Private Scandals

driver. Despite the car’s warmth, he was huddled inside his coat, his cap tipped low.
    “Sure did.”
    Sipping the juice, she flipped open her briefcase. She set the file neatly labeled “Wedding Plans” aside and reached for the daily correspondence Cassie had culled for her to read. She’d always considered the drive to and from the office part of the workday. In this case, she had to make up the time she’d taken with the fitting, and for knocking off early.
    But by the third letter, the words were blurring. There was no excuse for being so tired so early in the day. Annoyed, she slid her fingers under her glasses to rub her eyes clear. But they blurred all the more, as if she’d swabbed them with oil. Her head spun once, sickly, and her arm fell heavily to the seat beside her.
    So tired, she thought. So hot. As if in slow motion, she tried to shrug out of her coat. The papers fluttered to thefloor, and the effort of reaching for them only increased the dizziness.
    “Tim.” She leaned forward, pressed a hand against the back of the front seat. He didn’t answer, but the word had sounded dim and far away to her own ears. As she struggled to focus on him the half-empty bottle of juice slipped from her numbed fingers.
    “Something’s wrong,” she tried to tell him as she slid bonelessly to the plushly carpeted floor of the car. “Something’s very wrong.”
    But he didn’t answer. She imagined herself falling through the floor of the limo and into a dark, bottomless pit.

Chapter Twenty-eight
    D eanna dreamed she was swimming up through red-tinted clouds, slowly, sluggishly pulling herself toward the surface, where a faint, white light glowed through the misty layers. She moaned as she struggled. Not from pain but nausea that rolled up, burning in her throat.
    In defense, she kept her eyes closed, taking long, deep breaths and willing the sickness back. Drops of clammy sweat pearled on her skin so that her thin silk blouse clung nastily to her arms and back.
    When the worst had passed, she opened her eyes cautiously.
    She had been in the car, she remembered. Tim had been driving her home and she’d become ill. But she wasn’t home now. Hospital? she wondered dully when she let her eyes cautiously open. The room was softly lit with delicate violets trailing up the wallpaper. A white ceiling fan gently stirred the air with a whispering sound of blades. A glossy mahogany bureau held a collection of pretty, colored bottles and pots. A magnificent poinsettia and a miniature blue spruce decorated with silver bells added seasonal flair.
    Hospital? she thought again. Groggily, she tried to sit up. Her head spun again, hideously, shooting that fist of nauseaback into her stomach. Her vision doubled. When she tried to bring her hand to her face, it felt weighted down. For a moment she could only lie still, fighting back the sickness. She saw that the room was a box, a closed, windowless box. Like a coffin.
    A spear of panic sliced through the shock. She reared up, shouting, stumbling drunkenly from the bed. Staggering to a wall, she ran her fingers over the delicate floral wallpaper in a dizzy search for an opening. Trapped. She wheeled around, eyes wide. Trapped.
    She saw then what was on the wall over the bed. It was enough to crush the bubbling hysteria. A huge photograph smiled sassily down at her. For several stunned moments Deanna stared at Deanna. Slowly, with the sound of her own heartbeat thudding in her ears, she scanned the rest of the room.
    No, there were no doors, no windows, just flowers, bowers of them, wall to wall. But there were other photographs. Dozens of pictures of her were lined on the side walls. Candid shots, magazine covers, press photos stood cheek by jowl against the dainty wallpaper.
    “Oh God. Oh God.” She heard the whimpering panic in her own voice and bit down fiercely on her lip.
    Looking away from her own images, her eyes glassy with shock, she stared at the refectory table, its snowy white runner stiff with starch as a backdrop for silver candle holders, glossy white tapers. Dozens of little treasures had been arranged there: an earring she’d lost months before, a tube of lipstick, a silk scarf Simon had given her one Christmas, a glove of supple red leather—one of a pair that had disappeared the winter before.
    There was more. She eased closer, straining against the tidal wave of fear as she studied the collection. A memo she’d handwritten to Jeff, a lock of