Still, Brooke was different from the others. Dylan felt very protective of her, and he couldn’t just dismiss her fears.
From next door, the dog suddenly gave a distressed yelp. Then the barking started up again, louder and more insistent.
“What the hell?” Dylan muttered, turning off the water at the kitchen sink. Now he knew what Sheila had been complaining about. He couldn’t remember the renter’s name—Lee or Lena Something. Except for glimpsing her in silhouette on the Curtises’ roof deck this morning, Dylan still hadn’t actually met the neighbor. But he was already convinced she was a total idiot.
He could see out the window that it was just starting to rain. Grabbing an umbrella from the front closet, he headed outside and marched across the lawn to the house next door. He rang the front bell and listened to the dog go even crazier.
All at once, the door flew open. Dylan reeled back as the dog shot past him and sprinted toward the park.
Dylan gaped at the redhead standing in the doorway. She was barefoot, wearing jeans and a black blouse that was completely unbuttoned. She wasn’t wearing a bra. She put one hand on her hip.
“Oh, my God,” Dylan murmured. “Leah.”
“The other day, your wife gave me a bottle of wine, Dylan,” she said with a smirk. “Shall we open it up and drink to old times?”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Saturday—4:04 P.M.
Portland
Toni and I were good friends for eight years—ever since I started working here. In fact, I was probably her best friend.”
Debra Barnes stood over her desk, where she’d pushed aside some clutter so Sheila could set down the boxes containing Antonia’s photographs. Debra kept taking sips from a tall Starbucks cup while looking over the pictures. The rim of the coffee cup was smudged with her crimson lipstick.
She was about fifty, and pretty at first glance, but she’d also made herself up very carefully. Sheila noticed dark foundation under her weak chin to make it stand out more. Her big eyes were accentuated with a lot of mascara. Her hair was the same color as Sheila’s—light mocha brown—but Debra’s hairstyle looked coiffured and stiff. She wore a casual lavender blouse and olive slacks, but Sheila guessed she planned to change into the black dress that hung in a dry-cleaner bag on the back of her closed office door.
Debra had explained that she was managing an event tonight and Sheila had caught her during the calm before the storm. She was the Hilton’s banquet manager. Her cramped, messy office had a window looking out to the huge kitchen, where the staff was busily preparing food. An argument seemed to be going on between two of the chefs on duty. Debra ignored them.
Sheila glanced over Debra’s shoulder as the woman inspected the snapshots. So far, there had been only a few pictures of Eden, all of them formal school portraits. However, Debra showed up in several of the photos in Antonia’s collection. Sheila had told her it was okay with her if she wanted to keep those shots. She figured Eden wouldn’t miss them.
“This is a blast from the past,” Debra said, grinning as she examined a photograph of her and Antonia at a party. “Brandey and Bronson’s wedding reception. Toni got plastered and made an ass of herself in front of Bronson’s parents. Plus, there was a wardrobe malfunction I won’t even go into. I think she ended up with the DJ that night. I was sorry I’d brought her as my plus one.”
“I got the impression from Toni’s Facebook page that she was kind of a party girl,” Sheila said.
Debra laughed. “Yeah, kind of.” She set aside the photo in her keeper pile, sipped her coffee, and went back to the photos. The blotter on her desk already had a stack of photographs she’d looked at.
“Still,” Sheila said, “Toni didn’t have too many people at her memorial service, did she?”
“The thing about Toni was, she could be a lot of fun,” Debra said, eyeing another picture. “Ha, look at this one. Anyway, Toni and I really got along here because she was good at her job, a real pro. But outside of work, she could be pretty selfish. She liked to drink and party. She had a wicked sense of humor. She was a regular laugh riot—until the fourth or fifth drink. Then she got mean and bitchy. She had a hard time keeping friends because of that. She never remembered hurting anyone’s feelings or embarrassing herself. I really wanted to clobber her sometimes, until I finally figured out to avoid her after drink number four. Then we got along fine.”
“How well do you know Eden?” Sheila asked.
“The first time I laid eyes on Eden was at the memorial service,” Debra answered, glancing up from a photograph. “Toni wasn’t mother material. Eden was raised mostly by this rich friend of Toni’s, a woman named Cassandra—or Cassie. I forget her last name.”
From her purse, Sheila pulled out the funeral parlor guest book. She wanted to hunt for the name. “Was this Cassandra person at the memorial?”
“Not that I know of. At least, she didn’t walk up and introduce herself to me. She would have had to, because I’ve never met her.”
Sheila flipped through the pages of the book. She would have remembered if a “Cassandra” or “Cassie” was in there. She shoved the book back into her purse and then nodded at the box of photos. “So if a picture of Cassandra was in there, you wouldn’t be able to tell me.”
“Nope, never laid eyes on her,” Debra replied, staring at another picture. “God, look how tan Toni is in this one. The girl was certainly in good shape. Exercised every morning—if she wasn’t too hungover.”
“Can you tell me anything about the arrangement Toni had with Cassandra?” Sheila pressed.
The argument in the kitchen was getting louder, but Debra seemed impervious to it. She set another snapshot in her keeper pile. “Cassandra and Eden had a place in Clackamas, but it might as well have been Timbuktu, considering how rarely Toni saw them. She’d check in with Eden whenever she started feeling maternal—which was rare, believe me. I think she liked to remind the kid who her real mother was. By the time I got to know Toni, she and Cassandra were like ‘frenemies.’ There was a lot of jealousy between them—”
“Wait a minute,” Sheila said, stepping around the desk to face her. “You said you’ve known Toni eight years. Was Cassandra taking care of Eden all that time?”
“Except for the occasional weekend or holiday or birthday when Toni wanted to play mother, that kid was with Cassandra in Clackamas practically since birth.” Debra shrugged. “At least, that’s the impression I got.”
Sheila couldn’t comprehend how Antonia could have given her baby to a friend to raise. No wonder Eden was kind of screwed up, knowing all her life that her mother had never really wanted her and that her father didn’t even know she was alive.
Debra sipped her coffee. “Come last July, Cassandra dumped Eden on Toni’s doorstep and moved to Florida—Tampa, I think. Toni thought she was chasing after some guy down there. Either that, or Eden had done something really awful to piss off Cassandra, which really doesn’t seem too inconceivable. Anyway, can you imagine? Suddenly getting stuck in the role of full-time mom with this teenage daughter you barely know?”
Sheila nodded. “Yes, I can.”
Debra laughed. “That’s right. Sorry. Anyway, after only a couple of months, the girl—along with her boyfriend—really started to get on Toni’s nerves.”
“Brodie?”
Debra nodded. “Toni couldn’t stand him. She kept telling me she wanted to ship Eden back to Cassandra in Florida. But she didn’t have any way of getting in touch with her. I guess Cassie changed her email and phone number, and became totally incommunicado. Toni was going nuts with the kid living there in that small apartment. It was a two-bedroom, but still. The two of them simply didn’t get along—and having that snaky boyfriend around didn’t help matters at all. That’s what Toni called him, ‘The Snake.’ Toni was ready to wash her hands of both of them. She was even thinking of shipping Eden up north to you and your husband.”
Sheila folded her arms. “I was just about to ask how much Toni
told you about Dylan.”
“His name came up a lot in the last month or two while Toni knocked around the idea of pawning Eden off on you guys.” Debra set another photo in her keeper pile and examined some more. She was almost shuffling through them now, getting impatient. “But even Toni thought that was kind of a rotten trick to pull on you two—especially since she hadn’t uttered a word to Dylan about the girl. Plus, she liked him. Toni hooked up with a lot of losers in her day, but she never had anything bad to say about your husband. She had a soft spot for Dylan. I think she always felt sort of connected to him because of Eden.”
Sheila tried to keep from frowning. “Did she have an opinion about me?”
She figured Antonia must have thought she was a complete fool.
Debra glanced up from the photograph in her hand. “No, I don’t think she’d really formed an opinion about you—at least, nothing she shared with me. But I have to admit, I was damn curious to meet you when you called . . .” She tossed some photos in the box and sifted through some others. “Well, lookee here,” she said, plucking out one snapshot. “Speak of the devil.”
She showed Sheila a slightly fuzzy photo, probably taken before digital became popular. It was of a smiling, youthful Antonia with her head on Dylan’s shoulder. He looked so young and handsome in his blazer and a tie Sheila had bought for him. Antonia had on a red dress with a low neckline. It looked like they were in a restaurant. Dylan had his arm around her.
“Oh, shit, good one, Debra,” the woman muttered, reaching to take back the photo. “That was so dumb of me. I’m sorry. You don’t want to see that.”
Sheila held onto the picture. “It’s okay. I would have found it eventually anyway.” She tried to keep her voice steady. But she was angry, and her heart was breaking.
Debra picked up the stack of photos she’d collected. “Well, I’d like to hold on to these, if that’s all right with you.”
Sheila nodded. “I should go. I’ve taken up too much of your time already.”
“I’ll get one of the busboys to help you carry those boxes to your car,” Debra said. “I’ll make sure your parking’s validated, too.”
Biting her lip, Sheila studied the photo of Antonia and Dylan again. “How did you know this was my husband?”
Debra shrugged. “One afternoon about a month ago, when Toni was telling me about him, we looked him up on Google and found his picture. He’s really good-looking. And he’s aged well, too.”
Sheila carefully slipped the photograph inside her purse. Then she started dumping the discarded photos into the boxes.
“Are you really sure you want to keep that one picture of them?” Debra asked. “I’m not sure I would.”
Sheila nodded. “Eden might want a photo of her parents together,” she answered quietly.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Saturday—4:11 P.M.
Seattle
“You’re the one who rented from the Curtises?” Dylan whispered. “You’re living here?”
He was so taken aback that he let her grab him by the hand and pull him into the house. She shut the door behind him.
Dylan had been in the Curtis house several times, so everything looked familiar in the living room except for all the unpacked boxes—and her. She didn’t belong there.
She belonged in a sanitarium.
Crazy Leah Engelhardt.
He realized she was still holding his hand when she brought it up inside her open blouse and ran his fingertips over her breast.
Dylan yanked his hand away. He couldn’t believe this was happening.
He’d only seen her in silhouette this morning. He had no idea Leah was his new neighbor. She’d moved into the Curtis house last weekend. All this time, she’d been right next door to his wife and kids—and yet somehow, she’d avoided being seen by him.
Dylan hadn’t thought about Leah in years. He thought he’d put that nightmare behind him.
Leah had been his Fatal Attraction encounter seven years ago. She’d sat next to him in business class on a flight to San Francisco. He remembered thinking she was a few years older than him, but still sexy and flirtatious. It seemed like a perfect no-strings situation. He’d told her up front he was married. She’d told him she was divorced—with such a lucrative alimony settlement that she had no desire to get seriously involved with any guy. That night, they went out to dinner at Marlowe and then had wild sex in her room at the Fairmont. Dylan had never been with anyone quite like her. She was uninhibited and even a bit perverse. She had sex toys, and the notion that she’d brought them along in her luggage for the TSA people to see simply baffled him. Some of the things she did to him were downright dirty—and hot. But he had his boundaries and needed to stop her a couple of times: “Hey, I’m sorry, but I’m not really comfortable with that . . .”
“I didn’t take you for being such a square,” he remembered her saying as they thrashed around on the floor. As she hovered over him, her red hair created a small tent around his face. “I thought you’d be more open-minded. But if vanilla sex is your thing, that’s okay with me.”
He remembered walking out of the Fairmont at one in the morning, feeling as if he’d survived the sexual equivalent of a fraternity’s hell night. He felt a strange exhilaration for having gotten through such a weird, intense, exciting, sometimes scary, debasing experience.
He had no plans to see Leah again. He took a vigorous shower when he got back to his hotel that night and threw out the scrap of paper with her phone number and email on it.
She called him the following evening at his hotel. “Guess where I am,” she said. “I’m downstairs in the lobby! I wanted to surprise you.”
Stunned, Dylan lied and said his wife was there with him. “She—um, she decided to surprise me, too,” he whispered. “She’s in the shower right now. I’m so sorry you came here for nothing. I hope you understand that last night was a onetime-only thing. I think it’s better that way. Anyhow, it was really nice meeting you, Leah. Take care, okay?”
He thought he was being pretty clever—and tactful.
Four days later, she called him at work in Seattle. He figured she must have done some research to track him down at his office. “I have my sources,” she explained. “I just had to make a few calls. That’s all. How about if we got together for a long lunch—maybe at some hotel downtown? I’ll bring my bag of tricks. Or maybe you can get away and spend the night at my place in Kent? We have to hook up. I bought you a very expensive present, and I want to give it to you in person.”
Dylan tried to be honest this time. “I’m sorry, Leah, but no. I thought we had an understanding. What happened in San Francisco was a onetime thing. You shouldn’t be throwing your money away on presents for me. I appreciate the thought. But it really isn’t a good idea to get together again.”
“I can’t return a sterling silver ID bracelet,” she hissed on the other end of the line. “It’s engraved with your name on it. What am I supposed to do with it now? I don’t plan on fucking anyone else named Dylan.”
“I’m sorry, Leah, but—”
She hung up on him.
The next day, she showed up at his office. Fortunately, he was on another floor in a meeting all morning. But the receptionist, Dawn, said Leah had waited for him for three hours—and that she’d been pretty snotty to her. Dylan was on good platonic terms with Dawn, and confided in her that the woman was a stalker. So from then on, Leah was always told that he was unavailable, in a meeting, or out of town.
Leah called or emailed him at least twice a day. Several of the emails included nude photos she’d taken of herself. He deleted them and blocked her emails. He never picked up when she called, and she often hung up when it went to voicemail. But in one message, she told him, “I don’t know why you’re avoiding me. You’re acting like that night we spent together meant nothing. But we bonded. You let yourself be vulnerable with me. I think I know you better than most people do—maybe even better than you know yourself. I just wa
nt to make you happy, Dylan. Are you afraid to be happy? Call me.”
After she’d left that particular message, when she called again, Dylan finally picked up and bluntly told her, “Listen, I’m really sorry, but you’re getting sort of Glenn Close on me—you know, like in that movie? Do you really want to be that crazy-stalker person? Your behavior is definitely coming across that way. I’m not interested in having a relationship with you, Leah. I don’t want to be rude, but please stop calling me. And please stop coming by my office. I don’t want to see you again. Okay?”
She hung up on him again.
She continued to call—sometimes several times a day—but she always hung up because he never answered.
Every day for a week, a black rose was delivered to their house for Sheila. The box was left on the front stoop when no one was home, and the card attached merely had Mrs. Dylan O’Rourke written in girlish handwriting. Dylan was convinced it was Leah. He was pretty sure she was watching the house, too. He thought he saw her a couple of times in the park across the street.
Dylan was terrified she was going to hurt Sheila or one of the kids. He came very close to telling Sheila the truth.
Then it just stopped—no more calls, no more black roses, no more visits to his office.
Dylan felt so lucky to have come out of it without any real damage done, other than the damage to his nerves. Leah hadn’t boiled any bunnies, attempted suicide, or inflicted harm on anyone. Still, the crazy bitch had nearly given him an ulcer. It was a long time before he was able to stop worrying and forget about her. It was months before he could even look at another woman again.
Now, Leah was back—and living next door to him.
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