Teresa Medeiros (2 page)

N
EW
Y
ORK
C
ITY

I
t was at moments like this that Michael Copperfield keenly missed his ponytail. Since he could no longer tug on it when faced with an insurmountable frustration, he was forced to snap a pencil in two to relieve his tension. “You don’t seem to understand the gravity of the situation. Your parents have vanished.”

The young woman slumped in the leather chair opposite his desk didn’t even bother to look up from the reports she was studying. “That’s hardly an unusual occurrence, Uncle Cop. My parents vanish all the time. At parties. From taxicabs. During stockholder meetings. They once disappeared into thin air for the entire second act of my senior play.” She spared him a brief, mocking glance before flipping a page of the report. “You should try explaining
that
to your high school drama teacher.”

Her lackadaisical acceptance of his news only increased Copperfield’s sense of urgency. He rose and came around the desk, forcing her to shift her attention from the software configurations to his troubled face. “It’s different this time, Tabitha. They didn’t just wink out of focus for a few minutes or wish themselves to
Paris for lunch. This time their entire plane disappeared. Over the Bermuda Triangle.”

Tabitha blinked owlishly at him from behind her glasses.

Copperfield pressed his advantage. “The company jet vanished over sixteen hours ago without so much as a blip on the radar. The Navy’s sent out search planes and ships to comb the site, but they haven’t found even a trace of wreckage. Of course, that’s not unusual in that area. I’m trying to hold the media at bay for a few days, at least until the Navy’s completed their search. But I can assure you the disappearance of one of the richest men in the world isn’t going to go unnoticed for long.”

Tabitha’s skeptical chuckle sounded forced. “So what’s your theory, Uncle Cop? Have they been seized by a foreign government? Kidnapped by a terrorist organization?” She whistled a few notes of the theme from
The X-Files
. “Abducted by aliens?”

He retreated to his chair, feeling far older than his fifty-five years. “I’m afraid their plane may have gone down.”

Silence permeated the office for an entire sweep of the second hand on the brass desk clock before Tabitha burst out laughing. “Don’t be ridiculous! This is just another one of Mama’s little paranormal hiccups. The jet will probably reappear exactly where it vanished or pop into the landing pattern at La Guardia just in time to give one of their air traffic controllers another nervous breakdown.” As if to escape his pitying scrutiny, Tabitha rose and went to the window, shoving a listless strand of blond hair out of her eyes. “You forget that Tristan and Arian Lennox have an uncanny way of wiggling out of trouble. Remember when the Lamborghini crashed? They walked away without a scratch. And wasn’t it you who told me how they once traveled back
in time to 1689 to defeat my evil grandfather, proving once again that true love conquers all?”

The note of cynicism in her voice disturbed him. “A theory you don’t concur with?”

“It’s a charming hypothesis, Uncle Cop, but you have to remember that this is the twenty-first century. True love is no longer in vogue. Romance has been replaced by cybersex with nameless, faceless strangers or holograms of your favorite video stars.”

Cop snorted quizzically. “And you find that preferable?”

Tabitha shrugged. “The advantages are obvious.” The window reflected her pensive expression, making her appear less convinced than she sounded. “No connection, no commitment … no risk.”

Copperfield shuddered, but reminded himself that his rebuttal would have to wait. He had more pressing business at hand. “Your parents may have been lucky enough to find true love, sweetheart,” he said gently. “But that doesn’t make them immortal.”

Tabitha swung around to face him, thrusting her hands in the pockets of her baggy tweed trousers. “Have you forgotten that my mother was born in 1669? She may not be immortal, but she looks damn good for a woman approaching her three hundred and fifty-first birthday.”

Copperfield sighed, having learned from long and bitter experience that the only thing you got out of arguing with a Lennox was a pounding headache.

Recognizing that more drastic measures would be necessary, he withdrew a manila envelope from his desk drawer and held it out to her. “Your mother asked me to give this to you in the event of her …” His fingers tightened on the envelope. It was almost as if handing it over would make it true.

Tabitha stared at the envelope for a long moment before blithely snatching it from his hand. “You’re going to be embarrassed by your melodramatics when my parents come popping out of a heating duct at the next Lennox Enterprises board meeting.” She started to flip open the metal clasp, but Copperfield closed his hand over hers.

“Arian said you might want to wait until you were alone to open it.”

Tabitha frowned down at the envelope. Although she kept her voice light, her bravado appeared to be wearing thin. “What is it? My adoption records? I always told Mama and Daddy that I was too imagination-impaired to possibly be their natural child.”

Copperfield cupped Tabitha’s chin in his hand and gently drew off her glasses. Her somber gray eyes surveyed him uncertainly. Her thick mop of blond hair had been cut in an efficient shoulder-length bob, but her feathery bangs persisted in drifting over her eyes whenever she relaxed her guard. At twenty-three, Tabitha was nearly as tall as he was and twice as awkward, her gracelessness oddly endearing. Her even features revealed the keen intelligence that had allowed her to enter M.I.T. at the tender age of fifteen, earn her doctorate in Virtual Technology before she turned twenty, and achieve the status of department head in the Lennox Enterprises Virtual Reality Division in less than three years. But beneath the cool competence lurked a disarming hint of wistfulness, of dreams unfulfilled and wishes unvoiced.

As Copperfield studied the face of the child he loved nearly as well as his own daughters, he was seized by a pang of nostalgia. Tristan Lennox had become far more than just his blood brother when, as two lonely little boys, they had exchanged a solemn oath in that Boston
orphanage all those years ago. He had become his friend.

“Oh, you’re your parents’ child all right,” he murmured. “Have I ever told you how very much you remind me of your father?”

Dodging his affectionate caress, Tabitha retrieved her glasses and slid them on with a tight smile. “You shouldn’t tease me, Uncle Cop. My mother used to say the same thing and I always thought it was a little cruel.” Before he could protest, she swept her shapeless lab coat from the back of the chair. “You knew—” She faltered, betrayed by her hesitation. “You
know
Daddy better than anyone. He’s always smiling and laughing, finding pleasure in the simplest things. He’s graceful and still drop-dead gorgeous, even at fifty-six. He’s loved and respected by everyone who’s ever had the pleasure of working with him. He’s
nothing
like me.”

She tucked the envelope beneath her arm and flashed him a brittle smile. Then she threw open the door, revealing the brass plaque that read
MICHAEL COPPERFIELD, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT
. “Give Aunt Cherie my love. I’ll call you if …” She shot him a defiant look.
“When
I hear from my parents.”

After the door had slammed in his face, Cop returned to his desk and sank into his chair, torn between laughter and tears. “You didn’t let me finish, Tabitha,” he muttered, rubbing his burning eyes. “You remind me of your father … 
before
he met your mother.”

As she stepped from the shower, a dripping Tabitha Lennox groped for her glasses even before she reached for the towel. Most of her coworkers poked fun at her behind her back for clinging to the archaic devices when corneal molding had been perfected nearly a decade
ago, but she preferred the cool solidity of wire frames to having her eyeballs manipulated by a stranger. Her eyesight wasn’t really that bad. Sometimes she suspected she wore them more out of habit than need.

She towel-dried her thick hair and slathered cold cream on her face, then wiggled into a pair of cotton panties and the sturdy L.L. Bean pajamas she’d draped over the towel warmer before entering the shower. The heated flannel enfolded her like an invisible hug. A contented sigh escaped her as she slid her feet into a pair of plush slippers designed to resemble giant chipmunks—her one concession to whimsy.

She padded through the penthouse living room to the efficiency kitchen, pointedly ignoring the manila envelope she’d tossed on the couch after returning from her meeting with Uncle Cop.

She opened the freezer. Her hand wavered between a Lean Tureen frozen dinner that promised zero calories due to the addition of
Phat!
—the dramatic new fat substitute—and a frosty tub of Häagen-Dazs. After several seconds of agonizing, she defiantly chose the ice cream.

So what if she had a few extra pounds clinging to her midriff? Her baggy slacks and lab coat would hide a multitude of sins. And it certainly wasn’t as if anyone was going to be seeing her without them.

As she fished a tablespoon from the silverware drawer, a furry head butted her in the ankle.

“Well, hello, little Lucy,” Tabitha crooned, squatting to spoon a dab of ice cream into the kitten’s bowl. “Did you miss Mommy while she was at work?”

The tiny black cat had been a twenty-third birthday gift from her parents. Fearing that Tabitha would be inconsolable after family cat Lucifer expired at the crotchety old age of twenty-two, her father had arranged for Lucifer’s sperm to be frozen until it was
needed. With the animal overpopulation crisis finally resolved, test tube kittens were becoming all the rage.

Still skirting the couch, Tabitha paused at the wall keypad to choose a musical selection from the digitalized menu, finally settling on Nina Simone’s “I Want a Little Sugar In My Bowl.” The sultry warble coaxed a wry smile from Tabitha’s lips. She already had a little sugar in her bowl.

She savored a mouthful of ice cream as she watched the lacy snowflakes drift past the glass expanse of the north wall. How pleasant it was to be warm and cozy with a winter storm raging right outside the window! In the past few months, the penthouse had become her haven—the only place where she truly felt safe.

She knew it had hurt her parents’ feelings when she’d retreated there after her graduation from M.I.T. They had rejected the spacious suite located at the pinnacle of Lennox Tower years ago in favor of a sprawling Victorian mansion with no climate control system and windows that swung open to beckon in both sunshine and rain.

Tabitha had always felt like an intruder there. Although her parents had made every effort to draw her into their charmed circle, she chose to remain standing outside, too shy to accept their invitation. She would never break their hearts by confessing that she felt more at home with the anonymous strangers battling their way through the snow-clogged city streets below.

She set the empty bowl on the carpet and Lucy materialized to lick it clean. Hugging back a chill, Tabitha frowned into the deepening darkness. It was one thing to reject her parents’ idyllic lifestyle when she knew they were out there somewhere, loving her from a distance. But the possibility of a world without their laughter, their tenderness toward one another and toward her,
added a bleak edge to her loneliness. An edge dangerously near panic.

Tabitha slowly turned to face the couch. The envelope lay where she had abandoned it.

As Tabitha picked it up, a thrill of dread coursed through her. She understood Uncle Cop’s reluctance to hand it over. His words still haunted her.

Your mother asked me to give this to you in the event of her …

“Stop being so superstitious,” Tabitha muttered. “It’s an envelope, for God’s sake, not Pandora’s box.” Determined to face her fears, she tore open the clasp and dumped the contents.

A silvery disk skittered across the glass coffee table. Tabitha instantly recognized it as a video disk. She took it to her modular workstation and popped it into the appropriate drive, praying it wouldn’t be one of those maudlin presentations favored by funeral directors in which sobbing violins nearly drowned out the dearly departed’s last words.

The forty-five-inch wall screen winked to life.

Tabitha found herself gazing up at an image of her mother seated on a stool with the impish grace of an elf perched on a mushroom. She wore a vintage Chanel suit, red to match her lipstick.

Before she’d been forced to so ruthlessly curb her imagination, Tabitha had fancied her mama a fairy princess. Delicate and petite, Arian Lennox possessed an otherworldly quality that even age couldn’t tarnish. The wiry threads of silver she stubbornly refused to color only enhanced the lustrous beauty of her dark hair. Shallow laugh lines bracketed her lush mouth and sparkling eyes.

It wasn’t her mother’s fault that Tabitha had always felt like an ungainly elephant next to her. Or that she
secretly wished she’d inherited her mama’s looks and her daddy’s talents, instead of the other way around.

Suppressing a wistful sigh, Tabitha stabbed the button that would activate the video.

“Hello, my darling Tabby-Cat.”

Her mother’s husky voice actually seemed to warm the room. Tabitha felt a rush of nostalgia at the sound of that Gallic lilt. Her mother hadn’t called her by that particular endearment in years—not since Tabitha pronounced it too undignified for a mature young lady of seven years. Tabitha’s eyes stung. Too many hours spent gazing at a video screen, she told herself, blinking hard. Lucy hopped into her lap, demanding to be stroked.

Her mother looked guiltily over her shoulder before placating the camera with a mischievous smile.
“Your father would never forgive me if he knew I was doing this.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Mama,” Tabitha murmured. “Daddy would forgive you anything.”

But as her mother’s dazzling smile faltered to a pensive frown, even Tabitha felt a chill of doubt.