Killjoy

She'd walked all the way down the hallway before she remembered she hadn't put on any perfume. Retracing her steps, she squirted a dab on each wrist.

Sighing with contentment, she hurried downstairs but stopped on the bottom step. The rising sun had turned the living room into a golden temple. The color took her breath away. Eric should be here to see this, she thought. Yes, he should.

A

Although she hadn't realized such a thing was possible, she knew she had wept while she slept because, when she awakened, her face was wet with tears. She struggled to sit up and wiped the dampness away with her fingertips. Noticing the makeup on her hands, she'd decided to go back upstairs to powder her face again when she thought she heard the sound of a car coming up the drive. Still somewhat disoriented, she staggered to her feet, adjusted the lapels of her jacket, and walked into the dining room to look out the window at the circle drive. Her gait was stiff and unsteady.

A silver Cadillac DeVille came screeching around the curve. "Now, who could that be calling at such an early hour?" A

A

The woman looked vaguely familiar, but A

contorted with rage, and though A

Was she Jilly? The stranger did have blond hair, and she was tall and shapely, as Carrie had described, but she certainly wasn't what A

Her complexion was lovely. She'd give her that. From a distance it looked almost flawless, and A

Her haircut was a little too short and spiky, but the color was wonderful. Highlights, A

"My goodness," A

The woman's head was down, and she hadn't spotted A

and her ex were fighting over ownership of this house.

A

Ah… now A

The woman rushed up the porch steps, screaming now. "That son of a bitch thinks he's going to take my house and leave me pe

"Hello there," A

"None of your fucking business."

"I really would appreciate it if you wouldn't use obscenities in my presence. It offends me."

The woman put the can of gasoline down, dropped the ax, and reached into her pocket to get her key out.

"Did the bastard hire a housekeeper?" she yelled loudly enough so that A

"I assure you I'm not a housekeeper."

"Open the fucking door."

"Oh, I don't think that's a good idea."

The woman shoved the key in the lock and tried to turn it. When she realized it wouldn't work, she screamed, "Damn him to hell. How dare he change the lock. How dare he. He knew… He had that judge in his pocket. Well, fuck him."

She pulled the key out of the lock, threw it down, and glared at A

"Are you threatening me?"

"Open the damned door."

The sneer was the last straw. Tears flooded into A

There was a second's delay, long enough for the woman to shove A

The explosion blew half the mountain away.

Chapter 24

Keeping up with Jilly was a full-time job, but Monk found it thoroughly exhilarating. He hadn't felt this alive in years. He was

the cautious one, of course, while she, with the enthusiasm of a novice, pla

little mundane things, like the FBI tracking one of the credit cards she'd used.

Monk couldn't fault her for making that mistake. He blamed himself because he should have destroyed the cards after he'd

used them. He kept all of his credit cards under various names and addresses in his attache case, and Jilly had simply helped herself to the first ones her hand touched.

The result hadn't been as bad as it could have been, though. John Paul Renard was now involved, and Monk was absolutely delighted about that turn of events. He'd known that Renard was trying to track his movements for over a year. He'd intercepted several inquiries Renard had made to various law enforcement agencies in Europe. Now Monk had the opportunity to get rid of the pest before he caused real trouble, and Monk could humor Jilly at the same time.

Before they'd settled on using Utopia to bring the women to Aspen, his beautiful fiancee had had the time of her life, sitting at the table hour upon hour, poring over her notes. Oh, how she loved the intrigue, the excitement, and most of all, the danger, and she was trying to teach Monk how to have fun too. Whenever he did anything to please her, such as agreeing to last-minute changes in her complicated plans, she aptly rewarded him in creative ways. All of them of a sexual nature. Just thinking about some of the things she'd done to him and allowed him to do to her made him blush like a teenager.

She was turning him into a true romantic, but he didn't view that as a weakness, for his obsession was with Jilly and no other. He believed with all his heart that, if the erotic games they played in bed didn't kill him, they would grow old together.