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abetting. A good lawyer would probably be able to get you off with a suspended sentence."
     
    She kept pacing. Her glass was empty again; she drained the bottle into it.
     
    "How long have you been hatching this scheme?"
     
    "Not long," I said. "Three weeks."
     
    "Since the last time we saw each other."
     
    "About that."
     
    "So you could have me? That's why, isn't it?"
     
    "Yes. For you and for the money."
     
    "You want me that much?"
     
    "I've never wanted anything more in my life."
     
    She sat down beside me, set the wineglass on the table. Her eyes were very bright, like a bird's eyes, and smoky hot.
     
    "Half a million dollars," she said again.
     
    "More."
     
    "For me."
     
    "Yes."
     
    "You're crazy," she said and took my face between her hands and kissed me, hard. Then she drew back and her eyes burned into mine.
     
    "My God!" she said.
     
    "Annalise," I said.
     
    "For me."
     
    "Yes."
     
    "More than half a million dollars."
     
    "Yes."
     
    She kissed me again, hard enough this time to draw blood from my lower lip, pressing close, her arms tight around my neck, her tongue exploring my mouth. She was trembling, her body quivering as if controlled by invisible electrodes.
     
    That kiss went on for a long time, hot and wet, her breathing coming faster. Then she twisted away and took my hands and pulled us both to our feet. "Crazy," she said again, and led me into the bedroom.
     
    She had a marvelous body. Taut-muscled thighs, large nipples and aureoles on the small hard breasts, skin soft as a baby's. I was so excited that first time I came in less than a minute. She couldn't have been satisfied—her body was still quivering—but she didn't seem to mind. She held me with arms and legs, tight. It was a long time before either of us spoke.
     
    "Jordan?"
     
    "Yes."
     
    "You weren't lying just to get me into bed? You can do it?"
     
    "I can do it."
     
    "Will you? Go through with it, I mean?"
     
    "Yes. Will you?"
     
    "Yes. Jesus, yes!"
     
    Her hands moved on me again. Expert hands, expert mouth, expert body, guiding me, showing me new things, making it last until release was an excruciating mixture of pleasure and pain. Sounds trite, I know, putting it like that, but that was how it was for me.
     
    And that's another thing love is. Bottom line.
     
    Love is the best fuck you ever had.
     

I N ORDER TO UNDERSTAND my plan, you have to look at it in historical perspective. The two linked equations were designed according to the laws and business practices existing in the late seventies, and my own experiences in the years preceding 1977. They were flawless in that regard, and that was why they worked. They wouldn't work today. Since 1978, laws have been changed and computerization has completely revamped the way in which large corporations like Amthor Associates and their accounting and comptroller departments operate.
     
    Would I be able to commit and get away with the same crime today, given those changes?
     
    Oh, yes, I think so. If now were then, I would be as proficient in the use of computers and accounting technology as I was in adding machines and ledger books. And there are always loopholes in the law to be ferreted out and utilized. It might take me longer now to devise a foolproof scheme to steal more than half a million dollars, and to establish a new and untraceable identity, but it could be done. If you're deliberate enough, resourceful enough, shrewd enough, almost anything is possible.
     
    I put my plan into operation immediately after that first night with Annalise. You might think I was taking a lot on faith, going forward based on a verbal agreement and a single night of sex, and I suppose I was. She might have changed her mind, backed out at any time before she became an actual accessory. But our involvement together, as I'd told her, had to be based on mutual trust. She had to believe I would be able to embezzle the money and that we'd get away with it safely; I had to believe