Hers By Request

by Karen Ann Dell

  “No. Nothing new on that front, but I, uh, have some other news to talk to you about.”

  “Oh, Lord, with a face like that, it must be bad. Just spit it out. I can deal with anything, knowing that I’ll get a big paycheck in two weeks.”

  Amanda’s stomach coiled into a knot so tight she thought she might lose her lunch all over Zoe’s desk.

  “Yes, well, that’s what I have to talk to you about. Mrs. Wyndham stopped by her old house while I was unpacking the supplies we had delivered there. She dropped a bomb on me about wanting us to find a singer for the party, because she went to some affair held by one of her friends and she had a singer. They’re playing a game of social one-upmanship I guess.”

  “That is ridiculous. We can’t find a singer this late in the game. Is she nuts?” Coffee splashed over the rim of her cup as Zoe banged it down on her desk. “Damn!” She moved her paperwork out of the path of the spill and rummaged through the bottom drawer for paper towels.

  While they blotted up the mess, Zoe kept up her tirade.

  “She’s going to have to get over her duel with this other lady about who can throw the best party. You told her that, right? It wasn’t in the contract, and we’re not going to pull a singer out of our ass like a magician.” Zoe’s rant wound down and she studied Amanda through narrowed eyes. “There’s something else, isn’t there?”

  “Yeah. She sort of threatened to cancel our contract if I couldn’t come up with someone and I, um, didn’t put a cancellation clause in the contract. I’m so sorry, Zoe. It was a stupid, rookie mistake. I’m sure we could sue her for breach of contract, but that would take months plus lawyer’s fees, and she knows we don’t have the money for that.”

  “Still, how can she cancel a party this big? The invitations are out, half the stuff is in her old house already. Surely she wouldn’t just call everyone up and tell them not to come.”

  “I agree. She threatened to talk to that other planner who put the bid in before us. Theirs is a more experienced organization. Maybe they can actually get up to speed on this that quickly.”

  Zoe digested this news in silence for a few minutes. “So . . . now what?”

  “I’ve been on the phone ever since Mrs. W walked out this morning, trying to find someone, but so far, no luck. I finally went over to the station and talked to Dev. He’s checking with his contacts to see what he can come up with. If he saves my butt on this, I’ll owe him big time.”

  Amanda’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m just so sorry I let you down, Zoe. You trusted me to take care of the business end and I made a mistake that may cost you the gallery. I wouldn’t blame you for throwing me out on my ear.”

  “Oh, be serious. We’ll think of something. You’re the one who always says never give up. Practice what you’ve been preaching to me, kid.”

  Amanda had always had someone to lean on when things got tough. After her dad disappeared, Danny had stepped in and become her rock. She’d never realized how much she leaned on him until he was killed. The fear that she was too much a weakling to stand on her own two feet and succeed had haunted her dreams and intensified her grief over Danny’s death. The mistake she’d made with this contract was about to make that fear come true. Not only would she fail, but Zoe could lose everything as well.

  No! She could not let that happen. Would not let that happen.

  Amanda straightened her shoulders and blinked back her tears. “You’re right. She’s being unreasonable, but I’m not losing this battle. Even if we can’t find someone to sing, I’m going to tell her that I have. We’ll go ahead with the party and if the singer doesn’t show, it will be too late for her to do anything about it.”

  “Except not pay us,” Zoe commented with a shrug, as though that were an insignificant detail.

  “Listen, if this party goes as well as we think it will, she should be delighted, singer or no. I think she’ll pay us. And if she doesn’t, well, she’s not the only one who can bluff. I can threaten to sue for breach of contract every bit as convincingly as she can threaten to cancel.” Amanda finished with a determined set to her jaw and a decisive nod.

  “Yeah, and who knows? Maybe Dev will come to your rescue—again. He does seem to be doing the knight-in-shining-armor routine lately.” Zoe arched a brow. “I trust you’re rewarding him appropriately?”

  “I’m . . . We’re . . .”

  Amanda searched for the words to describe their relationship, another problem she was having trouble coming to grips with. Somehow the ground rules she had laid down weeks ago had shifted under her feet, leaving her floundering in the unstable sands between friendship and something deeper. Not love. She was still resolved not to give her heart into another man’s keeping again. The pain that would inevitably follow was more than she could bear. Where that left her relationship with Dev she would figure out once this godforsaken party was past.

  “He’s, um, such a really nice guy, Zoe,” she stammered, “though he hates it when I tell him that.” She smiled briefly, then her expression turned serious. “I’ve been feeling kind of guilty, Zo. He should find some wonderful girl to settle down with, instead of spending all his time in a dead-end relationship with me. Now that he’s gotten over his shyness about his arm, I know he could get any woman he wanted with his looks and charm.”

  “It hasn’t occurred to you that he’s already found the woman he wants? Whenever I see the two of you together he seems pretty serious. He floats about a foot off the ground and you act as though you’ve been happily married for months.”

  “I like him a lot, Zoe. But we went into this in total agreement. Nobody is falling in love. I told him right up front that I was not going there again and he promised he wouldn’t either.”

  “Uh huh,” Zoe said, nodding. “Once we get past this party, you need to have your head examined, because I think you’re kidding yourself. Promises or no, you’re falling for this guy. And he’s just standing by, waiting for you to wake up and smell the icing on the wedding cake.”

  Amanda hoped Zoe was wrong. She didn’t want to be responsible for disappointing anyone else, let along breaking their heart.

  By the time Amanda got home she felt as though her brain had been dipped in glue. She couldn’t seem to resolve any of the problems that plagued her and worrying about them was exhausting. She made herself a cup of tea and went into her office, booted up her laptop, and checked her email.

  An email from her mom boosted her spirits a bit and she wrote back, leaving out the difficulties with Mrs. Wyndham. She missed her mom’s support and affection but she was twenty-eight and much too old to run to her parents when things got tough. She did include an invitation for her mom and step-dad to visit this summer and hoped they would take her up on the offer.

  Spook came in and jumped up on the desk, the smell of salt and sea grass clinging to her sleek black coat. An adolescent now, she spent a good deal of time outdoors stalking critters in the long grass by the water and generally working off some of her boundless energy. Amanda stroked her, wishing she could absorb some of that vitality from the contact.

  A knock on her door sent Spook diving for cover. “Don’t be such a scaredy cat, Spook.” She hurried to the door. She seldom had visitors she wasn’t expecting, so she peered through the peephole Jeff had recently put in. It wasn’t Dev’s SUV parked in front of her house. A man she didn’t recognize peered directly into the lens, no doubt anticipating her examination.

  “Who is it?” she called through the door.

  “Agent Gallagher, FBI,” he replied and held his badge up so she could see it.

  She opened the door, dread knotting her stomach.

  “Come in, Agent Gallagher. Are you here about my father?” She took in the neat dark suit, nondescript tie, and polished wing-tip shoes. Maybe the standard FBI uniform on the TV shows was the real thi
ng.

  “Are you Amanda Adams, ma’am?”

  Her throat became so dry she could barely swallow and her heart began to pound. She nodded.

  “Have you found him?”

  “No, ma’am. I’m sorry to say I have no news about your father. I’m one of the agents from the regional office who’s been tasked with visiting the site of any disappearance that may be connected with Brian Donlevy.”

  Her breath came out in a whoosh that made her realize she’d been holding it.

  “Oh.” She gestured toward a chair. “Would you like to sit down?”

  “No, ma’am. Thank you. I won’t be here long. Since I was in the area I just thought I’d touch base with you, so you’d know we were exploring all the possibilities related to your father’s disappearance.”

  “I guess there’s not much for you to see, considering how long ago he went missing. The local police investigation didn’t turn up any leads down here. They seemed to think he never made it to Blue Point Cove at all.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ve reviewed the file on your father and you’re right, there wasn’t much to go on. The other band members said he left as usual around two-thirty. After that”—he spread his hands—“the possibilities of whatever route he took are too numerous to follow. He may have never even made it out of Annapolis. He gave her an apologetic smile. “I’m only here to see if there is anywhere Mr. Donlevy could have dumped a car. You know that’s his MO, right?”

  She nodded again.

  “Well, other than the five million little coves and backwaters along the bay, I’d say we’re out of luck.”

  Amanda caught the sarcasm and realized the enormity of the search the FBI was conducting. Her resurrected hopes of a resolution to the mystery surrounding her dad hit a new low.

  “I’ll leave you my card, Ms. Adams. If you think of anything new that might help, call me. I’ve explored pretty much every possibility around here, so now I’m going to work my way back to the bridge. I don’t expect to find anything, but you never know.” He put his hand on the doorknob.

  “Thank you for stopping to see me, Agent Gallagher. I appreciate the effort the FBI is going through.” There seemed nothing more to say and she watched as he climbed into his dark gray sedan and drove away.

  A new wave of depression settled over Amanda. She would never find out what happened to her dad. She might as well stop thinking she would. Every time she had the slightest hope, it was crushed.

  The only bright point in her entire life right now was the fact that Dev would be coming over for dinner.

  Dev sat back from the mike. He was halfway through his shift and from now until seven a.m. he would remain pretty much on autopilot, interjecting a few comments or facts about a particular performer to break up the musical stream and remind his listeners that there was indeed a live person behind the mike.

  Over in the control booth, Lance was handling the engineering duties under the watchful eye of Jerry Gardner. Reports indicated that Lance was learning fast and Dev could see the Certification Handbook for Radio Operators open on the table next to the control board. Everything seemed to be going well in that department with no signs of PTSD flashbacks so far.

  He’d had no good news to share with Amanda at dinner. Arnie Katzenbach had not returned his calls and all of his other contacts came up empty. He had even asked the announcers and engineers at work if they might know of anyone who could fill the bill, but no luck there either.

  Amanda was in a rare mood when he arrived for dinner. One minute she was dejected, the next annoyed in the extreme over Mrs. Wyndham’s ridiculous request. By the end of the meal, though, she’d become more philosophical.

  “I’ll do my best to make this party everything I promised in our contract,” she’d said. “But if she thinks she can use this last-minute requirement to produce a singer as a deal-breaker, she’s got another think coming. As far as I’m concerned, we have found someone. If it turns out that he is unavoidably detained and doesn’t arrive on time, well, that’s show biz, right?”

  “So, you’re going to tell her you have someone lined up to perform?”

  “I am going to be as evasive as possible and lead her to believe that, yes.”

  She got the bottle of wine Dev had brought out of the fridge and handed it to him to open.

  “I am not going to let some other planner step in at the last minute and steal our contract out from under us.”

  She accepted the glass Dev handed her, the worry line between her brows deepening briefly.

  “I can’t let Zoe down, Dev. Too much is riding on this party. We both worked hard for this money and I’m damn well going to get it. Legally I know we’re on the winning side, I just hope she doesn’t make me go to court to prove it.”

  She’s going to be fine, Danny, he thought. She’s strong and self-sufficient. Once she gets paid for this job, her financial worries will be significantly reduced, too. Then all I’ll have to do is convince her to open her heart to someone new.

  Well, two out of three ain’t bad.

  By unspoken agreement, they’d gone to bed after cleaning up the dishes, letting the time-honored method of crazy monkey-sex replace their anxiety with exhaustion. A few hours of sleep and he was back behind the mike, hoping Arnie would call him in the morning and let him come to Amanda’s rescue one last time.

  Not sure what his own frame of mind would be after his visit with Danny’s mom, he’d begged off getting together with Amanda tomorrow night. No, tonight, he corrected himself, eying the clock, then staring at the calendar on the wall.

  The good times were fast coming to a close.

  CHAPTER 21

  Dev crossed the front porch and raised his hand to knock. A soft breeze blew around the corner of the modest clapboard house. It ruffled the new leaves on the big maple tree in the front yard and carried with it the moist scent of damp earth and tulips, released after a brief morning shower.

  He rapped on the frame of the aluminum screen door. After a minute, the main door opened to reveal a plump woman with salt and pepper hair, a faded flowered apron covering her T-shirt and jeans.

  “Yes? Can I help you?”

  “Mrs. Miller?” he asked, though he recognized her from another of Danny’s pictures. He swallowed twice in an attempt to wet his suddenly dry throat.

  “Yes, I’m Madeline Miller. I hope you’re not selling insurance or magazines, young man, because this stop would be a waste of your time.”

  “No, Ma’am. My name is Dev. Devlyn MacMurphy.” He took a deep breath. “I was in the Army with your son Danny.”

  He watched the shadow of sorrow fall across her face. Then she forced a smile and opened the screen door.

  “Please, come in. I’m sorry, I don’t remember Danny mentioning you in his letters home, but I’m always happy to talk to anyone who knew him over there.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Miller.” He stepped inside and offered a handshake. His left hand stayed tucked in the pocket of his jeans, his long-sleeved green jacket still bearing the faint outline of military patches that had been removed. “Everyone pretty much called me Mac in the Army, Ma’am.”

  “Oh, Mac.” Her smile turned genuine. “Of course I remember that name.” She grasped his hand in both of hers. “How nice to meet you at last. Danny wrote about you often. Please, come sit down. Can I get you some coffee?”

  Dev had expected this meeting would be hard, but even so, he could barely breathe around the massive amount of guilt clogging his throat and tightening his chest. He could have called on the phone, but since he was the one responsible for her son’s death, he felt honor-bound to make a personal visit. The punishment of watching her hospitality turn to hostility would be nothing more than he deserved.

  “No, thank you, Ma’am. That’s very nice of you, but I can’
t stay long.”

  The bright smile dimmed a little. When she knew he was the one responsible for the death of her son, it would vanish completely. She’d regret spending even these few minutes in his company.

  They stood awkwardly by the front door, while she searched his eyes for some clue to his visit. Then, in the straightforward manner that reminded him so much of Danny, she put her hand on his sleeve and asked, “What can I do for you, Mac?”

  He moved back an infinitesimal amount, and she took her hand away. Not too quickly, but Dev could tell she’d felt the ridges of scar tissue that covered his arm. She waited, her expression expectant and curious.