One Last Kiss. Mary Wilbon

      For G,

       I can still hear your song

      Contents

      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

      Chapter 22

      Chapter 23

      Chapter 24

      Chapter 25

      Chapter 26

      Chapter 27

      Chapter 28

      Chapter 29

      Chapter 30

      Chapter 31

      Chapter 32

      Chapter 33

      Chapter 34

      Chapter 35

      Chapter 36

      Chapter 37

      Chapter 38

      Chapter 39

      Chapter 40

      Chapter 41

      Chapter 42

      Chapter 43

      Chapter 44

      Chapter 45

      Chapter 46

      Chapter 47

      Chapter 48

      Chapter 49

      Chapter 50

      Chapter 51

      Chapter 52

      Chapter 53

      Acknowledgments

      Thanks to my editor at Kensington Books, John Scognamiglio, for giving me another opportunity. He makes me want to do better and reach higher.

      Thanks to all the other folks I leaned on to get this book done:

      Joseph Petrecca, Raymond Martoccia, and Dr. Jonathan Coleman for answering my questions.

      Samuel Billings, Catherine F. Sutherland, Maria Pires, Nancy Vazquez, and Paula Ruffin—my work family.

      John Warner for giving me a new enthusiasm for my old job.

      Kate Daly, Lisa Alford, and all the STOP KISS-ers for calling me out to play.

      Thanks to Deliah Clarke for showing me Paradise.

      Thanks to Ethel DiMicele. Some things were meant to last.

      A very special thanks to my forever friends Maureen and Joanne and their families. I met Mo and Jo in high school, and there hasn’t been a day since that I couldn’t depend on them to share their time or their hearts when I’ve needed them.

      Cynthia S. Ross and Rob Pape were so kind for giving their talents and time, and they took turns holding my hand whenever I stopped writing. Thank you.

      Thanks to Doug Mendini for slapping my hand when I stopped writing and for pushing me and inspiring me to start writing again.

      Prologue

      The men in the room looked at each other, wondering how they were going to handle the problem that loomed before them. Collectively, these men had hundreds of secrets, but this evening they were concentrating on only one.

      It was a delicate matter that only men of culture and importance could discuss and resolve tactfully. Earlier they had ordered and enjoyed their thick steaks, prepared blood-rare and sipped three rounds of Glenfiddich thirty-year-old scotch while discussing business deals, politics, and the next promising stocks that were about to explode big-time in the market.

      The small talk had died down, and they were now smoking cigars and blowing smoke rings at each other. The gentlemen glanced around at one another nervously. The unpleasant business they had to address left many of them sitting in silence.

      But they all agreed on one thing: They had to get their hands on the journal. It was the only thing that linked them together outside of this private club. Inside these walls, they knew the prevailing rule: survival at all costs.

      The whore had to be dealt with, and her journal had to be destroyed. It all sounded so sensible and reasonable. They all enjoyed the whore, but who knew she had kept the journal? It was a worrisome development. They thought their power and position had made them untouchable in such matters. Those things had always worked in the past.

      The senator, the most powerful of them, tapped on his glass of port until he had their attention. He was a fleshy red-faced man, the eldest in the group, with a thick shock of white hair and caterpillar-sized eyebrows. He had the look of a man who had been handsome once, long ago, but whose looks were now fading fast.

      “Gentlemen, do we all agree that we have a problem?” he asked.

      Rumblings of agreement rippled through the room.

      The senator knew they were all listening now, so he continued. “Of course. We’ve all…shall we say…taken our pleasure with her. But now the whore has become a threat to all of us, and she must be eliminated. Swiftly.”

      More affirmative chatter.

      “This can’t come back to bite any of us. Whatever it takes, this whole thing gets buried.”

      And there it was. They were talking about murder. They all knew it, even while they were still skirting around the edges of the subject.

      Only one man voiced an objection. All eyes turned to where he sat at the end of the table.

      He rose to address them. He was the youngest man in the room, but he had earned their respect.

      “Why are you doing this?” he asked. “What gives you the right?”

      The senator shot the young man a disappointed look.

      “We have no choice,” someone answered.

      “You’re all afraid of some journal or diary she may be keeping. You don’t know for sure that she is,” he argued.

      “She has a record of all our names and phone numbers. That’s dangerous,” said the senator.

      “Isn’t