Maggie froze, suddenly wondering which part of the news story was visible. The screeching headline? The photo of a sheet drawn over Mia’s lifeless body, hospital corners at her heels and head? “A story about a woman who was killed in a mugging,” she said casually.
Ethan made a face. “There are all kinds of maniacs out there these days. Something to do with the protests?”
“Doesn’t seem like it.” She spun around and grabbed her computer mouse to close the browser. Then stopped herself. “Actually, I’m wondering if you might know her.”
“Who?”
“The woman who was killed in the mugging.”
“Really?”
“I saw her in the building the other day. She had a meeting with Mr. Montgomery. And I…I chatted with her.”
Harassed. Chatted. Whatever.
“I thought maybe you’d recognize her.” Maggie scrolled up the page to the woman’s photograph—the same photograph that had popped onto her phone days earlier—and rolled clear of her computer screen. She nodded at the monitor. “Anyone you know?”
Ethan squinted, studying the image. Mia, challenging and confident and beautiful, seemed to reach back, severing the curtain between living and dead.
A tiny muscle in his jaw twitched. Ethan clicked the red X and Mia disappeared. His face had grown dark.
“I’ve never seen her before.”
Chapter 21
Maggie stood in front of the vending machine.
Corn Nuts or a Rice Krispies bar? Or maybe a Coke?
She dug in her pocket, jingled the change. She couldn’t concentrate at her desk and hoped a trip to the kitchen would clear her mind of the morning’s events.
“Health food, eh?” Dan, her old college mentor, appeared in the doorway.
“Dan.” A wide smile spread across Maggie’s face. Maggie extended her arms and they shared a side hug. “What are you doing here?”
“Reviewing some data on a drug Rx is hot to trot out.” He smiled. “If they’re willing to pay, we’re willing to make house calls.”
Maggie chuckled. “Ah, yes. The power of the Prescription Drug User Fee Act.”
“It’s a beautiful thing. Less red tape. Faster approvals. Treatments into the marketplace where they’re needed more quickly than ever. Plus, the fees help keep the FDA going strong, despite the fact we’re understaffed and underfinanced.” He pointed to his yellow polo shirt, which was fraying at collar and cuff. “We government types don’t get paid like you guys do.”
“Well, Rx isn’t exactly perfect, either.”
Dan’s brow sank toward his nose. “You’re not happy here?”
Maggie paused, weighing her words. “Let’s just say it’s been a rough start.”
Dan nodded. “I didn’t want to say anything to you at the benefit gala, but Rx has a reputation for…being a difficult place to work.”
“It feels more than just difficult. It feels poisoned.”
Dan sighed. “I know this is a great job, a strong start to your career, but I also know what it’s like to be unhappy at work. I have a new boss who thinks his real job is to look up my butt with a microscope. It’s a living hell.” Dan took out a handkerchief and mopped up the sweat that had sprung up on his face like morning dew. “Take it from an old man: you want to love where you work, to feel good about being there fifty or sixty hours a week. At Rxcellance, you’ll be swinging with the big boys. And they don’t pull any punches.”
“But I need this job.” Her father’s broad, craggy face floated to the front of her mind. She’d just sent a check. Another would be needed soon. And then another. Endless responsibilities stretched out before her. “I appreciate the concern, but I’m going to stick it out as long as I can.” Maggie fumbled in her pocket and put two quarters into the machine. She punched the combination of keys that would spring Snap, Crackle and Pop from their coiled prison. “Jack O’Malley didn’t raise a quitter.”
Dan smiled. “No, he certainly did not.”
They both watched the Rice Krispies treat travel to the end of the mechanical arm. The coil spiraled, then stopped, leaving the treat in a metallic limbo. Maggie smacked the machine with the heel of her hand. The cookie dropped into the tray. She reached to retrieve it.
“Dan.” Blond hair helmeted with hairspray popped through the doorway, followed by Roy’s face and body. “I’ve been looking for you.” He nodded at Maggie, flashed capped teeth. “Hi, Maggie. You’re not really eating that, are you? I’d wager it’s older than you are.” He laughed a giant “Ho!”—Santa phoning it in.
Before Maggie could answer, another head appeared. Miles. His eyes narrowed beneath the bill of his cap. He licked his lips, but said nothing.
“Dan,” Roy said, “could you join us for a quick consult?”
“Sure. Be glad to.” He looked at Maggie. “Just think about what I said, Maggie. Life’s too short.”
Dan and Roy turned on their heels and left. Miles pointed a finger gun at Maggie and squeezed the imaginary trigger. He blew on his finger, seductively rounding his lips, then followed the other men.
The familiar sick feeling returned to Maggie’s stomach. She stuffed her uneaten Rice Krispies into her pocket and made the march up the stairs to her desk.
She found Constantine playing Asteroids at her computer.
She had to smile. “Only you would turn my work area into an eighties arcade.”
“Oh, good. You’re here. I’m almost out of tokens.” Constantine rolled himself away from the desk and spun around to face her.
“How’d you get in here?”
“I got a hall pass.” He flashed his visitor’s badge. “The receptionist knows me. Miss Vanilla, too, since I brought her along for Take Your Hamster to Your Best Friend’s Work Day last time I was here. Actually, quite a few people got to know her.”
Maggie rolled her eyes. “I’ll bet they did. What are you doing here?”
“Had a break in my day, thought I’d pop by and see if there was any phone drama, text or otherwise.”
Maggie ushered Constantine from her chair with her hands. “No, I haven’t gotten any more appointment reminders or texts. The offending craigslist ad has been taken down, and I blocked all the numbers that texted me for my services. Maybe whoever started that little game got tired of it.” She thought of Miles and his finger-gun. “Besides, I’ve been dealing with my own drama here.”
He looked at her expectantly.
“I’ll tell you about it later,” she said, lowering her voice. “I researched the people from the appointment reminders, but nothing earth-shattering.”
“Why don’t we test that two-heads-are-better-than-one thing? I’ll take you out for a nice dinner at Arby’s, then we can head back to your place, watch old movies and talk about murder. It’s the perfect evening.”
Maggie swallowed. She could feel her cheeks purple. “Well, I sort of have…”
“I got us a couple of options.” Ethan bounded around the corner of the cubicle, two Blu-rays in hand. “Oops. Sorry. Didn’t know you had company.”
Maggie watched the men size each other up. She cleared her throat.
“Um, Ethan, this is my friend, Constantine. Constantine, this is my, um, this is Ethan.”
Ethan extended his hand. Constantine put his out slowly. The men clasped, shook.
“Constantine, nice to meet you.”
“Heard a lot about you, Ethan.”
Both smiled toothy, TV news anchor smiles, said nothing. It was like Maxwell Smart’s Cone of Silence had descended over Maggie’s cubicle.
Constantine bobbed his head toward the disks in Ethan’s hands. “Film buff?”
“Oh, yes and no. I mostly like modern films—especially foreign pictures. But Maggie likes the oldies, so I got…” He turned the boxes over. “Let’s see…An Affair to Remember and How
Green Was My Valley.”
“How uplifting. Remember to put away sharp objects before watching.” Constantine turned to Maggie. “Well, we’ll have to save the world another day.”
“I’ll talk to you later.” Maggie reached up, kissed Constantine on the cheek, then hugged him tightly around his neck.
He hugged her back, then let her go and held out his hand to Ethan. “Nice to meet you.”
Ethan extended a manicured hand. “You, too, man.” Ethan watched Constantine stride down the hall, then turned to Maggie. “You two…work together before or something?”
“No. He’s a friend. My best friend, actually.”
“Lucky guy,” he said, his eyes still trained on Constantine’s back.
Chapter 22
Maggie arrived at Ethan’s with red lips, loose limbs, a bottle of Oregon Pinot Noir and “Make ’Em Laugh” running through her brain.
After making a deposit for Rx’s charitable fund (being the fund’s administrator was proving to be ridiculously easy) and another into her own account to cover the next check for Fiona, she went for a run, showered, moisturized and dressed in front of Gene Kelly, who was splashing and singing and dancing in the rain on her ancient television. She was glad to be free—no matter how temporarily—from worries about work, her father, death and whether Detective Nyberg would visit her with a pair of handcuffs.
She approached Ethan’s front door and used the doorknocker, an ornate, carved Rococo reproduction that reminded her of a scene from Young Frankenstein. Great knockers. The door opened, spilling light onto the landing’s polished tiles.
Ethan was shirtless, his shorts on but unbuttoned. A towel was draped across one shoulder.
“Hi, you,” he said, pulling her close. “I’m glad you’re here.” They kissed. Maggie felt that same electric pulse every time their skin touched.
“Me, too,” she said.
Maggie slid past him and carried the wine to the kitchen. The room looked like an “after” on the kind of HGTV shows Fiona watched. Amber pendant lights dangled gracefully from exposed beams. Copper-colored silica gleamed from granite peninsulas. A wine refrigerator, nestled in a small rough-hewn cave of rock, hummed quietly.
“Wow.”
Maggie looked at her wine bottle, suddenly unsure of her selection. She was glad she’d decided against a box of Franzia. He took the bottle from her and examined the label. “Pinot Noir. Very nice. You know, Pinot Noir is very difficult to cultivate. It takes patience to bring it to its full potential.” He placed the bottle on the counter and gathered Maggie into his arms again.
“Think you can bring me to my full potential?” she teased.
“Dunno, but trying sure sounds fun.” He kissed her. His lips were warm, soft, insistent. It had been a long time since she had been kissed like that. She could hear the Love, American Style theme song playing over and over again in her mind as Ethan’s teeth grazed her earlobe.
Ethan walked her to a couch and eased her back onto the plush pillows. He kissed her neck, murmuring words she couldn’t hear, didn’t care about. Then he slipped a hand inside her blouse. “Would you care to join me in ze nudity?”
Maggie laughed, moving her hands over the wiry hair on his chest. “That is the worst French accent I’ve ever heard.”
“It was Belgian.”
“Even worse.” Maggie straightened her blouse. “Besides, I only go topless on Thursdays.”
“Until next Thursday then.” He walked toward the stairs. “I’ll go slip into something less comfortable.”
“Don’t be long.”
Ethan flashed a grin and disappeared up a gleaming cherry wood staircase. Maggie heard a door click closed. She rose and spun around the room, casting an appraising eye on her surroundings.
It was an open floor plan with the kitchen and living room blending almost seamlessly. To the left of the great room, a pair of French doors announced a study garnished by Persian rugs and lined with old hardcover volumes.
Ethan had left two glasses of Cabernet Sauvignon to breathe. Maggie plucked one, bolted half of it and wandered into the study to the left of the kitchen. She padded over the thick white carpet, then sank into an oversized suede chair. She closed her eyes, breathing in the scent of leather and Endust and flowers and Ethan.
The luxurious house was a far cry from the empty anonymity of her own apartment or the bare-bones modesty of her childhood home. The O’Malleys had nice things when she was growing up: furniture covered in plastic, tables she wasn’t allowed to put her Pepsi on. But they eventually faded away, disappearing beneath bottles and bills. Just as her mother had.
Maggie felt something tug at the edge of her joy. A sense of unraveling. Maggie put her hand to her chest and took another drink of wine. And then another. There was a sharp pain above her heart, but that was nothing new. She learned long ago the world was full of pain that doctors couldn’t do anything about. She pushed it aside and concentrated on the beauty of the space.
Suddenly, Men at Work’s “Who Can It Be Now?” blared somewhere to the left of her ear.
Maggie tried to jump out of the chair, but struggled against the quicksand of its deep folds. It was like being trapped in the skin of a giant Shar Pei.
She wrenched free of the furniture’s cavernous creases and placed her glass on a polished black entry table. She followed the sound to the song’s source. Ethan’s messenger bag.
A cell phone stuffed into one of the side pockets along with piles of stapled pages illuminated with the beat of the ringtone. “Who can it beee now?”
She was instantly curious. And jealous. Who was calling Ethan? Work? Zartar? The tinge of jealousy flashed larger. Where had Ethan and Zartar been going when their plans were thwarted? What were they going to do?
Maggie looked toward the staircase. Deserted. Maggie turned toward the phone again. Probably should let it go to voicemail.
But the phone was insistent. “Who can it be knocking at my door?”
Maggie glanced at the staircase. Still empty. She stepped toward the bag and tried to see the phone’s display. She could only see the top of the phone’s shiny case.
Maybe it was important. Maybe it was a work emergency. Maybe Ethan had a sick aunt (or mother) who had fallen and needed his help.
Maggie took another step toward the bag, glanced toward the stairs. She should probably at least see who it was so she could tell Ethan. Maggie parted the heavy canvas of the messenger bag, revealing the phone in its entirety.
Zartar’s face smiled at her from the display.
The pain in her chest exploded into a tight, burning ball, as though her heart were turning itself inside out. What was going on between Zartar and Ethan?
She let her hand fall away from the bag. The black material snapped back into position, shielding the phone’s screen from view. Maggie turned away.
So Zartar’s calling Ethan, she argued to herself. So what? It doesn’t mean—
Maggie stopped, pivoted quickly toward the bag again. She felt memory, the petulant attention-seeker that it was, grabbing at her. There was something strange here. Something familiar.
Her hand darted into the bag, pushed the phone out of the way. Behind the phone, behind the takeout menu from Chan’s, behind a crumpled quarterly 401(k) statement, lay a document that looked surprisingly familiar, although it had spent only a moment in Maggie’s hands.
The report that had been delivered to her desk the day Mia Rennick came to the office. The report with the coffee stain Maggie had created by knocking her cup over in alarm at seeing the woman from her appointment reminder appear in the flesh. The report that had disappeared when Maggie questioned Mia Rennick in the ladies’ room.
Maggie heard the door at the top of the stairs bump against a doorstop. Ethan was whistling.
She wanted to see the contents of the report, to see if som
ething might strike a chord. But she couldn’t exactly do that now.
Oh, hi, Ethan. Just rummaging through your personal belongings and found something that had been stolen from my desk. You don’t mind if I review it for the next hour or so, do you?
Ethan’s footsteps skipped lightly down the polished wood. Maggie glanced over her shoulder. She could see his feet, bare, then his legs, then his knees, enter her line of sight.
She pulled the report from the bag and stuffed it under the cushion of the mega-chair before sitting down on top of it. The report made a crunching noise like dry leaves beneath the suede-encased foam.
“Miss me?” he asked.
Maggie stretched in what she hoped was a seductive way and prayed the paper wouldn’t rustle again. “Terribly,” she said.
“Good. Let’s eat. I’m starved out of my mind.” Ethan extended his hand to help her up. Maggie looked at his smooth palm with a growing sense of panic. What if the report fell out when she stood up?
“I think my feet are asleep,” she said with a laugh. “Talk about a comfy chair. Let me just get my circulation going.”
“Are you trying to trick me into massaging your feet? I have an advanced degree in Little Piggy Relaxation, you know.” He reached for her feet.
“No!” Maggie said. Ethan looked at her quizzically. “I mean, not right now. As soon as I get the blood flowing, I’ll join you in the kitchen.” She twirled her ankle. “This little piggy had roast beef…”
“Chicken biryani, actually,” he said. “Which I do need to check on.” He walked toward the kitchen. “Come help me with the rice when you’re ready,” he called over his shoulder. “I’ll show you what I can do with my saffron.”
“Is that what the kids are calling it nowadays?”
Maggie waited until Ethan’s head disappeared into the oversized refrigerator, then slid her hand beneath the cushion. Her fingers pinched the report’s edge and she pulled. There was a ripping sound. Maggie coughed loudly and peered into the kitchen. The refrigerator door was still open, the clink of rearrangement audible through the appliance’s stainless steel exoskeleton.
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