Page 51 of Lawbreaker

“The seat next to me is vacant,” he said. “Why don’t you come and sit with me?”

She hesitated. “I don’t know...”

“It’s not a hanging offense,” he whispered at her ear with a chuckle.

She shook her head and laughed softly. He was incorrigible. She hadn’t forgotten that he’d saved her from the overbearing man at Tony’s Long Island house. “I guess it would be okay,” she said.

“If anything’s said, I’ll take the blame, no worries,” he replied easily, and escorted her out of her seat and over to the one next to his. Actually, it had been for his date, but the woman had come down with a virus and couldn’t use her ticket. He’d never been happier about being stood up.

In the dress circle, Tony was livid. He hadn’t known that Odalie was coming to this performance, although Rudy had alerted him that he’d be here so they could talk later without arousing too much interest.

“You’re very quiet tonight,” Mauve, his mistress, muttered. “And I bought a new dress just to impress you!” She was staring at Odalie, who was letting a man help her out of her seat. “Would you look at that gown?” she asked on a sigh. “What a beautiful couture piece! I think I’ll go tomorrow and see if they can make one for me.”

He had to choke back his thoughts. It didn’t matter how attractive Mauve was, she would never hold a candle to Odalie in her couture.

“Isn’t she beautiful?” Mauve was whispering. “That man she’s with looks familiar. Doesn’t he work for you?”

“He works with me,” he said, and in a tone that didn’t invite further comment.

“What’s the difference?” she murmured. She looked at her program. “I hate ballet. Why are we here? There was a fashion show at the Red Mill this afternoon. You could have taken me to that instead.”

He was only half listening. His eyes were on Odalie’s laughing face. He didn’t like her palling around with Rudy, who was ten degrees off-center and on the outs with Tony’s people at the moment because of a bad error in judgment. It was one of the reasons they were meeting tonight. Rudy was a loose cannon. He didn’t want the man around Odalie.

He’d had his guys deliver the so-called colleague from the motel to the appropriate office in DC during lunch hours week before last, where he was left tied to a chair.

To say that Phillip James had been upset was an understatement.

“What the hell did you do?” he asked his idiot operative.

“They made me,” the man muttered as he was set free. “And I don’t know how! I was playing it perfectly!”

“I almost had him,” he muttered, “except for your stupid foul-up!”

“He knew all about the guy who was supposedly whacked,” the man said shortly. “And the guys I hired turned out to be his guys.”

“We could get him for kidnapping,” James murmured.

“How?” his operative asked curtly. “They didn’t abduct me. Well, not at gunpoint. And there were no witnesses when I got tied up in here!”

“He’s like an eel,” James said, smoldering. “Just when you think you’ve got him dead to rights, he slithers right out of your grasp.” He glared at the man he’d untied. “All right, get back to work on those amendments I want changed. And not a word about this assignment.”

“I’m not stupid,” the man said. “I don’t want to go to jail.”

“See that you remember that!”

“Sure. Sure.”

Phillip James stared after him until the door closed. Then he picked up one of his burner phones and called his son.

“How’s it going?” he asked.

His son yawned. “Fine. What time is it?”

He frowned. “Didn’t you have a class today?”

“Yeah, but it was just social studies. I wasn’t in the mood.”

He ground his teeth together. It was costing him a small fortune to keep his son in school. He’d hoped for a better attitude about his studies.