suggested. “Make sure the kids are fed or whatever, take a moment to calm down—”
Nikki started to cry.
“Nikki,” I said after several seconds. “Nikki?”
“Morris thinks I’m overreacting,” she sniffed. “Do you think I’m overreacting?”
I didn’t want to answer the question. I didn’t want to answer it truthfully, that is—not with my sister bawling on the other end of my phone line.
So I said, “You’re emotional. That’s understandable. But like I said, you have to calm down. If not for your sake, then for your kids. This can’t be good for them.”
“Okay,” Nikki said, and I heard her inhaling some deep breaths. “You’re right. Mommy’s sorry,” she said to the boys. “I’m just a little bit mad at your dad right now.”
Understatement of the century. “Call me when you get home,” I said. “We’ll talk some more.”
“We’re almost home, so I’ll drop Morris off, then head straight to your place.”
“You’ll what?”
“I really need you right now, Vanessa.” Nikki’s voice broke. “I really need my sister.”
“Yes, but, I made plans. How about later?”
The dial tone sounded in my ear.
Oh, for God’s sake. Had my sister heard me? Was she going to go home and stay there—or would she soon be on her way?
With any luck, Nikki’s spat with Morris would be resolved by the time she got home, and she’d call to tell me that she was no longer coming over.
I reached forward and pulled Rayna into my arms, frowning as I did. Nikki being Nikki, if she did come here and I wasn’t around, I wouldn’t hear the end of it.
“Let’s go zoo!” Rayna said.
Damn, this wasn’t fair. I had a fun day planned for my daughter, and now it was ruined. “Maybe we can go see the monkeys and all the animals another time,” I suggested. “Your cousins are coming over, so you can play with them.”
“Monkeys,” Rayna said, pouting. “Zebras.”
“I know. But, your Auntie Nikki is coming over. And she’s on her way right now, which means we can’t leave.” I kissed Rayna’s temple. “Next weekend, I promise.”
Rayna’s pout grew larger.
Beside me on the sofa were two of her ponies, her favorite toys to play with. I lifted both and gave her one. “How about we play ponies? Is this one Rainbow Dash?” I asked as I held up the green one, knowing full well that this one’s name was not Rainbow Dash.
“No,” Rayna admonished with a smile, happy to be able to correct me. “That’s Minty.”
“That’s right. Green tea.”
“No! Minty.”
“Ohh. Minty.”
“Yes, Minty.”
“Rayna, do you want to play with me?” I asked in a high-pitched voice, prancing Minty around.
Rayna giggled, then began playing with her own pony. We played together for several minutes before I remembered Carla.
“Just a minute, sweetie. Mommy has to make a call.”
I lifted the receiver from beside me on the sofa and punched in the digits to Carla’s number.
“I’m sorry, Carla,” I said after I filled her in. “But you know my sister. And I can live without the headache of her freaking out when she comes over and finds I’m not here.”
“I understand,” Carla said.
“Next weekend?”
“It’s a date.”
I brewed a fresh pot of coffee, figuring I’d need the extra caffeine if I was going to have to spend the next several hours drowning in a sea of my sister’s issues.
Not something I relished, considering I had enough problems of my own.
I waited.
And waited.
Nikki didn’t show.
3
By the next morning, I still hadn’t heard from my sister—but I also hadn’t heard from the police with any bad news. I was pissed that she’d had so little regard for my time that she didn’t have the decency to call and say she wasn’t coming over.
I wondered if she’d even given me a second thought. If she’d considered, even for a moment, that she’d done anything wrong.
But I soon stopped thinking about Nikki when I got to work and saw the temp receptionist behind the desk in the entrance to the office. She had frizzy red hair and a face full of freckles, and looked nothing like the woman she was filling in for. Though the temp had been there for the past two weeks, it still caught me off guard to see her sitting behind the broad desk.
Still made me feel a moment of sadness and anger that she had to be there at all.
Alaina Rivera, my good friend and the agency’s regular receptionist, was home recovering after a vicious attack by her jealous and out-of-control ex-husband. She’d been banged up pretty good, had spent a week in hospital, and God only knew how much longer she would be off of work due to her injuries.
I pushed aside my feelings about Alaina and smiled at the temp as I strode past the reception desk. “Good morning, Nora.”
“Good morning.”
I was almost fully out of the foyer when I heard her ask tentatively, “Um, Ms. Cain?”
I halted, turned back. “Yes, Nora?”
“There was a call for you about ten minutes ago. From a Bradley Harris? He’s from—”
“Harris, Lawton and Stein. Yes, I know.”
“Oh. Well, he said that you two have been playing phone tag and it’s crucial that you call him back today.”
Bradley and I had not been playing phone tag. I’d been avoiding him after his phone call a week and a half earlier, when he’d told me that Tassie no longer wanted me to buy out Eli’s share of my condo—she wanted me out, period.
The way I saw it, I didn’t have much to say to Bradley Harris on the matter, because I wasn’t planning on moving.
Nora extended a sheet of paper to me. “He, uh, left numbers where you can reach him.”
“Thank you.” I walked back to the reception desk, where I took the slip of paper from Nora, though I didn’t have any intention of calling Bradley back.
I mean, what was the point? We didn’t see eye to eye on this issue, and likely never would. I figured if I avoided him long enough, Tassie would give up on her demand and they’d disappear from my life forever.
A girl can hope, can’t she?
I continued on to my office, where I crumpled the note with the lawyer’s phone numbers and tossed it in the trash.
I didn’t want to call him. I’d played nice, danced around like a puppet as Tassie pulled the strings and got a good laugh out of making my life hell. Trying to “come up with a solution,” as the lawyer had suggested, had resulted in Tassie changing her mind. So really, could my plan to ignore her and her lawyer put me in a worse position than I already was in?
Though I’d had that nightmare about being forced out of my home, I didn’t believe for a second that was going to happen.
I settled in behind my desk and booted my computer up. It was a Monday morning,