Читать книгу Point Of Departure - Laurie Breton, Laurie Breton - Страница 5

Thank God for October.

Right through the end of September, Boston had been so ungodly hot that she’d come close to melting into a puddle on the sidewalk. But October, Kaye Winslow decided as she cruised Comm Ave in search of a parking space, was as close to perfection as it was possible to be. The days still warm, the nights comfortably cool, the sky a vivid blue, unmarred by summer’s haze, patches of it visible through an overhead canopy of green smudged here and there by daubs of brilliant red and gold.

Luck was with her. She spied a parking space on the opposite side of the street. At Dartmouth, she took an illegal left at the red light, cutting off a delivery van, whose driver blared his horn in token protest. She circled the pedestrian mall and reversed direction, swooping with practiced ease into the empty parking space in blatant disregard of the sign not ten feet away designating it for Back Bay residents only.

Kaye cut the engine, checked her reflection in the rearview mirror and rubbed a splotch of lipstick from her front tooth. Flinging her meticulously streaked blond hair over her shoulder, she gathered up her Gucci briefcase and slid smoothly from the BMW’s soft leather upholstery.

The house stood half a block away, a grand old pile of bricks and mortar situated on Boston’s most elegant thoroughfare. Commonwealth Avenue was the city’s finest jewel, a broad, tree-lined, old-world-style boulevard, bisected by a strip of lush green that rendered it unique in this city of narrow, congested streets. It was one of the most prestigious addresses in Boston. As her associates were fond of saying, location, location, location.

The Worthington house—and calling it a house was a great understatement—had been built by Gerald Worthington in 1886 and handed down through several generations of the Worthington family. When the reigning matriarch had died six months ago and rumors had flown that the heirs were interested in dumping the place and splitting the cash, the Boston real estate world had perked up and taken notice. There wasn’t a broker out there who wouldn’t have gladly sacrificed an appendage to get his or her hands on the property. By some miracle, it had been Kaye Winslow the Worthington heirs had called when they were ready to put the place on the market.

Selling this house, with its six-point-five-million-dollar price tag, would show the world that Winslow & DeLucca was capable of standing its ground against the big agencies: ERA, Coldwell Banker, Century 21. This sale, with a motivated seller and the right buyer, would cement her reputation as a major league player, and then she’d finally be able to put her farce of a marriage to Sam Winslow behind her.

Thinking about her soon-to-be-ex-husband always caused tiny frown lines to bracket her mouth, and Kaye made a conscious effort to relax her facial muscles. At thirty-three, she was too young to be getting wrinkles. But Sam knew just which buttons to push, and he pushed them with clocklike regularity. Two years they’d been married. Two years during which she’d catered to his every whim; two years when she’d been there on his arm, the consummate hostess, the perfect little faculty wife; two years of playing the loving stepmother.

Enough was enough. Sam’s usefulness had come to an end. Kaye had gotten what she wanted from him: respectability. As his wife, she’d gained the kind of acceptance she’d spent her entire life seeking. But now that she’d built a name for herself as a respected member of the real estate community, she didn’t need him anymore. It was time to slough him off like an old skin. Time for a new beginning, a new life. One that didn’t include Professor Sam Winslow or his crazy, anorexic daughter.

Kaye walked up the granite steps and unlocked the massive double front doors, letting herself into a sweeping two-story foyer. With its brass wall sconces and its majestic, winding staircase, both fanciful and uncommon in a Back Bay home of this vintage, the foyer never failed to take her breath away. Right now, it was bathed in light as bright afternoon sunshine poured through the antique leaded panes of the fanlight above the door.

As the clicking of her heels on the hardwood floor echoed through all that empty space, she walked from room to room, raising window shades to let in the light. The house possessed the stuffy feel that all houses seemed to acquire when they’d been closed up for any time, as though the lack of bodies moving about left the air too still and stagnating. She set down her briefcase on the kitchen island, flipped it open and took out the secret weapon she always carried. A quick spray here, another quick spray there, and she transformed stuffy into deliciously subtle vanilla. She knew all the tricks for making a house appealing, had learned most of them from her mentor, Marty Scalia, the man who’d taken her under his wing and taught her everything he knew about real estate. A few of them, including the vanilla spray, she’d figured out on her own.

She tucked the spray back into her briefcase and returned to the foyer, to take a last look at herself in the mirror there. Power suit. Check. Hair. Check. Makeup. Check. Everything was in order. The doorbell rang, and Kaye glanced at her Rolex. Two-thirty, just as scheduled. Promptness always garnered extra points with her. Pasting on a professional smile, she opened the door to greet her client.

Her smile wobbled and faltered at sight of the man who stood on the top step, his hands shoved into the pockets of his lightweight jacket. Shit, she thought frantically, her stomach instantly balling into a hard knot. Oh, shit. She’d thought she was rid of him, thought she’d given him what he’d wanted and that he would go away. Thought she’d made it abundantly clear that they had nothing more to say to each other, that she’d made a mistake, and now she was trying to rectify it.

Apparently, she’d failed to make him understand. “What are you doing here?” she demanded.

“You know what they say, Kaye.” He smiled, but there was little humor in it. “Sooner or later, the chickens always come home to roost.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that you and I need to talk.”

“I have nothing to say to you. Get out of here. I have a client due any minute.”

“This won’t take long. Are you letting me in, or do I have to strong-arm my way into the house?”

“If you don’t leave, I’ll call the police.”

“I don’t really think you’ll do that. Too many awkward questions to answer. All I want is five minutes of your time. If you don’t let me in, I could make things pretty nasty for you. I could screw up that rosy future you have planned. I could screw up a whole lot of things.”

Glancing past his shoulder at the empty sidewalk, Kaye tried to figure out a way to stall him until reinforcements arrived. But her client was nowhere to be seen. They were alone, the two of them, and if she refused to talk to him, he could destroy her life. He’d have no qualms about it. He was the only person she’d ever known who had fewer scruples than she did.

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

“Five minutes,” she snapped. If he scented fear in her, like a wild animal he would chew her up and spit her out. “And if my client shows before then, you leave. Understood?”

Arrogance propelled his smile, and she wanted to slap it from his face. “I thought you’d see it my way,” he said.

Kaye opened the door wider and her visitor stepped across the threshold. Hands flat against the door as she closed it, she took a deep, calming breath. This would all work out. If she was careful, if she used the right words, she could talk her way out of anything. After all, she was Kaye Winslow. She possessed the gift of gab, the power of persuasion. It was what had allowed her to rise so quickly from a nothing little secretary to a respected real estate broker, somebody in whom people like the Worthington heirs were willing to place their trust. As long as she remembered that, as long as she kept a cool head and made no missteps, her carefully constructed little world wouldn’t come crashing down on her head.

Raising her chin in a gesture of defiance, she turned and crossed her arms. Back pressed firmly against the closed door, she said, “I’m listening. Start talking.”