Out Of The Smoke (7 page)

The miracle the stylist had created was incredible. When Liz stood and faced the front of the store, the results were confirmed. Alan did a double take, glanced up from his magazine twice, clearly having not recognized her the first time. She smiled in appreciation.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were someone else altogether. Even your head is held higher.” Alan stood and reached for Liz’s hand, which she allowed him to take for some unknown reason.

He swiftly paid the stylist and led Liz to the car. After the chivalrous gesture of helping her inside once again, he quickly rounded the hood and climbed in himself, only to turn and stare at her, dumbfounded. “Who are you and what have you done with my cleaning lady?”

Liz put her hands in her lap and looked down, trying not to cry. How could this man wrap her so firmly around his finger so quickly when she’d let not one single soul into her private life for so very long?

She had to remind herself he wasn’t Matthew.

He broke the spell, helping her save face. “Where would you like to eat?”

When Liz locked her gaze on his she couldn’t believe her current good fortune. Was it possible he just felt obliged to pamper her a bit simply as a sign of his gratitude for her accounting skills? “You don’t have to do all this you know,” she stated for the third time.

“I want to…Liz?” He waited for her to return her gaze. “You’re fired.” He smiled as if his statement had been the most casual thing in the world.

Her cheeks burned and her bottom jaw fell open.
What did he just say?

“Don’t look at me like that.” Alan laughed, hard.

“Did I do something wrong?” She was appalled and dismayed and…she didn’t even know what else.

“Hardly. Though I do wish you would have. I’ll never find another cleaning lady as good as you, especially one with accounting skills.” He grinned, as though he knew some secret she wasn’t privy to. He did actually.

When all she did was stare at him in confusion, he continued, “I don’t date employees or coworkers as a rule. And I’m about to date you right now.”

“Date?”
Oh, God
. This was not going according to plan. She was too weak when it came to this man.

He laughed again. “Don’t look so surprised, Liz. You’re sweet and kind and hard working. Your honesty and naiveté are so endearing. You work hard at everything you do. You’re poised and glamorous even under the worst of situations. Besides, you’re the sexiest most gorgeous woman I’ve ever met, even when you’re on your knees on the bathroom floor.” His smile slowly died to a grim line as he stared at her. “Shit. You don’t feel the same. I misread you, didn’t I?”

“No. It’s not that… I…”
I what?
She had no desire to reveal a single detail about her past to him. She knew she couldn’t get away with that if she let this go any further. “Alan, I need this job. Much more than I need a boyfriend right now.” At least she was truthful. Had he mentioned that?

Alan stared straight ahead out the windshield for several moments while Liz waited with shallow breaths. Tears stung the corners of her eyes. She tried to keep them from falling down her cheeks to embarrass her any further than she already was.

She knew he contemplated his next words carefully. After he finally cleared his throat, he turned to her and their gazes locked for several seconds. “I’m sorry I put you on the spot like that. I didn’t mean to push you. It was presumptuous of me and I feel like a jerk right now.” He took a deep breath and continued. “I really like you. I won’t deny that or take it back, but I’ll honor your wishes for now and secure your friendship. You look like you could use one.”

“I really can’t…” She tried to interrupt him, but his hand on her arm stopped her midsentence.

“Please, let me continue. Let me take you to dinner. Nothing fancy. Just food. I’m betting you don’t do anything nice for yourself, including eat out, and you deserve a nice meal. I promise not to push the issue any further tonight. All I ask is that in return you promise to come back next Monday as scheduled and keep doing what you do best…”

She sensed there was more to that sentence, but didn’t comment on the rest of the thought which undoubtedly sounded something like, “until I can convince you otherwise.”

Liz nodded and wiped the tears that were now rolling in a steady stream down her face. Alan let go of her arm, raised his hand and ran his thumb across her cheek as a drop escaped. His gentleness unnerved her and tugged at her heartstrings. She even tilted her head into his hand at the contact. When had she grown less skittish about being touched?

*

Damn damn damn. Could I be more of an ass?

What the hell had he been thinking for God’s sake? He’d gotten so caught up in his own attraction for the beauty beside him, he hadn’t stopped to consider for one moment her angle on the situation.

As he drove away from the salon in complete quiet, he silently composed a list in his head.

Liz needed money.

She needed friends even more.

She’d been in at least one abusive relationship. A parent? A boyfriend? Both? He had some experience with abuse in his line of work as a family practice attorney, but hadn’t personally been affected by it before. He couldn’t even fathom for the life of him how anyone in their right mind could ever lay a hand on a woman, especially the stunning one to his right.

A grimace crossed his face as he pondered the possibilities. He wouldn’t question her. He wanted her to feel like she was making her own choices here. For some reason that seemed important. Something had happened to her. Something big. She needed to be in control and he’d yanked that out of her hands when he told her he wanted to date her. He didn’t
ask
her, he told her. He would only win her over on her terms and in her own time frame. And only if she didn’t quit after his stupid display back there.

Alan picked a quiet little Italian restaurant and ushered her into the dim lighting without direct contact with Liz’s warm skin. It would kill him if she pulled away from him.

“Please, order whatever you’d like,” he offered once they were seated across from each other. “I’m deadly sincere when I say I’ll do my best to be the friend you need right now, as well as employer.” He reached across the table toward her but pulled his hand back at the last moment. He sensed she might not appreciate him grasping her fingers just now.

“Thank you,” she muttered softly. “For everything…” Her voice trailed off entirely in the end.

“Anytime.” He would win her smile back and the rest of her too in time. He hoped.

Chapter Five

Matthew Martin walked into the Minneapolis Police Station with his head held high. He’d come no closer in the last twenty hours to solving this mystery, but he damn well intended to, and fast. Whatever antics Beth was up to or had been up to, were starting to piss him off, royally.

With his brow furrowed and a conjured look of great sorrow on his face, Matthew approached the front desk. “I’m here to see Detective Walker please.”

“May I tell him who’s here?” The sweet high-pitched voice of the receptionist did not match her large size, but she looked pleasant enough.

“Matthew Martin. He’s expecting me.”

“Oh, Mr. Martin. He told me you would be here. Right this way.” Rayann, according to her nameplate, motioned for him to follow her. She led him through a side door, down a long hall to the last room and ushered him inside. “He’ll be right with you. I’ll let him know you’re here.” She spoke softly, as though knowing he was here to identify a body.

Matthew paced the small room without bothering to sit down. He was exhausted and hadn’t slept a wink since receiving the phone call yesterday. Plus, he wanted answers—now—and was anxious to get on with the grueling task of “identifying the body”. Could it be Beth? A million possibilities ran through his mind on the flight this morning. How the hell did Beth’s purse end up in Minnesota? Could she possibly have lived through the collapse of the twin towers? If that bitch had tricked him and was now lying in a morgue halfway across the country, he would grab her dead neck and choke her.

“Mr. Martin. Thank you for coming so quickly.” Matthew turned toward the voice entering the room. “Graham Walker. Sorry you’ve had to travel so far with such short notice for such bizarre circumstances. I hope we can quickly get to the bottom of this.”

Yes. Let’s
. Matthew didn’t want to seem overly eager, but he did want Walker to take him promptly to the morgue. He merely produced a half smile, appropriate for one in his position.

“Shall we? I’ll drive.” Walker indicated the door with a hand gesture and headed out the back.

Matthew followed close behind, grateful the good detective didn’t want to spend the entire morning with pleasantries.

In silence, the two rode a few blocks to the local hospital. Walker was appropriately reverent and Matthew did his damndest not to seethe beneath his outwardly serious cool demeanor. It wouldn’t do for anyone to suspect he was secretly pissed. They entered the rear of the hospital and proceeded to an elevator in the middle of the stark white hall, neither speaking a single word during the trip down two floors to the level marked “Morgue”.

“This way.” Walker pointed to a room and backed through a pair of swinging doors with gray rubber edging that kept them from making any noise when they relaxed back into a closed position. It struck Matthew that the doors were airtight and blocked in the noises of the grieving, or perhaps the stench of death.

Within moments, Walker had exchanged a whispered conversation with the man who appeared to be in charge, and a corpse was produced from a series of what appeared to be long deep filing cabinets. Were all of them full? Were they ever? The idea sent a chill down Matthew’s spine.

The only sound, save that of Matthew’s deep heavy breathing was that of the long zipper being pulled to unveil his presumed wife inside. As soon as the body was completely uncovered, both Walker and the dour morgue employee stepped back with their heads bowed in respect.

Matthew took two steps forward and peered at the corpse. Lord, whatever that woman had looked like alive must have been bad, because she looked worse than shit now. Aged beyond her years from cigarettes and drugs probably, choppy blond hair seemingly cut by herself. And flabby skin that indicated a great deal of weight loss at some point in her adult life. Not one bit of her even remotely resembled Beth. Matthew held his breath.

“Well? Mr. Martin? Is this your wife?” Detective Walker took a step forward and looked down, as though seeing her would help him determine her identity for himself.

“Yes, that’s my Beth.” Matthew quickly stepped away and held his head uncharacteristically low in mock sorrow.

The body was quickly whisked away, once again zipped up into the bag, the drawer pushed silently back into the wall.

“Follow me, Mr. Martin. I’m terribly sorry for your loss. I’ll get you her things. There wasn’t much really. Just the purse and a few items next to her at her death the coroner picked up when he went to get the body.” Walker continued to ramble all the way back up the elevator. “I went back to the scene after we spoke yesterday and questioned several homeless people who regularly hang out in that particular area. One woman said she’d known Elizabeth, as she called her, for several years. They’d regularly slept together under that bridge. As for the purse, she’d never seen her without it for as long as she could remember. It was always on her arm or held against her. Of course, who knows what several years is to a confused homeless lady.”

Beth had never ever gone by the name Elizabeth. She hated the name in fact. The woman must have been crazy and somehow acquired the purse and assumed the identity of the contents. After all, the driver’s license would have said Elizabeth Martin.

One thing was for certain, there was no way Beth’s purse had ended up in the Midwest by itself. If it was intact after the collapse of the towers, then that conniving wife of his must not have been at work that day.

Lord, get me out of this hellhole of a hospital
.

All he wanted to do at this point was find the real Beth and kill her himself. A slow agonizing death deserving of the deceit she’d put him through.

* * * *

Three hours later, Matthew Martin had checked into a hotel and sat in the middle of the double bed with the contents of his “late” wife’s purse, strewn about the ugly floral polyester comforter. He’d turned on both the overhead light and the small lamp next to the bed, but still it seemed dim in the cheap room.

He sifted through the items, came upon a comb he remembered Beth having gotten from her mom. One of her few possessions she actually was fond of.

True to his word, the gum wrappers mentioned by the detective had been stuffed in the bottom of the bag. Matthew tossed the rabbit’s foot into the air several times, casually catching it while he tried to think. His pulse beat far more rapidly than he outwardly exuded, a trait he had perfected over the years, even in private.

He thoroughly scrutinized each item he picked up from every angle before placing it back on the bed. Many he was familiar with, others he’d never seen. Some he knew couldn’t have belonged to his wife. There was no way in hell she’d taken up smoking, for example. Nor did she gamble, to explain the token from Harrah’s Casino.

Matthew stared at the ceiling for a moment, tried to imagine the possibilities as calmly as possible. He was livid on the inside. Violently. But he also knew if he let his emotions rule, he’d never get to the bottom of this.

Maybe this bag woman just happened upon Beth’s purse somewhere? Perhaps she’d carried it around as her own for the last two years and refused to part with any of the contents, but did add a few of her own along the way. That seemed the most logical explanation, but nevertheless it begged the question…where the hell was Beth? Someone had to bring the purse to Minnesota. Clearly it hadn’t been in the twin towers that fateful day.

He resumed his close perusal of his wife’s belongings, picked up a receipt. It seemed innocent enough. Three coffees. Six bagels. He tried to make out the faint numbers and letters. Rob’s Deli. Wasn’t that in New York? As a matter of fact, hadn’t that been Andrew’s favorite café? Curiosity peaked, he scanned the receipt for a purchase date.
How about that
. September 11, 2001, 8:43 a.m.

That no good skanky bitch!
She hadn’t been in the towers at all that morning.

Matthew flung the contents of the comforter across the room with a quick swipe of his arm and let his blood boil for a full moment before regaining enough control to come up with a plan.

If she wanted to play hardball, then by God sign him up. Now, not only had she died in the twin towers, but he’d just confirmed that she’d died again under a bridge two days ago. If that bitch was hiding in Minneapolis, Minnesota, he was going to fucking find her and tear her apart limb for limb.

No one would ever be looking for her because, dammit, she had already died—twice!

* * * *

Determination fueled Matthew’s steps the following morning. He decided the best thing to do would be to hit low-income housing first. Start with the area surrounding the location of the poor dead bag lady and move in concentric circles outward. Someone had to have seen her at some point. Of course, there was no guarantee she was in the area at all or ever had been really. But it was a start. He had no other leads right now. There was no one who would be able to help him since he didn’t intend for anyone to ever find out about this search and murder.

He’d called into work earlier in the day and let them know he’d need a few more days off. Everyone was more than accommodating considering his wife had just mysteriously died…again. He couldn’t say he knew too many people who’d been able to get bereavement days more than once for the same person.

The way he was feeling right now about Beth, he’d most certainly need a third soon.

Next, he called the hospital to let them know he would arrange to have his dear sweet Beth transported back to New York for burial. That idea made him nearly vomit, and he’d had to take several antacids just to make the phone call.

Unanswered questions piled up. If she wasn’t in the twin towers that day, why the hell had she not come home? Where had she gone? One chilling thought niggled at the back of his brain that he couldn’t shake. If she didn’t die on 9/11, would he have to return the death benefit money the government had paid out? The idea made him even angrier. He’d spent that money, invested some of it, moved into a nicer house. If the bitch caused him to give up his sleek new car…

Matthew walked briskly up to the manager of his first apartment complex and pulled out the most recent photo he could find of Beth, taken just before their wedding. She looked so carefree and happy in the picture. He knew it would tug at the heartstrings of any sane person.

“Have you seen this woman?” He pasted his forlorn expression on and looked at the lady hopefully.

“No. I can’t say that I have. Is she in trouble?”

Oh, she’s in trouble all right
. Was every single person going to ask that?

“No. She’s missing. Perhaps has amnesia.”

“I’m sorry. I haven’t seen her.”

“Thanks anyway.” With fake dejection written across his face, Matthew backed away and headed to the next building. The dejection wasn’t fake, but the reasons certainly were.