Keepsake

by Linda Barlow

  Christian, as usual, was inscrutable.

  How different the siblings were, Blackthorn thought. Both in looks and in temperament. Isobelle was passionate, nakedly so. Christian, on the other hand, was cold.

  He didn’t like Christian much. He didn’t like the way he masked his feelings with that cold chiseled expression; he didn’t like what he suspected was going on behind those Arctic blue eyes.

  Isobelle, though… She was an interesting woman. Full of energy, always on edge. Isobelle, he knew, had a great hunger for life and all its adventures. Most of all, she needed to prove to her father and her brother that they had sadly underestimated her talents.

  Gaining control of Power Perspectives would have been a way for her to do it. No wonder she was upset.

  The conference room slowly emptied of everybody except the family, Ripley, Clemente, and Blackthorn. Now that the initial outburst was over, nobody was saying much. Blackthorn knew that this was because his presence and that of Marty Clemente placed inhibitions on the family that they otherwise wouldn’t have felt.

  Well, to hell with their inhibitions.

  “So what are you all going to do about her?” he asked.

  Several pairs of eyes shifted in his direction.

  “April Harrington. I take it from the reactions that the terms of Rina’s will were something of a surprise?” He paused. “Or had she shared her intentions with any of you?” He looked at Armand.

  “Is this some sort of official inquiry?” Christian bestirred himself to ask. “Didn’t you used to be associated with the FBI?”

  Marty said, “Mr. Blackthorn is no longer associated with the FBI. I am in charge of this investigation.” He removed a small tape recorder from his jacket pocket and laid it in the middle of the conference table. “I will be speaking with each of you individually, but yes, this is an official inquiry, beginning now.” He switched it on, identified himself, the date and time, and the others in the room.

  “Don’t you have to read us our rights, or something?” Christian said sarcastically.

  “Not at this time, no. None of you is being charged with a crime.”

  “Well, I’m not afraid to speak on the record,” Isobelle said. “I have nothing to hide. And I’m convinced that the will that was just read is fraudulent. Somehow or other the Harrington woman got to Rina, pressured her, maybe even blackmailed her. She convinced her to change the will, and then she had her killed. She ought to be in prison, not inheriting Power Perspectives.”

  “Sounds rather far-fetched to me,” Christian said.

  Isobelle ignored him. “I’m going to have our attorneys get to work immediately on challenging the will.”

  “No,” Armand said. “That would be most inappropriate.”

  “Papa, please—”

  “It is clear enough that everyone is upset by the developments this morning,” Armand said. “And I suspect that the more we brood about it, the more upset we will be. Therefore, now, without delay, I will tell you that I have made up my mind about this situation.” He paused. “Your stepmother’s will must be allowed to stand unchallenged.”

  “Excuse me, Papa, but there’s no way I can agree,” Isobelle said.

  “I haven’t asked for your opinion,” Armand said.

  “No, you never do.”

  Blackthorn could hear the resentment in her voice. For years, he knew, Isobelle had hoped to be her father’s successor. But congenial though he was, Armand was an old-fashioned sexist. He had insisted upon grooming his languid son to succeed him, even though, as far as anybody could tell, Christian could have cared less.

  “Kindly do me the courtesy of hearing me out,” Armand said. He was either ignoring the tape recorder, Blackthorn thought, or posturing for it. He wasn’t certain which.

  “The truth is, an injustice has been done. For this I blame myself. I knew that Rina had a daughter. I even met her, many years ago. As I recall, she was a difficult child. Uncouth and wild—quite unlike the woman we have seen today. If I had ever dreamed that she would turn out so well—so dignified. But it did not occur to me.

  “I’m afraid I encouraged Rina to send the child to boarding school in the States rather than bringing her to Paris. As you know, Rina was at the time quite a different class of woman than I was accustomed to associating with. Although she was never ashamed of her beginnings, I confess that I was.”

  Armand shook his head sadly. “I take no pride in admitting that I felt a need to mold her into the woman I wanted her to be. The prospect of molding the child as well seemed an impossible task. Rina had never disciplined her. She was out of control. My concern was for you. I thought April would be a bad influence…” His voice trailed off.

  Blackthorn was intrigued by the description of April Harrington as uncouth and wild. But how she could have been a bad influence on Christian and Isobelle was more than he could imagine.

  “I now believe that out of snobbery and fear I made the wrong decision,” Armand went on. “I am ashamed of myself for this. I separated a mother from her child. It was inexcusable.”

  Too bad April Harrington had left the room. Blackthorn wondered what she would think of this admission.

  “The child grew up, naturally, to resent us. As for her mother—” he shrugged “—it is clear from the dispositions made in her will that she wished to rectify the wrong done to the only child born of her body. Power Perspectives was Rina’s inspiration, her own personal adventure. She, not I, created it and built it into what it is today. I wish everyone to know that I support my wife’s right to decide what to do with the company. And I believe that she has made a just choice.

  “Therefore, it is my decision that her will will not be contested. I trust that is clear to all of you?”

  “I haven’t the slightest interest in contesting Rina’s will,” Christian said. “The entire subject is a matter of supreme indifference to me.”

  Armand turned to Isobelle. Her arms were crossed over her chest, and her dark eyes were burning. “A just choice?” she repeated. “Even if there is some justice in trying to make up for past wrongs, there were other ways she could have done it. Certainly her choice was not a wise or a sensible one. This is business, Father. How can you sit there and assert that some woman we don’t even know—some—some shopkeeper—is the right person to run a multimillion-dollar company? For all we know, she’ll destroy it! Or is that what you secretly hope?”

  “That is enough, Isobelle,” Armand said.

  “You’re mistaken if you think I won’t fight for what is rightfully mine.”

  “Why don’t you just kill April Harrington,” Christian suggested with a sudden flash of emotion. “Then you’ll inherit, after all.”

  Isobelle glared at her brother, whose cold eyes glared right back at her.

  Armand shook his head sadly.

  Blackthorn and Clemente exchanged another glance.

  Something rotten here, Blackthorn thought.

  He cleared his throat. “Personally, I don’t give a damn who ends up running Power Perspectives. What I want to know—and intend to find out—is who murdered Rina.”

  “The brilliant detective at work?” Christian’s tone just missed being snide—a great talent of his—to be offensive in a manner that no one could proclaim as offensive.

  “Brilliance is rarely required in a murder case,” Blackthorn said. “We simply don’t get that many brilliant murderers.” And we certainly won’t find one in this family, was the message that he hoped his words implied. “Dogged determination usually works better than clever deductions. Killers leave tracks. Sometimes these tracks are difficult to find. Sometimes we go in circles trying to separate a false lead from a true one. But eventually we find the real tracks, and they lead us where we want to go.”

  “Seems to me you were hired to prevent this from happening, not to clean up the mess afterwards,” Christian said.

  “Yeah, and I blew it,” Blackthorn said levelly. “Now it’s a matter of professi
onal pride to clear up that impression.”

  He paused, looking at each of them in turn. As in any suspicious death, the closest relatives were the most obvious suspects. The motivations that drive people to murder were often mundane, even trivial. Real and imagined slights, conscious and unconscious cruelties. Despite the popularity of the murder mysteries that April Harrington sold so successfully in her shop, there often were no grand, intelligent plans behind a real killing. For every sophisticated life insurance scam there were thousands of pointless, profitless murders—lives ended and people consigned to the earth over passions that would have faded by morning had they not been precipitously acted upon.

  Rina’s death was different, of course. A contract had been made, a shooter had been hired. The means were sophisticated, and the motive would have to have been sufficiently complex to justify all the trouble.

  Most of the people with complex motives were right here in this room.

  “It’s more than professional pride, though,” he said. “Rina helped a lot of people, including my wife during her illness. And when I needed someone, she was there.” Blackthorn had to take a slow careful breath to hide his emotions from them. “I owe her. And since there’s no longer any way to settle up with her directly, I’m making it my business to settle up with her memory. I intend to see justice done. I’m going to unearth her murderer and put him—or her—away.”

  For several seconds, nobody said anything. Then Armand leaned over and put one of his hands on Blackthorn’s arm. “Thank you for your dedication. If there’s anything I can do to help you, you have only to ask. I will hope and pray that you succeed.”

  Christian and Isobelle said nothing, although Isobelle looked agitated, as if she wanted to speak. Christian’s expression was as cold and unreadable as carved marble.

  Blackthorn exchanged a quick glance with Martin Clemente. His former colleague’s expression was grim. He probably knew as well as Blackthorn did that at this point the tracks led exactly nowhere.

  Isobelle de Sevigny slammed the door behind her as she entered her Chelsea apartment. She stomped through the huge living room area of the converted factory to the master bedroom and sat down at the antique dressing table. She stared at her face in the mirror. She was not beautiful, or at least, she had never considered herself to be so. Her features were a little too sharp, especially her nose. She thought they looked sharper than ever now because she had not been eating properly since Rina’s death.

  Actually, she reminded herself, she hadn’t been eating properly for quite some time. Her weight was down. Charlie had been fussing. He was quick to tell her that he liked some covering of flesh on her bones.

  But Isobelle preferred herself thinner. When she exhibited herself, she wanted no one to see and smile over extra flesh, extra fat.

  She felt a surge in her belly as it occurred to her that she could exhibit herself tonight.

  She glanced at the diamond watch on her wrist. Just after eleven. Things at the Chateau would be heating up. It was Friday night, and straights were welcome. During the week the rooms and apparatus in the Chateau were reserved for homosexuals—lesbians on Tuesday and Thursday and gays on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. But on the weekend, the heterosexual players took over the place.

  Isobelle hadn’t planned on checking out the scene this weekend, but she also hadn’t planned on April Harrington. Her anger and frustration were unexpected; she had to work them out.

  She picked up the phone and dialed Charlie’s number. “Are you alone?” she asked.

  “Of course I’m alone,” he said, sounding surprised that she might think otherwise.

  “I’m going to the Chateau. Would you like to come?”

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “I’m fine.”

  “I can’t stop thinking about what happened today, Isobelle. I’m so sorry. I can’t believe it. I hope you’re going to challenge that new will.”

  “Look, I’m trying to get the whole unpleasant situation out of my head. Do you want to meet me tonight or not?”

  “Okay. Sure. I’m concerned about you, that’s all.”

  “Thanks,” she said, “but there’s no way you can fix this particular situation.”

  “I can try. You know I want only the best for you, always.”

  Her voice turned husky. “Yes, because you’re my slave, pet.”

  Silence. Then he said, “Shall I meet you there?”

  “Mmm. I’ll arrive by midnight.”

  “I’ll be there,” Charlie murmured as she rang off.

  She sat for a few moments staring at the phone. Charlie was loyal and loving, and she could relax when she was with him. But being involved with somebody from work was never smart. Perhaps it was time to start looking for someone to replace him.

  She stripped off her clothes and, naked, poked around in the back of her closet until she found some of the things she needed. She donned a black corset made of soft leather. It laced up in front, and barely covered her breasts. She stepped into a pair of matching leather bikini panties that covered her crotch in front but was high cut on the sides and back. She added a short leather skirt, black fishnet stockings with leather garters, and four-inch patent leather heels. No blouse. It would come off, anyway… as would the skirt.

  As would she.

  Charlie was waiting for her inside when she arrived at the Chateau at a few minutes past midnight. He wore a black leather vest over a dark turtleneck shirt. Tight leather pants encased his long legs. With his blond hair, gray eyes, and pleasant features, he was a good-looking man. Isobelle could sense several women giving him the eye from various dark corners of the club. If she did break up with him, he wouldn’t have any problem hooking up with someone new. Assuming he wanted to do so. More and more lately, he had been declaring his love for her.

  She walked over to him and arched her neck to receive his kiss.

  “You look gorgeous, Mistress,” he said.

  “Thank you, slave.”

  “I’ve missed you. I’d really like to see you someplace other than here and in the office.”

  “This is all I can handle right now.”

  They moved into a large central area of the club where other couples wandered, most dressed in fetish costumes with a heavy emphasis on leather and shiny black vinyl. Some were barely dressed at all.

  At one end of the room was a shadowy group gathered around some dimly illuminated apparatus. There was the sound of a paddle striking bare flesh, accompanied by cries that spoke far more eloquently of pleasure than of pain. This was indeed the case. The whips were real, but they were made of soft leather, bluntly cut and unlikely to injure or mark even the most tender skin.

  “Are you okay?” Charlie’s gray eyes studied her. “Are you worried about something?”

  “I’m fine. Let’s play.”

  He shrugged. He was only an average submissive, she thought. Giving up power was something that didn’t come naturally to him.

  Perhaps she had been too indulgent with Charlie. The best dominants were control freaks. Type A personalities. They wanted—indeed they needed—to control every detail of the scene. The power this gave them was the turn-on.

  Isobelle liked having control, yes, but she was not interested in the fine level of detail that some dommes obsessed about. No, for her it was more a matter of power. She loved the rush of having a man—or even better, several men—kneeling at her feet.

  Removing a pair of fur-lined leather cuffs from her toy-bag, she indicated to Charlie to hold out his hands. She felt the familiar surge go through her as she buckled the cuffs around his wrists.

  As she led Charlie toward the back room—toward the pillory and the whipping post—Isobelle closed her eyes against the image of Rina, lying broken and silent on the convention center floor.

  Chapter Six

  “Okay, we fucked up,” said Blackthorn to Carla Murphy.

  He had his feet up on his desk in his suite of fancy offices on Sevent
h Avenue just a couple of blocks away from Central Park. “There’s no way to undo it, but we’re going to have to engage in a little damage control. Hell. A lot of damage control.”

  “You have a personal stake in this, I know,” Carla said.

  “True. But right now I’m thinking more about the business than about my personal relationship to the de Sevigny family.” That had better be true, he told himself. Besides Carla, he had three other people working for him. He was responsible for putting food on their tables every night at suppertime. If he went under, so would they.

  “It doesn’t look good, does it, a celebrity like Rina de Sevigny being assassinated right under our noses. This kind of thing is not likely to bring new clients pounding on our doors.”

  “Yeah,” Carla said morosely.

  “We’ve already lost a couple possible contracts, and both the Saudi gentlemen Jonas is supposed to be baby-sitting in Washington during next week’s oil trade negotiations have telephoned to ask for our assurances regarding their safety.”

  “You reassured them, I hope?”

  “I bowed and scraped, yeah. We’ve guarded them before and they’ve been happy. Jonas speaks Arabic and knows where to take them to get them laid, so I don’t think they’ll cancel.” Jonas was a good man, and Blackthorn trusted him. He was young and sometimes a little over-eager, but he was smart and good with foreign languages. Jonas was also Blackthorn’s computer expert. He could electronically hack his way into any system.

  “Even so, we could sure use a little positive public relations,” he went on. “Best way I can see to achieve that is to outrun the police and the FBI and figure out who killed Rina ourselves.”

  “Look,” said Carla. “I know you used to be an FBI agent. And that World Systems Security started out as a detective agency. But it’s been a long time since we’ve been so much as peripherally involved in a murder investigation. And besides, it happened in California, and this is New York.”