Читать книгу Standing In The Shadows - Shannon McKenna - Страница 10

“Sure, I can drop by and take care of kitty. No problem,” Tonia said. “I have to come by really early, though. That OK?”

“Sure. I always wake up at the crack of dawn anyway when I have to catch a plane. Thank you so much, Tonia. You’re an angel.”

“I know. Get some sleep, chica. You have to look gorgeous for the zillionaire. I’m so excited that you’re finally meeting him. ’Night, then. See you bright and early tomorrow morning.”

Erin hung up, crossed Call Tonia to feed Edna off the To Do list, and proceeded to pace around the room like a caged animal. Every dish was washed, every crumb wiped up, every doable item on the To Do list was crossed off, except for Pack, which rated its own separate list.

Her rolling carry-on was small, so she’d been forced to eliminate several items, the latest of which was the little black dress she’d thought to take in case Claude Mueller proved to be interesting. For some reason, the brief, devastating encounter with Connor had taken all the fizz out of that possibility. As long as she had this stupid crush on him, every man she met would suffer by comparison.

Not that she hadn’t tried. With Bradley, years before.

Something tightened up inside at the thought of Bradley. Ouch. Cancel that thought. If there was a fancy meal, she would wear her black pants and her silk blouse. Neat and sensible, and no chance that anyone could think she was hoping to attract romantic attention. She had no stomach for it. Which left room for the sewing kit, which she hated to leave. You always needed a sewing kit when you didn’t bring one.

She was climbing the walls. She needed to laugh, or cry, but if she started crying she might never stop. She needed sleep, so she could wow them with her professional fabulousness. She needed to stop thinking about the way Connor could melt her into a puddle of terrified yearning with one exquisitely gentle hug.

She needed distraction. Packing and neatening were not enough. She’d promised Mom that she would call Cindy tonight. Now there was a worthy problem. She had to save Cindy’s future from being derailed.

She dialed the group house where Cindy lived with her college girlfriends in Endicott Falls. “Hello?” responded a breathy voice.

“Hi. Victoria, right? It’s Erin, Cindy’s sister. Is she there?”

“No, she’s down in the city with Billy,” Victoria told her.

“Billy?” Erin’s stomach fluttered with unease. “Who’s Billy?”

“Oh, he’s her new boyfriend. He’s a really cool guy, Erin. Don’t worry, you’ll like him. He’s, like, totally hot.”

“What’s she doing in the city? Don’t you guys have finals?”

Victoria hesitated. “Um, I don’t know Cindy’s exam schedule,” she hedged, uncomfortable. “But I’ll tell her to call you when she gets back. Or you could try her cell phone.”

“Cell phone? Since when does Cindy have a cell phone?”

“Billy gave it to her,” Victoria bubbled. “He’s so cool. He gives her designer clothes, too. He drives a Jag, and Caitlin told me that Cindy told her that it’s not the only awesome car he’s got. Plus, he’s got a—”

“Victoria. Would you please give me Cindy’s cell phone number?”

“Sure. It’s right here on the message board.”

Erin wrote it down with white-knuckled fingers. She barely heard herself as she thanked Victoria and got off the phone. She sat there on the bed, trying to reason away the dread that sat inside her like a cold stone. She was just spooked, she told herself. This news about Novak, the strange scene with Mom, the unsettling episode with Connor, it had thrown her off balance, and she was seeing everything as sinister. There was no reason to panic yet. Maybe this Billy was a perfectly nice guy.

Uh-huh. Sure. A perfectly nice guy who happened to drive a Jaguar. Who showered a nineteen-year-old girl with expensive clothes and electronic toys and lured her away from school during finals week.

It was strange. It was scary. It stank.

Her parents’ reasoning behind encouraging Cindy to go to a private college in the small town of Endicott Falls was in the hopes that she would have more guidance and supervision than she might find in a big, sprawling public university. The thoughtless, impressionable Cindy was so eager to be liked. Willing to be led anywhere, just to be cool. The opposite of her shy, cautious older sister. And so pretty, too. Much prettier than Erin. Walking bait. Erin already hated Billy and his Jag. She hated him more with every number she pressed.

She was startled when the phone actually rang.

“Hello?” said Cindy’s bright voice.

“Hi, Cindy. It’s Erin.”

“Oh. Um…hi. How did you get this number?”

Erin gritted her teeth. “Victoria gave it to me.”

“What a ditz. I’m gonna have to kill her.”

Her breezy tone put Erin’s nerves on edge. “Why wouldn’t you want me to have it, Cindy?”

“Don’t even start,” Cindy said, giggling. “You’re such a little old lady. I didn’t want you to worry, that’s all.”

“Worry about what?” Erin’s voice was getting sharper.

“About me staying in the city with Billy for a while.”

“Staying where, Cin?”

Cindy ignored her question. “I was going nuts in that sleepy town. Nobody does anything but study during exam week, so I—”

“What about your exams?” Erin burst out. “Why aren’t you studying, too? Your scholarship was contingent on keeping your GPA—”

“See? I told you. This is why I didn’t call. I knew you’d get all self-righteous on me. Billy offered to take me—”

“Who is this Billy?” she demanded. “Where did you meet him?”

“Billy is great,” Cindy snapped. “He’s the best thing that’s happened in my shitty life since Dad got thrown in jail. I’m just taking a break from that tight-ass place and having some fun—”

“Cin, what kind of fun?” Her voice was a nervous squeak.

Cindy giggled. It was a trilling, mindless sound, so unlike her normal laughter that it made Erin’s flesh creep. “Like, please,” she said. “As if you’d know what fun was if it pinched you on the butt. Take a chill pill, Erin. I’m with Billy. I’m safe, I’m fine. I’m over the moon.”

Erin was bewildered by the wall that had suddenly risen up between her and her sister. “Cin, we have to talk. We’ve got to figure out how you can stay in school. Your scholarship—”

“Oh, don’t worry.” Cindy giggled again. “My financial problems are at an end. That scholarship is, like, so minor, Erin.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Panic was clutching at her chest, making her heart pound. “Cindy, you can’t just—”

“Don’t get your panties in a wad. There are lots of ways to make money. More than I ever thought, and Billy is showing me how to—huh? What? Oh…yeah, totally. Billy says to tell you that college is overrated. A big fat waste of time and money. Who cares about Chaucer or counterpoint or Freud or the Industrial Revolution, anyhow? I mean, like, get real. It’s all just theory. Life is to be lived. In the moment.”

“Cindy, you’re scaring me to death.”

“Relax already. I’m just trying my wings. It’s so normal. Just because you never wanted to party doesn’t mean I can’t, does it? Don’t say anything to Mom, though, OK? She’d go ballistic for sure.”

“Listen, I need to talk to you about Mom, too—”

“Bye, Erin. Don’t call me, I’ll call you. And don’t worry! Everything will be totally cool.” The connection abruptly broke.

Erin redialed the number. The prerecorded message informed her that the party she was trying to call was unreachable.

Like she didn’t already know.

She slammed the phone down and curled up on her bed. She fished the matchbook that had Connor’s phone number written on it out of her pocket, and stared at it.

Anything happens, anything at all, call me, he’d said. Promise me.

She was so tempted to call him and sob out all her problems to him. He was so warm and strong. He beckoned like a lighthouse in a storm. She wiped tears angrily away. Not an option. Connor was the last person she should turn to for help. No matter how terrified she felt.

Oh, Christ. There were at least a dozen big, scary-looking vitamin pills lying on the table next to a tall glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice when Connor stumbled out of the back bathroom in the morning. Davy had the imperturbable macho-zen act down to a high art, but he still insisted on treating his younger brother like a goddamned invalid.

Davy glanced at him, jerked his head toward the vitamins, and narrowed his eyes, as if to say, Don’t even think of struggling.

“I start with coffee, not orange juice,” Connor grumbled.

“This is my house. I am boss in my house. If you swallow them all down without giving me any shit, I will give you some coffee,” Davy said. “And then we’ll go over the Mueller stuff.”

That snapped his mind to instant alertness. “Find anything interesting?”

Davy gave him an oblique look. “Want some breakfast?”

Connor yawned. “Hell, yes.” His stomach was groaning.

Davy blinked. “I’ll be damned. I’ll go put on some eggs and ham for you. Two eggs or three?”

“Four,” Connor said.

A grin split Davy’s stern face. He vanished into the kitchen.

Connor was frowning at a weird transparent amber pill when Sean wandered out onto the porch. “What is this crap?” he asked plaintively. “It looks like a congealed glob of oil.”

“It is a congealed glob of oil, you ignorant slob. Four hundred ECU of vitamin E in a gel capsule. Good for skin, nails, hair, and scar tissue. Take it. You need all the help you can get.” Sean placed a mug of coffee in front of him. “Davy says if the pills are gone, you can drink this.”

Connor studied his brother’s sartorial splendor with wondering eyes. Sean always looked well-groomed, even when he just rolled out of bed. Some recessive gene that Connor had utterly failed to inherit.

Sean was decked out in a wine-red sweater that showed off all his muscles. Tight designer jeans. Hair mussed into perfect stylish disorder. A whiff of expensive aftershave drifted over and assailed Connor’s nose.

He closed his eyes against Sean’s blinding glory and swallowed down the gummy capsule. “What are you still doing here?”

Sean grimaced. “Woman trouble. Julia is camping out in her car in front of my condo. I told her from the start not to get all intense on me, that I’m not looking to commit right now. Didn’t work. Never does. So I figured if I don’t come home till morning for a few nights, she’ll figure I’m boffing someone else and get a clue.”

“You slut,” Connor said. “Someday you’ll pay up, big time.” He picked up the last vitamin, a big, yellowish brown pill. “This is the one that makes your piss turn chartreuse, right?”

Sean glanced over at it. “That’s the one. B complex. Great stuff.”

“It looks like a rabbit pellet,” Connor complained. “And it smells like horseshit. Why do you guys torture me with this crap?”

“Because we love you, asshole. Shut up and eat the pill.”

Connor froze, startled by the edge in Sean’s voice. Sean stared out at the water. A muscle twitched in his sharp, clean-shaven jaw.

For a moment, he caught a glimpse of the depths of his brothers’ worry for him, and a hot ache swelled up in his throat. He covered by shoving the evil-smelling pill into his mouth, and choking it down with a gulp of coffee. “Jesus. I’ve got yellow skid marks on my esophagus.”

“Suffer,” was Sean’s succinct rejoinder.

They sipped their coffee. This tense, meaningful silence was too much for him to take first thing in the morning. He had to knock it down to the level of bullshit banter, so they could both breathe again.

“So, uh…Julia,” he ventured. “Is she the aerobics instructor with thighs like a vise?”

Sean seized onto the change of subject with evident relief. “Hell, no. That was Jill. You missed Kelsey, Rose and Caroline.”

“Ah. I see,” Connor murmured. “So what’s with this Julia?”

Sean winced. “Curly blonde hair, big blue eyes, five-inch heels. I met her at a club a few weeks ago. It was fun for a while, and then bam, out of nowhere, she mutates into this gigantic bloodsucking insect.”

Connor winced. “Shit. I hate it when that happens.”

“Me, too. Lurking in the dark outside my condo all night, brrr. Creeps me out. Next thing I know, she’ll be boiling my bunny.”

Connor made sympathetic sounds. “Sounds painful.”

The screen door flew open, kicked by Davy’s massive booted foot. He laid two plates before his brother. Thick slabs of grilled ham, a heap of scrambled eggs full of melted cheddar. Four pieces of toast, dripping with butter. A pile of fresh honeydew, cantaloupe, and pineapple chunks with a big scoop of cottage cheese perched on top.

Connor blinked. “Whoa. So, uh…where’s my damask napkin and my lemon-scented finger bowl?”

Davy shrugged, unembarrassed. “You need protein.”

No arguing with that. He dove in, ignoring his rapt audience. A few minutes later, he pushed back two highly polished plates. “Let me have it,” he said. “What’s up with Claude Mueller?”

Davy flipped open a manila folder full of computer printouts. “There’s not as much as I would’ve expected, for such a rich guy,” he said. “Born in Brussels in ’61. Mother Belgian, father Swiss, a big shot industrialist. Outrageously wealthy. Claude was sickly as a child, suffers from some weird form of hemophilia, now more or less under control. A reclusive loner type. He studied art and architecture at the Sorbonne from ’80 to ’83 and then gave it up due to ill health. In 1989, his parents were killed in a car accident. Claude was the sole heir to a fortune of around a half billion or so.”

Connor choked on his coffee, and wiped his mouth. “Jesus,” he said. “Hard to wrap your mind around that much money.”

Sean gave him an evil grin. “My mind is stretchier than yours.”

“Poor Claude was traumatized by his parents’ deaths,” Davy went on. “From that point on, he secluded himself on a tiny private island off the south of France. Never married, no children. All he cares about are antiquities. He had a collection of medieval reliquaries, weapons, Viking and Saxon artifacts, and of course Celtic stuff. He’s a big presence on the ’Net. Spends lots of time in art history chat rooms and message boards. He administers the Quicksilver Fund, which he established in the early nineties. It’s a stinking pile of money that he doles out to arts organizations. All of whom suck his virtual toes.”

“Photos?” Connor asked.

“I couldn’t find a recent one. These are over sixteen years old.” Davy shoved a pile of color printouts across the table to him.

Connor pushed aside his plate and leafed through them.

Claude Mueller was thin, nondescript, neither handsome nor ugly. Bland features, olive skin, blue eyes, thinning brown hair. The clearest of the lot was a passport photo taken two decades ago. A chubbier version of the same man, with a mustache and goatee.

Connor studied them, letting his mind float open like a net, scooping for images, connections, snags, feelings. Nothing jumped out, nothing flashed by. All he felt was a prickling, restless unease. “Novak could pass for this guy,” he mused. “Same height and build.”

Davy and Sean’s swift glances clearly continued a conversation they must have started last night after he’d gone to bed.

Davy shook his head. “I got into the database of the Quicksilver Fund last night. I found the transactions for the plane tickets Mueller bought for Erin in the past few months. The pressing business that kept Mueller from meeting Erin in Santa Fe was ill health. I saw the medical records. Two days before she was scheduled to go to Santa Fe, Mueller was admitted to a posh private clinic in Nice for a bleeding ulcer.”

Something tightened steadily in Connor’s stomach. Even though he knew this news should be making him feel better.

“I hacked into the clinic’s records,” Davy continued. “He couldn’t make it to the meeting because he was vomiting blood, Con. Not because he was sitting in jail, plotting Erin’s downfall.”

Connor set down his cup. Davy’s tone was flat, his voice unreadable. “Since when do you read French?” he demanded.

“I hung out in northern Africa for a while after Desert Storm, remember? They speak a lot of French in Egypt and Morocco. I picked it up. It’s not hard, if you already know Spanish.”

Connor stared into his coffee. So Davy knew French. His brother was full of surprises. “Wasn’t it a little too easy, finding all this info?”

“Yeah, it was easy,” Davy said slowly. “It’s possible that it’s an elaborate, fiendish plot. Anything’s possible. But spending untold amounts of money to put together a cover story this complicated, all for Erin Riggs’s benefit? Come on, Con. Sure she’s a cute girl, but—”

“I’m not suggesting that it would be all for Erin’s benefit,” Connor snarled. “It’s to Novak’s benefit to have another identity.”

Davy looked away. “It’s like Nick said, Con. Novak’s run home to hide under Daddy’s wing. It’s the smart thing to do.”

“But he’s insane.” Connor looked from Davy to Sean. Both his brothers avoided his gaze. “He doesn’t reason like a normal human.”

“You have to face reality, Con.” Sean’s mouth was tight.

Connor clenched his jaw. “And what is your version of reality?”

Sean looked like he was bracing himself. “That you hate the idea of this girl you’ve always wanted going to meet a filthy rich guy who goes nuts for Celtic art. Nobody could blame you for hating it.”

The food in Connor’s belly congealed to a cold lump.

“Let her go, Con.” Davy’s voice was heavy. “Move on.”

Connor rose to his feet and snatched the sheaf of paper from the table. “Thanks for your help. If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got stuff to do.”

“Yo, Con,” Sean said, as Connor shoved open the door.

Connor jerked around with a this-had-better-be-good expression.

“The guy may have more money than God, but hey…he urps blood,” Sean pointed out. “Bleeding ulcers are not sexy. Take what comfort you can from that.”

Connor slammed the porch door so violently that it rattled in its frame. They braced themselves. Slam went the front door, too.

Sean dropped his head down and bonked his forehead against the table. “Shit, shit, shit. Just shoot me now. Put me out of my misery.”

“Yeah, that was brilliant.” Davy’s voice was dour. “You always hit a nerve. Straight on, bull’s eye.”

“It’s a family trait.” Sean raised resentful, narrowed eyes.

“You were the one begging to be put out of his misery,” Davy observed. “Not me.”

Sean slumped down into his chair. “I didn’t think things could suck any worse for him than they already did. I was wrong.”

“Things can always get worse,” Davy pointed out. “Always.”

“Aw, shut up,” Sean muttered. “Goddamn pessimist.”