by Gayle Lynds
Staffeld whistled soundlessly. Ah, the carrot as well as the hammer, he thought with a grim smile. How many times had he used the hoary tactic himself? It always worked—impending wealth raised a man's capacity for violence, betrayal, and risk.
Staffeld liked the sound of the money, but he spoke coolly into the phone: "I'll do nothing to jeopardize my work and family. Nothing."
The voice crackled with authority and a cold decisiveness that left no room for disagreement or disbelief. "No, Staffeld. You don't understand. You're a success. You've stonewalled Julia Austrian, and you're sending her home. You won't let the trail lead to the killer. I'm pleased because that's sufficient for the current situation. But you and I have more business. You'll be receiving instructions. Follow them. Don't be lax or inquisitive. Or not only will you remain poor, you'll die." The phone went dead.
Since Julia insisted, Marsha Barr drove them back to the Albert Hall. There the security guards refused to let the women in, especially when they saw the dried blood all over Julia's clothes. Julia convinced them to go to check the night's program, which had her photo on the cover.
She had to get inside, because she intended to retrieve her sight.
The two men disappeared inside, and Julia and Marsha waited out in the frosty night. The air smelled of musk and coming snow. Julia's cheeks stung with cold, and her nose burned. For an instant she wondered whether the stars were still visible in all their glory. She wished she could see them. She wished she could see her mother—
The night's events rushed back with sickening accuracy. In her sightless world, the vicious murder repeated itself. . . her mother's face . . . the futile gasps . . . the violent pain . . . her mother's desperate struggle to live . . . and her inability to save her.
Tears burned her eyes. Her mind wanted to grasp only elemental things. She forced herself to concentrate. She had a goal: When Scotland Yard captured the killer, she must be able to identify her. And if the Yard failed, she'd take matters into her own hands.
Before tonight she'd simply wanted to see. Now she must see. But she couldn't tell anyone she'd witnessed the murders. She'd promised the chief superintendent.
"I don't understand what we're doing here." Marsha's teeth were chattering.
"I'm sorry, Marsha. I know it doesn't make sense. But you and I've worked together a lot of years, so I'm falling back on that to ask this one huge favor. Please just help me with this. Don't ask why."
Marsha's teeth seemed to chatter louder. Julia could hear resignation in her voice: "When you put it that way, how can I refuse?"
The security guards returned and acknowledged Julia was whom she claimed. They let the two women enter. Marsha led the way, Julia's hand gripping the back of her arm just above the elbow in the usual way.
Marsha's voice was concerned. "Are you sure you want to do this? After all you've been through tonight?—"
"It's necessary. Take me where Mom and I stood in the wings before I went on."
"I'm not sure I remember exactly."
"I know. Get as close as you can."
Once on the spot, Julia heard Marsha step back.
"Is there anything more?" Marsha's voice seemed to echo in the vast emptiness of the amphitheater.
"I'm going to pretend it's earlier tonight, before I played. I need to be quiet."
"Anything you want."
As Marsha stopped talking, Julia closed her eyes and dropped her cane. Without effort, the first few notes of Liszt's powerful études sprang to life inside her mind. The music seemed to swell within her, and impatience overcame her. She began to walk blindly, counting each step. She envisioned her Steinway. She conjured up the rustle and excitement of the audience. She could hear the music crescendo. It made her already raw nerves edgy and her fingers demand the keyboard.
Eight, seven. In her mind, the audience was hushed with eagerness.
Six, five. The great instrument was waiting, alive as any breathing creature.
Four, three. Dread squeezed her throat.
Two. . . one. She saw no light.
Her shoulders sagged. Tears filled her eyes. Nothing. Just the darkness, but not velvet now. Cold as the Antarctic and so very hard and black.
She couldn't—wouldn't—live like this. She had to be able to identify her mother's killer.
She bit back a scream of frustration. Frantically she reached a hand out to where she expected the piano to be. It wasn't there. Off-balance, she lurched forward.
She extended her other hand. She stumbled. Barely caught herself. In a frenzy her hands pawed the void for her friend, her support, her piano. She staggered forward again. But all she found was chilly, empty air. Tears fell from her face to the floor.
Nothingnothingnothing,
She couldn't find her sight. Couldn't find the piano. Couldn't find the killer—
"Julia! Stop. You're going to fall!" Marsha grabbed her waist
With a violent push, Julia shoved her away. "Take me back to the wings," she demanded. "I'll do it again!"
"No. You've got to go with me to my flat. You need to sleep. To rest. You've had a terrible blow losing your mother. You have a long flight back to New York tomorrow morning. The press over there will be waiting, ready to devour you alive. Please, Julia. You've got to take care of yourself. This doesn't make any sense!"
Julia gathered herself. With sudden understanding, she realized she'd been so far off her path because whenever she was about to play, she relied totally on her orientation mobility to get her to the piano. Almost like an automatic pilot, that sense seemed to operate whether or not she gave it attention. But Marsha probably had missed the exact spot from which her mother had started her, and then her other senses had failed to help her correct herself to find the Steinway. Once the music filled her, there was room for little else. That's why she'd walked into the stool earlier tonight. Why she hadn't been able to find the piano just now.
She wiped her eyes and shook her head. "Take me back into the wings. And then lead me over the route again. That way I can get my orientation mobility back. Please, Marsha. If you won't, I'll have to stumble around until I do it myself."
Marsha hesitated. "I'm afraid you're going to hurt yourself. Fall, as you did earlier. Maybe break something this time. A finger. Bones in your hands. If you fall wrong, you could permanently cripple yourself and never play again."
Julia felt terror begin to enclose her. Her mother and father were both dead. She had nothing but her music.
But she couldn't afford to be afraid. "I won't fall. Just show me the way."
Marsha sighed, led her back to the wings, then to the piano, and back again.
As they retraced the route, it was almost as if Julia's feet memorized it. As she walked, she felt the ridges and smooth spots on the hardwood floor. Her ears heard the various sounds of her steps—sometimes a solid thunk, other times hollow, most often somewhere in between. She listened to the echoes her movement made against solid objects—a close wall, equipment, an abandoned podium. At one point the sounds were absorbed, and she remembered there was a thick curtain to her right. Her body's balance shifted with the slightest turn or when the floor grew uneven.
This sensory experience was like using a ballpoint pen. When the pen had plenty of ink, the writing would roll slick onto the paper. But as soon as the ink began to give out, the writing grew subtly rougher until the naked point scratched the paper. Most people thought the change had been instant. That their ink had just disappeared. But that wasn't true. The switch from ink to empty was never immediate. It was a delicate series of tiny jerks and rasps that could be both felt and heard, if you were sensitive enough. That was the way walking was, too. What was an apparently smooth route was always textured, but the sighted relied so exclusively upon their eyes that they missed the other physical signposts along the way.
After three tries, Julia knew the way. Back at her starting spot, she again called upon Liszt's great etudes. They came like an excited friend, their power
and lush beauty resonating through her.
Marsha left her standing there, and Julia began to walk alone. Immersed in the music, she counted her steps down to two.
Then one.
Tears burned her eyes. Angrily she wiped them away. There wasn't even a speck of light.
She reached out. She felt the cool, slick surface of her piano. She'd done that part right at least. But where was her sight? Pain needled her heart. Whatever kind angel had made possible her vision in Warsaw and then again tonight had failed her now. She didn't know why her sight had returned twice. All she could "see" was the cruel blackness. Her perpetual night was a shroud. It suffocated her.
Her voice cracked. "Take me back, Marsha." She made four more trips. Her vision never returned. Choking back tears, she silently admitted the truth: She was blind. Blind. Maybe forever.
"Julia?" Marsha's voice was gentle and worried.
"It's all right. I'm fine. We can leave now." But she wasn't fine. Julia's mind was racing. Something else wasn't right. . . something didn't fit—
Marsha put Julia's hand on her arm and led her quickly across the stage.
As she followed, Julia turned the night's events over in her mind, searching for what bothered her. That's when she recalled the chief superintendent's questions about her blindness, and her explanation of what her psychiatrist had told her about its origin—she'd been traumatized at her debut by the explosive audience. Yet earlier tonight when her sight had returned, she'd gazed at the crowd without fear. She remembered feeling their applause and expectations not as a terrible ogre but as a joy. And her sight had remained as she'd continued to peer happily at them.
What, then, had made her go blind again?
An idea struck her: If it wasn't her fear of audiences, maybe it was her mother's horrible death. She forced herself to relive the sequence of events that had led up to her loss of sight in the taxi—
Her gaze had fixed on her alexandrite ring as the thief ripped it off her finger.
Immediately inside her brain she'd smelled the strange scent.
Then she'd recalled her debut. At that very instant, while remembering that long-ago night, she'd hurtled back into blindness.
While her mother was still alive. While she still had hope her mother would live.
She felt a shiver of terror. The alexandrite ring—which her grandfather had given her at her debut party—must be the trigger. Seeing it must've reminded her of what actually had caused her blindness. Not her mother's death. Not her audiences. All those years ago, her psychiatrist must've been very wrong.
As they stepped outdoors into London's chilly night, she vowed nothing would stop her. She threw back her head, closed her eyes, and swore a silent oath she'd put her mother's killer behind bars. Whatever it took, whatever the costs, wherever she had to go, whatever she had to do, whatever real or imagined dangers she had to confront. . . she'd do it to stop the woman who'd so ruthlessly murdered her mother.
For a brief instant hot rage welled into her throat. She could kill that woman.
But she forced the fury away. She had to think. To plan—
To find the killer, she needed to be able to see. To be able to see, she had to heal her conversion disorder, and the only way she could think to do that was to discover what had traumatized her so much that she could no longer bear to look at the world.
8
8:30 AM, SATURDAY
OYSTER BAY, NEW YORK
Under a chilly blue sky, the vast Redmond clan was arriving at the family compound to wait for Julia Austrian to share her grief. They came in limos, sedans, and sports cars, braving the phalanxes of journalists who eagerly stuck microphones into any rolled-down window. Because so many of the media and the curious public had gathered outside the imposing wrought-iron gates, the road was partially blocked with sawhorses and plastic tape. Local and Nassau County police handled crowd control.
More of the press kept appearing, unloading vans and piling out with their equipment. Late last night, the news of the shocking murder of presidential candidate Creighton Redmond's sister had flashed across the nation. The press had ready-made lead stories and were eager for the scheduled noon press conference. They hoped it'd be dramatic, with halting words and glistening tears and perhaps even the murdered woman's only child, the blind pianist, detailing her grief. With luck, she'd collapse.
From the road below, the exclusive estate was invisible. It spread across a rise above Oyster Bay on Long Island's pricey North Shore, where the wind and sun were constant companions and the bay an ever-changing backdrop. Set on sixty verdant acres, the compound consisted of a Mediterranean Revival manor with two matching guesthouses, a matching child's house built at one-third size, a Palladian-style teahouse, a twelve-car garage, tennis courts, a pool, and a helicopter pad.
The extensive complex radiated wealth and privilege, serenity and security. It was called Arbor Knoll for the tall old trees that had dotted the rise since before the turn of the century, when renowned architect Addison Mizner built the fifty-room mansion.
Shortly after World War II, the founder of the Redmond family fortune—Lyle Redmond—had bought the marble-and-stone estate. He'd wanted the magnificent style, the twenty-foot-high cathedral ceilings, the enormous rooms (the living room alone measured fifteen hundred square feet), the massive fireplaces, the formal flower gardens, the reflecting pool that was the center of the drive-in courtyard . . . everything and anything that gave comfort and pleasure but most of all proclaimed to the world his new riches.
In the past half century, Arbor Knoll had changed little, updated occasionally with the comfortable taste of untouchable wealth. It was still protected by the family's private guards, but they were now under the orders of the Secret Service, who had taken over the larger of the two guesthouses as their command post. When the presidential nominee was in residence, some thirty agents prowled the woods, which surrounded the estate on three sides, and the beach, which formed the fourth side. In their informal clothes, and with their ear radios, the Secret Service also stood guard at the visitors' and service entrance kiosks.
This grand estate with its luxuries and distinguished history was the Redmond family's beating heart. The poll numbers were against him, but if presidential nominee Creighton Redmond had his way, Arbor Knoll soon would be America's.
9:30 AM, SATURDAY
Creighton Redmond's ten-person campaign team and a dozen of his male relatives—movers and shakers in law and big business—were filing into the library of the main house. Except for his wife and children, he'd seldom let the family participate directly in his campaign. He wanted the inevitable accusations of nepotism to be minimal against the Redmonds. But today most were already here, and they'd supported him so loyally with fund-raisers, open Rolodexes, and donations, he'd invited those interested to sit in. Besides, he had an ulterior motive.
The library was masculine, with rich walnut paneling, leather furniture, and a fire that blazed in the walk-in fireplace. The aroma of burning logs scented the air. Morning light streamed down through high clerestory windows and reflected off a wall of leather-bound books no one had touched except to dust in years. Power filled the room like an intoxicant, and as the campaign staff and Redmonds found places to sit and stand, they breathed deeply of it, held it in their lungs as long as possible, and eagerly rode the high as it flowed through their arteries.
Presidential politics had an addictive effect, even when you were behind.
"You've jumped a full point!" This was Creighton's media specialist—Mario Garcia, a thin, stringy man with no personality and a brain like a computer. He spoke to the room, but his eyes kept checking the presidential nominee for approval.
Vince Redmond, the nominee's eldest son, drank his screwdriver and glanced at his father. In his mid thirties, Vince's sharp face and black hair were a younger version of Creighton's without the aura of wisdom and the flecks of silver. He loved and feared his father, but the most important energy that fueled
him was his belief he would someday surpass him.
As the CIA's deputy director of Intelligence, Vince was a detriment to his father at campaign functions, so he was dressed casually in flannel-lined cotton chinos and a thick Pendleton shirt. For the same reason, he tended to remain in the background. George Bush had been director of the CIA, and when he'd run for his first term, a hot-button issue had been whether a former spy should be president. Bush's campaign team had successfully countered the uproar, but Creighton Redmond saw no reason to refight the battle, since his son was a so-called spy, still very much in the thick of things.
So Vince rarely spoke in public, but he did now: "You mean because Marguerite was murdered?"
"You've got it," Mario Garcia answered from across the library, his clipboard held high. "Her death's given us a 'sympathy factor.' The murder's all over the news." He turned to the nominee, who sat behind the library's massive walnut desk. "We began polling two hours ago. The preliminary results indicate you've moved up to forty percent. With luck, we'll squeeze another half-point after the press conference. A murder like this in the family tugs on voters' heartstrings. Everyone can sympathize. It's an issue they understand."
Creighton Redmond grimaced. "Her death was a tragedy."
But a presidential campaign was war, and once his team had gotten past the shock of Marguerite's death, they'd quickly begun figuring out how to use it. The calm, avuncular expression that voters found so reassuring returned to his face. Of medium height and build, he was in his mid fifties, with salt-and-pepper hair and a tireless vigor that appealed to the youth-oriented electorate. He was dressed in a conservative dark suit. There was nothing outstanding about his physical appearance until he stood before an audience. Then charisma transformed him into a giant.
"It makes you more real to them, Judge," the media man said. "Mrs. Austrian's murder was a blow, and we all feel terrible about it. But at least something good's coming from it."
