Cameron was sitting in one of the dining rooms waiting for his attorney to join him to discuss the never-ending and thoroughly nauseating topic of his divorce settlement. His wife was determined to destroy him financially and to publicly humiliate him in the process, and from the way things were going, it looked as though she would succeed.
John was having dinner with a young woman in the next room. The blond looked vaguely familiar. Her head was bent down, and she was diligently writing in her Day-Timer.
Cameron couldn't remember where he'd seen the woman before, but he was pleased to see his friend out for the evening, even
if it was business. John's moods had been so volatile since his wife's death. One minute he was overjoyed, almost euphoric, and the next, he was wallowing in self-pity and depression.
The blond lifted her head, and Cameron got a good look at her face. She was quite pretty. He still couldn't place her. He decided to interrupt the couple to say hello. He ordered a double scotch neat as fortification to get through the ordeal ahead
of him with his attorney, then started winding his way through the tables into the next dining room.
Had he not dropped his pen, he never would have known the truth. He bent down to scoop it up, and that was when he saw John put his hand on the blond's thigh under the white linen tablecloth. Her legs spread, and she shifted ever so slightly until she was leaning into his hand, which was now moving upward under her dress.
Cameron was so shocked by the intimacy he almost lost his balance. He quickly caught himself and stood. Neither John nor the woman noticed him. She had turned her head and was staring off into space, her eyes half- dosed in obvious bliss.
Cameron couldn't believe what he was seeing, but that instant of disbelief swiftly turned into confusion.
He suddenly remembered who the blond was, though he couldn't recall her name. She was the insipid female who called herself an interior decorator. Cameron had met her in John's office. Oh, yes, it was all coming back to him now. She didn't have taste or talent. She had turned his friend's office into a bordello parlor by painting the beautiful walnut-paneled walls a deep, garish mustard yellow.
She obviously had talent in another area though. The way John was all but licking his lips as he greedily stared at her pouting mouth indicated she was real talented in the bedroom. Cameron continued to stand near the doorway, staring at his friend's back while the truth settled in his mind.
The son of a bitch had duped them all.
Incredulous, and at the same time overwhelmed with anger, Cameron turned and walked back to his table. He tried to convince himself that he was jumping to the wrong conclusions. He had known John for years and trusted him completely.
Until now. Damn it, what had John done to them? White-collar crime was one thing; murder was quite another. The club had never gone this far before, and what made it all the more chilling was that they had convinced themselves that they were actually doing a good deed. Tell that to a jury of their peers and watch them laugh.
Dear God, had Catherine really been terminal? Had she been dying a slow, agonizing death? Or had John simply been lying to them to get them to do his dirty work?
No, not possible. John wouldn't have lied about his wife. He'd loved her, damn it.
Cameron was sick to his stomach. He didn't know what to think, but he did know it would be wrong to condemn his friend without knowing all the facts. Then it occurred to him that the affair, if that was what this was, could have begun after Catherine's death. He latched onto the idea. Yes, of course. John had known the decorator before his wife's death. The blond had been hired by Catherine to redecorate her bedroom. But so what if he had known her? After his wife died, John was grieving and lonely, and the young woman was available. Hell, she probably pounced on his vulnerability right after the funeral.
A nagging doubt remained. If this was innocent, then why hadn't John told his friends about her? Why was he hiding it?
Maybe because his wife's ashes hadn't even had time to cool off yet. Yeah, that was it. John knew it wouldn't look good to get involved with another woman so soon after Catherine's death. People would certainly think it was odd and start talking and speculating, and the club sure as hell didn't want that to happen. John was smart enough to know he should keep a low profile.
Cameron had almost convinced himself that what he had seen was pretty harmless, but he still felt compelled to make certain.
He didn't let John see him. He paid his bar tab and slipped out of the restaurant. He had the valet bring around the used Ford sedan he was forced to drive these days-his soon-to-be ex-wife had already confiscated his cherished Jaguar, damn the slut.
He drove to the next block, ducked down in the seat, and turned to watch for the couple to come outside. While he waited, he called his attorney on his cell phone to cancel dinner.
The two of them came outside twenty minutes later. They stood at the curb, feeing each other about five feet apart, acting stiff and formal, as though they were little more than strangers, John with his hands stuffed in his pants pockets, the blond clutching
her purse and her Day-Timer. When her car arrived, she tucked her purse under her arm and shook John's hand. The valet held the door of her cherry red Honda open, and she got inside and drove away without a backward glance.
To the casual observer, the scene was very businesslike.
A minute later John's gray BMW convertible arrived. He took his time removing his suit jacket, folding it just so before carefully placing it on the passenger's seat. The well-fitted suit was Valentino, the only designer John ever wore. A wave of bitterness washed over Cameron. Six months ago he, too, had had a closet full of Joseph Abboud and Calvin Klein and Valentino suits, but then his wife, in a drunken rage, had grabbed a butcher knife and shredded the clothes into rags. That little tantrum had destroyed over fifty thousand dollars' worth of garments.
God, how he longed to get even. Some nights he lay in bed and fantasized about all sorts of ways to kill her. The most important element in the daydream was pain. He wanted the bitch to suffer as she was dying. His favorite scenario was smashing her face through a glass window and watching the whore slowly bleed to death. In his fantasy a shard of glass barely nicked her artery.
Oh, yes, he wanted her to suffer the way she was making him suffer, to get even with her for stealing his life from him. She'd frozen all of his assets until the divorce settlement was reached, but he already knew what the outcome would be. She was going to take it all.
She didn't know about the Sowing Club or the assets they had hidden. No one did. Her attorney wouldn't be able to find the money either, even if he had been looking. The millions of dollars were in an offshore account, and none of it could be traced back to him.
But for now, it didn't matter that he had money hidden. He couldn't touch any of it until he turned forty. That was the deal the four friends had made, and he knew the others wouldn't let him borrow from the fund. It was too risky, and so, for the next five years, he was going to have to bite the bullet and live like a pauper.
John was the lucky devil. Now that Catherine was dead, he had what was left of her trust fund, which he didn't have to share with anyone.
Cameron was filled with envy as he watched his friend put on his Saints' ball cap. He knew John only wore the thing to hide his bald spot. He was going to be completely bald by the time he was fifty, like all the men in his family, no matter what precautions he took.
But what did that matter? He'd still look real good to women. Women would put up with any flaw if there was money involved.
Cameron dismissed this latest bout of self-pity with a shake of his head. Feeling sorry for himself wasn't going to change anything. Besides, he could hold on for a few more years. Concentrate on the future, he told himself. Soon he would be able to retire as a multimillionaire and move to the south of France, and there wouldn't be a damned thing his ex could do about it.
John slid onto the soft leather seat. Then he loosened his tie, adjusted the rearview mirror, and drove away.
Should he follow him? Cameron threaded his fingers through his hair in frustration. He knew he wasn't being fair to John and that it was wrong for him to become so easily spooked by what was surely innocent. John had loved his wife, and if a cure had been possible, Cameron knew that his friend would have spent every dollar he had to
