Hell to Pay

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  “Okay, first of all, you need to get off your feet,” Gloria instructs Lucy. “And I mean off. Lie down for the rest of the weekend and see what happens. If the cramping continues, or if anything changes at all, you need to call us. Meanwhile, I’ll have Dr. Courmier get back to you as soon as she’s available.”

  Lucy thanks her, hangs up, and heads straight to her bed.

  It’s been an hour now, at least, and yet she keeps reliving, over and over, the exhilaration of pushing Carl Soto to his death.

  Standing on the edge of the crowded subway platform as the train roared into the station, he had turned his head in the split second before she put her hands on his back.

  It was almost as though he sensed, in that final moment, that she was there, right behind him. Or at least, that someone was there.

  Almost as though he sensed the danger—just as she had the night she felt the earthquake coming right before it hit.

  There was no glimmer of recognition in Carl’s eyes when he looked at her. Of course not.

  She had made sure he hadn’t gotten a good look at her that first night in the shadowy gas station parking lot, when she handed over the money in exchange for his eviction of the Cavalons.

  She had been filled with rage up there in her apartment, sitting there at her computer screen, watching Carl, listening to Carl, as he told Lucy Cavalon what had happened.

  Lucy didn’t seem overly concerned, and yet—

  There was something about her reaction that set off a warning alarm. She was curious, and maybe a little bit disturbed.

  Damn Carl Soto. Damn him to hell.

  Chaplain Gideon was talking to her—shouting to her—about being careful. But she knew what she had to do.

  When Carl Soto left the building, she followed him to the subway, down the steps, past the turnstiles, through the sea of people. Saturday morning in Manhattan. Christmastime. Everyone had someplace to go. Everyone was caught up in his or her own business.

  She was positive no one noticed when she shoved Carl Soto, hard, as the train pulled into the station.

  All they saw—if they noticed anything at all before the chaos erupted—was a man falling onto the tracks. A tragic accident, but one that happens once in a while, like elderly women slipping and falling and drowning in the bathtub.

  And most likely, all Carl Soto saw—the very last thing he would ever see—was the face of a stranger.

  Chapter Ten

  Hearing the key turn in the lock, Lucy looks up from the spy novel she’s been holding open to the same page for God knows how long. In the four hours since she picked up the book and crawled into bed, she’s read maybe a dozen pages—and absorbed none of them.

  “Lucy? Are you here?” Jeremy calls.

  Not Goose, but Lucy. That’s not a typical greeting. But of course, his day has been anything but typical.

  She sets the book aside and gingerly gets off the bed.

  Thankfully, the cramping subsided hours ago. When Dr. Courmier called back, she told Lucy to continue to take it easy.

  “Do you think it could have just been Braxton Hicks?” Lucy asked before they hung up.

  “It could have been. But let’s be on the safe side. No marathons for you this weekend, okay?”

  She laughed, and so did Lucy, feeling a little more at ease now that she’d touched base with the doctor herself. She wanted to ask about the other patient—the one who’d had the emergency C-section—but she thought better of it.

  Did she really want to hear that things hadn’t gone well, if that was the case?

  In the foyer, she takes one look at Jeremy’s jacket and hair and exclaims, “You’re soaked!”

  “The Seventy-second Street station is closed because of some incident. I had to ride up to the next stop and walk back down. It’s miserable out.”

  “Rain, or snow?”

  “Rain.”

  “It’s supposed to start snowing at some point, though,” she tells him. “Tomorrow, I guess.”

  She watched the television news earlier, wondering if there would be a story about Miguel. There wasn’t—but there was plenty of coverage about the “guaranteed” white Christmas, a rare enough incident in New York City that it’s eclipsed all but the most pressing items.

  Jeremy doesn’t bother to comment. His face is drawn. He looks . . .

  Well, as though someone has died.

  And someone has, Lucy reminds herself. Clearly, Jeremy is taking it hard.

  “Was it brutal?” she asks, resting a hand on his shoulder.

  He nods and shrugs out of his coat.

  “Here, give me that.” She takes his jacket and drapes it over the antique coat tree. Damp fabric probably isn’t good for old wood, but who cares.

  “Do you want some tea?” she asks her husband, following him through the apartment to the kitchen. “Or something to eat? Did you eat?”

  He shakes his head.

  “No, you didn’t eat, or no, you don’t want anything?”

  “Both.” He takes a glass, fills it with tap water, and drains it as though he’s been dying of thirst. Then he puts the glass into the sink and turns to her. “Sit down. We need to talk, Goose.”

  Something in his tone—in the forced, unfamiliar way he utters her nickname—strikes a fearful note.

  She studies his face, but she can’t read his expression. All she knows is that something is wrong—and that this is not the time to tell him about her own troubling symptoms.

  Chewing thoughtfully, she watches the computerized image of Jeremy and Lucy in their kitchen several stories above. She doesn’t have to be there in person to notice that the tension between them is thicker than the peanut butter spread on the hunk of bread in her hand.

  Having heard Lucy’s side of the telephone conversation with Dr. Courmier this afternoon, she watches Lucy’s face as she waits for Jeremy to tell her whatever it is that he’s going to tell her.

  She’s probably wondering whether she should, in turn, tell him that she might be going into premature labor.

  If that’s the case, everything is in jeopardy. Everything.

  “It’s all your fault,” Chaplain Gideon tells her now, again.

  There’s no way of proving that the twenty-block walk had anything to do with the cramping Lucy described to her doctor. But it wasn’t a good thing—that’s clear.

  “This could ruin everything,” Chaplain Gideon warns. “If she’s admitted to the hospital—”

  “I know that!”

  “If you had controlled yourself, none of this would have happened. Jeremy would have been at home with her today. He wouldn’t have let her walk to the bank. And even if she had gone herself, she could have taken the subway.”

  “Shut up!” she screams at him, throwing the piece of bread against the wall. She closes her eyes and clamps her hands over her ears. “Just shut up! Do you think I don’t know that?”

  But she couldn’t help herself. She’s been under so much pressure, and she just snapped.

  If only she hadn’t spotted Jeremy with that kid Miguel last night, on the street, when she was on her way back from Holy Trinity. She followed them—at a safe distance, of course.

  But she saw the kid turn around—not just once. Twice.

  She was sure he’d spotted her. She had her hood up, and she was pretty sure he couldn’t have seen her face, but what if she was wrong? What if he’d seen her and recognized her? What if he told Jeremy?

  She couldn’t take that risk.

  After they parted ways, she followed Miguel down one dark street, and then another.

  He looked over his shoulder a few times and picked up his pace, expertly turning corners. He definitely knew he was being tailed, and he was trying to shake her.

  He couldn’t.

  After it was over, she felt better. />
  She just had to get it out of her system. Better some random kid than Ryan Walsh.

  And yet, she can’t keep taking chances like this. This afternoon with Carl Soto, and last night with Miguel, and before that, in the hotel . . .

  “It won’t happen again,” she tells Chaplain Gideon now. “I promise.”

  But he doesn’t reply, and when she opens her eyes, he’s gone again.

  “Bingo,” Brandewyne says, and Meade looks up from his laptop to see her focused on hers.

  They’re back in New York after a hellacious drive back down I–95, which Meade has decided is his least favorite road in the world. Tailgaters, rubberneckers, speed demons. He’ll take the FDR at rush hour any day.

  “Bingo, what?” he asks Brandewyne.

  “You were right.”

  “About . . . ?”

  “Chaplain Gideon. He’s a real person.”

  Meade waits for her to elaborate.

  But Brandewyne, who enjoys dramatic announcements, seems to be waiting for him to ask her to elaborate.

  Meade has no choice but to oblige. “Who is he?”

  “Was, actually.”

  “Is he dead?”

  “No. He’s retired now, but he was the prison chaplain at Hazelton, which is—”

  “I know what Hazelton is,” Meade cuts in, his thoughts spinning.

  Hazelton is the prison where Garvey Quinn was serving his life sentence before he died.

  Jeremy takes a deep breath.

  Maybe, he tells himself, you’re making too big a deal out of this.

  He looks at Lucy, perched on the kitchen stool, wearing an expression of anticipation and concern, her hands folded over her round belly.

  “Last night, I was with Miguel before he died.”

  She blinks. No other reaction, though. She’s cool, his wife. She doesn’t overreact, or even react, unless there’s a good reason.

  Quickly, Jeremy explains the situation—including the bit about Carmen being pregnant. Miguel told him in confidence, but Miguel’s dead now, murdered, and the truth is bound to come out. If not in public, then at least in the police investigation, in which Jeremy is about to become involved.

  Tell wife . . .

  Check.

  Call lawyer . . .

  Next on the list.

  “So you met Miguel to talk to him about whether his girlfriend should have an abortion?”

  “I met him because he was upset that she wanted to, and he wanted to know if he had any legal rights as the baby’s father.”

  “What did you say?” Lucy asks, and he sees her glance down at her stomach.

  “I told him that it’s her choice, not his,” Jeremy says wearily, “and I reminded him that he had committed statutory rape, so when you start talking about legal rights . . . he didn’t have much of a leg to stand on.”

  Lucy shakes her head sadly. “And then what? He walked off into the night and someone killed him?”

  “Yeah. Pretty much.” Jeremy swallows hard.

  “How did it happen?”

  “He was stabbed on the street. His wallet was gone.”

  “So it was a robbery.”

  “It looks that way, but Lucy, I was probably the last person to see him alive—other than whoever killed him. The police are going to want to talk to me.”

  She nods. It makes sense.

  But of course, she doesn’t know that he has something to hide. She doesn’t know that he once killed a man.

  Chances are, she never will.

  “I think I should call a lawyer,” he tells her.

  “Why?” she asks, looking startled.

  “Just to be safe.”

  “Who? Andrew Stafford?”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “He’s a good defense attorney, Jeremy, and he—”

  “No. I’m not calling him.” Jeremy shakes his head resolutely. “I’ll call anyone but him.”

  “He’s the best.”

  “You sure about that?”

  She shrugs. “When you’re guilty, you’re guilty. He couldn’t help what happened to—”

  “Do you think I don’t know that?” he bites out, and sees her flinch.

  Dammit. His anger is getting the best of him.

  Jeremy shoves both hands through his hair, pressing on his scalp. His head is throbbing again.

  “Jeremy, if you want a lawyer—”

  “We can’t afford Andrew Stafford, that’s for damned sure. We can’t even afford a regular lawyer. What was I thinking?”

  She hesitates, then offers him a little smile. “I don’t know. It’s not like you’re guilty of anything. You’re not on trial. You’re just a witness to a crime.”

  She’s right. That’s all it is—this time.

  And even if it weren’t . . .

  Andrew Stafford is the last person he’d ever call to his defense.

  A ringing phone startles Ryan awake.

  He opens his eyes and sees that the living room has grown dark since he lay down on the couch.

  What time is it?

  Nine o’clock?

  Five o’clock?

  This is pretty much the shortest day of the year; it could be either.

  He grabs the cordless phone on the end table behind his head. “Hello?”

  Dial tone, and the ringing continues.

  Wrong phone. Groggy, he pulls his cell from the pocket of his jeans.

  It must be Jeremy, calling him back at last.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi! What are you doing?”

  Phoenix.

  Dammit, he should have checked the number before he picked up.

  “Hi,” he says tentatively. “Not much. What are you doing?”

  “Wondering why I haven’t heard from you all day. Is everything okay?”

  “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  There’s a long pause.

  “I thought maybe we could get together tonight, if you weren’t doing anything and felt like coming into the city . . .”

  “No, thanks.”

  Ryan surprises himself with that reply, but it’s true.

  Not only does he not feel like going into the city, but he doesn’t feel like seeing Phoenix.

  “Are you sure?” she asks.

  “Positive.”

  There’s a pause. “What about Christmas?”

  “What about it?”

  “It’s this week and we haven’t even talked about it . . .”

  A couple of days ago, he’d have made this easy for her. Not anymore.

  “What did you want to talk about?”

  “Well . . . what are your plans for the holidays?”

  “I’m going to my sister’s for Christmas Eve.”

  He wonders if she’s going to ask about spending Christmas Day together, but she surprises him again. “Would it be all right if I came with you, do you think?”

  “To my sister’s?”

  “It’s my first Christmas far from home . . .”

  “But I thought you weren’t comfortable around family.”

  “I never said that.”

  He thinks back. He could swear she did say it. Or something like it.

  Why the sudden change of heart?

  “It’s just that I don’t have any family of my own, so the holidays are kind of hard.”

  His heart goes out to her. He can’t help it. It’s Christmas, and she’s alone, orphaned . . .

  “I’m sure my sister would love to meet you,” he says, “if you’re up for it.”

  Sucker, a little voice says, and he cringes.

  Okay, maybe he is. He can’t help it. It’s not like she stepped out of a Dickens tale, but she is an orphan, and she is alone for the holi
days . . .

  And so am I.

  He does have his sister and brother-in-law, but they’re a couple, and they’re going away to Connecticut on Christmas Day, and that leaves Ryan to spend a solitary holiday for the first time in his life.

  “Really, Ryan? You want me to come?”

  He does. Dammit, he really does.

  “Sure. You’ll love Lucy and Jeremy.” He wishes he were as sure about that as he sounds.

  “I’m sure I will,” Phoenix tells him, and Ryan can’t help but note that she doesn’t sound convinced, either.

  Hanging up the phone, she shakes her head.

  “I don’t think so, Ryan,” she mutters. “In fact, I already know that I don’t love Lucy and Jeremy. You either. Far from it.”

  But he doesn’t have a clue about that. No, things are back on track now with their relationship.

  She was so preoccupied last night and this morning that it had taken her a while to realize that Ryan had failed to call her since she left that message last night. It’s not like him not to get in touch.

  She wondered if she’d gone too far yesterday, canceling their date. But what else could she have done? She knew she’d better keep her distance from him; she could feel the tension building inside her.

  In that mood, if she’d been with Ryan last night, there’s no guarantee that he’d have lived to see Christmas Eve.

  But now everything has fallen into place. Everything is going to work out the way it’s supposed to—as long as Lucy doesn’t wind up in the hospital.

  She’s been keeping a close eye on her, watching her face and her body language for signs that she’s going into labor. It’s hard to tell.

  For both of us, apparently.

  Now it’s a waiting game.

  If things seem to be escalating and she hears Lucy say anything about going to the hospital, or even to be checked out by her doctor, she’ll just have to put the plan into motion early.

  “But that’s not how it’s supposed to be,” Chaplain Gideon warns her. “It has to be right. On Christmas Eve.”

  “It will be. It has to be.”

  “Jeremy—one last thing . . .” Standing in the kitchen doorway, Lucy watches him glance up from the sandwich he reluctantly agreed to eat, seated at the granite breakfast bar.