When they pulled apart, he stepped back and held her out at arm’s length.
“I haven’t seen you in so long. I’d say you’ve grown even more beautiful, if that were possible.”
“I’ve missed you,” she told him, trying to remember the last time they’d been together. Neil was the same dapper figure as always, silver hair set off nicely by a tanned face and navy suit. “Thanks for coming out. Where’s Ian? They said he was here too.”
“He went to find Muck. The radiator’s overheating.”
“Some things never change, huh?”
Ian collected vintage sports cars, and he was forever dealing with the details of leaking oil, busted hoses, and thirsty radiators. Sometimes, Jo wondered if Ian might have had a happier and more productive life if he’d simply chucked all of his wealth early on and become an auto mechanic.
“He can join us when he comes in,” Neil said. “Obviously, we need to talk.”
“Yes.”
“But first things first. After I heard what happened, I just needed to see that you were okay. I’m so sorry you’re having to go through this.”
Before Jo could reply, she heard a swooshing sound and then suddenly the bodyguard was tackling her from behind, throwing his muscular arms around her and pushing her forward. As they went, somehow he managed to flip around so that they both landed on the ground, with her fall cushioned by his body. At the same moment, a loud crash reverberated around the room.
By the time Jo extracted herself from his grip and sat up, others had come running and were standing in doorways, faces pale with shock. Jo looked up at Consuela, Fernando, and her uncle. Then she looked at the ground where she had been standing, shards of crystal from the chandelier shattered against the marble floor.
“What are you doing here so early?” Alexa said to her mom and Uncle Rick, though she wasn’t disappointed. “You usually don’t come ’til around four or five.”
“Wanted to beat rush hour,” Rick replied. “I thought the car might overheat in heavy traffic.”
“You guys didn’t say anything to anyone here about last night, did you? I’ll get in big trouble if they find out I snuck out.”
They both shook their heads.
“When I woke up this morning, I thought I had just dreamed you were there,” her mom said. “Then Rick told me it really happened. You can’t do that anymore, Alexa. Don’t make them mad. It’s not worth the risk. What if they catch you and say that’s it, you’re outta here?”
“They wouldn’t do that.”
“Even if they wouldn’t,” Rick said, “it isn’t safe to be running around at night by yourself.”
“You didn’t fuss at me last night.”
“Last night, I thought you were there with permission. I thought maybe they dropped you off in the neighborhood or something.”
“So I took the train by myself, big deal.” She didn’t add that the evening started with sneaking past security, climbing over a gate, and taking a bus to Connecticut.
“Anyway, you shouldn’t have left,” Rick said. “I was very worried about you when I woke up an hour later and you were gone.”
“The train was leaving soon,” Alexa said, shrugging. “I was okay. I know how to take care of myself.”
“Alexa, don’t do that again, you hear?” her mom said, looking awkward, as she always did when she tried to be parental. It was kind of a joke, really, considering that most of the time Alexa felt more like the mother than the daughter.
Hoping to smooth things over, she decided to change the subject. She pointed to the nearby table and told them if they wanted to sit they could see her latest schoolwork. Relieved, they did as she suggested. From her cubby, Alexa pulled out some folders and removed her best papers and tests. Proudly, she set everything down on the table and watched over her mother’s shoulder as she went through each one and then handed them off to Rick.
In a way, Alexa knew her mom didn’t care all that much. But this was always how they started out a visitation weekend, sort of as a way to catch up. Her mom would ooh and aah over the A’s and A+’s, and Alexa would feel something deep inside of her begin to heal, just a little bit. She’d spent a lifetime being a scholastic disappointment and the subject of dozens of emergency parent-teacher conferences, with the news getting worse every year.
You have to do something about your daughter.
She’s obviously a bright girl.
She’s not living up to her potential.
She can barely follow a linear thought pattern.
She’s hyper and impulsive.
She’s impossible to control.
She’s a danger to herself and others.
She’s failing almost every class.
It was a nice change to be the opposite of all of that now, a pleasure rather than a pain. A success rather than a failure.
“Gosh, Alexa,” Rick said proudly. “Look at this math. It’s like something they’d be doing in college. Impressive.”
Alexa smiled, glad that Uncle Rick had come. It would be the first visitation when it hadn’t been just her and her mom, but she didn’t mind him tagging along. Alexa looked forward to visitation weekends, mainly because it gave her something different to do. And they had their own little routine. Usually, Fernando and Alexa would pick up her mom at the train station on Friday afternoons and then he would drive them both to Mariner’s Village, which was a cute little tourist town about 15 minutes away, right on the Long Island Sound. There was a motel there that wasn’t half bad, and he would take them there, drop them off, and leave.
With something like 45 regular television channels plus a few premium ones, Alexa’s mom mostly liked hanging out in the room and watching TV. Sometimes, though, Alexa could get her to go out and do stuff. Since the whole town was within walking distance, they would eat in the restaurants, stroll the shops, maybe catch a movie in the dinky theater or play games in the arcade next door.
Alexa liked it most because it gave them a chance to spend time together in a way they never had before. Her mom liked it because the old lady always paid for the hotel and gave them plenty of spending cash besides.
Of course, the best weekends were the ones when her mom would actually stay sober the whole time and not leave Alexa in the room late at night so she could “take a walk” or “get some air.” Alexa always knew what that really meant. Her mom wouldn’t be back for hours, and when she returned she would reek of smoke and beer and collapse on the bed in a stupor. At least she never tried to bring any guys back with her, something she was always doing at home.
Suddenly, the thought of the upcoming weekend gave Alexa an idea. Maybe together, she and Uncle Rick could talk her mom into going to rehab. Maybe they could even drop her off at a place before the weekend was over.
Finally, Mom can get some help.
Alexa needed to talk to Rick about it privately, but the conversation needed to take place now, before they left the estate. As her mom read through an essay, Alexa tapped Rick on the shoulder.
“While she’s looking at my schoolwork, could you help me move something heavy over in the carriage house? It’ll just take a minute.”
“Sure thing,” he said, getting up and following her from the room. At the doorway, she paused and told her mom they’d be right back.
“Okay,” she said, deeply engrossed in what she was reading.
Once they were outside, Alexa led Rick down the walkway and around the corner to the next building, but she didn’t talk until she opened the door and they had stepped inside.
“I don’t really need you to help me with something heavy, Uncle Rick,” Alexa said as she walked past the first row of exercise equipment and over toward the window where they could sit on the wide sill. “I just wanted to talk to you. We need a plan before we even get in the car. We’ve got to talk Mom into going into rehab.”
She sat but he remained standing, running a hand through his short, spiky hair. She could see the fingers of his other hand tw
itching toward his chest pocket, and she knew he was wishing he could smoke.
“You want to do an intervention, Alexa?”
“Don’t you?”
“I want her sober, yeah. Are we prepared to do a real intervention? Not really. Usually, you should wait until there’s a third party there, a person who knows what they’re doing—not to mention, you probably ought to have details about where and when the person could go into rehab, just in case they say yes. It’s an opportunity you don’t want to miss.”
“I could call Dr. Stebbins. He might have ideas about where we could take her.”
“Okay. For what it’s worth, I already checked for AA meetings in Mariner’s Village, and I’m hoping she’ll go with me while we’re there. That’ll help.”
Feeling excited, Alexa crossed the room to use the telephone on the wall, glad that she had memorized Dr. Stebbins’ private cell phone number. She was only supposed to use it for medical emergencies, but she figured this was one. Sort of.
Dr. Stebbins was actually quite nice about it when Alexa explained what she wanted. Though he didn’t have any answers for her right away, he said he’d be glad to have his secretary look into it.
“We don’t have any money, so it’s got to be a place covered by Medicaid. And it’s gotta be local too, because if we have to take my mom far away, she might chicken out.”
“Got it.”
Alexa told him that she was headed out for the weekend so she would have to call back from the road. He gave her his secretary’s direct line and said to wait an hour or two before calling.
When she hung up, Alexa beamed at Rick.
“They’re going to help us,” she said. “Let’s plan to do it at dinner tonight, okay?”
“Okay. It’s a deal.”
Walking carefully around the glass, Fernando helped Jo up first and then her bodyguard, the man who had pulled her to safety. The bodyguard’s face was flushed and his expression was concerned, but at least he seemed unhurt. Jo thanked him, knowing mere words were not enough. He brushed off his clothes and replied that he was only doing his job.
The foyer floor was covered with the shattered glass, but when Jo looked at it, she realized that only one piece had actually fallen—the loud crash had only made it seem like more.
Jo looked up at the huge fixture, spotting the empty place along the outer rim where the crystal had hung. Each piece on that rim was in the shape of an upside-down teardrop, pointed at the bottom, about four inches wide and ten inches long. Truly, if it had hit her, even just the one piece could have done some major damage.
Consuela looked up as well and burst into tears.
“This is my fault!” she cried, sobbing.
Her husband, Fernando, took her in his arms and tried to comfort her. Eleanor, on the other hand, looked furious, and she began to berate Consuela for her carelessness in front of everyone.
“Gran, wait,” Jo said, stopping her. “Listen, this was actually my fault. I’m the one who told Consuela how to clean the chandelier. I said that the crystals in the outer rim needed to come down so they could be hand washed.”
Jo climbed halfway up the stairs so that she could get a closer look.
“I see what happened,” she said, pointing toward the frame. “They’re not clicked all the way into place. Everybody watch out, because if we don’t fix these, another one might fall too.”
Though the incident had been disturbing, Jo had no doubt it was an accident. There was no way someone could have purposely planned that. After all, it could have fallen at anytime on anyone. It was just bad timing that it had nearly fallen on her.
Or so she hoped.
Alexa realized that she still needed to pack. Her mom and Rick had finished going through the school papers and now were checking out her artwork—not the art therapy stuff she did with Nicole, but from her regular lesson during the week. Alexa didn’t think her paintings were all that good, but it was fun to hear their reactions. They seemed genuinely impressed.
“Okay, while you guys look at that stuff, I guess I’ll run over to the house and pack my suitcase. It’s getting so warm outside, I might even throw in my bathing suit. Maybe they’ve opened the pool at the hotel!”
Alexa went outside, but before she was halfway up the walk, she heard her mother calling her name. Alexa turned around to see her mom coming toward her, shielding her eyes from the sun despite the fact that she was wearing sunglasses. She kept glancing nervously toward Chewie, who was across the lawn, standing at the fence and eagerly wagging his tail. She didn’t like dogs.
“Listen, honey,” her mom said, “I wanted to talk to you. We’re going to have a good time and all, but…”
Alexa stared at her own reflection in her mother’s sunglasses as her voice trailed off.
“But what?”
“But you probably don’t need to bring a suitcase.”
It took Alexa a minute, and then she understood.
“I don’t want to hurt your feelings or anything,” her mother added quickly, “but it’s just a small hotel room and there’s already two of us. We can all go have some fun, show Rick the town, eat dinner. But maybe we’ll bring you back here tonight and then pick you up again tomorrow.”
Alexa was not going to cry, no way, no how.
Her mom wasn’t concerned about Alexa or her privacy. She just wanted to have some time alone in a nice hotel with her boyfriend. Considering that they could have all the alone time they wanted the other three weekends out of the month, it just wasn’t fair.
Alexa crossed her arms and fixed her mother with a cold stare, her face showing disdain but her heart feeling something much more painful.
“Whatever,” Alexa said finally. “It doesn’t matter to me.”
Everyone scattered: Fernando retrieved the ladder and climbed up to fix the chandelier, Consuela and Eleanor moved into the kitchen so Eleanor could berate her some more, and Jo and Neil moved into the study, where they could sit and talk. Jo hobbled to the couch, propping up her bad ankle on an ottoman. She realized her uncle had sat on a chair across from her and was using the ottoman to put his leg up too. He rolled back a stained and torn pants leg until it revealed a bleeding gash in his shin.
Jo gasped.
“Looks like one of the shards got me,” he said, sucking in air between clenched teeth. “I thought so.”
The bodyguard alerted Eleanor, who called her private physician for a housecall. From what Jo could see, it looked as though her uncle would be needing stitches.
“Well, I came out here today to check on you,” he said, “and ended up almost killing you instead. I’m so sorry.”
“How was that your fault?”
“I was standing right under the thing when you came in the house. If we had moved in here right away, you wouldn’t have been in danger.”
“And you wouldn’t be bleeding all over those nice slacks, either. Don’t worry about it. It was an accident. I’m certain.”
Feeling not quite as sure as she sounded, Jo looked up at the bodyguard, who nodded.
“I don’t know how anyone could’ve done that on purpose,” he agreed, “with the placement and timing and everything. I’d say accident, and I’m trained to know the difference.”
Jo nodded, reassured, as the muscular man took a less conspicuous position near the wall.
Jo decided to seize the moment of relative quiet to ask Neil if he had any idea what was going on or who he thought might want her dead. They discussed the situation for a while with apparently no need for holding back any information or theories since it sounded as though Jo’s dad had already told Neil everything.
“If Bradford said you were a target because of ‘something big’ going on at the company, then I’d have to agree that it has to do with the pharmaceutical branch. That’s by far the biggest thing we’ve got going on right now in both the main company or in any of the subsidiaries.”
They tossed around the names of some of the executives who would p
rofit most from the upcoming announcement about Fibrin-X, but every time a new name came up, Neil would have some good reason why that person simply wasn’t capable of doing something so diabolical.
“Your father’s convinced the motivation has to do with financial gain, but I’m not so sure. Somewhere, there is someone who will gain more than just financially from this. Otherwise, why construct such an insane and far-removed plot? You realize, if this person, whoever it is, ends up killing you, then they’ll have to kill your grandmother next or your death will have been in vain.”
Jo’s grandmother entered the room at just that moment.
“What’s this? Who’s killing me off?”
Neil repeated his statement to his mother-in-law.
“Kent’s theory requires a huge sequence of events,” Neil explained, “each of which has to take place in a certain order: Jo would die, then you would die, then we would all inherit, then Ian would combine his stocks with mine, and we would force the majority decision of proceeding with the Fibrin-X announcement as planned. Sounds like a lot of a-b-c-d-type stuff, any step of which could get messed up along the way.”
“But if he’s right, I do see some solutions,” Jo told them. “For one thing, why don’t you have the announcement made sooner, like today or tomorrow? Then the cat’s out of the bag.”
“I talked to Dr. Stebbins about that this morning,” Neil said. “Even if Kent would okay it, which he wouldn’t, Stebbins isn’t ready. The data simply isn’t finalized.”
“Okay, then why doesn’t my father simply change his position to vote with you, so that I don’t have to die in order for either side to win?”
“Kent and I talked about that,” Eleanor said, taking a seat in her chair, looking even more tired and pale than usual. “He refuses.”
Jo looked at her grandmother, her eyes wide.
“He refuses? My own father refuses to do the one thing that might save my life?”
Eleanor shrugged, saying that in a matter such as this, where the lives and livelihood of so very, very many people would be affected, he simply had to consider the greater good and make the noble decision.
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