Keepsake

by Linda Barlow

“Well, you didn’t recognize me for a minute there. Let’s hope he doesn’t, either.”

  “You need exercise, we’ll secure a gym for you, for chrissake.”

  “I’m going to Central Park.”

  Muttering, Carla followed.

  The park was crowded as usual during the warm bright days of summer. April walked fast, got well out in front of Carla, then quickly put on the rollerblades that she’d hidden in her athletic bag. Then she folded up the nylon bag and stuffed it into her back pocket.

  As she was getting ready to move, she caught sight of Carla entering the park behind her from Fifth Avenue. Giving her a jaunty wave, she pushed off. Carla yelled something at her and began to run.

  “Gotcha!” April called over her shoulder and pushed off.

  It felt terrific as she skated by a crowd of teenage bladers who were performing for each other. She cruised along a drive with bikers and other rollerbladers toward the center of the park. On the broad expanses of Sheep Meadow, college-age kids were playing Frisbee. Others were lying about, absorbing the summer sun.

  She doubled back past the band shell where a single would-be actor was reciting Shakespeare to an indifferent crowd, past the fountain and the boathouse on the pond, and pumped up the slope that led toward the Ramble. The park there was sheltered and wild. Almost forestlike, with trees thick with their summer leaves. If someone wanted to attack her, this would be an ideal spot. But she was moving very fast, and unless he was on skates himself, he wouldn’t be able to keep up with her. Carla had long ago vanished into the distance.

  To hell with him! I won’t live the rest of my life afraid!

  The rhythmic feeling of her own muscles alive and at work was very calming. She got into the rhythm and let it carry her. The rhythm helped her to center herself and bring the world back into focus.

  Seize your own power! Let go of fear!

  Had Rina believed what she had preached? There was every indication that she had. Everybody who’d come in contact with her since the beginning of Power Perspectives insisted that she had been sincere. It must be true. Why else had she cared about people like Kate and Jessie Blackthorn? How had the same woman who had abandoned her daughter inspired so much loyalty and love?

  There is no mystery about your professional success or your personal relationships. You can reshape your destiny.

  If what she said was right, then there was no mystery about the people who loved Rina… nor about the one who had killed her. No mystery at all.

  The place where you have arrived in your life is a logical one because you placed yourself upon the road that led there a very long time ago.

  Why had Rina been successful? Why had she been killed? Were the answers to the two questions related somehow?

  There was sense to be made of this, surely, if only she looked at it the right way.

  No one attacked April in the Ramble. She continued to move fast, but she did not look over her shoulder. But when she emerged safely on the east side of the park, near the Metropolitan Museum of Art, she looked back at her imaginary pursuers and laughed out loud with the joy of taking a risk and winning.

  Winded from the hilly run, April sat down on a bench and took off her rollerblades. She unfolded the nylon athletic bag and dropped the rollerblades in it. She exited the park and walked down Fifth Avenue at a leisurely pace. What had happened to Carla? She felt a twinge of guilt at the thought of Blackthorn’s assistant struggling to keep up with a wildwoman on skates.

  As she passed the museum she noticed that one of the side doors was open and a truck was pulled up there. Crates were being carried into the place—a traveling exhibition, probably. One crate, made of simple wooden slats, contained nothing but empty, although ornate, picture frames. She was reminded of the framing demonstration she and Kate had witnessed at the museum on the afternoon they’d visited together. Kate, thank God, was home from the hospital and doing fine. “Why did you stay in my kitchen after I’d told you to leave?” she’d asked her.

  “I figured you had a lover,” Kate said calmly. “I was investigating to find out who he was.”

  As far as she knew, the identity of her lover was one mystery that Kate had not yet solved.

  “Dammit, woman, how could you take such a risk?”

  “Don’t yell at me, please.”

  “You deserve to be yelled at,” Blackthorn said that night when he arrived at the office to take over from the still-very-angry Carla. “You deliberately ran out on Carla, making it impossible for her to do her job.”

  “I needed to get some exercise. Can I help it if Carla couldn’t keep up?”

  “You’re acting like an idiot!”

  “No, I’m not, Rob. Even if he knows how to rollerblade, which I doubt, I’m sure the killer wasn’t conveniently carrying a pair along with him. I’m sick of huddling indoors and I’m tired of having a panic attack every time I venture into the fresh air! I can’t live like that. I won’t. It’s time we brought this whole thing to a head. It’s time to confront them and see who cracks.”

  “If they haven’t cracked so far, there’s no reason to think—”

  “I don’t believe that. I don’t believe this isn’t just as stressful for the murderer as it is for me. More so, maybe. Besides, I’m beginning to think my mother was right about some of the things she preached. Seizing your power. Taking control of your own destiny. Dammit, Rob, if I’m going to continue in this job, I’ve got to find out once and for all whether I believe in her principles.”

  “Believing in her own principles brought Rina de Sevigny to an early grave.”

  “Maybe so. But if we’re to believe what she says about her own personal transformation, she would have died a lot sooner if she hadn’t found something to believe in. She was going to kill herself, remember? And it occurs to me now that we know that, but we don’t know why. She supposedly had everything. But she wasn’t happy. She had to transform her life, for godsake. Why?”

  Blackthorn shrugged. “Good point. You’re right. We don’t know the answer to that. I’ll bet her autobiography would have told us why.”

  “Exactly. And maybe the killer knows that. Maybe the manuscript is important not for what it reveals about Rina’s clients, but for what it reveals about Rina herself.”

  “Maybe. But there are too many damn maybe’s in this case. Too many theories and not enough facts.” He glanced at his watch. “I hope you’re through here for the day because it’s getting late. I’m hungry and I want to go home.”

  He was definitely in a pissy mood tonight. But April was determined not to be cowed. She was still in a good mood as a result of “seizing her power” this afternoon.

  She gave him a mischievous smile. “I’m ready. Your place or mine?”

  “This is for you,” said Rob.

  They had settled on her place, and he had insisted on stopping at a small grocery store on the way home and picking up a couple of steaks and the makings of a salad. “You always cook for me,” he said. “Tonight I want to do something for you.”

  He had made her a lovely meal, and now, as they sat over coffee, he handed her a flat square box. “Open it. Sorry it’s not wrapped.”

  “Gee, it’s not my birthday or anything.”

  “I want you to have it.”

  In the box, nestled on cotton, was a necklace made of beaten silver. It was solid, like a choker, and set into the handcrafted silver were several black and white stones.

  She looked up at him, smiling with surprise and pleasure. “Rob, it’s beautiful. I don’t know what to say.” It must have been fairly expensive, she was thinking.

  “Do you like it?”

  “It’s gorgeous!” She fingered the silver, admiring the crafting. This relationship was still in its beginning stages, and she wasn’t entirely certain how to interpret such a gift.

  “May I?” He took it from her. “Lift your hair.”

  She gathered her thick hair in one hand and pulled it up out of the way while he fas
tened the silver necklace around her neck. When he secured it in the back, it was snug, but comfortable.

  “I was a little worried it might not fit,” he said. “It looked so small…”

  “I have a little neck,” she said, smiling. “It fits fine.”

  He touched the silver in front, just above her pulse point, and gave her a wicked grin. “It looks a bit like a slave collar.”

  “Ah hah! So that’s your motive!”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Someday,” he said.

  “Threats, threats!”

  He took her head between his palms and pulled her close. “Kiss me,” he ordered.

  She obeyed.

  But later that night it was Rob, not April, who had an anxiety attack. He was lying with her in his arms, half asleep, dreaming or fantasizing—he wasn’t sure which. He saw her melting in his arms. Shrinking, turning transparent, slipping away from him. He jerked up, his heart hammering, uncertain for a moment whether he was holding April’s loving body, or Jessie’s corpse.

  What if he lost her? He’d been making one mistake after another. She had almost died.

  It took him a long time to fall back to sleep again.

  In the morning, he told her. “Listen, April,” he said slowly. “I think maybe it’s time for me to back off this case a bit.”

  “What d’you mean, back off?”

  “I think somebody else should be guarding you. I’m thinking of Jonas, actually. He’s younger than I am, probably stronger and certainly quicker. Plus he’ll have the objectivity that I lack.”

  “I don’t get it, Rob. What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that I don’t think we should see each other for a while.”

  She touched his face uncertainly. “Why not?”

  “Because you’re not safe with me.” He shook his head, once again seeing fragments of the dream. “I can’t keep you safe.”

  “Of course I’m safe with you!”

  “Look, it’s not up for discussion. Rina died in my care. You almost died last week because I wasn’t alert enough to the possibilities. Obviously I’m losing it, and I’m not going to take any more chances with your life. You need protection and I’m going to see that you get it.”

  “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “Look, I don’t interfere in your business and I don’t want you interfering in mine. Nobody who’s emotionally involved with a client has any business to be protecting their life. I’m too vulnerable. Too liable to make mistakes. It can’t continue.”

  She sat up in bed. She was still wearing his lovely necklace—it had remained on her throat ever since he had given it to her and placed it there. “This is an excuse, isn’t it?”

  “What do you—”

  “You’re feeling vulnerable because you’re feeling something that you don’t want to feel. It’s the old approach-avoid thing. The man begins to feel close… he expresses affection, he makes gestures, the woman responds, and suddenly it’s too much for him. He’s allowed himself to get too emotionally involved. So he backs off to a safer distance. Is that what’s happening here?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “I don’t think it has anything to do with how well you can protect me. I think what it’s really about is how well you can protect yourself.”

  He regarded her steadily. “You may be right. But the fact remains that for whatever reason, I don’t feel that I can do a good job. We have to find this killer and stop him. We have to unravel the heart of the mystery of who hired him in the first place. Worse, we have to contend with the possibility that there has been some sort of professional parting of the ways here—that it has become personal. That the killer may now be working for himself.”

  “You mean he’ll come after me even if nobody orders him to do it?”

  “I’m afraid of that, yes. Why does someone become a professional killer? The money’s good, but it’s a high-risk vocation. He’s violating the most ancient laws of how one human being behaves toward another. It takes some sort of pathology to do it, and this guy has apparently gone over the edge. The rose was a warning sign. Cold professional killers don’t send roses to their victims.”

  “We don’t know for certain that the killer sent that rose.”

  He looked startled for a moment. “I think we can assume it.”

  “Are you saying that even if we find out who hired him and throw him—or her—into prison, I still won’t be safe?”

  “Yes. You’re at risk, and so, I suspect, is Kate, who also saw his face. Our job is tougher now. On the other hand, we have a few more clues. We’ll get him, eventually. But it’s going to require a complete commitment of time and energy, and I think, frankly, that I’m better used as an investigator than as a bodyguard. Jonas has done more bodyguarding recently than I have, anyway. I trust him completely, and so can you.”

  “I don’t like this, Rob. It doesn’t feel right to me.”

  “Trust me, April. Please.”

  “I trust you,” she said. But deep in her heart she wondered if it was true. Did she really trust anybody? Had she ever, since Rina had left?

  Chapter Thirty-two

  When the door to her office opened unexpectedly and a man walked in, April’s heart turned over.

  She must be more nervous than she’d realized.

  “You okay?” said Christian de Sevigny. “I didn’t mean to startle you. Didn’t you hear me knock?”

  “Uh, no,” she said. She’d been daydreaming. But he must have knocked pretty damn softly. “Usually my secretary buzzes me and warns me when someone’s about to come in. A nice perk—having a secretary.” She managed a smile. “That’s a first for me, I’ll admit. I did my own clerical work in the bookstore.”

  Christian glanced at the paper-thin gold watch that graced his angular wrist. “It’s twelve-thirty. She’s probably gone to lunch.”

  April nodded. Where was Carla? she wondered.

  Christian, after all, was one of the suspects.

  Right on cue, Carla’s head popped in the door, checking. April nodded to her. For now, it was okay.

  “How’s Kate?” she asked.

  “She’s much better. Pretty much back to her normal self, in fact.” He shook his head. “Now that it’s over, she seems to be taking inordinate pride in the fact that she got shot and lived to tell about it. She’s on the phone constantly with her friends, telling them all the gory details.”

  “But it’s not over,” April said.

  “No,” he agreed. “It’s not.”

  Almost a week had passed and nothing much had happened, except that Isobelle and Charlie suddenly seemed to be at each other’s throats. The rumor was that the romance had ended, but neither had confirmed it, and April didn’t feel close enough to either of them to ask.

  As for her own romance, that seemed to have fizzled also. Blackthorn had indeed backed off. Jonas guarded her now at night, and Carla during the day. She had hardly seen Rob at all.

  She was trying not to focus on how much she missed him. If she thought about it too much, she felt those old feelings rising in her—that sense of being abandoned. She told herself over and over that this was a silly, irrational reaction. That Rob was a professional, and this was how he felt he had to do his job. That he’d given her the necklace—and that it must mean something. That men always bounced back and forth in this manner, and that if she just waited it out, he would return, and move closer to her than before.

  Anyhow, she reminded herself, she had more serious problems to worry about.

  “Listen, there’s something I want to speak to you about,” Christian said. “It’s about the investigation.”

  “Okay. Go ahead.”

  “Actually, it’s about Robert Blackthorn.” His glacial blue eyes were looking straight into hers. “After he came to my home and started making a lot of wild accusations, my father and I did some checking into his background. We found something. It might not seem like much
, but, well, it’s strange. I thought you should know about it, since he and his people are watching out for you.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “It’s easier, actually, to show you.” He handed her an unsealed envelope. It contained an enclosure that looked like a Xerox of a newspaper article.

  “I don’t know how well you know Blackthorn,” Christian said as she removed the article and unfolded it. His tone seemed to indicate that he did know how well she knew him. “But this seems to me to be a fairly important piece of information. After all, as we’ve agreed, there are many reasons to want someone dead. Revenge is one of the oldest motives.”

  The enclosure was a clipping from a local newspaper in the small town on Long Island where Blackthorn had lived with his wife until her death. It was a letter to the editor, apparently in response to an article on alternative healing. Its tone was scathing, and it read, in part:

  “To promote hope and optimism in seriously ill patients is fine as long as these so-called ‘alternative healers’ don’t interfere with traditional therapies that actually have some chance of working.

  “But to brainwash cancer patients with stories about the horrors of chemotherapy and radiation therapy in order to lure them away from the medical establishment and thereby get their business and collect their money is unconscionable.

  “Someone very dear to me is dead because she paid far greater attention to the comforting—but medically useless—banalities of the ‘self-help’ organization Power Perspectives. If she had spent less time trying to ‘find her own power,’ and more subjecting herself to the proven powers of modern medicine, she might still be alive today.

  “Power Perspectives, and organizations like it that make phenomenal amounts of money offering useless panaceas for all of life’s pains, are collectively responsible for killing thousands of credulous clients every year.

  “They must be stopped, by any means possible.”

  The letter to the editor was signed “Robert Blackthorn.”

  April shook her head and read it again. The clipping was dated a little more than a year and a half ago, which must have been shortly after his wife had died.