Shattered

by Olga Bicos

  Given the task ahead, the last thing Holly needed was a rogue player thrown into the mix. All morning she’d been trying to sell herself on the adventure of “Cutty House, the Dream Job,” fending off Harris’s fears of “Cutty House, the Nightmare.”

  Two hours later, the nightmare ran with the opening credits.

  “I was thinking of exposed pipes.”

  In true form, Daniel played the master of ceremonies, imagining the impossible—a nineteenth-century Beaux-Arts building converted into warehouse chic.

  “Painted in primary colors,” he continued. “Very George Pompidou Center. Steel and glass and brightly colored ducts.”

  She’d met with Daniel just after lunch. Like a lamb to the slaughter, she trailed behind as he detailed his plans for each room of the mansion. The tour—and her shock—dead-ended in the ballroom, which was destined to become Club East, the dance studio portion of his new place-to-be-seen.

  He wanted to compete with trendy SoMa, San Francisco’s party central, the dance club district south of Market Street. How he’d managed the variances for the plans filed by the previous architect with the planning department, and evaded historical review, was still a mystery—though Daniel had mentioned that “It’s who you know, darling.”

  Right, until someone reported you to the local historical society. She’d seen permits revoked and contractors ordered to cease and desist. Basically, Daniel was asking her to put her license on the line, something she wasn’t about to do. But how was she to accomplish Daniel’s blue-sky ideas without crossing the line? So far, the morning’s only piece of good news was that Cutty House had never been designated a historical landmark.

  And then there was Daniel’s punch-out-the-walls theory of renovation. He wanted to take advantage of the view. A window to the world, he called it.

  “It’s like they’ll be dancing on air,” he finished, his face flushed.

  Which they probably would be in a few months, she thought. The glass couldn’t act as a shear wall. The whole thing would go bust at the slightest San Francisco trembler.

  She felt like Jonah staring into the mouth of the whale.

  Daniel turned to look at her, at long last catching on to her silence.

  “You’re not saying much.”

  The Druid used to refer to any client as the “user.” She’d always considered that an unfortunate term, but Daniel gave new meaning to the word.

  He smiled. “I think someone’s a little scared.”

  He crossed the room, arms outstretched, all comfort. Today he wore leather pants the same creamy color as his suede shirt. Half rimmed glasses perched on his handsome nose. With his highlighted hair, he was a study in butterscotch, looking good enough to eat. But then, he had a tall lanky build that would probably show off a potato sack, and the heavenly face of a Hugh Grant.

  “It’s part of the reason I chose you for the project, Holly,” he whispered in her ear. “You have a reputation for not holding back.”

  “Daniel, right now I’m holding back.”

  “All right. I’m asking too much. The impossible. So keep me grounded.”

  He watched her with earnest brown eyes. He seemed so sincere.

  “And then, make it happen,” he added with a grin.

  She managed a tight smile and hid her fear. She told herself it was early in the game. She might pull a rabbit out of a hat.

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Shazaam,” he said, making like the magician he thought her to be.

  “Any more surprises?” she asked, hanging on to that smile for all she was worth.

  “Count on it.”

  He glanced at his watch, something flashy and expensive that her pedestrian self wouldn’t recognize. She knew what was coming from practice. Daniel East didn’t stand still for long.

  “I have to catch this guy about this thing,” he told her, already halfway to the door.

  “Don’t let me keep you.”

  And then she was alone with the beast.

  She walked around the ballroom, listening to her footsteps on the wood floor. After a while the sound morphed into the cadence of the theme music from Jaws. Ba-dum, ba-dum…

  Last night, the ballroom had been a funhouse of shadows, the perfect stage for Mr. Ryan Cutty, worrisome man of mystery. But today, the light had transformed yesterday’s haunted house into a treasure. Despite her misgivings, there was a part of her that couldn’t be afraid, as if she craved this sort of challenge. Making dreams come true could be very seductive.

  She placed a hand on a plaster column. She couldn’t imagine a sledgehammer having a go at these. The floorboards ran the length of the room, alternating light and dark, reminding Holly of the striped sateen walking gowns that might have crowded the streets of Nob Hill in Victorian times. A bay window provided the room’s only view, its rose velvet banquette now threadbare and faded from years of sun exposure.

  A music shell opened to the left, the place where Ryan had performed his disappearing act. The space was large enough to house a grand piano or a string quartet. Enormous mirrors mimicked arched doorways down the length of the room, flanked by pilasters and columns. Lavish plaster work—reeded and egg-and-dart moldings, rosettes and medallions—dazzled throughout.

  Don’t fall in love, she told herself. Remember Daniel’s grand plan. Exposed pipes…steel and glass. Shock value.

  “Oi,” she said.

  “Does he want you to hang the world’s biggest disco ball from the ceiling?”

  Holly hadn’t heard anyone coming up behind her. She turned and, seeing Emma Wright, the chef from last night, braced herself.

  Only, today Emma’s expression was openly friendly. She was wearing a simple white cotton T-shirt and jeans that hung low on her hips, exposing a healthy amount of skin. She had Doc Martens on her feet, a far cry from last night’s tortured fare. She’d tucked her strawberry-blond hair into a ponytail and wore little or no makeup. Above the left corner of her lip, a small silver stud pierced the skin.

  Emma smiled, looking suddenly like a wise pixie with her spray of freckles. “That’s Daniel. Everything has to be grand, over the top. Make a scandal,” she said, the perfect mimic. “He once asked me to make a rice pudding soufflé. And the Boba bar? Puleeze.” Emma stuck out her tongue.

  “You see things differently?” Holly asked, hoping to keep the receptive mood moving along.

  Emma sighed, all drama. “He keeps forgetting about the clientele this place attracts. It’s Nob Hill, not SoMa. You can’t change that overnight. Let’s try this again.” She held out her hand. “My name’s Emma. And I owe you an apology for my fabulous imitation of Super Bitch last night.”

  Holly shook her hand gladly, holding back her sigh of relief. “Holly Fairfield, and there’s no need to apologize. I think openings make everyone a little tense. The expectations.”

  Emma stepped around Holly and took a seat on the banquette under the bay window. She shook her head. “I’m at my worst whenever the family is around—not that it’s any excuse.”

  Holly made a sound of sympathy, but she was thinking about what her brother had said that morning. I might be asking Danny a question or two.

  “Have you known the family long?” Don’t pry—don’t ask.

  “Forever,” Emma said. “My dad used to be the cook here, before he decided that he preferred alcohol to a paying job.” She gave that same quirky smile, as if she’d said the line a million times. As if it didn’t hurt. “They sort of adopted me.”

  She stood, then walked around the room. She tucked her hands into the back pockets of her jeans, looking all of eighteen.

  “But I didn’t get all the real family crap. You have to be a blood relative for that, thank God.”

  Questions, questions, questions. There were a million of them on the tip of Holly’s tongue.

  “Well,” Holly said. “You wouldn’t be up for a drink later? I mean, I really would be interested in getting your ideas for the dining room. And
my brother just started working at this new place on Polk. I promised I’d show.”

  Holly held her breath.

  “Sure,” Emma said, without hesitation. “Why not?”

  “We can meet just outside, at the gate,” she said, nailing her down. “Five o’clock?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “Great. See you then.”

  Heading back to the office space she’d been given upstairs, Emma walking alongside, Holly told herself she really was after ideas for the dining room. She wasn’t the least bit interested in family gossip. Whatever threat Ryan Cutty represented, she’d deal with it.

  Still, leaving the ballroom, she felt a familiar tingling at her neck. She shivered.

  Emma gave her a look. “What?”

  “Nothing,” Holly answered, glancing over her shoulder, wondering how long she’d keep checking the shadows for dark and dangerous men.

  5

  It didn’t take much to pry the story out of Emma. And boy, was it ever a doozy.

  “That was so in-your-face last night. Ryan showing up,” Emma said. “I mean…kapow! Just strut right in and say, ‘Hey.’ Like it hasn’t been twelve years? He’s lucky they didn’t call the cops.”

  Emma and Holly sat on the bamboo bar stools of the Bali Bistro, the restaurant where Harris worked as Top Kahuna behind the rail. Nestled in a nondescript condominium complex on Polk, the restaurant specialized in East meets West cuisine, and judging from the palm fronds and Tiki torches, the place took particular glee in its garage-sale chic Polynesian decor.

  “No way was he invited,” Emma added. “Trust me.”

  “So I figured,” Holly said, pretending to admire a wall covered with hand-painted ukuleles and guitars. Her chest had gone all tight and her fingers tingled. Was this a panic attack?

  “How’s your drink?” Emma asked.

  Both women stared down at the ceramic Tiki head emitting smoke. A festive umbrella sprouted from the top alongside a slice of pineapple stabbed through the heart and sandwiched between two cherries. A fragrant pineapple-coconut blend, the drink probably contained enough rum to take down a man twice her size.

  Emma, who had not left it up to Harris’s discretion as Holly had—Surprise me, Spiderman—drank beer from a demure glass sporting nothing but frost.

  Looking at Holly, Emma raised a brow as if to ask, well?

  “Potent,” Holly answered.

  Emma’s smile deepened. Despite the rocky introduction, the East Side Café’s chef had proven a delight. A charming combination of humor and intelligence, Emma was a no-nonsense gal, the kind Holly had learned to appreciate.

  Emma sipped from her beer. “They wrote about Ryan in the paper this morning. The prodigal son returns or something. I bet Daniel got a kick out of that. It’s publicity, anyway. Ryan was supposed to run the place. Cutty House, I mean. He’s their only child and all, Vanessa and Samuel’s. But that was before.”

  Emma turned on the bamboo stool. Her smile said it all. I have a secret.

  “Before?”

  It was all the prompting Emma needed. “Before he murdered his fiancée,” she said.

  Emma popped another wasabi pea into her mouth. She’d picked them out of the rice cracker mix and set them on her cocktail napkin all in a row. She’d been eating them, one by one, as she told the story.

  Holly stared at the napkin and at the peas lined up. Murder?

  “He got away with it, too,” Emma said. “No jail time or anything because they couldn’t find enough evidence.” Another pea disappeared. “The whole O.J. thing all over again. It kinda makes you sick how often they get away with it.”

  He followed you home, no one the wiser.

  “Of course, he could just be whacked. You know, psycho or something—”

  Better still.

  “But I think there was justice in the end, ’cause he lost everything. The girl, the money. He totally flipped after that.”

  Holly listened like a dedicated fan of the soap opera Cutty House. Forgotten was any pretense of asking about the dining room or the kitchen design or the drink bubbling and smoking on the bar before her.

  “I think he was even institutionalized,” Emma continued, on a roll. “Now he works at some vineyard in Napa. Lives on a boat. A total loser worker bee. Imagine. I mean, he has all these fancy degrees from a hotshot school. Thank God Samuel and Vanessa have Daniel.”

  Holly stabbed the two colorful straws into her drink, trying to put it together in her head. At worst, she was being stalked by a killer. At best, she’d been directed home by a man who had a giant grudge against her employer…the employer she was helping to take over a family institution that bore Ryan Cutty’s name.

  Ryan was supposed to run the place…before he murdered his fiancée.

  “Here’s your brother.”

  Emma waved Harris over. She’d related the story to Holly like an urban legend. Everybody knew, nothing to it. Just like the paper said this morning, it was old news. Baa baa baad!

  Now Holly was trying to figure out how to keep the overprotective Harris from ever finding out.

  “Hey.” Harris glanced down at Holly’s untouched drink, disappointed. “The great Tiki gods will take umbrage.”

  She could whisk Emma away, quickly, quietly…before the chef’s sweet looks lured her brother into conversation.

  Oh, and by the way, your sister is working for the family of an ax murderer. Did she mention that?

  “How are you doing?” Harris asked, glancing at Emma’s beer.

  “This is great, thanks.”

  “I was trying to get Emma’s ideas on the dining room for the new restaurant.” Holly made it sound as if they were all business here. We’re very busy, Spiderman. Move on. And when he didn’t take the hint, “She’s the chef for the East Side Café so it’s very important that I get her input on both the space planning and the aesthetics of my proposed designs.”

  Choose a topic. Any topic. Preferably one far removed from Ryan Cutty and his colorful past.

  “No kidding,” Harris said. He leaned over, elbows on the bar, smiling that wicked grin nature seemed able to give only to the men in her family. “Funny, you don’t look like a chef.”

  Emma returned the look. “Funny, you look exactly like a bartender.”

  “I meant it as a compliment.” Harris never lost his smile.

  Emma pushed her glass away. “So did I.” She winked. “I gotta book. See ya,” she said to Holly. “Thanks for the drink,” she told Harris.

  Disaster averted, Holly breathed again.

  “She’s cute.”

  Scratch that. “Harris, of all the girls in all the gin joints, are you actually going to hit on the future chef at my new job?”

  His eyes never left Emma’s cute backside displayed to perfection in low-cut jeans as she worked her way past the tables. “Wouldn’t dream of it. I’m all about class, Hol. You know that.”

  Getting in that last word, Harris slipped away to tend to a customer. All sorts of alarm bells fired off in Holly’s head. It had been a long time for Harris. Maybe too long. And Emma was cuter than a bug in a rug and had enough attitude to catch even her brother’s world-weary attentions.

  Not that Holly believed she could hide the truth from Harris forever. He’d find those skeletons in the Cutty closet sooner or later—probably from Holly herself in some torrid confession. She’d never been very good at keeping secrets from him.

  She took another stab at the drink, remembering Ryan standing in the shadows, the lights from the car spotlighting his face. He didn’t look like someone who’d been institutionalized. Or like a crazed killer.

  But, suddenly, her very practical mind shut down and her imagination took over.

  He murdered his fiancée…

  “You going to drink that or wait until it tells your fortune?”

  She looked up from the smoking Tiki. “Harris, do me a favor. Call me a cab.”

  He gave her a look.

  “It’s
been a long day,” she said, picking up her bag. “I’m tired.”

  Her cell phone chimed the “Hokey Pokey” when Emma reached the lobby. She flipped the phone open, anticipating the call.

  “Talk to me,” she said playfully. She knew who it was.

  “Were you nice?”

  “I was so nice,” she said, dropping into one of the lobby chairs where she wouldn’t be seen or heard if Little Bo Peep Holly decided to follow her out. “I deserve…presents. Expensive jewelry, perhaps.”

  “Are you friends?”

  “Only the best of.”

  She wasn’t going to mention their conversation about Ryan. Daniel wouldn’t appreciate the humor in it. That wasn’t part of his Big Plan. If Emma put the fear of God into sweet Holly Fairfield, she might just go and run off scared.

  If only it could be that easy, Emma thought.

  She slipped lower into the chair with a smile. Holly’s brown eyes had practically popped out of her head with the story. Murder and mayhem, oh my! Daniel would be pissed if he ever found out.

  “So what do I get for being nice?” she asked coyly. She watched from her hiding place as, indeed, Holly Fairfield skipped past to navigate the revolving doors, clueless as ever.

  “Tonight. When I get home,” came the voice through the phone. “Don’t fall asleep waiting. I’ll make it worth your while.”

  “Promises, promises.”

  “I love you, baby.”

  “I know,” she said, hanging up.

  She dropped her head back against the chair, wishing she’d finished her beer at the bar, needing the buzz. But up there, she’d wanted to keep her wits about her. She couldn’t afford to make any mistakes.

  Only, now there was this letdown, as if she needed to hear Daniel’s voice to keep going.

  Keep to the plan.

  The weight of what lay ahead settled on her chest along with her doubts. Suddenly, bringing up that stuff about Ryan didn’t seem so funny. What had she been trying to prove, playing with fire?

  She thought about those witches in Salem, how they had stones put on top of them until they were slowly crushed. She shut her eyes, trying to fill her lungs, needing to shove off that weight. But when she remembered Holly and their conversation in the bar, she only felt more stones piling on.