With a far less harried smile, Samantha pressed speed dial for the concierge. Edward Parker had a wonderful British accent, but the man was a veritable sphinx.

"Edward?" she said when he picked up. "Do you have time to take care of something for me?"

SAMANTHA'S YOUNGER SISTER MEREDITH WAS THE first to arrive that night for dinner. At thirty-six, the years of partying and serial dating had begun to take their toll. She was athletic with a swimmer's shoulders, a strong, straight body, and wavy dark hair that frizzed around a square-jawed face that didn't make the most of its individual parts. Her temperament was mercurial-one minute sweet and confiding, the next p.r.i.c.kly and confrontational. Worse, she was often jealous of what she saw as Samantha's cushy life and Hunter's blinding beauty and effortless magnetism; traits he'd inherited from their father and which he wielded with abandon.

After dropping her purse on the counter, Meredith walked directly to the drinks cart where the alcohol and mixers awaited. Samantha had opened a bottle of red wine earlier and left an unopened Chardonnay chilling in ice. "Can I pour you something?" Meredith asked.

"No. I've got a gla.s.s, thanks." Samantha set out the Caprese salads that Giancarlo had drizzled with a special balsamic vinaigrette. A loaf of crusty Italian bread waited in the warming oven. The veal was in an oven-to-table pan from which she could fill their plates. At the moment, all felt right with the world.

"I haven't seen you for almost a week," Samantha said. "What's going on?" Meredith lived in a Buckhead condo that Jonathan had bought for her. Hunter preferred Midtown and lived just a few blocks away from the Alexander in a unit that had once belonged to Jonathan's law firm.

"I heard from Fredi Fainstein." Meredith named a friend from college. "She's working up in New York now, and she invited me to come visit."

"For how long?" Samantha was careful not to mention Cynthia's intention to refer her to the Atlanta Preservation Board in case it didn't work out, but she didn't want to see Meredith miss out on the opportunity.

Meredith shrugged her shoulders, which looked even broader in the striped boatneck sweater she wore. It was an unfortunate choice, but Samantha had learned long ago to never comment on any article of Meredith's clothing, unless it was to tell her how wonderful she looked. "What difference does it make? It's not like I'm employed at the moment."

Samantha hated how blase she sounded about her lack of employment, as if there were nothing wrong with being idle and letting Jonathan continue to foot her bills. "It won't be too expensive. I can stay at Fredi's place. And if you loan me some of your frequent-flyer miles," she said as if she might one day return them, "the trip will hardly cost anything at all."

"It's New York City," Samantha replied. "Breathing is expensive there."

Meredith's mouth tightened. "You live in the lap of luxury and Jonathan has more money than G.o.d," she said. "What difference does it make if I go to a few restaurants and shows and pick up a few clothes?"

There were footsteps in the foyer. "Did Meredith just refer to me as G.o.d?" Jonathan asked as he entered the living room. He leaned down to kiss Samantha and accept the drink she'd mixed for him, then gave Meredith a brotherly hug. When Meredith was little he used to ruffle her hair and treat her like his own sister, something he'd said he was glad to have, given his only-child status and the amount of attention his mother had always trained on him. For a time he'd called her Merry, but the nickname had been more about wishful thinking than reality and it hadn't survived the turbulent teenage years when Meredith had been anything but.

"Not exactly." She shot Meredith a disapproving look.

"Not exactly what?" Hunter had come in so quietly that his voice surprised her. It was as rich and smooth as his appearance and was a potent tool or weapon, depending on his mood. He was just shy of six feet with a lean runner's body, a chiseled face, the Jackson green eyes, and an almost feline grace. He also had glossy black hair that fell onto his forehead and long, thick eyelashes that both of his sisters envied.

"Nothing," Samantha said. "I hope everybody's hungry."

Jonathan looked at her over his highball gla.s.s. From the day they'd married she'd made sure that no matter what she'd done that day, she was dressed and made-up when he got home from the office and had a Tanqueray and tonic waiting for him when he walked through the door. When her siblings had gotten old enough to notice, they'd given her a good bit of grief about being stuck in the fifties, but she had seen it as a token of her appreciation for all he did for them.

"What's for dinner?" Jonathan asked.

"Veal." Although Samantha hid the evidence that others had cooked, she was always careful not to come out and actually claim that she'd cooked it. "In fact, we're having saltimbocca alla Romana."

"Bless you," Jonathan said. "I was hoping we'd have Italian tonight."

"Shocker," Meredith said. "You'd eat an Italian shoe if someone put marinara sauce on it."

"I think you have," Hunter added sotto voce. "h.e.l.l, I think we all have."

Samantha was very glad she wasn't going to have to serve the leathery lump she'd created. Her brother and sister would have never let her live it down. Jonathan would have asked for a second helping and managed to somehow chew and swallow it. She'd never been sure if this was due to his kind streak or his optimism. Unlike her brother and sister, he still clung to the belief that one day the cooking lessons would kick in and her inner Julia Child would emerge.

Meredith chattered on about New York during dinner as if it had already been decided that she would go. Then she said that Fredi had offered to introduce her to a contact at the Frick Museum who might be a good job contact. Even Samantha might have fallen for it if Meredith hadn't given her a "take that" look when Jonathan turned away.

In the kitchen, Samantha dished up the tiramisu and told herself it might not be a bad idea for Meredith to get out of town for a bit. She'd just have to make sure that Meredith did, in fact, renew contacts and look into the possibilities in New York while she was there. If Cynthia came through with an interview at the Preservation Board, she'd insist that Meredith fly home immediately.

Dessert had been cleared away and after-dinner brandy poured when Hunter asked Jonathan if he knew anyone in nanotechnology.

Her brother's tone was so casual that it stopped the brandy snifter midway to Samantha's lips. She knew that tone and recognized it for what it was. Hunter was many things; meticulous, crafty, even predatory. Casual wasn't even on the list.

She watched her husband's face as Hunter told him about the great investment opportunity he had if only he could put his hands on the half million dollars he needed. He presented it with the same level of conviction with which he'd presented the green energy company out of Kansas, the oil exploration in North Dakota, and the soul food/sushi restaurant franchise that the prospectus had claimed would catch on in the Midwest and then spread "like wildfire" across the United States.

Her husband had been financing Hunter's investment schemes since shortly after their wedding, when he'd underwritten the nine-year-old Hunter's plan to create and corner a secondary market for Star Wars action figures. Over the years, Hunter's investment schemes had grown bigger and riskier while Jonathan's losses grew larger.

She thought it would actually be cheaper and less stressful if Jonathan simply deposited a certain amount per month as he did for Meredith, rather than allowing the fiction that Hunter was an entrepreneur on the verge of the big score, to continue. It frightened her how much like their father he seemed; how easily he burned through money and people. How careless he was.

She'd warned her brother after the last debacle, when some of Hunter's investors had threatened lawsuits and Jonathan and his firm had been embarra.s.sed by the a.s.sociation, that she'd cut him off herself before she'd allow Jonathan's name to be sullied.

She prayed regularly that her warning would suffice and told herself that a Hunter engaged, however briefly or expensively, was better than a Hunter with too much time on his hands.

She saw the flare of triumph in Hunter's eyes when Jonathan said he'd look over the materials and think about it. And she knew with a sinking heart that what that really meant was yes.

CHAPTER FIVE.

THE SKY WAS DARK AND THREATENING BY THE time Brooke returned to the Alexander that Tuesday morning. She'd taken Darcy in the car to drop Natalie and Ava off at school and after parking the Volvo wagon, she hustled the dog outside to her favorite tree behind the parking garage.

Normally Darcy took her time, holding out until the last possible moment to prolong the time outside. But Darcy wasn't a big fan of "wet" and did her "business" in record time. She didn't even whimper in protest when Brooke packaged the doggie doo-doo in a clear plastic bag, dropped it in the Dumpster, and speed walked them back into the building, making it seconds before the rain began to fall. Brooke wished she could package up and throw away the refuse of her life as quickly and efficiently, but the wounds Zachary had inflicted would not heal or disappear.

On the way upstairs Brooke considered her reflection in the shiny bra.s.s of the elevator. She'd spent a good twenty minutes before she woke the girls that morning trying to club her humidity-charged hair into submission and applying enough makeup to disguise the night spent tossing, turning, and trying to resist the leftover pizza in the refrigerator.

When Zach had first insisted that they enroll the girls in the ridiculously expensive private school, she'd flinched each time the tuition check was written.

"It's a no-brainer," he'd said dismissively when she objected to paying the equivalent of a year of college for a year of prekindergarten. "Look around you. These women care what they look like. And they have the money to pay for improvements." He'd looked at her as he'd said the last, long past bothering to hide his displeasure in the way she looked and the fact that she didn't seem to care that she was not a good advertis.e.m.e.nt for his skill with a knife.

On the girls' first day of school, she'd discovered that frayed capris and a faded Boston Red Sox T-shirt were not going to cut it in the Woodward Academy carpool line. But while she'd learned to make the time to dress more appropriately in the mornings, she'd continued to refuse to let him tweak or alter her. By then her imperfections were the only thing in their marriage that she still recognized.

Now that she and Zachary were divorced, the school fees and expenses were the only checks that Zach wrote without begging or prodding. He religiously attended the PTA meetings and parent events not because he wanted to partic.i.p.ate in his children's lives but because Woodward Academy was the perfect place to mine for patients.

Back in the condo, Brooke contemplated the breakfast dishes in the sink, the bulging bag of garbage that needed to be taken to the chute, and the pile of unopened bills that Zachary was supposed to pay, but didn't. To h.e.l.l with it, she thought as she pulled the pizza box from the refrigerator.

Darcy wagged her tail hopefully. "Sorry, girl." Brooke ate the last piece of pizza cold out of the box while she wandered around the condo. It was a beautiful, s.p.a.cious three-bedroom unit, with wood floors, lots of windows, and high ceilings. Zach, flush with money for the first time in their married life and certain more was coming, had insisted on hiring a designer. As a result their home was long on style and short on warmth. For a few minutes she eyed the shiny surfaces and sharp angles and imagined how she might make the s.p.a.ce cozier if and when she got the funds to do so.

In the girls' rooms, she picked up stray clothes and toys, then spent longer than she needed to arranging Ava's stuffed animals on her bed.

When she'd finished everything she was willing to do, it was barely nine a.m. The rainy morning stretched out in front of her long and empty. It was odd to have so much time on her hands after all the frantic years of working to support them while Zach finished college and then medical school. His residency had been the final hurdle, zapping her formidable reserves as she juggled two babies, two jobs, and a husband who was half asleep on the occasions when he was actually present. Like a long-distance runner in an important marathon she'd wheezed on, putting one foot in front of the other, her eyes and her will focused on the finish line.

She stood motionless in front of the window staring out over the rain-splattered street wondering why it had never occurred to her that fulfilling Zachary's dreams would end hers.

"That's enough." She said it out loud just to be sure it got through. "Find something to do." She couldn't imagine going back down to the garage and leaving in the car. Where would she go anyway? They'd moved to Atlanta a year and a half ago and the first six months had been spent settling in; the second had been spent consumed by the divorce Zach had demanded. There'd been no time or energy to make friends or create a life that didn't revolve around Zach or the girls. Now she had all the time in the world and no one to spend it with.

"You're going to leave the condo now." She could go down and sit in the lobby and pretend she was waiting for . . . something. Maybe there'd even be someone down there to talk to. Or she could take the newspaper to the coffee shop next door. Except now that she'd had the leftovers from the girls' breakfast and the overrated piece of pizza, she didn't need to sit somewhere that served eggs, hash browns, and cheese grits.

She considered the building's other possibilities. It was too wet for the pool deck on the eighth floor, where she sometimes took the girls to run around and blow off steam. The clubroom that overlooked the pool was only open for specific activities, but the fitness center was right across from it. She'd seen the equipment when they'd first toured the building, sworn to use it, and had never gone back.

Exercise would be positive. If she did enough of it, maybe some of those endorphins she'd read about and never actually experienced would kick in and make her feel better. She looked down. She was wearing expensive workout clothes.

Before she talked herself out of it, she gathered her keys and headed for the door. Thirty minutes. The Realtor had told them that the equipment was state of the art and extremely user-friendly. So simple, she'd claimed, that even a child could program it. She'd get on a treadmill or an elliptical machine, put it on low speed, and exercise for thirty minutes. She could do anything for thirty minutes, right?

SAMANTHA LAY IN BED LISTENING TO THE STEADY patter of rain falling on the balcony outside her bedroom. She should've been in the middle of her morning workout right now, but Michael had called thirty minutes before he was due, his voice so nasal from a cold that it took awhile to decipher who it was. Before he'd hung up, he'd made her promise that she'd do the workout on her own or at least do cardio. Instead she'd lain here for almost an hour listening to the rain and contemplating what it might feel like to do that for the rest of the morning. Maybe she'd even download a book and lie here reading it just for the pure pleasure of it.

She smiled as she imagined her mother-in-law's shock and horror at such slothful thinking. Then she pictured her husband boarding the seven a.m. flight for Los Angeles, working all day, taking clients out for dinner. Her smile dimmed. Jonathan could have easily afforded to work half as hard as he did or not at all, but he was no dilettante. Vacations were carefully planned and scheduled; even weekends or holidays at the lake house were fit in around his client's needs; a work ethic far more rea.s.suring than her father's all-consuming pa.s.sion for money and position and her brother's schemes and plans, few of which involved any actual work at all.

Her "job" as his wife did not include lying around in bed reading regardless of the weather or the health of her personal trainer.

Dutifully rallied, she threw off the covers and put on the workout clothes she left folded on the chaise longue near her side of the bed. Then she washed her face, brushed her teeth, and pulled her hair up off her face. A quick gla.s.s of orange juice and she was on her way down to the eighth-floor fitness room, which was always empty.

She spotted the chubby red-haired woman through the plate-gla.s.s wall as she rounded the corner. Biting back a groan, Samantha entered the gla.s.sed and mirrored s.p.a.ce and moved toward the vacant elliptical machine next to the one the other woman occupied.

The big-screen TV on the wall in front of the machines wasn't on. Samantha cut her eyes to the other woman whose head was bent over the control board. Samantha couldn't tell if she was studying the digital readout or praying. Her feet were in the footpads, her legs frozen as if in midstep. Her workout clothes looked both new and expensive, but they stretched across her rear and back a little more tightly than they should. She'd seen her in the building before-the last time in the lobby with a dog and two little girls.

"Do you mind if I turn on the TV?" Samantha asked.

The woman shook her head, but she didn't look up. "No." Her voice caught on the word.

Samantha put on the TV and skimmed through the channels finally settling on the Today show. Telling herself she didn't know this woman and shouldn't pry, she got on the elliptical and began to answer the questions that flashed on the digital screen. She committed to forty minutes, plus the automatic five-minute cooldown. But then came the annoying weight query. Did the machine really need to know how much she weighed? Irritated she punched in her weight-or at least a close approximation. Then it asked for her age.

"Good grief!" She spent a long moment picturing the skinny little geek who'd come up with the mathematical equations that required such personal information. If she could have figured out how, she would have told the machine to go screw itself, but there didn't seem to be a place to input that.

Would it make a significant difference if she put in forty-six, which she'd only recently said good-bye to? She'd just decided that a year couldn't possibly make a significant difference in the number of calories burned, when she heard what sounded like a sob from the next machine.

Samantha got her legs moving in that odd walking/climbing motion then turned toward the red-haired woman. "Are you all right?"

"I can't figure out how to make it start." The woman's voice was heavy with choked-back tears.

"Are you sure you want to?" Samantha asked gently.

The woman looked up and met Samantha's eyes. Her whole face looked tight from the effort of holding in the tears that shimmered in her eyes. "No. But as you can see I clearly need to."

Samantha kept her legs moving. "Whether you work out is definitely not my business," Samantha said carefully. "I mean, I'm not the Jehovah's Witness of exercise or anything. I'm not even sure I want to be here."

"Sorry." The woman averted her eyes. "It's probably better if I go so that you can exercise in peace." She aimed her gaze somewhere over Samantha's left shoulder as she spoke. "I just thought it might make me feel better. You know, if I could dredge up a few endorphins or something." There was another half sob. A look of horror spread over the woman's broad freckled face. "Oh, G.o.d. I'm sorry. I can't believe I'm crying in front of someone like you."

Samantha blinked.

"Oh, s.h.i.t. That's not what I meant to say."

Samantha braced, hoping the woman wasn't going to keep at it until she said whatever other insulting thing she'd actually meant. She hadn't even done five minutes yet and she didn't see how she could just leave the woman here alone when she was so upset. She'd never read of a suicide by elliptical, but that didn't mean there'd never been one.

"Don't worry about it," she said as casually as she could, turning her gaze to the television. Pedaling, she tried to focus on the screen, but the feminine hygiene commercials were no match for the crying woman still standing immobile on the next machine.

"People like you are one of the main reasons people like me don't exercise," the woman said.

"I beg your pardon?" Samantha said.

"Oh, G.o.d. I didn't mean to say that, either."

Samantha had no idea how to respond so she just kept moving. She completed five minutes before she snuck another look at the woman who was focused on the control panel. Mercifully, she had stopped crying. She was short, probably no more than five-four, and looked to be somewhere in her midthirties. Her face wasn't bad. Or it wouldn't have been if she'd done something to camouflage the freckles. An eyebrow shaping and the right makeup would have been a good start. Briefly Samantha considered offering her the name of her favorite aesthetician, but it seemed clear that the last thing this woman needed today was anything that resembled criticism.

The other woman blew a heavy red curl off her damp forehead. She seemed to be sweating kind of heavily given her lack of movement.

"I'm . . ." the woman began. "I'm really sorry." She looked up and met Samantha's eyes. "But the thing is. I'm not having a good day."

No s.h.i.t, Samantha thought.

"But I've made it this far." The woman hesitated. "If you could, um, just tell me how to start this thing, I'll do what I came here to do and I . . . I promise I'll leave you alone."

"Sure." Samantha couldn't tear her eyes from the redhead's face. Even her freckles looked sad and anxious. "Hit 'reset' and start moving your feet."

The woman did as she was instructed. Carefully, Samantha talked her through each step, the woman only balking when it came time to put in her weight.

"I know," Samantha said. "s.a.d.i.s.tic, isn't it?"

"I guess lying would defeat the whole purpose?"

Samantha nodded. "But at least the age thing won't be a negative for you. Not all of us can say the same."

What might have been a smile flickered over the woman's lips. "So I gather I'm supposed to put in my real age and not how old I feel right now?"

At Samantha's nod, the redhead said, "It's just as well. The numbers probably don't go up to a hundred anyway."

Surprised and glad that the woman had managed to make something approximating a joke, she said, "My name's Samantha Davis, by the way."

The redhead began to puff from exertion. "Brooke Mackenzie," she said. Beads of perspiration already dotted her forehead.

"Nice to meet you." Samantha nodded and turned her attention to the television.

They pedaled in silence for a while. Samantha kept her eyes on the television, but she couldn't quite tune out the woman beside her.

A movement through the plate-gla.s.s window caught Samantha's eye and she spotted Edward Parker in the hall. She watched him post something on the elegant notice board he'd installed outside the clubroom. He looked up, saw them, and waved.

Brooke Mackenzie gave a little moan of distress when the concierge pulled open the fitness room door, but her legs kept moving.

"Ladies." The concierge stopped between them and flashed a smile that dimpled his right cheek. "You both look remarkably industrious. It's nice to see the facilities in use."