Dangerous Pleasures Read Free

were a year apart, and had often been taken for twins in their youth. Both women were tall, although Annie was heavier now. Both had bright blue eyes and rich chestnut-colored hair. Annie’s was pulled back in a horsetail and held with whatever she could find, which today was a rubber band. Lizzie’s hair, however, was cut fashionably short, with a wisp of bangs swept to one side of her head.
    “I came to take you to lunch,” Lizzie announced.
    “Why?” Annie wanted to know, immediately suspicious. Her younger sister was a corporate litigator with a big firm in the city. It wasn’t like her to drive all the way out to Egret Pointe to have lunch. Such a drive out and back would mean a day of work lost.
    “Because, like you, I remember what today is, even if everyone else has forgotten,” Lizzie told her older sister.
    Annie burst into tears. “Oh, Lizzie, thank you!” She sniffled.
    “Mom’s picking up Wills at nursery school,” Lizzie continued. “We can pick him up after lunch. Okay? Go put something decent on, Annie.”
    “Could we stop at the cemetery after lunch?” Annie asked her sister.
    “Sure. We’ll get some flowers for the grave,” Lizzie replied.
    “I’ll only be a few minutes,” Annie said, heading for the stairs.
    “I know,” Lizzie murmured, resigned. It had always taken her at least thirty to forty minutes to dress and get ready to go out, but Annie could do it in ten minutes and look just as good. No fair! Lizzie thought.
    Ten minutes later Annie descended the stairs again. She was wearing a pair of perfectly tailored pale beige cotton slacks and a white cotton sweater. There was a Navajo cornrow bracelet on her right arm, and turquoise earrings clipped to her ears. A touch of blue eye shadow, a bit of blush, and pale coral lipstick had completed her preparations.
    “How do you do it?” Lizzie said. “You look great, as always.”
    “It’s all at least five years old,” Annie told her sister. “After Nat died I realized I wasn’t going to be able to be Talbot’s best customer anymore. I take really good care of what I have. The kids need more than I do. They’re growing.”
    “Speaking of my niece,” Lizzie said with a grin, “there’s a box in the back of the car for Amy. I forgot to bring it in, so don’t let me go back to town with it.”
    “You spoil her,” Annie said, and she kissed her sister’s cheek. “Thank you!”
    “I got her a couple of those little dresses that are becoming so popular with girls her age. Short. Flirty. Baby dollish,” Lizzie told her sister. “I figured with spring in full swing, and the end of school in another month and a half, she could use them.”
    The two sisters exited the house and got into Lizzie’s Porsche convertible.
    “Where are we going?” Annie asked.
    “I thought the country club,” Lizzie answered. “It’s near.”
    “I don’t have a membership there anymore,” Annie said softly.
    “I do,” Lizzie replied as she swung the silver Porsche out of Parkway Drive and down another tree-lined street and gunned the car out onto the road that led toward the Egret Pointe Country Club. “Oh, shit!”
    “What’s the matter?” Annie asked.
    “Cop car,” Lizzie said, and automatically pulled over. “I wasn’t even doing the speed limit yet. These damned cops think anyone who doesn’t drive an SUV, van, or sedan must be looking to drag race.”
    “Hey, Lizzie, thought that was you,” the patrolman said as he walked up to the driver’s side of the car.
    “Hey, Glenn, you going to give me a ticket?” Lizzie wanted to know.
    “Nope, just wanted to say hello. We don’t see you a whole lot around here these days. You weren’t home last Christmas,” Glenn said.
    “Got invited to go skiing in Aspen with some clients,” Lizzie answered him.
    “Married yet?” Glenn drawled, smiling down at her.
    “No time,” Lizzie responded candidly.
    “Hey, Glenn!”
    “Hey, Annie. Didn’t see you sitting