dressing table.
“I’ll tell him about the blackmail, about getting pregnant when I was a teenager.” Emma’s voice sounded surprisingly resolute. She stood looking in the mirror. Faith could see her face: Her lips were pursed and she was frowning with the intensity of her resolve.
She picked up a silver-backed hairbrush with her monogram. “But”—she smoothed her hair back with several swift strokes—“I won’t tell him about Nathan Fox. Not about my father. I can’t do that to him. If I get another threat, I’ll tell them I’ve told Michael all about it and let them assume it’s everything.”
“Are you sure—”
She cut Faith off. “It’s a chance I’ll have to take.” She put the brush down and faced her friend. “The worst part is thinking that you could have been killed.
That’s what I can’t face. It was supposed to be me, and if anything had happened to you, I could never have lived with myself. Every step of the way since this has started, you’ve been with me, and maybe I’ve done a lot of things wrong, but you have to believe that I thought I was doing what was right. What was right to protect my husband. I never thought it would end up like this. End up with you almost—” She gave a short sob. “Oh, Faith, weren’t we little girls just yesterday?
Doesn’t it seem that way to you? If I had known what was going to happen, I’m not sure I would have wanted to grow up.”
“We were and you did—admirably,” Faith said firmly, although she’d been having the same feeling.
“But nothing happened. I’m fine. And we’ll be fine.
We’ve come this far . . .”
Emma wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
“And we’ll see it through.” She looked at Faith’s feet.
“You don’t seem to have any shoes on, and I’m afraid to give you anything that might connect you to me, but shoes are shoes. The coat was different. No one knows you’ve been involved in all this, and I swear that no one ever will, as long as I live.” Emma
Emma was rummaging in her closet, pulling out shoe boxes. Faith was waiting for the right moment to tell her that she needed to grab another outfit for herself, as well.
“Tonight. This can’t go on. There’s no question. It’s
just drinks—the thing I’m meeting Michael at—and I’ll make dinner reservations for us afterward.
Michael’s been complaining that we haven’t had any time alone together for ages, so I’ll surprise him.” Surprise him, yes, Faith thought. Telling Michael part of what was going on was better than nothing—it was a start—and she was sure he wouldn’t stand by while his wife was being blackmailed. Maybe Emma was right. Maybe they would assume she’d told him everything, especially after tonight. She’d be frightened enough to do anything.
Emma handed Faith several boxes of shoes. “Try these. We’ll go to the Post House. Michael likes it.” Faith had retrieved Emma’s coat from the hall and was holding it up, examining the damage. It had kept her warm and dry, but it needed a dry-cleaning wizard now. Emma snatched it from her on her way to the bathroom. “Juanita knows some super dry cleaner. But I don’t think I want to wear it again.” Nor did Faith.
The Post House. A good choice. Faith believed it was always better to reveal potentially explosive or emotional information in a public setting, where presumably good breeding will prevent too crazed a reac-tion. She’d broken up a number of times this way. The Post House was one of New York’s newer temples to beef and already was very popular. Michael would be surrounded by any number of men he knew, all order-ing enormous and expensive slabs of meat. It was a place where guys like Michael Stanstead felt at home.
Maybe Emma was a better politician’s wife than she appeared.
“All set. I made reservations for nine o’clock.” Emma blushed slightly. She was in her slip again and reaching for a simple long-sleeved black jersey dress.
Apparently, the mirrors in the bathroom had reflected dress white, the fairest in the land, but better off in black for now. She was snapping a simple gold cuff bracelet around her slender wrist. “There’s a phone in the bathroom. Michael—”
Faith finished for her, “likes it.” They both laughed, but it was nervous laughter. Emma glanced out the window. The rain had stopped. But neither woman really wanted to go outside.
The phone was ringing when Faith got out of the shower. She had taken a cab home. Walking into the apartment, she’d shed garments as she made a beeline for the shower, then stood under the hot spray, trying to think of nothing but the warmth seeping into her bones. After a while she began to come to. Had she been in for a half hour, an hour? She’d lost all sense of time. She’d turned the water off, reached for a towel—
and the phone rang. For a moment, she considered letting the machine get it, but she flashed on Emma.
In the street, outside Emma’s building, Faith had lived the seconds of her attack all over again—and again. She’d seen one of her shoes, but nothing on earth could have made her pick it up. She’d insisted on dropping Emma off at her cocktail party, over Emma’s protests that it was only on the next street. Faith had extracted a promise from her that she wouldn’t go out alone—anywhere.
She hastily pulled her terry-cloth robe on and lunged for the receiver, hitting her shin on the corner of the bed in the process.
“Hello?”
“Faith, great! I thought you’d be working or out. I just got back, and my agent has sold the book! Please,
please come celebrate tonight. If you have a date, break it!”
It was Richard.
Faith didn’t believe in playing games, yet she also didn’t believe in appearing too available.
“My plans for tonight aren’t definite. I think I might be able to make it.” All of which was true. She was elated. Something good happening to somebody. This alone was cause for celebration. She very much wanted to go out—and, she admitted to herself, she very much wanted to go out with him.
“Fantastic! The sky’s the limit. You pick.” Faith didn’t have any trouble choosing.
“Let’s go to the Post House.”
“You’re a quixotic woman, Faith Sibley. I would never have predicted this as your kind of place. Bouley, yes.
The Quilted Giraffe, of course. Le Bernardin, absolutely. But a steak house—albeit a very plush one—
no.”
Richard was sitting across from Faith, sipping a very dry martini. He was ebullient, and the small amount of alcohol he’d imbibed didn’t account for the one-hundred-kilowatt glow suffusing his face.
“Major milestones call for drama, and what could be more ostentatiously dramatic than this place? The steaks are the size of a turkey platter and we’re surrounded by power brokers, movers and shakers—fitting for an incipient best-selling author. Here’s to you—and the book.” Faith held her glass aloft. She was drinking a kir royale and planned to have at least one more. Then maybe she’d be able to concentrate on Richard and not keep seeing headlights bearing down upon her. “What’s the title—or can’t you tell yet?”
“My agent wants to keep it all very hush-hush.
Make a big splash by teasing the public with ads in the weeks before it comes out. Who is so-and-so? What southern town will never be the same again? That sort of thing.” He was clearly enjoying himself. “But what I can tell you is it’s a story of good and evil. Of being tempted—and yielding to temptation.”
“Sounds very Faustian—or biblical. Maybe you can work Eve into the title—or the apple.”
“Or the serpent.” Richard laughed. “Plenty of snakes down in that neck of the woods. Not too many apples.
