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To: John Brightman

From: Quinn Garrett

Date: November 19

Subject: Long time no see

Hello, John. I googled your name and found your work e-mail. You’re no longer in Wisconsin—big disappointment. I’m heading to Milwaukee in December to see about starting a manufacturing plant for the HC-3 and was hoping to see you. I have a lot of good memories of the year I spent with your family. Hope you are well.

Quinn

To: Quinn Garrett

From: John Brightman

Date: November 20

Subject: Re: Long time no see

Quinn! How the hell are you? God, it’s been forever! Sixteen years? Of course I’ve followed your rise to the top with Holocorp, so I know more about you than you do about me. I guess you’re probably sick of comparisons to the big Gates guy, but if the shoe fits… Congratulations, you’ve done the world of technology a lot of good. My students already act as if holographic computer screens have been in existence since the dawn of time.

I’m teaching at Rollins, still can’t get used to the Florida climate. My sister is the only one left in Milwaukee; I’m sorry to say my parents passed on, Dad about six years ago, Mom two.

Look Annabel up when you’re there. She started a personal chef business a year ago and is running herself ragged. Take her out and make her have some fun, for God’s sake. You might be the great success story of the twenty-first century, but I can’t believe you’ve forgotten how to have fun. She apparently has.

Will you be around at Christmastime or back in California? Or are you visiting your folks in Maine? I wasn’t planning to come home; Annabel doesn’t “do” Christmas anymore, but if you’re there, maybe I will, and bring Alison and the kids. I’ve got a cousin who owns a house next to the lake and there’s plenty of room.

Got to run to a class, stay in touch.

Best,

John

ANNABEL TURNED her minivan into her narrow driveway on Sixty-third Street in Wauwatosa, only three blocks west of the Milwaukee city line, pressed her garage-door opener and sailed into the two-car garage. Yes, indeed, she was fried like an egg. All day, cooking a week’s worth of meals at the Bergers, the fussiest people on earth. Ted, one of the students she hired to help out, was cramming this week for his exams at Milwaukee Area Technical College, so Annabel had taken over at a time she’d rather be working on getting more new business. Things might be going well, but they could be going better. Her personal mantra.

This time of year was always nuts. Starting mid-November, people wanted to party instead of work. Which meant shifting from high gear to overdrive. Plus, in addition to her regular roster of clients and the extra holiday dinner parties, this year she was adding a new option—Dinner and a Show. Pairing an early dinner party at the client’s home with tickets to The Nutcracker or A Christmas Carol, or a Milwaukee Symphony Holiday Pops Concert. Included in the deal was a limo chauffeuring the lucky paying guests to and from. Dessert and drinks after the show could be had in addition to or instead of dinner.

Brilliant, if she did say so herself, which she did and no apologies. With any luck she could get a real office someday and lose the stigma of the cute little woman starting a cute little business out of her home. Pat, pat, pat and a cheek pinch—yick.

If Annabel had anything to say about it, Chefs Tonight would be anything but cute. Chefs Tonight would someday be an empire. Her dishes would be delivered around the world, syndicated newspaper columns would feature her menus, her cookbooks, her recipes. She’d be the female version of Adolph Fox, the success comet whose tail she was following, the man who’d put his signature gourmet food in every supermarket freezer in the country.

She stepped out of her minivan—oh, for a sexy convertible, but sexy convertibles were bad news when it came to lugging clients’ groceries around town—and grabbed her fancy leather briefcase, a gift to herself last summer when she signed on her tenth client.

Outside in the misty, damp December air, she jabbed the button to lower the garage door. It was unusually warm for this time of year, upper forties and densely foggy, ho, ho, ho, thanks a lot. The houses across the street appeared and disappeared as if they, not the fog, were undulating and immaterial.

The soles of her clogs clunked across cement to her back door, her footsteps louder than usual in the thick, silent air. She grabbed her keys and let herself into her house, kicked off the shoes and padded to the back bedroom her assistant used as an office.

“Hey, Stefanie. Any messages?” She glanced at the miniature lit Christmas tree on Stefanie’s desk. “Very cute.”

“How was it being back on the front lines today?” Stefanie smiled over from the holograph hovering above her desk, where she was entering in the dietary requirements of a new client. Her usually clear eyes looked puffy and bloodshot; her normally rosy skin was pale and blotchy, as if she hadn’t slept well in days.

“Grueling. Like being back in school. But you know the Bergers. Meat-and-potatoes father, mother on the Atkins diet, son won’t eat vegetables, daughter is vegan. No wonder Mom Berger hired us.”

“No wonder.” Stefanie yawned, rolled her chair to her desk and handed Annabel four pink message slips.

“Any new business queries today—I hope?” Annabel leafed through the messages and made a sound of exasperation. “Bob called again?”

“Three times in the last hour. The poor man is obviously still hoping you’ll get back together. He said he wanted to catch you in and I shouldn’t tell you he called.” Stefanie rolled her eyes. “Like I wouldn’t.”

“Well, he’s persistent, I’ll give him that. What else?”

“Four phone queries, responding to the regular ad in the Sentinel. Five calling about Dinner and a Show and three e-mail responses.”

“Any through our Web site?”

“No.”

“Okay.” Annabel glanced at the other messages—one from a downtown organization that wanted her to give a cooking demonstration for at-risk kids. Like she had the time? She handed that one back to Stefanie. “All in all, a good day. Say no to these people, send them a check. Fifty bucks should make them happy.”

“Will do.” Stefanie yawned again, guiltily covering her mouth. “Sorry, it’s this weather. Four-thirty, getting dark already, and the fog makes me want to curl up and sleep forever.”

“Ha! It’s your space heater, roasting you soporific.”

“I’d be a lump of ice without it.” Stefanie shivered and rubbed her hands together over its warmth. “You must have been an Eskimo in another life.”

“Cold is good for you.” Annabel smiled and headed for her own office.

“Oh, someone else called, but didn’t leave a message. Deep voice, totally dreamy-sounding. Said he wanted to surprise you.”

“Really.” Annabel paused in the hallway, frowning. Who would want to surprise her? “It wasn’t John goofing off?”

“No. I’d know your brother’s voice, even clowning around.”

“Hmm. Okay. Probably another male who didn’t quite get the meaning of ‘it’s over.’” She continued into her office, grinning at Stefanie’s giggle. Running joke between them that Annabel had an army of men clawing to get back into her life. Right now that army consisted of: Bob, whom she’d dated briefly, though longer than most—three months—before she got restless. Or bored. Or just too busy.

When she went looking for a man, she wanted her sexual itch scratched, a warm body to provide company for a while, then to leave so she could work on business until the urge struck again.

She was always up-front about what she wanted and they all reacted with the same patronizing nod, and the same gleam in their eyes that said they knew it was only a matter of time before their irresistible masculinity got her in touch with her inner need to be enslaved.

Strangely enough, it never had. Oh, my. Gasp of surprise and horror. A traitor to her gender she must be.

The look of bemused shock on the men’s faces when she broke it off was identical, too. Impossible for them to comprehend that a woman didn’t see her salvation in the form of a man. Ball-breaker, bitch, slut—she’d been called them all, and worse. When all along she’d been nothing but honest about where the relationship would end up and what she wanted it for.

Even more ironic, if she’d been one of their male buddies, they’d admire her. Hey, dude, there’s someone who got it right. Hot babes when he needs them, dumps them when he’s done, no entanglements, no strings. But she was a woman, and they didn’t like seeing their own behavior reflected back.

Tough. Like a turkey roasted too long. This worked for her.

She went into her office, enjoying the clean, sleek look of the cream-colored walls, beige carpet and honey-maple furniture. The furniture had been an indulgence, but what was the point in buying cheap things that wouldn’t last?

None. Why buy jarred caviar when you could save up for fresh and be sixty times happier, even if you could only eat it a quarter as often? You still came out ahead.

The phone rang; she waited for Stefanie to pick it up, curious about the deep-voiced man. Raoul had a pretty deep voice. But he’d long since married and would have no reason to call. Peter—maybe, but they’d parted badly. David, ditto.

Stefanie exchanged warm Christmas wishes with the caller, then clicked the hold button.

“Annabel, it’s your cousin Linda.”

“Oh, no.” Annabel braced herself and picked up her phone. Either Linda had more questions about her husband, Evan’s, holiday business party, which Chefs Tonight was preparing again this year, or, as every year, the same invitation—We’re having a Christmas party, hope you can join us. Sweet of her, but Christmas was one of the few days this time of year that Annabel could avoid anything that involved either preparing food or parties. Her idea of Christmas heaven was staying in bed all day, watching movies and eating junk food. “Hi, Linda.”

“Hey, Annabel. How’s business going?” Linda’s voice always sounded as if she was about to laugh, was laughing, or had just stopped. Annabel had a perfectly well-evolved sense of humor, but she would never understand what Linda found funny every second of the day.

“Business is booming, thanks.” She kept her answer short, knowing Linda didn’t really want all the details of how her business was going, and because they’d talked only last month about Evan’s party. “How are Evan and the kids?”

Okay, so she asked. She had to ask. But Linda didn’t realize that Annabel wanted to hear about Linda’s kids exactly as much as Linda wanted to hear about Annabel’s business.

After three minutes of detailed descriptions of each child—how many were there, a hundred by now?—his or her activities, clothing, cute antics, new words, Annabel couldn’t take it anymore.

“So then Lawrence was sitting there, covered in yogurt and I—”

“Linda, I’m so sorry to interrupt you, but I have another call I have to take. Was there anything you wanted to talk about for Evan’s party?”

Linda laughed as if Annabel was the wittiest person she’d ever met. “Oh, no. I just want to invite you to our annual Christmas Party. Four o’clock Christmas Day, by then the kids are all—”

“Oh, gosh, Linda, that’s a bad day for me.”

“But it’s Christmas. You shouldn’t be working, you should be spending time surrounded by loved ones. That’s what the season is about.”

“Sorry, Linda. I really am.”

“Annabel, I worry about you, all closeted up with your business. We’re family. You need to be with us, celebrating.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’m happy as a clam. On the half shell. With shallot vinaigrette and a touch of hot pepper.”

Linda chuckled. “No way I can convince you? I just hate thinking of you sitting there by yourself on such a wonderful day.”

“Trust me, sitting here by myself is what I love most about Christmas.”

Linda sighed, for once not sounding like a sitcom laugh track. “Well, if you change your mind, please come. We send you our blessings of the season.”

“Thanks.” Annabel hung up the phone. Blessings of the season? What blessings? That she was so maniacally busy she could barely see straight? Not that she’d at all prefer the alternative.

“I’m going home.” Stefanie appeared in the doorway, leaned against the jamb and yawned.

“See you tomorrow, bright and early. Ted’s taking the Moynahans as usual, right?”

“Yes. He had a final this morning, he can do tomorrow.”

“Good. Get some rest, you look exhausted.”

“Oh, I’m fine. Just tired. Good night.”

Annabel waved her out the door and settled down to read the newspaper’s business section, looking for any possible—

Phone. Scowling, she picked it up. It was probably—

“Bob here.”

Yep. “Hi, Bob.”

“Did I call at a bad time?”

“You know me, I’m always busy.”

“Yeah, no kidding.”

“What’s up?” She kept her voice brisk.

“Well…how’ve you been?”

“Did you want something?”

“I was wondering, if you’d like to—”

“Bob…” She rested her head on her hand.

“Meet me for coffee, that’s it.”

“No.”

“I just want to—”

“We’ve been through this. And through this. And when we were done going through this, we went through this some more.”

“I’m not trying to come on to you. I’m calling as a friend. I have this—”

“I’m sorry.” She hung up the phone, slightly sick over her behavior. She’d tried niceness. Then firmness. Now it seemed out-and-out bitchiness might be the only thing he’d respond to.

Back to the business section. Nothing interesting in the news, nothing triggering any new ideas. She stuffed the paper into the blue recycling bag and went online to the Metro Milwaukee Association of Commerce site to check for new events she should attend to maximize networking. The one next week she knew about…nothing else looked—

Knock at her door. Grimacing, she stalked into the hallway and down the steps to the back. A short, sweet-faced middle-aged woman smiled up at her. “Hello, Annabel.”

Annabel blinked. “Hi.”

“I’m Kathy. Your neighbor across the street.”

Duh. “Kathy, I’m so sorry. I was thinking…that is I was working, and my brain was…” She made a helpless gesture.

“I understand. I’m asking for donations for the cancer society. And to see if you could spare some time to—”

“Anything but time.” Annabel ushered Kathy in. “I’ll get my checkbook.”

“Thank you. Are you coming to the Christmas Eve block party?” Kathy’s smile turned pitying when she registered Annabel’s blank look. “The invitations went around last month.”

“Oh. No. I’m…busy that day, sorry.”

“Too bad. It’s a nice way to meet neighbors.”

True, if she had any desire to meet her neighbors, that would be a nice way. “I’m sure.”

She signed the check, handed it over to Kathy’s profuse thanks, and ushered her out the door when Kathy showed signs of wanting to linger and chat. Back in her office, Annabel grabbed a small stack of résumés from students at MATC. If the Dinner and a Show program went well, she should be in a position to hire more help. More help doing the work in people’s kitchens meant more of Annabel’s time freed up to generate new business. Things might be going well, but they could be going—

Doorbell. Back door again. She groaned and went to answer, hoping for a nice package or letter dropped at her door that she could pick up and bring inside without having to interact with anyone.

No package. A bunch of kids, probably from the neighborhood. Who—oh, no—started to sing, the worst, most off-key rendition of “Frosty the Snowman” ever heard by man or beast. The first verse was pretty cute, but when they showed signs of gearing up for verse two, she thanked them firmly and shut the door.

Apparently privacy in her own home was too much to ask.

Back into her office, a few e-mails, some correspondence…she was getting hungry. The very fact of life that made her business possible—that bodies needed regular feeding—could often be an inconvenient interruption.

An hour and a half later, papers spread out on her kitchen table, she’d eaten the rest of a decent beef-cabbage soup and the other half of a grilled chicken sandwich taken home the night before from Carter’s, her usual dinner spot. She’d also worked up a few ideas for their diabetic menu choices, and had an inspiration for a carb-free burger with artichoke bottoms instead of a bun for their Atkins selections. Substitute a portobello mushroom for the beef, and add it to their vegetarian menu.

Good work. After she cleaned up, she’d surf the net to see if anything new struck her for a Valentine’s Day special that would bring in more business after the big holiday rush subsided. And she needed to figure out how to lure more traffic to the Web site. Oh, and tomorrow she had a dinner party to cook for in the evening over on the East Side; she’d need to remind herself to get the fish in the morning from Empire Seafood.

Dishes done, she stepped into her clogs, grabbed the full garbage bag and hauled it outside to the receptacle behind the house. Started back in, then remembered she’d forgotten to check her mail, not that it was anything but catalogs at this time of year.

She walked briskly down the driveway in fog so thick it felt like a clammy attempt at a drizzle, with streetlights illuminating the mist like spools of glow-in-the dark cotton candy. The eerie silence on the street was broken only by her steps—impossibly loud, as if the sound waves were trapped, bouncing between the stone houses on the block like the ball in video Ping-Pong.

The temperature was supposed to drop radically tonight, possible snow predicted in the next few days. Oh, how not lovely. But that was Wisconsin in December. She pushed impatiently at her rapidly dampening hair and climbed three steps to her front door, heavy stained wood with an overly large brass knocker.

A breeze blew up suddenly, cold and damp. A glance over her shoulder showed the swirling fog lifting slightly, exposing the street. She crossed her arms over her chest and rubbed them, elbow to shoulder. Creepy night. She started to lean toward her mailbox, when a black flash of movement reflected off the knocker. Annabel whirled around and scanned behind her.

Nothing.

Strange. She reached again for her mail—yes, catalogs, catalogs and more catalogs—when a sound…or was it just a feeling?…made her freeze again. Was someone watching her? She had the distinct impression of a presence nearby, of eyes on her. Her own eyes flicked over to the knocker, searching again for the brief reflected movement.

Still nothing. Then a noise. Annabel whirled around again. A footstep?

Annabel.

She gasped and put her hand to her hammering heart. God, for a second she even thought she heard her name whispered out there in the darkness. Was she losing it? The fog was creepy, but come on. Who the hell was going to be loitering around her house, whispering her name, a ghost? A squirrel or a cat, or someone’s pet had made a noise and her imagination cut loose, that was all. Sheesh, get a grip.

She put the catalogs under her arm when she spotted something definitely not good. Her door stood open, just a crack, but open.

Steady. Her heart pounded harder; she swallowed with difficulty. Stefanie had been fairly spacey the past few weeks; she might have forgotten to close it.

The wood felt cool and slightly damp under her fingertips as she pushed it open and went inside. In the living room, she paused, ears straining. No noise. Nothing looked disturbed. She went through the house, approaching each room with caution.

Nothing.

Okay, she was satisfied no one had been here who wasn’t supposed to be. Stefanie must have left the door open. The spooky weather had set off Annabel’s fear.

Back downstairs, she relocked both doors. Then for good measure, she checked that the first-floor windows were locked, too.

Good. Back to normal. Weirdness dispelled. Maybe to add warmth, she’d light a fire in her kinky fireplace—the tiles around the hearth had been painted and installed by the house’s previous occupant. At first glance, innocent decoration. But a close look showed various couples enjoying various acts of…non-innocence.

Annabel loved them.

She crumpled newspaper, added kindling, and one log—why bother with more when she’d only be here briefly?

While the fire caught, she turned the heat down to sixty, turned on the outside lights and went up to her room. Changed into her bright red pajamas, brushed her teeth, washed her face, and took two cooking magazines back downstairs. So she could research while enjoying the flickering flames.

Six fairly dull articles later—how to make the perfect holiday centerpiece…what, to distract from bad food?—the breeze that started lifting the fog earlier had become a serious wind, rattling her windows and moaning through the crack under the front door. Annabel shivered. Wind was a restless, roaming, angry force and it made her want to bury herself under her blankets and pillow the way she had when she was a child. Thunder and lightning, no problem. Hail, ditto. But strong winds, no thanks. One tornado-producing storm had roared through her childhood and blown into her a healthy fear of that power.

The fire all but out, she beat a hasty childish retreat upstairs into her room. By that time, the gusts had died down a bit and another sound rose up, a clanking rattle, as if someone was dragging metal down the street.

She laughed uneasily and shook her head. So now her ghost had chains? How clichéd.

The wind picked up again, the rattling came closer, then an unearthly howl competed with the gusting blasts.

“Oh, for—” Annabel leaped to the window. This was starting to feel like the setup to a horror movie, and it was giving her the heebie-jeebies.

She yanked aside the curtain and pulled up the shade, determined to find normal and comforting explanations.

Ha. Just as she thought. The howling was Elsa, the beagle next door. Clanking chains—she scanned the street. Hmm.

Wait… Annabel squinted and pressed her forehead to the glass. Across the street, a man was jacking up his car. Ta-da. Clanking metal equaled jack being dragged around the car. Aha. Nothing like the delightful dullness of everyday explanations for her fears.

She stayed at the window and watched the man working, squatted in the street next to his flat tire. He had on a long dark dress coat, unusual in this neighborhood, where most of the men wore casual parkas.

The headlights of an oncoming car caught him; he turned his head and stood to get out of the way. Annabel registered a strong nose, nice profile, dark hair ruffling in the wind. He looked vaguely familiar.

The car passed, leaving the man in darkness again, except for the glow of the streetlight in front of Annabel’s house, no longer so shrouded by fog. She watched, waiting for the man to crouch and continue working.

Instead, he turned and looked directly up at her, as if he’d known she was standing there. Annabel gasped and instinctively lunged out of sight, then stood in the shadow of her curtain, hand pressed against her chest. He looked familiar straight on, too, but she couldn’t place him. Someone she had met at an after-hours event? She went over his features in her memory, trying to imagine him with a drink in his hand, or sitting in a lecture hall, or at a family dining table while she served dinner.

No luck. But she knew him, no question.

On impulse, she yanked down the shades, turned the lights out in her room and crept back to the window, folding back the edge of the shade just the tiniest bit so she could peek without being silhouetted by the light in her room.

He was gone.

She blinked and searched the area around his car. Nothing. Nowhere. Vanished.

Okay, the night was getting even weirder now.

Forget it. Back to bed, to Gourmet and Food & Wine. He probably gave up on the tire and went into his car to dial roadside assistance.

She’d settled back into her bed and picked up her magazine when her front doorbell rang, followed by the sharp metallic rapping of the knocker.