To Catch the Moon (41 page)

“More coffee?”

Milo poised the silver pot over Alicia’s cup,
as empty as the Ritz’s Terrace restaurant. It was so early it was
still dark outside the windows, which overlooked a sizable redbrick
courtyard. He could hear the hiss of the sprinkler system dampening
the shrubbery that rimmed the perimeter, and farther away the clang
of a cable car as it climbed California Street.

“Please.” She smiled, and nudged her cup and
saucer closer.

He refreshed his own. “Thanks for getting up
so early.”

“What time’s your flight?”

“Nine.” Down to LAX, for a follow-up piece in
Pasadena on the New Year’s Eve terrorist bombing four weeks
before.

Alicia rose from her chair. “I’m going to get
more eggs from the buffet. Do you want something else?”

He was still hungry. “I’ll take another
blueberry muffin.”

“You’re going to single-handedly clean the
place out.”

He patted his abdomen, as flat as it had been
at age twenty. “I’m trying for a gut like Aristotle Onassis.”

She rolled her eyes. “That’ll help your TV
career.”

His TV career was the last thing on his mind
at the moment. His far greater worry, as Alicia strolled toward the
buffet, was what in the world was he going to do about this
woman.

So much for his hiatus from those of the
female persuasion. It had been as short-lived as one of Joan’s
“projects.” Yet he knew this was much more than a dalliance. He was
well beyond intrigued when it came to Alicia Maldonado. In fact, he
was loath to leave her to fly to L.A. for his story. He’d begun to
plot and plan when he might see her again. He was stunned to find
himself trying to concoct a way around their bicoastal lives, and
tossed around the idea of suggesting she apply for a job in D.C.’s
district attorney’s office.

This was not Milo-like behavior, particularly
for a woman who blew to smithereens his usual ideal of blond,
willowy, and pampered. Moreover, he had no idea how she felt about
him, which put him at a highly unusual disadvantage. She made no
declarations of love, asked no questions about the future.

She returned to the table bearing his muffin
and cocked her head at the window as she sat back down. “Too bad
it’s too cold and dark to eat outside.”

“It’s sort of like a garden in here.” The
restaurant was a riot of prints and stripes, all green and yellow,
every inch of surface covered with fabric or wallpaper or
carpeting. “You should stick around the hotel this morning. Get
some more sleep. Checkout’s not till noon.” He had an irrational
desire for her to return to the bed they had shared, as if somehow
that would keep her close for a while longer.

“I might.” Then she raised her head and
squinted at something behind him. “My God,” she murmured, “look
what it says in that man’s newspaper.”

He swiveled in his chair. The headline on the
far right column screamed at him: “Headwaters Resources to
IPO.”

“Isn’t that the
Chronicle
?” Alicia
said. “Don’t we have a copy?”

Milo was already reaching to extract it from
the briefcase at his feet. He quickly found the business section,
and the Headwaters story on the third page.

Alicia rose to read the piece over his
shoulder. “Whipple Canaday’s doing the transaction,” she said.
“That’s the same bank Daniel and Web Hudson used when they bought
Headwaters from Franklin Houser.”

Milo scanned the article. “There’s a quote
from Joan. ‘My husband ran Headwaters with the same vigor and
vision he applied to all his pursuits. I believe a public offering
of the company he loved is the best way to continue his legacy. It
also has the great advantage of allowing all Americans the
opportunity to participate in its future success.’ ” He shook his
head. “She can really shovel it when she wants to.”

Alicia sat back down. “Isn’t this awfully
fast?”

“It’s amazingly fast. Gaines has been dead
only a little more than a month.”

“She never said anything about this to
you?”

He tried to remember. “One time she said
something about Headwaters. But never anything about going public.”
It had been a gorgeous December morning, the morning of Treebeard’s
arraignment. He and Joan had been eating breakfast on the terrace
at the Lodge. Those were details he would not share with Alicia.
“She said she was going into Headwaters that day, and something
about the way she said it made me wonder if everything was all
right there. I remember her telling me she wasn’t sure if it was or
not.”

“It can’t be in too bad shape if it’s going
public.” Alicia was frowning. “I wonder if this is connected to the
big fight Joan and Daniel had in early December. Because her taking
the company public so soon after he died seems very odd to me.”

“I agree. But Molly Bracewell told me that
what pissed Joan off had to do with the trust, not Headwaters.”
Milo set aside the newspaper, his mind working. “You know, this
helps us.”

“How?”

“Because companies preparing to IPO have to
release scads of information to the public. There’s something
called an S-1 filing, I remember my brother Ari telling me. He’s an
investment banker in London.”

“Then this will help.” Alicia pushed back her
plate, a light growing in her dark eyes. “It’s been so damn hard to
get information on that company.”

He glanced at his watch and grimaced. It was
already past seven. “I’ll call Ari and ask if he can find out
anything about it. Or put me in touch with someone who would know
something.”

She was chewing on her lip. “Maybe I should
be the one to talk to your brother. Your shoot’s all day,
right?”

It was. And it would be a tough one. And the
new and improved Milo Pappas must not allow himself to be
distracted. “Would you mind?”

“Of course not. Would you call him first to
tell him who I am?”

He smiled and leaned closer. “And who exactly
would that be?”

Clearly he’d caught her off-guard with that
one. She looked away, her brow furrowed.

He grasped her hand. “How about I describe
you as ‘a very good friend’?”

She raised her eyes to his. “What’s that a
euphemism for?”

“It’s for ‘fabulous woman I can’t wait to see
again.’ ”

Her features relaxed. “That doesn’t sound too
bad to me.”

He made a dramatic clutch at his chest. “
‘Doesn’t sound too bad’? Alicia, you’re killing me here.”

“You’ll live.” Her smile widened. “Now write
down Ari’s number. You’ve got to get out of here or you’re going to
miss your plane.”

He jotted the number on the back of a
business card, then had the presence of mind to record another
series of digits as well. “I’m giving you my calling-card number,”
he said. He didn’t want her saddled with the long-distance charges
for a London call. Then he had another brainstorm, which he was
both hesitant to mention yet reluctant to abandon. He lowered his
voice. “Alicia, do you need a little something to tide you
over?”

Her response was instant. “No.”

“Are you sure? Because I am completely happy
to help. I know you have obligations to your family on top of
everything else. Honestly, I’d be glad to help.”

This time she was silent. He took that as an
opening and reached back down into his briefcase for his
checkbook.

She shook her head. “I feel very weird about
this.”

“Don’t.” How much? He didn’t want to insult
her, yet wanted to be genuinely helpful. He settled on two thousand
dollars and began to make out the check.

Then he heard a female voice, not Alicia’s,
from very nearby. His hand froze.

“Well, doesn’t this beat all.”

No. It couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible. But
then he heard it again. Disdainful. Snide. Unmistakable.

“Isn’t one of you going to say you’re
surprised to see me?”

Slowly he raised his head to see Joan
standing beside the table, wearing an expression of such triumph,
such contempt, such utter superiority he was rendered
speechless.

She raised her hand as if to forestall him.
“Please don’t let me interrupt you. I can see you’re conducting
business.” She glanced down at Alicia. “Payment for services
rendered?”

He found himself on his feet. If Joan hadn’t
moved so quickly, he thought he might have punched her. But she had
already skittered away, deeper into the restaurant, smiling as if
to maintain the public fiction that all was right in her world.

Smiling with her mouth, that is. Because her
eyes held a cold, malevolent promise.

Joan turned her back on them then. Milo’s
heart thudded against his rib cage. Vaguely he was aware of Alicia
speaking to him in a soothing voice that failed to have anything
close to the desired effect.

“It’s all right, Milo,” she was saying. “It’s
all right. It doesn’t matter.”

But it did matter. For sure it mattered.
Because Joan would come after him. Somehow.

*

As Joan exited the Ritz-Carlton’s circular
drive onto Stockton Street, her Jag’s tires screeching on the
asphalt, she tried to convince herself that all she felt was anger.
Anger was an emotion she could manage these days. Anger didn’t
require a Xanax or a glass of wine or a massage. Anger fueled her.
It made her bolder and more active. Anger was far superior to hurt,
or bewilderment, or fear, all of which lurked beneath her rage like
a festering malignancy, threatening to burst forth and destroy her
if she didn’t maintain control.

Well, she would be active now. She made a
left onto California Street and climbed Nob Hill. She gathered
speed despite the steep ascent and hurtled past a cable car
offloading tourists bound for Chinatown, their heads swiveling to
watch her as she careened past. Her own goal was 101 North and her
tete-a-tete in Humboldt County with the Headwaters lumberman primed
to perform the extra tree felling she wanted done. She had a second
goal as well, devised the instant she had left Milo Pappas staring
after her in the Ritz-Carlton restaurant.

Joan abruptly pulled over to the curb at the
crest of the hill, oblivious to the outraged drivers forced to
maneuver around her in the heavy flow of traffic around the
Fairmont Hotel and Grace Cathedral. She had no choice but to stop
driving. She was too enraged to do more than one thing at a time,
and one task above all others had become paramount. Her anger made
her fingers tremble so uncontrollably it took her several seconds
to gather herself sufficiently to punch the correct buttons on the
car phone.

Though she wasn’t master of her body, Joan
was in complete possession of her wits. She knew exactly what she
wanted to achieve, and she knew exactly how to do it. She would
have done it before, but lacked the ammunition.

No longer. Milo Pappas had not only handed
her the gun, he had loaded its chambers.

“Operator,” she said once she had a line,
“connect me to the WBS television headquarters in Manhattan. To the
news division,” she specified.

Milo had been worried about losing his job
before? Well, she’d make sure he really had a reason to worry
now.

*

Alicia cleared quickly out of her room in the
Ritz-Carlton, too much a bundle of nerves even to consider going
back to bed. Before she left she spoke to Milo’s brother Ari, whom
she caught in his London office. He told her that for some years
companies had been required to file their IPO documents
electronically and that he’d already confirmed that Headwaters’
information was on-line. She jotted down what she needed to know to
find the Web site herself, then thanked him and called down for her
car. In minutes she was on city streets headed for 101 South.

But no amount of dodging and weaving would
get her home quickly. She’d forgotten she was driving straight into
the morning rush hour, as fearsome an opponent as the prior day’s
evening commute had been. And stop-and-go traffic did nothing to
aid her personal equilibrium.

She’d been on this freeway a mere fourteen
hours earlier but it might as well have been a lifetime. On this,
the morning after, she ricocheted between elation and panic. Had
she reached new heights of idiocy to sleep with Milo Pappas? Had
she reached a new moral low by cheating on Jorge? Was she
streamlining or sabotaging her investigation into Joan Gaines by
cooperating with Milo? Was he the most wonderful man in the world
or the worst scoundrel imaginable? She had different answers by the
mile, all of which rang alternately true and false. On some level
she thought it was pointless even to ask those questions. She’d
done what she’d done. Whether it was stupid or smart she’d have to
live with the repercussions.

Traffic eased fifty miles or so south of San
Francisco, past San Jose. She was able to do the second half of the
trip in half the time it had taken her to do the first.

As she screeched to a stop on her own
driveway, she spied a delivery on her stoop. She climbed out of the
VW and approached it cautiously, like it might detonate. She was
amazed it hadn’t been stolen or broken or somehow otherwise
destroyed.

Two dozen roses, long-stemmed, bloodred, in a
vase sporting a huge white bow. Her fingers were cold as she opened
the tiny parchment card, attached to the bow with an old-fashioned
hairpin.
I miss you already, M
.

She let out a shaky breath, admonishing
herself for a brief surge of disappointment.
He didn’t tell me
he loves me.

A second, more combative inner voice had a
ready answer.
Why should he? You don’t know how
you
feel.

That wasn’t entirely true. She knew something
of how she felt: alert, giddy, terrified, deliriously happy,
fretful. In other words, a goner where Milo Pappas was
concerned.