The Shadow by James Luceno Read Free Book Online Page B

Margo’s eyes went from Cranston’s to the table.
    He followed her gaze to where his hand rested atop hers. But instead of shrugging it off, she took hold of it, turning it over to study the palm.
    “A very peculiar life line,” she announced after a moment. “It splits in two, see?”
    Cranston peered at the uppermost, slopping crease in his palm, which did indeed bifurcate.
    “That usually suggests secrets, or at least a secret life. Do you have guilty secrets, Mr. Cranston?”
    He acted unfazed. “One or two, perhaps. But doesn’t everyone? Don’t you?”
    She laughed lightly—evasively. “None that are very exciting, I’m afraid. You, on the other hand—”
    “So to speak.”
    Her smile tightened. “You strike me as someone with a dark past.” When he didn’t respond, she continued. “There’s your affiliation with certain political groups, for example, and your reputation with women . . .”
    “Greatly exaggerated. It’s just that I’m very sociable.”
    “Is that what we’re calling it now—‘sociability’?”
    He rested his chin in his hand and gazed at her. “You have something against being sociable, Miss Lane?”
    “Not necessarily.”
    “I’d love for us to be sociable together.” His eyes probed.
    “I’ll just bet you would,” she said knowingly. Then her hand went to her head, as if pained.
    “Is something the matter,” he asked in mild alarm.
    She shook her head. “A headache, but different. It feels like—”
    “Static?”
    She glanced at him. The shadow of a passing waiter fell across her face. “Yes. But why would you say that?”
    Cranston broke eye contact, suddenly angry with himself for toying with her. He hadn’t figured her for the sensitive type, but she was, and she’d somehow sensed his gentle invasion of her thoughts. All to uphold his reputation as womanizer and thoughtless rake, a part he sometimes despised having to play, even if those manipulations did nurture his cruel streak.
    “You’re a very unusual man, Mr. Cranston,” Margo was saying. “You knew my favorite wine, you guessed that I’d be in the mood for Peking duck. Now you seem to know what it feels like to be inside my head.” She paused. “Not to mention that you speak Mandarin .”
    Cranston made light of it. “Perhaps it’s just that we’re compatible—sociably, of course.”
    She considered it. “Possibly. But I feel as though you’re manipulating me.”
    “Why would I do that?”
    “I suspect that you’re trying to seduce me.”
    “You think so?”
    “Call it a sixth sense. And while I suppose I should be flattered, I’m not entirely sure I trust you.”
    Cranston reached for the wine bottle. “More wine?”
    The smile she returned was ambiguous. “You tell me.”
    Her apartment was in a brownstone on East Forty-second Street, number 67, on a tree-lined block with low hedges separating one staircase and stoop from the next. Shrevnitz drove them. Cranston held the door for her, then followed her to the foot of the granite stairs. The street and sidewalk were puddled with rain.
    “Thank you. I had a wonderful time,” Margo told him.
    She wore a white, long-haired fox stole, with an elaborately beaded lining. It was tucked up under her chin and draped over her shoulders in a way that kept winter from touching her.
    “I can’t recall a more stimulating evening,” he said, in the same counterfeit tone.
    Dinner had gone smoothly if quietly. He had spent the time in his mind rather than hers. But the fact that she had responded to his earlier tricks was intriguing. In Tibet, he’d met adepts who could receive but not send; others who could only send; and still others with the ability to cloud the most balanced of minds. But because of her perhaps innate telepathic ability, Margo Lane was a potential threat to him.
    “We should do it again sometime,” she said now.
    Cranston took too long to respond. “By all means. Let’s.”
    Their handshake was nothing more than