“And that’s it? A night out?”
“That’s it. He lives in Vermont but he visits Chicago for business. It’s perfect.”
“How do you know him?”
“Work. He used to be at Presario. I haven’t seen him in years, but I ran into him in Montreal. And how fantastic is this? He’s opening a restaurant called the Twilight Club in St. Marabel. It’s outside Montreal.”
“Exactly how am I supposed to date a man who lives in Vermont and is opening a business in Canada?”
“Have you not heard me? I’m just talking about one date.”
“Why don’t you date him?”
She made a snorting sound. “He’s not my type, and I have no interest in the French thing, unlike you. So can I have him call you? He’s coming to Chicago to meet with investors for his restaurant. He’s staying at the Peninsula.”
“Expensive.”
“Well, he’s got money. I’m telling you, this guy has everything, Kate—looks, smarts, money, sense of humor.”
I stood away from the fridge and walked into the powder room just outside the kitchen. I flicked on the light and looked at myself in the mirror. “I’d need a haircut,” I said. My blond hair, which I normally wore to my chin, had become unruly over the past few months. The too-long bangs had to be pushed aside now and the ends were in desperate need of a trim.
“So get a haircut, for Christ’s sake,” Liza said. “Get some new clothes, get a massage, treat yourself. Head down to Michigan Avenue and do some Christmas shopping.”
“Maybe,” I said in a noncommittal way.
The truth was, I’d lacked motivation of any kind since Scott took off. For the first time in my adult life, I hadn’t even put up a Christmas tree. All I could manage was to drive to work every day, which was tough since I’d come to despise my job as an accountant at a medical-supply company. Before Scott and I got married, I used to work downtown at a big accounting agency, where we had major clients with interesting portfolios. Most people consider accounting boring, but I’ve always loved the order of it. My job seemed a challenging puzzle. But once I began working in medical supplies there were very few puzzles. Instead, I was crunching numbers about bedpans and catheters. The job was easier than my old one—and it was just a ten-minute drive from the house—but these things mattered only when Scott and I assumed we’d be having children. At least I hadn’t changed my name. My family’s name, Greenwood, was the one thing about my life that still felt like mine.
“God, I wish I was there to get you out of that house,” Liza said.
“Where are you now?”
“Copenhagen.”
Liza had an apartment in Chicago overlooking Lake Michigan, but as the head of international sales for Presario Pharmaceuticals, she was often globe-trotting.
“Your cell phone works in Copenhagen?”
“My cell phone works everywhere. And if it doesn’t I forward it to one that does.”
“How is Copenhagen?” I asked.
“Freaking freezing.”
“Are you having any fun?”
“When do I have time for fun?”
“Liza, you can’t work all the time.”
“Shut up, we’re talking about your pathetic life, remember? Let him take you to dinner.”
“You’re relentless.”
“Someone’s got to be. So what do you say?”
I groaned. And yet I felt buoyed just by talking to Liza. She had that effect on me. I glanced out the powder-room window at the lonely swing set. “All right. Have him call me.”
3
Thirty-seven years earlier
Fort Benning, Georgia
A t fifteen thousand feet, the door of the DC-47 was unceremoniously yanked open, letting in a roar Michael Waller could compare to nothing he’d heard before. A piercing, silvery morning light flooded the plane, and fierce winds stung his eyes.
“This is it!” his team leader shouted. “Hook up, check down, stand in the door.”
Michael adjusted the pack straps on his parachute, tightening them past the point that had been recommended.
“Waller! You’re up!” he heard, sending his heart rate into full gallop.
He walked toward the door, crouched low and hunched forward like a turtle with too heavy a shell on its back. He’d endured much in his specialized army training—jungle school at Holabird, where his group was forced to walk for days in jungle-like conditions, and enemy captivity training at Fort Polk, where they were put into metal lockers and buried underground—but nothing was as intense or terrifying for Michael as having to dive out of a plane.
He knew this was considered fun for most, and he’d told no one how scared he was. His fear of heights embarrassed him, almost as much as the reason for that fear. As the yawning door of the plane came closer, he saw his father’s face—handsome but cruel—as he stood on the high dive of their local pool, right before he picked up his five-year-old son and dangled him, headfirst, above the water, the glints of yellow sunlight thankfully blinding Michael’s eyes. His father had thought this stunt would make Michael tough. Unfortunately, it had had the opposite effect where heights were concerned, and that too mortified Michael. He’d always told his father in later years that the high-dive trick had worked. He wasn’t afraid of heights at all. But he’d lied.
If Michael’s son-of-a-bitch father could see him now, he’d be proud. Finally. The problem was, Michael hadn’t been able to tell anyone about the training they’d been put through. He’d volunteered for the army for the same reason a lot of guys did—boredom, literally a lack of anything better to do. He had checked Intelligence as his desired field, mostly because it sounded very James Bond.
He’d been put through testing and accepted for agent training and the intelligence corps. At Holabird, his schooling had been fun at first, as had the after-hours trips to downtown Baltimore. But the training had become more intense, and agents were weeded out. Michael knew he must have shown an aptitude for something to have been allowed to continue. Yet it was confusing, because no one knew what kind of program they were being brought into, or what, exactly, they were being trained to do.
And now this. Now he had to throw himself out of a goddamn plane.
“Waller, ready!” his team leader yelled as Michael reached the door.
He stood paralyzed, feeling the sting and scream of the wind on his face. He looked down and saw the land fifteen thousand feet beneath him, resembling a patchwork of emerald and dirt brown, while the sky’s powdery blue spread around him. No way, he said to himself. He turned his head, ready to call it off for the sake of survival, when again he saw his father’s face.
“Waller, ready!” his team leader yelled again.
This time he shouted back, “Waller, ready!” surprised at the heartiness of his voice.
He grasped the sides of the door, rocked himself three times and flung himself out. His body flipped head over toes. Over and over again. His brain fought every instinct and warning that his frantic nerves sent. He arched his chest and hips to the point of pain, forming a U shape, the way he’d been taught. Finally, the position of the body worked, and he was hovering facedown, flying through the blue, his cheeks flapping. There was no sensation of falling. He’d been told that but hadn’t believed it. He was simply suspended there, bouncing in the sky, above everything, above reason or fear