Windfall, p.6
Windfall, page 6
There are fires, and there is smoke, seeping into the car, though the windows are closed.
The driver, sealed up front behind a plexiglass panel, eyes masked by sunglasses, doesn’t seem to notice. He’s unfazed, breathing normally, unaware that an invisible noxious cloud is snaking tendrils around J.J.’s chest, lungs, heart, clouding her brain and her vision.
She keeps her fisted hands tucked under her legs to keep from banging on the divider and demanding that they turn around, or that he let her out of the car.
Where would she go, on a remote road in the middle of nowhere? One side is bordered by a steep incline, the other, a steep drop-off and no guardrail.
What is she doing in California, surrounded by a flaming foreign landscape, depending on a stranger to safely navigate a hazy hairpin road?
She shouldn’t have let Leila talk her into this trip. She should have stayed home, surrounded by familiarity. Home, where it’s safe, though even there, she’s not immune to anxiety, panic, this impending sense of doom. Even there . . .
The wind could shift and the next thing you know, you’ve lost everything.
Here, the wind is incessant, thick with the same smoky smell that clings to John when he comes from the firehouse in the wee hours. But on those nights, the scent is comforting, seeping into her sleep and alerting her that her husband is back safe and sound for another night, another day.
Missing her husband desperately, J.J. fights back tears and beats a staccato on the armrest with fingertips that have been chewed raw.
I can’t do this. I can’t.
A panic attack can trigger your fight-or-flight instinct, Dr. Michaels had told her. When that happens, try to remember that most likely, the perception of danger isn’t grounded in reality. Use your breathing exercises to control your anxiety.
Sometimes that works. Not today. Those fires are definitely real.
She grabs her bag and digs through it, past the clutter she never unpacked from last week’s trip and cigarettes she can’t smoke and the antianxiety medication that failed to ease her anxiety.
She finds her phone and pulls up John’s number. His voice will ground her. It always does.
But when she presses the icon to send the call, nothing happens.
She tries again. Nothing.
The phone is an old model, and she’d figured it would stop working one day, but did it have to be this one?
She tosses the phone onto the seat with an exasperated grunt.
The driver flicks his attention to the rearview mirror, then reaches back to slide open the divider. “Everything okay?”
“I’m trying to make a call, but it won’t go through.”
“How many bars do you have?”
“Bars?”
“Signal strength.”
“Oh! I didn’t even think of that.” She checks the phone. “I don’t see any bars.”
“Then there’s no signal. Digital service can be intermittent around here on a good day. With the fires, anything can happen. The cell towers might be compromised, or there might be power outages . . . sometimes, in weather like this, it’s for public safety.”
“What do you mean?”
“They’ll deliberately cut the power to help contain the fires. That might be what happened.”
Terrific.
She thanks him and closes the divider, jarred by the realization that she’s all alone in the world. Yes, the driver is here, but he’s a stranger, and her friends are waiting, but—
As she puts the phone back into her bag, her fingers graze the pack of cigarettes. She hesitates, then pulls it out and looks for her lighter. It seems to have disappeared. She dumps the contents of the bag into her lap, ignoring several items that fall to the floor as she searches the heap.
No lighter.
Maybe she lost it. Or maybe it had been confiscated by airport security when she sent the bag through the carry-on X-ray machine.
She repacks the bag and bends over to retrieve the rest of her belongings from the floor. Ballpoint pen, face mask, orange prescription bottle . . .
Too bad it’s too soon for another dose.
About to put it back into her bag, she pauses. Had she swallowed one pill, or two, in the car with the champagne? Or, wait a minute . . .
Had she taken it at all? Maybe she hadn’t.
Maybe she’d considered it and then forgotten, discombobulated from the travel flurry and not being able to sneak a smoke between the plane and the car.
She must not have taken it. That would explain why it isn’t working.
She opens the bottle, shakes a couple of capsules into her palm, pops them into her mouth.
Her mouth is dry, and the pills lodge in her throat.
At last she forces them down, biting her lips together to keep from gagging. Her teeth dig into her lip and the mineral tang of blood taints her mouth as she leans back and closes her eyes, longing for John, for their son, for home . . .
She shouldn’t have come, but there’s no going back now. She’s trapped.
It’s the same thought she’d had as an eighteen-year-old freshman embarking on her first semester at Northwestern University, hurtling toward the new life waiting whether she was ready or not.
Then, as now, she was leaving behind a familiar existence, terrified to be striking out on her own. Then, as now, she assured herself that it was a positive change, and things could only get better.
Then, she’d believed it.
And now?
J.J. considers the past—distant, and recent. And the future.
She thinks about all the things this vast fortune will change.
About all the things that no amount of money can ever change.
Leila
After showing Leila around and escorting her to a luxurious second-floor suite, Shea Daniels’s assistant, Justin, left her to her own devices. Unfortunately, her devices—the electronic ones—are no longer functioning.
Service had been sketchy on the way up the coast, but she’d had two bars when she arrived an hour ago. She’d texted Molly and J.J., opting to ignore several angry messages from her daughters and her boss.
She’d quit her job last night via an email to HR, offering no notice or explanation and feeling no regret over burning that bridge.
Then she’d phoned her ex-husband to say she’d been called out of town on business.
“But you were just away last weekend!”
“That wasn’t business, Warren. And you still owe me from last March when you couldn’t see them for two weeks.”
“I couldn’t help that. I was sick, and then Nicole got sick, and then the boys . . .”
The boys.
Every time he uses the phrase, Leila finds herself bristling. Warren is a self-described guy’s guy, and had been hoping for a boy with both Leila’s pregnancies. Now he has two: a toddler with his second wife, and a thirteen-year-old stepson from her first marriage.
“I understand,” she said. “And I can’t help this.”
“I know, it’s just . . . We have dinner plans for Saturday night.”
“The girls don’t need a babysitter, Warren. You and Nicole can go out to dinner.”
“It’s not . . . it’s . . . the boys are coming, too. There’s a new hibachi place we’ve all been wanting to try, and we finally got a reservation.”
Leila got the message loud and clear—it’s family night, not date night. New family only.
“Sorry to put a crimp in your plans, Warren, but I have to go away, so the girls have to stay.”
“What about Gib? Isn’t he going to be around?”
“No,” she lied.
The conversation hadn’t ended pleasantly. No surprise that Warren hadn’t exactly smoothed things over with Kate and Ellie on her behalf. They’re furious about being stuck in Orange County for the weekend.
It’s probably just as well that she’s out of touch with them. She would, however, like an update from Molly and J.J. And she does wonder whether anyone else might be trying to get in touch with her.
Specifically . . . Stef.
On the heels of quitting her job and arguing with Warren and the girls, she’d done something reckless. Stupid, even.
Yes, she, Leila—who’d convinced Molly not to reveal their lottery win to her own mother—had shared the news about the win and the weekend trip with her married lover.
Former lover.
Of course, Stef isn’t just anyone. Their relationship goes back to their college days, when he’d lived across the hall.
And Stef was Molly’s boyfriend before Leila took up with him. Well, when Leila took up with him.
Back in college, it had only been that one time. She hated herself afterward, even before Molly found out. Miraculously, their friendship survived. Most importantly, hers with Molly. But also hers with Stef; even, eventually, Molly’s with Stef.
It had taken years for Leila to recognize that first ill-fated fling with an off-limits man as a pattern.
Warren had been engaged to someone else when they met.
And Stef, the second time around—Stef was married to someone else. Is married. Intends to stay married.
Or so he told Leila when their affair began last fall, and again last spring when she ended it. His wife is the executive VP of marketing at a major corporation. He’d left his sales job when their first child was born and was a stay-at-home dad until their fourth started school a few years ago. Like Warren, like most men, Stef had navigated reentry without a hitch, and his career is back on the upswing. He isn’t interested in risking custody of his kids, or moving out of his lavish Escondido home, or losing the extravagant lifestyle his wife’s money provides—exotic travels, even a yacht.
But now that there’s been a cataclysmic shift in Leila’s status, he wouldn’t have to.
That’s what she wanted him to know.
So she’d texted him, asking him to please call her. If he hadn’t, she would have let it go, because after spontaneously reaching out, she’d realized it was a mistake and hoped that he wouldn’t call.
But he had.
She led off with the bombshell. As he digested the news in stunned silence, she just kept on talking, talking, talking—her usual coping strategy whenever she senses that she’s not going to hear what she wants to hear. Sometimes it works—with Gib, Warren, her daughters, her friends.
With Stef, she’d prattled on about Shea and the weekend at Windfall, and she’d promised that she’d hire him the best lawyer in the world so that he wouldn’t lose anything in a divorce, and she’d told him that this ticket was their ticket—to a fresh start, together, because her wealth would change everything for her, for them, and . . . and . . . and—
“Leila, stop!” he finally cut in. “I can’t even think! I need to think.”
“Think about what?”
“I just . . . I don’t know.”
“What don’t you know? You don’t know what you need to think about?”
“I don’t know if this is what I want.”
Translation: I don’t know if I want you.
Rather: I don’t want you.
Because if you want someone, and they want you, you don’t need to think about anything. You just need to plan, and do.
That’s fine. She doesn’t need him, or any man. Not anymore. Finally, finally, she’s completely self-sufficient. It’s time for her to start thinking. About the future, and where she wants to live, and where she wants to travel, and what she wants to buy.
And if she could get online right now, she could start planning and doing.
Justin had given her a thick packet of papers, including Wi-Fi information and a password, but the network isn’t even showing up in her settings. Hoping it’s a temporary glitch, she goes through the rest of the information.
A black folder engraved Windfall in gold script is filled with documents and forms. There’s a full itinerary that begins with a champagne celebration this afternoon. There’s a full slate of meetings tomorrow with the professionals on Shea’s team whose headshots and impressive biographies are attached. There are menus, too, for gourmet dinners that will be delivered each evening.
She pockets her phone and steps into the cavernous corridor, dimly lit with wall sconces and lined with closed doors. Shorter hallways branch off toward the back of the house at either end of the hall, with the grand stairway in the middle. There, a wide flight leads to the first floor, and a narrower one continues up to the third.
Earlier, she’d sworn she’d heard footsteps moving about overhead. Thinking it might be one of her friends, she’d called their names from the foot of the steps.
Justin heard her and materialized in the entryway below. “They’re not here yet, but I’m watching for them from the front parlor. I’ll let you know.”
“Oh . . . I thought I heard someone on the third floor.”
“Must have been the wind. There’s nothing up there but Shea’s suite, really, and storage, and you and I are the only ones here.”
It hadn’t been the wind. The wind doesn’t sound like footsteps.
She glances back at the third-floor stairway as she descends quickly to the first, gripping the wrought-iron railing. The cavernous foyer is dimly lit by an antique fixture high overhead. Beyond the curved archway into the front parlor, she can see Justin napping in a chair facing the window.
He reminds her of a preternaturally preserved leading man; one of those people whose age is difficult to guess. He appears to have had some cosmetic work done, and his hair is too thick and blond to be natural unless he’s around Leila’s age. Even then, a stretch.
During the pandemic lockdown, she’d discovered that she had far more gray hair than the few strands that had caused her to start coloring it in her early thirties. She got her hands on a home dye kit and started doing it herself—well, with some help from her daughters, back when they still liked her. It was darker and more one-dimensional, but it would have to do. By the time salons reopened, her business was failing and she couldn’t afford even a pedicure, much less custom color with highlights or lowlights.
Now, though . . .
Now she’ll become a regular at one of those high-end places in Beverly Hills, where beauty—along with eternal youth—can be bought, if you have enough money. She will always, always have enough money, for everything she could ever dream of.
She moves on through the house. It’s grand but not formal, with terrazzo floors and exposed beams, exterior doors opening onto gardens and terraces. Most rooms have cozy seating areas and tile fireplaces with slate mantels and ornate wrought-iron grillwork.
It’s all too easy to imagine Chantal Charbonneau here.
The place doesn’t appear to have changed much in the last twenty years or even in the last hundred. There are no televisions, computers, or air conditioners. The furniture is antique. The built-in bookcases are lined with leather-bound classics. The bathrooms have claw-foot tubs and pull-chain toilets.
Despite the vintage setting, the past might not seem to lurk so palpably in every room if Leila hadn’t done her homework last night, reading about Windfall’s storied past and a long line of ill-fated former residents before Chantal Charbonneau.
Wandering through the rooms, she hears phantom tunes tinkling from a player piano, glimpses a woman in a lace dress amid fluttering lace curtains, smells French cologne mingling with the faint scent of wildfire drifting through the open windows. The air is warm, yet she’s chilled through, feeling uncomfortably alone.
“There’s no staff on the premises when clients are here, to ensure their utmost privacy,” Justin had informed her. “And of course, for safety reasons, no electronic surveillance . . . cameras, that sort of thing.”
“Isn’t a lack of security the opposite of safe?”
“Ah, I said lack of electronic surveillance—not the same thing as a lack of security. Shea will tell you more when she gets here a little later today. Now let me show you where to find a snack in case you’re hungry . . .”
She wasn’t then, but now she’s famished, and dinner delivery isn’t until late this evening. She makes her way to the huge kitchen, with its dark cabinetry, Spanish tile, and a massive hood above a six-burner restaurant-style stove.
A bottle of Louis Roederer Cristal is chilling in a glass bucket on the white marble counter. A silver tray holds three crystal flutes, a bowl of deep red, unblemished strawberries, and the largest box of gourmet chocolates Leila has ever seen.
Justin had told her to help herself, but she leaves the spread untouched. J.J. and Molly should get the full effect, to help dispel any doubts they might have about being here.
She grabs a protein bar from a glass jar on the breakfast bar and opens the fridge. It’s wood-paneled, built into the wall, and twice as wide as hers back home. The brightly lit glass shelves are lined with food and beverages, drawers filled with fresh fruits and vegetables. She grabs a water bottle and some fruit, exiting the kitchen with one last glance at the spread on the counter.
Any minute. Molly and J.J. will be here any minute, and then the three of them will pop that cork and celebrate.
Pocketing the protein bar and biting into her apple, she spies an old-fashioned wall phone and hurries over to lift the receiver, connected to the base by a spiral cord. There’s no dial tone. She hadn’t really expected one.
It’s been years since she dialed a landline, and the only number she knows by heart these days is for her childhood home. Everyone else—everyone who matters—is programmed in her cell phone.
She checks again. Still no messages, still no service.
She steps outside, moving away from the house along a stone walkway. It winds past gardens, tennis courts, and a large swimming pool that looks inviting right about now, with the excessive midday heat untempered by strong Santa Ana winds.
Classic fire weather.
She looks back toward the burning hills, obstructed by what seems like a thicker haze than when she first got here. Pausing to sip some water, she checks again for a signal—nope—before moving on, toward the ocean and open space.
