“That could’ve been you,” the sax player said. “You must be truly blessed.”
“Yes,” I said, trying to get my hands to stop shaking. “I am.”
Twenty-three
Maybe Ned had been wrong that day in the Indian restaurant when he told Caroline and me that we weren’t in a CSI episode, because it felt that way while the three of us sat inside a police station. I’d called Caroline after my brush with death, and she and Ned had met me here.
They were beside me now, sitting at a table across from the detective who had been in charge of the Edward Stone murder investigation. We were in a stark room with fluorescent lights and no windows, and there was a bar attached to the table that was probably used to handcuff prisoners. I’d seen that during Law & Order reruns.
“Forgetting your father’s enemies for a moment,” the detective said, “is there anyone with a motive to harm you? Do you have any disgruntled ex-boyfriends?”
Alex and Wes crossed my mind, but it was just Wes who didn’t leave it. I couldn’t imagine he was behind what had happened tonight, but maybe I was as wrong about that as I’d been about him. Still, it wasn’t easy to accuse.
Caroline must have seen me wavering. “Wesley Caldwell,” she said.
The detective looked at her over his glasses. “The senator’s son?” he asked.
She nodded. “My brother and I have been acquainted with him for years, and I really doubt he’d orchestrate something like this … but I guess it’s possible.”
“Yeah,” the detective agreed as he scribbled onto his notepad. “It’s also possible this incident is completely random.” He looked at me. “You’re not the first person in New York to be shoved toward an oncoming train. But you’re one of the fortunate few who’ve survived.”
I nodded, shuddering at the thought of how close I’d come to being unfortunate.
He asked more questions, and a half hour later, Ned and Caroline and I left the precinct and walked down six steps toward the street. We’d just hit the sidewalk when Ned turned to me.
“We’ll take you to your apartment,” he said.
“That’s not necessary,” I told him.
“It is,” Caroline insisted.
Ned reached into his coat and pulled out his cell. “I’ll call the security company we use for our parties. There’ll be a guard at your door by morning.”
Now he was going too far. “I don’t need a guard, Ned. Didn’t you hear the detective? He said what happened tonight could’ve been completely random. It could’ve just been some mentally-ill woman who was offended by my shoes or something.”
“Could have been,” Caroline said. “That’s not a definite. So we need to make sure you’re protected until we know for sure. Okay?”
I couldn’t be too stubborn, considering she was right and they were both being so nice. I nodded, and the next morning there was a man named George outside my door.
“Can I get you anything?” I asked him as I poked my head into the hallway and kept the rest of myself inside the sunny apartment. I was in my fleece pajamas and far from presentable. “I have juice and I can make coffee … and I might whip up some sausage biscuits and gravy.”
There was time for a Sunday-morning breakfast even though it was Tuesday. Caroline had told Kitty what had happened, and Kitty subsequently ordered me to take a few days off, and I called Tony to fill him in and let him know I wouldn’t need a ride for a while. Now I had empty hours stretching out in front of me, and my nerves were frazzled in a way that only Southern cuisine could cure.
“No, thanks,” George said.
I nodded, closed the door, and went to the kitchen, where I took a pan from a cabinet and a bag of flour out of the pantry. I found some eggs in the fridge but couldn’t crack a single one of them into a bowl. I’d wrapped my scraped-up hands in gauze, my palms stung something fierce, and the rest of my body hadn’t stopped trembling since last night. So I accepted that I was temporarily disabled and in no shape to cook, put everything away, and brought a jelly doughnut with me to the living room.
I sat on the couch and turned my TV to NY1, which reported about last night’s storm that had drifted out to the Atlantic and a bank in Brooklyn that had been robbed this morning. I watched while I finished my doughnut, and I was brushing powdered sugar off my bandages when I saw grainy black-and-white video—an overhead view of a subway station, a few people on the platform, and a woman in a trench coat and a baseball cap bull-rushing another woman from behind.
I sat up straight, listening to an anchorman. “In an odd twist to the scandal surrounding the late Edward Stone,” he said, “his daughter Savannah Morgan—who is the sole heiress to the Stone News fortune—escaped injury late last night when she was shoved toward the path of an oncoming subway in a Midtown station. The unidentified woman who assaulted Morgan is currently being sought.”
I turned off the TV and rushed to my office down the hall, where I found that video all over the Internet. Then the phone rang, and I knew who it was without even checking caller ID.
“Mom,” I said as I picked up the receiver, “don’t worry. I’m fine.”
“What is going on up there?” she asked frantically as I heard my call-waiting beep. It was Tina, so I patched her in to avoid two phone calls about the same subject.
“I’m fine,” I said again after explaining everything, even though that wasn’t completely true. “Ned hired a bodyguard for me … and you shouldn’t worry. What happened might’ve been the random act of a deranged lunatic. The detective even said so.”
“Do you honestly believe that?” Tina asked. “It’s too coincidental.”
She was right, but there was no point in them freaking out about it as much as I was. I tried to reassure both of them, refused Mom’s offer to fly up to New York so she could be my second bodyguard, and spent nearly an hour on the phone. I’d just hung up when I heard knocking on my door, and I opened it to find George with his bulky arms crossed.
“I got a call from the concierge,” he said. “Someone downstairs says he wants to make sure you’re okay after what happened last night. You know a Jackson Lucas?”
That name sparked a tingle in my body—the kind I’d felt from Jack when we first met, before I’d totally soured on the guy. Even though he’d recently improved my opinion of him, I still wouldn’t have expected a rush of giddiness just because he wanted to see me.
I didn’t want to feel that way, though. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice, and after Wes, I wasn’t in a man-trusting mood. But it was polite of Jack to check on me, and I couldn’t be rude enough to turn him away.
“Yeah,” I said, grabbing the bathrobe I’d left on a chair. “Please let him up.”
George called the concierge while I tightened the belt around my robe and reached into my pocket to pull out an elastic band I used to gather my hair into a ponytail. I supposed Ned would criticize me for being au naturel, but this was the best I could do on short notice.
That didn’t stop me from being self-conscious when Jack was at my door, looking preposterously handsome for such an early hour. He wore one of his finely woven suits beneath his coat, and his jade tie brought out the same color in his eyes. He was tan in the dead of winter, and his blondish-brown hair had grown since the last time I’d seen him. It was full on top and brushed off his face, while the back kicked out haphazardly behind his ears. He was probably about three weeks overdue for a cut but I hoped that when he got one, the stylist would go easy with the scissors. This length was perfect for him and I wanted to mention that, but I didn’t. Hair praise might sound flirtatious, and I just wasn’t going there.
“Come in,” I said, holding the door open wider.
He stepped into the living room, carrying his scent with him—the spicy cologne on his skin, that cinnamon Altoid in his mouth. I heard it crack between his teeth as he turned toward me when I shut the door.
“Ned’s got you well protected up here, Savannah. You’re a princess in her castle, surrou
nded by a moat.”
I laughed, glancing at my bandaged hands and my pajama pants sticking out from beneath my robe. “I don’t feel much like a princess.”
“You always look like one,” he said.
I was flattered, but I couldn’t encourage that kind of talk. An awkward moment passed between us, but Jack smoothed it over by asking if he could sit down.
“Where are my manners?” I said, even though I knew I’d forgotten them because Jack’s sudden appearance had gotten me all flustered. “Of course you may … and let me take your coat.”
He slipped out of it, and I hung it in my hall closet before joining him on the couch.
“Can I get you something?” I asked. “I could make coffee.”
He shook his head and nodded toward my hands. “You’re not in any condition to wait on me. Did you go to the hospital?”
“No,” I said. “It wasn’t necessary. I’m a little scraped up, that’s all.”
“You’re lucky. I saw the video on TV … and Ned told me everything else. I agree with him that it wasn’t random. He tells me you’ve poked a few hornets’ nests.”
“Are you going to criticize me for that like he has?”
Jack shook his head again. “I’m not criticizing. But I wouldn’t have encouraged you to go rogue. Ned felt the same way … and you shouldn’t hold it against him. He just wants to keep you safe.”
I couldn’t help smiling. Those two were in such a bromance and always defending each other. “I know he does,” I said after a moment. “That’s quite a change, isn’t it?”
He nodded. “It’s a good one. Your father would want his kids to get along. And putting aside how dangerous your investigation was … I would’ve done the same thing.”
Jack was the first person to tell me that, and even though all my efforts had gotten me was a close look at a filthy floor, he somehow made me feel like they hadn’t been for nothing.
“You knew my father,” I said. “Disregarding the infidelity and scandal … what did you think of him?”
“I was unaware of the infidelity and scandal until he was gone. But yeah, I knew him since I was a kid … and I had serious respect for that man. There was this one time,” he said, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees, “when I was about nine and I stole my father’s pager. This was before cell phones, of course. He counted on that thing to keep himself connected to the office when he was away. I don’t know why I took it, but—”
“Probably because you wanted him to pay attention to you and not that,” I said. I knew more about Jack and his childhood than he realized, and I was sure he had no idea that Kitty had filled me in about his workaholic father, his prescription-drug-junkie mother, and their negligent parenting ways. He might have even forgotten he’d told me about the mean old lady who’d taught him to speak perfect French. That must have been why he looked so surprised.
“Yeah,” he said after a moment. “I think you’re right. But anyway … I ended up accidentally dropping and breaking the damn thing. I came home from school that day and hung around outside my building, terrified to go upstairs because I knew I was in for it when Dad got home. So I’m just standing there on Park Avenue … and suddenly Mr. Stone steps out of a limo.”
“Mr. Stone?” I said.
“He was my best friend’s father … so that’s what I called him, even when I grew up.”
“That was polite of you,” I said.
“I’m glad you approve,” Jack said with a laugh. “Now as I was saying … Mr. Stone steps out of a limo, and he sees me, and I probably look like I’m headed for the hangman’s noose. So he just stands there with his cigar smoldering in his mouth, and—”
“He smoked cigars?” I asked. His office in Larchmont had smelled that way.
“Only if they came from Nat Sherman’s,” Jack said. “That’s a shop on Fifth Avenue. He wasn’t an avid smoker … I think he did it to relax … and only when Virginia wasn’t around, since she didn’t like the smell. So he’s standing there with his cigar and he asks me what’s wrong, and for some reason I tell him the truth. I guess I trusted him … and that wasn’t a mistake.”
“Why?” I asked, inching toward Jack on the couch and feeling grateful for every scrap of Edward information. “What happened?”
“He didn’t turn me in,” Jack said. “I showed him the broken pager, and he put it in his pocket and told me to pretend I hadn’t stolen it. He promised to take care of everything. Well, you might not know this, but the Stones lived down the hall from us, and—”
“I know,” I said.
Jack seemed surprised again, but he just carried on. “That night he shows up at my apartment. He claims he’d accidentally stepped on something while he was passing our front door that morning, and when he saw that it was a pager, he figured it must belong to Dad. Then he pulls out that mangled piece of plastic and insists on replacing it. My father bought the whole thing without question … and that, Ms. Morgan, is how your father rescued me.”
“Aw,” I said, thinking about how kind it was of Edward to take the rap for a nine-year-old as I gazed past Jack and out my windows. “I love that story.”
“Savannah,” he said, and I looked at him. “You’re bleeding.”
His eyes were on my hands, and I looked down at crimson streaks soaking through the gauze. I cringed, thinking about how repulsive I must have seemed with my pajamas and my ponytail and my hemorrhaging palms. “I need to change these bandages,” I said, standing up.
“Let me help you,” he offered.
“That isn’t necessary,” I said, but he was already off the couch.
“You know something? You don’t have to handle everything alone.”
It took me a moment to nod. Then we went to the kitchen, where the sun glinted off the stainless-steel appliances as Jack pulled out a chair at the table, sat down, and crooked his finger at me when I lingered in the doorway.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said in a soft but joking voice. “I won’t hurt you.”
He had before. But I supposed I had to let that grudge go for once and for all. So I walked toward him, stared at the amber flecks in his eyes for a long moment, and held out my hands.
Jack took them in his and gently unraveled the gauze. When my hands were bare, he held on to them and examined my palms, which looked like they’d been sliced with a razor.
“It’s nothing. It could’ve been so much worse,” I told him.
His eyes moved to my face. “I don’t know what I would’ve done if it was.”
I wasn’t sure what to say. I kept quiet and Jack stood up and led me to the sink, where he turned on the faucet and carefully checked the temperature before guiding my hands beneath a warm stream of water. After that, he dried them with a clean dish towel and we went to my bathroom, where he wrapped my palms in a fresh layer of gauze.
“There you go,” he said with a smile.
I smiled, too. “Thank you, Jack.”
The phone rang. I told Jack that he could wait in the living room and I headed down the hall to my office, where I answered a call from the detective I’d spoken to last night.
“Ms. Morgan,” he said, “we think we’ve got a lead on the woman who assaulted you … we received an anonymous tip from someone who recognized her. Do you have any connection to a Tammy Burns?”
“Tammy Burns?” I said, sliding into the chair at my desk. “No, I don’t think I—”
“She might be linked to Wesley Caldwell. She’s from the D.C. area,” he said, and my mind raced back to Old Town and that blond waitress and her name tag printed with TAMMY B.
Wes knew her so maybe Jonathan and Senator Caldwell did, too. Had one or both of them paid her or pressured her into trying to get rid of me? Or had she been involved with Wes before I was or when I was, and was she just an angry girlfriend seeking revenge? Then there was the most frightening prospect—that Wes had been behind it all.
Twenty-four
I felt dazed as I walked
into the living room a few minutes later. I’d given the detective all the requested information and told him about my suspicions, but I’d left out one thing.
“What’s going on?” Jack asked from his seat on the couch. “Are you okay?”
I shook my head as I plopped down beside him, where I explained everything. “I kept something from the detective,” I said, “because I want to look into it myself.”
Jack’s forehead furrowed. “Look into what?”
“There’s this man,” I said, “named Peter Hansen. He was one of those people who used to protest outside Stone News.”
“I remember those people,” Jack said.
“The cops and Ned’s first PI cleared him … but I spoke with him over the phone last month and tried to find out what he knew … and he told me that what I was looking for wasn’t in New York. That’s what led me to D.C. and Terrence Miller and—”
“Wesley Caldwell,” Jack said.
I nodded. “I’ve always believed Peter Hansen knows more than he lets on … and I think that so far, I’ve been the closest to making him crack. He’s got kids, and when I spoke with him I thought he was slightly sympathetic that I was trying to get justice for my father.” I paused and thought for a moment as Jack stared at me intently. “I just wonder if I can do a better job of convincing him to come clean if I do it in person. I know he lives in Putnam County, and I’m sure I can find his address online … but I don’t know if he’ll be around if I go up there, and I can’t exactly call to make an appointment. He threatened to get a restraining order if I ever contacted him again.”
Jack shrugged. “People do that sort of thing when they’re scared. But I’m sure he’s seen the latest news reports about you, and that might scare him in the right direction.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“You’ll see,” Jack said, pulling his cell out of his blazer. “What’s his number?”
“You can’t call him, Jack.”
“Why can’t I? He threatened you, not me.”
I shook my head. “That’s not what I mean. I can’t let you get involved in this.”
“Savannah,” Jack said, “I’ve explained how I feel about your father. You know how close I am with Ned. So let me do this for them … and for you.”
Independently Wealthy: A Novel Page 26