Trust Me

and Kyle home.”
    “Yes.” Stark tightened his grip on his keys. He swept the loft with a single glance. It was possible that Tony was hiding in the bathroom or the wardrobe, but it was unlikely. Desdemona did not seem that nervous. She was just anxious to have him leave.
    Her gaze softened, and her lips parted as though she wanted to say something else. Instead she stood on tiptoe and brushed her mouth softly against his.
    “Good night, Stark,” she whispered.
    “Good night.”
    He could have sworn that he saw urgency in her expression, or perhaps it was anxiety. He was no good at interpreting such things.
    He felt her fingertips glide along the side of his cheek. He did not take his eyes off her as she closed the door very gently in his face.
    He stood in the hall for a moment, and then he turned and walked to the elevator. When the doors opened, he stepped inside and rode it down to the garage.
    Once inside his car he reached for the phone. He dialed the number of the restaurant as he drove out onto the street.
    “Would you please have Macbeth Wainwright come to the phone?” he said when the hostess answered. “He’s with the party in the private dining room.”
    “Just a minute,” the woman murmured. “I’ll get him.”
    Macbeth came on the line. “Hello?”
    “This is Stark. Any chance you could take Jason and Kyle home and stay with them for a few hours?”
    Macbeth chuckled. “No problem. I had a hunch I’d hear from you. You and Desdemona can linger over your goodnight kiss as long as you like. I’ll take care of the boys.”
    “Thanks.”
    “Any time. Don’t rush home. We’ll see you when you get there.”
    “Right.” Stark replaced the phone.
    He parked the car on a side street in a position that allowed him to watch the steel grid door of the parking garage.
    He did not have long to wait. Less than ten minutes later the garage door rose. Desdemona’s red Toyota appeared. She drove out into the street and turned north.
    Stark followed.
    The question that had been gnawing at him for a long while had finally been answered. When push came to shove, Desdemona’s loyalty to her stepbrother was stronger than whatever she felt for her lover.
    Stark told himself he had no business being surprised. He had known all along where he ranked on Desdemona’s list of priorities.
    What amazed him was the dark emotion that had swirled to life within him. The lid that covered the cauldron of chaos had come off. The storm of loneliness that boiled out threatened to swallow him whole.

18

    Desdemona parked between an aging Buick and a battle-scarred Ford and studied the seedy motel Tony had chosen as a hideout. The place had no doubt once been a respectable, modestly priced motor inn that had catered to young families and traveling businessmen. At some point in its murky past, however, it had fallen on hard times and had begun to attract a clientele to match.
    The ill-lit motel looked precisely like the sort of place in which someone on the lam would hole up under an assumed name. Trust Tony to select an establishment with plenty of atmosphere, Desdemona thought as she opened her car door and got out. But that was a Wainwright for you. Ever conscious of the appropriate backdrop for the scene.
    The parking lot was half empty. As she walked toward the door marked number six, a car pulled into the lot and parked at the far end. Desdemona instinctively clutched her purse more closely to her side.
    A stout man dressed in light-colored slacks, white nubuck shoes, and a preppy-style pullover sweater got out from behind the wheel. He looked as though he had just stepped off a golf course or a yacht. The pale light gleamed on his balding skull. He glanced nervously around the seedy lot.
    A painfully gaunt woman with a cloud of impossibly gold hair slid out behind him. She wore a tiny little slip of a dress that scarcely covered her breasts and barely reached the top of her thighs. Three-inch-high stiletto heels and black hose completed her ensemble. She had a cigarette in one hand. The expression on her thin face was a cross between stoic resignation and unutterable boredom.
    “Number seven,” she told the man in the world-weary, smoke-roughened voice. “You pay me up front, and you use a rubber. Understand?”
    “Okay, okay. Keep your voice down, will you?” The balding man scowled at Desdemona and then hurriedly looked away.
    “What’s the matter?” the woman asked. “Afraid your wife is lurking