Prime Time

by Hank Phillippi Ryan

  I consider running back downstairs. To where? Knocking on a neighbor’s door. Saying what? Calling 911 on my cell phone. What’s the emergency? Call Josh to come back?

  I try to get my weary brain focused on reality. The easiest answer is always the correct one. And, since the door is locked and the key is where it’s supposed to be, that means the cat got out when the vet’s assistant left.

  Slinging my tote and purse over one shoulder, scooping up Toxie and fighting off an intensifying foreboding, I stick my key in the lock and turn it.

  Charlotte Ann Gelston. Charlie Gelston. Charlotte McNally Gelston. Mrs. Josh Gelston. Mrs. Joshua Something Gelston. I can’t believe I almost Googled James last week. Long ago, far away, history.

  I roll over, rearranging my pillow and trying to get comfortable. Botox, jolted out of a deep slumber, scrambles to stake out a new sleeping spot on my back. That cat can sleep through anything. I’m not having as much success.

  Something is wrong with my pillow, there must be. I try to punch it back to its proper shape. Everything was fine when I walked into my apartment. Of course. No sign of anyone coming in, or anything being taken. But even here in my nest, safe, I stare at the ceiling. My body is exhausted, but my brain is churning along full-speed ahead. The green glowing lights from my alarm clock taunt me—it’s already past 4:00 a.m.

  I close my eyes, trying to distract myself. Wonder if Josh and I will have a wedding album. On our coffee table. Like Brad and Melanie. Wonder if our announcement will be in the paper. Maybe in the New York Times. Maybe even in “Vows,” as the featured wedding of the week.

  I sit straight up, sending Botox skittering across the bed, mewing in protest.

  Melanie said she sent a wedding announcement to the paper. Time for me to look that up.

  Padding to my desk in my thick wool socks, I can’t believe I’m doing this. I could just as easily wait until morning. But then, it technically is morning. I click on my computer, and check the Boston Globe’s pay-per-bride section. Nothing. Then the New York Times. It takes me just a few moments to find “Vows” online. Those articles contain every bit of wedding-announcement minutiae anyone could ever want—gowns, ceremonies, relatives, education, occupations, pictures. I wonder if this one might also contain some answers.

  Botox jumps onto my lap as I continue my search.

  In seconds, up pops the same picture Melanie showed me that first day I interviewed her. The arty, soft-focus photograph, the floaty Vera Wangish dress, Brad’s affectionate gaze. But here, underneath, is the whole story of their wedding.

  Botox sits up, positioning her furry body exactly where it’ll block my view of the computer monitor. I bat her back down onto my lap and lean across the keyboard as if sitting closer will allow me to read faster.

  I see Brad got his MBA from Wharton School of Business, where, I remember, Mack Briggs taught. And then I read: Melanie, too. That’s where they met, the article says. And she was valedictorian. So much for my theory she wouldn’t understand the insider-trading scheme.

  I pause, my brain struggling to extricate a memory. Didn’t she tell me Brad was head of the class?

  Ceremony at some church, reception at Tavern on the Green, very nice. Bridesmaids, many, but no one’s name I recognize. Best man, Melanie’s brother Martin.

  A little bell goes off in my head. Martin. I flip my mental Rolodex. Martin.

  Honeymoon in St. Bart’s, I read on. Expensive. Couple will live in Lexington. I know that.

  All perfectly interesting, but nothing earthshaking that I can see.

  And then, finally, at the end of the article, there’s a quote from the mother of the bride. It’s not what she says that shocks me—it’s who she is.

  Andrea Grimes Brown.

  Coffee. I need coffee. My gray-flannel clogs clunk down the hallway as I head toward the kitchen, yawning uncontrollably. Four hours of sleep again. I struggle to get my brain into gear.

  Franklin is going to go bananas when I tell him what I found out last night. Josh, too. And the police. The enormity of my discovery perks me up—who needs sleep when you’ve got a good story?

  I squint toward the living room, confused. It looks as if there’s a funny shadow on the couch. Maybe I left my coat there last night. It’s too early for contacts, and I wish I had my glasses. I squint harder as I get closer to the room.

  It’s not a coat. It’s a person. Sitting on my couch.

  I take a few more steps—then stop. Now I can see.

  Flawless posture, tailored suit, matching patent pumps and pocketbook. White gloves. Melanie Foreman, watching me calmly, looks more like a guest at afternoon tea than someone who could be arrested for breaking and entering.

  “Melanie?” I can’t think of anything else to say. Maybe she’s discovered something about the Bibles. She doesn’t know what I found, so maybe she’s just lonely. Or wants to apologize. But why didn’t she call? How did she get in? “Did we,” I begin out loud, trying for my calmest voice, “have an appointment?”

  She smiles, holds up the key to my apartment between two manicured fingers. “Under the plant,” she says, not answering my question. She drops my key. I flinch as it clatters onto the glass coffee table.

  “You weren’t here yesterday when I came to visit,” she continues, still with that brittle smile, “so I decided to come back this morning. We need—to talk.”

  Who would dig out someone’s key and just come in? That’s creepy. And clearly how Botox got out. I cinch my terry-cloth bathrobe tighter around my waist, then stuff my hands into the pockets. The back of my neck is suddenly clammy, and my throat gets tight.

  “Melanie?” I say again. I hear the tension in my own voice and realize I’m clenching my fists. Relax. “Talk about what?”

  “I know you have the files,” she says. “The ones Brad sent to Josh. And now, I’m here to get them back.” She picks up the shiny purse next to her, puts it in her lap. She snaps the clasp. Open. Closed. Open. Closed. “I couldn’t find them yesterday. But I’m sure you can retrieve them for me.”

  Not a chance. I take a faltering step backward, away from her, thrown off balance physically and emotionally. Logic says Melanie cannot be sitting in my living room.

  I fleetingly hope—maybe it’s a dream? I smell Melanie’s perfume, fragrant and floral. Hear a dull hum as the furnace kicks in. I try to lick my lips, but my mouth is dry. I’m awake. And this ain’t no friendly visit.

  “Or don’t,” Melanie says. I hear the click again as she unsnaps the metal clasp on her purse. I see the morning sun glint on the gleaming silver pistol she extracts from inside.

  A .22, my mind registers. As if that matters.

  She doesn’t point it at me, just holds it carefully in her gloved hand.

  Her gloved hand. I feel a trickle slide down my back. I’m in trouble.

  I need a—what? My eyes dart around the room, looking for some kind of weapon. With escalating dismay I realize there’s not much deadly force available in my living room. I could throw a pile of old New Yorkers at her. Clonk her with my TiVo remote. That’s the extent of my firepower. I’m screwed.

  “Suit yourself,” Melanie continues. “Although it’s hard to believe you’d think some box of papers is worth—well, you see the consequences.”

  Stall, my brain commands. Stall. Josh is going to call, any minute I hope, and if I don’t answer the phone, he’ll be here instantly. Or as instantly as he can, driving in from Bexter. Maybe he’ll call the police. I’ve got to stall.

  “I do,” I say, pretending fear isn’t making me feel as if I’m about to faint. I need to take up as much time as I can. The files aren’t here, of course, but she doesn’t know that. The good news and the bad news. “Though you know, I did read an interesting article in the New York Times last night.”

  “Oh?” Melanie questions. She puts the gun beside her on the couch and adjusts her Chanel-looking skirt. “And I care about that because…?”

  “Because the ar
ticle was about you,” I say pleasantly. I take a step or two toward the couch. “About you and Brad. Your wedding, in fact. In ‘Vows.’”

  “I see,” Melanie replies, eyeing my progress and picking up the gun again. “And what—”

  “Quite the write-up,” I continue. “Nice dress. Nice ceremony. I was surprised to learn both you and Brad went to Wharton. And so you knew Mack Briggs, too, even though you told me you didn’t. But what surprised me the most,” I say slowly, willing the phone to ring, “was learning about your relatives. Your mother, most specifically. Your mother—Andrea Grimes Brown.”

  “Ah.” Melanie nods. “So you know.”

  “Do I?” I ask. “I mean, most mothers and daughters shop, have lunch at a nice restaurant and share stories about their kids. Gossip about the neighbors. Give advice about husbands. Swap recipes. But you two, apparently, cooked up an insider-trading scheme. Very twenty-first century.” I pause to see if Melanie will admit it. “Let me ask you, Melanie. Did you come up with this? Or your mother? You told me…”

  Melanie gives an airy little laugh. “It was Brad’s idea? Hardly,” she says. “No harm in you knowing it now, I suppose,” she adds, glancing at her gun. “It was actually an old boyfriend’s idea. The spam, the quotation response system, the Bible-verse code. He’s long gone, and anyway, would have been too much of a—” She pauses, as if selecting the exact word. “Wimp. To make it happen.” She makes a gesture of dismissal. “Mother and I aren’t wimps.”

  “And since your mother already had a high-level position at Rogers Chalmers,” I say, encouraging her, “it must have been easy for Andrea to convince her bigwig colleagues to come in on the deal. Wes Rasmussen and the rest.”

  “It worked perfectly,” Melanie says with a smile. “We all had Bibles. We all had big money. And not a whiff of trouble.” Abruptly, she shifts from serene to staccato, her face darkening, her voice clipped. “Until Brad started piecing it together. Finding my Bible. Accumulating those files. Always searching. Always checking. Hacking into my computer.”

  “Your—?”

  “Of course. My computer. You think that study at my house was Brad’s? Of course I meant you to think so. I couldn’t have you snooping reporters suspecting I was involved.”

  “And that’s why you did the interview?” I’m getting this now. “To convince us you were simply the despairing widow?”

  She sighs. “He had to send that damn e-mail. To Mack Briggs, and your little Josh Gelston, and to you, of course. I was so thrilled when you didn’t answer it. Imagine, if you had just left well enough alone, we wouldn’t be here now, would we?”

  I frown, thinking back over that first day at Melanie’s. “But you were upset I didn’t answer him,” I say. “You were so concerned that he was trying to tell me something.”

  Melanie laughs. “Was I? That’s what you decided, perhaps. But I was actually wondering if you had contacted him, whether he had told you anything I wasn’t aware of. I was delighted you hadn’t answered.”

  “But your house was ransacked,” I persist.

  “Was it?”

  I still don’t understand this. “You reported it to the Lexington police.”

  Melanie laughs again. “Did I?”

  I remember that morning in my office. Was it just days ago? I had assumed she was on the phone to police. But of course I’d never heard anyone on the other end. Had she only pretended to call? I was so worried about being summoned to Angela’s office, I hadn’t given her phone call another thought.

  “But you gave Franklin and me the files—”

  “Meaningless, unless you had the key. Besides,” she says quietly, “I knew you wouldn’t have them long.”

  Something in my heart sinks so deeply, it takes my breath away. Knees weak, I lower myself onto the chair across from Melanie, and my eyes well with tears.

  “You sent those men after Franklin,” I gasp. “And after me.”

  Melanie unsnaps her purse again, draws out a package of Newports and a silver lighter. “May I?” she asks. Tapping out a cigarette, she flicks open the top of her lighter, the flame mirrored in her eyes. “Although I guess your house rules won’t be in effect much longer, anyway,” she says, lighting up with an exaggeratedly elaborate gesture. “Will they?”

  I have an idea. I stand up and look around the room, acting nervous and upset, which isn’t actually that difficult. “Could I have a cigarette?” I ask.

  Melanie briefly looks surprised, but offers me the pack and the lighter. “Knock yourself out.”

  I reach for the two items, but Melanie is faster. “I see,” she says grimly, snatching back the lighter. “I’ll do it for you.”

  Damn. I can’t use the lighter as a weapon. I need a plan B. Meanwhile, my reporter brain, apparently more fearless than the rest of me, continues to insist on answers. I hafta know what happened.

  “You sent those men after Franklin,” I say again.

  Melanie raises her eyebrows, doesn’t answer.

  “But—why did you give us the files in the first place?” I persist. “What if someone had asked us about them?”

  “Come on, you’re the reporter,” she replies sarcastically.

  “I’m the…” I think about this for a moment, all the while eyeing the glinty little gun. Then I understand. “Ah. Right. I’m the reporter. We promised you we wouldn’t tell anyone about the files. And even if a lawyer subpoenaed them, you figured we’d never give them up. We’d go to jail rather than give up confidential documents. So you get them out of your house and out of your life.”

  “It has a certain…symmetry…doesn’t it?” Melanie smiles. “Your pitiful journalism-school ethics became my key to freedom.”

  “And without the files, no investigators could crack your little code.” I shake my head, understanding her malevolently twisted thought process. “Wow.”

  Melanie recrosses her legs, smoothes her chic cropped hair. She looks more like a post-deb blue blood than a cold-blooded mercenary. But I know she’s killed for money and to cover up her crimes. She shepherded me to Josh and Mack Briggs, using me to find out what they knew. And obviously I’m not the only one in her sights. Josh will be next.

  I take a puff of my disgusting Newport, trying not to cough, and step closer to the hallway, exhaling carefully. Plan B has just presented itself.

  Melanie, watching me, curls her fingers around the gun.

  I can see she’s tensing, wired, about to crack. I have about as long as this cigarette lasts or I’m going to be as snuffed as this Newport. And Josh will be next. My brain thrums as I try to battle my escalating panic.

  “You sent those men to run your own husband off the road,” I continue, struggling to keep my voice even. “Your own husband. You were in ‘Vows.’” Till death do us part, she’d promised. No kidding.

  Melanie gives a dismissive wave, smoke trailing from her gesture. “Brad,” she says coldly. “He had a choice. Could have kept quiet and cashed in. No outsiders had the vaguest inkling of our deal. That’s why I need those files.”

  “But—Mack Briggs.” I shake my head, remembering the solemnly sad mourners at his funeral. “You sent them after poor old Mack Briggs.” I take one more step toward the hallway, now almost angry, glaring at her. “And you sent them after me, too.”

  “Before I left Mack Briggs’s funeral, I told Mother to warn you to stay out of this.” Smoke from Melanie’s cigarette is spiraling up toward the ceiling. “But you wouldn’t listen.”

  This sucks. Here I am, uncovering the biggest story of my life, and someone else is going to write it. I’ve got no notebook, no tape recorder, no camera, and it’s looking more and more like the only eyewitness to what’s apparently planned to be a fatal shooting, one Charlotte Ann McNally, is not going to be around for the big interview. Because Charlotte Ann McNally is also going to be the victim. And dead.

  I guess this is what my sixth-grade English teacher meant by irony.

  But Mr. Thornburg also taught u
s about the surprise ending. Plan B.

  I take an enormous drag on my cigarette, and then exhale a huge puff right into the smoke detector. In a heartbeat, it begins to shriek and wail. And less than a second later, so does every smoke alarm in my apartment, and then every one in the building.

  Melanie’s face pales, then twists into fury. She leaps to her feet. “You bitch,” she seethes. She comes toward me, pointing the gun.

  “Who, me?” I reply. I’m so not the bitch here.

  Outside, I hear doors opening and slamming shut, footsteps running down the stairways, voices yelling, “Smoke alarm! Get out! Everyone get out!”

  I can tell Melanie is assessing her options. I decide to help her.

  “I wouldn’t fire that gun at me now, if I were you,” I say, raising my voice to be heard over the increasing commotion. “There’s no way out for you…except right into the arms of every firefighter in Boston. That alarm is wired to the fire station,” I tell her. “I’m afraid you’re trapped in a nonburning building.”

  Now, as more people tramp through the halls, I can hear multiple sirens in the distance. My heart fills with triumph, but somehow Melanie has regained her composure despite the chaos I’ve set in motion.

  She sits back on the couch, crossing her legs and taking another drag on her cigarette. “You’re right,” she says.

  I can’t understand why she’s so calm.

  “The building is not burning. All those firefighters will find that out soon enough.” She settles into the upholstery, still holding that gun in one hand, her cigarette in the other. “So we’ll just wait for everyone to go away. Then later I can say you invited me over, told me where the key was, I arrived and found you—well, you know.”

  “That’ll never work,” I say. The shriek of the smoke alarm pauses, then picks up again.