The Beach House. Mary Monroe Alice

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СКАЧАТЬ was aware of an unusual, tense silence in the spread of gray cubicles and cramped offices broken only by an occasional ring of the phone followed by a muffled sob. Empty file boxes lined the halls, and most frightening of all, armed guards stood by the elevators. She swallowed hard and walk stiff-leggedly through the maze of halls and rooms. The rumors were true, after all. Heads were rolling on a mass scale.

      By the time she’d arrived in Mr. Alexander’s office, her body was moist with a fine sweat. She woodenly took a seat. Refused the offer of coffee or water. In the end, there were no surprises. He informed her in his thin, nasal voice that he was terribly sorry but as executive officer, she would bear the brunt of the loss of a major account. While listening to him drone on about the firm’s generous severance package, Cara crossed her legs, folded her hands neatly in her lap and looked out the plate glass window, numb with shock. When the humiliating session was over, she rose, politely thanked Mr. Alexander for his time, told him she would collect her personal things later, then left the building—accompanied by an armed guard.

      She’d gone straight home to her cramped, one-bedroom condominium on the lake. The somewhat shabby space represented every penny she’d saved in the past twenty years. She’d bought it because it was near the water, the last vestige of homesickness after a long exile. Yet it wasn’t the safe haven one returned to when hurt by slings and arrows. It wasn’t a home that marked milestones or greeted family members. These walls held no memories of laughter or treasured moments. With its minimalist style, the cool colors of ice-blue and gray on the walls and upholstery, and the scarcity of personal items, there wasn’t a clue to her personality or interests. Her condo was merely where she went to sleep at night. It was a place to store her meaningless possessions, every bit as stark as a bank vault.

      And it was all she had in the world.

      It was chilling to wake up at forty years of age to find she had no friends, no interests and no investments in anything unconnected to her work. She had delayed too long, put such things on hold until she had time. She had defined herself by her job and now, suddenly, everything was gone and she was back once again in her mother’s house, in the bed she’d slept in as a child, every bit as uncertain at forty as she had been at eighteen.

      Cara wrapped her arms around herself and shivered, feeling the kind of bitter cold that went straight to one’s marrow. The kind that felt very much like fear.

      Sometime later, she wasn’t sure if she was dreaming or if she really felt her mother’s touch at her temple, smoothing back the soft hairs from her face, and a tender kiss placed on her forehead.

      Female loggerheads return home to nest. Is it imprinting or genes that prompts this behavior? Smells or sounds? Perhaps magnetic fields? No one knows for sure.

      CHAPTER TWO

      The South Carolina moon can lull one to sleep with its silvery glow, but the coastal sun is as sharp and piercing as a bugle call. Cara pried open an eye to the glaring shine flowing in from the open window. It took a moment to place where she was and to register the contrast of blaring car horns to the relentless, cheery chirping of birds. The long drive, the lost job—it all came back in a blinding flash. Groaning, she plopped a pillow over her head just as the telephone began ringing down the hall.

      When it became obvious no one was going to answer it, she threw the pillow off, tugged her T-shirt down over her panties, then scuttled like a sand crab down the narrow hall to where the cottage’s single phone rested on a wooden trestle table.

      “Hello?” she answered with a froggy voice.

      There was a pause. “Olivia?” The woman’s voice on the line was high with uncertainty.

      “No, this isn’t Lovie,” she replied, stifling a yawn. “It’s her daughter.”

      “Oh.” Another pause. “I didn’t know Lovie had a daughter.”

      Cara rubbed her eyes and waited.

      “May I speak to your mother?”

      No one had asked her that question in over twenty years. Cara blinked sleepily while she gazed around the living room. The house was as quiet as a mouse.

      “She’s not here.”

      “But…I’ve found turtle tracks!”

      Gauging by the panic in the voice, Cara figured the woman was one of her mother’s novice volunteers for the island’s Turtle Team. “Uh, great,” she replied. “Thanks. I’ll tell her when she comes back.”

      “Wait! Don’t you want to know where they are? I’m at the 6th Avenue beach access. What should I do? Should I wait here?”

      Cara sighed and woke up a little more. “Really, I don’t have the foggiest idea what to tell you to do and without coffee I couldn’t even venture a guess.”

      From out on the porch she heard the footfall of someone trudging up the steps. Thanks heavens, the cavalry, she thought.

      “Hold on,” she told the woman on the phone. “I think that must be her now.” Cara stretched the cord of the ancient black phone to peek around the corner. The front door swung open. Instead of her mother, however, she saw a young woman enter the house free-as-you-please. Her shaggy, blond hair cascaded over her eyes as she bent down, struggling with several plastic grocery bags. With a muffled grunt, she kicked the door shut with her heel.

      The young woman was hardly threatening in appearance. Pregnant women usually weren’t. She wore a pastel, A-line floral dress that was very short and cheaply made of thin rayon that lifted higher in the front where the fabric strained against her belly. When the woman raised her head she shook her hair back and their eyes met.

      Cara ducked her head back behind the corner, tugging down her T-shirt. In contrast, the woman didn’t seem the least astonished to find Cara in the house. Cara leaned against the hall wall listening as the mystery woman moved on into the kitchen without so much as a hello, opening and closing cabinets as though she owned the place.

      “Excuse me,” Cara called out with authority. “But who are you?”

      “Didn’t your mama tell you about me?” she called back. Her voice carried the drawl of a rural southern accent.

      It flashed through Cara’s mind that she’d fallen asleep without a meal or so much as a good-night to her mother. They hadn’t had a chance to talk about schedules or visitors or a girl who might stop by in the morning. Cara assumed she was either a neighbor or someone hired to help with the shopping.

      From the phone, a strident voice rose up. “Hello? Hello? Is anyone there?”

      Cara called out to the woman in the kitchen. “I’ve got a frantic phone call here about a turtle. Do you know where my mother is?”

      “I’ll take it.”

      The voice drew nearer and in a moment the face was looming before her. Cara saw that it wasn’t a woman’s face at all, but a teenager’s. The girl had a sexy, baby-doll kind of face, all rounding cheeks and full, pouty lips. Her youth surprised Cara and her gaze dropped to the belly. Instantly the girl’s hand moved to rest on the rounding curve. Looking up again, Cara saw the girl’s pale-gray eyes turn icy. Lined as they were by dark kohl, the challenge she read in them gave her a hardened, tough-girl appearance that set Cara immediately on edge. СКАЧАТЬ