Vanishing Act
VANISHING ACT
Books by Fern Michaels
Mr. and Miss Anonymous
Up Close and Personal
Fool Me Once
Picture Perfect
About Face
The Future Scrolls
Kentucky Sunrise
Kentucky Heat
Kentucky Rich
Plain Jane
Charming Lily
What You Wish For
The Guest List
Listen to Your Heart
Celebration
Yesterday
Finders Keepers
Annie’s Rainbow
Sara’s Song
Vegas Sunrise
Vegas Heat
Vegas Rich
Whitefire
Wish List
Dear Emily
The Sisterhood Novels:
Vanishing Act
Razor Sharp
Under the Radar
Final Justice
Collateral Damage
Fast Track
Hokus Pokus
Hide and Seek
Free Fall
Lethal Justice
Sweet Revenge
The Jury
Vendetta
Payback
Weekend Warriors
Anthologies:
Snow Angels
Silver Bells
Comfort and Joy
Sugar and Spice
Let It Snow
A Gift of Joy
Five Golden Rings
Deck the Halls
Jingle All the Way
Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation
FERN MICHAELS
VANISHING ACT
ZEBRA BOOKS
KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Epilogue
Prologue
Five Years Earlier
It was a beautiful restaurant, beautifully decorated with well-dressed diners, discreet service, and ambience that had no equal. It was the kind of restaurant where there were no prices on the parchment menus because if you had to ask the price, you didn’t belong in The Palm, or so said the owner. Not the Palm Restaurant in New York. This was the Palm Restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia. On Peachtree Road. A hundred-year-old eatery passed down through multiple generations of the same family. When people talked about this particular restaurant, they always managed to mention Gone With the Wind in the same breath.
Plain and simple, it was a place to be seen. Not necessarily heard.
Not that the young couple wanted to be seen. Or heard, for that matter. They didn’t. They were there because they were celebrating the possibility of a business venture, and what better place than the Palm? Years from now, no one would remember that the couple had been there drinking priceless wine, eating gourmet food served on the finest china, and drinking superb champagne from exquisite crystal flutes.
The woman was striking, the kind of woman men turned to for a second look, the kind of woman other women looked at and sighed, wishing they looked more like her. She was a Wharton graduate. Her professors had given her glowing recommendations, assuring all and sundry that she would go far in the world of finance. She believed them implicitly.
The young man looked athletic, the boy next door, clear complexion, sandy hair. Tall, at six-two, a hundred and eighty pounds. He, too, was a Wharton graduate. He also dressed well—and women stared openly, men took a quick look and turned away, vowing to do something about their receding hairlines and paunches.
They looked like the perfect couple, but they weren’t really a couple in the true sense of the word. Partners was more like it, but in time they would drift together, not out of passion but out of need.