Why was life so damned difficult, she asked herself despairingly. Why was life easier on some people and harder on others? Why didshehave to struggle and struggle for the smallest reward?
Dropping her head back, she cast a pleading glance at the stuccoed ceiling, but no answer was written there. All she saw was a spot where the toilet on the floor above had overflowed. The ceiling should be painted, she thought, then realized that the toilet had to be fixed first. But Will could not do even that until their finances improved. After all, no one knew that the toilet was broken, he had said, or that the jacuzzi, the alarm system, and the ice maker were broken. If one of the stately white columns at the front of the house were to fall, Megan suspected he would hawk his mother’s heirloom china to fix it. Appearances were important. It was critical, he said,criticalthat people not suspect the Vandermeer fortune was gone.
Megan gritted her teeth and wondered whether there was a term for the Midas touch in reverse. Everything she touched fizzled.
“WCIC Providence,”came the soft, deep voice from the wall.“You’re in cool country, 95.3 FM.”
She relaxed her jaw, closed her eyes, and listened.
“This is Jared Snow in the heart of the night, bringing you the best of Nashville at six minutes after two in theA.M. You’ve been listening to Foster and Lloyd, the Judds, and T.G. Sheppard. Stick with me at 95.3 FM, WCIC Providence, kickin’ back now to an old favorite by John Denver.…”
She sighed, willing herself right into the speaker, through the wires and transmitters, and into Jared Snow’s soul for a minute. He was so calm, so together. If only she could be that way. But her stomach was twisting, and her hands would have been shaking if they hadn’t been clutching her legs so tightly.
And Will, bless him, was sound asleep in the bedroom.
She knew how he did it. He took pills. And maybe rest was what he needed more than anything. His world was crumbling around him. The pressure was extraordinary. The Vandermeers had been a viable force in Rhode Island circles practically since Roger Williams had established the state. Will had been born wealthy, he was used to being wealthy, and he couldn’t conceive of life any other way.
Megan could. Her father had been a truck driver. He had died when she was two, after his truck went off a bridge in an ice storm. Her mother had gone to work, but there was not much money in unskilled labor, even less once the bills had been paid. By the time Megan turned fourteen, she was working to help out where she could, but theirs had been a losing battle. Any raise in pay that either of them received was promptly eaten up by a hike in the rent or in the cost of gas or clothing or food. Money slipped through their hands like water rather than accumulating and then working for them, as Megan’s mother would have had it do. Money bred money, she told Megan, and she only had to point across the bay to Newport to illustrate her point. “Those people don’t work,” she had said. “They invest their money, reinvest the profits, and live off the interest. That’s the way I want to live. That’s the way I want you to live.”
To that end, she had applied Megan to the prestigious Amsterdam Academy in Bristol. Judged bright and ambitious by the admissions department, Megan was accepted on full scholarship. Her mother had figured that three years among the East Coast elite would open doors for Megan. She had long since realized that her own salvation would come through Megan’s.
While at the academy, Megan befriended the cream of Newport society and long after graduation, her friendship with the Smith girls endured. It was at a grand party on the Smiths’ front lawn that Megan had been introduced to William Vandermeer III. Though he wasn’t Newport, he came close. When Megan married him, both mother and daughter moved into the elegant Vandermeer mansion on the East Side of Providence.
We almost made it, mama, Megan thought, and began a rapid rocking back and forth.
“Takin’ it slow and easy in the wee hours at 95.3 FM, WCIC Providence, where the country sounds are always cool. That was John Denver, and this is Lee Greenwood. Jared Snow here, in the heart of the night, I’m listenin’ with ya.…”
Her rocking became less frenetic as she took a breath, let it out in a shaky sigh, then looked at the wall speaker as though it were the matching face to the voice she’d heard.
She wasn’t in love with Jared Snow. She loved Will. But just then Jared was the one who gave her what she needed. He was an escape from the tension that constantly gnawed at her, a breath of stability in a shaky world.
With her eyes closed, she continued rocking. The music from the radio washed over her as the water from the jacuzzi should have done, and beyond the music was the memory of Jared Snow’s voice. She let it take her from one song to the next, clearing her mind of everything but the dream it embodied. Comfort. Security. He seemed to offer so much, but as the minutes passed, the feeling faded as the rest of her dreams had already done, and she was bereft. Suddenly the porcelain beneath her felt cold. Pressing her lips to her robe, she caught a cry of fear before it could escape.
Her life was not supposed to be this way, she wailed silently. She was supposed to marry her prince and live happily ever after. But the castle walls were crumbling, and, alone, the prince was helpless. She had to do something.
“We’re movin’ along at two twenty-one with the smoothest of down-home sounds, cool country, 95.3 FM, WCIC Providence.”He spoke gently, the words flowing with barely an effort, so soft, so laid-back.“The temperature is twenty-five degrees and falling outside my door, so wrap up tight and stay warm while you’re thinkin’ country cool. This is Jared Snow in the heart of the night, kickin’ around with you right up until six in the morning.…”
Megan squeezed her eyes shut. She didn’t have until six o’clock. Slowly, she released her knees from the cinch of her arms and folded her legs down against the bone-dry tub. Her eyes opened and fell to her lap, to the small, black gun that Will had given her when she had first become a Vandermeer. For her own protection, he had told her.
He’d been right, but not in the way he had envisioned.
CHAPTER2
“Good timing,” Savannah’s secretary called as Savannah rounded the corner and came into sight. Holding the telephone receiver high enough to be seen above the plants rimming her station, she wiggled it and mouthed, “The boss.”
With a nod, Savannah increased her already rapid step. She was nearly flying, yet the only thing at all unsettled about her person was the long, loosely fitting blazer that flared out as she whisked past. Her hair was neatly anchored in a twist at the nape of her neck, her straight skirt shifted smoothly around her legs. The leather briefcase that hung from double straps looked professional enough, but it was her face that made the boldest statement. Her features were totally composed.
Janie Woo marveled at that, given the fact that Savannah had been in court since nine in the morning, arguing a series of motions that would have had many of the other lawyers in the office craning their necks against their ties. Savannah knew what she was doing, and her ability was evident as she surefootedly entered her office.
“Paul?” She snatched the button earring from her free ear and shifted the phone there in time to catch his response.
“Just get back?”
Her briefcase slid to the floor. Working around the phone cord, she shrugged out of her blazer. “Uh-huh.”
“How’d it go?”
She stepped out of her heels. “We won on the motion to suppress, the bill of particulars, and the early trial date, but we lost on the grand jury transcripts.”
