The Trophy Wife Read Online Free PDF

out of the ski mask.
    Carefully they dragged the curtain out into the bedroom where they had more room to work. They straightened the crumpled edges and then rerolled her into a neat package. One of the men took the top half, locking his arms under Emily’s elbows. The other lifted the backs of her knees. Carefully, they carried her out into the hallway and then past the guest suites to the back stairs.
    â€œSet her down for a minute,” said the one who was at her head. He took a deep breath. “Some tough broad.” He looked at the bleeding bite mark in his hand. “Damn near took off my thumb …”
    â€œWe should have brained her,” said the other, touching the clot of blood that filled one of his nostrils.
    â€œYou should have gotten the needle into her faster.”
    â€œIf you held her still.”
    They grunted as they lifted her again and moved slowly down the stairs. One freed his hand long enough to pick up the Lexus keys and open the door to the garage. They kept it open with their knees as they carried her out to the car and set her down on the paved floor. One fitted the trunk key and then they lifted the package, still dripping wet, over the bumper and onto the trunk carpet. Seconds later, the big tires were popping over the Belgian bricks out toward the gate. Then the car swung onto the country road and moved slowly away.
    * * *
    Walter left his office promptly at 3:00 P.M. and used the fire stairs to dash down one flight to the senior executive fitness center, a dead-serious health club reserved for the chairman and the senior vice presidents. The center was equipped as a gymnasium, with motorized treadmills, stationary bicycles, land-locked rowing machines, and enough hydraulic stair-climbers to make the elevators to the fifty-second floor unnecessary. Recognizing the irreplaceable skills of the senior line and staff executives, and alarmed at the statistics on heart attacks, the board had voted $4.1 million to turn the fifty-first floor into a fitness center with the best gym equipment, a three-tiered sauna, steam room, Jacuzzi, and a locker room with individual stall showers. Then, realizing that they were an equal-opportunity employer with no glass ceilings, they had spent another million adding a women’s locker room, sauna, steam room, and Jacuzzi that, as far as anyone knew, had still never been used.
    But despite the cardiovascular machines and the bodybuilding stations, the fitness center functioned more as a conference room. At midafternoon, when the New York markets closed, the senior executives changed into athletic togs and jogged side by side on treadmills while they discussed the morning’s impact on the bank’s activities. Occasional glances at flickering monitors kept them up to date on the Chicago banks and markets, the West Coast, and the Far East business news, which were updated continuously. And should some piece of information gathered either from a fellow jogger or from the electronic ticker tape require action, there was a telephone mounted on every piece of gym equipment.
    Because of his physical appearance, Walter thought of himself as young rather than middle-aged, and when pushed, as middle-aged rather than as well beyond the halfway point. Visually, he was in better shape than most of the other men, which he reasoned was probably an indication of superior mental assets, as well.
    He offered a greeting to the whole room rather than any one in particular, started his treadmill, and stepped aboard.Within a few minutes he had finished his warm-ups and was jogging at a steady pace up a five-degree incline.
    He glanced to his left and saw that he was running away from two of the top executives. Karl Eider managed foreign subsidiaries in thirty countries and was clearly the officer with the most international experience. But trips abroad to the Michelin-rated restaurants of Paris, Vienna, Brussels, and Milan had given him a portly shape