Omens

Chapter Three

We’d just made it back to the party when my cell phone beeped. My mother hates to text, but if the alternative is having me do something as crass as talk on my phone at a charity event, she’ll make an exception.

I need to speak to you, Olivia. Will you be coming home after the dinner? Mum never lowers herself to text speak.

“What’s up?” James asked.

“Mum needs to talk to me about something.”

“Meaning you’re not staying at my place.”

“Sorry. You know how she gets.”

When my dad died, I’d been home from college and planning to move into my own apartment. But then my mother needed me at home. I’d expected that. I hadn’t expected the nonstop frantic calls to resolve every curve ball life threw at her. Last week, she’d called me home from James’s place at 2 a.m. because she’d “heard something.” It turned out to be a raccoon on the back deck. I would have been a lot more sympathetic if the housekeeper hadn’t been right downstairs, as she was every night I stayed with James.

We’d already arranged for the housekeeper to move in permanently after I got married. We’d also decided to hire a full-time chauffeur to double as a security guard. I still wasn’t sure it would be enough.

“Go on,” James said. “I’ll call a car to the back. I hear something’s going on around front.”

“A protest?”

He shook his head. “Just a couple of paparazzi. There must be a media personality here.”

He lifted his cell phone then stopped. “Are you okay with going out the back? It’s not the door you came in.”

I shot him a glare.

He grinned. “Sorry. I’m just checking, because I know it’s bad luck—”

“Once,” I said, lifting my finger. “It was one time, and you’re never going to let me forget it, despite the fact we just celebrated our engagement with a bottle of Cristal, and I could barely find the door.”

“And the time in Cozumel, when you insisted on turning our pillows around so we wouldn’t have nightmares?”

“Tequila.”

“Alcohol isn’t the cause. It just reveals your adorably superstitious self.”

I don’t know where my superstitions come from. A nanny, I suppose. It really does take alcohol—in copious quantities—for me to mention one. James thinks it’s adorable. The only thing I can do is to change the subject fast, which I did.

Twenty minutes later, I slipped into the car’s leather backseat, feeling faintly ill. James wanted to run for senator. I should have seen that coming. Soon after we’d started dating, I’d asked whether he had any plans to follow his dad into politics. He’d laughed it off but never really answered, and I hadn’t pursued it. I hadn’t dared. I’d been falling for James Morgan, and I didn’t want to hear anything that might interfere with that.

I could fake a lot of things. A politician’s wife, though? I might be able to pull it off for a month or two. Years? Maybe even a lifetime? Never. I’d grown up in these circles. I knew what came with the position. What would be expected of me. I could not do that. It was like masquerading as a paramedic and then suddenly being promoted to chief of surgery.

As the town car headed into the suburbs, I called James.

“I’m going back to school,” I said when he answered.

A long pause. “You’re going…?”

“Back to school. For my doctorate. In the fall if I can.”

“Okay.”

That’s all he said. Okay. My heart rate slowed.

“Where did this come from?” he asked.

“I’ve been thinking about it for a while. I was going to tell you after I looked into it some more, but now with your news…” I took a deep breath. “I wanted to be upfront about my plans, too. I’d really like to go back to school. Get my PhD in English.”

“Okay.”

I leaned back against the seat, eyes closing in relief.

“There’s no reason you can’t, Liv. Like I said, it’ll be a few years before the campaign starts. I won’t need you full time until then.”

My eyes opened. “But I’m going back to school for a job. I want a career.”

“With an English doctorate?”

“Yes, with an English doctorate,” I snapped.

“Sorry,” he said. “Of course you could do something. Maybe you could write.”

“Write?”

“Mysteries. I know you love mysteries. You could be the next Arnold Conan Doyle.”

I resisted the urge to correct him. Arthur Conan Doyle had been the subject of my master’s thesis. James hadn’t read a novel since college, but when he’d discovered my area of study, he’d read two volumes of the Sherlock Holmes stories, just for me.

“Fiction writing isn’t really my thing,” I said.

“Don’t be modest, Liv. You’re a great writer.”

I’d meant that I had no interest in it as a career. I wanted to get out and do things, not tell stories about other people doing them. But at least he understood I needed a job. It was a start.

After we hung up, I relaxed into the seat again. I’d been overreacting. Even if he did run for senator, there was nothing to say he’d win. He wouldn’t even run for five years anyway. Lots of time for me to persuade him this wasn’t the path for us.

I was lost in my thoughts when the driver said, “Is this it, miss?”

I looked out the side window at the familiar gates. Manicured flowering shrubs softened the “keep out” message of the fence. My mother’s touch. Dad always said if you’re uncomfortable with the message a massive fence sends, then you damned well shouldn’t put one up.

“Yes, this is it.”

“Nice place.”

Our house was actually modest for the neighborhood. The driver was impressed, though, which meant I had to give him a generous tip in addition to the standard gratuity on James’s bill or he’d whine about the “cheap Mills & Jones brat.”

As the driver did his paperwork, I walked to the front door. The rich scent of lilacs floated past, and I took a moment to enjoy it, the smell prompting memories of evening garden parties and late-night swims.

I glanced up at the sky. A perfect May evening, warm and clear. Still time for a swim if I could resolve Mum’s problem fast enough. I might even get her into the pool if I promised to wear my suit.

I was still digging out my keys when our family lawyer flung open the door and practically dragged me inside, not an easy feat for a man who looks like Ichabod Crane, so pale and gaunt he breaks into a sweat climbing stairs.

“Howard?” I said as I escaped his grip. I sighed. “Let me guess. The board of directors wants Mum’s feedback on something, and she’s in a tizzy. How many times have we told them not to bother her?”

“It’s not that. This is … a personal matter, Olivia.”

My mother appeared in the study doorway.

“Olivia,” she said in her soft British accent. “I hope my message didn’t bring you home early.”

“No,” I lied. “James needed to leave, and I wouldn’t stay without him.”

Normally she’d have gently praised me for making the socially correct choice, which wasn’t always my default. But she only nodded absently. She looked exhausted. I walked over to give her a hug, but she headed for the front door, double-checking the lock.

“What’s wrong?” I said.

“Come into the sitting room.”

As I was following her down the hall, the doorbell rang. I glanced down the hall to see a tall, capped figure silhouetted by the porch light.

“The driver’s back,” I murmured. “What did I leave in the car this time?”

My mother sighed. “You really need to be more careful.”

“I know, I know.”

As I reached for the handle, Howard hurried over.

“Olivia, allow me—”

“Got it.”

I swung open the door to see, not the driver, but a middle-aged man in a fedora. Behind him was a woman with a camera.

“Eden,” the man said. “I’d like to ask you a few questions.”