by Nora Roberts
“You’re making it so appealing.”
“The trouble—and the reason I am once again approaching the size of a small planet—is that it is appealing.” She pressed a hand to her side as the baby—once again dubbed Big Ed—tried out a one-two punch. “There’s nothing quite like it,” she murmured. The doors opened. “So, are you going to marry the guy or what?”
“I’m thinking about it.”
“You’ve been thinking about it for weeks.” Fran braced a hand on her spine as they walked to Deanna’s office.
“He’s thinking, too.” She knew it sounded defensive. Annoyed, she sailed through the empty outer office into her own. “And things are complicated right now.”
“Things are always complicated. People who wait for the perfect moment usually die first.”
“That’s comforting.”
“I wouldn’t want to push you.”
“Wouldn’t you?” Deanna smiled again.
“Nudge, sweetie pie, not push. What’s this?” Fran picked up the single white rose that lay across Deanna’s desk. “Classy,” she said, giving it a sniff. “Romantic. Sweet.” She glanced at the plain white envelope still resting on the blotter. “Finn?”
No, Deanna thought, her skin chilled. Not Finn. She struggled for casualness and picked up a pile of correspondence Cassie had typed. “Could be.”
“Aren’t you going to open the note?”
“Later. I want to make sure Cassie gets these letters out before the end of the day.”
“God, you’re a tough sell, Dee. If a guy sent me a single rose, I’d be putty.”
“I’m busy.”
Fran’s head jerked up at the change in her tone. “I can see that. I’ll get out of your way.”
“I’m sorry.” Instantly contrite, Deanna reached out. “Really, Fran, I didn’t mean to bite your head off. I guess I’m a little wired. The Daytime Emmy business is coming up. That stupid tabloid story about my secret affair with Loren Bach hit last week.”
“Oh, honey, you’re not letting that get to you. Come on. I think Loren got a kick out of it.”
“He can afford to. It didn’t make him sound as though he was sleeping his way to a thirty-percent share.”
“Nobody believes those things.” She huffed at Deanna’s expression. “Well, nobody with an IQ in the triple digits. As far as the Emmys go, you’ve got nothing to worry about there either. You’re going to win.”
“That’s what they keep telling Susan Lucci.” But she laughed and waved Fran away. “Get out of here—and go home this time. It’s nearly five anyway.”
“Talked me into it.” Fran laid the rose back on the desk, not noticing Deanna’s instinctive recoil. “See you tomorrow.”
“Yeah.” Alone, Deanna reached cautiously for the envelope. She took the ebony-handled letter opener from her desk set and slit it cleanly open.
DEANNA, I’D DO ANYTHING FOR YOU.
IF ONLY YOU’D LOOK AT ME, REALLY LOOK.
I’D GIVE YOU ANYTHING. EVERYTHING.
I’VE BEEN WAITING SO LONG.
She was beginning to believe the writer meant every word. She slipped the note neatly back into the envelope, opened her bottom desk drawer to place it on the mounting stack of similar messages. Determined to handle the matter practically, she picked up the rose, studying its pale, fragile petals as if they held a clue to the identity of the sender.
Obsession. A frightening word, she thought, yet surely some forms of obsession were harmless enough. Still, the flower was a change in habit. There’d been no tokens before, only the messages in deep red. Surely a rose was a sign of affection, esteem, fragrant and sweet. Yet the thorns marching up the slender stem could draw blood.
Now she was being foolish, she told herself. Rising, she filled a water glass and stuck the rose inside. She couldn’t stand to see a beautiful flower wither and die. Still, she set it on a table across the room before she went back to her desk.
For the next twenty minutes, she signed correspondence. She still had the pen in her hand when her intercom buzzed.
“Yes, Cassie.”
“It’s Finn Riley on two.”
“Thanks. I’ve finished these letters. Can you mail them on your way home?”
“Sure thing.”
“Finn? Are you downstairs? I’m sorry, we had a couple of glitches here and I’m running behind.” She glanced at her watch, grimaced. “I’ll never make dinner at seven.”
“Just as well. I’m across town, stuck at a meeting. Looks like I won’t make it either.”
“I’ll cancel, then. We’ll eat later.” She glanced up at Cassie as the woman slipped the signed correspondence from Deanna’s desk. “Cassie, cancel my seven o’clock, will you?”
“All right. Is there anything else you need before I go? You know I can stay to go over those tapes with you.”
“No, thanks. See you tomorrow. Finn?”
“Still here.”
“I’ve got some tapes I need to review. Why don’t you swing by here and pick me up on the way home? I’ll cancel my driver.”
“Looks like it’ll be about eight, maybe later.”
“Later’s better. I’ll need at least three hours to finish here. I get more done when everyone’s gone home anyway. I’ll raid Fran’s food stash and burrow in until I hear from you.”
“If I can’t make it, I’ll let you know.”
“I’ll be here. ’Bye.”
Deanna replaced the receiver, then swiveled in her chair to face the window. The sun was already setting, dimming the sky, making the skyline gloomy. She could see lights blinking on, pinpoints against the encroaching dusk.
She imagined buildings emptying out, the freeway filling. At home, people would be switching on the evening news and thinking about dinner.
If she married Finn, they would go home. To their home, not his, not hers.
If she married Finn . . . Deanna toyed with the bracelet she always wore, as much a talisman to her as the cross Finn wore was to him. She would be making a promise of forever if she married him.
She believed in keeping promises.
They would begin to plan a family.
She believed, deeply, in family.
And she would have to find ways, good, solid, clever ways to make it all work. To make all the elements balance.
That was what stopped her.
No matter how often she tried to stop and reason everything out, or how often she struggled to list her priorities and plan of attack, she skittered back like a spooked doe.
She wasn’t sure she could make it work.
There wasn’t any hurry, she reminded herself. And right now her priority had to be managing that next rung on the ladder.
She glanced at her watch, calculating the time she needed against the time she had. Long enough, she thought, to let herself relax briefly before getting back to work.
Trying one of the stress-reduction techniques she’d learned from a guest on her show, she shut her eyes, drawing long, easy breaths. She was supposed to imagine a door, closed and blank. When she was ready, she was to open that door and step into a scene she found relaxing, peaceful, pleasant.
As always, she opened the door quickly, too quickly, impatient to see what was on the other side.
The porch of Finn’s cabin. Spring. Butterflies flitted around the blooming herbs and flowering ground cover of his rock garden. She could hear the sleepy droning of bees hovering around the salmon-colored azalea she had helped him plant. The sky was a clear, dazzling blue so perfect for dreams.
She sighed, beautifully content. There was music, all strings. A flood of weeping violins flowing through the open windows behind her.
Then she was lying on that soft, blooming lawn, lifting her arms to Finn. The sun haloed around his hair, casting shadows over his face, deepening his eyes until they were so blue she might have drowned in them. Wanted to. And he was in her arms, his body warm and hard, his mouth sure and clever. She could feel her body tighten
with need, her skin hum with it. They were moving together, slowly, fluidly, as graceful as dancers, with the blue bowl of the sky above them and the drone of bees throbbing like a pulse.
She heard her name, a whisper twining through the music of the dream. And she smiled and opened her eyes to look at him.
But it wasn’t Finn. Clouds had crept over the sun, darkening the sky to ink so that she couldn’t see his face. But it wasn’t Finn. Even as her body recoiled, he said her name again.
“I’m thinking of you. Always.”
She jerked awake, skin clammy, heart thumping. In automatic defense, she wrapped her arms tight around herself to ward off a sudden, violent chill. The hell with meditation, she thought, struggling to shake off the last vestige of the dream. She’d take work-related stress any day. She tried to laugh at herself, but the sound came out more like a sob.
Just groggy, she thought. A little groggy from an unscheduled catnap. But her eyes widened as she stared at her watch. She’d been asleep for nearly an hour.
A ridiculous waste of time, she told herself, and rose from the chair to work out kinks. Work, she told herself firmly, and started to shrug out of her suit jacket as she turned back to her desk.
And there were roses. Two perfectly matched blooms speared up from the water glass in the center of her desk. In instant denial, she stepped forward, her eyes cutting across the room to where she had set the single flower earlier. It was no longer there. No longer there, she thought dully, because it was now on her desk, joined by its mate.
She rubbed the heel of her hand against her breastbone as she stared at the roses. Cassie might have done it, she thought. Or Simon or Jeff or Margaret. Anyone who’d been working late. One of them had found the second rose somewhere and had brought it in, slipped it in with the first. And seeing her sleeping, had simply left them on her desk.
Seeing her sleeping. A shudder ran through her, weakening her legs. She’d been asleep. Alone, defenseless. As she sagged against the arm of the chair, she saw the tape resting on her blotter. She could tell from the manufacturer’s label it wasn’t the type they used on the show.
No note this time. Perhaps a note wasn’t necessary. She thought about running, rushing pell-mell out of the office. There would be people in the newsroom. Plenty of people working the swing between the evening and the late news.
She wasn’t alone.
A telephone call would summon security. An elevator ride would take her into the bustle of activity a few floors below.
No, she wasn’t alone, and there was no reason to be afraid. There was every reason to play the tape.
She wiped her damp palms on her hips before taking the tape from its sleeve and sliding it into the VCR slot.
The first few seconds after she hit Play were a blank, blue screen. When Deanna watched the picture flicker on, her forehead creased in concentration. She recognized her building, heard the whoosh of traffic through the audio. A few people breezed by on the sidewalk, in shirtsleeves, indicating warm weather.
She watched herself come through the outside door, her hair flowing around her shoulders. Dazed, she lifted a hand, combing her fingers through the short cap. She watched herself check her watch. The camera zoomed in on her face, her eyes smoky with impatience. She could hear, hideously, the sound of the camera operator’s unsteady breathing.
A CBC van streaked up to the curb. The picture faded out.
And faded in. She was strolling along Michigan with Fran. Her arms were loaded with shopping bags. She wore a thick sweater and a suede jacket. As she turned her head to laugh at Fran, the picture froze, holding steady on her laughing face until dissolve.
There were more than a dozen clips, snippets of her life. A trip to the market, her arrival at a charity function, a stroll through Water Tower Place, playing with Aubrey in the park, signing autographs at a mall. Her hair short now, her wardrobe indicating the change of seasons.
Through it all, the mood-setting soundtrack of quiet breathing.
The last clip was of her sleeping, curled in her office chair.
She continued to stare after the screen sizzled with snow. Fear had crept back, chilling her blood so that she stood shivering in the slanted light of the desk lamp.
For years he’d been watching her, she thought. Stalking her. Invading small personal moments of her life and making them his. And she’d never noticed.
Now he wanted her to know. He wanted her to understand how close he was. How much closer he could be.
Leaping forward, she fumbled with the Eject button, finally pounded it with her fist. She grabbed her bag, stuffing the tape inside as she dashed from the office. The corridor was dark, shadowy from the backwash of light from her office. A pulse beat in the base of her neck as she dashed to the elevator.
Her breath was sobbing when she pushed the button. She whirled around and pressed her back to the wall, scanning the shadows wildly for movement.
“Hurry, hurry.” She pressed a hand to her mouth as her voice echoed mockingly down the empty corridor.
The rumble of the elevator made her jump. Nearly crying out in relief, she spun toward the doors, then fell back when she saw a form move away from the corner of the car and step toward her.
“Hey, Dee. Did I give you a jolt?” Roger stepped closer as the doors slithered closed at his back. “Hey, kid, you’re white as a sheet.”
“Don’t.” She cringed back; her eyes flashed toward the fire door leading to the stairs. She would have to get past him. She would get past him.
“Hey, what’s going on?” The concern in Roger’s voice had her gaze sliding cautiously back to him. “You’re shaking. Maybe you’d better sit down.”
“I’m fine. I’m leaving now.”
“You’d better catch your breath first. Come on. Let’s—”
She jerked back, avoiding his hand. “What do you want?”
“Cassie stopped downstairs on her way out.” He spoke slowly, letting his hand fall back to his side. “She said you were working late, so I thought I’d come up and see if you wanted to catch some dinner.”
“Finn’s coming.” She moistened her lips. “He’ll be here any minute.”
“It was just a thought. Dee, is everything okay? Your folks all right?”
A new fear gripped her throat, digging in like talons. “Why? Why do you ask that?”
“You’re rattled. I thought you’d gotten some bad news.”
“No.” Giddy with panic, she edged away. “I’ve got a lot on my mind.” She barely muffled a scream as the elevator rumbled again.
“Jesus, Dee, take it easy.” In reflex, he grabbed her arm as she started to race by him toward the stairs. She swung back to fight, and the elevator doors opened.
“What the hell’s going on?”
“Oh, God.” Tearing free from Roger, Deanna fell into Finn’s arms. “Thank God you’re here.”
His grip tightened protectively as his eyes bored into Roger’s. “I said, what the hell’s going on?”
“You tell me.” Shaken, Roger dragged a hand through his hair. “I came up a minute ago, and she was ready to jump out of her skin. I was trying to find out what happened.”
“Did he hurt you?” Finn demanded of Deanna and earned a curse of outrage from Roger.
“No.” She kept her face buried against his shoulder. The shaking, the horrible shaking wouldn’t stop. She thought she could hear her own bones rattling together. “I was so scared. I can’t think. Just take me home.”
Finn managed to pry a disjointed explanation from her on the drive home, then, pushing a brandy on her, had watched the tape himself.
She offered no protest when he strode to the phone and called the police. She was calmer when she related the story again. She understood the value of details, of timetables, of clear-cut facts. The detective who interviewed her in Finn’s living room sat patiently, jotting in his notepad.
She recognized the gray-haired man from the tape from Greektown—he had snatched t
he little girl out of the line of fire.
Arnold Jenner was a quiet, meticulous cop. His square face was offset by a nose that had been broken, not on the job but by a line drive during a precinct softball game. He wore a dark brown suit that strained only slightly over the beginnings of a paunch. His hair was caught somewhere between brown and gray and trimmed ruthlessly short. There were lines around his mouth and eyes that indicated he either laughed or frowned easily. His eyes, a pale, sleepy green, should have been as nondescript as the rest of him. But as Deanna stared into them, she was comforted by a sense of trust.
“I’d like to have the letters.”
“I didn’t save all of them,” she told him, and felt ashamed by the tired acceptance in his eyes. “The first few—well, it seemed harmless. On-air reporters get a lot of mail, some of it on the odd side.”
“Whatever you have, then.”
“I have some at the office, some at my apartment.”
“You don’t live here?”
“No.” She shot a look at Finn. “Not exactly.”
“Mmm-hmmm.” Jenner made another note. “Miss Reynolds, you said that last portion of tape would have been taken this evening, between five-thirty and six-twenty.”
“Yes. I told you, I’d fallen asleep. I was tense, so I thought I’d try this routine a guest on the show had suggested. An imagery, meditation thing.” She shrugged, feeling foolish. “I guess it’s not my style. I’m either awake or I’m asleep. When I woke up, I saw the second rose on the desk. And the tape.”
He made noises in his throat. Like a doctor, Deanna thought.
“Who would have access to your offices at that hour?”
“All manner of people. My own staff, anyone working downstairs.”
“So the building would be closed to all but CBC personnel?”
“Not necessarily. The rear door wouldn’t be locked at that hour. You’d have people going off shift, others coming on, people picking them up or dropping them off. Sometimes even tours.”