In just a few months Olivia Gant had made a comfortable life in Sacramento. She trailed her fingers down the mahogany railing of the ancient staircase. The worn wood smelled of lemon polish and antiquity. Sunlight glinted off the stained glass windows in the foyer, refracting red, blue and gold images across the tiled entry floor.
Heading toward the bedroom, she removed her jacket and slacks as she went, stripping down to her underwear by the time she reached the bathroom. A shower, a nice hot shower, to ease her tired muscles. The first month of the school year always left her feeling a little ragged, her voice hoarse from repeated instructions to new students.
Standing under the hot shower, she let the water work its magic into her sore muscles and puzzled over the task of which staff member to place with which post-grad candidate. She decided her office mate, Dr. Howard Randolph, might be a good mentor to Ted Burrows, after all. Howard had taught at the university for years and was likely experienced at handling a charismatic, but lazy student like Ted.
That problem settled, she stepped out of the shower, slipped on a robe, and padded downstairs to pour a glass of wine. Always mindful of her mother's drinking problem, Olivia permitted herself one glass a day.
For the next several hours she pattered around the house she'd inherited last spring from her grandmother. The grandmother she hadn't even known about until her last year of graduate school when the elderly woman had contacted her out of the blue. Sarah Morse had died last spring and left Olivia this beautiful old home in Sacramento. At first she hadn't been sure she wanted the house. She'd built a solid career at Cal Berkley and was inching toward tenure. A move to the Sacramento area had been the farthest thing from her mind.
Then her floundering marriage had taken a precarious nose dive, and she'd felt both abandoned by and freed from her philandering husband. Rather than become a cliché, she'd taken a year's leave of absence and scooped up the offer from Our Lady of Fatima University. Not a practicing Catholic, she still had a healthy respect for the history and tradition of the ancient church.
In her spacious home library she began unpacking the rest of her research books. After a few minutes the door knocker sounded from the front of the house like a bomb in the quiet evening. Olivia glanced at the antique clock on the mantle. Nine-thirty. Who in the world?
Now a firm rapping set up from her porch landing. She peered through the slatted window by the front door, but saw nothing more than a shadowy shape. She hesitated, her bare feet chilly on the cold tiles of the foyer, the old fear sneaking up on her again.
Another riff of knocking caused her to jump back. "Who is it?" she asked.
"Olivia? Open the door."
"Bill?" Relief and then irritation swept over her as she unlocked the dead bolt.
Her ex-husband stood in the faint light of the landing, his brown wavy hair ruffled by the breeze. Bill Gant lived in an apartment in Oakland over his family's dry cleaning business.
"What are you doing here?" she exclaimed suspiciously. "Did you follow me?"
"I just wanted to be sure you got settled in." He jammed his fists in his jeans pockets and gave the boyish smile that had captured her heart seven years ago.
She didn't invite him in. "Surely you didn't drive from the coast in the horrible Friday-night traffic."
He shrugged. "Like I said… "
Even though Bill's marital affairs had been legend in their small circle of friends, he'd had a hard time believing the marriage was over. He'd taken nearly eighteen months to sign the divorce papers. Olivia shook her head and made her voice sharp. "You can't stay, Bill. You know that."
His pretty face tightened and his blue eyes went hard. "And you know I didn't want our marriage to be over."
"You signed the papers," she reminded him.
"You forced me into that. I told you we could work it out. I offered to go to counseling, whatever you wanted."
She was tired of the old argument. At first she'd worked hard to save her marriage. It'd taken her five years to figure out that Bill was a narcissistic womanizer, completely incapable of being faithful to one person.
"I've always given you whatever you wanted," Bill cajoled.
"Let's not go over that again." Olivia started to close the door. "It's finished, Bill. You have to accept that."
His demeanor changed in a flash. "You stuck-up, cold bitch." His voice was low, but deep with a viciousness she hadn't heard before, and for a moment a sliver of alarm chilled her. He looked around her shoulder to the interior. "You think inheriting a fancy house in a new city makes you better than me?"
Olivia clamped down on her temper and spoke in an even voice. "Get off my property or I'll call the police."
"I taught you everything you know," he snarled, raking his eyes over her. "You wouldn't even let a man get near you until I taught you a few tricks. I can't believe I wasted seven years on you."
She slammed the door in his face, turned the lock and hooked the chain. Her fingers trembled and she balled them tightly at her sides. She reached for her cell phone on the small entry table where she kept her keys and mail. Punching in the "nine" and the "one," she paused, waiting for Bill's next move. A second later she flinched at the sound of a foot crashing against the sturdy door. Shortly afterward, a motor revved up and a car squealed away.
She spent half the night reading the instruction booklet and figuring out how to reset the code on the very excellent security alarm system her grandmother had installed shortly before her death.
After using the only code she was certain Bill couldn't figure out – 101274 for October 12, 1974 – a special birth date in her memory, she was finally able to sleep.