Cause For Alarm

He tightened his grip on her hair and shook her. “Where, Syl?”

She began to giggle, the sound unnaturally high, otherworldly. She brought a hand to her mouth as if to hold the giggles back; they bubbled from her lips anyway. “She came to me…you wanted her to have an abortion. I told her…you’re a…monster. A cold-blooded killer. She didn’t believe me, so I called Clark.” Her giggles became triumphant, bizarrely so, given her situation. “He showed her pictures of your handiwork. Proof, John. Proof.”

John froze, his fury awesome, glacial. Clark Russell, CIA grunt man, former comrade-in-arms, one of Sylvia’s lovers. One who knew too much about John Powers.

Clark Russell was a dead man.

John leaned toward Sylvia, the gun forcing her head back, her chin up. “Clark sharing classified information? I guess you’re a better lay than I thought.” He narrowed his eyes, disliking the way his heart had begun to hammer, his palms to sweat. “You shouldn’t have done that, Syl. It was a mistake.”

“To hell with you!” she cried, her voice rising. “You won’t find her! I told her to run, as fast and as far as she could…to save herself and the baby! You’ll never find her. Never!”

For a split second he considered the horror of that possibility, then he laughed. “Of course I will, Sylvia. It’s what I do. And when I find her, the problem will be eliminated. Then Julianna and I will be together again, the way we’re supposed to be.”

“You won’t! Never! You—”

He pulled the trigger. Brains and blood splattered across the antique white headboard and onto the pretty rose-patterned wallpaper beyond. John gazed at the mess a moment, then stood. “Goodbye, Sylvia,” he murmured, then turned and went in search of Julianna.

Part I

Kate and Richard

1

Mandeville, Louisiana, New Year’s Eve, 1998

Light blazed from every window of Kate and Richard Ryan’s grand old home on Mandeville’s Lakeshore Drive. The house had been built nearly a century before, at a time when gracious southern living meant something, a time before MTV and the breakdown of the American family, before it was okay for politicians to cheat on their wives and before the evening news calmly recounted grisly murders as if the daily occurrence of such events wasn’t a horror in and of itself.

The house, with its double, wraparound galleries and floor-to-ceiling windows, spoke of wealth, of status, of solidity. Of family. The family Kate and Richard would never have.

Kate stepped out onto the house’s upper gallery, shutting the French doors behind her, muffling the sounds of the New Year’s Eve party in full swing inside. The January night, bitter cold and blustery for southern Louisiana, slapped her in the face. Crossing to the gallery’s edge, she gazed out at the black, turbulent lake. She curled her fingers around the rail and leaned into the wind, unconcerned at the way it tore at her hair and cut through her thin, shirred velvet gown.

Across Lake Pontchartrain, connected by a twenty-six-mile causeway, lay New Orleans, a decaying jewel of a city, home to Mardi Gras and jazz and some of the best food in the world. Home, also, to the privilege of St. Charles Avenue, the poverty of the projects and the soaring crime rate that went with such explosive extremes.

Kate imagined the party happening on that shore, one celebrating not only the new year, but the last year in the century as well. A turning point, the end to an era, a door closing.

For her, too, she thought. And Richard.

Before the holidays, she and her husband had been forced to face the fact that they would never have children. The results of their last tests had been conclusive: Richard was sterile. Up to that point they had assumed their inability to conceive had been the result of her many, varied but correctable, problems. But when none of those corrections had done the trick, the doctor had insisted on testing Richard.

The results had devastated them both. Kate had been angry—at the world, at God, at all the people who had babies so effortlessly and with such little care. She had felt betrayed. Useless. Cast adrift.

And then she had felt better. For even though they hadn’t gotten the answer they’d wanted, at least they had one. She could give up the exhausting and emotionally draining quest for pregnancy and get on with her life; they could get on with their lives.

Infertility treatments had taken their toll. On her personally. On her and Richard’s marriage, on their professional lives. A part of her felt nothing but sweet relief at getting off that roller coaster, at being able to finally let it go.

If only she could let go of her longing for a child, her longing to be a mother. Some nights she lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, the ache inside her so great she couldn’t sleep.

Strong arms circled her from behind. Richard’s arms. “What are you doing out here?” he whispered, bending his head close to her ear. “And without a coat? You’ll catch your death.”

She shook off her melancholy and smiled over her shoulder at her husband of ten years. “With you to keep me warm? I don’t think so.”

He grinned, and his eyes crinkled at the corners. At that moment he looked as boyishly handsome at thirty-five as he had at twenty when she met him. He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. “We could get naked and do the wild thing. Right here. Right now.”

“Sounds kinky.” She turned in his arms and looped hers around his neck. “I’m game.”

He laughed and leaned his forehead against hers. “And what would our guests think?”

“Hopefully they’re all too well-mannered to wander up here uninvited.”

“And if they’re not?”

“They’ll see a side of us they never have before.”

“What would I do without you?” He dropped a kiss on her mouth and drew slightly away from her. “It’s about time for me to make my announcement.”

“Nervous?”

“Who me?” He laughed and shook his head. “Never.”

He meant it, Kate knew. Her husband’s self-confidence never ceased to amaze her. Tonight, he was announcing his intention to run for St. Tammany Parish District Attorney, yet he wasn’t nervous. He wasn’t anxious or plagued by self-doubt and second thoughts.

Why should he be? He expected his announcement to be applauded by their family and friends, by his business associates and the leaders of the community. And he expected not only to win the race, but that the run would be nearly effortless.

Of course he did. Richard had always lived a kind of starred existence. Had always been the chosen one, the one voted most likely to succeed, the winner. He wore success as comfortably as others wore ten-year-old athletic shoes.

“You’re certain Larry, Mike and Chas are one hundred percent behind this?” she asked, referring to his law partners at Nicholson, Bedico, Chaney & Ryan.

“Absolutely. What about you, Kate?” He searched her gaze. “Are you one hundred percent behind me? If I win, our lives will change. We’ll be scrutinized, constantly under the magnifying glass.”

“Trying to frighten me off?” she teased, leaning against him. “Well, it won’t work. I’m one hundred percent behind you and your decision. And you might as well forget about ‘If you’re going to win,’ because you are. I’m certain of it.”

“With you at my side, how can I not?”

When she tried to laugh off his words, he cupped her face in his palms and gazed into her eyes. “I mean it. You have magic, Katherine Mary McDowell Ryan. You always have. Thank you for sharing it with me.”

Tears stung her eyes. She chided herself for her earlier melancholy and silently counted her blessings. The girl who’d worn shoes with holes in the soles and hand-me-down school uniforms to St. Catherine’s, the girl who had never known the security of a comfortable home, the one who had attended Tulane University on a scholarship, squeaking by borrowing books and waiting tables at night, had come a long way. In no small part because Richard Ryan, favorite son of one of New Orleans’ first families had unbelievably, miraculously, fallen in love with her.

“I love you, Richard.”

“Thank God.” He leaned his forehead against hers. “Now, can we please go inside?”

She agreed and within minutes they were swept back into the party, surrounded, then separated by their jubilant guests. Richard made his announcement and, as expected, his news was greeted by those not already in the know with cheers of approval.

From that moment on, the party became almost manic. As if all in attendance had been struck by a strange sort of energy, a sense that life as it had been was about to change. The year 1999. The fin de siècle. The stuff of the future, of science fiction, of uncertainty and the unknown—not of the now. Not of everyday lives.

Midnight came. Confetti and streamers flew and horns sounded. Hugs and kisses were exchanged, more champagne drunk. The caterer served a buffet brunch. It was eaten and enjoyed then finally, one by one, Kate and Richard’s guests began to leave.

As Richard walked the last out, Kate began picking up even though they’d contracted a cleaning service to take care of the mess first thing in the morning.