Moonlight Becomes You (5 page)

“If
you
are,” he said.

He had been late getting home and had gone directly to his bedroom. This was the first time he had seen Janice since this morning. “What kind of day did you have?” he asked politely.

“What kind of day do I always have?” she snapped, “keeping books in a nursing home? But at least one of us is bringing home a regular paycheck.”

8

A
T
7:50
P.M
., N
EIL
S
TEPHENS, MANAGING DIRECTOR OF
Carson & Parker Investment Corporation, stood up and stretched. He was the only one left in the office at 2 World Trade Center, except for the cleaning crew, whom he could hear vacuuming somewhere down the hall.

As the firm's senior executive, he had a large corner office that afforded him a sweeping view of Manhattan, a view which, unfortunately, he had little time to savor. That had been the case today, especially.

The market had been extremely volatile the last few days, and some of the stocks on the C&P “highly recommended” list had reported disappointing earnings. The stocks were all solid, most of them blue chips, and a dip in price now wasn't really a problem. What
was
a problem was that too many smaller investors then became anxious to sell, so it was up to him and his staff to convince them to be patient.

Well, enough for today, Neil thought. It's time to get out of here. He looked around for his jacket and spotted it on one of the chairs in the “conversation area,” a grouping of comfortable furniture that gave the room what the interior designer had called “a client-friendly atmosphere.”

Grimacing as he saw how wrinkled his jacket had become, he shook it and thrust his arms into the sleeves. Neil was a big man who, at thirty-seven, managed to keep his body muscle from sliding into fat by a program of disciplined exercise, including racquetball sessions two nights a
week. The results of his efforts were apparent, and he was a compellingly attractive man with penetrating brown eyes that bespoke intelligence and an easy smile that inspired confidence. And, in fact, that confidence was well placed, for as his associates and friends knew, Neil Stephens missed very little.

He smoothed down the sleeves of his jacket, remembering that his assistant, Trish, had hung it up this morning but pointedly ignored it when he had once again tossed it down after lunch.

“The other assistants get mad at me if I wait on you too much,” she had told him. “Besides, I do enough picking up after my husband. How much can a woman take?”

Neil smiled at the memory, but then the smile faded as he realized that he had forgotten to call Maggie to get her phone number in Newport. Just this morning he had decided to go to Portsmouth next weekend for his mother's birthday; that would put him just minutes away from Newport. Maggie had told him she would be staying there for a couple of weeks, with her stepmother. He had thought they would get together there.

He and Maggie had been dating casually since early spring, when they met in a bagel shop on Second Avenue, around the corner from their East Fifty-sixth Street apartment buildings. They had begun chatting there whenever their paths crossed; they then bumped into each other one evening at the movies. They sat together and later walked over to Neary's Pub for dinner.

Initially, Neil liked the fact that Maggie apparently took the dates as casually as he did. There was no indication on her part that she viewed the two of them as anything more than friends with a shared interest in movies. She seemed as wrapped up in her job as he was in his.

However, after six months of these occasional dates, the
fact that Maggie continued to act uninterested in him as anything other than a pleasant film and dinner companion was beginning to annoy Neil. Without realizing it was happening, he had found himself becoming more and more intent on seeing her, on learning all he could about her. He knew that she had been widowed five years ago, something that she mentioned matter-of-factly, her tone suggesting that emotionally she had put that behind her. But now he had started wondering whether she had a serious boyfriend. Wondering and being worried about it.

After puzzling for a minute, Neil decided to see if maybe Maggie had left her Newport number on her answering machine. Back at his desk, he listened to her recorded message: “Hi, this is Maggie Holloway. Thanks for calling. I'm out of town until October 13th.” The machine clicked off. Obviously she wasn't interested in getting messages.

Great, he thought glumly as he replaced the receiver and walked over to the window. Manhattan stretched before him, ablaze with lights. He looked at the East River bridges and remembered that when he had told Maggie his office was on the forty-second floor of the World Trade Center, she had told him about the first time she had gone for a cocktail at Windows on the World atop the center. “It was just becoming dusk. The lights of the bridges went on, and then all the buildings and streetlights started glowing. It was like watching a highborn Victorian lady put on her jewelry—necklace, bracelets, rings, even a tiara.”

The vivid image had stayed with Neil.

He had another image of Maggie as well, but this one troubled him. Three weeks ago, on Saturday, he had dropped in to Cinema I to see the thirty-year-old French classic
A Man and a Woman.
The theater wasn't crowded, and halfway through the film, he had noticed that Maggie was sitting alone a few rows ahead of him, four seats over. He had been
about to join her when he realized that she was crying. Silent tears coursed down her cheeks, and she held her hand to her mouth to prevent sobs, as she watched the story of a young widow who could not accept her husband's death.

He had hurried out while the credits rolled, not wanting her to see him, thinking that she would be embarrassed to be caught so emotionally vulnerable.

Later that evening, he had been in Neary's having dinner with friends when she came in. She had stopped by his table to say hello, then had joined a group at the big corner table. There had been nothing in her face or manner to indicate that earlier she had been watching a film and identifying with a heartbroken young widow.

Damn! Neil thought, she's gone for at least two weeks, and I have no way to reach her. I don't even have the faintest idea of her stepmother's name.

9

E
XCEPT FOR THAT UPTIGHT ART DIRECTOR, IT HAD BEEN A
good week, Maggie reflected as she turned off Route 138 in Newport. Both photo shoots this week had turned out exceptionally well, especially the one for
Vogue.

But after the meticulous attention she had to give to noting how the camera was capturing every fold of the astronomically priced gowns she was photographing, it was a distinct joy to put on jeans and a plaid shirt. In fact, with the exception of a blue silk print blouse and matching long skirt she planned to wear tonight for Nuala's dinner party,
everything she had brought to wear on this vacation was quite casual.

We're going to have such fun, she thought. Two uninterrupted weeks in Newport. Nuala and I really will have a chance to catch up with each other! She smiled at the prospect.

It had been a surprise when Liam called to say that
he
would be at Nuala's tonight, as well, although she should have realized he spent a fair amount of time in Newport. “It's an easy drive from Boston,” he had pointed out. “I go there fairly regularly for weekends, especially off-season.”

“I didn't know that,” she had said.

“There's a lot you don't know about me, Maggie. Maybe if you weren't out of town so much . . .”

“And maybe if you didn't live in Boston and use your New York apartment so little . . .”

Maggie smiled again. Liam
is
fun, she thought, even though he does take himself too seriously much of the time. Stopping at a red light, she glanced down and rechecked her directions. Nuala lived just off the fabled Ocean Drive, on Garrison Avenue. “I even have a view of the ocean from the third floor,” she had explained. “Wait till you see it and my studio.”

She had called three times this week to be sure there were no changes of plan. “You
are
coming, Maggie? You won't disappoint?”

“Of course not,” she had assured her. Still, Maggie had wondered if it was only her imagination or was there something in Nuala's voice, an uneasiness that perhaps she had detected in her face the night they had dinner in Manhattan. At the time, she had rationalized that Nuala's husband had died only last year, and she was starting to lose her friends as well, one of the nonjoys of living long enough to get
old. Naturally a sense of mortality has to be setting in, she reasoned.

She had seen the same look on the faces of nursing home residents she had photographed for
Life
magazine last year. One woman had said wistfully, “Sometimes it bothers me a lot that there's no one left who remembers me when I was young.”

Maggie shivered, then realized the temperature in the car had dropped rapidly. Turning off the air-conditioning, she opened the window a few inches and sniffed the tangy scent of the sea that permeated the air. When you've been raised in the Midwest, she thought, you can't ever get enough of the ocean.

Checking her watch, she realized it was ten of eight. She would barely have time to freshen up and change before the other guests began to arrive. At least she had phoned Nuala to let her know she was getting off to a late start. She had told her she should be arriving just about now.

She turned onto Garrison Avenue and saw the ocean in front of her. She slowed the car, then stopped in front of a charming clapboard house with weathered shingles and a wraparound porch. This had to be Nuala's home, she thought, but it seemed so dark. There were no outside lights turned on at all, and she could detect only a faint light coming from the front windows.

She pulled into the driveway, got out, and, without bothering to open the trunk for her suitcase, ran up the steps. Expectantly she rang the bell. From inside she could hear the faint sound of chimes.

As she waited, she sniffed. The windows facing the street were open, and she thought she detected a harsh, burning smell coming from inside. She pressed the doorbell again, and again the chimes reverberated through the house.

There was still no answer, no sound of footsteps. Something
has to be wrong, she thought anxiously. Where was Nuala? Maggie walked over to the nearest window and crouched down, straining to see past the lacy fringe on the partly drawn shade, into the darkness inside.

Then her mouth went dry. The little she could see of the shadowy room suggested it was in wild disorder. The contents of a drawer were strewn on the hooked carpet, and the drawer itself was leaning haphazardly against the ottoman. The fireplace was opposite the windows and flanked by cabinets. All of them were open.

What faint light there was came from a pair of sconces over the mantel. As her eyes adjusted to the dim light, Maggie was able to pick out a single high-heeled shoe, turned on its side in front of the fireplace.

What was that? She squinted and leaned forward, then realized she was seeing a small stockinged foot, extending from behind a love seat near where the shoe had fallen. She lunged back to the door and twisted the handle, but it was locked.

Blindly, she rushed to the car, grabbed the car phone and punched in 911. Then she stopped, remembering: Her phone was attached to a New York area code. This was Rhode Island; Nuala's number began with a 401 area code. With trembling fingers she punched in 401–911.

When the call was answered, she managed to say “I'm at 1 Garrison Avenue in Newport. I can't get in. I can see someone lying on the floor. I think it's Nuala.”

I'm babbling, she told herself. Stop it. But as the calm, unhurried questions came from the dispatcher, with absolute certainty Maggie's mind was shouting three words:
Nuala is dead.

10