* * * *
The whine of an alarm blared.
Amanda jerked awake. Her interrupted dream had her cowering behind Johanna's wedding dress and trying to keep Callaway McIntyre, brandishing the black dress, from seeing her face.
A second's orientation before the noise made sense.
That was glass shattering. Someone was trying to break in.
She lay petrified.
Scuffling noises came from her apartment's front door.
Do something!
Rolling out of bed, she retrieved her .38 revolver from the bedside table.
It was bound to happen. A shop in this section of Atlanta. Cash deposits.
For seven years, there’d been the fear that one day a robber would try to get in.
Her fingers shook. Willing them to stop, she gripped the handle tight. Then she crept into the living room.
Moving shadows by the doorway materialized into an arm and hand snaking through the broken sidelight. The hand found the deadbolt and fumbled with it.
She flicked on the lights.
“Go away or I'll shoot.” Her voice didn’t quaver. It sounded quite calm.
This had to be a bad dream. But the gun’s weight was real and so was the hand, now motionless.
An actual person, invading her home.
Dear heaven, a man had been killed the past year in a home invasion a few blocks over.
Training from a woman's firearms course kicked in. Both hands gripped the gun and pointed it. Her stance steadied. “I mean it.”
The gloved hand disappeared through the broken pane. A dark form outside melted away.
Quiet descended.
Was he going around to the bedroom window?
Amanda didn't dare go see. He might return to the living room and finish breaking in. Putting her back to a wall, she watched and waited, too terrified to do anything but guard the door.
The phone rang, scaring her so she almost pulled the trigger.
It was the security firm checking to see if she was all right.
“No, I'm not all right.” She wanted to cry but she never cried. Never. “Somebody tried to get in.”
Luckily she had splurged on the security system when she first outfitted the old house near Lenox Square for use as a shop and home. Still, the few minutes before a blue light pulled into the yard and a uniformed policeman got out, seemed like hours.
“You got a license for that gun, lady?” was the first thing the policeman asked. He didn’t do it politely.
She was a victim, dammit, not a lawbreaker. “I certainly do.” Bristling, she dug into her purse for her carry permit.
That was only the beginning. The rest of the night flew by as she dealt with the surly policeman and a detective who arrived later. Her unsympathetic rescuers seemed doubtful of an arrest while the discovery that the intruder had worn gloves decided them against trying to lift fingerprints. They perked up when hearing about the car bomb but in the end, only took notes.
“After all,” the detective said, “your intruder didn't get in, did he? I don't expect you'll see him again now he knows you’re armed. And your car... Well, the bomb might not even have been meant for you.”
Afterward, there were more questions to be answered and forms to be filled out, all of which took longer than Amanda thought a few minutes of terror warranted.
The men did not finish until nearly five in the morning.
Almost time to leave for Johanna Lathen’s wedding. No need to go back to bed for forty minutes.
She made herself a pot of coffee and took a hurried shower, all the while listening for strange noises. Before loading her minivan, she checked that her enclosed garage was empty and locked.
Break-ins weren’t everyday occurrences, but they also weren’t uncommon. She'd been expecting something like this since she'd moved to the area. One attempted burglary in eight years wasn't too bad. Part of the price for living near Lenox.
But the car explosion and the break-in together worried her. Neither could have anything to do with Callaway McIntyre, but nothing like them had ever happened to her before.
She stowed her appliance case in the back and shut the tailgate.
There, loaded and ready to leave.
Maybe she should beg off. No, Callaway might have recognized the black dress, but he couldn't know it was the same one or who had worn it. She'd just stay out of his way at the wedding and he’d never figure out she was Scarlet.
It was too early to call Melissa at home and ask her to find someone to repair her door. She'd call from the road so as not to waste time.
How horrible the past few weeks had been. Her attempt to help Noelle had unleashed a torrent of bad luck.
What else could possibly happen?
* * * *
From now on, he was controlling events, Cal McIntyre told himself. No more jumping through hoops for a pretty woman.
At his cottage on the edge of the Fair Meadows estate, he had arisen early. A bright puddle of sunshine on the patio warmed the morning and made it pleasant enough to sit at the wrought iron table and drink his coffee outside.
Wisteria scented the air. A squirrel scurried halfway down an elm, beady eyes hopeful of crumbs. Birds called overhead. It promised to be a good day for Amanda Jane’s downfall.
Sipping coffee, Cal re-read a typewritten report picked up the night before.
When Amanda was eighteen and Noelle nine, their mother had died in a car crash after abandoning her family. Eleven years later, their father had died from cancer.
A neighbor where they grew up called Amanda a second mother to Noelle. Another said Noelle had some kind of disability that meant Amanda or her father was always taking her around to doctors and psychiatrists and therapists. One of Noelle’s teachers was quoted as saying the girl, while sweet, was impetuous and prone to do stupid things. “Emotional disability. Borderline personality disorder, I think they called it.”
The consensus was that Noelle wasn’t very smart.
As for Amanda, she was engaged while a junior in college, but her fiancé accidentally died. Friends, neighbors, one and all, said his death had devastated her. A co-worker of her father said he’d never seen anyone change so much so fast.
No one who talked to Cal’s investigator had anything bad to say about the sisters.
Except that they're con artists and thieves.
Noelle must have been casing his suite the entire time she hawked her ring and gave him the sob story about needing money for her sick baby.
He threw the report down.
And I fell for it
.
Same old stupid, gullible Cal. When would he learn?
They'd both pay. Especially Amanda Jane.
By seven o'clock, when Amanda's minivan became one of the many vehicles on the interstate heading out of the city, Cal was showered and dressed in the striped pants and starched shirt mandatory for ushers in the wedding.
Carrying his coat on a hanger, he whistled as he came up from his isolated cottage for breakfast. His tune ceased at sight of the usually fastidious Claire descending the stairs. Her slacks were rumpled and her T-shirt had a big stain on the front. “You look like crap.”
“Thanks loads.” She walked like a sleepwalker, moving through dust motes that danced and glittered in sunshine streaming through a round window on the landing. “At least we won't have to cope with rain on top of everything else.”
“Did the rehearsal dinner wipe you out after that big bachelorette party the night before?” He’d left early to pick up the report on Amanda Jane.
“No, I was in bed by eleven but I couldn't go to sleep. Then when I did, I dreamed Johanna's dress was lost and the caterers had set up for a Halloween party instead of a wedding reception. We had pumpkins and corn stalks instead of ferns and candles. I kept saying,
it isn’t Halloween
, but they didn’t listen.”
Cal hung his coat in the hall closet. As Claire headed toward the back of the house, he fell into step. He hadn’t told her what the investigator had found. No need in getting her hopes up. But from the looks of her, maybe he ought to say something.
At the breakfast room, Claire touched his sleeve. “Robert's already down here.”
That explained the car that woke him up this morning. “I thought he went back to Atlanta after the rehearsal dinner. He made a big deal out of meeting Sonny at the airport. I figured they'd stay at the apartment overnight.”
“He picked Sonny up, but then they came on here. I don't know what time they got in, but he was up early.”
In the breakfast room, Robert sat at the table, dirty dishes pushed to the side. Casual in khaki shorts and a golf shirt, with the
Wall Street Journal
propped up before him, he put down his cup. “What, Cal, not wearing your lucky studs for the wedding?”
Claire stiffened.
“One of the stones was loose,” Cal said easily. “I'm having them all cleaned and checked.”
Trust Robert to notice, he thought as Claire gave her husband a perfunctory kiss. Across the table were the remains of someone else's breakfast, probably Sonny Kirkman's.
Sonny, who thrived on little sleep, had doubtless got up to eat with Robert and discuss more developments, more mergers, more whatever.
“I was so tired I didn't hear a thing after my head hit the pillow,” Claire said to her husband. “What time did you get in?”
Robert made a face. “I don't know. Late. Too late. Sonny's flight was delayed. I should have let him take a cab instead of going back to pick him up.”
Cal went over to inspect the breakfast buffet. “I heard your car go by. You got here about five.” Eggs, grits, bacon, country ham, gravy and biscuits on one side. Muffins, pastries, and bagels on the other.
“Five?” Claire frowned. “You and Sonny should have slept in. We have a few hours before the wedding.”
“Sonny's never needed much sleep,” Robert said, “and I'm not that tired. We used the time in the car to go over this zoning thing in Virginia. Sonny says we may have to go to the state legislature to get...” He droned on about red tape.
Cal tuned him out and poured himself and Claire coffee. He opened the lid of the warming pan. “Want a muffin, Bags?”
She shook her head. “I'm not very hungry.”
“Come on, have one. They're blueberry, the kind you love.”
“No, thanks. I can't eat a thing.”
He winked at her. “Everything will be all right. Trust me.” He put a muffin on a plate and took it to her. “Eat. I promise you'll feel better tonight,” he said meaningfully.
“Oh.” Hope lit her face. “All right.” She began to pick at the muffin.
Robert noticed their exchange. “What's going on? What are you two plotting?”
Claire laughed without humor. “A wedding, I hope.”
Robert examined her. “You’re nervous.”
“We're all nervous,” Cal put in, to take the heat off Claire. “Aren't you?”
Robert's eyes narrowed, but Cal smiled pleasantly.
Too bad the Board was probably going to name Robert CEO. Too bad there was no one else they
could
name. Cal sure couldn’t do the job.
Claire could. She’d be ten times better than her husband, but forget asking. She’d never emasculate Robert by taking a job he'd worked so hard to get.
Robert shrugged. “I suppose you're right, the pressure of the wedding's getting to all of us.”
“We've had the auditors in all month, too. They've been a pain.” Claire pinched off a blueberry. “We're always having to dig out junk for them. I wish the timing had been better.”
“I know.” Robert's face softened. He leaned over to take Claire's hand. “Perhaps when this wedding's over, you can relax. Why don't we take some time off, go on a cruise or something? Somewhere without the boys. Tip would babysit if we asked him.”
Claire showed surprise, then pleasure. “That would be wonderful.”
“We'll do it then. Let's have Sonny, no…” Robert's forehead creased. “Sonny's taking off on vacation right after the wedding. Talk to my secretary next week, darling, get her to make arrangements for us.”
“Yes, I will,” Claire said, beaming. “It'll be good for us to get away together, won't it?”
“A second honeymoon. Have Martha check my calendar.”
Damn. Even a tiny bit of Robert's attention makes Claire glow. She deserves better.
* * * *
Amanda deserved every bit of this uneasiness for what she'd done.
But she had nothing to worry about. Her nervous stomach had to stem from conscience.
Callaway McIntyre would have been on her like a shot the other day had he suspected Scarlet was the designer Jane. Instead, he had gone away without a backward glance.
But he still saw the dress and questioned Melissa about it. He’d even wanted to ask
her
about it
.
She'd almost gotten Melissa to attend Johanna's wedding in her place but had reluctantly decided against it. Her reputation rested on personal attention to the elaborate and costly bridal gowns she designed and sold. Sending Melissa might have caused people to wonder or started rumors circulating that Jane was slipping.