by Karen Ranney
He’d learned, when interviewing politicians, to be skeptical first and then won over only after enough research proved their points. He called his attitude Cynicism Light, and it carried over into other aspects of his life. His first thought, uncensored and automatic, was that something was missing.
What else had he expected?
Maybe his birth mother hadn’t been a student as much as a patient. Had there been mental illness in the family? Could you inherit a mental illness gene? He didn’t know. He had a friend, ranking somewhere between acquaintance and buddy, who was a doctor. He could call him and ask. Or he could always consult Dr. Google. He didn’t do either one.
He sat back in the chair and stared out the window. At least he was rich enough to afford any number of really good therapists.
Ellie put down the binoculars. Derek had evidently settled in. She had sat there for hours, until the lights came on throughout the house.
In thirty minutes she’d turn over her duties to another person, someone else assigned by the Elders to watch over Derek. Since no one had told her why she was free to form her own ideas. At first she’d thought it was for his protection, although she didn’t know from what. Then she began to wonder if the Elders were surveilling Derek for their protection. Were they afraid of him?
She doubted if Derek even knew what NASACA was. Most people didn’t and that’s the way the Elders wanted it. The Meriduar divisions had been created centuries ago, set aside for those practitioners who’d been hunted down, persecuted, burned at the stake, and hung. In other words, protection for those who had command of magic.
Derek was first and foremost a reporter. Granted, a very rich reporter from what she’d heard, but he’d always seemed focused solely on his career. He had a reputation for being a bulldog when he got his teeth into a story. He didn’t let it go until all his questions had been answered. Someone had called him a Boy Scout once. When he’d overheard the remark he’d only grinned and said, “Yep. You got it. Eagle Scout.”
She didn’t know anyone like him. He was proud of the streak of obstinacy that ran wide through him. He’d been so obviously in love with his wife and so uncaring that anyone knew that it had been almost painful to be around him. Ellie kept comparing her life to Breanna’s and she had nothing like what they shared. Nor did the prospects look all that great on the horizon.
When she heard that Breanna had been killed her initial thought had been to wonder if the two of them had challenged Fate itself by loving without reservation and so wholeheartedly.
Those in the world of magic knew that Fate was real. As real as God Himself.
Was it worth it? Was the pain that Derek was experiencing now worth the joy he’d had with Breanna? That was a question she could never ask.
When her replacement arrived she wouldn’t have to spy on Derek until Monday. That meant she had the entire weekend free. She could catch up on her laundry, go grocery shopping, watch a few movies, do all those boring things that single people weren’t supposed to do in favor of an exciting social life. She would have to attend the NASACA meeting on Saturday night, of course. There, she would tamp down any misgivings and be relatively personable, ready to answer any questions one of the Elders might propose to her. In the course of the meeting she might encounter another member, someone of the male persuasion who was interested in a red-haired, freckle faced, blue-eyed woman with a penchant for crossword puzzles and a tendency to be slightly plump. Not fat, just well endowed.
Her mother had always told her that she had the perfect figure for childbearing. She was twenty-nine and childbearing didn’t look like it was in the cards. Not without a husband in the wings. Since her siblings had already provided her mother with ample numbers of grandchildren she was spared a lecture on the subject. Occasionally, however, the topic did come up, especially when her sister was pregnant again.
“That could be you, Ellie,” her mother said just last Sunday. “Is there anyone you want to meet?”
In other words, someone her mother could spell for her.
She’d shaken her head, hoping against hope that her mother would drop the subject. She had, thankfully and unexpectedly, but in favor of complaining about Ellie’s absence from the family get together at the park.
Her family were picnickers. They loved camping out at one of San Antonio’s neighborhood parks, preferably Brackenridge, and having a cookout. The fact that she tended toward vegetarianism didn’t seem to faze them one bit. They just waved away her objections to eating meat, saying that every once in a while a good steak could fix anything that ailed her.
On her part, she tried to avoid the picnics as much as possible, but her brothers and sister, their spouses, nine nieces and nephews, and various friends roped in for the occasion all seemed to enjoy each and every excuse to go somewhere, claim land that wasn’t theirs, and plant their family flag.
Regardless of the weather, they had barbecues in the backyard of one of their houses, but the campout in a public park was considered a celebration. There was every possibility of engaging in a confrontation with another family, someone who had scoped out the place earlier, even going so far as marking their territory with a tent or a few picnic hampers. She never understood the family tradition, but she’d given up arguing against it.
If nothing else, she could spend some time this weekend thinking of ways to avoid her family. She promised herself that she wouldn’t think about Derek, however. She wouldn’t let her compassion spill out of the carefully controlled cage where she held it. She wouldn’t question her assignment. She would just simply be a good member of NASACA like she promised on her initiation.
She hoped she wasn’t lying to herself. It was bad enough that she was lying to everyone else.
9
In a perfect world you would have answers to every question generated by your own curiosity.
He didn’t live in a perfect world and that was evident when Derek woke the next morning on the couch and the first thing he thought was: why had Breanna lied to him about Susan? He didn’t have any answers. Nor was he able to formulate any by the time he’d driven to the Herald’s Northside office.
He wasn’t due to return to work for a few days, but he’d made some decisions and needed to talk to his boss.
William Bradley was his direct supervisor. Billy, as he liked to be called by his subordinates, was a Senior Vice President of the paper. They would go through that give-and-take he anticipated, with Billy offering some excuse as to why he’d attended Breanna’s funeral, but hadn’t come to the Crow’s Nest afterward. He’d probably say something typically Billy-like. An “I feel your pain, man,” speech that otherwise proved him to be, as usual, a dick.
His father’s words came back to him as he walked into the newsroom. Several people didn’t meet his eyes, merely looked away as he headed toward his office.
It was easier when people said something, even if it was halting and uncomfortable. It was more difficult to deal with the situation when they didn’t even acknowledge Breanna’s existence or her death.
For the first hour he sat in his office going through his mail. He’d received a stack of condolence cards and wondered if etiquette demanded that he acknowledge them. He’d been given a box of cards from the funeral home, too, messages that had been appended to each of the arrangements sent to the funeral. He was supposed to write thank you cards for those. At least he thought he was. He set these cards aside and began to read the anonymous letters. Because he covered the political scene in Texas, he was often the recipient of correspondence from nut cases.
Occasionally, he got a death threat or two. Today wasn’t any different. These didn’t bother him, however. The worst thing that could have happened to him had already occurred. He wasn’t fazed when someone wrote that he should be decapitated, with his head stuck on a pike and planted on the walk up to the capital building. Nor was he excessively disturbed when someone declared that he was worse than what a dog left on a lawn.
Who cared?
He sat back in his chair and stared out at the view, a glimpse of 281 in the distance, and a green belt with houses on the other side of the strip. This wasn’t the paper’s main office, but a satellite location. The Herald was printed downtown and that’s where the editorial offices were, as well as the suites for the big muckety mucks. Occasionally, the owner showed up and occupied his luxurious office on the fifth floor. Mainly, however, it was left empty as he had several other multimillion dollar projects to oversee.
The snail mail finished, Derek opened up his work email and started deleting those messages he didn’t have to answer. One of their downtown employees was retiring after forty-five years. Another had a baby. He deliberately deleted those company informational emails around the time of Breanna’s death. He didn’t want to read about his wife’s accident.
When the mail was finished he signed on to one of the paper’s databases. It took him less than ten minutes to find the woman who’d given birth to him.
Grace had lived in Pennsylvania as a girl, moving to San Antonio forty-two years ago. She was active in various social organizations, volunteered at the Animal Defense League and two other animal rescue organizations. If she was employed it wasn’t listed in the database, but she might be retired. Nor could he locate a husband, either past or present.
Her address turned out to be a small house in an older neighborhood. The Google photo revealed a stucco clad structure surrounded by mature trees.
He accessed another database, one that gave him Grace’s recent expenditures, and estimated worth. She owned her home outright, had purchased a car for cash two years ago, and evidently had two pets, information he garnered from recent vet bills. Her net worth wasn’t available, which surprised him, but he got the impression from the number of CDs she owned that she wasn’t poor.
Not the kind of person who would be interested in his recent inheritance, in other words.
Before he could stop himself, he picked up his desk phone, dialed the number, and waited. The voice that answered was pleasant, young sounding, and held the barest hint of amusement.
“Derek? Is that you?”
He almost hung up.
“Oh, dear, I’ve startled you, haven’t I? One of my apprentices told me that I was very disconcerting when I did that. I am sorry.”
Apprentices?
“I need to talk to you. About what you said the other day.”
“Yes, I imagine you do. Would you like to come for tea?”
“Tea?”
“Or we could have coffee. I’ve just made a cherry pie and I know that’s your favorite.”
“One o’clock,” he said, looking at the clock on the newsroom wall.
“Oh, that would be lovely. Let me give you my address.”
“I know it,” he said and hung up.
She hadn’t deserved his rudeness, but he’d been annoyed because the woman had startled him again.
He walked around the desk and went to stand at the window. After the meeting with the attorney it was evident that he didn’t need to work to support himself. He was here because his job had always provided a sense of purpose. His exposés, his writing, his research all went into his identity. He wasn’t Derek McPherson, married to a fantastically wealthy woman. He was Derek McPherson, reporter, scourge of crooked politicians, curious and unrelenting.
Would he ever be that man again? Probably not, after inheriting Breanna’s fortune. He’d forever be Derek McPherson, lucky stiff, billionaire. Oh, and he’s a widower.
Being here today was an exercise in time wasting. He wasn’t curious about the upcoming redistricting, the give and take of the Senate race, or anything regarding Texas politics.
Instead, he wanted to know about Susan.
Returning his desk he started to research the woman he’d always known as his sister-in-law.
Susan Adams of Austin, Texas didn’t exist. He couldn’t find an employer, bank records, or any legal documentation referencing that name. The house turned out to be owned by a corporation, a real estate outfit that purchased houses in a block and rented them out. He tried getting an address to stop by and ask who’d been living in their house, but couldn’t locate a real office. Evidently, the corporation lived in the cloud but nowhere else.
Maybe Susan — whatever her real name was — had never lived there after all. He and Breanna had never visited her there. She could have used the place as a false address and was actually living in San Antonio. Or Timbuktu.
She hadn’t simply dropped off the face of the earth. She’d never existed.
He did an in-depth search on Breanna’s father. Everything he knew to be true was verified. Lionel Adams had made his money in oil, proved to be extraordinarily generous in his patronage and support of various charitable organizations, and died a billionaire.
Emily Adams, Lionel’s wife, was occasionally mentioned as the reason behind his support of various cancer organizations, since the woman had died of breast cancer in her forties. However, even in his obituary Lionel’s family wasn’t mentioned. No endless paragraphs of those surviving him or those preceding his death. It was as if he was completely alone in life and content with it. Breanna wasn’t mentioned. When Derek did a search on his wife’s name he was surprised at the dearth of information. There was only one article about the accident, one about the award she was to be given posthumously and a small blurb about her work. Nothing else.
That almost never happened. Even average people had more articles. There were nine hundred articles written about him and he wasn’t an oil billionaire’s daughter.
He saw a flash of red hair across the room and knew it was Ellie. She was heading for the break room. He stood and followed her.
She was talking to another employee. He couldn’t hear their conversation. Nor was he especially interested in eavesdropping.
He grabbed a cup and poured himself some coffee.
In a matter of moments Ellie was beside him, doing the same.
“Hello,” she said. “I was surprised to see you here today. How are you doing, Derek?”
On the surface it was an innocuous question. One from a colleague to another. They’d worked together for the past five years. More than a few times they’d been on a project that lasted nearly all night. He’d helped get a few of her stories past Billy, and critiqued other work after she asked.
“Fine. Thank you for the flowers. They were nice.”
She’d sent a separate arrangement from the rest of the office.
“You’re welcome. She was a lovely person, Derek. I was so sorry to hear that she died.”
Maybe he was a fool, but he believed her. Either that or she was an Oscar worthy actress with a voice reeking of sincerity.
Her hair was frizzy today which meant that she’d shampooed it last night. She’d divulged that to him once when they were working late.
“My hair never looks good until the second day. It looks great on the third, but I have to wash it on the fourth. The next day it always looks terrible. I can’t do anything with it. I look like an orange SOS pad.”
What had he said in response to her? He couldn’t remember. It had probably been something reassuring, telling her that it wasn’t as awful as she thought. Things like that never are. Today, however, her hair was super frizzy and she’d grabbed it all up and securing it in a ponytail. The effect was to make her look even younger than she was.
He took a few sips of his coffee, wondering why he didn’t just come out and ask her if she’d been in Austin the other day. Was it at Billy’s instigation? His boss wasn’t here yet, but Billy sometimes didn’t roll into the office until he was good and ready. His schedule always made him wonder what kind of pull Billy had with the ow
ner.
“Have you been on vacation lately?”
Her blue eyes widened. “No, why?”
“Been on any assignments?”
“I’m reporting about the new IKEA opening. Whoop de do.” Normally, her smile was infectious. Right at the moment, however, he wasn’t in the mood for amusement.
She wasn’t looking directly at him and Ellie believed in eye contact. She’d often said that it was the way she knew someone wasn’t telling the truth. If he followed her rule, then she was lying.
He didn’t want to stand here and pretend not to be pissed. He was tired of lies. Tired of people not being who he’d always thought they were. He turned and left without saying another word. He wasn’t going to wait around for Billy, either.
He knew.
Oh, dear God, he knew.
She knew he knew that she’d been following him. She could see it in his eyes.
What did she do now? The most logical answer was to call the Elder and inform him as to this new development. He would immediately assign someone else to follow Derek. Someone who might not be as understanding or who would tell Mr. Woods everything he discovered.
Did she really want that to happen? No, she didn’t, but what would be the punishment if anyone found out that she hadn’t been honest?
Her coffee forgotten, she went to her cubby, grabbed her purse, and followed Derek.
10
Derek played chicken with a number of potholes on the way to Grace’s house. Once he neared her address the road suddenly smoothed out. He pulled into the driveway, parked, and sat studying the house for a few minutes.
Her home was beige stucco and small, probably around twelve hundred square feet with an attached single car garage. The blue shutters on the three front windows seemed strangely out of place in a neighborhood where the predominant colors were orange, green, or red.
He was rarely afraid. Not because he was naturally courageous, but because he lived a life in which he was rarely put in physical danger. He hadn’t joined the military. The politicians with whom he sometimes clashed were cowards, for the most part. They might bluster and threaten, but nobody ever hit him. Nor did he associate with people who got into bar fights. The closest he came to physical confrontation was the hate mail he received.
