Born to Be Wild by Catherine Coulter Read Free Book Online Page A

Goddard Bay nearly a century and a half before, and a tough-as-nails district attorney referred to by local defense lawyers as a major shitkicker, was thinking he’d prefer a long winter’s stay in a Siberian gulag or a campout in the Galápagos to a fusion dinner with Kelly Beverly.
    John pulled out his cell phone. He had to talk Goon Leader into helping him.
    But before he could punch in the numbers and grovel for the favor, his cell rang and Jack, the man himself, told him to get his butt over to the Jason Maynard house on Westview. His wife, Marci, had just found his body in the garage, lying in a pool of dried blood.

SEVEN
    Before he was Spock, Leonard Nimoy played Bernie the Pill Pusher on General Hospital in 1963.
    BORN TO BE WILD
Adolphus Club, Founder’s Day dance
    Sunday Cavendish is slow dancing with Damian Sterling, her half sister, Susan’s, husband. She’s wearing a long black fitted gown with sheer black netting that begins above her breasts all the way up to an inch-wide jet bead collar around her neck. The net sleeves fit close to her wrists. A slit in the netting gapes to show a very full cleavage. The back of the gown is cut nearly to the waist. Her red hair is swept up on top of her head. Sparkling jet earrings dangle from her ears, winking in and out of the long curls that fall nearly to her shoulders. Her mouth is crimson, her blue eyes brilliant with makeup. She knows she’s beautiful and the arrogance of that knowledge is clear in her eyes, in her body language. She’s the main attraction, power and wealth in one beautiful, ruthless package, and everyone in the big room knows it and accepts it.
    Damian is in his late thirties, with light hair and contacts to give him pale green eyes. He looks elegant and comfortable in a tux, like the smooth operator he is. He’s only a bit taller than Sunday, who’s nearly six foot in her stiletto heels. He looks about surreptitiously to make sure neither his wife nor her mother is around, then pulls Sunday very close, his mouth only an inch from her ear.
    â€œYou look incredible, Sunday.”
    She leans forward and lightly bites his earlobe. He goes stiff, looks surprised, then panicked. She smiles at him, only a flash of disgust shadowing her expression. “Don’t worry, Romeo, your wife is in the women’s room, probably whining about me to Mother.” She laughs at the relief on his handsome face. “Since Mother’s begun to have major problems with Bernard, she’ll change the subject quickly enough.”
    â€œBut Bernard loves her, seems to be interested in marrying her. What’s the problem, Sunday?”
    She gives him a lazy smile. “I told her to check out one of Bernard’s offshore accounts, particularly the one in Bimini. I told her she might still find a lovely amount of newly transferred money there that just might have resided in her company vaults only last week. It could be gone by now, but the trail will still be there.” Sunday shakes her head, looks sad. “Seems that her wonderful, grand self wasn’t what was important to Bernard.”
    â€œYou’ve got to be wrong. Surely she didn’t believe you.”
    â€œShe called me a liar, a troublemaker, oh my, any number of nice names, but I know she won’t be able to help herself. She’ll start stewing about it tomorrow or the next day. Then she’ll have her investigator Toby the Leach check it out and Bernard will soon be history. So you see, she’s mad and won’t have the patience to listen to Susan complaining about us.”
    â€œYou helped your mother. Why?”
    Sunday shrugs, a gallic shrug she perfected when she studied at the Sorbonne in Paris. “Do you really think so?”
    â€œWait, you know the money’s already gone, don’t you? Or maybe Bernard never did anything wrong and you set him up.”
    â€œYou think?”
    â€œYou still think Susan and your