“What about the homicide piece?”
“It can wait a week. The fire in the Yerkes Building is the new story.”
“What fire?” Ellen had been in the love cocoon with Will and hadn’t heard. The Yerkes was one of the biggest buildings in town.
“Three people killed, cleaning personnel, so sad. The building burned to the ground. Police suspect arson.”
“Wait a minute,” Ellen said, as the truth dawned on her. “Does that mean you didn’t really need my draft, just now?”
“Uh, yes.” Marcelo looked sheepish. “Oh well.”
“You rat!”
“You don’t think I’m a rat. You like me.”
Ellen was mortified. “How do you know?”
“I run the newsroom. You think I don’t know the news?”
Ellen laughed, embarrassed. “Oh yeah, so what else do you know?”
“Is it true?” Marcelo’s dark eyes glittered in a teasing way.
“You answer me. Then I’ll answer you.”
“I know everybody believes that I’m attracted to you, and that’s why you’re not getting laid off.”
Ellen flushed.
“And I have to say, they’re half-right,” Marcelo answered, his voice suddenly serious. His eyes met hers across the counter, with a very adult honesty. “I would love to take you out, I admit it.”
Ellen felt a smile spread across her face.
“But that’s not the reason you’re keeping your job. You’re keeping your job because you’re a great reporter.”
“Thank you. And what if this crush is mutual?”
“So is it?” Marcelo was grinning, but she couldn’t believe they were having this conversation. Oreo Figaro listened, in shock.
“Yes.”
“That’s very nice to hear, but it’s too bad. Nothing will happen between us. It compromises you. It compromises me. This is romance in the time of sexual harassment, and that means nothing good happens, never ever. Except maybe this.” In the next second, Marcelo leaned over and planted the softest, sweetest kiss on her unsuspecting lips, and when it was over, he pulled away. “Never ever again.”
“Excruciating,” Ellen said, meaning it.
Chapter Forty-five
“Mommy, don’t go!” Will wailed, grabbing Ellen around the knees and holding on for dear life. She was dressed for the early flight, her purse on her shoulder, her roller bag packed and ready, but she wasn’t going anywhere, blocked by the Wall of Guilt.
“Honey, I have to.” Ellen rubbed his little back. “Remember, we talked about this? I have to go away for work but I’ll be back very soon, in four or five days, probably.”
“FOUR DAYS!” Will burst into new tears, and Connie intervened, putting a hand on his shoulder.
“Will, you and me will have a great time. I brought ice cream, and we can make sundaes after school today. Won’t that be fun?”
“Mommy, no!”
“Will, it’s all right.” Ellen had learned from experience that he would never calm down, so she gave him a last hug and kiss on the head while she pried his fingers off one by one, like the dewclaws of a kitten. “I have to go, honey. I’ll call you tonight. You’ll see, I’ll be back soon.”
“Say good-bye, Will.” Connie had him in hand. “Bye, Mommy, see you soon!”
“Love you, Will,” Ellen said, opening the door the second she was freed and running out into the cold with her bag.
Wondering if every mother felt like a fleeing felon, at times.
Chapter Forty-six
The sky was a supersaturated teal, and kelly green fronds on the palm trees fluttered in the breeze. Lush olive green hedges lined the curbs, and thick lawns, edged to perfection, bordered dense reds of climbing bougainvillea, the orange and yellow of tiny lantana flowers, and dark purple jacaranda. And that was just the Miami airport.
Ellen slipped on a pair of sunglasses, driving a rental car, leaving the window open until the air-conditioning kicked in. She sweltered in her navy sweater and took it off when the traffic slowed to a stop. According to the dashboard, the temperature hovered at ninety-nine degrees, and the humidity mixed ocean salt, heavy perfume, and cigarette smoke like a beachside cocktail. In less than an hour, she’d be at Carol and Bill Braverman’s.
She dug in her purse and found the paper with the home address, which she’d gotten online and MapQuested last night. The exit wasn’t far up the highway. She leaned over the steering wheel, craning her neck like a sea turtle, not wanting to miss it. The traffic was stop-and-go, in impossibly heavy congestion that took up four lanes, wider than any expressway back home.
Traffic stopped again, and Ellen reflected on her mission. She’d have to wait for an opening to get the proof she needed and she couldn’t predict when that would happen. She’d have to keep on her toes, and the hard part would be staying undercover. Nobody could know why she was here, least of all the Bravermans.
She left the highway, got off at the exit, and in time found herself cruising along a smooth concrete causeway over a choppy turquoise bay lined with mansions, many with glistening white boats parked along private slips. She reached the other side, where the traffic was lighter than it had been and the cars costlier. She took a right and a left, then saw the street sign outlined in bright green. Surfside Lane. She took a right onto the Bravermans’ street.
Did Will start his life here? Was this his street?
She passed a modern gray house, its front a huge expanse of glass, then a Spanish stucco mansion with a red-tiled roof, and finally an ornate French chateau. Each house was different from the next, but she noticed right away that they all had one thing in common. Every home had a yellow ribbon tied out front, whether it was to a palm tree, a front fence, or a gate.
She slowed the car to a stop, puzzled. The ribbons were pale and tattered, like the one her neighbors, the Shermans, had back home, for their daughter serving in Iraq. But all these people couldn’t have family serving in the war. She sensed the explanation before she saw it, cruising ahead to 826, then closing in on 830, which confirmed her theory.
HELP US FIND OUR SON, read a large white sign, festooned with yellow ribbons, and it stood planted in an otherwise picture-perfect front lawn. The sign showed the age-progressed photo of Timothy Braverman from the white card, and tiger lilies and sunny marigolds grew around its base, a living memorial to a son the Bravermans prayed wasn’t gone forever.
Ellen’s throat caught. She felt a pang of sympathy, and conscience. She had known from the Braverman website that they were missing Timothy, but seeing the sign with her own eyes made it real. The boy on the sign, Will or Timothy, looked back at her with a gaze at once familiar and unknown.
Please, no.
She set her emotions aside and looked past the sign. The Bravermans’ house was like something out of Architectural Digest, a large contemporary with a crushed-shell driveway that held a glistening white Jaguar. Suddenly two women in tank tops and running shorts walked past the car, pumping red-handled weights, and Ellen hit the gas, not to arouse suspicion.
She circled the block, composing herself and cooling down as she eyed the homes, one more lovely than the next. She had expected that the neighborhood would be wealthy; any family who could afford that reward would live in a nice place, and her online research had told her that she was driving through a neighborhood of three-million-dollar houses. In fact, according to zoom.com, the Bravermans’ house cost $3.87 million, which she tried not to compare with her three-bedroom, one-bath back home.
It’s warm and friendly.
Ellen pushed that thought away. She took a left and another left, going down the next block, getting the lay of the land. No one was out except a gardener using a noisy leaf blower and a laborer edging a lawn. The sun beat down on the shiny foreign cars, dappling the lawns through the palm fronds, and she turned around and headed back to the main drag, Coral Ridge Way, the two-lane road that led back to the causeway. It was busy, and when the light changed, she p
arked across the street from the entrance to Surfside Lane. She didn’t park on the Bravermans’ block for fear of being noticed.
She cracked open a bottle of warm water and checked the clock—1:45. She turned away when an older man strolled past with a chubby Chihuahua, and she watched the traffic to the causeway. By 1:47, her sunglasses were sliding down her nose, and the car had grown impossibly hot, proving that she was a stakeout rookie. She turned on the ignition and slid down the window.
She had barely taken a second sip of water when she saw the chrome grille of a white Jaguar nose out of Surfside Lane, pause at the stop sign, and pull a left. It had to be the Bravermans’ car because theirs was the only Jaguar on the block. In the driver’s seat was the outline of a woman, alone. She had to be Carol Braverman, herself.
Yikes!
Ellen turned on the ignition, hit the gas, and found a place in the brisk line of traffic to the causeway. Her heartbeat stepped up. Carol was two cars ahead as they picked up speed and soared over the causeway, the wind off the water blowing her hair around. She kept an eye on the white car as they wound through the streets, which grew increasingly congested, but she stayed on Carol as she turned into a strip mall and pulled into a parking spot.
Ellen parked several rows away and cut the ignition, then held her breath waiting for Carol Braverman to emerge. She remembered the photos of her online but was dying to see her in person, to see if she looked like Will, or vice versa.
The next moment, the driver’s door opened.
Chapter Forty-seven
Ellen couldn’t see Carol Braverman’s face because she had on large black sunglasses and a hot pink visor, but she still felt a tingle of excitement at the sight of her. Carol got out of the car, tall and shapely in a white cotton tank top and an old-school tennis skirt. Pink pom-poms wiggled from the backs of her sneakers, and a bouncy dark blond ponytail popped out of her visor. She slipped a white quilted bag over her shoulder and hurried to the gourmet grocery, where she picked a shopping cart and rolled it inside the tinted glass doors of the store.
Ellen grabbed her keys and purse, got out of the car, and hustled through the parking lot to the grocery, snagging a shopping cart for show. The entrance doors slid aside, and the air-conditioning hit like January, but two women shoppers stood bottlenecking the entrance, looking at the green stand for cut flowers. She kept an eye on Carol but didn’t want to draw attention to herself, especially when she realized how out of place she looked. Nobody else had on a thick white turtleneck, Mom jeans, and brown clogs accessorized with Pennsylvania mud.
She ducked into the back row of the flower department, going around the shoppers, and fake-lingered at the bird-of-paradise plants, then glanced over her shoulder. In the next minute, the women moved, leaving Carol right behind her, using the ATM machine, and so close that Ellen could almost hear her humming. She couldn’t risk Carol seeing her and maybe recognizing her later, so she kept her head down and her sunglasses on her nose. The ATM beeped, and the humming grew fainter, so she knew that Carol had moved on.
Time to get stalking.
Ellen never knew when she’d get another opportunity and she had to see Carol’s face, close up. She drifted sideways past a wall of nuts in plastic scoop-it-yourself canisters and fake-browsed the roasted unsalted almonds, raw salted almonds, and raw unsalted almonds. For a minute, she couldn’t even fake-decide. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Carol looking at the peppers, her back turned.
Ellen pulled a plastic bag from a perforated roll, picked up a plastic scoop, and dug out some raw almonds, then spotted Carol moving around the perimeter of the produce department, bagging a head of romaine and putting it in her cart, her back still turned. Ellen got a twist tie for her almond bag and crossed nearer to Carol, keeping her head down in the apple aisle, where rosy galas, fat Macintoshes, and Golden Delicious sat mounded like Egyptian pyramids. She positioned herself midway down the aisle, so that she could get a good look at Carol’s face if she turned around.
Ellen picked up a Granny Smith and examined it with ersatz absorption, and in the split second she bent over to put it back, Carol spun around with her cart.
No!
The rest happened even before Ellen could process it. Carol’s cart crashed squarely into Ellen’s hip, startling her so that she backed into the apple pyramid, and before she could stop them, Gala and Fuji apples were rolling toward her in a pesticide-free avalanche.
“Oh no!” Ellen yelped, punching up her glasses.
“I’m so sorry!” Carol tried to catch the apples, but they hit the lacquered floor and shot off in all directions, like billiard balls.
“Oh, jeez!” Ellen bent over to hide her face, fake-collecting apples, just as Carol straightened up, her cheeks slightly flushed, her hands full of apples.
“I can’t believe I did that! I’m so sorry!”
“It’s okay,” Ellen said, but she glanced up and almost gasped.
Carol had taken off her sunglasses, and in person, the resemblance between her and Will was obvious. She had Will’s sea-blue eyes and creamy coloring. Her lips were on the thin side, like his, and her chin slightly pointed, too. Carol struck her instantly as being of Will, as if Ellen could smell the blood they shared. Stricken, she put her head down, but Carol knelt next to her, gathering apples in her tennis skirt.
“It was my fault. That’s what I get for rushing.”
“No, it was me. I knocked them over.” Ellen collected the escaping apples, flushed with emotion, keeping her face to the floor.
“I was doing too much. I always think I can squeeze in one little errand. You ever do that?”
“Sure.”
“Of course that’s when things go wrong.”
“Mrs. Braverman, let me help you,” a stockboy said, hurrying over in a pepper green smock and checkered Vans. He bent down and corralled some of the apples, his fuzzy dreadlocks falling into his young face.
“Thanks, Henrique.” Carol rose, brushing off a pair of tan, finely muscled legs. “I’m such a klutz today. I hit this woman with my cart.”
“Really, I’m fine.” Ellen rose, looking for the exit, but suddenly, Carol placed a manicured hand on her arm.
“Again, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s nothing, thanks.” Ellen shed Carol’s hand, turned away as calmly as possible, and walked through the produce department and out of the store. She hit the humid air and made a beeline for the rental car. Her eyes welled up behind her sunglasses, and her throat thickened. She fumbled in her purse for the car keys, let herself inside, then slumped low in the driver’s seat.
She sat in the car, staring out the windshield. Cars broiled in the Miami sun, and pink flowers ringed the parking lot. She gazed at them without really seeing them, wiping her eyes and trying to process what she’d seen. Carol Braverman, a grieving mother. She seemed like a nice woman, she seemed like Will. She could be missing the child who was at her home right now, up north.
Ellen thought of Susan Sulaman, haunted by the loss of her children, and then Laticia Williams, bereft. She knew how they felt, and she could guess how Carol Braverman felt. A wave of conscience engulfed her, and she felt awful that she might be causing another woman that sort of pain. Another mother.
His real mother.
She reached for the bottle of water and took a sip, but it was hot and burned her throat. She couldn’t help but feel it was a penance, of sorts.
A swinging white bag drew her attention, and Ellen looked out the window. Carol was leaving the grocery store and hurrying to her car, carrying a brown paper bag, then she chirped the car unlocked, got in the driver’s seat, and reversed out of the space.
Ellen started the ignition, shaken.
Chapter Forty-eight
Carol drove faster than before, and Ellen had to concentrate not to lose her in the heavy traffic. The task checked her emotions and focused her thoughts. Her subjective sense that Carol was Will’s mother wasn’t scientific. She still had to get t
he proof she needed, despite what her heart was telling her.
The two cars threaded their way through the congested downtown, and Ellen stayed within three cars of Carol, not risking falling farther behind. The sidewalks were packed with tourists in bathing suits and cover-ups, and loud music thumpa-thumped from a convertible. A sleek black Mercedes pulled up in the next lane, and its cigar-puffing driver grinned at her.
Ring! The sound jarred Ellen from her thoughts. It was her BlackBerry, and she kept an eye on Carol as she hunted for the device with her hand, fumbling around in her purse until she located it and checked the display. She recognized the number. It was Sarah Liu’s cell number.
Ellen pressed Ignore and tossed the phone aside. She followed Carol through a fork in the road, then over a causeway, which was less busy. They drove out over a spit of land, where condos and high-rises gave way to suburban houses, with flowerbeds and manicured hedges. People strolled with small dogs, a young man pedaled a collapsible bicycle with tiny tires, and women power-walked, carrying water bottles.
Carol took a right and a left, with only one car between them, and Ellen spotted a sign painted melon, which read BRIDGES, and beyond it lay a small building with a red-tiled roof. A tall hedge concealed the building, but she guessed it was a spa or salon, and two women drove in ahead of her. She stayed behind Carol as they snaked through the tall hedge.
Ellen was last in the line of cars that trailed up the lovely winding drive, and the sight on the other side caught her by surprise. A large group of children toting backpacks clustered around several women, obviously teachers, under the shaded entrance to the building. The children couldn’t have been more than five years old, so it had to be a preschool.
Will could have a brother? Or a sister? Instead of just a cat?
She watched the scene with a sinking sensation. The teachers brought each child to the waiting car, waving a cheery good-bye, and she kept an eye on Carol to see which child was hers. Ellen hadn’t thought about whether the Bravermans would have another child, or Timothy a sibling. The Braverman website hadn’t mentioned another child. Maybe they hadn’t wanted to risk his security, given what had happened.