by Karis Walsh
Or just the richer ones. Billie didn’t say it out loud because she wasn’t quite sure she believed Merissa thought that way. She wanted to lump Merissa in the pile of evil developers who booted out undesirable tenants in favor of wealthier ones, but there was something that sounded like longing in Merissa’s voice when she spoke of her dreams for Tacoma. As if she lacked something in her own life and wanted to provide the missing feeling or connection for the city. Billie didn’t know how to reconcile the two images in her mind, especially since she’d only known Merissa for the day, so she decided to stop trying. Her responsibility toward Merissa ended as soon as their car ride did.
Billie slowly navigated through Gig Harbor. Tiny one-of-a-kind shops and restaurants lined the main road that curved along the edge of the harbor. Pedestrians crossed the street at random places, and mannequins dressed for an afternoon at the yacht club watched their progress through clothing store windows. Hundreds of boats were moored here, their stick-like masts bobbing as the water from the Sound rocked them. Billie looked to her right as she drove. The view of Mount Rainier would be stunning when there wasn’t a heavy layer of gray clouds in the Washington winter sky.
She followed Merissa’s directions up another hill and out of the historic district. Without much segue, they were in farm country. Businesses disappeared, and the lots became more spacious as they drove. After a few miles, Merissa told her to turn onto a gravel road and gave her the code for the large iron gate that blocked their path.
Billie drove slowly as the road meandered between thick stands of fir trees. She thought they were entering a housing development, but she rounded a bend and a large property opened up in the valley below her. She bit her lip to keep from gasping out loud. She was familiar enough with some of the beautiful equestrian stables around the area. Callan Lanford was dating Billie’s sergeant and trained the mounted team, and Billie had spent many hours at Cal’s family’s fancy polo farm over the past six months. She’d visited other large barns to watch horse shows and polo matches with Rachel and Cal, but Merissa’s place dwarfed them all. The house was a grand brick mansion, complete with a pool and columns and what seemed to be several separate wings. Large grazing paddocks lined the driveway, and an enormous field was dotted with horses and an entire cross-country course of jumps. A large barn stood close to the house, and three smaller barns were stepped up the hill behind it. A polo field, an oval training track, and an outdoor arena were scattered around the barn. Billie sighed. She’d just found heaven.
She cleared her throat. “Nice little place you have here.” Seeing Merissa in the context of this farm made perfect sense to Billie. The richness in her voice and the feather-light scent of her hair. Her casual, lived-in but obviously designer clothes. Beauty and elegance, but somehow down-to-earth.
Merissa laughed. “It’s a bit much, isn’t it? It belonged to my grandfather, and he left it to me when he died.”
A tall bay gelding stood near a white board fence and watched them drive past. Billie wanted to stop and visit him, but she kept going until she reached the circular drive in front of the house’s main entrance. “I take it he was a horse person?”
“Actually, no,” Merissa said as she unbuckled her seat belt. “I am. I was living with my parents in Europe, and the three of them were usually in a sort of battle for my affection. He found out that I was taking riding lessons, and he built this.”
Merissa’s gesture encompassed acres of beauty. Billie shook her head. She’d spent most of her childhood living with her dad’s friends and distant relatives. She’d have been happy if he’d built a tiny shack for them to live in together, and she’d never even have dreamed of a place like this.
“Did it work?”
“Yes,” Merissa said. “I came to live with him when I was thirteen, but not because he gave me a fairy-tale farm.”
Merissa got out of the car without explaining why she had chosen to come here. Billie followed her up the arched staircase and waited while Merissa unlocked the large wooden door with its ornate metalwork design.
They went inside, and Merissa tossed her keys on what looked like an antique table. Everything was as regal inside as Billie had expected after seeing the exterior. Marble flooring, elegant furniture, vaulted ceilings. Huge picture windows looked over the pool and the woods beyond. When she stepped into the main room, she could see a showroom-ready kitchen to her right and a glimpse of a formal dining room. Everything was picture-perfect, but nothing looked like home. There weren’t any photographs or knickknacks to be seen. The kitchen counters were bare, without even a coffeemaker to prove someone lived here. It was one of the most beautiful houses Billie had ever seen, but she suddenly hated to leave Merissa alone in it.
“Will you be okay?” she asked, watching as Merissa gave a huge yawn. “I can take you somewhere else, if you’d rather not be alone. To a friend’s house, maybe?”
“I’ll be fine,” Merissa assured her. In a gesture Billie had come to recognize over the past few hours, Merissa tucked her hair back with fingers that trembled. Their movement was out of place here. Her shaky weariness would be safe with the horses or in the welcoming barn, but not inside the house. Here, everything was rigid and cold, and Merissa would be made even more numb, not comforted. “I want a hot shower and a bed, that’s all.”
Billie took one last look around before she nodded in acceptance. This was Merissa’s home, and she had no reason to stay longer or try to convince her to leave. The enticing image of Merissa luxuriating in a steamy, fragrant shower and then sliding between cool, freshly laundered sheets made the former option Billie’s favorite by far. She had to get out of here. She handed Merissa a card with her number on it, not hesitating to give her one of the rarely used cards with her personal and not her work number. “This is my cell. Call me if you need anything.”
“I will.” Merissa followed Billie to the door and put her hand on Billie’s arm. “Thank you. You made an unbearable day a fraction more bearable.”
“It’s my job,” Billie said, although her response to Merissa’s touch was anything but professional. “Good night.”
Billie drove back toward Tacoma, where Ranger and her tiny but homey apartment waited for her.
Chapter Six
Merissa watched through one of the leaded glass windows next to the door until the police car was out of sight, then she turned away and walked across the shiny marble floor of the living room. Billie’s presence was confusing—she stirred up emotions Merissa couldn’t process right now. For most of the night, Merissa had felt chunks of feelings and half-formed notions roiling around inside of her. Pain, sadness, fear. And, once Billie had arrived, attraction and defensiveness. Too many sensations and thoughts to sort through and understand. Instead of coming to mind in an orderly way, they had bumped through her like objects in a pan of boiling water, their sharp edges cutting into her wherever they collided with her raw mind and heart. Eventually, the sharpness had worn away, and she’d gotten numb. The collisions were less acutely painful now, but still uncomfortable and jarring.
Merissa left the main wing of the house behind and walked through a breezeway to the little suite where she actually lived day to day. No one got much farther into her real home than Billie had tonight. The few people she invited into her house saw the main section her grandfather had designed. He had entertained there quite often, using the opulent surroundings to impress business clients and to give himself an aura of power. Merissa wouldn’t be the same. When she started meeting for business, she would prefer a place like the Morgan firm or her potential investors’ own offices. She wanted them to feel in control and powerful enough to invest the kind of money she needed from them, not for them to feel intimidated by her or that their contributions would be unnecessary.
Merissa had brought the occasional friends, including Dennis and Karen once, over to the house for a meal in the grand dining room or drinks on the terrace. She’d had several girlfriends who made it as far as the bea
utiful guest room decorated in shades of blue and the shiny kitchen for romantic midnight snacks, but no one came into her private sanctuary, the suite of rooms that had once belonged to a string of nannies hired to care for her when she was young.
Merissa shut the door behind her and breathed a huge sigh as some of her tension released. Tomorrow she’d probably feel fear from her ordeal, needing to check under beds and behind curtains for imagined gun-toting intruders, but right now all she felt was relief to be home and alone, although she’d very nearly invited Billie back here with her. A definite sign that she was overtired and overwrought.
She pulled off her clothes as soon as she got into her bedroom and dropped them on the floor next to the hamper. Later, she’d decide whether to wash them or to just toss them and the memories they’d always contain into the trash. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror above her dresser and quickly looked away from the sight of her haggard expression. She wasn’t able to define all the emotions inside her, and her face revealed the confusion and weariness she felt inside. She went into the small bathroom and took as hot a shower as she could stand, washing away the grime of murder and police stations.
She got out when she didn’t feel she could stand upright much longer and lay down on her bed, naked and flushed red from the heat of the water. Billie had been too present in her thoughts, and Merissa’s exhausted mind couldn’t summon enough common sense to keep her from imagining Billie in the shower with her. She had washed her hair and scrubbed the nasty precinct smells off her body, but it had been Billie’s fingers she felt skimming across her slick, sudsy skin and massaging the tension out of her scalp and neck. Merissa stared at the posters on her wall without really seeing them, taking some comfort in familiar surroundings and childhood memories even though she felt a gaping loneliness that she hadn’t experienced since she was a child. Since no one saw her rooms back here, she’d decorated more like a teenager than an adult. Instead of framed prints, she had posters thumbtacked onto the wall. Horse figurines she’d collected over the years pranced across dressers and every flat surface. Her books were stacked on shelves instead of sitting upright because she found it easier to locate the title she wanted when the books were horizontal. Her drafting table stood in one corner of the room, covered with experimental plans for the Hilltop neighborhood project. Billie had seen her at her weakest today, and bringing her to this room would only have made Merissa feel even less capable and controlled than she did.
Her phone rang, and she rolled onto her stomach and reached for it. In an unguarded moment, reason be damned, she hoped it was Billie on the other end of the line—although she couldn’t recall giving her this number—but a man’s voice spoke instead.
“This is Jeff Kensington. I just heard about Dennis, and Merissa, I’m so sorry. Is there anything I can do?”
She accepted his condolences and gave vague answers about the night before, hoping she was saying the correct things. She’d been in charge of her grandfather’s estate when he died and she’d fielded calls from distant relatives and business associates pretending to be sorry while they were in reality trying to determine who would be in control of his wealth and how they could get some. This seemed different. Dennis had been more of a friend to her than her grandfather had been. She’d loved him, of course, and he had been exceedingly generous with her, but their relationship had never been characterized by warmth or affection. She’d mourned from a distance.
She made small talk with Kensington for as long as she could bear, and when she started to wrap up the call, he changed the subject back to business.
“I understand you were going to be with Dennis when the firm pitched this new development proposal to me,” he said. Merissa felt herself grow cold and she shivered, pulling the comforter over her naked body. She had only learned the news last night, but Kensington seemed more aware of her role at work than she was. “I know your firm will be in turmoil for a while, but give me a call when you’re ready to get back to the project. I’m very interested in working with you.”
“I’ll let you know,” Merissa said vaguely before she ended the call. She’d been a fool to think Jeff was merely calling to say he was sorry about Dennis. And what had he meant by the phrase your firm ? He wanted something from her, something she couldn’t yet identify and that wasn’t hers to give. Just like the scores of people who called as soon as they heard about her grandfather’s heart attack. Merissa had only a few minutes with her cynical thoughts before her phone rang again. Another number she didn’t recognize. “Hello?”
“Merissa?” A voice much louder than Jeff’s boomed over her phone. She held it a few inches from her ear. “It’s Ed Lemaine. I was shocked to hear about Dennis today. How are you holding up, my dear?”
They went through the same routine of sorrow, and then small talk, and then a leap back to business. At least Merissa was ready for it this time.
“Dennis mentioned you have a project in the works. I’d be glad to hear your proposal once you’ve recovered enough to get back to work. I know it will be challenging for you to fill his shoes, but I’ll be there to walk you through every step of the way. Dennis and I had a great business relationship, and I foresee the same for me and you.”
Merissa frowned at her phone. Dennis must not have mentioned his intention to use Jeff for this neighborhood’s renewal, but he had apparently brought her name into a conversation at some point. In less than twenty-four hours she had gone from elation over being asked to be present at a pitch meeting to hearing Lemaine practically name her as successor. She wasn’t sure what to say and was going to give him as noncommittal an answer as she’d given Jeff. Edwin spoke again before she had a chance.
“You’re new to business on this scale, sweetheart, so I’m going to give you some helpful advice. You’re going to need someone with power on your side. You’ll need a lot of money backing this project and any others you plan in what could be an extremely successful future for you. I have influence over most of the investors in this area. They’ll listen to me whether I tell them to invest or not.” He paused before delivering his final words. “I’d prefer to tell them to back you, but it depends on how you handle yourself once you’re in charge. Let me know what you decide.”
Merissa barely managed to say good-bye. Her hands were shaking as she ended the call and dropped her cell on the bed as if it was burning hot. Was she really the one everyone expected to take over now that Dennis was gone? These men seemed to think so. She felt a surge of undeniable pleasure because they were looking to her as the new Morgan Group leader. Dennis had always ruled the firm on his own, employing a creative staff but never developing partners to have equal say in the business. Merissa had been an employee, not a peer, although she knew she had the potential to be more and had always dreamed of working in a more collaborative environment with Dennis and other planners. People beyond the private walls of the Morgan offices had apparently taken notice of her, and the knowledge fanned the sense of pride she had felt when Dennis told her about the pitch last night.
Along with her pride came a wave of reservations. She wasn’t ready to lead the firm. Dennis hadn’t even come close to training her as a replacement boss, and until last night she hadn’t realized he had the intention of bringing her more deeply into the business. She’d consider taking the promotion if Karen chose to offer it to her—maybe even buy the firm herself if Karen wanted out—but she had her doubts. Not about her ultimate career goals and her belief that she could make beneficial changes in the city if she had a chance and a strong team to lead, but concerns about following so closely in Dennis’s footprints. She had felt uncomfortable talking to the contractors, but she wasn’t sure whether it was due to their personalities and their past relationships with Dennis or just to the traumatic events of the night before. She hadn’t been able to read either Jeff or Edwin until they laid their cards out for her. She’d naively thought they were sad about a fellow businessman’s death, but instead one was pushi
ng for a contract that would put his fledgling business on the map, and the other was threatening to use his already strong reputation against her. She’d sat next to a good man as life drained out of him drop by drop, and instead of really caring how she was handling the horror of it, they were pushing their selfish agendas.
Merissa had hoped her hot shower would relax her enough for sleep to come, but now she was as wide-awake as she’d been exhausted only minutes earlier. She put on a sweater and jeans and sat on her bed fiddling with the card Billie had given her. Billie had been the one honest part of this mess, and she was tempted to call her and let Billie’s calm presence ground her. Billie had been assigned to her, Merissa knew. She was only doing her job hauling Merissa around Tacoma and back home again, but she’d been more than an escort around the crime scene. Merissa suddenly felt lost, without anyone to trust completely. She let two more calls with unrecognized numbers go to voice mail before she saw a familiar name. She tucked Billie’s card in her pocket and answered the call.
“Hey, Callan,” she said. Her voice was surprisingly steady, buoyed by the realization that she had a friend out there. Cal had no reason to want anything from her.
“How are you, Merissa?” Cal’s voice came across the phone with honeyed depth. “I heard about the homicide when I went to work with the mounted unit today. I knew Billie was assigned to help out with the investigation, but I didn’t realize you were the witness until she got back to the barn a few minutes ago.”
“You work for the police? I had no idea.” Merissa knew Cal from friendly conversations at polo matches and awards banquets. They’d never gotten together off the field, but Merissa had admired Cal’s riding and had been impressed by her down-to-earth humility, even when she beat Merissa’s team. Which she always did. “Any chance they’ll keep you too busy to school your ponies so someone else can have a chance at the regional championships?”