Four Days of Fall

  Four Days of Fall

  A novel of suspense

  BECK JONES

  ◆◆◆

  Hotel Femme Inc.

  eBook Edition

  Copyright © Beck Jones 2019

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this work, in whole or in part, in any form.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations and events depicted herein are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Ah, Fall of 2017. When the foliage turned and so did the worm. When leaves fell and so did network gods. When careers were snuffed out and so were people, some who we loved and some not so much. So, after a real killer fall, here’s to a new year!

  —Toast by Larry Symington to his tablemates, overheard at the Spring 2018 Banquet of the American Association of Meteorologists

  F A L L 2 0 1 7

  THE PRO

  Headlights off, the car sliced the darkness, a shadow gliding over the rain-swept asphalt. At the intersection ahead the young woman in a trench coat stood waiting for the light to change. The wet sidewalk glinted beneath her high-heeled pumps. Under the streetlight the profile of her face was delicate. She ducked her head as she stepped onto the road.

  Pretty woman walking down the street.

  She was scanning for puddles because she didn’t want her new shoes to get wet. She wore new underwear, too. Gorgeous bits of frothy lace.

  Pretty woman the kind I’d like to meet.

  The Pro did not know what Phoebe Shapiro was wearing underneath her trench coat or what she was thinking. So he didn’t know that she was feeling confident for the first time in ages, ready to play the hand she’d been dealt. She had a great job that she loved, and she finally believed the ghosts of the past were just that: Ghosts. Not something real that could hurt her. Not anymore.

  The Pro did not know or care about any of this. He considered himself neutral, the instrument merely of her fate.

  Pretty woman won’t you stay with me.

  He flicked on the headlights. The blast of light bathed her face when she turned toward the car, her eyes wide.

  Dear in the headlights.

  Pretty woman no more.

  And on to the next. A rooftop appointment with Scarlett Sharpe.

  D A Y O N E

  What falls on Monday

  SCARLETT

  She gathered her skirts and raced down the elegant cascade of steps, each step taking her further from the lantern light of the veranda and deeper into darkness, until at last she had only the moonlight to guide her past the undulating mounds of the tobacco fields. She was getting closer to the forest, but the rising storm blew against her. It stung her cheeks and ripped the hood of her cloak from her hair. Set loose, her hair streamed behind her like a brilliant flame that wouldn’t, couldn’t, be extinguished in the wind.

  Emmaline felt the whole power of the earth pushing her backward, back to Briarcliff and into Edward’s arms. Into his grasp.

  But she would not let that happen. No.

  And yet she could feel his presence already close on her heels. He didn’t need to fetch a horse, even. Those black leather riding boots, gleaming in the moonlight, and long muscled thighs that guided a horse so expertly, so inexorably, could transport him as fast as necessary, especially with only her own legs and thin slippers to make her escape.

  And then she was at the edge of the forest, too late. Edward was upon her. He grabbed her roughly, pressed her against a tree trunk. She could feel the bark ragged against her cloak. Edward’s breath was hot, his eyes lit up as if by fire. She writhed against him, but his lips found hers, and her lips—oh, faithless lips!—opened. She closed her eyes, gave up, gave in, not caring what happened next.

  He moved his mouth down her neck.

  His mouth wandered down, and down, to the cleft

  His mouth roamed

  His mouth meandered

  His mouth

  His

  Scarlett groaned, her fingers falling away from the keyboard. Faithless fingers, she thought with a wry smile. Why did she keep getting stuck right here? It wasn’t as if she didn’t know what would happen next. What had to happen. Edward was not a man to be denied, even if Emmaline was his own father’s wife.

  So why couldn’t she just do it?

  Just do it. You know, like the commercial says.

  But the more she looked at the page, the less she felt able to just do it.

  She ran her fingers through her hair. When was the last time she’d “done” it?

  Time for her morning sky break. Maybe that would recharge her. Good lord, what a creature of habit. She reached for her jacket hung on a chair. When did I start needing so much comfort? I’m playing everything way too safe. But then she put on the jacket anyway and as penance took the stairs two at a time so that she was winded by the time she burst through the door into the wide-open air. She shoveled her hands into her pockets, felt the cool air against her cheeks as she headed for the edge.

  The rooftop was the best thing about the apartment, the reason she stayed on after she could afford better. People said the word “edgy” all the time. So “cutting edge,” they would say, those people who would pee their expensive pants at the true edge with its abrupt and utterly unforgiving consequences. She pressed her stomach against the railing around the roof’s perimeter; below, her toes stretched into the air. So far up and so far down. Vertiginous, Russ had called it the first time he had come to her apartment and they stood out here as she told him her childhood runaway story, tears in her eyes.

  But Russ, like all the rest, didn’t really understand vertiginous. He had also called it our sky as his hand snaked around her waist. This is our town and our sky. She had surveyed the night not only through the blur of her tears but also through the lens of her story, even as he cinched his hand tighter, drawing her closer. She never considered removing his hand from her body or herself from the situation. She had simply leaned in, since that was clearly required, or at least what Russ so clearly required.

  Lean in.

  Just do it.

  She smiled as she imagined pushing Russ out into thin air. Let him get a real taste of vertiginous edginess.

  “Over you go,” she murmured. Although she knew Russ could defy gravity. Paul and Russ practically joined at the hip, and now with Paul disgraced (and dead) barely four months she’d just heard from a friend in television news about Vincent Sabine’s plans for a new network and Russ being his choice for headliner.

  But then her own star was rising, too. Her third book in two years. The story of Northrup Gold in Steeling Gold had made itself at home on the best-seller list for nearly a year.

  Behind her a squeak, but when she turned there was no one there. There were two stairwells up to the roof; both doors were closed tight.

  She shifted her face toward the sun for warmth, if not for inspiration.

  But something was wrong. In that place some people called in my bones or others called in the back of my mind, that place where instinct lay curled beyond words, that place where Scarlett herself had once lived every day of her life, she knew something was off.

  Still. The sun was shining. She was up here on the roof, in her element.

  And of course something was off. Instead of fresh air, she needed to feel Edward’s hot breath. Edward still wasn’t real for her. That was the problem. But if she could at least get this chapter finished. Get it done. She had promised to show Hedda a draft in a few weeks.

  Again, she looked around the rooftop. Of course she was alone.

  All alone.

  Maybe she really did need a change of scene.

  Her phone vibrated in her pocket. Hedda. She might as well answer it since Hedda would only
call back if she didn’t.

  “Oh, sure,” she said to Hedda. “The writing is going great.”

  She didn’t feel bad for lying. Why make Hedda miserable, too? Still, action was required. After she ended the call, she decided to call Eleanor. No answer. She started to leave a message.

  “Eleanor, this is Scarlett. I was wondering if your offer about the house in North Carolina was still open— “

  Call waiting beeped. Eleanor. Scarlett tapped the icon.

  “Eleanor? I was just leaving you message. About the house.”

  Eleanor’s tone was briskly cheerful, her default setting. “All yours, chickadee.” There was a beat before she asked, as Scarlett knew she would, “Reporters bothering you again?”

  “No. Just thought a change of scene would be good.”

  “I’ll text you the address. The key is under the big urn in the back garden. When are you going?”

  “I thought I’d try to get a flight out this morning. Is that okay?”

  “No sense wasting time. It’s perfectly fine. How long did you want to stay?”

  “Just a day or two. Need a break is all.”

  “Well, enjoy. Liquor is fully stocked. The house is on the National Register, but the kitchen is a modern dream. And if you’re not up for cooking there’s a little joint on Main Street. The Raven. Not exactly Tout Va Bien, but they make surprisingly decent food. And there’s a place on the river, too. Joleen’s Crab Shack. I hear the food is good there, too.”

  Typical Eleanor. Using the lure of a house five hundred miles away to make sure Scarlett didn’t blab to the press about Russ, but also making sure Scarlett didn’t go hungry.

  Scarlett started toward the door as she wrapped up the conversation with Eleanor, who never had time for small talk anyway.

  She felt a chill cut through her as the rooftop door closed behind her, and she stood at the top of the stairs. An awakening of the old feeling. Instinct moving out of its place of slumber.

  What on earth was the matter with her? The sun was shining. She was a success. Safe.

  But no wonder she was getting jumpy. Her deadline was “upon her” as hot as Edward’s breath.

  She held on to the stair rail absent-mindedly. She was trying to imagine Edward naked. Those long muscled thighs.

  LIZ

  “The invitations were the first to disappear after Paul was fired,” Anna Beth was saying. “But you know that. Yours wasn’t the only dinner party to get canceled mysteriously. You weren’t the only one who never seemed to have time to return calls or texts.”

  Liz stared down at the damp ring spreading beneath the sweating water glass. The tablecloth was dingy. The menu hung on the wall. Twenty years ago Anna Beth might have chosen this place to signal her virtue. Now she was just being dramatic.

  Of course, it wasn’t really sweat on the glass, Russ would correct her. Condensation.

  “Condemnation,” Anna Beth said, and the echo caused Liz to look up. Anna Beth narrowed her eyes. “I wouldn’t have expected it from you and Russ, of all people.”

  Liz studied Anna Beth’s face, the skin and fat puddled in bags under blue eyes that were still piercing but less certain than in the old days. The old days of just a few months ago. The no-makeup look that had always made Anna Beth impervious, invincible, now made her look far older than fifty. Her shock of honey blond hair hung gracelessly at her chin and was streaked with gray. Was the gray new, or had she been dying her hair all these years? A secret vanity.

  Liz resolved to speak kindly but firmly. “We never condemned Paul. Never. You don’t know how many times Russ spoke up for Paul.”

  “Obviously, not enough.” Even under ordinary circumstances, Anna Beth’s contempt could be scorching. Not for nothing had she been leader of Vassar’s debate team in her undergrad days.

  But Liz wasn’t having it. Not today. Not now. She had enough to deal with. “Look, there was nothing Russ could do—”

  “Bullshit! The golden boy at the network! Paul was his executive producer, for God’s sake. He could have demanded they keep him.”

  “Anna Beth, do you not watch television? Look at the web? This Me Too thing is like a tsunami—”

  “Yes, and Russ decided he could just step aside. And leave Paul to get washed away.”

  “That’s not fair! He couldn’t save Paul’s job—“

  “Hell, no, it’s not fair,” Anna Beth said. She lowered her voice. “It’s not fair that Paul killed himself and now I’m left with nothing—“

  “Oh, surely not—”

  “Oh, yes, surely so.” Anna Beth slumped back in her chair. “Nothing. The network refuses to pay his pension. They say the morals clause invalidates their obligation.” She added with a snort, “Like those people have ever given a good goddam about morals.”

  “Surely you’ve got legal representation—”

  “Courts? That could take forever.” Anna Beth’s voice was plaintive. “All these years I’ve devoted my energies to worthy charities. I made a difference. But that won’t help me now. I’m broke.”

  The finality of the statement pressed Liz backward as if it were an actual physical force. In recent weeks, the word broke had lurked at the edge of her consciousness; in those moments when it had pushed its way through, she had vowed it was an unreality and would remain so. No matter what.

  Broke could not happen.

  Broke would not happen.

  She would not let broke happen.

  “He cleaned out our bank accounts,” she could hear Anna Beth saying. “He said it was to protect against lawsuits. He said the money was in a Swiss bank account, and the information was in the safe. I didn’t even look. I don’t think he realized I wasn’t ever going to divorce him. Or that our marriage couldn’t save him. And when he realized none of it mattered—”

  There was silence for a moment, which was surprisingly uncomfortable. Liz was relieved when Anna Beth finally went on. “Now that he’s dead I have no way of knowing where he stashed the money. And because his death has been ruled suicide, the life insurance won’t pay. Stupid Paul. He probably thought he was helping me out by blowing up the boat that way. But the life insurance people didn’t buy the accident.” She added with a sneer, “Not ‘given the preponderance of psychological evidence.’”

  Liz made a nodding gesture, searched for something delicate to say. Although there wasn’t anything delicate about the finger found bobbing in the water in the other bits of wreckage. Or all those ranting emails Russ had seen and predicted would indeed sink the life insurance claim.

  Worse, it gave her a cold chill to acknowledge what Paul had done to Anna Beth. He really was a bastard, had always been a bastard, in pretty much every way a man could be a bastard. But then all men given the right circumstance were unreliable. She needed to remember that. Under any and all circumstances they thought the world revolved around them. Russ was no different than Paul in that way.

  Still, she knew she should be more sympathetic here. Appearances still counted. So she tried again to strike the right note. “It’s awful. I’m so sorry.”

  “Me, too.” Anna Beth’s lips curled into a bitter smile. “Do I get my own hashtag for that?” She leaned into the table. “You’ve got to help me, Liz. I’ve got an idea for a business. But I need some seed money. It’s a great investment. And don’t you dare look at me like that. We’re supposed to be friends. All these years! All the trips together!”

  “Of course,” Liz said, quickly. She was tired from the effort. In spite of it all, she felt guilty about her own hard heartedness. If only Anna Beth would just go away. “Of course, of course, I’ll help you. We’ll help you.”

  Anna Beth shook her head, and tears welled in her eyes. “There were exactly twenty-five people at Paul’s funeral and twenty of them were family. And please stop with the bullshit about Russ’ mother in the hospital. You just didn’t think Russ could afford to be seen at Paul’s funeral. Like it’s some kind of taint that might rub off on him. Wel
l, I have news for you, Liz. That taint is already on Russ, in a big way. The other shoe is dropping any day.”

  “That’s ridiculous, and you know it,” Liz hissed, her face hot, “Russ isn’t like that and never has been.”

  Anna Beth’s laugh was cold and mirthless. “They’re all like that.”

  Liz regarded Anna Beth’s haggard face and thought, But I will never be like you. I won’t fall apart.

  And then Anna Beth lowered the boom.

  RUSS

  Russell Stockton drew himself up as he gazed out over the room. God, they were babies. Infants. An old fart truism, but every year they got younger.

  Still, there was something really new about this group. These kids weren’t just younger, they were fiercer. Four years ago, college students were wondering where they were going to get jobs as journalists. These youngsters weren’t thinking about jobs: they had a calling.

  So when he started to launch into The Talk with his standard line—there’s never been a better time to be a journalist—he didn’t bother to qualify it the way he’d had to ever since newspapers began folding and conglomerates started swallowing TV stations. No need for the Galileo quote about all truths being easily understood once they are discovered, the point is to discover them, or Orwell’s quote about the concept of truth fading out of the world and lies passing into history. These kids already understood those things in their bones. Instead he said, in a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

  Three war stories recounted, two complex investigations unraveled, a couple of presidential anecdotes and a half a dozen quips later, the students were on their feet applauding, and Russ felt a lightness, a surge of excitement. For the first time in weeks, the knot in his gut relaxed. Because his stories were true, dammit. He did good work. Important work. And by retelling it, he had reminded himself of it.