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112: Nightcap Recap
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2024-10-29 19:42:56“Would you care to have a seat, Detective?” Andrew offered, gesturing to the chairs arranged with the sofa before the great room's fireplace. “This might be a lengthy process.”
Detective Kelly inhaled deeply, looking somewhat disappointed. “I thought you were going to be cooperative, Mr. James,” he said, taking the seat offered to him opposite the sofa where Evelyn sat.
“In as much as I can be, I have. Most of what we’ve learned has been since we last spoke to you.”
“You had my card.”
With the detective seated, Andrew sat beside Evelyn, wrapping a protective arm about her shoulders and drawing her into the shelter of his body. He studied her face, peering into the depths of her mystical silvery-gray eyes, dancing with flecks of golden firelight.
It never ceased to amaze him how spectacularly pretty she was, or how irrationally he loved her. The mere sight of her caused everything els
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World of Tomorrow 113: Sorting
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World of Tomorrow 114: Missives
At the excited squeals emanating from the vicinity of the apartment door, Evelyn set aside her sewing gratefully. Only something wasn’t right about the sounds she was hearing. “Peter. Sarah. Please. I need you to settle down.” As she emerged from the great room, Andrew was kneeling in the ornate foyer on one knee, hugging each child, then setting them back from him. “I’m so grateful for your cheery little faces as soon as I get home every day. You know that. But today I need a little bit of time to talk to your mother first, please.” Stealing quietly along the runner in the hall, she came up behind him as he got to his feet. “Why don’t you two go back to playing. Your father and I will be there shortly.” She let Andrew steer her into the library, pivoting to wait as he closed the door quietly behind them. “What’s happened?” she demanded immediately. “Detective Kelly was by my office this morning.” Evelyn’s breath caught in her throat, her slender fingers covering her lips. If her
World of Tomorrow 115: Hunt
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World of Tomorrow 116: Halloween
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World of Tomorrow 117: Encounters
“What are you thinking about, darling?” With her eyes following a young family with three children, the eldest about Peter’s age and the rest younger, she smiled as she answered, “All the people here in costume. The children I expected, but so many adults are costumed too. It adds a great deal to the carnival atmosphere on the last day.” Among the children, the cowboys and cops, princesses and angels were always popular. But many children had drawn inspiration from events of the year and Elecktro-style robots giggled with Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion. Frank Buck-style jungle explorers jitterbugged with giant jungle cats, and clowns with comic book heroes. Her silvery-blue eyes lingered on an obviously well-to-do couple dressed in bright and wildly colored, sequined and feathered Venetian style costumes with oddly grotesque and appealing masks—his a black and gold, curly-horned, laughing skull, and hers a magnificently plumed, long
World of Tomorrow 118: Night and Day
“What makes you think it has my name on it?” Andrew asked, staring down his straight narrow nose at his wife, but her attention was diverted down the midway towards the crowds and noise. “Seems a familiar style,” Evelyn replied grimly. With an annoyed huff, she started towards the bench and the envelope that had been left by the colorful and mysterious harlequin. The entire circumstance had lost its glamor for her. There was nothing loving or romantic about lies. Nothing proud or noble about secrets. Not even ones purportedly to protect somebody you love. Miranda Stiles was her aunt, for pity’s sake. Her aunt who had looked her in the face countless times at the Trust and never uttered a single kind word. Who’d been willing to let her plummet to her death with Russell James. The more she dwelled on it, the more it infuriated her. All of them infuriated her. She’d have gladly signed away her right to every penny of the money in Glorietta Moreno’s California bank account for the s
World of Tomorrow 119: All Saint's Day
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World of Tomorrow 120: Preparations
The final preparations in advance of the movers clearing Evelyn’s small cold-water flat seemed to spark a renewed awareness and an intensified enthusiasm for packing and planning. Not merely in Evelyn and, by default, Andrew, but also in the children, Mary and Tank, and even Justin and Lily. Which was fortunate, as Evelyn discovered upon arriving at her apartment after she’d spoken to Mickey on Wednesday morning. With only an urgent need and no real design in mind for how to clear her own apartment, Lily with Justin’s help had simply moved anything she didn’t intend to throw away into Evelyn’s apartment across the hall. While they had done a marginal amount of packing—including emptying shelves and cupboards into boxes still standing opened and scattered absolutely everywhere—they’d added exponentially to the chaos by cramming the entirety of Lily’s meager belongings haphazardly into Evelyn’s. It followed then that instead of spending her mornings and early afternoon
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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 138: Sound and Fury
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World of Tomorrow 135: Plan of Attack
The dancing had worked like a charm. For a couple of hours. Andrew had managed to get just shy of another couple hours on top of that, burning time off the afternoon by alternating between listening to the orchestra rehearse, dancing, and finally, by slipping a bribe to the broadcasting staff to show Evelyn their equipment set-up and to take their sweet time about it. After that, she’d become too fretful to do much beyond distractedly, which had quickly spoiled the ballroom option for both of them. They’d retired to their drawing room, taken afternoon tea, then Evelyn’s pacing had begun again in earnest. He had to admit, watching her as she combed through her drying hair at the dressing table, it might be time to worry about Will a little. It was going on eight o’clock. Late by any business standard, but certainly well past the time when most diners catering to the kind of clients they’d seen at the DeBaliviere Diner and Waffle House would be visiting
World of Tomorrow 134: As Luck Would Have It
Wednesday morning in St. Louis dawned dark and gloomy and only marginally better than it had been upon their arrival early afternoon on Monday. When Evelyn emerged from the bedroom into the drawing room where he and the constantly-moving Will waited, Andrew flicked the newspaper he’d been reading down and smiled. They’d all slept poorly—again. They’d all woken late—again—and after their enjoyable brunch yesterday, both men were eager to see what other offerings were available in the East Lounge’s dining area. “Well?” she asked, her red-tinged and particle-irritated eyes roving the drawing room’s lush furnishings, immediately spotting the unmistakable coating of fine black powder and ash. “Are we trapped inside again today? It seems faintly better.” Will snorted. “By comparison to yesterday, being buried in black sand would seem better.” Andrew chuckled, setting aside the St. Louis Star-Times he’d been reading. He rifled through a stack of newspapers o
World of Tomorrow 133: Black Tuesday
The hotel’s ballroom was a gently baroque style. Its elegant space was replete with all manner of luxuries one would expect of a high-profile hotel, no matter where one might visit in the world—custom paneled with artfully etched-mirror and plaster walls, gold-leafed accents and intricate crown moldings. Above the near-magical dancefloor, which was lit from below, hung in the decorative ceiling, a ponderous crystal chandelier lit the warm wooden dancefloor beneath it. Along the periphery, undulating balconies supported by Corinthian pilasters gave an air of classicism to the space, but one not overly staid. These generous galleries provided seating for those who had only come for a meal, to watch the dancing or to listen to the orchestra. They’d dressed for a late dinner, but though the orchestra played, their music broadcast exactly as Evelyn had always dreamed of experiencing, she and Andrew hadn’t danced. In fact, they hadn’t stayed much longer than
World of Tomorrow 132: Miserable Monday
“The Coronado was built, and I believe is now run, by Preston Bradshaw,” Andrew advised more than an hour later as their cab pulled away from the curb at the train depot. “He graduated from Columbia with my brother, Russell. The two were quite good friends as I recall. My father introduced him to Stanford White in New York City where he worked before returning to St. Louis. He’s responsible for the monumental hotels on Lindell Boulevard. The Melbourne and the Coronado at midtown and the theatre district. And opposite, near the Central West end, the Chase and the Forest Park hotels were also his commissions.” “Did you know him?” Evelyn asked, closing her burning eyes and resting her head against his shoulder. “Is that why we’re staying at the Coronado?” She left unspoken the reminder that the Coronado Hotel, in particular the hotel’s famed Caprice Club, was where they’d found Charlotte to serve Andrew’s divorce paperwork after their tip-off from the Princes in Los Angeles.
World of Tomorrow 131: Arrival
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