by Ruthie Knox
“Mid-seventies.”
“It’s a nice house. If you’ve got the plans, I’m going to need them—architectural drawings, schematics. That’ll make it easier for the alarm installer. We’ll have to find the survey stakes at the property lines, too, or else get a new surveyor out here.”
“Why?”
“How attached are you to this tree?” He started walking toward the front yard, and Ellen hurried to catch up. “It’s not supposed to be that close to the road. The county wants a ten-foot easement along the street side of the property to keep the electric and phone wires clear. Didn’t the guys tell you that when they planted it?”
“No.” She’d dug the hole herself after she bought the tulip tree for Henry’s first birthday. It had never occurred to her that she wasn’t allowed to put it wherever she wanted.
She felt as though she ought to say something about that, but she was having trouble keeping up with him. He walked fast, and her thoughts kept whirling around, a tornado that flung little bits of verbal flotsam toward her mouth, words like no and what? and stop and fuck and help.
“Sorry, I’m not sure … what does the tree have to do with anything?”
“It’s going to mess up your fence line. I can have it moved back, though. No worries. First things first, I’m going to do a circuit around the house. I’d like to see—”
“Stop.” He was getting away from her, his long legs eating up the ground, and an air raid siren had started going off inside her head. “Stop walking. Stop looking at things. And for the love of God, stop talking.”
He actually had the audacity to grin at her again, as if they were still allies, and this was all an enjoyable game rather than the second wave of a hostile incursion.
“There’s not going to be a fence,” Ellen said firmly.
“Your brother is crazy-famous, and you have a kid. You need a fence. I can get it painted any color you want. Or stained. Cedar would look nice with your siding.” Caleb looked at his watch. “Are you free in about an hour? I’m supposed to be meeting with Carly, but after that I’d like to come back by here. In the meantime, it would help me a lot if you could pull together your itinerary for the next few weeks. I need names and contact information for all your friends, too—family, boyfriends, anybody who comes over to play with your son—so I can let my team know who it’s okay to let on the property. Oh, and does your cell phone have a radio function, by any chance?”
Ellen’s fingers had begun to ache deep in the joints, so she opened her hand to stretch them, and the iced tea glass fell onto the lawn. She gawped at it, unable to collect her thoughts over the ringing in her ears.
Trouble. This man was trouble. Far bigger trouble than a few photographers.
Caleb leaned over and scooped up the glass. Then it was in front of her face again with his hand wrapped around it, and her eyes traveled the length of his forearm and over the rolled sleeve at his elbow, up to the rounded cap of his shoulder, his collar and neck, his jawline and that bump in his nose and those twinkling, confident, conspiratorial eyes. Heaven help her, he looked good. Why did misery always come in such attractive packages?
She took the glass from him, and his fingers bumped hers, and it was terrible the way she felt it. Just terrible.
“What?” she croaked.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I’ll get you a new phone with a radio. Comes in handy as a backup. You’ll have to let my team know every time you leave the house, and they’ll decide whether you need an escort. I’ll get that set up by tomorrow morning. In the meantime—”
“Stop,” Ellen whispered.
Not loud enough. You had to be loud—she’d figured that out with Richard. You had to be louder than they were, stronger than they thought you could be, and so mean and cold and unforgiving, they called you names.
She knew how to do this. She’d done it before.
“Stop,” she said, and this time the word came out at a satisfying volume. “You’re not putting a fence up on my property. I’m not giving you schematics. I don’t want your help.”
“Didn’t we already cover this a minute ago?”
They had. But she’d been a fool, and she knew when to change tactics. If she gave this man one more inch, he would take over. She’d seen it with Jamie. One day, she and Jamie had been ordinary teenagers, and the next thing she knew her brother had his own armed escort. He was ostensibly an adult now, but he reported his comings and goings to a team of people who monitored his food, screened his friends, and installed an alarm system in his house that had a habit of going off a three a.m. in irritating bursts of shrieking that no one knew how to stop.
Security guards oversaw Jamie’s whole life. They told him where he could go and when, controlled him, choked him. Ellen couldn’t handle that. Not after Richard.
So she folded her arms over her chest and stood up straighter. Caleb’s gaze locked with hers. Let him try, she told herself. Just let him try.
But he only smiled, his eyes too kind and a bit bewildered. “I’m here to help you. The way I see it, Breckenridge put me under contract, but I work for you.”
“Excellent,” she said. Because it didn’t matter whether he was kind. It only mattered that he would wreak havoc with her life if she let him. “In that case, you’re fired.”
Read on for an excerpt from Ruthie Knox’s
About Last Night
Chapter One
The Pigeon Man was usually here by now. Tuning out her companion’s self-serving story for a moment, Cath double-checked the LED display suspended over the station platform. Ten minutes until the train. In this woman’s company, it would feel like a lifetime.
Resigned to her fate, Cath crossed her legs and relaxed back against the bench. At least she could enjoy the unseasonably cool morning—the first break all week from the miserable July weather that had been tormenting London.
“… and they told me it was the most brilliant way to add a tactile element to protest action they’d ever heard of. I happened to mention you wanted to put the piece in your exhibit, but they didn’t know who you are,” Amanda said, her prep-school English accent turning the statement into an accusation.
Cath perked up. “I’m with the V and A. They know the V and A, right?” She was a small cog, but she worked for a big machine. Surely even Amanda’s hard-core activist cronies had heard of the Victoria and Albert Museum’s world-renowned collection, even if they hadn’t heard of the upcoming exhibit on the history of hand knitting that Cath had been hired to assist with.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Amanda said dismissively, and Cath spotted the sun gleaming off the bald pate of the Pigeon Man as he made his way up the steps. He took his place in front of the map kiosk and fixed his eyes on the ground. Calm today, then. When he didn’t talk, the Pigeon Man could pass for normal. It was when he launched into agitated conversation with a stranger that he began thrusting his head forward in a bird-like manner and his beady eyes and beaky nose took on greater prominence.
He pulled a candy bar out of his pocket, and she remembered it was Friday. He was often late on Fridays, no doubt because he stopped at the newsstand to buy himself some end-of-the-week chocolate.
The thought caught her up short. Shit, did she really know the habits of the train station regulars that well? She did a quick survey of the sparsely populated platform. Emo Boy was wearing his favorite pair of skinny jeans this morning, and Princess had gotten her roots touched up.
Sadly, yes, she did.
“The next person who comes up the steps will be an older lady carrying a purse the size of a bus and a bakery bag with a croissant in it,” Cath said.
“What?”
“It’s a prediction.”
“You’re clairvoyant now?” Amanda asked, her pert nose in the air.
“Sure.” Cath was beginning to see how her pathetic store of knowledge might come in handy. “I know who’s coming up the stairs next, and I know you’re going to do the right thing and give m
e that straitjacket for the exhibit.”
Thinking of the exhibit reminded her that she and her boss, Judith, would be pawing through sweaters from storage this morning. Cath rummaged through her bag for her antihistamines, freed two from their hermetic blisters, and swallowed them with a sip of water. Curatorial work could be sneezy. She’d learned to arrive prepared.
As she slipped her water bottle back into her bag, Bus Purse came into view, right on schedule.
Amanda frowned and straightened up, trying to get a better view of the steps. “You can see down to the high street. That’s how you knew she was coming.”
“You’re closer than I am. Can you see down there?”
The frown deepened. “Well, you must be using a mirror or something. It’s not as if you’re capable of magic.”
“Wanna bet?” Cath answered, warming to the challenge.
Magic had never been her specialty, but she wanted that straitjacket. It had been featured in a widely covered protest demonstration Amanda and her buddies had staged outside the prime minister’s residence a few years ago, and it would look fabulous on display, the perfect visual complement to the story the museum’s exhibit would tell.
Unfortunately, Amanda had a stranglehold on the thing, and Cath had known her long enough to understand she got a kick out of stringing people along.
On the other hand, she was also competitive and narcissistic, which made her the sort of woman who rarely turned down a bet.
“How about this?” Cath asked. “If I correctly predict the next two people up those steps, you give me the jacket.” It was possible. Just. Greenwich was way out in Zone Four on the London transport map, far enough from the city center to avoid being a true commuter suburb. The station platform never got too crowded, even during rush hour. Most of the regulars for this particular train had already arrived. The question was, Who was missing?
Amanda’s eyes narrowed. “What do I get if you’re wrong?”
“I’ll stop bugging you about the straitjacket.”
This was a lie, but no lapsed Catholic from Chicago’s South Side was above lying for a good cause, and Cath considered her career a good cause.
Amanda leaned forward, all excitement now, and said, “Make it three and you’re on.”
The first one was easy. Cath heard the musical clang of the ticket machine dispensing change down at street level and knew it had to be the dog guy from the park, because he always took the 7:09 from Greenwich to Bank on Fridays, and he bought his single ticket from the vending machine with cash.
“Old guy in a fedora,” she said.
He came up the steps and made his way to the empty bench next to them.
Amanda inclined her head, acknowledging one down.
Next up was tricky. Normally, it would be the girl with the two-tone hair, but it was late summer, and people took vacations. The girl had been missing all week. Cath imagined her on a beach in Spain, soaking up the sun in a red bikini. What if she was back, though?
The booming laugh of Bill at the ticket window carried up the stairs. The Merry Widow, then. Bill was a friendly guy, but he pulled out all the stops for the Widow.
“Redhead with three inches of cleavage,” Cath said.
The Merry Widow rose into view, proud bosom bobbing.
Amanda gave a low whistle of appreciation.
Cath glanced at the station’s clock and repressed a smile. She only needed one more to complete the hat trick, and you could set your watch by the next guy.
“Tall blond man in an expensive suit, Financial Times under his arm,” she said, then added, “Possibly a cyborg.”
Thirty seconds ticked by, and City rose into view, punctual as ever and way too good looking to be human.
Cath had a soft spot for City. From the moment she’d spotted him waiting for the train to Bank last winter, he’d intrigued her. She’d given him the nickname as a nod to his profession, because everything about him announced he worked in the City of London, the square-mile financial district at the center of the metropolis: the dignified wool overcoat and scarf he’d worn all winter, the shined shoes, the ever-present newspaper. Aristocratically remote, he was Prince Charming in a suit.
Amanda applauded, whether for her or for City, Cath couldn’t tell. She suppressed a triumphant grin and allowed herself a moment to watch him pass. He gave her his usual stiff nod, the greeting they’d long since settled on for their semi-regular encounters.
She’d never heard City talk or seen him crack a smile. He didn’t even fidget, just stood stoically in place until the train pulled up, then stared straight ahead once seated in the car. Cool as a cucumber and veddy, veddy English. At least, that’s how she imagined him when she wrote about him in her journal. She’d bet her next paltry paycheck he had a posh accent, an expensive education, and a boring job moving piles of money around. He was her polar opposite.
Still, she always kept an eye out for him. She saw City two or three mornings a week, either here or at Greenwich Park, where both of them liked to run. In motion, he was a beautiful thing, a Scandinavian god with flushed cheeks. She loved that flash of pink on his face—such an endearing crack in his cool perfection. It made her want to muss his hair and tie his shoelaces together when he wasn’t looking, just to see what would happen.
And now he’d helped her win access to the piece she so badly wanted for the exhibit. You really had to love him.
“When can I pick that jacket up?” she asked Amanda, turning back to face her.
“Hmm?” Amanda was still staring at City. “Oh, right.” Her mouth tightened, her eyes growing cagey. “That was a good trick. How long have you been practicing?”
“First time,” she answered honestly. Far from impressive, her ability to predict who’d arrive next on the train platform was evidence of how sad her life had become. She was a people-watcher by nature, and now that she’d cleaned up her act, she had nothing better to do than make up stories about the strangers who shared her morning commute.
The saddest part was, she didn’t always take this train. If she’d run into Amanda while waiting for the 6:43 or the 7:43 instead of the 7:09, Cath still would have stood a good chance of pulling off the trick, predicting the arrival of an entirely different set of familiar strangers.
She didn’t have to tell Amanda that, though.
“You really want that jacket,” Amanda said. “It’s important to you.”
Cath stared at City’s broad shoulders beneath his suit coat and shrugged, feigning a nonchalance she didn’t feel.
Should’ve known it wouldn’t be that easy. Nothing ever is.
“We’re friends, right?” Amanda asked, throwing an arm across the back of the bench.
They weren’t friends. They’d had a handful of mutual acquaintances a few years ago. These days, Cath pantomimed familiarity when they ran into each other around Greenwich so that she could legitimately harass Amanda for the straitjacket.
Cath didn’t have any friends. She had a roommate who didn’t like her, a socially awkward boss who did, and an empty life that revolved around her job.
“Sure,” she said, because it was what she was supposed to say.
“And you need a favor.”
Just smile and nod, Talarico.
She tamped down her temper, refrained from pointing out that she’d just won her favor fair and square, and did as her good sense instructed.
“We’ll do a trade.” Amanda grinned, a smile that announced, This is the best idea anyone’s ever had. “Eric and I are going to a concert tonight at a club with his cousin. He’s in town from Newcastle for the weekend. We could really use a fourth.”
A garbled announcement of the train’s approach came over the loudspeaker, and Cath kept her expression neutral as she stood and shouldered her bag.
Christ on a crutch. She’d walked into a blind date.
For any normal woman, this wouldn’t be a problem. No one wanted to be set up with some random warm body from Newcastle, of course,
but spending an evening being hit on, ignored, or bored out of her skull ought to have been a fair exchange for getting her way.
For Cath, though, Amanda’s proposal was worse than a problem. It was a disaster waiting to happen.
She hadn’t been on a date in two years. No concerts, no bars, no men. These were the rules that set New Cath apart from her irresponsible predecessor—the restrictions that kept her from making the kind of mistakes that had necessitated the creation of New Cath in the first place.
Cath didn’t want to break the rules. She needed the rules.
But she needed that straitjacket more. It would be a coup for the exhibit, which meant it would win Judith’s gratitude, and Judith’s gratitude was Cath’s ticket into a permanent curatorial position.
She had to do it.
“Sounds like fun,” she said, her cheerful tone the first of many frauds the evening would no doubt entail.
Surely she could spend one night with a guy in a club without doing anything she’d regret.
Chapter Two
Too bright. Way too bright. Cath buried her face in the pillow with a moan, trying to shut out the morning light. She must have forgotten to close the curtains last night.
Head pounding, she reached for the glass of water she always kept on her bedside table, but her fingers scrabbled through empty space.
No water.
Further flailing of her hand produced no bedside table. Huh.
With a groan, she cracked her eyes open and turned her face just far enough to bring the wooden corner post of a headboard into focus. A very nice hardwood headboard. Cherry maybe. Edwardian, she’d guess.
Not hers.
Shit.
She rolled over and surveyed the room, a white cube with sparse furniture—just the bed, a massive wardrobe, and an antique chair upholstered in gold brocade. Above it hung an enormous painting of a smiling girl with one arm around a dog. Cath didn’t recognize the artist, but the piece was excellent. Whoever lived here had taste. Money, too, if the furniture was anything to go by.