Mary Lou had been here now for almost three weeks, which was breaking the official Turlington au pair stamina record by thirteen days.
And then word had come down from Mrs. Downs, the housekeeper, that King Frank had requested Mary Lou’s—Connie’s—presence at breakfast today. At 7:00 A.M. He’d even given the royal order for Whitney to wake up early and keep an eye on Amanda and Haley while Connie was meeting with him.
Before she’d made the marathon run to the wing with the dining room, Mary Lou had taken Haley to the bathroom at least two dozen times, cursing the fact that her daughter had been potty trained—early—for a full month now. She tried to put a Pull-Ups on Haley, tried to tell her daughter not to drink, tried to caution her not to ask Whitney for help in the bathroom, told her to wait to pee until Mommy came back.
Haley had blinked at her and then returned to staring at Sesame Street.
Whitney had staggered in at 6:57, and Mary Lou had sprinted to the dining room, risking one of Mrs. Downs’s “the hired help moves silently throughout the house” lectures.
She’d arrived at 6:59, dressed in Connie’s most conservative beige slacks and a pastel blue blouse. And then she’d sat off to the side and waited for more than ninety minutes while King Frank talked on the phone to someone in San Francisco named Steve about acquiring one of Wyatt Earp’s six-shooters for his vast gun collection.
Finally, King Frank got off the phone, ate half a corn muffin, and then turned his attention to Mary Lou.
At first she thought she was being let go, because he told her that he’d decided to send Whitney into a special rehab-type program. Starting in two weeks, she would be gone for three months. And she’d be taking Amanda with her.
But then he gave Mary Lou a contract that, if she signed, would give her five thousand dollars a month—including the months Whitney would be away—provided she stayed a full year. If she didn’t stay the year, she’d receive only five hundred dollars a month.
The catch was that King Frank was going to Europe this afternoon. Something important had come up, and he wouldn’t be back until August. And Mrs. Downs’s niece was getting married in Atlanta on Friday. She was leaving tonight, and would be gone most of the two weeks before Whitney and Amanda were scheduled to leave, too.
Starting in just a few hours, Mary Lou would be alone in the house with the devil child and her offspring. The security guards would remain on duty down by the gate, and although they did a daily check of the compound to make sure the two empty guest houses were secure, they rarely did more than walk in a circle around the main house.
Of course, she’d signed. She’d had her pen out and ready the moment King Frank had uttered the words five thousand. These next few weeks might actually be easier with no one around for Whitney to piss off. She’d try plenty, but Mary Lou had learned early on to let it bounce right off.
But now Whitney had taken Haley to Starbucks.
Mary Lou ran into the garage just as the convertible pulled inside.
And the reality of the situation hit Mary Lou. That girl had taken Haley all the long way to town. In a convertible with the top down.
Where anyone might have seen her.
You did not have my permission to take Chris into town. Mary Lou clenched her teeth over the words. If she uttered them, then Whitney would know that she’d found Mary Lou’s weakness. And then the girl would have the upper hand.
Lord help her, she needed a drink.
“Please ask me next time you decide to take Chris to town,” Mary Lou said instead.
“You were busy and I needed a cup of coffee.”
“There’s coffee in the kitchen.” Mary Lou worked to make her voice calm. Unaffected. She lifted howling Amanda out of her car seat and held her close. “Shhh, honey, it’s all right.”
“Yeah, well, I needed a Starbucks.”
What Whitney had needed was to see Peter Young, the loser of the moment, the boy who was currently using her for sex.
Had she left Haley and Amanda alone in the car, in the parking lot, while she and Peter had gone into the bathroom and …?
Mary Lou wanted to break Whitney’s nose.
But there was a gleam in her blue eyes that Mary Lou didn’t like. And Whitney’s smile was just a little too satisfied.
“You know,” Whitney said, “Chris had to pee on the way home, so we pulled off the road and—”
Damn it!
“—wasn’t that a surprise.”
Mary Lou made shushing noises as she hugged Amanda, crossing around to the other side of the car to get Haley out of the car, too.
“I’m going to tell my father that you’re a liar,” Whitney singsonged.
Mary Lou had both children in her arms now, one on either hip. She went to the far end of the five-bay garage and put them down near an open area dedicated to Amanda’s Big Wheel. Amanda, five months older, would ride, and Haley would watch, all big eyes.
Now what? The thought of murdering Whitney and hiding the body actually crossed her mind. Amanda wouldn’t miss her, and Frank would probably be relieved.
No, she and Haley would have to leave. They’d have to pack up and move on. Damn it. Five thousand dollars a month. She’d been so close.
Unless …
Lord, it was worth a try. She marched all the way across the garage, back to Whitney. “I need your help.”
Whitney blinked. Probably because no one had ever said those words to her before.
“My ex-husband wants me dead,” Mary Lou lied, saying a silent apology to Sam, who had never hit her and would probably die before laying a hand on a woman. “I left him before he could beat the life out of me, and now he’s hunting me down.”
She hoped that Whitney wouldn’t recognize the plot from that J. Lo movie she’d rented last week. The truth of Mary Lou’s situation was too complicated. But spouse abuse—now, that was something Whitney could relate to. Apparently Amanda’s father had had quite a right hook. “He’s crazy,” she continued, “and he says if he can’t have me, no one will, so I changed my name and got this job here with you so I could hide from him.
“He doesn’t know I’m in Sarasota,” she told the girl, who was definitely listening. “I left a false trail to make him think I was up north. But I used to live in Sarasota, so he might have people watching for me here. Or watching for Chris, who, yes, is a girl. Our lives depend on our being able to stay here, in this compound, where as few people as possible can see us. So I need you to promise that you will never take Chris anywhere again without asking me first.”
Whitney was silent for a moment. “What’s your real name?” she asked.
“Wendy,” Mary Lou lied, praying she was doing the right thing by telling Whitney this. “I’m not going to tell you my last name.”
Whitney thought about that a little bit longer. “I should still tell Daddy.”
“If you do,” Mary Lou pointed out, “you’ll find yourself with a new au pair. One who spies on you and tells your father when you sneak out at night to see Peter.”
On the other side of the garage, Amanda was driving in circles around Haley, who was laughing. Lord, she didn’t want to leave. Where would they go?
Early on, she’d found that the key to communicating with Whitney was to always be the one to end the conversation. Always be first to walk away.
“Who wants a snack?” Mary Lou asked Amanda and Haley as she crossed the garage toward them.
Please Lord, don’t let Whitney tell.
“So.” Elliot glanced over his shoulder toward the other members of Dennis Mattson’s yacht crew waiting for him farther down the dock.
“So,” Gina Vitagliano said, pulling a strand of sea-wind-whipped hair from the corner of her mouth and tucking it back into her ponytail. She was determined not to make this easier for him, the jerk.
Although to be fair, Elliot was the sweetest, kindest jerk she’d ever met.
“I’m sorry things didn’t work out between us,” he said, and actua
lly managed to sound like he meant it. Because he probably did mean it.
“Yeah,” she said. “Me, too. I was …” Come on, Gina, just be honest. It wasn’t like she was ever going to see him again in her entire life. “I was disappointed that we didn’t get together.”
“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I just … I couldn’t. Not after you told me …”
“Yeah, right,” Gina said. “Dead horse. I’m glad we were friends, Elliot. Good luck in St. Thomas, okay?”
“Thanks.” His eyes were such a warm shade of dark brown, it was impossible to tell where the iris ended and the pupil began. It was his eyes that had attracted her to him in the first place.
They’d reminded her of Max.
“So what’s your plan?” Elliot asked her.
It was funny, because other than his dark hair and eyes, Elliot looked nothing like Max Bhagat.
Max wasn’t as tall, and he wasn’t the same kind of handsome. He was swarthier—his father had been a native of India. And he was older. He had at least fifteen years on Elliot, twenty years on Gina. And Max was the head of an FBI counterterrorist unit. He was an experienced FBI negotiator who spent his days saving lives.
Elliot was the cook aboard a rich man’s racing yacht.
But, like Max, he’d listened when Gina talked. Or at least he’d listened to a point. But then Elliot had stopped listening, because he didn’t like what she was telling him. He didn’t really want to hear what she had to say.
“I’m going to do it,” she told him now, because this topic was relatively safe and he was listening again. “I’m going overseas. I’ve got a few more things to do for Dennis here in Tampa, and I’m doing that gig at the jazz club down in Sarasota, you know, filling in for a friend. But then I’m flying back to New York to spend a few days with my family, and after that … I’m going to Africa. I actually bought the airline ticket this morning.”
Gina still had enough money from the World Airlines settlement. She could kick around for two, three more years at least without having to make any decisions as to what she wanted to do with the rest of her life.
“That’s great,” Elliot told her, his voice warm with sincerity. “I think that’s really great, Gina.”
Across the marina, his friends were getting restless. She smiled at him. “You better go.”
“I’ll miss you,” he said, giving her an awkward hug. “I think you’re the bravest person I’ve ever met.”
“Yeah,” she said with a laugh, trying to turn it into a joke. “Brave. That’s me. Wonder Woman. Right.”
“I’m serious.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Well, don’t be. Too many people are too serious. Life’s too short. Didn’t I teach you anything these past six weeks?”
Life was indeed too short. And the next time she was thinking about getting naked with a guy she liked enough to get naked with, she wasn’t going to blurt out the fact that she’d spent four days as a hostage of Kazbekistani terrorists on a hijacked airliner. And she certainly wasn’t going to mention being violently attacked and …
“Still, when I think about what you went through …”
“It wasn’t that bad,” Gina lied. “Go.”
He went, taking his Max Bhagat knockoff eyes with him.
Gina climbed into the rental car and headed back to the hotel, hoping that sooner or later she’d find whatever it was that she was so desperately looking for.
Or that Max would call her again.
CHAPTER
FIVE
“You sure there’s nothing I can do?” Noah asked, speaking quietly so that he wouldn’t wake Claire.
“Yeah, I’m sure.” Sam sounded exhausted. “Look, I gotta run.”
“Run where? Come on, Ringo. Call it a day and get some sleep.”
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” Sam said.
“Thanks again for letting me know that it wasn’t Mary Lou,” Noah said.
He hung up the phone and slipped out of bed, heading in his bare feet for the kitchen. The light was on under Dora’s door and he could hear music playing softly. How had he become old enough to have a kid who stayed up later than her parents?
Truth was, it wasn’t old age or fatigue that had put him in bed at such an early hour. It was Claire, making all of those “Gee, I’m tired, I’m going to turn in early” comments out in the living room.
Noah had grabbed Devin, scrubbed his face and brushed his teeth and read him a quick chapter of the latest Lemony Snicket, all in record time, only to join Claire in bed and find out that she really was tired.
She’d rolled over and fallen asleep almost immediately, leaving him wide awake and wondering if maybe they couldn’t reschedule that “lunch” for tomorrow.
Now he opened the refrigerator and stared inside for so long, he could almost hear his grandfather’s voice chastising him for attempting to refrigerate the entire kitchen. “If whatever culinary delight you’re looking for isn’t there inside that first minute, Nostradamus my boy, it’s still not going to be there five minutes later.”
Noah grabbed a bottle of beer, twisting off the top as he shut the refrigerator door.
He sat on the mismatched stool at the breakfast counter—the creaky one that he’d taken from the kitchen in the assisted living condo after his grandfather had passed—and drank his beer.
He was such a whiny baby. So his wife didn’t want to have sex with him tonight. So she really was tired. As Sam/Roger/Ringo would have said, “Big deal, fuckhead.”
At least he knew where his wife and children were tonight. And no one had recently gunned down any of his in-laws in the kitchen of their house.
Ever since seventh grade, Noah had compared his life to Sam’s and found solid reasons to count his blessings.
It had started early on in their friendship, about three weeks after Roger had started coming over to Noah’s house every day after school. And he was Roger back then. He didn’t start calling himself Ringo until eighth grade.
It was a Saturday, and he and Roger had made plans to ride their bikes down to the mall. Noah needed a present for his grandparents’ wedding anniversary, and Roger was going to help him pick something out.
Only he didn’t show.
Noah finally rode his bike over to Roger’s house. He’d never been there before, but he knew where it was.
The lawn was freshly cut, and a gray-haired man with a crew cut and a stern face who must’ve been Roger’s father was up on a ladder, repairing the gutter that hung on the edge of the porch roof.
Noah rode into the driveway and braked to a stop. “Good morning, sir. Is Roger home?”
Roger’s father did a double take, then looked at him a good long time. “No,” he finally said, giving Noah the back of his head.
It was funny. Kids were required to be polite to grown-ups at all times, but grown-ups could be flat-out rude to kids whenever they felt like it.
Fuming and indignant, Noah got back on his bike and headed for home.
He didn’t see Roger until Monday, at school.
And that was a shock, because Roger looked like he’d gone head to head with a Greyhound bus. He had a black eye and a swollen mouth and cut lip, and he was walking like his rear end was on fire.
“What happened to you?” Becky Jurgens asked.
“Nothin’,” Roger said.
But Noah knew it wasn’t nothing. He stood there, staring at Roger, thinking of something he’d said, early in their friendship. It was about Walt, about the size of his enormous hands.
“Jesus,” Roger had said, “it must hurt like a bitch when he hits you.”
At the time, Noah had laughed at the absurdity of that. He’d never seen his grandfather hit anyone.
He hadn’t thought twice about it, but now it made too much sense.
Roger’s father had happened to Roger. There was no doubt about it.
But Roger avoided him all day. It wasn’t until after the last bell that Noah intercepted him.
�
��Why did he hit you?” Noah asked, getting right to the point, sick to his stomach with fear that the reason was one he already knew.
Roger didn’t play dumb. He didn’t deny that his father had beaten the crap out of him. But he did try to shrug it off. “He always hits me when he gets home from a long trip. There’s always something I’ve done that pisses him off.”
Noah went even more point-blank. “Was it because he doesn’t want you to be friends with me? Because I’m black?”
“Fuck him.” Roger spat on the ground. “I’ll be friends with whoever the fuck I want.”
Noah had wanted to cry. But Roger obviously wanted to pretend everything was fine.
Still, they took a short cut through the woods and through neighbors’ yards to get to Noah’s house, instead of walking home on the sidewalk, where they might’ve been seen.
His own father had died in Vietnam when Noah was just a baby. His mother had died about a year later. Of grief, Grandpa said whenever Noah asked, but he knew she’d died in a car accident, after she’d had too much alcohol to drink. Maybe it was grief, or maybe it was just plain carelessness.
Noah could work himself into a “poor little orphaned me” funk when he wanted to, but he knew that, compared to Roger, he had very little to complain about. He had Walt and Dot, both of whom loved him dearly, both of whom would die before they took a leather belt to his backside.
The walk home had Roger gritting his teeth. Noah made excuses so they could stop and rest a few times, and when they finally reached his house, he made Roger settle back on the sofa.
“Wait here. There’s something I want to show you,” Noah told him, and ran to get the top drawer from the built-ins in the formal dining room.
He carried the entire thing back and set it on the coffee table. There was enough stuff in there that Roger wouldn’t have to get up off the couch until dinnertime.
“What’s in there?” Roger asked. “Can I see that?”
Noah knew he was hurting pretty badly because he didn’t even lean forward to reach for the photo that was right on top. It was a grainy black-and-white picture of Walt—miraculously young—standing with a group of men next to a WWII fighter plane. Noah handed it over, pulling the entire table closer to Roger.
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