She felt in limbo, suspended between two very different worlds. Much as she loved Sam, she didn’t know where their relationship was going. Any way she looked at it, they were from opposite sides of the track. While she liked having money and the things it could buy, Sam refused to take a cent from her. She wasn’t sure she could moderate herself to fit his standard of living.
Yet thought of a future in Newport, with more of the same for the rest of her life, depressed her.
She wanted to talk with Savannah, but between Jared and work, Savannah was preoccupied. And anyway, Savannah was on her black list. She had everything—a job, a love, the kind of attention that Susan craved. Perhaps it was just as well Savannah was busy.
The only other person who’d met Sam and might understand her dilemma was Megan. Each time Susan called, though, Megan had other plans, and while she sensed that such plans were fictitious, she couldn’t push the issue. Megan was worried about the upcoming trial. By comparison, Susan’s problems seemed petty.
So she was left without an outlet. Frustrated that Sam wasn’t with her, wanting to escape the uncertainty of their relationship, even wanting to defy him in her way, she drank. She usually did it in Newport, where she’d have more time to sleep it off before he found her, but there were times when she settled into Sam’s new leather easy chair with a bowl of ice, a glass, and a bottle of Chivas Regal.
That was just what she did on a night in the middle of May when Sam went undercover to get information on a call-girl ring that was allegedly putting more than one Brown coed through school. Susan didn’t like the case. She didn’t like the idea that Sam would be mixing with coeds any more than she liked the idea that the suspected mastermind of the ring was a local politician with reputed ties to the mob. Most of all, though, she didn’t like the fact that she was alone.
She wasn’t drunk, just slightly dazed, when the phone rang. It was barely ten. Somewhere through the mist in her brain came the thought that it might be Sam. She nearly got up. Then she realized that if her words were slurred, he’d know just what she was doing and be disappointed in her. It was one thing to defy him, another to disappoint him. She didn’t want to do the latter. Besides, her legs were too heavy to move.
Propping the glass on her lips, she waited through the second, third, and fourth rings until the answering machine went on, then smiled lazily at the sound of her own sexy voice.
“Hi. You’ve reached the right number at the wrong time. If you’d care to leave your name and number, the good lieutenant will get back to you as soon as he can. Ciao.”
The beep sounded. Seconds later, a gravelly voice said, “This is Captain Divine from the Butler Police Department. We have an emergency situation here. I have to talk with Sam Craig as soon as possible.” He gave the number, then hung up.
Susan stayed where she was. Captain Divine. Cute. Some yo-yo was having a good time.
She started to tip the glass to her lips, then righted it. Leaning forward carefully to compensate for any lessening of her coordination, she set it on the floor by the bottle. Then she sank back in the chair and thought about the call.
It was probably a joke. Captain Divine had to be a comic strip character.
Still, for a comic strip character, he’d sounded grim. And where was Butler?
Pushing herself from the chair, she maneuvered her way to the answering machine, pressed the replay button, and listened to the message again. There was a strange feel to the call. She wasn’t sure whether, in her predrunkenness, she was imagining it, or whether it was simply strong enough to penetrate that same semidrunkenness.
Fumbling for the nearby pad and pencil, she listened to the call again. This time she jotted down the number the man had given. There was an area code, but it wasn’t one she recognized, not that she was up for recognizing much. And as for Butler, it didn’t ring any bells at all.
Much as she wanted to put the message aside, return to the large, leather easy chair and finish her drink, she couldn’t. Something inside told her that the call wasn’t a prank.
Grasping the telephone, she contemplated putting through a call to Sam. She couldn’t reach him directly, she knew, but she could relay a message through the department. Even they might have trouble; when Sam went undercover, there was often no way to reach him until he resurfaced. She assumed that if it were a dire emergency, contact could be made. Somehow. If it were a dire emergency.
The problem was that she didn’t know what kind of an emergency the grim Captain Divine had in mind.
That could be remedied, she decided. But first, she had to be able to think more clearly. To that end, she ran the water in the sink until it was steaming hot, dumped two generous spoonfuls of instant coffee into a cup, filled the cup with the water, and drank it down. While she was waiting for the caffeine to take hold, she went out to the deck and let the chilly night air do its share. Within ten minutes, she felt that while she wasn’t as sharp as she might have been, she could safely carry on a conversation without embarrassing either herself or Sam.
Returning to the phone, she punched out the number on the pad. Indeed, it got her through to the Butler Police Department, but to an Officer Sackett.
“Captain Divine, please,” she said. “I’m calling on behalf of Sam Craig.” She was immediately put through to the man who had called nearly twenty minutes before. “My name is Susan Gardner,” she told him. “I’m a close friend of Lieutenant Craig’s. Your message came through, but Sam is on duty. I don’t know exactly when he’ll be able to return your call. If there’s a real emergency, I could try to have someone from the department contact him.”
“I think you should do that,” the man responded. He sounded as grim as he had before, and this time Susan couldn’t blame her muzziness. She was growing more sober by the minute.
“Can I ask what this is about?”
“There’s been an accident. Several members of Mr. Craig’s family were involved.”
“Oh no,” Susan breathed. Her heart was beginning to pound. “If you’re calling Sam, it must be bad.”
“I think he should get out here as soon as possible.”
Susan didn’t ask where here was. Sam’s family lived in western Pennsylvania; she assumed Butler was in that area. “I’ll call the department,” she said. “Sam will call you as soon as we reach him.”
“I’ll be here.”
Susan pressed the button to disconnect the call, then quickly punched out the number of the Providence police. Once she relayed her message to the officer who answered the phone, she could do nothing but sit and wait for Sam to call.
