A Feast of You (32 page)

I caught his gaze as the doors closed. His eyes were hard and empty.

I
t took a beat for me to make sense of what I’d just heard. William’s father had had an affair with Elin’s mother. Elin was responsible for all the horror of the last few weeks. I blinked. William was gone. I needed to go after him. I grabbed my coat, ready to follow him, but when I jabbed the elevator button, nothing happened.

“Let me out,” I said to the room of men behind me. Charles had buried his head in his hands, and Anthony and Asa directed their attention on anything but me. I was sure they would have rather been anywhere else. Only George met my gaze directly and nodded.

I thought about the way William had reacted when he’d received the news that the wreckage couldn’t have been that of his parents’ plane—drunk, angry, dangerous. “He shouldn’t be alone right now.” My voice sounded small and desperate

“I’ll go with you,” George said. He inclined his head toward a door in the back of the room I hadn’t noticed. “This way, Miss Kelly. It’s faster than waiting for the elevator.”

He keyed in a code on the panel beside the door, and it slid open. Grey metal stairs led up and into a stairwell lit by greenish lights. I followed George, running to keep up with the older man. By the time we reached the lobby level, I panted and gasped for air. George keyed in yet another code, and the door slid open. The hallway into which we emerged was completely unfamiliar to me. George motioned me around a corner. Ahead, light slanted through a glass door to the outside.

We pushed it open and stumbled into the bright and sunny March day. A breeze ruffled my hair and not a single cloud dared mar the perfect sky. The snow on the ground looked out of place against the bright blue sky. Ironic that today, of all days, would be so perfect, with a hint of thaw in the air. I couldn’t appreciate the lovely weather when everything inside me felt black and desolate. I needed to find William.

“This way, Miss Kelly. We’re on the side of the building. William probably exited the front.”

“Unless he went to the parking garage for one of the cars.”

“Let me check.” George pulled out his phone and tapped the screen. “GPS tracking,” he said, in answer to my unasked question. He slid the phone back into his pocket. “All cars are stationary. Most likely he’ll take a cab or walk.”

I pictured William in my mind’s eye. “He’ll walk.” He’d have his head down against the wind, hands in his pockets, long legs striding quickly away. No particular direction. Just away. “Hurry!”

George ran toward the front of the building, which faced Michigan Avenue. He looked left and then right. I followed, careful not to slide on any slippery spots on the sidewalk, and did the same.

“There!” I pointed to a lone figure moving toward the Michigan Avenue Bridge. “That’s him.” I could spot William anywhere, even on a crowded street he stood out. He walked with purpose.

“Good eye, Catherine. Let’s go.”

I stood rooted in place for a moment even as George ran after William. That might have been the first time George had ever called me Catherine. I shook my head in wonder and raced after them.

When I caught up to William, George already had a hand on William’s arm. “Let me call for the car,” he was saying. “Anthony can take you and Catherine home.”

William’s stormy eyes, a mixture of blue and grey lanced through with pain, met mine. “I don’t want to go home,” he said in that flat, unemotional voice that frightened me. He didn’t reach for me and that frightened me more.

“Then I’ll have him take you somewhere else.”

William’s gaze shifted to George. “I want to see her. I want to hear explanations from her own mouth, George.”

He didn’t have to say her name: Elin Erickson.

George pulled out his vibrating phone, glanced at the screen. Whoever was calling didn’t merit his attention at the moment. “That’s not possible, William. Even if you could see her, there’s no reason for her to talk to you. She has a lawyer, who will certainly advise her to say nothing.”

“Let’s just go home,” I said, moving closer to William. I wanted to touch him, but I didn’t know what he needed and I held back. Whatever happened next, I wasn’t going to leave his side.

“She’ll talk to me,” William said. “She wants someone to listen to her or she wouldn’t have done all of this. Make it happen, George.” He raised his hand and flagged a cab. As the driver pulled to the curb, I took William’s hand. It was cold and dry and didn’t clasp mine back.

But he didn’t pull away either. I wanted to show him that I was with him no matter what. I hoped he understood that.

“Are you sure you want to do this now? Today? You can go tomorrow.” My voice was pleading.

“I’m going now.”

“Where to?” The driver yelled out the window.

William looked at George.

George closed his eyes in defeat. “Cook County Jail. 27
^th
and California.”

William climbed in, and I slid in after him as George got into the front passenger seat.

“You don’t have to come, Catherine.”

I took his hand again and squeezed it. “Where you go, I go.”

I don’t know how George did it. He muttered into his phone for most of the cab ride that took us to the South Side. I don’t know who he called or what sort of power he had, but the few snatches I heard made me cringe.

When the cab pulled to the front of the imposing correctional complex, William handed the cab driver a hundred dollar bill without even asking the cost of the fare. I climbed out last, listening to George murmur, “Just do it, or I’ll have your fucking head on a platter.”

William never seemed to doubt that George would work his magic. He held the door for the two of us and gestured for George to take the lead. George seemed to know where to go, so we walked quickly and I had only fleeting glimpses of old buildings with stately architecture but definitely in need of renovation. Cops were everywhere.

I swallowed the bile in my throat. Champagne and nerves didn’t mix well. This was the last place I’d imagined I’d be today when I’d dressed in my studio shoot outfit of indigo jeans and a navy sweater this morning. I’d expected to spend the day behind my camera, not with criminals and police officers. The atmosphere here was so full of resignation and anger and fear that it was like a stench choking me. I was terrified and I almost felt sorry for Elin, that she was being held in this awful place. Almost, but not quite. I grasped for William’s hand, and he took mine in his larger one. I had to be strong for him.

Finally, a uniformed officer emerged from behind a heavy security door, spotted George, and motioned for us to follow him. He led us inside, through an area filled with cops and desks. Some typed on computer screens, others spoke quietly into phones hooked between ear and shoulder. Almost all of them glanced at us curiously as we walked by.

We didn’t belong.

When we reached an office with
Lieutenant Danford
stenciled on the door, George opened the door without knocking. A middle-aged man with short brown hair and a lean body beneath a button-down shirt and tan pants looked up from where he stood before a fax machine. I hadn’t seen one of those in about a decade.

The man I took to be Lieutenant Danford frowned when he spotted George. “The authorization papers are coming through now. You can pull all the strings you want, but I can’t make her talk to you.”

“Let me worry about that,” William said.

Danford glanced at William and then me. The officer held out a hand. “Mr. Lambourne, I’m sorry for all the trouble you’ve been through.”

“Thank you.”

“Ma’am.” He nodded at me. “Can I get either of you something to drink? Water? Coffee?”

“No, thank you,” William answered.

I didn’t want anything either.

“Listen, Mr. Lambourne. I understand why you’re here, but Miss Erickson does not have to speak with you. In fact, this is highly irregular.”

“Where is she?”

“I’m having her brought to one of the rooms we use for questioning. I can’t allow you to be alone with her, so I’ll be behind the two-way mirror. We’ll have to Miranda her again. Anything she says can be used against her, even what she says to you.”

“Fine.”

Danford looked at me. “Ma’am, you can wait here.”

The hell I would
. I was not going to let William face Elin alone. “I’m going with William,” I said.

William didn’t say anything, so Danford looked at George for confirmation. George gave a curt nod.

“Alright, but I’m not sure that’s wise,” Danford said slowly. “Miss Erickson is a bit unpredictable.”

“You’ll be a few steps away,” George pointed out.

“Fine,” Danford replied. “Let me see if she’s been brought out of holding.”

We waited in tense silence in the cramped office for almost an hour. Even George couldn’t cut through police bureaucracy that quickly. I sat in the chair in front of the beat-up desk, trying to wrap my head around the events of the day and willing William to look at me. I wanted so badly to say the right thing, but didn’t know where to even start.

He paced back and forth, unable to stand still for more than a moment or two at a time. His phone rang constantly the first fifteen minutes, and then he just turned it off. George spent the entire hour on his. At one point I thought he was speaking to Elin’s lawyer. Another time he seemed to be talking to the FBI.

Finally, Danford came back. “This way.” He gestured and stepped out of the office to wait for us. He led us down a narrow hallway lined with white walls and white doors. The paint was scuffed and yellowed in places. We stopped at a door marked with the number 3.

“She’s inside,” Danford said. “I’ll be just on the other side of the mirror you’ll see on your right when you walk in the door. Graham, you’re with me?”

George grunted assent.

“Don’t touch her, spit on her—”

William gave him a dark look.

Danford held his hands up in surrender. “Hey, I have to say these things. If you threaten her, be aware that the threat could be used against you if anything happens to her.”

William’s eyes narrowed. “Despite what you’re implying, I’m not going to fucking touch her.”

Finally, Danford turned to me.

“Are you sure you want to go in there? She’s pretty pissed off.”

I nodded, though I wasn’t sure at all. My stomach sank and did a slow flop. I was suddenly glad I hadn’t had any coffee because I wasn’t sure I could have kept it down.

“Let’s get this over with,” William said. I took a deep breath and followed him into the room.

* * *

I
didn’t see Elin right away. I was too busy looking around and comparing the room to the ones I’d seen on
Law & Order
. It was small with a rectangular metal table in the center and chairs on either side. I’d expected a single naked bulb to hang above the table, but fluorescent lights lit the room. As Danford had promised, a mirror ran the length of the right side of the room. I could see my reflection in it. I looked windblown and wan. The sleek ponytail I’d pulled my hair into this morning was coming loose.

My gaze met Elin’s in the mirror, and I quickly looked away.

“Hello, William. Hello, Catherine,” Elin said. “How are you?” She sat with one leg crossed over the other in the chair on the other side of the table. Her hands rested on the table, handcuffs large and clunky on her thin wrists. Her hair looked thinner than it had before. I sat down across from her and William did the same. It was weird seeing her like this. When we had run into each other at Morrison Hotel, she’d seemed so normal. Nice, even, when in truth she was the reason for the hell in which William and I had been living.

“Now that you’re behind bars?” William said, his voice filled with anger. “I’m doing very well indeed.”

Elin’s fingers closed as she clenched her hands until they turned white with strain. “You’re a bastard, William. Do you know that? I never liked you. And I loved watching you suffer.”

William, for his part, kept calm. I had a million questions running through my head, a hundred different things I wanted to say to Elin, but William only asked one thing. “Why?” He stared at Elin intently, his cold blue eyes not leaving her face.

Elin stared back, then she broke out into a huge grin, a crazy grin, and laughed. “I wanted you to pay. I wanted you to suffer, the way I suffered.” She slammed the cuffs on the table, the sound echoing through the room. I pressed my hands to my belly, trying to calm my stomach.

“And how have you suffered?” William asked. He was calm and seemed unruffled by her outburst or by the events of the day. I knew inside he must have been furious and even more upset than I, but he didn’t show it. In the mirror, he looked every inch the powerful businessman.

“Was it money you needed? Was that was this was about?”

She sneered at him. “I don’t want your fucking money. It has your asshole father’s stink all over it. That was just the easiest way to get your attention. Initially, at least. Poor dead Wyatt...”

William’s pinky twitched slightly, the only sign she’d hit a nerve. “You’ll want to watch what you say about my family.”

“Why? Because William Lambourne was such a fine, upstanding man? He destroyed my life and my family. Did your uncle Charles finally tell you the truth about Daddy Lambourne or did the coward leave that to me too?”

Her face contorted into an ugly smirk. Hot red dots of color stood out on her cheeks, and her scrawny body vibrated with anger.

“There’s nothing you know about him that I don’t.”

She cackled. “I hardly believe that.” She sat again and leaned her forearms onto the table so she could look William in the eye. “Where should I start?” She tapped her nails on the table. “How about the first time I saw your father cheating on your mother with my mom?”

William’s pinky jerked again, but he said nothing.

“I was about twelve, and my father was away on a business trip. I came home from a friend’s house early and caught your father bringing my mother home in that vintage Porsche convertible he used to drive around. When I walked up, he was kissing her. My mother told me it was nothing. But I knew then something was going on.” Her eyes had turned hazy, as though she was reliving those days so long ago.