CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“I don’t know, Jess,” Andie hemmed and hawed into the phone. “Do you really think I can get away with it?”
It was the evening of the autism fundraising gala, and she stood in front of the floor-length mirror in her room, assessing herself in the silver-gray Badgley Mischka dress. She wasn’t sure whether she should wear the gorgeous confection to the charity event she and Rhys were attending that night. Her other option was a functional black jersey dress with three-quarter sleeves that could be dressed up with a necklace but would hardly set the world on fire.
“Andie, if you can wear that gown in my living room at next year’s Oscar party, you can sure as hell wear it to an event at a fancy hotel with a bunch of corporate bigwigs.”
“Perhaps,” Andie conceded. “But maybe it would be better for me to stay low-key.”
She’d confided in Jess about her declaration to Rhys, and his to her, a week ago, but she hadn’t truly settled into the reality yet. It was hard to comprehend the magnitude of their implicit promise to each other when she was still on a knife-edge over Karina. The woman seemed to have truly gone underground. Rhys must have spoken to every one of the Zephyrus engineers, but nobody had fessed up to billeting a very angry, jittery—albeit glamorous—black-haired woman with vengeance on her mind.
“Relax, Andie,” Jess laughed. “Enjoy yourself. Don’t fret about Karina. Enjoy your first public event with Rhys. He’s the perfect man.”
“I know he is,” Andie agreed. That was never in question. It was herself she was worried about. No matter how she looked at it, in her secret heart she occasionally still felt like an impostor. The way Rhys looked at her, like she was the wellspring of all things great and providential, still had the power to scare her. She had changed, it was true, but it would take time to settle into the skin of the person she was when they were together. The woman she was becoming was strong, but the very newness of this love, this sense of belonging, opened up a fissure of vulnerability. How could she possibly live up to Rhys’s image of her, she sometimes wondered? And how could she embark on this new phase of her life when Karina was still out there? Wretched. Strung out. Hurting.
“I mean it,” Jess enthused. “Enjoy yourself. Wear the dress. Take pictures.”
Andie glanced at the clock. It was only half an hour until they were supposed to leave for the hotel. She might as well leave the silver-gray dress on and brazen it out. She finished her makeup and pulled her hair into a loose braid and twisted and pinned it up, creating a look that was part farm girl, part Greek temple maiden.
Andie had not had a date to the prom in high school. She’d forgone that particular tradition, going instead with a motley group of girlfriends. Hearing Rhys’s voice in the foyer below as she arrived at the top of the stairs, she felt oddly like this was her chance to do the time-honored slow parade down the staircase. Only, instead of a pimple-faced teenager waiting for her at the bottom in a baby-blue cummerbund, there was—good God!—Rhys in a tux.
She’d never quite understood the point of male formal wear before, except to prevent the sloppier half of the species from detracting from the much more interesting and splendid spectacle of their mates’ evening gowns. But Rhys in a tuxedo made it all very clear. In fact, it seemed in that moment that the form had been invented solely to set off his astounding masculine beauty.
The deep white V of his shirtfront outlined by his shawl-collared tuxedo jacket blazed against the caramel tones of his skin and made his eyes do their bewitching gas-flame glow. The sharp, tailored lines of his jacket and trousers set off the length of his legs, the breadth of his shoulders, and his trim waist and hips. He looked edible. In fact, as she drifted down toward him, Andie had to fight the impulse to throw herself at him and start nibbling at his neck. If only Mrs. Hodge weren’t standing right by his side. It was really too much to bear. All thoughts of Karina were summarily ejected from her mind as she reached out and took his hand.
“Andie . . .” Rhys himself seemed to be struck speechless. Andie was confused for a moment, having completely forgotten—in the face of the spectacle that was Rhys—that she herself was dressed in anything out of the ordinary.
“You look quite lovely, dear.” Mrs. Hodge beamed. Her view of Andie seemed to have softened considerably since her trip to Saddle Tree Farm.
“Um, thanks,” Andie said shyly. She looked at Rhys, her gaze tangling with his. She couldn’t look away. All she could do was match him smile for smile, locked in a strange, wordless communion as they headed for the door.
“You look incredible. I have mentioned that, right?” Rhys’s voice caressed her ear—far more potent than the champagne that coursed through her bloodstream.
“Rhys, stop,” Andie protested. “You’re freaking me out. I didn’t realize we were going to attract this much attention.”
She was still getting used to the opulence of the hotel ballroom. Chandeliers twinkled overhead, gilded mirrors gleamed, and rich oriental carpets softened the footsteps of the guests coming and going in their evening finery. Andie tried to calm her nerves as she inhaled the scent of spring flower arrangements and expensive perfume, hearing the tinkle of crystal glasses and the low murmur of sophisticated conversation. She sensed a strange, electric energy in the room, which could probably be attributed to the buzz that followed Rhys as he moved through the crowd.
People murmured and smiled as they passed, dazzled by Rhys and inordinately interested in her. One woman had actually cornered her by the bar while Rhys was fetching them drinks, and congratulated her on the coup of arriving here on his arm.
“I’m famously antisocial,” Rhys laughed when Andie told him. “That’s the only reason they’re interested.”
“Yeah,” she responded drily. “That must be it.” But she had to admit she was having fun.
Rhys introduced her to a parade of new faces, making a point of singling out his friends from MIT and Vision, Inc. Noah, Rhys’s head of engineering, was a tall green-eyed man whose insouciant golden stubble did nothing to detract from the sharp figure he cut in his tuxedo. Their mutual friend Ashutosh—Ash, for short—introduced by Rhys as a mathematical genius, was a graceful dark-eyed man with an accent that mingled Indian with British and American. He was forged on a much smaller scale than his friends, but had an outsize charisma that drew the eye of every woman in the room.
“Ash’s net worth is in inverse proportion to his size,” Noah joked as his friend slinked off to take one of a seemingly endless series of calls.
“You’re just jealous, Noah,” retorted Minna, a slight, elegant woman, whom Rhys seemed to regard with a brotherly affection.
“No question,” Noah agreed, handing a glass of champagne to Rory, a tall woman who watched the room from behind a pair of heavy-rimmed glasses, her flyaway hair caught back in a wispy sable ponytail. Minna and Rory were heading up a lab pioneering a new breed of DNA nanomachines capable of detecting disease antibodies, Rhys told Andie in a whispered aside. All of these friends had willingly flocked to the charity event to support Rhys, and Andie was touched by the easy affection the group obviously shared.
A little intimidated by the brainpower assembled around her, she took a deep gulp of her champagne. As if aware of her discomfort, Rhys leaned in to press a kiss to her temple.
In a fleeting gap between the crush of new arrivals to the ballroom, Andie thought she saw a pale face staring at her with eyes of blue fire. She stood transfixed for a moment by the unearthly intensity of those eyes, the shock like a cold jolt between her shoulder blades. As Rhys stepped back to address a joke to Noah, she blinked and looked again, but the gap in the crowd had closed. Now she saw nothing but flashes of satin and silk and benign smiles—Boston’s business elite arriving with checkbooks open. It must be the champagne and the nerves, she told herself, suppressing a shiver of disquiet.
She caught Tom’s eye, and he gravitated to her side without missing a beat.
“How are you doing?” he asked.
“A bit overawed,” she said faintly, wondering if he’d think her crazy if she told him she thought she’d seen Karina.
“Don’t worry,” he assured her. “I don’t think there’s anyone in this room who isn’t in awe of you. Rhys is a notoriously tough nut to crack. Everyone here wants to know more about his beautiful mystery woman.”
“That’s probably why this whole thing feels so weird,” she said, waving away the compliment. “I’m not used to being stared at.”
She glanced over to where Rhys, Ash, and Rory were deep in conversation.
“Actually, I’m going to duck out for a few minutes of quiet before the dinner starts,” she announced. “I’ll be right back.”
She walked from the ballroom into the hotel lobby, spotting the restroom on the far side. Already she was able to breathe easier, away from the wafts of perfume and the weighted glances. She set her evening bag down on the bathroom counter and ran cool water over her wrists, dabbing a few droplets at her throat and behind her ears to cool herself down.
She was contemplating freshening her lipstick when the only closed stall in the bathroom banged open, its door rebounding against the wall with a tremendous crash as a figure from Andie’s nightmares stepped out, her eyes blazing with the zeal of an avenging Fury.
Her dramatically pale skin was framed by a low-cut black velvet gown that seemed to absorb all light. Her tousled mane of black hair swirled past her shoulders. Her face was blanched, highlighting sharp cheekbones and bitten red lips. And her eyes. Oh God. Her dark under-eye smudges were exaggerated by a heavy coating of mascara applied with a shaky hand. She looked even more disturbed than she had at their last standoff.
“Karina!” Andie exclaimed, backing up against the counter.
The tension Karina exuded the week before had ripened into visible tremors. Andie watched, aghast, as the woman’s hands quivered, and her breath came in quick rasps. Why was she here? What was she thinking? Andie wanted to help her, but she was frightened of her, too. Karina gave off a manic energy mingled with a raw despair. Tears stood out on her cheeks, even as her mouth stretched into a strange, knowing smile that made Andie’s stomach curdle.
Andie stretched out a tentative hand, reaching instinctively to calm her. “Karina, please. Talk to me for a minute. I want to—”
“Don’t,” Karina practically spat. She wrenched her arm away and marched to the door, flinging one more damning look Andie’s way before she shouldered her way into the lobby.
“Oh my God.” Andie braced both hands on the edge of the countertop. The loathing in Karina’s gaze, the contempt: both were agonizingly familiar companions. It was as if the blood racing through her veins had been transformed into a gelid substance.
Andie made her way back to the ballroom, almost stumbling in her haste. Rhys, seated at their table, stood as she approached. She must have looked shaken, indeed.
“Andie, what is it?”
“Karina is here.”
“Now?”
“I saw her in the restroom less than a minute ago.” Andie held a hand to her churning stomach. “I tried to get her to calm down and talk to me, but she shook me off. She’s really upset, Rhys. I’m worried what she might do.”
“I’ll go and find her.” Rhys beckoned for her to take a seat at the table and strode out into the lobby, vigilance hardening every line of his body. Noah joined him, the two of them cutting briskly through the crowd.
Minutes later, Rhys stalked back into the room. “She’s gone. I didn’t see any sign of her,” he reported, taking Andie’s hand. “We’re just going to have to get through this. Tom, Noah, and Ash are going to watch the doors of the ballroom in case she tries anything during the awards ceremony. She probably just wants to embarrass us.”
“Oh, no,” Andie said grimly, “I think she wants a lot more than that.”
Just then, the evening’s master of ceremonies called the room to attention for the live-auction portion of the fundraiser. Rhys pressed a reassuring kiss to Andie’s forehead and took his seat beside her.
Andie forced herself to settle back and train her eyes on the proceedings, even as her mind continued to race. It’s fine, she told herself. You can’t ruin Rhys’s evening because Karina is decompensating. This charity means a lot to him. He’s getting an award, for God’s sake. Get a grip. She took a gulp of the white wine a waiter poured into her glass, but it burned like acid on her tongue, and she switched to water.
Her own hands trembled slightly as she clutched her glass. She knew Karina had no claim on Rhys, but she felt guilty anyway about the way things had unfolded. Worthless. Culpable. Like the impostor she’d always known herself to be.
She smiled through interminable auction items. Trips to Bermuda and Tuscany. The use of a private box at Fenway Park for a dozen guests. A week of spa treatments at Canyon Ranch. Noah, Tom, and Ash made periodic circuits of the ballroom and checked the lobby, returning each time with the all clear.
Finally, the awards were handed out, Rhys looking awkward and gorgeous as he stepped up to the dais to accept the organization’s Leaders in Philanthropy Award on behalf of Zephyrus Energy. Minna slipped into Rhys’s vacated seat and squeezed Andie’s hand as everyone at the table cheered enthusiastically.
“He’s something, all right,” Minna chuckled. “I’m glad he’s finally met his match.”
When, after lengthy good-byes, they finally stepped outside the hotel’s entrance to get the car from the valet, the night had turned cold. Andie’s head pounded and her feet ached—and the vision of Karina’s dark-rimmed eyes still swam in her mind. She still couldn’t shake her sense of unease. Not wanting to deflate Rhys’s mood, she huddled in her jacket and half dozed to block out the image of Karina’s wild stare as Rhys took I-90 West.
“Andie, wake up.” Rhys gently shook her awake as the car’s headlights swept across the front of the house.
“That’s odd,” he said, a moment later. “I don’t remember leaving the garage bay open.”
“What?” Andie struggled awake through a haze of dread and fatigue, his words plucking a discordant note in her brain. The garage door. How could I have been so stupid? She rubbed a hand across her eyes, remembering the disastrous end to her attempt at running. The earbuds that had blocked out the sound of Karina’s car pulling up behind her. The waft of that infernal perfume as she’d entered the garage code.
Karina had been standing so close when Andie turned to face her that Andie was practically able to count the pores of her skin. Karina was certainly close enough to see the combination for the keypad. But in the drama of the ensuing confrontation and the surprise over Jillian’s connection with Karina, Andie hadn’t thought about it. She hadn’t thought. Period.
“Will!” She shivered with the chill of premonition, suddenly fully awake and bolt upright in her seat. The open bay of the garage yawned before her, its aperture dark with foreboding.
“Will? What? Why would you think . . . ?” Panic flared in Rhys’s eyes in response to her stricken look.
“Karina surprised me when I entered the key code last week,” Andie confessed with a sob. “I didn’t think about it at the time, but she probably saw the code I entered.”
“And you didn’t say anything?” Rhys’s tone was hard, incredulous. His face was carved granite, taut and unyielding in its anguish, except for a telltale muscle that pulsed along his jawline.
“I warned you about her,” Andie said weakly, her defense sounding pathetic even to her own ears. “But I wasn’t specifically focused on the key code. Karina’s accusations and the shock of seeing her like that kind of pushed it out of my mind.” It wasn’t just an error of judgment, she reflected. It was a complete absence of judgment.
Rhys didn’t say anything else. He pulled up the car with a lurch and was out in a flash, leaping the flight of concrete steps to the interior door, which was unlocked, as usual.
Andie ran, struggling against the slim-fitting cut of her gown. She ended up hoisting it up around midthigh in careless handfuls and kicked off her high heels to bolt up the stairs after Rhys.
Fear mingled with a desperate, last-ditch hope. Perhaps she was wrong. Maybe Karina had not been here tonight. Maybe they would push the door open to see Will safely slumbering in his bed, his sleep-flushed profile outlined against the pillow.
Careering down the hallway, she reached Will’s door at the same time as Rhys. There was no need to even turn the doorknob. The door was ajar, and the rumpled white sheets were drawn back to reveal nothing but shadows. The room evoked a barren emptiness, the same emptiness that resonated in the pit of Andie’s stomach. The space felt sterile, apart from the lingering aroma of jasmine and bergamot. Will was gone.
“Mrs. Hodge!” Within seconds, Rhys was pounding on the nanny’s door.
They stood for endless moments, waiting for a response, Rhys’s jaw clenching, his gaze sliding past Andie’s.
He couldn’t even look at her. Not that she was surprised. She made herself sick, all dressed up in her silver finery—triumphal, almost bridal. What a joke! He’d thought she was the making of him, of his happiness, but now he was learning all too well that she was nothing but his undoing.
Finally, the door swung open to reveal a bleary-eyed Mrs. Hodge, a robe flung over her flannel nightgown.
“Mrs. Hodge, is Will with you?” Rhys’s face was haggard, pleading.
“No. Why would he be?” The woman looked perplexed, like he’d taken leave of his senses, when really he was just grasping at straws. “Wait, what do you mean?”
“Was anyone else here tonight?”
“No.” Mrs. Hodge’s eyes widened. “I heard the sound of the garage door at about ten thirty, when you got in, but that was it. I was already in bed, and Will was fast asleep, so I didn’t come out. What’s happened?”
Andie slumped hopelessly while Rhys explained the situation. It was now almost midnight, meaning Karina had a ninety-minute head start to take Will wherever it was she chose to go.
“Oh my Lord!” Mrs. Hodge’s skin took on a tinge of gray. “How . . . ? Oh, no . . . oh, no.” She shivered suddenly and swayed on her feet. Andie reached out a hand to steady her, then—knowing the woman always felt calmer with the kettle on—suggested she make a cup of tea, but only after calling Jillian to make sure Karina hadn’t somehow shown up on her doorstep.
Rhys pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed Karina’s number, already aware that it was a futile exercise. He paced down the corridor and then turned back, shaking his head in desperate frustration.
He wiped the back of his hand across smarting eyes and then thrust his phone at Andie. “Keep trying. Don’t let up. I’ll use the house phone to call the police.”
He stormed off down the corridor to find the phone. Andie longed to run after him, to wrap him in her arms and tell him everything would be all right, but she couldn’t bring herself to so much as lay a hand on his shoulder. Her touch would be anathema to him, her words nothing but fatuous nonsense. How could she assure him everything would be okay? There was every chance it wouldn’t. She knew nothing. She was nothing. Nothing but the hapless girl Susan looked at with such contempt.
A chasm opened up inside her as she paced and dialed, paced and dialed. Everything she was, everything she thought she’d started to become, began to shake loose and slip toward the abyss. The phone continued to ring and ring. Andie was barely hanging on by her fingernails. She thought of Will, stolen from his home—his routine, the people he loved—by a woman he hardly knew. He must be terrified. He was so small and vulnerable, and Karina—as Andie had seen her at the hotel that night—was nothing if not terrifying. She was powerful in her torment, Maleficent back for revenge. And Andie had been the one who’d unwittingly unleashed Karina’s vengeance upon them all by giving her the tools to fulfill it.
She could barely breathe. This pain was strikingly familiar, the agony of having the very structure of her existence—its most beloved and familiar contours—torn away. She was eleven years old again, and all certainty in her life, all security, had been razed to the ground. She stood in a desolate wasteland, everything she’d built since revealed for what it was: a ghost city built on the shakiest of foundations.
Rhys appeared again, the house phone pressed to his ear. He raised his eyebrows at her questioningly, but she could only shake her head. Karina was, predictably, not responding.
“Her car?” Rhys frowned into the phone and then looked at Andie. “What was she driving when she came here last week?”
Andie was relieved to be able to offer some useful information. “A yellow Mini Cooper with black racing stripes and a black-and-white checkerboard pattern on the side mirrors.”
“Wait, that’s Allison’s car.”
“Allison?”
“My assistant at Zephyrus.” Rhys swore under his breath and paced faster. “That was the present she bought herself when her first shares vested. It’s so distinctive it has to be the same one. Maybe Karina has been staying with her.”
Rhys relayed Allison’s full name and Framingham location to the officer on the phone, then ended the call, vowing to go immediately to wherever Will might have been taken.
He reached out a hand. “The Concord police are getting in touch with Framingham,” he said. “Can I have my phone back? I’m calling Allison.”
Andie felt annihilated by guilt and self-loathing. Who was this beautiful, brisk man with the shuttered expression and stern jaw? What right did she have to know him, to touch him? She handed the phone over, careful not to let their fingertips brush.
He turned away, on the move again. Andie could hear the urgent timbre of his voice as he interrogated Allison on the other end of the phone.
“I think Karina’s at the hotel,” he announced a couple of minutes later. “She was planning to sit at the Zephyrus table tonight, for some reason, and stay over after the event. And she was using Allison’s car tonight.”
“She was there to get you back,” Andie said with dreadful certainty. “And when she saw me there, she must have decided to snatch Will.”
“I’m calling that officer back, and then I’m going to the hotel.” Rhys’s expression was dangerous.
“I’m coming with you.” Andie had to see this through. She would see Rhys reunited with Will if it was the last thing she ever accomplished. But, after that, she was leaving.
It was time to end this fantasy. She followed Rhys back downstairs, the certainty of it solidifying with every step. Her life wasn’t frothy silver tulle and lace, champagne toasts, children’s laughter, and a passion so grand that the very air that touched her skin was charged with it. Her life was the four walls of her Boston apartment, minor affairs with little risk and less reward, and the institutional corridors of a place like Metrowest, filled with children she could aspire to help but would always have to leave—even the ones she grew to love. Her mother was right. It was foolish to reach for anything else.
She pulled her own cell phone out of her evening bag as Rhys tore down the driveway in the Range Rover, Will’s empty car seat in the back a symbol of their intent. They would be bringing him home tonight. “We should confirm that the Mini is at the hotel,” she said. “Make sure she hasn’t taken Will somewhere else.”
Rhys nodded, every muscle in his face tight. Andie called the hotel’s main number and asked to be connected with the valet desk.
“Um, yes,” she improvised when a male voice came on the line. “I dropped off my yellow Mini Cooper with you a short while ago, and I had my hands full with my son. I wonder if you’d mind taking a peek at the backseat to see whether I left my jacket—”
“Of course, ma’am.” The man paused awkwardly. “I hope the baby is feeling better. Hold on a moment.” Andie heard a rustling sound as the man put the phone down.
“They’re there,” Andie told Rhys. “It sounds like Will was upset when they arrived.”
Rhys’s eyes clouded with distress, and the car shot forward another ten miles over the speed limit.
“Sorry, ma’am,” the valet said, returning to the phone. “No sign of a jacket, but the backseat is a mess. The vomit . . . would you like us to send it out for cleaning and detailing?”
“No,” Andie said. “Thanks for checking on the jacket.”
She hung up, frowning. “The valet mentioned vomit in the back of the car.”
“Will sometimes throws up when he’s really upset. When we find him, I’m having a doctor check him from head to toe, and if she has harmed even a hair on his head—”
“I don’t think she’d hurt him,” Andie said lamely. “She might be angry at us, but she loves him.”
The memory of Karina’s appearance in the hotel restroom rose up to smite her. She honestly had no idea what the woman might do. She’d looked desperate, undone, not really in her right mind. Andie should have listened to her first instinct and insisted on heading home right then. But she’d ignored her gut response, allowing herself to be lulled by the chandeliers and candlelight, by the effervescence of the champagne and the happy, self-congratulatory mood in the ballroom. Just like she’d been lulled by the window at Dolan’s Hardware.
She snuck surreptitious glances at Rhys, taking his intense silence as an implicit rebuke. Eyes blazing like a wild man, he trained his sights on the illuminated vista of the city as it drew ever closer.