by AB Plum
My throat closes, but fury hisses out of me. “Sonuva—”
Her mouth drops.
“Sonuvabitch.” I finish the expletive—my whole body tingling with what has to be carb overload. “Don’t change a word for anyone but for yourself. Understand?”
“Are you okay?” she whispers, eyes widening.
Aware she may think I’m drunk, I exhale and give her two palms-up. “I am very okay. And so is your story. It’s a wonderful, funny, original story that is very okay. Understand?”
She nods her blonde head slowly as if afraid it will fall off if she nods too vigorously.
“How about if we turn out the lights, go to your room, and you read that story to me again?”
“Okay.” She hesitates, then puts her arm around my waist and presses into my chest. “I love you, Mamâ.”
Chapter 43
HE
Afternoon rush-hour traffic officially starts at 3:00. Today, it must’ve started at noon. Serendipitously, I can take the frontage road to Scimetrx, check messages, and strategize about how I should play checking out the crime scene.
Five voicemail messages carry a note of hysteria. Where am I? The acquisition has hit a major glitch. I’m the only one who can put out the fire. Yada, yada, blah, blah . . . I delete the last voicemail, turn onto Bay Street and toss a piece of the disposable cell into the nearest marshy ditch.
Traffic on 101 stands still in all eight North-South lanes. Bay Street, which I used last night to meet Tracy, parallels the driveway into Scimetrx. A Mountain View cruiser blocks access to the startup’s entrance. Dammit. The location of the cruiser also means I can’t get any closer to where Tracy and I enjoyed “Happy Hour.” A cop approaches, palms up.
I roll down my window and volunteer my business with Bill Boggs.
The skinny, ruddy-faced cop runs a fingernail down two pages on his clipboard. “Sorry, Mr. Romanov, but you’re not on the list of authorized Scimetrx employees.”
“I’m not an employee. I’m a business associate of Mr. Boggs.” Tempted as I am to stick my head out the window and observe the crime scene, I establish eye contact with the cop.
“I’d suggest you call him and meet him elsewhere. He can leave his campus.”
“That’s not convenient. I don’t have all day—”
“Do we have a problem, Officer March?” As if parachuted into the area, Patel appears next to the cop. “Mr. Romanov. We meet again.”
“Only because I can’t make my business appointment with Bill Boggs.”
The scent of sandalwood and citrus seeps into the car as Patel leans into my window. “I think you can understand why we’ve limited comings and goings around here.”
“I’m not clairvoyant, Detective Patel.” Why lie when a put-down is more fun?
“Really? I thought Silicon Valley CEOs read tea leaves.”
Aviators hide his eyes, but I feel them locked on my own gaze. “If we read tea leaves, they relay high-tech data—not information about the MVPD.”
“The local news media released info shortly after noon today, Mr. Romanov.”
“I’ve been busy since leaving my home shortly after noon, Detective Patel.”
He taps his bottom lip with his index finger.
Adept at reading body language, I deduce he’s measuring his words. I turn off the Veneno’s engine.
“You are in the area where we discovered Tracy Jones’s body.”
“Surely not at Scimetrx? Bill Boggs would’ve mentioned that—unless he’s under a gag order.”
“No order. We’ve asked for his cooperation and that of his employees.”
“Well, his cooperation with you has cost me a lot of time. I’ll return to my office and call him.” I restart the car, revving the engine just for the hell of it.
“We regret any inconvenience.” An undercurrent of mockery rides Patel’s words.
“Always glad to help out the MVPD, Detective.” Emphasizing detective sends a jolt of adrenaline straight to my brain. Christ, jabbing Patel trumps returning to the office immediately.
He stands, backlit by the mid-afternoon sun, staring after me. I wait until I round the corner, then toss another piece of the cell phone into the ditch.
This time I choose one filled with cattails.
*****
Back at the office, all hell has broken loose.
Everyone wants a piece of me—including Regan. She has to wait in line. The lab director accosts me in the parking garage. The man is blind. Otherwise, why start babbling as soon as I step out of the Veneno without saying a single word about the car?
We step into my private elevator. My stomach muscles convulse, and I lock my jaw against what’s coming. So much for enjoying my victory over Patel. The scene at Scimetrx plays against the lab director’s drone.
The board president is waiting in the lobby so we pick him up. Per my direction, no one speaks until we exit to my office. An hour after listening to them both interrupt and talk over each other, I grasp the problem and provide the answer.
We, contrary to what the Director of L’Institut says, have infringed on no one’s patents.
Eyes narrowed, standing nearly upright on my knuckles, I lean across my desk and speak in a low, deadly voice. “The patent in question belongs solely and exclusively to me. I inherited it from my father at his death. But . . . I am certainly ready for one more good fight with Monsieur Moreau—as soon as you two go back to work.”
They slink out—egos bruised, I suspect—because I fail to offer champagne or any alcoholic libations. Too bad they don’t understand I never reward idiots.
Regan, ever savvy, gives me a chance to grab a Scotch before she knocks. Unlike AnnaSophia, who can never read my moods, Regan waits until I get a hit off the alcohol.
After I lean back, stare into the Monet, and sigh, she says, “Detective Patel called at one twenty-two. He asked to see Tracy Jones’s résumé. I said I’d check with Personnel, but emphasized doubts that we’d release it without a court order.”
“What about that reference?”
“Was my voicemail too cryptic?”
“I haven’t listened to voicemail since this morning.”
“Right after you left, I took care of the problem we discussed.”
Christ, why was Regan the only discreet woman in the universe? Not even in the privacy of my office does she admit adding Andrew’s name to Tracy’s résumé. I remove my credit card and lay it on top of five-thousand-dollar bills. “Take your husband—the lucky stiff—out to dinner at the country club. Spend the bonus on something you really covet.”
She stares but keeps her fingers in her lap.
“Don’t say you can’t accept the money. You earned it.” I slide the bills and the credit card across the polished glass. “And make sure you leave at 4:30 so you can get all gorgeous.”
“But it’s three now. I haven’t given you your daily executive summary or—”
“I’m staying late. I’ll figure it out. Go home. Tomorrow could be tough.”
Halfway to rising, she sits down again. “Oh?”
“Tomorrow I plan to release Tracy Jones’s résumé to Detective Satish Patel.”
Chapter 44
SHE
Magnus falls asleep on page one of his bedtime story. Sitting on my hands, I manage to stop myself from smothering him in kisses. Until I figure out how to get us all away from Michael, I have to ensure none of the kids develops an obvious attachment with me. I tuck his favorite stuffed lion next to him.
Only sissies and girly-girls like teddy bears. My fist clenches against Michael’s taunts.
I hurry to Anastaysa, in PJs, hair damp, on the edge of the bed with her cell phone.
“Do you think Papá will ever let me phone my friends?”
“I hope so.” An evasion, but I don’t have the courage to raise her hopes.
“Are these friends from school?” I sit on the bed and tuck a stray curl behind her ear.
“Not in my class. Friends from m
y writing club.”
“I didn’t know you were in a writing club.”
Her green eyes widen. “You won’t tell Papá, will you?”
“I will not tell Papá, but you should—”
“No. No. No. Please, Mamá.” Tears fill her eyes. “He will insist I quit. Or that I join the biology club. Or the math club.”
“Shhh. Shhh.” I stroke her long, silky hair. She is right. Undeniably right. Michael will give her no option but to quit. “I’m only worried he’ll find out and then . . .”
She pushes away from me. “I know what will happen if he finds out. I promise I won’t tell him you knew.”
“Oh, Sweetheart.” Lies of reassurance fall over each other in my head. False promises clog my throat. I don’t know what to say. She can see the wild, erratic rhythm of my carotid, but if I sit frozen, maybe she won’t notice my hands shaking.
“Do I have to tell him, Mamá?” She speaks in a voice with too little affect, her face transparent, her entire body devoid of any signs of manipulation.
Too cowardly to intervene on her behalf, I say, “Let’s wait. He’s very busy right now at work. We’ll figure out a better time tomorrow to tell him.”
Ahh, Scarlett, you and Hamlet. The thought disappears in a full-blown, arms-around-my-neck hug with repeated thank-yous and I-love-you whispers. We end our lovefest with Anastaysa reading her story aloud. Shaken more this time by the obvious symbolism, I feel a shudder pulsate deep in my shoulders and spread down my spine with long, sticky tentacles.
How does an eleven-year-old girl grasp so clearly her father’s plan to murder her mother?
The question trails me to Alexandra’s room. I knock at the closed door. No response. I picture her at her desk with her headset blocking all noise. Or, perhaps, rebelliously listening to music. No music or TV on school nights.
I knock again. Louder. Wait, then crack the door in case she has gone to sleep. If her budding body left me clueless about her teenage status, the amount of time she sleeps would provide the proof. My baby—a young woman—now five-six and three inches shorter than me, can sleep anywhere, anytime.
Sleeping, of course, is a sign of depression. Is she depressed?
Is Tracy dead?
As Michael’s favorite child, she rarely questions his pronouncements. Her compliance presents, to me, a far bigger problem than her defiance listening to music. Unlike me, she has to develop a titanium backbone.
The room is dark except for a small, grayish-blue rectangle of light over the bed.
Playing a game on her cell phone?
A no-no for her just as for Anastaysa.
“Alexandra? May I come in?”
The light goes out. “I’m sleeping, Mamá.”
Her words slur as if she has come back from the edge of sleep.
“I want to say goodnight.”
“Good night.” The intensity of her breathing deepens. She tries for a snore, but it comes out a strangled snort.
I laugh. “Busted.” I step into the room, and flip the switch for bedside lamp.
“Please, Mamá.” As if under a spotlight, she turns her head toward the window overlooking the pool. “Am I not allowed any privacy?”
“What were you doing on your cell phone?” I approach her bed, sit, and feel a sinking sensation in my head as the mattress gives under my weight.
She jerks around and faces me, her eyes too hard for someone so young. “So, the answer is, ‘No, Alexandra. You are not allowed any privacy’.”
“Suppose I’d been your father at the door?”
She grimaces—or smiles, I can’t decide which from all the teeth she flashes. “I’d hang up. He can’t sneak up on me—even when he tiptoes—spying on us, hoping to find a reason to punish us, expecting us, still, to be perfect, obedient children.”
The venom in her tone ambushes me. And leaves me once more without words. On the one hand, to contradict her statement is to lie to her face. Dismiss, disregard, disrespect her feelings. On the other hand, to agree with her cynicism only reinforces her attitude.
“I hate him.”
A bright pain under my left breastbone slices my lungs. Sorrow claws my throat. In that second, I think my heart will rip open my chest.
Alexandra shrugs with that slow teenage insolence that cuts adults to the quick. “I wish he was dead.”
“Alexandra.” I bite back saying you don’t mean that because I’m struggling not to breathe the toxic air she throws off.
“I mean it.” Her flashing eyes dare me to utter a contradiction. “I wish I could kill him. I don’t care if I got caught. Going to jail’s no big deal. I’m already in prison.”
Recognizing her jaded, helpless frustration doesn’t mean I know any words of wisdom. The pale corona emitted by the lamp blurs into haze.
“Do you . . .” The rest of what I want to ask sticks in my parched throat. I try again, working my jaw back and forth, until I spew out the question. “Do you hate me too?”
“I should.” Her eyes flash like strobes, but her voice is gentle. “I should because you can’t protect me and Staysa and Magnus.”
“No.” Impossible to come to my own defense.
“Not that I expect your protection,” she says with that same gentleness. “If you can’t protect yourself, how can you protect us?”
Chapter 45
HE
From the beginning of the call to the Director of L’Institut, he tries to get a little nasty. Feeling damned good from the day’s successes with Patel, I’m having none of his Frenchie ’tude. It’s five A.M. in Paris, but that’s no excuse for his fuzzy-headed thinking. I set him straight on the ownership of the patent toute suite.
“My father assigned me that patent before his death twenty years ago. A copy of that portion of his will has been included in every phase of our negotiation. It was never my intent to transfer ownership.”
“But your drug—the drug we are paying to acquire—depends on your device.”
Hellooo? I stare at the Monet, feel my head clear and sip my Scotch. “We agree.”
“Why would L’Institut want to acquire the drug without the device?” he asks with Gallic stupidity.
“One assumes a bright young mind at L’Institut might, in the not too far distant future, invent a better mousetrap.” I throw the mousetrap metaphor at him for the hell of it. His intransigence is borrrrring.
Especially boring since I will never surrender this patent. It cost me years of humiliation by an autocratic father who had always intended to pass ownership to his older son. Even after I made sure that would never happen, he continued to taunt me. I may have helped him develop the device, but he was the inventor of record. He, and he alone, would decide what happened to ownership at his death.
Perseverance . . . reaps its own rewards.
The director natters on for a while, then exhales like an impatient parent with a bad-mannered child. “I must review this with my board. I will get back to you tomorrow.”
“What time?”
“By the end of our normal workday—between six and six-thirty. Will that be too early for you?”
I laugh at his less than subtle reminder about his normal workday. “Monsieur Moreau, I rarely arrive at work past seven-thirty every morning. Will you still be at lunch at three-thirty?”
A long pause. Too bad we’re not video conferencing. I’d love to see the bastard’s face.
“C’est bon, Monsieur Romanov. Three-thirty.” Apparently, this comment passes for a goodbye because he hangs up.
I swear if I didn’t stand to become a billionaire from this deal, I’d call the whole thing off. The negotiations have grown as infuriating as being married to AnnaSophia. Worse than Tracy. My ringing phone jerks me back to the office. Why the hell is Security bothering me at this hour?
“Yes?”
“Mr. Romanov, there’s a policeman who insists on seeing you.”
“Oh, he does, does he?” Patel insisted to Regan he had to see me. Quit
e the insistent pain-in-the-ass. But what the hell? Nothing like a good game of cat and mouse. I laugh, then say, “Have him escorted to the lobby. Stay with him until I come down.”
“Yessir.”
After hanging up, I call the cafeteria to come clear my afternoon service. I have no intention of offering the good detective more than water, though someday, depending on what he digs up at Krebs’ Skole, I may offer him a plate of stuffed shrimp.
Maybe serve it with fricasseed crow.
When I step into my private elevator, I am still smiling at my joke.
Chapter 46
SHE
Michael comes home at two-thirty. At least he enters our bedroom at two-thirty. He doesn’t speak or undress. Every muscle in my body knots.
Pay-up time.
For drinking too much last night. For having coffee with John yesterday. For liking Detective Patel. For taking up space on Earth.
Dread crushes my chest and collapses my lungs.
Get ready.
Do not make a single sound.
Hope against hope he hurries.
Expect him to play, to tease, to drag out the act he calls making love.
Forcing myself to breathe normally, I watch him through half-closed eyes. He slips into his dressing room without turning on the light, opens a drawer, closes it and leaves—in the dark.
Of course nothing squeaks in his house so I can’t hear footsteps on the stairs or the front door opening or closing. Maximum insulation and triple-glazed windows block all outside sounds. Where is he?
In his study? Not the kitchen, I’m sure. Not checking on the children.
Nine hundred ninety-nine . . . one thousand. I mentally count without breathing.
Heavy and creepy and vibrating with menace, the silence stirs the anxiety in my stomach, swishing acid around in my gut. Swallowing hurts my constricted throat. Throwing back the sheets requires two attempts. Neck stiff, I inch out of bed on numb feet. I crack the door, wait— trembling, expecting him to jump out of the shadows and yell, Surrrpiiiise.
