“Daniel, Timothy Lockhart here.”
His boss. “Yes, sir.”
“Can you come downtown? We need to talk.”
DANIEL WALKED OUT of Lockhart’s office, eyes carefully ahead. Okay, he hadn’t been fired, although if Lockhart had been a stickler, he was within his rights.
Having an affair with someone closely connected to the client.
Is that what he’d been reduced to? Somehow it was worse hearing the words from Michelle’s boss. Michelle and Daniel had had dinner with Timothy and his wife. Daniel had sent his son a present when he graduated from Harvard. Hell, he was still on their Christmas list.
Probably not anymore.
He kept trying to put his past life behind him, but he couldn’t. Everywhere he looked, everyone he knew was there to remind him that you could never escape from the past.
It wasn’t fair to Catherine, and it wasn’t fair to Michelle. It probably wasn’t even fair to himself.
He’d been pretending too long. Pretending that he could sleep with Catherine and that it would turn out fine. Oh, yeah, it’d completely turned out fine.
They were bringing in a new auditor, who would deliver Daniel’s report exactly as he’d written it. There was a pattern of collusion with Chadwick’s, and all evidence indicated that Charles Montefiore was the man involved.
No, time to face the facts and deal.
DANIEL CALLED and wanted Catherine to meet him at the gazebo in the park. There was extra gravity in his voice. Always before he’d been so careful not to worry her, to make her feel secure, but not now.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I’ll tell you when I get there,” he answered, not bothering to deny there was something wrong.
The wind was kicking up. A front blowing in and the air was chilled and cold. When he got there, he didn’t wait to tell her.
“I got pulled from the audit.”
“For what?”
“Sleeping with you.”
Okay, that explained the serious tone. “Are you in trouble?”
“No. It goes on my record, and it’s a black mark, but they don’t like advertising their failures, so they’ll keep it quiet.”
His face looked so hard and lined. Like it had that first day at the beach, and she at once knew what was wrong. The loneliness was back. “I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong, Catherine. It was my screwup.”
“How did they know?”
“A member of the board got an anonymous phone call saying my credibility had been compromised because of our relationship.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. Foster Sykes must have spoken to someone.
“Stop apologizing, Catherine. It’s not a big problem,” he said, with eyes that said there was a bigger problem looming.
“What else?”
“They’re going to use my report.”
“What’s in that report, Daniel?” she asked quietly.
“Nothing that will make you happy. I’m sorry.”
“I thought you were thorough and detailed.”
“I am. Sometimes it doesn’t change the outcome.”
He sat down on the bench across from her, rubbing his hands back and forth on his expensive wool pants. That was when she noticed the ring.
It was back.
“What else?” she asked, but she knew. This was it. There was no reason for them to see each other anymore. The temptation of blood-pumping, bedpost-shaking, hoo-haw-busting sexual experiences would be gone.
However, today she was going to make him say it because she knew he’d hate saying it, but she was mad, and vindictive, and all those boiling things that she’d never thought she’d think about herself before. Of course, she’d never been in love before, either.
“I haven’t been realistic and it’s hurt you, and I’m sorry. I thought I could do this. I thought I could have a relationship, but I can’t. I’ve loved the time we had, and there’s absolutely no other woman that I would want to be with other than you, but this limbo isn’t fair to you, and I don’t think I can move past it.”
She looked at him, head high, and stared him right smack in the eyes until he was the one who had to look away.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” he asked.
“No,” she said coolly, so coolly that she saw him wince. Then she stood to go.
There wasn’t anything she could say, wasn’t anything she could do. Deep down she had always known they’d end up like this. With a flourish, Catherine slung her faux Prada bag over her shoulder and heard the seams rip even farther apart. Because at the most personal of levels there were some things that just couldn’t be faked no matter what.
16
WEDNESDAY NIGHT poker was at Sean’s apartment and Daniel wasn’t saying much. He played his cards with more aggression than brains, and slammed shots with a lot more aggression than brains.
Gabe looked at him curiously. “This is new.”
“No, this is old,” he said, upping Gabe’s twenty with another twenty, although there was absolutely nothing in his hand. But tonight he felt like throwing everything just for the hell of it.
Gabe counted his chips, then turned back to his brother. “No anonymous bars? I have to say, I like this better. I don’t have to pick you up from strange parts unknown. You can even crash on Sean’s couch and we don’t have to go anywhere. Just dust you off in the morning and roll you out the door. So what’s the plan for 9/11 this year? Yonkers? The Bronx, oh, that was a fun one, wasn’t it? Putnam County? I don’t even know how you got up there. How does a man without a car end up in Putnam County?”
“Why don’t you lay off him, Gabe?”
This from Sean, who had never defended Daniel in his life. Later, when Daniel was approaching sobriety, he might appreciate it, but the alcohol was numbing him, and he wanted the numb. Comfortably numb.
“Why should I lay off him? He deserves it. You were right, Sean, and I hate admitting it, but this time you are. Tough love. We’ve been enabling this, encouraging him to live every day like it’s 9/10, like we’re in some 9/11 time warp, and it never happened. Well, it’s not right.”
“I don’t think this is a 9/11 problem,” spoke Sean softly.
Daniel poured himself another shot. He and sour mash were old friends. Old, old friends. “Can we not talk as if I’m not here?” he said, toasting to nothing, and then pouring the drink down his throat.
“I’m not doing it,” said Cain. “I’m only here to play cards. Maybe drink. This sounds like a family issue. Doesn’t concern me.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. You’re easier to beat when you’ve had a few. I like it.”
Six shots later, and Daniel had dropped another two hundred to Sean, which was a humiliation in and of itself. When the bottle of whiskey was empty, he went into the kitchen to dig out another one, and Sean followed him there.
“Did you see Claudia?”
“She wanted some pictures,” answered Daniel, knowing that would stop the conversation in its tracks. And it did.
“How’s the audit coming?” asked Sean.
“Got a new assignment.”
“Oh.”
Gabe was frowning, and Daniel blinked. Gabe was here? Oh, yeah. “Where was your last assignment?” he asked.
“Auction house,” Sean replied.
Daniel frowned. He poured another shot and Sean took it away from him.
“That’s what this is about?” Gabe asked.
“That’s what what is about?” mimicked Daniel. He didn’t want to talk about Catherine. He didn’t want to talk about the long nights when he was going to bed alone again. He didn’t want to talk about going back to frozen dinners, or to the months by himself, or the single load of laundry he sent out each week.
Sean grimaced. “You’re not seeing her anymore, are you?”
“Who?” he asked, stealing the shot glass.
“Transitional babe.”
> “She was not transitional babe,” he said stubbornly.
“So why aren’t you still seeing her? Sounds like you’ve transitioned out of her,” Sean speculated while moving the shot glass out of Daniel’s reach.
“Leave me alone,” snapped Daniel as he took back the glass.
Sean knew when it was time to fold. “All right. I’ll leave you alone. But Gabe’s right. No more enabling. Tough love. Love you, man, but from now on, don’t call me when you’re stuck at some bar and can’t find your way home. I’ll look at the caller ID, know it’s you and I’m not going to answer it.”
Daniel blinked at his brother. Once, and then twice. There were fuzzy lines around Sean that weren’t normally there, and he knew he needed to shake it off. “I need to go,” he said.
“Where?” Sean’s grimace grew more severe.
“It’s an emergency.”
“What sort of emergency?” Gabe jumped in.
“Accounting. Bad. Very bad. What’s today?”
“September eighth,” Gabe told him.
“No, no, not the date. The day. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday…”
“It’s Wednesday.”
“Good. It’s not Friday. I’ve still got time.”
“What’s Friday, Daniel?” Sean called, but Daniel was already halfway out the door.
IT WAS NEARLY MIDNIGHT when the buzzer rang. It was Daniel on the other end of the intercom.
“Can you get me in the building?” he said, his voice unsteady.
“My building?”
“Montefiore’s. I need to get inside there.”
“Now?”
“It’s important,” he said, and she realized he’d been drinking. Wow, broke up with her, and now driven to drink. She shouldn’t feel so happy about that, but she was, and she hoped he’d had a miserable hangover, too.
“Why?”
“It’s Wednesday.”
“I know it’s Wednesday, Daniel. Why do you want inside the building?”
“Do you want your grandfather cleared?”
She looked at the intercom, and glared. “Yeah.”
“He’s really a phone guy?”
Ah, there was a method to the drunken madness. She just had to follow it. “He hates computers. He won’t use them. Trust me. This is a man with an ink-and-pen set on his desk and it’s not there for show.”
“Listen, can you get me into the building tonight? When Steve got me into the e-mail system, I could see the phone logs, too. We’re in the digital age. It’s not as good as the e-mail trail, but I think we might be able to figure something out.”
“Why are you doing this?” she asked finally, wishing she could look at his face, see his eyes, see what he was thinking, but all she had was six inches of metal with one white plastic button. It didn’t show nearly enough.
“Because I’m a thorough, detailed jerk, that’s why.”
Catherine’s finger shot to the intercom. Juvenile, yes, but cathartic, as well. “Okay.”
Ten minutes later, she was downstairs, dressed, and they were walking the four blocks up Amsterdam to Montefiore’s. Daniel didn’t look nearly as well-pressed as he normally did. He was wearing a tie, barely. One shirttail was out, but his eyes were focused and sure. Once they got inside, she bribed the security guard to get her into the server room, where they stood staring at the rack of machines for several moments.
“I don’t know his password.”
Daniel shot a loopy grin in her direction, and she hated how her heart thumped. This was the man who had just dumped her and was going to implicate her grandfather in a collusion scandal. There should be no heart-thumping, not even heart-blipping. She shouldn’t feel anything for him at all.
“You would make a bad auditor,” he said, and pulled out the keyboard drawer.
She watched as his fingers typed on the keys.
“How did you know that?”
“I watched him type it,” admitted Daniel, and her heart thumped again. A definite thump. Definitely. What happened to cold and impassive? That she was prepared for. But drunk and heroic? The gods had no mercy. None.
He looked at the screen, frowned and started talking to himself.
“No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, yup, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, yup, yup, no, no, no, no…oh, look at that….”
Catherine leaned in closer. “Look at what? What is that?”
“Chadwick’s. Someone’s been talking to Chadwick’s.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. Do you recognize the extension?”
“No. There are over a hundred employees here.”
“Is it your grandfather’s, your mother’s or yours?”
“No, no and no.”
“Good, good and better.”
He shifted, a satisfied smile on his face. “There. Case closed,” he said and walked out of the server room.
Catherine ran after him.
“Wait!”
Daniel turned.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
His smile faltered. “I don’t know. Maybe the Bronx. Maybe Orange County. I haven’t been there yet. I imagine they have pretty decent bars there. I should check it out.”
“Why are you doing this?”
He stared at her as if she were a ghost. “Because I love you.”
Then he walked off into the night.
AT 9:00 A.M. the next morning, Catherine called an emergency meeting in the break room.
“I need to talk.”
“Oh, yeah, like, I bet you do,” said Sybil. “I have to hear about your affair from the boardroom walls?”
“What affair?” gasped Brittany.
“With Daniel.”
“Daniel?” asked Brittany. “Daniel? That Daniel? Oh. No. Way. An affair. Was he good?”
“I need help.”
“I don’t think so,” said Sybil, pouring herself a cup of coffee. “I think if you wanted help, you would have said something, like when we got stuck in the purse stall on Canal Street.”
Brittany took a step back and stared at Sybil. “You were on Canal Street? Okay. We need to talk. You two have been keeping secrets and this is so not fair. I’m part of this team.”
“He told me he loved me.” Catherine had been repeating the words to herself all night, but she needed to say them to someone else. It made them feel real.
“Great. Send me the wedding invitation,” teased Sybil.
“He was drunk.”
Brittany nodded. “Was he trying to get into your pants at the same time? Gets drunks, gets a little friendly, and suddenly, it’s ‘oh, I luuurvvee you. I want to slurp you up.’ I hate that, because it’s wrong. Really, really wrong. Was he trying to get into your pants?”
Catherine looked down at the floor. “Unfortunately, no.”
“Really?” asked Sybil.
Catherine glared. “Hey, he was the one who found out that Steve was talking to Chadwick’s, and setting up my grandfather.”
“Guys, wait. I’m so totally lost here. Why was Steve talking to Chadwick’s?” asked Brittany.
“Smithwick-Whyte was paying him,” said Catherine.
“Smithwick-Whyte! Really?”
Sybil nodded. “They wanted the Drexel estate auction, but they were the long shot, so they set up both Chadwick’s and Montefiore’s to take a fall, leaving S and W to pick up the pieces. Steve was taking bribes and there was some VP at Chadwick’s who was taking bribes and they were both fixing the system to make it look like there was collusion.”
“Wow!”
“So what’s next?” asked Sybil, Jimmy Choos tapping impatiently on the marble.
“Lunch. Lunch should be next.”
“Are we going to hear everything about the affair?” asked Brittany. “You really have to share.”
Catherine looked at Sybil, who was grinning mischievously and nodded. “Okay, I’ll share.”
DANIEL HAD FOUND the time to take Michelle’s pictures to her mother. It wasn’t easy s
itting there, watching Claudia look at the images of her daughter with such love in her eyes, but Daniel did. As she went through them, she told him stories that he’d heard at least eight times before, but he always pretended as if it were the first time. Daniel was good at pretending.
Eventually, Claudia put the box away and turned her attention to him. “I haven’t seen you this hollow-eyed in seven years. Maybe it’s time for you to leave New York, not me.”
So many times he had thought about leaving. Taking off for someplace new, trying to start over, but New York was his home. His brothers were here. It was all he had left. “No.”
Claudia studied him carefully. Her eyes were the same blue as Michelle’s, and he shifted uncomfortably. He didn’t want his mother-in-law to know that he had been unfaithful to her daughter, but she did. “This isn’t about Michelle.”
He thought about lying to her, but what was the point? “No.”
He looked at the ring on his hand and remembered the day that Michelle had put it on his finger. It wasn’t supposed to come off.
“I made a promise to your daughter. I had our life so completely and carefully planned. It wasn’t supposed to be so fucked. She didn’t deserve it.”
Claudia reached out and took his hand, wrapping her fingers around his palm. “She didn’t deserve it, and neither did you. You can’t live like this forever, Daniel. She wouldn’t want you to.”
“I thought you’d be mad. I know Michelle would be furious. She told me exactly what would happen if I ever cheated on her. She was very specific. I never thought that would be me. Ever.”
Claudia looked at him, and he saw the gleam of tears in her eyes. “Michelle’s gone now and I can’t change that, and you can’t change that. I wasn’t supposed to bury a daughter, you weren’t supposed to bury a wife, but we did. And you’re too young for this. I love you, Daniel O’Sullivan. You are the son I always wanted, and I want you to be happy. Does this new girl make you happy?”
Daniel nodded. “I didn’t think I could feel like this again. I had a hole inside me. It’s gone.”
“Then you need to be with her. Don’t take happiness for granted. It doesn’t happen enough. You’ll have kids, right?”
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