Sins of the Flesh Read online

  A CALL FOR HELP

  “Mickey, what is it?” Daniel shouted. “I can hardly hear you. Take who? Are you all right?” Jesus Christ, of course she wasn’t all right! Germany had invaded France.

  The telephone stabilized, and he heard Mickey’s remembered voice clearly. “You must get Philippe safely to his father.”

  Daniel’s eyes grew wild when he realized the line had gone dead. Desperately he jiggled the hook and tried dialing the operator. But it was no use. He stomped around the room trying to make sense of the phone call. Mickey, after all these years. Memories flooded his brain. She needed him; she wanted him in France. Him and not Reuben. Why? And who the hell was Philippe? “Take Philippe to his father,” she’d said. Great. But who was Philippe’s father?

  Books by Fern Michaels:

  Sins of the Flesh

  Sins of Omission

  Return to Sender

  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 Godmothers Series

  Exclusive

  The Scoop

  The Sisterhood Novels

  Game Over

  Deadly Deals

  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

  SINS OF THE FLESH

  FERN MICHAELS

  ZEBRA BOOKS

  KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

  http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

  This book is dedicated to the many wonderful people

  who have touched and enriched my life.

  F.M.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  Paris, France, 1941

  Marchioness Michelene Fonsard slipped her dusty old spectacles over the bridge of her nose. She rarely wore the wire-rimmed glasses because she felt they made her look like an owl. Now she wished that she’d kept them clean and polished, for if ever there was a time for good eyesight, this was it. But at least they would serve her immediate purpose of hiding her fear from her son, Philippe, and her best friend, Yvette.

  Philippe watched as his mother swiped at her glasses as she peered through the lacy curtains of the Paris town house. He knew what lay beyond the window: the German Gestapo marching up and down the street, tacking occupancy notices on all the doors. His eyes slid to the thick packet of papers and the worn knapsacks in the center of the foyer table. He hated the sounds of the stomping boots, but what he hated even more was the sight of his mother’s political friends licking those same stomping boots. Thank God she’d had the good sense to secure their travel warrants before the Germans showed their true colors.

  The lace curtain slipped back into place. “Now,” she whispered, “wait for me by the back door. I must try one more time to reach…stay with him, Yvette.” Mickey sprinted up the long flight of stairs and snatched the phone from its cradle. Winded, she cleared her throat and dialed the number, preparing herself to speak calmly. The sounds that emerged a moment later from her quivering lips were harsh, guttural—the German words she’d been practicing all day: Herr Kommandant. These were magic words, she realized within seconds. She wished she’d thought of using the title on her last six unsuccessful tries at reaching Daniel Bishop in America.

  Wait, wait, wait…. That’s all they’d been doing for weeks now, hoping against hope that some miracle would remove the hateful Germans from their beloved Paris. She knew it was too late, had known it weeks before, but Philippe wanted to stay, and against her better judgment she’d agreed. If only she’d listened to her own instincts instead of giving in to her son, Henri would still be alive. Now she swayed dizzily as she heard the French operator speak to the American operator. A familiar voice—a voice from her past—came on the line, and Mickey thought she would die when she heard it. She spoke rapidly in English, knowing the line would be cut as soon as the French operator realized that she’d been tricked into putting the call through. Seconds later Mickey stared at the buzzing receiver in her hands. It looked obscene, deadly. She slammed it down and raced from the room, arriving in the kitchen breathless.

  “I got through this time,” she whispered to Yvette. “We were cut off. Thirty minutes and there will be more Gestapo here when they realize this is where the call came from. Go, go!” She turned to her son and waved him out of the room. “We have only minutes. Hurry, Philippe.”

  Silently, like thieves in the night, the trio traveled the back alleys of Paris until just before dawn, at which point they scuttled like rats into drainage ditches to sleep for a few hours.

  Their destination was the Fonsard château in Marseilles, where they would wait for the American, Daniel Bishop.

  Before she reached out to sleep, Mickey crossed herself and offered up a small prayer. “Please, dear Lord, grant this miracle I ask of You, not for myself, but for Philippe. Daniel must reach here safely so he can take Philippe to America, to his…to his mother and father.”

  Chapter One

  The night was womblike with a dense, cloudy sky hanging overhead as if suspended. Threatening, low-rolling thunder grumbled from its midst, setting Daniel Bishop’s
teeth on edge. All day he’d been jittery as he ambled aimlessly around his luxurious Fire Island summer home. He knew the condition of his nerves had nothing to do with the impending summer storm. His less than happy marriage was part of it, but not the only reason for his restlessness. There was something more, something lurking just out of reach, something intangible—his sixth sense issuing a dull warning. For as far back as he could remember, he’d had these feelings of foreboding, the inexplicable conviction that something was going to happen. These were free-floating, anxious feelings, ominous and hungry, as though wanting to be fed. Fed with…what was it this time?

  Daniel opened the sliding doors impatiently. Although he could hear the ocean slapping rhythmically just a few yards away, the heat of the night was oppressive. His shirt clung to him, and everything he touched was damp. Maybe the heat had something to do with his feelings. He watched as if in a trance as lightning skittered across the sky. An appropriate end to a boring Fourth of July, he thought morosely. He was so keyed up right now, he was capable of creating his own fireworks. Rajean had cajoled him into coming to their summer place, insisting they both needed to get away from the bustle of Washington, D.C.

  “Everyone leaves the city, darling,” she’d repeated at least a hundred times. “It will be good for Cornelia. We can spend time together and not even plan out our holiday. Sort of leave it all open, maybe even picnic.”

  Daniel laughed to himself with disgust. Picnic was an alluring term—but forage was about as close as he could get to the reality. The only thing left in the kitchen remotely resembling food was a stale, damp bag of pretzels.

  He peeled his shirt away from his chest. When he let go, it restuck itself to his skin with perverse tenacity. Maybe he should go for a swim. Out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of another split-second bolt of lightning racing down into the Atlantic. No, swimming is not an option, he told himself. A drink, then. Alcohol was the one thing they always had plenty of. He’d never been more than a social drinker, preferring to keep his wits about him. He supposed it was the lawyer in him. They were so different, he and Rajean. Like night and day, Reuben would say, and Reuben should know. Not only had they been best friends forever, but Reuben was married to someone just like Rajean. Reuben…Always the voice of authority and experience. Perhaps he should have paid more attention when Reuben had advised against his marrying Rajean—but then, Reuben had ignored him when he’d issued the same advice about Bebe Rosen. A pity neither of them had corrected their mistakes early. A divorce didn’t make one a pariah anymore, and he should know; in his day he’d handled plenty of top-drawer divorces, some full of scandal and all full of bullshit.

  He’d seen his wife exactly twice during the past four days. Once she’d waltzed through the beach house to change her clothes for an afternoon cocktail party. The next time she’d put in an appearance, it was to replenish someone’s dwindling liquor supply. He hadn’t seen much of Cornelia, either, but at least his stepdaughter called and breezed through every few hours. A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth at the thought of her…sweet Nellie with the sunstreaked golden hair and bottle green eyes.

  In his thoughts Nellie was always the young innocent, shy and ever so considerate. He loved her as though she were his own, and the moment he’d signed the adoption papers she truly had become his own. She was eighteen now and in September would head for California and UCLA. He was going to miss her terribly. She was as pretty as a picture, he mused, and the one thing he could never understand was why she didn’t have more friends. Every so often a horde of young people would descend upon the household for a few weeks, and then they would disappear, to be replaced months later with new faces. Once he’d asked her why she didn’t seem to have any one-on-one friendships. She’d responded blithely that she didn’t need them; she was her own best friend, she said, and would never disappoint herself the way friends did. She dated, and boys called, but he never saw the same one more than three times. After a while he didn’t mention it. If Nellie was happy, that was all that mattered.

  Nellie was late getting started in college because of an emergency appendectomy that had kept her out of school the better part of a semester. The nuns at Holy Cross felt it would be better if she stayed back a year, and he’d agreed. Now he frowned, trying to remember something one of the nuns had said about Nellie, something so totally out of character, he’d dismissed it—out of character for Nellie, that is. Nuns didn’t always know as much as they pretended to. Whatever it had been, it was so ridiculous that he’d shelved it, and now it wouldn’t surface.

  Daniel raked unsteady fingers through his sandy hair, his deep brown eyes narrowing behind his horn-rimmed glasses. Jesus, he hated humidity. He’d been thinking about Rajean before Nellie popped into his thoughts, or was it after? Christ, he couldn’t get a clear thought in his head these days no matter what he did. When Nellie left for college he was going to have to decide what to do about his empty marriage.

  He leaned on the terrace railing and gazed out toward the ocean. He could hear it, but it was shrouded by the night. The slight breeze was hot and stifling. Thunder growled. In the orphanage where he’d spent his youth, the nuns had called it God’s wrath. At an age when they were still convinced the world revolved around them, he and his friend Jake would always run and hide, certain they’d done something wrong for God to create such a tempest. He’d been fourteen before he realized, along with Jake, that it was all a trick by the nuns to get them to behave. He smiled, wondering where Jake could be now. Someday he’d run into him, he was sure of it. Hell, he had enough money to hire a detective to track him down if he wanted to. Someday…

  The usual evening sounds silenced suddenly, as though they’d scrambled into hiding. It was an eerie feeling, one Daniel didn’t like. The sky, which seemed to be hovering just beyond his reach, grew as dark as his thoughts. Within a few steps he was at the door, sliding it surely on its track and stepping safely inside. From there he watched his own reflection in the glass as the first drops of rain splattered onto the flagstone terrace.

  Daniel threw himself onto the sofa and tried to relax. It didn’t take him long to realize that the drumming rain wouldn’t lull him into the peace of mind he so desperately sought. Instead he felt even more tense, ready to burst. Somewhere, someplace, something was wrong. Reuben…he should call Reuben and see if all was well with Hollywood’s biggest mogul. And he should make the call now, before the telephone lines went down the way they usually did during a storm.

  Daniel groped for the telephone and was relieved to hear the dial tone buzz in his ears. He could almost picture a little old lady crawling out of bed and cursing as she shuffled in bare feet to her switchboard. He rattled off Reuben’s number when the operator came on, then waited. Would Reuben be home at nine o’clock on the Fourth of July? It didn’t matter; he knew Reuben’s haunts and habits as well as his own. One way or another he’d find him.

  “Reuben, is that you?” Daniel spoke rapidly into the phone as soon as he heard his friend’s voice. “I was hoping I’d catch you home. How’s it going, old buddy?”

  Reuben’s voice boomed over the wire. “It’s going, but that’s about it. How are you?”

  “Great,” Daniel said lightly.

  “I was sort of hoping you’d make it out here in April. I know, I know, law and order and all that shit. Read about you in The Wall Street Journal. Big man in Washington,” Reuben teased. Then his voice turned serious. “I heard about the offer to serve on the White House legal staff. Why’d you turn it down?”

  “Crooked politicians aren’t my cup of tea, Reuben. You know that. And I use the word crooked loosely. It’s all a game, anyhow. It’s called Cover Your Ass, and by that I mean if I took the position, that’s all I would be doing, covering someone else’s ass. That’s not why I went to law school, and I’ll cover my own ass, thank you.” Both men laughed. “I’m doing just fine,” Daniel continued, “two full partners, three junior partners, and six associates. We
’re turning business away. But enough of that. How’s Bebe?”

  “Off on a toot somewhere. She hasn’t been home in three weeks.”

  Daniel digested his friend’s statement. Even though it was said with no real emotion, he wasn’t going to touch it. “And the boys?”

  “Simon’s up at Big Sur working for the summer. Dillon’s in camp.” Daniel couldn’t help but hear the pride in Reuben’s voice.

  “Jesus, I miss you, Dan’l”

  “You know, Reuben,” Daniel admonished gently, “planes travel both ways. You could come east to see me. If I remember correctly, I made the last trip.”

  “I know. I’ve been thinking about it and halfway promised myself I’d make the trip in August. How’s Nellie?” he asked fondly.

  “All grown up. Starting college in September. She always tells me to send her regards when I speak to you. I’m going to hold you to it, Reuben.”

  Reuben laughed. Christ, he loved Daniel! He loved him and knew him so well that he was aware something was wrong—something Daniel wasn’t telling him. “Why don’t you let me know the real reason for your call now, and let’s see if we can fix it together.” He heard Daniel’s sigh of relief. “Is it Rajean?” he asked.

  “It’s a lot of things, Reuben. Today was…is…I have this feeling. This…I don’t know what it is, but something is wrong somewhere…you know how I get…”

  Instantly Reuben became more attentive. Over the years Daniel’s hunches and gut feelings had been beacons of light, highlighting problems before they erupted fully. The Depression had been one of them. Without Daniel’s insight, Reuben and his close associates would have been wiped out like countless others during the crash of 1929.

  “Jesus. Maybe it’s the war…I can’t put my finger on it.” Daniel heaved another sigh. “Anyway, I had to call to see if everything was all right with you.”

  Reuben’s voice softened. “I appreciate that, buddy, but I’m okay and so is the family. The war is hanging over all of us….”