Someone To Watch Over Me Part 9

That night, however, Hilda broke with her usual tradition in a way that made Leigh realize how truly pained the housekeeper was by Leigh's situation. "I'll just clear these pillows out of your way," Hilda announced; then she bent over the bed, braced her hands on the pile, and with a single mighty shove, she sent most of them tumbling off the bed onto the floor on the opposite side. She dispatched the few remaining pillows by bracing her knee on the mattress and swatting the malingerers onto the floor; then she straightened and pulled back the fluffy white duvet. "I'll warm up your dinner while you get ready for bed,"

she said, and Leigh nodded, already on her way into her dressing room.

Too exhausted to contemplate a shower, Leigh pulled off her slacks and sweater. She was reaching for a nightgown when Hilda walked past the open doorway carrying the thick, down-filled pillows that were used on the bed at night. The housekeeper stopped in her tracks and let out a m.u.f.fled cry of anguish at the sight of Leigh's battered body. "Oh no! Oh, Mrs. Manning! You poor thing-you should be in the hospital!"

"I'm just bruised up, that's all," Leigh said. She was so touched by Hilda's anguished expression that she started to give her a rea.s.suring hug; then she changed her mind out of fear for her fractured ribs. Gingerly, Leigh lifted her arms and began easing the nightgown over her head. When she could see again, Hilda was gone. Relieved that she didn't have to conceal what a difficult and painful ordeal the simple act of walking was right then, Leigh clamped her right arm over her aching ribs, then limped slowly and awkwardly across the room to the bed.

Alone in the bed she'd always shared with Logan, she gazed at the achingly familiar room, remembering the last time he'd been here with her. She closed her eyes and she could visualize him, standing beside the bed, exactly as he'd been on Sunday morning, his voice teasing as he pressed a good-bye kiss on her cheek. " I've already loaded the car. I think I have everything I need- house plans, stakes, string, a transom, sleeping bags. I still feel like I'm forgetting something..."

"A broom, a mop, and a bucket?... Disinfectant? Mousetraps?"

He nuzzled her neck, trying to tickle her, and she pulled the pillow over her head so he couldn't.

" Leave straight from the theater. Don't be late," he said as he headed for the door.

But Leigh continued her joking chant of practical necessities, " Drinking water... food for dinner..."

The memory of that happy, halcyon morning finally demolished the iron grip Leigh had been keeping on her rampaging emotions, and tears began to stream in hot torrents down her cheeks. "Oh, darling," she sobbed, turning her face into the pillows, "wherever you are, stay safe for me. Please, please stay safe."

She never knew if Hilda actually brought in a dinner tray, but sometime during the night, she thought she felt someone smooth the covers over her and brush the hair off her face. She wanted it to be Logan, needed it to be Logan, and so she let herself believe it had been-just for a little while. After all, pretending was what she did best.

CHAPTER 12.

The ringing of the telephone jolted Leigh awake at eight o'clock the next morning. In another part of the house, Hilda answered it on the second ring, and Leigh stared fixedly at the little red light glowing on the phone beside her bed.

All of the apartment phones had three separate telephone lines-a main line, her private line, and Logan's private line-and this call had come in on the main line. Since the police had her private phone number, she knew the call wasn't from them, but she clung to the hope that someone was calling with news of Logan. Praying that the little light would start blinking, indicating that Hilda had put the caller on hold and was coming to get her, Leigh waited, watching it.

Moments later it went out, and she climbed out of bed, her hopes dashed, her tension already beginning to mount.

By the time she finished showering and was.h.i.+ng her hair, the telephone was ringing incessantly, and each call jangled her nerves a little more. The face that looked back at her in the mirror at her dressing table was pale, bruised, and haunted. Her face, but not her face-another thing that was familiar to her and yet completely alien, just like her life today, and every day since she'd first awakened in the hospital.

The st.i.tches in her scalp and the stiffness in her arms made the simple act of blowing her hair dry into an uncomfortable, awkward challenge that seemed to take forever. In her closet, she reached for the first sweater on the nearest shelf, a brown one; then she hesitated. The shelf beside it held a cherry red sweater.

Logan had asked her to wear red to the party Sat.u.r.day night because he'd bought her rubies, which of course were also red. Leigh decided to wear red today.

Maybe if she did that, their lives would somehow pick up where they'd left off Sat.u.r.day night. Maybe it would change her luck if she put on something bright and cheerful. She put on the red sweater and the wool slacks that matched it.

By eight-forty-five, when Leigh left the bedroom, the phone was ringing almost nonstop. Normally the sight of her living room, with its polished parquet floors, soaring marble colonnades, and expansive views of Central Park, gave Leigh's spirits a lift, but that morning it was just another meaningless s.p.a.ce that was rendered lonely and bizarre by the disappearance of one of its owners.

Leigh heard Brenna's voice coming from the kitchen, at the other end of the apartment, so she went there.

The kitchen was a large inviting room with an island in the center and a wide window. Its weathered brick walls and arched fireplace made it seem cozy and rustic, despite the commercial-size stainless steel appliances that lined the walls.

Brenna was standing near the refrigerator, talking on the telephone and making notes on a pad; Hilda was at the stove, stirring something in a pot. She saw Leigh in the doorway and stopped to pour her a cup of coffee. "I'm making your breakfast," she said.

When Brenna finished with the caller, Leigh motioned her over to the table to join her. Eyeing the spiral notebook in Brenna's hand, she said, "Who do I want to hear about?"

Brenna began scanning the pages of neatly written notes. "Sybil Haywood said to tell you she's working on your astrological chart and she should have some guidance to offer you very soon. Courtney Maitland wants to come up and visit you as soon as you 'can possibly bear some company' Senator Hollenbeck called to tell you that he's at your service. Judge Maxwell called to say..."

Leigh's attention wandered during the long list of well-wishers, but she listened closely again as Brenna came to the end and said, "Dr. Winters called yesterday and again early this morning. She said to tell you that she's holding you in her thoughts, and that she would like to come and see you to help 'keep the vigil'

whenever you want company. She also phoned in a prescription for you, and she wants you to start taking it immediately."

"What sort of prescription?"

Brenna hesitated and then said very firmly, "She said it's an antianxiety medication. She said she knows you won't like the idea, but it will help you to think clearly and stay calm right now, when you most need to do both."

"I'm calm," Leigh said.

Brenna's doubtful gaze s.h.i.+fted to Leigh's hands on the table. They were clasped together and clenched so tightly that the tops of her fingers were white.

Leigh hastily unclasped them. Brenna continued, "I sent Joe O'Hara to the pharmacy to pick up the prescription."

It took Leigh a moment to realize that Joe O'Hara was her new chauffeur-bodyguard. Not only had she forgotten his name in the chaos of the last few days, she'd forgotten that Matt and Meredith Farrell had insisted on loaning O'Hara to her before they left on their world cruise. He was staying at their New York apartment, but he was supposed to drive Leigh about in the Farrell limousine and protect her from further approaches by her stalker.

"I may as well warn you," Brenna added with a sigh, "he's a little upset that we didn't ask him to drive the Blazer for us yesterday."

Leigh lifted her hands in helpless admission of the embarra.s.sing truth. "That would have been a good idea. I just-forgot he existed."

"If you ask me," Hilda angrily announced, "that man doesn't know his place!

He's supposed to drive you when you want him to, not when he decides he should." She banged a pot to emphasize her opinion. "He's just a chauffeur."

Leigh forced herself to focus on the matter at hand before it resulted in more disharmony in her already disharmonious life. "I understand what you're saying, Hilda, but he's not used to being 'just a chauffeur.' He's worked for the Farrells for years, and they think of him as a very loyal member of their family. They told him to look after me while they were gone, and he's probably going to take that very seriously, particularly right now when-when things are so mixed up."

She was about to say more when the service door into the kitchen from the elevator foyer was flung open, and she half rose in her chair, stifling a cry of nervous shock.

"Sorry, I guess I shoulda knocked," Joe O'Hara said, striding into the kitchen wearing a heavy black overcoat with the collar turned up over his ears.

A thick-shouldered, heavyset man about five feet ten inches tall, he had the lumbering gait of a grizzly bear and an almost-ugly face that looked as if it had taken serious poundings in either the boxing ring or street brawls. His appearance didn't daunt Hilda, however. She glared at him over her shoulder and snapped, "Don't you come into my kitchen without wiping your feet ! "

A flash of surprised annoyance made the chauffeur look almost threatening as he glared first at the irate woman across the room and then at his s.h.i.+ny shoes.

Dismissing the entire matter with a shrug, he hung his overcoat in the closet and approached the kitchen table carrying a little white bag from the local pharmacy in his meaty fist. "Mrs. Manning," he said, his gravelly voice tinged with calm resolution. "I realize you don't know me, and you probably don't want a stranger underfoot at a time like this, but your husband and Matt Farrell both told me to look after you and make sure you stay safe."

Leigh had to tip her head all the way back in order to see him, and since that made her neck hurt, she motioned him to sit next to Brenna. "When you walked in just now, you startled me. It's not that I don't want you here," she finished.

"No need to apologize," he told her, settling his broad frame onto a chair that looked a little too small for him. "But I have to tell you that if you'd let me drive you into the mountains Sunday, instead of driving there yourself, you might not be sitting here grittin' your teeth so no one will notice how bad you hurt."

"Thank you for making my effort unnecessary," Leigh replied, not at all certain whether she liked him or not.

Her reprimand sailed over the chauffeur's head. "Yesterday, you shoulda called me and let me do the driving. You two women got no business driving around the mountains in the snow by yourselves. You coulda got stuck! "

"Well, we obviously didn't," Brenna pointed out.

"Yeah, lucky for you. But if you had, what would you have done, hiked off for help while Mrs. Manning huddled alone in the car, hurt and sick and trying to stay warm after it ran out of gas?"

"They would have managed just fine," Hilda informed him sharply as she stirred the contents of the pot on the stove.

Leigh observed the uneasy, heated exchange taking place between her three employees as if from a great distance, her entire being focused on the telephone and the clock on the opposite wall. When Logan's private line suddenly lit up and began to ring, she shoved Brenna back in her chair and bolted for the phone, her injuries forgotten. "h.e.l.lo," she burst out breathlessly.

The male voice on the other end was deep and unfamiliar. "Mrs. Manning?"

"Yes, who is this?"

" Michael Valente."

Leigh slumped against the wall, unable to hide her disappointment. "Yes, Mr.

Valente?"

"I'm sorry to disturb you. From the sound of your voice, I a.s.sume you haven't had any word yet about Logan?"

"No. Nothing."

"I'm sorry," he said again. He hesitated a moment and then said, "I know this isn't good timing, but Logan has some doc.u.ments I need. He had them with him at your home when he called me from there Sat.u.r.day afternoon. I'm only a few blocks away. Would it be at all possible for me to stop by and get them?"

"I have no idea where they are," Leigh said, disliking the idea of anyone going through Logan's things when he wasn't there.

"They are the plans and a prospectus from another project of mine that Logan borrowed."

The doc.u.ments were his property, not Logan's. He was making that courteously but abundantly clear. Leigh swallowed her resentment and disappointment that the call wasn't from or about Logan. "I see. Then come over and get them."

"Thank you very much. I'll be there in twenty minutes."

Leigh forced herself away from the supporting wall, hung up the phone, and looked around at the occupants of the kitchen. A few moments ago, they had merely been employees who seemed to be bickering over nothing, but as she looked at the three tense faces etched with raw anxiety, sympathy, and concern for her, her heart melted. They truly cared; they wanted to help in whatever way they could. She had a thousand acquaintances, but she knew she couldn't count on their discretion or their silence. She knew from experience that Hilda and Brenna were completely trustworthy, and she had a feeling that Joe O'Hara probably was, too. Right now, those three people were her closest friends and allies, her family.

She gave them a wan smile, but disappointment over the phone call she'd answered made her face even paler, and Brenna noticed it. She opened the bag from the pharmacy, removed the prescription bottle, and held it toward Leigh.

"Leigh, Dr. Winters was insistent that you take these."

Leigh gently but firmly pushed the bottle away. "I don't like drugs that affect my mind. I don't need them. Later, if I feel that I do, I'll take them. I promise."

Satisfied that the pill issue seemed to be resolved, O'Hara tackled the issue that was foremost on his own mind. "If you've got a spare room I could use, I think it would be a good idea if I stayed here until things settle down."

Leigh's apartment had sixteen rooms, including two small suites that were intended to be used as "servants' quarters," one of which Hilda occupied. The other was vacant, but Leigh felt a sudden, almost superst.i.tious need to keep everything exactly as it had been before Logan disappeared. So long as everything stayed the same, his absence was only temporary, but making a change-that might encourage or imply permanence. "That's very nice of you, but I'm not alone. Hilda stays here."

His reply made Hilda whirl around and glower. "I'm real sure Hilda could beat up an omelet or wallop the dust right out of a rug," he mocked, "but until your husband comes back, I really think you need a man around here to deal with people problems. The lobby's crawling with reporters, you got fans lined up out on the sidewalk, and you got a stalker who knows your husband is out of the way now. There's no telling when somebody's gonna pay off your doorman or find some other way to sneak up here, but sooner or later, it's gonna happen."

Sensing that Leigh was wavering, he quickly played his trump card. "I'm sure your husband would expect me to stay here and look after his womenfolk," he stated emphatically, and to Leigh's shock, he cast a benevolent look around the room that encompa.s.sed indignant, self-sufficient Hilda and displeased, independent Brenna in the category of "womenfolk" O'Hara felt obliged to protect.

Somewhere in her frantic mind, Leigh noted that O'Hara had a small, startling knack for diplomacy and wily persuasion, because he'd scored his win as soon as he deftly turned his wishes into Logan's wishes. "You're probably right, Mr.

O'Hara. Thank you very much."

"You're welcome. And please call me Joe," he reminded her. "That's what Meredith-I mean, Mrs. Farrell-calls me."

Leigh nodded as she s.h.i.+fted her attention to Hilda, who was placing two bowls on the place mat in front of her. "What is this?" Leigh asked, staring at a bowl containing a thick white substance that looked like gritty paste. Beside it was a smaller bowl of nasty-looking brown lumps that made Leigh's stomach churn.

"It's Cream of Wheat and prunes," Hilda said. "I heard Mr. Manning say that was what you were going to have for breakfast from now on." When Leigh continued to stare blankly at her, she added, "I heard him say it on Sunday morning, just before he left for that place in the mountains where you were supposed to meet him."

The achingly sweet memory washed over Leigh. " No more pears," Logan had teased her. " You're addicted. From now on, it's Cream of Wheat and prunes for you." Tears blurred Leigh's vision, and without realizing what she was doing, she put her arms on the table around the two bowls, encircling them, trying to gather them to her and protect the happy memory. Her head fell forward, and her shoulders began to shake with helpless weeping that embarra.s.sed her and alarmed the people in the kitchen. Trying to gain control and make light of what had happened, she turned her face away and brushed the tears from her cheeks with her right hand. With her left hand, she reached toward Brenna and opened her palm. Brenna understood and put one of Sheila Winters's prescription pills in it.

"I'm sorry," she told the three of them. They looked at her with such intense, speechless sympathy that she had to blink back a fresh surge of tears.

"I'll fix you your usual breakfast," Hilda announced, relying as always on domestic matters to achieve balance in an otherwise unbalanced, disorderly world.

"I think I'll eat this one today," Leigh said, giving in to a fresh rush of painful sentimentality as Brenna got up to answer yet another call on the main line.

CHAPTER 13.

With her gaze riveted on the kitchen clock, Leigh forced down part of her breakfast while she tried to gauge how long it would take for Shrader and Littleton to determine if the state trooper had actually found the location of her accident.

In Brenna's office in the next room, the phone continued to ring incessantly, and each time Brenna answered a call, Leigh tensed, waiting... When Brenna finally reappeared in the kitchen, holding a cordless phone in her hand, Leigh jumped up from the table and nearly overturned her chair, only to have Brenna quickly shake her head and explain, "It's Meredith Farrell. They've just heard about your accident and everything. I thought you might want to talk to her."

Leigh nodded and took the call. The s.h.i.+pboard satellite hookup was poor, and there was the usual brief delay that caused both parties to either talk at the same time or stop and wait unnecessarily to see if the other person was finished speaking. Meredith volunteered to cancel their trip and fly back to New York, and Matt Farrell offered the services of a large investigative firm that was among the companies he owned. Leigh declined both offers and thanked them sincerely. She was certain the Farrells' offer to cancel their trip had been a courtesy that they knew she would decline, but she was surprised and touched by it nonetheless.

After that call, she went into the living room and sat down at her desk, waiting for something to happen. Within moments, Brenna walked in to give her news she didn't want: "Horace down in the lobby just called and said that Mr.

Valente is here. I told Horace to send him up. Do you want to go into the other room and let me handle him?"

Leigh very much wanted to do exactly that, but she did not want anyone touching anything in Logan's study unless she herself was there. "No, I'll take care of it," Leigh said as a buzzer announced the arrival of her unwanted visitor at her door.

Brenna let him in and automatically offered to take his coat. To Leigh's dismay, he shrugged out of it and handed it to her, which evidently meant he intended to stay longer than the time it would take to find his papers and leave.

Leigh had no intention of granting Michael Valente a social visit, but as he strode swiftly down the foyer steps and crossed the living room toward her, it was a little difficult to believe the tall, immaculately groomed, athletically built man striding toward her was a criminal. Dressed in an exquisitely tailored dark blue suit, pristine white s.h.i.+rt, and a navy blue and dark gold silk herringbone tie, he looked like an expensively dressed Wall Street banker. But then, so had John Gotti.

As he came toward her, he subjected Leigh to the same sort of intense scrutiny he'd focused on her the night of her party, and she found it just as discomforting and overly personal. She stood rigidly while he finished inspecting every feature on her face at close range, but she ignored his hands when he held them out to her and said quietly, "How are you holding up?"

"As well as can be expected," Leigh said politely but impersonally.

He slid his rejected hands into his pants pockets, an odd smile lurking at the corner of his mouth, and said absolutely nothing, which made Leigh feel awkward, rude, and ill at ease. In that state of momentary uncertainty, she felt compelled to add something. "I feel better than I look," she said.