Olivia studied the report for a few seconds more and then, with an elegant wave of her hand, dismissed the subject. “I guess it really doesn’t matter since all of the new locks have already been installed. Just sign here for the new keys and I’ll see that this securities key matter is cleared up.” Erin scribbled her initials next to Olivia’s, relinquished the old set of keys to the leggy brunette and snapped the new ring of keys into her purse.
Just as she was about to leave Olivia paused at the door. She thought for a moment before turning to face Erin once again. Her voice was low as she asked, “What do you think about Mitch?” Her normally lively green eyes had deadened. “Isn’t it awful….”
Erin slowly shook her head and rubbed her chin nervously. “I don’t like to think about it—or even talk about it. It’s something that I don’t understand at all,” she confessed, and hoped that the conversation with Olivia had ended. Something about the brunette always made Erin uneasy. But Olivia wouldn’t let the subject die.
“I know what you mean.” Olivia seemed to agree. “I would never have guessed—not in a million years.” She paused once again, her gaze flicking up the length of Erin’s figure as if something else were on her mind. A flame of life leapt into her eyes. “It must be especially hard for you,” Olivia intimated.
“It’s been hard for all of us,” Erin agreed cautiously.
“Yes, but with you it’s a little different, wouldn’t you say?”
“I don’t know what you’re getting at.”
“Oh, sure you do,” Olivia replied as she brushed back an errant wave of thick copper hair. “You don’t have to play naive with me. I know how close you were to Mitch.”
Erin’s patience, which had been thinning ever since the lanky girl had entered her office, snapped. She pulled the strap of her purse over her shoulder and said with a coolly professional voice that suggested the subject was closed, “Mitch is a good friend of mine—nothing more!”
“Oh?” The question seemed innocent enough, but the curl of Olivia’s petulant lips suggested disbelief. “The same way that Kane Webster is your good friend?” The color drained from Erin’s face, confirming Olivia’s vicious accusation. “Well, honey,” she continued with an exaggerated wink, “no one can accuse you of not knowing which side of the bread the butter’s on!” After her final invective, and with a self-satisfied smile, Olivia slipped out of the office.
Erin stood in stunned silence in the aftermath of Olivia’s remarks. Although she was alone, she felt a storm of scarlet embarrassment climb up her neck. It was happening again! Already! The gossip had started, and who better to start it than Olivia. Erin swallowed hard, and sagged against the desk. Why had she been so foolish—she should have seen it coming. All the gossip, the knowing glances, the snickering laughter behind her back, all over again!
She let her forehead rest on the palm of her hand as she slowly tried to recompose herself. It had been a good day, she reasoned, and she shouldn’t let Olivia ruin it. But that was the trouble, Olivia had ruined it. Why, after all the years that had passed since the divorce from Lee, did any little biting comment from Olivia still wound her? Eight years had passed since Olivia’s tempestuous affair with Lee. Although at the time, Erin had blamed the slim brunette for the breakup of her marriage with Lee, she knew now that she had been grossly unfair. If Lee hadn’t taken up with Olivia, another pretty face would have caught his wandering eye and lured him away from the bounds of the marriage. Lee was only too wil
ling. It was just unfortunate that Lee had been reckless enough to choose to have an affair with someone whom Erin saw on a daily basis. It seemed to compound the pain.
The problem with the marriage had not really been Olivia, but rather the differences between Erin and Lee. Although Erin recognized that now, she still found it hard to accept Olivia for what she seemed to be: a very knowledgeable and efficient assistant officer of the bank. Although the problems of the past were long dead, Olivia’s presence at the bank and her vicious tongue continued to plague Erin. She never felt that she could completely trust Olivia.
Was she being unfair? Erin asked herself as she once again gathered her purse over her shoulder, straightened her skirt and headed out the door. Perhaps Olivia’s attempt to communicate with Erin about Mitch was only natural. Both Olivia and Erin had cared very much for Mitch, and each had worked for him for nearly a decade. Perhaps Olivia felt the need to lash out because of Erin’s cool attitude toward her. It was just possible that Erin was holding too much of a grudge against the sultry woman who wore the designer dresses and tailored suits with such seductive bearing. Erin sighed heavily to herself. Maybe she had never given Olivia a chance.
But the knot in Erin’s stomach continued to tighten. She just intuitively didn’t trust Olivia. It wasn’t so much what Olivia said that managed to get under Erin’s sensitive thin skin, but the way the words came out. Double entendres, sly winks, suggestive innuendos—all at Erin’s expense.
As Erin found her way downstairs and out to the parking lot, she tried to dismiss the anxious feeling that had seized her with Olivia’s interruption. But as she unthinkingly put the key into the ignition switch of the car, she hesitated and watched, nearly hypnotized, as the other keys jangled and swung near the steering column. How had her name gotten on the list of people who had keys to the securities cart? Try as she would to remember otherwise, she knew that she had never, in the last few months, signed out for that key! And yet the presence of her own initials negated her perception. Would someone within the bank use her good name for his own purposes? Could someone have forged her initials? Mitch, perhaps? Would Mitchell Cameron stoop so low? With a disgusted grunt to herself and a firm shake of her head, she started the car and dismissed her traitorous thoughts. Where had her loyalty gone? Mitchell Cameron had been kind to her, a friend when she needed one most. She wouldn’t turn her back on him now—nor would she imagine that he would use her name for his own advantage. But then, how could she explain about the key? Could it be, as Olivia said, just a mistake? Probably. And yet…
There were still slight traces of fog along the waterfront and in the downtown area of Seattle, but as Erin’s yellow VW climbed the hill that supported the apartment house, the mist thinned and by the time she was home the evening was cool but clear. Only a trace of fog could be seen in the wisps that clung to the dark waters of the distant Sound.
It was nearly seven, and Erin wanted to dash up the stairs to get ready for Kane, but propriety stopped her. She set her purse and briefcase on the lowest step of the staircase and knocked softly on Mrs. Cavenaugh’s door.
A curious blue eye peeked at her through the peephole. Then quickly the door opened, and the slightly bent figure of Milly Cavenaugh greeted Erin with a warm smile.
“Good evening, Erin. I didn’t expect to see you tonight,” Mrs. Cavenaugh said cheerily, and winked broadly at her young landlady.
Erin’s face creased with anxiety. “Why not? Didn’t the repairmen show up?”
“Did they ever….” Mrs. Cavenaugh replied with a disapproving purse of her lips. Disgust darkened her eyes and she shook her head as she remembered. “They were here…an entire battalion of them…tracking in mud and heaven-knows-what-else into the house!” Erin’s eyes followed the sweep of Mrs. Cavenaugh’s hand as it included the front porch, entry hall and stairway. The oaken planks of the hallway were, indeed, imprinted with scrambled tracks of mud-laden, booted feet.
“Did they finish the job?” Erin asked, dragging her eyes away from the mess on the floor and back to her elderly tenant.
“Partially, I think. It seems that it’s going to take more work than the original estimate showed,” Mrs. Cavenaugh announced, thinking carefully.
“More work? Why?” Dollar signs flashed in Erin’s mind.
“Something about dry rot in the floorboards, I think,” Mrs. Cavenaugh explained with a shrug of her bent shoulders. “I’m sorry, dear, I really didn’t pay too much attention—I was too busy trying to get them to wipe the dirt off their boots.”
Erin felt her heart sink. Dry rot? What was that exactly? Something to do with the condition of the subfloor and support beams, she thought. It sounded like it would cost money—lots of it.
“Is something wrong, Erin?” Mrs. Cavenaugh asked, assessing the worried look that had appeared on Erin’s face. “Would you like to come in and sit for a moment? I could brew a pot of tea….”
Forcing herself to smile, Erin shook her head. “Nothing’s wrong, Mrs. Cavenaugh. I was just a little surprised to find out about the dry rot.”