She Loves Me Not (15 page)

Because he let her down. And because he ignored Valentine's Day. And because . . .

Well, because she misses her big brother desperately.

By the time she opened her mouth to tell him that—all of it—he was checking his watch and striding toward the door with his coffee mug in hand.

“I'll call you later,
” he said, and was gone.

It was the first time he ever left her without a kiss good-bye.

So here she is, at the gym bright and early, with the whole stupid lonely day stretching ahead of her.

She wonders what Rose is doing.

She might as well swing by there after she's done at the gym.

But she's not about to tell Rose about her fight with Peter. She gets the feeling her sister-in-law doesn't approve of Peter—or maybe, it's just their whirlwind engagement she frowns upon. When Leslie first told her she and Peter had set a summer wedding date, Rose hugged her and said,
“I'm really happy for you . . . but isn't it a little soon? Maybe you should wait until you know each other better
—
you know, so that you can make sure this is what you both want.”

At the time, Leslie assured her that it was.

But now . . .

Well, she can't help wondering if Rose was right.

A
rriving at the office precisely at nine-thirty, Isabel leaves her silver Mercedes in a half-hour parking spot right out front, reluctant to walk the slushy block from the municipal parking lot. If Mr. Gabriel is late, as she expects he will be, she'll have to move the car. Crime is so low in this part of Westchester that the cops have little else to do but hand out parking tickets.

There's no sign of her client as she steps into the warm, coffee-scented office. Mary is chattering on the phone at her desk, and Amy is watering the philodendron by the Poland Spring cooler.

“Hi, Isabel. I thought you were going to see Cassandra today at school,” says Amy, who was a year behind Isabel's youngest daughter in school. Cassandra is a freshman at NYU this year, but isn't nearly as tolerant of visits from Mom as her older sister is. Cassandra has always been a daddy's girl. She somehow blames Isabel for the divorce, and Isabel can't bring herself to tell her daughter about Ted's adultery—which might not make much of a difference. Cassandra would probably blame her for that, too.

“Actually,” she tells Amy, “it was Andrea I was going to see, and I've got a potential buyer coming in so I had to postpone that.”

“Not a great day to be on the road anyway,” Amy says, mopping up a drip from the plant she just watered.

Isabel hangs her black cashmere coat on a hanger in the small closet and wonders if she has time to grab a quick cup of coffee before Mr. Gabriel arrives. She didn't have time to make any at home; just grabbed a quick cup of microwaved tea to sip while she got ready.

“Amy, I'm going back to the kitchenette to get some coffee, so if—”

She breaks off abruptly as the street door opens and a man steps into the office. He's bundled into a down parka, the lower half of his head obscured by a scarf and the upper half by a knit ski cap pulled down low. All she can see of his face is piercing dark eyes.

He stamps his boots on the doormat and asks, “Are you Ms. Van Nuys?” His voice is muffled by the scarf.

“Yes. Please call me Isabel. And you're Mr. Gabriel?”

He nods, pulling the scarf down to reveal a polite smile that fails to reach his eyes.

Terrific. Isabel can tell already that spending the day with this guy is going to be a barrel of laughs. Ten years in the real estate business have made her proficient at pegging those who will make easy conversation in the long hours of house hunting, and those who will transform the air-freshener-scented, climate-controlled confines of the Mercedes into a claustrophobic dungeon.

Mr. Gabriel, she is certain, belongs to the latter group.

“Did you find our office all right?” she asks.

“Yes, it was no problem. Your directions were easy to follow.”

“So you came down 84 from the Mass Pike?” she asks, surprised when he nods.

“It was very easy,” he says. “Traffic was light since it's a holiday, so I had smooth sailing all the way.”

“Really? I thought you might have gotten caught up in that traffic jam past Hartford.”

He hesitates slightly. “Oh . . . yes, I forgot about that. It wasn't that bad.”

She opens her mouth to tell him about the radio traffic report, and that they must have exaggerated the situation.

Either that . . . or he's lying,
she finds herself thinking.
Maybe he didn't come down from Boston after all.

Something he said yesterday on the phone made her think he was coming from someplace south of here. And now this . . .

But why would he lie about Boston? That doesn't make sense. Unless he's a local who, for whatever reason, wants to feign being a newcomer to the area. Maybe it's a shrewd business tactic. Maybe he's a New Yorker who wants her to think he's naive about the real estate market around here . . .

“Are you ready to go, Ms. Van Nuys?” he asks, switching his black canvas shoulder bag from one arm to the other.

“Oh, you can call me Isabel.”

She expects him to respond in kind, but he doesn't. She has no idea what his first name is, and can't think of a polite way to ask.

Isabel regards him uneasily, noting that he seems eager to get out of the office. Well, most house hunters are enthusiastic, but . . .

“Are you ready?” he asks again.

All right, is he overly impatient, or is her imagination suddenly getting the best of her? Maybe she's seen too many woman-in-jeopardy movies on Lifetime.

She glances toward the window, where the world beyond is suddenly swirling with large white flakes. “Oh my goodness . . . . Looks like it's starting to snow pretty hard out there.”

“Oh, that's quite all right with me, Isabel. I don't mind snow. In fact, I've always rather enjoyed being out in it.”

For the first time, his smile is genuine.

Isabel returns it, quickly shedding her misgivings about him. “Then I'll just get my listings and we'll be off.”

“G
ood morn—” With a glance at her watch, where both hands are easing past the 12, Rose alters it to, “Good afternoon, Bayview Books.”

“Rose! What are you doing there?”

“Bill? How's your flu?” She puts down her pricing gun and leans against the counter, glancing out at the drizzly street beyond the plate-glass window.

“A little better, thanks. Luke wanted me to call him this afternoon to tell him whether I'll be in tomorrow but how the hell am I supposed to know? I'm not a goddamned psychic.”

She grins, feigning dictation. “Not . . . a. . . . goddamned . . . psychic. Okay, I wrote down your message for him.”

“What, he's not there?”

“No. He said he had to be out of town today.”

Bill snorts. He can't stand Luke. He thinks he's homophobic, and a snob.

“He probably got a taste for creme brulee and decided to jet to Paris for lunch,” Bill says cattily. “So why did you agree to come in on a holiday? Did you forget that we aren't getting our paychecks till Tuesday this week?”

“Luke called me in,” she says simply.

“Because I'm sick. Rose, I didn't mean to stick you with working today. I figured Luke would be here anyway so he could cover for me.”

She opens her mouth to tell him about the triple overtime, but thinks better of it. Bill is one of her dearest friends, but he's still a coworker. It's probably not a good idea to discuss her pay with him. She's fairly certain he would've received three times his hourly wage if he'd been well enough to work his shift today.

“Oh, it's not a big deal. I felt like I had to get out of the house—the kids have been miserable because I ‘promised' them we'd go sledding this weekend and all it's done is rain.”

“Well, I heard on the forecast that we're supposed to get a big snowstorm before the week is out. So don't put the sleds away yet.”

“Yeah, right. I'll believe that when I see it. Hey, did you go out with that Broadway dancer again the other night?”

“Yup, third date and I think I'm head over heels.”

Rose laughs. “Already? It seems to me that you fall in love with everyone you date, Bill.”

“Nothing wrong with a little romance. Maybe he has a straight friend for you, Rose, and we can double-date.”

“Those days are over for me,” she says with a pang.

The bell on top of the door tinkles as an elderly couple steps into the store. Rather than heading back to browse, they march straight up to the counter.

“I've got customers, Bill,” Rose says. “I'll see you tomorrow. Feel better.”

“Thanks, sweetie.”

She hangs up, then spends the next half hour trying to help the couple locate a novel whose title and author have escaped them. But they do know that the main character's name is Henrietta—rather, the wife is certain of that. The husband is convinced her name is Helga. They agree that the setting is somewhere in Canada, and that the book was a
New York Times
paperback bestseller all last summer.

“You know, the title is right at the edge of my consciousness,” the elderly woman tells Rose. “It keeps flitting in and then right back out again before I can grasp it. Has that ever happened to you?”

“Yes,” Rose says simply.

The piano duet she used to play with her father has been running through her mind all day. For the life of her, she can't remember what it's called, but the tune is so clear she's certain she could still play all the chords.

“I think the title has the word ‘fungus' in it,” the old man tells his wife.

“Fungus?” Rose repeats, her mind on the bizarre wee-hour phone call.

“Don't listen to him.” The old woman dismisses her husband with a wave of her blue-veined hand. “He doesn't know what he's talking about.”

By the time Rose locates the book—a non-bestselling hardcover entitled
They Broke the Mold,
set in England, with a heroine named Hermione—her customers decide they'll wait for it to come out in paperback.

Alone in the store once again, Rose decides to call home to see how Christine is doing with the kids. When she couldn't get hold of Leslie this morning, she had no choice but to ask Christine if she could possibly babysit for a few hours today. Christine was thrilled. Or at least, she managed to sound thrilled.

“But what about your husband?” Rose asked guiltily.

“Oh, he left for work early this morning, and he won't be home until late. I'll stay with the kids all day if you need me.”

Now, as she dials her home number, Rose decides that if it sounds as though Christine has everything under control, she'll tell her she's going to stop off at the hardware store down the block on her way home. The owner, Joe, was a good friend of Sam's. He'll probably be able to recommend somebody to install the alarm system, and he might even know how much it will cost. She has no idea whether it's hundreds of dollars or thousands. Either way, she's determined to get one.

Rose straightens the shelf of special orders behind the counter as the phone rings once, twice, three times on the other end of the line.

By the fourth ring, she has gone absolutely still, clutching the receiver against her ear as dread creeps over her.

Five rings . . .

Six . . .

Seven . . .

Where the hell are they? Why isn't Christine answering?

Rose's eyes dart to the window again. Sheets of wind-driven rain are pouring down. There's no way they're outside walking the dog or playing in the yard.

Maybe Christine brought the kids over to her house. Rose hangs up mid-eighth-ring and frantically flips through the local phone book. There's no listing for Kirkmayer, Ben—or for any Kirkmayer at all. They're too new in town.

She dials information, praying that the number will be listed.

It is.

But there's no answer at the Kirkmayers' home, either. Only an answering machine with Christine's cheerful voice telling her to please leave a message at the beep.

“Christine? Christine, it's Rose Larrabee, and I'm very concerned . . . where are you? Are the kids okay? Please call my pager as soon as you get this message.”

Rose slams down the phone, heart pounding.

She's left her children with a complete stranger, and now she's trapped alone in this store with no way to check on them.

Calm down,
she tries telling herself.
They're probably fine. Of course they are.

But what if they're not? What if whoever keeps calling in the middle of the night is a crazed, psychotic killer? What if—

You're being ridiculous, Rose. This is real life, not a horror movie.

There are no crazed, psychotic killers prowling the streets of Laurel Bay. Crank callers, maybe. Secret admirers, perhaps. But not cold-blooded killers who prey on widowed mothers and their children.

You've got to go home and check on them,
the frantic inner voice protests.
Just in case.

But how can she leave the store? She can't just lock up and take off . . . can she?

If Luke happened to call or come by while she was gone . . .

Luke is out of town.

But what if he just said that because—well, because he didn't feel like coming in to cover for Bill today? Or what if he changed his plans?

Rose can't just leave. If she does, she might not have a job to come back to. There's no other—

Bill.

He said he's feeling better, and he only lives ten minutes away. Maybe he'll rush over here so that she can run home to check on Christine and the kids.