Free Smash Cut by Sandra Brown Page A

she went to work. Her blond hair was straight and fine. Idly he sifted his fingers through it as he watched the beginning of the newscast.
His elaborate theater system made even the mundane look good. He never watched television anywhere else. As for films, he preferred watching them in his private theater rather than in a movie house, most of which were in tacky shopping malls, where there were morons gorging on popcorn, whispering, kicking the back of his seat, and even—what was the world coming to?—sending and receiving text messages on their cell phones.
He treated his collection of DVDs as though it was a national treasure. The temperature and humidity in the theater were carefully monitored and kept constant to preserve canisters of old film and videotape. Each one of his films, videos, and DVDs was cataloged and cross-referenced in computer documents that he updated almost daily. White-glove treatment was given to all the electronics. Dust was anathema, but his maid had been instructed never to even enter this room. He did the cleaning himself.
The resolution of the picture on his screen was so high that he could see the pores on the news anchorwoman’s nose when they came out of a depressing story about drooling, shitting old people in a nursing home. Jesus, why didn’t their complaining relatives just let them die?
He wouldn’t waste time watching the news except that he was interested to learn if there was anything to report on his uncle Paul’s fatal shooting. It had been a week since the detectives had come around yet again, this time asking him if he remembered a recent quarrel between them that had taken place in Paul’s office.
Figuring that a busybody at Wheeler Enterprises, probably his uncle’s prune-faced assistant, had snitched on him, he knew he’d do better to admit it than to be caught in a lie. “Sure, I remember. He chewed me out.”
Over what, they’d wanted to know.
“Over my being worthless.” He’d grinned at the black guy, then at the woman with the wide ass and wretched taste in clothes. “Which isn’t at all accurate. I pointed out to Uncle Paul that I’m far from worthless, that my trust fund from my maternal grandparents has swelled to over seventy million dollars, which by anyone’s calculations is a nice piece of change. I thought it was a rather funny comeback, but Uncle Paul didn’t see the humor in it.”
The two detectives had seemed deflated that he’d owned up to the quarrel. Had they been hoping to spring something on him? If so, they were completely disarmed. His dad had hired a fancy defense lawyer to be his mouthpiece from now on, but he wasn’t going to be necessary. The case was cooling. Soon it would be cold. Just like poor Uncle Paul.
The girl tongued a sensitive spot, and his penis responded. He was close. In anticipation, he leaned his head back and shut his eyes. But they came open almost instantly when a familiar voice reached him from each surround-sound speaker. “I don’t have anything to tell you.”
There was Julie Rutledge, filling his screen. He was pleased to note that she looked tired and disheveled and a bit exasperated when asked if the PD was any closer to catching Paul’s killer. “Not to my knowledge,” she replied.
How cool was this? Getting a damn good blow job while watching his late uncle’s ladylove on TV. He wished she knew. Maybe he’d call her later, say, “Julie, saw you on the news. I was looking straight at you when I came.”
That delightful train of thought derailed when the whore raised her head again. “Hey, you’re pulling my hair.”
He relaxed his hold, but his complacent smile remained in place. Julie didn’t like him, no doubt because of all the trash Paul had talked about him. Whatever Paul had told Julie had made her cold and distant toward him. For his own amusement, Creighton enjoyed and exploited her evident discomfort.
Straight into the camera she said, “And I don’t think it was a robbery, either.”
Creighton climaxed.
The whore looked