666 Park Avenue (11 page)

Chapter Eighteen

T
he next day,
M
aeve opted for the stairs when she saw
Jane in the elevator, and Jane’s annoyance bubbled over. There was no reason for this sort of cloak-and-dagger nonsense. No matter who her future in-laws were, Jane hadn’t done anything to merit being treated like a pariah. She devised a plan on the way home from work, and vowed to get to the office extra-early the next day.

“Extra-early,” unfortunately, only turned out to be 8:45. Even having sacrificed her peace of mind by accepting a ride from the creepy (but undeniably efficient) Yuri, her multiple stops before work hadn’t left her nearly as much of a time cushion as she would have liked. Nonetheless, she scurried into the office, dumped her Burberry-plaid wool coat unceremoniously on her desk, and made a beeline for the fourth-floor hallway where she’d (literally) run into Maeve on Monday.

It took less than a minute to find the door with
M. MONTAGUE
printed on its label, and luckily the office was still empty. Jane tiptoed inside. The room was nearly identical to hers, although Jane’s view was much grander than Maeve’s look into the office building next door.
Ah, the perks that come with connections,
Jane thought with a twinge of bitterness. She’d trade her view for a friend in a heartbeat . . . but she wouldn’t give up Malcolm for anything.

She arranged the venti caramel macchiato she’d bought on the way in, along with a size-zero ivory sweater she’d picked up from Intermix the night before. She propped a note up against the steaming latte:
“Monday was all my fault, but I can’t seem to run into you since! Let me know what to do re: photocopying. —J.”

There,
she told herself when she was satisfied that the items looked just friendly enough, and tiptoed back out. She had waffled for a while about the last line of the note and, in fact, had a second version in her pocket that left it off entirely. The stack of papers that her coffee had ruined had been considerable, and there was no doubt in Jane’s mind that a sincere effort to replace them was a necessary part of her peace offering. It was deeply unlucky, though, that the decent thing in this case involved the prolonged use of an electronic machine.

Jane heard the rumble of the elevator doors sliding open around the corner and her body sprang into action, launching her across the hallway toward the stairwell door.
Worse comes to worst, I drop the papers off at Kinko’s or something.
She rushed up the stairs as if someone were chasing her, and arrived in her office breathless, flushed, and feeling more than a little silly.

Time to calm down, Special Agent Boyle.

She pulled her to-do list for the Dorans’ party out of the desk drawer and looked for something mindless that might kill a few hours. Fortunately, all sorts of samples—from swizzle sticks to candles to Venetian half-masks—had come flooding in from potential vendors, and mixing and matching them into appealing combinations was just the sort of activity she was looking for.

Shortly past noon, a familiar set of springy curls appeared shyly around Jane’s door. They were followed swiftly by a white paper bag—larger than Monday’s—which Maeve waved like a flag of truce. “Cream of wild mushroom or Italian wedding?” she asked cautiously, a delicious garlicky smell wafting into the office.

“Mushrooms, please! This right here is a wedding-free zone.” Jane grinned, and Maeve eased herself into the chair on the far side of the desk.

“Seriously?” she inquired, hazel eyes dancing. “I thought every New Yorker our age has been planning her wedding to Malcolm Doran since the tender age of four.”

Jane snorted, fishing around in the bag until she found a plastic spoon. “That would have been a waste of time,” she retorted. “His mother has the whole thing planned out already, down to the brand of water they’ll serve. Acqua Panna, of course.”

The soup was deliciously rich and the container was huge. Jane wondered how Maeve stayed so incredibly tiny on a diet like this. The three-quarter-sleeve top she was wearing today revealed wrists so fragile-looking that Jane thought they might snap under the weight of her spoon. But there was nothing fragile about her eyes, which remained thoughtful and speculative even behind her cheerful grin.

“They can’t make it
too
easy to ride off into the sunset with the world’s most eligible bachelor, can they?”

Jane sensed a challenge underlying the casual tone, but all she could do was shrug wryly. “I’m not stupid; I could tell he was a catch. But I grew up in France and had never even heard of the Dorans until I met him. How the hell was I supposed to know that everyone here acts like they’re royalty?”

Maeve pitched forward in her chair, clearly stunned. “You really didn’t know about them? You’re not from one of the—” She looked confused to the point of incoherence, and bit her lip hard before apparently deciding how to proceed. “Your families don’t know each other?”

Jane frowned, twisting a purple swizzle stick between her fingers. Maeve looked floored by the idea that Malcolm might have chosen someone the Dorans hadn’t prescreened. Were subtly arranged marriages a thing in Manhattan society? If so, she should cut Lynne a
lot
of slack from now on. She might be overbearing and controlling, but at least she hadn’t told Malcolm whom to marry.

“Total strangers,” Jane confirmed, shrugging. She considered adding that even though she’d only met Malcolm a short time ago, it felt like they’d known each other forever, but decided it would sound cheesy. Maeve was just barely warming up to her—no need to scare her away so soon.

“Huh.” The tiny redhead slid the plastic spoon back into her soup, pushing meatballs around in the broth. “We go way back with them,” she said thoughtfully. “They have a history of marrying within a certain circle.”

A sobering thought occurred to Jane: had Maeve been interested in Malcolm? She clearly expected him to marry someone more familiar . . . perhaps someone such as herself? “I hope I didn’t disappoint anyone in that circle too much,” she said carefully.

To her relief, Maeve didn’t seem to register her implication in the slightest. “I bet you did,” she replied carelessly, “not to mention every social climber in the city who wants to break into it.” She shrugged, shaking her shoulders restlessly as if she were chasing tension off. “Look, it’s none of my business, but watch your back with that family. You don’t want it to be your closet they’re hiding the bodies in. Or for it to be
your
body they’re looking to hide.” She smiled, but her eyes stayed serious.

“Oh, they’re not so bad,” Jane said, feeling a twinge of guilt at having complained about Lynne, which was something she had really been trying not to do. Besides, the way that Maeve kept saying “they” made it seem like she was including Malcolm in her assessment of the lot, which didn’t seem fair at all. Even Lynne, for all her faults, didn’t really rate the title of “sinister body-hider.” Maeve had probably just spent too much time gossiping with salesgirls at Barneys.
She’ll come around if she gets to know how Malcolm is with me. No one could ask for a kinder, more loyal man.

She ate another spoonful of soup and listened as Maeve moved the conversation to the MoMA, giving her the lowdown on everyone from the security guard to the tour guide who was convinced that he was Leonardo da Vinci reincarnated. “He seriously wanted to sue Dan Brown!” Maeve exclaimed.

Jane laughed as Maeve did the security guard’s impression of the Vitruvian Man, feeling warm and full from the soup—and from the realization that she had just made her first friend in New York.

Chapter Nineteen

T
he best part of planning the
D
orans’ cocktail party,
Jane soon found, was that it gave Lynne something to talk to her about, other than the wedding. Even with the color/theme decision hanging over their heads like an absurdly trivial ax, Lynne had spent their entire lunch focused on gift bags for the party. It was so refreshing that Jane had decided to walk the seventeen blocks to the MoMA, oblivious to the January wind that whipped her charcoal Theory slacks against her legs.

She arrived flushed, her pale hair wavy from the wind, and settled in to make her phone calls: Kate Spade for the bags themselves, and then Kiehl’s, Ralph Lauren Home, Stolichnaya, Anna Sui, Teuscher, Blumarine, and Argento Vivo—for the goodies to fill them. She had always been uncomfortable about asking for special favors, but after a week of the words “Mr. and Mrs. Doran” being followed by “Anything you want, darling!” in deliriously happy tones, it was getting much, much easier. In fact, those calls were so pleasant that they more than made up for having to explain to the baffled caterer, in no uncertain terms, that it was unacceptable to serve anything that could be described using the word “satay,” per Lynne’s latest edict.

The afternoon flew by (it helped that there was no printing, photocopying, or faxing involved), and when she exited the museum again, she noticed that the wind had turned biting.
Definitely a bus evening,
she decided. Against all odds and contrary to her usual luck, there was an M3 just pulling up to the stop. It had plenty of empty seats, the lights all worked, and there didn’t seem to be any crazy people on board.
And people say this city is tough.
Jane smiled to herself.

When she arrived home, the gloomy inside of the Dorans’ mansion caused her good mood to waver a bit (even in spite of Gunther’s decidedly cheerful snoring). She sidestepped the paneled elevator in favor of the staircase tucked behind it, hoping that raising her heart rate would counteract the effects of too much tapestry. The nondescript wooden door on the sixth floor accepted the same code as the elevator and, as an added bonus, let her in right next to the kitchen. Snagging an apple from the blue-and-white bowl on the center island, she wandered slowly down the hall, wondering if Malcolm was home yet.

While she appreciated his ambition—especially in light of the family fortune that made it totally unnecessary—lately it seemed as though his work ethic was getting out of hand. He had had to fly to California for an auction series over the weekend, and had been gone by the time she woke up every morning since, leaving nothing but a trace of warmth and his lingering spiced-champagne scent to confirm that he had ever been in the bed at all. They had sat across from each other at the rather stiff, formal family dinners at night, but she was beginning to miss the easy rapport they had in private . . . not to mention the explosive chemistry. It was getting to the point where she was considering leaving him an extremely detailed and explicit note that explained in vivid terms exactly
what
she missed.

She was so focused on his absences, in fact, that at first, when she heard his voice filtering down the hallway, she thought she must be hallucinating it. But there it was again, louder this time, as if he were walking and talking—or perhaps shouting. She realized with a start that she’d never heard him yell before.

A second voice rang out—it was unmistakably Lynne’s, and carried a low, dangerous note that made Jane shiver. The two of them were obviously arguing, but she couldn’t make out the words. The voices were heading toward her fast. Not wanting to look as though she was eavesdropping (yet not wanting to miss a chance to overhear), she ducked into the hall bathroom and pulled the door shut behind her. It was cool and dark and smelled faintly of bleach. She immediately felt disoriented and a little nauseated, but she resisted the urge to turn the light on, in case it showed under the door. A door swung open and shut somewhere along the hall, and suddenly she could hear them much more clearly.

“. . . everything you asked me to do,” Malcolm practically snarled as the footsteps thumped closer. “When do you start to trust me a little?”

“When you start to show some judgment,” Lynne snapped coldly. “If I still have to tell you every little thing and hold your hand every step of the way, then that is
exactly
what I will do until you grow up and stop being so
sentimental
.” She pronounced the word the way most people would say “torturing babies.”

“In case you hadn’t noticed,” Malcolm shot back, “my ‘sentimentality’ is actually an asset to you right now.”

“To
us
,” his mother corrected. Their voices were so close now that they had to be right on the other side of the bathroom door. Jane held her breath. “This is a family, Malcolm. And while I appreciate everything you’ve done so far, you’re taking it to an inappropriate level. There is no excuse for forgetting who your true family is, and that’s
us
, not that . . . that
girl
.”

Jane jumped. They were arguing about
her
?

“ ‘That
girl
’ is my fiancée, Mom,” Malcolm confirmed in a warning tone. “Which, as I recall, you were absolutely thrilled to hear.” Jane bit her lip until she tasted blood. What could she have done to upset Lynne so much? She raced through every moment of the past week. She’d gone along with every single one of Lynne’s plans. Well, except for the dress. But Lynne didn’t even know about that yet! The voices grew fainter again, and Jane pressed her ear against the door.

“Don’t you dare try and change the subject, Malcolm,” Lynne hissed, and Jane found herself nodding in agreement.
Stay on track while I can still hear you.

But then Jane heard the creak of another door opening and then slamming shut, and Malcolm’s reply was too muffled to hear. She leaned against the door, her breath rasping in the darkness. Her stomach churned and her head started to spin. Wedding-planning errands, family meals, and run-ins in the kitchen began to swim together in her mind’s eye.
What did I do to become “that
girl
”?

The lights in the bathroom snapped on. Startled, Jane banged her knee against the marble sink.
I just bumped the switch, no biggie,
she tried to tell herself, but she knew that she hadn’t. Her breathing came harder now, her heartbeat out of control, and she could feel the electricity rising in her body, like an anchor that had come unmoored. The lights flickered again and again, and then blew out with a blinding flash, plunging the bathroom back into darkness.

And then her heart stopped completely. Light from the hallway flickered through the crack beneath the door, on and off, on and off, as if a thunderstorm were raging outside. Her power, fierce and wild as ever, coursed through her veins, shooting sparks between the synapses in her brain.
She
was the thunderstorm.

A door banged open somewhere in the house, and she heard Lynne shout something angry and imperious. Footsteps scurried down the hall past Jane’s hiding place.

“ . . . as if I were an electrician, but I can’t piss her off or my baby won’t eat . . .”

Jane heard the thoughts as clearly as if Sofia were speaking aloud. Hot tears welled up in her eyes. No wonder Lynne was having second thoughts. How could anyone be happy about bringing
this
into their home?

Just calm down. Everything is fine. Malcolm and I will be . . .
The bulb in the light fixture to Jane’s right—a heavily carved frosted-glass confection—flared briefly back to life, and then died. Before she could draw a breath, the light directly above her head did the same.

A small moan escaped from her lips, and she spun to her left and ran blindly from the bathroom, a trail of flashes and darkness following close on her heels. “Stop,” she whispered, “please stop.”

The flat-screen television in the drawing room blared to noisy life as she passed by, and she ran harder. In her distress, she didn’t immediately recognize the door of her room, and had to backtrack a couple of steps. She shoved it open and launched herself inside, tripping over the fringe of one of the rugs and nearly falling as she slammed the door shut behind her. She kicked off her shoes, then dived underneath the cover of the red-and-gold canopy.

Once inside the brocaded walls of the bed, she began to sob in earnest. She pressed her face into the pillow, trying to muffle the sound. Outside her room, she heard the shouting, running, and slamming of doors continue. The bedside lamp shattered, but the brocaded panels kept her from having to see the effects of the magic she had unwittingly called up. She stayed tucked in the safety of the hanging fabric, and eventually her breathing slowed and the commotion in the hallways died down.

Malcolm did not come to bed all night.