Page 173 of Pieces of Her (Andrea Oliver 1)

Everything felt wrong.

She wanted to rewind her day to this morning and start all over again. She had refused to dress up for the occasion, but now she found herself picking apart her choice of a simple black sweater and blue jeans. She should’ve worn heels. She should’ve dyed the gray out of her hair. She should’ve paid more attention to her make-up. She should’ve turned around and left, but then the gate was open and she was going around a corner and she saw him.

Nick was sitting at one of the tables in the back of the room.

He lifted his chin by way of greeting.

Laura pretended not to notice, pretended that her heart was not trembling, her bones were not vibrating inside of her body.

She was here for Andrew, because his dying wish had to mean something.

She was here for Andrea, because her life had finally found purpose.

She was here for herself, because she wanted Nick to know that she had finally gotten away.

Laura caught flashes of movement as she walked through the large, open space. Fathers in khaki uniforms lifting babies into the air. Couples talking quietly and holding hands. A few lawyers speaking in hushed tones. Children playing in a roped-off corner. Two ping-pong tables manned by happy-looking teenagers. Cameras mounted every ten feet, microphones jutting from the ceiling, guards standing by the doors, the Coke machine, the emergency exit.

Nick was sitting only a few yards away. Laura looked past him, still unprepared for eye contact. Her heart jumped at the sight of the upright piano on the back wall. The Baldwin Hamilton School Model in walnut satin. The fallboard was missing. The keys were worn. She imagined that it was rarely tuned. She was so taken by the sight of the piano that she almost walked past Nick.

“Jinx?” He had his hands clasped together on the table. Improbably, he looked exactly the same as she remembered. Not in the courtroom, not when Laura was passing out in the bathroom at the farmhouse, but downstairs in the shed. Alexandra Maplecroft was still alive. None of the bombs had gone off yet. Nick was unbuttoning his navy peacoat as he kissed her on the cheek.

Switzerland.

“Should I call you Clayton?” she asked, still unable to look at him.

He indicated the seat across the table. “My darling, you may call me anything you like.”

Laura almost gasped, ashamed that the smooth sound of his voice could still touch her. She took the seat. Her eyes measured the space between them, judging that they were well within the three feet required. She clasped her hands together on the table. For only a moment, she allowed herself the pleasure of looking at his face.

Still beautiful.

A little lined, but not much. His energy was the constant, as if a spring was wound tight inside of him.

Charisma.

“Is it Laura now?” Nick grinned. He had always basked under close scrutiny. “After our hero from Oslo?”

“It was random,” she lied, looking past him, first at the wall, then at the piano. “Witness security doesn’t let you set your own terms. You either go along or you don’t.”

He shook his head, as if the details didn’t interest him. “You look the same.”

Laura’s fingers went nervously to her gray hair.

“Don’t be ashamed, my love. It suits you. But then, you always did everything so gracefully.”

She finally looked him in the eye.

The flecks of gold in his irises were a pattern as familiar as the stars. His long eyelashes. The flicker of curiosity mixed with awe, as if Laura was the most interesting person he had ever met.

He said, “There’s my girl.”

Laura struggled against the thrilling shock of his attention, that inexplicable rush of need. She could so easily fall into his vortex again. She could be seventeen years old, her heart floating out of her chest like a hot-air balloon.

Laura broke off first, looking behind him at the piano.

She reminded herself that, just down the corridor, Andy was in that small, dark room listening to everything they said. Mike, too. Marshal Rosenfeld. The six guards with their headphones and monitors.

Laura was not a lonely teenaged girl anymore. She was fifty-five years old. She was a mother, a cancer survivor, a businesswoman.