Butterfly (23 page)

of Captain Wilder and how captivated by him she had been.

Captain Wilder would never have murdered her baby.

“Rachel,” he said, sounding tired. “Will you please get out now?”

“Yes,” she said dully. “I’ll get out. But before I do, I want to tell you something. Just

now, you mentioned the first night you made love to me. You know what, Danny? I was

fourteen and a virgin then. Since then I’ve been with hundreds of men. And you know

something? You’re a lousy lay, Danny.”

He slapped her so hard across the face that her forehead banged against the dashboard.

When she slowly raised her head, there was blood trickling down her face. “You think

you’ve seen the last of me, Danny Mackay. But you haven’t. Someday I’m going to make

you pay for what you’ve done.”

His scarred mouth lifted in a one-sided smile. “And just how do
you
think you are

going to get back at
me
?”

“You said you’re a man who’s going places. Well, I’m a woman who’s going places.

Someday, I’ll be rich and powerful, too. Only I’ll be richer and more powerful than you.”

He threw back his head and laughed. “Is that right? And how are you going to make

your millions? As a hooker? Listen, sweetheart, with your looks, you’ll never get out of

Hazel’s house. You’ll be here giving blow jobs until the day you die. Now—” He reached

across, opened the door and gave her a shove. “Get out!”

She fell sprawling into the street. As he slammed the door and put the car into gear

Rachel took one long last look at him, memorizing his face, scorching the name of Danny

Mackay onto her heart.
Remember my name,
he had said.

She would. And another thing, about what she was going to be doing until the day she

died—it wasn’t going to be working for Hazel. It was going to be living for one thing, and

one thing only: to get revenge on Danny Mackay.

February

13

“Will you be my mommy?” the little girl asked as she tried to put her arms around

Linda’s neck.

Taking hold of the poor little bandaged arms, Dr. Linda Markus tucked them back

under the blankets and said, “You have a very nice daddy to take care of you. Don’t you

love your daddy?”

“Yes…” The six-year-old face produced an adult frown. “But I wish I had a mommy,

too.”

Linda smiled, stroked the child’s hair—what was left of it after the fire—and got up

from the bed. “I’ll come by and see you tomorrow, how’s that?”

The scarred mouth lifted in a smile. “Okie dokie,” the little girl said.

Back at the nurses’ station, Linda jotted some notes on the child’s chart. Standing next

to her, flipping through nursing-care-plan cards, the head nurse said, “How’s she doing,

Doctor?”

“Her skin grafts are taking very well. I think she’ll be able to go to the general ward

next week.”

“I sure hope so. We need the bed.”

Dr. Markus looked out of place in the Children’s Burn Unit of St. Catherine’s

Hospital. Even though she had borrowed a white lab coat to put over her evening gown

while she made rounds, her hair was piled up in an elegant fashion and sprinkled with

baby’s breath, her earrings caught the antiseptic lights, and a stethoscope shared neck

space with a diamond necklace. Linda was on her way to a party in Beverly Hills with

Barry Greene, the television producer. She had swung by the hospital to take one last look

at her kids before checking out for the night.

“Dr. Cane will be taking my calls,” she told the nurse. “But I doubt anything will

come up.”

The nurse smiled an insider’s smile. “Nothing ever does when you hand your beeper

over to someone else. But as soon as it’s yours again,
bang.
I’ll tell you one thing, Doctor.

I’ve been called out of some pretty interesting situations.”

Thinking of Butterfly and her interrupted rendezvous with the cat burglar, Linda

laughed and said, “We must compare notes sometime!”

Hospital work done, she returned the lab coat to the visitors’ rack, folded her stetho-

scope into her evening bag, and took the elevator down to the lobby, where Barry Greene

paced impatiently.

He is a good-looking man, Linda thought. In his fifties and looking trim and fit in

his tuxedo, Barry Greene was also witty and generous, and gifted with a rich sense of

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Kathryn Harvey

humor. Linda knew that she could be attracted to him if she let down her defenses. But

she had to hold back, fearing that a possible sexual relationship with Barry might end in

disappointment.

“Hospitals!” he said as they went through the front doors and out into the night. “I

hate them!”

Linda laughed.
“You
say that? The creator and producer of the hottest medical show

ever to hit television?”

“What can I say? I’m a masochist.”

Linda climbed into the backseat of the limo while the chauffeur held the door open,

and when Barry was seated beside her, helping himself to a drink from the small bar, she

couldn’t help glancing up at the windows of the fourth floor—the Children’s Burn Unit.

Will you be my mommy?

God knows I would like to be, Linda thought as the limo pulled out onto the Pacific

Coast Highway. But making babies involves sex, and sex happens to be a problem for me.

She watched the dark ocean spread away to the starry horizon and thought again

about Butterfly.

About her companion.

Last week he was a Confederate officer. Next Wednesday night he would be someone

else yet again—someone so extra special and exciting that Linda couldn’t wait for that

evening to arrive. It was going to be a fantasy so wonderful and unique, and she was going

to try so hard to give herself up to it that she dared to believe it might even work.

“You’re far away,” Barry said next to her.

Startled, she looked at him. Then she smiled. “Just thinking about my kids. Those

poor burn victims. No one can know what it’s like to be burned until they’ve gone

through it themselves. Those kids need extra-special care.”

“And I’m sure you give it to them.”

“Yes,” she said, looking into Barry Greene’s smile.

He was a good-looking man, and it was refreshing for Linda to be out with someone

who wasn’t medically connected. Also, she liked to be with people who, like herself, were

in charge, had power. Her large circle of friends was composed of men and women who

had strength, and Barry Greene was indisputably one of the most power-wielding she had

ever met. This was their first date; she wondered if he would ask her out again, and if she

would accept.

The house on the hill was so lit up it looked like the Parthenon waiting for tourists.

Beverly Highland was known for giving fabulous parties; no one ever turned down her

invitations. As a result, the stream of cars now entering between the massive wrought-iron

gates stretched from Sunset Boulevard and the entire length of Beverly Canyon Road all

the way up to Highland House. Barry’s limo joined the parade, and it was fifteen minutes

before he and Linda were climbing the front steps of the mansion.

Maids greeted the arriving guests, taking coats and wraps, and giving the ladies small

corsages of winter roses. The main bulk of the party was being held in the terraced garden

at the rear where, under a striped awning, a New Age band played Kitaro and Vangelis.

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101

Under a magnificent canopy a feast was set out: long tables groaned beneath the weight of

enormous honeyed hams, rare beef roasts, glistening prime ribs, each with a white-coated

chef in attendance, carving knife ready. As Linda emerged through the French doors and

into the cool night air, she could see fantastically arranged salads, fabulous ice sculptures,

chafing dishes keeping delicious morsels hot. Maids circulated among the crowd with

platters of hors d’oeuvres: Emperor grapes stuffed with blue cheese, Norwegian flatbread

spread with green-pepper jelly, shrimp, oysters, cheeses, fancy eggs—feasts in themselves

before one could even make it to the dining tent. Most of Beverly Highland’s parties were

fund-raisers, and tonight’s was no exception. This one was to raise campaign money for

the founder and chairman of Good News Ministries, a famous TV evangelist who was

hoping to be a candidate in this year’s presidential election. Expecting to run on the

Moral Decency ticket, the charismatic Reverend was way ahead of the others in the pop-

ularity polls and appeared to stand a good chance of winning the Republican nomination

in June. And with so many people willing to pay five hundred dollars for the privilege of

tasting the arts of Miss Highland’s famous kitchen and hobnobbing with celebrities,

tonight’s gala, Linda had no doubt, should generate a sizable campaign donation.

In Miss Highland the Reverend had no small backer. Everyone knew that campaigns

required money, lots of it; and the pre-primary caucuses currently going on in states all

over the country were showing evidence of a great deal of financial backing for the

Reverend. If he did win the nomination in June, then he would owe a good part of it to

the vigorous support of Beverly Highland.

Linda did not know the socialite well; they had met only briefly at various charity

events. But then Linda had heard that no one really knew Beverly Highland well. When

not in the limelight, she was something of a recluse, unmarried and unattached, although

her name was frequently linked in gossip columns with those of senators and corporate

heads.

Linda spotted the beautiful Beverly moving among her guests on the extravagant ter-

race that was said to have been patterned after the one at Versailles. From where Linda

stood, the woman didn’t look fifty-one. Her platinum hair was pulled back to emphasize

the beauty and strength of her profile, and she wore a simple long black gown with a

black mink wrap because of the chilly February evening.

Leaving Barry with a movie director friend he had been trying to get to see for the past

few weeks, Linda strolled out onto the patio and through the crowd.

The names made up a stellar list. Movie stars, of course, and no doubt a heavy helping

of people in the Industry who were movers but whose faces were publicly unknown. And

there were the politicians, a few bigwigs from UCLA, the chief of surgery from Linda’s

own hospital, two notorious plastic surgeons, and various hangers-on. At least five hun-

dred people, Linda estimated, all fawning over the gracious Miss Highland, who sailed

among them as if, even in a gale wind, not a hair would escape her immaculate, if old-

fashioned, French twist.

Linda was about to descend into the crowd when one of the circulating waiters passed in

front of her, bearing a silver tray with champagne glasses. Linda looked at him, briefly won-

dering where she had seen him before, and when it came to her, she was frozen to the spot.

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Kathryn Harvey

He was a companion at Butterfly.

A year ago, when she had first become a member, Linda’s initial sessions were with

unmasked men. The idea of going even further with anonymity than the safeguards the

club already provided had entered her mind on her third “date,” when it occurred to her

that she might accidentally encounter one of these companions in the outside world—in

the emergency room, for example, and she his doctor! All sessions since had been con-

ducted with masks. But this young man with the surfer tan had been that third compan-

ion. And here he was, serving drinks at Beverly Highland’s party.

Linda watched him. He turned slightly, glanced her way, smiled at the other guests,

passed out the champagne, then looked her way again. For an instant their eyes met.

Then he turned and continued serving, with not a flicker of recognition on his face.

“Our men practice the utmost discretion,” the director of Butterfly had assured Linda

during her interview over a year ago. “You need not fear that your identity will be found

out, or that you will find yourself in an embarrassing situation.”

As she watched him wend his way through the evening gowns and tuxedos, Linda

thought again of her own special companion at Butterfly, her masked lover, and the elab-