“We…can‘t-” he gasped. It took every ounce of willpower and strength he possessed to tear himself from her and hold her at half an arm’s length. There they stood, gripping each other’s arms for reassurance and support, shaking and panting like marathon runners, trying to regain their footing in a universe that had just come within an eyelash of spinning out of control.
“Are you okay?” Jake asked in a croaking whisper.
Staring at the middle of his chest, Eve replied in the same voice, “Yes, fine.” Silently and ruefully she began to laugh.
So he gathered her once more into his arms and held her, rocking her as they laughed together in the giddy, shaken way people do when they’ve just managed to escape disaster.
Presently, feeling stronger, he kissed the top of her head and murmured, “Ready? Need another minute?”
She shook her head, pulled back from him and combed her fingers through her hair. “I’m as ready as I’ll ever be, I guess.” A residual bubble of laughter burst from her like a hiccup. “What do you suppose they’re thinking?”
“Those two?” Jake snorted and reached for the doorknob as Eve gathered up the two halves of her collar. “I’ve got news for you, Waskowitz. They don’t think. They already know.”
Early on Christmas Eve, Summer Grogan stood in the middle of her beautiful formal living room and gazed critically at the tree that soared almost to the top of the twelve-foot ceiling.
“Not bad,” she murmured in glorious understatement.
Though not as large as the one in Rockefeller Center, her tree, she was sure, was every bit as magnificent. Festooned with tiny twinkling lights, silver garlands, red bows, glass balls and dozens of ornaments ranging from those the children had made from bread dough and macaroni and popcorn to the most elegant handblown crystal, then topped with a gauzy white angel, it shimmered and sparkled from every view. Evergreen garlands looped across every mantelpiece, window and doorway in the house and twined around the banister of the curving staircase. Candles and holly adorned every tabletop; red poinsettias flanked the stairs and brightened every corner. Outside, thousands of tiny white lights winked in the trees and shrubbery and cascaded from the eaves. No house, she was sure, had ever looked more beautiful, more warm and welcoming.
She thought how incredible it was that she should be here on this Christmas Eve, in so lovely a place. What an amazing year it had been. How could anyone have forseen, in the gloom of last January, when she had first faced Riley Grogan in the humiliating courtroom debacle that had brought her already-precarious financial world crumbling down, that she would end the year in this gracious and happy home with a man she utterly adored, her precious children, Helen and David, safe and happy, and all the animals, too-although for their own immediate safety, Beatle the Chihuahua, Peggy Sue the ancient and cranky Persian cat, and Cleo the African Gray parrot had been banished to their various and separate quarters until after the holiday.
Yes, thought Summer, everything was ready-for Christmas, and for whatever else might happen this night…
The week before, Jake and an army of FBI surveillance experts in brown coveralls, under the pretext of putting in a new sound system, had installed hidden cameras and microphones in every room of the house, and throughout most of the grounds, as well. With the exception of the children, and Sonny and his two henchmen, everyone had been shown how to cover the camera lenses and turn off the microphones, although they’d been asked not to do so unless there was a serious need for privacy. A command post had been set up in the house, in a cubicle of a room in the unused attic. In addition, a van containing a second surveillance unit lay hidden in the woods not far from the estate’s front gate, and teams of armed agents had been posted, well camouflaged, all around the perimeter of the grounds.
Everything that could be done, had been done. Every eventuality had been considered and prepared for. They were ready. Summer just prayed it wasn’t all for nothing.
The elements were in place for a final showdown. Eve and Sonny had arrived this morning; they and the two “bodyguards” had been assigned three of the six spare bedrooms. Two of those remaining had been taken over by Mirabella and Jimmy Joe and their children, who had come earlier in the week to help with the preparations.
The last one had, until a couple of hours ago, been reserved for Troy and Charly. Unfortunately, around noon today, Charly had begun experiencing what was at first thought to be acute indigestion. By midafternoon it was apparent that she was in the early stages of labor, and given her difficult and troublesome pregnancy, Troy had decided to take no chances. Rather than trying to drive back to Atlanta, especially with the weather forecast predicting freezing rain, he had taken Charly to the hospital there in Charleston. He had called a little while ago to report that they were settled in and things were proceeding slowly, and had offered to come back if he was needed. In spite of the fact that they’d been counting on Troy’s training and experience as a SEAL in the event of an emergency, Riley had told him to stay where he was.
So far, other than the weather, that had been the only glitch in the well-laid plans, and even that had its upside. At least having Charly in labor provided an excuse for the tension that permeated the house like an electronic squeal… a hum of sound just off the register of human hearing.
As the antique clock on the mantelpiece launched into the Westminster chimes, Summer automatically checked her watch. Soon it would be time to set out the Christmas Eve buffet, but before that there were still a few last-minute things she had to do. A few more presents to be pulled from their hiding places and wrapped and put under the tree-which was already in danger of being buried beneath the mound of packages heaped around it. All day long people had been tiptoeing and scurrying, scuttling in and out of rooms, giggling behind closed doors, the children whispering in each other’s ears, beckoning for help from the adults while sneaking stealthy sideways looks at each other.
Which was, Summer thought with a sigh, just as it should be on Christmas Eve. Like almost every other in the country that night, theirs was a house full of secrets.
Chapter 15
From their command post, Jake and Birdie followed Summer’s progress through the beautifully decorated house. They watched her enter the bedroom where her sister Mirabella was wrapping packages, listened, with the volume turned low, to the faint background murmur of their voices.
It was quiet in the attic room, and a little too warm even though outside the dusty dormer window the long and early dusk brought on by the approaching storm had finally given way to full darkness. The volume on all the mikes had been turned off, with the exception of the rooms occupied by Sonny and his thugs, and there was very little sound even from those. One of the bodyguards-Ricky-sat hunched on the foot of a twin bed staring intently at a NASCAR recap on television. The other, the Russian, Sergei, was sprawled on his back on his own bed with headphones on. His eyes were closed; whether asleep or absorbed in what he was listening to was impossible to tell. The room next door-Cis-neros’s room-was empty; Sonny, at the moment, was in the library enjoying a brandy with his host.
Eve was in her host and hostess’s bedroom, doing something mysterious with a dual-deck VCR. Everyone else, Jake noted after a cursory check of the monitors, appeared to be engaged in last-minute preparations for the holiday-wrapping presents, tiptoeing in and out of rooms like characters in a French farce.
He pushed back his chair, reaching for the thermos Summer had thoughtfully left for them that morning. He poured the last few teaspoons of coffee into his cup, screwed the cap on the bottle and sighed. “Helluva way to spend Christmas.”