Page 82 of Just One Silver Fox

Katia took a long drag on her cigarette and blew the smoke skyward, her eyes narrowed against the sunlight. “Happy trails, Bucky, wherever you’re going.”

“Same to you.” It was as much of a farewell as Nate was going to get. With a last glance at the brownstone, he headed for his car, still parked at the curb. He got in and started the engine, well aware that Katia stood smoking and watching him, then drove away with resolve.

Sayonara, New York.

This time, he’d stay away.

* * *

Sonia eyed the tabloid,still sitting on the counter, and circled around it as if it might bite. Katia said Olivia and Derek were coming to New York. She figured she should learn the worst of it so she could make a plan.

It was a distraction from the knowledge that she’d probably never see Nate again.

Just looking at her step-father’s picture was like a stab to the heart, but then, Olivia’s apparent happiness wasn’t much better. How could she think Derek was so terrific? How could she never have known—or even suspected? Had he fooled her, or had she decided not to notice?

No matter which way Sonia looked at the situation, it felt like a betrayal.

Any hope that the news wasn’t as bad as she feared died a quick death when she read the first paragraph of the cover article. The happy couple were going to play this for all it was worth.

Just as the woman in the bodega had said, Olivia and Derek had been cast in the lead roles of a holiday movie for a streaming service, playing a divorced couple who return home to their small town for Christmas and fall in love all over again. The film script was a second chance romance, with sleigh bells ringing in the background, snowflakes and stolen kisses, fluffy mittens and cabled sweaters. To the delight of the reporter, Derek and Olivia, a real-life divorced couple, had fallen for each other again, a wonderful example of reality echoing fiction.

Sonia halfway thought Olivia might have planned it that way, precisely to get publicity like this article. Their rediscovered romance had to be the lead story on every tabloid. She remembered the drill. How many hours had she and Katia been pressed into service to maintain the hallowed archive? Those articles would be in the infamous scrapbook already.

Actually, the clipping collection filled a virtual library of volumes, documenting every single media mention in either of her parents’ careers. In Olivia’s case, that dated from the annual performances of ballet and tap classes. For her step-father, it started with high school drama productions, in which he often won the lead role, then theater school. One of the earliest signs of common ground had been their realization that they kept similar archives. Once married, the saga had continued in shared volumes. Sonia thought they’d fought harder over the division of that collection than the division of any other resources when they’d split up.

Sonia turned the pages to read the rest of the lead article. There was that picture of herself and Katia at some award ceremony—she’d never been able to keep them straight, and only remembered that she’d never wanted to attend at all. Olivia had insisted, though, once some reporter decided they looked ‘cute’ together. That hadn’t stopped Olivia from picking and criticizing until it was time to smile for the cameras. It was amazing that she and Katia didn’t have worse emotional scars than they did.

There was an article on the following page about Gloria’s miscarriage, the one that the woman in the bodega had mentioned. The photo was the one from earlier in the year, the one that showed Sonia’s step-mother in dark glasses, rushing out of view with her head down.

Step-mother. Such an awful word, with terrible connotations. Sonia barely knew Gloria but had always thought she was kinder than Derek deserved. She was only a few years older than Sonia and Katia, which had been very strange at sixteen, especially as Gloria had been cast as a younger teenager in that series with Derek. Gloria clearly idolized Derek, which had worked for him in a big way. Sonia had to stop and count to realize that Derek had been married to Gloria longer than to Olivia. If Gloria had really wanted a child, then Sonia felt sympathy for her in that regard. She couldn’t feel badly for anyone who no longer had Derek Strong in their lives. In fact, she halfway felt like calling Gloria and congratulating her.

How weird that he’d gone back to Olivia. Sonia had to wonder why. She knew he liked young girls and Olivia was well past that. Sonia was, too, so he couldn’t be looking for her—even though the very possibility made her shiver.

She went through the paper, searching for linked stories but didn’t find any. Then she went online and searched for the story, following the details down all their little rabbit holes to verify that her new name hadn’t been found or associated with her parents.

There was nothing.

She was safe.

Then why did she have a feeling of pending doom?

Because she felt hunted, and the only way to put an end to that was to ensure they never came after her again. She thought about Nate’s various strategies and liked the idea of creating uncertainty. She even liked the prospect of confronting them. She needed something to say, though, something that would guarantee that Derek and Olivia didn’t want to know her anymore. She needed some artillery.

Sonia felt like she was missing something. She went back through the tabloid articles and there it was.

Gloria had a sister.

A younger sister. Sonia went cold.

On a whim, she called her step-mother.

* * *

Gloria Strong was furious.

The last thing she needed was bad publicity, but she had some, thanks to Derek and his ex-wife. The tabloid photographers were circling her house, seeking pictures they could use to shame her for the break-up of her marriage.

It hadn’t been her fault.

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