Watching for Willa

by Helen R. Myers

  No sooner had she sighed with relief that Starla hadn’t meant Roger Elias than Willa was disturbed by this latest revelation. “Wait a minute. Are you saying it would be acceptable if a more handsome man took a free grope?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “And I suppose the poor guy is to blame for his receding hairline?”

  Starla swept her golden-brown hair behind one ear and shot her a wry smile. “Okay, Mother Teresa, why don’t you heap on the guilt a bit thicker. Is it so awful to want to be happy? Look at me! I’m reasonably attractive, I practice good hygiene.”

  Unable to hold back a smile, Willa hugged the younger woman. “You’re lovely, bright, giving…and you’re trying too hard. It’s like couples who get all panicky because they’ve been working overtime to conceive a baby, only it’s not happening.”

  “Oh, great. Now I’m neurotic.”

  “Stop it!” Laughing outright, Willa pushed her friend to arm’s distance and gently shook her. “What do I have to say to get you to quit doing this to yourself?”

  “Come with me to the club,” Starla pleaded without missing a beat.

  “I’m not feeling that sorry for you,” Willa replied, going back to the mail. Her smile grew wistful as she discovered a postcard from her parents. It was from Paris, and the picture was of the Louvre. She sighed. Tonight she needed to phone Kelly and see if she’d received one, too. It had been days since they’d talked. This whole situation was making her neglect what was important to her.

  “Just for a week—the duration of the trial membership. Then I’ll know if I’m making any progress or not.” Starla followed Willa to the office in the back of the store.

  With her weight or with Ger Sacks? As Willa put the bills and postcard on her office desk, the possible answers worried her. But what if Zach was wrong about Ger? Good grief, wasn’t she taking a risk in giving her mysterious neighbor the benefit of the doubt?

  If she accompanied Starla, at least she would have an opportunity to get to know Ger better, too. Then she could decide for herself what he was and wasn’t capable of doing. Sound logic, she decided, shutting the door again. After all, she would never forgive herself if something happened to Starla.

  “You realize you’ll owe me big-time if I say yes?” she teased, eyeing the woman who stood practically holding her breath.

  Starla let out a squeal and hugged her. “You won’t regret this!”

  “I hope so, hon.” Over her shoulder Willa saw their reflection in the antique mirror by the robes. Starla had never looked prettier, or more excited. So why did that leave her with such a feeling of impending failure? “I’ll try not to disappoint you.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “I know you’re disappointed in me, Zach, but put that thing down. I’ve apologized twice for what I said last week. What more do you want?”

  Eyeing his agent through the open bore of the revolver he’d been cleaning, Zach murmured, “Stop squirming, Felix. It’s not as if this is loaded. Yet.” He did, however, lower the handgun…but only to slip the silver-cased bullets into the six chambers. It was Friday and barely noon. Too early for Felix.

  “In my next life I’m not going to represent anything but women’s fiction writers,” Felix muttered, stepping out of aim.

  Zach snorted. “There’s a gesture. They already own the largest chunk of the market as it is.”

  “Who are you to complain? I can think of only three writers, who may equal or better the deals than you get.”

  Zach couldn’t have asked for a neater opening. But then, that’s why he’d made the comment in the first place. “Sure,” he muttered, “but how many of them have financial sponges as ex-wives?”

  “You were warned.”

  “Mmm…and aren’t you glad I don’t revere the ancient ritual of silencing the messenger?”

  Felix looked thoroughly disgusted with him. “I’m glad to see you’re in your usual positive mood.”

  “It’s a strain, but I live not to disappoint.” Zach nodded across the room. “Help yourself to the bar if my goodwill is becoming too much for you, and tell me what brings you out here? You usually call first,” he continued, not minding at all that he’d added the subtle rebuke. “Do we have business to discuss that I didn’t know about?” Unless there was something he had to sign, they could have done that over the phone.

  “I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d drop this copy off.” Felix drew an envelope from his slim valise and placed it on the desk before detouring for the bar. “It’s a memo to Carstairs about your need to postpone Under the City and present Checkmate first.”

  “I thought you two discussed that over the phone the other day.”

  “We did, but you’ll remember that I also told you how disturbed he was by this deviation. You know the rumors about your, er, fragile mental state. This simply puts into writing your assurances that he’s getting a project you’re too excited about to delay. By the way, it wouldn’t hurt to drop him a short synopsis as soon as you can to give him and the marketing people something to work with.”

  “Uh-huh. Now what’s the real reason you’re up here?” Zach couldn’t argue about the memo; hell, he paid Felix to keep him out of hot water. But what bothered him was that it could have been faxed or express mailed, he thought, watching his agent hesitate adding red vermouth to the ice in the crystal tumbler.

  “Why do you insist on making me upset you?”

  “So my Judith antenna wasn’t malfunctioning.”

  Felix proceeded with the pouring. “You know I owe her an accounting and check from your last royalty statement,” he replied, sounding as weary as Sisyphus. “Since I’m close to two weeks late, I thought I’d soothe her ruffled feathers by presenting it in person.”

  Zach snapped the cylinder in place. “By all means, let’s make sure she isn’t insulted or inconvenienced.” Furious, he jerked open the top drawer of his desk and laid the gun inside. “How much is she getting this time?”

  “You know the percentage. You saw the statement.”

  Bitterness rose in him like bile, and he swore with renewed fervor. “Between you two and the IRS, I should be an artesian well!”

  “What’s done is done, Zach. Let’s just work at keeping her out of our hair, shall we?”

  Zach reached for his Scotch thinking that he would stop protesting the court’s decision right after Judith was locked away for the rest of her miserable, conniving life. “Tell me, are you as afraid of her as you act, Felix?”

  To his credit, his agent at least looked sympathetic, if not comfortable, as he crossed over to him. “I’m merely following the letter of the law.” Taking a sip of his drink, he sat down in the armchair facing the desk. “By the way, I approve of this change in your appearance. You were even beginning to frighten me.”

  Zach wasn’t in the mood for olive branches; but he knew that if he remained in his current caustic mood for much longer, his agent would run and an opportunity would be wasted. Zach grimaced at the thought and rubbed his freshly shaved face, his trimmed nape. He still needed a professional cut, but he’d removed the beard, mustache and some of his overlong hair this morning after a disturbing nightmare. He’d dreamed he’d been making love to Willa, but everywhere he’d kissed her, she’d begun to bleed.

  “Well, we can’t have that, can we?” he replied, smiling across the desk at the other man.

  After only the slightest frown, Felix sat back and conscientiously tugging at the knees of his gray suit trousers, he crossed his long legs. “How’s Checkmate coming along now? Have you worked out the plot any further?”

  “Quite a bit, actually. In fact, I’ve been looking forward to running it past you. My protagonist’s a writer who’s being set up to take the fall for something hideous going on in this cozy, picture-book community—I won’t bore you with the details, but suffice it to say there’s sufficient gore to entertain my more bloodthirsty readers. And as if that wasn’t enough, he trips over a clue that suggest
s he’s being financially ripped off by this associate.”

  “Ripped off…”

  “Yes, indeed. Now being the chess aficionado he is, he decides what the hell, he’ll probably die stopping the psychotics trying to frame him, he might as well see if he can’t set up the so-called friend, too.”

  “Set up to do what?”

  Zach tilted his head and, hoping he displayed more amusement than pleasure, murmured, “Good grief, Felix, you must like the idea. You’re suddenly as pale as your shirt.”

  “It’s a fascinating plot,” his agent replied awkwardly. “But—set him up to do what, Zach?”

  “Why to make a fatal mistake, of course. Didn’t I mention that at heart my protagonist’s quite the radical in a dark sort of way? He wants his pound of flesh, and one way or another he means to get it.” Chuckling softly, Zach raised his drink to the man staring at him, thinking, if that isn’t a look of unholy dread, I don’t know my horror.

  “Having a good time yet?”

  At the sound of Ger Sacks’s voice, the hairs at Willa’s nape—that should have been too weighed down with sweat to move—lifted. But casting what she hoped passed for a doleful glance at the man watching her form on the stair-climbing machine, she sought the energy and the oxygen to reply. “Great. Terrific. Can’t think of anything…else…I’d rather be…doing.”

  His grin deepened. “You’re looking good, Mrs. Whitney. Especially for a first-timer. Real good.”

  “Are my hands positioned right, Ger?”

  Starla’s query came quickly, and maybe a tad too sharply for Willa to think it was anything less than frustration. It made her want to jump off her machine, tug her friend off hers and head for the nearest exit. She had that bad a feeling about what was happening.

  But as if to make her think she was imagining things, Ger immediately circled over to shift Starla’s hold back a few inches on the U-shaped bar. “There. That’s it. This way you’re not leaning forward as much and putting excessive strain on the small of your back. You want to use the whole leg. Watch Mrs. Whitney. Her form’s perfect.”

  “It always is,” Starla muttered, staring straight ahead.

  Willa decided she’d had enough. “I don’t know how you can keep up the pace and still look so fresh, Starla. I’m going to call it quits before I end up too sore to walk tomorrow.”

  She dismounted and used the towel around her neck to dab at her throat and forehead, wishing she hadn’t given in to Starla’s request. It had been a mistake to pick up the leotards and tights, to come here at all. She certainly wasn’t going to come here again. She hadn’t gained any useful information regarding Ger Sacks.

  “Fine with me.” Starla got off her machine, as well, and tugged at her leotard. “But you should have said something sooner. It was silly that you needed to turn this into an iron-man competition your first time out.”

  Incredulous, and more than a little exasperated, Willa watched Starla head for the women’s changing area. She couldn’t believe what she’d just heard.

  “I hope she wasn’t upset about something I said,” Ger said.

  “Well, it’s a little late to worry about that isn’t it?” Willa replied.

  A troubled frown barely marred Ger’s handsome face. “’Scuse me? I was only trying to explain we don’t get into competition here. Man, if she took something—anything—I’d said the wrong way…well, I could get into trouble, Mrs. Whitney.”

  Was she losing her mind? Willa studied the soft-spoken giant. He sounded truly apologetic, as well as completely oblivious to what he’d done.

  Bewildered, she shook her head. “Would you excuse me? It really has been a long day, and I think it’s time for both of us to be getting home.”

  “Sure, I understand. But, um…do you like what you’ve seen?” When she blinked at him, he gestured around the facilities. “Do you think you’d like to extend your trial membership? I don’t mean to push,” he added, again the shy grin surfacing. “But with every membership we bring in we earn points toward a vacation in Hawaii.”

  “I see.” But she didn’t care for hard sells, even if it came more from management than from the man. “Let me sleep on it, all right?”

  “You bet. Sweet dreams.”

  This time the tingling spread all the way up and down her spine. It was all Willa could do not to run for the lounge. Between Zach’s spooky suppositions and the stalker’s notoriety, her nerves were going fast.

  She found Starla collecting her things, a stormy set to her flushed face. Sighing inwardly, Willa unlocked her rental locker. “What was that all about back there?”

  “Please. I’m really not interested in doing this.”

  As the younger woman swung her purse strap over her shoulder and headed for the rear exit, Willa had to hurry not to be left behind. It was nearly ten o’clock and the parking lot was emptying fast. Fortunately she and Starla had parked close to one another and beneath one of the tall security lights.

  “Wait a minute,” she pleaded, once she caught up. “You’re not interested in doing what? What happened in there?”

  Starla wheeled around, her manner feverish, her look venomous. “You had to do it, didn’t you? Your need for attention, to prove you’re attractive and can have anyone you want made it irresistible.”

  The accusation couldn’t have been more of a shock if it had come with a bucket of ice water. Willa looked up at the lights, at the traffic zooming past on the interstate and back at the health club where a bright white star flashed beside the name Vilary Vantage Health Club and Spa. No, she thought, this wasn’t some bad dream; it was really happening.

  “My need for attention? Starla, I don’t deserve that, and if you’ll think back, I wouldn’t have gone there at all if it wasn’t because you asked me.”

  “Oh, stop it, Willa! On top of everything else, I don’t want to listen to you justifying yourself.”

  Since when did discussion and explanation become a negative? Willa shifted her belongings into the basket of one arm and held up her freed hand. “I think maybe we both need to cool off and do some rational thinking about this. Be careful going home, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Somehow she made it into her van. But by the time she was out of the parking lot and driving down the street toward home, she was shaking and the threat of tears made every muscle in her face hurt, her eyes burn. She fought for control, not wanting to give Starla’s tantrum more power over her than necessary. But she wished she could understand.

  What had happened? Starla had never behaved this way before. Suddenly Willa had found herself facing a total stranger, a stranger who’d removed the mask of friendship and goodwill and had glared at her with resentment, and jealousy—even hatred. What had triggered that? Was it Starla’s growing confusion and frustration with the various machines, combined with her insecurity about her body—unjustified as well as inaccurate, as far as she was concerned—that triggered this, this irrational, emotional explosion?

  What a relief to get home. At least the fiasco had managed to take her mind off her other concerns, she thought shaking her head. She killed the van’s engine and eyed Zach’s house. As usual, the only light seemed to be coming from his upstairs office.

  They hadn’t spoken since Monday. Moving in her possessions had eaten a great chunk of time, but she’d gone over Tuesday evening thinking she and Zach might compare notes regarding Detective Pruitt’s visit; however, Zach hadn’t let her in. Instead he’d keyed the audio on his sophisticated monitoring system and muttered, “Go home, Willa.”

  She’d gone, determined to give a new definition to space and privacy, angry that after exposing her to threat and danger, he would deprive her of any feedback or input. But just a glance at his broad back through the blue-net drapes, and she knew that wasn’t the only reason for her ire. She resented him because with one glance he reminded her of what he’d made her feel. No matter how exhausted she tried to keep herself, just thinking of him could rouse inner cravings. E
ven now, tired and hurting, provocative sensations made her still-heated body oversensitive and damp.

  “You’re a glutton for punishment, pal.”

  Collecting her things, she backtracked to the mailbox, relieved to find only legitimate mail inside. Thanks to her set timer, the front porch light had been triggered at dusk, and she had no trouble unlocking the door.

  Once inside, she exhaled with relief and pleasure, thinking she at least had this. How she was beginning to love the place. The first thing she saw was her favorite painting of an underwater scene of a school of fish, and on the long table beneath it were scattered shells, a crystal seahorse and a potted white azalea she planned to plant outside once it had finished blooming.

  The rest of the room matched it for charm and romance. She’d sewn the floral covers for the ivory sofa and chairs herself, and the large ficus and rubber tree plants were like old friends, babied since moving into her first apartment after college. Even the coffee table had a story. A.J. had found the antique diving helmet on their honeymoon and they’d set it inside the huge glass-bowl base, adding driftwood and polished stones to make it look like the floor of the sea.

  But tonight, neither the souvenirs of tender, happy times with A.J., nor the freshness that came with starting over, were enough to soothe the tension churning inside her. Unloading her armful of belongings onto the nearest chair, she headed for the kitchen. Almost past the dinette window, she froze…backtracked a step.

  At first she thought she’d been seeing things. If it hadn’t been for the chair, she would have thought it was someone else looking down at her through that upstairs window. But there he sat, for once the curtains pulled back, the computer light creating a nimbus of blue around him while some other illumination lit his face. That face, she realized, was clean-shaven, and very much like the intelligent, handsome man she’d seen on the inside cover of his novels.