by Lydia Grace
Jon grinned. “For me it’s one of life’s necessities. If I had to take care of myself, nothing would ever get done, and Mary keeps me on the straight and narrow. She’s known me since I was a teenager—almost a mother figure, really. She used to work for my father. Then when I came out of the army and bought this place after his death, she agreed to come here. I think the other alternative was a retirement village, and that’s not her style at all. So even though she let me know she was really only doing this as a favor because I couldn’t be trusted to look after myself, I think she was actually pleased.”
Lauren laughed. “I suspect you’re nowhere near as helpless as you make out,” she told him, pleased to see him smile in reply. “What was a debonair company executive, son of the Big Cheese, doing in the army?” she went on to ask.
Jon’s face clouded, and Lauren regretted her presumption at asking something so personal. At first she thought he wouldn’t answer, but he poured them both more tea and leaned back in his chair, slowly stirring sugar into his own cup.
“I guess I was the typical rich, spoiled teenager—at least that’s probably how it would look on the outside. My father…he was a wonderful man, and I loved him dearly, but he’d no time for frivolity. He’d worked hard for every dime he had, and his entire world was Rush Co. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t neglected or anything like that. He was one of the kindest men you could wish to meet, with a strong sense of family pride. When my uncle, my father’s brother, died, Dad immediately took his nephew, Stephen, in and raised us like we were brothers. My Mom is an American, an artist, and she used to get impatient with his all work and no play attitudes. She wanted to travel, to enjoy the wealth Rush Co. brought in, wanted to have parties and a wild time with her artistic friends, and Dad thought that was a load of nonsense, couldn’t be bothered with what he called the ‘artsy-fartsy crowd’. Said most of them had no real talent and called them hangers on.”
Lauren felt irritation rise in her chest, defensive about her own position as an artist—a talented artist—and wondered if his father’s would color Jon’s attitudes to her world.
“Finally, they had a major row when I was about fourteen, and Mom left. God, but I missed her so. She was so bright, so full of life, so ready for adventure, eager to laugh. They were opposites, really, dad and her. He insisted work be done before play; she felt play was at least as important as work.”
Jon stared into the fire, his eyes sad, his expression closed, and Lauren felt her heart squeeze for the little boy he’d been. Fourteen was a nasty age for a boy to have his mother go away, she thought.
“So things between dad and I got worse. I think he missed her, too, but couldn’t climb down from his ethical perch long enough to say so. I think he was probably a bit relieved when, at sixteen, I packed a rucksack and announced I was going to live with Mom for a while. That came as something of a shock to me, though—in the time since she’d left, Mom had developed her own life apart from her family, had friends that Dad would never have tolerated. She was doing some interesting work and getting shows and the occasional sale, but she was also living the artist’s life—drink, drugs, men, parties to all hours.”
Lauren uncomfortably remembered Jon’s comments about Lucy’s collapse…or was she on something stronger…isn’t that how artists are supposed to get their kicks? Now, instead of anger, she felt that strange sadness for the child he had once been.
“I did my best to fit in—tried my hand at sculpting, but wasn’t very good. I was a bit better on the drinking scene, dabbled briefly in the hallucinogenic drugs, then I got into a bit of trouble—a couple of us stole a car and did some joy riding. Mom promptly sloughed me off back to dad, who gave me the ‘you need some discipline’ lecture. Well, what he really meant was he wanted me to get through college and start showing up every day at Rush Co. to learn the ropes while picking up some work ethic. But I was still in rebellion and I did the one thing that I knew would drive him mad—I enlisted in the U.S. Army. I’ll never forget his face when I told him I’d signed my life away for five years. It took him over a year before he would speak to me again. Finally, my platoon was sent to Iraq. The night before I left, Dad and I had a few drinks and talked all night. The next morning, we shook hands, friends who finally understood each other—and by the time I came home after the hell of Desert Storm, he was dead.”
There wasn’t really anything Lauren could say; no words of condolence that she could think of seemed anywhere near adequate for the sorrow in Jon’s eyes. Silently, she stood and crossed the tiny gap between their chairs, leaning down to put her arms around him comfortingly.
After a moment, he reached up for her, pulling her down onto his lap, and gently kissed the top of her head.
They sat for a time in the soporific heat of the fire and each other’s nearness, and then Jon stirred. “Much as I hate to leave you, I have to go out for a while.”
Lauren glanced at the brass mantle clock, where the hands were climbing towards midnight. “At this time and in this weather?” she asked anxiously.
“I have to meet with someone, just briefly. Why don’t you go on up to bed, try to get some rest? We’ll talk again in the morning.”
Impulsively, before she left the comforting haven of his lap, Lauren bent her head towards his, her hand against the back of his neck to pull his mouth down on hers. The kiss was electric, just as she knew it would be, yet sleepy, too, and trusting. Then he deepened the contact, his lips hard and yearning against hers, and Lauren moaned softly as she strained towards the sweet taste of his mouth. Fire arched through her veins as Jon’s tongue sought, and was granted, entrance to the warm shelter of her mouth, and Lauren was drowning in a tide of feelings so profound she never wanted to surface. Until Jon tore his mouth away, his breathing a little ragged as he groaned and ran a hand through the thick mane of blond hair.
“I really do have to go, although I’d like nothing better at this moment than to go on sitting here with you, holding you…” His eyes were dark with a depth of feelings that took Lauren’s breath away and she knew from his look that her own eyes mirrored similar emotions.
Leaning forward to place a gentle kiss on his cheek, Lauren stood and looked down at him.
“You’re an interesting man, Jon Rush,” was all she said as she walked from the room
*
Warren was waiting in the all-night coffee shop when Jon arrived, a large white mug of coffee and a half-eaten jam donut on the table before him, the latest edition of the Toronto Star clasped in his big hands. He put the paper down immediately as Jon sat down, clutching his own mug of coffee.
“How are things at your end?” he asked easily.
“Well, I think Lauren feels safe enough at the house. She seems to believe that all this is nothing to do with us, but I’m worried. Whatever bastard did this to her studio, I’d say there was a lot of anger there.”
“Yep, I’d say that it was probably a good thing that Lauren wasn’t there when our friend came to call. Did you see the upstairs? The bed was ripped to ribbons. There was a real…feeling behind it all. A real bad feeling,” Warren looked at Jon, knowing his friend trusted his intuitions and would understand what the security chief was trying to say.
Jon nodded. “But did you get any ideas as to why—or who?”
“No. My first reaction was this was someone with a lot of anger to work out, that it was a spontaneous attack, maybe he thought she should be there, she wasn’t, and he lost it…”
“He? Are we sure about that?” Jon interjected.
Warren rubbed his chin thoughtfully, fingers rasping in the day-old growth of stubble. “Judging by the sheer amount of damage, and the way some of it was done, it would have required a lot of strength, a lot of stamina. Sure, a woman could have done this, but I really doubt it.”
“You said your first reaction was that it was a sort of spontaneous combustion. Did something change your mind?”
“Actually, it was old Chief Ohmer who put
me on to it. He’s wily old wolf, let me tell you,” Warren said, and Jon smiled. It wasn’t too often he heard his security chief express admiration for another’s skill, and particularly for an older cop out in ‘Hicksville’. “Remember the day of the protest meeting?”
“Ouch, as if I could forget,” Jon said ruefully, his fingers sliding delicately over the stitches which still ruffled the smooth skin of his forehead.
Warren grinned. “Yeah, well. And how did Lauren take your comments and the photos that appeared in the paper?”
“Don’t remind me. Damned well marched into a meeting at the company offices, thought she was going to drag me out by force if necessary, and inflict worse damage.”
“It’s the red hair. My granny always warned me about them red-haired girls,” Warren chuckled. “Anyhow, Ohmer invited me to join him for a beer, and I did. Two or three, actually, it’s on my expense. Then he told me the life history and crime history of every living soul in the area—much abridged and quite hilarious. It sounds as though the place was a cross between the Klondike and Tombstone, once upon a time. Anyway, worst thing about Lauren is she has, or had, a nasty piece of work for a husband. Quite a scandal—he turned up one day while she was having dinner with friends down in West River, and it sounds as though he’d had too much to drink. He caused an awful scene in the bar, so bad that the manager called in the police.
“But Lauren said this jerk was just leaving, wouldn’t cause any more trouble, and Ohmer decided to let the evening end peaceably. However, he got another call later, from a friend and neighbor of Lauren’s. This creep had followed them back to Lauren’s studio and was hurling rocks and abuse through the windows. Chief arrested him, after something of a fight in which the creep fared badly,” Warren grinned again. “But the next morning Lauren came down to the police station, told the chief she didn’t want to press charges, told the creep she never wanted to see him again, and the whole thing was over.”
Listening to Warren, anger had surged through Jon’s chest at the fear Lauren must have experienced as she was harassed by her drunken husband, ex-husband, whatever. He could also picture her, pale but dignified, telling Ohmer she wanted the chapter closed, telling him to send the foolish bastard on his way.
He must have been a fool, to let Lauren go, Jon thought suddenly, and then turned back to the matters at hand.
“Do you think this ex-husband is to blame for what happened at the studio?” Jon asked Warren. The other man shook his head.
“This all happened several years ago, and Lauren’s friends, and the police say she hasn’t heard anything since. That’s the weird part—if it was him, I could maybe understand the ferocity of the attack. In addition, Mike Ohmer pointed out that there is something, well, something deliberate about the destruction. It’s as though whoever did this was thorough and methodical, and frighteningly deliberate in trashing everything of beauty within that cottage.”
The two men sat grimly silent over their cooling coffee. A shiver ran along Jon’s spine at the thought that someone would turn such calculating violence and cruelty on Lauren.
“One thing I did pick up on, though, and you might ask her about it. Lauren’s answering machine contains an unusual number of hang-ups. Someone has been calling and calling, but slamming the receiver down when the answering machine picked up. No messages left, and it suggests to me that someone was getting frustrated with trying to contact Lauren and maybe she was even leaving the machine on to avoid contact with them.”
“Also, you could ask her who Stephen Wallace is—it was a name scribbled on the pad that was by the phone—or would have
been by the phone if the phone hadn’t been yanked out of the wall and thrown across the room. So, I guess the only good news, if you could call it that is that there is nothing to connect this with Rush Co. or the West River Project. Unless maybe someone objects to Lauren’s taking a political stance but it does seem as though whoever did this was aiming right at Lauren, not us,” Warren concluded, stretching his muscular arms and shoulders as he stifled a yawn. “Anyways, it’s been a very long day, and I need to see someone in the office tomorrow, even if it is a Saturday. Just wait until you see the overtime bill on this one, Boss!”
With a grin and a wave of the hand, Warren was gone. A few minutes later Jon, too, left the steamy, coffee scented warmth of the all night café, his head buzzing with possibilities and things that must be done.
*
He’d known she wouldn’t stay at the studio, and he couldn’t phone her there. He’d tried calling a couple of those artist people, but no one seemed to know where she was. Now a dark, deep thought was curling around in his mind. He’d heard about the debacle at the meeting when she’d embarrassed Jon Rush in front of all the important people at the company—here the man’s lips curled in a bitter smile. However, he also knew that Jon Rush had headed out towards West River late that afternoon.
What if and this was what was nagging at his mind like porcupine spines in a dog’s snout, what if she’d gone back to the big white farmhouse with Jon Rush? Could she really be that stupid? Finally, even though it was very late, or very early in the morning, he gave in and called the number he knew so well.
The phone rang and rang, but not in an empty house. At least the housekeeper should be there. When the phone was finally picked up and a sleepy voice answered, the man’s stomach clenched as though in the throes of poisoning.
Lauren Stephens had just answered the telephone in the middle of the night in Jon Rush’s house. Visions of the two of them locked together in the act of passion, their bodies writhing in Rush’s massive sleigh bed, caused sour vomit to rise in the man’s throat as he slammed the telephone down. This must stop—he must end it now!
Chapter 8
Lauren hadn’t intended to fall asleep; she’d just sat down on the soft, firm bed for a moment while she finished her tea, intending to go right in to take a shower. But the next thing she knew she was being dragged from a deep sleep by the harsh buzzing call of the bedside telephone. Without stopping to think about her visitor status in the house, Lauren reached out and answered the phone, and the silence which greeted her brought her wide awake. How many times in the past weeks had she listened to the same overflowing silence on her own answering machine? The silence filled with someone’s angry presence.
Again, no words were spoken, and the telephone receiver at the other end was slammed down. This time however before the line was closed, Lauren thought she heard a ragged, angrily indrawn breath. Then a sharp click, silence and the dial tone buzzed again. Could this possibly be the same caller who’d haunted her days and nights, who’d woken her from sleep sometimes several times a night, and left only silence as his message? Lauren shivered, her heart thumping in her ears as she struggled for breath past the lump of fear in her throat. Who could possibly have this number, and know she was here? Paul Howard, Chief Mike Ohmer, Jon Rush.
And if Jon was the one making the mischief calls, why would he bother calling her here, when she was already under his roof, a trusting lamb to the slaughter? Okay, enough already with the gruesome metaphors, protested the voice in her head, and even Lauren managed a tense smile at the melodrama inherent in such phrasing. And, she reminded herself, she had not even met Jon Rush when the calls first started, immediately after she returned from the Ontario Wildlife Exhibition grand opening.
As far as the company president was concerned at the time Lauren first began receiving these frighteningly uncommunicative calls, Lauren Stephens didn’t even exist, and West River was just a place on a map that maybe meant dollars in the kitty. Aside from a number of acquaintances, met and forgotten, among the clients and spectators at the exhibition, the only other new person in Lauren’s orbit at that time was Stephen Wallace. She’d met him at the exhibition, where he’d admired her work and, she suspected, had bought at least one of the canvases. He’d made his interest in the artist plain. She’d spent quite a lot of time with him those few days, at lun
ches and dinners, and walks on the boardwalk in the Beaches area, before his possessive nature showed itself and his charm grew thin. She’d been glad to escape back to her quiet life in West River.
The last time she’d talked to Stephen on the telephone, and he’d been overbearing, domineering, and finally, angry when she said she couldn’t see him. Nevertheless, those were straightforward, if unpleasant, reactions, directly to her on the telephone. He’d had no reason to continue calling in this obsessive way after she’d made it clear that she might see him again, but only when her hectic schedule allowed. He’d even voiced his irritation at getting her answering machine and insisted he wouldn’t leave messages.
But if Stephen was the mystery caller, how could he know he’d find her at this number? Suddenly, Lauren became aware that she was still holding the telephone receiver, clasped tightly to her breast, and the loud buzzing it was emitting was chewing at the edges of an incipient headache. Dropping it back into the deep green plastic cradle, Lauren reached for her purse and pulled out her address book.
“Damn,” she muttered to herself as she realized that Stephen Wallace’s number wasn’t in the book. Visualizing, she remembered she’d scribbled his name onto the notepad by the telephone, intending to get the number from the caller ID list on the telephone and transfer it into her personal directory. Then Alex Waters had called, or was it Paul? Whichever, she’d forgotten and now had no way of tracing him until she returned home tomorrow. When she’d tried to trace the origin of the hang-up calls that way, she’d discovered that the caller was using an unlisted number, which would not appear on her caller ID list. However, she would call Stephen and satisfy herself that he wasn’t her mysterious caller, although how he could have found out where she was tonight, she had no idea.
Then she shuddered as another thought hit her. Whoever was calling, if it was the same person, must also know the reason why she wasn’t in her own home tonight. Visions of the awful damage inflicted on her studio and on her possessions flooded into Lauren’s mind, and she thought that for a moment she was going to be sick. Then the nausea passed, along with the thought that it was likely, horribly likely, that the person who was making these telephone calls was also the person who had trashed her studio. And that same person must have been watching her every move. How else would he have known where to find her this evening?