Keepsake

by Linda Barlow

  “When you look at me now you see an energetic successful woman who loves life and wakes up every morning feeling excitement and joy. Would you believe that ten years ago I was fifty pounds overweight? That I’d frittered away all my financial resources and was deeply in debt? It’s all true, my friends. I was in a state of despair. I spent all my waking hours contemplating the quickest and least painful manner of ending my miserable life.”

  The audience was hanging on every word, and April wanted to stand up and laugh at all of them. How could they believe this garbage?

  “But I chose not to die,” Rina was saying. “I chose instead to seize the dynamic potential of my own inner power and seek change. Change, my friends. It’s a word many of us fear. But it is only through our ability to change—to adapt to changing conditions in the world around us—that we humans have been able to survive.

  “I survived. So can you.” She paused. “But, unlike myself, you don’t have to do it alone. You don’t have to wander in that lonely wilderness. All you have to do is reach out—” she stretched her right arm out toward her rapt audience “—and take my hand.”

  April stood. It happened suddenly. It wasn’t what she’d planned at all.

  It was as if she were suddenly possessed.

  “You are a fake and a fraud, Rina Flaherty,” she said in a ringing voice. “You are a self-absorbed, self-congratulating, self-obsessed monster who would not even trouble yourself to extend your hand to your own child.”

  Heads turned. Beside her, April heard Maggie gasp. Onstage, Rina went still. Even from twenty feet away, April could see her skin pale.

  “Do you even remember that you have a daughter? Easy to forget, isn’t it, after almost thirty years? But I remember very well, Mother. I remember all too well that when I reached for your hand, all you gave me was your back.”

  “April?” All the dynamism had leaked from Rina’s voice. It sounded thin and reedy, and she looked every year of her age.

  “I’m astonished that you remember my name. You betrayed me. You ruined my life.” April pushed out of her row and into the aisle, where it was standing room only. She was trembling. She felt as if she were about to burst into a spectacular display of tears. She had to get out of here.

  “April, wait!” Rina cried, and started forward. Her movement broke the spell that had descended on the crowd. Everybody began moving at once. People were exclaiming, shouting questions.

  The place devolved into chaos. People surrounded April, asking who she was, shouting questions. She was pressed toward, rather than away from, the stage.

  Even more people surrounded Rina, who was trying to push through them. Dimly, April heard a frustrated female voice say, “Grab her, for chrissake, get her out of here, we can’t allow this.”

  As she fought the crowd, April was ashamed to feel tears overflow her eyes and slide down her cheeks. Desperately, she reached into her purse for a tissue. She came up with a lipstick as well, which she clutched, as if for reassurance.

  There was a sound like a champagne cork popping.

  Somebody screamed.

  “Shit,” muttered Blackthorn. He launched himself toward the slender auburn-haired woman. She was stunning—auburn hair and huge eyes and fantastic legs—and she was deadly.

  “She’s been shot. My God, someone shot her!” a voice was crying in disbelief. “Help her! She’s been shot!”

  “Goddamn,” said Blackthorn. A big man, he forced his way through the milling crowd. Panic was setting in. Not a pretty sight.

  He couldn’t see Rina. He assumed she was down.

  But he could see the so-called abandoned daughter. She was a mental patient, more likely. This was the first he’d ever heard of any long-lost daughter.

  She was making for the door. No way, lady. With a savage lunge, he threw his arm around her throat and jerked her off balance. She fell backwards against him. He caught the subtle scent of fine perfume as he jammed her against his body and twisted her left arm up behind her until she cried out.

  “Drop it,” he whispered in her ear. His free hand found and wrenched her right wrist.

  For an instant she went limp against him, then her entire body stiffened in response to his assault. She moaned softly in the back of her throat. It was a faintly sensual sound. She writhed against him, but he held her fast. She was soft, yet lithe and strong at the same time.

  “Blackthorn?” somebody screamed. It sounded like Carla. “Blackthorn, dammit, we’re losing her. We’re not getting a pulse…”

  There was a chorus of agitated voices: “Somebody call the EMTs! Get an ambulance! We need an ambulance, quickly!”

  “Sweet Jesus, she’s been shot!”

  “Get down everyone, get down! There’s a killer in this room!”

  “Let me through, I beg of you. Mon dieu, please, she’s my wife.”

  The adrenaline was singing in Blackthorn’s ears. He wrenched his captive’s arm again and felt her flinch. “You know where assassins end up in California?” he whispered to the woman who was jammed so tightly against his body. “In a snug little room called the gas chamber. Drop it, I said.”

  The hand he was twisting relaxed as she loosed her death grip on the gun. There was a light metallic click as it slipped from her fingers and struck the floor at their feet.

  Both Blackthorn and the woman stared down at the silver-colored lipstick tube.

  Blackthorn pried open the fingers of her other hand. It was empty.

  She shuddered. Her voice was muffled, but clear. “Get your hands off me.”

  He eased up some. But he kept her firmly locked in his professional embrace. All around, people were watching them. “Where’s the gun?” he said.

  She was breathing hard. He could feel her body vibrating against him. “What gun?” she whispered.

  “The shot came from this direction, damn you. I saw you reach into your purse and come up with something metallic. A split second later the shot was fired and she went down.”

  The woman struggled, or tried to. He was holding her so close he could feel the warmth of her breasts, her thighs. “Is it Rina?” she asked. “I don’t understand. I was reaching into my purse for a tissue. What—what happened? Who are you? Is Rina dead?”

  Blackthorn’s instincts were screaming that he’d made a mistake. She didn’t look like a coldblooded killer, and people were muttering and nervously scanning the room for other suspects.

  It had happened so damn fast. The acoustics in the room had distorted the sound of the gunfire, confusing everybody about the angle of the shot.

  Still, he was loath to release her. Without letting go, he turned her around to face him. With one hand in her hair, he tipped back her head. God, she was pretty. Big blue eyes, wide with confusion, fright, and—hmm—a distinct flash of anger. “What’s your relationship to Sabrina de Sevigny?” he demanded.

  “I’m her daughter.” Her chin came up. “I didn’t shoot her. She’s my mother.”

  “You’re a liar,” he said. “I know the family, and you’re not one of them.”

  She seemed to recoil. Her face flushed and she looked away.

  Freeing her, Blackthorn stepped back a pace. The woman shook her head, and some of her reddish hair escaped from its chignon. She convulsively hugged herself. She looked around wildly. “Where is she? I have to see her. Take me to her, please.”

  He hesitated only for a moment. This could be revealing, depending on her response. “Okay. Let’s go.” He reached out and gripped her hand, ready to pull her along. To his surprise, she did not resist his touch. Her fingers pressed back, and he realized she was scared… and quite probably in a state of shock.

  “Security,” he said, pushing through the gathering crowd. “Stand back. Security. Let us through.”

  A hushed little group was clustered around the body on the floor. Blackthorn saw Armand, who was gesticulating in a Gallic manner, tears running down his jowls. And Isobelle, the lovely Isobelle, her face white as paper, kn
eeling and holding her stepmother’s head between her palms while Carla, straddling the client, frantically administered CPR.

  The gunshot wound was to the head. Either a .22-or a .25-caliber bullet, he’d bet, considering the diameter of the small bluish-black hole. The entrance wound was directly through the center of the forehead, just above the bridge of the nose. He doubted they’d find an exit wound. A bullet that size would have spent its momentum within the skull, doing plenty of deadly damage to the soft tissue of the brain.

  The slack mouth and dilated eyes confirmed the obvious—Rina de Sevigny was dead.

  Beside him, the fraudulent daughter moaned and stumbled. Blackthorn caught her around the waist before she could go down. She clung to him, apparently forgetting the brutality to which he’d just subjected her. She turned her face into the front of his neck and burrowed against him, shivering. She mumbled something.

  It sounded like: “Don’t leave me, Mommy. Oh, Mommy, please, don’t go.”

  Chapter Three

  April leaned over the receiver of the pay phone in the corner of the lobby of the police department, speaking softly and wondering if the line was tapped. This, she remembered, was how it felt to be afraid of the very authorities who were supposed to protect you…

  “Don’t delay on any new shipments that arrive,” she was saying to Brian, her partner back in Boston. “I’m expecting several cartons of new paperback releases from three major publishing houses. I want them unpacked and shelved as soon as possible. The regulars are all asking for the new Kinsey Milhone.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Brian. “You’re under arrest and you’re worrying about getting new books to our customers? I know you’re a bookseller who cares, but—”

  “I’m not under arrest,” April said. Gotta keep it together, she said to herself. She cast a quick glance around at the bustle of people going in and out. “They were questioning me, but they’re finally finished and they said I could leave. But we’re three hours behind out there, and I wanted to catch you before you closed up the store.”

  “April, are you okay? You sound awful. How close were you to this shooting? You mean it happened right there at the ABA?”

  “I really can’t talk now.” She twisted the phone cord around her hand. She should tell him more details, she knew, but right now it was beyond her. She was hot and tired. And she felt numb.

  This had not helped her with the police, she suspected. Although nobody had come right out and said so, the underlying question seemed to be, “If she’s your mother, why ain’t you cryin’, lady?”

  But they hadn’t arrested her. They’d grilled her for hours, but they’d let her go. Thank God they hadn’t arrested her! She couldn’t have borne that… not again.

  Had they learned anything about her past? Was it computerized somewhere? Did they have police computers back in 1969? There must be some way to check. What would happen when they found out?

  “What I want to do is leave immediately and come home,” she said, “and I will as soon as the police allow me to leave California.” She pressed her palm to her forehead, which was pounding.

  “You’re surely not suggesting that they consider you a suspect?”

  “God, it’s so ironic.” She pictured Brian sitting at her desk surrounded by stacks of crime novels in The Poison Pen. “I trade in fictional murders and here I am in the middle of a real one.”

  “But, Boss, I don’t get it. Who was she—a rival bookseller?” He laughed awkwardly.

  “She was my mother.”

  Silence on the other end of the line.

  Out of the corner of her eye, April saw several people approaching her. Several of them held TV cameras slung on their shoulders. “Brian, I’ve got to go. I’ll call again tomorrow.”

  “Look, wait a minute—”

  “Good-bye,” she said, and hung up.

  The press would of course have heard about the murder. Rina de Sevigny was famous—this was big news. Her long-lost daughter was being questioned regarding her murder—what a story. The reporters—some of them would undoubtedly dig into her past. If the police didn’t get her, the press would.

  Shakily, she gathered up her things—her handbag and the armful of books and papers from the convention that she’d been carrying around with her all day—and walked quickly in the other direction from the reporters. She found an exit on the side of the building and descended down a flight of concrete stairs into the sultry heat of a blast from the Santa Anas.

  She felt dazed and battered. Maggie had stayed with her for most of the afternoon, but she’d had to rush off to a special cocktail party that she and several other romance booksellers were hosting that evening for Sandra Brown and Jayne Ann Krentz, both New York Times bestselling authors. She’d apologized profusely and promised to return as soon as her official duties were over.

  The reporters were following her. April hurried out to the sidewalk and looked around for a taxi. But this wasn’t New York or even Boston. Everybody in California owned cars. There were no taxis in sight.

  Damn. She’d have to go back inside and call.

  Despite the heat, April shivered. She hugged herself. Rina was dead. She was actually dead.

  “Ms., uh, Harrington?” somebody with a camera said. “That’s you, right?”

  “Got any comment about the murder of Sabrina de Sevigny?”

  “Hey, April, is it true that you knew the deceased?”

  “Are you Rina de Sevigny’s daughter?”

  “I have no comment,” she murmured, turning her face away from the still and video cameras.

  “Did you see who shot her?”

  “What do you think of the way the police are handling this case?”

  “Did you kill her, April?”

  April. They already knew her name and felt free to use it. She imagined the headline in the tabloid: APRIL SHOWERS BULLETS ON LONG-LOST MOTHER.

  She started as she felt a touch on her shoulder. “Let me take you away from all this,” someone said.

  She turned to see a tall, dark-haired man. The policeman—or, no, the security agent. The same one who had assaulted her and wrestled her to the floor in the convention center. The first of several people who believed that she had murdered her mother.

  He was handsome in a rough-cut manner, she noted—with his rugged features, powerfully built torso, and long limbs. His eyes were brown and graced with thick dark lashes. He must be about her age, she guessed—pushing forty.

  “I have a car,” he said. “Are you going back to your hotel? I’ll drive you.”

  “No, thanks.”

  “The car’s parked right across the street. You’ll never find a cab around here. California’s not like New York or even Boston. You’re staying at one of the convention center hotels, right?”

  “Yes, but I really don’t want—”

  “I insist.” He took her arm in a firm grip.

  “Hey, buddy, who’re you? Her husband or what?” one of the reporters demanded.

  “No comment,” he said. To April he whispered, “C’ mon.

  Her will seemed to melt under the force of his. This was unusual, she thought, not like her at all. But the idea of being able to escape the reporters and sink into the seat of an available car and be driven back to her refuge was irresistible.

  What the hell, she thought as she allowed him to urge her in the direction of his car. He was strong and she felt protected. Even this guy was better than the police. Anybody was better than the police.

  “I don’t even know your name,” she said.

  “It’s Blackthorn. Rob Blackthorn.”

  Blackthorn. An ominous sort of name, she thought.

  “Why did you tackle me? Did you think I was the one with the gun? I didn’t shoot her, Mr. Blackthorn.”

  “I know.”

  She felt absurdly grateful to hear him say so.

  He unlocked the door on the passenger’s side, and she climbed in. The reporters had followed them to the
car, but he ignored them and she did the same. By the time he had come around and seated himself in the driver’s seat, she was leaning back with her head against the headrest.

  “The police gave you a rough time?” he asked as he started the engine.

  “Rough enough,” she said. It could have been worse, she knew. The cops weren’t very friendly when they suspected you of a crime.

  The memory was like a knife in her gut. How long would it take them to find out what she’d done all those years ago in Washington? And when they did… what impact would it have on the current investigation?

  “When a prominent person like Rina de Sevigny is murdered, the police take their job somewhat more seriously than when some poor bastard from the projects gets offed,” Blackthorn said.

  She didn’t comment. Through half-closed eyes she watched the palm trees slide by out the top of the passenger’s side window.

  “I take my job more seriously, too, when I lose a client.”

  “Too bad you didn’t take it a little more seriously beforehand.”

  He did not reply, and April regretted the comment. She sneaked a glance at him from under her lowered lashes. His face in profile was rigid, but she noticed a slight twitch of emotion around his jaw. She glanced down at his hands—one on the wheel and the other on the gearshift. They were big hands, powerful. They moved with authority as he drove through the busy traffic.

  “I made a mistake,” he said after a few moments. “I intend to rectify it as best I can. I intend to find Rina’s killer and bring him—” he cast a glance in her direction “—or her to justice.” He paused, then added, “You didn’t shoot her, but you could have hired it done.”

  Her eyes popped all the way open. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean it was a professional job. An assassination. Rina was hit by a hired gun who picked his moment then disappeared into the crowd. It was skillfully handled.”

  “Well, the police didn’t mention that theory to me.”

  “The scene was confusing for the first few seconds.” April thought she saw a trace of color wash his cheekbones. “I imagine that even Anaheim’s finest have sorted out what really happened by now, though. At this point their investigation will be centered on establishing a motive. If they know why, it will lead them to who.”