Freudian Slip

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

CHAPTER FORTY

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

BOOK GROUP QUESTIONS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CHAPTER ONE

KATE DARBY WILTED IN the August heat and decided she couldn’t handle the subway tonight. Too steamy, too grimy, too many commuters even at seven o’clock at night. She lifted an arm to hail a cab and smiled when one pulled over to the curb right away.

“Must be my lucky day,” she murmured. She opened the door and slid across the backseat, adjusting her skirt beneath her. “Ninetieth, between First and York.”

The cabbie, black beard flecked with gray, with warm brown skin and a regal nose, nodded his turban-covered head, clicked the meter and pulled into traffic.

Kate leaned back, enjoying the blast of air-conditioning on her damp skin. She lifted her hair, twisting it into a loose chignon, and let the coolness caress the nape of her neck. Her eyes roamed the cabbie’s unique domain. A picture of the Dalai Lama in saffron robes was paper-clipped to the right visor, the holy man’s serene visage beaming at her. A jade-colored Buddha bobblehead perched on the dashboard, happily nodding with each careening motion of the yellow cab. Amethyst rosary beads dangled from the rearview mirror, a silver Jesus, arms outstretched on the cross, swung gently from side to side. A picture of Pope John Paul II was taped to the glove compartment, one hand lifted as if to make a sign of the cross over the faithful. And if Kate was correct, she was pretty sure the turban meant the cabbie was a Sikh. Only in New York.

She leaned forward slightly. “Your cab reminds me of the United Nations.”

He looked at her in the rearview mirror and laughed heartily. “My wife is good Catholic woman. My son is a Buddhist. And I think…God loves us all.”

“You’re probably right.” She edged forward in the seat, resting her head on her forearm as she peered into the front of the cab. She could hear the world’s most infamous shock jock inflaming his listeners over the radio. “God loves everybody. Even him.” She nodded her head toward the radio.

A woman was having an orgasm—real or faked, Kate had no idea—on air.

“Oh, he’s a crazy man,” the cabbie said, in Indian-accented English. “Craaa-zzy.”

Julian Shaw’s raspy voice filled the cab. “You heard it here. Live. Lana Luscious, the world’s hottest lesbian porn star just gave oral sex to Jenna Jones. In my studio. Right here. On my couch. For those of you listening, let me tell you that, if you don’t know Lana, she’s a gorgeous, smokin’ hot brunette with 42-double-Ds, and Jenna is the platinum sex goddess of your wildest imagination. That was so hot. So friggin’ hot. If this couch could talk, baby. So Jenna…did you fake it or was that the real deal?”