The renovation had now outlasted the relationship by several weeks. The breakup had been amiable, as were most of his breakups.
When he had complained to the manager about the noise in 602 for the third time, Mrs. Bulittle had sniffed and said, “It’s not as if Mr. Wilson hasn’t had a noisy party or two.”
Daniel was pretty sure he’d heard the slightest touch of smugness in her voice, which was possible since Mrs. Bulittle lived directly below 502, in 402.
She had no doubt suffered a night or two of lost sleep herself, since Daniel could vouch for the noisiness of several parties he had attended in this very apartment.
Ah, he and Kevin had enviable lives. Successful thirtysomethings, unattached, and pretty much devoted to keeping it that way, much to the chagrin of both their mothers!
Daniel, where are you staying during the reno of your loft? I can’t reach you. Is this any way to treat your mother?
Mom, I’m fine. Just busy.
He followed that with a couple of heart symbols. He liked texting! You could have the pretext of intimacy while being totally disengaged. To assuage the slight guilt he was feeling for avoiding her, he sent her flowers, thanking his lucky stars that her marriage to Pierre had landed her in Montreal and she loved it there and still lived there. If she was local and lacking his current address? She would be camped out in his office!
* * *
Kevin was an internationally known photographer, Daniel the head of River’s Edge. His company was a software engineering firm that had developed some of the best technologies used in the Alberta oil fields.
In recent years, Daniel had applied his considerable ambition and business acumen to real estate, and investing in young companies that he thought had potential. So he was not accustomed to being brushed off by a building manager, who had told him, with a certain mean satisfaction, “I’ll give you the tenant’s name and phone number. You talk to her.”
The her in question was Patricia Marsh. When Daniel called, he had to shout to make himself heard over the caterwauling in the background. She’d sounded harried, exhausted and she had been totally apologetic. Her nieces were visiting. They were from Australia, the difference in times meant they were having trouble settling into a normal routine.
She had promised changes, and Patricia Marsh had possessed one of those lovely, husky voices that might have inspired belief in one less jaded than himself. He had ended the call on a curt note—probably more because of being harassed by his mother than anything to do with Patricia Marsh—but oh, well.
None of the promised changes had materialized, so he was less and less sorry for the curt note.
It was day four—make that night four—in the combat zone. There was sudden silence above his head, but instead of enjoying it, Daniel noted that his headache felt permanent, and his shoulders were bunched up with tension.
So, the visiting children were having a little break right now. He wished he could appreciate the silence, and he tried to. He closed his eyes, willed himself back to sleep.
He was closing the Bentley deal tomorrow. Months of groundwork were coming to fruition. He needed to be razor-sharp and ready. He needed his sleep. But instead of sleeping, he contemplated the silence with deep suspicion, like a soldier waiting for the firing to start again.
Five minutes. Then ten. Then fifteen. At half an hour of blissful silence, he took a deep breath, and allowed himself to be lulled into a sense of security. The knot in his forehead relaxed ever so slightly and he felt his shoulders unwind.
Tomorrow, he’d go get a hotel for the duration of the children’s visit. He’d been to that nice boutique hotel across from the Bow River at the invitation of a visiting female executive a few years back. They had luxurious, quiet suites. He remembered there were great jogging paths at Prince’s Island. He could run in the morning before he went to the office—
His eyes closed. Ahhh. Bliss.
* * *
Trixie Marsh’s eyes fluttered open, and for a moment she just felt the utter contentment of having rested. But the moment was fleeting.
It was very dark in her apartment. Was she sitting up? She felt deeply disoriented.
The twins! She had not rested properly since the arrival of her four-year-old nieces.
Even as she’d worried about her own twin sister Abby’s seemingly impulsive plan to drop off her children, she had been thrilled to have time with Molly and Pauline. She had envisioned finger painting and building with Play-Doh, romps in the park and bedtime stories. Trixie had envisioned time with the twins as a glimpse at the life she always wanted for herself.
And really she should have known better! The life she had always wanted for herself was really the life she had always had growing up: surrounded by family and laughter, a sense of safety and belonging.
Always had, until her parents had been killed in a car accident the year she had graduated from high school. Since then, it seemed the more she chased after what had once been, the more it eluded her like a ghostly vision, growing dimmer with each passing day of her life.
As it turned out, her nieces preferred their finger painting on the walls. And on each other’s faces. And on the cat. They liked eating Play-Doh and they loved that this unusual dietary choice made for very colorful poop.
They didn’t listen to Trixie ever, they were up all night and the man in the apartment below her—it couldn’t be that Daniel Riverton, could it?—was complaining. In a voice so sexy it made Trixie’s heart hurt!
“Enough,” she snapped at herself, out loud. It occurred to her it was night and her apartment was eerily silent.
Plus enough did not come out enough. It came out a garbled eblubluk. There was something in her mouth. It felt almost as if her cat, Freddy, a long-haired Persian, was nestled close to her face. She went to brush him away.
And that’s when Trixie realized she was trapped. Her arms wouldn’t move. And neither would her legs.
Suddenly, panic rising, it came back to her.
“Auntie,” Molly said, blinking her huge brown eyes at her, “this is our favorite game. Our mommy lets us play it. You sit in the chair, and Pauline and I go around and around you with the roll of toilet tissue.”
It had seemed harmless enough. And quiet, too. What she had not been counting on was the almost hypnotic effect of her nieces moving silently around and around her, pink tongues caught between little teeth in concentration.
What she hadn’t realized was the depths of her own exhaustion, and how relieved she was that they were being quiet.
What she hadn’t realized was that enough of that tissue could bind like steel. It wasn’t just tissue. She could taste the fluff of quilting batting in her mouth.
Frantically, Trixie pulled at her limbs. She was stuck fast to the chair.
Endless scenarios began to run through her head. None of them had a happy ending. She was going to die. She just knew it. Her whole life was flashing before her eyes: she and Abby growing up in their matching clothes, unwrapping gifts at the Christmas tree, baking cookies with their mother, at the cottage...and then the knock on the door.
So sorry, an accident.