Stand-in Groom

by Suzanne Brockmann

  Johnny stood up, holding out his hand. “Yeah. Giovanni Anziano.”

  The detective clasped his hand. “Detective Paul White. It shouldn’t take more than fifteen minutes, tops.”

  But Chelsea was shaking her head. “I can’t just leave Moira here. And what about the broken window? Anyone could just walk right in and take our computers.”

  Moira’s voice drifted thinly from the couch. “My brother’s on his way over. He’s going to drive me home. I could ask him to come back and make sure the window gets boarded up.”

  “I can take care of that,” Johnny volunteered. “No problem. But before you go anywhere, I want to know what the hell happened.”

  “The lock on the outer door was jammed again,” Moira told him, “and this guy just walked right in. We heard the bell when the door opened, and when we came out into the outer office, he was searching through my desk, looking for money.”

  Chelsea spoke up. “He had one of those giant Dirty Harry guns.”

  “The perp we picked up was carrying a .44 Magnum,” Detective White murmured.

  “He kept asking where we kept the cash register,” Moira said. “And when we told him we weren’t a retail store, that we didn’t have a cash register, he freaked, and fired at the windows, and started really screaming at us. That’s when I did my Perils of Pauline routine and fainted. But Dudley Do-Right wasn’t around to catch me, so I hit my head on the way down.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t catch you,” Chelsea told her friend.

  “You were a little busy trying to figure out how to keep the wacko from slaughtering us,” Moira said dryly. “Personally, I think you made the right choice by ignoring me.”

  Johnny gazed at Chelsea, unable to keep from picturing her standing there, all alone, one-on-one with a man who probably wouldn’t have hesitated to kill to get the money to buy him the drugs he needed.

  “I was standing there, looking down the barrel of that enormous gun,” Chelsea said, her voice very soft, “knowing that this guy was going to kill me because we didn’t have a cash register that he could rob. And then I remembered—the petty-cash drawer. I keep a purse in the bottom drawer of my desk with about two hundred dollars in cash for emergencies or COD deliveries or whatever. I told him the money was in the other office, and that there was also a back door he could use to get out of the building.”

  Chelsea took a deep breath. “I knew there was a good chance he was going to get all paranoid about being caught, and that he would shoot me even if I gave him the money, but I was hoping that if I closed the door as we went into the back office, he would forget about Moira. So I gave him the money, and then I pretended to faint—I guess I figured maybe if I was lying on the floor, he might forget that he hadn’t already shot me. I don’t know, it just seemed like the right thing to do at the time, and when I opened my eyes again he was gone. That’s when I called 911.”

  The police detective was taking notes on a small pocket pad. He looked up. “You were smart,” he said. “And you were extremely lucky. This man’s MO is almost identical to a robbery homicide that took place in Dorchester a week ago. Front window of the store shot out … Of course, three people were killed that time. Still, my money’s on him being the same guy. We have prints from Dorchester—with any luck they’ll match.”

  Johnny reached for Chelsea, pulling her into his arms. “God,” he murmured. “My God.”

  Chelsea’s voice shook. “May we go to the station now? I want to do this quickly so I can come back here and have my husband take me home.”

  Johnny didn’t want to let go of her. “Sure you don’t want me to come with you?”

  She shook her head. “I need you to stay and take care of that broken window. I should probably call the landlord and—”

  “Don’t worry,” he told her. “I’ll take care of it. I’ll take care of everything.”

  FOURTEEN

  CHELSEA COULDN’T BELIEVE her eyes.

  Two workmen were on the sidewalk and two were inside the office, carefully lining up a pane of glass to replace the broken window.

  She glanced at her watch as she got out of the police car that had driven her back. True, she’d been gone longer than she’d hoped, but it really hadn’t been much more than an hour since she’d left Johnny to deal with the mess in the office.

  Identifying the man who’d robbed her hadn’t taken long. She’d picked him out of the lineup without hesitating. It had been the paperwork afterward that had taken forever.

  The lock still wasn’t working on the outer door as she went into the office. Johnny was on the phone, sitting behind her desk, and he quickly rang off when he saw her.

  Chelsea pointed out toward the outer office and the window. “How on earth …?”

  Johnny smiled at her. “Rudy—you know, my boss at Lumière’s—his brother-in-law is best friends with a guy whose son owns a glass-replacement company. We got lucky, both that they had a truck in the neighborhood, and that this is a pretty standard-sized window.” He stood up. “Let me see how long these guys think they’re going to be. If they’re going to be here for a while, I’ll take you home and then come back.”

  Chelsea followed him out into the outer office. There were two police detectives dusting Moira’s desk for fingerprints, and a uniformed cop standing nearby, chatting with them. This office had never been so busy. “Don’t you have to be at the restaurant pretty soon?”

  Johnny shook his head. “I told Rudy I wouldn’t be able to get in until five at the earliest. I’ll call in later and tell the guys what to start chopping for the evening’s special.”

  Chelsea looked at the window and the men working. “They’re going to be done in just a few minutes. Why don’t we just wait, that way you won’t have to come back?”

  “I’m going to have to come back anyway,” Johnny told her, putting an arm around her shoulder and giving her a hug. “Someone needs to be here when the truck arrives.”

  “Truck?”

  “Yeah. I arranged for a moving company to come out and pick up your computers and all the stuff in your desks and on your shelves,” Johnny told her.

  “What?” Chelsea was shocked. “And move them where?”

  “To my condo. I figured we can bring the dining-room table into one of the spare bedrooms and set up a temporary office there and—”

  “No way.” Chelsea pushed away from him. “Absolutely not. That’s crazy—”

  “It would only be temporary,” he said. “Until you found office space in a better part of town.”

  Her voice rose. “Johnny … God! We can’t afford to be in a better part of town.”

  “You can’t afford not to be.”

  “I can’t believe you would just go and call movers without even asking me.”

  His voice rose too. “I can’t believe you’re even thinking about staying here after what happened!”

  “Well, I am thinking about it. And the more I think, the more I’m convinced that we have to stay. We have a lease. If we leave we’ll be breaking the lease, and we’ll not only have to pay a higher rent, but we’ll be slammed with a lawsuit and forced to pay the rent on this place too. Not to mention all the time we’ll waste searching for some mythical office that’s both safe and affordable.”

  Johnny’s eyes were bright with anger. “Money,” he said. “That’s what it always comes down to for you, Chelsea, doesn’t it? What’s it going to cost you? Well, let me tell you something, babe. There’s no dollar amount in the world that’s worth you risking your life for. If you get sued by this scumbag landlord, I’ll pay. And I’ll pay the difference between what you’re paying now and the higher rent on a place with a doorman and real locks on the door. Jesus, in a year we’re both going to have more money than we could spend in a lifetime! As far as I’m concerned, whether or not you should move your office was not a question that required any asking. You’re outta here, as of today. I don’t give a damn what your landlord says, or even what you say, for that matter
.”

  Chelsea couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “I’m not going anywhere, so you can just call those movers back.” She looked around, suddenly aware of the police officers and the window repair crew who were listening with unabashed curiosity. “This is obviously not the time to discuss this,” she said icily.

  Johnny was furious, and the sudden appearance of the Ice Princess didn’t help calm him any. “When will it be time to discuss it?” he asked. “After the next guy with a gun breaks in and this time blows a hole in your head?”

  “I will not talk about this now.” She stalked haughtily back toward her office, and he caught up with her, pushing open her office door and holding it for her.

  “You want privacy? Fine. Let’s go in here, close the door, and talk about how much of your precious money you plan to spend on security to make this place safe enough.” Johnny closed the door behind her, watching as she stiffly moved to stand with her arms folded across her chest, staring out the window. “Let’s talk about the fact that this guy didn’t stumble in here in the middle of the night. Let’s talk about the fact that it was ten o’clock in the morning when he held that gun in your face.”

  She turned to face him and her eyes were cold, her expression carefully distanced. “I’m sorry, this decision is not yours to make,” she said icily. “It’s my decision, and I’m not going anywhere.”

  Johnny wanted to scream. Didn’t she know that just the thought of her coming back here to work tomorrow made him sick to his stomach? Didn’t she know that the fear he’d felt when he’d first seen that yellow tape was not something he could just forget overnight? Didn’t she know that he loved her more than any dollar amount, more than his own life? “Wanna make a bet? I already made the decision—the movers are on their way.”

  Two bright spots of pink appeared on Chelsea’s cheeks, but she covered her anger with a thick layer of frost and spoke more softly rather than shouting. “Your name’s not on this lease along with mine—”

  “No, but my name’s on a marriage license along with yours.” It was the wrong thing to say. Johnny knew that it was the wrong thing to say, but once he started he couldn’t seem to stop. “You’re my wife, and I will not allow you to come here anymore. Why am I even bothering to talk to you about this? This is not a topic that is open for discussion.”

  The Ice Princess facade wavered, then crumbled as Chelsea’s anger became too strong to hide. “You won’t allow me to stay?”

  “Damn straight.”

  “Just because you think you’re my husband, you’re ordering me to just pack up and run away—”

  “I don’t just think I’m your husband. I am your husband.”

  “Like hell you are.” She was shaking, she was so mad. “Get out.”

  “I’m not going anywhere. I’m waiting for the truck, remember?”

  Her movements jerky, Chelsea gathered up her purse and jacket, her laptop and her briefcase and started for the door. “Fine. Then I’ll get out. You’ll hear from my lawyer. This stupid game has gone far enough.”

  “Oh, so now it’s a stupid game?”

  She turned to glance at him over her shoulder as he followed her quickly down the hall, out of the office, and onto the sidewalk. “Marriage has always been a stupid game. And I was a fool to think you’d play by smarter rules.”

  “Smarter rules. Your rules, you mean. What about my rules? What about what I need?”

  There were tears in her eyes as she lifted her hand to hail a cab. “You need my money. And my father’s money. Don’t look so surprised. Did you really think I didn’t know he’d sweetened our deal? Between the two of us, you’ll have enough for your restaurant. That’s all you really want, anyway.”

  And just like that Johnny’s anger was deflated. “Is that really what you think?”

  A taxi pulled to a stop in front of her.

  “I can’t talk to you right now,” Chelsea said with a sob, opening the cab door. “I have to go home.”

  “Let me drive you.”

  “No.” She closed the door.

  He leaned in the window. “Chelsea, we need to talk more. If you think all I need is that money, then we have to—”

  “Go,” Chelsea told the driver.

  The taxi pulled away, taking with it Johnny’s heart.

  His condo was as silent as a tomb. Johnny knew before he even shut the door behind him that Chelsea wasn’t there.

  She’d gone home. To her place. Her home.

  Dammit, he’d handled that all wrong.

  After Chelsea had left he’d called and canceled the movers. He wanted her to move, but now that his anger had faded, he knew that making demands and doing it against her will was not the way to go. She had to make the decision to move on her own, not have it forced down her throat.

  Johnny picked up the phone and dialed her number in Brookline. No answer. He was about to leave a message on her machine when he heard the sound of a key in the lock.

  As he hung up the phone the front door opened, and Chelsea came in. She was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, her hair back in a ponytail. She looked like a teenager, sweet and impossibly young. She stopped short at the sight of him, glancing quickly at her watch.

  “No,” he said. “You’re right. It’s after five. I’m supposed to be at work.”

  She was clearly ill at ease. “I just, um …” She moistened her lips. “I wanted to get my stuff.”

  Johnny felt his heart break. “That’s it? You’re just gonna pack up your things and leave?”

  “This whole thing was such a big mistake, and—” She turned back to the door. “I don’t want to talk, John. Not now. You’re already late for work—”

  “I went in earlier,” he told her quietly. “I got everything set up and ready to go. I told Rudy I needed the night off—to try to save my marriage.”

  She looked up at him at that, her eyes bruised looking in the paleness of her face. “Johnny—”

  “I know. You don’t want to talk. You don’t have to talk—you just have to listen, okay?”

  “I heard more than enough this morning,” she said softly.

  “No, you didn’t. You heard too much and too little, all at the same time. Chelsea, look, I know I was wrong to make the demands I did.” He held her gaze steadily, praying that she would believe him. “I said some things I shouldn’t have, I went a little crazy on you, and I’m sorry about that. But I need you to give me a chance to explain why finding office space in a safer part of town is so important to me.”

  Johnny took a deep breath. So far, so good. So far she was listening, and that’s all that he could ask. He glanced at Chelsea’s watch, reading the time upside down and backward. It was five-fifteen. The timing was perfect. He couldn’t have planned this better if he’d tried. “I’d like to show you something,” he continued. “Will you go for a ride with me?”

  But Chelsea was shaking her head no, opening the door, about to walk out of his life, maybe forever. “I can’t.”

  “Please,” he said. “Chelsea, I heard you out. That day you asked me to marry you? I could’ve walked away from you, but I didn’t. I listened to what you had to say. All I’m asking is for you to give me the same chance.”

  She closed her eyes in defeat. “Oh, God.” She took a deep breath and looked up at him. “I’ll give you fifteen minutes.”

  Johnny nodded. “That’s all I need.”

  ——

  Chelsea sat in the front seat of Johnny’s VW Bug. “Where are we?”

  “We’re in a part of Boston you’ve probably never been to before,” he told her with a wry smile. “We’re a few blocks away from the Projects. This is where I grew up.”

  Chelsea gazed out the window. The dreaded Projects. Funny, she’d always imagined a bombed-out, burned-down landscape with deserted buildings and trash in the streets. But this neighborhood was nice. There were flowers growing in window boxes, the sidewalks were swept, and a carefully tended playground where children played and la
ughed was nestled between two apartment buildings.

  Johnny pulled over to the side of the road, squeezing the little car into a tiny parking spot. “I can’t come down here without thinking about my mother,” he continued. He got out of the car and came around to open Chelsea’s door. “She was an advocate against urban violence. She was one of the leading forces in the community pride program too.”

  He led her down the sidewalk, toward the corner, where they stood, waiting for the light to change. “She started all kinds of neighborhood watch programs, and cleanup programs, and after-school programs. She helped clean out the basement of her health clinic and turn it into a rec center for teenagers. I spent a lot of time there myself.”

  The traffic slowed before the walk light came on, and Johnny stepped out into the street. Chelsea hurried across after him, wondering if her nervousness at being in this part of the city showed. Didn’t drive-by shootings happen down here regularly?

  But Johnny didn’t seem to notice her nervousness. He was still talking about his mother. “But there was one program she started that she wished to God she hadn’t had to set up. They had their first meeting more than fifteen years ago, and they’re still meeting once every two weeks, here at the church.”

  Chelsea looked up and realized she was climbing the steps that led up to the front doors of a stately looking brick church.

  Johnny fell silent as he opened the door for her and they went inside. She followed him down a flight of stairs to the cool mustiness of a church basement. He led her down a long, dimly lit hallway, where there were a number of little darkened Sunday-school rooms off to either side. She could hear voices coming from a room way down at the end, but that room, too, seemed dark.

  As they approached the double doors she saw that the room was quite large. The overhead lights had been turned on only for the far side of the room, creating an area of light bordered by the late-afternoon dimness.

  A group of about thirty people sat in a circle illuminated by that light. One of them was speaking as the others listened. The mood was solemn and the tone of the voice speaking was sad.