Watching Amanda (20 page)

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Authors: Janelle Taylor

BOOK: Watching Amanda
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CHAPTER 21
If Ethan had slept outside her bedroom door, Amanda wouldn't have known it. When she emerged in the morning, at six-thirty, he was already downstairs, drinking coffee. She ignored him completely and set Tommy down in the living room where he practiced pulling up to standing, then she headed into the kitchen for a bracing cup of coffee herself.
They didn't say a word to each other for the next two-and-a-half hours. Didn't even look at each other. Ethan was doing some kind of research online, and Amanda busied herself by playing with Tommy and making his breakfast.
The phone rang at nine
A.M.
sharp. Amanda lunged for it, hoping it was the police with news. But it was George Harris, her father's attorney.
“Ms. Sedgwick,” he said, “is Ethan Black there now?”
“Yes, he's right here. Just a moment, please.” She covered the phone with her hand. “It's Harris.”
He raised an eyebrow, hit the speakerphone button, and replaced the receiver. “Ethan Black here.”
“Ethan, it's George Harris. I came in this morning to find my answering machine full of angry calls from the mothers of Olivia and Ivy Sedgwick. They're worried that the terms of the will may be compromised by your personal relationship with Ms. Sedgwick. Is that the case?”
Amanda glared at the phone. How dare they!
“Absolutely not,” Ethan bit out.
“Do I have your word?” the lawyer asked.
“How much is my word worth to you?” Ethan asked.
“It's all I need,” the man said. “William left explicit instructions that you were to be trusted without question regarding Amanda Sedgwick. If you say the terms haven't been compromised, that you are ensuring she is following the instructions per William's last will and testament, then that's all I need to know.”
Amanda glanced at Ethan. Why had her father trusted Ethan? What he could possibly have found in him to trust after meeting him only once? And briefly!
“You have my word that the terms of the will have not been compromised.”
“Fine,” the lawyer said. “Thank you.”
“Listen, while I have you,” Ethan continued, “someone has broken into the brownstone twice and attempted to hurt Amanda. The police are working on it, but have nothing so far, and I need to know if you have any reason to suspect anyone.”
“Is Ms. Sedgwick all right?” he asked.
“She's fine, but scared out of her mind. Staying at the brownstone under these conditions is becoming unbearable for her.”
Unbearable
was a good choice of words, Amanda thought.
“Perhaps that's the intruder's intent,” the lawyer said. “To scare her away?”
“We don't know,” Ethan said, “but it seems more serious than that.”
“I wish I could help,” Harris said.
Ethan scowled. “Can you at least tell me if anyone has called and asked if William left them anything? Can I get a list of those people?”
“I'm sorry, I'm really not at liberty to discuss that.”
“If the police asked for a list, would you supply them with one?” Ethan asked.
“Yes,” the lawyer said. “I must go now ... please give Ms. Sedgwick my best.”
When Ethan pressed the speakerphone button again, disengaging the call, Amanda shook her head. “Maybe he'll give you the list once I'm dead.”
“I'm sure the police will demand a list,” Ethan said. “I'll call the detective on the case and ask him to look into it. At least it will make our own list more complete. Amanda, if you're up to it, I'd like to visit Sally Fanwell's son today. I've been looking for information on him, but so far, nothing.”
“I'm up to it,” Amanda told him. “I want to get this over with. I want to find this psycho and get on with my sentence here so I can decide what I want to do without it being decided for me.”
“I can definitely understand that.”
She glanced at him, taking in the shadows under his eyes and his rumpled clothes and disheveled hair. He was exhausted, she knew. And she had no doubt that he had slept on the floor outside her room.
“Maybe Nora at Sedgwick Enterprises has Kevin Fanwell's address,” Amanda suggested.
“If Sally listed him as an emergency contact, maybe,” Ethan said. He glanced at her. “You're sure you're up for this? I know you want to catch this person, but if you need to rest and just take a day for yourself, I understand. We can lie low for a day.”
Amanda shook her head. Then she picked up the phone and dialed Nora's number. The woman, as usual, was full of good cheer and said she'd look in her rolodex, which was Sally's old rolodex.
“Sorry, but there's no number for Kevin. There's a number for a Lorna Fanwell, though. You could try her and ask for Kevin's number. She's probably a relative of Sally's.”
“Lorna Fanwell,” Amanda repeated, writing down the number. “Thanks so much, Nora.”
Before Amanda even hung up, Ethan had looked up Lorna Fanwell online—she lived on the East Side, just across town.
“Let's go nose around the building after you do your time on the sofa,” Ethan said. “Get some info from the doorman or neighbors coming and going. Find out if they know anything about Kevin, and how he's related to Lorna. If he's our guy, I don't want to give him a head's up that we're coming. Now that we're sure the first break-in was no random burglary attempt, our psycho is probably pissed as hell that you're still breathing.”
“Great,” Amanda said.
He put a bracing hand on her arm. “I'm sorry, okay? I didn't mean to put it like that. I'm just beat to hell.”
“I know. Me too.”
And then they went back to silence. Slightly more companionable, but tense all the same.
 
At ten-thirty, Amanda took a cup of tea into the living room and settled onto the sofa, grateful for the opportunity to escape Ethan. She hated this mandatory restriction each day. All she could do was stare around the room, a room she was sick of looking at in detail, as beautiful as it was. Out of sheer boredom she chose to look at the portrait above the fireplace. She usually avoided it.
She studied her father, tall and imposing and unknowable. He was twelve years younger in the portrait and looked at least twenty years younger than the last time she saw him a couple of years ago by sheer chance on the street. He hadn't seen her; he'd been walking with what looked like a group of business associates, and she'd been across the street. She watched him smiling and laughing with the group before they disappeared into a restaurant.
She'd never seen him smiling or laughing before, at least not that way, that effortlessly.
She studied Olivia next, the beautiful cool blonde. Olivia also looked unknowable, unapproachable, but she was really quite warm. Amanda wondered if the same were true of her father. Perhaps he was kind ...
What she was doing? Why did she keep looking for goodness in a man who his own girlfriends said was selfish?
Because your father is your father
, a little voice inside her said. And like Ethan said, he was supposed to love her.
Amanda glanced at Tommy, now safely playing in his playpen.
Your father wants to love you
, she said silently to him.
And I need to let him.
She couldn't stand in the way of that, no matter how confused she was about how she felt about him. And no matter how jealous Ethan was.
Was he jealous? Or was he right to suspect Paul? Amanda just didn't know. She definitely was not ready for Paul's sexual advances, though. It would take a long time for those feelings to come back, if they ever did.
She felt like she didn't know anything anymore.
She turned her attention to Ivy, pretty, natural Ivy with the sparkling green eyes.
I do hope your Declan is a good guy,
Amanda said silently to the painted Ivy. There had to be at least one person in this family who got it right.
 
“Let's walk to the East Side through Central Park,” Amanda said as they left the brownstone. Tommy was napping on cue in his stroller. “It's such a beautiful day and I could use some open space and trees right now.”
“I'd rather not,” Ethan said, zipping up his black leather jacket.
She glanced at him. “Why not?”
“I just would rather not,” he said again. “Does every answer require an explanation? Can't you just accept something?”
She recoiled almost as if he'd slapped her. “Is that what I should do? I should just accept things? I should accept that someone is trying to kill me? I should accept that my father was a selfish prick who then turned around and left me a multi-million-dollar brownstone as long as I didn't open a certain window or cross my legs in a certain room? I should accept that Paul walked out on me without a backward glance when I told him I was pregnant and now wants to be one big happy family? I should accept that we made love but that you want to pretend we didn't? I should accept that people can just use me to suit their purposes?”
He stared at her for a moment. “Okay, let me start with this one: in what way did your father use you?”
“He's atoning for his sins as a parent,” Amanda said. “That's why he left me the brownstone. It's guilt. It's not love.”
“And how am I using you to suit my purpose?”
“Do I really need to explain that one?” Amanda threw back.
“Yes, you do,” Ethan said.
“You wanted to have sex with me in your hotel room. You did. You then didn't want to deal with what that meant. So you didn't. End of story.”
Ethan let out a harsh breath. “I didn't mean to hurt you, Amanda. I really didn't.”
“But you did.”
He recoiled within himself as he was hit with a sense of déjà vu. Of a conversation with his wife, his late wife.
I didn't mean to hurt you, Katherine.
And her reply:
But you did.
Ethan closed his eyes for a second, letting the oddly warm December air rush around him.
He glanced up the street, where he could see the tall bare trees in Central Park. He wasn't going anywhere near it ever again.
“Let's just get in a cab or take a bus,” Ethan said.
She shook her head. “I'm walking through the park.”
“No, you're not,” Ethan said.
“You can't tell me what to do, Ethan.”
“We have no idea who tried to kill you, Amanda. And whoever it was could be watching and waiting right now.”
She glared at him. “Well you know what, I'm not going to live my life in fear of maybes anymore.” She began wheeling the stroller up the street. “I'm not going to stand here and argue.”
“I'm not walking through the park,” he said, his stomach tightening. He suddenly felt sick, felt beads of perspiration form on his neck.
“No one invited you,” she tossed back. “Tommy and I will walk through ourselves.”
He raced up to her and took her arm. “You're not walking through the park.”
“Let go of me! How dare you tell me what I can and can't do!” She pulled away and began angrily heading east.
Stop
, he wanted to scream at the top of his lungs.
Please stop.
“My wife was killed in Central Park three years ago,” he called, closing his eyes against the tears that stung and burned.
She whirled around, the blood drained from her face.
“She was pregnant with our child,” he added, his voice barely a whisper. He dropped down on the bottom step of the stoop and put his face in his hands.
“Ethan, I—”
“Just don't say anything, okay?” he asked. “Not a word.”
She reached out her hand and after a moment, he took it. “Let's just go back home.”
He nodded, got up, and followed her.
Once inside, Amanda motioned upstairs and carried sleeping Tommy up to his crib, then she came back down and sat beside Ethan on the couch.
“Please tell me,” she said gently. “I won't say a word. I just want to listen.”
He leaned his head back against the sofa and stared up at the ceiling. “Ever since I was a kid I thought I had to be the best at everything. Best at school and sports. Captain of the football team. I wanted every girl to fall in love with me. I wanted every kid to want to be my friend. And that's the way it was. Through high school, through college, and when I entered the working world. I had to be the best. The top dog.”

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