Elevator, The

by Hunt, Angela

  Gina looks up to find Michelle studying her with a slightly perplexed expression, as if she’s considering a question she lacks the courage to ask. The girl really needs to develop some courage. If they’re going to be trapped together in this steel cage, they may as well be honest with each other…well, almost. As much as she’d love to tell the world what she intends to do to Sonny, that plan won’t succeed if anyone knows her true intention.

  Avoiding Michelle’s eyes, she straightens her spine and presses it against the unyielding wall. “This morning, after I found the passbook for the offshore account, I decided to ask for a divorce. I was coming to the office to break the news when—” She gives Isabel a crooked smile. “Well, you know what happened.”

  The maid shakes her head. “I am sorry for you.”

  “Don’t be. I think Zsa Zsa Gabor had it right—husbands are like fires. They go out when left unattended.” Gina pulls her raincoat to her chest until the comforting weight of the pistol rests on her breastbone. “I’ve had it with Sonny. The marriage is over. As soon as we’re rescued, I’m going to give him the news and call the best divorce lawyer in town.”

  Michelle leans toward her, concern in her eyes. “Are you sure about this? I know you’re upset, but twenty-one years is a lot to throw away. You have to think of your children.”

  “I am thinking of my children.” Too drained to explain further, Gina closes her eyes. “After you’ve invested the best years of your life building a man’s family and career, maybe you’ll understand. I still have feelings for Sonny, but what I’m feeling isn’t love.”

  “Maybe,” Michelle says, “you’ll feel love again tomorrow.”

  Gina ignores the comment. “Passion is passion, I suppose. The man has always been able to drive me crazy.”

  Maybe she should amend that—men have always driven her insane. Sonny, Matthew and even Sonny’s father have, on occasion, tied her heart into knots. The greatest loves of her life have also brought her the most pain.

  Beginning with her dad.

  Gina threw down her hairbrush and frowned at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Her hair was impossible—the wrong color, the wrong texture, the wrong length. She’d asked the stylist to give her a look like Farrah Fawcett’s, but the girl hadn’t cut the bangs right. They’d looked okay when Gina had left the salon, but now the stubborn fringe wouldn’t cooperate.

  She opened the bathroom door. “Mommmmm!”

  Her mother’s face appeared at the end of the hallway. “What?”

  “That girl at your salon didn’t know what she was doing! My bangs won’t feather like they’re supposed to.”

  Mom came forward, wiping her hands on her apron. “Your hair looked lovely when we left. Maybe you’re not holding the brush right.”

  “I’m holding it just like the girl did.”

  “Honey, you can’t expect to get the same results as Joanie. After all, she’s a trained stylist and you’re seventeen—”

  “I know what I’m doing, Mom, and nothing’s working.” Gina retreated before her mother’s patient smile, then sank to the edge of the bathtub. “Bruce is coming over in an hour and I’m not ready.”

  “You want me to try and fix it?”

  Gina didn’t think a woman who’d worn the same style for the last twenty years would be able to help, but she didn’t complain when her mother picked up the brush. She caught a section of hair at Gina’s forehead, wrapped it around the boar bristles, and turned on the blow dryer. Ever so lightly, she waved the appliance over the circular brush.

  Gina drew a breath between her teeth. Why was her mother always so gentle? You had to be tough to wear Farrah hair; you had to pull it and curl it and bend it and fluff it. At this rate, she was never going to be ready in time.

  “Never mind,” she said, taking the dryer from her mother’s hand. “That’s not right—it’s going to look ridiculous.”

  “It’ll look fine.”

  “You don’t know a thing about it, Mom—you wouldn’t understand.” Gina snapped off the dryer, then looked in the mirror and blew out a breath, lifting the limp hair over her brows. “We don’t have what I need, so I might as well call Bruce and tell him not to come. I won’t let him see me looking like this.”

  Her father would have told her to stop being so melodramatic, but her mother placed a delicate hand on Gina’s shoulder. “What do you need?”

  Gina whirled to face her. “I saw this commercial for a new shampoo called UltraMax. It’s supposed to prime your hair for blow drying and make it more manageable.”

  A corner of her mother’s mouth rose in a half smile. “You really think shampoo is going to make a difference?”

  “Haven’t you heard their commercial? ‘It’ll go the way you want it to, lift the way you want it to, drift the way you want it to…’”

  Mom caught Gina’s hand and squeezed. “I get the idea.”

  “Please, Mom, will you run up to the grocery and get me a bottle? If you leave now, I’ll have time to wash and dry my hair before Bruce gets here.”

  Her mother sighed and checked the clock in the hall. “I promised to watch Donny and Marie with your dad—”

  “That show doesn’t start until eight and you should be back long before then. Please, Mom?”

  Her mother sighed heavily, then nodded. “All right. But you’d better hope your dad needs something, or he’ll accuse me of spoiling you again.”

  After her mother left the bathroom, Gina moved to the hallway and listened as her father complained about the late hour, the rainy weather and Gina’s selfishness. Especially Gina’s selfishness.

  Her mother’s voice rose above her dad’s growl. “She’s a seventeen-year-old girl—the world is supposed to revolve around her.”

  “She has a car—why doesn’t she go herself?”

  “She won’t be with us much longer, and I don’t mind going. So stop fussing and hand me my purse.”

  Five minutes later, Gina heard the starting roar of her mother’s car. She pulled aside one corner of her bedroom curtain and smiled as her mother’s Chrysler backed out of the driveway, its windshield wipers beating in tandem.

  Her smile vanished an hour later when a local sheriff knocked to inform them that Georgina Elizabeth Meade had been killed after skidding on the rain-slicked road. The Chrysler hit a telephone pole, which snapped at the base and fell on the car, crushing the roof and Georgina’s skull. “Looks to me,” the cop said, his voice strained, “like she never saw it coming.”

  Gina collapsed into her boyfriend’s arms, burdened by guilt as much as grief, while her father followed the sheriff outside and stood bareheaded in the rain.

  Dad rarely spoke to her after the accident. During the following months, she came home from school, heated a casserole or TV dinner and ate in front of the television. She did her homework in her room and accepted a weekend job. Though they lived in the same house and shared the same last name, tragedy and blame built a wall between her and her father, a barrier reinforced by every indifferent day.

  Her dad admitted as much on a night when she came home late and found him sitting on the floor in the den, drunkenly sobbing over a photograph album.

  “You,” he said, glaring at her through red-rimmed eyes. “You have the stone-cold gall to walk around here looking like her and talking like her when you aren’t worthy to kiss her feet! You selfish, stupid girl! Sent her out in the rain because you were too lazy and spoiled to lift a hand for yourself.”

  “Daddy, please!” Gina knelt at her father’s side, her gaze clouding as she inched trembling hands toward his slipper-clad feet. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t want her to get hurt. It was an accident!”

  “Never,” he said, remarkably lucid for one who smelled so strongly of alcohol, “never speak to me. I’ll do what Georgie wanted and send you to college. I’ll even pay for your wedding, but I will never talk to you again. If not for you, I wouldn’t have lost her. The only reason I haven’t turned you out on the stre
et is because Georgie would want me—” emotion choked his voice “—to keep you.”

  A hot tear rolled down Gina’s cheek. “Don’t you think I’d change places with her if I could? I’d die, Daddy, if that would bring her back to you. I’d do anything, if you would forgive me—”

  Without another word, Dad clutched the photograph album to his chest, stood and stalked out of the room, leaving Gina alone on the gold shag carpeting that had been her mother’s pride and joy.

  Michelle pushes a fringe of damp hair from her brow and sneaks a glance at the redhead, who has fallen into an introspective silence. No wonder the woman was in a dark mood when they entered the elevator. Though Michelle has had no personal experience with divorce, Lauren’s parents split a few years back, and she has confided that their breakup left her questioning everything she had previously believed about marriage and family.

  Michelle crosses her legs to relieve the pressure on her hip bones. Even her parents, as messed up as they were, never considered divorce. Her father must have been the most patient person on earth. On the other hand, he didn’t always come home at night. Momma said he was working late, but even Shelly Tills knew that miners didn’t work more than an eight-hour shift. If Daddy wasn’t sitting in his recliner after dark, he either couldn’t come home…or he didn’t want to.

  Still, she couldn’t believe her father had ever taken up with another woman. When her mother managed to stay away from the bottle, he was gentle and affectionate, a good husband. Sometimes he’d ask Momma to come out on the front porch to watch the stars come up over the ridge, but as soon as it got dark she’d complain of being cold and want a drink to “chase off the chill.”

  After a while, Daddy stopped asking Momma to come outside with him. But Michelle was certain he’d never taken up with another woman.

  Without looking directly at Gina, she manages a shaky smile. “I’d be careful if I were you. I’ve heard that people who think divorce will cure their ills soon find out that the remedy is worse than the disease.”

  Gina releases a hollow laugh. “Trust me, that won’t be true in my case. I want Sonny out of my life as soon as possible.”

  Michelle rests her head on her folded arms. “I can’t imagine ever feeling that way about my boyfriend. If Parker cheated on me I’d be upset, but he’d still be the man I love and the father of my child. I’d try to talk things out before I ever thought about leaving him.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Michelle lifts her head. “I said I’d try to talk things—”

  “Did you say Parker?”

  “Oh—yes, I did.” Michelle smiles when surprise fills the older woman’s face. “That’s right, you might know him. Parker Rossman.”

  “P-Parker Rossman—” the syllables tangle on Gina’s tongue “—is the widower. The father of your baby.”

  Michelle recoils from the redhead’s gaze, which has fixed her in a green-eyed vise. “That’s what I said.”

  “Parker Rossman—” Gina fumbles with the folded coat in her arms “—has a family who calls him Sonny. And he’s not a widower, he’s married.”

  Michelle shakes her head. “You have to be mistaken.”

  “I’m not. You see, Parker Rossman is my husband.”

  Michelle stares at the woman in bewilderment while some still-functioning part of her brain registers that Gina has pulled something from her coat—and the unwavering object in her hand is a gun.

  CHAPTER 20

  “Hello?”

  Michelle looked up to see a man at the door, a bouquet in his arms. She moved to her purse, assuming he worked for a florist, then halted. Even in downtown Tampa, delivery persons did not wear suits and silk ties.

  “Parker Rossman,” the stranger said, extending his right hand as he stepped into the office. “Your neighbor from down the hall.”

  “Michelle Tilson.” She shook his hand, then tilted a brow at the flowers. “Did someone die?”

  “Not unless you decide to kill me for impertinence. Instead, I hope you’ll accept these as a welcome to the building.” Parker placed the bouquet of daisies and wildflowers in her arms, then stepped back and slipped his hands into his pockets. “Gus told me an attractive young woman was moving into the empty suite between my office and the AG’s domain. I figured I ought to stop by and help you find your way around the thirty-sixth floor.”

  She smiled. “Have I met this Gus?”

  “The security guard downstairs—older guy, kinda portly. He’s nice—you’ll like him. Always genial, never pushy. He doesn’t even mind when my kids bug him for separate visitors’ passes so they can race each other in the elevators.”

  Michelle made a mental note as she placed the flowers on an empty desk. Attractive, nice, generous, and a parent. Three out of four wasn’t bad.

  She leaned against the desk and crossed her legs at the ankle. “Your office is down the hall? Then you must be—”

  “In insurance—Rossman Life and Liability. We’ve been in this building ten years, in existence for almost twenty. My wife and I started the business from scratch and worked together…until I lost her, that is.”

  Michelle brought her hand to her throat as Rossman coughed and averted his eyes. Maybe she’d been too quick to write him off. She’d begun to think that handsome, sensitive men could only be found in the pages of Nicholas Sparks novels.

  Giving her visitor a moment to gain control of his emotions, Michelle lifted a framed photo of Olympia Densen-Jones from a box marked M’s Office. Olympia still had hair in the picture, though it had gone silver from the first round of chemotherapy. By that time she had divorced Howard, retired to Tampa and left Michelle to run the Jones Personnel Agency. After Olympia’s death, when Michelle had become part-owner of the business, Howard had been happy to buy her out.

  With a sizable check and a shoe box filled with tacky tourist postcards from Olympia, Michelle followed her mentor’s example and moved to Florida. Because the citizens of Tampa were more globally minded than those of Charleston, West Virginia, she established Tilson Corporate Careers with a new résumé and a broader vision.

  Though half of her business existed only on paper and in exaggeration, in time her expanding operation required moving from a small strip mall to the Lark Tower. Michelle knew Olympia would be proud of her—she had learned to play the game, she had thrived in a man’s world and she had never gone back to Bald Knob.

  Now she took a deep breath and softened her smile. “I’m Tilson Corporate Careers,” she told her visitor. “I’m a headhunter.”

  Parker Rossman gave her a lopsided grin. “Not a cannibal, I trust.”

  “I haven’t eaten a client in months.”

  “But you do eat.” He hesitated, one hand brushing his lapel. “Lunch, I mean.”

  “Sure I do.” She spoke slowly, not sure if she wanted to go where he was leading. Perhaps he wasn’t sure he wanted to lead, because his gaze had begun to rove over the bare walls, examining everything but her face.

  Still…a businessman who’d been working in Tampa twenty years would know people. People with connections who wanted to change jobs.

  “Since you eat lunch,” he said, “maybe sometime—”

  “Today would be great,” she said, deciding for both of them. “I have to unpack a few boxes, but I should be free by twelve-thirty.”

  He grinned, then back-stepped toward the door, cocking his finger gunslinger style. “Great. I’ll meet you here.”

  “It’s a date,” she said, smiling as he let himself out.

  Michelle gapes at Gina across a sudden ringing silence. Parker is—what? Impossible; this has to be a case of mistaken identity. Parker isn’t married, he couldn’t be. He has given her names, dates and details. He still chokes up when he talks about how his wife died in a horrific car crash. Matt had been ten at the time, Amanda eight, and little Sam only six. Those poor children have been without a mother ever since, and Parker has worn himself to a frazzle trying to be father and mother a
nd businessman.

  If only he were here to clear this up. He isn’t a cheater. Not a liar. Gina has to be deluded, maybe even a little crazy.

  Gina’s eyes light with fierce sparkling as she rises to her knees. “I should have known. Why else would you be on your way to the thirty-sixth floor?”

  “I told you, my office is up there,” Michelle says. “Dozens of people work on that floor.” She presses her spinal column against the wall and slides one hand toward the shadows in the rear of the car. Can she count on Isabel for help? She tears her gaze from the gun for an instant, but the housekeeper is curled into a ball so tight not even her face is showing. She’ll be no help at all if this madwoman starts shooting.

  Meeting Gina’s eye, Michelle speaks with deliberate firmness. “Parker has two boys and a girl—you said you have two girls and a boy. I’ll admit it’s a crazy coincidence, but you have to be mistaken.”

  “I didn’t make a mistake.” Gina’s face has gone deadly pale except for two garish roses, one blooming in each cheek. “You, however, made a big one when you went after my husband.”

  “Parker’s boys,” Michelle answers, careful not to make any threatening moves, “are Matt and Sam. His daughter is—”

  “His only son,” Gina interrupts, “is Matthew. His daughters are Mandi and Samantha. And that diamond bracelet he gave you? He paid for it with my children’s inheritance.”

  Michelle exhales in a rush as relief avalanches over her. “Bracelet?” She holds up her arm, adorned with nothing but a simple watch. “I don’t have a diamond bracelet. Parker has never given me anything like that.”