Guardian Angel

by Andrew Neiderman

  Guardian Angel

  Andrew Neiderman

  LEISURE BOOKS NEW YORK CITY

  NO ROOM FOR TWO GUARDIANS

  When Steve parked on Megan’s side of the street, he noticed another vehicle parked across the way with a man sitting calmly in it. The car was positioned so it wasn’t in the direct illumination of the streetlight. Once in a while, the driver was on a cell phone, but it was clear to Steve that his attention was on Megan’s house.

  “Son of a bitch,” he muttered. “The bastard’s gone and hired someone to watch her.” He waited a while longer and then drove away and circled the area. When he returned, the vehicle was still there.

  He noticed the driver had his window open. Perfect, he thought. He put on his work gloves, got out of his truck, went to the rear and found his small sledgehammer…

  For our grandson Dustin, another graduation gift.

  Table of Contents

  Cover Page

  Title Page

  No Room For Two Guardians

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Praise

  Other Leisure books by Andrew Neiderman

  Copyright

  PROLOGUE

  Scott Lester’s Beverly Hills street was dazzling under the glow of the streetlights. The lawns of houses were veritable carpets of rich green, the driveways immaculate, many with rich textured tiles that looked too expensive and too good for mere car tires to ride over. Everywhere he turned, he saw Mercedes, Rolls, Lexus, and Jaguar. You could smell the money here, he thought, and imagined the combined net worth of the people on any one block would equal the budget of a number of Third World countries.

  And what was wrong with that? Nothing. The purpose of wealth is to insulate you from the ugly, the ordinary, the pedestrian. The richer you were, the thicker and higher became your walls and the more you could protect your family and yourself. His father and so many wealthy people he knew took it all for granted after a while, maybe in most cases from the very beginning, but not him. Oh, no. If he had one good quality, he thought, it was his appreciation of his money, not for its own sake, but for what it could provide and how hard he had to work to get it.

  Almost every night he rode back from work, he had these arguments with himself…or with his wife Megan, to be more exact. These objections and doubts, these challenges to his way of thinking and living were hers, not his. He couldn’t ignore them, however.

  So he was obsessed with making more. So what? It was a good fault to have. If his intentions for making it were admirable, how could his pursuit of it ever be incorrect? He just happened to be married to a woman who didn’t quite get it yet, despite how many years they’d been together. They were looking toward their tenth anniversary, in fact.

  She’ll appreciate what I’m doing eventually, he thought. She would look around her and see how others lived, how other husbands were lackadaisical and satisfied with being average. He was confident about it. Eventually, she would understand and see what he was saying.

  Most important, she would stop nagging him about all the time he spent away from her and their daughter. He’d told her from the beginning that he was not a nine-to-five, five-days-a-week kind of guy, hadn’t he? She’d known what she was getting into when she married him. He wasn’t dishonest about it. He’d made it as clear as possible. His and his father’s investment business was what they call 24-7. It was how his father had built this large financial empire and Scott, as the obvious prince to inherit it all, could do no less than live up to his father’s expectations, despite Megan’s constantly urging him to be his own man.

  What did that mean any way? Be your own man. What if he wanted to be just like his father? It was his choice, wasn’t it? Lately, she was making him feel as though it weren’t. She was trying to convince him he was not only working in his father’s shadow, but was wearing it.

  He put Megan out of mind quickly when he heard the Wall Street report come on the radio. He had been too busy all day to check his portfolio, but there were five stocks he was hoping would take off finally. His father never stopped mocking him for investing so heavily in the market. The old man had made his fortune and built his company on smart real-estate deals and nothing else.

  “Property, Scott, that’s a sensible place to put your money. It’s something tangible, something you can see, feel, smell, if you have to and know you’ve got something that won’t let you down, if you just have the patience.”

  Was there a day that passed when his father didn’t lecture him about something, especially his marriage? Right from the beginning, his father had known what Megan thought of men like him, men consumed with their work and with the power that came from great wealth. He did his best to sugarcoat it, but there was no denying what his father saw in Megan’s face-not only a lack of respect, but defiance and disdain.

  “The reason you’re having trouble now, boy, is you chose a woman who was simply too pedestrian,” his father had told him just recently. “She didn’t have, and I’m afraid will never have, the vision to see what is important and what is not. Now, your mother…There was a woman who knew on which side the bread was buttered. That woman never once stood in my way or discouraged me. If I told her I couldn’t make a date or an event, she didn’t whine about it. She went alone if she was so inclined, or just nodded and understood. She knew I wasn’t doing anything to hurt her. On the contrary, I was building something for us all. She took that attitude to the grave, and I always appreciated her for it.”

  Scott had simply nodded. He’d wanted to say, But what about me, Dad? What about all the ball games I was in that you missed? You even missed my graduation ceremony because you had what you called a major acquisition to make in Texas.

  He didn’t say or ask about these things. More and more he was feeling like the son in Harry Chapin’s “Cat’s in the Cradle” song. He was or had become just like his father. That was Megan’s complaint when she talked about the shadow. He hated to admit it, even for a second, but maybe she was right.

  This moment of self-doubt was short-lived, however. He heard some good news on one of the stocks and turned up the radio. Then he cried out his joy, slapped the dash and flipped to his CD to hear some music. He was so into his moment of happiness that he almost drove past his own large Tudor home. It was one of the bigger houses in Beverly Hills, valued at more than twelve million. He loved bringing prospective clients to it and watching their eyes widen at the sight of his property.

  A familiar car coming out of his driveway slowed him down. He saw another come out, and then another, and hit his brakes. Why so many visitors?

  “Holy shit!” he exclaimed and sat back when the realization hit him.

  He had forgotten.

  Today was his daughter Jennifer’s ninth birthday party and he had sworn to both Megan and Jennifer at breakfast that he would be there.

  Megan settled Jennifer in her room with her new toys, dolls, games and clothes, and went down to the family room, where she had staged the party for a dozen of Jennifer’s classmates and their mothers. Even two fathers had attended, coming directly from their work. One of them was Ernie Cornbleau, a major criminal attorney with some high-profile cases. He was always in the news or on local television. How could he find the time? But he had for his
daughter, Jennifer’s best friend. How many times had both Megan and Ernie remarked that the two girls were more like sisters? Scott, on the other hand, always forgot Ernie’s daughter’s name.

  “If she were a stock,” Megan had told him, “you’d remember.”

  She stood looking at the decorations and then settled in the corner red leather chair. The January afternoons were shorter, and with their house facing the east, shadows came flooding in the picture windows, darkening the room that earlier had been bursting with light and the laughter of children. She conjured Jennifer’s face when the cake had been brought in. Jennifer had been taking piano lessons for three years now and was doing really well. What was most important was that she loved it and didn’t see it as some dreary interruption of playtime.

  This was her father’s influence, Megan thought. Although he had become an insurance-company executive, rising rapidly on the corporate ladder, her father had had a wonderful musical ear and was actually self-taught on the piano. He’d never been able to read music, yet he was always the one entertaining at family parties. It brought a smile to her face, remembering those days when she and her older sister, Clare, would harmonize behind him and their mother would brighten with pride. Their dad’s death in his early fifties had been like an earthquake that would not stop. The aftershock lasted until this day.

  Their mother lived with Clare in Akron. Clare was married with three children, all girls—Dawn, fourteen; Terri, sixteen; and Steffi, now eighteen and in her first year at college. Megan and Clare spoke often, so Clare knew of her marital unhappiness, but she was more like their mother, a hopeless optimist who ended every discussion with “Things will get better. Give it time.”

  “Time,” Megan would remind her. “We’ve nearly reached our tenth anniversary, Clare.”

  “Some men take longer,” Clare would insist.

  Maybe Clare had inherited more of their father’s happy nature, too, Megan thought in frustration. Sometimes, when she’d watched their father play the piano, she saw a man who was in a state of bliss. At least he had something. His piano was the antidote to any unhappiness. She should have taken lessons, she thought.

  Megan had had Jennifer’s birthday cake shaped like a piano, with the nine candles set on the keys.

  What brilliance in Jennifer’s face when tha tcake had been presented. Megan saw in her so much of herself as a young girl, but she saw so much of Scott as well, saw his intense look, that studied expression that told you, he—and now, she—was considering everything carefully, weighing the value of this or that. He’d surely have gotten some pleasure out of seeing her. How could he miss these precious moments, moments that would never come again? Where was the man with whom she had first fallen in love? Or was she just so blind as not to see he was never really there?

  She caught the way Ernie was looking at her and at the door, wondering where Scott was. He gave her his best comforting smile, but his mere presence, his awareness of the pain in her heart from the deep disappointment, made it all even worse. Now she wished he hadn’t come. His coming underlined Scott’s absence that much more, but she would never say such a thing to Ernie. He was a sweet man—strong, successful, but family oriented, too. It was truly as if he knew what his priorities should be. When he kissed her on the cheek before leaving and squeezed her arm gently, she felt more like someone who was in mourning than a mother taking joy in her daughter’s wonderful birthday.

  Damn him, she thought, and sat staring at the doorway. The shadows darkened. She heard the garage door going up. He was finally home. He would come in through the kitchen and make his way to the family room. She heard the door to the garage open and close and then his footsteps in the hallway from the small entry into the main part of their home. Moments later, he was standing there looking in. She realized he didn’t see her. She was too well cloaked in the shadows. She wondered if the realization that he had missed his daughter’s birthday party had just occurred to him. After all, the streamers and the balloons were still hanging from the chandelier. The party plates with party hats beside them were on the long table she had set up, and a cutout sign with glitter borders read, HAPPY BIRTHDAY JENNIFER. There was even some of the birthday cake on the table.

  “Damn it,” she heard him say.

  “Yes, Scott, damn it,” she repeated, and he pulled his head back in surprise and then entered the room.

  “Why are you sitting there in the dark, Meg?”

  “I figured since you’ve been in the dark so long, I might just see how it is myself,” she replied.

  He was silent. He looked around and then raised his arms.

  “Hey, look, I’m sorry. Really. I had planned to be here, but there was something of a crisis at the company. Dad was very upset. I tried to leave three times, but…“

  “Why don’t you just hit play, Scott? You’ve recorded that story so many times before that it surely just goes on without you.”

  “We’re talking about a lot of money here, Megan. You don’t seem to understand what it takes to keep up this place, pay for all this, including piano lessons, new cars, clothes, expensive restaurants, birthday parties, maids—”

  “Stop,” she said, holding up her hand. “Everything we have you wanted more than I did, and still do. I never asked for all this. I didn’t marry you for all this.” She paused. “Of course, I’m having a harder and harder time remembering why I married you, but…“

  “Very funny.”

  “Is it? I wonder why I can’t laugh.”

  “Meg, listen…”

  “It’s not going to change, is it, Scott? It’s never going to change.”

  “Look. I told you. I had every intention of being here on time,” he whined. “But…”

  “You already explained that your father and the business come first.” She sat back. “Never mind that he’s never really been any sort of grandfather for Jennifer, and that he should have wanted to be here for his granddaughter’s birthday as much as you should.”

  “Dad wanted to be here. He did. I told you…”

  “He didn’t even ask you about it, did he, Scott? He didn’t even remember.”

  “Sure, he—”

  “Where’s her present from him?”

  “He told me to give her five hundred dollars.”

  Megan simply stared.

  “Case closed,” she said, and then stood up and began to clear the table.

  “If you let me hire a maid for these special occasions, you wouldn’t have to do this,” he said.

  Megan wouldn’t have a live-in maid and had agreed to have their maid three times a week, even though she’d thought two would be enough.

  She turned on him sharply.

  “I want to do this, Scott. I want to be a part of my daughter’s life. This isn’t hard, terrible work to me. This is the joy of having a child. Something you just don’t get. You want to know something, Scott? I don’t think you’ll ever get it,” she added.

  She turned her back to him, but she didn’t move to do anything.

  She heard him sigh.

  “Where is she?”

  “Upstairs in her room.”

  “I’ll go explain,” he said and started out.

  She turned back quickly.

  “Yeah, do that, Scott. Explain. But I’m telling you this. I’m not ending up like your mother, shrinking in a closet, another discarded possession.”

  “Hey, that’s not…”

  “Fair? We’ll see what’s fair. We’ll let some divorce court decide,” she added.

  “Megan.”

  She worked faster.

  He shook his head and started for the stairway.

  He was too far away to hear her sobs and he couldn’t see her tears anyway.

  “I’m not dying,” she muttered to herself. “I’m not dying this way.”

  The shadows merged with the darkness outside. Despite the bright streetlights and the passing vehicles, the world she saw through the window looked very unfriendly and sudden
ly very dangerous.

  For she was about to be a woman with a child, on her own, and even in Beverly Hills that was unpredictable.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Still in his construction-work clothes, he sat in his room and stared at the picture of his late wife. She seemed to be staring at him, too, as if she were waiting for him to answer a question. She had always had that expression on her face when she asked him something. It was an expression that told him she devalued his answer no matter what it was. She had been not unlike his fifth-grade teacher…all his teachers, for that matter. His answers had never been quite good enough for them. He’d stopped raising his hand to answer questions in class after a while, and if he was called upon, he’d just shaken his head, even though he knew the right responses. They had found that out later, and some had asked him why he didn’t respond.

  “Why should I share what I know with them?” he’d replied, meaning the others in his classes.

  “How about with me?” his English teacher, Mr. Knox, had countered.

  “You already know the answer.”

  “But share it with me,” he’d insisted.

  “Right, sure,” he’d said, and nodded, but never had.

  Ignoring people or giving them the answers they wanted was always much easier than arguing. He’d been that way with Julia, and maybe that was why she had always worn that expression whenever she asked him a question and why that expression was indelibly printed on her face in the photo.

  “What?” he blurted.

  His door was closed, so his mother couldn’t hear him talking to a picture on the dresser.

  “You want to know why you’re dead? Is that what you’re asking me? Why did you agree to marry me if you didn’t want to have children with me? That wasn’t fair. You kept a major thing secret, and it wasn’t as if I didn’t run at the mouth before we were married when it came to talking about kids and raising a family.

  “What’s more important than family anyway? Having a bigger, more expensive house, expensive cars, lots of new clothes, your trips, jewelry…what? What?”