Elevator, The (22 page)

She glances up, looking for some sign that her lie has been believed, but Michelle’s expression remains grim. Perhaps it doesn’t matter. When they escape this stifling cage, she will have to tell the police that Gina said the gun was a bluff.

Leaving the gun at her side, Gina swipes a hand through her hair and finds herself yearning for a cigarette. She hasn’t smoked in years, but right now she’d happily commit armed robbery for a lighter and a pack of Kents. Her hands need something to keep them occupied…like a length of piano wire and Sonny’s neck.

What is that Kipling quote? Something about pairs—ah, yes:
For the sin ye do by two and two, ye must pay for one by one.

Sonny still deserves to die, but her kids shouldn’t have to suffer. She left the house early so she could take care of things without involving the children, but now they’re alone and probably frantic. If chaos theory has its way with this elevator…

As water drips from the open hatch in an arrhythmic patter, Gina’s anxiety shifts to a deeper and more urgent fear. She can’t bear the thought of her children being orphaned. Her will names her sister as their guardian, but Marion is more doctor than mother; family lies at the bottom of her priority list.

Gina concentrates on taking steady breaths as another alarming thought rises—if Michelle’s baby is born, the truth will come out. People will want to know who the child’s father is, and Michelle won’t hesitate to tell them. Though most of society doesn’t even blink at infidelity these days, Sonny’s crowd prides itself on discretion. If his reputation is soiled, Gina’s children will pay a price.

Even if Sonny’s in the grave, his family won’t escape ridicule.

How will Matthew get references for a profitable part-time job if the old stodgies at the club learn about Sonny’s philandering? None of them are saints, but they keep their skeletons locked in the closet. Sonny, on the other hand, has brazenly paraded his mistress through Tampa and may have even squired her to one of his Gasparilla Krewe meetings. The elite may have winked at those outings, but they won’t be as forgiving if Michelle shows up at a Gasparilla ball with Sonny’s child in tow.

Gina lifts her head as a cacophony assaults her ear—a screech of metal, the yowl of the wind, a brief rip that reminds her of shuffled playing cards. How apt—in the same hour that trauma is shattering her world, a hurricane is destroying her shelter.

But she’s not alone…and perhaps she’s looking at this from the wrong perspective. She’s been so busy smarting as the wounded wife, she’s forgotten that Sonny has wounded someone else.

She peers at Michelle, who looks pale and spent in the glow of the emergency light. Perhaps the woman is upset enough to terminate her pregnancy.

Gina gently clears her throat. “Have you,” she says, reaching for the pearls at her neck, “carefully considered your situation? Would you want a man who has lied to you? Would you want to have his baby?”

Michelle’s face empties of expression and locks. “You want me to have an abortion.”

“No one would expect you to carry the child of a man who took advantage of you—”

“Killing’s your answer to everything, isn’t it?” Michelle draws her lips into a tight smile. “Think back, Gina, to what you told me a while ago—you said the birth of your son was the most incredible thing that ever happened to you.”

“My situation was different. I had a husband. We had planned for the baby—”

“Maybe I won’t have a husband, maybe I won’t feel the same way. But if we get out of here, I’m giving this baby a chance.”

Gina lifts her hands in a gesture of surrender. All right, so Michelle’s hearing the tick of her biological clock. Now that she knows the truth about Sonny, she’ll probably use the little darling to her own advantage, trading her injury for sympathy as she parades Sonny Rossman’s abandoned love child through downtown Tampa.

Only one option remains, then. At some point Michelle has to die…along with the maid, who would otherwise be a witness.

Gina closes her eyes to focus her thoughts. The Mexican girl has a sufficiently shady past. She could have found the Rohrbaugh in Sonny’s office and slipped it into her pocket, shooting Michelle before Gina managed to wrest the gun away and fire in self-defense. But she’d need a motive.

Gina opens one eye to peer at the brunette’s wrist, where a watch dangles from a gold chain. Not expensive, but nice enough. The maid shoots Michelle for the watch; Gina struggles to take the weapon and kills the maid in the process. Two dead bodies, two bullet casings on the floor, gunpowder residue on everyone in these close quarters. Gina could place Isabel’s prints on the weapon, then drop it in the center of the car.

It’s not the most carefully thought-out scenario, but in the aftermath of a devastating hurricane, no one is likely to spend much time on the case. The authorities will be occupied with more pressing matters.

Gina swallows hard, grips the gun and stands, boldly meeting the brunette’s gaze. “I’m sorry,” she says, lifting her chin. “But I can’t allow you to leave this elevator.”

I
sabel feels herself falling. Black emptiness rushes up like the bottom of a dark lake and she will drown if she cannot breathe…

She snatches a breath when a moment passes and the red-haired woman does not fire the gun. The woman glares at Michelle with burning, reproachful eyes, but she does not pull the trigger.

Isabel brings her hands together and tries to pray:
Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death….

The words that usually bring comfort do nothing to ease the torment in her soul. When she closes her eyes, instead of the light of God she sees Rodrigo’s blue and lifeless body; instead of warm comfort, she feels death’s chilly breath.

What is she to do? She has brought this horror upon them. The fire in the older woman’s eye should be directed at Isabel; she is to blame for everything. She ought to confess, but Michelle and Gina see only each other.

Like so many times before, Isabel has become invisible…but she should not be forgotten.

May God have mercy, she should not.

Michelle blinks as surprise siphons the blood from her head. She knew Gina was furious, but could she really be so calculating?

She scrambles to her feet, leaning on the wall as she pushes herself up. “I think we should take a few minutes to calm ourselves,” she says, lifting her voice to be heard above the rising wind. “You don’t want to do this, Gina.”

“Yes, I do.” The redhead’s voice rings with finality. “To protect my children, I have to kill yours.”

“Not so fast.” Michelle raises her hand, then brings it to her forehead as dozens of objections jostle and shove in her brain. Choosing the most obvious, she meets Gina’s eye. “You know I didn’t get pregnant on purpose. I had no idea Sonny was married.”

“Maybe you should learn more about your men before you sleep with them.”

“I thought I knew him, I thought I could trust him—” A surge of remorse catches Michelle unawares and blocks the words that have risen like a sob.

How could this have happened? Her relationship with Parker, a bond she had thought as strong as iron, is only an illusion. She had believed him when he said he cherished and adored her. She had felt herself blossom in his affection; she had allowed herself to soften to the point where she felt comfortable revealing her vulnerabilities.

She had told him about her work; he knew what Tilson Corporate Careers did and did not do.

She had almost told him about Bald Knob, her mother and her humiliations.

She had allowed him to plant a baby within her…and she had trusted him to be around when the child needed a father.

She looks away, holding one hand up like a shield, until her roiling emotions have calmed.

“You’re right,” she admits, meeting Gina’s gaze as tears trickle from the corners of her eyes. “I should have known him better. I should have asked around before I went out with him. But I was flattered when he noticed me, and I was interested in his connections. He knew everyone, and I thought he’d be good for my business. So I went out with him…for selfish reasons, at first. Maybe I’ve been with him for selfish reasons all along.”

A wry smile curls on Gina’s lips. “So you’re as big a fake as Sonny is.”

“Maybe…I suppose I am.” With that admission, the cool balm of relief assuages the rawness of Michelle’s alarm. “You’re so right, I am a fraud. It’s been years since I’ve been completely honest with anybody.”

She draws a deep breath and braces for the impact of a bullet, but instead hears a question: “What do you mean?”

She lifts her head to find Gina watching her, one brow arched. The gun is still pointed at Michelle’s chest, but interest, not fury, fires those green eyes.

With a rueful smile, Michelle shakes her head. Why should she explain herself to this woman? Her plans to marry Parker have crumbled; the love of her life has proven to be no love at all. She is pregnant with a child who will demand her time and energy, yet she won’t be able to walk away from her business as she’d hoped. If by some miracle Gina doesn’t kill her and they escape this creaking box, she will still have to endure a breakup with Parker, raise his child, and deal with that dirt-seeking reporter, Greg Owens….

But it felt good to admit her reasons for first going out with Parker, and she was planning to neutralize the reporter’s threat with honesty. What better place to come clean than in this unlikely confessional?

She hauls her gaze from the floor and returns her attention to Gina. “When I first met Parker, I told him I was an executive headhunter, and that’s what my business is supposed to be. A few months ago, I told him the rest of the story, about how we don’t process even half the applications we accept. We charge large fees to write up résumés, then we send our clients to conventions and Web sites and job fairs where they can attract attention. The thing is, they could do all those things without our help.”

Gina’s pale face shows no more than mild interest, but her eyes remain alert as she leans one shoulder against the wall. “So you’re running a scam. And Sonny knew it.”

“It’s not quite a scam, but I’m not what people think I am. Everyone in Tampa thinks I’m Michelle Tilson, an MBA from Harvard. Not even Parker knows that I’m really Shelly Till from Bald Knob, West Virginia, and I never even went to college. All the academic credits on my résumé are…invented.”

Michelle’s heart is squeezed so tight she can barely draw breath, but she forces herself to make one final admission. “That’s another reason I had to come up here today. A newspaper columnist has been snooping around the agency, so I came to get his file in order to make some legitimate inquiries on his behalf.” She looks at Isabel, whose eyes are as wide and blank as bare windows. “Actually, none of that seems very important now.”

An unexpected crash rocks the elevator, overpowering Michelle’s last words. The car dips to the left, upsetting Gina’s balance and triggering a frightened squeal from Isabel.

Michelle catches her balance and considers grabbing for the gun, but Gina might fire, accidentally or on purpose. Though the woman brims with understandable outrage, Michelle doesn’t think she’s a killer at heart.

When the car returns to a stable position, Gina braces herself against the wall while her gun hand wavers. “What was that?” she asks, her voice strangled.

Michelle glances toward the ceiling, then looks at the pistol. “I don’t know,” she says, “and as long as you’re pointing that thing at me, I’m in no position to speculate. So if you’re going to kill me, do it now.”

Gina says nothing, but her eyes appear to be at risk of dropping out of her face.

“Why are you waiting?” Michelle spreads her hands and steps toward Gina, moving forward until the gun grazes the knot of sorrow at her middle. “Go ahead and shoot, Mrs. Rossman. I deserve to be punished and your kids deserve justice. If you kill me now, you’ll spare me the trouble of riding out this hurricane.”

Gina’s squint tightens. Michelle is convinced the woman will shoot until a bloodcurdling scream cuts through the howling wind. She and Gina turn to Isabel, who dissolves in a torrent of tears.

“Silencio!”
the girl shrieks, her hands against her ears. “I cannot listen—I cannot let you talk like this.”

Gina stares at the housekeeper in dazed exasperation. “What is your problem?”

“How can I expect God to hear my prayers when I have done a terrible thing today? I cannot keep silent. Let me confess—let them put me on trial. They can even send me back to
México
—”

Gina waves the pistol in a dismissive gesture. “Will you shut up about Mexico? If you’re married to an American citizen, they can’t send you back.”

“Wait a minute.” Obeying a hunch, Michelle crouches before Isabel and peers into the girl’s face. “What is this terrible thing you’ve done?”

Color drains from Isabel’s complexion as she lowers her hands. “I was in Mr. Rossman’s office.”

A change comes over Gina’s features, a sudden shock of realization. “What happened in Sonny’s office?”

In the pale light of the emergency lamp, Isabel speaks in a barely audible whisper. “They will arrest me because of Mr. Rossman. Because he surprised me and I did not want him to call security. Because I found…this.”

Isabel’s hand drops to her sweater pocket, then withdraws a bracelet that shimmers with the light of a hundred stars. When Gina utters an oath, Isabel breaks into frantic sobs. “I didn’t mean to take it! I was trying to clean up, so I picked up my dusting cloth, a paper on the floor and this. I was not thinking when I put this in my pocket. I have no use for it, I do not want it, I did not mean to take it. I would put it back if I could—I would have put it back when I went again to Mr. Rossman’s office except I do not want to go there, not now. Not since what happened to him.”

The unspoken implication strikes the center of Michelle’s chest with the force of a blow. Gina must have experienced a similar response, because she slowly lowers the gun.

“You saw Parker this morning?” Michelle glances at Gina. “Today?”

Gina stares blandly at the cleaning woman, but a twitch of one eye reveals her anxiety. “What happened to Sonny?”

“
Señor
Rossman—” Isabel’s voice breaks in a rattling gurgle “—this morning. I didn’t mean to, but he caught me and I pushed him and now he is…
muerto.
”

Gina’s eyes blaze into Michelle’s with an extraordinary expression of alarm.
“Muerto?”

“Dead,” Michelle answers. She sinks back to her corner as the housekeeper presses her hand to her mouth and yields to a deluge of hot and noisy tears.

“Who are you and what are you doing here?”

Speechless, Isabel dropped the bracelet. “¡
Señor
Rossman!”

After her fumbling fingers released the hook at her neck, the fur jacket slid from her shoulders as if it were relieved to be free of her. A flood of words bubbled from her lips as she tried to fold it properly. “
¡Lo siento!
I didn’t mean to hurt anything.”

The man strode toward the desk, his jaw set and his eyes narrow. “I’m calling security.”

“Please, no, I am only the housekeeper, not a thief. I wasn’t hurting anything.”

The man would not listen; he was dialing the phone. He would call security and they would file a report with Mr. Jones, the custodial supervisor. Jones had no patience for mistakes; he would fire her. He might even report her to the police, the authorities. Isabel did not think she could be deported, but immigration laws were changing and her neighbors were terrified of the possibility….

Her fingers fluttered to her chest when she remembered the attorney general. That powerful man had an office in this building. He would find out that she had been snooping in the offices. If he or one of his people clicked on their computers and discovered that she’d disappeared after coming from
México
with a belly full of cocaine, they would make her stand trial. She’d have to leave Rafael and Carlos. She would go to jail and news of her trial would reach Ernesto, who would come to America and find a way to kill her as he had killed Rodrigo.

Isabel trembled as terror blew down the back of her neck. Parker Rossman could not report her.

“No,
señor, por favor,
” she said, panic firing her veins. “Please,
un momento.
” She moved toward him, intending to kneel and beg for his pardon, but he turned with the phone still in his hand. Startled by his forward movement, she stumbled and fell against him, then saw him lift his arms as if he could not bear to touch someone so ill-mannered and vile.

Rossman took a hasty half step back, planting one foot on a sheet of paper that had fallen to the floor, then slipped and tumbled toward the window in a clumsy spraddle of arms and legs. Isabel retreated, watching in horror as his head hit the edge of the desk before he dropped the phone and collapsed on the floor.

She pressed her hand to her mouth, resisting the scream that clawed at her throat. In a moment Rossman would open his eyes and then he would be truly furious. If she ran, he would call the security officers to track her down. But she could not stand and do nothing while she waited for him to wake up.

She took three running steps toward the door, then hesitated at the threshold. What if he needed help? She could not leave an injured man alone. Perhaps his temper would cool if he found a cold compress on his head when he woke. He might not even remember what had happened.

After another quick glance at the man’s motionless form, she hurried to the bathroom and pulled a hand towel from the rack. She ran it through a stream of cold water, then squeezed out the excess liquid and crept to Parker Rossman’s side.

The blood had faded from the man’s face, leaving him pale against the brown carpet. She stood above him, transferring the wet towel from one hand to the other while she studied the businessman’s waxy complexion, then bent low to listen for the quiet inhalation of breathing.

She heard nothing.

Biting her lip, she placed trembling fingers on the side of Rossman’s neck. The flesh felt cold beneath her fingertips, and though she probed in several different places, she found no pulse.