The Trouble with Andrew Read online

  She flicked through the paper and saw that the whole community mourned. There were pictures of a younger, darker Tina, with her two nearly grown children. Drew, striking even as a very young man, his handsome face twisted with anguish that tugged at her stomach.

  There were pictures of the funeral. There were interviews with men A.J. had worked with, including Sam Jaffe and Harry Easton. Katie noted where A. J. Cunningham had been buried, and she thoughtfully turned off the screen.

  She still didn’t have anything.

  She needed to think.

  She left the library and drove through Little Havana, the Calle Ocho area, until the street was just plain old Eighth Street again, and she came upon Woodlawn Cemetery. The place was huge, and she had no idea where to find A. J. Cunningham’s grave, but a trip into the caretaker’s office gave her the directions she needed, and she drove through the cemetery, seeing older, traditional angels and monuments along with more modern memorials. Toward the rear of the cemetery she parked the car, certain she was in the right place. Under an old oak, the man had said. She peered at grave after grave, and then, staring across the cemetery, she was certain she had found the grave.

  A. J. Cunningham had been laid to rest in a private mausoleum. It was sculpted to look like a sleek, beautiful home with Greek columns and a graceful porch. The name Cunningham had been chiseled over the columns, and Katie was certain a place remained within the mausoleum for Tina Cunningham to find her final rest.

  She stood in front of the grave, feeling a breeze lift her hair.

  “He’s lying, you know!” she told the structure, as if she could speak to the long-gone but deeply loved man. “He’s everything you might have wanted him to be, he’s just afraid to let me in on this, and it doesn’t make any sense. And he can get mad, and he can even throw me out if he wants, but I’m going to find out what happened!”

  There was no answer. Had she gotten one, she probably would have had a heart attack on the spot. But the breeze remained nicely cool, the trees seemed to whisper, and she was somehow glad that she had come.

  Then she began to feel a prickling sensation in her neck. As if she was being watched.

  The breeze lifted the branches of the trees again. The grave was in a remote section of the cemetery, far from the main roads.

  She might well be alone out here with…

  She spun around, her heart pounding. Relief poured through her.

  Reva Cunningham Kennedy was standing by her car, parked right in front of Katie’s on the road.

  Reva waited, watching as Katie walked over to her.

  “My God, what a coincidence!” Katie murmured.

  Reva shook her head. “No coincidence. You asked the caretaker about Dad. They had some vandalism here a few years ago and so they called the office. I was the Cunningham they managed to get hold of.”

  “So you came out to see what was going on?”

  Reva shrugged.

  “What if I had been a vandal?”

  “And what if someone in my brother’s corporation is dangerous?” Reva asked her in return.

  Katie didn’t answer. “Where are the twins?” she asked.

  “Nursery school. Jordan?”

  “His school opened today.” She said awkwardly, “I know your brother is really angry with me over this, Reva, but I can keep my distance, and no one needs to know what I’m doing.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Nothing—really.” She hesitated. “I just wish I knew everyone involved. I keep thinking that perhaps Andrea—”

  “Andrea would be a prime suspect,” Reva agreed with a certain amount of humour. “She’s rich and gorgeous. And not terribly nice. But I’m not sure that’s a crime.”

  “Well, it seems that everyone else is nice.”

  “And is what seems always real?” Reva asked her.

  “Reva, help me,” Katie said. “I swear to you, I want to do anything I can for Drew.”

  “And what if you find out that Drew is really guilty himself, that his lofty ideals are all lies?”

  “They’re not,” Katie said.

  “What if?”

  “There is no what if!”

  “All right,” Reva said. “There’s going to be a party in the office on Friday night. A thank-you from Drew to all the staff for working so hard since—since the other Andrew!”

  “He’ll never invite me,” Katie said. “We’ve had quite a disagreement—”

  “So I imagined,” Reva said. “He walked into the office like a storm this morning. But he hasn’t really said anything to me—he hasn’t told me I can’t invite you—so we’ll just say that I wanted to ask you and Jordan since you’re both so wonderful at helping me with the twins. You’ll get to meet everyone, but Katie, I know he wants to keep you out of it. Don’t you see, he’s worried.”

  “Why?”

  Reva shrugged. “Well, we are talking about a big money crime here. Katie, people shoot people to steal fifty dollars from fast-food stands.”

  “But no one ever needs to know what I’m up to!” Katie said. “Surely, everyone wants to know what happened!”

  “My brother’s signature was on the work orders for your house,” Reva reminded her. “And nothing that was done was actually illegal.”

  “I know.”

  “Well, I don’t know what the week will bring,” Reva murmured, “but come to the office at five. I’ll be sure to meet you before Drew sees that you’re there.”

  “Thanks,” Katie told her.

  “You really get to help with the twins, you know!” Reva said, starting around to the driver’s side of her car. “Mom used to be great, but… Well, she’s off in Orlando, as you know.”

  Katie smiled. “I know. Thanks again, Reva. I’ll see you Friday at five, and Jordan and I will both be ready to watch the boys.”

  Reva drove away.

  Katie hesitated, then felt the breeze touching her arms, and she shivered.

  The cemetery was remote.

  And for some reason, she had chills.

  She hurried to her own car and drove out.

  Drew had seen to it that her house had been coming along while she had been gone. Her walls had been replastered, and new carpeting was down. Her bedroom had been repaired, but her windows remained boarded, since the new glass for them wasn’t ready yet.

  Her mangled screen had been pulled down, and some of the broken remnants of life that had blown into it had been removed from her pool.

  After she picked up Jordan from school, she went to her house and stood in the doorway. She was still missing electricity. She had learned to manage without it, but…

  The house was hot.

  “We’re going to stay here, now?” Jordan asked her.

  “I guess not,” she said after a minute.

  “Please, not!” Jordan said.

  Well, Drew had said that she could walk by him in his hallways, she reminded herself. And he hadn’t asked her for his key or anything. She had been the one saying she meant to leave.

  But he had been hostile.

  He didn’t mean it…

  How could she be so sure when he was right about one thing? She didn’t really know anything, she didn’t really know him.…

  “Well, we’ll go back to Drew’s,” she said. “But just for a few more nights, Jordan. We have to get back into our own house. We have to lead our own lives again.”

  “I’ve been incredibly neat!” Jordan said indignantly.

  Katie sighed. “We have to come back home sometime.”

  He nodded and started across the street.

  She followed him, feeling a well of tension grow within her as she opened the door to Drew’s house and went in.

  The house was empty.

  She made dinner for the two of them, not surprised when Drew didn’t come home.

  Since school was in session, she made Jordan go to bed at nine o’clock. A little bit after, she went herself.

  She lay awake. Very la
te, Drew came home. He didn’t come near her door. She made no move toward his.

  She woke early the next morning—very early.

  She woke Jordan and went downstairs, but Drew was already gone.

  Jordan was amazed that he could have come home so late and gone back to work so early.

  Katie wasn’t. He didn’t want to be around her, and he was determined not to make her feel as if she needed to rush to her house.

  “He’s very busy. I don’t think we’ll see a lot of him this week,” she warned Jordan.

  He gave her a baleful look. “I’m not dumb, Mom. You’ve had a fight with him again.”

  “Jordan—”

  “Don’t mess this up, Mom. Please.”

  “Jordan, you just can’t make people into what you want them to be! Come on—you’ve got to get to school.”

  He was sulky when she dropped him off. Well, he would have to live with it. She felt her nerves twisting tighter and tighter.

  She went back for her cameras and film and started to drive around the city, accustomed to the terrible traffic and driving as if she had eyes all around her head.

  She started to take pictures of people rebuilding. They were good pictures. She mentally placed them in the book she would put together.

  Everything she had sent off to magazines and papers had been bought. She didn’t know whether to be glad that she was doing all right or feel guilty that she was making money that was in any way touched by the dreadful storm.

  At eleven, she ran out of film.

  She told herself she was only going downtown to buy more film. But she kept driving until she arrived at the main branch of the library.

  She went through everything again. She reread the account of Drew’s father’s death, about his horrible fall and what a shock it had been. He’d been almost like a goat on scaffolding and steel framework. No one had seen quite what had happened. There had been other men in the work area, but no one had been with him.

  She flicked through what she had already read; she felt that she should be seeing something, and she didn’t know what. At last, she turned off the machine and sat thinking for awhile. It was time to go get Jordan.

  Again, Drew Cunningham had managed to stay out of his own house the majority of the night. She had fallen asleep, waiting to hear his door open and close.

  In the morning, he was gone again.

  But it didn’t matter, Katie decided.

  Because it was Friday.

  She didn’t do anything all day except shop for a dress. At three she picked up Jordan from school, and they went to Drew’s to prepare for the party. She had chosen a short, midnight-blue velvet dress that seemed to deepen the color of her eyes and went well with her honey blond hair.

  She liked the way the dress moved on her. It was sleeveless and nicely molded at the bodice.

  She told her reflection that she looked fine, and then she remembered that the exquisite Andrea would be among the guests.

  It was all right. Katie decided she could hold her own.

  At four-thirty she drove to the Hunnicunn office and parked. She slipped into the downstairs reception area and was relieved to find Reva there, as she had promised. “Let’s get upstairs. Drew is still in his office—he has a shower in there and all—and just in case, you can meet everyone you want to meet before he makes his appearance.”

  “Come on, Jordan,” Katie urged her son.

  His powder blue eyes were as hard as Drew’s could be.

  A little too much bonding had gone on between her son and Drew, she decided. She felt weak and uneasy, worried about what she was doing to Jordan.

  But it wasn’t time to feel fainthearted. She went with Reva to the elevators and they went to the executive floor, where the party seemed to be in full swing already.

  The food had been catered. Delicious-looking finger foods were set out in trays all about them, and attractively dressed servers were moving around, allowing the Hunnicunn employees to sweep up tall, thin glasses of champagne. Katie found herself with a glass, and saw that Jordan—bless him, he would never know how much—was already playing with the twins, stooping down to talk with the pair as they came forward with Drew’s secretary.

  “Katie, my husband, Cliff Kennedy,” Reva said, introducing her to a tall, dark-haired man with a quick smile and handsome face. Katie liked him instantly, noting the way he stood by Reva’s side, politely greeted Katie and kept an eye on his offspring at the same time. “Darling, I’m going to introduce Katie around,” Reva told him.

  “Go right ahead. I’m fine here, you know that.”

  Katie smiled at him and felt her arm tugged as Reva led her through a group of women to an older man with silvering dark hair. She tried to estimate his age. He wasn’t sixty yet, she thought. He was in very good shape.

  “Harry!” Reva said. “Just the fellow I’m looking for. Katie is a friend of Drew’s. I want her to meet all the people important in our lives, and you’re certainly that! Katie, Harry Easton. Harry, Mrs. Katie Wells.”

  Harry smiled. He looked nice in the tux he was wearing, a well-built man with the weathered features of one who worked outdoors. He took Katie’s hand firmly. “How nice to meet you, Mrs. Wells.”

  “Katie lives—”

  “Across the street from Drew. Of course. In the cul-de-sac,” Harry said.

  Katie gasped. “Yes, of course! I saw you come into my driveway one day.”

  He nodded. “Came to see Giles. We want to make sure these roofs are right this time!”

  “What are we doing?” a masculine voice asked. “Sam! Sam Jaffe, Katie Wells, a friend—and neighbor, as Harry has pointed out—of Drew’s.”

  “Very nice to meet you, Mrs. Wells,” the man said. She recognized him from the newspaper pictures. He was older now, of course. And he reminded her very much of a basset hound, with his long features and soulful eyes. He was in his sixties, at least, she thought. “We’re sorry about you losing your home.”

  “Thousands of people lost their homes,” Katie assured him. “And actually, mine is close to being repaired. You’ve all worked very hard.”

  “We’ve worked too hard on lots of them!” a husky, feminine voice volunteered.

  Andrea. She seemed more stunning than the first time Katie had seen her. She was in a bloodred sequined dress that clung to her like a second skin. The short dress had a deep scooped neckline and no back. She offered a dazzling smile as she moved into their group. “Hello, Katie, the neighbor—right?”

  Katie smiled sweetly. Maybe Drew didn’t like Andrea, but she was suddenly convinced that Andrea liked Drew. Too much. Despite her half-dozen husbands, she was on her own here, and the taunt seemed a little too tense not to mean something.

  “Well,” Katie said, “for the moment, I’m the live-in rather than the neighbor. There’s been wonderful work done, but my house isn’t quite ready yet.”

  “How convenient for you,” Andrea purred.

  “Very,” Katie agreed.

  “Well, Mrs. Wells, since your temporary roommate doesn’t seem to be about, perhaps you’d like me to give you a tour of our offices. We’re doing some work on them now, of course, but we can skirt the construction area. Let me take you—”

  “Excuse me.”

  Katie felt chills streak up her spine as their group was interrupted once again.

  This time by Drew. Katie turned. He was in a tux, tall, dark, his hair damp and sleek, eyes gold and piercing. She’d never seen him quite so attractive—or dangerous.

  “I’m afraid Mrs. Wells can’t stay this evening,” he said, apologizing to Andrea. “She has a heavy work-load tomorrow morning. Katie, come on, and I’ll see you out.”

  He had a firm grip on her wrist and had her moving before she could protest. She tried to smile a goodbye to the men she had just met and signal a frantic call for help to Reva.

  “Drew, Jordan—”

  “I’m sure Jordan is fine with the boys. And since he’s really your gues
t this evening, Reva, you and Cliff can drop him by on your way home.”

  “Drew, you can’t be leaving!” Andrea protested.

  The elevator came. Drew practically dragged Katie onto it, spinning to face the others as the doors closed on them.

  “Just for awhile,” he said, and his burning gaze fell on Katie. “Just long enough to see to Mrs. Wells.”

  The doors closed. And for a moment, Katie felt as if she was alone with a furious demon who was ready to strangle her.

  But he didn’t look at her. He stared straight ahead at the closed elevator doors, his fingers around her wrist, and said, “I told you to stay out of it.”

  “Your sister needed Jordan—”

  “My sister should have her head examined.”

  “Drew, this doesn’t make sense—”

  “Katie, get this. I did it, it’s my signature on the work orders, and if there’s anything else going on, we’ll find it from within.”

  The elevator doors opened to the ground floor. She found herself being dragged into the parking lot.

  “Give me your keys,” he said.

  She gritted her teeth. He wrenched her purse from her hands and dug around until he found them. He opened her car door and forcefully urged her into the driver’s seat.

  “My son—”

  “Will be right along. He’s fine. Your questions are going to get you into trouble.”

  “Drew—”

  “Dammit, go home, Katie!”

  He slammed the door and stepped back. Exasperated, furious—humiliated!—she twisted her key in the ignition and started the car. She jerked out of the parking lot.

  He was keeping Jordan! Of all the nerve. She drove about a block down the highway then pulled off into a side street. She was shaking.

  She waited, gathering herself, then pulled out on the highway. She came to a stop at a makeshift sign. While she waited for the opposing traffic to go, she noticed that the headlights of the car behind her were blazing into hers. The driver was close, too close. Right on top of her. She didn’t like it.

  Katie drove on. She didn’t think anything more about the car behind her—she was busy seething over Drew’s treatment.