Chapter 2

Copyright 2000, 2006 by Elizabeth Delayne

"Your interview this morning was something."

Jonathon frowned, shifted his shoulder to make the phone more comfortable as he mixed some lines he was working with on his laptop. The mood he was developing didn't seem dark enough, the setting too opportune, or . . . empty.

Like his hotel room. The curtains were pulled closed, shutting out the bright streetlight highlighting the night, the streets, the cars that moved one by one down the empty street.

With a flower print blue comforter and cool, white sheets, the bed looked no different then the last one. The walls were a light pink, or some off-white shade that was masked by the dim lighting. The pictures on the wall were emotionless, without depth, wasted paint on canvas, wasted time.

He shook off the pathetic feelings, leaned back in the hotel's idea of a desk chair to stretch his tired muscles, and focused on the conversation Amy obviously wanted to have with him.

"I didn't say a word."

"We've promised the scoop on the next book to the Internet book club."

"I know, Amy."

"You still have a month to go. I worked hard to work out this deal for you."

He could only shake his head and smile the devilish smile Amy hated, even when she couldn't see it in person right now. "I know sweetheart. I've always been careful with my words."

"See that you do," she admonished again, but some of her profession venom shifted gears. "Now, about tomorrow."

"I have my ticket sitting right beside me. I'll be on time."

* * * * *

Erica chose her wardrobe carefully. It wasn't often that she had a closet full of clothes to pilfer through. Jogging pants, a loose tee-shirt, and a baseball cap, she thought, would best fit the mood she wanted for the day.

And maybe, she hoped, it would help her mother remember that this wasn't supposed to be a business stopover.

Lillian Caine was in the sun room, an open area protected by glass and surrounded by the vibrant color of the garden. She lounged at the breakfast table, dressed for the morning in a chic pair of periwinkle capris and matching top. She read the morning paper.

"Good morning, mother," Erica dutifully bent and kissed her cheek before choosing the seat across the table. Almost immediately a servant brought her a plate of eggs, bacon, grits and sausage, each in small portions and all very southern. It was the way her mother had lived since her husband's death, in the mournful, alone but not lonely stage of the southern belle widow.

"We're having some . . . trouble with our new designer in Milan," her mother began and Erica sighed. So much for the outfit. "I was thinking of flying to Europe in a few weeks to check on a few other things as well. I was hoping," she added, glancing up from her newspaper, "that you would pull the paperwork together from your side of the business while you were home."

Which meant today, Erica concluded, since she was scheduled to depart for Richmond on an early bird flight in the morning.

Her mother had always been a beautiful woman, adored by her father and so many other men after his death. She kept the grey hair colored; massaged age-defying moisturizers into her skin, and met with her personal fitness trainer twice a week. Yet, it was the deep blue eyes that were the most intense, the most attractive, the most youthful.

Erica had never been able to understand what she saw in them.

There had been a time, when Erica was at an age she could barely remember, prior to her seventh birthday, when her father had been alive, that her mother had looked at her with adoring eyes, unabashed emotion on her face. Erica had never doubted that she was loved. Her mother hadn't seemed to care about broken fingernails or perfected makeup. There had been laughter and time off and vacations.

And then, in an instant, there was no more.

* * * * *

"Martin Mortgage."

"You busy?" Erica leaned back in the cab and closed her eyes. It was drizzling, the cab windshield wipers moving to a slow beat. The world outside was grey, chilled. She could hear the wet roll of the tires as they slid along the street.

"Momentarily? No," Amber Martin, an old friend from Erica's early college days answered immediately. There had never been a moment that Erica hadn't felt welcomed with Amber, rarely moments where she was uncomfortable, "where are you at now?"

"Richmond."

"Oh . . . you were in New Orleans this weekend. How was your mother?"

"Oh, just Lillian, I guess. Beautiful, fit, trim, and a whiz at capturing the bid," Erica sighed, blinked back the sudden bitterness. "We brunched, talked business, then . . . I left. She needed me to handle a few things at the home office. So much for a New Orleans vacation."

"Honey, as long as you think of a day's stop as a vacation, you're never going to have one."

"Well..." Erica struggled over the thought, not knowing how to work anything else into her schedule. It wasn't really the missed vacation that bothered her. It was just another moment of realizing she didn't understand her mother, and knowing that her mother didn't want to understand her.

"Erica," Amber's voice traveled over the line like a deep sigh, as the cab slowed to a stop near the airport curb side. People were passing through the automatic glass doors, hurrying in from the rain. She frowned over the interruption, barely caught her friend's plea, "come see me, sweetheart. Take a vacation with me."

"I will," she muttered, digging through her purse, pulling out the correct change as the cab driver muttered from the front seat. "Listen, Amber, I've reached the airport. I'll call you soon."

"Where are you headed now?"

"Atlanta, then Dallas. Mom has some connections she needs me to pan out."

"Have a good trip. Get some rest."

Her carry on suitcase hit the slick ground with a thud, "Yeah."

* * * * *

City parks were slowly becoming his best friends. Sometimes Jonathon found himself talking to the trees, carrying on conversations with nature in his head, trying to understand questions he couldn't answer himself.

Like why he subjected himself to book tours when he wrote to empty his mind more then to earn the money.

Luckily, his once in awhile debates with nature hadn't gone public yet.

This park was a familiar one. The last time he'd been to Sacramento, he'd followed the paths, discovering the pond, the play ground, the gazebo where he'd watched children play hide and seek in between the wooden rails.

Today, he settled on a bench, weary of thinking, of smiling, of signing away his creative identity. He wore a pair of dark sunglasses and a baseball cap, softened by time. He was too close to the bookstore, so he'd changed clothes into something more casual, more himself. The jeans, tennis shoes and wrinkled tee satisfied his fashion sense that Amy complained so much about.

He settled on the bench and watched a mother, tired after a long day at work, lean back on the bench down the path. Her children were playing near the pond, running free as if they had been cooped up in a confined day care center all day.

He saw weariness on their young faces.

Hard times, the early stages of a plot darting around in his head.

And as usual, he picked up on tragedy, on what could happen in a simple twist of fate, of hate . . . .

Jonathon pressed his palms to his eyes and shook his head against the images that lent him best selling pages.

* * * * *

"You look a little lost, young lady."

Erica glanced at the matriarch of Detmore Fabrics, the aging mother of it's CEO Ronald Detmore. The Detmores had been in the association with the Caines since Erica could remember—flashes of the bright and whimsical woman in her sparkling sequined gowns. Tonight Emma Detmore glimmered under the chandelier lights in a gown of the lightest green. Her eyes, brightened blue, were filled will easy-going laughter and charm. Her age marks, lining her face, added not to her age, but to her youth, as each turned to accentuate her laughter and smile.

Emma took her hand and pulled her away from the wall where the last business associate had left her standing. She was tired—too tired to follow, too tired to put up a fight.

The swanky ballroom of the Wisteria Hotel was packed tonight, full of old Southern money and high profile business people mingling throughout the teal-carpeted room. Diamonds glittered, dangling from earlobes, silk dresses rolled under the light. Conversation circled in a dizzying rally of movement, as if the room were slowly turning, tipped on its axis.

"I've always felt that the walls of a room were for hanging old paintings of those crotchety ancestors we brought over from England. You're too young for that," she squeezed Erica's hand and stopped dead center in the room. Emma was shorter, Erica realized with a start, even though stacked up on thin needles of high heels. "How old are you?"

"Me?" Erica rolled the thought over in her mind, suddenly blank. Her eyes grew large as she searched for the answer.

"Twenty-seven, twenty-eight, I think," Emma substituted. "It seems your mother went on and on about you when Burney and I were working our way through Europe. Burney would’ve liked you. Intelligent eyes—that's what he would see. And he would tell you, too."

She cut short her prattle for just a moment, and scanned the crowded ballroom a finger to her lips. "Now lets see," she muttered, and stopped her slow pan suddenly, "I've got it. Stay right here and I'll be right back. Don't move."

As Emma shuffled away, sequins glittering like a jewels around her, Erica pulled out of her trance. She was twenty seven, she remembered, weary and standing in the middle of a boring business hub-nub party her mother would have adored.

She looked around for someone she knew, hoping to get out of the center of the room where she had been ordered to remain. All she saw was a blur of faces—a cast of puppets in some nameless drama.

"Jonathon," Emma's voice announced from behind. Erica slowly turned around, surprised as an equally bewildered man was brought forward. His eyes were brown, Erica realized, a deep brown to drown in. "I wanted you to meet my dear friend, Erica Caine. She's from Melbourne—"

"New Orleans," Erica corrected, dropped her eyes back to Emma's. "Father was from Melbourne."

"Whatever. Erica, Jonathon's a writer. Horror films or western novels. I can't remember. It's just fascinating."

One final and very obvious push on her friend Jonathon, and Emma's attention was distracted again, taking her across the room to some other wallflower, Erica supposed. She glanced nervously up at the man Emma had brought over, for whatever reason, and suddenly wished for a glass for her hands to hold onto. Not to drink—she would never be able to keep it upright.

He was handsome, she thought, comfortable and relaxed in her first glance, but the second look, a deeper look, she noted the weariness and wariness. It intrigued her that someone would be wary of her.

"I think we've been set up," he said after a moment and chuckled easily, shaking his head. "I should have known she was up to something. She told me an hour ago she'd be right back. She seemed to have better luck with you."

Erica nodded. Socially, she was stagnate, unable to work words around the lump of clay she had for a brain. She could feel the steadiness of the floor beneath her feet and wished, for the moment, that it would swallow her up.

She swallowed. "You're a writer?" she asked finally.

"Police dramas," he corrected Emma's earlier fallacy. "And you're Erica Caine. I picked you up in the news last week when I was in California. They opened the Parliman building in Sacramento. Quite a sight—the dazzling picture in the Times."

Was it fortunate that she'd seen the paper, Erica wondered, and knew that the color picture on the front was of her and not of the culture preserving center built on the edges of California's capital? There'd been a little pride in her eyes as she stopped before the arched doorway. It had been her project, not her mother's.

"Re-opened," she corrected. "It was a historical masterpiece in itself. We had to move it to save it from the urban build-up around it, then reinforce the structure itself, and after a few finishing touches and the addition of two wings on either side . . ." her mind slowly went blank as she noticed how he watched her, his brown eyes focused, assessing, and interested all at the same time.

"Do you go there often," she managed her way around the words, "to Sacramento?"

"I make it out to California about once a year. Less if I can manage it. How about you? Last week there, today here. You seem to be everywhere these days, Erica Caine from New Orleans. What's your next stop?" he looked at her expectantly, then reached out and touched a hand lightly to her arm. She glanced at it. His hand seemed large on her wrist. Tan and rough. He was an outdoors man, she realized, slowly tuning into his words. Like Thoreau—a writer who thrived in nature.



She was a beauty, of the old fashioned sense. Her brown hair, that had glimmered almost red under the bright ballroom light, was styled with large waves of curl that framed her face. She looked like something out of an old post World War two war movie, in color, but still old fashioned.

She looked tired and so uncertain of him, glancing at him cautiously as if waiting for something. It was such a delightful contrast. Confidence and beauty versus uncertainty. She reminded him of the deer that ventured to the edge of his property, only to bolt in surprise when he opened the screen door. It he ventured to guess, he might realize her weariness was not so much of the body, but of the mind.

"I'm sorry," she said at last, "Emma took me by surprise. Dropping me—you like that with me."

"I have a feeling she meant too. Tell me . . . how much fun are we having right now?"

"In this place?"

He laughed, delighted with her. "I spotted a couple of billiard tables, a few escapees gathered around in quiet seclusion. Can you play?"

It stunned her a bit, taking her a moment to refocus her mind, then she smiled. "This and that."

"Are you about to work me into a wager with your innocence?"

"I wouldn't want you to take my money now, would I?"

He laughed, stood, and then reached for her hand, "Come on. I think I saw a few quieter rooms off the main drag."


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