Elevator, The (10 page)

“Hey, Shelly.” Ashley greeted her with a smile. “You on your break?”

Shelly nodded. “Just thought I’d pick up a couple of things. I’m thinking about looking for a new job and need, you know, something to wear to the interview.”

Ashley picked up the skirt. “Wow, this is nice. Haven’t seen this before.”

“It was—” Shelly pointed vaguely over her shoulder “—in the clearance pile. I didn’t see any others like it.”

Ashley punched in the amount.

“Say,” Shelly said, leaning on the counter, “have you seen the new guy in sporting goods? I hear he graduated from Florida State. Used to play football for them.”

“Really?” Ashley picked up the satin top. “You like him or something?”

“Or something. He’s cute.”

Ashley slipped the jacket from its hanger. “You got a good deal on this, girl.”

“I know.” Shelly pulled her wallet from a pocket. “This’ll probably clean me out, but I reckon it’s worth it.” She moved closer and lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “So…you want that guy to ask you out?”

Ashley’s smile froze. “You know him?”

“No. But I could ask around, see who does. He’s got to have friends somewhere, right?”

“Or maybe he’s lonely and needs a new friend.” Ashley punched the last number into the register, then frowned. “Uh-oh.”

Shelly felt her stomach drop. “What?”

“Your employee discount. You want that, right?”

“Um…okay.”

“So that’s an extra twenty-five percent off.” Ashley tapped another two keys, then totaled the sale. “There you go—an entire outfit for fifteen bucks. Can’t beat that with a stick.”

“Sure can’t.”

With the package under her arm and Ashley’s “thank you” ringing in her ears, Shelly took the escalator down to the basement where a stack of boxes waited to be unpacked. After finishing that task, she would find Morris and ask for the night shift. For the next few weeks, she’d need a couple free hours each day to interview for a more prestigious position.

An entire world waited outside West Virginia, and she would do anything necessary to explore it.

At nineteen, after experiencing the benefits of an exercise in audacity, Shelly Tills found that shedding her past was no more difficult than stepping out of a pair of overalls.

G
ina is leaning against the elevator wall, trying to take relaxing breaths and imagine herself on a spacious snowy mountaintop, when a piercing alarm shatters the silence. The strident
blaaat-blaaat-blaaat
jerks her back to reality and rockets her adrenaline level.

As her body tightens, she stares across the car at the brunette who identified herself as Michelle. A faint flicker of unease moves in the woman’s brown eyes, then she glances at her watch. “Gus,” she says, raising her voice above the din. “Remember?”

Gina leans forward, a hand cupped around her ear. “What?”

Michelle points at her watch. “It’s a quarter after ten. I’m guessing Gus figured the fire alarm would be a good way to clear the office suites.”

The maid is sniveling again, trembling as she dabs at her eyes and nose with a tissue. “Is a fire?” she manages to croak between sniffs.

The brunette shakes her head. “I don’t think so.”

A shiver passes down Gina’s spine as the shattering sound continues. Will it ever stop? By the time the mechanic arrives, they’ll be raving lunatics, driven out of their minds by this torturous racket.

And what if Michelle’s wrong about Gus? A generator or something could have caught fire; flames could be shooting up from the lower floors at this instant. If so, they’ll be toasted in minutes if they don’t die from smoke inhalation first.

Gina covers her ears, trying to lessen the ear-splitting sound’s impact by anticipating it, but each
blaaat
of the siren shatters her defenses. Over and over the alarm blares, scraping across her overtightened nerves, without deviation. Now she understands why the army uses rock music to torment suspected terrorists. This repetitive racket is enough to give anyone the screaming meemies….

She is about ten seconds from beating her head against the wall when the alarm stops. She tenses, bracing for another explosion of noise, but a balloon of quiet fills the car instead.

Finally, a moment of mercy.

Michelle breaks the silence with a subdued whisper. “I don’t smell smoke, so Gus had to have pulled the alarm. There’s no way he can do an office-to-office search to make sure everyone’s out of the building.”

The maid lifts a trembling hand. “They…will not come for us?”

Michelle gives her a twisted smile. “I wouldn’t count on Gus. Did you see the way he walks? The man needs a hip replacement—there’s no way he could climb stairs to help us.”

Gina struggles to find her voice. “He might try—”

“I know Gus,” Michelle interrupts. “He’s got a good heart, but he’s not the type to take chances. He probably hit that alarm, locked the front door and headed out, convinced that he’d done all he could be expected to do. But that’s okay—Eddie Vaughn is playing the part of knight in shining armor, remember? He’s on his way.”

Gina closes her eyes. Yes, the elevator guy is on his way…across a windblown three-mile bridge that may be closing at any minute. In the meantime, she can’t keep hoping for invisibility. Judging from what she heard through the telephone speaker, they’re likely to be sitting in this elevator at least another hour.

She sighs and settles one shoulder against the wall, then gives Michelle a rueful smile. “I suppose I should introduce myself. I’m Gina…and I’m sorry for snapping at you a while back. With all that’s going on today, I’m a little wound up. I hated to leave my kids at home, but I wanted to run up here and help my husband handle some last-minute things in his office.” She shrugs. “I never imagined this scenario.”

Michelle shakes her head. “Who could?”

Gina forces a smile, then lowers her gaze to the floor. Sonny is a workaholic, but he can’t work without power and he won’t wait forever for the electricity to be restored. If he can’t work, he’ll go home. With that fire alarm blaring, he probably headed for the stairs and the parking garage, where he’ll find his car and…see hers.

She blinks as the shock of realization hits. He’ll see her car. He’ll know she’s come downtown to find him. He’ll ask himself why she would leave the kids in this kind of weather, why she would come without calling first…and then he’ll realize he’s been found out.

What will he do next? The question has only two possible answers. He will either return to Gina and his family, or he will go protect the other woman.

Trapped in this cage, Gina is helpless to prevent either action.

She turns her face toward the door as frustration stirs memories of a dark time in their marriage. Sonny’s mother died the year before Matthew was born, and Donald Rossman, Sonny’s father, grieved quietly for two years. Sonny and Gina were delighted when he met and married June.

But when Donald entered a Kentucky hospital a few months later, they learned that June had convinced him to write a new will and change the beneficiaries on his life-insurance policies. “Of course I expect him to provide for June,” Gina whispered to Sonny as they kept a vigil by Donald’s hospital bed, “and I know your dad’s a fair man. I’ll appreciate anything he leaves us.”

What she could never appreciate was his indifference to his only son.

Two days after Donald’s funeral, they learned that he had left
everything
to June. As they prepared to return to Florida, Sonny put a few of his mother’s handmade quilts and photograph albums into the back of the van, only to be stopped by June’s attorney. With a policeman by his side, the lawyer demanded that every piece of property be returned to the house.

Gina wept all the way home. Donald had known they were struggling to establish a business and provide for two small children, yet he surrendered everything to a woman he’d known only a few months. “Lust,” Gina told Sonny, her throat raw with grief. “It addled his brain.”

Sonny no longer speaks of his father, but the pain still exists, simmering and hot, beneath his confident facade. One has only to mention Donald’s name and the agony boils over, undercutting Sonny’s assurance and self-esteem.

How can a man who has suffered under that hurt fail to see that he has been caught in the same trap? Sonny met a young woman and was overcome by lust; he is spending his children’s inheritance on an outsider. Given time, he will mortgage their futures to satisfy his sensual cravings.

But his time has run out.

Gina lifts her gaze to the dark ceiling, where the lights refuse to burn. If her husband has done the smart thing and left the building, she’ll catch up to him later. No one, especially not their father, will hurt her children like Donald hurt Sonny.

Gina stared numbly at the check in her hand: Pay to the order of Regina Meade Rossman the sum of fifty thousand and no dollars, dated September 4, 1985. A bittersweet bequest from her last surviving parent.

Her father had been in his grave three months before the lawyers settled his affairs. After taxes, expenses and selling his house and office building, fifty thousand dollars was all that remained of a once-sizeable estate built from her father’s insurance business.

Her father had been more indebted than she realized, but that wouldn’t alter her plan. Her suggestion would be slightly more modest, a minor adjustment to a proposal that could bring them independence, stability and, eventually, a steady income. Most important, her offer could help Sonny fulfill his dreams.

She had left work at noon, pleading a headache, and pulled into her parking space just as the mail carrier finished stuffing envelopes into the apartment’s mail station. Thanking him with a smile, she pulled out her key and opened her box. Hard to believe, but the lawyer had kept his word and mailed the check on time.

She unlocked the apartment door and stepped inside, inhaling the scents of dust, mildew and the previous tenant’s cigarettes. Daylight fringed the closed draperies and seeped onto the worn carpet, a nondescript shade designed to hide dirt. Gina tossed her purse onto a patched vinyl chair and moved into the kitchen, situated not more than ten feet from the front door.

She hated this apartment. She hated smelling it on her clothes, coming home to it after a long day and making love to her new husband beneath its stained and cracked ceiling. Newlyweds deserved a fresh beginning, but on their salaries, she and Sonny had only been able to afford this pigsty.

Now she had fifty thousand dollars, enough for a down payment on a nice house in a good neighborhood…but Sonny had a dream. And while a house might bring her happiness, Sonny’s dream would surely prove to be the worthier investment.

After starting dinner, she slid the check into an unmarked envelope, then slipped the envelope beneath a folded napkin. Humming to herself, she moved to the oven. Two chicken breasts bubbled in cranberry sauce; two baked potatoes hissed in foil jackets. She had a salad in the fridge and bakery rolls in a basket. Sonny would appreciate a good dinner—enough, she hoped, to listen to her proposal.

She stiffened at the sound of a key in the lock. He was home. Time to begin.

“Hmm, something smells good.” Her handsome husband stepped into the rectangle that defined their small kitchen and dropped a peck on her cheek. He shrugged out of his jacket, then noticed the dishes on the table. “How long have you been home?”

She took his coat. “I told Mr. Thomas I had a headache.”

“Do you?”

“Not anymore.”

She draped his sports jacket over the back of an empty chair, then sidled past him on her way to the oven. “I have something I want to discuss with you, though. An idea I’ve been contemplating.”

He sank into his chair and loosened his tie. “Honey, I’m really tired. I’m not sure I’m up to talking about a bigger apartment even though I know how much you hate this place—”

“I could be happy here awhile. With no kids, we’re really not that cramped.”

His left eyebrow rose a fraction. “What do you have up your sleeve?”

“You want French dressing or Italian?”

“Blue cheese, if we have it.”

She pulled a nearly empty bottle of his favorite dressing from the refrigerator, then drizzled it over the salad. She talked as she worked, her determination like a rock inside her as she carried the food to the table and explained her strategy: they would start an insurance company like her father’s, but they would insure only low-risk clients. No smokers, no one more than twenty percent overweight, no one with a chronic illness. With a good actuary and careful planning, they could earn a profit within six months. Within a year, they could begin to issue more conventional policies.

Sonny’s mouth twitched with amusement. “Honey, we can’t open a business. We’d need seed money, an office, equipment. We could barely afford to pay the rent, let alone hire an actuary—”

She sat down, pulled the envelope from beneath her napkin and handed it to her husband.

“What’s this?”

“A bequest.”

He opened the envelope, then gave her a bright-eyed glance, full of memory, pain and awareness. “From your father?”

“Yes.”

He didn’t have to say anything, but in his eyes she saw the pain of
his
father’s indifference, the sting of his stepmother’s callousness. After a long moment, Sonny’s gaze caught and held hers. “You really think we could pull it off?”

She raised her glass. “I do.”

Sonny lifted his goblet and touched it to hers. “Then let’s go into business together.”

They rose from their seats and met in the middle, sealing their bargain with a kiss.

Caught up in a wave of sympathy, Michelle watches Gina unfold her bent legs and settle into a more comfortable position. Despite that bit of snappishness a few moments ago, the lovely redhead is obviously one of those women with a built-in sense of social grace. Michelle has always admired women who were born to success, but how they manage to remain impeccable and impressive in difficult situations has always been a mystery.

She’d be insane with worry if she’d left children at home with a hurricane approaching.

“Your kids,” she asks. “How old are they?”

The redhead crosses her legs at the ankle. “Nineteen, seventeen and fifteen. Old enough to take care of themselves, I know. But still, a mother worries.”

“I don’t blame you.” Michelle glances at the panel of darkened elevator buttons. “This entire situation is frustrating.”

“Yes,” Isabel whispers. “I am frightened.”

Michelle falls silent as the sound of the whistling wind penetrates the elevator shaft. Amazing, that they can hear it from this sheltered center of the building. When she signed her rental agreement two years ago, she learned that the Lark Tower met Florida’s hurricane requirements and was capable of withstanding winds of up to one hundred miles per hour. At the time of its dedication in 1972, the Lark was a marvel of engineering, but Florida has beefed up its building codes in recent years and the Tower has never experienced the brute force of a category-four hurricane. Though the building wears its age with a certain grace, its glass exterior has weakened. Those wide, aging windows will be especially vulnerable to flying debris.

Michelle rode out the last hurricane, a category three that came ashore two hundred miles south, at her condo. Aside from a few fallen branches, Tampa home owners experienced only minor effects, yet buildings in Fort Lauderdale and Miami suffered severe structural damage and residents endured two weeks without power. If Felix proceeds as predicted, they’re looking at a scenario that could be much worse—