RiverTime

by Rae Renzi

  “Good point. I restate my original hypothesis. Academics. Control.”

  “His problem.” She held up a glittery top with a plunging neckline.

  “Too Frederick’s. What’s amusing is he has a much bigger problem than academics.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Casey moved to another rack, dresses this time.

  “Oh, please.” Ditsy rolled her eyes and trailed after Casey, homing in on the garments Casey flipped through distractedly.

  “Reed’s not really bad—just gone.” Casey half-heartedly held up a dress of deep blue silk. “Jack is, though. He’s bad, bad, bad.” Visions of silk-and-lace underthings danced through her head. “Bad.”

  Ditsy glanced at her, one eyebrow raised. “You’ve gyrated off-center, kiddo. We were talking about Reed and his controlling behavior, remember?”

  “Right. Right. So, you think Reed is controlling?”

  “Oh, hardly at all. Except when he breathes. You do know the whole reason he married you was to exercise control over his parents. Like a toddler defying potty-training.”

  “Gee, thanks a lot.”

  “It’s nothing you don’t already know, Case, even if you won’t admit it. Here, try this on.” She held up a pearly silver-gray silk dress Casey had passed over. “The color is dynamite for you.”

  “Not dreary?”

  “Decidedly not dreary. Far from dreary.”

  In the dressing room, Ditsy picked up the thread of the conversation. “Tell me this—has Reed Trabor ever, ever, even when he asked you to marry him, told you he loved you?”

  Casey slipped off her shoes and yanked down her jeans. “That’s irrelevant. We get along and have fun, and support each other. That’s what’s important.”

  “When is the last time you did something fun with Reed? Sex counts, political functions don’t.”

  Casey didn’t answer.

  Ditsy gave a little snort of disgust, or possibly satisfaction. “And how are Mom and Pop Trabor treating you? Open arms and all that? Don’t bother—the question was rhetorical.”

  Casey grunted.

  “Listen, Case, I’ve no horse in this race, and I’m no marriage counselor, but it seems as though this marriage is off to a rocky start. My guess is that to save it you first need to know what the marriage is about.”

  That was the problem. Casey was no longer certain. For the steady-as-a-rock presence in her life, the true-blue partner he’d convinced her he would be, Reed was amazingly distant these days.

  She sighed and swept back the curtain. “What do you think?”

  Ditsy gave Casey a critical once-over. “Perfect. Just perfect. He’ll flip.”

  Casey was pretty sure she wasn’t talking about Reed.

  A million stupid little things demanded Casey’s attention, but all she really wanted to do was work on her lecture for the conference. It had to be perfect, because…

  No. He probably wasn’t even aware of the conference. Why should he be? It was for academics, not film stars.

  Enough. Casey pushed away from her desk. She’d been faithfully returning home at a reasonable hour for the last few weeks, but tonight she was even earlier. She wanted to get organized for her trip.

  She got into her car and stared out the windshield for a few moments. It was odd, but she couldn’t really place her feelings about Reed now. Everything seemed out of focus and off center, like a photo of a bird flying by. The car growled as she put it in gear and pulled out of her parking place. The brakes felt sluggish. The car was probably overdue for servicing, if cars this old even had an overdue date. Well, she’d deal with it when she got back from the conference.

  Casey left the garage and headed toward the freeway. She’d forgotten how bad the traffic was this time of day. Usually she missed the worst of it, so she could speed home in only a few minutes. How did people do this every day? As she crept along, stopping and going with the traffic, the brakes felt softer still. Well, this kind of traffic was not the best for an old car. She tried to take it easy on the brakes.

  She wondered what would happen while she was gone. Would Reed notice her absence or simply carry on as usual, aware only of a slight lessening of pressure on the home front? She’d been applying subtle—and sometimes not-so-subtle—pressure on him to be in the marriage more completely. Her plan had some success, in that she’d seen Reed more often, but mere proximity to someone didn’t necessarily mean closeness, and his indifference remained intractable.

  Her musings halted abruptly when a frustrated driver cut in front of her. She slammed on the brakes. The car barely slowed and suddenly, there were no brakes at all. She frantically pumped the brake pedal, but nothing happened. She jerked the wheel sideways, just missing the car in front. Her car swerved across the shoulder, then bumped over the grass verge and landed on an exit ramp. She managed to downshift, though her hands were shaking. The car whined in protest but slowed. Praying no hotshots would come barreling off the freeway and rear-end her, she crept down the exit ramp. When she finally made it to the access road, she pulled to the far right. Luck was with her. There was a service station at the next intersection.

  The young mechanic at the service station walked into the small waiting room, wiping his greasy hands on a rag. He looked at the floor, seeming hesitant to speak. Casey tossed aside a three-month-old fishing-and-hunting magazine, her only amusement while waiting.

  “So what’s the damage?” she asked.

  He looked up, startled. “You know?”

  Casey was confused. “Know what? That the brakes are bad?” Of course she knew the brakes had malfunctioned—why else was she here?

  “That line was cut, ma’am. Someone cut the brake line.”

  “Cut the line? That can’t be right. Why would anyone do that?”

  He shrugged. “You’re lucky you weren’t hurt.”

  Luckier than he knew. If she’d left at her usual time, she would’ve been flying along at just-barely-legal speed when the brakes gave out. But who on earth would want to hurt her? And for what reason?

  No, it had to be a strange accident, or the mechanic had an overdeveloped imagination, that was all. An overactive imagination. She paid him and left, almost putting it out of her mind.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “I’m off to New York, Reed. While I’m gone, would you please call Senator Trahaney and remind him of the vote next week? We need him if we’re going to get this Runaway Child Protection bill passed.” Patricia Carr tossed the instructions over her shoulder as she strode by.

  Reed looked up from his desk. “Trahaney? That will be a hard sell, Senator—the bill’s far outside his comfort zone on social issues.”

  She stopped at the door and turned with a hint of the coquette. “Oh, I believe you’ll find Senator Trahaney quite tractable. Just be sure to remind him that I’m counting on his support, and that I’ll be very, very disappointed if he doesn’t ante up. I’ll be back around noon tomorrow.” She gave him a finger wave and waltzed out.

  A few hours later, Reed tossed his pen onto the desk. He stood, smoothed his hair, and walked down the hall to get a cup of coffee. In the small kitchen area, he leaned against the counter and stared into space.

  Patricia. That was why he felt like ants were crawling over him. He’d avoided thinking about it, but it was time. Past time.

  The first heady rush of excitement had passed, and the relationship had entered a cooling-down phase. Maybe she felt she had him hooked, so she could relax the sugar-and-spice routine.

  That was fine with him. It had been stupid to become involved with the senator—his boss, for Christ’s sake—in the first place. And his self-delusion that it wouldn’t affect his relationship with Casey? Beyond stupid. What had he been thinking?

  There was the problem. He hadn’t been thinking at all, just reacting to her. She’d played him like a fish, arranged moments that eroded the professional barrier, a touch here, a stroke there, the “accidental” brush of her bre
ast against him, until he was practically comatose with testosterone poisoning. He saw that now.

  But why? What was in it for her? She’d initiated the relationship, so there had to be a reason. What was it?

  His family’s status? Lots of money, lots of connections. But the scandal of an extra-marital affair would destroy any advantage she’d gain from the alliance. Blackmail? He had no doubt she was capable of it, but, again, she was his boss, so the balance of power weighed against her, not him.

  What else could motivate her? Information? The coin of the realm. He replayed the conversations he’d had with Patricia recently to see if they pointed in a consistent direction, maybe something to do with his family’s holdings.

  He couldn’t think of a single time she’d brought up his family’s financial concerns. Not once. The only topic that seemed to arise fairly often was Casey and her work, which, now that he thought about it, was odd.

  In some way, though, her motive didn’t matter. It was essential that he find an opportunity to back out of the relationship quickly and gracefully. Still, one lesson he’d learned from her was that leverage was important. Knowing her motive—because he was sure she had one—might be useful later, give him an opportunity to shift a little power into his pocket. He finished his coffee, rinsed his cup and strolled back to his office.

  Working late wasn’t unusual for him, so no one commented when he remained in his office as the rest left, one by one. He tracked the evening exodus of the staff. Around seven o’clock, Bob Lightman stopped by Reed’s office on his way out.

  “You’re taking this job much too seriously. You need to go home—don’t you have a life?”

  Good question. Reed set his pen next to the stacked papers on his desk and glanced up. “I have a couple more things to nail down, then I’m heading home. I’ve almost forgotten what my wife looks like,” he said ruefully, running his hands over his hair.

  “Well, that’s not so bad. What you want to worry about is when she forgets what you look like.”

  Reed smiled dutifully. “Noted. Well, have a good evening. Are you the last one out? Should I lock up?”

  “Yep, I think I’m the last, except you. Don’t stay too late.”

  Reed waited until he heard the outside door click shut. He wandered down the hall, hands in pockets, casually glancing into each office to see if Bob had missed anyone.

  When he was sure the coast was clear, he locked his outside door and opened the connecting door between his and the senator’s office. The cleaning crew would be in at eight o’clock, so he had less than an hour. Just to be safe, he stepped across and locked the door opposite his, the one to the secretary’s office.

  He sat at Patricia’s desk and cranked up her computer. Amazingly, it was not password protected. Some of the people he worked with were fanatic about scraps of paper—document shredders in every room—but didn’t extend such caution to their computers.

  He found a file with financial records, but nothing jumped out as suspicious, given she was a woman with a highly developed sense of style. Her credit card bills for high-end clothing stores were astronomical. He had a brief flash of contrition for occasionally nagging Casey about her lack of interest in clothing. He’d had no idea it was so expensive to be fashionable.

  Nothing in Patricia’s personal correspondence drew a red flag. He poked around in various files for a while, but didn’t find anything interesting. Of course, he had no idea what he was looking for, which was an impediment. He shut down the computer and sat back, swinging back and forth in the swivel chair while he looked around.

  A glance at his watch told him he had twenty more minutes before the cleaning crew arrived. He slid the narrow pencil drawer open to reveal the usual detritus of office habitation as well as female things like mirrors, lipsticks, hair clips. When he pulled the drawer out a little farther, the edge of an old battered address book caught his eye. Feeling slightly silly, he reached into his pocket for his handkerchief and used it to remove the address book.

  He carefully laid the little book on the desk and used his pen to open the cover. Surprisingly, it wasn’t Patricia’s but appeared to belong to someone by the name of Trixie Starr, according to the name written with an adolescent flourish in the inside. He flipped through the pages, one by one, hoping something would stand out. Finally he noticed a pattern, a small notation of sorts that might be interesting. Several names in the address book were highlighted with little red stars. He recognized some of the names as political heavy-hitters, others were wealthy, and some meant nothing at all to him.

  Who was Trixie Starr, and what would a teenager be doing with these names?

  He tried to fit Patricia into the picture. As far as he knew, she didn’t have a daughter with delusions of…something. Of course, he didn’t know everything about her, but surely a daughter would have come up in casual conversation?

  Or maybe this was an old address book of the teenaged Patricia, who’d invented a glamorous name for herself. Teenage girls indulged in such fantasies, and he could almost see a young Patricia Carr laboring over the curlicues in her assumed name.

  Patricia might have acquired the address book as a youngster and continued to use it all these years. Maybe the starred names were likely candidates for campaign contributions or endorsements or other favors.

  He quickly flipped to the T’s. No Trabors. A small relief. But there was an entry for Trahaney. Interesting.

  After a moment’s thought, he discarded the theory—it was too far-fetched. Patricia was exceedingly organized. She wouldn’t be so casual about campaign contributions or political back-scratching.

  Maybe the names on the list were the manifestation of Patricia’s—or Trixie’s—adolescent fantasy to be rich and famous. Maybe the starred names, all men, were a kind of eligible bachelor list, unwitting nominees for the knight-in-shining-armor position in young Patricia’s life. Reed smiled at that image. As if any mere knight would have a chance with Patricia Carr. It would be the king or nothing for her.

  He went through the book once again, more slowly this time. At the end, he turned to the back inside cover. A name was written there, also red-starred, one he’d recently heard. Celestial Productions. Where had he heard that name? And how did it fit with his teenage-knight-in-shining-armor explanation of the names in the address book? He could almost hear Patricia’s voice saying “Celestial Productions.”

  That couldn’t be right, though—if it was a production company, it was involved in film, which would point to Casey, not Patricia. But his nascent memory was clear. It was Patricia’s voice he heard saying the name.

  Faint stirrings of an idea rustled in the back of his mind. On intuition, he made a quick note of the starred names and the phone number for Celestial Productions. He looked at his watch again. Ten minutes until the cleaning crew arrived. After carefully wiping each and every computer key, he made sure Patricia’s desk was just as he found it, then went back to his office. Deciding there wasn’t much more to be gained tonight, he locked up and headed out.

  He was off the elevator and walking toward the front door when he had an inspiration. Phone records. If Celestial Productions showed up on the office phone records, it would prove that Patricia Carr had some link with the production company.

  A noise startled him. He looked over his shoulder, but it was only one of the cleaners trundling a cart toward the elevator. She stopped and glanced back in the direction she’d come from. Leaving the cart in front of the elevators, she walked back around the corner, calling to someone.

  Reed sprinted to the stairwell, raced back up to the office and slipped into the secretary’s office. One by one, he jerked open the file cabinets and hastily scanned them. On the third one, he grunted in triumph when he found a file labeled Phone Charges. He flipped through the file quickly and removed records for the last four months, then slapped them on the copy machine. One sheet slid out…two…

  The elevator dinged, then he heard the chattering of two
people over the rattle of a cart.

  Three…four.

  A knock on his outside door and the rattle of keys alerted him the cleaning crew had arrived and were letting themselves into his office. Had he closed the connecting door? He couldn’t remember.

  The last page appeared in the copier tray. He swept the originals from the machine and hurriedly returned the records to the files, then scrubbed his fingerprints off the secretary’s file cabinet. He wasn’t worried about the copier—his fingerprints should be there.

  Grabbing the copies and his briefcase, he slipped into the hallway just as a knock sounded on the secretary’s connecting door.

  The phone was ringing when Reed opened the apartment door. He set down his briefcase and picked up the phone, glancing around for Casey. The place felt empty.

  “Reed dear, you’ve been neglecting us.”

  “Oh, hello, Mother. Another fund-raiser?”

  “Well, yes. We’ll expect you a week from Thursday. You may bring your wife, if you wish, but ask her now, so I’ll know whether to invite other academic people whom she won’t bore to tears.”

  Reed clenched his jaw. “A few academics might actually raise the level of intellectual discourse. In any case, she’s not home, so you’ll have to wing it.”

  “Stacey’s not home? At this hour?”

  “It’s Casey, as you know very well. She’s working.” Reed wandered into the kitchen to make some coffee.

  “Are you sure? Maybe she’s having an affair,” his mother chirped.

  He opened the cabinet for a cup, and stopped midreach. “Oh, please.”

  “She isn’t exactly ugly, or stupid or devoid of a certain type of charm. It could happen, Reed. I understand those academic types can be quite…inventive.”

  Suddenly he felt uncomfortable. “I have to go. Send me an email with the fund-raiser information.”

  He filled the kettle with water and placed it on the stove to heat. When was the last time he talked with Casey? Yesterday sometime? The day before?