Once Upon a Friendship

“The point is I’ve agreed to keep you safe. You’ve already been vandalized once. It could be a one-time occurrence. It could also be the beginning of escalating events. The guy wrote better off dead on your car. As the FBI contacts investors who are victims of the swindling, and your father’s arrest makes the news, you, as his son—and as far as the world knows, his heir—could be a target. These first few days are critical.”

“You just told me I didn’t have to fear going out.”

“You don’t. Not as long as I’m with you.”

Liam wasn’t going to buy into the panic. The guy had to be working for someone else. He didn’t just appear out of the blue, offering his services to Liam under his own auspices, not at the low price he’d quoted. He’d say whatever he had to say to get Liam’s compliance. “My father was arrested on Wednesday. The car was defaced Thursday. Nothing has happened since.”

“You haven’t been out, other than to go to the car dealership.”

“You’ve been watching me?”

“It’s what you’re paying me for. And by the way, whoever left those messages on your car had to have been watching you, too. What’s to say they haven’t been doing so all weekend? Maybe the reason nothing further has happened is because you haven’t been out of your home.”

“You’re trying to tell me I’m not going anywhere without you for the foreseeable future?” Two sets of eyes, one big and brown, the other silvery-blue, glistened with concern.

“I’m letting you know where you stand, from a personal security viewpoint.”

His defenses dropped a notch. “I appreciate that.” A smart man understood that he couldn’t do all things all the time. And Tanner was of more use to him than not. “I would just as soon drive myself to and from court. I don’t want to give people any ideas that I need a bodyguard. I do not intend to start looking guilty. But if you happen to follow me when I’m out, then fine.”

Marie took a bite of salad. Gabrielle nodded. And Liam was satisfied.

CHAPTER NINE

MARIE’S CELL RANG just minutes after Liam hung up. Edith Lawson, the seventy-year-old widow in 503, needed someone to come get Gordon Brinley, her ninety-year-old neighbor, out of her bathroom again. Gordon was a bit senile, but everyone watched out for him. Grace stopped in to give him his medications. Leon made sure he bathed regularly. Elise was in charge of arranging meals for those who couldn’t cook. Most of the residents had known each other all of their lives.

But at that moment, Gordon Brinley was of the opinion that Edith’s bathroom was his own.

“Remind Edith that if she’d keep her door locked, Gordon couldn’t wander in,” Gabrielle told Liam as he headed up.

“If she keeps her door locked, there’s no telling where he’ll pee,” Marie blurted.

“If she keeps her door locked, he might wander to the stairwell and get hurt,” Liam added as he headed out the door.

“You worried?” Marie asked, frowning as she looked between Gabrielle and the door that had just closed behind Liam.

“Of course I’m worried. There are clear possible dangers facing him.” They weren’t talking about Gordon. Or Edith.

“Edith asked me if the Walter Connelly who was just arrested is any relation to Liam.”

They hadn’t kept Liam’s identity from the residents. They’d just never exposed it, either. Because when Liam came around them, he was just Liam. They’d always been his escape from the high-powered, wealthy existence he’d been born to.

“I heard you tell Edith you’d talk about it later. Was that what you were referring to?” Gabrielle had only eaten half of her salad, but she’d lost her appetite.

“Yeah. Liam should be the one who decides what he wants everyone to know, and we couldn’t very well have a discussion about it with Gordon upstairs relieving himself.”

The old man had been out in the hallway without his pants on once. It could happen again. If he ever became a danger to himself or others, they’d call the authorities, but until then, everyone watched out for him so he could stay in the home he’d shared with his now-deceased wife for sixty years. The home where he’d raised his only son, a soldier who’d been killed in Iraq.

Marie was pushing the remainder of her food around in her bowl. Liam’s salad sat at his place at the table, the fork still in the bowl. And there the two of them sat. As though the meal couldn’t go on without him.

Because their lives couldn’t go on without him?

The thought bothered her. Brought a sharp pain of tension to her stomach. They couldn’t count on Liam to be there forever. He was destined for greatness. And all Gabrielle had ever wanted was enough money to sleep at night without running bills and income through her head. Enough money so she didn’t have to worry, and not so much that she had to worry.

The life Liam led—where nothing was ever completely private, where someone always wanted something from him, where he never knew whom he could trust or who was after his money, where when things went wrong the whole world had an opinion about it—wasn’t for her.

Not that he’d ever offered. Or would offer. Not that she’d want him to.

Because even if his father ended up destitute and Liam really had lost his entire inheritance, he still had close to a million dollars in his trust. And if he lost that, he’d make more. Liam Connelly was one of those men who was going places. One of those chosen few who would be successful at whatever they tried to do.