With clear reluctance she said, “I can’t. I’m sorry. I just don’t have time to do it here—we’re so backlogged.” Before he could protest, she hurried on. “However, I happen to know a seamstress who does freelance work at home. She’s very good.”
Yeager shook his head. “No way. I don’t trust anyone with my clothes but you.”
“No, you don’t understand, Mr. Novak. I guarantee you’ll like this woman’s work. I know her intimately.”
“But—”
“You could even say that she and I are one of a kind. If you know what I mean.”
She eyed him pointedly. And after a moment, Yeager understood. Hannah was the one who did freelance work at home. “Gotcha.”
“If you happened to do a search on Craigslist for, say, ‘Sunnyside seamstress,’ she’d be the first listing that pops up. Ask if she can make you a shirt by next week for the same price you’d pay here, and I guarantee she’ll be able to do it.”
Yeager grabbed his phone from his pocket and pulled up Craigslist. He should have known Hannah would live in Sunnyside. It was the closest thing New York had to Small Town America.
“Found you,” he said.
She frowned at him.
“I mean...found her.”
“Send her an email from that listing. I’m sure she’ll reply when she gets home from work tonight.”
He was already typing when he said, “Great. Thanks.”
“But you’ll have to pick it up at my—I mean, her place,” she told him. “She can’t bring it here, and she doesn’t deliver.”
“No problem.”
He sent the email then returned his phone to one pocket as he tugged his wallet from another. He withdrew five twenties from the ten he always had on him and placed them on the counter. Hannah’s eyes widened at the gesture, but she discreetly palmed the bills and tucked them into her pocket.
Even so, she asked, “Don’t you want to wait until you have the extra shirt?”
He shook his head. “I trust you.”
“Thanks.”
“No, thank you. That was my favorite shirt. It will be nice to have a spare. Not that I’ll be letting any sharks near my clothes, but you never know when you’ll meet another Jimena.”
She nodded, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t in understanding. Someone like her probably wouldn’t let a lover that spontaneous and temporary get anywhere near her. She was way too buttoned-up, battened-down and straitlaced for idle encounters, regardless of how beautiful her eyes were or how erotically she bit her lip. Hannah, he was certain, only dated the same kind of upright, forthright, do-right person she was. To Yeager, that would be a fate worse than death.
“I’ll see you in a week,” he said, lifting a hand in farewell.
As he made his way to the door, he heard her call after him, “Have a great day, Mr. Novak! And remember to look both ways before you cross the street!”
* * *
A week later—the day Yeager was scheduled to pick up his new shirt at her apartment, in fact—Hannah was in the back room of Cathcart and Quinn, collecting fabric remnants to take home with her. Everyone else had gone for the day, and she was counting the minutes until she could begin closing up shop, when the store’s entrance bell rang to announce a customer. Hoping it would just be someone picking up an alteration, she headed out front.
She didn’t recognize the man at the register, but he had the potential to become a client, judging by his bespoke suit from... Aponte’s, she decided. It looked like Paolo’s work. The man’s blond hair was cut with razor-precision, his eyes were cool and keen, and his smile was this just side of dispassionate.
“Hello,” Hannah greeted him as she approached. “May I help you?”
“Hannah Robinson?” he asked. Her surprise that he knew her must have been obvious, because he quickly added, “My name is Gus Fiver. I’m an attorney with Tarrant, Fiver and Twigg. We’re a probate law firm here in Manhattan.”
His response only surprised her more. She didn’t have a will herself, and she knew no one who might have included her in one. Her lack of connections was what had landed her in the foster care system as a three-year-old, after her mother died with no surviving relatives or friends to care for her. And although Hannah hadn’t had any especially horrible experiences in the system, she could safely say she’d never met anyone there who would remember her in their last wishes. There was no reason a probate attorney should know her name or where she worked.
“Yes,” she said cautiously. “I’m Hannah Robinson.”
Gus Fiver’s smile grew more genuine at her response. In a matter of seconds he went from being a high-powered Manhattan attorney to an affable boy next door. The change made Hannah feel a little better.
“Excellent,” he said. Even his voice was warmer now.
“I’m sorry, but how do you know me?” she asked.
“My firm has been looking for you since the beginning of the year. And one of our clients was looking for you long before then.”
“I don’t understand. Why would anyone be looking for me? Especially when I’m not that hard to find?”
Instead of answering her directly he said, “You did most of your growing up in the foster care system, yes?”
Hannah was so stunned he would know that about her—few of her friends even knew—that she could only nod.
“You entered the program when you were three, I believe, after your mother, Mary Robinson, died.”
Her stomach knotted at the realization that he would know about her past so precisely. But she automatically replied, “Yes.”
“And do you remember what your life was like prior to that?”
“Mr. Fiver, what’s this about?”
Instead of explaining he said, “Please, just bear with me for a moment, Ms. Robinson.”
Hannah didn’t normally share herself with other people until she’d known them for some time, and even then, there were barriers it took a while for most people to breach. But there was something about Gus Fiver that told her it was okay to trust him. To a point.
So she told him, “I only have a few vague memories. I know my mother was a bookkeeper for a welding company on Staten Island and that that’s where she and I were living when she died. But I only know that because that’s what I’ve been told. I don’t have any mementos or anything. Everything she owned was sold after her death, and what was left in her estate after it was settled was put into trust for me until I turned eighteen and was booted out of the system.”
Not that there had been much, but it had allowed Hannah to start life on her own without a lot of the stress she would have had otherwise, and she’d been enormously grateful for it.
“Is your mother the one you inherited your eyes from?” Mr. Fiver asked. “I don’t mean to be forward, but they’re such an unusual color.”
Hannah had fielded enough remarks about her singularly colored eyes—even from total strangers—that she no longer considered them forward. “No,” she said. “My mother had blue eyes.”
“So you at least remember what she looked like?”
Hannah shook her head. “No. But I take back what I said about mementos. I do have one. A photograph of my mother that one of the social workers was kind enough to frame and give to me before I went into the system. Somehow, I always managed to keep it with me whenever they moved me to a new place.”
This interested Mr. Fiver a lot. “Is there any chance you have this photograph with you?”
“I do, actually.” Hannah had taken it out of the frame when she was old enough to have a wallet, because she’d always wanted to carry the photo with her. It was the only evidence of her mother she’d ever had.
“May I see it?” Mr. Fiver asked.
Hannah was about to tell him no, that this had gone on l
ong enough. But her damnable curiosity now had the better of her, and she was kind of interested to see where this was going.
“It’s in my wallet,” she said.
He smiled again, notching another chink in her armor that weakened her mettle. “I don’t mind waiting.”
She retrieved her purse from beneath the counter and withdrew the photo, now creased and battered, from its plastic sheath to hand to Mr. Fiver. It had been cropped from what must have been a studio portrait, and showed her mother from the chest up, along with the shoulder of someone sitting next to her.
“And your father?” he asked as he studied the picture.
“I didn’t know him,” Hannah said. “He’s listed as a Robert Williams on my birth certificate, but do you know how many Robert Williamses there are in New York alone? No one ever found him. I never had any family but my mother.”
Mr. Fiver returned the photo to her. “The reason we’ve been looking for you, Ms. Robinson, is because we have a client whose estate we’ve been managing since his death while we search for his next of kin. That’s sort of our specialty at Tarrant, Fiver and Twigg. We locate heirs whose whereabouts or identities are unknown. We believe you may be this client’s sole heir.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Fiver, but that’s impossible. If my mother had had any family, the state would have found them twenty-five years ago.”
He opened his portfolio and sifted through its contents, finally withdrawing an eight-by-ten photo he held up for Hannah to see. It was the same picture of her mother she had been carrying her entire life, but it included the person who’d been cropped from her copy—a man with blond hair and silver-gray eyes. Even more startling, a baby with the exact same coloring was sitting in her mother’s lap.
Her gaze flew to Mr. Fiver’s. But she had no idea what to say.
“This is a photograph of Stephen and Alicia Linden of Scarsdale, New York,” he said. “The baby is their daughter, Amanda. Mrs. Linden and Amanda disappeared not long after this picture was taken.”
A strange buzzing erupted in Hannah’s head. How could Gus Fiver have a photo of her mother identical to hers? Was the baby in her mother’s lap Hannah? Was the man her father? What the hell was going on?
All she could say, though, was, “I don’t understand.”
“One day, while Stephen Linden was at work in the city,” Mr. Fiver continued, “Alicia bundled up ten-month-old Amanda and, with nothing but the clothes on their backs, left him.” He paused for a moment, as if he were trying to choose his next words carefully. “Stephen Linden was, from all accounts, a...difficult man to live with. He...mistreated his wife. Badly. Alicia feared for her and her daughter’s safety, but her husband’s family was a very powerful one and she worried they would hinder her in her efforts to leave him. So she turned to an underground group active in aiding battered women, providing them with new identities and forged documents and small amounts of cash. With the assistance of this group, Alicia and Amanda Linden of Scarsdale were able to start a new life as Mary and Hannah Robinson of Staten Island.”
By now, Hannah was reeling. She heard what Mr. Fiver was saying, but none of it quite registered. “I... I’m sorry, Mr. Fiver, but this... You’re telling me I’m not the person I’ve always thought I was? That my whole life should have been different from the one I’ve lived? That’s just... It’s...”
Then another thought struck her and the air rushed from her lungs in a quick whoosh. Very softly, she asked, “Is my father still alive?”
At this, Mr. Fiver sobered. “No, I’m sorry. He died almost twenty years ago. Our client, who initially launched the search for you, was your paternal grandfather.” He paused a telling beat before concluding, “Chandler Linden.”
Had there been any breath left in Hannah, she would have gasped. Everyone in New York knew the name Chandler Linden. His ancestors had practically built this city, and, at the time of his death, he’d still owned a huge chunk of it.
Although she had no idea how she managed it, Hannah said, “Chandler Linden was a billionaire.”
Mr. Fiver nodded. “Yes, he was. Ms. Robinson, you might want to close up shop early today. You and I have a lot to talk about.”
Two
Yeager Novak didn’t find himself in Queens very often. Or, for that matter, ever. And he wasn’t supposed to be here now. His assistant, Amira, was supposed to be picking up his shirt at Hannah’s. But she’d needed to take the afternoon off for a family emergency, so he’d told her he would deal with whatever was left on his agenda today himself—not realizing at the time that that would include going to Queens. By train. Which was another place he didn’t find himself very often. Or, for that matter, ever. This time of day, though, the train was fastest and easiest, and he needed to be back in Manhattan ASAP.
But as he walked down Greenpoint Avenue toward 44th Street, he couldn’t quite make himself hurry. Queens was different from Manhattan—less frantic, more relaxed. Especially now, at the end of the workday. The sun was hanging low in the sky, bathing the stunted brick buildings in gold and amber. Employees in storefronts were turning over Closed signs as waiters at cafés unfolded sandwich boards with nightly specials scrawled in bright-colored chalk. People on the street actually smiled and said hello to him as he passed. With every step he took, Yeager felt like he was moving backward in time, and somehow, that made him want to go slower. Hannah’s neighborhood was even more quaint than he’d imagined.
He hated quaint. At least, he usually did. Somehow the quaintness of Sunnyside was less off-putting than most.
Whatever. To each his own. Yeager would suffocate in a place like this. Quiet. Cozy. Family friendly. Why was a healthy, red-blooded young woman with beautiful silver-gray eyes and a surprisingly erotic lip nibble living somewhere like this? Not that anything Hannah did was Yeager’s business. But he did kind of wonder.
Her apartment was on the third and uppermost floor of one of those tawny brick buildings, above a Guatemalan mercado. He rang her bell and identified himself, and she buzzed him in. At the top of the stairs were three apartments. Hannah had said hers was B, but before he even knocked on the door, she opened it.
At least, he thought it was Hannah who opened it. She didn’t look much like the woman he knew from Cathcart and Quinn. The little black half-glasses were gone and the normally bunned-up hair danced around her shoulders in loose, dark gold curls. In place of her shapeless work jacket, she had on a pair of striped shorts and a sleeveless red shirt knotted at her waist. As small as she was, she had surprisingly long legs and they ended in feet whose toenails were an even brighter red than her shirt.
But what really made him think someone else had taken Hannah’s place was her expression. He’d never seen her be anything but cool and collected. This version looked agitated and anxious.
“Hannah?” he asked, just to be sure.
“Yeah, hi,” she said. She sounded even more on edge than she looked. “I’m sorry. I totally forgot about your pickup tonight.”
“Didn’t my assistant email you yesterday to confirm?”
“She did, actually. But today was...” She shook her head as if trying to physically clear it of something. But that didn’t seem to work, because she still looked distracted. “I got some, um, very weird news today. But it’s okay, your shirt is finished.” She hurried on. “I just...” She inhaled a deep breath, released it in a ragged sigh...and still looked as if she were a million miles away. “I forgot about the pickup,” she said again. Almost as an afterthought, she added, “Come on in.”
She opened the door wider and stepped back to get out of his way. Good thing, too, since the room he walked into was actually an alcove that was barely big enough to hold both of them. As he moved forward, Hannah wedged herself behind him to close the door, brushing against him—with all that naked skin—as she did. It was then he noticed
something about her he’d never noticed before. She smelled like raspberries. Really ripe, really succulent, raspberries.
Another step forward took him into her apartment proper, but it wasn’t much bigger than the alcove and seemed to consist of only one room. Yeager looked for doors that would lead to others, but saw only one, which had to be for the bathroom. The “kitchen” was a couple of appliances tucked into another alcove adjacent to the single window in the place, one that offered a view of a building on the next street. The apartment was furnished with the bare essentials for living and the tools of a seamstress’s trade—a sewing machine and ironing board, a trio of torso stands for works-in-progress, stacks of fabric and a rack of plastic-covered garments.
“I guess my place is a little smaller than yours, huh?” Hannah asked, obviously sensing his thoughts.
Smaller than his place? Her apartment was smaller than his bedroom. But all he said was, “A bit.”
She squeezed out of the alcove, past him—leaving that tantalizing scent of raspberries in her wake—and strode to the rolling rack, from which she withdrew one of the plastic-covered garments. As he followed, he noted a half-empty bottle of wine on one of the end tables by the love seat. He thought maybe he’d interrupted a romantic evening she was spending with someone else—the bathroom door was closed—then noted that the near-empty glass sitting behind the bottle was alone.
“Do you want to try it on before you take it?” she asked. “Just to be sure it fits?”
Yeager figured it probably wasn’t a bad idea, since he was leaving in two days for South Africa and there wouldn’t be time for Amira to come back for it if it needed alterations. Truth be told, he also wasn’t sure he should leave Hannah alone just yet, what with the wine, the distraction and the anxious look...and, okay, all that naked skin.
“Yeah, I guess I should, just in case,” he replied.
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