by Dana Mentink
Derick looked up and down the ruined street. “Going to be a long, cold night.”
Shirlene chimed in, “I’ve got a room behind the salon. There’s a cot and a sofa for the ladies if you want to sleep there.”
“We couldn’t displace you,” Rosalind said.
Shirlene laughed. “You’re not displacing me. I’ve got a recliner in the front so I can keep a sharp eye out. My little shop is safe, but if there’s another quake we’ll be outside in a jiffy.”
“I don’t have such a good setup,” Jerry said, chewing on an enormous dill pickle. “But you men can sleep in my delivery truck. Smells like pastrami, but there are worse things.”
Trey smiled. “True story. That would be great. Thank you.”
Derick did not look overly cheerful about the prospect, but he nodded.
Jerry went into the store with Derick to fetch blankets while Shirlene directed Rosalind inside the salon. Sage watched the ruined street sink into darkness. Looking up, she could not even see the stars through the thick veil of fog that rolled across the sky. She started to shiver, overwhelmed by frustration and the fear that the ground under her feet would fail her. At any moment the balance of her life could shift again without so much as a warning. She hated the uncertainty.
She felt a strong set of arms encircling her as Trey brought her close. “Cold?”
How had he known she longed for a tender touch to remind her that she was still alive? She did not think about it or consider the reasons she did not want Trey Black in her life. Instead, she gathered comfort from his embrace and leaned into the muscled strength of his chest. “A little.”
“It was a really tough day today,” he murmured into her hair. “Tomorrow will be better.”
“But what if Antonia is trapped in there?” she whispered. “There could be more quakes.”
“We’ll have to take it one day at a time.”
Jerry exited the store and settled into a patio chair, carrying a large ball of nubby yellow yarn and a half-knitted scarf. A shotgun sat across his lap.
“In case there’s looting,” Trey said in her ear.
She closed her eyes. What had happened to San Francisco? It was as if the destruction and desperation of her time in Afghanistan had somehow followed her here to America. She felt sick.
“Trey...” She turned to find that the perfect contours of his face disarmed her and she looked away for a moment. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I still think Antonia is the only one who will tell me the truth about my cousin.”
He squeezed her hand and leaned close, his warmth caressing her cheek. His chin was shadowed now, and the beginnings of a dark beard whisked against her skin. “If she’s in there, we’ll find her.”
Her voice caught. “She could be dead already.”
He stroked her back. “We’ll get her out tomorrow. That’s all we can do for now. Besides,” he said, speaking low into her ear. “Maybe I can get some information out of Derick about your missing cousin since we’re bunking in the same truck tonight.”
There was a slight tone of derision in Trey’s voice and she wondered what he thought about the handsome actor. She tried to search his face in the darkness. “You’d do that for me? Why?”
He hesitated, his eyes searching hers. “I’m not totally sure, but I feel like it’s the right thing to do.”
The right thing. She marveled at the thought of knowing what the right choice might be at any given time. He was so certain of himself, like she used to be.
Abruptly, she pulled away, the cold air rushing to remind her of the loss of his warm touch.
“Good night, Sage,” he said, and she felt him watching her as she made her way into the salon.
SEVEN
Trey carried a musty blanket that smelled of cured meats and an exhausted-looking Wally, whose small body could not jump into the vehicle unassisted. The truck floor was cold, the space lit only by a small flashlight Derick held to light Trey’s way as he climbed in and deposited Wally and the blanket.
“Mind if I keep this open a little?” Trey said, wedging a board under the roll-up door. Tunnels were one thing, but he couldn’t see shutting himself into a windowless metal container if he could help it. There was a reason he’d never gone for tank duty. Little metal box, one way out.
“Absolutely. Honored to be sharing a truck with you this evening, Captain Black.” Derick grinned. “You can regale me with stories from the war.”
“Don’t think so.” Those stories were kept close to the vest, shared only with people who could understand, military brothers, not trotted out for cocktail-party talk.
“It would be better than my endless stories about show business, believe me.”
Derick helped him spread out the blanket, which annoyed him further. He handed Wally to Derick to give him something to keep him busy and the actor accepted the wriggling bundle as if it was a live grenade.
“These are odd circumstances,” Derick said.
“Affirmative. Was there much damage to your place?”
“No. We did a massive retrofitting of the estate after Loma Prieta. Not so much as a crack in the plaster. I beelined down here as soon as the shaking stopped, but I had to leave the Bentley and walk most of the way because the streets are impassible toward the center of town.”
Cool air filtered in through the gap, but Trey did not mind. He’d vowed in Afghanistan that he would never again take America’s gentler climate for granted. He retrieved Wally and put the dog on the blanket before he lay down himself and Derick settled in on his own pile of bedding. “Were you able to get any calls out?”
“No. Just a text to my wife, Barbara.”
Trey stiffened, keeping his tone casual. “Did she respond?”
He sighed. “Not yet.” Derick let the light play upward to the metal beams. “She’s...not communicative at times.”
“Surely she’d answer back knowing you’d just been through a massive earthquake.”
“She’ll probably check in as soon as she hears the news, but she can get lost in her own world.”
Trey looked for a way to keep the conversation going. “She’ll be happy the Imperial is still standing.”
“Barely. It was hardly standing before.”
“Going to be expensive to repair.”
Derick shifted. “Let’s be honest, Captain. That wreck is never going to be repaired. I could hand over every penny from every movie I’ve ever made into that sinkhole and it wouldn’t make a dent. This earthquake was the nail in the coffin.” His words were dark but the tone was almost cheerful. “Too bad we don’t have earthquake insurance. Just fire.”
“So why lead her on? Why let her hire people to fix it up?”
He considered the question for a moment. “Because it makes her happy.”
“Until your money runs out?”
“I was hoping something would happen before then.”
“What exactly?”
“I don’t know,” he said, his voice easy and charming, as if he was reciting lines for a show. “Things usually break my way. I’ve never been the long-range planner. I see something and I take it. Rosalind will tell you I have no mind for business.” He laughed. “You know, I’m going to talk about this idea with my agent. Young hero trapped in the wake of a massive earthquake. Must struggle to save his small band of travelers including a lovely woman photographer.”
Trey wasn’t thrilled that Derick thought of Sage as lovely. For some reason, it galled him. The flashlight caught the lines on Derick’s face, the shadows that aged his eyes and stripped away the sheen of youth. You’re too old to be the young hero. Trey was ashamed of himself for enjoying the notion.
Derick seemed lost in thought. “I used to imagine that I’d been on the plane that crashed and killed my par
ents. I would smash my way into the cockpit and bring that plane safely to the ground with accompanying swashbuckling music and flattering camera angles, of course.”
Trey was unsure how to respond. “How old were you?”
“Eighteen, just starting out in the modeling biz, thanks to my mother, working at a pizza shop at night. Probably best that my father didn’t live to see my acting career take off. He was a senator, you know, and didn’t believe in sharing his wealth with a son who hadn’t earned it. Despised show business and would have had a coronary at my first role, which was on a soap opera. He wanted me to be an engineer.” Derick laughed again. “Can you picture me as an engineer?”
Trey couldn’t. “Maybe when you retire.”
“Nah. When I retire, I’m going to restore boats. I’m working on a wooden beauty from the 1920s right now. Combination of oak and mahogany that would make you weep.”
“Sounds expensive.”
Derick looked at him sharply and then smiled. “I can afford it. Looking at a couple of movie deals right now. What about you? Carpentry pay well?”
Trey recognized the gibe. “Nope, but that’s okay. I just want to build a cabin in the mountains. I don’t need a boat.” Or a mansion, or a Bentley.
Derick looked honestly interested and Trey had no idea if the guy was a better actor than he’d imagined or he really was the easygoing pal he portrayed. “Sounds perfect. A quiet life in the mountains. I’d probably go nuts without people around, but it sure has its appeal.” He jerked and pulled his phone from his pocket. “Text.”
“From Barbara?”
Derick peered at the tiny screen. “No. Nothing important. Not from Barbara.” He bid Trey a good-night and turned his back toward the opposite wall of the truck.
Trey could see the flicker of light as Derick texted. Nothing important? He didn’t buy that for a moment.
With his head propped on a stack of flattened cardboard boxes, Trey listened to the sound of sirens and wondered how many people lay trapped, praying for rescue. He remembered with a surge of sadness how slowly the minutes had ticked away when he and Sage had waited for a medic to treat Luis. Rescue hadn’t come then in spite of heroic efforts by the medic and Trey’s own anguished prayers.
He hoped that if Antonia really was trapped in the opera house, she would have the strength to make it until morning.
* * *
Sage must have drifted off into sleep somewhere in the hours before dawn as exhaustion won out over the fear of another quake. It was still dark when she sat up, eyes bleary and mouth dry, heart beating hard as the disorientation ebbed away. There was a massive earthquake, and I’m in a hair salon. Her mind added one more bit of absurd information.
Trey Black is sleeping in a delivery truck just outside my door.
It must all be some sort of bizarre dream. The fact that Trey was back in her life was enough to throw her off balance without a catastrophic earthquake tossed in. For a moment, she wanted to bury her head under the blanket and wish it all away, but the anxious stirring in her gut would not allow it.
Rosalind’s bed was empty and she found her talking to Shirlene in the front room that looked out onto the ruined street, quiet and empty in the cold morning. Rosalind was examining the little bottles of nail polish in the store window, righting the fallen ones and sliding them into precise rows like colorful soldiers.
“My mother used to do nails, but I don’t remember her having nearly this many colors to choose from.” Looking at Sage, Rosalind said, “Did we wake you?”
“No. I’m surprised I slept at all.”
Rosalind herself looked rumpled, her black jacket streaked with dirt. “Didn’t sleep much either. Kept dreaming the floor was shaking. I don’t know if those were real aftershocks or my imagination. Hungry?”
Sage shook her head. “No, just thirsty.”
Shirlene handed her a cup of water. “The pipes aren’t working, but this is from a bottle in the fridge. It’s not too cold anymore ’cause there’s no electricity.”
Sage gulped the water while Rosalind paced in front of the window. “I wish I had my bike. I could see if Antonia headed back to the guest house.”
“The police should be here soon,” Sage said, eyeing the gray streaks in the sky that meant dawn must be approaching. She hoped it was true, that they had people to dedicate to a wrecked opera house in the face of such enormous need.
Shirlene fiddled with a battery-powered radio until she zeroed in on a tinny voice. “Initial estimates of the earthquake calculate the magnitude as a 7.9 on the Richter scale. Reports are coming in now of a partial collapse at the Bay City Mall where rescuers are working around the clock to free some of the estimated two dozen people trapped in the wreckage. Bystanders are assisting in the frantic efforts. Traffic movement around the city is at a standstill due to road failures, disabled stoplights, the collapse of the Geneva Avenue overpass and the damage to the Central Viaduct of Highway 101.”
Here the reporter paused. When she continued on, she sounded tired, as if she too had spent the night waiting for the next catastrophic shaker to occur. “Receiving word now of extensive damage in the Marina District. More in a moment.”
Shirlene sighed. “Our poor San Francisco.”
Rosalind continued to pace. “Not surprised about the Marina District. It’s all built on landfill. I tried to tell Derick and so did Barbara when he bought a waterfront condo there. He’s going to be crushed if anything happened to that silly boat of his.”
Sage tried to push away the tragic news and focus on Rosalind. “Derick didn’t listen to Barbara?”
Rosalind waved a hand. “Derick doesn’t listen to anyone, really.” She laughed grimly. “His head is in the clouds and it’s nearly impossible to bring him back to earth sometimes.”
Sage stepped closer, interrupting the path of Rosalind’s pacing. “When was the last time you talked to Barbara?”
Rosalind stopped, blinking. “Can’t quite remember.”
Odd, for a woman who Sage knew kept every detail of Derick’s business life in order. “You can’t remember?”
Rosalind’s eyes met hers. “I tried to stay out of Barbara’s and Derick’s personal lives. I’m their business manager and I like to keep it that way.”
“Were they having problems?”
She shook her head. “Their marriage is their business, and I’m no therapist.” Her eyes narrowed in accusation. “I’m not a gossip columnist, either.”
The criticism was a fair one. “I’m not interested in gossip. I need to know where Barbara is, to speak with her.”
Rosalind’s tone softened. “Sorry. I know your motives are good, but you’re a photographer and they can be real lowlifes when they’re trying to get the dirt on a star. I forgot for a moment that you’re one of the good guys.” Rosalind blinked. “Aren’t you?”
Sage knew from Barbara that their personal lives were fair game for paparazzi so she let it go and posed the question flat-out. “Do you know where Barbara is?”
“Ask Derick.”
Sage stood as tall as she could, but she was still a few inches shorter than Rosalind. “You can’t tell me?”
“I already did, but you don’t seem to accept my answer. She’s in New Mexico, as far as I know. I can see that you think I’m lying but really, what would be the reason? I just manage the books and that’s a lot easier when Barbara is around, frankly. She’s a stabilizing influence. She’s got a good head for business. Derick is no help with it.”
“I should have heard from her by now. It’s not like her to disappear.”
“Maybe you don’t know her like you think you do.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Rosalind sighed, wiping at a smudge on her cuff. “Nothing. Sage, there’s no dirty plot afoot here, at least not on
our end. Barbara made plans to go to Santa Fe and I have no reason to believe she’s doing anything but enjoying her vacation, probably the last time she’ll have much of a vacation with twins on the way.”
“It’s a weird time for her to travel.”
Rosalind shuddered. “I know. If it were me, I wouldn’t show my face in public. Her belly is enormous.” She looked sheepish. “Sorry. That was mean. No filter.” Rosalind paused for a moment. “Did Barbara tell you anything? I mean, about how things were going with Derick? Is that why you’re worried?”
“No. Why?”
She shrugged. “Just curious. I don’t understand those two at all.”
They faced off for a moment, each woman measuring the other. Sage respected Rosalind for not wanting to talk about her boss’s personal life. Unless it was not respect at all, but her way of covering up for the fact that someone had made Barbara disappear. A nerve flared deep inside, telling her that Rosalind was not revealing all she knew.
The reporter on the radio started up again, listing the catalogue of fatalities. Rosalind waved a hand and opened the door. “I can’t stand to hear any more. This is too depressing. I’m going outside for some air.”
After sending another half dozen texts to Antonia and trying her cell phone again with no answer, Sage checked the time; nearly five o’clock. She shivered against the cold whispering in through the open door. She wondered how comfortable it had been for Trey and Derick. The walls seemed to move closer, pressing the tiny space around her. One more tremor and maybe the salon would come tumbling down around them, too. She was making for the door when Shirlene handed her an oversize San Francisco Giants sweatshirt. “Black isn’t your color, I’m sorry to say, but it’s warm.”
“Thank you,” Sage said, wondering again at the kindness of this stranger. Would she herself have been so willing to share with someone she didn’t know? Shame weighed heavy in her stomach. No, because she did not trust people anymore, did not see the good in anyone through the heavy cloak of depression. She wanted to say something else that would communicate the depth of her gratitude, but Shirlene was sweeping her little shop, picking up the bottles of hair color and foils that had scattered after the quake. Sage let herself out and gently closed the door behind her, pulling on the comforting heft of the sweatshirt.