Body Contact by REBECCA YORK Page A

could sense a kind of simmering excitement in the room—part power trip and part sexual undertone. These guys were turned on.
    Maddy cut Jack a quick look. Then, trying not to seemoverwhelmed, she glanced around, and realized that a number of the other women looked as nervous and shell-shocked as she felt.
    She was an outgoing person, and she might have started a friendly conversation with one of the other female companions, but she noticed that they were all sticking pretty close to their guys.
    Jack had somehow acquired a partial guest list, along with photographs. So she knew who a number of their fellow passengers were.
    In the corner, the powerfully built, balding man with the heavy brows and the narrowed eyes was Don Fowler, a known drug dealer.
    He regarded her and Jack, then leaned over to say something to his statuesque blond companion.
    Another man she recognized was crime boss Jormo Kardofski. Tall and pale, he looked like he could have stepped out of a vampire movie.
    Jack keyed right in to the level of excitement. “Hey babe, that looks like some spread. Let’s check it out,” he suggested expansively as he started toward the food table. He grabbed a plate and heaped it with eggs Benedict, bacon and fruit. She stuck with the fruit and a carton of yogurt.
    Some of the couples were sitting at small tables. She and Jack took one, where he started putting away the breakfast, and she picked at her food.
    It amazed her how happy he seemed when her stomach was in knots. Partly it was the unnatural atmosphere in the room. And partly it was a sudden surge of anxiety generated by Ted’s warning. It had kept her awake in the small hours of the morning, ever since Ted’s visit to her apartment. And she’d lain there in bed wondering whether she should simply confront Jack with the information.That was the straightforward way to handle the suspicions. The way she should have handled it, she realized now.
    Yet every time she’d thought about bringing it up, she’d felt her stomach knot.
    On the upside, if he’d told her that Ted’s information was false, that would have instantly relieved her anxiety. But what if he gave her the wrong answer? Or worse, if he told her Ted was talking nonsense—but she wasn’t sure she believed him? Then what? When the two of them had no choice but to work intimately together on this assignment.
    In the end, she decided that keeping quiet was her only option, even knowing that it was going to be a source of internal tension until it was resolved. Now it was too late to reevaluate her decision.
    She’d been sitting with her head bent toward her plate. Looking up, she focused on a small blond woman staring at her. The woman was dressed in skintight hot-pink pedal pushers, high-heeled sandals and a lighter pink shirt studded with rhinestones. She was with a large, solid man whose face had been scarred by teenage acne, leaving the surface uneven and pitted. He stood with his arm possessively around her shoulder, his beefy hand adorned by a chunky diamond ring. The hand hung down so that his large fingers dangled across the top of her breast. It wasn’t like he’d done it by accident, Maddy thought as she watched him possessively caress the swell of flesh.
    The blonde saw Maddy observing them and flushed. Maddy quickly glanced away, not wanting to intrude on what should be a private moment. But she’d seen enough to wonder if public displays of lust were considered normal in this crowd.
    Come to think of it, the blonde and her guy weren’t the only two behaving in ways that Maddy considered inappropriate in a waiting room full of travelers.
    Another couple was tucked into a corner exchanging little kisses and caresses. And a second man was standing in back of his girlfriend, his hips pressed to her bottom. She knew his name, too. Artie Proctor. He was heavily into the numbers racket, according to the background sheets she’d