CON TEST: Double Life Read Online Free PDF Page B

down the stairs, and then yelled. “But this is not a war that you want to begin. Trust me!”
    William imagined the losing battle. He hang-jumped over the loft and lost his towel along the way. He met her at the front door, grabbed her, and planted kisses all over her perfectly made face.
    “ Say I concede, Boopsie,” she commanded her husband.
    “ You conceited, Boopsie,” he said, smiling at her and hugging her tightly.
    “ You’ll get that right,” she said, and turned to leave. She crossed the doorway and he gave chase.
    She started down the stairs, and he yelled, “Sorry! I concede! Give in! Wave the white flag! Sign a treaty!" He had to back into the doorway having forgotten that he was nude. He peeked his head out before she opened the door below, which led to the sidewalk, and passersby could see him.
    “ I’m running late, remember?” she asked, and unlocked the door. “No time to negotiate now. Talk to me over dinner. Bye, Blackey,” she said and the door closed behind her.
    Walking toward the living room, William picked up the lost towel along the way. He tossed the towel on his shoulder. Being proficient in Spanish, he switched the TV to Univision and caught Noticiero. The news out of Mexico was always full of aspiring drama that fed his novels.
    Midway through dressing, so that he could head to his office in Beverly Hills, he heard a news reporter delivering a story about a man who had watched someone abduct his wife. William made a note in his mental dossier to contact Romeo Gonzalez, a street reporter for the station to get the full story later.
     
     

 
    FOUR
     
     
    Z uzzio Model Experts, an elite Los Angeles talent and model scouting agency, occupied three floors of a nondescript and clandestine smoke glass office on Sunset and Lacienega. The company had grown to one of the top three agencies in Los Angeles and Lundin was an associate with them for the last two years. She was cashing in on the high demand for district faces to sell products from animals to zucchini. Its primary business was expert and expensive model placement, but it also did talent scouting and had a developing actor scouting department of which Lundin Fortune was the main corridor to.
    “ Good late morning, Rose,” Lundin told the receptionist, before taking the steps to her third floor office.
    Lundin entered her sleek office, and sat in a brass studded leather club chair, behind a Louis XV desk. Her office was quarter of a basketball court with tall windows. On occasion she walked shoeless on the Turkish carpet and stared at the white polka-dotted walls. They were lined with her models on the cover of top magazines.
    She settled in at her desk and the telephone rang.
    “ Lundin Fortune,” she said coolly, prepared to work. After all she was starting at 11 a.m.
    “ Hi, Mason here,” said her Sears’s advertising contact.
    “ What can I do for you?” she asked earnestly.
    “ I know this is short notice, but two of my girls have gotten sick with food poisoning and I need replacements an hour ago. Please say that you can help me?”
    Lundin was already taping the keys on her keyboard for her list of available models. “What age group, Mason?” Lundin asked, and he responded pre-teen. “That poses a problem. They are in school. To pull them would be—”
    “ We are prepared to pay any inconvenience fees,” he said, quickly.
    “ That’s not it. The moral is that they work during non-school hours. Morally, I cannot pull them from school to pose Osh Gosh for Sears,” she said, chuckling. Unless, I can get them contracts for more work with enough money to hire a tutor and pay off the parents , she thought.
    “ Lundin, just this once. I promise this won’t happen again.”
    “ Mason, my girls can get sick. That happens. It’s a part of the business.”
    “ Okay,” he said, somberly.
    Lundin caught the fear in his voice and knew that she had to act fast to close a deal. “Mason, if you contracted my