She’d be using the Silver Palace’s facilities, all right, she thought. Starting tomorrow, she would join their health club, check out their beauty parlor. And, Lord help her, make an appointment for a facial, or whatever other torture they had in mind.

With any luck, she could be cozied up to Linda Glass and exchanging girl talk within twenty-four hours.

“What are you up to, Sutherland?”

“Plan B,” she said absently. “I like to have a plan B in reserve in case plan A bombs. Do you think leg waxing hurts?”

“I wouldn’t hazard a guess.” He ran a fingertip down her calf. “However, yours feel smooth enough to me.”

“Well, I have to be prepared to spend half my day in this place, so I have to have something for them to do to me.” She cocked her head to look up at him. He was standing beside the bed, wearing the bottoms of the baggy pajamas and swirling a brandy.

I guess we look like a unit, she thought. Like an actual couple having a little chat before bedtime.

The idea had her doodling on the pad. “Do you really like that stuff?”

“Which stuff?”

“That brandy. It always tastes like medicine to me.”

“Perhaps you’ve never had the right kind.” He handed her the snifter. Mel braced up on her elbows to sample it while he straddled her and sat back on his heels. “You’re still tense,” he commented, and began to rub her shoulders.

“A little wired, maybe. I guess I’m starting to think this really may work—the job, I mean.”

“It’s going to work. While you’re having your incredibly long and lovely legs waxed, I’m going to be playing golf—at the same club Gumm belongs to.”

Far from convinced the brandy had anything going for it, she looked back over her shoulder. “Then we’ll see who finds out more, won’t we?”

“We will indeed.”

“There’s this spot on my shoulder blade.” She arched like a cat. “Yeah, that’s it. I wanted to ask you about that couple tonight. The big winners.”

“What about them?” He pushed the shirt up out of his way and pleased himself by exploring the long, narrow span of her back.

“I know it was your way of getting Gumm to the table, but it doesn’t seem exactly straight, you know? Making him win ten thousand.”

“I merely influenced his decisions. And I imagine Gumm’s taken in much more than that by selling children.”

“Yeah, yeah, and I can sort of see the justice in that. But that couple—what if they try to do it again and lose their shirts? Maybe they won’t be able to stop, and—”