My eyeballs started to dry out. He grinned as if certain of his victory, as if he could tell I was at the breaking point. Not going to happen, bub.
I forced myself to think of something else. I pretended his pupil was an access point to another world and I focused on that as if I could tunnel my way inside of him and see his soul. He leaned in closer and narrowed his eyes, and it was then that I noticed the greens of his irises were full of heat and not the angry kind.
I felt my own eyes widen in surprise and for the first time I thought Harrison Wentworth might be more than I could handle.
A crash at the window made us both jump and turn toward it, ending our childhood game of a stare down in a definitive draw. I hopped off my stool and hurried toward the window. It appeared that one of the shutters had come loose and the stiff wind blowing outside had it slamming against the side of the house.
Mim had installed new windows to reduce the draft just a couple of years before she died. I unlocked it and it slid open easily. I then tried to figure out how to pop the screen.
“It’ll be easier if I do it from outside,” Harrison said.
“But you’ll get soaked,” I argued.
He was out the door before I could press my argument.
It was “bucketing” out again, as Nick had said. I watched helplessly through the window, letting the rain in, while Harrison wrestled the shutter back against the side of the house. It took him a few moments to latch it back, and I knew he was going to be soaked to the skin by the time he came back in.
I met him at the door with a batch of fresh tea towels from the drawer in the kitchenette. I blotted off his shoulders while he toweled his thick head of hair. I draped the towels on his shoulders and he left one on his head.
“Come sit and have your tea,” I said. “It will warm you up.”
He clutched the towel under his chin and gave me a coquettish look. In a high falsetto, he said, “Just a spot of tea, dear, and only half a biscuit. They go right to my arse, you know.”
It was a spot-on impression of Mim, and I busted out in a belly laugh. How had I forgotten his ability to mimic people? He was never cruel, but he always managed to capture the person’s mannerisms and say something that I could hear the person saying, but when Harrison did it, it was hilarious.
He lifted up his teacup and took a noisy slurp, still with his head in a tilt like Mim held hers.
“My grandmother did not slurp her tea,” I said.
He raised an eyebrow at me and said, “Oh, no, I was imitating you.”
“Oh, you!” I snatched up the tea cozy and threw it at his head.
He laughed and caught it before it connected. We were quiet for a moment, enjoying each other’s company. Now I felt ridiculous for thinking he could have any knowledge as to Viv’s whereabouts. Maybe the events of the past week had caused me to become more suspicious. If so, I hoped it wore off. I didn’t like thinking the worst about people.
Now that Harrison and I seemed to be friends again, I couldn’t resist asking, “Do you really want me to leave?”
Chapter 14
“Yes,” he said with no hesitation whatsoever.
“Ah,” I gasped. My feelings were hurt. I admit it. I’d thought we were joking around and getting our old friendship back, but no. He still wanted me gone. Fine!
I lifted my cup of tea and took a big sip. It was still hot but not scorching, so I drained it and plunked it back down onto the table.
“Oh, look at the time,” I said. I pointedly glanced at my wrist. And no, I don’t wear a watch.
He got it in one. “You want me to leave.”
“Why would I want that—just because you want me to leave the country?” I asked.
The sarcasm dripped so thickly off my tongue I was surprised it didn’t leave spots on the counter.
“I hurt your feelings,” he said. He came around the counter to stand beside me.
“You told me that I should go home as soon as possible,” I said. I refused to look at him and addressed the top of the counter instead. “How is that supposed to make me feel?”
“I just don’t think you’re a good fit for the business.”
“I sold a hat to Mrs. Looksee,” I reminded him.
“Listen, I didn’t think you’d take it so personally,” he began, but I cut him off.
“Really?” I asked. Now I turned to face him. I was losing my temper. I never lost my temper. Had my unfortunate experience with the rat bastard altered my personality? Well, wouldn’t that just be a lovely parting gift from that relationship? “Well, I did take it personally, and you know what I think? I think you have an ulterior motive for wanting me gone.”
“What possible motive could I have?” he asked.
“I think you know what happened to Viv, and you don’t want me to figure it out,” I said.
“Hey!” Now he looked outraged, and I found that quite satisfying. “What exactly are you accusing me of?”
“I think you know where Viv is,” I said.
“That’s ridiculous,” he argued. “Why wouldn’t I tell you?”
I pressed my lips together. There was nothing I could say that wouldn’t sound bad.
His eyes widened as he figured it out all on his own.
“You are mental!” he said. “Do you really believe I had something to do with Viv’s disappearance?”
“Aha!” I said. I poked him in the chest with my index finger to drive my point home. “Right there. You called it a disappearance. Why would you call it that if you didn’t know something?”
“I don’t know anything!” he protested. “I swear.”
“I don’t believe you,” I said.
“What do you believe then, Ginger?” he asked.
He was several inches taller than me and I probably should have been intimidated with him looming over me, but I wasn’t. I met his stare. I figured he was using my old nickname to soften me up, but when I studied his face, he just looked angry. Maybe when he thought of me, he thought of me as “Ginger” and the nickname came out by accident. Either way, there wasn’t much point in holding back now.
“I think you and Viv are romantically involved,” I said.
Now he laughed, and it wasn’t a mirthless laugh, he was actually amused. “Dating? Me and Viv?”
“Yes,” I said, but I knew I sounded less sure. “And the person involved with the person who is missing is usually the culprit.”
“Culprit of what?” he asked. “What exactly are you accusing me of?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But I don’t trust you.”
“Well, at least we have that in common,” he said.
“You don’t trust me?” I asked. Now I was offended.
We were mere inches apart and I was feeling feisty enough to do some bodily damage on him. It was a shocking thought as, other than the cake incident, I was not generally a brawler.
“You really think Viv and I were romantically involved?” he asked and I nodded. “Let me ask you this, did she ever mention me as her boyfriend?”
“No,” I said.
“And you and Viv talk frequently?” he asked.
“Well, it used to be weekly, but the time change makes it difficult,” I said. “So, it’s been less lately.”
Yeah, big fib. It had been a lot less for the past two years while I’d been dating he-who-should-have-choked-on-cake. Yes, I can admit it. I dropped everyone and everything for him. Only now that I was five thousand miles and a global humiliation away from him did I see how much I had sacrificed for him. It made me queasy.
“Still, if she and I were involved, don’t you think she would have mentioned me?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Are you married?”
“No.” He held up his left hand so I could see it had no wedding band. “But here’s an interesting theory you might enjoying chewing on, Ginger.”
“What’s that, Harry?” I asked. His brows lowered at the use of his old nickname.
Point to me.
“Since I’m not romantically involved with Viv, and as far as I know, she isn’t seeing anyone, that would leave whomever she’s in business with as the most likely suspect, don’t you think?”
It took a few moments for his words to register and when they did, I gave him a hearty shove, catching him off guard and sending him back a few paces.
“Me?” I cried. “You think I had something to do with Viv’s disappearance?”
Chapter 15
“As the person who inherits the business if anything happens to Viv, wouldn’t it make sense that the one most likely to do her harm is you?” he asked.
“No, it wouldn’t,” I said. “I was in Florida with my personal life imploding, so no, it doesn’t make sense.”
“How do we know you were in Florida?” he asked. “How do we know that whole video thing you did wasn’t just a part of your ploy to cover your tracks when you got rid of your cousin?”
“Stop it!” I cried. “Just stop it. It’s not true.”
“Fine. My work here is finished,” he said and he wiped his hands together. He strode to the front door without looking back. “Lock up behind me!”
I heard the door slam behind him and I was left alone in the kitchen with a rapidly cooling pot of tea that seemed like a perfect metaphor for the tentative friendship I had begun with Harry, er, Harrison.
I cleaned up the kitchen, feeling equal parts confused, angry and sad. Was Harrison right? Was I the most likely suspect in my cousin’s disappearance? Is that why he didn’t like me? Did he suspect deep down that I had whacked my cousin to get my clutches on the family business?
I swung from hurt to some serious rage. I’d had enough hurt to last me awhile, so I settled in on a nice slow-burning rage. I reheated my cup of tea in the small microwave and called my mom.
It was a five-hour time change from London to New Haven, where my parents were currently living as my dad, who had retired from lab work, was now teaching chemistry at Yale University. My mom had retired from teaching literature and now worked as a freelance editor. It was early evening so I hoped she’d be home.
The phone rang three times before she picked up. I hadn’t checked in since the morning after I arrived and they hadn’t answered then so I’d only left a voice mail.
“Hello?” she answered. Her accent wasn’t as thick as it once was, but it still had her lovely English lilt that always soothed me.
“Hi, Mum,” I said. My voice wobbled and I cursed myself. What was it about calling my mother that reduced me to a three-year-old with a case of the sniffles?
“Oh, love,” she said. “What’s wrong?”
The dam burst and I let loose. I had tried to spare my parents the news of the nasty breakup, the video gone viral and getting sacked from my job. Instead, I had told them I was just hopping over to London to see Viv for a long-overdue vacation. God love them, my parents hadn’t questioned me.
Once I finished whining and crying and wound down and ended the story with Viv being missing and no one taking it seriously, not even Aunt Grace, my mother’s sister, my mother waited for a beat as if absorbing all that I had told her.
“Now, Scarlett,” she said. “I know you were trying to spare Dad and me, but the truth is we already knew about the video.”
“You did?” I blew my nose.
“One of your father’s colleagues showed it to him,” she said.
Oh, poor Dad!
“Why didn’t you say anything?” I asked.
“We knew you’d tell us when you were ready,” she said. “Although I did have to hide your father’s license and credit card; the day after we saw the video, he was planning to fly to Tampa and give that rat bastard a good thrashing.”
“So, you’re not disappointed in me?” I asked.
“In you? Never. In the choice you made? A little bit,” she said. Like Mim, my mother seldom candy-coated it. “Dearest, I know that deep down, you probably knew that this man was hiding something, otherwise, he would have wanted to meet your family and you never brought him home to meet us, did you?”
“No, he was always busy,” I said.
We were both silent for a moment as I realized how truly stupid I had been, because that’s always fun, isn’t it?
“Do you realize that this is the first time since you turned sixteen that you haven’t had a boyfriend?” she asked.
“No, that can’t be,” I said. “I’ve been single before.”
“Two weeks between boyfriends doesn’t count,” she said.
“I’ve gone longer than that,” I protested.
“No, pet, you haven’t,” she said.
She sounded so sure that I didn’t press it and instead changed the subject.
“But, Mum, what should I do about Vivian?” I asked. “Don’t you find it peculiar that she wasn’t here when I arrived, considering that she sent me the ticket and all?”
“If it were anyone but Viv, I would,” she said. “But you know how she is.”
“Yes, but—”
“Remember the time she came to Florida to visit and then vanished for three days because she found out that a woman on Key West had a collection of rare wooden hat forms and she wanted to see them?”
My mother had been in a panic that Viv had been kidnapped or crashed her car by driving on the wrong side of the road. Then as now, Viv had left no note or anything, but simply returned a few days later and with several hat forms she’d managed to charm out of the woman for a decent price.
“Yes, I remember,” I said.
“And then there was the time she was in Italy with your Aunt Grace and discovered that there was a Borosilicate glass bead auction in Murano and she just went, leaving Grace to fend for herself in Venice.”
I heaved a sigh. All of this was true and just the tip of the iceberg when it came to Viv and her artistic whims.
“I really think Viv will turn up when she catches whatever she is chasing.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“Of course, I’m right,” she said. “Now enjoy your time in London, and you might consider taking a time-out from men and relationships, don’t you think?”
“I suppose,” I said. I knew I sounded cranky and I couldn’t help it.
We chatted for a few more minutes, and I paced about the shop, checking that the windows and doors were locked, while we talked. When we hung up, I felt better about Viv, but not much else. I was still mad at Harrison, and I still thought he knew more than he was telling.
Before I left the kitchen, I decided to go through Viv’s desk. Maybe she kept a calendar on her computer that would tell me where she was or if I was really lucky maybe she had an automatic sign-in on her e-mail and I could snoop through it. No, I had no qualms about doing this. If she didn’t want me to snoop, she should have left me more information before she up and abandoned the ship.
Sadly, Viv’s desk was a lot like her personality, seemingly neat with a whole lot of clutter going on underneath. Just because all of the stacks are tidy does not mean there is any order to them. Receipts and bills were stacked together along with fashion catalogs and a few greeting cards.
Her computer was not much better. I could not break into her e-mail no matter how hard I tried, and her file system was not a system so much as everything was saved on her desktop and therefore covered the main screen with documents and photos with nothing filed in any sort of order. I had no doubt that she could find anything on here, but it gave me the feeling of looking for a pearl in a pile of oysters with nothing to show for my effort but a whole lot of shucking.
I quit. I switched off the lights and said good night to the carved bird. Per usual, he did not respond. He was going to have to be named if we were going to keep having these late-night chats, even as one-sided as they were.
“What do you think of Ferd?” I asked him. Nothing. “Come on, you can be Ferd the bird. It can be short for Ferdinand, if you prefer?” Still, nothing. “Fine, think on it and get ba
ck to me.”
I dragged myself upstairs. I debated searching Viv’s room, but it was already well past midnight and I figured if her room was anything like her computer or her desk it would give me a scorching headache. It could wait until tomorrow, then.
With face washed and teeth brushed, I climbed in between my cold sheets. I pretended to run in place to warm the sheets up and when they were not so icy, I lay still and listened to the rain beat on the glass window as if looking for a tiny crack or crevice to sneak its way into the warm house.
I was more hurt and angry at Harrison’s insinuation that I had something to do with Viv’s disappearance than I liked. It shouldn’t have bothered me that he thought so lowly of me. Then again, didn’t I think the same thing about him? I wondered if it bothered him.
There had to be a way to track where Viv had gone: receipts, billing statements, something. Fine, maybe she was out of cell phone range and with spotty access to her e-mail. Still, I wanted to see evidence that she had bought plane tickets or made a hotel reservation somewhere.
Then again, as her business manager, did Harrison do that for her? If he did, why didn’t he tell me? Because he had something to hide. It was the only explanation.
Well, tomorrow he could just explain it to the police. I didn’t care what my mother or Aunt Grace said. I had a funny feeling about Viv being missing that I couldn’t shake, and I was going to report her missing tomorrow. We’d just see how Mr. Harrison Wentworth felt about that. Ha!
The last thought that flitted through my head before I conked out was that for the first time in days, I felt as if I was getting a little of myself back. I was making decisions and taking action. It felt good.
• • •
I was still irritated with Harrison when I woke up in the morning. I frowned when I thought of him. I couldn’t believe that he had, oh so nicely, pointed out that I might be the cause of my cousin’s disappearance. Jerk! I was still hopping mad at him, and if I did see him, I thought it likely that I might not be able to squash the urge to kick him, in the shin, of course.
The shop opened at ten, so I waited until Fee arrived for work and then I decided to take an early morning stroll in the neighborhood. I picked up a hot cup of coffee from the Starbucks on Portobello and then made my way over to Ladbroke Road, where the local police station sat on the corner.
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