Dawn in Eclipse Bay

chapter 10

Gabe dropped Lillian off at the entrance to her apartment building shortly before ten o’clock on Monday morning.

“I’ll pick you up at seven,” he said when she made to slide out of the Jag.

She stood and looked at him through the open door. Tension coiled in the pit of her stomach. He was dressed for business once again in the legendary Gabe Madison war armor: steel-gray jacket and trousers, charcoal-gray shirt secured with silver-and-onyx cuff links, silver-and-black striped tie. When he moved his hand on the wheel, the dark-gray edge of his shirt cuff shifted, revealing the gleaming stainless-steel watch on his left wrist.

He looked good, she thought. Exciting. Powerful and predatory and wholly in control. You’d never guess that he was suffering a bad case of burnout. But, then, what did burnout look like?

“Fine,” she said. “I’ll be ready.”

She hurried toward the building’s secured entrance and punched in the code. Gabe waited until she was safely inside the lobby before he drove off in the direction of his downtown office.

He was wrong to accuse her of being nervous about their relationship, she thought a few minutes later when she twisted the key in the lock of her apartment door. She had spoken the truth the other morning when she had tried to explain herself to him. They both needed to think things through. Neither one of them could trust their own judgment at the moment.

A man dealing with burnout was certainly not in the best position to make sound decisions regarding his personal relationships. As for herself, she had arrived at a major turning point in her life. Getting involved in an affair with a man who was going through his own emotional crisis was the last thing she needed.

Probably be best to write off that night at his cottage as an ill-advised one-night stand.

It all sounded so logical. Why did she feel depressed by her own clear reasoning?

She opened the door and walked into the apartment. They had made good time on the long drive from Eclipse Bay this morning. She had most of the day ahead of her to tidy up some of the loose ends that she had left dangling when she had rushed out of town a few days ago. She had a number of things on her agenda, not the least of which was deciding what to wear to the dinner tonight.

The atmosphere of the apartment had the closed-up feeling that accumulates quickly when a residence has been uninhabited for a few days. She walked through the rooms, cracking open windows to allow fresh air to circulate.

She did the living room first and then went down the hall to her bedroom. At the entrance, she paused. A tingle of eerie awareness drifted through her.

There was something different about the room. Something wrong.

She looked around with her artist’s eye, noting the small details. The bedding was undisturbed. The closet doors were firmly closed. The dresser drawers were shut.

The closet doors were closed. Completely closed.

Her attention snapped back to the mirrored closet. She stared at it for a long time.

She was certain that she had left it partially ajar because of the way the slider got hung up when it was pushed fully closed.

Almost certain.

She had been in a hurry the other morning when she had left for Eclipse Bay, she reminded herself. Perhaps she had forced the door closed without thinking about it.

She crossed the room, gripped the handle and tried to open the slider. It stuck. Just as it had been sticking for the past two months. She took a firmer grasp, braced herself and forced it open.

The slider resisted for a few seconds and then reluctantly moved in its track. She stood back and surveyed the interior of her closet. The clothes on the hangers seemed to be in the same order they had been in when she had packed. The stack of plastic sweater boxes on the shelf looked untouched.

This was ridiculous. She was allowing her imagination to get carried away.

She reached for the handle of the slider again, intending to close the door. She went cold when she saw the smear on the mirrored glass at the far end next to the metal frame.

She allowed her hand to hover over the smear. It was right where the heel of a palm would rest if one were to take hold of the frame at the far end in an attempt to force the slider closed. But the mark was a little higher than one she would have left if she had grasped the frame.

Right about where a man or a woman a couple of inches taller than herself might put his or her palm.

She stepped back quickly.

Someone had been in this room.

Take deep breaths. Think about logical possibilities.

Burglary.

She whirled around, examining the scene once more. Nothing appeared to be missing.

She rushed back out into the living room and threw open the doors of the cabinet that housed her entertainment electronics. The expensive equipment was still safely stowed in place on the shelves.

She went cautiously down the hall to the small second bedroom that she used as a study. Halting in the doorway, she studied the interior. The most valuable item in this room was the art glass vase her parents had given her for her birthday last year. It glowed orange and red on the shelf near her desk.

She was definitely overreacting here. Maybe she was on edge because of the tension of dealing with Gabe.

More deep breaths. Other logical possibilities.

The cleaning people.

She had canceled the weekly appointments until further notice. But there could have been a mix-up about the dates. The cleaners had a key. Perhaps they had come in last Friday on the usual day.

It made sense. One of them might have tried to close the closet door. But surely a professional housecleaner would have wiped off the smear on the mirror?

Then again, perhaps the cleaner had been in a hurry and hadn’t noticed the smudge.

The light winked on the phone, snapping her out of her reverie. Belatedly it occurred to her that she hadn’t checked her messages during the time she had been away in Eclipse Bay. She pulled herself out of the doorway, crossed to the desk and punched in the code.

There had been two calls. Both had been received the night before last between ten and eleven o’clock. In each instance the caller had stayed on the line long enough for the beep to sound. But no one had left a message.

A shiver went through her. She listened to the long silence before the hangup and fancied she could hear the unknown caller breathing.

Logical possibilities.

Two wrong numbers in a row. People rarely left messages when they dialed a wrong number.

This was crazy. She needed to get a grip and fast.

She grabbed the phone and dialed the number of the agency that cleaned regularly. The answer to her question came immediately.

“Yes, we sent the crew in last Friday,” the secretary said apologetically. “Sorry about the mix-up. We’ll give you a free cleaning when you restart the service.”

“No, that’s all right. I just wanted to know if you had been into the apartment, that’s all.”

She put the phone down and waited for her heart to stop pounding. It took a while.

She did the little black dress bit for the dinner. The darkened hotel banquet room was filled to capacity with members of both the business and academic worlds. She sat at the head table, next to the wife of the guest of honor, and listened, fascinated, to Gabe’s introductory remarks. She had known this event was important to him but she had not been prepared for the deep and very genuine warmth of his words.

“… Like so many of you here tonight, I, too, was profoundly influenced by Dr. Montoya…”

He stood easily in front of the crowd, hands braced on either side of the podium frame, speaking without notes.

“… I will never forget that memorable day in my senior year when Dr. Montoya called me into his office to discuss my first five-year plan, a plan which, in all modesty, I can only describe as visionary…”

Laughter interrupted him for a moment.

“… ‘Gabe,’ Dr. Montoya said, ‘with this plan, I sincerely doubt that you could attract enough venture capital to put up a lemonade stand…’ ”

The audience roared. Beneath the cover of applause, Dolores Montoya, a lively woman with silver-and-black hair, leaned over to whisper in Lillian’s ear.

“Thank goodness the committee chose Gabe to make the introduction. At this kind of event half the crowd is usually dozing by the time the guest of honor gets to the podium. At least he’s keeping them awake.”

Lillian did not avert her attention off Gabe. “Trust me, he won’t let anyone fall asleep. This is important to him. I hadn’t realized just how important until now.”

“My husband has told me more than once that Gabe was the most determined student he ever had in the classroom,” Delores told her.

At the podium, Gabe continued his remarks.

“… I’m happy to say that I finally got my lemonade stand up and running…”

This understatement was greeted by more chuckles from the crowd. Likening Madison Commercial to a lemonade stand was somewhat on a par with comparing a rowboat to a nuclear submarine, Lillian thought.

“… in large part because of what I learned from Dr. Montoya. But looking back, I can see that it wasn’t just his nuts-and-bolts advice on how to survive market downturns and nervous investors that I took with me when I left his classroom.” Gabe paused for a beat. “He gave me something much deeper and more important. He gave me a sense of perspective…”

The crowd listened intently.

“… Dr. Montoya gave me an understanding not only of how business works in a free country but of what we who make our living in business owe to our communities and our nation. He showed me the connections that bind us. He gave me a deep and lasting appreciation of what it takes to maintain the freedoms and the spirit that allows us to succeed. He taught me that none of us can make it in a vacuum. And for those teachings, I will always be grateful. I give you now, Dr. Roberto Montoya.”

The gathering erupted once again as Dr. Montoya walked to the podium. This time the applause was led by Gabe. It metamorphosed into a standing ovation. Lillian got to her feet and clapped along with everyone else.

No wonder Dr. Montoya was important to Gabe, she thought. This was how a kid from a family that could not provide any successful male role models became one of the most successful men in the Northwest. He found himself someone who could teach him how to get ahead and he had paid attention.

“I’m the one who’s supposed to be crying.” Dolores handed her a tissue.

“Thanks.” Lillian hastily blotted her tears, grateful that the lights were all focused on the podium.

The applause died away and the members of the audience took their seats again. The spotlight focused on Roberto Montoya. Gabe made his way back through the shadows to the chair beside Lillian. She felt his attention rest briefly on her profile and sensed his curiosity. She hoped he hadn’t seen her dabbing at her eyes with the tissue.

He started to lean toward her, as if about to ask her what was wrong. Fortunately his attention was distracted a moment by Dr. Montoya, who had just launched into his own remarks.

“Before I get to the boring parts,” Dr. Montoya said, “there is something I would like to clarify. I taught Gabriel Madison many things, but there is one thing I did not teach him.” He paused to look toward the head table. “I did not teach him how to dress. That, he learned all on his own.”

There was a startled silence and then the crowd howled with delight.

“Oh, hell,” Gabe muttered, sounding both resigned and amused.

Dr. Montoya turned back to the audience. “Five years ago when I approached Gabe to try to talk him into participating in a program that would place college seniors in local businesses during their final semesters, he said-and I recall his exact words very clearly-he said, what the hell do you expect me to teach a bunch of kids about business that you can’t teach them?”

There was a short pause. Montoya leaned into the microphone.

“ ‘Teach ’em how to dress for success,’ I said.”

When the fresh wave of laughter had faded Montoya continued. “He took me seriously. Every semester when I send him the current crop of business students, he takes them to meet his tailor. What’s more, he quietly picks up the tab for those who can’t afford that first all-important business suit. Tonight, some of his protégés have prepared a small surprise to thank him for what he taught them.”

The spotlight shifted abruptly to the far end of the stage. Two young men and a woman stood there. All three were dressed in identical steel-gray business suits, charcoal-gray shirts, and black-and-silver striped ties. All three had their hair combed straight back from their foreheads. Three sets of silver-and-onyx cuff links glinted in the light. Three stainless-steel watches glinted on three wrists.

The Gabe Madison clone on the right carried a box wrapped and tied in silver foil and black ribbon.

They walked forward in lockstep.

The audience broke out in another wave of laughter and applause.

Gabe dropped his face into his hands. “I will never live this down.”

The young woman in the Gabe suit assumed control of the microphone. “We all owe Mr. Madison a debt of gratitude for the opportunities he provided to us during our semester at Madison Commercial. Most of us came from backgrounds where the unwritten rules of the business world were unknown. He taught us the secret codes. Gave us self-confidence. Opened doors. And, yes, he introduced us to his tailor and offered us some advice on how to dress.”

One of the young men took charge of the microphone. “Tonight we would like to show our gratitude to Mr. Madison by giving him a helping hand with a concept that he has never fully grasped…”

The clone holding the silver foil box removed the lid with a flourish. The young woman reached inside and removed a scruffy-looking tee shirt, faded blue jeans, and a pair of well-worn running shoes.

“… The concept of casual Fridays,” the clone at the microphone concluded.

The banquet room exploded once again in laughter and applause. Gabe rose and walked back to the podium to accept his gift. He flashed a full laughing smile at the three clones.

It struck Lillian in that moment that Gabe looked like a man at the top of his game-a man who enjoyed the respect of his friends and rivals alike, a man who was comfortable with his own power in the business world, cool and utterly in control.

He sure didn’t look like a man who was going through a bad case of burnout.