Someone to Watch Over Me

by Judith McNaught

  “True, but something tells me that isn’t going to happen. It’s time for lunch,” he added after a glance at the clock on the dashboard. “I owe you an apology for shooting holes in your theory earlier. I’ll buy you a hamburger for lunch.”

  His extraordinary offer made Sam do a double take. Shrader was so cheap that everyone at the Eighteenth joked about it. In the few days they’d been in the mountains together, he’d already stuck her for several cups of coffee and vending machine snacks at the hospital. In view of that, and his earlier attitude about her “theory,” Sam decided on a revenge she knew would torture him: “You owe me a steak for dinner.”

  “Not a chance.”

  “I know just the place. But first, Captain Holland wants us to make some phone calls to the local authorities.”

  Chapter 6

  * * *

  Unable to endure the thought of eating or more badgering on the subject from her nurse, Leigh hid two pieces of toast and the pear in the drawer of her nightstand; then she lay back, contemplating what the detectives had said and done. After a few minutes, she made a decision and phoned her secretary.

  Brenna answered the telephone in Leigh’s Fifth Avenue apartment on the first ring. “Is there any news about Mr. Manning?” Brenna asked as soon as Leigh finished reassuring her about her own condition.

  “No, not yet,” Leigh said, trying not to sound as despondent as she felt. “I need some phone numbers. They won’t be in the computer. They’ll be in a small address book in the right-hand drawer of my writing desk in the bedroom.”

  “Okay, which numbers?” Brenna said, and Leigh could picture the efficient little blonde snatching up a pen, poised as always to respond to any request.

  “I need Mayor Edelman’s direct line at his office and his private number at home. I also need William Trumanti’s number at his office and his home. He’ll be listed either under his name or under ‘police commissioner.’ I’ll hold on while you get them.”

  Brenna was back on the phone so quickly that Leigh knew she must have sprinted to and from Leigh’s bedroom. “Is there anything else I can do?” Brenna asked.

  “Not right now.”

  “Courtney Maitland has been here several times,” Brenna said. “She’s absolutely convinced you’re dead and that the authorities are covering it up.”

  Under normal circumstances, the mere mention of the outspoken teenager who lived in Leigh’s building would have made her smile, but not then. “Tell Courtney that the last thing she and I talked about was how she feels about her father’s new wife. That should convince her I’m alive and talking.”

  “I’ll call her right away,” Brenna said. “I arranged for a private duty nurse for you as soon as I heard about your accident. Has she been there?”

  “Yes, thanks. I let her go this morning, but I should have kept her an extra day.”

  “Because you aren’t feeling well enough yet?”

  “What?” Leigh’s mind was already on the phone calls she wanted to make. “No, because she was easier to intimidate than the staff nurse.”

  MAYOR EDELMAN was leaving for a meeting when Leigh called, but his secretary told him Leigh was on the phone, and he took her call immediately. “Leigh, I’m so sorry about what’s happened. How are you?”

  “I’m fine, Mayor,” Leigh replied, fighting to keep her voice steady. “But there hasn’t been any word about Logan yet.”

  “I know. We’ve asked the state police to help out, and they’re doing their best, but they have their hands full up there.” He paused and said very kindly, “Is there anything else I can do to help?”

  “I realize this is an imposition—that it isn’t even the responsibility of the New York City Police Department—but there are only two detectives up here looking for Logan, and time is slipping away. Is it possible to get more people up here to help with the search? I’ll be glad to reimburse the city for the extra manpower, or any expenses involved—cost is of no importance.”

  “It’s not entirely a matter of cost. There are some jurisdictional issues involved from the NYPD’s standpoint. Commissioner Trumanti can’t send an ‘invasion party’ into the Catskills without being asked to participate in the search by the local municipalities who have jurisdiction up there.”

  To Leigh, that sounded like pure trivia—the etiquette of law enforcement—and she had no time for it. “It’s eighteen degrees outside, Mayor, and my husband is somewhere out there, missing. The FBI has jurisdiction everywhere. I’m thinking about calling them.”

  “You can certainly try,” he said, but Leigh knew from his tone that he didn’t think she had any hope of getting the FBI to involve themselves in the search. “It’s my understanding there are many people still missing in that blizzard, Leigh, but they’re believed to be safe and simply unable to dig their way to a main road or use a telephone. Why don’t you call Bill Trumanti, and let him update you?”

  “I was going to do that next. Thank you, Mayor,” Leigh said, but she didn’t feel particularly grateful to him. She was frantic, and she wanted more than sympathy and excuses. She wanted help, or at least suggestions for how she could get help.

  Commissioner Trumanti wasn’t available when she tried to reach him, but he returned her call a half hour later. To Leigh’s enormous surprise and relief, Trumanti offered her a great deal more than mere suggestions; he was preparing to provide the full support and resources of the NYPD to help find Logan. “The jurisdictional issues the mayor mentioned are already being resolved as we speak,” he said. He paused for a moment and put his hand over the phone, spoke a few unintelligible words to whoever was there, then returned to his conversation with Leigh. “I’ve just been advised that Captain Holland’s detectives up there have contacted the local municipalities and they’ve all agreed to let the NYPD join in their search-and-rescue efforts. In fact, their attitude is ‘the more help, the better.’ As you know, Leigh, that was one hell of a blizzard, and the local agencies and authorities have been working around the clock, trying to assist their residents.”

  Leigh was so relieved she felt like weeping.

  “According to the weather forecast,” he continued, “we should be getting a break very soon. I’ve just approved the use of NYPD helicopters to begin searching for the cabin as soon as the ceiling lifts and visibility improves to a safe level. There’s a lot of area to cover, so don’t get your hopes up too quickly. In the meantime, you have two of Captain Holland’s excellent detectives up there right now, and they’ll follow up on any leads that come along.”

  “I can’t thank you enough,” Leigh said feelingly. She and Logan knew Commissioner Trumanti and his wife socially, but not nearly as well as they knew the mayor, and the mayor hadn’t offered her much help at all. In view of that, she’d expected less, not more, help from Commissioner Trumanti, yet he was turning out to be a truly forceful, determined ally—a genuine godsend. Leigh decided to ask if he thought she should also contact the FBI. “I told Mayor Edelman I was thinking of asking the FBI for help—” she began.

  Trumanti’s reaction was so negative that Leigh wondered if he’d taken it as an insult to the NYPD and to him personally. “You’d be wasting your time, Mrs. Manning,” he interrupted, turning formal and chilly with her. “Unless there’s something you haven’t told our detectives, there’s not one shred of evidence, not one tiny detail, that would point to a crime of any kind in connection with your husband’s disappearance, let alone a federal crime that would warrant calling in the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

  “I’ve had a stalker—” Leigh began.

  “Who I understand has confined his activities—his very minimal activities—to a geographic area that is entirely within the NYPD’s jurisdiction. No federal law has been violated. In fact, I’m not sure the NYPD would be able to charge him with anything other than making a nuisance of himself at this point.”

  Every time he emphasized the word “federal,” Leigh felt somehow that she was being severely repr
imanded, and by the person whose help and allegiance she needed most. “I see. I was only trying to think of ways to be helpful,” she said with deliberate humility. She would have crawled to Trumanti on her knees if that’s what it took to secure his help for Logan. “Is there anything else you could suggest that I ought to do?”

  His tone underwent a definite change for the nicer. “Yes,” he said. “I want you to rest as much as you can, and take good care of yourself, so that when we find Logan, he doesn’t blame us for worrying you.”

  “I’ll try to do that,” Leigh promised. “I may be going home tomorrow.”

  “Are you well enough to leave the hospital?” he said, sounding shocked.

  Leigh evaded that question but told him another truth: “Hospitals make me feel helpless and depressed.”

  He laughed. “Me, too. I hate the damned places. I don’t start feeling good until I get to go home.”

  At that last, belated moment, Leigh finally remembered Trumanti had been waging a long fight with prostate cancer, a fight he was rumored to be losing. She tried to think of something adequate to say and had to settle for saying, “Thank you for everything. You’re being incredibly kind.”

  Chapter 7

  * * *

  “I want to go home tomorrow,” Leigh told her physician when he stopped in to see her at five that afternoon.

  He peered at her over her chart, his expression as implacable as hers. “That’s not possible.”

  “But I was able to get out of bed several times today, and I walked down the hall this afternoon. I’m sure I don’t need this neck brace. I’m fine,” Leigh insisted.

  “You’re not fine. You had a serious concussion, you have fractured ribs, and we don’t know yet if you need that neck brace.”

  “I’m hardly in any pain at all.”

  “That’s because you’re being given powerful painkillers. Have you looked at your body beneath that hospital gown?” he demanded.

  “Yes.”

  “Have you seen your face in a mirror?”

  “Yes.”

  “How would you describe what you see?”

  “I look like I’ve been in an accident.”

  “You look like a living eggplant.” When her expression remained stubbornly determined, he changed tactics. “Reporters and photographers have been hanging around downstairs, hoping for a look at you. You don’t want anyone to see you looking like this, do you? You have a public image to preserve.”

  Leigh was in no mood for a lecture on the importance of her public image. It was already Wednesday, and the helicopters wouldn’t be able to fly tomorrow if the weather didn’t improve. She wanted to help the police narrow down the search by finding the spot where her car went over the embankment. She could not endure another day of helpless inactivity and enforced bed rest. Her body hurt everywhere, but her mind was clear and she needed to be able to act.

  Her doctor mistook her silence for assent. “You know I only have your best health interests at heart. You simply are not well enough to be discharged.”

  “Let’s pretend I’m an ordinary blue-collar worker,” Leigh proposed smoothly. “I have a family to support and no money to cover what my HMO policy won’t pay. If that were true, Dr. Zapata, when would you discharge me?”

  His gray brows snapped together.

  “Would it have been yesterday?” she prompted.

  “No,” he said.

  “Then when?” she persisted.

  “This morning,” he said. “You’ve made your point, Mrs. Manning.”

  Leigh instantly felt like a witch. “I’m very sorry. That was rude of me.”

  “Unfortunately, it was also completely on point. I’ll sign your discharge papers after I stop in to see you in the morning—provided you agree to leave here in an ambulance.”

  As soon as he left, Leigh tried to call Brenna, but her secretary had already started for home. With an hour to waste, Leigh made her way slowly and painfully to the chair opposite her bed. She eased herself onto it and began leafing through the magazines and newspapers she’d gotten earlier from a volunteer who was pushing a cart with reading materials. Leigh was trying to rebuild her strength.

  At six-thirty, she put the newspapers aside, crept back to her bed, and called Brenna at her home number. “I have a favor to ask,” she began. “It’s a little out of the ordinary—”

  “I don’t care,” Brenna interrupted swiftly. “Just tell me how I can help.”

  “I’m being discharged in the morning. Could you bring me some fresh clothes?”

  “Of course. Anything else?”

  “Yes, rent a four-wheel-drive vehicle and drive that up here. Park it somewhere close to the hospital, then take a cab the rest of the way. I’m required to leave the hospital in an ambulance,” Leigh explained, “but I’m not going to stay in it. We’ll let the ambulance go as soon as we get to the rental car.”

  “And then what?” Brenna asked uneasily. “I mean, if you need an ambulance in order to leave the hospital, shouldn’t you stay in it back to the city?”

  “We’re not going directly back to the city. The police can’t follow my map, but I should be able to find the place where I went off the road. The cabin where I was supposed to meet my husband has to be very close to that spot.”

  “I understand,” Brenna said, “but I’m really worried about you, and—”

  “Brenna, please! I need your help.” Leigh’s voice broke with exhaustion and fear, and when Brenna heard it, she capitulated at once.

  “I’ll take care of everything,” she promised fiercely. “Before you hang up,” she added, “there’s something I want to say. I hope you—you won’t take this in the wrong way.”

  Leigh leaned her head against the pillows and braced herself to hear something she didn’t want to—the normal outcome, in her experience, of any statement that began with someone suggesting that the listener not take it the wrong way. “What is it?”

  “I haven’t worked for you very long, and I know you have hundreds of friends you could turn to, so I’m very pleased . . . well, flattered . . . that, you’re counting on me . . . when you have so many other people . . .”

  “Brenna,” Leigh said with a weary smile, “I hate to disillusion you, but I have hundreds of acquaintances I can’t trust, and only a few true friends I can completely trust. Two of them are on the other side of the globe, and one of them is lost in the mountains. Everyone else—casual friends, acquaintances, and people I’ve never even met—are already under siege from the media. The newspapers are full of misinformation, speculation, and wild innuendos, and they’re getting that stuff from my so-called friends and close acquaintances.”

  Brenna fell silent, obviously trying to think of another explanation, but there was none. “That’s very sad,” she said softly.

  It was also the least of Leigh’s worries. “Don’t dwell on it. That’s simply the way life is for people like me.”

  “Thank you for trusting me; that’s all I wanted to say.”

  Leigh closed her eyes. “Thank you for being—for being you.”

  When Brenna hung up, Leigh gathered the last of her strength and made her final phone call of the night. It was to her publicist, Trish Lefkowitz. She gave Trish a quick, unemotional update on the situation, and once Trish had offered words of sympathy and encouragement, the publicist got straight down to business: “Do you feel up to giving me some instructions about how you want me to handle the press? Up until now, I’ve been winging it.”

  “That’s why I’m calling. I’m going to be discharged in the morning, but I’m not going directly home, and I don’t want reporters following me. Brenna and I are going to drive up into the mountains to look for the place where I had my accident.”

  “That’s crazy. You can’t possibly be well enough—”

  “If I can find it, it will help narrow down the search.”

  “Men!” Trish exploded. The publicist’s long string of unsatisfactory relationships was turnin
g her into an outspoken man-hater. “Logan is probably camping out in some cozy snowbound cabin, with a farmer’s wife baking him cookies, while we’re all going crazy with worry and you’re trying to rescue him.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Leigh said.

  Trish sighed. “Me, too, Now, let me think, how can I distract the media so you can make your getaway . . . ?”

  Leigh waited, picturing the publicist pushing her shoulder-length black hair behind her right ear, then slowly twisting the end of a lock and tugging on it while she contemplated the situation. In happier days, Leigh had teasingly warned her that the entire lock of hair was going to drop off in her hand one day.

  “Okay, here’s the best way. I’ll call the hospital’s spokesman—his name is Dr. Jerry-something. I’ll have him notify any members of the press who are hanging around the hospital that you’re being released in the morning and will be leaving by ambulance to come home. Then I’ll arrange for an empty ambulance to leave the hospital, and hopefully, they’ll chase it all the way back to New York City. How’s that sound?”

  “It sounds good. One more thing—notify the media that I’ll give a press conference at home tomorrow tonight.”

  “You’re kidding! Do you feel up to that?”

  “No, but I need their help and cooperation. A police artist is working up a sketch of the man who found me after my accident. We can hand out the drawing if it’s ready. I also want to try to put a stop to the rumors I read in two newspapers tonight that Logan’s disappearance is merely the result of some sort of marital squabble. The NYPD has volunteered to get actively involved in the search, but newspaper articles like those will make the police look—and feel—foolish.”

  “I understand. Can I ask how you look?”

  “I look okay.”

  “No bruises on your face, or anything? I’m thinking about cameras.”

  “I need a public forum; it doesn’t matter how I look.”