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136: Doors
“You folks just planning on waiting?” their cabbie asked, his dark eyes studying Andrew and Will in the rearview mirror, despite that Evelyn was seated between them. “Meter’s running. Makes no never mind to me if you do, but I’ll have to circle the block or the flatfoots will cite me.”
“How long do we have to decide?” Andrew asked, reluctant to have the cab move on the off chance that they might miss Miranda's departure for work during the process.
“’Nother minute or two at most.”
“Thank you.” He shifted slightly on the cab’s rear seat so he could better see his companions. “I know we’re early, but if she’s keeping business hours, I’d have expected she’d have to allow time to travel to a workplace. You’re certain this is the building, Will?”
“It’s the place,” he replied definitively. “I can go in and wait. Tail her to wherever she’s going, then come get you.”
“Is it possible she recognized you yesterday?” Evelyn asked, peering through the murk
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World of Tomorrow 137: Miranda's Story
Andrew rose slowly to his feet, an antagonized muscle twitching along his clean-shaven jaw. His expression looked like a bomb about to explode. Evelyn drew a sudden breath, one hand clapping over her mouth. She stared, in turns, first at Will, then at Miranda, and her mind whirled. What was it Alexander Lowell had said the day that Detective Kelly had attempted to arrest her? The same day he’d later resigned from the police department. Something about the detective being fed what he needed to lay an accusation upon Evelyn. The question of ‘why’ anyone cared about a lowly former secretary enough to attempt to kill her, let alone invest the effort in framing her was growing more convoluted by the minute. But it was clear it was centered here, with the account belonging to Glorietta Moreno and her rights as an heir to it. “It’s a stretch,” Andrew said softly, nodding towards Miranda, “but I can see why your mother might have had Russell’s name on that account. N
World of Tomorrow 138: Sound and Fury
“M-ma-ma.” The stuttering word was an alarming half-sob and half-gurgle from the wounded Becky. “M-ma-m-ma.” Dear God! Whoever it was had shot her! That poor, helpless girl! Why!? She wasn’t a threat! And there was absolutely nothing here of any value! Evelyn’s heart leapt to her throat and hammered painfully. But she stayed close to the wall, inching forward on tiptoe to clutch at Andrew’s jacket. She pointed to the floor where their shadows fell long across it from the single overhead lamp in the middle of the room. If they drew too close to the door, their shadows would be visible to the intruder in the darkened hall leading to the bedrooms. She pointed to the window, and Andrew jerked his chin towards it in acknowledgement. Escape. They had to escape. Outside, on the sidewalk, they could summon the patrolling police officer. They could summon help. Men trained for this. Men with other guns. They had to move fast. Miranda’s daughter needed them. Even above the scuffling noises fr
World of Tomorrow 139: Epilogue
“Stop, Peter!” Sarah exclaimed, whirling to face behind her. She shot her brother an angry glare. “Peter, for pity’s sake, don’t throw dirt clods at your sister,” Andrew called over his shoulder, shifting his swaddled, sleeping son from his right shoulder to his left as they walked the long, tree-lined drive that led to the James’ estate, perched with its back on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Gulls rode the ocean updrafts in the afternoon sun above the glistening water, occasionally diving when something of interest caught their eye. On the opposite side of the tree-lined drive, his wife’s tiny orchard of glossy-leaved oranges in full bloom left a sweet scent drifting over the drive on the warm, salty breeze off the sea. Not far away, Evelyn's gated garden was growing lush with upright stalks of corn, twined in the loving arms of pole beans with the wide leaves of squash spreading in a carpet at their feet along the ground in one row. In another, her tomatoes were already d
World of Tomorrow 1: Abysmal Monday
Hurrying to the subway entrance through the lightly falling snow, Evelyn paced beside Lily on the busy New York sidewalk. Listening as her friend hummed a song from the radio show they’d heard together during dinner the night before, she joined in with the bouncy countermelody at the song's chorus, smiling in amusement. “It’s catchy, that tune.”Slipping ahead of Lily through a narrow space in the rushing crowd, they descended the hard cement stairs into the subway, single file. Fishing in her purse, an expensive black leather drawstring with round bracelet handles that her aunt had purchased as a gift for her upon her graduation from the Fifth Avenue Secretarial School, Evelyn quickly found a dime, and dropping it into the turnstile, moved with the shuffling masses onto the platform.Along the tracks amid teeth clenching squeals, a cold rush of wintry air and the echoing thunder of the cars, the subway train drew alongside the platform. Stopping completely, with an almost hermetic his
World of Tomorrow 2: Falling
In that frozen second between when Mr. James’ weight had pulled her body over the window ledge and when her desperate fingers, cramped and grown numb from all the pressure on them, failed her, slipped and drew over the polished wood of the sill with scraping nails, it seemed Evelyn was aware suddenly, conscious of everything.Hung suspended in that deathless second, she felt the icy cold wind billowing the full skirt of her dress and her gut wrenched, ashamed of her inadvertently lewd display to the helpless onlookers in other buildings and the foolish gawkers down below. Her long dark hair, cast into weightlessness and flung wildly in every direction, twisted into looping tangles and into her face unbecomingly. Every clang and honk and tiny ping from the jammed vehicles on the ground rang long and distinct and clear in her ears.Now high enough to peek around the other buildings, filtered sunlight glittered silvery in the Trust’s windows on the tower of floors above hers and dappled t
World of Tomorrow 3: Nepotism
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World of Tomorrow 4: Intrusion
“Evie!” Lily pounded on her apartment door. “Are you ready? If we don’t catch a cab soon, we’ll be late.”Inhaling deeply and calling up patience for her beloved friend, Evelyn opened her apartment door.“Oh, so you are dressed.” Pushing past her, Lily circled, tugging at the borrowed black dress and pinching at the side seams under Evelyn’s arms. “It’s a bit big—you’re so thin, really—but it’s scarcely noticeable. Must we carry on with the sling?”“The doctor was most vehement I wear it and rest my shoulder for ten days.”Lily rolled her eyes skyward, counting on her fingers. “Well, it’s been—essentially seven days already. If it’s not still hurting, today would be a good trial run, don’t you think? You won’t be wearing it to work on Monday, that’s for certain. Can’t have anyone thinking you might be disabled or attempting to garner sympathy in some way.”Lifting her brows, Evelyn nodded in agreement. “That’s true. Fine. Let me take it off.”“Oh, don’t bother folding it,” Lily groaned
World of Tomorrow 5: Interment
Standing numbly beside his mother, the stoic Andrew took little comfort from her through Russell’s public service, heard little of the words spoken on his brother’s behalf. His blank eyes wandered from one face to another in the sea of invited mourners and he felt miserably alone. Familiar strangers, not one of them the kind of friend his brother had been in life. He loathed their ingratiating superficiality, resented their pandering crudeness, expensively cloaked as civilized high society when actually they were barely above savages, kissing each other's cheeks in public and viciously shredding each other in private. “I am the resurrection and the life, says the Lord. Those who believe in me shall live, even though they die…” How am I to do what they ask, brother? Andrew voiced his agonized thoughts to the voiceless nothingness, the dismal gray day another stifling pressure seeping into his already burdened core, dragging him down like a swamped boat. It swallowed up any miniscule s
Latest chapter
- World of Tomorrow 139: Epilogue
- World of Tomorrow 138: Sound and Fury
- World of Tomorrow 137: Miranda's Story
- World of Tomorrow 136: Doors
- World of Tomorrow 135: Plan of Attack
- World of Tomorrow 134: As Luck Would Have It
- World of Tomorrow 133: Black Tuesday
- World of Tomorrow 132: Miserable Monday
- World of Tomorrow 131: Arrival
