Regrets Only (14 page)

He
laughed. “I have five sisters. I had all kinds of feminine mysteries revealed
to me very early on. Pounded into me, some of them. Trust me, I get it.”

Suzanne
could tell he was remembering something fondly. His eyes were on his work,
taping her finger tightly, but they seemed distant. “So you’re an expert on
women?” she asked.

“Come
on, now,” he said. “I’m not stupid enough to claim that. Any guy who knows
anything about women knows better than to pretend he knows about women.”

She
laughed in spite of herself. “That sounds like one of your songs.”

He
grinned. “It does, doesn’t it? I should write that down. Wiggle your fingers.”

She
did as he instructed. He frowned slightly, took back her hand, and made an
adjustment to the tape. “Seriously, though, I have been fully initiated into
the female realm.”

 “That
seems kind of unbelievable to me. You seem like such a guy’s guy. You know—camouflage,
guns, girls…”

“I
keep telling you not to judge people on their appearances. Go ahead, test me.”

“What?”

“Test
me. Send me to the store for tampons. Ask me to braid your hair. Cry on my
shoulder about some guy who broke your heart. I’ll be back from the store
before you can say ‘Ben & Jerry’s’.”

She
laughed loud this time, and he chuckled in response, pleased at having entertained
her. His crooked grin was infectious beneath a day’s worth of stubble.
I can
see why people are so captivated with him.

This
realization reminded her suddenly who he was: a client. Her only client. A
wildly famous one at that. She had to be careful not to fall under his spell,
not to believe that his charms were meant for her, any more than they were
meant for the millions of other weak-kneed girls who obsessed over him. One of
the many pictures she’d seen in
People
with a young starlet on his arm flashed
suddenly across her mind.

“Well,
Scarlett, you probably ought to get a stitch or two in there,” he said, looking
finally satisfied with his handiwork on her finger. “But that should hold it
for now.”

“Thanks,”
she said, pulling her robe tighter to her. He was looking her in the eye now,
rather deliberately, she thought. “Is there any message?”

“What?”
he asked.

“With
Kate’s binders. Is it all self-explanatory?”

“Oh,
that. Yeah, I think so. She’ll be back in town next week. Did Yvette tell you?”

“Yes.
Prague, right?”

 “Yep.
Church choir tour of Eastern Europe.”

“Really?”
Suzanne wasn’t sure why this should surprise her, but it did.

“Yeah.
Kate’s a better singer than I am, actually. She’s been going on that choir tour
since we were kids. Of course, now she’s a chaperone. She loves working with
the teenagers.”

This
wasn’t what Suzanne had expected. In the press, most of Dylan’s sisters were
portrayed as entitled, self-centered brats. “That’s so nice,” she said.

“She’s
a lot nicer than I am, too,” he said with another lopsided grin. “What’s all
that?”

Following
his gaze, Suzanne wished she could melt into the floor. He was pointing at the
posterboard along the dining room wall. In her astonishment, she had almost
forgotten it.

“It’s,
um…I’m embarrassed to say this, but it’s a list of people I’ve been involved
with. Romantically.”

He
let out a long whistle. “Damn. And people say
I’m
a player.”

“Well,
it includes people all the way back to college, and I am a few years older than
you.”

Stop,
she commanded herself.
For heaven’s sake, stop. You are making it worse.

“Are
you?” he asked absently. He had walked to the wall for a closer look. “So do
you keep records in case they make dating an Olympic sport or something?”

There
was nothing to do but tell him the truth. “Well, it seems that I might be being…”
She couldn’t bring herself to say the word stalked. It would make this too real
and too scary. “It seems like one of them might be trying to hurt me, or at
least scare me. Maybe someone I rejected. The police suggested I make a list.”

He
turned to face her, his expression darkened. “Someone is stalking you?”

“Well,
yes. It seems that way. But don’t worry, I’ve been in touch with the police and
I am trying to figure out who it is. I have no reason to believe it will
interfere with your sister’s wedding.” As she said it, Suzanne realized she was
not at all confident of this. She had no idea what might happen next.

Dylan
crossed back to the box of flowers and looked at them more closely. “This is
how you cut your finger.”

“Yeah,”
she conceded.

“You’ve
called the police?”

“Not
yet. I mean, not today. Not for this.”

“I’ll
hang out until they get here.”

“Really,
that’s not necessary—”

“I’m
not busy,” he said again. His tone left no room for argument.

After
another second’s hesitation, she went to the bedroom in resignation. She found Officer
Caputo’s card, called to tell him what happened, and changed into jeans and a
t-shirt. When she returned to the living room, Dylan was out on the balcony,
talking on the phone. He was still there when the knock came on the door. This
time it was a squat black female officer, with hair swept into a tight, neat
bun on the top of her head. She gave her badge number when Suzanne got to the
peephole, and instructed her to verify it with the APD dispatch before opening
the door.

“You
always want to do that,” the policewoman said, once the door was open. “Anytime
someone comes out here, you get their badge number and confirm it before you
open the door. Even if you called us, okay? I’m Officer Bonita Daniels. I’ll be
taking over your case.”

Dylan
came in off the porch. Officer Daniels eyed him with suspicion until Suzanne
introduced him. “This is…” she hesitated.
What was the protocol here? Should
she use his real name? Explain who he was?

He
saved her the trouble. “I’m Dylan Burke. A friend of Ms. Hamilton’s.”

“I
recognize you,” said Officer Daniels seriously. Then a controlled smile spread
across her features. “I have a fifteen-year-old daughter. We’re both fans.”

Dylan
smiled warmly back. “Thank you for coming so quickly, Officer Daniels. I’ll let
Ms. Hamilton show you the package she received.” He waited a beat and then
added, “Would your daughter like an autographed CD?”

The
police officer’s professional demeanor broke temporarily as her eyes lit up.
Suzanne could tell she was imagining the reception she would get at home if she
walked in with an autograph from Dylan Burke. “Oh, Mr. Burke…that would be great.
Thanks.”

“I’ll
just go out to my truck. Ms. Hamilton probably doesn’t have a CD handy. She’s
not a big fan of my work.” He winked at Suzanne on the way out the door.
Officer Daniels eyed her reprovingly before she began asking about the box of
flowers. Clearly, Suzanne had been diminished significantly in the officer’s
good opinion.

Dylan
returned from the truck with a new CD, signed it for the officer to her
daughter Chrysaline. Officer Daniels bemoaned that she didn’t have her camera
on her for a picture. She returned to asking Suzanne questions, though her cold
professionalism had softened slightly.

“Can
you describe the driver who delivered your package, Ms. Hamilton?”

“Suzanne.
Please.”

“Okay,
Suzanne. You can call me Bonita, then.” The officer smiled slightly and waited.

Suzanne
didn’t remember much about the driver, but she said what she could recall:
white, mid-twenties, physically fit. He seemed to have the right uniform, and
he did not look familiar.

“So
it’s unlikely that it was him. I’ll check into it. In any case, don’t open your
door to any deliveries until we get this resolved, okay? Just tell the carrier
company you want to pick things up at their local station.”

“That’s
going to be a pain,” Suzanne said.

Behind
her, Dylan snorted. “Well, ladies, I think you can take it from here.”

He
ducked out with an imaginary tip of the hat to Suzanne, and a brilliant smile
for Bonita Daniels. The policewoman returned his smile, and then stayed with
Suzanne for half an hour—longer than Suzanne had expected—reviewing the tips
for stalking victims and encouraging her to stay calm.

Easier
said than done.

If
you have a ruined reputation, a broken arm, a sole client who is out of the
country, and a stalker of unknown whereabouts or identity, it’s nice to live in
a building with a rooftop pool. Suzanne had begun spending hours there each
day, trying to balance the claustrophobia that frequently plagued her inside
the condo. The only other places she went were to the Starbucks and tiny
grocery store on the bottom floor, and even those made her feel unnerved because
they were open to the public.

By
Friday afternoon, she had gone through Kate’s wedding binders twice, making
notes and jotting down questions. Although she still was not looking forward to
planning a wedding, Kate at least seemed to have decent taste, not the showy
and ridiculous stuff some of the Burke girls seemed to favor. Maybe it was
possible this wouldn’t be the worst experience of her life after all.

Suzanne
had also spent many bleary-eyed hours at her computer, searching online for
traces of William Fitzgerald, the man who had once loved her enough to ask her to
marry him. She was determined to find him again and figure out where things had
gone wrong. The process was slow going, with one hand in a cast and a finger on
the other hand throbbing painfully beneath a tight bulb of gauze and tape.
Typing seemed to take forever and errors were frequent.

William
did not have a large online presence, which made him even more of a mystery to
be solved. No Facebook page or blog. She found scant, outdated entries about
his father’s law practice, and about his brother, who was apparently married
and teaching economics at Georgia Southern down in Statesboro. She had found
William’s parents’ old number, apparently living in the same house he’d grown
up in. She had almost worked up the courage to call them.

#

Now
she was sitting by the rooftop pool, which she had to herself because even in early
May, it was still a little chilly for mid-afternoon swims. In a few weeks the
seats all around her would be constantly flooded with the building’s young
professional tenants, skipping out on Friday afternoons to get a head start on
the weekend, going through papers in their reclining beach chairs while they
tried to acquire a glow for the bar scene later in the evenings.

Even
if it had been warm enough, she couldn’t swim today with her cast and sliced
finger. She had opted against getting stitches, hoping Dylan’s bandage job
would do the trick. Two days later, it still throbbed painfully, but was now
beneath a simple bandage, rather than the big gauzy mess it had been
originally.

She
stretched out in her cargo shorts with her laptop and phone beneath the glare
of the sun and city around her. She picked up the phone and stared at it for a
long time. William’s parents’ number was in her pocket, but those weren’t the
digits she was tempted to dial right now. This was the first time in years she
and Marci had gone more than a day or two without speaking on purpose. She felt
as if a part of her was missing.

She
dialed Marci and then hung up before the first ring.
Can you honestly say
you ever cared about anyone more than you care about yourself?
Suzanne had
always thought she did care about others. Wasn’t half her life spent in service
of charity organizations?
Paid service,
her brain reminded her. She
volunteered a few times a year at a women’s shelter, too. But was that the same
as truly caring?

These
musings were interrupted when the phone in her hand buzzed suddenly, startling
her almost off the pool chair. “Miss Hamilton?” said a soft, unfamiliar voice.
“This is Kate Burke.”

“Oh,
hello, Kate,” Suzanne said. “I thought you were out of the country?”

“I
am,” Kate said. “I’ll be flying back tomorrow. We’re in the hotel today though,
and it’s raining, so I had a few minutes. The kids are all watching movies
downstairs.”

“Ah,”
said Suzanne. Then, uncertainly, “What can I do for you?”

“Oh,
um, I just wanted…” The voice was sweet and a little nervous-sounding. “I
wanted to just say how much I am looking forward to meeting you, and to thank
you for planning our wedding at the last minute. I know it must seem like such
a small event by your standards.”

“Don’t
be silly,” Suzanne said reassuringly. “I’m very happy to be doing it, and I’m
honored that you chose me.”

“Thank
you,” Kate said. “Um, I talked to my brother earlier, and he thought it would
be good if we met at the cabin, because that’s where the wedding will be? There
will be lots of people there this week, music people, planning for the summer
tour, including my fiancée, Jeff. Jeff Wendell. He’s Dylan’s promoter—did Dylan
tell you? Anyway, it could be fun, if that’s convenient for you?”