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I lifted a battered hand, peeling myself off the wall of the elevator. “Hey, Nick. As you can see, I found him.”
Abby rushed forward, and Nick wisely took a step back, releasing James so she could examine him up and down. “What’s the matter with him? Why won’t he speak?”
“Well,” I began slowly, “James has already done an awful lot of talking today...or at least he’s said an awful lot in a few words.” I gave him a sympathetic look before turning once more to Nick and Abby, part of me almost relishing the explosion I knew was inevitable. “He just stormed the castle, so to speak, to take over his father’s company.”
There was a brief pause before the walls of the penthouse trembled with the force of Nick’s one-word question: “What?!”
Chapter 5
“THEY LOOK LIKE ANTS.” I pressed my face against the window and mimed squashing each scampering cameraman in turn. “Why are they still there? Don’t they realize everyone up here has turned in for the night? What’s the point?”
Abby looked up from the dining room table and cast a grim look out the window. “They know their prey tends to stage daring escapes. They’re hoping to get lucky.”
“That’s true.” Nick glanced over fro
m his perch on the kitchen counter, where he’d been silently stacking antique shot glasses for the last twenty minutes. “Escape is always on our minds.”
A faint smile flickered across my face as I sank down on an ottoman, emitting a deep sigh, and the three of us lapsed into silence once more. It had been like that for the better part of an hour, ever since Nick’s theatrical reaction to James’s rather explosive news.
It was easy to see why the two were friends. I had never met such kindred spirits. From the looks, to the dramatics, to the charisma, to the whimsical fundamentals upon which they based their fantastical lives, it was like witnessing clones. The mirror image was only slightly askew with one major difference: The one sitting right across from me had made a commitment, had married a wife and started a family.
“It’s nearly six,” Abby said with a little sigh, sweeping her long hair back into a ponytail. “Do you think we should go check on him?”
Nick pushed automatically to his feet, but I beat him to it. “I’ll do it. It’s my turn.”
And there’s no one in the world I would rather see.
Like a ghost, I crept up the stairs to the second story, then flitted down the hallway toward James’s room. In that isolation, he’d begun making the dreaded phone calls to inform all interested parties about his father’s passing, those awkward calls that had to begin, “How do I say this?” In truth, I think he would have given up his fortune to delegate that horrible responsibility to someone else, but while the Cross family might have been powerful, it was small, and it was a safe bet that Robert would refuse to do it.
The door was swung absentmindedly shut, so a few inches of space were left between it and its frame, just enough for me to peek inside. When I did, I stopped in my tracks.
“Hi. Yes, hello? Is this Belfort Estates?” James raked his dark hair away from his eyes, and stared blindly at the wooden slats as he paced the floor. “Hi, Chester. Yes, I’m calling for Eloise Cross. Does she happen to be in?”
There was a brief pause, followed by a murmured thanks. James sat down on the bed to wait, looking like the personification of heartbreak itself. His eyes were red, his face pale, and a faint tremble shook his hands, one that didn’t seem it would ever go away.
I never would have guessed his misery from his voice. From a distance, that hypnotic English lilt was still strong, as if nothing was wrong, but that was James’s way. Frivolous details were shared without a moment’s thought, but everything important was tucked neatly inside, to be revealed only when necessary and never given away for free.
When a crackle of static echoed from the other line, James lifted his head. “Hello?” Just hearing the withered voice seemed to have a profound effect on him. He sank farther into the mattress and perched his feet upon the frame as his entire body wilted in release of a quiet sigh. “Granny, it’s James.”
During the next pause, a look of absolute devastation clouded his handsome face.
“No, everything’s fine with me. I’m just...” Unable to confess the reason for his call, he gripped the phone more tightly. “No, Granny, I said everything’s fine with me. I just... I don’t know if anyone has called you yet, but...”
I backed silently away from the door and pressed it shut, resolving that I would look in on him no more. It was time we left the man in peace.
A strange buzzing filled my ears as I floated back down the stairs and to the living room. The others hadn’t altered their position in the slightest. Abby was still staring bleakly out the window, lost in thought, and Nick was still cross-legged on the counter, playing absentmindedly with his $100,000 antique shot glass tower, since he seemed to think of everything as a toy for his amusement.
“How’s he doing?” Nick finally asked as I resumed my post on the ottoman.
“He’s fine,” I replied automatically, before reconsidering. “Actually, he’s almost a little too fine. If it was me, I’d be in a complete meltdown,” I said with a little frown.
“Well he did demand to take over his father’s company,” Abby murmured.
Nick shook his head, glancing toward the second story before returning robotically to his tower. “Too fine is to be expected. That’s how he acts in times of stress. And he’s stressed out. His dad took a turn for the worse last month and the Crosses worked hard to keep it out of the papers, but by the end, he was in a near-comatose state.”
“Is that why James returned to London?”
“His dad called him and begged him to return, so he did. James was sure he’d get better. He never dreamed in a million years that this was the end.”
