What Laurel Sees: a love story (A Redeeming Romance Mystery) (3 page)

Grace tugged at her arm. “Do you think Daddy will be surprised?”

“Let’s hope so,” Shana said. “And let’s hope he didn’t have breakfast on the plane.”

Shana glanced around the space for Frank’s assistant, Rene Cox. Where was she? At two months pregnant, Rene wasn’t really showing yet, but maybe morning sickness was slowing her down. Shana sighed. Rene hadn’t even been trying and she’d gotten pregnant. Must be nice. Not that she could imagine Rene’s husband as a father. That Kevin, he was quite the piece of work.

Shana guided Grace toward Frank’s reception area. “Certainly is quiet here this morning. Isn’t it, Grace?”

The phone began to ring.

It was hardly a moment before Rene emerged. She tipped her head at Shana as she scuffed across the carpet with a mug of coffee. “You’re here early. Just got here myself.” She set her mug down on a coaster. “Don’t worry. Kevin made me swear up, down, and sideways—decaf only for the next seven months. Have to look out for the little one.”

Again, the phone rang. Assuming an air of professionalism, Rene rounded the mahogany desk. She punched the speakerphone button to answer. “Councilman Fischer’s office, Rene Cox speaking. How may I help you?”

A familiar voice sounded through the speaker. “Hi. Rene, it’s Laurel. For Frank.”

Shana’s expression tightened. She couldn’t help noticing how Grace lit up immediately.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” Laurel went on, “but I got my break and—” 

“Sorry, Ms. Fischer. No sign yet.” Rene shot an apologetic grimace to Shana, then mimed a question:
Should she take it off speaker?

Shana shook her head with a sigh. The morning had been going so well to this point. As much as Shana bristled at Laurel’s call, she wanted to hear exactly what was said.

For the most part, Shana prided herself on the way she was able to handle things with her husband’s ex-wife. She could cover her occasional insecurities. She reminded herself that the divorce was long final.

Clearly and publicly, Frank had chosen her over Laurel. Their marriage was well established. Shana recalled that triumph regularly, every time worry threatened, attempting to convince her otherwise. Of course, it didn’t make it any easier to see the way little Grace’s eyes shone at the sound of her mother’s voice. 

“I haven’t heard from him this morning yet.” Rene checked her watch as she continued the call with Laurel. “He’s been away. His plane, it was scheduled to land half an hour ago, so we’re expecting him any minute.”

Shana wordlessly signaled her disapproval to Rene. The last thing she wanted was to have Rene give Laurel the impression that she was free to call back, or to pop in for that matter. There was no way she wanted to risk having a mentally unstable ex-wife horn in on the first meal the three of them would share after Frank’s early morning return, direct from out-of-town business.

Carefully, Shana maintained a cordial exterior. Inwardly she fumed. The timing was terrible. Even a short phone call with Laurel would change the tenor of their family reunion. The maternal relationship she’d worked so hard to establish with Grace would most assuredly be set back. It had taken time, but she was finally beginning to see hopeful signs. Grace was beginning to accept her as a stepmother. It had been hard-gained ground, territory she’d have to defend and cultivate.

It wasn’t entirely about Grace, though. On levels deeper than Shana dared to admit, it was about Frank. It was about the lingering hold Laurel had on him. As deluded and fanatical as Frank had claimed Laurel to be during the divorce proceedings, Shana couldn’t escape the fact that something in Frank still listened to Laurel’s far-flung imaginings. He’d brood for days over whatever new vision Laurel would put forth. She’d seen it in his eyes plenty of times.

Frank would wrestle with the question of what might actually come to pass after one of Laurel’s supposed prophecies. Frank would allow his ex-wife to slip into his consciousness, to preoccupy his thoughts. Shana vowed anew. She would not to allow that to happen again.

Another of Frank’s phone lines began to ring. Shana smiled at Rene. Finally, an opening. “Rene, why don’t you get that? I’ll take over the call with Laurel.”

Rene took Laurel off speaker, extended the receiver to Shana, then stepped to another phone.

Shana set the picnic basket down and took a measured breath. Things were civil between Shana and Laurel, almost too civil. It was the kind of icy ease that did little to mask what went unspoken between them, at least in Grace’s presence. But before Shana could take hold of the phone, little Grace extended an eager hand toward the receiver.

“Can I speak to Mommy?”

Shana mulled it over. She would take this opportunity to give Laurel a taste of their new family dynamic, through the open line.

Gently, Shana brushed a hand across Grace’s shoulders. “May I, Darling. Remember we’ve been working on that for school? And I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you go put our brunch in Daddy’s office so we can surprise him, okay? That’ll be fun. Think you can carry our goodies in there?”

Grace nodded eagerly. “I can carry it.”

Shana handed the picnic basket to Grace. “Good, then. You can talk to her after.”

“Okay.” Grace picked up the basket.

“Two hands, now.” Shana waved sweetly at Grace. Laurel could wait. Grace had easily agreed to the diversion. She padded toward the double doors of her father’s office.

Shana raised the receiver to her chin. There was no need to translate what allowing Grace to talk to her
after
meant for Laurel. It meant waiting for the regularly scheduled visitation hours that had been dictated by the court. Laurel would have to live within the law.

As Grace left earshot, Shana set her shoulders back. She would not be indiscreet, but any hint of an amiable tone wouldn’t serve her with Laurel. Her cadence took on a deliberate clip. “So, Laurel. What is it this time?”

“Look, Shana, I…”

Shana blotted her lips. Laurel was already sputtering. Laurel had to know there was no way Shana was going to let her talk to Grace, much less have access to Frank.

“Shana, it’s just...” Laurel paused. “It’s just that I woke up early this morning and…you know how I…? Shana, I just had a bad feeling.”

Shana faced away from Rene. She lowered her lashes in stony silence.

Unbelievably, Laurel persisted. “Do you know for sure that he’s okay?”

Shana wasn’t about to lose her composure, certainly not in front of Rene, let alone her own stepdaughter. Instead, she affected an intentional calm. “Last time I checked, I was the current wife, Laurel. That means you can officially let go of Frank. And please—oh, please—drop the metaphysical theatrics.”

Shana glanced over her shoulder at Grace. Not so far away, Grace turned a polished brass knob and opened one side of her father’s imposing office door. Grace grinned back at Shana.

Playfully, Shana put a finger to her lips. Grace readily mimicked her, clearly enjoying their little secret, then toted the basket into the executive office.

Shana lifted the phone to her ear. “It’s not a good time, Laurel. Really, it isn’t. Perhaps another day.”

Grace’s scream pierced through the office suite.  “Daddy…Daddy!”

“Shana, what’s wrong?” Obviously, Laurel had heard it, too.

Rene dashed toward Frank’s office. Shana turned, in shock. Grace wailed. With a sickening clunk, Shana dropped the receiver.

three

T
here was something about chomping on a crisp apple from the neighborhood open-air market that eased Joe back into the normal rhythms of what had become his life. A daily customer at the downtown street vendor, Joe perused an array of newspapers as he crunched into another bite.

Long gone was the era when papers would be sold out by this time in the morning. The Internet had changed all that. When the
Times
had laid him off, they’d blamed the flagging economy. To Joe it seemed a convenient way to jettison seasoned reporters. Hungry journalism grads would work for a fraction of what he’d earned over a decade or two of merit increases.

Joe passed over a variety of tabloids, his face souring as he settled on his rag’s over-hyped headlines. Ah, the fish wrapper of all fish wrappers. How could he not loathe the fact that he worked there? Instead, Joe picked up a copy of the
Times
. He could have made a difference there, if only they’d coughed up the cash to keep him.

He flipped to the Metro section and quickly scanned its pages. Far toward the back, there it was, exactly what he had been expecting to find. Underneath a small captioned photo of Tom Zoring, a brief article announced the defrocked priest’s second parole hearing that morning. Two lousy paragraphs they’d given to that travesty.

Reflexively, Joe grunted. They had buried the story. Years ago when the scandal had broken, it had emblazoned front pages across the country. Now, it was relegated to the “who cares” pages that lined people’s birdcages.

Joe tried to tell himself that it didn’t matter. It was old news already. A text from Lou had confirmed what was surely all over the Internet in a matter of minutes. No wonder the newspaper industry was wobbling on its last legs.

Joe set down a sack of produce. He dug a few bills out to hand to the newsstand clerk.

“Traffic’s nuts, huh?” The clerk was always good for an innocuous exchange of banter.

Hardly in the mood, Joe forced himself to trade cynicisms. “Forty-five minutes it took me to go three miles.”

The clerk handed Joe’s change back. “So…they spring the perv?”

“Yep.” Joe arched his brow. “Like a Republican out of Harvard.”

A police cruiser screamed by as Joe trudged down the stairs to his basement apartment, his paper and produce bag in tow. There was still something of the morning left, but Joe had no intention of hurrying into work, not after the way the parole hearing had gone. He certainly was in no mood to face Debra with the fact that he hadn’t stayed for the actual ruling.

Given Joe’s druthers, he would have opted for time alone. But the sight of his brother, Clay—slouched at his door in sweats, still wearing remnants of smeared Marilyn Monroe make-up—told Joe to face facts. Privacy was not to be had.

Using the side of his shoe, Joe nudged aside a pile of Clay’s belongings. Joe dug his keys out of his pocket. “So, where were you?”

Clay looked up, a disgruntled sneer on his face. “You could say hello to your brother. Good morning would be refreshing.”

“Think you could move?” Joe was hardly inclined to spar.

Clay stood, then slid aside, barely enough so that Joe could unlock the door and enter. Clay followed uninvited. As always. “Actually, Joe, it’s funny you should ask. About me moving.”

Joe set his produce on the kitchen counter. Stella meowed at his feet. Joe opened a bag of dried cat food, then almost automatically, he scooped some into Stella’s bowl. “You got evicted again.”

Clay sashayed across the apartment. “How did you know? That’s amazing. You’re like that, you know that guy that was on...”

“Not in the mood, Clay.”

Clay just shrugged. He pulled the produce out of Joe’s bag and spread it out across the counter. “Mmm, health kick. I’m thinking of detoxing myself.”

Detoxing? What exactly did Clay mean by that?

“Oh, relax,” Clay said, “Did I not vow to you I was off the stuff?”

“Several times.” Another siren wailed.

“And I am.” Clay examined an artichoke. “I’m talking about that detox thing where you do the herbs and the veggies and blast out your pipes.”

Joe freshened Stella’s water. He would not play Clay’s game, especially with that elephant lumbering around the room. “Are you in any way cognizant that you had an obligation this morning?”

“What, I was supposed to go like this?” Clay swept a hand across his sweats. “Seven hours I was quarantined at the club. We were all stuck there from like ten p.m. till after five this the morning—some bogus meningitis scare. Finally, I get home, and I’m locked out. Everything I own is in the alley. Just dumped on the filthy cement. So, I spent the next three hours sorting through my stuff. I had to just pitch what I couldn’t carry. After that, I made a resolution.”

“What now?” Joe clenched his jaw. Why had he even asked when he didn’t really want to know?

“I’m not going to play the victim anymore. It doesn’t suit me.” There was a sudden vulnerability in Clay’s voice. “I’m not going to parade around at some politically greased parole hearing so some board that doesn’t know jack can snark at me like I was the pitiful, freakish result of the dysfunction of the priesthood. Can you understand that?”

Joe allowed himself to soften a bit. “I guess.” He did understand, better than Clay knew.

Clay perched on a barstool. He began arranging fruit into a bowl on the counter. “You okay if I, you know, hang for a while?” Clay raised his hands. “It won’t be long, I promise because... Okay, get this. Last night, this agent—no, no—a manager I was quarantined with, he left me his card.” Clay pulled the card out of his pocket and slid it across the counter to Joe.

Joe took a gander at the card. It was an expensive bond. He turned it over and checked the back. Nice printing quality. Handsomely engraved. Still—Clay and a real agent—it just didn’t add up. “You heard of this guy?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, I’ve read about him. I’ve written to him, like a billion queries. He’s totally legit.”

Cynicism rose in Joe’s throat. He bit the inside of his cheek. Clay was too trusting, still so naive. He was always jumping to conclusions this way.

“I am good, you know.” Clay’s voice took on a defensive tone. “And it is entirely possible that a bona fide judge of talent deemed me worthy of representation.”

“So, call him.”

“I plan to.”

What else could Joe say? He put away the rest of his groceries in stony silence. Clay just sat there, picking at his fingernail polish. Soon, there would be little red chips of that junk, all over the place where Joe prepared his food.

Joe forced himself to walk away.

Long ago, he’d learned that it was easier not to get into it with Clay over minutia. Not with more monumental matters on his mind. “Zoring walked this morning.”

Clay shrugged. He presumed to peel an orange for himself. “Yeah, I figured.”

Outside, more sirens wailed past. How many had that been? Joe opened up his blinds and peered out the window. A helicopter whirled by, racing in the same direction. There went another. Something was up downtown. Something big.

Joe grabbed his keys and strode across the apartment.

“Where are you going?” Clay piled his peelings on the counter.

Joe threw the door open. “To work.”

Laurel gulped for air.

All along the route she ran, sirens wailed impatiently as squad cars jockeyed their way through downtown traffic. She’d counted six emergency vehicles already. There went a seventh. Traffic was so snarled. They could hardly get through. Though her chest heaved from the exertion, at least she could get through on foot.

The closer that Laurel got to Frank’s building, the more ominous the unfolding scene became. Helicopters circled overhead. The police presence alone was staggering. It was surreal—horrifying, and yet eerily familiar. It confirmed everything she’d dreamed but had hoped would never come to be.

An ambulance idled. Rescue workers hustled a gurney toward the entrance of Frank’s building. There was the yellow crime scene tape. It was being stretched across the breezeway to the sliding glass doors, opening to the lobby with its elevator bank to the councilman’s offices.

As if all of the police barricades weren’t enough to circumvent entry, upstairs, she would face an even more formidable blockade.

Somehow, she would have to get past Shana.

It was everything a waitress could do not to be intimidated by a woman of Shana’s regal bearing. Shana had come into Frank’s life an heiress, and of considerable sociopolitical influence in her own right. Shana had everything that Laurel didn’t, including Laurel’s ex-husband and daughter. What’s more, Shana was convinced that the court had found her unfit for good reason.

It wasn’t right to fear a human being. Laurel knew that. But she had to be honest with herself. She was afraid of Shana. Her stature in society was daunting enough. But mostly, it was the power Shana wielded over both Frank and little Grace. It rattled her last nerve.

Laurel steeled herself to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
Get it together
, she coaxed herself.

Quickly, she surveyed the situation. The scene was getting more overwhelmed with authorities by the minute. Soon, the site would be impenetrable. There wasn’t a moment to waste. Laurel veered toward the side of the building. Drivers laid on their horns, adding to the din, as news crews set up along the perimeter, crisscrossing the street. Laurel kept her head down. Her chance to get inside would be over if she drew undue attention.

A police bullhorn assaulted Laurel’s ears as she hurried around the building. Hastily, she scanned for an entry point. There had to be a way. She needed to get inside, but not so much for Frank’s sake. She already knew in her spirit that it was too late for him. But Grace was in there—sweet Grace—whose cries still rang in her memory. Grace needed her. Laurel knew it from the depths of her mother’s heart. But how could she get to her daughter, with the building being cordoned off by this swarm of authorities?

Avoid eye contact, Laurel reminded herself.  Walk briskly. Appear to know exactly where you’re headed. Laurel knew that God had opened up the Red Sea. He had made blind eyes to see, and on occasion, seeing eyes to be blind. Was it too much to hope for the latter?

There. A metal service door slapped open. A catering truck was parked beside it. Laurel stepped up her pace. Her waitress’s uniform was sky blue, rather than the stark white of the exiting crew, but it was worth a shot. Maybe she could blend.

An empty food cart sat abandoned by the catering truck. In a snap, Laurel commandeered the cart and wheeled it toward the service bay. With so much crew exiting pushing full carts, going toward the back entrance was like swimming upstream. There must have been a luncheon. No doubt it had been canceled.
Thank you.
She dared not breathe those words, but she thought them just the same.

Laurel rolled the food cart up the ramp, toward the service door.

“Who do you think you are?” a surly detective shouted.

Laurel snapped his way. But the question hadn’t been directed at her. Rather, it had been addressed to a darkly attractive man, attempting to enter the building just ahead of her.

The man raised his credentials to the detective. “Joe Hardisty.
Kickerton Press
.”

The detective flashed his badge. “Yeah, well, I’m Detective McTier, and my pass trumps yours. If you hadn’t noticed, Mr. Hardisty, this is a crime scene.”

“Could I get a quick statement about the councilman’s condition?” the man asked.

“No statement. No nothing. Go!” The detective hurried the reporter away from the door, right past her.

This diversion wouldn’t last long. Quickly, Laurel slipped through the door with her cart. She glanced back at the detective. He was too busy barking at an underling to notice her.

“Check the food truck and hold every one on the wait staff for questioning,” the detective said. “Nobody else gets in or out from now on, got me? And sweep the media!”

Her heart pounding, Laurel abandoned the cart inside the door and ducked into a stairwell.