She Loves Me Not (19 page)

He watched her pause to tuck a folded bill into a
charity Santa's hand, and throw several dollars into a supposedly blind beggar's
cup.

She must have been in a good mood. Usually, she had
disdain for street people, as she did for anyone she considered beneath her. For
all her high-profile charity work, Angela had little interest in helping anyone
other than herself.

Swamped in rage, he stalked her at a distance as
she made her way uptown and east, heading toward home from the crowded sidewalks
of Fifth and Madison. The storm was growing worse, and people were retreating to
the cozy comfort of their homes and churches this Christmas Eve dusk.

In the east sixties, Angela turned up a quiet side
street dotted with brownstones and luxury apartment buildings. The block was all
but deserted.

He followed her, wondering how he could do it and
make it look like an accident, just as he had with his
father . . .

A random mugging turned violent, perhaps? But if he
attacked her on the street she would start screaming. Knowing Angela, she would
put up a tremendous fight to protect her precious jewelry and cash.

Maybe it won't be tonight,
he decided—just as he spotted a yellow cab pulling up in front of the
awning in front of an upscale high-rise up ahead. A uniformed doorman came out
to greet the fur-coat-draped female passenger as the cabbie opened the trunk. It
took both men to unload the piles of paper shopping bags and parcels. The cabbie
seemed reluctant to help carry them inside, but changed his mind the moment the
woman flashed him a large tip. He left the motor running.

In the split second it took for the doorman, the
cabbie, and the woman to step through the glass entrance to the building, he
slipped behind the wheel of the running cab.

Shifting it into Drive, he pulled the car forward,
barreling toward the sidewalk, and Angela.

Her body made a dull thud as she was struck by the
bumper. She flew up into the air and landed on the snowy curb, deathly
still.

It took only a moment for him to put the cab into
reverse and back it up the few yards to where it had originally been parked.

He left the motor running and the door open.

The cabbie would be none the wiser.

He strode down the quiet street, fighting the urge
to stop when he reached Angela.

He glanced at her as he passed by. She lay facedown
in the snow, red blood pooling in the white drift beneath a crack in her skull.
He smiled when he realized that it reminded him of the raspberry snow cone he
bought her at Coney Island last summer, long before she betrayed him.

His only regret was that she never knew what hit
her.

He glimpsed the cabbie getting into his taxi and
driving off, oblivious to the dent on the fender or the broken body lying in the
shadow of several garbage cans.

His heart light and his steps jaunty, he walked
around the corner, leaving her there to die without a backward glance.

By the time a passing businesswoman discovered her
and called an ambulance, he was several blocks away. He smiled when he saw the
sirens racing down slippery Second Avenue, sensing where they were going, and
that they were too late.

You liked to think we all get
what we deserve, Angela,
he reminded her silently as he continued
toward home through the falling snow.
And you certainly
did.

H
earing keys in the door, Leslie looks up from the issue of
Self
magazine she's been trying to read for the last
hour. She spent most of that time wondering if Peter is going to show up here
after work. Now that she has her answer, she wonders whether he's going to
pretend this morning's fight never happened.

The door opens.

She remains on the couch.
Be
casual. As though it never occurred to you that he might go home tonight
instead of coming here.

“Hi, babe. Man, it's crummy out there.” He wipes
his boots on the mat inside the door, then drapes his wet coat over a
hanger.

“Don't put that back into the closet,” Leslie tells
him, seeing that he's about to. “If it's wet, just hang it on the doorknob.”

He does, then comes over and plants a kiss on the
top of her head. He smells of rain and cigarettes.

“What'd you do today?” he asks, sitting beside her
and reaching down to unlace his boots.

“Worked out. Went to Rose's. Stopped at my parents'
house to check the pipes.” She decides not to tell him about her temporarily
missing niece and nephew. While the drama was unfolding it seemed important that
she share it with him. She tried a few times to reach him on his cell phone and
hung up on his voice mail.

Now that it's all over and the kids are safely
home, she isn't in the mood to tell Peter. At least, not at the moment. She'd
rather resolve this morning's argument so that she can put aside her nagging
doubts about marrying him.

“Did you eat dinner?” Peter asks, removing his left
boot.

“I stopped to pick up some Chinese on the way
home.” She won't tell him that she has no appetite and wound up putting the
cartons into the fridge, untouched.

“Really? That sounds good,” he says, bending to
unlace his other boot. “What'd you get?”

“Broccoli with garlic sauce and vegetable lo
mein.”

He looks disappointed. “No moo shoo pork or
spareribs for me?”

She shrugs. “I didn't know you were coming.”

“Where'd you think I'd go?”

“I don't know . . . home to your
place?”

He pauses, about to remove his right boot. “Why did
you think that?”

“Because you were so pissy to me when you left,”
she says. “You didn't even kiss me good-bye.”

“I was late.”

“You said you'd call me, and you didn't.”

“I couldn't. My cell battery was dead.”

She wants to tell him that's no excuse. That he
could have found a pay phone, or borrowed one of his coworkers' cells.

All she says is, “Oh.” Then, seeing him lacing his
right boot again, she asks, “What are you doing?”

“Putting my boots back on.”

“Why?”

“Because I'm going home. You obviously don't want
me around.”

“Of course I want you around.”

“You aren't acting like it.” He quickly ties the
lace and shoves his left foot into the boot.

If he leaves now, this will become huge. If he
stays, they can get back to normal. She
needs
normal
right now. She needs him.

“Don't go, Peter,” she says, looking at him. “I
don't want to fight with you.”

He pauses, his hands poised on the boot laces. “I
don't want to fight with you, either, Les. I'm beat, and it's been a crappy day,
and I'm soaked to the bone.”

She touches his arm. “Then stay. Go take a hot
shower. I'll heat up the Chinese. I'll even order you some moo shoo pork if you
want. Just . . . stay.”

She waits for him to hug her. To tell her that
everything's okay. To say he's sorry for this morning, that he'll never break
another promise to her, that he'll never leave her that way, not ever again.

But he simply says, “Okay.”

Disappointment ripples through her. She pushes it
aside; reminds herself that he's not the articulate type. He doesn't like to
talk things out. He doesn't feel comfortable displaying emotion, or dealing with
hers.

He quickly pulls his boots off again and heads for
the bathroom, unbuttoning his work shirt as he goes. “I won't be long. Oh, and
babe?”

“Hmm?”

“Why don't you order some ribs to go with that moo
shoo?”

He disappears into the bathroom. A moment later,
Leslie hears water running.

She sighs and heads toward the phone.

D
on't answer it.

Rose sits straight up in bed and stares at the
ringing telephone on her bedside table, illuminated in the shaft of light
filtering in from the hall.

Just let it ring.

She tries.

And it does.

It rings, and rings, and rings.

Ten times.

Twenty.

Thirty.

She counts the rings automatically, the way she
counts the day care center steps with Leo. Downstairs, Cupid's toenails are
scampering across the floor to the foot of the stairs. He lets out a few short
barks, as though to make sure she hears the telephone ringing.

Thirty-one . . .

Thirty-two . . .

Thirty-three . . .

Silence.

Rose exhales shakily.

It's over.

She waits a moment, just to make sure, then slowly
sinks back against the pillows.

Maybe now, she can get some sleep. She dozed off
initially when she climbed into bed at midnight, but it wasn't long before Leo
awakened. After she soothed him back to sleep, she found herself lying awake for
hours, not tossing and turning restlessly, but tense, poised, not just mulling
over all that happened today, but waiting for the inevitable.

Now that it's happened, sheer exhaustion takes
over. Rose allows her rigid limbs to relax into the mattress, her thoughts
moving ahead to morning. The alarm will be ringing in less than three hours, and
it will be time for the weekday whirlwind to begin. Finding something to wear to
work that she hasn't worn in the past week, wiping out the globs of toothpaste
clumping in the drain, brushing the knots out of Jenna's hair, and the toast
crumbs off Leo's chin, and—

The shrill ringing of the telephone shatters the
night again.

Oh, God. Please. Please make
it stop.

There's only one way to do that.

She snatches up the receiver, fury bubbling inside
of her.

“Who the hell are you?” she demands.

No reply.

Nothing but music.

Jaunty piano chords and a staccato treble
melody . . .

That familiar duet. The one every kid learns. The
one Daddy taught Rose, and Rose taught Sam . . .

“Leave me alone! Stop calling here!”

She disconnects the call, then hurriedly lifts her
finger from the button. A dial tone hums reassuringly in her ear.

She takes a deep breath, another. Her heart is
racing painfully.

Calm down. You have to calm
down. Nobody can call back if the phone is off the hook.

She sets the receiver on the empty pillow beside
hers—Sam's pillow. The dial tone gives way first to a low-pitched beeping, then
to an operator's recorded voice. At last, there is blessed silence.

Gradually, Rose breathes a little more easily.

Finally, she drifts off to a sound sleep.

So sound that she never hears the puppy's startled
barks somewhere below, nor his abruptly curtailed howl of pain.

Nor the creaking on the
stairs . . .

Nor the stealthy footsteps crossing to the bed.

Chapter Eight

O
n Tuesday morning, as she's pouring herself a glass of grapefruit juice in her sun-splashed kitchen, Isabel receives a phone call from Jason Hollander's personal assistant.

“Mr. Hollander would like you to come over today for an appraisal,” the young man informs her. “Can you be here at one-thirty?”

Her thoughts fly to her appointment with Mr. Gabriel and his wife. Surely she can track down a phone number for him somehow, and postpone their meeting at Gilder Road.

“I'm afraid I have a three o'clock showing,” she says, “But I can try to—”

“Then how about eleven-thirty?” the assistant says efficiently. “Mr. Hollander is home all day, and he wants to speak with you himself.”

Pleasantly surprised, Isabel says, “Eleven-thirty would be fine.”

She hangs up the phone and looks around for her briefcase, which contains her appointment book. Remembering that it's still in the mudroom, she heads in there. Not that she's likely to forget a meeting with Jason Hollander, but she takes a certain satisfaction in writing it, in crisp blue ink, on the page for Tuesday.

As she closes the book and puts it away, her gaze falls on Mr. Gabriel's bag again. She has no reason to look inside of it. No reason at all.

Yet she finds herself bending to pick it up. Toying with the zipper.

It's wrong to snoop.

And look what happened when you did yesterday. Your imagination got carried away.

For all she knows, there wasn't even duct tape in there at all.

Yeah, right. Maybe it was really a gray elephant.

Shaking her head, Isabel puts the bag down on the mudroom bench and steps back.

Why go looking for trouble? The sun is shining, the driveway was plowed first thing this morning, and she has an appointment with Jason Hollander himself later. This is shaping up to be a good day, and the last thing she wants to do is cast a dark cloud over it.

“W
ould you like more coffee, Mr. Brookman?” the maid asks as David sets his half-full china cup on his linen place mat beside a matching plate containing an untouched bagel and pale orange heap of nova lox garnished with capers and dill.

“No, thank you.” He pushes back his chair and tucks the unread
Wall Street Journal
under his arm, ignoring the maid's obvious disapproval. Where she comes from, it's a sin to waste food. In his world, everything is wasted. Food, money . . . lives.

David strides into the hall and deposits the newspaper into his briefcase. Maybe he'll read it later, at the office. And maybe he won't. Today, he has found little comfort in the usual rituals. Nothing seems very important.

Nothing but what he's about to do.

He thought about it all night, so restless that his imported Egyptian cotton sheets began to feel like clammy tentacles gripping him.

You're trapped,
he tells himself now, walking briskly toward the door to his study.

With every day that has passed since Angela's death, he's become more ensnared in crippling grief. Until now, he had no idea how he could possibly come to terms with it.

Sliding into the chair behind his desk, David pulls open the bottom drawer—the one that holds his personal files. It doesn't take him long to locate the folder he needs. He pulls it out and sets it on the desk, then stares at it.

The antique clock on the mantel ticks loudly.

Maybe he's wrong.

Maybe this won't help him at all. Maybe nothing will.

Maybe he's doomed to spend the rest of his life mired in sorrow.

“No,” he says aloud flatly.

He's a Brookman. Brookmans don't give up.

He opens the folder.

He expected the envelopes to be right on top, but they aren't. Frowning, he pushes aside papers, most of them legal documents, wondering whether he was mistaken about where he filed—

No.

No, he wasn't mistaken at all. Three envelopes are tucked among the contents of the file, all of them sent to him, care of the donor agency. They're here, just as he knew they were.

He takes a deep breath.

Are you ready to open them'? Are you ready to confront this at last?

Yes.

It's time.

The letter opener.

It would certainly be appropriate to use it on such a momentous occasion. He opens his top drawer, certain he overlooked it the last time he tried to find it. But it doesn't seem to be here.

He rummages for a few moments, then loses his patience and gets back to the task at hand. He'll worry about the missing opener later.

After setting two envelopes aside, David turns over the remaining one.

His breath catches in his throat, then, and he stares down in disbelief.

What the hell . . . ?

“M
ommy! The tooth fairy came!”

“Hmm?” Rose burrows deeper beneath the quilt. It can't possibly be morning already. The alarm hasn't even rung yet.

“I didn't know you lost a tooth.”

It's Jenna's voice, close to her head. She can feel her daughter's weight beside her on the bed. Desperate for a few more precious moments of sleep, Rose drifts back toward that serene oblivion. . . .

“Which tooth did you lose, Mommy? Can I see?”

Jenna's cold fingers are poking at her mouth.

Rose reluctantly opens her heavy eyelids to see her daughter leaning over her, dark eyes curious.

“I didn't lose a tooth, Jenna,” she croaks, wondering what time it is. Her head feels so heavy on the pillow she's not sure she can manage to turn it to look at the clock.

She hears Leo's footsteps racing along the hall. He bursts into the room. “Mommy? When is it going to snow? I checked outside and it
still
isn't snowing. I want to use my new swed from Uncle Hitch.”

“Hey, Leo, look!” Jenna is saying to her brother, who ignores her.

“I'm hung-wee! Mama, can I have bweakfast?”

Rose groans. “In a few min—”

The alarm rings shrilly.

So much for catching another few winks of sleep. Rose fumbles for the snooze button on the nightstand.

“Leo, look!” Jenna repeats. “The tooth fairy came to Mommy's room in the night! Why doesn't she bring you dollars, Mommy?”

“Wouldn't that be nice? I wish somebody would bring me dollars,” she tells Jenna wryly around a yawn, as Leo bounds onto the bed. His foot slams painfully into her ribs, and she winces.

“I'd rather have presents,” Jenna declares. “What do you think it is?”

“Leo, please stop bouncing.” Rose reaches a weary arm from beneath the quilt to drape around her son's shoulders.

She tries to pull him close but he squirms out of her grasp, shouting, “I wike to bounce!
Boing, boing, boing . . .”

“Mommy! Aren't you going to open the present?”

“Jenna, I have no idea what—”

Rose stops short as, in her confusion, she follows her daughter's gaze.

Her blood runs cold.

For there, precisely in the center of the vacant pillow that once belonged to Sam, sits a small gift-wrapped box.

L
eslie comes awake slowly, stretching her yoga-toned body, reluctant to open her eyes and begin the day. When at last she does, she's pleasantly surprised on two counts: the sun is shining through the cracks in the blinds, and Peter is still lying next to her, asleep.

She turns her head to look at the clock. It's past seven. He never stays in bed this late.

The hurt and anger she felt toward him yesterday seem to have evaporated in the hours since she left him on the couch munching barbecued spareribs, absorbed in one of those stupid reality television shows he likes so much. Now, watching his chest rise and fall with his slow, even breathing, Leslie is seized by a wave of tenderness.

He's a good man, and she loves him.

No, he's not perfect. But what man is?

Sam,
she finds herself thinking.
Sam was perfect.

Okay, that's not true. Her big brother had his faults . . .

So why can't you think of any?

Maybe that's her problem. Lots of people canonize their loved ones after death. But Leslie realizes, with an unexpected burst of perception, that she did so while Sam was still alive.

In her eyes, he could do no wrong.

Is she unfairly comparing Peter to the beatific image she keeps of her brother?

Maybe.

Okay, yes. She is. She can't seem to help it.

Sam helped her buy her car. Sam fixed things around her apartment without being asked. Sam brought her flowers every Valentine's Day.

And he proposed to Rose the right way, down on one knee, with a diamond ring.

But you shouldn't expect Peter to automatically do those things,
she tells herself.
And it could be that he just doesn't know how much they'd mean to you.

Maybe she should tell him.

Maybe she will, the first chance she gets.

More content than she's been in days, Leslie snuggles against his back, wrapping her arms around his strong chest, feeling his breathing gradually quicken.

“Hey . . . are you awake?” she croons in his ear.

“Mmm hmm.”

“You decided to sleep in, huh? You must have stayed up pretty late.”

He rolls toward her and opens his eyes. “I did,” he says sleepily. “Too much moo shoo. It gave me indigestion.”

“Yeah? I know a good cure for that.” She traces his stubbly jaw with her fingertip.

“What's that?” he asks, grinning as she presses herself against him.

“Here . . . I'll show you.”

C
hristine's fingers tremble as she dials Ben's cell phone number. He's probably still on the train, she thinks, glancing at the clock on the microwave.

Or maybe he's already in the office. She knows he left early this morning. Even earlier, it seemed, than usual.

Alone in their king-sized bed, she soaked her pillow with tears.

Now, a few hours later, she's managed to get up, showered, and dressed. But she can't help feeling more depressed than ever.

This can't go on, she thinks, sinking into a wooden kitchen chair as the phone rings once, twice, three times.

She needs help.

She needs Ben.

“Hello?” his voice crackles in her ear.

“Ben! You're there! Thank God.”

“Christine? What's wrong?”

What
isn't
wrong? Where does she even begin?

All she wanted, as she lay there in bed, sobbing, was to talk to him. Now that she has him on the phone, she has no idea what to say.

“Christine? I think the connection is breaking up.”

“No, Ben, I think I need—”

“What?” he asks, as though he can't hear a thing. “Speak up, Christine. I can't hear you.”

She raises her voice, practically shouts, “I need help!”

“Help? You need help? With what? What's going on?”

He sounds harried, dammit. As though he's out of breath. He's probably walking across town from Penn Station to his office on Forty-second Street. He has no time or patience for her.

“I'm really upset,” she manages to say, before her voice breaks.

“Are you
crying?
”

“Yes,” she wails. “I'm crying. I've never been so miserable in my life. I need you to come home, Ben. Please.”

“But . . . why? What's going on?”

“I'm just . . . sad. And I need you.”

“Christine, you've got to pull yourself together. I can't just turn around and come home because you're sad. I've got to work, and it's tax—”

“I know it's tax season, dammit!” she shrieks. “You tell me every chance you get. It's tax season. It's tax season. It's tax season. What about me? What about your wife? I need you, Ben.”

There's silence on the other end of the line.

“Ben? Talk to me, dammit. Please.”

Nothing.

“Ben?”

She realizes the connection—deliberately or not—has been broken.

T
he envelope has been slit open.

What the hell . . . ?

David examines the top fold. The edges are sliced so precisely that the cut is barely visible just by looking at it.

Somebody undoubtedly used his missing letter opener to do it.

Who would do something like that?

He flips the envelope over to look at the front, as though he expects to find some kind of clue there.

It merely says
Donor Family,
with a case number and the donor agency's address.

There's a return address label:
I. Van Nuys, 20 Colonial Drive, Woodbury Hills, NY 10534.

No canceled stamp, though. This envelope, like both of the others, was forwarded in a larger one from the donor agency, along with a letter stating that it was from one of the organ recipients. He distinctly remembers discarding both the outer envelope and the agency's letter, and filing this one away, still sealed.

Frowning, David picks up the other two letters. He's positive he did the same with them.

Yet both are now open, their top edges sliced as neatly as the first.

One bears a Staten Island return address; the other is from a place called Laurel Bay, NY. That's on Long Island, he recalls vaguely. The agency woman told him.

David stares numbly at the three envelopes, turning them over and over in his hands.

Somebody opened his private mail.

Who?

One of the maids?

But why?

Maintaining his privacy among the household staff has never been a problem before. He always finds his mail unopened in a basket in the hall. True, he keeps his desk drawers unlocked, but there's never been evidence of anyone snooping among his private papers . . . let alone outright stealing something. But the letter opener is definitely missing, and these envelopes have been slit open.