“I’d better call the Albions. I told Laurie to be back in an hour.”
Tony shrugged unconcernedly and refilled her wineglass. “Let her have a good time. Everything will hold. We should still have plenty of time.”
Caroline cocked her head, frowning uncertainly. “Time? For what? For dinner?”
Now it was Tony who looked puzzled. “My board meeting?” When Caroline still appeared mystified, he tilted his head toward the calendar that was held to the refrigerator door with a magnet. “The co-op board?” he asked. “On the calendar? Nine o’clock? Tonight?” He chuckled softly. “And here I thought I was being so helpful, putting the calendar out where you couldn’t miss it.” He pulled the sheet of paper out from under the magnet and handed it to her. “Maybe we’d better find a better place for it.”
“Or I’ll just remember to look at it from now on,” she said, staring at the entry for nine o’clock that night.
Tony’s eyes clouded. “You didn’t make any other plans, did you? I can probably get out of the meeting—”
Caroline shook her head. “It’s fine.” Getting up, she put the calendar back on the refrigerator, then went and slipped her arms around Tony’s neck. “Just a matter of getting used to living with someone else,” she murmured, nuzzling his neck. “Except for the kids, I’m a little out of practice.”
Tony’s arms wrapped around her, pulling her closer. “Maybe I should dump the meeting anyway,” he whispered. “Right now, I’m not even sure I want dinner.”
Caroline pulled away. “Now, now. You said everything would hold, but I’m not sure it would hold that long. And there’ll be plenty of time after your meeting. And after the kids have gone to bed. So let’s see if you hold as well as dinner.”
Everything did hold. For an hour. And it might have held longer, had Caroline thought before she’d spoken. But by the time she realized her mistake, it was too late. “Isn’t this incredible?” she asked as they went into the dining room. The table was set with sterling silver and linen napkins, and a pair of candelabra added to the glow of the chandelier whose crystals refracted a soft light throughout the room. The food was on the table, the salmon perfectly poached, the macaroni and cheese browned and still bubbling. “Tony did it all. Can you believe it?”
In an instant Ryan’s expression clouded. “I hate macaroni and cheese,” he announced.
“Then you can have some fish,” Caroline replied, glancing quickly at Tony. “You can have anything you want.”
“I want spaghetti,” Ryan said. He turned toward Tony, and when he spoke again, Caroline could hear the challenge in his voice. “My dad made the best spaghetti you ever tasted.”
Caroline opened her mouth to say something, but Tony spoke first. “I wish I’d gotten to try it. And how do you know you hate my macaroni and cheese when you haven’t even tried it?”
“I know,” Ryan insisted. He turned to his mother. “Do I have to eat this?”
Caroline hesitated, then made up her mind. It was now, or never. “Yes,” she said. “You do. You at least have to taste it.” For a second she thought he was going to refuse, but then he picked up his spoon, reached out and plunged it into the macaroni and cheese, blew on the steaming spoonful of pasta, and finally stuck it in his mouth.
“There. I tasted it, all right? And I hate it.” Getting up from the table, he walked out of the dining room and slammed the door behind him.
“I’m sorry,” Caroline said, getting to her feet and starting after her son, but once again, as he had in the kitchen, Tony stopped her.
“I’ll take care of this,” he said quietly. “It seems like I’m the one he has a problem with, so I’m the one that had better go talk to him.”
Without waiting for a reply, he followed Ryan out of the dining room. Heading up the stairs, he walked down the hall to Ryan’s closed door, and knocked softly.
No response.
He rapped harder. “May I come in?”
A single muffled word came through the thick wood: “No!”
Tony tried the knob, found the door locked, and reached into his pocket. A few seconds later he twisted the key in the lock, opened the door, and stepped inside, closing the door behind him.
Ryan glared at him from the bed. “This is my room,” he said. “You can’t come in here.”
Tony moved across the room. “This may be your room, but this is my apartment, and I shall go where I please.” His eyes locked onto Ryan’s, and his voice took on a hard edge. “And perhaps your father allowed you to act this way, but I shall not.”
“I don’t have to do what you say,” Ryan said, but the tremble in his voice betrayed the fear that was suddenly building inside him.
Tony Fleming sat down on the bed and laid his hand heavily on the boy’s shoulder. “You and I,” he said so softly that Ryan had to strain to hear his words, “can get along very well. I like you, Ryan. I really do.” His fingers tightened on Ryan’s shoulder the way they had earlier clamped onto his wrist. His voice dropped even lower, and his eyes bored into the boy’s. “But I do not like the way you are behaving. I do not like the way you’re talking, either to me, or to your mother.”
“I don’t have—” But before he could finish what he was saying, Anthony’s fingers closed even tighter, turning Ryan’s words into a squeal of pain.
“You have to do exactly what I tell you,” Tony instructed him. “Whether you like it or not, I am your stepfather, and you are living in my home. You can make this a good thing for yourself, or a bad thing for yourself. But you are not going to do anything — or say anything — that is going to upset your mother. Is that clear?”
A shiver went through Ryan as he looked up into his stepfather’s eyes. They had gone dead flat, and something about their emptiness frightened him far more than anything Anthony Fleming had said. He nodded mutely.
“Good.” Tony Fleming’s hand dropped away from Ryan’s shoulder. “Then let’s go back downstairs, and enjoy our dinner.”
Understanding that his stepfather’s words were not a suggestion but a command, Ryan got up from the bed and followed Tony Fleming back to the dining room. But for the rest of the evening, he spoke not another word.
“Did you have a good talk with Tony?” Caroline asked as she said goodnight to him a couple of hours later.
Ryan wanted to tell her exactly what had happened, wanted to show her where his stepfather’s fingers had dug into his shoulder. But even as the words formed in his mind, he remembered the strange dead look he’d seen in Tony’s eyes, and knew he would tell his mother nothing. “Yes,” he whispered. “It was okay.”
“Then everything’s fine,” Caroline said, bending down and kissing Ryan’s forehead.
The light clicked off.
His mother left the room.
And Ryan was left alone in the dark, certain that despite his mother’s words, everything was not fine at all.
CHAPTER 17
The man across the street from Andrea Costanza’s building was almost invisible in the darkness of the unlit doorway of a small cutlery shop that had closed hours earlier, its windows protected by roll-down shutters, its door by a heavy iron accordion grille that was securely fastened with a heavy padlock. The street was quiet — no one had passed by in the last fifteen minutes, and only a single taxi had appeared, dropping its fare three doors down, then continuing on its way. Several times the man had left the doorway to walk along the sidewalk, checking the building from every angle.
An old building, eight floors.