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= Terror in My Arms =

A Suspense Thriller by John T. Cullen

Two

She stopped in amazement, stamped one foot lightly, and stared at him. His gaze was somehow a little hooded, but so confident, so crisp and direct, so guileless, that instead of telling him off, she started to laugh.

“I wanted to let you tell me. I’m a good listener.” He held the roses out to her. “I want to learn what it is that makes you glow like that. I’m in sales, you know. Maybe I can bottle it, patent it, make the world a shiny and wonderful place.”

“You are really too much. Not a chance.” She felt herself weakening. If anything was radiant it was the check in her purse.

He saw her weakening. How did this type of man do that? Was he naturally endowed with an ability to decipher body language, to read minds, to read the widening and narrowing of a woman’s irises as she wavered in indecision, between desire and negation?

“What do you want?”

“Your phone number. Lunch. Take the flowers.”

She shook her head. They were exquisitely fragrant, so deeply rouge that the shadows in their folds made them look as if they were edged with black velvet.

He extended his arms from his sides, roses waving in the air. He was as tall as she, athletically slender like she, wearing a long-sleeved white shirt and conservative business suit. His expensive shoes were mahogany loafers whose tassels somehow told her he really was in sales. “If you won’t take them, what am I going to do with a dozen red roses?”

“Give them to your girlfriend.” She tittered. “To your wife.”

“I’m between girlfriends, and my ex is just a friend.”

Sylvie nodded. “Where do you work?” Oh God, she was letting him talk her into something. There was something about him she wasn’t sure of, but he was really quite attractive, an assertive red-head. She judged him to be about her age—thirty—and there were some hints of life’s stress hardened what must long have been a baby face.

“I’m in sales. Guthrie Turlock Donaldson.” Like a magician, he flicked the index and middle fingers of his free hand, and a business card appeared between the fingers. He seemed to do things with snap. She held the card in both hands and read it, her contacts floating loosely on her eyeballs and making her vision blur a little. The card had names and phone numbers and e-mail addresses and web information. The trade name GTD was embossed in the middle. Under that it said Rob Turlock, Director of Sales.

She put the card in her purse. “I’ll think about it.”

“Can I think about it too?”

She turned to leave, and he followed. “I’ll need your number though, to successfully think about it.”

She stopped, laughed, and gave him a card. Wow. This guy was a good act. She wasn’t sure if she found herself attracted to him, but he seemed interesting. That was it, she told herself on the way through the parking garage under the building, he seemed interesting. Maybe he could be fun. Maybe lunch. A movie. She had two weeks before her next gig started, and maybe he liked surfing.

She actually forgot him as she started her little red Mercedes convertible and thought about surfing. She suddenly got the idea to drive up to Solana Beach tomorrow with her surfboard and wetsuit. No, maybe down to Coronado, within sight of Mexico, where a mile of Pacific breakers boomed onto sand that glittered gold with silica.

She presented her validated parking ticket to the booth attendant. He nodded and she put on her sunglasses and pulled into the April sunshine on Washington Street. Just then, Rob Turlock drove slowly by in a beautiful, glossy moss-green Porsche. A white-shirted arm waved. His teeth flashed a smile. She gave a little wave, just wriggly fingers, and nodded as he drove off.

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Copyright © 1996 by John T. Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.