The Elevator
The Elevator
Angela Hunt
Three women. One man. A gathering storm. In the path of a devastating hurricane, three very different women find themselves trapped in the elevator of a highrise office building. All three conceal shattering secrets–unaware that their secrets center on the same man. The betrayed wife, eager to confront her faithless husband, with rage in her heart and a gun in her pocket…The determined mistress, finally ready to tell her lover she wants marriage and a family… The fugitive cleaning woman, tormented by the darkest secret of all… As the storm rages ever closer, these three must unite to fight for their lives in the greatest test of courage any woman could ever face.
PRAISE FOR ANGELA HUNT
“Prolific novelist Hunt knows how to hold the reader’s interest, and her latest yarn is no exception…. Hunt packs the maximum amount of drama into her story, and the pages turn quickly. The present-tense narration lends urgency as the perspective switches among various characters. Readers may decide to take the stairs after finishing this thriller.”
—Publishers Weekly on The Elevator
“Christy Award and Holt Medallion winner Hunt skillfully builds tension and keeps the plot well paced and not overly melodramatic.”
—Library Journal on The Elevator
“Hunt’s writing is filled with exciting twists that could have been pulled straight from the headlines. The prose is packed with biblical truths that readers will be able to relate to their own lives. The three women caught in an elevator reflect emotions and dilemmas that we all face.”
—Romantic Times BOOKreviews on The Elevator
“In The Elevator, Ms. Hunt creates the perfect setup to keep you turning pages long after the rest of the house has fallen asleep. The Elevator also serves as a cautionary tale to those who would remain trapped in their old lives and opinions rather than reaching up for freedom and life. Loved it.”
—Lisa Samson, award-winning author of Quaker Summer and Embrace Me
the elevator
Angela Hunt
Deception is not as creative as truth.
We do best in life if we look at it with clear eyes,
And I think that applies to coming up to death as well.
—Cicely Saunders
We can believe what we choose.
We are answerable for what we choose to believe.
—John Henry Newman
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
No novelist writes alone, and I had lots of help with this book.
First, thank you to my blog readers, who helped me fill Michelle’s purse.
I owe a huge debt to my agent, Danielle Egan-Miller, and to Steeple Hill editors Joan Marlow Golan and Krista Stroever for their great enthusiasm for a one-paragraph synopsis.
A deep and abiding “thank you” to the two elevator technicians I met at the Imperial Swan Hotel in Lakeland. When I asked for their names, they said I could simply thank the “two handsome gentlemen” who gave me a guided tour of the inner (and outer) workings of an elevator and let me peer into the shaft. Gentlemen, my hat’s off to you.
Thank you to fellow novelist Randy Singer, who introduced me to Michael Garnier, who not only answered dozens of e-mailed questions, but seemed to enjoy doing so despite the story’s high estrogen level. Thanks also to Michael’s friend P.J., otherwise known as Paul G. McGrath, who answered queries from Michael, who then passed the answers along to me. Gentlemen, this book would not be complete without you.
Hugs and muchas gracias to Vasthi Acosta and Veronica Beard, who helped me with Isabel’s Spanish. Any lingering errors are mine alone.
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 15
7:00 a.m.
CHAPTER 1
Wrapped in the remnants of a dream, Michelle Tilson opens her eyes and smiles at the ceiling until she remembers the monster looming in the Gulf. She reaches for Parker, but the spot where he should be lying is empty and cold. She pushes herself up, the satin sheets puddling at her waist, and looks into the bathroom, which is empty.
But a single red rose lies on Parker’s pillow.
Of course—he’s gone to the office. He said he might not be here when she woke.
Groaning, Michelle falls onto his pillow and breathes in the sweet scent of the flower. Typical Parker, the disappearing man. Here for a night, gone for a week. Most women would resent his inconsistency, but she’s become accustomed to his vanishing act.
She props her pillow against the headboard and leans back, surprised she can feel so relaxed on a Saturday morning. Weekends usually depress her, but despite the hurricane warning she floats in a curious contentment, as though the previous night’s love and laughter have splashed over a levee and flooded the normally arid weekend.
Parker is good for her. The man knows when it’s time to work and when it’s time to play, a lesson she’s been struggling to learn.
She reaches for the remote on the nightstand and powers on the television, still tuned to the Weather Channel. A somber-faced young man appears before a map on which a swirling bull’s-eye is moving straight toward Florida’s west coast. Hurricane Felix, already a category four, has left Mexico and is churning toward Tampa Bay.
Michelle squints as her mind stamps the map with an icon representing her condo at Century Towers. Nothing changed overnight; she’s still in the hurricane’s path.
At least she’s well insured. Parker’s made sure of that.
She turns down the volume on the television, then drops the remote and considers closing her heavy eyelids. She could easily sleep another hour, but Parker might call and she wants to be alert if he does. He’s already told her he plans to ride out the hurricane at his house, but who knows? This could be the weekend he’ll realize she ought to meet his children….
She eases out from under the comforter and reaches for the computer on her nightstand. The laptop is always online, maintaining a quiet vigil as it files incoming e-mail and prowls the Web for prospective clients.
Michelle slides her glasses on, then clicks on her e-mail program and checks the in-box: three inquiries from her Web site, www.Tilsonheadhunter.com, a note from her administrative assistant, four ads for fake Rolex watches, three for cheap (and undoubtedly illegal) pharmaceuticals.
The spam gets deleted without a second look, but Michelle smiles as she opens the Web mail. The first inquiry is from Don Moss, a Houston CFO who has recently lost his job with an oil company. He’s looking for a management position in the four hundred thousand to five hundred thousand dollar range and he’s willing to relocate.
The second is from a local woman with a newly minted MBA and “a strong desire to succeed.”
The third e-mail is from a school principal who needs to move west due to his wife’s severe allergies. Can Tilson Corporate Careers help him find a university position?
Michelle clicks her nails against the keyboard as she considers the requests. The CFO will get her full attention; he’s probably good for a fifteen-thousand-dollar fee. One of her associates can coach the girl with the MBA on how to create a résumé and urge her to attend industry conferences. She’ll not bring in much money, but she should find a job within a few months. The principal might be tough to place, but since he’s probably been in education a few years, he’s bound to know someone who knows someone in Arizona or New Mexico. He’ll land a job…eventually. Tilson Corporate will simply have to make sure he exhausts all his resources.
She moves all three messages into her Action folder, then opens the message from Reggie. She sighs when she reads that he’s taking his wife and new baby to Georgia to escape the storm.
I’ll keep an eye on the news, he promises, and you can call if you need me. I’ll be at my sister’s house in Marietta.
BTW—last week one of the counselors took an application from a young guy who’s looking for a management position. Nothing unusual in the app, but I saw him through the window and recognized him—he’s a columnist for the Tampa Tribune and he belongs to the gym where my wife works. Long story short, Marcy chatted him up and found out he’s doing a story on employment agencies who don’t meet their contractual obligations. Looks like we’re at the top of his hit list.
I pulled his file and left it on my desk—he’s using the name Marshall Owens, but he writes his column under a Greg Owens byline. You might want to look him up.
Michelle swallows hard as her stomach tightens. Her agency does find jobs for clients, though not as often as their brochure claims. And while their advertising states that they typically place people in positions with salaries ranging from seventy thousand dollars to seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars, she can’t remember the last time they referred a prospect to a situation worth more than eighty grand.
If she doesn’t find an appropriate position for this columnist, he’ll be all over Tilson Corporate Careers. If any of their procedures arouse his suspicions, he might dig deeper and investigate her.
Reporters ask questions; they verify facts and check entries on résumés. If she doesn’t find Owens a job, he could crucify her.
She presses her hands to her eyes as dread whirls inside her stomach. Only one thing to do, then—find the fake applicant a real job, and pretend to be surprised when he doesn’t take it.
That part, at least, will be easy. She’s been pretending all her life.
Isabel Suarez drives the vacuum across the carpet, her hips working to a disco beat as Donna Summer sings in her ears. She maneuvers the machine around a desk chair that has rolled off its plastic mat, then stops to flip the power switch. A candy wrapper has drifted beneath the file drawer, out of the vacuum’s reach.
Unlike the others in this tidy office, this employee—Waveney Forester, according to the nameplate—obviously enjoys eating on the job.
Isabel crouches and pulls the crinkled wrapper from its hiding place, then yelps when someone yanks the earbuds from her ears. Her forearms pebble in the sudden silence, but when she peers over the edge of the desk, she finds she is still alone.
The speaker cord has caught on a drawer handle.
Exhaling, Isabel releases the cord, then dumps the employee’s trash into the receptacle attached to her cleaning cart. A load of printed forms, typed pages and soft-drink cans tumble into the bin, followed by a rainbow of cellophane squares—the secretary’s guilty secret. Every Tuesday and Friday night Isabel finds dozens of candy wrappers shoved to the bottom of Waveney Forester’s trash. The sight never fails to make her smile.
Isabel returns the trash can to its hiding place in the desk’s kneehole, then lifts her gaze to the wide windows along the east wall. A sprinkling of lights still sparkles in the skyscrapers of Tampa’s downtown district, a waste of electricity no one seems to mind. The sun has begun to rise, but only a glimmer of light penetrates the cloudy eastern horizon. Carlos warned her to be careful on the way home because a storm is on its way, a huracán.
Because her fellow custodians like to complain about the weather, Isabel knows Florida has suffered many hurricanes in the last few years, along with states called Missis-sip-pi and Lou-i-si-ana. She doesn’t know anyone in those places, but the people she knows in Florida are rich beyond imagining. They complain if their roof leaks—¿por qué? At least they have a roof. And homes. And a government that hands out money and food to anyone who asks for it.
She presses her hand to the cool window and feels a shiver run down her spine. America. Home of the blessed and the free. Home to runaways and castoffs and so full of people a girl could get lost forever…if she has reason to hide.
A flag on a nearby rooftop snaps in the rising wind, but Isabel can’t feel even a breeze in this fortress of steel and glass. At this daybreak hour, in this towering perch, she can’t help feeling safe. No one from México can touch her here. Even if her enemy manages to track her to Tampa, she will not surrender. She has Carlos and Rafael now, and she would rather die than lose them.
She catches sight of her mirrored reflection, gives herself a relieved smile, and nudges the earbuds back into her ears. Leaving the vista of Tampa behind, she powers on the machine and hums along with Donna Summer as she vacuums her way toward the executive’s inner office.
Tucked into the corner of a wing chair, Gina Rossman lifts her swollen eyelids and stares at her unrumpled bed. The report, in a manila envelope, still rests on Sonny’s pillow. She spent the night in this chair for nothing.
So much for dramatic gestures.
She lifts her head and glances at the clock, then frowns at the view outside the bedroom window. The sun is usually brighter by seven-twenty…but how could she forget Felix? Destructive hurricanes are nothing new for Florida; in the past three months Hillsborough County residents have anxiously monitored the paths of Alberto, Chris and Debby. The local weathercasters, who would probably lash themselves to a wavering flagpole if the stunt would get them national airtime, are positively giddy about the latest patch of weather heading directly toward Florida’s central west coast.
Sonny will blame his absence on the storm, of course. He’ll claim he didn’t come home because he had to single-handedly prepare for the hurricane. He sent his employees home Thursday afternoon, he’d remind her, because he wanted to give them time to leave the state. His act of generosity left him with a stack of declaration pages that had to be faxed to frantic clients who needed to know the limits of their coverage. Besides—and at this point he would give her an easy, relaxed smile with a great deal of confidence behind it—he hadn’t built a Fortune 500 company by limiting himself to a forty-hour workweek.
She used to accept his excuses, used to be proud of him for putting in more hours than the average husband. But no longer.
Now she knows where he’s been working overtime.
She pulls herself out of the comfortable depths of the wing chair and smooths her slacks. She wanted Sonny to find her awake and still dressed when he came through the door, but if he didn’t come home last night, he won’t show up this morning. He’ll be at the office, feeding papers into the fax machine.
An alarming thought skitters across her brain. What if he doesn’t come home at all? He might want to protect that woman, so he could be planning to ride out the hurricane in whatever rathole she calls home. Later, when the weather has passed, he’ll claim he was slaving at the office until the power went out and he had to evacuate to the nearest shelter.
Last year, she might have believed his lies. This year, she has rebuttal evidence waiting in the manila envelope, along with a private investigator’s report. A list of places, dates and times; eyewitness accounts of intimate dinners and lunches; even a receipt Sonny dropped outside Foster’s Jewelers.
The amount on the receipt nearly buckled Gina’s knees: forty-three thousand dollars for a diamond bracelet. Forty-three thousand that must have been siphoned off the company books. Forty-three thousand—money that should be part of her children’s inheritance—has been wasted on baubles for some tart’s wrist.
How much of his children’s future has Sonny squandered?
A flash of grief rips through her, one of many that has seared her heart in the last twenty-four hours. How could her husband turn his back on the wife who’s loved him faithfully for more than two decades? How could he neglect his precious children? Matthew is supposed to take over the business in a few years, but at the rate Sonny is spending, how much of the business will remain? These are lean days for insurance companies, especially in Florida. The bad weather of the past has devastated the industry.
The investigator included a photograph of Sonny walking down Ashley Street with the woman on his arm, her head brushing his shoulder. Sonny’s face, visible at an angle, is marked by an expression of extraordinary tenderness. The object of his inappropriate attention is not facing the camera, but the photo reveals a tall, lean creature with a striking sense of style, a floppy hat, and a youthful body that has not borne three children and invested its best years in Sonny’s dreams.
Gina moves to the bed, plucks the envelope from her husband’s pillow and stares out the window while she taps the package against her fingertips. A maelstrom is swirling in the Gulf beyond; a killer storm. Before the sun rises tomorrow, its merciless winds and rain will sweep over Tampa and destroy anything that hasn’t been properly secured.
Her husband’s office is in the Lark Tower, Tampa’s oldest skyscraper. His suite is on the uppermost floor, where the intense wind and rain will have unfettered freedom to do their worst. Downtown Tampa is under an evacuation order, but everyone knows Sonny Rossman is a stubborn workaholic.
What might happen if he decides to remain in his office as the hurricane blows in?
CHAPTER 2
Michelle returns the laptop to her dresser, then curls back under the covers to think. So—Marshall Owens is a plant, a test of her company’s legitimacy. Owens has probably noticed the ads she places in the employment section of every Sunday newspaper, ads that suggest her expert counselors will market clients through exclusive insider channels and help applicants obtain interviews with top executives at major firms.
She pounds her pillow, then slides her hand under her cheek. Her agency won’t be the first vetted by an ambitious reporter. She’s read articles that condemn companies like hers, using words like fraudulent and scam. They promise to network and investigate for you, the typical exposé reports, and charge thousands of dollars for services you can perform yourself using free materials and the Internet.
If finding an executive position is so easy, why does she have so many clients? So what if on occasion she does little more than polish a CEO’s résumé? Most administrators haven’t evaluated their biographical materials in years. They wouldn’t begin to know how to portray their skills in the light of an ever-changing employment market. They care only about the bottom line: salary and benefits. They want a job that offers a corner office, a savvy staff and a generous paycheck, but they don’t want to do the legwork it takes to land such a position.
That’s why they come to Tilson Corporate Careers. Michelle and her associates spend hours, if necessary, prying important details from clients and taking copious notes about the applicant’s past employment, skills and responsibilities. They ask for address books, references from previous employers, even Christmas-card lists. Somewhere amid all that paperwork, Michelle and her staff usually find the opportunity that will result in a new position.
She is trying to think of the best way to approach the Tribune reporter when Roy Orbison begins to warble “Pretty Woman” from the depths of her purse. She groans, then reaches for the leather bag on the floor.
A digital photo of Lauren Cameron, her workout partner and best friend, lights the cover of her cell phone. “Hello?”
“Good morning!” Lauren’s voice, as bright and vibrant as a new whistle, hurts Michelle’s ears. “Did I wake you?”
Michelle nestles the phone between her shoulder and chin. “I’ve been up a while.”
“I thought you might be. I’ve been watching the Weather Channel since five. But hey, I wanted to be sure you didn’t forget our date tomorrow. You and me at Lord & Taylor, right? I’ll meet you outside the bridal salon at one.”
Michelle resists the urge to groan. In a weak moment she promised to serve as maid of honor at Lauren’s second wedding, but the thought of standing alongside the bride’s young nieces now seems ridiculous. “Are you sure about this? Your sister’s oldest daughter might be hurt if you don’t ask her to be your maid of honor.”
Lauren makes a small pffing sound. “She’s a child. You’re my best friend.”
“She’s sixteen, I’m thirty-three. The thought of standing with all those little girls and holding a nosegay—”
“I won’t ask you to wear a prom dress. We’ll pick out something sophisticated and you’ll look wonderful.”
Lauren’s lying, of course, the way one girlfriend will always fib when she wants to neutralize the other’s feelings. She’ll probably dress her attendants in yellow, a color that will make the little girls glow like sunbeams while it tints Michelle with shades of cirrhosis. At the wedding, Lauren’s relatives will elbow each other and someone will whisper that the really tall attendant is Michelle Tilson, and yes, the program’s correct. She’s really a maid of honor, because the poor woman has never been able to snag a husband.
Michelle rests her head on her hand as Lauren chatters about her preparations. So much to do, because even in cosmopolitan Tampa, marriage is a sacred estate and must be celebrated with every appropriate ritual. Prevailing attitudes assume that any woman who’s over thirty and still single must be a little odd, while a woman who’s over thirty, single and not looking to be married—well, that scenario is just plain unnatural.
Funny how Michelle never feels like a spinster in the office or at a club. At Lauren’s church, though, with a half-dozen preteens clustered around her elbows, she’ll feel like somebody’s withered maiden aunt.
“…I’m thinking yellow chrysanthemums will be perfect for November. You agree?”
The direct question hits Michelle like a thump between the eyes. “Mums? You don’t mean those plate-size things, do you?”
“You’re exaggerating, as always. But yes, I want this wedding to be bright and colorful. I want to hold the reception outdoors and I thought big yellow mums would be gorgeous against the deep shade of those oaks on the property.”
Michelle rolls onto her back and studies the ceiling. “I don’t know if you should count on those old oaks. We do have a hurricane headed our way.”
Lauren pffffs again. “It’s going to blow right by us. They always do.”
“This one might not. Parker’s really concerned. He’s up in his office now, checking on—”
“They said Charley was going to hit us, but that one turned at the last minute. Besides, my neighbor says the Native Americans who used to live here performed ritual sacrifices or something and swore no major storm would ever hit this area. So far, they’ve been right.”
Michelle can’t stop a wry smile. “Well, if you promise to sacrifice a chicken—”
“The weather wouldn’t dare interfere with my plans. So don’t forget—tomorrow, one o’clock, Lord & Taylor. We’re going to find my maid of honor something scrumptious to wear and soon you can ask me to return the favor.”
A sudden surge of adrenaline sparks Michelle’s blood. “Why do you say that? Did Parker say something the other night?”
“Not to me, he didn’t. But I’m sure he’s getting ready to make his move. He’s got that smitten look.”
Michelle closes her eyes, glad that Lauren can’t see her face. “He’s not in a hurry…and neither am I.”
“Good grief, why are you waiting? Haven’t you been dating over a year?”
“He has kids, Lauren, and the youngest is still seeing a shrink. Parker doesn’t want to rush things.”
“So you’re going to let him keep you hanging indefinitely?” Lauren sighs. “Out of all the available men we’ve met, why’d you have to fall for a widower with teenagers?”
Michelle turns her head and spots the single red rose Parker left on the bureau. “Because I was tired of dating boys,” she whispers, “and Parker’s the most honest man I’ve ever met.”
Her comment hangs in the silence, then Lauren clicks her tongue. “Whatever you say, girlfriend. Stay dry today, okay? And don’t stand me up tomorrow.”
“I won’t.”
Michelle snaps the phone shut, then sets it on the pillow that still bears the imprint of Parker’s head. She misses him already. If he doesn’t call and invite her to his house, it’s going to be a long, lonely weekend.
She rolls out of bed and plants her feet on the carpet, then hunches forward as an unexpected wave of nausea rises from somewhere near her center. Last night’s pasta primavera must not have agreed with her…but she didn’t eat that much. They slipped out of the restaurant after only a few bites because that gleam entered Parker’s eye. She has never been able to talk to him when he looks at her like a starving dog yearning for a steak.
At the thought of food, her stomach lurches again. She places her hand over her belly, where some sort of gastric disturbance is doing its best to emulate the hurricane. Deep breaths. If she can convince her gut she will never look at another calorie-laden pasta dish, she might make it to the medicine cabinet and that bottle of chalky pink stuff….
Another deep breath. When the gurgling beneath her palm subsides, she lifts her head and straightens to an almost-vertical posture. She can’t be sick today. She needs to get to the office before the weather worsens; she has to pick up the Owens file.
The third-floor window, flanked by accordion storm shutters she has not yet closed, reveals a slate-blue sky and the swaying tendrils of a tall palm. The live oak shading the rear of the condominium stands like a silent sentinel, its thick canopy too stubborn to shift for only a probing, preliminary wind.
A sudden urge catches her by surprise. Forgetting the weather, she flies into the bathroom and crouches by the toilet.
When her ravaged stomach has emptied itself, she leans against the wall and pulls a towel from the rack, then presses it to her mouth. A sheen of perspiration coats her arms and neck, but she is beginning to feel better. What lousy luck, to suffer a bout of food poisoning today—
Her breath catches in her throat as a niggling thought rises from the back of her brain. What if this nausea has nothing to do with food?
Like a child who can’t stop picking at a scab, Gina spreads the investigator’s report on the bed and reviews the list of dates and places.
8/21: Subject dines with young woman at Bern’s steak house
8/23: Subject and same woman eat dinner at the Columbia
8/25: Subject and woman have lunch at International Plaza, followed by afternoon of shopping. Subject delivers young woman to residence on Bay-shore Boulevard, departs 1:30 a.m.
9/08: Subject and young woman register as Mr. and Mrs. Rossman at the Don CeSar Hotel on St. Petersburg Beach.
The last entry sounds like a perfectly idyllic getaway, but Gina has never stayed with Sonny at the Don CeSar, and she would have remembered staying there as recently as last weekend. Sonny was supposed to be at a convention. In Orlando.
The corner of her mouth twists when she remembers a wedding reception she and Sonny attended at the Don CeSar. The place must have impressed him if he decided it was worthy of his mistress.
She shudders as a cold coil of misery tightens beneath her breastbone. Why is she torturing herself? Bad enough to learn of Sonny’s infidelity; she doesn’t need to know details.
Unless there’s a logical reason for all these meetings. The truth might lie in some arcane bit of information the investigator missed. Sonny could have purchased the diamond bracelet as an investment or a Christmas gift for his wife. The young girl on Sonny’s arm could be an overfriendly secretary; perhaps the lunches and dinners are innocent business appointments. He might have a hard time explaining the Don CeSar rendezvous, but one night does not have to destroy a marriage.
Gina moves to the heavy mahogany armoire in the corner of the room, Sonny’s private domain. Because the housekeeper folds and puts away laundry, Gina hasn’t opened these doors since they moved in three years ago.
If Sonny is saving the diamond bracelet for her, it’s likely to be hidden here.
She lifts stacks of folded underwear, rifles through a mound of socks and slides her hands beneath several cotton handkerchiefs. Nothing. She opens the lowest drawer on the right, scoops up a collection of cuff links and watches, and sets the jewelry on the edge of a shelf. After running her thumbnail along the side of the drawer, she removes the velvet-lined false bottom and exposes the digital keypad.
If she hadn’t been home alone when the deliverymen brought the armoire, she wouldn’t know about this secret safe. In an effort to be helpful—and undoubtedly to secure a bigger tip—the deliveryman had pointed out the safe’s location and given her a sealed envelope containing the combination Sonny had chosen: six, five, eighty-five. Their wedding anniversary.
She had never mentioned the safe to Sonny; she wasn’t sure if he even used it. But now her breath solidifies in her throat as she presses the appropriate keys. The keypad beeps, releasing the lock on the hinged cover. She opens the safe she hasn’t thought about in years.
No bracelet. Nothing but papers: the deed to the house, their passports, a card with bank and mutual-fund account numbers. Nothing unusual, nothing incriminating, except—
Despite the bands of tightness around her lungs, Gina snatches a breath and picks up an unfamiliar bankbook. The plastic cover is shiny, the opening date less than four months ago. The bank is located in the Cayman Islands, and the account is in Sonny’s name alone. Opening balance: one hundred fifty thousand dollars.
Her heart turns to stone within her chest. He’s already begun to bleed his family dry.
She sinks to the edge of the bed. At various moments since receiving the private investigator’s report, she’s wanted to deny everything, strangle her husband and kill herself. At one point she was certain she deserved Sonny’s betrayal because she hadn’t been a better wife.
But those were emotional responses; she should have expected them. Now she needs to put her feelings aside and think about what to do. She needs a plan…and the courage to see it through.
Her thoughts drift toward a book on her night table: Courage by Amelia Earhart. “Courage,” the aviatrix wrote, “is the price that Life exacts for granting peace.”
If Gina is to have peace, she must move forward with confidence and determination. At long last her questions have been answered, her suspicions confirmed. Now she has evidence in black, white and full color. The P.I.’s package has provided everything she needs to divorce Sonny, but no one cares much about culpability these days. No-fault divorce has simplified procedures for cheating spouses and the sheer frequency of cases has made the division of a couple’s estate a matter of routine. A judge will look over their assets, draw a line to divide his from hers and send them on their way. Of course, with the wrinkle of this other bank account, perhaps it’s not going to be that easy.
Gina turns to the investigator’s report and runs her finger over the notation about Bern’s. How could Sonny think he had the right to take that woman to their favorite place? And how could Francis, the maître d’, seat Sonny with an imposter hanging on his arm?
Maybe Francis didn’t know about the affair…. Then again, it’s more likely that Sonny bought Francis’s silence with generous tips and sly smiles. Despite the camaraderie Gina and Francis have shared within the walls of the restaurant, the man is a servant, not a friend.
Only a close friend would be honest and courageous enough to reveal that your husband has a mistress, a sad truth that underscores an unexpected revelation: Gina has no close friends. No one told her about Sonny’s affair; no one at the office, the country club or the church they faithfully attend at Christmas and Easter.
Surely someone has seen him with that woman. Gina can’t shop at any mall for more than an hour without encountering someone she knows through the business or the club. Sonny is far more extroverted than she is, so people have to have seen him with his little chit.
Perhaps people have seen him…and traded knowing looks, clucking in sympathy for the deceived wife and the poor children. Maybe they’ve wondered aloud how long the marriage will last…and what she’s done to make Sonny wander.
What has she done? Nothing but give him the best years of her life, raise his children, decorate his house and stand by his side through dozens of boring conventions, holiday parties and client dinners. She’s reined in her instincts and bitten her tongue so many times it’s a wonder she can still speak, and for what? A man who would betray her and squander his children’s future on a tramp.
Sonny hasn’t mentioned a divorce, but his girlfriend won’t wait forever. She’ll press for marriage one of these days, but before he hits Gina with the news, he’ll make sure his assets are hidden and his business protected…just as he’s already doing.
Gina will be ambushed.
Her children are being bankrupted.
She places the bankbook back in the safe and returns the jewelry to the drawer. She folds the investigator’s report and slides it back into the manila envelope. The man has written a note on his business card—If you’d like me to spend a few more hours on the case, I could identify the woman in question.
Gina snorts softly. She’s not spending another penny on Sonny. He can exchange his fortysomething wife for two twenties, for all she cares. But he cannot steal from his children.
Ending this marriage will crush the kids, of course. They will be loyal to her, but they love their father and won’t want to hurt him. She could tell them everything, let them see the proof of his infidelity, but teenagers don’t always accept the truth. Most of the time they end up resenting the messenger who brings bad news.
She won’t let them resent her because she’s done nothing wrong. Sonny is the guilty party, he’s the gangrene. And like an infected limb, he deserves to be chopped off.
Being teenagers, the kids have been so wrapped up in their individual worlds they haven’t noticed Sonny’s absences, his odd lapses into silence or his indifference on the rare occasions he’s come home for dinner. He has already impoverished them emotionally; he will not ruin them financially, too.
If Gina says nothing and keeps Sonny’s failings private, the kids will split their loyalties and try to make the best of a bad situation. They might even accept the other woman, whomever she is. Like characters in one of those Lifetime movies, every weekend they’ll kiss Gina goodbye and head off for picnics and football games with Sonny’s replacement wife.
That would be altogether unacceptable.
Michelle crouches on the tile floor and opens the cabinet beneath the sink, searching among bottles of hair spray, lotion and nail polish remover until she spies the blue box. How many years has it been sitting there—one or two? Has it expired?
She pushes aside a bag of cotton balls, then pulls out the box and searches for the expiration date—the kit is still good, so she skims the instructions. The test kit promises quick results and ninety-nine percent accuracy. After five seconds in the urine stream, the stick will turn pink; after two more minutes the result window will reveal an easy-to-read plus or minus.
Pregnant or not?
She sinks to the cold tile as the significance of the question hits home. She’s tried to be responsible, but life is like a baseball game; you can’t score every time you step up to the plate. Some homes aren’t happy, some girls don’t go to the prom, and sometimes your birth control fails.
But nobody should have to strike out on all three counts.
Pregnant. Or not.
She presses her hand to her forehead and tries to picture herself as a parent. Parker already has three kids, so she doesn’t have to worry about his ability to cope with children. Matt, Amanda and Sam are practically grown, but their father adores them. He’ll adore this new baby, too—if her nausea isn’t the result of a virus or pasta gone bad.
On the other hand—she swallows as the gall of envy burns the back of her throat—Parker has been surprisingly protective of his children. Though she’s boldly hinted that she’d like to get to know them, she’s never met his sons and daughter. She’s shopped for their birthday presents, dispensed advice about Christmas gifts and helped him understand the emotional complexities of teenage girlhood. But when she mentions meeting his kids, he insists they are not ready to accept another woman in his life. They’re still torn up about losing their mother….
After five years, shouldn’t those children be ready to move on?
She straightens to relieve the ache in her shoulders, then shakes her head. Technically, Parker’s opinion doesn’t matter. She could have a baby and raise it alone. But a child deserves a father’s love, and Parker would want to know if he has created a new life.
He’d be surprised, of course, maybe even stunned, but she’d assure him she didn’t intend to get pregnant. Their relationship has been stable for over a year and until now she’s felt no need to change things. She hasn’t pressed for marriage and isn’t even sure she believes in it. Matrimony might be fine for women who need to belong to a man, but Michelle has always valued her independence too much to surrender it.
Yet perhaps it’s time to reconsider. Greg Owens’s name keeps slipping through her thoughts, reminding her that investigation is only days away. If she can’t convince Owens that her agency fulfills its promises, he may start digging into her past.
How nice it would be to surrender her responsibilities and walk away. To wake up in the morning and have no appointments. How liberating, to trade the support of a dozen employees for the care of one child. Parker wouldn’t need her income. And he’s so protective of his kids—if she had a baby, he’d probably want her to stay home and spoil the kid rotten.
She’s never visualized herself as a parent, but she could learn to appreciate motherhood. Hard not to think about having a child when her employees are reproducing like rabbits and every other month some celebrity is showing off an infant Apple, Coco or Kumquat….
Since her thirtieth birthday she’s become increasingly aware that every menstrual cycle represents an irreversible loss of fertility. She’s thirty-three, old enough to know herself and settled enough to sacrifice for a child.
Michelle stands on wobbly legs and opens the test kit. Inside the box, a sheaf of printed instructions and a white plastic stick nestle in a molded shell. She plucks the stick from its resting place and holds it up to the light. This little gadget will tell her if she’s pregnant or not. If today will be just another day or the start of a new life. If her next strong emotion will be alarm or relief.
No…not relief. Maybe happiness.
Staring at the stick, for the first time Michelle realizes how much she’d like to be pregnant. If not now, then next month or next year.
She wants a baby…a cooing bundle of hope for which she could correct life’s mistakes and build the home she’s always wanted. Most people do live in happy homes; most girls do go to the prom; most women do want to be mothers.
She’s tired of pretending otherwise.
Pregnant or not, she’s going to tell Parker she wants a family. If he won’t let her be part of his, she will create a family of her own.
CHAPTER 3
With her hair still wet from the shower, Michelle wraps her robe more closely about her, then sits on the edge of her bed and picks up the phone. Though she is determined to reach Parker, she hesitates before dialing his number.
Odd. Though she has no trouble telling people at her office what to do, she wouldn’t dare try to order Parker’s day. Strength and independence are two of his most attractive qualities, and he is one of the few men she has never been able to intimidate.
Still…she needs to talk to him.
She dials his office number, punches in the extension for the executive suite and holds her breath until he picks up. As always, her heart does a double-beat when his voice rumbles over the line.
“It’s me, Parker.” She lowers her head and plucks a dark thread from her white cotton robe. “Am I interrupting anything important?”
His voice, which had been toneless when he answered, warms with huskiness. “You are a delightful surprise. I almost didn’t pick up—I’ve heard from too many clients who would like to fry my hide for their mistakes.”
She chuckles. “That’d be a terrible waste of a perfectly good hide.”
“Listen to you—you always know how to make me feel better.” He laughs. “What are you doing up so early? I thought you’d sleep in.”
“You’re not the only one with responsibilities. I have things to do, too.”
“Like what?”
“Well…I have to close the storm shutters, fill the bathtub with water and back up all my computer files. You know, the usual prehurricane preparations.”
“Didn’t you buy bottled water?”
“Sure.”
“Then why are you filling the tub?”
She smiles at the teasing note in his voice. “Because Lauren told me to, okay? She’s a native. She knows about these things.”
Silence rolls over the line, then he says, “I loved last night.”
“I loved the rose you left for me.”
“My pleasure.”
Michelle wraps the telephone cord around her wrist. “Parker…”
“Hmm?”
“What are you doing now?”
He laughs again. “I’m cleaning up. Thought I’d take a shower and shave this stubble before I frighten someone.”
“I like your stubble. I’ve always thought a salt-and-pepper beard is attractive.”
In the background she can hear the sound of running water, so he must be talking on the extension in his private bathroom. Closing her eyes, she can almost see him, phone in one hand, razor in the other.
“Have you heard the latest on the weather?” he asks.
“Yeah. Felix’s still on a northwestern track.”
“Coming straight for us?”
“Looks like it.”
“Then you need to lock those shutters. Make sure—”
“Listen,” she interrupts, unable to wait a moment more, “I was thinking about driving in. I need to pick up a file at the office.”
“Can’t it wait? They issued an evacuation order for all of the downtown area. They’ll be closing the interstates soon.”
“But you’re downtown.”
“Well…I have connections. But you should stay put. It could get dangerous out there.”
“Not for a while. They say we have at least twelve hours before Felix arrives.”
“Things can get wicked in a hurry if tornadoes form in front of the storm. You ought to stay put.”
“Lauren says there’s nothing to worry about. Something about the Native Americans killing a chicken and making predictions—”
“What?”
“Never mind. Please, Parker, will you wait for me? I can get my file and we can leave together. We could even evacuate, maybe drive someplace north of here.”
He lets out a long, audible breath, then speaks in a voice heavy with apology. “I’ll wait if you promise to come right away. I don’t want to hang around much longer because I need to get home. The kids, you know.”
She draws a breath, about to ask why they don’t pick up his kids and drive to Ocala or Gainesville, but Parker is no fool. If he wanted to knit her into his family life, this would be the perfect opportunity.
Obviously, he’s not ready. Yet.
She swipes at a tear with the sleeve of her robe. “I suppose—” she steadies her voice “—you need to stay in the area for your clients. If Felix comes ashore here—”
“I’ll be as busy as a dentist in Hershey, Pennsylvania. That’s why I can’t leave, sweetheart. I need to stick around. For my business and my kids.”
She lowers her gaze, grateful he can’t see the hurt welling in her eyes. Any man might have said the same thing, but she has a feeling his refusal has more to do with his children than his client list. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“Be careful. And, by the way, your timing’s perfect. I ordered something special for you and it arrived late yesterday. I was going to save it for your birthday—”
“Good grief, Parker, that’s two months from now.”
“—then I thought maybe you could wear the surprise when I take you out for dinner next week. I mean, why wait?”
Michelle smiles as a blush heats her cheeks. Is he really ready to commit?
“Parker,” she breathes, “what have you done?”
“You’ll have to see, love. Come on up, I’ll be waiting.”
As Donna Summer continues to warble from the CD player, Isabel raps on the inner-office door, then uses her master key to enter. A quick glance assures her the space is empty, but she hesitates at the sight of a burning lamp. Though the computer behind the desk whirrs continually, the lamp is usually dark when she cleans this suite.
She shakes her head. More waste. Americans are always complaining about the high cost of gasoline, but still they burn lamps in empty rooms and run their computers all night and keep their air-conditioning so low she has to wear a sweater while she works. Maybe Americans just like to complain.
She blows a stray hank of hair from her forehead, then walks over to the executive’s waste can. Wadded papers and soda cans spill from the edge of the container, so she tamps down the trash before carrying it to the cart outside the door. No candy wrappers lie at the bottom of this bin; no cigarette butts, either. This boss, whoever he is, has few obvious bad habits.
She frowns as she returns the trash can to the side of the desk. An unusual amount of clutter covers the work area, so perhaps she shouldn’t try to dust. A pile of papers litters the blotter, an uncapped fountain pen atop the stack as if the man—Mr. Rossman, according to an envelope on the desk—has just stepped out of the office.
But no one comes here on Saturday, and no one would come with a hurricane spinning in the Gulf of Mexico…would they?
Maybe she shouldn’t have come downtown. Carlos did not want her to come to work. When she insisted they needed the money, he told her to hurry home because Rafael will want his mamá if the weather gets ugly. So she promised to work quickly, even though her paycheck will be short if she doesn’t put in her full eight hours. There will be little money for groceries in the week ahead, but Carlos will put in extra hours at the gas station if he has to. If the storm doesn’t come and the gas station stays open.
Somehow, they will—how does Carlos say it? Make the nickels stretch.
She smiles as she runs her feather duster over the edge of the credenza and skims the letters on the computer keyboard. When the monitor flashes to life after she touches the egg-shaped thing they call a mouse, she backs away.
She has been warned about American tecnología. The government here has hidden wires in the walls to listen to phone calls and read e-mail messages. Cameras sit atop traffic lights and snap fotografías of passing cars; computers at the grocery know what she buys and when she buys it.
Computers make Isabel nervous. So many Americans depend on them, especially the people in this building. Sometimes she feels as if the sleeping computers watch her as she dusts, ready to spill her secrets if she touches them in the wrong way.
Florida’s attorney general has offices in this building—six floors of desks with computers—and his office terrifies her more than the others. She doesn’t know who the attorney general is or exactly what he does, but with such a title and so many employees, he must know everything about everyone in the state. Which means he might know about her…but doesn’t yet know he knows.
She must never give him a reason to search for any of her names on his computers.
She runs her duster over the back of Rossman’s chair, then peers out the wide window behind his desk. More color has filled the sky since her last look, but the sun is glowering behind a cloud. After giving the glass a quick spritz of cleaner, she swipes at nonexistent fingerprints. Apparently Mr. Rossman never stands at this window, never touches the glass out of appreciation for the view. Perhaps he takes the scene for granted.
She pauses as she looks toward the west. A series of darker clouds hovers in the distance, swallowing up the horizon’s light. The street lamps far below remain lit, but few vehicles move over the roads. Here and there, police cars hold a vigil at intersections, their lights flashing blue and red. Tampa appears quiet, almost deserted.
Donna Summer is singing “Any Way at All” when Isabel crosses the office. She is about to haul in the vacuum cleaner when she spies a large gold box resting on the arms of one of the visitor’s chairs. An extravagant bow adorns the lid, but the top of the box is askew and merely resting on the bottom. Someone has examined whatever lies inside and left the box open…almost.
What could be inside a box so beautiful?
She stands by the chair, wavering, then tosses her feather duster onto the cleaning cart outside the door. What would it matter if she takes a peek? She will not hurt a thing. She only wants to see what kind of present a rich American boss buys his esposa or novia.
She dislodges the fancy lid with a fingertip, then pushes it out of the way. A white softness lies inside the box, and on closer examination Isabel discovers a gloriously lush fur jacket.
“¡Está maravillosa!”
Oh, what she would give to have such a chaqueta. A man buys a coat like this only if his woman needs nothing else, for why would any woman need a fur coat in Florida? Owning a coat like this would mean the bills were paid, the baby had clothes and they owned a home of their own. No one in her hometown ever owned such a jacket, but on television she’s seen snowy landscapes populated by beautiful red-cheeked ladies in furs as white and lush as the snow surrounding them.
Isabel runs her hand over the garment, its softness like air beneath her palm. After glancing toward the door, she lifts the jacket out of the box and holds it up. The sleeves might be too long and the buttons a little tight, but what does that matter?
She turns to the mirror on the wall, then presses the jacket against her shoulders. The light color complements her dark hair and eyes, and the belt might make her look slender. She bites her lip, suffering a momentary jealousy of the woman who will claim this—why should she be so afortunada?
Isabel lowers her gaze as a wave of guilt slaps at her. What is she thinking? She has Carlos and Rafael and she is safe in wide, anonymous America. She might never own a fur like this, but she will never need one.
Still…maybe she could wear it for a minute?
Through the earbuds, Donna Summer urges her to follow her dreams.
Ingrained caution falls away as Isabel slips her arms into the coat. The silk lining, dyed to resemble a leopard pelt, feels glorious against her skin, and the fur collar softly tickles her throat. She wraps herself in the luxurious creation and ties the belt at her waist, then moves to the mirror to see if the chaqueta lives up to its unspoken promises.
A pale oval of apprehension stares out from the glass, then eases into a smile. Isabel relaxes with the stranger in the mirror, recognizing the fur-clad lady as a woman who could walk into any store in the country and not feel anxious. In this coat Isabel could shop at Nordstrom or Lord & Taylor; she could examine a fancy dress without some clerk rushing over to suggest that she would be better off looking…somewhere else.
She presses her hand to the soft collar and lifts her chin, determined to enjoy the moment. Even if by some miracle Carlos earns a raise and a promotion, they will always need money for Rafael’s food and clothes and medicine and school. One day her son will go to college; later he will become a doctor. He is an American, so he will speak good English and feel free to shop in any store. His wife might own a coat like this, and she will wear it with pride.
Isabel slips her hand into the pockets and flashes a movie-star smile at the mirror, then realizes one pocket is not empty. It contains a thin blue box, hinged on one side.
She gasps when she lifts the lid. On a bed of midnight velvet, dozens of diamonds have been strung together, more than she can count. It’s a pulsera, a bracelet, but unlike any bracelet Isabel has ever seen.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
The masculine voice rips through the music in Isabel’s ears. She whirls and sees a man—¿Señor Rossman?—coming out of the bathroom at the back of the suite, his hair wet and his shirtsleeves unbuttoned.
Terror lodges in her throat, making it impossible for her to reply.
CHAPTER 4
Gina fastens the clasp of the manila envelope, then stiffens at the sound of movement in the house. Is one of the children awake? Not likely this early on a Saturday morning, but Matthew might have decided to get up and turn on the Weather Channel. Of all the children, he alone seems to realize the danger Felix poses. The girls have grown inured to the threat of hurricanes; Samantha actually complained when she heard the malls would be closed today.
Gina tiptoes to her bedroom door, opens it a crack and listens. No sound comes from the upstairs bedrooms, so she must have heard the wind moving over the attic vents. She steps out and looks through the wide living-room windows, guaranteed to withstand hurricane-force winds. The curling fronds of the palms around the pool are swaying toward the sunrise, which means the wind is coming from the unsettled west.
Dangerous weather may be on its way, but she has plenty of time. The sky is cloudy, but not sagging; the wind is brisk, but not yet dangerous.
She inhales a deep breath to bolster her courage. She can proceed with her plan. She’ll freshen her makeup, pull on casual slacks and a light sweater. She needs to look like a devoted wife running upstairs to lend her husband a helping hand.
Few people, if any, will be in the building this morning. The first-floor deli, bank and florist are certain to be closed. She’ll speak to anyone she meets and make it clear that while Sonny may be workaholic enough to risk his neck, she’s not going to stick around. Maybe on the way out she should ask the security guard if the Pierpoint restaurant will open at all, implying that Sonny might need an afternoon snack.
She should be home before the kids wake up. Even if the wind rouses them, they’ll get breakfast and settle in front of the TV. A couple of hours could pass before they notice she’s gone.
Her family may not be perfect, but they are predictable. Sonny may not have come home last night, but the hurricane will force him to the office this morning, where he’ll be scurrying like a squirrel before an oncoming Mack truck. At the last possible moment, he’ll either run home or go to that woman’s place.
He has no right to that choice.
Gina slides the P.I.’s report under her mattress, then pauses before the dresser to run a brush through her hair. She can’t look unkempt or nervous today; she’s a dutiful wife on a mission of mercy.
She presses two fingers to her right temple as a baby migraine drums a faint rhythm on a nerve. Wait…what about the private investigator? If the police call him in, he’ll tell them that Gina knew about Sonny’s adultery.
Well…fine. She could say she’s suspected that Sonny had other women through the years. That he’s always been a scamp, and she hired the investigator to get hard proof of her husband’s infidelity so she could beg Sonny to stay for the sake of their children.
Knowledge might be a key to motive, but it’s not proof of murder. To find her guilty, they’ll have to send crime-scene investigators, the coroner and detectives.
Hard to do when a hurricane has paralyzed a city’s law-enforcement infrastructure.
She steps into her walk-in closet and selects a yellow sweater and black slacks from the cedar shelves. As she changes her clothing, grainy images rise on a surge of memory. During the news coverage of Hurricane Katrina, she couldn’t help thinking that a person could disappear without a trace in the midst of such confusion.
Bodies washed up everywhere in the aftermath of that storm. For weeks, police and rescue workers found corpses in attics, under debris, in swimming pools and ditches. The levees of New Orleans hemmed in the dead of that city, but there are no levees in Tampa. The rains will fall, the tides will surge and the water will retreat, taking many of the dead along with it. Those who aren’t washed out to sea will quickly and quietly decompose where they fell, adding yet another layer of stress to an overburdened police department.
Gina checks her reflection in the full-length mirror, then pulls her trench coat from a hanger. She will need its deep pockets.
Before leaving the bedroom, she walks to Sonny’s nightstand. The small gun waits inside the drawer, a Rohrbaugh R9 her husband insisted on buying “to protect the family.”
Exactly what she intends to do with it.
She shrugs her way into the trench coat, drops the weapon into one of the pockets, then pulls her keys from her purse. Her shoulder feels empty without her handbag, but today she will travel without it. If she’s stopped at an intersection, she doesn’t want to be able to produce identification or a wallet. A policeman is likely to forget a flustered face, but he might remember the name on a driver’s license.
She looks in the mirror and practices her lines: “I’m here only for a minute. I have to run upstairs.”
A guileless face smiles back at her.
In the great room, she listens to the rising wind and swats at an insistent gnat of worry. Downtown Tampa may be at Felix’s mercy, but the suburbs are braced for the worst. This three-year-old house meets the tough new building codes and Sonny has stocked the garage with water, batteries, flashlights and packaged snack foods.
Before leaving, she tiptoes up the thickly carpeted stairs to check on her children. Matthew’s door is ajar; she gives it a gentle push and sees him sprawled over his bed, arms and legs akimbo. A handsome auburn-haired nineteen-year-old with amazing potential, according to his high school counselor, Matthew represents the best of her and Sonny. He has taken a year off to work and gather what he calls “life experience.” While Gina admires his practicality, she suspects he’s postponed college because he knows his leaving will break his mother’s heart.
Seventeen-year-old Mandi has fallen asleep with her television still flickering in the corner. While one of the Three Stooges snorts and wheezes into the depths of an enormous handkerchief, Mandi snores like a lumberjack, her head back and mouth open. In the room next door, Samantha, Gina’s youngest, is curled under a puffy pink comforter, her head sharing the pillow with a bedraggled stuffed animal.
Gina lingers in the doorway and smiles at her baby. Samantha would die if she knew Gina was seeing her like this; at fifteen, she pretends to be past caring for the sentimental treasures of her childhood. Gina knows better, though. A mother always knows.
She closes Samantha’s door and blows a kiss toward each of her sleeping offspring. If she’s delayed, Matthew will watch out for his younger sisters until she returns home.
After the initial shock, her kids will be fine. She and the children only have to weather this one storm.
Michelle checks her reflection in the mirror, wipes a smudge of gloss from the edge of her lower lip and hopes Parker will look up from his paperwork long enough to appreciate her efforts to look nice on a blustery Saturday morning. The man has a tendency to be testy when under pressure, and he definitely didn’t get much sleep last night.
But he has a surprise for her. If all goes well, his surprise and her decision will complement each other.
She leaves the bathroom and moves through the living room, picking up drink glasses and napkins left behind on the coffee table. After setting the dishes in the kitchen sink, she returns to the living room and stops to press the power switch on the television remote. Several channels of kids’ cartoons flash in a blur until she finds a weather map. The fresh-faced newscaster holds a rain-coated toy poodle on one arm while he points to what looks like a frosted doughnut spinning toward Florida’s central west coast.
“Pressed by a descending cold front, Felix is taking a more northwesterly track than initially predicted,” the weathercaster says. “The hurricane is now expected to come ashore near Madeira Beach in less than twelve hours. If you haven’t evacuated and you live on the water, forget about leaving the county. The interstates are congested and you don’t want to be trapped on the highway. Instead, get to a shelter right away.”
Michelle glances at the clock on the wall—the storm won’t arrive until day’s end, but the winds could become dangerous long before Felix makes landfall. Then again, the hurricane could veer north or south and barely ripple the air, making fools of the people who have spent the last week slapping plywood on their windows and loading their pantry with toaster pastries. Over the years she’s done that herself, stockpiling bottled water she eventually uses to mist the ferns on her front porch.
But at this moment she has something more important to think about. Whether or not Felix reaches Tampa Bay, Parker will soon finish up at the office and head home to be with his kids. If she’s going to talk to him alone, she has to leave now. She could wait, but she doesn’t want to lose her nerve….
The television camera shifts to a reporter standing in front of a pile of rubble. “Bob Ruffalo here,” he says, squinting into a spotlight, “in Puerto Juarez on the Yucatán Peninsula. Twenty-six hours ago Hurricane Felix blew through this place with winds of one hundred forty miles per hour. What you see behind me was once a thriving village—now the village has all but disappeared beneath a mountain of debris. Forty-four people are dead, scores of men, women and children are missing—”
Michelle clicks off the power and drops the remote onto the sofa. She moves toward the door, but the image of the ruined village lingers on the back of her retinas. When she tries to imagine what sort of diamond Parker may have picked out, the only picture her mind supplies is that of a big-eyed Mexican girl in a torn and muddy dress—
She stops at the door and rakes her hand through her hair. Okay, she’ll admit it. This may not be the most appropriate day for personal ultimatums, but what can she do about hurricane victims in Mexico?
“Get a grip, Tilson,” she says, her voice echoing in the empty foyer. “The Yucatán is in a different country. Rural villages like that don’t even have building codes, but we do and they’re tough. You need to be tough, too.”
Maybe Lauren is right and Felix won’t come here…but if it does, she’ll be ready.
Michelle walks to the large front window that overlooks Tampa Bay, tests the lock with her thumb, and is reassured to find the frame sealed tight. The accordion shutters wait at the right and left, ready for her to secure them. Nothing short of a Learjet, the installer assured her, could blast through those shutters when they are locked and loaded.
In an hour, two at the most, she’ll be back, ready to button up the condo and ride out the storm…unless Parker convinces her he is finally ready to get serious about their future. If so, she’ll come home only long enough to close the shutters and pack a bag.
Elated by her renewed determination, she pulls her keys from her purse, opens her front door and strides toward the elevator.
She’s thirty-three years old and she wants a family. If Parker doesn’t want to join her, then she’ll find someone else, but she will not be kept dangling.
If all goes well, she will spend this night with Parker’s children by her side and his ring on her finger.
And she will not have yellow mums at her wedding.
8:00 a.m.
CHAPTER 5
As the wind fires sharp pellets of rain at his windshield, Eddie Vaughn turns up the volume on his radio. On the seat beside him, Sadie, his golden retriever, shifts her weight and gives him a beseeching look.
“Almost home, girl.” He slows to ease the pickup across a stream gushing through an intersection, then tears his gaze from the pavement to grin at the dog. “You ready to settle in and watch some TV? If the power goes out, I figured we could play a few rounds of Go Fish or do a crossword.”
Sadie makes a rhrrrumph sound deep in her throat, then lowers her chin to the top of the seatback and stares out the truck’s rear window.
Eddie forces himself to whistle a bar of “Singing in the Rain,” then gives up the effort. The dog is worried, and no amount of grinning or whistling is going to relieve her anxiety. He’s heard that animals can sense impending natural disasters—whether or not the rumor is true, Sadie has been antsy for the last couple of days.
Felix has been swirling around in the Caribbean for almost a week, but only in the last twelve hours has the storm drawn a bead on Tampa Bay.
When the cell phone on the seat buzzes, Eddie turns down the volume on the radio, then scoops up the phone with his free hand. “’Lo?”
“Hey, doll.” Charlene’s voice, crusty from chain-smoking, fills his ear. “Are they all squared away up there at Freedom Home?”
“You can scratch that one off your list, ma’am. Those folks aren’t going to be using the elevators anytime soon. The nurses have moved all the residents into the common room—the poor people who didn’t have anyone to pick them up, anyway.”
“Thanks for running up there, Eddie. I hated to call you out so early.”
“No big deal. I can go power ’em up after the storm passes, if you want.”
She croaks out a laugh as another phone rings in the background. “You must have gotten a look at my friend’s daughter. Did you meet Emily? She’d be the blonde, the one that looks like Pamela Anderson.”
Eddie brakes for a stop sign. “Yeah, I saw her. Pretty package. Nothing inside.”
“You’re too picky, Ed. Here I go out of my way to hook you up with a girl—”
“Give it a rest, Charlene, I’m doin’ fine.”
“But you’re too nice a guy to be livin’ all alone—”
“I’d rather live alone than try to talk to a woman who’s as shallow as a pie pan.” He catches a quick breath. “Don’t you have to answer that phone?”
Thankfully, the question derails the dispatcher’s train of thought. “Yeah, I’d better. Well, doll, you take care. Batten down the hatches and all that. Check in when you can.”
“You take care, too, Charlene. I’ll talk to you when it’s all over.”
He disconnects the call and tosses the phone back onto the seat. Sadie lowers her head to sniff at it as Eddie slants into the left lane, where the water isn’t as deep.
“Almost home, girl.”
Charlene’s well-intentioned meddling has turned his thoughts toward Alabama…and Heather. His memories of her are hazy now, blurred by time and the receding fog of pain.
Yet thoughts of Alabama still tighten his throat.
He turns up the volume on the radio. No music yet; the newscaster remains focused on the threatening weather: “Experts are saying Felix could wreak the kind of damage Charley did to Punta Gorda three years ago. The tidal surge could rise as high as twenty-two feet, enough to flood the downtown area, Tampa International Airport and MacDill Air Force Base.”
“Good thing we don’t live in Tampa, huh, Sades?”
Eddie clucks his tongue as he turns into his subdivision and peers through the pouring rain. His neighborhood seems deserted, which means people have either heeded the evacuation warnings or hunkered down inside their homes. Sheets of plywood or corrugated aluminum cover most of the windows and the seven dwarfs have disappeared from Mrs. Jackson’s flower bed. Jack Tomlinson has parked his wife’s minivan on the open lawn, away from the heavy oak tree that shades the south side of their house. Though the Tomlinson family’s garage is crowded with old newspapers, paint cans, sports equipment and tools (several of them on loan from Eddie), apparently Jack has found room for his Corvette.
“I’d like to repeat,” the radio announcer says, “that the governor has ordered the mandatory evacuation of ten coastal counties, warning that those who say behind face certain injury or death. If you’re not in a shelter and you live on the beach, you need to evacuate immediately to protect your own life.”
Eddie’s house, located on high ground in unincorporated Pinellas County, is part of a thirty-year-old subdivision built when contractors cared more for utility than aesthetics. The rainwater is draining properly on his street, a road lined by three-bedroom, two-bath structures of concrete block. Like its neighbors, his house isn’t fancy, but it has a fenced yard for Sadie, a small pool and a half-dozen shade trees to protect it from the sweltering summer sun.
Eddie hopes those leafy canopies survive the approaching hurricane. Last year even the storms that merely swiped at Pinellas County toppled hundreds of trees, which damaged cars and homes as they fell. Not even a house of concrete block can withstand a direct hit from a sprawling two-hundred-year-old live oak.
“Officials estimate that 487,000 people in Hillsborough County alone have had to seek shelter,” the newscaster continues, “and over 550,000 have filled shelters in Pinellas County. They’re fortunate—the Florida Highway Patrol has halted access to the interstate system, and those who haven’t made it across Pinellas County’s two bridges and single causeway are out of luck. Wherever you are, I hope you’re safely tucked away and not on the road.”
“You and me both, bud,” Eddie says, turning into his driveway. He pulls the pickup under the carport, then steps out of the truck. He doesn’t have to call Sadie—she leaps out behind him, a graceful golden blur on a beeline for the back door.
He laughs as he looks for his house key. “Ready to go inside, are you? Me, too. Let’s eat while we still have power to the microwave.”
Sadie scratches at the threshold, then sits back and waits for Eddie to slip the key into the lock. After opening the door, he takes one last look around before following the dog into the house. The garbage cans have been hauled into the utility room, the bird feeders tucked into a sheltered corner of the carport. He has covered his windows with plywood, turned the glass-topped patio table upside down on a mat of old towels and tossed his aluminum lawn chairs into the pool. He and Sadie have bottled water, a battery-powered radio, canned foods, a manual can opener, a stash of cash and a full gas can—enough supplies to get them through a couple of weeks, if necessary.
Satisfied with his preparations, he steps into the utility room and locks the door, securing the dead bolt, as well. The dead bolt would stop a human intruder, but he’s not sure it will hold against a category-four wind.
A year ago, when he left Alabama to escape an emotional storm, he never dreamed he’d be exchanging one kind of disaster for another. All things considered, though, the literal storms are easier to handle.
“God, help us,” he murmurs, one hand on the doorknob. Then he turns and whistles for the dog.
Because a man on the radio keeps insisting the police have blocked the downtown exits off I-275, Gina avoids the interstate and drives toward Sonny’s office along a less-traveled route. Several ominous clouds have swept in from the bay by the time she reaches the edge of the downtown district; a gray curtain of rain hangs beneath them, obscuring her view of the river.
On her approach to the Platt Street Bridge, she spots a policeman sitting in his cruiser. The brim of his hat shifts toward the rearview mirror, so he’s seen her.
Well…Sonny always says it’s easier to beg forgiveness than permission. She could almost believe he was counting on her forgiveness for the affair…if she hadn’t found the bankbook.
Rage rises in her cheeks as she stomps on the gas and steers around the police officer.
On the far side of the bridge, she looks in her mirror and sees the cop stepping out of his car. He might be frustrated, but he won’t stop her. He’s needed at his post.
Sonny is needed at home, but where has he been lately? With his mistress. With a young, pretty trophy tartlet.
She turns north and heads up Ashley Drive, then brakes at an intersection. No one else moves on this riverside street, not even the police. She glances at the wet road, where the traffic light shivers in red reflection beside her car, then turns the asphalt green.
She drives on. The haze of gasoline and diesel fumes that usually hovers over the downtown streets has been replaced by a thick humidity. She can almost feel the skin of the storm swelling like an overripe grapefruit. Soon it will burst.
Just as she will burst if she fails to act.
She is overcome with a memory, unshakable and vivid, of a character in a Flannery O’Connor short story. The woman’s thin skin is described as “tight as the skin on an onion” and her gray eyes are “sharp like the points of two ice picks.”
Today Tampa wears the look of O. E. Parker’s coldhearted wife.
After passing the light at Jackson, she spots the flashing bubble of another police vehicle. To avoid it, she heads the wrong direction down Kennedy, a one-way street, then breaks the law again as she drives north on southbound Tampa. After a quick turn, she pulls into the whitewashed entrance of the Lark Tower’s parking garage and guides her car up the slanted driveway.
At the entry gate, she presses the red button, then takes a ticket. She looks to her left, where the parking attendant’s booth stands empty. The garage, in fact, is as quiet as a ghost town.
The black-and-white striped arm lifts, allowing her to enter. She turns and glances in the rearview mirror. No lights flash behind her; no siren breaks the stillness. She glories briefly in her accomplishment, then follows the curving arrows past the visitors’ parking to the third level, reserved for tenants.
She smiles after rounding the corner. Her instincts about her husband were spot-on, as usual: Sonny’s silver BMW is snuggled into its reserved space. He must have been in a hurry when he arrived, for he pulled in at an angle, carelessly trespassing on another tenant’s parking place.
“How rude, darling.” Purposely remaining between the painted lines, Gina pulls into the space next to the BMW and crinkles her nose as the front of her Mercedes just misses her husband’s back bumper.
She would have liked to hit his precious car, but she can’t afford to indulge a childish whim. She needs to get in and out of the building with as little fuss as possible.
Gina kills the engine, then pulls her keys from the ignition. Pistol in the right pocket, keys in the left. She steps out of the car, gives Sonny’s unblemished bumper a regretful smile and strides toward the elevators on legs that tremble despite the dead calm in her heart.
The designers of the Lark Tower have done their part to ease Tampa’s traffic congestion by reserving the six lowest floors for parking. On an ordinary day all six levels would be filled by tenants and visitors, but most of the spaces are vacant now.
The garage is heavy with after-hours quiet, broken only by the echo of Gina’s footsteps and the tick of her cooling engine. She glances over her shoulder to be sure she’s alone, but no one has driven in or out since her arrival. Most everyone, apparently, has gone home.
Sonny should have gone home, too. If he hadn’t been playing around with his girlfriend last night, he wouldn’t need to come to the office this morning.
Twelve elevators at the center of the building provide access to the Lark Tower’s thirty-six floors. Six of the elevators are express, stopping only at levels one through seven and office levels twenty-five through thirty-six. A second bank of six elevators serves the first through twenty-fifth floors. A special plaque announces the eighth-floor location of the renowned Pierpoint Restaurant, home to one of Tampa’s finest chefs.
Since Sonny’s office is on the uppermost level, Gina steps into the air-conditioned space at the express landing and presses the call button. While she waits, she checks her reflection in the polished bronze doors. In order to surprise her cheating husband, she needs one more thing.
With Florida’s attorney general occupying five and a half floors of office space at the top of the building, the Lark Tower’s uppermost levels aren’t accessible to the public. Every visitor has to obtain an access card before the elevator will rise to the thirty-sixth floor, and Sonny believes the extra layer of security lends the offices of Rossman Life and Liability a certain cachet.
A bell dings to signal an elevator’s arrival. Gina steps into the car, then turns and presses the button for the lowest level. The polished doors slide together, then the car lowers her to the marble-tiled lobby.
Gina moves into the open area and strides toward the security station, where a tubby older man in a blue uniform blinks at her approach. She doesn’t recognize him, nor, apparently, does he know her. Not surprising, since she hasn’t visited Sonny’s office in months.
Behind a granite-topped counter, the guard slides off his stool. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” he calls, his voice ringing against the marble walls, “but the building is closed. We’re under an evacuation order.”
Something in his appearance—perhaps the stun gun attached to his belt—sends a wave of reality crashing over her, as hard as the terrazzo beneath her loafers. She is about to do something that cannot be undone. She has planned a heinous act, a deed that would cause her children to gasp in revulsion if they knew what she had in mind.
Can she really go through with this?
How easy it would be to smile at the security guard, profess ignorance of the evacuation and take the elevator back to the parking garage. She could drive home to her sleeping children. They would never know what she’d planned or how far she’d gone—
But they need not know anything. She won’t tell them about this, or the bankbook, or the forty-three-thousand-dollar bracelet Sonny gave to his Don CeSar date. She’ll keep everything from them, just as Sonny has kept secrets from her for who knows how many years.
Yet some secrets refuse to stay buried. Matthew might find something in the office or Samantha might run into someone at the club who knows that woman. Idle gossip is a powerful force, and even if her plan goes off without a hitch, someone might guess at the truth….
She sways on her feet as the walls blur and only half hears the security guard’s alarmed question: “Ma’am? Are you all right?”
She puts out a hand and grips the edge of the counter. “Just give me…a minute.”
Can she continue to ignore Sonny’s late hours? Can she pretend she doesn’t notice another woman’s perfume on his shirts? When the inevitable occurs and he comes in to ask for a divorce, can she look her children in the eye and say she didn’t see it coming?
She can’t. She sees, she knows, and she has to stop Sonny from ripping her family apart.
She blinks at the guard and forces her lips to bend in a curved, still smile. “Sorry about that,” she says, realizing that this man could be called to testify at her trial. “I should have stopped to grab a bite of breakfast.”
The guard’s brow wrinkles with concern. “Should I call a doctor? Get you something to eat?”
“I’m fine now, thanks.” She broadens her smile. “My husband is tending to some last-minute details in his office. I thought I’d help him out—you know, speed things along so he can come home.”
The man’s look of unease deepens. “I’m not supposed to let any visitors go up. We’ve been experiencing blackouts and I wouldn’t want to be responsible—”
“Don’t worry.” She flattens her hands against the countertop and softens her smile. “I’m sure I can talk him into leaving the building eventually. But I need an access card.”
The man crosses his arms and folds his hands into his armpits. “No can do, ma’am. Why don’t you call him? There’s a phone around the corner—”
The ding of the elevator interrupts. Gina pivots, half expecting to see Sonny, but the man who steps into the lobby is a stranger. He comes forward, drops a sealed envelope onto the security desk, then returns to the elevator. An instant later he reappears, pushing a cart loaded with cardboard file boxes.
Gina transfers her gaze from the stranger to the wealth of silver hair on the guard’s forearms. “You let that man go up.”
The tip of the guard’s nose goes pink as he shoves the envelope into a drawer. “I—I can’t stop anybody with a pass key. They come straight from the garage and go up, nothing I can do about that. But I’ve been told to clear the building by ten o’clock, so that’s what I aim to do.”
“The thing is,” Gina says, lowering her voice, “I haven’t been able to reach my husband by phone. I’m worried and I need to see him.”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t give you a card.” Despite his concerned expression, the guard is proving to be about as flexible as a brick wall. “I didn’t even program any visitor’s cards this morning, on account of the evacuation order. So you can sit and wait or you can call your husband, but I can’t give you an access card.”
Maybe she can sweet talk him into going upstairs with her. Once she’s on the thirty-sixth floor, he ought to let her walk to Sonny’s office alone.
“I’m worried,” she repeats, meeting the man’s gaze. “Sonny doesn’t answer his phone. Could you—could we go up together and see if he’s okay?”
The man frowns, glances at the elevators, then shakes his buzz-cut head. “Can’t leave my post. The other guards didn’t come in today, on account of the hurricane. I’m supposed to leave in a couple of hours. The entire building’s gotta be evacuated.”
Sonny used to say she could charm the sting out of a bee, but she must be losing her touch.
Sighing, Gina scans the desk behind the counter. No access cards in sight, but they’re probably in a drawer. She has no idea how to program one, but if Deputy Dawg can do it, surely she can figure it out.
She smiles, then lowers her arms and slips her right hand into her pocket. Reluctantly, she grips the gun. “I suppose you’ve left me with only one choice.”
CHAPTER 6
After dodging traffic cops, gyrating stoplights and barricades, Michelle pulls onto North Tampa and squints through the blurred arc made by her windshield wipers. Is that a perfect line of empty parking spaces on the street? She’s been renting office space in the Lark Tower for two years, but until now she’s never been able to park on the curb.
She whips her car into a prime spot, then pushes the car door into the steady rain. Flurries of paper and leaves fly past her in a pirouetting whirlwind that tugs at the canopies of the neatly trimmed live oaks. The radio weathercaster has been predicting intermittent rain for the next several hours, with increasing wind speeds until well after sunset.
Michelle grabs an empty Applebee’s take-out bag and holds it over her head as she dashes toward the lobby entrance, her raincoat rippling and snapping in the wind.
Maybe she’s crazy for coming here. Lauren would certainly think so, but Lauren has a ring on her finger and a date on the caterer’s books. More to the point, Lauren’s biological clock is running at least five years behind Michelle’s.
Though she’s almost positive Parker is preparing to propose, she can’t let this opportunity for action slip away. The threat of an imminent hurricane ought to make it easy for him to get serious about drawing his loved ones close, but the man might need a nudge toward matrimony. If this wild weather isn’t enough to make him think about his responsibility to her as well as his children, her ultimatum should be.
The rising wind whooshes past her, clawing at the Applebee’s bag and whipping her raincoat around her frame. She nearly falls on the rain-slicked pavement near the building entrance, but catches the brass bar on a lobby door. The door seems heavier today, and she struggles against it until the wind pries the Applebee’s bag from her fingers and whips it across the street, then releases it like a free-floating parachute. With both hands she pushes against the door until it moves, but a gust of wind follows her into the building, rattling the leaves of two potted ficus trees standing guard at the perimeter of the lobby.
Flustered, she shakes water from her hair and looks around. The sandwich shop, florist, bank and office center are all locked and closed, their interiors dark. No one sits in the lounge chairs scattered among the massive bowls of bromeliads, but she glimpses movement at the security station beyond the reception area.
Good to know she’s not alone in the building.
After wiping raindrops from her face, she settles her wet purse on her shoulder and strides toward the security guard, who is talking to a woman in a tan trench coat. She calls out a greeting as she heads toward the elevator landing. “Surprised to see you this morning, Gus.”
“Miss Tilson, wait.” Stepping away from the woman in the trench coat, the guard lifts his arm to hold her attention. “We’re urging all tenants to evacuate immediately. Haven’t you seen the news?”
She gestures toward the elevators. “I’ll only be a few minutes. I need to run upstairs and pick up a file.”
“Come on, now.” Gus hikes up his belt and gives her a look of paternal disapproval. “You shouldn’t even be downtown in this weather. We’re locking the building at ten and I’m not supposed to let any visitors into the office areas.”
Her mouth twists in an expression that’s not quite a smile. When will he realize she doesn’t need his protection? “I’m not a visitor, Gus, I’m a paying tenant and I need to go to my office.”
“But, Miss Tilson—”
“That storm is hours away and I’ll only be a few minutes. Thanks for your concern, but I’m going upstairs.”
Gus’s features crumple with frustration, but he retreats to his stool.
Michelle walks to the express elevators and presses the call button, then crosses her arms. According to the lit panels above the doors, one car is on the second level of the parking garage; the others are scattered among floors twenty-five through thirty-six.
The woman in the trench coat steps onto the carpet at the landing and catches Michelle’s eye. “Tilson?” she asks. “Tilson Corporate Careers?”
Michelle gives her a perfunctory smile. “Yes.”
“Ah.” The woman nods and looks away. “I’ve seen your name on the registry.”
Michelle frowns, wondering if she should know this woman, but then the light above the middle car shifts from thirty-six to thirty-five.
Could Parker be on his way down?
After pressing the button that will take her to the maintenance department, Isabel turns and drops her forehead to the elevator’s back wall. What is she going to do? If the authorities find out what happened, they might arrest her, maybe even put her in prison. She has tried her best to avoid trouble, but trouble seems to find her at every turn, even in los Estados Unidos.
Ernesto said she wouldn’t be able to run forever, but she has to try. Again. She and Carlos and Rafael must go someplace where they will never be found.
As the elevator descends with a smooth whoosh, Isabel feels a rush of gratitude for its speed. If this were a weekday morning, the building would be so crowded it would take forever for the express to travel from the top of the building to the custodial office on the seventh floor. Today, however, the elevator escorts her to the lower level without interruption.
The bronze doors slide open, revealing a concrete hallway, scraped walls, dented lockers and another cleaning cart—
No.
Isabel’s hand flies to her mouth. She left her cart in Rossman’s outer office. Anyone who sees it will know she was there…and might guess why she left in a panic.
As the elevator door begins to close, she thrusts out her arm and stops it.
What should she do? She could clock out, go to her car and drive home. She’d have to beg Carlos to leave the area because he wouldn’t want to go, not with the hurricane coming. Driving on old tires in a storm would be dangerous.
But how can they escape when la policía are positioned throughout the city? They will stop the car and they will want to know why Carlos waited so long to leave. Carlos is a good man; he will not lie and Isabel will not allow him to lie for her. So she will tell the truth, and they will put her in jail and tell the attorney general that a criminal has been working under his nose all these many months….
She can’t run, not today. She will have to wait, talk to Carlos, pray that the authorities never learn that she was in Rossman’s office this morning.
So she must go back upstairs and get her cart.
When the elevator buzzes to protest the prolonged stop, Isabel takes a half step back and allows the doors to close. As the car begins to move, she returns to the back wall and presses her hand to her chest, where a bulky, cold lump is scraping against her breastbone. Things will be all right. She can get her cart, return it to the seventh floor, clock out and go home. Her secret will keep; no one will know for hours, maybe days.
A chill shivers her skin when the car stops on the ground floor. The lobby.
¿Qué pasa? Her thoughts whirl in a rush, then she remembers: she forgot to push the button. Someone in the lobby must have called the elevator, and this was the closest car.
Though it hurts to draw breath, Isabel reminds herself to stay calm and keep her head down. She can’t let anyone see the distress in her eyes or her trembling hands. Fortunately, few people in this place ever really see her. They pass in an office or hallway and notice her no more than they notice the potted plants or the exit signs above every stairwell doorway.
She steps to the far right corner of the car as the bronze doors open. Mi querido Dios, let me remain alone a little longer….
God must not be listening. The sweet scent of perfume reaches her nostrils as dos gringas enter the car.
Isabel holds her breath as the first woman, a slim brunette, pulls out her access card, slips it into the security slot and presses the button for thirty-six.
The other woman stands silent against the left wall, her hands shoved into the pockets of her tan coat. The lump in Isabel’s chest grows heavier when the second woman does not move to press any of the elevator’s many buttons.
Are they all riding to the thirty-sixth floor?
Michelle smiles at the woman who followed her into the car. “Can I press a button for you?”
The woman shifts her gaze from the elevator panel to Michelle’s face. “No, thank you.” Her shoulder-length hair, a vibrant shade of red, is far drier than Michelle’s, so she must have parked in the garage.
Smart lady.
Out in the lobby, Gus has left his station and is rocking toward them on stiff hips. “Ladies, I have to close this building and leave by ten, so I really must advise—”
Michelle is about to ratchet the argument up a notch when the redhead steps forward and jabs the Door Close button. The doors slide together before the security guard can reach them.
Michelle laughs. “He really doesn’t want us to go upstairs.”
The other woman shrugs. “I really don’t care what he wants.”
“I think we’re all a little on edge today.” Michelle glances at the cleaning woman at the back of the car, but she seems to be studying the floor. A pink portable CD player is clipped to her sweater pocket, and from it a gray wire snakes toward her head and ends in a pair of earbuds.
Michelle snorts softly and turns back toward the front of the car. No wonder the housekeeper is oblivious. She probably hasn’t heard a word they’ve said.
She pulls the edges of her raincoat together as the express elevator begins its ascent. Time to focus on Parker. In a moment she’ll be face-to-face with the man who could be the love of her life. She’ll hear what he has to say and he’ll listen to her.
After he hears her challenge, he’ll either react with joy, indifference or irritation. Maybe he’s been waiting for her to state her willingness to start a family; maybe he’s never guessed that a successful career woman might want a husband and children.
On the other hand…maybe he thinks three children are enough. Maybe he’s done a little digging in her past and he doesn’t want her to play any role in his kids’ lives. Maybe he doesn’t want a wife because he’s content with a part-time lover.
If he’s that narrow-minded, she’ll either win him over or she’ll move on. But she will not worry about the future. Since becoming independent, she’s never encountered an obstacle she couldn’t overcome…one way or another.
Gina stares at the bronze elevator panel and struggles to corral her racing thoughts. The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry….
Who said that, Shakespeare? No. Burns, but not in those exact words. Saikaku, that Japanese poet, phrased it another way: there is always something to upset the most careful of human calculations.
She should have allowed for Murphy’s law, chaos theory, whatever they’re calling it these days. She should have realized the security guard might give her a hard time. She should have considered the possibility that other people might share a ride in the elevator.
She had been certain the thirty-sixth floor would be deserted by the time she arrived, but these two women are on their way to that same landing.
In this situation, three is definitely a crowd.
Gathering up the pearls at her throat, Gina cuts a glance to the woman across the car. The tall and slender stranger holds herself like a model or a dancer. Miss Tilson, the guard called her, and Gina recognized the name from an office on the thirty-sixth floor. What else had she said? She’d come to pick up a file?
Must be a terribly important client.
The brunette, who has closed her eyes and is leaning against the wall, doesn’t notice Gina’s scrutiny. She’s wearing jeans, but they’re adorned with a designer logo and the blouse beneath the raincoat has the soft sheen of silk. Her nails are short and neatly trimmed, her glasses tortoiseshell, her hair a chic brown cap. Even in denim and sneakers, the woman radiates success. She’s the type to notice things…so she’s one to avoid.
When the maid coughs, the brunette lifts her head and Gina hastily looks away. She’d give anything to be invisible at this moment, but she’ll settle for remaining anonymous.
She leans against the wall and peers over her shoulder at the thick Hispanic woman in the pink uniform. The maid is studying the floor—maybe she resents the water dripping off the brunette’s raincoat. Gina lifts a brow at the sight of the earbuds—what’s she listening to, mariachi music? In any case, she must be doing well. The managers of the Lark Tower take good care of their employees, even the foreigners.
She shifts her gaze as she thinks of the Hispanic families Sonny has insured over the years. Many of the Cubans in Tampa’s Ybor City are quite prosperous; she’s lost count of the quinceañeras she and Sonny have attended to celebrate the fifteenth birthdays of clients’ daughters. Those people spare no expense to honor their blossoming young women; they spend buckets of money on food, bands and party dresses.
If only they spent as much insuring their belongings and their loved ones. How many will be adequately covered if Felix rips their homes apart?
Gina folds her arms. Ordinarily she wouldn’t be aware of the other passengers in an elevator, but today she needs to notice everything. If the police ever launch an investigation into Sonny’s death, they’ll try to track down anyone who was in the building today.
The maid is not likely to be a threat. Many of Tampa’s Hispanics are transient; this woman may not even be around by the time Sonny’s case is investigated.
No need to worry about the maid, then. The brunette is a different story. With her, Gina should be polite, but detached. She should stay calm and try not to do anything that might stick in the woman’s memory.
She slides her right hand back into her pocket and curls her fingers around the pistol. She will warm it with her flesh, prepare it for the task ahead.
She must be patient and courageous. In less than five minutes she’ll be facing her husband; in less than ten minutes he’ll be dead.
She frowns at a sudden thought. How thick are the walls in this building? If either of these women hears the shot, will they assume they are hearing some noise associated with the approaching storm or will they run for help? Gina has never heard a live gunshot, but she’s read that distant gunfire often sounds like firecrackers. Surely no one would think it remarkable to hear a vague pop or two amid the howling of the wind.
She tilts her head and looks at the two women—neither of them look like the hero type, but maybe she ought to sit and chat Sonny up while these ladies do whatever they’ve come up here to do. Fifteen minutes of polite talk about the kids ought to be enough time…. Or maybe she should let Sonny know she found his secrets in the safe. After he’s had a chance to rattle off his excuses and protestations, she can give him the bullet he deserves.
A wry smile tugs at the corner of her mouth. Letting Sonny have a last word…why, that’d be more than fair. That’d be absolutely honorable.
After the deed is done, she might linger in Sonny’s office, giving the hurricane time to move closer. The police are already so strained it’s unlikely anyone will be dispatched if a shot is reported, but she shouldn’t take any chances.
While she waits, she’ll wipe her prints off the pistol and drop it on the floor. No one will think it strange that a successful downtown businessman was carrying his legal, registered weapon on a day like this. The scenario will make perfect sense—looters caught her workaholic husband in his office after the building had been evacuated. Sonny pulled out his gun; a trespasser wrested it away from him; Sonny caught a bullet. The murderer wiped the weapon clean and dropped it before leaving the office suite.
What could be more logical?
So she will proceed with her plan…even if it means spending an extra hour with a dead husband. Sonny’s been dead to her these last few months, anyway. When he does come home, he spends his time in his den, watching TV and reading the paper….
She can’t remember the last time he looked into her eyes and asked her opinion about anything.
Like that mother who drowned her children and then lined them up on the bed, Gina might pull Sonny into his executive chair, adjust his tie and roll him closer to the vulnerable windows. The windows might break in the storm, and water would do its part to eradicate any trace evidence she might leave—
She blinks as the overhead lights flicker and the elevator shudders to a stop. She looks at the panel—the thirty-six has gone dark. The seven is still lit, but they’ve been traveling far too long to be near the seventh floor. Because the twenty-five has not yet lit, she can only assume they have stopped somewhere between the seventh and twenty-fifth floors.
The brunette looks up and catches her eye. “This can’t be good.”
Gina doesn’t answer. As long as the lights remain on, they have power. As long as they have power, surely the elevator can move.
Without speaking, she steps in front of the brunette and presses the button for the thirty-sixth floor. The button won’t light and the car doesn’t budge.
“Let’s try this.” The brunette pulls her access card from the pocket of her jeans and slips it into the slot, then presses the thirty-six with a manicured fingertip. As some unseen power source hums, the car begins to rise.
Gina exhales the breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. The brunette leans against the far wall and grimaces. “That’d be just what we need, wouldn’t it?”
Gina watches the elevator panel. They’re still rising in the concrete shaft, but the twenty-five has not yet lit.
Behind her, the cleaning woman barks another cough. Gina grimaces and hopes the maid doesn’t have avian flu or some other awful disease. Ventilation is terrible in elevators; what one person exhales, another inhales.
She stares at the twenty-five on the elevator panel, willing the button to light.
The brunette lifts her head, doubtless about to utter some other scintillating bon mot, then the lights flicker again; the elevator stops and darkness swallows the car.
9:00 a.m.
CHAPTER 7
Cold terror sprouts between Michelle’s shoulder blades and prickles down her backbone. Not even a glimmer of light remains in the enclosed space.
She presses her hand to her chest, which has begun to suffer short, stabbing pains. She hasn’t felt these invisible arrows in years, but she knows the paralyzing pricks of panic all too well.
Get a grip, count to ten, breathe deeply. You’re a grown woman and everything’s fine; this is an elevator, not the trailer.
Sounds trickle into the car, a faint buzz followed by a steady tick. When a small bulb on the elevator panel blooms into light, Michelle inhales an unsteady breath and looks at the others. The housekeeper’s fear is visible in her trembling chin and wide eyes, but the redhead’s face is as blank as a mask. Something about the woman ignites a spark from Michelle’s memory cells, but after an instant the ember burns out.
When she is certain she can speak in a steady voice, she asks, “Are we all right?”
The redhead doesn’t respond, but the cleaning woman pulls the earbuds from her ears and dips her chin in a solemn nod.
“Then let me see if I can get us out of here.”
All the buttons on the elevator panel remain dark. Michelle presses the thirty-six, but the car doesn’t respond. She tries again with her access card in the security slot, but none of the buttons light at her touch, not even the L for Lobby. Finally she punches the Door Open button with her knuckle and holds it while she counts to five.
Nothing.
She slowly exhales a breath. She will not panic. There’s a light; she can see; she is no longer a child. No one here wants to hurt her.
She turns to the others. “Gus mentioned occasional blackouts—” she forces a smile “—so I’ll bet that’s what this is. As soon as the power kicks on, we’ll start moving again.”
She glances from Ms. Trench Coat to the housekeeper, but her companions are as unresponsive as the elevator controls.
“This same thing happened to me a few months ago.” In an effort to ease the tension, she locks her hands behind her back and leans against the wall. “I was stuck with a group of lawyers for about fifteen minutes. No big deal, except they kept arguing about who they should bill for their lost time.”
Neither woman smiles, leaving Michelle to wonder if they belong to some legal eagles’ antidefamation league. The redhead stares at the control panel as if she could diagnose the dead circuits with X-ray vision. The cleaning woman takes a tissue from her sweater pocket and blots pearls of perspiration from her forehead.
“Excuse, please?” The housekeeper lifts her hand and points to the light fixture on the panel. “We have light, no? So we have electricidad?”
“We have some power,” Michelle says, relieved that she is no longer talking to herself. “When I moved into my office, the building manager said something about the emergency systems being powered by a backup generator. We’ll be fine. We just have to wait for the main system to come back on. Of course—” she raps the plastic dome over the light with her knuckle “—for all I know, this thing might be powered by batteries.”
The woman nods, but a worry line has crept between her brows. “When power comes back—we will go down?”
Michelle shrugs. “I would imagine we’ll keep going up, since we were heading in that direction. But what does it matter? As long as we make it to any floor, we can open the doors and get to the staircase. So we’re fine. Maybe we should even be grateful. At least we’re not falling to the bottom of the shaft.”
She chuckles at her feeble joke, but the sound dies in her throat when the cleaning woman’s round face ripples with anguish.
“Don’t worry,” Michelle hastens to add. “This elevator is not going to fall. That only happens in bad movies.”
The housekeeper acknowledges Michelle’s comment with a slight nod, but Ms. Trench Coat either doesn’t appreciate Michelle’s attempt at humor or she’s not listening.
Michelle crosses her arms and leans against the wall, not certain where to rest her gaze. The little lamp is now glowing at maximum wattage, a token effort that doesn’t eliminate the shadows at the back of the car.
Michelle faces the doors and clenches her hand until her nails slice into her palm. Shadows and closed spaces elicit far too many painful memories.
“Michelle Louise Tills! Where are you, girl?”
The girl wriggled forward, digging her elbows into the soft earth, pulling her body through the narrow space. Dust and dirt rose with every movement, tickling her nose, but she would not sneeze. She wouldn’t make a sound, not as long as Momma waited out there.
“Where are you, Shelly? You’d better come out before I have to come lookin’ for you.”
Shelly moved deeper into the shadows, the raspy voice scraping like a razor’s edge against the back of her neck. Beyond the lattice apron, a blue warbler perched in the tall pine at the edge of the lot, calling Zhee zhee zizizizi zzzzeeet.
Shh, bird. Don’t tell.
“Shel-leeeeeey! I’d better not find you messin’ around with those boys!”
Past the fraying lawn chairs, the sun warmed the asphalt drive where the Smith boys were playing keep-away. The girl could hear Job Smith’s voice ricocheting among the trailers as he teased his younger brother, calling him noodle arms and stork legs….
“Shelly Louise! You get out here this minute or I’ll—well, you get out here. I’m losin’ my patience!”
Her mother’s words, pitched to reach the edge of the lot and no farther, were already softly slurred and she hadn’t even begun what she called “serious drinkin’.” In a while, if the girl was lucky, the woman would give up and go inside the trailer, forgetting about her child while she focused on the tall bottle of amber-colored liquid that demanded every drop of a worshipper’s devotion.
Shelly dropped her arms onto the soft dirt, then rested her cheek on her hands. If she could lie perfectly, soundlessly still, maybe she could become invisible. Maybe she could go away and wake up as someone else’s little girl.
Her mother’s slippers shuffled from the last porch step to the lawn chairs, her pale legs casting twin shadows that stretched toward Shelly like tongs. Instinctively, the girl recoiled, lifting her head so quickly that it clunked against the bottom of the trailer.
She squinched her eyes shut as the top of her head throbbed. Pretty, pretty please, don’t let her hear.
When Shelly lifted one eyelid, her mother was crouched on all fours, eyes hard and shining through the lattice at the bottom of the trailer. “Young lady, get yourself out here right now.”
Shelly put her hands over her eyes and wished the image away. A minute passed, maybe two. She breathed in the scents of earth and dust while the Smith boys laughed and the warbler sang so maybe everything was all right—
When she lifted her gaze, her mother was sucking at the inside of her cheek while her thin brows rose and fell like a pair of seesaws. “Shelly! You don’t want me to have to come in there after you.”
Dread gave the girl courage. “Go away!”
“Michelle Louise! I’m gonna count to three and you’d better be out here! You don’t want to test me, girlie. One! Two! Three!”
Though a warning voice whispered in her head, Shelly didn’t move. She waited, shivering from a chill that had nothing to do with the mountain air, until her mother straightened up and moved away.
Could winning be that easy? Momma was a proud woman, in those days as protective of her reputation as she was of her liquor bottles. A good woman never drank in public, she often assured Shelly, and a good woman took care of her man and her kid before she took care of herself.
The girl looked toward the gravel driveway, where her father’s pickup wasn’t. Daddy was still at the mine; he wouldn’t be home until after dark.
She’d come out if he were here. She’d climb into his arms and ride his bony hip into the house. She’d be happy to see him, even if they found Momma passed out on the sofa. Her daddy loved her, but he was rarely home.
She had just buried her face in her folded arms when new sounds reached her ear—the steady swish of tall grass and the heavy heh, heh, heh of a panting animal. Shelly spun on her belly, turning toward the gap in the lattice where she had wormed her way in.
She saw her mother’s legs scissoring through the grass, accompanied by four brown-and-white paws, a small head, a snarling muzzle and two rows of jagged teeth.
“I’ve got Harley,” her mother called, a victorious edge to her voice. “And I’m gonna let him go if you don’t come out this instant. What’s it gonna be, Michelle Louise? Shall I send Harley in after you?”
For an instant the girl couldn’t speak. The neighbor’s pit bull haunted her nightmares and often drove her from peaceful sleep into her father’s arms. Harley had never actually threatened her, but he bore an unfortunate resemblance to a dog that had attacked her once, pinning her to the ground while it ripped at her upper lip.
A thin scar still marked the spot.
“No, Momma.” Torn between her desire to surrender and her fear of the waiting beast, Shelly rose as high as she could. “I’ll come, Momma, but get rid of the dog.”
“He’s stayin’ right by my side until you walk yourself through that front door.”
“Momma, I’ll come, but I don’t like that dog.”
“I’m not gonna argue with you, Shelly. Get your fanny out from under there and get in the house.”
Shelly gulped down a sob and crawled forward, then froze when the dog lifted his head, ears pricked to attention. When he growled deep in his throat, she knew he could see her…or he smelled her fear.
Dogs know, the Smith boys had told her. Dogs know when you’re scared of ’em. When they smell your fear, they’ll attack ’cause they know they can take you down.
“Momma?” She bit the inside of her lip and looked toward the pale legs. She could see the edge of the housecoat, a blue fabric scattered with white daisies. “Momma, take Harley away and I’ll come out.”
A fly, drawn by her sweat, hit her face and bounced away, then circled and landed on her cheek.
“Momma?”
“I’m still here.” Her mother’s voice had gone flat, almost pleasant. Anyone passing by might have thought she was waiting to give her daughter a welcome-home hug.
Harley growled and pulled at the leash. Shelly rocked back on her haunches, one hand pressed to her mouth as a cry bubbled up from someplace in her chest. She tried to choke off the sound, but she failed and began to sob in a high, pitiful, coughing hack. “Ma-ma! I—can’t—come—with—”
“Stop your cryin’, Shel, I didn’t raise no coward. I’ll hold the dumb dog—you get yourself out here right now.”
“But—I—can’t—”
“If you don’t, I’m letting Harley go. Wonder how long it’ll take him to wiggle under there and tear you up? I saw him get a possum the other day. Even though the critter played dead, he tore that thing to pieces. Not a pretty sight, not a’tall.”
Shelly fell forward and began to creep toward the lattice on shaking limbs. No sense in talking now; her mother had won…again.
She crawled over the dirt, every atom of her being cringing in revulsion, and trembled as she approached the gap in the lattice. Her mother stood ten feet away, one hand on her hip, one arm extended as Harley strained at the leash.
Squatting in the opening, Shelly swiped at her wet cheeks with grimy hands, then launched herself upward and ran for the front porch as if her feet were afire. When she reached the bottom step she heard the thrum of the pit bull’s pounding paws; by the time she passed the threshold the dog was on the porch and snapping at the screen door while her mother watched from the grass and…laughed.
Shelly ran into the bathroom, hiccupping as she washed her hands. She tried her best to clean up, but she couldn’t get the muddy streaks off the counter or the towels.
Maybe it was the mud that did it, or maybe Momma was past caring about anything but being mad. Without a word, she grabbed Shelly by the arm, pulled her through the living room and thrust her into the linen closet. At the bottom, beneath the shelf where they kept the good sheets, was a space just big enough for Shelly to sit with her knees bent up and her head bent low.
That space—and its darkness—were as terrifying as the dog. “Momma—”
“Hush, Shelly. Get in there.”
“Momma, no.” She knew she shouldn’t touch Momma with damp hands, muddy arms and dirty clothes, but in a desperate plea for mercy she threw herself onto her mother’s frame, shaping herself to the woman’s body, clinging like a shadow. “Momma, Momma, I don’t like the dark—”
“Don’t be a baby.” Her mother’s iron fingers pulled and pried while her feet pushed Shelly into the closet.
“Momma, no!”
“And stop that screamin’. The more you scream, the longer I’m leavin’ you in here.”
Because Momma did not issue idle threats, Shelly clamped her trembling lips, imprisoning the cries that scratched at her throat. She thrust out her hands in silent entreaty, but Momma pushed her firmly into a sitting position and closed the door.
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Angela Hunt
Three women. One man. A gathering storm. In the path of a devastating hurricane, three very different women find themselves trapped in the elevator of a highrise office building. All three conceal shattering secrets–unaware that their secrets center on the same man. The betrayed wife, eager to confront her faithless husband, with rage in her heart and a gun in her pocket…The determined mistress, finally ready to tell her lover she wants marriage and a family… The fugitive cleaning woman, tormented by the darkest secret of all… As the storm rages ever closer, these three must unite to fight for their lives in the greatest test of courage any woman could ever face.
PRAISE FOR ANGELA HUNT
“Prolific novelist Hunt knows how to hold the reader’s interest, and her latest yarn is no exception…. Hunt packs the maximum amount of drama into her story, and the pages turn quickly. The present-tense narration lends urgency as the perspective switches among various characters. Readers may decide to take the stairs after finishing this thriller.”
—Publishers Weekly on The Elevator
“Christy Award and Holt Medallion winner Hunt skillfully builds tension and keeps the plot well paced and not overly melodramatic.”
—Library Journal on The Elevator
“Hunt’s writing is filled with exciting twists that could have been pulled straight from the headlines. The prose is packed with biblical truths that readers will be able to relate to their own lives. The three women caught in an elevator reflect emotions and dilemmas that we all face.”
—Romantic Times BOOKreviews on The Elevator
“In The Elevator, Ms. Hunt creates the perfect setup to keep you turning pages long after the rest of the house has fallen asleep. The Elevator also serves as a cautionary tale to those who would remain trapped in their old lives and opinions rather than reaching up for freedom and life. Loved it.”
—Lisa Samson, award-winning author of Quaker Summer and Embrace Me
the elevator
Angela Hunt
Deception is not as creative as truth.
We do best in life if we look at it with clear eyes,
And I think that applies to coming up to death as well.
—Cicely Saunders
We can believe what we choose.
We are answerable for what we choose to believe.
—John Henry Newman
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
No novelist writes alone, and I had lots of help with this book.
First, thank you to my blog readers, who helped me fill Michelle’s purse.
I owe a huge debt to my agent, Danielle Egan-Miller, and to Steeple Hill editors Joan Marlow Golan and Krista Stroever for their great enthusiasm for a one-paragraph synopsis.
A deep and abiding “thank you” to the two elevator technicians I met at the Imperial Swan Hotel in Lakeland. When I asked for their names, they said I could simply thank the “two handsome gentlemen” who gave me a guided tour of the inner (and outer) workings of an elevator and let me peer into the shaft. Gentlemen, my hat’s off to you.
Thank you to fellow novelist Randy Singer, who introduced me to Michael Garnier, who not only answered dozens of e-mailed questions, but seemed to enjoy doing so despite the story’s high estrogen level. Thanks also to Michael’s friend P.J., otherwise known as Paul G. McGrath, who answered queries from Michael, who then passed the answers along to me. Gentlemen, this book would not be complete without you.
Hugs and muchas gracias to Vasthi Acosta and Veronica Beard, who helped me with Isabel’s Spanish. Any lingering errors are mine alone.
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 15
7:00 a.m.
CHAPTER 1
Wrapped in the remnants of a dream, Michelle Tilson opens her eyes and smiles at the ceiling until she remembers the monster looming in the Gulf. She reaches for Parker, but the spot where he should be lying is empty and cold. She pushes herself up, the satin sheets puddling at her waist, and looks into the bathroom, which is empty.
But a single red rose lies on Parker’s pillow.
Of course—he’s gone to the office. He said he might not be here when she woke.
Groaning, Michelle falls onto his pillow and breathes in the sweet scent of the flower. Typical Parker, the disappearing man. Here for a night, gone for a week. Most women would resent his inconsistency, but she’s become accustomed to his vanishing act.
She props her pillow against the headboard and leans back, surprised she can feel so relaxed on a Saturday morning. Weekends usually depress her, but despite the hurricane warning she floats in a curious contentment, as though the previous night’s love and laughter have splashed over a levee and flooded the normally arid weekend.
Parker is good for her. The man knows when it’s time to work and when it’s time to play, a lesson she’s been struggling to learn.
She reaches for the remote on the nightstand and powers on the television, still tuned to the Weather Channel. A somber-faced young man appears before a map on which a swirling bull’s-eye is moving straight toward Florida’s west coast. Hurricane Felix, already a category four, has left Mexico and is churning toward Tampa Bay.
Michelle squints as her mind stamps the map with an icon representing her condo at Century Towers. Nothing changed overnight; she’s still in the hurricane’s path.
At least she’s well insured. Parker’s made sure of that.
She turns down the volume on the television, then drops the remote and considers closing her heavy eyelids. She could easily sleep another hour, but Parker might call and she wants to be alert if he does. He’s already told her he plans to ride out the hurricane at his house, but who knows? This could be the weekend he’ll realize she ought to meet his children….
She eases out from under the comforter and reaches for the computer on her nightstand. The laptop is always online, maintaining a quiet vigil as it files incoming e-mail and prowls the Web for prospective clients.
Michelle slides her glasses on, then clicks on her e-mail program and checks the in-box: three inquiries from her Web site, www.Tilsonheadhunter.com, a note from her administrative assistant, four ads for fake Rolex watches, three for cheap (and undoubtedly illegal) pharmaceuticals.
The spam gets deleted without a second look, but Michelle smiles as she opens the Web mail. The first inquiry is from Don Moss, a Houston CFO who has recently lost his job with an oil company. He’s looking for a management position in the four hundred thousand to five hundred thousand dollar range and he’s willing to relocate.
The second is from a local woman with a newly minted MBA and “a strong desire to succeed.”
The third e-mail is from a school principal who needs to move west due to his wife’s severe allergies. Can Tilson Corporate Careers help him find a university position?
Michelle clicks her nails against the keyboard as she considers the requests. The CFO will get her full attention; he’s probably good for a fifteen-thousand-dollar fee. One of her associates can coach the girl with the MBA on how to create a résumé and urge her to attend industry conferences. She’ll not bring in much money, but she should find a job within a few months. The principal might be tough to place, but since he’s probably been in education a few years, he’s bound to know someone who knows someone in Arizona or New Mexico. He’ll land a job…eventually. Tilson Corporate will simply have to make sure he exhausts all his resources.
She moves all three messages into her Action folder, then opens the message from Reggie. She sighs when she reads that he’s taking his wife and new baby to Georgia to escape the storm.
I’ll keep an eye on the news, he promises, and you can call if you need me. I’ll be at my sister’s house in Marietta.
BTW—last week one of the counselors took an application from a young guy who’s looking for a management position. Nothing unusual in the app, but I saw him through the window and recognized him—he’s a columnist for the Tampa Tribune and he belongs to the gym where my wife works. Long story short, Marcy chatted him up and found out he’s doing a story on employment agencies who don’t meet their contractual obligations. Looks like we’re at the top of his hit list.
I pulled his file and left it on my desk—he’s using the name Marshall Owens, but he writes his column under a Greg Owens byline. You might want to look him up.
Michelle swallows hard as her stomach tightens. Her agency does find jobs for clients, though not as often as their brochure claims. And while their advertising states that they typically place people in positions with salaries ranging from seventy thousand dollars to seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars, she can’t remember the last time they referred a prospect to a situation worth more than eighty grand.
If she doesn’t find an appropriate position for this columnist, he’ll be all over Tilson Corporate Careers. If any of their procedures arouse his suspicions, he might dig deeper and investigate her.
Reporters ask questions; they verify facts and check entries on résumés. If she doesn’t find Owens a job, he could crucify her.
She presses her hands to her eyes as dread whirls inside her stomach. Only one thing to do, then—find the fake applicant a real job, and pretend to be surprised when he doesn’t take it.
That part, at least, will be easy. She’s been pretending all her life.
Isabel Suarez drives the vacuum across the carpet, her hips working to a disco beat as Donna Summer sings in her ears. She maneuvers the machine around a desk chair that has rolled off its plastic mat, then stops to flip the power switch. A candy wrapper has drifted beneath the file drawer, out of the vacuum’s reach.
Unlike the others in this tidy office, this employee—Waveney Forester, according to the nameplate—obviously enjoys eating on the job.
Isabel crouches and pulls the crinkled wrapper from its hiding place, then yelps when someone yanks the earbuds from her ears. Her forearms pebble in the sudden silence, but when she peers over the edge of the desk, she finds she is still alone.
The speaker cord has caught on a drawer handle.
Exhaling, Isabel releases the cord, then dumps the employee’s trash into the receptacle attached to her cleaning cart. A load of printed forms, typed pages and soft-drink cans tumble into the bin, followed by a rainbow of cellophane squares—the secretary’s guilty secret. Every Tuesday and Friday night Isabel finds dozens of candy wrappers shoved to the bottom of Waveney Forester’s trash. The sight never fails to make her smile.
Isabel returns the trash can to its hiding place in the desk’s kneehole, then lifts her gaze to the wide windows along the east wall. A sprinkling of lights still sparkles in the skyscrapers of Tampa’s downtown district, a waste of electricity no one seems to mind. The sun has begun to rise, but only a glimmer of light penetrates the cloudy eastern horizon. Carlos warned her to be careful on the way home because a storm is on its way, a huracán.
Because her fellow custodians like to complain about the weather, Isabel knows Florida has suffered many hurricanes in the last few years, along with states called Missis-sip-pi and Lou-i-si-ana. She doesn’t know anyone in those places, but the people she knows in Florida are rich beyond imagining. They complain if their roof leaks—¿por qué? At least they have a roof. And homes. And a government that hands out money and food to anyone who asks for it.
She presses her hand to the cool window and feels a shiver run down her spine. America. Home of the blessed and the free. Home to runaways and castoffs and so full of people a girl could get lost forever…if she has reason to hide.
A flag on a nearby rooftop snaps in the rising wind, but Isabel can’t feel even a breeze in this fortress of steel and glass. At this daybreak hour, in this towering perch, she can’t help feeling safe. No one from México can touch her here. Even if her enemy manages to track her to Tampa, she will not surrender. She has Carlos and Rafael now, and she would rather die than lose them.
She catches sight of her mirrored reflection, gives herself a relieved smile, and nudges the earbuds back into her ears. Leaving the vista of Tampa behind, she powers on the machine and hums along with Donna Summer as she vacuums her way toward the executive’s inner office.
Tucked into the corner of a wing chair, Gina Rossman lifts her swollen eyelids and stares at her unrumpled bed. The report, in a manila envelope, still rests on Sonny’s pillow. She spent the night in this chair for nothing.
So much for dramatic gestures.
She lifts her head and glances at the clock, then frowns at the view outside the bedroom window. The sun is usually brighter by seven-twenty…but how could she forget Felix? Destructive hurricanes are nothing new for Florida; in the past three months Hillsborough County residents have anxiously monitored the paths of Alberto, Chris and Debby. The local weathercasters, who would probably lash themselves to a wavering flagpole if the stunt would get them national airtime, are positively giddy about the latest patch of weather heading directly toward Florida’s central west coast.
Sonny will blame his absence on the storm, of course. He’ll claim he didn’t come home because he had to single-handedly prepare for the hurricane. He sent his employees home Thursday afternoon, he’d remind her, because he wanted to give them time to leave the state. His act of generosity left him with a stack of declaration pages that had to be faxed to frantic clients who needed to know the limits of their coverage. Besides—and at this point he would give her an easy, relaxed smile with a great deal of confidence behind it—he hadn’t built a Fortune 500 company by limiting himself to a forty-hour workweek.
She used to accept his excuses, used to be proud of him for putting in more hours than the average husband. But no longer.
Now she knows where he’s been working overtime.
She pulls herself out of the comfortable depths of the wing chair and smooths her slacks. She wanted Sonny to find her awake and still dressed when he came through the door, but if he didn’t come home last night, he won’t show up this morning. He’ll be at the office, feeding papers into the fax machine.
An alarming thought skitters across her brain. What if he doesn’t come home at all? He might want to protect that woman, so he could be planning to ride out the hurricane in whatever rathole she calls home. Later, when the weather has passed, he’ll claim he was slaving at the office until the power went out and he had to evacuate to the nearest shelter.
Last year, she might have believed his lies. This year, she has rebuttal evidence waiting in the manila envelope, along with a private investigator’s report. A list of places, dates and times; eyewitness accounts of intimate dinners and lunches; even a receipt Sonny dropped outside Foster’s Jewelers.
The amount on the receipt nearly buckled Gina’s knees: forty-three thousand dollars for a diamond bracelet. Forty-three thousand that must have been siphoned off the company books. Forty-three thousand—money that should be part of her children’s inheritance—has been wasted on baubles for some tart’s wrist.
How much of his children’s future has Sonny squandered?
A flash of grief rips through her, one of many that has seared her heart in the last twenty-four hours. How could her husband turn his back on the wife who’s loved him faithfully for more than two decades? How could he neglect his precious children? Matthew is supposed to take over the business in a few years, but at the rate Sonny is spending, how much of the business will remain? These are lean days for insurance companies, especially in Florida. The bad weather of the past has devastated the industry.
The investigator included a photograph of Sonny walking down Ashley Street with the woman on his arm, her head brushing his shoulder. Sonny’s face, visible at an angle, is marked by an expression of extraordinary tenderness. The object of his inappropriate attention is not facing the camera, but the photo reveals a tall, lean creature with a striking sense of style, a floppy hat, and a youthful body that has not borne three children and invested its best years in Sonny’s dreams.
Gina moves to the bed, plucks the envelope from her husband’s pillow and stares out the window while she taps the package against her fingertips. A maelstrom is swirling in the Gulf beyond; a killer storm. Before the sun rises tomorrow, its merciless winds and rain will sweep over Tampa and destroy anything that hasn’t been properly secured.
Her husband’s office is in the Lark Tower, Tampa’s oldest skyscraper. His suite is on the uppermost floor, where the intense wind and rain will have unfettered freedom to do their worst. Downtown Tampa is under an evacuation order, but everyone knows Sonny Rossman is a stubborn workaholic.
What might happen if he decides to remain in his office as the hurricane blows in?
CHAPTER 2
Michelle returns the laptop to her dresser, then curls back under the covers to think. So—Marshall Owens is a plant, a test of her company’s legitimacy. Owens has probably noticed the ads she places in the employment section of every Sunday newspaper, ads that suggest her expert counselors will market clients through exclusive insider channels and help applicants obtain interviews with top executives at major firms.
She pounds her pillow, then slides her hand under her cheek. Her agency won’t be the first vetted by an ambitious reporter. She’s read articles that condemn companies like hers, using words like fraudulent and scam. They promise to network and investigate for you, the typical exposé reports, and charge thousands of dollars for services you can perform yourself using free materials and the Internet.
If finding an executive position is so easy, why does she have so many clients? So what if on occasion she does little more than polish a CEO’s résumé? Most administrators haven’t evaluated their biographical materials in years. They wouldn’t begin to know how to portray their skills in the light of an ever-changing employment market. They care only about the bottom line: salary and benefits. They want a job that offers a corner office, a savvy staff and a generous paycheck, but they don’t want to do the legwork it takes to land such a position.
That’s why they come to Tilson Corporate Careers. Michelle and her associates spend hours, if necessary, prying important details from clients and taking copious notes about the applicant’s past employment, skills and responsibilities. They ask for address books, references from previous employers, even Christmas-card lists. Somewhere amid all that paperwork, Michelle and her staff usually find the opportunity that will result in a new position.
She is trying to think of the best way to approach the Tribune reporter when Roy Orbison begins to warble “Pretty Woman” from the depths of her purse. She groans, then reaches for the leather bag on the floor.
A digital photo of Lauren Cameron, her workout partner and best friend, lights the cover of her cell phone. “Hello?”
“Good morning!” Lauren’s voice, as bright and vibrant as a new whistle, hurts Michelle’s ears. “Did I wake you?”
Michelle nestles the phone between her shoulder and chin. “I’ve been up a while.”
“I thought you might be. I’ve been watching the Weather Channel since five. But hey, I wanted to be sure you didn’t forget our date tomorrow. You and me at Lord & Taylor, right? I’ll meet you outside the bridal salon at one.”
Michelle resists the urge to groan. In a weak moment she promised to serve as maid of honor at Lauren’s second wedding, but the thought of standing alongside the bride’s young nieces now seems ridiculous. “Are you sure about this? Your sister’s oldest daughter might be hurt if you don’t ask her to be your maid of honor.”
Lauren makes a small pffing sound. “She’s a child. You’re my best friend.”
“She’s sixteen, I’m thirty-three. The thought of standing with all those little girls and holding a nosegay—”
“I won’t ask you to wear a prom dress. We’ll pick out something sophisticated and you’ll look wonderful.”
Lauren’s lying, of course, the way one girlfriend will always fib when she wants to neutralize the other’s feelings. She’ll probably dress her attendants in yellow, a color that will make the little girls glow like sunbeams while it tints Michelle with shades of cirrhosis. At the wedding, Lauren’s relatives will elbow each other and someone will whisper that the really tall attendant is Michelle Tilson, and yes, the program’s correct. She’s really a maid of honor, because the poor woman has never been able to snag a husband.
Michelle rests her head on her hand as Lauren chatters about her preparations. So much to do, because even in cosmopolitan Tampa, marriage is a sacred estate and must be celebrated with every appropriate ritual. Prevailing attitudes assume that any woman who’s over thirty and still single must be a little odd, while a woman who’s over thirty, single and not looking to be married—well, that scenario is just plain unnatural.
Funny how Michelle never feels like a spinster in the office or at a club. At Lauren’s church, though, with a half-dozen preteens clustered around her elbows, she’ll feel like somebody’s withered maiden aunt.
“…I’m thinking yellow chrysanthemums will be perfect for November. You agree?”
The direct question hits Michelle like a thump between the eyes. “Mums? You don’t mean those plate-size things, do you?”
“You’re exaggerating, as always. But yes, I want this wedding to be bright and colorful. I want to hold the reception outdoors and I thought big yellow mums would be gorgeous against the deep shade of those oaks on the property.”
Michelle rolls onto her back and studies the ceiling. “I don’t know if you should count on those old oaks. We do have a hurricane headed our way.”
Lauren pffffs again. “It’s going to blow right by us. They always do.”
“This one might not. Parker’s really concerned. He’s up in his office now, checking on—”
“They said Charley was going to hit us, but that one turned at the last minute. Besides, my neighbor says the Native Americans who used to live here performed ritual sacrifices or something and swore no major storm would ever hit this area. So far, they’ve been right.”
Michelle can’t stop a wry smile. “Well, if you promise to sacrifice a chicken—”
“The weather wouldn’t dare interfere with my plans. So don’t forget—tomorrow, one o’clock, Lord & Taylor. We’re going to find my maid of honor something scrumptious to wear and soon you can ask me to return the favor.”
A sudden surge of adrenaline sparks Michelle’s blood. “Why do you say that? Did Parker say something the other night?”
“Not to me, he didn’t. But I’m sure he’s getting ready to make his move. He’s got that smitten look.”
Michelle closes her eyes, glad that Lauren can’t see her face. “He’s not in a hurry…and neither am I.”
“Good grief, why are you waiting? Haven’t you been dating over a year?”
“He has kids, Lauren, and the youngest is still seeing a shrink. Parker doesn’t want to rush things.”
“So you’re going to let him keep you hanging indefinitely?” Lauren sighs. “Out of all the available men we’ve met, why’d you have to fall for a widower with teenagers?”
Michelle turns her head and spots the single red rose Parker left on the bureau. “Because I was tired of dating boys,” she whispers, “and Parker’s the most honest man I’ve ever met.”
Her comment hangs in the silence, then Lauren clicks her tongue. “Whatever you say, girlfriend. Stay dry today, okay? And don’t stand me up tomorrow.”
“I won’t.”
Michelle snaps the phone shut, then sets it on the pillow that still bears the imprint of Parker’s head. She misses him already. If he doesn’t call and invite her to his house, it’s going to be a long, lonely weekend.
She rolls out of bed and plants her feet on the carpet, then hunches forward as an unexpected wave of nausea rises from somewhere near her center. Last night’s pasta primavera must not have agreed with her…but she didn’t eat that much. They slipped out of the restaurant after only a few bites because that gleam entered Parker’s eye. She has never been able to talk to him when he looks at her like a starving dog yearning for a steak.
At the thought of food, her stomach lurches again. She places her hand over her belly, where some sort of gastric disturbance is doing its best to emulate the hurricane. Deep breaths. If she can convince her gut she will never look at another calorie-laden pasta dish, she might make it to the medicine cabinet and that bottle of chalky pink stuff….
Another deep breath. When the gurgling beneath her palm subsides, she lifts her head and straightens to an almost-vertical posture. She can’t be sick today. She needs to get to the office before the weather worsens; she has to pick up the Owens file.
The third-floor window, flanked by accordion storm shutters she has not yet closed, reveals a slate-blue sky and the swaying tendrils of a tall palm. The live oak shading the rear of the condominium stands like a silent sentinel, its thick canopy too stubborn to shift for only a probing, preliminary wind.
A sudden urge catches her by surprise. Forgetting the weather, she flies into the bathroom and crouches by the toilet.
When her ravaged stomach has emptied itself, she leans against the wall and pulls a towel from the rack, then presses it to her mouth. A sheen of perspiration coats her arms and neck, but she is beginning to feel better. What lousy luck, to suffer a bout of food poisoning today—
Her breath catches in her throat as a niggling thought rises from the back of her brain. What if this nausea has nothing to do with food?
Like a child who can’t stop picking at a scab, Gina spreads the investigator’s report on the bed and reviews the list of dates and places.
8/21: Subject dines with young woman at Bern’s steak house
8/23: Subject and same woman eat dinner at the Columbia
8/25: Subject and woman have lunch at International Plaza, followed by afternoon of shopping. Subject delivers young woman to residence on Bay-shore Boulevard, departs 1:30 a.m.
9/08: Subject and young woman register as Mr. and Mrs. Rossman at the Don CeSar Hotel on St. Petersburg Beach.
The last entry sounds like a perfectly idyllic getaway, but Gina has never stayed with Sonny at the Don CeSar, and she would have remembered staying there as recently as last weekend. Sonny was supposed to be at a convention. In Orlando.
The corner of her mouth twists when she remembers a wedding reception she and Sonny attended at the Don CeSar. The place must have impressed him if he decided it was worthy of his mistress.
She shudders as a cold coil of misery tightens beneath her breastbone. Why is she torturing herself? Bad enough to learn of Sonny’s infidelity; she doesn’t need to know details.
Unless there’s a logical reason for all these meetings. The truth might lie in some arcane bit of information the investigator missed. Sonny could have purchased the diamond bracelet as an investment or a Christmas gift for his wife. The young girl on Sonny’s arm could be an overfriendly secretary; perhaps the lunches and dinners are innocent business appointments. He might have a hard time explaining the Don CeSar rendezvous, but one night does not have to destroy a marriage.
Gina moves to the heavy mahogany armoire in the corner of the room, Sonny’s private domain. Because the housekeeper folds and puts away laundry, Gina hasn’t opened these doors since they moved in three years ago.
If Sonny is saving the diamond bracelet for her, it’s likely to be hidden here.
She lifts stacks of folded underwear, rifles through a mound of socks and slides her hands beneath several cotton handkerchiefs. Nothing. She opens the lowest drawer on the right, scoops up a collection of cuff links and watches, and sets the jewelry on the edge of a shelf. After running her thumbnail along the side of the drawer, she removes the velvet-lined false bottom and exposes the digital keypad.
If she hadn’t been home alone when the deliverymen brought the armoire, she wouldn’t know about this secret safe. In an effort to be helpful—and undoubtedly to secure a bigger tip—the deliveryman had pointed out the safe’s location and given her a sealed envelope containing the combination Sonny had chosen: six, five, eighty-five. Their wedding anniversary.
She had never mentioned the safe to Sonny; she wasn’t sure if he even used it. But now her breath solidifies in her throat as she presses the appropriate keys. The keypad beeps, releasing the lock on the hinged cover. She opens the safe she hasn’t thought about in years.
No bracelet. Nothing but papers: the deed to the house, their passports, a card with bank and mutual-fund account numbers. Nothing unusual, nothing incriminating, except—
Despite the bands of tightness around her lungs, Gina snatches a breath and picks up an unfamiliar bankbook. The plastic cover is shiny, the opening date less than four months ago. The bank is located in the Cayman Islands, and the account is in Sonny’s name alone. Opening balance: one hundred fifty thousand dollars.
Her heart turns to stone within her chest. He’s already begun to bleed his family dry.
She sinks to the edge of the bed. At various moments since receiving the private investigator’s report, she’s wanted to deny everything, strangle her husband and kill herself. At one point she was certain she deserved Sonny’s betrayal because she hadn’t been a better wife.
But those were emotional responses; she should have expected them. Now she needs to put her feelings aside and think about what to do. She needs a plan…and the courage to see it through.
Her thoughts drift toward a book on her night table: Courage by Amelia Earhart. “Courage,” the aviatrix wrote, “is the price that Life exacts for granting peace.”
If Gina is to have peace, she must move forward with confidence and determination. At long last her questions have been answered, her suspicions confirmed. Now she has evidence in black, white and full color. The P.I.’s package has provided everything she needs to divorce Sonny, but no one cares much about culpability these days. No-fault divorce has simplified procedures for cheating spouses and the sheer frequency of cases has made the division of a couple’s estate a matter of routine. A judge will look over their assets, draw a line to divide his from hers and send them on their way. Of course, with the wrinkle of this other bank account, perhaps it’s not going to be that easy.
Gina turns to the investigator’s report and runs her finger over the notation about Bern’s. How could Sonny think he had the right to take that woman to their favorite place? And how could Francis, the maître d’, seat Sonny with an imposter hanging on his arm?
Maybe Francis didn’t know about the affair…. Then again, it’s more likely that Sonny bought Francis’s silence with generous tips and sly smiles. Despite the camaraderie Gina and Francis have shared within the walls of the restaurant, the man is a servant, not a friend.
Only a close friend would be honest and courageous enough to reveal that your husband has a mistress, a sad truth that underscores an unexpected revelation: Gina has no close friends. No one told her about Sonny’s affair; no one at the office, the country club or the church they faithfully attend at Christmas and Easter.
Surely someone has seen him with that woman. Gina can’t shop at any mall for more than an hour without encountering someone she knows through the business or the club. Sonny is far more extroverted than she is, so people have to have seen him with his little chit.
Perhaps people have seen him…and traded knowing looks, clucking in sympathy for the deceived wife and the poor children. Maybe they’ve wondered aloud how long the marriage will last…and what she’s done to make Sonny wander.
What has she done? Nothing but give him the best years of her life, raise his children, decorate his house and stand by his side through dozens of boring conventions, holiday parties and client dinners. She’s reined in her instincts and bitten her tongue so many times it’s a wonder she can still speak, and for what? A man who would betray her and squander his children’s future on a tramp.
Sonny hasn’t mentioned a divorce, but his girlfriend won’t wait forever. She’ll press for marriage one of these days, but before he hits Gina with the news, he’ll make sure his assets are hidden and his business protected…just as he’s already doing.
Gina will be ambushed.
Her children are being bankrupted.
She places the bankbook back in the safe and returns the jewelry to the drawer. She folds the investigator’s report and slides it back into the manila envelope. The man has written a note on his business card—If you’d like me to spend a few more hours on the case, I could identify the woman in question.
Gina snorts softly. She’s not spending another penny on Sonny. He can exchange his fortysomething wife for two twenties, for all she cares. But he cannot steal from his children.
Ending this marriage will crush the kids, of course. They will be loyal to her, but they love their father and won’t want to hurt him. She could tell them everything, let them see the proof of his infidelity, but teenagers don’t always accept the truth. Most of the time they end up resenting the messenger who brings bad news.
She won’t let them resent her because she’s done nothing wrong. Sonny is the guilty party, he’s the gangrene. And like an infected limb, he deserves to be chopped off.
Being teenagers, the kids have been so wrapped up in their individual worlds they haven’t noticed Sonny’s absences, his odd lapses into silence or his indifference on the rare occasions he’s come home for dinner. He has already impoverished them emotionally; he will not ruin them financially, too.
If Gina says nothing and keeps Sonny’s failings private, the kids will split their loyalties and try to make the best of a bad situation. They might even accept the other woman, whomever she is. Like characters in one of those Lifetime movies, every weekend they’ll kiss Gina goodbye and head off for picnics and football games with Sonny’s replacement wife.
That would be altogether unacceptable.
Michelle crouches on the tile floor and opens the cabinet beneath the sink, searching among bottles of hair spray, lotion and nail polish remover until she spies the blue box. How many years has it been sitting there—one or two? Has it expired?
She pushes aside a bag of cotton balls, then pulls out the box and searches for the expiration date—the kit is still good, so she skims the instructions. The test kit promises quick results and ninety-nine percent accuracy. After five seconds in the urine stream, the stick will turn pink; after two more minutes the result window will reveal an easy-to-read plus or minus.
Pregnant or not?
She sinks to the cold tile as the significance of the question hits home. She’s tried to be responsible, but life is like a baseball game; you can’t score every time you step up to the plate. Some homes aren’t happy, some girls don’t go to the prom, and sometimes your birth control fails.
But nobody should have to strike out on all three counts.
Pregnant. Or not.
She presses her hand to her forehead and tries to picture herself as a parent. Parker already has three kids, so she doesn’t have to worry about his ability to cope with children. Matt, Amanda and Sam are practically grown, but their father adores them. He’ll adore this new baby, too—if her nausea isn’t the result of a virus or pasta gone bad.
On the other hand—she swallows as the gall of envy burns the back of her throat—Parker has been surprisingly protective of his children. Though she’s boldly hinted that she’d like to get to know them, she’s never met his sons and daughter. She’s shopped for their birthday presents, dispensed advice about Christmas gifts and helped him understand the emotional complexities of teenage girlhood. But when she mentions meeting his kids, he insists they are not ready to accept another woman in his life. They’re still torn up about losing their mother….
After five years, shouldn’t those children be ready to move on?
She straightens to relieve the ache in her shoulders, then shakes her head. Technically, Parker’s opinion doesn’t matter. She could have a baby and raise it alone. But a child deserves a father’s love, and Parker would want to know if he has created a new life.
He’d be surprised, of course, maybe even stunned, but she’d assure him she didn’t intend to get pregnant. Their relationship has been stable for over a year and until now she’s felt no need to change things. She hasn’t pressed for marriage and isn’t even sure she believes in it. Matrimony might be fine for women who need to belong to a man, but Michelle has always valued her independence too much to surrender it.
Yet perhaps it’s time to reconsider. Greg Owens’s name keeps slipping through her thoughts, reminding her that investigation is only days away. If she can’t convince Owens that her agency fulfills its promises, he may start digging into her past.
How nice it would be to surrender her responsibilities and walk away. To wake up in the morning and have no appointments. How liberating, to trade the support of a dozen employees for the care of one child. Parker wouldn’t need her income. And he’s so protective of his kids—if she had a baby, he’d probably want her to stay home and spoil the kid rotten.
She’s never visualized herself as a parent, but she could learn to appreciate motherhood. Hard not to think about having a child when her employees are reproducing like rabbits and every other month some celebrity is showing off an infant Apple, Coco or Kumquat….
Since her thirtieth birthday she’s become increasingly aware that every menstrual cycle represents an irreversible loss of fertility. She’s thirty-three, old enough to know herself and settled enough to sacrifice for a child.
Michelle stands on wobbly legs and opens the test kit. Inside the box, a sheaf of printed instructions and a white plastic stick nestle in a molded shell. She plucks the stick from its resting place and holds it up to the light. This little gadget will tell her if she’s pregnant or not. If today will be just another day or the start of a new life. If her next strong emotion will be alarm or relief.
No…not relief. Maybe happiness.
Staring at the stick, for the first time Michelle realizes how much she’d like to be pregnant. If not now, then next month or next year.
She wants a baby…a cooing bundle of hope for which she could correct life’s mistakes and build the home she’s always wanted. Most people do live in happy homes; most girls do go to the prom; most women do want to be mothers.
She’s tired of pretending otherwise.
Pregnant or not, she’s going to tell Parker she wants a family. If he won’t let her be part of his, she will create a family of her own.
CHAPTER 3
With her hair still wet from the shower, Michelle wraps her robe more closely about her, then sits on the edge of her bed and picks up the phone. Though she is determined to reach Parker, she hesitates before dialing his number.
Odd. Though she has no trouble telling people at her office what to do, she wouldn’t dare try to order Parker’s day. Strength and independence are two of his most attractive qualities, and he is one of the few men she has never been able to intimidate.
Still…she needs to talk to him.
She dials his office number, punches in the extension for the executive suite and holds her breath until he picks up. As always, her heart does a double-beat when his voice rumbles over the line.
“It’s me, Parker.” She lowers her head and plucks a dark thread from her white cotton robe. “Am I interrupting anything important?”
His voice, which had been toneless when he answered, warms with huskiness. “You are a delightful surprise. I almost didn’t pick up—I’ve heard from too many clients who would like to fry my hide for their mistakes.”
She chuckles. “That’d be a terrible waste of a perfectly good hide.”
“Listen to you—you always know how to make me feel better.” He laughs. “What are you doing up so early? I thought you’d sleep in.”
“You’re not the only one with responsibilities. I have things to do, too.”
“Like what?”
“Well…I have to close the storm shutters, fill the bathtub with water and back up all my computer files. You know, the usual prehurricane preparations.”
“Didn’t you buy bottled water?”
“Sure.”
“Then why are you filling the tub?”
She smiles at the teasing note in his voice. “Because Lauren told me to, okay? She’s a native. She knows about these things.”
Silence rolls over the line, then he says, “I loved last night.”
“I loved the rose you left for me.”
“My pleasure.”
Michelle wraps the telephone cord around her wrist. “Parker…”
“Hmm?”
“What are you doing now?”
He laughs again. “I’m cleaning up. Thought I’d take a shower and shave this stubble before I frighten someone.”
“I like your stubble. I’ve always thought a salt-and-pepper beard is attractive.”
In the background she can hear the sound of running water, so he must be talking on the extension in his private bathroom. Closing her eyes, she can almost see him, phone in one hand, razor in the other.
“Have you heard the latest on the weather?” he asks.
“Yeah. Felix’s still on a northwestern track.”
“Coming straight for us?”
“Looks like it.”
“Then you need to lock those shutters. Make sure—”
“Listen,” she interrupts, unable to wait a moment more, “I was thinking about driving in. I need to pick up a file at the office.”
“Can’t it wait? They issued an evacuation order for all of the downtown area. They’ll be closing the interstates soon.”
“But you’re downtown.”
“Well…I have connections. But you should stay put. It could get dangerous out there.”
“Not for a while. They say we have at least twelve hours before Felix arrives.”
“Things can get wicked in a hurry if tornadoes form in front of the storm. You ought to stay put.”
“Lauren says there’s nothing to worry about. Something about the Native Americans killing a chicken and making predictions—”
“What?”
“Never mind. Please, Parker, will you wait for me? I can get my file and we can leave together. We could even evacuate, maybe drive someplace north of here.”
He lets out a long, audible breath, then speaks in a voice heavy with apology. “I’ll wait if you promise to come right away. I don’t want to hang around much longer because I need to get home. The kids, you know.”
She draws a breath, about to ask why they don’t pick up his kids and drive to Ocala or Gainesville, but Parker is no fool. If he wanted to knit her into his family life, this would be the perfect opportunity.
Obviously, he’s not ready. Yet.
She swipes at a tear with the sleeve of her robe. “I suppose—” she steadies her voice “—you need to stay in the area for your clients. If Felix comes ashore here—”
“I’ll be as busy as a dentist in Hershey, Pennsylvania. That’s why I can’t leave, sweetheart. I need to stick around. For my business and my kids.”
She lowers her gaze, grateful he can’t see the hurt welling in her eyes. Any man might have said the same thing, but she has a feeling his refusal has more to do with his children than his client list. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“Be careful. And, by the way, your timing’s perfect. I ordered something special for you and it arrived late yesterday. I was going to save it for your birthday—”
“Good grief, Parker, that’s two months from now.”
“—then I thought maybe you could wear the surprise when I take you out for dinner next week. I mean, why wait?”
Michelle smiles as a blush heats her cheeks. Is he really ready to commit?
“Parker,” she breathes, “what have you done?”
“You’ll have to see, love. Come on up, I’ll be waiting.”
As Donna Summer continues to warble from the CD player, Isabel raps on the inner-office door, then uses her master key to enter. A quick glance assures her the space is empty, but she hesitates at the sight of a burning lamp. Though the computer behind the desk whirrs continually, the lamp is usually dark when she cleans this suite.
She shakes her head. More waste. Americans are always complaining about the high cost of gasoline, but still they burn lamps in empty rooms and run their computers all night and keep their air-conditioning so low she has to wear a sweater while she works. Maybe Americans just like to complain.
She blows a stray hank of hair from her forehead, then walks over to the executive’s waste can. Wadded papers and soda cans spill from the edge of the container, so she tamps down the trash before carrying it to the cart outside the door. No candy wrappers lie at the bottom of this bin; no cigarette butts, either. This boss, whoever he is, has few obvious bad habits.
She frowns as she returns the trash can to the side of the desk. An unusual amount of clutter covers the work area, so perhaps she shouldn’t try to dust. A pile of papers litters the blotter, an uncapped fountain pen atop the stack as if the man—Mr. Rossman, according to an envelope on the desk—has just stepped out of the office.
But no one comes here on Saturday, and no one would come with a hurricane spinning in the Gulf of Mexico…would they?
Maybe she shouldn’t have come downtown. Carlos did not want her to come to work. When she insisted they needed the money, he told her to hurry home because Rafael will want his mamá if the weather gets ugly. So she promised to work quickly, even though her paycheck will be short if she doesn’t put in her full eight hours. There will be little money for groceries in the week ahead, but Carlos will put in extra hours at the gas station if he has to. If the storm doesn’t come and the gas station stays open.
Somehow, they will—how does Carlos say it? Make the nickels stretch.
She smiles as she runs her feather duster over the edge of the credenza and skims the letters on the computer keyboard. When the monitor flashes to life after she touches the egg-shaped thing they call a mouse, she backs away.
She has been warned about American tecnología. The government here has hidden wires in the walls to listen to phone calls and read e-mail messages. Cameras sit atop traffic lights and snap fotografías of passing cars; computers at the grocery know what she buys and when she buys it.
Computers make Isabel nervous. So many Americans depend on them, especially the people in this building. Sometimes she feels as if the sleeping computers watch her as she dusts, ready to spill her secrets if she touches them in the wrong way.
Florida’s attorney general has offices in this building—six floors of desks with computers—and his office terrifies her more than the others. She doesn’t know who the attorney general is or exactly what he does, but with such a title and so many employees, he must know everything about everyone in the state. Which means he might know about her…but doesn’t yet know he knows.
She must never give him a reason to search for any of her names on his computers.
She runs her duster over the back of Rossman’s chair, then peers out the wide window behind his desk. More color has filled the sky since her last look, but the sun is glowering behind a cloud. After giving the glass a quick spritz of cleaner, she swipes at nonexistent fingerprints. Apparently Mr. Rossman never stands at this window, never touches the glass out of appreciation for the view. Perhaps he takes the scene for granted.
She pauses as she looks toward the west. A series of darker clouds hovers in the distance, swallowing up the horizon’s light. The street lamps far below remain lit, but few vehicles move over the roads. Here and there, police cars hold a vigil at intersections, their lights flashing blue and red. Tampa appears quiet, almost deserted.
Donna Summer is singing “Any Way at All” when Isabel crosses the office. She is about to haul in the vacuum cleaner when she spies a large gold box resting on the arms of one of the visitor’s chairs. An extravagant bow adorns the lid, but the top of the box is askew and merely resting on the bottom. Someone has examined whatever lies inside and left the box open…almost.
What could be inside a box so beautiful?
She stands by the chair, wavering, then tosses her feather duster onto the cleaning cart outside the door. What would it matter if she takes a peek? She will not hurt a thing. She only wants to see what kind of present a rich American boss buys his esposa or novia.
She dislodges the fancy lid with a fingertip, then pushes it out of the way. A white softness lies inside the box, and on closer examination Isabel discovers a gloriously lush fur jacket.
“¡Está maravillosa!”
Oh, what she would give to have such a chaqueta. A man buys a coat like this only if his woman needs nothing else, for why would any woman need a fur coat in Florida? Owning a coat like this would mean the bills were paid, the baby had clothes and they owned a home of their own. No one in her hometown ever owned such a jacket, but on television she’s seen snowy landscapes populated by beautiful red-cheeked ladies in furs as white and lush as the snow surrounding them.
Isabel runs her hand over the garment, its softness like air beneath her palm. After glancing toward the door, she lifts the jacket out of the box and holds it up. The sleeves might be too long and the buttons a little tight, but what does that matter?
She turns to the mirror on the wall, then presses the jacket against her shoulders. The light color complements her dark hair and eyes, and the belt might make her look slender. She bites her lip, suffering a momentary jealousy of the woman who will claim this—why should she be so afortunada?
Isabel lowers her gaze as a wave of guilt slaps at her. What is she thinking? She has Carlos and Rafael and she is safe in wide, anonymous America. She might never own a fur like this, but she will never need one.
Still…maybe she could wear it for a minute?
Through the earbuds, Donna Summer urges her to follow her dreams.
Ingrained caution falls away as Isabel slips her arms into the coat. The silk lining, dyed to resemble a leopard pelt, feels glorious against her skin, and the fur collar softly tickles her throat. She wraps herself in the luxurious creation and ties the belt at her waist, then moves to the mirror to see if the chaqueta lives up to its unspoken promises.
A pale oval of apprehension stares out from the glass, then eases into a smile. Isabel relaxes with the stranger in the mirror, recognizing the fur-clad lady as a woman who could walk into any store in the country and not feel anxious. In this coat Isabel could shop at Nordstrom or Lord & Taylor; she could examine a fancy dress without some clerk rushing over to suggest that she would be better off looking…somewhere else.
She presses her hand to the soft collar and lifts her chin, determined to enjoy the moment. Even if by some miracle Carlos earns a raise and a promotion, they will always need money for Rafael’s food and clothes and medicine and school. One day her son will go to college; later he will become a doctor. He is an American, so he will speak good English and feel free to shop in any store. His wife might own a coat like this, and she will wear it with pride.
Isabel slips her hand into the pockets and flashes a movie-star smile at the mirror, then realizes one pocket is not empty. It contains a thin blue box, hinged on one side.
She gasps when she lifts the lid. On a bed of midnight velvet, dozens of diamonds have been strung together, more than she can count. It’s a pulsera, a bracelet, but unlike any bracelet Isabel has ever seen.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
The masculine voice rips through the music in Isabel’s ears. She whirls and sees a man—¿Señor Rossman?—coming out of the bathroom at the back of the suite, his hair wet and his shirtsleeves unbuttoned.
Terror lodges in her throat, making it impossible for her to reply.
CHAPTER 4
Gina fastens the clasp of the manila envelope, then stiffens at the sound of movement in the house. Is one of the children awake? Not likely this early on a Saturday morning, but Matthew might have decided to get up and turn on the Weather Channel. Of all the children, he alone seems to realize the danger Felix poses. The girls have grown inured to the threat of hurricanes; Samantha actually complained when she heard the malls would be closed today.
Gina tiptoes to her bedroom door, opens it a crack and listens. No sound comes from the upstairs bedrooms, so she must have heard the wind moving over the attic vents. She steps out and looks through the wide living-room windows, guaranteed to withstand hurricane-force winds. The curling fronds of the palms around the pool are swaying toward the sunrise, which means the wind is coming from the unsettled west.
Dangerous weather may be on its way, but she has plenty of time. The sky is cloudy, but not sagging; the wind is brisk, but not yet dangerous.
She inhales a deep breath to bolster her courage. She can proceed with her plan. She’ll freshen her makeup, pull on casual slacks and a light sweater. She needs to look like a devoted wife running upstairs to lend her husband a helping hand.
Few people, if any, will be in the building this morning. The first-floor deli, bank and florist are certain to be closed. She’ll speak to anyone she meets and make it clear that while Sonny may be workaholic enough to risk his neck, she’s not going to stick around. Maybe on the way out she should ask the security guard if the Pierpoint restaurant will open at all, implying that Sonny might need an afternoon snack.
She should be home before the kids wake up. Even if the wind rouses them, they’ll get breakfast and settle in front of the TV. A couple of hours could pass before they notice she’s gone.
Her family may not be perfect, but they are predictable. Sonny may not have come home last night, but the hurricane will force him to the office this morning, where he’ll be scurrying like a squirrel before an oncoming Mack truck. At the last possible moment, he’ll either run home or go to that woman’s place.
He has no right to that choice.
Gina slides the P.I.’s report under her mattress, then pauses before the dresser to run a brush through her hair. She can’t look unkempt or nervous today; she’s a dutiful wife on a mission of mercy.
She presses two fingers to her right temple as a baby migraine drums a faint rhythm on a nerve. Wait…what about the private investigator? If the police call him in, he’ll tell them that Gina knew about Sonny’s adultery.
Well…fine. She could say she’s suspected that Sonny had other women through the years. That he’s always been a scamp, and she hired the investigator to get hard proof of her husband’s infidelity so she could beg Sonny to stay for the sake of their children.
Knowledge might be a key to motive, but it’s not proof of murder. To find her guilty, they’ll have to send crime-scene investigators, the coroner and detectives.
Hard to do when a hurricane has paralyzed a city’s law-enforcement infrastructure.
She steps into her walk-in closet and selects a yellow sweater and black slacks from the cedar shelves. As she changes her clothing, grainy images rise on a surge of memory. During the news coverage of Hurricane Katrina, she couldn’t help thinking that a person could disappear without a trace in the midst of such confusion.
Bodies washed up everywhere in the aftermath of that storm. For weeks, police and rescue workers found corpses in attics, under debris, in swimming pools and ditches. The levees of New Orleans hemmed in the dead of that city, but there are no levees in Tampa. The rains will fall, the tides will surge and the water will retreat, taking many of the dead along with it. Those who aren’t washed out to sea will quickly and quietly decompose where they fell, adding yet another layer of stress to an overburdened police department.
Gina checks her reflection in the full-length mirror, then pulls her trench coat from a hanger. She will need its deep pockets.
Before leaving the bedroom, she walks to Sonny’s nightstand. The small gun waits inside the drawer, a Rohrbaugh R9 her husband insisted on buying “to protect the family.”
Exactly what she intends to do with it.
She shrugs her way into the trench coat, drops the weapon into one of the pockets, then pulls her keys from her purse. Her shoulder feels empty without her handbag, but today she will travel without it. If she’s stopped at an intersection, she doesn’t want to be able to produce identification or a wallet. A policeman is likely to forget a flustered face, but he might remember the name on a driver’s license.
She looks in the mirror and practices her lines: “I’m here only for a minute. I have to run upstairs.”
A guileless face smiles back at her.
In the great room, she listens to the rising wind and swats at an insistent gnat of worry. Downtown Tampa may be at Felix’s mercy, but the suburbs are braced for the worst. This three-year-old house meets the tough new building codes and Sonny has stocked the garage with water, batteries, flashlights and packaged snack foods.
Before leaving, she tiptoes up the thickly carpeted stairs to check on her children. Matthew’s door is ajar; she gives it a gentle push and sees him sprawled over his bed, arms and legs akimbo. A handsome auburn-haired nineteen-year-old with amazing potential, according to his high school counselor, Matthew represents the best of her and Sonny. He has taken a year off to work and gather what he calls “life experience.” While Gina admires his practicality, she suspects he’s postponed college because he knows his leaving will break his mother’s heart.
Seventeen-year-old Mandi has fallen asleep with her television still flickering in the corner. While one of the Three Stooges snorts and wheezes into the depths of an enormous handkerchief, Mandi snores like a lumberjack, her head back and mouth open. In the room next door, Samantha, Gina’s youngest, is curled under a puffy pink comforter, her head sharing the pillow with a bedraggled stuffed animal.
Gina lingers in the doorway and smiles at her baby. Samantha would die if she knew Gina was seeing her like this; at fifteen, she pretends to be past caring for the sentimental treasures of her childhood. Gina knows better, though. A mother always knows.
She closes Samantha’s door and blows a kiss toward each of her sleeping offspring. If she’s delayed, Matthew will watch out for his younger sisters until she returns home.
After the initial shock, her kids will be fine. She and the children only have to weather this one storm.
Michelle checks her reflection in the mirror, wipes a smudge of gloss from the edge of her lower lip and hopes Parker will look up from his paperwork long enough to appreciate her efforts to look nice on a blustery Saturday morning. The man has a tendency to be testy when under pressure, and he definitely didn’t get much sleep last night.
But he has a surprise for her. If all goes well, his surprise and her decision will complement each other.
She leaves the bathroom and moves through the living room, picking up drink glasses and napkins left behind on the coffee table. After setting the dishes in the kitchen sink, she returns to the living room and stops to press the power switch on the television remote. Several channels of kids’ cartoons flash in a blur until she finds a weather map. The fresh-faced newscaster holds a rain-coated toy poodle on one arm while he points to what looks like a frosted doughnut spinning toward Florida’s central west coast.
“Pressed by a descending cold front, Felix is taking a more northwesterly track than initially predicted,” the weathercaster says. “The hurricane is now expected to come ashore near Madeira Beach in less than twelve hours. If you haven’t evacuated and you live on the water, forget about leaving the county. The interstates are congested and you don’t want to be trapped on the highway. Instead, get to a shelter right away.”
Michelle glances at the clock on the wall—the storm won’t arrive until day’s end, but the winds could become dangerous long before Felix makes landfall. Then again, the hurricane could veer north or south and barely ripple the air, making fools of the people who have spent the last week slapping plywood on their windows and loading their pantry with toaster pastries. Over the years she’s done that herself, stockpiling bottled water she eventually uses to mist the ferns on her front porch.
But at this moment she has something more important to think about. Whether or not Felix reaches Tampa Bay, Parker will soon finish up at the office and head home to be with his kids. If she’s going to talk to him alone, she has to leave now. She could wait, but she doesn’t want to lose her nerve….
The television camera shifts to a reporter standing in front of a pile of rubble. “Bob Ruffalo here,” he says, squinting into a spotlight, “in Puerto Juarez on the Yucatán Peninsula. Twenty-six hours ago Hurricane Felix blew through this place with winds of one hundred forty miles per hour. What you see behind me was once a thriving village—now the village has all but disappeared beneath a mountain of debris. Forty-four people are dead, scores of men, women and children are missing—”
Michelle clicks off the power and drops the remote onto the sofa. She moves toward the door, but the image of the ruined village lingers on the back of her retinas. When she tries to imagine what sort of diamond Parker may have picked out, the only picture her mind supplies is that of a big-eyed Mexican girl in a torn and muddy dress—
She stops at the door and rakes her hand through her hair. Okay, she’ll admit it. This may not be the most appropriate day for personal ultimatums, but what can she do about hurricane victims in Mexico?
“Get a grip, Tilson,” she says, her voice echoing in the empty foyer. “The Yucatán is in a different country. Rural villages like that don’t even have building codes, but we do and they’re tough. You need to be tough, too.”
Maybe Lauren is right and Felix won’t come here…but if it does, she’ll be ready.
Michelle walks to the large front window that overlooks Tampa Bay, tests the lock with her thumb, and is reassured to find the frame sealed tight. The accordion shutters wait at the right and left, ready for her to secure them. Nothing short of a Learjet, the installer assured her, could blast through those shutters when they are locked and loaded.
In an hour, two at the most, she’ll be back, ready to button up the condo and ride out the storm…unless Parker convinces her he is finally ready to get serious about their future. If so, she’ll come home only long enough to close the shutters and pack a bag.
Elated by her renewed determination, she pulls her keys from her purse, opens her front door and strides toward the elevator.
She’s thirty-three years old and she wants a family. If Parker doesn’t want to join her, then she’ll find someone else, but she will not be kept dangling.
If all goes well, she will spend this night with Parker’s children by her side and his ring on her finger.
And she will not have yellow mums at her wedding.
8:00 a.m.
CHAPTER 5
As the wind fires sharp pellets of rain at his windshield, Eddie Vaughn turns up the volume on his radio. On the seat beside him, Sadie, his golden retriever, shifts her weight and gives him a beseeching look.
“Almost home, girl.” He slows to ease the pickup across a stream gushing through an intersection, then tears his gaze from the pavement to grin at the dog. “You ready to settle in and watch some TV? If the power goes out, I figured we could play a few rounds of Go Fish or do a crossword.”
Sadie makes a rhrrrumph sound deep in her throat, then lowers her chin to the top of the seatback and stares out the truck’s rear window.
Eddie forces himself to whistle a bar of “Singing in the Rain,” then gives up the effort. The dog is worried, and no amount of grinning or whistling is going to relieve her anxiety. He’s heard that animals can sense impending natural disasters—whether or not the rumor is true, Sadie has been antsy for the last couple of days.
Felix has been swirling around in the Caribbean for almost a week, but only in the last twelve hours has the storm drawn a bead on Tampa Bay.
When the cell phone on the seat buzzes, Eddie turns down the volume on the radio, then scoops up the phone with his free hand. “’Lo?”
“Hey, doll.” Charlene’s voice, crusty from chain-smoking, fills his ear. “Are they all squared away up there at Freedom Home?”
“You can scratch that one off your list, ma’am. Those folks aren’t going to be using the elevators anytime soon. The nurses have moved all the residents into the common room—the poor people who didn’t have anyone to pick them up, anyway.”
“Thanks for running up there, Eddie. I hated to call you out so early.”
“No big deal. I can go power ’em up after the storm passes, if you want.”
She croaks out a laugh as another phone rings in the background. “You must have gotten a look at my friend’s daughter. Did you meet Emily? She’d be the blonde, the one that looks like Pamela Anderson.”
Eddie brakes for a stop sign. “Yeah, I saw her. Pretty package. Nothing inside.”
“You’re too picky, Ed. Here I go out of my way to hook you up with a girl—”
“Give it a rest, Charlene, I’m doin’ fine.”
“But you’re too nice a guy to be livin’ all alone—”
“I’d rather live alone than try to talk to a woman who’s as shallow as a pie pan.” He catches a quick breath. “Don’t you have to answer that phone?”
Thankfully, the question derails the dispatcher’s train of thought. “Yeah, I’d better. Well, doll, you take care. Batten down the hatches and all that. Check in when you can.”
“You take care, too, Charlene. I’ll talk to you when it’s all over.”
He disconnects the call and tosses the phone back onto the seat. Sadie lowers her head to sniff at it as Eddie slants into the left lane, where the water isn’t as deep.
“Almost home, girl.”
Charlene’s well-intentioned meddling has turned his thoughts toward Alabama…and Heather. His memories of her are hazy now, blurred by time and the receding fog of pain.
Yet thoughts of Alabama still tighten his throat.
He turns up the volume on the radio. No music yet; the newscaster remains focused on the threatening weather: “Experts are saying Felix could wreak the kind of damage Charley did to Punta Gorda three years ago. The tidal surge could rise as high as twenty-two feet, enough to flood the downtown area, Tampa International Airport and MacDill Air Force Base.”
“Good thing we don’t live in Tampa, huh, Sades?”
Eddie clucks his tongue as he turns into his subdivision and peers through the pouring rain. His neighborhood seems deserted, which means people have either heeded the evacuation warnings or hunkered down inside their homes. Sheets of plywood or corrugated aluminum cover most of the windows and the seven dwarfs have disappeared from Mrs. Jackson’s flower bed. Jack Tomlinson has parked his wife’s minivan on the open lawn, away from the heavy oak tree that shades the south side of their house. Though the Tomlinson family’s garage is crowded with old newspapers, paint cans, sports equipment and tools (several of them on loan from Eddie), apparently Jack has found room for his Corvette.
“I’d like to repeat,” the radio announcer says, “that the governor has ordered the mandatory evacuation of ten coastal counties, warning that those who say behind face certain injury or death. If you’re not in a shelter and you live on the beach, you need to evacuate immediately to protect your own life.”
Eddie’s house, located on high ground in unincorporated Pinellas County, is part of a thirty-year-old subdivision built when contractors cared more for utility than aesthetics. The rainwater is draining properly on his street, a road lined by three-bedroom, two-bath structures of concrete block. Like its neighbors, his house isn’t fancy, but it has a fenced yard for Sadie, a small pool and a half-dozen shade trees to protect it from the sweltering summer sun.
Eddie hopes those leafy canopies survive the approaching hurricane. Last year even the storms that merely swiped at Pinellas County toppled hundreds of trees, which damaged cars and homes as they fell. Not even a house of concrete block can withstand a direct hit from a sprawling two-hundred-year-old live oak.
“Officials estimate that 487,000 people in Hillsborough County alone have had to seek shelter,” the newscaster continues, “and over 550,000 have filled shelters in Pinellas County. They’re fortunate—the Florida Highway Patrol has halted access to the interstate system, and those who haven’t made it across Pinellas County’s two bridges and single causeway are out of luck. Wherever you are, I hope you’re safely tucked away and not on the road.”
“You and me both, bud,” Eddie says, turning into his driveway. He pulls the pickup under the carport, then steps out of the truck. He doesn’t have to call Sadie—she leaps out behind him, a graceful golden blur on a beeline for the back door.
He laughs as he looks for his house key. “Ready to go inside, are you? Me, too. Let’s eat while we still have power to the microwave.”
Sadie scratches at the threshold, then sits back and waits for Eddie to slip the key into the lock. After opening the door, he takes one last look around before following the dog into the house. The garbage cans have been hauled into the utility room, the bird feeders tucked into a sheltered corner of the carport. He has covered his windows with plywood, turned the glass-topped patio table upside down on a mat of old towels and tossed his aluminum lawn chairs into the pool. He and Sadie have bottled water, a battery-powered radio, canned foods, a manual can opener, a stash of cash and a full gas can—enough supplies to get them through a couple of weeks, if necessary.
Satisfied with his preparations, he steps into the utility room and locks the door, securing the dead bolt, as well. The dead bolt would stop a human intruder, but he’s not sure it will hold against a category-four wind.
A year ago, when he left Alabama to escape an emotional storm, he never dreamed he’d be exchanging one kind of disaster for another. All things considered, though, the literal storms are easier to handle.
“God, help us,” he murmurs, one hand on the doorknob. Then he turns and whistles for the dog.
Because a man on the radio keeps insisting the police have blocked the downtown exits off I-275, Gina avoids the interstate and drives toward Sonny’s office along a less-traveled route. Several ominous clouds have swept in from the bay by the time she reaches the edge of the downtown district; a gray curtain of rain hangs beneath them, obscuring her view of the river.
On her approach to the Platt Street Bridge, she spots a policeman sitting in his cruiser. The brim of his hat shifts toward the rearview mirror, so he’s seen her.
Well…Sonny always says it’s easier to beg forgiveness than permission. She could almost believe he was counting on her forgiveness for the affair…if she hadn’t found the bankbook.
Rage rises in her cheeks as she stomps on the gas and steers around the police officer.
On the far side of the bridge, she looks in her mirror and sees the cop stepping out of his car. He might be frustrated, but he won’t stop her. He’s needed at his post.
Sonny is needed at home, but where has he been lately? With his mistress. With a young, pretty trophy tartlet.
She turns north and heads up Ashley Drive, then brakes at an intersection. No one else moves on this riverside street, not even the police. She glances at the wet road, where the traffic light shivers in red reflection beside her car, then turns the asphalt green.
She drives on. The haze of gasoline and diesel fumes that usually hovers over the downtown streets has been replaced by a thick humidity. She can almost feel the skin of the storm swelling like an overripe grapefruit. Soon it will burst.
Just as she will burst if she fails to act.
She is overcome with a memory, unshakable and vivid, of a character in a Flannery O’Connor short story. The woman’s thin skin is described as “tight as the skin on an onion” and her gray eyes are “sharp like the points of two ice picks.”
Today Tampa wears the look of O. E. Parker’s coldhearted wife.
After passing the light at Jackson, she spots the flashing bubble of another police vehicle. To avoid it, she heads the wrong direction down Kennedy, a one-way street, then breaks the law again as she drives north on southbound Tampa. After a quick turn, she pulls into the whitewashed entrance of the Lark Tower’s parking garage and guides her car up the slanted driveway.
At the entry gate, she presses the red button, then takes a ticket. She looks to her left, where the parking attendant’s booth stands empty. The garage, in fact, is as quiet as a ghost town.
The black-and-white striped arm lifts, allowing her to enter. She turns and glances in the rearview mirror. No lights flash behind her; no siren breaks the stillness. She glories briefly in her accomplishment, then follows the curving arrows past the visitors’ parking to the third level, reserved for tenants.
She smiles after rounding the corner. Her instincts about her husband were spot-on, as usual: Sonny’s silver BMW is snuggled into its reserved space. He must have been in a hurry when he arrived, for he pulled in at an angle, carelessly trespassing on another tenant’s parking place.
“How rude, darling.” Purposely remaining between the painted lines, Gina pulls into the space next to the BMW and crinkles her nose as the front of her Mercedes just misses her husband’s back bumper.
She would have liked to hit his precious car, but she can’t afford to indulge a childish whim. She needs to get in and out of the building with as little fuss as possible.
Gina kills the engine, then pulls her keys from the ignition. Pistol in the right pocket, keys in the left. She steps out of the car, gives Sonny’s unblemished bumper a regretful smile and strides toward the elevators on legs that tremble despite the dead calm in her heart.
The designers of the Lark Tower have done their part to ease Tampa’s traffic congestion by reserving the six lowest floors for parking. On an ordinary day all six levels would be filled by tenants and visitors, but most of the spaces are vacant now.
The garage is heavy with after-hours quiet, broken only by the echo of Gina’s footsteps and the tick of her cooling engine. She glances over her shoulder to be sure she’s alone, but no one has driven in or out since her arrival. Most everyone, apparently, has gone home.
Sonny should have gone home, too. If he hadn’t been playing around with his girlfriend last night, he wouldn’t need to come to the office this morning.
Twelve elevators at the center of the building provide access to the Lark Tower’s thirty-six floors. Six of the elevators are express, stopping only at levels one through seven and office levels twenty-five through thirty-six. A second bank of six elevators serves the first through twenty-fifth floors. A special plaque announces the eighth-floor location of the renowned Pierpoint Restaurant, home to one of Tampa’s finest chefs.
Since Sonny’s office is on the uppermost level, Gina steps into the air-conditioned space at the express landing and presses the call button. While she waits, she checks her reflection in the polished bronze doors. In order to surprise her cheating husband, she needs one more thing.
With Florida’s attorney general occupying five and a half floors of office space at the top of the building, the Lark Tower’s uppermost levels aren’t accessible to the public. Every visitor has to obtain an access card before the elevator will rise to the thirty-sixth floor, and Sonny believes the extra layer of security lends the offices of Rossman Life and Liability a certain cachet.
A bell dings to signal an elevator’s arrival. Gina steps into the car, then turns and presses the button for the lowest level. The polished doors slide together, then the car lowers her to the marble-tiled lobby.
Gina moves into the open area and strides toward the security station, where a tubby older man in a blue uniform blinks at her approach. She doesn’t recognize him, nor, apparently, does he know her. Not surprising, since she hasn’t visited Sonny’s office in months.
Behind a granite-topped counter, the guard slides off his stool. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” he calls, his voice ringing against the marble walls, “but the building is closed. We’re under an evacuation order.”
Something in his appearance—perhaps the stun gun attached to his belt—sends a wave of reality crashing over her, as hard as the terrazzo beneath her loafers. She is about to do something that cannot be undone. She has planned a heinous act, a deed that would cause her children to gasp in revulsion if they knew what she had in mind.
Can she really go through with this?
How easy it would be to smile at the security guard, profess ignorance of the evacuation and take the elevator back to the parking garage. She could drive home to her sleeping children. They would never know what she’d planned or how far she’d gone—
But they need not know anything. She won’t tell them about this, or the bankbook, or the forty-three-thousand-dollar bracelet Sonny gave to his Don CeSar date. She’ll keep everything from them, just as Sonny has kept secrets from her for who knows how many years.
Yet some secrets refuse to stay buried. Matthew might find something in the office or Samantha might run into someone at the club who knows that woman. Idle gossip is a powerful force, and even if her plan goes off without a hitch, someone might guess at the truth….
She sways on her feet as the walls blur and only half hears the security guard’s alarmed question: “Ma’am? Are you all right?”
She puts out a hand and grips the edge of the counter. “Just give me…a minute.”
Can she continue to ignore Sonny’s late hours? Can she pretend she doesn’t notice another woman’s perfume on his shirts? When the inevitable occurs and he comes in to ask for a divorce, can she look her children in the eye and say she didn’t see it coming?
She can’t. She sees, she knows, and she has to stop Sonny from ripping her family apart.
She blinks at the guard and forces her lips to bend in a curved, still smile. “Sorry about that,” she says, realizing that this man could be called to testify at her trial. “I should have stopped to grab a bite of breakfast.”
The guard’s brow wrinkles with concern. “Should I call a doctor? Get you something to eat?”
“I’m fine now, thanks.” She broadens her smile. “My husband is tending to some last-minute details in his office. I thought I’d help him out—you know, speed things along so he can come home.”
The man’s look of unease deepens. “I’m not supposed to let any visitors go up. We’ve been experiencing blackouts and I wouldn’t want to be responsible—”
“Don’t worry.” She flattens her hands against the countertop and softens her smile. “I’m sure I can talk him into leaving the building eventually. But I need an access card.”
The man crosses his arms and folds his hands into his armpits. “No can do, ma’am. Why don’t you call him? There’s a phone around the corner—”
The ding of the elevator interrupts. Gina pivots, half expecting to see Sonny, but the man who steps into the lobby is a stranger. He comes forward, drops a sealed envelope onto the security desk, then returns to the elevator. An instant later he reappears, pushing a cart loaded with cardboard file boxes.
Gina transfers her gaze from the stranger to the wealth of silver hair on the guard’s forearms. “You let that man go up.”
The tip of the guard’s nose goes pink as he shoves the envelope into a drawer. “I—I can’t stop anybody with a pass key. They come straight from the garage and go up, nothing I can do about that. But I’ve been told to clear the building by ten o’clock, so that’s what I aim to do.”
“The thing is,” Gina says, lowering her voice, “I haven’t been able to reach my husband by phone. I’m worried and I need to see him.”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t give you a card.” Despite his concerned expression, the guard is proving to be about as flexible as a brick wall. “I didn’t even program any visitor’s cards this morning, on account of the evacuation order. So you can sit and wait or you can call your husband, but I can’t give you an access card.”
Maybe she can sweet talk him into going upstairs with her. Once she’s on the thirty-sixth floor, he ought to let her walk to Sonny’s office alone.
“I’m worried,” she repeats, meeting the man’s gaze. “Sonny doesn’t answer his phone. Could you—could we go up together and see if he’s okay?”
The man frowns, glances at the elevators, then shakes his buzz-cut head. “Can’t leave my post. The other guards didn’t come in today, on account of the hurricane. I’m supposed to leave in a couple of hours. The entire building’s gotta be evacuated.”
Sonny used to say she could charm the sting out of a bee, but she must be losing her touch.
Sighing, Gina scans the desk behind the counter. No access cards in sight, but they’re probably in a drawer. She has no idea how to program one, but if Deputy Dawg can do it, surely she can figure it out.
She smiles, then lowers her arms and slips her right hand into her pocket. Reluctantly, she grips the gun. “I suppose you’ve left me with only one choice.”
CHAPTER 6
After dodging traffic cops, gyrating stoplights and barricades, Michelle pulls onto North Tampa and squints through the blurred arc made by her windshield wipers. Is that a perfect line of empty parking spaces on the street? She’s been renting office space in the Lark Tower for two years, but until now she’s never been able to park on the curb.
She whips her car into a prime spot, then pushes the car door into the steady rain. Flurries of paper and leaves fly past her in a pirouetting whirlwind that tugs at the canopies of the neatly trimmed live oaks. The radio weathercaster has been predicting intermittent rain for the next several hours, with increasing wind speeds until well after sunset.
Michelle grabs an empty Applebee’s take-out bag and holds it over her head as she dashes toward the lobby entrance, her raincoat rippling and snapping in the wind.
Maybe she’s crazy for coming here. Lauren would certainly think so, but Lauren has a ring on her finger and a date on the caterer’s books. More to the point, Lauren’s biological clock is running at least five years behind Michelle’s.
Though she’s almost positive Parker is preparing to propose, she can’t let this opportunity for action slip away. The threat of an imminent hurricane ought to make it easy for him to get serious about drawing his loved ones close, but the man might need a nudge toward matrimony. If this wild weather isn’t enough to make him think about his responsibility to her as well as his children, her ultimatum should be.
The rising wind whooshes past her, clawing at the Applebee’s bag and whipping her raincoat around her frame. She nearly falls on the rain-slicked pavement near the building entrance, but catches the brass bar on a lobby door. The door seems heavier today, and she struggles against it until the wind pries the Applebee’s bag from her fingers and whips it across the street, then releases it like a free-floating parachute. With both hands she pushes against the door until it moves, but a gust of wind follows her into the building, rattling the leaves of two potted ficus trees standing guard at the perimeter of the lobby.
Flustered, she shakes water from her hair and looks around. The sandwich shop, florist, bank and office center are all locked and closed, their interiors dark. No one sits in the lounge chairs scattered among the massive bowls of bromeliads, but she glimpses movement at the security station beyond the reception area.
Good to know she’s not alone in the building.
After wiping raindrops from her face, she settles her wet purse on her shoulder and strides toward the security guard, who is talking to a woman in a tan trench coat. She calls out a greeting as she heads toward the elevator landing. “Surprised to see you this morning, Gus.”
“Miss Tilson, wait.” Stepping away from the woman in the trench coat, the guard lifts his arm to hold her attention. “We’re urging all tenants to evacuate immediately. Haven’t you seen the news?”
She gestures toward the elevators. “I’ll only be a few minutes. I need to run upstairs and pick up a file.”
“Come on, now.” Gus hikes up his belt and gives her a look of paternal disapproval. “You shouldn’t even be downtown in this weather. We’re locking the building at ten and I’m not supposed to let any visitors into the office areas.”
Her mouth twists in an expression that’s not quite a smile. When will he realize she doesn’t need his protection? “I’m not a visitor, Gus, I’m a paying tenant and I need to go to my office.”
“But, Miss Tilson—”
“That storm is hours away and I’ll only be a few minutes. Thanks for your concern, but I’m going upstairs.”
Gus’s features crumple with frustration, but he retreats to his stool.
Michelle walks to the express elevators and presses the call button, then crosses her arms. According to the lit panels above the doors, one car is on the second level of the parking garage; the others are scattered among floors twenty-five through thirty-six.
The woman in the trench coat steps onto the carpet at the landing and catches Michelle’s eye. “Tilson?” she asks. “Tilson Corporate Careers?”
Michelle gives her a perfunctory smile. “Yes.”
“Ah.” The woman nods and looks away. “I’ve seen your name on the registry.”
Michelle frowns, wondering if she should know this woman, but then the light above the middle car shifts from thirty-six to thirty-five.
Could Parker be on his way down?
After pressing the button that will take her to the maintenance department, Isabel turns and drops her forehead to the elevator’s back wall. What is she going to do? If the authorities find out what happened, they might arrest her, maybe even put her in prison. She has tried her best to avoid trouble, but trouble seems to find her at every turn, even in los Estados Unidos.
Ernesto said she wouldn’t be able to run forever, but she has to try. Again. She and Carlos and Rafael must go someplace where they will never be found.
As the elevator descends with a smooth whoosh, Isabel feels a rush of gratitude for its speed. If this were a weekday morning, the building would be so crowded it would take forever for the express to travel from the top of the building to the custodial office on the seventh floor. Today, however, the elevator escorts her to the lower level without interruption.
The bronze doors slide open, revealing a concrete hallway, scraped walls, dented lockers and another cleaning cart—
No.
Isabel’s hand flies to her mouth. She left her cart in Rossman’s outer office. Anyone who sees it will know she was there…and might guess why she left in a panic.
As the elevator door begins to close, she thrusts out her arm and stops it.
What should she do? She could clock out, go to her car and drive home. She’d have to beg Carlos to leave the area because he wouldn’t want to go, not with the hurricane coming. Driving on old tires in a storm would be dangerous.
But how can they escape when la policía are positioned throughout the city? They will stop the car and they will want to know why Carlos waited so long to leave. Carlos is a good man; he will not lie and Isabel will not allow him to lie for her. So she will tell the truth, and they will put her in jail and tell the attorney general that a criminal has been working under his nose all these many months….
She can’t run, not today. She will have to wait, talk to Carlos, pray that the authorities never learn that she was in Rossman’s office this morning.
So she must go back upstairs and get her cart.
When the elevator buzzes to protest the prolonged stop, Isabel takes a half step back and allows the doors to close. As the car begins to move, she returns to the back wall and presses her hand to her chest, where a bulky, cold lump is scraping against her breastbone. Things will be all right. She can get her cart, return it to the seventh floor, clock out and go home. Her secret will keep; no one will know for hours, maybe days.
A chill shivers her skin when the car stops on the ground floor. The lobby.
¿Qué pasa? Her thoughts whirl in a rush, then she remembers: she forgot to push the button. Someone in the lobby must have called the elevator, and this was the closest car.
Though it hurts to draw breath, Isabel reminds herself to stay calm and keep her head down. She can’t let anyone see the distress in her eyes or her trembling hands. Fortunately, few people in this place ever really see her. They pass in an office or hallway and notice her no more than they notice the potted plants or the exit signs above every stairwell doorway.
She steps to the far right corner of the car as the bronze doors open. Mi querido Dios, let me remain alone a little longer….
God must not be listening. The sweet scent of perfume reaches her nostrils as dos gringas enter the car.
Isabel holds her breath as the first woman, a slim brunette, pulls out her access card, slips it into the security slot and presses the button for thirty-six.
The other woman stands silent against the left wall, her hands shoved into the pockets of her tan coat. The lump in Isabel’s chest grows heavier when the second woman does not move to press any of the elevator’s many buttons.
Are they all riding to the thirty-sixth floor?
Michelle smiles at the woman who followed her into the car. “Can I press a button for you?”
The woman shifts her gaze from the elevator panel to Michelle’s face. “No, thank you.” Her shoulder-length hair, a vibrant shade of red, is far drier than Michelle’s, so she must have parked in the garage.
Smart lady.
Out in the lobby, Gus has left his station and is rocking toward them on stiff hips. “Ladies, I have to close this building and leave by ten, so I really must advise—”
Michelle is about to ratchet the argument up a notch when the redhead steps forward and jabs the Door Close button. The doors slide together before the security guard can reach them.
Michelle laughs. “He really doesn’t want us to go upstairs.”
The other woman shrugs. “I really don’t care what he wants.”
“I think we’re all a little on edge today.” Michelle glances at the cleaning woman at the back of the car, but she seems to be studying the floor. A pink portable CD player is clipped to her sweater pocket, and from it a gray wire snakes toward her head and ends in a pair of earbuds.
Michelle snorts softly and turns back toward the front of the car. No wonder the housekeeper is oblivious. She probably hasn’t heard a word they’ve said.
She pulls the edges of her raincoat together as the express elevator begins its ascent. Time to focus on Parker. In a moment she’ll be face-to-face with the man who could be the love of her life. She’ll hear what he has to say and he’ll listen to her.
After he hears her challenge, he’ll either react with joy, indifference or irritation. Maybe he’s been waiting for her to state her willingness to start a family; maybe he’s never guessed that a successful career woman might want a husband and children.
On the other hand…maybe he thinks three children are enough. Maybe he’s done a little digging in her past and he doesn’t want her to play any role in his kids’ lives. Maybe he doesn’t want a wife because he’s content with a part-time lover.
If he’s that narrow-minded, she’ll either win him over or she’ll move on. But she will not worry about the future. Since becoming independent, she’s never encountered an obstacle she couldn’t overcome…one way or another.
Gina stares at the bronze elevator panel and struggles to corral her racing thoughts. The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry….
Who said that, Shakespeare? No. Burns, but not in those exact words. Saikaku, that Japanese poet, phrased it another way: there is always something to upset the most careful of human calculations.
She should have allowed for Murphy’s law, chaos theory, whatever they’re calling it these days. She should have realized the security guard might give her a hard time. She should have considered the possibility that other people might share a ride in the elevator.
She had been certain the thirty-sixth floor would be deserted by the time she arrived, but these two women are on their way to that same landing.
In this situation, three is definitely a crowd.
Gathering up the pearls at her throat, Gina cuts a glance to the woman across the car. The tall and slender stranger holds herself like a model or a dancer. Miss Tilson, the guard called her, and Gina recognized the name from an office on the thirty-sixth floor. What else had she said? She’d come to pick up a file?
Must be a terribly important client.
The brunette, who has closed her eyes and is leaning against the wall, doesn’t notice Gina’s scrutiny. She’s wearing jeans, but they’re adorned with a designer logo and the blouse beneath the raincoat has the soft sheen of silk. Her nails are short and neatly trimmed, her glasses tortoiseshell, her hair a chic brown cap. Even in denim and sneakers, the woman radiates success. She’s the type to notice things…so she’s one to avoid.
When the maid coughs, the brunette lifts her head and Gina hastily looks away. She’d give anything to be invisible at this moment, but she’ll settle for remaining anonymous.
She leans against the wall and peers over her shoulder at the thick Hispanic woman in the pink uniform. The maid is studying the floor—maybe she resents the water dripping off the brunette’s raincoat. Gina lifts a brow at the sight of the earbuds—what’s she listening to, mariachi music? In any case, she must be doing well. The managers of the Lark Tower take good care of their employees, even the foreigners.
She shifts her gaze as she thinks of the Hispanic families Sonny has insured over the years. Many of the Cubans in Tampa’s Ybor City are quite prosperous; she’s lost count of the quinceañeras she and Sonny have attended to celebrate the fifteenth birthdays of clients’ daughters. Those people spare no expense to honor their blossoming young women; they spend buckets of money on food, bands and party dresses.
If only they spent as much insuring their belongings and their loved ones. How many will be adequately covered if Felix rips their homes apart?
Gina folds her arms. Ordinarily she wouldn’t be aware of the other passengers in an elevator, but today she needs to notice everything. If the police ever launch an investigation into Sonny’s death, they’ll try to track down anyone who was in the building today.
The maid is not likely to be a threat. Many of Tampa’s Hispanics are transient; this woman may not even be around by the time Sonny’s case is investigated.
No need to worry about the maid, then. The brunette is a different story. With her, Gina should be polite, but detached. She should stay calm and try not to do anything that might stick in the woman’s memory.
She slides her right hand back into her pocket and curls her fingers around the pistol. She will warm it with her flesh, prepare it for the task ahead.
She must be patient and courageous. In less than five minutes she’ll be facing her husband; in less than ten minutes he’ll be dead.
She frowns at a sudden thought. How thick are the walls in this building? If either of these women hears the shot, will they assume they are hearing some noise associated with the approaching storm or will they run for help? Gina has never heard a live gunshot, but she’s read that distant gunfire often sounds like firecrackers. Surely no one would think it remarkable to hear a vague pop or two amid the howling of the wind.
She tilts her head and looks at the two women—neither of them look like the hero type, but maybe she ought to sit and chat Sonny up while these ladies do whatever they’ve come up here to do. Fifteen minutes of polite talk about the kids ought to be enough time…. Or maybe she should let Sonny know she found his secrets in the safe. After he’s had a chance to rattle off his excuses and protestations, she can give him the bullet he deserves.
A wry smile tugs at the corner of her mouth. Letting Sonny have a last word…why, that’d be more than fair. That’d be absolutely honorable.
After the deed is done, she might linger in Sonny’s office, giving the hurricane time to move closer. The police are already so strained it’s unlikely anyone will be dispatched if a shot is reported, but she shouldn’t take any chances.
While she waits, she’ll wipe her prints off the pistol and drop it on the floor. No one will think it strange that a successful downtown businessman was carrying his legal, registered weapon on a day like this. The scenario will make perfect sense—looters caught her workaholic husband in his office after the building had been evacuated. Sonny pulled out his gun; a trespasser wrested it away from him; Sonny caught a bullet. The murderer wiped the weapon clean and dropped it before leaving the office suite.
What could be more logical?
So she will proceed with her plan…even if it means spending an extra hour with a dead husband. Sonny’s been dead to her these last few months, anyway. When he does come home, he spends his time in his den, watching TV and reading the paper….
She can’t remember the last time he looked into her eyes and asked her opinion about anything.
Like that mother who drowned her children and then lined them up on the bed, Gina might pull Sonny into his executive chair, adjust his tie and roll him closer to the vulnerable windows. The windows might break in the storm, and water would do its part to eradicate any trace evidence she might leave—
She blinks as the overhead lights flicker and the elevator shudders to a stop. She looks at the panel—the thirty-six has gone dark. The seven is still lit, but they’ve been traveling far too long to be near the seventh floor. Because the twenty-five has not yet lit, she can only assume they have stopped somewhere between the seventh and twenty-fifth floors.
The brunette looks up and catches her eye. “This can’t be good.”
Gina doesn’t answer. As long as the lights remain on, they have power. As long as they have power, surely the elevator can move.
Without speaking, she steps in front of the brunette and presses the button for the thirty-sixth floor. The button won’t light and the car doesn’t budge.
“Let’s try this.” The brunette pulls her access card from the pocket of her jeans and slips it into the slot, then presses the thirty-six with a manicured fingertip. As some unseen power source hums, the car begins to rise.
Gina exhales the breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. The brunette leans against the far wall and grimaces. “That’d be just what we need, wouldn’t it?”
Gina watches the elevator panel. They’re still rising in the concrete shaft, but the twenty-five has not yet lit.
Behind her, the cleaning woman barks another cough. Gina grimaces and hopes the maid doesn’t have avian flu or some other awful disease. Ventilation is terrible in elevators; what one person exhales, another inhales.
She stares at the twenty-five on the elevator panel, willing the button to light.
The brunette lifts her head, doubtless about to utter some other scintillating bon mot, then the lights flicker again; the elevator stops and darkness swallows the car.
9:00 a.m.
CHAPTER 7
Cold terror sprouts between Michelle’s shoulder blades and prickles down her backbone. Not even a glimmer of light remains in the enclosed space.
She presses her hand to her chest, which has begun to suffer short, stabbing pains. She hasn’t felt these invisible arrows in years, but she knows the paralyzing pricks of panic all too well.
Get a grip, count to ten, breathe deeply. You’re a grown woman and everything’s fine; this is an elevator, not the trailer.
Sounds trickle into the car, a faint buzz followed by a steady tick. When a small bulb on the elevator panel blooms into light, Michelle inhales an unsteady breath and looks at the others. The housekeeper’s fear is visible in her trembling chin and wide eyes, but the redhead’s face is as blank as a mask. Something about the woman ignites a spark from Michelle’s memory cells, but after an instant the ember burns out.
When she is certain she can speak in a steady voice, she asks, “Are we all right?”
The redhead doesn’t respond, but the cleaning woman pulls the earbuds from her ears and dips her chin in a solemn nod.
“Then let me see if I can get us out of here.”
All the buttons on the elevator panel remain dark. Michelle presses the thirty-six, but the car doesn’t respond. She tries again with her access card in the security slot, but none of the buttons light at her touch, not even the L for Lobby. Finally she punches the Door Open button with her knuckle and holds it while she counts to five.
Nothing.
She slowly exhales a breath. She will not panic. There’s a light; she can see; she is no longer a child. No one here wants to hurt her.
She turns to the others. “Gus mentioned occasional blackouts—” she forces a smile “—so I’ll bet that’s what this is. As soon as the power kicks on, we’ll start moving again.”
She glances from Ms. Trench Coat to the housekeeper, but her companions are as unresponsive as the elevator controls.
“This same thing happened to me a few months ago.” In an effort to ease the tension, she locks her hands behind her back and leans against the wall. “I was stuck with a group of lawyers for about fifteen minutes. No big deal, except they kept arguing about who they should bill for their lost time.”
Neither woman smiles, leaving Michelle to wonder if they belong to some legal eagles’ antidefamation league. The redhead stares at the control panel as if she could diagnose the dead circuits with X-ray vision. The cleaning woman takes a tissue from her sweater pocket and blots pearls of perspiration from her forehead.
“Excuse, please?” The housekeeper lifts her hand and points to the light fixture on the panel. “We have light, no? So we have electricidad?”
“We have some power,” Michelle says, relieved that she is no longer talking to herself. “When I moved into my office, the building manager said something about the emergency systems being powered by a backup generator. We’ll be fine. We just have to wait for the main system to come back on. Of course—” she raps the plastic dome over the light with her knuckle “—for all I know, this thing might be powered by batteries.”
The woman nods, but a worry line has crept between her brows. “When power comes back—we will go down?”
Michelle shrugs. “I would imagine we’ll keep going up, since we were heading in that direction. But what does it matter? As long as we make it to any floor, we can open the doors and get to the staircase. So we’re fine. Maybe we should even be grateful. At least we’re not falling to the bottom of the shaft.”
She chuckles at her feeble joke, but the sound dies in her throat when the cleaning woman’s round face ripples with anguish.
“Don’t worry,” Michelle hastens to add. “This elevator is not going to fall. That only happens in bad movies.”
The housekeeper acknowledges Michelle’s comment with a slight nod, but Ms. Trench Coat either doesn’t appreciate Michelle’s attempt at humor or she’s not listening.
Michelle crosses her arms and leans against the wall, not certain where to rest her gaze. The little lamp is now glowing at maximum wattage, a token effort that doesn’t eliminate the shadows at the back of the car.
Michelle faces the doors and clenches her hand until her nails slice into her palm. Shadows and closed spaces elicit far too many painful memories.
“Michelle Louise Tills! Where are you, girl?”
The girl wriggled forward, digging her elbows into the soft earth, pulling her body through the narrow space. Dust and dirt rose with every movement, tickling her nose, but she would not sneeze. She wouldn’t make a sound, not as long as Momma waited out there.
“Where are you, Shelly? You’d better come out before I have to come lookin’ for you.”
Shelly moved deeper into the shadows, the raspy voice scraping like a razor’s edge against the back of her neck. Beyond the lattice apron, a blue warbler perched in the tall pine at the edge of the lot, calling Zhee zhee zizizizi zzzzeeet.
Shh, bird. Don’t tell.
“Shel-leeeeeey! I’d better not find you messin’ around with those boys!”
Past the fraying lawn chairs, the sun warmed the asphalt drive where the Smith boys were playing keep-away. The girl could hear Job Smith’s voice ricocheting among the trailers as he teased his younger brother, calling him noodle arms and stork legs….
“Shelly Louise! You get out here this minute or I’ll—well, you get out here. I’m losin’ my patience!”
Her mother’s words, pitched to reach the edge of the lot and no farther, were already softly slurred and she hadn’t even begun what she called “serious drinkin’.” In a while, if the girl was lucky, the woman would give up and go inside the trailer, forgetting about her child while she focused on the tall bottle of amber-colored liquid that demanded every drop of a worshipper’s devotion.
Shelly dropped her arms onto the soft dirt, then rested her cheek on her hands. If she could lie perfectly, soundlessly still, maybe she could become invisible. Maybe she could go away and wake up as someone else’s little girl.
Her mother’s slippers shuffled from the last porch step to the lawn chairs, her pale legs casting twin shadows that stretched toward Shelly like tongs. Instinctively, the girl recoiled, lifting her head so quickly that it clunked against the bottom of the trailer.
She squinched her eyes shut as the top of her head throbbed. Pretty, pretty please, don’t let her hear.
When Shelly lifted one eyelid, her mother was crouched on all fours, eyes hard and shining through the lattice at the bottom of the trailer. “Young lady, get yourself out here right now.”
Shelly put her hands over her eyes and wished the image away. A minute passed, maybe two. She breathed in the scents of earth and dust while the Smith boys laughed and the warbler sang so maybe everything was all right—
When she lifted her gaze, her mother was sucking at the inside of her cheek while her thin brows rose and fell like a pair of seesaws. “Shelly! You don’t want me to have to come in there after you.”
Dread gave the girl courage. “Go away!”
“Michelle Louise! I’m gonna count to three and you’d better be out here! You don’t want to test me, girlie. One! Two! Three!”
Though a warning voice whispered in her head, Shelly didn’t move. She waited, shivering from a chill that had nothing to do with the mountain air, until her mother straightened up and moved away.
Could winning be that easy? Momma was a proud woman, in those days as protective of her reputation as she was of her liquor bottles. A good woman never drank in public, she often assured Shelly, and a good woman took care of her man and her kid before she took care of herself.
The girl looked toward the gravel driveway, where her father’s pickup wasn’t. Daddy was still at the mine; he wouldn’t be home until after dark.
She’d come out if he were here. She’d climb into his arms and ride his bony hip into the house. She’d be happy to see him, even if they found Momma passed out on the sofa. Her daddy loved her, but he was rarely home.
She had just buried her face in her folded arms when new sounds reached her ear—the steady swish of tall grass and the heavy heh, heh, heh of a panting animal. Shelly spun on her belly, turning toward the gap in the lattice where she had wormed her way in.
She saw her mother’s legs scissoring through the grass, accompanied by four brown-and-white paws, a small head, a snarling muzzle and two rows of jagged teeth.
“I’ve got Harley,” her mother called, a victorious edge to her voice. “And I’m gonna let him go if you don’t come out this instant. What’s it gonna be, Michelle Louise? Shall I send Harley in after you?”
For an instant the girl couldn’t speak. The neighbor’s pit bull haunted her nightmares and often drove her from peaceful sleep into her father’s arms. Harley had never actually threatened her, but he bore an unfortunate resemblance to a dog that had attacked her once, pinning her to the ground while it ripped at her upper lip.
A thin scar still marked the spot.
“No, Momma.” Torn between her desire to surrender and her fear of the waiting beast, Shelly rose as high as she could. “I’ll come, Momma, but get rid of the dog.”
“He’s stayin’ right by my side until you walk yourself through that front door.”
“Momma, I’ll come, but I don’t like that dog.”
“I’m not gonna argue with you, Shelly. Get your fanny out from under there and get in the house.”
Shelly gulped down a sob and crawled forward, then froze when the dog lifted his head, ears pricked to attention. When he growled deep in his throat, she knew he could see her…or he smelled her fear.
Dogs know, the Smith boys had told her. Dogs know when you’re scared of ’em. When they smell your fear, they’ll attack ’cause they know they can take you down.
“Momma?” She bit the inside of her lip and looked toward the pale legs. She could see the edge of the housecoat, a blue fabric scattered with white daisies. “Momma, take Harley away and I’ll come out.”
A fly, drawn by her sweat, hit her face and bounced away, then circled and landed on her cheek.
“Momma?”
“I’m still here.” Her mother’s voice had gone flat, almost pleasant. Anyone passing by might have thought she was waiting to give her daughter a welcome-home hug.
Harley growled and pulled at the leash. Shelly rocked back on her haunches, one hand pressed to her mouth as a cry bubbled up from someplace in her chest. She tried to choke off the sound, but she failed and began to sob in a high, pitiful, coughing hack. “Ma-ma! I—can’t—come—with—”
“Stop your cryin’, Shel, I didn’t raise no coward. I’ll hold the dumb dog—you get yourself out here right now.”
“But—I—can’t—”
“If you don’t, I’m letting Harley go. Wonder how long it’ll take him to wiggle under there and tear you up? I saw him get a possum the other day. Even though the critter played dead, he tore that thing to pieces. Not a pretty sight, not a’tall.”
Shelly fell forward and began to creep toward the lattice on shaking limbs. No sense in talking now; her mother had won…again.
She crawled over the dirt, every atom of her being cringing in revulsion, and trembled as she approached the gap in the lattice. Her mother stood ten feet away, one hand on her hip, one arm extended as Harley strained at the leash.
Squatting in the opening, Shelly swiped at her wet cheeks with grimy hands, then launched herself upward and ran for the front porch as if her feet were afire. When she reached the bottom step she heard the thrum of the pit bull’s pounding paws; by the time she passed the threshold the dog was on the porch and snapping at the screen door while her mother watched from the grass and…laughed.
Shelly ran into the bathroom, hiccupping as she washed her hands. She tried her best to clean up, but she couldn’t get the muddy streaks off the counter or the towels.
Maybe it was the mud that did it, or maybe Momma was past caring about anything but being mad. Without a word, she grabbed Shelly by the arm, pulled her through the living room and thrust her into the linen closet. At the bottom, beneath the shelf where they kept the good sheets, was a space just big enough for Shelly to sit with her knees bent up and her head bent low.
That space—and its darkness—were as terrifying as the dog. “Momma—”
“Hush, Shelly. Get in there.”
“Momma, no.” She knew she shouldn’t touch Momma with damp hands, muddy arms and dirty clothes, but in a desperate plea for mercy she threw herself onto her mother’s frame, shaping herself to the woman’s body, clinging like a shadow. “Momma, Momma, I don’t like the dark—”
“Don’t be a baby.” Her mother’s iron fingers pulled and pried while her feet pushed Shelly into the closet.
“Momma, no!”
“And stop that screamin’. The more you scream, the longer I’m leavin’ you in here.”
Because Momma did not issue idle threats, Shelly clamped her trembling lips, imprisoning the cries that scratched at her throat. She thrust out her hands in silent entreaty, but Momma pushed her firmly into a sitting position and closed the door.
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Angela Hunt
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Three women. One man. A gathering storm. In the path of a devastating hurricane, three very different women find themselves trapped in the elevator of a highrise office building. All three conceal shattering secrets–unaware that their secrets center on the same man. The betrayed wife, eager to confront her faithless husband, with rage in her heart and a gun in her pocket…The determined mistress, finally ready to tell her lover she wants marriage and a family… The fugitive cleaning woman, tormented by the darkest secret of all… As the storm rages ever closer, these three must unite to fight for their lives in the greatest test of courage any woman could ever face.