Season Of Strangers Part 11

But Tommy Ross was a drifter, a beach b.u.m headed for bigger surf in Hawaii. He'd had no money, no job, and even if he had, he was already long gone before Laura found out she was pregnant. She was only seventeen. Julie was in college, working part-time to pay for books and tuition. Geraldine Ferris, their mother, earned barely enough to put food on the table and cheap clothes on their backs.

And Laura's health wasn't good. Even if she'd let the pregnancy run its course, the doctor said odds were she would miscarry before she reached full term. It seemed a good decision at the time-the only real answer to Laura's dilemma. She had been upset about it, of course, a little bit frightened of what would happen to her in the hospital, but not, Julie believed, to the extent that it would later cause something like this.

Julie thought again of Brian Heraldson. Maybe she should have backed him up, convinced Laura this was all in her head, but something held her back. It was only a feeling, a niggling, intuitive something that made her want to know more before she formed a solid opinion.

"Dr. Heraldson said he would set it up for me to attend the meeting," Laura said. "Do you think he might come along? I mean...it might be nice to have him there."

For a moment Julie's gaze swung away from the road, caught a glimpse of Laura's pretty face. "You like him, don't you?"

"I trust him. I don't know why, but I do."

Julie smiled. "So do I. But I think, at least at first, we ought to do this alone. Dr. Heraldson's mind is already made up. He doesn't believe this could have happened and that might influence your thinking when you speak to Dr. Winters."

Laura sighed. "I suppose you're right." They drove along in silence for a while. "Patrick was really nice about this. He doesn't believe me, of course, but at least he tried to help. He's certainly changed since his heart attack."

Something warm slid into Julie's stomach. "You know Patrick. I'm sure his reformation is only temporary. For his father's sake I wish he'd change for good, but we all know he probably won't."

"For his father's sake?" Laura pressed. "Or for yours?"

"Don't be silly. I have no interest in Patrick, none whatsoever." But she couldn't stop the tiny flutter in her heart or the stirring of hope at Laura's words.

On Tuesday morning, Val sat at the kitchen table in his penthouse apartment, poring over the pages he had just written in his journal. Much of it recounted the happenings at Julie Ferris's birthday party, the reaction Laura Ferris was having to what she called "the abduction."

Val frowned as he recalled the events of that night. They had known Earth subjects were often severely affected. He had seen their reactions when they were carried aboard the ship: crying and screaming, begging and pleading, shrinking into themselves in terror. He had seen the follow-up studies, showing their tendency toward suspicion, paranoia, insomnia, and manic-depressive moods. He had seen all of this, and yet he had never understood the way they truly felt.

He had never understood because he wasn't able to experience those feelings himself.

Not until now.

Val scrawled more words on the blue-lined pages of his notebook.

Emotion is the key. Humans experience their world in a different way than we do. They are governed by feelings, rather than logic. They are not objective in the same manner we are. Their experiences are absorbed, internalized rather than simply perceived. That is the reason they react so violently to our studies. They cannot understand that our need is simply to learn, to understand, and even if they could, they would perceive it as a hostile invasion. Here, the individual's rights come first.

Val set the pen aside and studied the last line he had written. On Toril, there was no such thing as individuality, no perception of privacy, independent thinking, or personal rights and freedoms. Everyone worked for the common good, existed as a part of one common humanity.

Here, the closest Patrick's memory banks could come to the sort of communal existence was to liken Torillian society to a group of bees within a hive. They all pulled together, reacted as one. There was no dissension, no discord. They discussed things, made a decision based on the common good, then acted to carry out that decision. From emergence until death, five hundred years later, they thought of themselves as one, all part of a common ent.i.ty.

It was as hard a concept for a human to accept as the concept of individualism was for a Torillian.

Val stretched his long legs out in front of him, raked a hand through his still-damp, black hair. He had run eight miles this morning at 5:00 a.m., long before the streets were clogged with traffic. He was as fit and trim as the twenty-year-old Patrick Donovan who had raced motorcycles and skied the double black diamond slopes.

He felt good about that. He liked the way his body responded, the way it obeyed his commands. He liked the power in his muscles, the exhilaration when the blood surged full-force through his veins. He liked breathing in great, deep lungfuls of air and feeling the tightness of the sinews in his long lean legs.

He liked being a man, feeling a man's wants and needs.

Perhaps more than anything else, he liked the way he felt when he kissed Julie Ferris.

Val shifted against a surge of heat to his lower anatomy. It happened whenever he thought of Julie and it was beginning to drive him crazy. No wonder Patrick took so many women to bed. The man's powerful masculinity exuded great demands and it was only Val's Torillian drive for monogamy that kept him from giving in to them.

Sighing with frustration, he set the journal aside, picked up his leather briefcase, and headed for the door. He'd been going to work early every morning, sifting through ledgers and contracts, reviewing the real estate files Patrick had a.s.sembled through the years. He understood the business. After all, he knew everything that Patrick knew. During the time he played the part, it was necessary he do the same things Patrick would do. He just didn't approach those things in quite the same manner.

Still, for as long as he was Patrick, he was expected to run the company.

Which left him sitting in his office behind his black lacquered desk late that afternoon when the door swung open and a tall, well-dressed man in a navy blue suit walked in. Another man followed, shorter, stockier, with coffee-cup ears and pockmarks over the lower half of his face. From their slightly hostile manner, he knew exactly who they were and why they were there.

"Come in, gentlemen. I've been expecting you."

The taller man stopped in front of the desk. With a smug, self-a.s.sured smile, he turned and braced a hip on the edge. "You have, have you? Does that mean you've got the rest of the money you owe us?"

"You know I don't. I presume that's why you're here."

"That's right, Donovan, that's exactly why we're here."

Val dug into Patrick's brain, hoping he could put all the pieces together and make some sort of sense out of them. Hoping Patrick's real estate knowledge would be enough to guide him through the mess the man had gotten himself into. "I take it you're with Westwind Corporation."

"h.e.l.l, no. Sandini sent us. The guys running Westwind are just working stiffs. They do exactly what we tell them."

"And that is...?"

The second man checked the door, made sure it was tightly closed. "That is, keep writing those phony sales contracts on your worthless condominiums. Keep shuffling the mortgages off to that insurance trust and collecting the money for the sale of useless pieces of paper."

Val's brain sorted out the information, which Patrick already knew. More and more he was able to a.s.similate Patrick's knowledge. In a way, he actually was Patrick Donovan. And because that was so, he was only a little surprised at the extent of the fraud the men were committing.

Val had run across Patrick's involvement in the Westwind scam in a far back corner of his mind, where Patrick had mostly pretended it didn't exist. His pet project, a huge condominium and time-share development near Santa Monica beach, had gone sour before it ever got off the ground. Patrick had sold his soul to raise enough money to build it-finally giving up a large percentage to men named Tony Sandini and Vincent McPherson, the unofficial owners of a sham company called Westwind Corporation, guys Patrick referred to as "big-time Chicago money men."

Patrick had been certain the project would be a winner. There were millions to be made, he believed. But the condos weren't finished while the market was red-hot and now interest rates were creeping up and there was a big market downturn. The units were completed, but the construction was so shoddy n.o.body wanted to buy them. They were sitting there empty, most of them still unsold.

And Sandini and McPherson wanted their money.

"So what's the problem?" Val asked, dredging up thoughts Patrick had had right before he died. "Westwind is creating the phony paper, discounting it and selling it. Sooner or later you'll make back the money you've invested and a handsome profit to boot. Everyone involved will get paid and disappear, and you'll be home free."

"That sounds real good, but the fact is the insurance trust isn't buying any more of our notes. Pennsylvania Life just merged with Metropolitan and they aren't buying, they're selling."

"So find someone else."

"We already have," said the man in the navy blue suit.

"You've found someone else to buy the discounted notes?"

The stocky man grinned. "Yeah, that's where you come in."

Val shoved back his chair and stood up. "I told them I couldn't help them when I signed over the deed to the property." A deed Patrick had given to Westwind Corporation, in lieu of foreclosure, a transfer just before his heart attack meant to shield him from the fraud the men were committing and hopefully keep him out of jail. But Sandini and McPherson wanted their money and they expected him to do whatever it took to insure they got paid.

"I can't afford to be connected with Westwind when all of this finally comes down," he said, repeating what Patrick had once said.

"Yeah, well, that's just too d.a.m.n bad." The stocky man flashed him a look that said he enjoyed making him squirm. If Patrick's involvement was discovered, this kind of fraud would send him straight to prison.

Sooner or later, someone would discover the condo buyers weren't real. They weren't making their payments on the notes because the buyers were just names and credit applications churned up from the recently deceased files of a local Social Security branch. Big Brother knew everything about everyone. And with a little computer wizardry, so did the Westwind Corporation.

The tall man pulled an expensive cigarette case from the inside pocket of his suit coat. He took out a smoke, snapped the lid closed and lit the cigarette with a flick of his shiny gold lighter.

"Mr. Sandini doesn't expect all that much," he said, releasing a lungful of smoke into the smoke-free office. "A word or two from you, a personal tour of the property ought to insure the deal goes through."

"Who's going to be buying the notes?"

"The Ventura County Teachers' Pension Fund."

Val's chest tightened. "That's reaching pretty low, isn't it? Teachers are just average people working to save for their retirement. They can't afford to lose that kind of money."

"Yeah, well those are the breaks," said the stocky man.

"Sorry, Donovan, but as Jake here says, that's the way it goes. The teachers' fund is looking for discounted mortgages to invest in and you're gonna help them."

He said nothing, which both men took for consent. They weren't used to anyone going against them.

The taller man smiled. "That's more like it. Westwind will tell the princ.i.p.als to give you a call. You can set up a meeting whenever it's convenient. Just be sure it gets done posthaste. We need this whole thing wrapped up no later than the next few weeks."

Val followed them to the door of the office. He watched them walk past the row of desks, out through the reception area, pausing only long enough for the guy named Jake to make a lewd remark to Shirl about her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

Julie walked in just as the men walked out, eliciting a thorough, appreciative glance from the man in the navy blue suit. Val's hand clenched on the door frame as an odd, unexpected anger swept through him. His jaw went tight and his pulse began to race a little faster. Not liking the strange sensation, he took a deep breath and replaced his harsh expression with a smile.

Starting up the aisle, he headed toward the little redhead who had just walked in.

Julie watched Patrick walking toward her. She didn't like the tingly, breathless way she felt when she saw him. She didn't like the swirling in her stomach or the increase in her pulse. Thinking of the way he had kissed her the last time she had seen him, she started walking faster, hoping to reach the safety of her office before Patrick could intercept her. Unfortunately, his long legs moved him up the aisle faster than her shorter strides could carry her out of his way.

"I was hoping I'd be here when you came in." He smiled, but concern marked his features. "How did it go with your sister?" He knew about the morning meeting with Laura's therapist, Dr. Heraldson. Patrick had called last night to see how Laura was faring.

"It went all right, I guess." She kept on walking past him and the sleeve of his chocolate-brown sport coat brushed lightly against her breast. Just that small contact made her nipple peak. She turned so that he wouldn't notice, stepped into her office and reached for the door. Patrick stepped in and closed it for her, sealing them both inside.

"What happened? Did she listen to the tapes?"

Julie nodded. "She's more convinced than ever the abductions were real."

"Surely you don't believe her."

Julie sighed. "Not really. But I'm trying to keep an open mind." She leaned over her desk, grabbed a couple of files and crammed them into her burgundy leather briefcase. "Which is why I've got to run."

"Where are you going?" His jacket was unb.u.t.toned, his tie off and his shirt partway undone. An image flashed of his sweat-soaked torso on the running machine at the gym, of lean hard muscle and smooth dark skin.

"I'm off to the library. I want to do some research on UFOs. I owe Laura at least that much." She started to walk past him, determined to ignore the way his eyes absorbed her every movement.

"Why don't I come with you?" He caught her arm. "Maybe I could help."

Julie shook her head. She felt short of breath, even a little bit dizzy. "I-I don't think so, Patrick."

"Why not? Believe it or not, I know my way around a reference department. Which library will you use?"

"UCLA. As an alumni, I'm still allowed to check out books. I've never done research on UFOs, but I'm sure they'll have the latest available information."

"Sounds like a good place to start. I'll drive you over."

She meant to protest, she really did, but he was tugging her toward the back door and she couldn't seem to think of a reason he shouldn't come. In minutes his shiny black Porsche was flying down Wilshire Boulevard, turning in to the small university town of Westwood, then winding its way up Hilgard to a back entrance that allowed them to park not too far from the library doors.

Patrick knew his way around the campus nearly as well as Julie. He had never attended but she figured he must have dated dozens of coeds who did. Her spine went a little bit rigid and she glanced away, hoping he wouldn't notice, but he did.

He pulled her beneath a tall, broad-leafed sycamore just outside the thick gla.s.s doors leading into the library building. "What is it, Julie? Something's wrong all of a sudden-I can see it in your eyes. Tell me what it is."

"Nothing's wrong." She started forward, but he caught her around the waist, bringing her body up close to his.

"Tell me."

She looked up and all she could see was blue. Incredible blue, delicious blue, the deepest blue eyes she had ever seen. "I was just...I was thinking of you and your women...all the pretty young coeds, the dozens of women you've slept with over the years. I don't know why you're here, Patrick. I don't understand what you want."

His blue gaze never faltered. "I want you, Julie. I think that's fairly obvious by now."

She swallowed, turned her face away. "Why? Why after so many years?"

He caught her chin, forcing her look at him. "I've always wanted you. I told you that before. But now I want more than just your body. I want to know your mind...your soul." He kissed her then, there beneath the towering tree, a soft, sweet kiss that turned hot and sultry and ended with her clinging to his neck. Patrick deepened the kiss and the heat of his hands seemed to burn through her clothes. She could feel the jutting ridge of his s.e.x, the hot, moist throbbing of her own.

"Why don't we go back to my apartment?" he urged softly in his deep, s.e.xy voice. "You can do your research another time."

The words rolled over her, compelling in their intensity, the unspoken message clear. I want you, Julie. Now. It made her already pounding heart trip even more loudly, made an odd weakness slide in to her limbs. She didn't dare give into it. Dear G.o.d, this was Patrick Donovan! She must be going crazy!

It took all her will to pull away. Julie wet her burning lips, glanced around with embarra.s.sment to see how many students had been watching their heated display. No one showed the least bit of interest. Pa.s.sion was an everyday occurrence at UCLA.

"I'm sorry, Patrick. I-I shouldn't have done that. We both know I haven't the slightest intention of going home with you."

"Why not?"

She stepped a little farther away, needing to put some distance between them. "I've told you why not a dozen times. Because it could never work out between us. Because I'm not interested in a quickie affair."

"Neither am I."

"Since when?"

"Since I discovered it was you I really wanted."

A splinter of heat ran through her. "I have to go in. You can come if you want. If not, when I'm finished, I can catch a cab back to my car." Without a glance in his direction, she started through the heavy gla.s.s doors. She didn't have to look to know Patrick walked behind her. She could feel his imposing presence with every step he took.

How could that be? When had Patrick Donovan become so commanding?

She pushed the thoughts away and brought her mind back into focus. She had come for a purpose. The afternoon was nearly over. She needed to see it done. Heading to the information desk, she asked a gray-haired woman to direct her to the section that included books on UFOs, close encounters, and alien abduction.

"That would be just down that aisle all the way to the back."

"Thank you." She wanted to get an overview of books today, then she would go on the Internet for magazine and newspaper articles that would provide more recent information on the subject. Patrick helped her search the long row of volumes. She checked out all she could carry and left with an armload of books. Patrick frowned at the heavy stack she carried, lifted them out of her arms, and started walking toward the door.

They reached the car and he settled her inside, then stacked the books on the narrow ledge that served as the Porsche's back seat, pausing briefly to pick up a heavy volume and read the spine. "UFO Encounters: Sightings, Visitations, and Investigations." He lifted another. "UFOs: Operation Trojan Horse. UFO Crash at Roswell. UFO Experience. Flying Saucer Conspiracy. Visitors from Outer s.p.a.ce, Are They Finally Here? Christ, you've got more than a dozen. Surely you aren't going to read them all."