The days got stranger as the week wore on.
Learning that Mrs. Kludinski and Martha White were planning to attend the graveside ceremony as well, Charlotte invited them to ride in the family limousine with her. In fact, she was prepared to beg them to join her rather than take the sad, solemn ride to and from the cemetery alone—but it hadn’t been necessary.
Like most Seattle days it was cloudy and overcast, the early spring wind was still winter chilly. The service was short and dignified . . . like Dad, she thought, in a moment of light nostalgia. She thought back to her seventeenth birthday and her father’s tradition of marking her height on the bright yellow wall behind the kitchen door. It surprised him and delighted her to discover they were both 5 feet 7 inches tall, and in a rare display of vanity, he’d stretched and wiggled and hyper-extended his spine a quarter of an inch up the wall to top her—then asked her please to stop growing. An inch later she did, though the marks on the wall never changed.
They were leaving the cemetery when she saw the peculiar man again. Dressed as he was in the same outrageous outfit, how could she miss him? He stood beside an angelic head stone and waved as the limo passed by.
“Stop! Please stop,” she called to the driver. “He’s missed the service.”
“Who?” Elderly Mrs. Kludinski and Martha craned their necks to look out every window in every direction. “Who missed the service? I don’t see anyone.”
“That man standing over there by the angel.” She made a vague gesture with her head as she scrambled closer to the door, waiting for the long black Cadillac to come to a complete stop before getting out. “I’m pretty sure I don’t know who he is, but if he walked here I want to make sure he can get back to . . . to wherever he came from. He was at the viewing yesterday, remember? He sat with me?”
She glanced over in time to see the exchange of confused frowns.
“Nice-looking man? About my age? Wearing that weird black jacket?” She was reluctant to use the kicker but she would if they didn’t stop staring at her like that. “Big, sparkling red shoes?”
“Are you feeling nauseated, dear?” Mrs. Kludinski was all concern. “Dizzy? Let’s roll down the windows and get some air in here, shall we?”
Frustrated, Charlotte twisted around in her seat to look through the rear window, straight back to the stone angel, its hands extended in welcome, wings poised for flight—but there was no tall, handsome man in big red shoes. A hard, painful knot of anxiety formed just below her sternum as she got out of the limo. He was nowhere in sight.
And yes, she did feel a little sick about it.
He crossed her mind again two nights later as she sat alone at a table for two eating an early dinner in her father’s favorite Italian restaurant just down the street from their apartment.
No, it was her apartment now.
She hadn’t taken more than two bites when she glanced up and saw the bizarre man in the window, looking in longingly at her favorite scaloppini.
Thrilled, but mostly astounded to see him there, she sucked in a sharp breath and choked on a small piece of shrimp—coughing and hacking and beating her own chest. When she could breathe again and focus beyond the tears in her eyes, he was gone again.
It didn’t occur to her until late the next afternoon that he might be . . . well . . . stalking her. It wasn’t something she normally worried about. She wasn’t rich or beautiful—there were whole days, in fact, when she suspected she was invisible to the human eye. What could be safer?
But all that changed as she sat in the narrow, second-story office of Chancellor’s Furniture Store, downloading the last of the month’s sales invoices off a tediously slow computer. It had been raining off and on all day, and she glanced out the small pane–window to see which it was, on or off.
It was gloomy and bleak and the street lights glowed in soft pools along the sidewalks below. In the pool directly across from the store, the pale light ricocheted off a very large pair of ruby slippers.
He leaned against the lamp post, as if waiting for a bus, but came to attention when he saw her looking down at him. He waved wildly and flashed a wide white grin. He looked delighted to see her. She felt a little delighted herself.
Still, the coincidence of him showing up at her father’s viewing and funeral, then their favorite restaurant, and now outside a client’s business were adding up. And not looking good.
But, weren’t stalkers more stealthy than this? Considerably less obvious? Shouldn’t she feel him watching her, not see him everywhere? And where were his keepers? Surely he’d been missed by now at whatever facility he’d escaped from. Shouldn’t there be people out looking for him?
How could anyone miss seeing him, she wondered, observing the absolute indifference to him in the other pedestrians. Seattle was not an indifferent town. Big and busy, yes, but the absurd and outrageous still turned heads. Her heart twisted at the thought that she might be the only one watching this poor, unfortunate man slipping through the cracks of society.
She did have the good sense to be afraid of his sudden attachment to her . . . or would have had it, if he exuded even the mildest wave of rancor or aggression. But the plain fact was, he didn’t. Approachability, congeniality and kindness. She sensed these things about him—along with a faint underlying familiarity.
The real problem was that even if he weren’t dressed like a clown, even if he seemed like the most normal guy in the world, she still wouldn’t know what to do about him. More to the point, what she should do about his perplexing interest in her. She wasn’t great with men. He clearly needed a friend and for some reason he’d chosen her, but . . . wouldn’t the best and kindest thing for her to do for him be to call the authorities, get him the help he so obviously needed?
“Charlotte?” She turned from the window as Henry Chancellor entered his office with two styrofoam cups of coffee. “Am I too late? Are you finished? You take yours black, don’t you?”
She nodded and took the cup he handed her. “I just finished. You need a new computer up here, Henry.”
“I know. The newer ones downstairs are much faster but . . . I know this one.”
Comfort in familiarity, she’d invented the concept. “I need the social security number for the new mover you hired. But I have everything else I need for this month. Looks like your Beat the Bunny Pre-Easter sale did very well.”
“It’s the season. By the end of March people have forgotten how expensive Christmas was, they’ve spent the whole gloomy wet winter indoors with their furniture, so they’re ready to buy new in the first light of spring. And don’t worry about the boy. He’s my wife’s nephew. I hired him for the month, for the sale. Friday is his last day. He needed to earn some extra money. I’ve been paying him out of petty cash.” He held up a hand to keep her from speaking. “And, yes, I wrote it down for you.”
He started to cross behind her to a stack of papers on the far side of the desk, but she stood quickly and put her back to the window, giving him his place at his desk—and blocking his view of the street below.
“He wants to take his girlfriend to the prom in a limousine. Ah, here it is.” He ripped off the top sheet of a note pad and handed it to her over his shoulder, waiting for her to walk around him, so he could lean back. But if she did that, he could see out the window. He scooted his chair forward, adding more room to the already adequate space for her to move around him. She glanced over her shoulder to the street and the man waved at her to come down to him. “Can you get through back there?”
“Oh. Yes. I just . . .” She’d have to distract him. She leaned down and picked up her brief case. “I was just thinking that I didn’t go to my prom. Did you?”
He swiveled his chair to the left, away from the window, and smiled nostalgically. “I took my wife, as a matter of fact. My father lent me his 1959 Chevy Belair, and she was the prettiest one there.” She smiled at the warmth in his voice. “My wife, that is . . . although that Chevy was something to look at, too.” She laughed, as he’d hoped she would, and then he narrowed his eyes at her. “Do you have a moment to talk, Charlotte?”
She glanced at the window, at the coffee in her hand, then back at him. “Sure.”
He waited for her to sit in the empty chair beside his desk, keeping his back to the window. “I wanted to tell you how sorry I am about your father.”
“Thank you.”
“Will you be all right? Businesswise? I know he had a great many clients. Will you be adding them to yours, or won’t you have time for them?”
“Oh.” She was anxious to get away—hoping her strange friend wouldn’t wander off before she could get to him, then hoping he would. “I’ll keep some of them. There are several companies that he started with as small businesses, they grew, and he stayed with them. They took up a lot of his time. A lot of my time, too, recently. But they should have their own in-house accountants now. I’ll weed those out and keep most of the smaller businesses. The next few months will be a little hectic but it should work out fine.”
“Not too much for just one person?”
“No. Well, yes, but I’ll be fine.” It wasn’t like she had a lot of other things to do with her time.
“You’re sure?” She recognized the look in his eyes and sighed. It was the sympathetic, well-meaning look that invariably preceded a discussion of her nonexistent love life. “The reason I’m asking is, my wife’s ex-sister-in-law’s nephew is the . . . ah, um . . . you know, the main money man for this big chain of hotels, actually several chains with different names. They do fast food, too. And rental cars. He’s the vice president of money or something but they call it something else . . . ah . . .”
“Controller? Auditor? CFO? Chief financial officer?”
“Yes, that’s it. In Chicago. He travels a good deal, works long hours. A very nice, quiet, young fellow. He was out here last fall on a visit and fell in love with the water and the mountains and all the greenery—you know how people do. Says he wants to downsize his life a little, enjoy more of it while he’s still young . . .”
What if a patrol car happens to drive by? Cops get paid to notice the strange and unusual. Would they check with missing persons before or after they confiscated his shoes and locked him up? she wondered.
“. . . up and quit his job.” Henry went on. “Luckily, he’s single, did I mention that? A very nice, quiet, young guy. Anyway, he’s packing up and moving out here. Expect him any day now.”
“Bold move.”
“Gutsy, I thought, and smart, too. Figuring out early that money isn’t everything. Life is short, you know?” He looked uncomfortable in light of her recent loss. “Anyway, I believe he has plenty of money set aside but he’s not ready to retire just yet, so he’s looking for work. Something smaller. Something challenging. And when my wife told me all this, she seemed very enthused with the idea of the two of you at least meeting. Since you have so much in common,” he added, looking even more uncomfortable. “Perhaps you could work out some sort of business arrangement. Maybe . . . who knows? A nice, quiet, single young man . . . and you. Who knows what might happen?”
It started as a low grumble deep in her belly, then escalated to a high pitched screaming in her head. No, no, no! Nice, quiet man is a synonym for miserable, boring loser! I don’t want to have anything in common with that! I want more! I need more! I want bold, confident and determined! I want exciting! I want sexy! I want Alpha! I want passion and laughter and . . . and someone who will see me as more than a nice, quiet woman! I want a life! I want to live! I want to get out of here!
“It was awfully nice of her to think of me.” It was a strain to control her voice. “But to tell you the truth, Henry, I don’t think I’m going to need a partner. Not right away. Not for several years, if then. I’m feeling pretty confident that I can handle the whole business on my own, once I weed through it.”
“I have no doubt that you can.” Henry looked let off the hook. He could at least tell his wife he’d tried. “But it’s something to keep in mind, down the road a bit. Working alone can get lonely.”
“I know. Thanks, Henry.” She stood, slipped the strap of her purse over her shoulder and picked up her briefcase with the same hand, leaving the other free for the rest of her coffee. “If you think it might help, have him call me when he gets settled. I’ll give him the names of the companies I’ll be cutting loose. They’ll be looking for good accountants very soon.”
He beamed at her. “You’re a sweet girl, Charlotte Gibson.”
She smiled and felt heat in her cheeks. “I’ll see you next month, Henry.”
“I always look forward to it.”
“Me, too. Thanks for the coffee.”
“Good night, Charlotte. Hurry home. I think it’s going to rain.”
The moment she stepped out of the front door onto the sidewalk, he called to her. “Well, it’s about time. I thought you forgot about me again.”
Charlotte took a deep breath. She was nonconfrontational by nature, but everyone had their limit. She glanced at the traffic, then marched across the street to deal with him.