“I want you to know how deeply we regret this terrible accident.” She spoke stiffly now, without her customary charisma, as though she were reading from a prepared statement. “Of course we intend—”
“Accident? Wasn’t no accident killed Louise—it was negligence, pure and simple!”
“Negligent homicide.”
“Murder, that’s what it was!”
“Yeah, out-and-out murder.”
At that outburst, Kenny Baumgartner came alert in his chair and placed a protective arm across the back of Ruthie’s. Mrs. Schmidt shifted and made distressed noises, while Father Frank leaped to his feet, arms upraised to quiet the angry delegates.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please—this isn’t what we came here for. We came here to talk—and listen. Let’s listen to what she has to say.”
Patrick Kaufman, who had moved to his client’s side at the first angry shout, was now urgently whispering in her ear. Phoenix listened, nodded almost imperceptibly, then faced the room once more. This time her eyes stabbed at the seated delegates, cold blue slashes from out of a face so set and pale it seemed frozen.
“Until yesterday,” she said in a tight, harsh voice completely unlike her famous tiger’s purr, “I had no idea I even owned these buildings, much less what condition they were in. Now that the…situation has been brought to my attention, obviously I’m going to see to it that any existing problems are taken care of. If you people will submit a list of needed repairs, Mr. Kaufman will—”
“What’s wrong in The Gardens ain’t no paint and plaster gonna fix,” said the older man who’d first spoken. Once again his neighbors muttered and nodded, apparently approving of the job he was doing as their spokesman. Until he added, “Those buildings shoulda been condemned a long time ago.”
Now the murmurs of approval broke off in a collective double take, followed by a few uncertain little cries of protest. Father Frank and Mrs. Schmidt both turned toward the speaker in alarm. Directly across the table from the outspoken man, a black woman with caramel-colored hair sculpted into a tower of braids and curls half rose and leaned toward him on her hands. “What you talkin’ about, condemned? Then where am I gonna go, huh? You tell me that, Jerome Wilkins! Ain’t nothin’ else around here I can afford.”
Jerome shifted his focus from the head of the table to this new protagonist. “You rather stay and have the place fall down on your head? What’s wrong with you, Neva? You just got done telling me you got chunks falling outa your ceiling, came near to hitting the baby’s bed. Now you’re telling me—”
“Chunks of plaster? That ain’t nothin’. I got rats big as cats climbin’ in bed with my kids. You want to see—”
And suddenly everyone was talking at once, shouting back and forth across the conference table, some even whacking its polished surface with open palms or fists to make their point. Father Frank was on his feet again, pleading for calm to absolutely no effect. Kenny Baumgartner had his body shifted clear around to form a barrier between Ruthie and the other delegates, as if he expected missiles to start flying at any moment. Mrs. Schmidt had her hand over her mouth and her eyes closed and was slowly shaking her head.
So it was that, for a moment at least, no one but Ethan noticed that Phoenix had left the lectern. Only he watched her business manager dither briefly, then step out of her way…watched as she strode the length of the room, back the way she’d come, moving so quickly her passing left a breeze. By the time she reached the door, though, every eye in the room was on her, and the bickering and shouting had died into abashed silence.
Phoenix turned, one hand on the doorknob, and spoke to the shocked assembly in a voice barely above a whisper. “I will not deal with a mob. One person…I’ll talk to one person. You—” and she pointed a finger directly at Ethan “—the quiet one—what’s your name?”
Ethan probably couldn’t have answered if his life had depended on it. Fortunately, Father Frank stepped in and did it for him. “Uh…this is Dr. Brown,” the priest said hoarsely, so flustered he actually stammered. “He’s the doctor that—”
“Fine,” snapped Phoenix. “Doc, I’ll meet with you. Patrick, set it up.”
And she was gone, leaving a room filled with frustrated silence behind her.
Leaving Ethan with an image burned into his mind like a sun-shape branded on his retinas: the image of a set, pale face and a pair of eyes that no longer reminded him even remotely of a dead woman’s…eyes so charged with emotion they left him feeling as though he’d received a jolt of electricity. He felt shocked and confused…and no longer certain the emotion he’d seen in those violent eyes was anger.
Chapter 3
“Why does it have to be me?” Ethan said to Father Frank in a low voice, half grumbling, half honest bewilderment. “You’re the one who should be doing this. You’re the group’s organizer and spokesman. I never said a word. What in the hell made her pick me?”
The two of them were alone in the conference room; the other delegates of Citizens’ Alliance had long since been herded away by the relentlessly frosty secretary, and Patrick Kaufman had gone to consult with his client about arrangements for meeting with her chosen delegate. Father Frank was sitting in one of the conference chairs, leaning back with his arms folded across his belly, looking remarkably at ease and cheery, Ethan thought, for a man who’d just had a meeting of critical importance blow up in his face.
He, on the other hand, found it impossible to sit still. At the same time restless and wary, he paced with the slow and tentative edginess of a cat exploring unfamiliar territory. When he got no immediate answer to his question Ethan threw the priest a glance and found him smiling.
“What?” he demanded with a small uplift of shoulders and hands. For Ethan, who prided himself on his easygoing and unflappable nature, it was a gesture of extreme annoyance.
Father Frank shook his head, in the maddeningly smug way of someone who knows the solution to a particularly vexing riddle. “To answer your first question, simply, it has to be you because you’re who Phoenix picked. She’s calling the shots right now, in case you haven’t noticed. It appears she’s called our bluff. Maybe she knows we don’t want publicity over this any more than she does—that it won’t get us what we’re after, which is action, fast. We’re lucky she’s at least willing to work with us—with you, anyway. As for why you—” He broke off, once more shaking his head, though his smile was more wry, now, than smug. “You really don’t have a clue, do you?”
Ethan did have a clue, actually, but it embarrassed him to say it. He waited, scowling, for his former college roommate to do so instead.
The priest obliged with a sigh. “You’re a guy. As in, young, impressionable, and above all, the opposite gender.”
Ethan snorted in a wholly ineffective attempt to disguise his discomfort. “You’re a guy, Kenny’s a guy, half the tenants are guys.”
“I’m a priest, in case you’ve forgotten. And it’s pretty obvious to anyone with half a brain that Kenny’s only got eyes for Ruthie. The tenants are after her blood, so that leaves you. Besides, as I said, you’re young, good-looking—”
“Impressionable. You said impressionable.”
“Yeah, I did.” Father Frank was silent for a moment. “I think it’s pretty safe to say Phoenix is someone who’s accustomed to having her way. She’s used to being the one in control. That’s why she walked out just now. Things had gotten out of hand—she wasn’t in control. She thinks—”