Regrets Only (11 page)

As
she spoke, Suzanne opened her email and typed
Lunch Thursday?
to Marci
and hit Send. She hated lying to her mother, but didn’t think she could handle
lunch at the club just yet.

“Certainly,
sugar. It’s just that there was something I wanted to ask you.”

“Okay,”
Suzanne said slowly. “Can you ask me now?”

“Well,
I know how…
rough
it’s been for you this past couple of weeks, and I was
wondering if Daddy and I could lend you some money? Just until you get on your
feet again.”

“Daddy
wants to lend me money?” Suzanne was surprised.

“Of
course, honey,” her mother said nervously. “I mean, you know how proud we both
are of you.”

“Does
he know you’re calling me?”

“Not
exactly, but your father has been so busy. I didn’t want to bother him with a
little thing like this. I feel certain he won’t mind a bit.”

Busy,
right
. If she
were a lawyer and this were a small law firm she’d started, maybe he’d think it
worth rescuing. “How is Daddy doing with all of it?” she asked cautiously. Imagining
how he’d reacted to seeing his baby girl in what seemed a compromising position
in the papers was not pleasant.

“Oh,
sweetie. You know your dad. He’ll be fine. Now, I’m writing you a check for
say, five thousand dollars. That should cover your expenses for a while. You
can buy some sensible suits and start interviewing for jobs. I don’t think the
ladies at the League will be too hard on you, especially once we explain—”

“Mom,”
Suzanne said through gritted teeth. “I thought the loan was to help me rebuild
my business.”

“Oh,
come on, Suzanne. Don’t you think this little venture of yours has run its
course? All those events with alcohol and celebrities.” She said
alcohol
and
celebrities
with distaste, as though she were saying
flatulence
and
defecation
.

“I
love what I do, Mom. I’m not going to let a little setback knock me out of the
game.”

“Of
course. I just hate seeing your college degree go to waste. I think I heard
that Bolton Academy is looking for an elementary art teacher; you’d be perfect—”

“Hold
on, Mom. I have another call.” It was true. The red light on her second line
was blinking rapidly. “Suzanne Hamilton,” she said, switching to the other line
without waiting for her mother’s reply.

She
was surprised to hear the chipmunk voice of Yvette, sounding stiff and awkward.
“Hello, Suzanne. I hope you have recovered from your, er, sudden illness?”

Her
tone indicated that Suzanne’s recovery was not at all among her chief concerns.
In any case, she didn’t wait for a reply. “I’m calling with a message from Mr.
Burke. I just want it noted for the record that I have advised Mr. Burke
against this course of action,” she said. Suzanne held her breath.

 “Mr.
Burke wishes me to ask whether quote-unquote hillbilly weddings are in your
repertoire? His sister Kate is getting married Memorial Day weekend at Dylan’s
mountain cabin in Tennessee and he’d like you to plan the wedding.”

“I
don’t do weddings,” Suzanne replied reflexively. It had been her mantra ever
since she went into event planning. Marci and Jake’s wedding had been the only
exception, ever.

“Of
course not,” Yvette sneered. “You have your reputation to consider. That’s what
I told Mr. Burke.”

“Even
if I did, six weeks isn’t much time to plan a whole wedding.”

“I
agree,” said Yvette. “Though Kate is quite set on the date. Her fiancée has a
professional commitment in a month and they want to be married beforehand.
Still, I told Mr. Burke I thought it would be better to hire a
real
wedding planner. And as there will be some media attention, I have suggested we
hire someone…less inflammatory? Of course, you can’t disagree with that.”

Suzanne
could not disagree. And yet she wanted to, desperately.

The
red light was still blinking on Line One, where her mother waited for her to
accept help and get a regular job like everyone else. Here on Line Two, was a
woman she didn’t like, representing a man she was too humiliated to even
consider facing again, with an opportunity to do something she had always
hated. It was a no-brainer.

“I’ll
do it,” Suzanne said in a rush.

At
the other end of the line, Yvette was quiet. Suzanne continued, assuring
herself as much as she was Yvette, “I’d be honored to help Kate Burke plan her
wedding. Thank you and Mr. Burke so much for the generous opportunity.”

The
squeaky manager recovered from her apparent shock, and her tone was composed
and polite when she finally answered. “Lovely. Email me a contract and I’ll get
you the basic details. Kate is out of the country, but she has some preliminary
ideas gathered that I think you’ll find useful. I can have someone on our staff
get them to your office on…Monday? Is that soon enough?”

“Sure,”
Suzanne said numbly.

She
heard a shuffling of papers as Yvette went on matter-of-factly. “You’ll meet
with Kate when she gets back from Prague. Let’s see, she’s flying in Sunday,
April twenty-seventh. How’s that following Tuesday? I assume you have no other
clients beating down your door right now?”

Suzanne
could almost hear the smirk at the other end of the line.

“No,
I don’t,” Suzanne said. “Thank you so much for taking that into consideration.
Tuesday the twenty-ninth is fine.” She hung up without waiting for a response.

#

When
Jake and Marci arrived for lunch on Thursday, they found Suzanne researching
Dylan Burke online. “Obsessing much?” Jake asked, and then recoiled from the
look Suzanne sent his way.

“Jake,”
she trilled as sweetly as possible. “I need your wife for a few moments. Could
you make yourself useful and water the plants?” She gestured to the row of
ferns hanging high along the enormous wall of windows.

Jake
came around the desk and rubbed Suzanne’s shoulders playfully. “Anything for
you, my dear,” he said. As he headed back to the storage closet to get the
ladder and watering can, he called over his shoulder, “There’s nothing like
having
two
wives. Some guys aren’t even lucky enough to have one.”

 “Well,
I guess that makes you twice the husband, honey,” Marci called after him,
winking at Suzanne. She then turned to look more closely at the computer, where
Suzanne had an article pulled up about Dylan and his family—one of few Suzanne
had found that mentioned his younger sister Kate. Most articles focused on his mom
and her other daughters, Sherrie and Amber. “What are you doing, really? Dylan
Burke fired you, right?”

Suzanne
shook her head, and launched into the story about Yvette’s call and Kate Burke’s
wedding. She was just getting to the part where she had stupidly agreed to do a
famous person’s wedding in just a few weeks—with the bride herself out of the
country for a third of that time—when Jake called to them. “Guys? Can you come
here for a second?”

They
obeyed, exchanging looks of confusion, and found Jake standing in the enormous
storage closet behind the loft’s bathroom, scratching his head. At first
glance, Suzanne didn’t see anything amiss. The closet was tidy and organized,
as usual.

“What’s
wrong?” she asked.

He
pointed. “Is this the ladder you fell off before Dylan’s party?” She had
forgotten until now that it was broken.

“Um,
yes. Sorry, I forgot that you can’t use the top step, but I think you are tall
enough—”

“No,
Suzanne,” Jake said, with no trace of humor in his charming face. “I think
maybe you should consider calling the police.”

 #

Officer
Frank Caputo of the Atlanta PD was polite and thorough, if not overly helpful.
He had arrived about twenty minutes after Suzanne called. He jotted down the
details of Suzanne’s fall from the ladder, including the time of day she’d gone
to the emergency room and the name of the doctor she’d seen. He took a picture
on his cell phone of the broken ladder, and of what Jake had just discovered: the
tiny metal shavings on the floor underneath it.

They
looked like silvery-black pencil shavings, in a small pile next to the
baseboard of the closet. Once Jake pointed them out, Suzanne was surprised she
hadn’t noticed them when she pulled the ladder out originally. Jake had noticed
them, though, which led him to look more closely at the broken step. A single
jagged point of metal stuck out where the top of the step had remained
connected to the side; the rest of the break was clean. Someone had sawed
almost all the way through the step before Suzanne had stood there. Her fall
had not been an accident.

Officer
Caputo had agreed with this assessment. Beyond, that, however, he seemed to
have little to offer.

“How
many people have keys to the office?” he asked, sounding bored.

“Just
me, my assistant Chad, and the landlord.”

“Your
assistant? Any problems there?”

“None,”
she said without hesitation.

“Is
there anyone your landlord might have let in recently? Like to do service on
the unit?”

“No,
I don’t think so,” Suzanne said, thinking. “The last time was a broken toilet,
but that’s been…more than six months ago. There have been some vendors here
dropping things off for an event recently, but Chad always meets them here with
the key.”

“Have
you filed any other reports recently?”

“Well,
my tires were slashed a month or so ago,” Suzanne said. “There was someone in
my spot so I had to park on the street. I was here late; I just assumed it was
some neighborhood kids.”

“Any
problems with the neighbors?”

“No.”

“Recent
breakups? Boyfriends?”

Marci
snorted, and then recoiled under Suzanne’s glare. Officer Caputo gave her a
questioning expression.

“There
have been a few…I’ve dated a good bit recently.” She tried for her usual
Southern charm, but it sounded instead like a bad imitation of Amanda Wingfield
in
The Glass Menagerie
.

I
declare, sir, I
have
had a good many gentleman callers.

“Anyone
you may have rejected?” the police officer asked. “Maybe someone more
interested in you than you were in him?”

Suzanne
bit her lip.

Marci
interjected, “That pretty much describes
all
of them.”

The
officer gave Suzanne a look she couldn’t read, and she stared down at her feet,
reddening in response. The elbow she aimed at Marci missed by inches.

“Ma’am,
I’ll file a report, but there’s not much we can do for you unless you have some
idea who is doing this.” He handed her a photocopied page with a blurry title
across the top—“Ten Tips for Stalking Victims.”
Stalking
. Shit.

“You
might want to make a list of boyfriends, or, um…
dates
, you’ve had in
the last year or so.” Suzanne could tell the word “dates” made the young
officer uncomfortable, and she suddenly felt inexplicably dirty. “Maybe even
further back if you can think of anyone who might be upset with you. Are you
ever here alone?”

Suzanne
thought about Chad’s new job with a lump in her throat. “All the time,” she
said softly.

“You
should have an alarm installed here, and maybe at your residence. You live
alone?”

“Yes.”

“Well,
try not to get too worked up about it. Use common sense—don’t walk alone at
night, stay in touch with your family and friends, lock your doors. Don’t open the
door to anyone you’re not expecting. Two-thirds of stalkers are someone you
know, the other third are strangers. Either way, awareness is your best weapon.

“I’d
suggest keeping a small camera with you to take pictures if anything happens or
you see a suspicious car. You can call us with the license plate. We’ll file a
report and that will help, if you get a protective order later.”

“Protective
order?” Suzanne couldn’t believe the words coming out of her mouth. “Will that
help?”

The
officer’s tone was professional, emotionless. “Sometimes it does, if whoever
did this to you is afraid of being arrested. Of course, it doesn’t matter until
you know who it is.”

“So
there’s nothing you can do?” Marci demanded.

“I’m
sorry, ma’am, there’s not. Not until we have more information.” He turned to
Suzanne, and her face must have looked as colorless as it felt, because he
softened a bit. He put a large, rough hand on her shoulder. “Make your list.
Keep your eyes and ears open. If you get any evidence of who might have done
this to you, call us.”

Chapter 10

Three
hours later, Suzanne and Marci sat in the kitchen of Suzanne’s large Buckhead
condo, waiting for brownies to finish baking. From the adjacent living room,
they could hear Jake snoring on the couch. He had fallen asleep watching
basketball.