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  Jessie walked over to the cupboard, took out one of the bottles of hard liquor and unscrewed the top. She reached up to the cupboard, took out two shot glasses, and poured the drink. “Well, here’s to finding your courage.”

  Melanie couldn’t find her courage if it hung around her neck like a necklace. The more time she packed, the less sure she felt about her decision to go see Luke. Jessie wasn’t much help either, sitting on the bed with a righteous gaze and commenting on anything Melanie put in her bag. “That shirt’s too low-cut to mean business,” she said. “You need to look the part. I still think a suit would be best.”

  “A suit will be wrinkled and stuffy from a five-hour drive. I’ll wear a t-shirt with a jacket,” Melanie said. “I’m driving up tomorrow, which means I’ll wear something comfortable. I’ll go to his house, talk to him, turn around, and drive home. End of story. I’ll lose a day-and-a-half of my vacation at most.”

  “What if he asks you to stay for dinner?” Jessie frowned and nodded her chin to the black cocktail dress hanging in Melanie’s closet.

  “He won’t.”

  “You have to admit, it would be satisfying to have the opportunity to turn him down.”

  “He’s not going to ask me to dinner.”

  “This is going to be a total disaster,” she mumbled. Jessie hopped off the bed and walked over to Melanie’s dresser. “I’m nervous for you. This could go twenty different ways.”

  “Then I’m taking a chance.” Melanie zipped up her bag. “I have one change of clothes in case I need to stop in a hotel on the way back.”

  “I’d like to argue against Mark’s logic, really I would. I also know he’s right at the same time. You’re the person in our family with a shot at getting him to listen. Maybe he’ll agree out of guilt for what he’d done to Mark. Maybe Luke will use this as an apology for dumping you so cruelly through his lawyer. You’re empathic, a good risk-taker, and you’ve been negotiating between Mark and me for years. You’re a classic middle child and you’re used to fighting to get your way. So fight. Mom will be livid I’m sure. She’ll wave this off as you being on some peacemaking crusade within our family.”

  “I don’t want Mom to know where I am. I don’t want her worried.” Melanie picked up the bag and put it on her nightstand, next to the address she’d written down. Turns out, Luke’s address wasn’t difficult to track down. The street name and address number left Melanie a little confused as to whether this was a business or a residence. By this time tomorrow, she’d know either way.

  “I wish I could watch from a hidden camera and see the look on his face when he sees you.” The family photo framed on the dresser showed off their family prior to the divorce and she absentmindedly smeared a layer of dust off the glass. “Luke’s made something of himself. He’s not the small business owner he was when he’d worked with Mark. He sells gemstones in the big league now. Luke and his brothers have all been in the news at some point. Don’t you pay attention? They bring back these unheard of gemstones and sell them for a lot more money than you’ll ever make. I wonder what the company would be like today, if Mark hadn’t gone to prison, if they’d remained friends and business partners.”

  “I wouldn’t know.” Melanie scoffed; knowing she’d thought similar thoughts. “Personally, I’m offended you’ve kept track of Luke and his family.”

  “I looked him up while you took a shower. Maybe Luke has forgotten about Mark. Perhaps he doesn’t think of us and what he’s done to our family at all. Aren’t you a little curious?”

  “No.” Melanie shot Jessie an incredulous glance.

  “Mark is right to try and pursue Luke’s forgiveness, even if this whole visit is one big act. Our brother can talk a good game, and you’re skilled at telling people the reality of their situation. Look what you do in your job each day. You look at some scared, worried parent in the face and tell them that their child needs more testing; that their child isn’t where he should be developmentally. You break down the bad news on a daily basis and they pay you to come back.”

  Maybe time had softened Luke’s perspective on the situation and perhaps, he would be open to listening, and what if, what if, he agreed to write a letter of support without reservations? Melanie released some of the weighed down hope she’d been holding onto.

  “Keep me updated, will you?” Jessie set the photo frame back down. “I won’t let our mother in on the scheme.” She gave Melanie a fierce hug. “Don’t let him win this time.”

  “I’m going to bed,” Melanie said, stepping out of Jessie’s embrace. “You should too.”

  “Wake me up in the morning, before you go.”

  “I will.”

  Melanie stayed up most of the night trying to guess what Luke would look like and what he might say to her. The moon faded and the morning came, leaving Melanie tired and her stomach wound in knots tight as a springboard ready to snap. She showered, skipped breakfast, and changed four times before choosing her originally planned outfit of a t-shirt, jeans, and tailored suit jacket. Jessie’s door remained closed and Melanie didn’t want to wake her. The sound of the shower in her mother’s room filled the hallway and Melanie got her bag and headed out to her car.

  The GPS displayed the directions in a colorful map hooked onto Melanie’s dashboard. Weak morning sunlight exposed the car’s age, a relic in the family’s line of automobile purchases. Scratches veined the hood and driver side door. A recent run-in with the shooting rocks off a gravel truck put two cracks in her windshield. It’s not that she couldn’t get the glass fixed. She could. There were other, better things to buy in this world than replacing her car’s windshield. The rough, worn seat cushions caused Melanie to sit on a sinkhole of worn leather and any day now, she might fall through and not get back up. She’d hoped by her thirtieth birthday she would have been able to get a new car. The day had come and gone without as much as a drive by the car dealership.

  All of the money she saved now went towards the purchase of her own place. The purchase of a new car would have to wait. Everything felt at a big, drawn-out standstill these days. The wait for some guy to call back. The wait for her bank account to be full enough to buy a condo and new furniture to go with it. She eyed up the higher-level positions at work and did everything she could to be on the receiving end the second one of her coworkers gave notice. She received wedding invitations almost monthly and seven weekends in her summer would be devoted to attending engagement, wedding, or baby showers, all while she waited for her life to move forward. Waiting. She turned the key in the ignition and held her breath for the car to start. The engine came to life. The soft wheel sped out under her hands as she turned the corner, entering the highway at the same moment a sharp pink sunrise broke over the rooftops.

  The drive to the interstate didn’t take long. She put a hundred or so miles between herself and her house until stopping for coffee and a rubbery bagel at a gas station. A warm wind whipped through the air as she filled up her car with gas and got on her way. Those nerves she’d woken up with intensified with each mile she drove closer to Luke. The little amount of food she’d eaten felt swishy in her stomach. She hadn’t planned on seeing him ever again.

  Chapter 2

  Thirty-seven-year-old Luke Harrison leaned back in his chair, satisfied at the half cup of newly polished Axinite sitting on the table in front of him. The stones gave off a deep coffee color thanks to their rich iron mineral qualities and the room smelled of rock. They would fetch a pretty sum either sold in individual pieces or as a group. The buyers would get a hard-on at this latest find. Luke turned off the polishing machine and stood. He stretched and felt the acute strain in his shoulders and neck from sitting and leaning too long. A ring of sweat formed at his collar from the stifled air in his laboratory, which occupied the basement of his house.

  Luke picked up the cup of stones and tilted the container so they fell like a waterfall from one palm to the next. The smoothness of the gemstones never felt ordinary. It never got old. A
man knows when he’s in the presence of something no one else has. Luke grinned. The Axinite had come from a granite deposit in France, thanks to his brother Brent. Luke returned the gemstones to the container and sealed the opening with a lid.

  The full weight of his responsibility breathed exhaustion down his neck. The upcoming vacation to Maui came at a good time: three whole months with minimal interruptions from investors, retailers, and lawyers. They would find him, of course. Buyers always did. They liked to flash their cash and see what Luke and his brothers could find. There was always someone, somewhere, with their mind set on owning the next big gemstone. Business in the gemstone-hunting world was at an all-time frenzy. Beyond South America. Past South Africa. The rarer the gemstone the better. Luke’s clients demanded bigger than the biggest. Purer than the purest. Brilliant. Flawless. Fewer inclusions meant more value. Diamonds are out. Rare gemstones are in. Tanzanite, Emeralds, Cambodian Sunset Rubies all topped the list of most wanted. The world had finally woken up to the fact that there are scarcer gemstones worth more than diamonds out there and Luke cashed in on this shift in demand.

  Luke brought those gemstones to the market. Trace Elements, his business, now ran up against the largest corporate competitors. The term Trace Elements actually held a specific meaning in the gemstone world. Every stone comes with impurities. Those impurities gave a gemstone color, like iron, lithium, copper, or chromium: the natural food dyes of the earth. The color attaches a market value. Luke had devoted his entire life during college and after to create such a monster business.

  Luke picked up a paper he’d set aside earlier and glanced over the recent inventory sheet for a large quantity of Swiss Blue Topaz, found deep in the spine of Brazil. The mine, recently visited by his older brother, Brent, produced a large quantity of the gemstone with a color rivaling the Caribbean ocean. Those gems sat in one of Luke’s many vaults in his house now, awaiting sales.

  The vault in the basement sat flush in the wall at the far end of the room. Luke walked over, past the heat treatment machines, two gemstone polisher machines, and a cutting machine, and scanned his fingerprint on the digital scanner. The small door swung open and Luke set in the cup of Axinite. He closed the door and the lock automatically sealed in his life’s work.

  Ding. Luke glanced at the digital box on the wall. The alarm system alerted Luke of his next meeting or if someone in the house needed him. Twice today he had interviewed two women, one older and one younger, for the position of a second nanny/personal assistant to his daughter, Vivian. The main nanny would need some help on their upcoming trip. He didn’t have to look at the schedule on his phone to know the next meeting would be the third and last interview of the day.

  The previous two candidates hadn’t impressed him. The younger woman had a face easy on the eyes. But Luke wasn’t hiring for a woman to be his lover. He preferred a lover not to be in his employment. Those situations had never ended well before. His daughter required around the clock care, since he often jetted out of the country on a moment’s notice. The younger candidate seemed more interested in what Luke did for living than the actual position of working with Vivian. The other woman, the second candidate, a veteran of teaching preschoolers, had mentioned her husband. A fact of little significance, except the position required the employee to live in Maui for the next twelve weeks, and possibly more, if the person worked well with Vivian. He needed someone flexible, not attached to their home.

  Luke slid the suit jacket over his arms and turned off the lights. He walked up one flight of stairs to the main level, where he worked out of his office. He’d made enough money to afford living in Belvedere and he wouldn’t be chained to some office space in a corporate building.

  He paused in the hallway, at one of the large windows and saw the fields of tall, curvy grass bow to the breeze. The gates in the distance remained closed, with the triangle roof of the security hut in his eyesight. A car rolled up outside the gate and he glanced at his watch, ready to get the interview over with. If none of the candidates impressed him, he’d have to wait until they returned at the end of summer.

  Luke returned to his desk and adjusted the room’s temperature from the small tablet sitting upright on his desk. The latest, most advanced gadgets unburdened him from the ordinary process of walking to a wall-mounted, clunky, temperature-control unit. One of his friends, an engineer in a very private technology lab in Palo Alto would ask him to try out different, emerging technologies like voice and vision-controlled electronics from time to time. One of the many perks of retaining a certain level of cliental.

  “Mr. Harrison,” Kendra’s voice carried through the speaker on the tablet, “Ms. Gardner has arrived at the gates. Security is checking her in now. Are you ready to see her?”

  “Check if she’d like a drink first, I don’t like the interview being broken up for beverage orders,” he responded to the automatic voice system. No need for buttons or phones anymore. He could access anyone at the command of his voice.

  “I’ll see to it she has her drink before she enters your office.”

  Interruptions in general upset Luke, who remained rigidly in-control of his business and his life. The candidate he hired must understand the expectations Luke put on his life and his daughter’s well-being. Such a person existed. The right amount of salary could get anyone’s attention, and Luke paid from generous pockets. He simply hoped the person he needed would walk through his doors in the next five minutes and he could get on with his plans to go to Maui.

  Kendra’s voice buzzed through the intercom. “Mr. Harrison, I apologize. Security says the person at the gate is not Ms. Gardner.”

  “Who is it?” Luke began checking his email on his phone and typed with furious fingers about a fellow gem-hunter being captured and tortured somewhere in Turkey.

  “Her name is Melanie Cahill. I don’t see her on our interview list. I’m certain I didn’t approve her.”

  Luke’s head shot up and he looked at his door. “What does she want?” he said sharply.

  “She wants to see you.”

  “Send her up immediately.”

  Chapter 3

  The bright white paint of the security booth glowed in the late afternoon light. High, wrought-iron gates held closed by an impressive gold lock at both handles prevented anyone from seeing the house beyond the gates. The security guard could double as The Hulk. Broad-shouldered, round face, no neck and wolf eyes. “You may proceed,” he said, unsmiling.

  “Really?” Melanie answered. She’d been certain Luke would send her away. This bothered her. It wasn’t like him to be so friendly. Then again, maybe time had softened him. Maybe he’d regretted how he’d treated her. Melanie manually rolled up her window. The hand-me-down car had survived years of Cahill teenagers and quite possibly, was one of the last models sold without power windows and locks. She smiled and asked, “Where should I park?”

  The guard pressed a button and the gates cranked open slowly, giving her a glimpse of an imposing home at the end of a long driveway.

  The security guard extended his arm out of the window. “Follow the road up to the house. Drive around the circular driveway and park to the left. You’ll see the vacant spots. Do me a favor: don’t block the entrance. Kendra Wright, Mr. Harrison’s personal assistant, will meet you at the door.”

  The name Kendra didn’t ring a bell. Then again, Melanie didn’t know anything about Luke’s business or his life, including him, anymore. Melanie tempered the exertion on the gas pedal so as to make the car glide, not speed. She would ride this opportunity long as she could.

  A thin cloud of dust curled behind the back of Melanie’s car all the way up to the security gate. The sight of the extensive protection around his property pinned Melanie’s heart and hopes under a boulder. Every reason she’d thought of on the drive up had sounded lame and she scrambled to think of a plausible reason for her showing up at Luke’s residence. None came to mind and honesty in the most desperate of times seemed like
a bad option. She had no idea what her next move would be. Should she jump right in and tell him about Mark? Should she make small talk?

  The asphalt ahead looked freshly repaved. Melanie kept both hands on the steering wheel, while spying up the row of Eucalyptus trees on either side of the road. The trees formed a border on the road, like armed guards. Between the wide, tall trunks, she could see spurts of green grass extend as far as the eye could see. The house sat in grand isolation.

  The offensively large house came into view with peaked rooftops touching the sky. The home sprawled across the lawn and devoured the grass, leaving behind a pristine yard of professionally-trimmed hedges. She drove the car around the driveway, parked in one of the three open spaces and sat in the car for a moment. Their situations couldn’t be more different. She’d been living at her mother’s house and he’d been living in a place five times the size. Bitterness tugged at her chest. He’d done well for himself. Very well.

  She couldn’t leave now, she’d come too far today to turn around and quit. Melanie turned off the engine and smoothed over her hair, her face, and smudged a small stain on the hem of her shirt. She took a deep breath, which did nothing to calm her nerves. The first time she’d met Luke, she remembered feeling a similar surge of nervousness. The straps of her bag affixed to her shoulder while she contemplated the first time she saw him and she got out of the car.

  The fresh air and stretching her legs helped her to refocus. The front of the house boasted two large glass doors clear as air. She approached and before she could locate a doorbell, the doors slid open automatically and the interior led her to a small foyer with yet another set of doors. They opened within two steps, granting Melanie passage to a barren room full of marble floors and an arched staircase at the far end. A person’s home reflected the owner. Luke’s home painted a picture of large, empty, and dark.