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It’s a shame she already had the meeting set up for tomorrow and couldn’t come. But Santos assured Jan there would be more opportunities.

On paper, Janelle Harper, a graduate of Temple’s Beasley School of Law, was Badde’s executive assistant. In reality, the curvy, full-bodied (five-six, one-forty) twenty-five-year-old with silky light brown skin was his paramour.

Although Badde adamantly denied that they had a relationship that was anything but professional, the truth of the matter was not exactly a well-kept secret in Philadelphia. Months earlier, for example, a photograph of them on a Bermuda beach had appeared in the local media. Thus, it was known—though mostly ignored—by Wanda Badde, Rapp’s wife of six years.

He had spent the previous night with Jan, in the luxury Hops Haus twentieth-floor condominium he provided for her, after a furious Wanda had thrown him out of their house.

When Jan got the call that the Hawker would pick up Rapp at Northeast Airport that afternoon, he’d had enough clothes at the condo for the trip. But he’d found it necessary to borrow the counterfeit Louis Vuitton suitcase he had bought on the street in New York City for Jan as a surprise, not expecting she could tell it was a fake.

She had never touched it.

[FIVE]

Talk about things being bigger in Texas! Badde thought when he saw the first person appear in the open doorway of the aircraft.

The nicely tanned, long-legged blonde had a full figure with impressive breasts. She wore a short, tight white dress and glittering silver high heels. He guessed she was around Jan’s age.

With all the skill and ease of a runway model, she smoothly descended the steps and went across the pad. As she hopped into the backseat of the Escalade, swinging in one long leg at a time, her dress rode up her thighs, and Badde watched with great interest as she rotated her hips and tugged it back down.

My God! That is a good-looking creature!

Badde then heard the peculiar ring tone of one of two cellular phones that he carried. He had selected the sound of a klaxon, thinking the annoying repetitious note was appropriate for what he called his Go To Hell phone. He gave out that phone’s number—listed as belonging to Urban Shelters LLC—only to his accountant, his three lawyers, and a select few others who were friends or business associates. When any of them called it, the odds were that something was going to hell—or about to.

He pulled it from his coat pocket. The caller ID showed 3040201.

Last time a weird number like that came up, it was Yuri.

And I don’t want to talk to him now.

He waited for the call to go to voice mail. When there was no message left, he quickly turned off the phone.

Whoever it was, I can blame the phone being off from still being in flight.

He looked back to the aircraft. A second passenger had appeared in the doorway.

Another stunning woman!

She started down the stairs and was followed by four more fashionably dressed, long-legged women, all but two of them blondes. They also climbed into the Cadillac.

Is there a mold that these girls come out of, or what?

The clean-cut brown-skinned young man got back behind the wheel as the shiny black Escalade’s doors closed. The SUV began to move toward a gate that was being opened in the chain-link fence that surrounded the airfield.

Wonder where they’re going?

He looked back to the aircraft. Next off was a tall light-brown-skinned man who looked to be in his thirties. He wore crisp slacks and a white dress shirt and a navy blazer. With the exception of a neatly trimmed goatee, his head was almost cleanly shaven. He waved once toward the Escalade. The driver waved back as the SUV began pulling away.

Now, Baldy here looks like someone important.

A tall black Ford F-150 four-door pickup with six-inch-high chromed badges on the front fenders that read KING RANCH EDITION then drove onto the pad. It pulled to a stop at the aircraft’s wingtip. Its driver, a beefy Hispanic with wavy black hair and wearing faded blue jeans, black pointed-toe Western boots, a snug black T-shirt, and a dark blazer, hopped out. He looked younger, maybe in his mid-twenties. He was talking into his cell phone, gesticulating angrily with his free hand, as he went to the foot of the stair door.

I wonder who the chunky cowboy is?

And why didn’t that important guy go with the hot girls?

As the tall man came down the steps, the cowboy broke off the call, then held out his right hand and smiled broadly. They shook hands and then walked toward the pickup, talking and nodding as they went. The cowboy then glanced toward the building where Rapp stood watching, then started in that direction as the tall man went to the pickup.

Well, Santos’s executive assistant called Jan about the airplane picking me up and told her that I’d be met here.