions.
Fifteen minutes later, he reached his destination.
It was a nondescript building in a part of the city that was as different from the Las Vegas he’d so far seen as night from day.
The area was bleak and shabby, as was the building itself …
Karim frowned. He’d connected to global positioning satellites often enough to know that when they worked they were great and when they didn’t you could end up in the middle of nowhere.
Yes, but this was the correct address.
Had Rami run out of the ability to talk himself into the best hotels at some point during his time here?
There was only one way to find out.
Karim got out of the car, locked it, and headed toward the building.
The outside door was unlocked. The vestibule stank. The stairs creaked; he stepped in something sticky and tried not to think about what it might be.
One flight. Two. Three, and there it was, straight ahead. Apartment 4B, even though the “4” hung drunkenly to the side and the “B” was upside down.
Karim hesitated.
Did he really want to do this tonight? Was he up to what was surely going to be a dirty hovel? He remembered the time he’d flown out to the coast to visit Rami when he was in school. Dirty dishes in the sink and all over the counters. Spoiled food in the refrigerator. Clothes spilling out of the hamper.
“Goddammit,” he said, under his breath.
The truth was, he didn’t give a crap about the apartment being dirty. What mattered was that it would be filled with Rami’s things. The hotel rooms had not been; the hotels had all removed his brother’s clothes, his toiletries, and put them in storage.
This would be different.
And he was a coward.
“A damned coward,” he said, and he stepped purposefully forward, stabbed the key into the lock, turned it—
The door swung open.
The first thing he noticed was the smell—not of dirt but of something pleasant. Sugar? Cookies?
Milk?
The second thing was that he wasn’t alone. There was someone standing maybe ten feet away …
Not someone.
A woman. She stood with her back to him, tall and slender and—
And naked.
His eyes swept over her. Her hair was a spill of pale gold down her shoulders; her spine was long and graceful. She had a narrow waist that emphasized the curve of her hips and incredibly long legs.
Legs as long as sin.
Hell. Wrong building. Wrong apartment. Wrong—
The woman spun around. She wasn’t naked. She wore a thing that was barely a bra, covered in spangles. And a thong—a tiny triangle of glittery silver.
It was a cheap outfit that made the most of a beautiful body, though her face was even more beautiful …
And what did that matter at moment like this, when he had obviously wandered into the wrong place … and, dammit, her eyes were wide with terror?
Karim held up his hands.
“It’s all right,” he said quickly. “I made a mistake. I thought—”
“I know precisely what you thought, you—you pervert,” the woman said, and before he could react she flew at him, a blur of motion with something in her hand.
It was a shoe. A shoe with a heel as long and sharp as a stiletto.
“Hey!” Karim danced back. “Listen to me. I’m trying to tell you some—”
She slammed the shoe against him, aiming for his face, but he moved fast; the blow caught him in the shoulder. He grabbed her wrist and dragged her hand to her side.
“Will you wait a minute? Just one damned minute—”
“Wait?” Rachel Donnelly said. “Wait?” The perv from the lounge wanted her to wait? Wait so he could rape her? “The hell I will,” she snarled, and she wrenched her hand free of his, swung hard …
This time, the heel of the shoe flashed by his face.
That was the good news.
