As he looked around, it came to him that the apartment somehow seemed lived in, even though Spocatti said it had been furnished only that morning.
Leana dropped her handbag onto a side table. She moved toward the center of the foyer and appraised the room with a sweeping glance. “So, this is where you live,” she said.
Michael held out his hands. I guess so, he thought.
* * *
When he joined Leana in bed that night, sleep wouldn’t come. There were so many thoughts crowding Michael’s head, he knew he would go mad if he gave into them.
Instead, he allowed his thoughts to drift to his mother. Sometimes, Michael thought if he could just see her again and talk to her, he could feel the rage his father had felt for years and go on with this, knowing that what his father swore was right.
But his mother had died when he was three. What few memories he had of her were only fragments tarnished by time.
Some things he did remember—the way she smiled, the toys she showered him with, the pretty cotton dresses she wore. He wished he could remember more, but he couldn’t. It was his father who dominated his childhood memories.
Michael closed his eyes and let his mind slip into the dark.
He remembered….
He was a child and his father was moving toward him, loosening his belt, saying in his whiskey-stained voice that he wished Michael hadn’t been born.
He remembered….
It was a late, snowy February evening and he could hear his father’s drunken weeping in the next room, saying his wife’s name over and over, almost as if it would bring her back.
He remembered….
He was eighteen years old and on a bus headed for Hollywood. Michael would never forget that day, the stale smoky air, the countless hours on the road. Every bit of it was better than the prison his father had confined him to. When the bus left Grand Central, he became Michael Archer and he swore to himself that his father would never again control his life.
He wondered now how he could have let that happen.
He imagined….
Leaving his father and New York, catching a plane with Leana, flying to some remote part of the world, starting over in a land where no one knew them. But he knew he could do none of that. If he did, his father or Santiago would find them and kill them.
Michael’s eyes opened.
Or would they?
CHAPTER FORTY
On Sunday morning, George went through the rituals of death.
In his office at Redman International, he made phone calls. From the undertaker, he ordered an ornate mahogany casket with the initials CER engraved on each side. He phoned his daughter’s favorite florist, ordered dozens of roses to fill the church and, later, the area surrounding her grave.
He phoned close friends and relatives, telling them the time and the place of the private wake and burial. And he spent time alone, still trying to accept the unacceptable. Not since his parents’ death had George dealt with something so entirely personal. He felt numb, not vacant, but absent, as if he were standing outside himself, watching this hell happen to another man—even though he knew it was happening to himself.
Although the board was pushing to sign the final papers with WestTex and Iran on Tuesday, he shoved the takeover from his mind, not wanting or willing to deal with it until the day came and he had no other choice.
He left for her office.
When he stepped inside, it was like moving into a room where Celina still came to each morning. It was having her here that made him most proud. His office was next to hers. If a deal was going particularly well or sour, it wasn’t unusual for them to communicate by yelling to each other through the wall. George’s throat thickened at the thought.
He went to her desk.
Like himself, his daughter wasn’t the neatest person. Her desk was cluttered with a litany of used Styrofoam cups and empty food containers. There were files pertaining to the takeover of WestTex and on the corner of the desk was a photo of them both framed in silver. They were standing in front of the new Redman International Building, father and daughter, smiling because this was their greatest moment. Together, they were invincible. Together, they had accomplished so much.
Who was he without her?
There was a knock at the office door. George turned to find Elizabeth standing in the doorway. She wore a simple black dress. Her mouth was a solemn line. She seemed like a ghost to him, as if this were still unreal, not happening.
Posture perfect, eyes dead, his wife lifted her head. “I’m ready,” she said.
* * *
Walking into their daughter’s apartment was perhaps the hardest thing George and Elizabeth had ever done. Looking around, it was as if she had just left for the weekend and would soon be returning. As they walked from room to room, each attaching a memory to objects Celina once held dear to her, they wondered how they would ever get through life without her.
They moved into her bedroom.
While Elizabeth stepped into a closet, George glanced around the room, noticing that the bed had been left unmade and that the shades were still drawn, shutting out an overcast sky. Behind him, he could hear the sharp clatter of wire hangers sliding rapidly across a metal bar.
“I think she should wear red,” Elizabeth called. “Celina always loved red. It was her best color.” Her voice was oddly light. It clashed against the sound of the clacking hangers.
George turned toward the closet, his brow furrowing as he said that he remembered.
“Or white,” Elizabeth said. “I always liked her in white.”
“Elizabeth….”
“I had no idea Celina had so many clothes,” Elizabeth said. “She’s not like me or her sister. I always thought she was a minimalist. But this? This rivals anything Leana or I have in our closets.”
He stepped behind her.
“I thought it would take only a moment to find something appropriate, then we could leave.” She pushed a rack of dresses aside—the metal scraped. “This is harder than I imagined it would be.”
“Why don’t you let me help?”
“That isn’t necessary.” She pushed more clothes aside, moving quickly, then stopped and lifted a white dress from the bar. She turned to him. “How’s this?”
“It’s fine, Elizabeth.”
“Are you sure? I want her to look perfect.”
An image of Celina as he’d last seen her forced its way into his mind. She had been stretched naked on a cold metal table in the basement of the M.E.’s office, her skin pale blue, her damp hair curling around a face that was strangely swollen. A part of George died in that moment, dissolving into something darker, uglier.
“She’ll look perfect,” he said.
Elizabeth raised the dress and inspected it quickly. Without looking at her husband, she said, “I won’t come here again, George.”
“You won’t have to. I’ll take care of everything.”
With a last look around, they left the apartment, the door locking shut behind them.
* * *
Elizabeth said nothing on the drive uptown.
Their daughter’s dress folded like a barrier between them, her hands clasped neatly in her lap, she looked out the window beside her, oblivious to the two unmarked police cars following them, the sun occasionally glinting in her eyes, her breathing as quiet as the limousine’s virtually soundproof interior.
She was fifty-four years old and she was beautiful, the fine lines around her mouth and beneath her eyes somehow enhancing, curiously enhancing. Watching her, George found himself thinking back to a time when they both were young and happy, the time when they first met and neither knew the storms that lay ahead.
He remembered their chance meeting at a mutual friend’s dinner party and how he told her at the end of that evening that he was going to marry her. He remembered stealing a kiss with her on her father’s doorstep and he remembered the way his heart used to quicken when she alighted from her home to gr
eet him. Then, she was the most important thing in his life. But where were they now?
If someone had asked George that question two months ago, he would have had an answer. But now? Now, he was moving uptown to meet with the undertaker friends had suggested. Now, whoever murdered their daughter and caused the spotlights to explode was still out there, free. He had no answers for any of it. As the limousine stopped for a red light, George closed his eyes and began wondering who was behind everything that was happening to them.
He wasn’t given the chance.
In the limousine, there was a disturbance in the air, a change in the silence.
Beside him, he sensed Elizabeth bristle.
George looked at his wife, saw her looking out the window beside her and followed her gaze with his own.
There, at the crowded street corner, was a newspaper stand. On the front page of the Post was a picture of Celina and Eric Parker, both standing outside Redman International’s gilded entrance, arms intertwined. They were alive, in love and smiling.
The banner headline was huge. One simple word:
COINCIDENCE?
George reached for Elizabeth’s hand.
As the light turned green and the car lurched forward, his gaze moved to the rack next to the Post. On the front page of the Daily News was another picture, this one of him, Elizabeth and Leana.
The banner headline screamed out at him.
ARE THEY NEXT?
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
When Leana left to meet her parents, the morning was warm and overcast. She stepped onto the sidewalk and into the waiting limousine. “Redman International,” she said to the driver, and felt her stomach tighten as they pulled away from the curb.
She was dressed casually yet professionally. When she met them, she didn’t want to appear as if she was trying too hard to make the statement that she had made it and moved on, even though she knew she was.
She had changed since the opening of her father’s building. She’d moved out of their home, found an apartment of her own, landed a job with her father’s rival, married Michael Archer.
She was independent. She had accomplished her goals and she’d done it without her their help. Never again would she need her parents to back her financially. Never again would she have to rely on them. There was freedom there, but a kind of sadness as well. Why did she feel that only she would recognize her accomplishments and not her parents, the very people she most wanted to recognize them?
The Redman International Building came into sight.
Leana saw a large group of reporters gathered outside its entrance. She hesitated, knowing that if she was going to see her parents, she would have to go through this pool of sharks and take the brunt of their questions. Resisting the thought of turning back, she asked the driver to pull as close to the entrance as possible. When the car stopped, she didn’t wait for the driver. She opened the door, lowered her head and stepped out.
She pushed forward, ready for the assault.
But it didn’t come. As she neared the crowd, a sleek black limousine, followed by two unmarked police cars, pulled to the curb.
Leana stepped back and watched in surprise as the doors to the two unmarked cars shot open and several men stepped out.
Holding the crowd of reporters at bay, creating a human shield around the limousine’s rear passenger door, the men protected her mother and father as they left the car and began moving toward the entrance.
The crowd was relentless. Microphones raised, cameras flashing, voices rising above the increasing din, they pressed forward, shouting at her mother, screaming at her father, trying in vain to gain some insight into Celina’s death, on the takeover of WestTex, on their reaction to Eric Parker’s death.
The police were losing control. The place was erupting. In horror, Leana watched the crowd shift suddenly and knock her mother to the ground. George tried to help his wife to her feet, but the photographers knew a shot of her on the pavement was gold. They swarmed, making it virtually impossible for him to help her. Their cameras snapped, flashed and captured the moment for a world hungry for more.
Leana sprang forward, forcing her way through the crowd.
There was a moment when no one recognized her, when she was able to squeeze through and help her mother to her feet—and then, for an instant, everything went still as realization crossed the faces of seventy-five people. The outcast was here.
Elizabeth looked at her daughter in wide-eyed disbelief. A camera went off. George said Leana’s name just as the situation blew.
The crowd started jumping, thrashing, taking photo after photo, knowing what an opportunity this was and refusing to miss it. The police pushed the crowd back, threatened them, determined to gain control.
When a path finally cleared, Leana grasped her mother’s hand and they charged toward the entrance with George at their side, not stopping until they were safely inside and the doors were closed behind them.
For a moment, nothing was said.
Mother and father and daughter looked at one another, still shaken by what had just happened. Outside, the press were jammed against the windows, vying for position, recording everything that was happening inside.
“I thought you were hurt,” Leana said to her mother. “I thought they were hurting you.”
“I’m all right,” Elizabeth said. “I’m fine.”
“But they pushed you,” Leana said.
Elizabeth glanced down at the tear in her black dress, at the scrape on her leg and then looked back at Leana. She seemed to hesitate, then she walked over and held her youngest daughter tightly.
Leana felt overwhelmed by her mother’s embrace. She looked at her father, but sensed a cool distance. George was staring at her.
“I’m sorry,” Leana said to her mother. “Michael and I came as soon as we received Harold’s call.”
Elizabeth pulled back, brushed a lock of hair from her daughter’s forehead, but she didn’t acknowledge Leana’s marriage. Instead, she held Leana’s face in her hands.
“Have they learned anything yet?”
Elizabeth shook her head. “Not yet,” she said. “But they will.”
“When I saw you fall, I didn’t know what to think. First the spotlights, now Celina. I thought someone got to you.” Her voice thickened. She looked over at her father. “I wouldn’t let anyone hurt either of you.”
George looked away.
The slight was like a slap to Leana’s face. She tried to still the anger rising within her, but she couldn’t. “Is there something you want to say to me, Dad?” she asked.
George looked at his daughter, moved to speak, but decided to let it pass. He began walking toward the family elevator, which was behind him.
And that’s all it took. Leana went after him.
She moved past Elizabeth. Besides those members of security who had followed them inside, the lobby was otherwise empty.
Leana’s voice—high and angry—echoed in the enormous space. “Don’t walk away from me,” she said. “If you’ve got something to say, just say it.”
Her father stopped and turned. “All right,” he said. “I want to know why you’re going to work for Louis Ryan.”
“Why?” Leana said. “Because you threw me out. Because I need work in order to eat and have a place to sleep. Because Uncle Harold suggested I contact him. Louis offered me a job and I took it.”
“And so he did,” George said. “And what exactly is that job, Leana?”
As if you don’t know. “I’ll be running his new hotel for him.”
“You’ll be running his new hotel for him,” George said. “Well, well—that makes all the sense in the world. Here’s a woman who has absolutely no experience managing anything other than her shoes and the men she fucks, and she’s been asked to manage the largest hotel in Manhattan. Now I can understand why you got the job. You’re obviously suited for it.”
“George…”
“Stay out of this, Elizabeth.”
“You’re so naive,” George said. “Tell me, why is he taking such an interest in you? Certainly not because of your skills, so it must be to get at me. Can’t you see that? Are you that blind? The man is using you. He’ll probably end up hurting you.”
While Leana sensed part of that was true, she wouldn’t admit it to her father. “As if you’d give a damn. And besides, I don’t believe that,” she said. “He’s done things for me that you’ve never done. He’s treated me like the father you never were.” She shot him a look. “And why is that, Dad? Why is it that you never brought me to Redman International when I was a kid? You brought Celina. You brought Celina every fucking day. You treated her like the son you never had.”
George shoved a finger at her. “You leave Celina out of this,” he said. “You’re not going to drag her into this. Not this. Not now.”
“Try and stop me,” Leana said. “For years you gave her opportunities I never was given. For years you showered her with the love you refused to give me. You neglected me. You made me feel worthless, as if you wished I was never born. You pushed me from your life when I wanted to be close to you, you made me hate my own sister when I should have loved her. Jesus Christ, Dad—and people wonder why I got so screwed up on drugs. People wonder why I’m so goddamned angry now!”
“That’s right,” George said. “Blame your problems on me. Isn’t that how you played it in rehab? Get the sympathy vote by taking your old man down?” He took a step toward her. “Let me tell you something, girl. You’ve had it good your entire life. You’ve had things millions of people will never have. You’ve been privileged and spoiled. So, please, don’t give me any bullshit about how I neglected you, because that’s hardly the case.”
The Fifth Avenue Series Boxed Set Page 32
