“Move away from her,” Blake said with a wave of the gun.
The blond man took one step away.
The dark-haired man frowned and blinked several times.
Blake maintained his aim with the gun. He fished his phone from his pocket and dialed Addie’s number with one touch and held the phone to his head. There was no ringing sound. He glanced at the screen, no signal.
The dark-haired man lunged from the side and Blake felt a prick to his neck.
“Shit!” He held the gun on the two men and tried to make his way into the crowd for help. A warm, relaxed feeling came over him and drained the strength in his limbs. He felt the cold concrete hit his knees and then slap the side of his face.
His last thought was of Addie, the one great love of his life. The one he was supposed to protect. The white scuff marks on the black lace-up shoe were the last things he saw before his eyelids fell shut.
The blond-haired man snatched Blake’s cell phone, and crunched it against the pavement with his heel. Then both men rolled him under the cypress tree where he would be out of view.
“What the hell just happened?” asked the blond-haired man.
“I don’t know. I—I didn’t have any choice for a minute.” The man with dark hair shook his head again, tried to clear the remaining effects of the cloud that had taken him over.
“Did you give him all of it? Otto said it was no great loss if they died.”
The man with the small beard scanned the area then threw the syringes into the bushes. “He got all of it.”
He briefly turned his face to the falling snowflakes, adjusted a dark green scarf to cover his neck, then both men blended into the busy, New York City pedestrian traffic.
Chapter 3
By the time my phone rang into the quiet of Blake’s home I had spent most of the day curled up on a sun-warmed, overstuffed and velveted perch overlooking the city from the main salon. Second glass of red wine rooted in my grasp, I listened to the distant noises of other people’s lives play out far below the windows that lined the room, while I floated on a pond of cooled hope.
Blake was at the courthouse to testify. Now I had to sit and wait for him to come back and tell me our next steps. And those were three things I didn’t do well. Sit, wait, and have someone else tell me what to do. I’d tried reading a book, but I was too distracted to concentrate. TV really wasn’t my thing. So, now I sat with a glass of wine and an aged issue of Paris Vogue that I’d picked up on our travels.
My stomach tightened when I saw the phone screen: No Caller ID.
Maybe it was Blake calling from an FBI phone. His phone battery might have gone dead. Or maybe, my neurotic side spoke up, it was someone connected to Otto.
I made several awkward faces before I finally decided to answer the call. “Hello?”
“Adeline, this is Ellen.”
“Ellen.”
“I’m sorry to bother you.” Ellen had never spoken kindly to me when we worked together. Except there was the one time when she saved my life. A fact I’d never forget. Though last I heard she still worked for Otto. So I had to question which side of the fence she parked her loyalties.
“I’m fine,” I said and hoped I was telling the truth. “I hope you’re well?”
“Yes, I was away from the firm for a few months, while— Well, while all of that police mess was carrying on. They wouldn’t even let me near the building in the midst of all that. Now I’m back and at the courthouse for the trial. We’re on a break. I just stepped outside.”
“Oh. Is everything okay?” I asked.
“Addie…”
“Yes?”
“Do you and Blake have plans for after the trial?”
“I…um…” I knew I couldn’t tell her the truth. Except there was one question I wanted to ask her. Just in case she might be willing to help me again. “We haven’t firmed up any plans. Though I do hope to find out where my father and grandfather are. If you know anything, I’d be very grateful.”
I felt Ellen’s heart soften, then ache. She and my grandfather had been so close.
A pause filled the space between us. Horns from traffic honked in the far distance like the beeps from toy cars.
“I understand,” she said without giving me any information. “Addie, whatever your plans for after the trial, you need to get a Plan B,” she said quietly. “Just in case things don’t work out as you…thought they might.”
The air left my lungs as if someone just punched me in the stomach. “I’m sorry?”
Ellen was quiet as if to say, “you heard me.”
“Make your plans,” she said. “The sooner the better. Take care of yourself, and Blake.”
“Okay,” I said.
Ellen hung up without saying good-bye and I tried to pace the panic that pounded through my chest like a marching band. To no avail.
Plan B?
Plan B.
A warning. Things were not going to go as planned today.
I took off running and made it to the bathroom just before I lost my lunch.
Chapter 4
I padded barefoot across the cold wooden floors of Blake’s salon and checked my phone screen every third turn or so. I’d called and texted Blake several times but he hadn’t yet answered. I assumed he was in the courtroom, and that his break had been filled with meetings with William.
Ellen’s warnings chased each other around my head to the tune of a building migraine: Get a plan B, the sooner the better.
This meant only one thing. The trial would not go the way we wanted. How, I didn’t know. William was being overly careful, I knew. Each witness had federal marshal protection, just like we did. Though if she were right, and if Otto was soon on the loose, Blake and I couldn’t stay in New York.
Otto wanted revenge on Blake for getting him arrested and for the loss of his firm—essentially the loss of his life. And he wanted access to my gifts, so he could finally move the priceless art he’d stolen from The Gardner Museum over twenty years ago.
I could just see Blake storming home at the end of the day to say that Otto was a free man and we had to leave. Immediately.
I stopped pacing, stared out the window at New York, and put my fingers across my mouth as a metallic taste floated across my tongue. This was good-bye. We were only going to be safe if we lived someplace where Otto couldn’t find us.
Fine. I would do that. We could leave again. I thought of everything I would leave behind and my heart cringed. All the things I’d left at my townhouse when I thought I’d only be gone for a few months. Jewelry rich with memories that my family had given me. And childhood photos. They were the last of few mementos I had from my father and grandfather. Pictures of us together when I was young. Pictures that still trapped my relatives’ precious energy. It was the only way I had been able to connect with them since they’d left. One touch to the photo and I was with them again. I would have to have all of those things.
I peeked through the peephole of the front door and caught sight of the leg of the U.S. marshal who sat at his post, waiting for trouble. Unfortunately, as soon as Otto was free, trouble would come knocking and we’d no longer have the marshal’s protection. If I wanted to collect the photographic conduits to my father and grandfather, I’d have to do it now. Otto might be in his trial until the end of the week. Or only until the end of the day.
I knocked on the door and cracked it open gently. It was a bad idea to startle the man with a loaded gun.
“Everything okay?” he asked and stood to face me. He was SWAT-worthy with his all-black uniform and clean-cut dark hair. Maybe he was SWAT. Otto’s connections were certainly dangerous enough to warrant such protection.
I kept moving my head this way and that to try to see around a new migraine-induced blind spot but it stayed in my line of sight. Unfortunately, I was out of my migraine medicine.
“Yes, I’m fine.” A pain shot through the left side of my head and I pressed my hand against it. “I need to go by
my home and pick up a few things. Is that possible?”
Chapter 5
When we arrived at my townhouse Marshal Mitch Sandersen insisted on clearing my home before he’d let me in. I didn’t mind. Better safe than sorry. When he was sure that no one was lying in wait, he allowed me to enter.
“No more than thirty minutes, okay?”
“Okay,” I agreed.
My home smelled stale from nonuse and too much recycled heat and I wanted desperately to open a window for fresh air. Mitch would consider that a security risk, I was certain. Junk mail and magazines were littered across the island where my sister Alexa had carelessly tossed them in my absence. The thermostat was too high, another sign of Alexa’s presence.
Since I’d run out of my trusty migraine prescription, the bathroom was my first destination. I fumbled through a small basket of plastic bottles in the cabinet until I found another bottle of my medicine, popped the plastic top, and swallowed two tablets with a sip of tap water. The prescription would take care of the pain, though it would also make me sleepy. For that reason and a few others, I typically tried to stick to natural remedies, but I was beyond that today.
From my clothes closet, I grabbed an empty, oversized shoebox from the top shelf. I filled it with several framed photos of me with my father and grandfather, me with my sister and mother and grandmother. From my dressing table in the bathroom I gathered a few pieces of jewelry.
My fingers traced an antique silver frame, which sat on the wooden countertop of the dressing table. It encircled one of my favorite childhood memories of my father. He held the tow-headed, one-year-old me in his arms, my pink cotton dress sufficiently delicate for his princess. His proud smile was bright enough to light up the room, and I beamed when I placed a tiny hand on either side of his face.
I held my hand over the photo and hesitated, not wanting to feel what would inevitably come after it was over. Reliving what used to be was all I had now. So I shut my eyes. Then pressed my fingertips onto the cool photograph.
The smell of his cologne reaches me first, and then the sound of his laugh thunders in my ears, takes over my heart, and makes me feel invincible. His love for me and the rest his family makes each of us feel like superheroes.
“Addie, my angel,” his voice echoes from beyond. “Promise me you’ll never leave me.”
I lean in with the limitless love that all baby girls feel for their daddies and hug his neck. As my palms flatten against the gold chain normally hidden by his shirts, his worst fear reveals itself to me: he would be without us one day. I squeeze him a little tighter.
The vision fades and emptiness crept in with the silence. At least the sound of his voice held strong this time. I missed hearing him call me Addie. The past went to its place in my history, and the present became clearer. I sighed and stared for a moment at a small, jeweled container that held my former engagement ring, the one Jeremy had given to me so long ago. I decided to leave that where it sat. It was a piece of my past I didn’t need anymore.
I climbed the stairs to the small bonus room on the second level. When I first moved in to what used to be my grandfather’s townhouse, my grandmother allowed my occupancy on one condition: that I not move or get rid of anything. He had a number of expensive books and pieces of artwork. So I agreed and mostly complied. Though I did move some of the knick-knacks to a box and stored it upstairs.
The fat armchair slid along the carpet easily. Behind it was a small square door that lead to the attic space. Once opened, I dragged a cardboard box from the dark. In it was an old black phone, a ring of keys, a radio and cassette player, and a stack of cassettes. There was also a German beer mug full of pens. I selected two pens, one thin black one, and a fatter burgundy one with a tiger insignia on the side. Both must have been among his favorites since they held such a strong tune of his energy.
Once back in the library I collected the rest of the family photos. The glass and metal from the frames clinked when I layered them on top of one another. I stared at the box after I placed it on the floor. That was it. That was everything I needed. It was odd and yet sort of freeing to know that you could put all of your most precious possessions into one simple cardboard box.
Glancing up at the mantle clock that lived on the bookshelf, I saw that I still had a few minutes to spare. Nostalgia washed over me when I realized that this would probably be the last time I would be in what used to be my grandfather’s townhouse. I might not be back. Or at least not until Otto was dead and forgotten.
I hoped on every prayer that he hadn’t told his sons what I could do. Because I didn’t need Otto Albrecht’s sons chasing me down to help me build their fortune. A wave of woozy fell over me at the suggestion, though mostly from the medication. Strong stuff. The jet lag and lack of sleep from the night before didn’t help.
My phone and keys clanked on the glass when I put them on the side table. Then I laid on the couch, wet washcloth on my forehead, cherished club soda—magical healer of nausea—within an arm’s reach. My nerves were a frayed mess. Sick exhaustion crept over me like a fog, surrounded my brain, and worked hard to pull me under.
I finally let it. Mitch would bang on the door shortly, which would wake me up. Meanwhile a power nap would reinvent me.
The conscious dream of my father and grandfather’s visit replayed through my mind—some part of these two men had called upon me the last time I’d been here. I’d heard the pounding on the door and saw their worried faces, heard their voices telling me to wake up, that I was in danger.
When I awoke, the nausea had passed. I felt better. Though a little too rested. It seemed like a lot more than a few minutes had passed, and the air was cooler now, less stuffy. There was even a faint scent of cologne or men’s soap. The whiff made my stomach drop, though I couldn’t place why.
I shifted to my side, opened my eyes a tiny bit, and knew I was still dreaming because Otto was sitting cross-legged in the vintage french square armchair my father had picked up at the Paris flea market years ago. Maybe I was coming down with something.
Otto wouldn’t be in my home. No. Otto was at the courthouse.
I slid the now warm washcloth from my forehead to my eyes. Without the ability to see, I always saw more clearly. And that’s when I felt his presence. Otto’s presence. My eyes shot open inside the washcloth. My heart stomped fast and hard and a pain shot down my left arm. I was going to have a heart attack before he had the chance to kill me. Kidnap me. Or both.
I had to assume that Otto had gotten rid of Mitch, that I didn’t have any protection. Thoughts flew through my mind in wild chase of an answer to the question that beat at the inside of my skull: What do I do now?! Otto knew about my gifts. Knew that Blake and I were together. Obviously knew that Blake had worked a sting for the FBI Art Crime Team to catch him on the Gardner theft. This was all bad.
Otto cleared his throat. My cue as the curtain opened on Act II of My Life: The Nightmare Continues.
My hand pressed against the washcloth and I held my breath for a second to steady my heart. I tried to prepare myself for how I expected to feel when I saw his face after so much time. Perhaps terrified, as was my usual reaction to situations like this. So I lowered the cloth from my eyes, girded myself against it, and rose to a sitting position. Surprisingly, all I felt was fury when I saw the man who had wrecked Blake’s and my life.
“Why are you in my home?” I squeezed the washcloth tight at my side.
Otto’s eyes were immune to his smile. He tilted his head as if he were about to bat me across the room like a ball of yarn. “Well, that’s no way to greet a life-long friend. I just wanted to check on you. It’s been so long since I’ve heard from you. I hope you don’t mind that I let myself in. No one answered when I knocked, but Ellen told me she thought you might be back in New York.”
His artificial smile lingered but I simply couldn’t pretend.
“Why aren’t you in jail, and how did you get in to my home?” I asked flatly.
> Otto’s laugh was the amusing one I’d heard him use at receptions and cocktail parties, when he wanted to put someone at ease. “And isn’t that something? It seems the prosecutor didn’t have as much evidence against me as he may have thought. ”
I muzzled my hatred and my impulse to strangle him in light of the fact that he was more sizable and probably stronger than I was. Too, he might have someone waiting in the wings. Someone with a gun.
Be smart and get out, Addie.
“Otto. As much as I appreciate this…visit, I really don’t feel well today. And I’d hate for you to get whatever I have. Why don’t we catch up as soon as I’ve had a few days to get on my feet?” I’d tried for pleasant but my sarcasm rang through loud and clear.
“Of course. Of course.” His light Welsh accent gave a false lilt of kindness and he studied my face with serial killer intensity.
I stood and glanced at the side table where I left my phone and keys, but they were gone. Otto smiled without moving. His desire to possess me slid around me like a boa constrictor. Just as Carolena, Blake’s mother, had once described him.
“I hope you’ll be well soon? That it’s not too serious?” Otto leaned back and I noticed my keys and phone on the table beside him.
“I don’t think it’s fatal.” I took a few steps toward the door, hoped he’d take it as a hint to leave. His eyes came alive with challenge.
“Let’s hope not. Because I have big plans for you, you see. In fact, I’d like to discuss a special project with you. It’s something of a pet project of mine, and I’d like for you to be a part of it. Willingly, of course.”
Aha. There it was. Otto said it as if he were gifting me some kind of special award or consideration. Of course what he wanted was for me to come with him by my own choice. Blake had told me that Otto threatened him that he would be without me one day. That I would be Otto’s ally. The suggestion was absurd. Yet here he was with his deluded offer for me to work on what I knew was stolen art, as if I would proudly accept.
Somewhere in Time Page 2
