I need coffee, he thought to himself, rolling his head and stifling a yawn. Slinging his bag over his shoulder, he walked aimlessly around the airport, keeping an eye out for a coffee cart. Sniffing the air, he caught the unmistakable aroma of ground beans, and followed his nose. Before he saw the java stand, he heard a familiar voice. “Chris! Hey, Chef Chris!”
Spinning around, he saw Holly waving at him from behind the counter. Praise God, she was working at an airport coffee shop! He waved back and strode over, smiling.
“Hey, Bargain Shopper Holly. I didn’t know you worked in the airport,” he surveyed the shop, nodding. “You’re the angel I need right now. Can I get a mocha, extra whipped cream on top of some extra whipped cream?”
“I can do that, for a New York sized fee.” Holly began pouring milk and preparing a cup. “What are you doing here, anyway? Heading out for good, onto the next gig?”
“Yeah, got an assignment across the country. Seattle.”
Holly began steaming the milk, raising her voice to be heard over the angry roar. “You aren’t worried you’re making a huge mistake? Like a ‘regret it for the rest of your life’ kind of mistake?”
Chris smiled wryly, shaking his head. “Well, I wasn’t, until you brought it up. Thanks.”
Holly nodded, pouring the milk into Chris’s cup. “You’re at the airport, ready to go. I feel like this isn’t the time to pussyfoot around the subject.”
Chris sighed. “Look, I have very…” he hesitated. “Very strong feelings for Kate. But she’s not over Aiden, and I don’t want to interrupt her, you know, her grieving process, or whatever.”
“Very reasonable. Practical. It would be hard to find fault in that logic if it were the truth.” Holly shrugged. “But it isn’t.”
“Oh?”
“Oh.” Holly shook the whipped cream can vigorously before haphazardly spraying a flurry onto Chris’s drink. She clipped a lid on top and slid it across the counter. “That’ll be eighteen fifty, sir.”
Chris nearly spat out the sip he had taken. “Eighteen?”
Holly smirked, crossing her arms. “Eight fifty for the drink, ten for the tip jar. Call it a dumbass tax.”
Chris pulled out his wallet, shaking his head. “I definitely won’t miss the prices in New York,” he joked lamely, trying to draw a smile from Holly. But the normally affable, cheery woman simply stared at him.
“For your sake, I really hope you don’t. I hope you don’t miss anything about New York. I hope you get to Seattle and realize everything you want out of life wasn’t here at all. And I hope choosing to leave because you’re afraid of being hurt doesn’t keep you up at night.” Holly scoffed. “I guess I didn’t realize your bodyguard duties extending to protecting yourself first and foremost.” She watched Chris walk away, her eyes boring holes into the back of his head. He waved one last time, then found a seat out of her view.
Chris sat, back to the enormous window overlooking the tarmac, and sipped his drink. Holly’s words played on repeat in his mind, no matter how hard he tried to forget them. She can throw all the tired clichés she wants at me, he thought, but she’s wrong, and it won’t change my mind. He repeated the thought over and over, trying to convince himself of its certainty.
“Scared of flying?” A warm voice jolted Chris from his brooding. He turned to the friendly-looking woman sitting next to him, her long gray hair lying loosely over her shoulders. She pointed to his jiggling leg. “You seem nervous.”
Chris hadn’t realized he was fidgeting so much, and grinned abashedly. “Sorry about that, ma’am,” he offered. “I was just lost in my thoughts. Not scared of flying, though.”
“Me either.” The woman beamed at him, her smile reminding him of a TV grandmother’s warm disposition. “Not anymore, at least.”
Chris couldn’t help but return her smile. “Oh, yeah? How’d you get over your fear?” he asked, delighted at a conversation that turned his thoughts away from his confrontation with Holly.
“Well, I used to be afraid of the plane going down, like everyone is, you know,” the woman explained, hugging her beat up piece of luggage to her chest. “It would be the worst thing in the world, wouldn’t it? To have your life cut short, leaving the people you love behind?” Chris didn’t respond, and the woman continued. “After my wife died, I developed much more of a ‘what will be, will be’ attitude towards flying. And towards life in general, I suppose,” she laughed.
“So you’re just not afraid of dying at all anymore?” Chris asked.
“Oh, no, I wouldn’t say that,” she reached forward and patted his hand. “Everyone is afraid of dying, my handsome friend. But I don’t mind the idea so much anymore, that’s true. I think if you aren’t afraid of dying, you’re really just more afraid of living. But if you’ve had the privilege and pleasure of living a full and happy life, you aren’t as resistant to the idea of paying the bill when it comes due.”
Chris forced a smile. “That’s a lovely way of looking at it, ma’am.”
“Oh, please,” the woman waved a hand at him. “Call me Nadia.”
“Nadia, I’m Chris. And it’s been a pleasure talking with you.” Chris shook Nadia’s hand and stood. “Looks like it’s time for me to get going, though.” Overhead, a disembodied voice on the P.A. system was calling for Chris’s gate to board. “You have a safe flight, Nadia.”
She bowed her head to him, as though blessing him. “Same to you, Chris.”
27
Rodney couldn’t quite believe he was sitting in Katherine Burt’s kitchen, talking shop with her. It was literally a dream come true for him, and twice already he had pinched himself surreptitiously under the kitchen island. Truthfully, his meeting with Kate—she had even asked him to call her Kate!—was going better than he had ever dreamed, because she had declared his debut novel a standout. And now she was making calls on his behalf about holding Penton House accountable for what she called “a grossly negligent handling of their client.”
Kate waited, phone to her ear. After three rings, her neighbor picked up. “This is Mad Matty, how can I help you?”
“Hi, Matty. It’s Kate Burt. Listen, I was wondering if your offer of help from yesterday was still on the table.”
“Oh em gee, the stalker issue?” Matty sounded both thrilled and bored, a combination Kate had only ever heard from him. “I’m all ears.”
Kate gave him a brief summary of how Penton House had switched out Rodney’s novel with another, and published it under his name and title. “I’m sure it wasn’t intentional on their part, I mean, why would it be?” she explained. “But even so, they-”
“They seriously affected his reputation and potential income,” Matty interrupted exuberantly. “Wow, that’s really bad. For them, I mean. For Rodney, there’s a big fat justice sandwich coming his way. I definitely know someone who would love to represent him in court. She’s a beast, too.”
“That’s great!” Kate gave Rodney a thumbs up. “Could you come up here for a minute to talk to him a bit?”
“Up…to your apartment?” Matty asked, perplexed. “Kate, I’m not even home. Nobody is. Are you?”
Kate drew back and looked at her phone, frowning. Did I hear him right? She wondered. “Of course I’m home. What do you mean, ‘nobody is’?”
“Because of the water damage, duh,” Matty gave a dry laugh. “Everyone has to stay somewhere else for, like, a week or something while they clean up the units. I can’t believe you didn’t know that. Are you just slogging through an inch of water up there?”
“No, there was no damage in my place,” Kate explained. “There was a…malfunction with my pipes or something.” Recalling what Officer Podeco had told her, Kate’s eyes briefly flicked to Rodney again, and she shook her head in confusion.
“Lucky you,” Matty sang. “Listen, I’m texting you Allison’s info. She’s the badass lawyer your friend wants. Let’s meet for scones or something this week, ‘kay? Your treat, since you lucked out on the dry ap
artment.”
“Sounds great. Thanks, Matty.”
She hung up and turned to Rodney. He waited curiously for a recap of her conversation, as it had been hard to understand whether it went poorly or well from just hearing one side of it.
“Okay, so good news,” she smiled at him. “Matty definitely thinks you have a case against Penton House, and he’s going to get you in touch with a great lawyer. This might actually be the final nail in Penton’s coffin, and you’ll get your reputation as a writer back. And it will be deserved, let me tell you.” Kate picked up Days by the Pond and looked at it admiringly. “This was a pleasure to read, Rodney. I’m so glad you came to New York and set the record straight.”
Rodney blushed. “Believe me, it worked out really well for me, too.” He cleared his throat. “But I have to confess, I originally came to tell you that you had lost me as a fan forever. I thought in some way it might…I don’t know, hurt you. I wanted you to feel like you lost something, even if it was something as insignificant as one reader.”
Kate looked at Rodney seriously. “I don’t think one reader is insignificant at all,” she replied. “You don’t, either. I know as a writer, you find every single reader precious. I do, too. I’m so sorry again for this whole misunderstanding.”
Rodney shrugged. “I’m really sorry I just showed up here. I can’t imagine how scared you must have been after all the weird stuff you had going on. I just…” he cleared his throat again. “Thank you for not bashing me with that lamp.”
Kate laughed. “It was a close one,” she admitted. “But gosh, my adrenaline was going so hard, I couldn’t even think! Thank God you weren’t out to get me, because I don’t think I was capable of thinking fast enough to fight back!”
“Lucky for me,” a familiar voice said behind Kate. She and Rodney whirled around, Rodney uttering a soft gasp.
“Cynthia?” Kate gaped.
Her ex-assistant stood in the kitchen doorway, eyes blazing behind her thick glasses. Her mouth was set in a firm line, and to Kate’s horror, she was holding a gun.
“Isn’t it sad, Ms. Burt?” Cynthia sneered, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “You have so many enemies that you couldn’t even begin to guess who sent you those death threats! Working for you was the worst experience of my life, you miserable bitch.” She stepped forward, leveling the gun at Kate. “But it was almost worth it to see the look on your face right now.”
Kate swallowed, struggling to keep her voice calm. “Cynthia,” she began, speaking softly so as not to startle the gun-wielding maniac. “I know I treated you less than fairly. I’m sorry for that. But this man,” she gestured to Rodney, “has done nothing wrong, so why don’t you just let him go, and we can talk. Okay?”
Cynthia laughed. “‘This man?’” she mocked. “I know who he is. He’s the disgruntled writer you thought was stalking you. The disgruntled writer everyone thought was stalking you, actually. I didn’t just stumble in while you had company! I waited for him to show up before I made my entrance.” She smiled broadly, the corners of her mouth stretching painfully into her cheeks. “Because when they find you both dead in here, you know what they’re going to assume, don’t you?”
“Shiiiiit,” Rodney breathed. “It’s going to look like I killed her.”
Cynthia nodded gleefully. “Yup! Murder-suicide, just like the tortured artist you are. It’ll be an open and shut case, and no one will even look my way.” She looked again at Kate, eyes hard as flint. “I’m not stupid, Ms. Burt, no matter what you think of me. I didn’t start a fire here yesterday; I just made enough smoke to trigger the fire suppression system in every apartment, except yours, of course. Your water was shut off, wasn’t it?” She giggled madly. “I just wanted your neighbors out of the building so no one would interrupt me when I’m ready to put a bullet in you, bitch.”
Kate wet her lips. “Cynthia, please don’t-”
“You constantly underestimate me!” Cynthia screamed, head shaking and spit flying from her lips. She balled up the hand not clutching the gun into a fist and beat it against the side of her head, enunciating each word with a strike. “I. Am. Not. Stupid!”
Kate winced as Cynthia as each blow landed. She’s completely crazy, Kate realized. It was unsettling to think that such a deranged individual had worked for her, so closely every day, and she hadn’t realized it. Maybe that’s why I was so cold to her. Subconsciously, I knew there was something off about her. Kate hoped that was true, anyway. It would make her feel a lot better about the shoddy way she had treated Cynthia.
Mind racing, Kate realized she was on the verge of panicking. She glanced at Rodney, alarmed at how pale he was. He met her gaze, jaw set. Rodney, no! She shook her head slightly at him. He looked prepared to do something stupid, and she didn’t want him getting hurt. He started to rise out of his seat, eyes fixed on Cynthia.
“No,” Kate hissed quietly. “Rodney, don’t-”
“Kate?” A voice called from the entryway. “Kate, you left your door open. Even without a bodyguard, that’s a big security breach.”
Shit! Chris? What’s he doing here?!
Cynthia’s head swung wildly from the voice back to Kate and Rodney. Looking pointedly at the gun, she raised a finger to her lips. Shh. She backed up, hiding herself from view near the kitchen door, waiting for the voice to come to them.
“Kate?” Chris’s voice was getting closer, and Kate’s heart was racing. She’s going to hurt Chris! Her mind screamed. Glancing down, she grabbed the first thing she saw. Flowers for Algernon. Not the heaviest book she owned, but it was hardcover, and that was good enough. Rearing back, she heaved the book at Cynthia, who only saw the soaring tome an instant after it was too late.
“Agh!” Cynthia croaked, clamping her free hand to her nose in pain. Her eyes flashed with hatred, and she raised the gun again, murderous intent in her sneer. “Bitch!”
In a flash, Cynthia was on the ground, and Chris was on top of her, a knee driven into her back. He wrestled the gun out of her hand and slid it aside, out of reach. Kate leapt from her seat, scooping it up and pointing it at Cynthia with a calmness that surprised her. Inside, she felt she was bundle of nerves high on buckets of caffeine.
Chris looked up at her, taken aback by the sight of the gun. “Hey,” he greeted. “Wouldn’t it be great if you put that down?” Glancing behind her, he noticed Wash. “Wait, is that-”
“Yup,” Kate replied, not taking her eyes off Cynthia, who was squirming helplessly under Chris. “But he’s cool. This is the nutcase,” she gestured toward Cynthia, who shrieked angrily.
“I told you, I’m not crazy!” She bared her teeth at Kate.
“The fact that you’re arguing with someone pointing a gun at you says otherwise,” Chris observed. “Kate, for real. Put the gun down and call the police, maybe?”
“Rodney, would you mind?” Kate asked over her shoulder. “Phone’s on the counter.”
Rodney scrambled to his feet and began dialing. Chris shook his head. “Not gonna put the gun down, huh?”
“What if she gets loose?”
“She’s not going to get loose,” Chris rolled his eyes. “I’ve got her.”
“Well, just in case. This is backup.”
“Has anyone ever told you that you have control issues?”
Kate shrugged, and gave Chris a smile. “It’s been mentioned once or twice.”
28
Kate joined Chris and Rodney outside of the police station, exhausted. By the time all their statements had been taken and they were free to go, the day had melted into dusk. They both looked as tired as Kate felt. Rodney was staring blankly, and Chris was listlessly taking absentminded bites of a Kit Kat bar. Kate joined them, groaning quietly at the exhaustion she felt deep in her bones after such a surreal day.
“Well, we’re free to go,” she smiled wanly. “Cynthia was pretty forthcoming with everything, I guess. Apparently she has restraining orders from several former employers. She needs se
rious help, and hopefully she’ll be getting it.” She sighed and shook her head. “She was hired so soon after Aiden died that I guess I let a background check slip through the cracks. I won’t be making that mistake again.”
Chris clenched his jaw. “I should have caught it, though. I never even checked out your assistant.” He ducked his head. “I dropped the ball, Kate. And you could have gotten hurt.”
Kate touched his arm lightly. “You also saved my life, Chris. Are you really forgetting that part?”
They stood in a group, silently for a moment, each of them thinking of the day they had just experienced.
“So…big day,” Kate stifled a yawn. “Rodney, where are you staying?”
Rodney jerked at his name, and rubbed his eyes. “Oh…well, I’m saving the rest of my money for gas going home,” he smiled wryly. “But I’ve seen people sleeping on the subway, so that’s an option, right?”
“No way,” Kate scolded him. “Let me put you up in a nice hotel. It’s the least I can do, really.” She held up a finger in warning when he started to protest. “I insist. Don’t make a long day longer by arguing.”
Rodney hesitated, then nodded. “Okay. Thank you. I can’t lie, I’m looking forward to getting out of New York,” he shook his head. “Pretty city, but the cost of living must be insane. One visit almost broke me. I thought I’d never take another trip again in my life.”
Kate began to reply, but the breath was knocked out of her as a heavy weight flew into her, crushing her in a bear hug.
“Hey, Holly,” she gasped, giving in and allowing herself to be squeezed.
“Kate! Oh my God, I was so worried about you!” Holly buried her face in Kate’s armpit. “Chris called me and told me everything. I told you Cynthia was a weirdo!”
Kate wriggled her way free of Holly and pulled her into a less aggressive hug. “I know,” she smiled. “You were completely right.”
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