RiverTime

by Rae Renzi

  While he waited for the coffee to brew, he let his mind meander down a thorny path—the state of his marriage. A faint sense of unease came over him as he mentally probed the current direction of their relationship—the direction he’d set in his stupidity and weakness. Things were spiraling out of control, and he needed to get them back on track.

  Casey had tried. She’d worked at closing the gap between them, but while in thrall to Patricia, he hadn’t wanted to be close to his wife. Did she suspect? Was she unhappy? She hadn’t yet mentioned divorce or separation, thank God. That would be a disaster. Yes, it was past time to clean up the mess he’d made.

  Filing those thoughts under his to-do column, he took his cup of coffee into the den and settled into his favorite chair. With the list of the starred names in one hand and the phone records in the other, he started a laborious line-by-line comparison.

  Suddenly a number jumped out at him. The central number for Casey’s workplace. Why would Patricia Carr call Westbrooke? Further searching revealed the number had been called twice more in a relatively short period. He wrote down the dates to compare to his calendar.

  He hit pay dirt again in the records from a few weeks later. The number for Celestial Productions—not once but twice. He wrote down the dates and times for those calls, too.

  He picked up his notes and settled himself in front of the small computer desk. “Okay, Trixie. Speak to me.”

  Later, he pushed back from the desk, frustrated. The name Trixie Starr was apparently a favorite character name for middle-school girls creating their own fantasy stories. Also for elves, strippers, unicorns and porn stars. The book was either a clever cover or, his first idea, a remnant of Patricia’s childhood. The latter, however, didn’t rule out its use for keeping track of campaign contributions. Especially if they were illegal.

  Reed placed the records in a folder and locked it in his file cabinet. It was late.

  “Where the hell is my wife?” His words echoed mockingly back at him. He pulled out his phone and dialed her work number. No answer. Then he tried her cell phone. Still no answer. He left her a message to call him at home.

  Agitated, he walked into the kitchen and glanced at a list of frequently called numbers pinned to the refrigerator with a magnet. He dialed Ditsy’s. “Hello, this is Reed Trabor. I know this sounds odd, but do you know where Casey is? I can’t seem to locate her.”

  “Oh, no, Reed, it doesn’t surprise me in the least. I assume she’s not at home?”

  Reed checked his annoyance. Ditsy could be a pain, but she was rich and titled and Casey’s best friend. “No, she’s not. I’ve been here for a couple of hours, and I haven’t heard a word from her.”

  “Well, well. That’s new and different. You, at home. I guess you tried the office and her cell phone.”

  “Yes, of course.” Reed tried to keep the impatience out of his voice.

  “Odd. Not really like her…unless she ran into something, or someone, interesting—which, of course, you’d know nothing about. Tell you what, I’ll make some calls and get back to you.”

  “Thank you,” Reed bit out. She was right, though—these days, he didn’t know where or with whom Casey spent her time. He’d been too busy hiding what he’d been up to. Further, Ditsy’s response did nothing to douse the spark of suspicion planted by his mother. There could be another man.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “Where the hell have you been?” Reed’s greeting was not what Casey expected when she opened the door. In fact, she hadn’t expected him at all. “I was worried,” he quickly amended.

  The steam had been building. “Since when do you worry if I come home late? For that matter, since when do you even know when I come home late?”

  He had the grace to look sheepish. “I tried to reach you at your office and on your cell phone. Ditsy didn’t know where you were. I didn’t even know who to call. It made me feel…odd.”

  Casey gave him a long look. Why was Reed concerned now? He’d been conspicuously unconcerned for weeks. “I had an accident on the way home.”

  “A car accident? Are you okay?”

  “It wasn’t an accident accident. No one hit me. My brakes went out. Luckily, the traffic was slow so I pulled off the highway to a service station and had it fixed.”

  “Why didn’t you call me?”

  “Because it never occurred to me that you’d be home. You never are.”

  Reed ran his hand through his hair. “You’re right. I don’t know what my problem is tonight. It’s just that I came home early and expected you to be here.”

  “I guess the senator’s out of town.” Her voice dripped acid, but she didn’t care. She slung her briefcase and handbag onto the sofa.

  Reed looked at his shoes. “Yes.”

  She snorted and walked into the kitchen. Reed followed her.

  “I thought we could…talk.”

  “Okay, so talk.”

  Reed took her hands. “Look, Casey, I know I’ve ignored you and I’m sorry. This is my career, though, and if I take a wrong step now, I’m done. Politics isn’t exactly forgiving, and lack of dedication is first on the list of deadly sins for people like me.”

  Casey gently withdrew her hands. “I get that, I really do. I just feel like a household appliance that you take out when it’s useful and stow the rest of the time. I resent that when I call you, you act like I’m nagging.”

  Reed leaned back against the countertop. “Hey, it’s not completely one-sided, you know. I’ve been a little disappointed in you, too.”

  “What, that I’m not as glamorous as your boss? I don’t really have the budget for designer clothes.”

  Reed winced. “I don’t care about your clothes, and I never compare you to Senator Carr. But you could have made the effort to get to know some of the other wives.”

  “Get to know the other wives? Because…?”

  “Because informal networking is crucial to my career. I hoped you’d contribute a little along those lines. God knows you’ve got the brains. But you’re too busy with your career to support mine. No surprise that I have to work harder and longer than people whose spouses are true partners.”

  Casey’s jaw dropped. “True partners…? As far as I knew, you planned to be a political analyst. You apparently changed your mind midcourse, but neglected to mention it until after we were married.” That had been a surprise, and not a welcome one. It meant their lives would be subject to scrutiny, which made her skin crawl. “And you never mentioned that you expected me to take part in these political maneuverings. Never.”

  “And you never mentioned you’d expect me to compromise my job to provide your daily dose of companionship.”

  Casey crossed her arms and stared at her husband for a long moment. “Daily, no. However, a weekly dose of companionship? That’s not an unreasonable expectation for any marriage. I wonder…I think…have we made a mistake here?”

  Alarm flashed across Reed’s face, and he crossed the kitchen in two strides to put his hands on her shoulders. “No, Casey, sweetheart, we haven’t. I want us to be married, I really do. I just think we need to be realistic about how to make this work. Like, for instance, I can’t cut back on my job commitments this moment, but I promise that after Senator Carr’s Runaway Child bill gets passed, we can spend some time together.” He kissed her on the forehead. “How’s that?”

  Casey had a feeling that something had slipped by her like a fish in a muddy river, its passing discernable only by swirling eddies in the water’s surface.

  But she knew the rules. It was her turn. “Okay. I don’t think I can do the girls-out-for-lunch thing, but I will try to be friendlier to the other wives at your political events, and I’ll be more understanding of your schedule. I have plenty of friends, so it isn’t a ‘daily dose of companionship’ that I’ve been lacking—just yours.”

  Reed smiled and hugged her. “That’s good to know. Just as long as your friends aren’t too friendly.” As if to seal the bargain, he
suggested they make a late dinner together, nothing fancy, just sandwiches. He took a couple of plates out of the cabinet. “Did the mechanic say what was wrong with the car?”

  “Yes. In fact, it was kind of strange.” Casey rummaged around in the refrigerator for some cheese and Italian cold cuts. With her hands full, she elbowed the refrigerator door shut and dumped everything on the counter. “He said the brake line had been cut. I think he has an overactive imagination.”

  Reed stopped midreach. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, the brake line was broken and the brake fluid had all leaked out. That part is true—he even showed it to me. Then he said it looked like it had been deliberately cut, not broken. But why would someone cut my brake line?”

  As they ate at the kitchen table, Reed said, “I was going over the phone records for our office and I noticed some calls to the Westbrooke number, but not from my phone. Did someone from my office call you about a month ago?”

  “About a month ago… That was around the time Harley told me to apply to the conference in California, but that has nothing to do with anyone in your office. I remember it well because Harley came stomping into my office like he was pissed off, so I expected to get chewed out for something. Instead, he told me to apply for the conference. It was really strange.”

  Reed gazed at Casey for a few seconds. “Didn’t you tell me someone had initially pressured Harley Holcomb to hire you?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “Just taking a belated interest in your career,” Reed said. “It was a wake-up call when I couldn’t find you tonight.”

  Casey should have been thrilled to hear that.

  The email was from someone called Torque, a name that didn’t ring any bells with her, but the subject line was Film and Culture, so she opened it.

  Celestial Productions awaits your deductions.

  That was all it said.

  At first she thought it was an advertisement, maybe a sponsor for the conference. But there was nothing else in the email—no links to a website to sell her anything, or requests for information, nothing that could be construed as commercial.

  An internet search for Celestial Productions produced a website for a small independent film company that had been around for a long time but had undergone several shifts in focus. Recently they’d produced a few award-winning documentaries.

  Was someone giving her a helpful hint about her research? On the other hand, if someone knew about her research and knew that this film company was one she’d be interested in, why didn’t they just say so? Why the intrigue?

  Tapping her pencil on the desktop, she considered another possibility. Could this be an attempt by Jack to contact her? No, it was a little oblique for him. Subtlety was not his style. Silence, yes. Subtlety, no.

  She shrugged and made a note of the address and phone number, adding to the already long list of things to look into while she was in L.A.

  A few days later she got another email from Torque, as succinct as the first. Trixie Starr, she went far.

  This one was so nonsensical that Casey dismissed it, along with the first one. Obviously a weirdo was sending out undecipherable messages as a bizarre joke. She deleted the two messages from her files.

  Chapter Thirty

  “I’m not going to pass up any chance, however remote, to see Dylan Raines up close.” Ditsy said as she piled her bags into the cab. “No matter that it’s a conference that I’m only marginally interested in.”

  “Ditsy, just because it’s in L.A. does not mean he’s going to be there. I mean, do you go to every single conference in Washington because you live here?” Casey pulled the cab door shut and asked the driver to take them to the airport.

  “Trust me, my girl. If he knows you’re there, he’ll show up. I’d bet my last diamond on it. And if you even think about sneaking off with him before I get to meet him, I’ll cut you out of my will.”

  “I’m in your will?”

  “Hmm. Now you mention it, probably not. But I’ll think of a suitably dire substitute,” Ditsy assured her. They rode in silence until Ditsy said, “Do you think he’d be offended if I slowly ran my hands down his perfect body?”

  Casey rolled her eyes.

  The flight was crowded. Casey looked out the small window. For the past week she’d successfully refrained from sliding into the mental world that contained Jack, but now, with her trajectory set in a straight line toward him, the door to that universe had creaked open. Her insides became suddenly acrobatic—her heart raced, stomach jumped, other body parts waited to swing into action. She leaned back in her seat, closed her eyes and surrendered to the lure of delicious recollection.

  Her thoughts landed on Jack’s small secret smile. Most people smiled to other people, but Jack seemed to smile to himself, when he smiled at all. Her heart skipped a beat as she thought of one particular time he’d smiled at her. After they exchanged rings, he’d looked at her with a smile that could light candles from across a room. It danced in his eyes and sweetened the curve of his lips, as pure a happiness as she’d ever seen. It had melted her heart.

  Everything had seemed so easy on the river. Putting aside the inconvenient fact that neither of them had been free to have a relationship, it had seemed so right. But it had been only a short fantasy, a departure from reality, no more real than the movies that made Jack a star—and there was nothing wrong with that, in the right context. A vacation from reality was good every now and again. That was no doubt exactly why it had been so easy on the river. They’d been in vacation mode—no jobs, no demands, no financial rubs, only the single shared goal of staying alive for the larger purpose of returning to their real lives. Her real life was working in D.C. and being a partner to Reed. That was reality.

  “It doesn’t seem quite right,” Ditsy said.

  Casey mentally shook herself. “What doesn’t?”

  “Here we are, flying all the way to L.A., and there’s not a single in-flight film starring Dylan Raines.”

  “I’m not even going to point out how ridiculous that statement is.”

  When they arrived, Casey and Ditsy snagged their suitcases from the baggage carousel and emerged into the mild Los Angeles afternoon. Casey sniffed the air and took in the quality of light. It was different here. The atmosphere dripped with promise, everything seemed possible. If there were ever a place that blurred the boundaries between fantasy and reality, it was here. This should have set off warning bells, but she just smiled. She liked fantasy—she just hoped it stayed in its rightful place.

  Rude knocking on her hotel room door jerked Casey from a delicious snooze. Sitting up quickly, she shook her head to dispel vestiges of the dream world, then groggily stumbled over and opened the door.

  “It’s time.” Ditsy posed in the door, a fiery vision of red and gold. Her coppery hair was loosely piled up on her head, the curls glowing like flames. She had on straight gold silk dress with tiny straps and a red-and-gold belt that emphasized her lush figure. A necklace of rubies and diamonds and matching earrings completed the illusion of a barely controlled conflagration.

  “Holy cow, Dits, you look illegal.”

  Ditsy looked Casey up and down. “You, on the other hand, appear to be attired for grocery shopping.”

  “Sorry, I fell asleep. It’ll take me a few minutes. Go on without me—I’ll get there as soon as I can.”

  “Oh, no. I am not about to let you dress yourself for an event like this. No possibility. Get into the shower. I ordered drinks up. I think we might need them.”

  “Need them? I’m that bad?” Casey pulled her shirt over her head and headed into the bathroom.

  In answer, Ditsy marched over to the table where Casey had deposited the folder containing the conference information. She pulled out a booklet, folded it back to a certain page, and thrust it through the slightly ajar bathroom door.

  Casey snatched it out of her hands to read the description of the conference kickoff dinner and reception, including some sp
ecial guests. An expletive escaped her lips and she threw the door wide open. “He’ll be here. What am I going to do?”

  “Get dressed, one hopes.”

  A knock on the door sent Casey scooting into the bathroom. A moment later Ditsy passed her a glass of wine.

  “Shower,” she said. “Now.”

  Thirty minutes later, Ditsy examined her handiwork. “Turn around.”

  Casey rotated on the high heels Ditsy had insisted she wear. The silvery-gray sheath, made of luminous Thai silk, was simple, with a wide neckline, front and back, low enough to be interesting but falling short of racy.

  “Are you sure I should wear this?” Casey touched the pearl necklace. It was a choker with a complex clasp in the shape of a rounded triangle. The pearls and moonstones seemed to glow from within, and the smoky topaz added mystery. A trailer of smaller pearls hung down her back from the downward point of the clasp.

  “He’ll be looking for it, if that’s what you’re asking. If your question is about fashion or taste, no fear—it’s perfect.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  Ditsy turned her blue eyes on Casey. “Don’t be daft, Casey. Of course he’ll be looking, and of course they’re perfect. Now let’s go.”

  “My hair—”

  “Is lovely.”

  Casey had one last look in the mirror. Her hair was slightly brushed back from her face, but the shining gold curls tumbled freely about her head. “It doesn’t look as special as yours does.”

  “With hair like yours, ornamentation is superfluous.”

  Casey took two strides to follow Ditsy, then hesitated. Firmly quashing any examination of motive, she dashed over to her handbag, reached inside the zip pocket and closed her hand on Jack’s ring. As she rejoined Ditsy, she slipped the ring onto her middle finger, next to her wedding band.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Jack stood in the shadow of a pillar on the balcony that encircled the ballroom, watching and waiting. It was quiet up here, and sparsely populated, probably because the bar was downstairs. He’d chosen his vantage point well, so when Casey made her entrance, he found her within seconds, a task made easier by the woman she was with, who was as bright as a signal flare. Casey waved and moved toward a group of people.