Without Warning - Hardcover

West, Eugenia Lovett

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312371136 ISBN 13: 9780312371135

Publisher: Minotaur Books, 2007

Synopsis

When Emma Streat’s megasuccessful CEO husband dies in a hit-and-run accident, she sets out to find his killer. The search plunges the dynamic ex-opera singer into an international high-tech world where a new laser invention may become a global threat. Using her talent for making unlikely connections, Emma becomes involved with an intriguing British peer who works undercover smoking out spies. Then two physicists are murdered and a key notebook stolen. Emma must keep her head while mourning her husband’s death and sustaining threats on her life. Her search spirals into a terrifying development---and a surprising end.

With her debut mystery, Eugenia Lovett West has crafted a thrilling and emotionally packed story. Emma Streat is a strong, appealing heroine, a resourceful woman who is determined to discover what shattered her quiet life, no matter the cost.

About this title

About the Author

Eugenia Lovett West was born in Boston. She attended Sarah Lawrence College and worked for Harper’s Bazaar and the American Red Cross. Then came marriage, four children, and volunteer work. She is the author of The Ancestors Cry Out, a historical novel. Eugenia divides her time between Connecticut and New Hampshire.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter 1
There was no warning siren. No message flipping across a TV screen. The stripping down began on one of those perfect June days created for outdoor weddings and graduations. A day for celebrations, not loss.
At noon, my godmother, Caroline Vogt, had arrived for lunch on my terrace overlooking the Connecticut River—a detour on her annual migration from New York to her Newport “cottage.” Caroline was seventy-four. She had been divorced four times. Her voice sounded like a tuba filled with gravel, her tongue was razor sharp, but she was the closest thing I had to a mother and I adored her. She had always called me darling girl and over the years we had worked out a system: She was free to speak her mind. If I didn’t take her advice, no hard feelings. The system hadn’t worked today.
As the black Mercedes disappeared down the drive, I ran upstairs, threw the linen shirt and slacks on the floor, and yanked on ragged work jeans. Picked up my gardening tools and rushed out to work on the herbaceous border I was copying from an English magazine.
“I am not, not, not a clinging mother,” I muttered, plunging the shovel into clumps of hard roots. Caroline had come to hit a nerve and she had succeeded:
“Pay attention, darling girl. You’re forty-seven. You survived losing your singing voice. You’ve done a superb job with those hunks of boys, but now they’re off to college. They’re men. Let them go. You’ve got the money, the time, the energy to move on and do something important. Don’t drag your feet. Do it.”
For more than an hour, I dug and made piles of dirt until my shoulders burned. Finally I straightened and pushed back my hair with a sweaty hand. I should have said, “Give me a break, will you? I work in a soup kitchen. I raise money for the children of 9/11 firefighters and disaster victims. There’s Lewis, don’t forget. Tomorrow I have to go to London with him.”
O’Hara, our black and tan Jack Russell terrier, was sniffing in the tall grass by the tennis court. Last week he had appeared with a baby rabbit in his mouth.
“Come,” I said, and started down the path that led to the front of the house. The sun had shifted to the west; the birds in the old maples were busy feeding those hungry little mouths. I stood still, muscles aching, and looked at the old fanlight over the door, the antique carriage lamps. This was my nest, safe—so far—from anthrax and bombs. I loved every uneven ceiling and iron latch.
The old part of the house was built in 1798 by a local shipowner. Yellow clapboards, with original wide floorboards. Windows that had to be propped up with sticks. We had come here ten years ago when Lewis was made the CEO of Galbraith Technologies, a leading high-tech company, but this was still known as the Sterling place. We had kept the original four rooms and added an all-purpose wing: kitchen, living and dining space, mudroom, and the long flagstone terrace.
“There you are.” Our caretaker, Mrs. Gates, was coming down the steps. In winter we put our cars in a nearby barn with an apartment above for Mrs. Gates, a round-faced, cheerful widow, far more friend than employee.
“Just down in the garden.”
“I cleared up the dishes and did some ironing. Can’t believe the quiet around here. No mess. No dirty clothes.”
I winced. “We’ll get used to it.” My two sons had been day students at a nearby prep school. Boarders had flocked here for weekends; the mudroom was still filled with lacrosse sticks, soccer balls, hockey pucks. Jake had finished a year at Brown; Steve would be a freshman at Harvard. Last week they had gone off to their summer jobs, Jake to a radio station in San Francisco, Steve to a ranch in Montana.
Mrs. Gates shook her head. “Not much for me to do anymore. I’ll be going along; my sister’s grandchildren are coming for supper. What time are you off tomorrow? London again, is it?”
“London, back Thursday night. Three days and two nights. I could have used the time here, putting in the new border.”
Mrs. Gates made a clucking sound. “Good for you to get away, is what I say. Fly off in a private plane. Dress up like one of those high-paid models.” The Streat choice not to live like industrial royalty was an ongoing joke between us.
“Model—tell that to my brother. He says I’ve got hair like a horse’s mane. A messy chestnut mane.”
“Well, a model would kill for your eyes.”
I smiled, remembering my old nurse Biddy McGee. “Yer no beauty above the neck, darlin’: yer nose is too flat; yer mouth is too big. But those eyes, blue as a Kerry lake.” And in my press clippings: Eyes that mesmerize up to the third balcony . . . not a classic beauty, but Metcalf has presence. Vitality. Brio.
“Give up,” I said, stretching my aching shoulders. “You’ll never turn me into a jet-setter. Lewis would hate it. Besides, that fancy plane just saves him time at airports. Safer, too, these days.”
“Seems a waste, though, you going around in T-shirts and jeans. Grubbing in the garden. Anything special you want me to do?”
“Just water the plants on the terrace. You’ve got the number of the company flat in case you have to reach us.”
“In my book. See you in the morning.”
Late sun filled the neat kitchen; it looked empty and deserted. On the river, an oil barge was heading down to Long Island Sound. Once upon a time Pequot Indians had paddled their canoes on this water, a slow, safe way of getting from place to place, and maybe that wasn’t so bad. Those Indian women never had jet lag, no career choices, no empty-nest syndrome.
Suddenly O’Hara sat up, ears pricked forward, nose in the air. After a few seconds I could hear, in the distance, the faint sound of the helicopter coming up the river. Lewis was early; he never got home before seven. Like the Gulfstream jet, the copter he used for commuting was a time-saving necessity, not a status symbol. The first year we were married he had cheerfully driven to work in a car with gaping rust holes in the floor. This was a man of intelligence and vision who hated show and cultivating contacts. A shy man who had needed me then.
“He’s early, for once,” I said to O’Hara. No time, now, to cut back the geraniums on the terrace or work out on the StairMaster. I went into the pantry and pulled a container of homemade chicken curry from the freezer. There was the usual roar as the copter landed on the pad beyond the apple orchard. Another roar, as Tim, the pilot, took off again.
After a moment, Lewis came across the strip of lawn, carrying his jacket, a tall, dark-haired man with the thin, intense face of a beardless Abe Lincoln. A man driven by the pressures of creating high-tech weapons. Would he notice any change if I found myself a full-time job—or a lover? As always, he stopped to check the temperature on the outdoor thermometer before coming into the kitchen. I reached for the salad spinner; supermarkets had taken to spraying lettuce as if hosing down rugs.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hi.” He sat down at the huge round kitchen table. For years it had been covered with games, homework, cookie crumbs. Instead of pouring out arias about misplaced faith and greed, I had channeled passion and exuberance into soccer matches, car pools, batches of lasagna. But I knew what my friends were saying: “Terrible about Emma, such a dynamo, stuck in that backwater, married to a workaholic, buried in motherhood slog.”
“Good day?” I asked.
“No.”
I put down the spinner and looked at him. His face had the set expression of a man holding in anger. “What happened?”
“I may have to stay longer in London. Security problems over there. You may have to come home without me.”
“How much longer?”
“Depends on what I find.” He was staring at his hands. Mechanically, I blotted the lettuce with paper towels. I had learned, the hard way, not to overdramatize. Many of our friends were divorced, but Lewis and I were good friends in and out of bed. We respected each other’s strengths. Like heads of separate departments, I had been the caregiver while Lewis had worked his way to the top of the industrial ladder.
“You’d better go over the schedule with me,” I said. “So I know what to pack.”
He looked up, frowning. “What’s that?”
“The schedule. I have to pack.”
“We get to London after nine tomorrow night their time. Wednesday, meetings all day. The International Technology Committee.”
I nodded. “I’ll spend the day at the new Tate.” This committee was a kind of CEO think tank for an exchange of cutting-edge ideas. Lectures. The wives of members were mostly older women with grown children and no careers. Women who went everywhere with their husbands.
“On Wednesday night, Hank and Robina are having a reception. At their house.”
“Their house? The wives will love that.” Hank Lausch was a close friend from the days when he and Lewis had started out together in New York. Hank was a mediocre engineer but good at public relations. When Lewis was made CEO, he had saved Hank’s neck by sending him to be the manager of the token London office. In spite of recent cutting back, there was still a suite of rooms in Berkeley Square. A car and driver and a flat for visiting VIPs and personnel in transit.
“. . . Thursday, more lectures. I’ll have to work in a meeting with a physicist from Cambridge, a Dr. Estes, top brain in the laser field. Done some of our best projects.” Lewis worked closely with a number of Cambridge physicists and had great respect for their intellect and creativity. He often said that without physics the world would be a zero.
“Is he the one who’s terrified of computer hackers? The one who carries everything around in a little notebook?”
“When he’s working on a concept, he puts his new formulas in that notebook. Keeps it handy in his vest pocket.”
“As long as it doesn’t get lost at the cleaners. Are we staying at the company flat?”
“No. Hank got us a suite at the Pelham. Remind me to give you the number for Mrs. Gates.”
I turned, hand in midair. “A suite? At the Pelham? That’s where movie stars and heads of state hang. Why not the flat?”
“Plumbing problems. High season in London, hotels filled. Best not to argue with him.”
“No.” If Hank resented Lewis’s success it didn’t show, but Lewis was careful to keep clear of Hank’s small turf—and I never played the role of boss’s wife with the imperious Robina. Four years ago, Hank’s friends were startled, to say the least, when he married Lady Robina Fyfe, an earl’s daughter with money.
O’Hara was dancing around, shaking his toy doll, demanding the nightly tug-of-war. Lewis rubbed his forehead, ignoring the dog.
“Want a drink?” I asked.
“When’s dinner?”
“Half an hour, about. You’re early.” I put the curry into the micro and went back to the sink. “About this security thing. I don’t want to put my foot in it.”
Silence. I waited. Lewis was staring at his hands. The knuckles were white. Suddenly he looked up and saw me standing there.
“Forget it,” he said sharply. “I shouldn’t have opened my mouth.”
“But—”
“Forget it, Em.”
I turned to the counter. “Fine. I will.”
He pushed back his chair and got to his feet. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to snap. What’s for dinner?” My husband was a master at hiding his feelings.
“Chicken curry.”
“Sounds good.” He went to the pie safe we used as a bar. Poured himself two inches of Scotch malt whiskey and turned.
“Em.”
“What?”
“We haven’t talked lately. I’ve been tied up, you had Steve’s graduation, getting the boys off to their jobs. I wasn’t much help.” A rare admission.
“It happens. Not your fault. Goes with the turf.” I watched as he went to the refrigerator. Ice cubes rattled into the glass. He stood there, studying the ice.
“It’s time you know. About this business of making weapons. It’s getting out of hand. We’re all—me, the competition—seems as if we’re turning into smart-ass kids playing with lethal toys. One of these days we’re going to blow ourselves up.”
I leaned against the counter. What was he trying to tell me? “That—sounds bad,” I said.
“It is. I’m thinking of leaving Galbraith Tech.”
My head jerked back. “Leave? But why? The place would go to pieces without you.”
“It may, but I want to help prevent mass destruction, not accelerate it. You can understand why. We’ve got two sons. Great boys. God knows what they’re facing. Turning out new weapons systems isn’t going to help them. What goes ’round comes back to hit us in the gut. Always has, always will. Simple as that.”
I took a step forward, my mind flapping like a veering sail. “When did you start thinking about leaving Galbraith?”
“A while ago. It won’t happen soon, but I wanted to give you a heads-up. I’ll be in the study,” and he went through the door and down the hall.
The curry would need rice. I unhooked a copper saucepan from the rack over the stove. Put in a cup of water and shoved it onto a burner, then measured a half cup of rice and put on the cover. At noon, Caroline had told me to get a life. Just now Lewis had slammed the door in my face when I mentioned security in London. Why? Was the talk about leaving Galbraith meant to distract me?
With a need to keep moving, I opened a drawer and took out my favorite place mats, blue and yellow linen from a little shop in Provence. Took down the Sandwich glass goblets, the plates from Pier 1. My crisis rule with the boys was simple: “Don’t panic. Take a deep breath and count to ten.” O’Hara was shaking his toy again, looking worried.
“Later,” I told him, trying not to think worst case like my older sister, Dolly. Poor Dolly couldn’t drive from Lake Forest to Chicago without expecting a flat tire or a fatal accident.
The water was almost boiling. If Lewis left his job, it wouldn’t be a disaster. We had money. We wouldn’t lose the house. The boys could go to graduate school. Lewis would switch his talent for bringing embryo ideas to life to another field. He was a recognized expert at crisis management. Whatever was happening in London, he would find an answer. I knew his views on security:
“It’s an ongoing fight, spies wanting to get their hands on weapons projects in the first stages. A good industrial spy can save a company time and money. A spy for a rogue state or a terrorist group can shift the balance of world power. Patents mean nothing to them. The stakes are very high.”
O’Hara sat down on my feet, his way of getting attention.
“No,” I said, dislodging him. Making time for Lewis had better be one of my new priorities. Tomorrow we could talk on the plane.
“Damn.” With a loud hiss, the rice boiled over. I jumped. Burned my hand. Dropped the pan. As water and rice streamed over the tile floor, O’Hara raised his head and began to howl.
“Be quiet,” I said sharply, and went to get the mop. There was no way to know that tiny listening devices, not on the market, were busily at work around me. One under a warped board in the broom closet. Another in our bedroom. Another in Lewis’s study. Every sound, every word spoken ...

About this edition

• Publisher: Minotaur Books
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0312371136
• ISBN 13: 9780312371135
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304