Stanley savored the look of confusion on Marcus’s face when they exited the plane at a private airport in New Orleans. He was keeping the kid on his toes, that was certain. Marcus did not appear to enjoy it.
When they reached their hotel, Stanley made sure to be noticed, talking to the woman at the registration counter and tipping the doorman and valet exceedingly well.
Once in their three-bedroom suite, he reviewed the latest report from Dallas that tracked the father’s and daughter’s movements. Pieces of it didn’t make sense. A local woman minister had become attached to them for some reason. Lisa Waldren had visited the minister’s family.
However, it was James Waldren’s trip to New York that concerned him most. What had he learned there that made him call Stanley at his corporate office? The more he knew, the better Stanley could manage the fallout or any surprises that might come with the disappearance or accidental deaths of the Waldrens.
He reviewed his targets once again. What were their weaknesses? That’s how it always worked best. Find where they’d hurt, where they’d crumble. Even the hardest man had a breaking point.
“Why are we in New Orleans?” Marcus asked after knocking on the sliding door to Stanley’s room.
“Business and pleasure,” Stanley said cryptically.
“But I thought we were taking care of . . . a problem. And I’m needed at corporate.”
“Have Roberts step in for a few more days.”
Marcus stared at him, looking pathetic. Stanley knew his nephew’s mind was bouncing all over the place with dreaded possibilities. The boy needed some reassurance, even if Stanley hadn’t decided his nephew’s fate quite yet.
“Other VPs step in when they’re needed, that’s what they’re for. I’m not firing you, don’t worry so much. You’ll be back behind the helm in a few days.”
Marcus calmed considerably. After he left the bedroom, Stanley reviewed his options again. Bodies could be difficult to hide. No suspicion could fall on him this time; his future with Gwen might depend on that.
In the early evening, he announced that he was going for a walk. He motioned to Billy to keep an eye on Marcus before he left the suite.
Downstairs, he tossed back just one shot of whiskey before walking into the French Quarter at dusk.
He adjusted his tie and smoothed his tailored suit. In the window of an antique store he looked himself over. The dinner house was two blocks away.
Stanley had never felt comfortable in New Orleans. There were too many conflicting elements there. Everything was acceptable. There were no lines of race, culture, or even class. Miami was bad enough, overrun by Latinos, but New Orleans was another story. There was something unsettling in the people and the streets. But he understood why she’d come here. It was a perfect place to lose the past and become whoever a person wanted to be.
The dinner house was nearly empty at that hour. A pretty hostess came toward him.
“Table for one?” she said in a coy Southern drawl.
“I’m looking for the owner,” Stanley said.
“I believe she’s in her office upstairs. I’ll call up.”
“No, please don’t. I want to surprise her. We are old, old friends,” Stanley said with a smile.
The girl’s smile widened as if he’d let her in on a secret.
“Well, I’m not supposed to let anyone up without calling first,” she said apologetically. She picked up a phone at the wooden podium. “How long has it been since you’ve seen her?”
Stanley put his hand over the girl’s, holding down the phone. “Please. It’s been a very long time. I want to surprise her. You see, she was my first love,” he said, lowering his voice.
The girl’s eyes widened and she set the phone down. “The stairway by the kitchen. Her office is at the end of the hallway.”
As Stanley walked through the small restaurant, he took in the scents coming from the kitchen, mixed with flowering potted plants. A French singer played over hidden speakers as a band set up on a small stage. Everything in the place reminded Stanley of her, making his head light with both memory and anticipation.
He moved up the stairs with a growing mix of anticipation and anxiety. He’d imagined this moment over the many decades, and now he was knocking on a door with her name written on it.
“Come in,” she said.
Stanley couldn’t believe how his heart raced. It was hard to catch his breath as he turned the doorknob.
She sat at a desk and then rose when she didn’t recognize him.
“Lena,” he said.
She stopped just as she’d taken a step from behind her desk. Only one person on earth called her by that name.
“Stanley.”
He walked inside, closing the door behind him. She flinched as the door clicked shut. She’d aged, of course she had aged. But she was still beautiful, still radiant.
“I didn’t say anything.” She remained at her desk. The light came in from the window, surrounding her thin frame.
“You didn’t say anything?”
“To that woman, the prosecutor.”
Stanley stopped short. “Lisa Waldren contacted you?”
“This morning.”
Stanley’s feet moved toward her.
“That’s not why I’m here.” He came around the desk.
“Please,” she whispered. Even terrified, she looked regal.
Her black eyes were like a well he couldn’t climb out of. He wished he could hear her laugh again as she had when they were young. When they escaped into the woods away from everything and everyone. When they were together for the first time, and then every time they had a chance to be alone.
“I’ve been thinking about you and the past. What went wrong . . .” Stanley felt intoxicated by her.
“Everything went wrong,” she said. “But remember, you left me.”
“I had to. You were . . .”
“Black?” she said.
That’s when he saw the hatred in her eyes.
Stanley cringed. “We live in a different time now,” he said, though he wasn’t sure what that meant to him, or to her.
He moved closer, even as her body tensed.
“Don’t you understand what you did? You stole everything from me.”
She flinched as he reached for the ivory comb, pulling it from her hair. Strands of salt-and-pepper hair tumbled down her back and over his hand.
He reached to touch her face when he heard the click of a gun’s hammer. It rested on the desk beneath her left hand. The barrel was pointed at him.
“Leave now, please.”
Even after all this time, he knew her expressions.
“You wouldn’t,” he said, but her face said she was stronger now. It made him want her more while knowing he would never have her.
“Go now. I’ve kept your secrets, but they are looking for you.” She kept her hand on the gun. “And, Stanley, don’t ever come back.”