Watching Amanda (7 page)

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Authors: Janelle Taylor

BOOK: Watching Amanda
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I'll never get the chance to know him.
The painting was obviously commissioned by William from a photograph. Amanda remembered that day, a rare day in which William actually spent time with his daughters. The girls had been about to sit down to lunch when William had come outside, commented on the nice weather, and asked Clara to snap a photo of the four of them. Olivia, who'd been a budding photographer, positioned them in front of a lilac tree, then nodded at Clara to take the picture.
No one was touching. No one had an arm around one of the others. No one was quite smiling. But the four of them were together.
With one last look at the painting, Amanda headed down the pale yellow hall toward the back of the house and found herself in a sunny kitchen, complete with breakfast nook. A high chair was in position at the table, and on a nearby hook were several bibs.
Beside the kitchen was a small formal dining room, with deep red walls and beautiful built-ins, in which china and glasses were stored. Above the polished dark wood table was an ornate chandelier. Amanda couldn't imagine what cause she'd ever have to enjoy a meal in this room, but it was beautiful.
Back down the hall, Amanda found a small library, lined with bookshelves from the floor to the twelve-foot-high ceiling and filled with books on every topic imaginable. There were even four rows of books for babies and children and another playpen near a comfortable-looking easy chair.
With Tommy still in her arms, Amanda headed up another short round of stairs to the upper level. There were four doors off the landing. Amanda assumed the one painted white was the master bedroom she was not to enter. An ornate silver key hung from a ribbon on the doorknob.
There was also a red door, a baby blue door, and a pale yellow door. The yellow door opened to a large, cheerful bathroom with large soft towels and decorative soaps lining the counter. The red door led to Amanda's bedroom. Painted a paler red than the door, the room was dominated by a dark-wood four-poster bed with a beautiful quilt and several pillows. There was an antique dresser with a huge round mirror, complete with a silver brush and comb set, and next to the dresser was a walk-in closet.
A gorgeous round throw rug filled the middle of the floor. Amanda set Tommy down on the center of the rug; he sat happily, chewing on a teether she'd pulled out of her bag.
For a moment Amanda just stood and watched her son. He'd woken up this morning without a sneeze or a cough or a fever, and his cheeks were a healthy shade of peach instead of flushed.
So far, so good, Amanda thought, sitting down on the edge of the bed that would be hers for an entire month.
Ahh, she thought, sinking down on the plush mattress. The baby bear bed. Very comfortable.
A small gold picture frame on the bedside table caught her attention. Amanda reached for it and gasped in surprise.
It was a picture of her mother.
She held the photograph to her chest for a moment, then looked at her mother's beautiful face. Her mother was very young in the photo, in her early twenties. Amanda wondered if the photograph was always on this table, in this room.
No, that couldn't be. William and Amanda's mother had known each other twenty-nine years ago, for a very brief period. He'd had many other women in his life since Amanda's mother. Amanda didn't even want to guess how many. He must have had the photo and instructed someone, Clara most likely, to place the photo in the room Amanda would occupy, plus do all the ridiculous color-coding and add the baby things to the house.
Tommy began to fuss; it was getting to be his nap time.
“Time to see your room, sweetie,” she cooed. She took one more look at her mother, returned the photograph, and headed next door.
She gasped. The nursery was exactly what she'd always dreamed of creating for Tommy. She'd never had the money for all the extras, little details that delighted the eye and sparked the imagination, like the mural of tiny dancing monkeys with long tails on one wall, and the pale yellow shelves holding antique blue cars and trains. On the floor, leaning against one entire wall were at least a hundred stuffed animals, small and huge, all looking new and clean and adorable. A train set sat on a toddler table under the window.
The walls were painted a soothing pale blue, and the name Tommy was spelled out in white block letters over the crib, a beautiful wood sleigh model with a firm mattress and soft coordinating sheets. There was a changing table stocked with everything Amanda would need, a diaper pail, a small armoire and a closet.
For a man who never wanted to meet his grandchild, he went to great lengths to make sure Tommy had a dream room. It only deepened her confusion and she felt a twinge of apprehension. What was William up to?
Amanda changed Tommy's diaper and dressed him in a pair of comfy jammies from the armoire, then set him down in the crib and waited for her son to fuss due to the unfamiliar bed. He didn't. He closed his eyes and pressed one little hand against his temple. In moments, he was asleep.
Amanda looked at her son, so comfortable in his new crib, and felt her first sense of ease. Maybe she was worrying over nothing. She let out a deep breath.
She had no idea what to do with herself now. She could unpack or take another look around the rooms ... or see if Clara would like a tea or coffee break, she thought, eager to ask questions about her father.
With a last look at Tommy, Amanda tiptoed out of the nursery, leaving the door ajar. She headed downstairs, surprised by the silence. Had Clara left already?
No, she found the housekeeper dusting the piano. “Clara, I'm about to make a pot of tea. Could I interest you in sitting down for some?”
“I'm on duty, Miss Sedgwick,” Clara said, stressing the
Miss
. “I don't take breaks while I'm working.”
“Of course,” Amanda said. “So, how long have you worked for my father?”
She saw the woman visibly stiffen at the words
my father
.
“I'd really better not dawdle,” Clara said. “Once I get to chatting, suddenly an hour's gone by.”
Amanda nodded. Cracking Clara wouldn't be easy. Perhaps the woman didn't know much about William anyway. She wasn't a live-in housekeeper and had never been, except for the summer vacations in Maine, when her father had been mostly absent.
Have it your way, Clara
, she thought.
For now. I'll open you up eventually.
Amanda glanced around the large, unfamiliar room. Tommy was asleep, there was no job to go to, and Clara was doing the housework. There wasn't much for Amanda to do, and she wasn't used to so much free time. She wondered how she'd cope for an entire month.
CHAPTER 7
Two hours later, Amanda had unpacked, familiarized herself with the house, and re-read the ridiculous instructions three times. Clara had left a few minutes ago, as unwilling to talk as when Amanda had arrived.
While Tommy played with a talking stuffed mouse in his playpen, Amanda stood by a window in the living room—not the one with the cactus, of course—and glanced out at the brilliantly sunny day. It was another mild day for December, in the low fifties, and suddenly Amanda wanted to be outside, exploring her new neighborhood. Although she'd worked in Manhattan for several years, she'd never spent much time just wandering around. After work she'd rush home, needing to care for her mother and later longing to see Tommy. And there were always groceries to pick up and laundry to do.
Now, for a month anyway, she was sort of on vacation.
Very sort of. Per the instructions, she had to sit on the leather sofa—not either of the chairs—for one hour at ten-thirty and again at three-thirty.
It was now ten twenty-five.
She sat. And sat. For a good long while she looked at the portrait of her father and sisters. It was so strange how the painting managed to make them look like a real family. It was a moment captured, but a moment that wasn't representative of the truth.
Photographs do lie, she thought.
The three girls looked nothing alike then, yet there was something similar in all of their expressions—a Sedgwick expression passed down from William, who had it too.
A bit overwhelmed by the portrait, Amanda decided to stare at the grandfather clock and watch the hand slowly tick. The instructions said she wasn't to do anything while she sat, including reading. She was, however, permitted to talk to Tommy or read to him, so she pulled his favorite book from her diaper bag and began reading about a talking cow.
There were ten minutes to go of the hour when Tommy began fussing like crazy. Nothing she said would soothe him.
He wanted to be taken out of the playpen but Amanda wasn't permitted to stand.
This is so ridiculous
, she thought.
I won't follow these stupid, arbitrary rules at Tommy's expense.
Someone will be watching at all times ...
Amanda jumped up. She comforted Tommy then went to the window to see if someone was standing out there, watching her through the center bay that was only covered in sheer drapes. The very idea gave Amanda goosebumps.
At the side window she peered out, hiding herself behind the velvet curtains. There were some people walking on the sidewalks, delivery men across the street, a messenger on a bike. Was someone watching her right now?
Creepy! I'm not doing this for a month
, Amanda told herself.
There's no way.
Where are you going to go, then?
she was forced to ask herself.
How about out of this house for starters?
She needed air and she needed to think.
It was now eleven-thirty. At least the hour was up.
She dressed Tommy in his jacket and hat, made up a fresh bottle for him, cut up a banana, grabbed a yogurt, and headed outside. She was so glad to be out of the brownstone.
The air felt so good on her face. She wheeled Tommy to the corner, then waited for the light to turn green so that she could cross Central Park West.
As they neared the entrance to the park, Tommy began crying and fussing, so she decided to stop at a vacant bench near a hot dog vendor rather than deal with the crowd that was teeming in and out of the park. Teens on skateboards, mothers pushing strollers, businessmen, kids, people walking dogs, people of all shapes and sizes, nationalities and colors, were coming and going. And pigeons. Lots of pigeons.
“That's one strike,” said a deep male voice. “Two more and you're out on the street.”
Amanda whirled around to her left. Sitting on the bench next to hers was a very good-looking man, dark-haired and dark-eyed. He appeared to be in his early thirties.
He was holding a sheet of paper that looked remarkably like the instructions she'd received from William.
“Paragraph two, line two,” the man said without looking at her. “‘Amanda Sedgwick is to sit on the leather sofa in the living room for one hour twice a day, at ten-thirty and at three-thirty.' You got up early.”
Amanda jumped up, gripping Tommy's stroller. “Who are you?” she demanded. “How do you know my name? How did you know I got up early?”
Someone will be watching you ...
“It's my job to know,” he said, replacing the paper inside his leather jacket.
“Tell me who you—” she shouted at the man, but she only ended up frightening Tommy, who started crying again.
Amanda bent down to soothe her son, hoping to calm herself down in the process. When she looked back, the stranger was gone.
 
As a chilly wind crept into the early afternoon air, Ethan pulled his gray wool scarf tighter around his neck and continued up Columbus Avenue, trying to shut out the image of the baby in the stroller.
And of Amanda.
Why did she have to be so beautiful? Why did there have to be a baby involved? Why did he have to do this?
You don't have to
, he reminded himself. William called in a favor. Ethan could have said no. He could still say no. Get in his truck and head home and see what Nick Morrow had that needed fixing.
You need fixing
, he muttered at himself.
He knew that was why William Sedgwick had called in this particular favor. William had fixed Ethan once, and now, he was playing Good Samaritan once again, sending Ethan “home” to a woman and a baby.
But why this woman and this baby? And for God's sake, why Ethan? Why the hell would William Sedgwick want a bitter, soulless recluse anywhere near his beautiful daughter and his baby grandson?
Damn!
he thought, picking up his pace. He was walking fast and heading nowhere in particular.
Nowhere in particular.
There was a time when a phrase like that would have made no sense to Ethan. Once upon a time, every second of his day had been accounted for, every stride he took purposeful. There had been no time—or interest—in aimless walks. Or in random thought. No time for anything unless it was about business.
Ethan Black, former corporate raider, one of the most respected and reviled businessmen in New York City, hadn't become a multi-millionaire by wasting time.
In his mind's eye, he saw Amanda's baby, bundled into a blue fleece jacket and a matching hat, and he squeezed shut his eyes and willed away the image.
Thomas Sedgwick, age eleven months.
Sedgwick. Amanda had given the baby her name. William Sedgwick's name. For the money train, most likely. The dossier he'd received from William's lawyers said the father of Thomas Sedgwick was out of the picture and always had been.
Out of the picture. Ethan wondered what kind of father he would have been to his own child. No, he didn't have to wonder. He knew. He would have been up there with the crappiest. Ethan would rarely have seen his child, or listened to the child's gurgles and coos. He or she would have been pulled out for appearances when it suited Ethan. Like Katherine had been.
Another image invaded Ethan's mind. This time a woman's, a beautiful woman with soft, long blond hair, intelligent blue eyes, a Playboy Bunny's figure, and a Seven Sisters education.
The week before she died, Katherine had publicly announced her pregnancy.
Mr. and Mrs. Ethan Black are expecting their first child ...
Since Katherine's death, the sight of a child, a baby, especially up close, sucked the air out of Ethan's lungs. He would wonder if his own child would have had his straight dark hair or his wife's—his late wife's—wavy blond tresses. His dark brown eyes or her blue.
His inability to protect those he loved, or her fight to the end to keep her family together.
Her fight to the end. Ethan would never know exactly how Katherine had spent those final seconds, and perhaps he should be grateful. Based on the medical examiner's report and the crime scene investigator's, Katherine had been shot at far range, as if by a sniper. She hadn't known the bullet was coming. And she'd died very quickly, if not instantly.
The baby booties she'd been knitting had been found by her feet. A pale yellow, since they hadn't yet known whether the baby she was carrying was a boy or a girl. It was too early to tell, and besides, Katherine hadn't wanted to know.
Perhaps that was for the best as well.
Katherine was three months pregnant when she died.
And the deaths had been his fault.
“It wasn't your fault!” William Sedgwick had said. The police had said. The shrinks had said. But Katherine's family had said otherwise. Then they demanded to bury Katherine in their family plot in Pennsylvania, where she'd grown up and where they lived, and Ethan had said of course.
It was enough that her life, and her unborn baby's life, had been taken here. Katherine didn't have to rest here without peace for all eternity.
Ethan gulped in the cold winter air. There were people all around him, thousands of people whizzing by, but he might as well be in his remote Maine cabin, and for that he was grateful. That was the thing about New York City. With eight million people all around you, no one was going to notice a grown man with tears in his eyes.
Or a murderer who'd shot a pregnant woman knitting baby booties in broad daylight.
Ethan had no idea what he would have done if Amanda had actually gone inside the park. There was no way he could have followed her; he would never step foot in that park. And the idea of watching her disappear into the crowd, no idea if she was all right, would be too much to bear.
The park was perfectly safe, he told himself. Unless you were the wife of Ethan Black.
It shouldn't matter anymore; he wasn't the Ethan Black he'd been three years ago. But it did.

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