The Elevator
Well…Sonny always says it’s easier to beg forgiveness than permission. She could almost believe he was counting on her forgiveness for the affair…if she hadn’t found the bankbook.
Rage rises in her cheeks as she stomps on the gas and steers around the police officer.
On the far side of the bridge, she looks in her mirror and sees the cop stepping out of his car. He might be frustrated, but he won’t stop her. He’s needed at his post.
Sonny is needed at home, but where has he been lately? With his mistress. With a young, pretty trophy tartlet.
She turns north and heads up Ashley Drive, then brakes at an intersection. No one else moves on this riverside street, not even the police. She glances at the wet road, where the traffic light shivers in red reflection beside her car, then turns the asphalt green.
She drives on. The haze of gasoline and diesel fumes that usually hovers over the downtown streets has been replaced by a thick humidity. She can almost feel the skin of the storm swelling like an overripe grapefruit. Soon it will burst.
Just as she will burst if she fails to act.
She is overcome with a memory, unshakable and vivid, of a character in a Flannery O’Connor short story. The woman’s thin skin is described as “tight as the skin on an onion” and her gray eyes are “sharp like the points of two ice picks.”
Today Tampa wears the look of O. E. Parker’s coldhearted wife.
After passing the light at Jackson, she spots the flashing bubble of another police vehicle. To avoid it, she heads the wrong direction down Kennedy, a one-way street, then breaks the law again as she drives north on southbound Tampa. After a quick turn, she pulls into the whitewashed entrance of the Lark Tower’s parking garage and guides her car up the slanted driveway.
At the entry gate, she presses the red button, then takes a ticket. She looks to her left, where the parking attendant’s booth stands empty. The garage, in fact, is as quiet as a ghost town.
The black-and-white striped arm lifts, allowing her to enter. She turns and glances in the rearview mirror. No lights flash behind her; no siren breaks the stillness. She glories briefly in her accomplishment, then follows the curving arrows past the visitors’ parking to the third level, reserved for tenants.
She smiles after rounding the corner. Her instincts about her husband were spot-on, as usual: Sonny’s silver BMW is snuggled into its reserved space. He must have been in a hurry when he arrived, for he pulled in at an angle, carelessly trespassing on another tenant’s parking place.
“How rude, darling.” Purposely remaining between the painted lines, Gina pulls into the space next to the BMW and crinkles her nose as the front of her Mercedes just misses her husband’s back bumper.
She would have liked to hit his precious car, but she can’t afford to indulge a childish whim. She needs to get in and out of the building with as little fuss as possible.
Gina kills the engine, then pulls her keys from the ignition. Pistol in the right pocket, keys in the left. She steps out of the car, gives Sonny’s unblemished bumper a regretful smile and strides toward the elevators on legs that tremble despite the dead calm in her heart.
The designers of the Lark Tower have done their part to ease Tampa’s traffic congestion by reserving the six lowest floors for parking. On an ordinary day all six levels would be filled by tenants and visitors, but most of the spaces are vacant now.
The garage is heavy with after-hours quiet, broken only by the echo of Gina’s footsteps and the tick of her cooling engine. She glances over her shoulder to be sure she’s alone, but no one has driven in or out since her arrival. Most everyone, apparently, has gone home.
Sonny should have gone home, too. If he hadn’t been playing around with his girlfriend last night, he wouldn’t need to come to the office this morning.
Twelve elevators at the center of the building provide access to the Lark Tower’s thirty-six floors. Six of the elevators are express, stopping only at levels one through seven and office levels twenty-five through thirty-six. A second bank of six elevators serves the first through twenty-fifth floors. A special plaque announces the eighth-floor location of the renowned Pierpoint Restaurant, home to one of Tampa’s finest chefs.
Since Sonny’s office is on the uppermost level, Gina steps into the air-conditioned space at the express landing and presses the call button. While she waits, she checks her reflection in the polished bronze doors. In order to surprise her cheating husband, she needs one more thing.
With Florida’s attorney general occupying five and a half floors of office space at the top of the building, the Lark Tower’s uppermost levels aren’t accessible to the public. Every visitor has to obtain an access card before the elevator will rise to the thirty-sixth floor, and Sonny believes the extra layer of security lends the offices of Rossman Life and Liability a certain cachet.
A bell dings to signal an elevator’s arrival. Gina steps into the car, then turns and presses the button for the lowest level. The polished doors slide together, then the car lowers her to the marble-tiled lobby.
Gina moves into the open area and strides toward the security station, where a tubby older man in a blue uniform blinks at her approach. She doesn’t recognize him, nor, apparently, does he know her. Not surprising, since she hasn’t visited Sonny’s office in months.
Behind a granite-topped counter, the guard slides off his stool. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” he calls, his voice ringing against the marble walls, “but the building is closed. We’re under an evacuation order.”
Something in his appearance—perhaps the stun gun attached to his belt—sends a wave of reality crashing over her, as hard as the terrazzo beneath her loafers. She is about to do something that cannot be undone. She has planned a heinous act, a deed that would cause her children to gasp in revulsion if they knew what she had in mind.
Can she really go through with this?
How easy it would be to smile at the security guard, profess ignorance of the evacuation and take the elevator back to the parking garage. She could drive home to her sleeping children. They would never know what she’d planned or how far she’d gone—
But they need not know anything. She won’t tell them about this, or the bankbook, or the forty-three-thousand-dollar bracelet Sonny gave to his Don CeSar date. She’ll keep everything from them, just as Sonny has kept secrets from her for who knows how many years.
Yet some secrets refuse to stay buried. Matthew might find something in the office or Samantha might run into someone at the club who knows that woman. Idle gossip is a powerful force, and even if her plan goes off without a hitch, someone might guess at the truth….
She sways on her feet as the walls blur and only half hears the security guard’s alarmed question: “Ma’am? Are you all right?”
She puts out a hand and grips the edge of the counter. “Just give me…a minute.”
Can she continue to ignore Sonny’s late hours? Can she pretend she doesn’t notice another woman’s perfume on his shirts? When the inevitable occurs and he comes in to ask for a divorce, can she look her children in the eye and say she didn’t see it coming?
She can’t. She sees, she knows, and she has to stop Sonny from ripping her family apart.
She blinks at the guard and forces her lips to bend in a curved, still smile. “Sorry about that,” she says, realizing that this man could be called to testify at her trial. “I should have stopped to grab a bite of breakfast.”
The guard’s brow wrinkles with concern. “Should I call a doctor? Get you something to eat?”
“I’m fine now, thanks.” She broadens her smile. “My husband is tending to some last-minute details in his office. I thought I’d help him out—you know, speed things along so he can come home.”
The man’s look of unease deepens. “I’m not supposed to let any visitors go up. We’ve been experiencing blackouts and I wouldn’t want to be responsible—”
“Don’t worry.” She flattens her hands against the countertop and softens her smile. “I’m sure I can talk him into leaving the building eventually. But I need an access card.”
The man crosses his arms and folds his hands into his armpits. “No can do, ma’am. Why don’t you call him? There’s a phone around the corner—”
The ding of the elevator interrupts. Gina pivots, half expecting to see Sonny, but the man who steps into the lobby is a stranger. He comes forward, drops a sealed envelope onto the security desk, then returns to the elevator. An instant later he reappears, pushing a cart loaded with cardboard file boxes.
Gina transfers her gaze from the stranger to the wealth of silver hair on the guard’s forearms. “You let that man go up.”
The tip of the guard’s nose goes pink as he shoves the envelope into a drawer. “I—I can’t stop anybody with a pass key. They come straight from the garage and go up, nothing I can do about that. But I’ve been told to clear the building by ten o’clock, so that’s what I aim to do.”
“The thing is,” Gina says, lowering her voice, “I haven’t been able to reach my husband by phone. I’m worried and I need to see him.”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t give you a card.” Despite his concerned expression, the guard is proving to be about as flexible as a brick wall. “I didn’t even program any visitor’s cards this morning, on account of the evacuation order. So you can sit and wait or you can call your husband, but I can’t give you an access card.”
Maybe she can sweet talk him into going upstairs with her. Once she’s on the thirty-sixth floor, he ought to let her walk to Sonny’s office alone.
“I’m worried,” she repeats, meeting the man’s gaze. “Sonny doesn’t answer his phone. Could you—could we go up together and see if he’s okay?”
The man frowns, glances at the elevators, then shakes his buzz-cut head. “Can’t leave my post. The other guards didn’t come in today, on account of the hurricane. I’m supposed to leave in a couple of hours. The entire building’s gotta be evacuated.”
Sonny used to say she could charm the sting out of a bee, but she must be losing her touch.
Sighing, Gina scans the desk behind the counter. No access cards in sight, but they’re probably in a drawer. She has no idea how to program one, but if Deputy Dawg can do it, surely she can figure it out.
She smiles, then lowers her arms and slips her right hand into her pocket. Reluctantly, she grips the gun. “I suppose you’ve left me with only one choice.”
CHAPTER 6
After dodging traffic cops, gyrating stoplights and barricades, Michelle pulls onto North Tampa and squints through the blurred arc made by her windshield wipers. Is that a perfect line of empty parking spaces on the street? She’s been renting office space in the Lark Tower for two years, but until now she’s never been able to park on the curb.
She whips her car into a prime spot, then pushes the car door into the steady rain. Flurries of paper and leaves fly past her in a pirouetting whirlwind that tugs at the canopies of the neatly trimmed live oaks. The radio weathercaster has been predicting intermittent rain for the next several hours, with increasing wind speeds until well after sunset.
Michelle grabs an empty Applebee’s take-out bag and holds it over her head as she dashes toward the lobby entrance, her raincoat rippling and snapping in the wind.
Maybe she’s crazy for coming here. Lauren would certainly think so, but Lauren has a ring on her finger and a date on the caterer’s books. More to the point, Lauren’s biological clock is running at least five years behind Michelle’s.
Though she’s almost positive Parker is preparing to propose, she can’t let this opportunity for action slip away. The threat of an imminent hurricane ought to make it easy for him to get serious about drawing his loved ones close, but the man might need a nudge toward matrimony. If this wild weather isn’t enough to make him think about his responsibility to her as well as his children, her ultimatum should be.
The rising wind whooshes past her, clawing at the Applebee’s bag and whipping her raincoat around her frame. She nearly falls on the rain-slicked pavement near the building entrance, but catches the brass bar on a lobby door. The door seems heavier today, and she struggles against it until the wind pries the Applebee’s bag from her fingers and whips it across the street, then releases it like a free-floating parachute. With both hands she pushes against the door until it moves, but a gust of wind follows her into the building, rattling the leaves of two potted ficus trees standing guard at the perimeter of the lobby.
Flustered, she shakes water from her hair and looks around. The sandwich shop, florist, bank and office center are all locked and closed, their interiors dark. No one sits in the lounge chairs scattered among the massive bowls of bromeliads, but she glimpses movement at the security station beyond the reception area.
Good to know she’s not alone in the building.
After wiping raindrops from her face, she settles her wet purse on her shoulder and strides toward the security guard, who is talking to a woman in a tan trench coat. She calls out a greeting as she heads toward the elevator landing. “Surprised to see you this morning, Gus.”
“Miss Tilson, wait.” Stepping away from the woman in the trench coat, the guard lifts his arm to hold her attention. “We’re urging all tenants to evacuate immediately. Haven’t you seen the news?”
She gestures toward the elevators. “I’ll only be a few minutes. I need to run upstairs and pick up a file.”
“Come on, now.” Gus hikes up his belt and gives her a look of paternal disapproval. “You shouldn’t even be downtown in this weather. We’re locking the building at ten and I’m not supposed to let any visitors into the office areas.”
Her mouth twists in an expression that’s not quite a smile. When will he realize she doesn’t need his protection? “I’m not a visitor, Gus, I’m a paying tenant and I need to go to my office.”
“But, Miss Tilson—”
“That storm is hours away and I’ll only be a few minutes. Thanks for your concern, but I’m going upstairs.”
Gus’s features crumple with frustration, but he retreats to his stool.
Michelle walks to the express elevators and presses the call button, then crosses her arms. According to the lit panels above the doors, one car is on the second level of the parking garage; the others are scattered among floors twenty-five through thirty-six.
The woman in the trench coat steps onto the carpet at the landing and catches Michelle’s eye. “Tilson?” she asks. “Tilson Corporate Careers?”
Michelle gives her a perfunctory smile. “Yes.”
“Ah.” The woman nods and looks away. “I’ve seen your name on the registry.”
Michelle frowns, wondering if she should know this woman, but then the light above the middle car shifts from thirty-six to thirty-five.
Could Parker be on his way down?
After pressing the button that will take her to the maintenance department, Isabel turns and drops her forehead to the elevator’s back wall. What is she going to do? If the authorities find out what happened, they might arrest her, maybe even put her in prison. She has tried her best to avoid trouble, but trouble seems to find her at every turn, even in los Estados Unidos.
Ernesto said she wouldn’t be able to run forever, but she has to try. Again. She and Carlos and Rafael must go someplace where they will never be found.
As the elevator descends with a smooth whoosh, Isabel feels a rush of gratitude for its speed. If this were a weekday morning, the building would be so crowded it would take forever for the express to travel from the top of the building to the custodial office on the seventh floor. Today, however, the elevator escorts her to the lower level without interruption.
The bronze doors slide open, revealing a concrete hallway, scraped walls, dented lockers and another cleaning cart—
No.
Isabel’s hand flies to her mouth. She left her cart in Rossman’s outer office. Anyone who sees it will know she was there…and might guess why she left in a panic.
As the elevator door begins to close, she thrusts out her arm and stops it.
What should she do? She could clock out, go to her car and drive home. She’d have to beg Carlos to leave the area because he wouldn’t want to go, not with the hurricane coming. Driving on old tires in a storm would be dangerous.
But how can they escape when la policía are positioned throughout the city? They will stop the car and they will want to know why Carlos waited so long to leave. Carlos is a good man; he will not lie and Isabel will not allow him to lie for her. So she will tell the truth, and they will put her in jail and tell the attorney general that a criminal has been working under his nose all these many months….
She can’t run, not today. She will have to wait, talk to Carlos, pray that the authorities never learn that she was in Rossman’s office this morning.
So she must go back upstairs and get her cart.
When the elevator buzzes to protest the prolonged stop, Isabel takes a half step back and allows the doors to close. As the car begins to move, she returns to the back wall and presses her hand to her chest, where a bulky, cold lump is scraping against her breastbone. Things will be all right. She can get her cart, return it to the seventh floor, clock out and go home. Her secret will keep; no one will know for hours, maybe days.
A chill shivers her skin when the car stops on the ground floor. The lobby.
¿Qué pasa? Her thoughts whirl in a rush, then she remembers: she forgot to push the button. Someone in the lobby must have called the elevator, and this was the closest car.
Though it hurts to draw breath, Isabel reminds herself to stay calm and keep her head down. She can’t let anyone see the distress in her eyes or her trembling hands. Fortunately, few people in this place ever really see her. They pass in an office or hallway and notice her no more than they notice the potted plants or the exit signs above every stairwell doorway.
She steps to the far right corner of the car as the bronze doors open. Mi querido Dios, let me remain alone a little longer….
God must not be listening. The sweet scent of perfume reaches her nostrils as dos gringas enter the car.
Isabel holds her breath as the first woman, a slim brunette, pulls out her access card, slips it into the security slot and presses the button for thirty-six.
The other woman stands silent against the left wall, her hands shoved into the pockets of her tan coat. The lump in Isabel’s chest grows heavier when the second woman does not move to press any of the elevator’s many buttons.
Are they all riding to the thirty-sixth floor?
Michelle smiles at the woman who followed her into the car. “Can I press a button for you?”
The woman shifts her gaze from the elevator panel to Michelle’s face. “No, thank you.” Her shoulder-length hair, a vibrant shade of red, is far drier than Michelle’s, so she must have parked in the garage.
Smart lady.
Out in the lobby, Gus has left his station and is rocking toward them on stiff hips. “Ladies, I have to close this building and leave by ten, so I really must advise—”
Michelle is about to ratchet the argument up a notch when the redhead steps forward and jabs the Door Close button. The doors slide together before the security guard can reach them.
Michelle laughs. “He really doesn’t want us to go upstairs.”
The other woman shrugs. “I really don’t care what he wants.”
“I think we’re all a little on edge today.” Michelle glances at the cleaning woman at the back of the car, but she seems to be studying the floor. A pink portable CD player is clipped to her sweater pocket, and from it a gray wire snakes toward her head and ends in a pair of earbuds.
Michelle snorts softly and turns back toward the front of the car. No wonder the housekeeper is oblivious. She probably hasn’t heard a word they’ve said.
She pulls the edges of her raincoat together as the express elevator begins its ascent. Time to focus on Parker. In a moment she’ll be face-to-face with the man who could be the love of her life. She’ll hear what he has to say and he’ll listen to her.
After he hears her challenge, he’ll either react with joy, indifference or irritation. Maybe he’s been waiting for her to state her willingness to start a family; maybe he’s never guessed that a successful career woman might want a husband and children.
On the other hand…maybe he thinks three children are enough. Maybe he’s done a little digging in her past and he doesn’t want her to play any role in his kids’ lives. Maybe he doesn’t want a wife because he’s content with a part-time lover.
If he’s that narrow-minded, she’ll either win him over or she’ll move on. But she will not worry about the future. Since becoming independent, she’s never encountered an obstacle she couldn’t overcome…one way or another.
Gina stares at the bronze elevator panel and struggles to corral her racing thoughts. The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry….
Who said that, Shakespeare? No. Burns, but not in those exact words. Saikaku, that Japanese poet, phrased it another way: there is always something to upset the most careful of human calculations.
She should have allowed for Murphy’s law, chaos theory, whatever they’re calling it these days. She should have realized the security guard might give her a hard time. She should have considered the possibility that other people might share a ride in the elevator.
She had been certain the thirty-sixth floor would be deserted by the time she arrived, but these two women are on their way to that same landing.
In this situation, three is definitely a crowd.
Gathering up the pearls at her throat, Gina cuts a glance to the woman across the car. The tall and slender stranger holds herself like a model or a dancer. Miss Tilson, the guard called her, and Gina recognized the name from an office on the thirty-sixth floor. What else had she said? She’d come to pick up a file?
Must be a terribly important client.
The brunette, who has closed her eyes and is leaning against the wall, doesn’t notice Gina’s scrutiny. She’s wearing jeans, but they’re adorned with a designer logo and the blouse beneath the raincoat has the soft sheen of silk. Her nails are short and neatly trimmed, her glasses tortoiseshell, her hair a chic brown cap. Even in denim and sneakers, the woman radiates success. She’s the type to notice things…so she’s one to avoid.
When the maid coughs, the brunette lifts her head and Gina hastily looks away. She’d give anything to be invisible at this moment, but she’ll settle for remaining anonymous.
She leans against the wall and peers over her shoulder at the thick Hispanic woman in the pink uniform. The maid is studying the floor—maybe she resents the water dripping off the brunette’s raincoat. Gina lifts a brow at the sight of the earbuds—what’s she listening to, mariachi music? In any case, she must be doing well. The managers of the Lark Tower take good care of their employees, even the foreigners.
She shifts her gaze as she thinks of the Hispanic families Sonny has insured over the years. Many of the Cubans in Tampa’s Ybor City are quite prosperous; she’s lost count of the quinceañeras she and Sonny have attended to celebrate the fifteenth birthdays of clients’ daughters. Those people spare no expense to honor their blossoming young women; they spend buckets of money on food, bands and party dresses.
If only they spent as much insuring their belongings and their loved ones. How many will be adequately covered if Felix rips their homes apart?
Gina folds her arms. Ordinarily she wouldn’t be aware of the other passengers in an elevator, but today she needs to notice everything. If the police ever launch an investigation into Sonny’s death, they’ll try to track down anyone who was in the building today.