Naked Came The Phoenix

"Go away, Douglas." She rested her cheek against the soft, terry cloth covering on the table and waved a sluggish arm.

Douglas indicated to Brice that he should wait outside, then closed the door behind him. Caroline mused that Douglas would have liked to get rid of Dante, too, but the masseur's hands began their final assault on the tendons in her neck, and she once again became one with the table.

Douglas seemed to sense the wisdom of keeping his distance. He stood near the door, slim, tall, elegant as always even in his casual attire. Through half-closed eyes, Caroline was pleased to note that the suave self-assurance he showed in front of the television cameras and before his constituents had evaporated. His arms hung at his sides and he repeatedly opened and closed his hands, as if they were cold. "Caroline," he blurted at last, "I need to explain."

"Don't waste your breath, Douglas."

He took a step toward the table. "Honey, it's not what you think!"

Reluctantly, Caroline pulled herself up into a sitting position. She had never felt uncomfortable being naked in front of Douglas before, but now her nakedness embarrassed her. With elaborate care, she gathered the sheet around her, smoothing the fabric over her bare legs and twisting it into a knot at her breast. She skewered him with her eyes. "Congressman Blessing, you are full of crap!"

"Honey…"

"Don't you honey me!"

"But I can explain."

"Okay. So explain this. Eight-by-ten glossies. Dates, times, and places."

Douglas's jaw dropped. "You hired a private investigator?"

"I didn't, Mommie Dearest did." Dante's strong arm steadied her as she slid off the table and hopped to the floor.

"Where are the photos now?" Douglas asked.

"They were in my room…"

"Thank goodness! Then no one…"

"Depends on what you mean by no one." She gave him a tight-lipped smile. "I had them hidden, but somebody searched my room yesterday. Somebody found them." She watched her husband's face as the news sunk in. "Detective Toscana saw them when he searched our cabin, but when I got back to my room later, they were gone."

For an instant, Douglas wore that little-boy-lost look and Caroline felt her heart soften. But just as instantly, the look was gone, masked by what she had come to recognize as his press conference face.

"That's right. You'd better get on the phone to the damage control team.?" With one arm, she shoved her husband aside and disappeared through the door that led into the sanctuary of the women's sauna. "But tell those spin doctors not to waste any time working on me!"

From her post at reception, Ginger Fi

With a few clicks of a mouse, she transferred information on the late afternoon schedule from the appointment book into the computer, thinking she had the most boring job in the world. Dr. de Vries had promised to give her a raise, but that had been before yesterday, before that wife of his had died and that other woman put herself in charge. Now all bets were off. Raoul had always been the voice of reason around the place. Didn't he put a stop to that foolishness when Claudia had wanted to call the spa attendants "guides" and the treatments they provided "journeys"?

Ginger nibbled at her thumbnail, scraping off the violet polish with her lower front teeth. She made up her mind to talk to de Vries about her future when he came through on his rounds at four-thirty. She looked around and, feeling guilty and a bit reckless, crossed to a console on the wall and turned a dial that silenced the singing whales. Enya, rain forests, and all that i

She thought about the issue of People magazine that waited for her in the top drawer of her desk. Mel Gibson, now that was a subject she understood. But reading magazines on the job was a big no-no. Nevertheless, she had already slid the drawer half open when Howard Fondulac breezed into the room, a cell phone clamped to his ear.

"Can I…?" she began, but he held up an index finger to silence her.

"We have a deal, buster, and don't you forget it!" His head bobbed vigorously. "Yeah, sure, sure. You do that." Fondulac punched the End button, then tucked the cell phone into the pocket of his exercise pants.

With a casualness born of long practice, Ginger slid the drawer shut over her People magazine. Honestly! First that congressman bursting in with his thugs, and now this jerk. "Cell phones aren't in the spirit of the spa," she reminded him sweetly.

Fondulac leaned over the counter and gri

Ginger slapped his hand away and scowled. Fondulac was definitely not her type. "Don't mind me," she said. "I just work here." She stood, making herself as tall as possible in her sensible flat shoes, until her eyes were level with his. "How can I help you, sir?"

He pointed to his name in the appointment book. "It's Fondulac. I'm supposed to meet Gustav in the weight room."

With a slight nod, Ginger indicated the door on her right. "This is the bathhouse, sir. The exercise center is just through there, down the path a little ways and to the left. If you get to the lake, you've gone too far." Suddenly remembering that Fondulac had once worked with Mel-her Mel-she aimed a thousand-watt smile in his direction. "Gustav will be waiting for you."

Ginger watched thoughtfully until the swinging door had closed over Fondulac's narrow backside, hoping that Gustav would teach that arrogant SOB a thing or two. Gustav had come to Phoenix Spa after a twelve-year gig with the Russian weight-lifting team. She smiled. Gustav, now he was someone she could get cozy with. Or that hunky Detective Toscana who was out on the meadow just then dealing with that delicious congressman's helicopter. She liked her men older. Road tested.

When Ginger first came to Phoenix Spa, all the girls had been goo-goo-gah-gah over Emilio Constanza, but what a waste of time that had turned out to be. She'd actually engineered a date with Emilio, until Jean-Claude, the dietitian, had taken her aside, raised one artfully plucked, bleached-blond eyebrow, and drawled, "Honey, you may be standing on the platform, but that train is not coming in for you." Back then her competition had been Steve, the pool man, but lately Emilio had been hanging out with the assistant pastry chef, a short, hairy-chested creep named Geoff. Ginger pulled her magazine out of the drawer and balanced it carefully on her knees where it would be hidden by the desk. Mel, she read, had a wife and seven children. Tried-and-true. She rested her case.

It could have been minutes or hours later when somebody screamed. Ginger dismissed it, assuming that Dante must really be giving his four o'clock client the business. But then the screams came again and again, long and shrill, like somebody twisting a cat's tail, and Ginger realized they were emanating from the exercise center, not from Dante's cubicle.

She deserted her post-another no-no-and followed the sound, flying out the door and down the path, straight-arming her way through a set of swinging double doors and bursting into the weight room. It was that ski