Paradise (Second Opportunities 1)

She waited in a paralysis of fury and pain while Mark snapped questions at the captain, whom he knew well. After Braden hung up, he turned to the silent group in the conference room. "Ladies and gentlemen,"' he said, his voice tight with anger, "we've had a bomb threat against this store. We'll use the same procedure you're familiar with for fire. You all know what to do and say to your people. Let's get at it and get everyone out of here. If you're feeling panicky, Gordon," he snapped, looking straight at Meredith's problem vice president who'd started to mumble frantically, "keep it to yourself until your staff has cleared out!" He threw a quick glance at the other faces in the room. They looked tense but composed, and he nodded curtly, already turning to leave and instruct his own staff to supervise the evacuation procedures. "In case you don't normally use them," he called behind him, "don't forget to take your pagers with you when you leave."

Within ten minutes Meredith was the only one present on the executive floor. Standing at her window, she listened to the sirens wailing and watched as more fire trucks and squad cars jammed into Michigan Avenue to reinforce those that were already there. From her vantage point fourteen stories above street level, she watched the police cordoning off the store and shoppers pouring out of it in droves, while the knot in her chest grew and twisted until she could hardly drag air through her lungs. Although she'd ordered the heads of the other two stores to evacuate, she herself had no intention of leaving this one until she absolutely had to. This store lived and breathed for her; it was her heritage and her future; she refused to desert it or be driven out until the bomb squad needed it completely cleared. Not for a moment did she believe there was a bomb in any of her stores, but even if the threats were just that, the damage they were going to do to the company's profits would be great. Like many other department stores, Bancroft's depended on the Christmas season for over forty percent of its annual gross sales.

"It's going to be all right," she told herself aloud, She turned away from the window, her attention caught by the twin computer screens on her credenza. They were flashing now because the computers were updating sales figures from the Phoenix and Palm Beach stores. Reaching out, Meredith pressed the combination of keys that showed the Phoenix store's sales figures for this same day last year, and then those from the Palm Beach store, so that she could see the comparison. Both stores were doing much better this year than last, and she tried to take consolation from that. It dawned on her then that Matt might be near a radio and hear what was happening. Rather than worry him, she picked up the phone and called him. It felt strangely reassuring to know he'd be concerned.

Matt wasn't concerned when she told him what was happening, he was frantic. "Get out of that store, Meredith," he ordered. "I mean it, darling, hang up the phone and get the hell out of there!"

"Nope," she said softly, smiling at his autocratic command and alarmed tone. He loved her, and she loved hearing his voice whether he was calling her darling or issuing orders. "It's a hoax, Matt, just like the one a few weeks ago."

"If you don't leave that building," he warned, "I'm coming over there and hauling you out of there myself."

"I can't," she said firmly. "I'm like the captain on a ship. I don't leave until I know everyone else is safely out of here." She paused while he expressed his opinion of that with a long and eloquent curse. "Don't give me orders you wouldn't follow yourself," she said with a smile in her voice. "In less than a half hour we should be cleared out. I'll leave then."

Matt expelled his breath in a harsh sigh, but he stopped trying to persuade her to leave because he knew it was useless—and because he knew he couldn't get to her before thirty minutes and drag her out of there. "All right," he said, standing up and glowering worriedly at his office, "but call me when you're out, because I'm going to be going crazy until I know you are."

"I will," she promised. Teasingly, she added, "My father left his cellular phone in his desk. Do you want the number so you can reach me—in case the suspense gets too great?"'

"You're damned right I want the number."

Meredith opened the desk, took out the phone, and gave him the number.

When she hung up, Matt began to pace, too agitated to sit and wait without knowing what was happening to her. Raking his hand through his hair, he walked over to the window, trying unsuccessfully to see the roof of her building through the maze of skyscrapers. She was so cautious by nature that he could hardly believe she was insisting on staying in that damned store. He hadn't expected that. It hit him then that if he had a radio, he might be able to keep abreast of what was happening twelve blocks away as well as at Meredith's other stores. He didn't have one in his office, but he thought Tom Anderson did.

Turning away from the windows, he headed toward his secretary's office. "I'll be with Tom Anderson," he said, "extension 4114. If Meredith Bancroft calls me, I want that call put through to me there. Is that clear? It's an emergency," he warned her, wishing to God that Eleanor Stern were there.

"Perfectly clear, sir," she said, but Matt didn't notice the hostility in her tone. He was too worried about Meredith to notice a secretary; he was too worried to remember to take his keys out of his desk.

Joanna waited until the elevator doors closed behind him, then she turned and looked at his desk. His gold key ring was still in the center drawer. The third key she tried unlocked the file cabinets; the file on Meredith Bancroft was neatly labeled with her name and filed in its appropriate place, under B. Her palms perspiring with nervous excitement, Joanna removed the file and opened it. In it were some shorthand notes not yet transcribed, and which she didn't dare take the time to try to decipher— and a two-page typewritten agreement signed by Meredith Bancroft. The terms of that agreement made Joanna's eyes widen and her mouth slowly curve into a smile of malicious glee. The same man who Cosmopolitan magazine named as one of the country's ten most eligible bachelors—the man who dated movie stars and famous models and who women drooled over—that same man was having to pay his own wife five million dollars just to see him four nights a week for eleven weeks. He was also having to sell her some land in Houston she evidently wanted ...

"I need a radio," Matt said without preamble as he stalked into Anderson's office. He saw it on the window-sill and turned it on. "The bomb squad is swarming all over Bancroft's. They've evacuated all three stores," he said disjointedly. He'd had dinner with Tom last Tuesday after his tumultuous meeting with Meredith, and Matt had told Tom all that led up to it. Now he glanced distractedly at his friend and added, "Meredith won't leave the damned store!"