Chapter Three
River felt a jolt of annoyance at the knock on the door but kept his voice level. “Come in.”
Luke poked his head around the door and grinned at his friend. “Hey, dude.”
“Hey, Luke.” Even in his glum mood, River was always happy to see Luke. “You come to Carmel’s feast?”
“Of course—and I brought a guest.”
“Oh?” River couldn’t have been less interested. He rarely joined Carmel and Luke in the kitchen, preferring to eat alone in his studio.
“Your new employee.”
“The typist?”
“The transcriber,” Luke said with a tone in his voice. “Don’t think she’d be impressed with being described as a typist.”
River shrugged. “Whatever. Carmel hired her. She’ll tell her what to do, where to go.”
“Come meet her, Riv,” Luke said, and he sounded weary, as if he was tired of being the intermediary on River’s behalf. “She’ll be here five days a week, all hours. You’ll meet her sometime.”
“Then I’ll meet her sometime.” River knew he was being obtuse, but he really wasn’t in the mood for pleasantries. Lindsay had called him this morning, asking him if he could take Berry for a few weeks for some unknown reason, and although River had agreed, and looked forward to seeing his daughter, he was irritated that possibly his final days of being able to paint the way River Giotto painted would be even more limited.
He was in no mood to meet anyone and nothing Luke could say to change his mind. Luke left him alone, clearly pissed, but River sighed with relief. He continued painting, and yet from the other side of the house, he could hear laughter and chatter and felt the weight of loneliness. He could smell the delicious scent of one of Carmel’s signature curries filling the house and felt his mouth water. He knew she would leave him some leftovers in the refrigerator. He put down his paintbrush and wiped his hands. Barefoot as ever, he padded silently through the house to the guest bedroom. The window there looked out over the kitchen and he could watch them unseen.
He saw Carmen fussing around the breakfast counter, talking to a young woman with waist- length dark hair. River watched her as she moved around the kitchen to help Carmel, the way her body moved, almost like a dancer, graceful and strong. River narrowed his eyes to see her features and felt his groin tighten.
She was lovely. Truly a beautiful young woman. Her features were soft, kind, a faint blush on her olive skin, her smile wide. She was about five-five, a foot shorter than River’s six-five, and slim but curvy. He watched her chat easily to Carmen, joke around with Luke, and wondered who the hell this woman was. She was stunning, but did he really need stunning in his life?
No. Hell, no. He’d stay away from her, take her out of the equation, concentrate on Berry, and on his eyesight. Despite what Luke had told him, there had to be something, somewhere in the world, which could help him.
Because otherwise what was the point? It was too cruel. He looked back at his newest employee one last time and wondered if she’d even known true despair. He doubted it.
River turned away from the sight of his friends enjoying each other and went back to his lonely studio.
Sunday put a hand over her stomach and protested as Carmen packed two large plastic boxes with curry. “I can’t, you’ve spoiled me enough.”
“Nonsense. You just moved in; you need feeding. Take it.” Carmen grinned at her. She and Sunday had clicked straight away. “You need a taste of home.”
Sunday smiled at her. Carmen was a second-generation Indian American and when Sunday had told her that her own grandmother hailed from Kerala, it had sealed Carmen’s approval of Sunday herself. “I’ve never been to India,” Sunday told her, “it was one of those things that …” She stopped. She was about to say it was one of those things she and Cory had planned to do, possibly for their honeymoon. “I just never got around to it.”
“There’s still time,” Carmen said, shrugging. “You’re what, twenty-five?”
“Twenty-eight.”
“Gah, plenty of time. So, we’ll see you again on Monday?”
Sunday smiled. “You will. Bright and early.”
She hugged Carmen, feeling as if they had known each other for ever. Luke, too, was easy to talk to, and he walked her back to her car. “I’m sorry about River. He’s an ornery pain in the ass, but he’ll come around.”
Sunday shrugged good-naturedly. “Hey, as long as I do my work and I get paid, it’s no bother to me.”
Luke shook her hand, and she was strangely touched by his old-fashioned manners. “Good luck with the job,” he said to her, “I can already tell you’re going to fit in with us. Some of us, anyway,” he added with a grin. “You can find your way back into town okay?”
“I can, thanks. And thanks again for inviting me in. You’re right, it will make it easier to start work.”
“Good. See you around.”
By the time she drove back into town, just after lunchtime, the light was already fading, snow clouds making the sky a riot of purple, pink, and black. As Sunday carried her bags of groceries and the plastic boxes of curry into her apartment, she reflected that in just a few hours, she had made—if not yet friends—certainly people with the potential to be friends. Daisy. Carmen. Luke.
She read for most of the rest of the day, falling asleep on the couch—a couch, she noted, that was vastly more comfortable than her bed—and waking to see thick, fluffy snow falling. She sat at the window for hours just watching it fall, listening to the silence, the peace. The streetlamps struggled to illuminate the main road through the snow. Sunday shook her head, chuckling softly to herself. It was like a dreamland, a Christmas fairy tale, not real life.
And yet, this was her real life now and for the first time since that terrible night where she’d lost everything, lost Cory, lost the life she had planned for, had worked for, the former Marley Locke felt hope.
When his man reported back that Marley hadn’t been home at all for the entire weekend, Brian Scanlan was irked but not surprised. “She thinks she can hide from me,” he shrugged, as his employees listened to him. There was an air of nervousness in the room, as if the other men were waiting for Brian’s temper to explode. But tonight, he felt magnanimous.
Let Marley think she’d escape him, that she wasn’t still alive merely because he’d allowed her to be. That night, a year ago, when his hitman had taken out the boyfriend—as he’d been ordered to—and shot Marley—which he had been explicitly told not to—Brian had known that next time, he would do the deed himself. He couldn’t risk her getting away again and she’d made his planning easier by not skipping town after she’d been released from hospital.
But then again—where the hell would she run to? He knew better than anyone that she had no one. Her family was scattered; her boyfriend’s family would blame her for his murder. She had friends, yes. But he’d been right—Marley had stayed put, albeit with increased security.
As if that would stop him. No one even suspected the great Brian Scanlan, doyen of the Upper East Side, to have such close ties with the Mob, let along be a stone-cold killer. The man he’d hired to kill Cory Wheeler was himself now dead—a punishment for hurting Brian’s love. The night he’d found that Marley was in the hospital with a gunshot wound to the belly … no. Only he would decide whether she lived or died. She belonged to him, and no other.
He’d been magnanimous long enough, giving her time to grieve for her lost love, but now it was time. He’d made the arrangements over the past year—a new apartment for them to live in together on the Upper East Side, a whole new wardrobe for Marley, each piece tailored just for her in the colors that he, Brian, had approved. He’d make her dye her hair back to its natural color—she looked like a whore with that blonde mess. Make her scrub the makeup from her beautiful face—the mother of his children would not need it.
Yes, he had everything planned for her, and now it was time to put that plan into action.
It was only the next morning, when Marley failed to appear on his television screen, that Brian Scanlan discovered that he had been wrong. Marley had escaped him.
Marley was gone.
And his rage knew no limits.