He gave the brown envelope to Alistair.
“What’s this?” Alistair asked, his voice rough with anger.
“Open it.” Hlad flexed his fingers.
Alistair ripped it open and stared at the single sheet of paper within.
“My creative work,” Hlad said with a half smile. “I hoped you might appreciate it.”
Alistair stared, lines of worry deepening across his brow.
“Marie Sanders was a true comrade,” Hlad said. “Even though her devotion to the cause was compromised by personal motives, she was a dedicated worker.”
“You knew…” I said.
Paul smiled in a way that told me he knew everything, but his answer was disingenuous. “Who’s to say what a man like me really knows?”
“You need to explain yourself.” Alistair sat again, this time at the edge of a chair.
“It’s quite simple. I made a few interesting discoveries.” His one good eye surveyed us. “I want you to appreciate that fact.”
A chill ran down my spine.
“Appreciation can take many forms,” Alistair said. “What do you want?”
I watched as Paul’s lips curved into a smile. “I’ve been granted immunity by the state of New York in exchange for my valuable testimony,” he said. “I’m likely to be deported thereafter. But I’ve no plans to disappear.”
That was the moment I knew that we had not fully realized the role Hlad had been playing throughout.
Al Drayson. Jonathan Strupp. Marie Sanders. His henchman Savvas.
All individual actors, loosely linked by their association with the anarchist movement. But each one had been manipulated by Hlad—a virtual puppetmaster behind it all. His words went on to confirm it.
“I make it my business to know what those in my organization are doing. Marie may have thought she was using me,” Paul Hlad said, “but the best leaders are those who can exploit the goals of their followers to accomplish their own. Marie was a brilliant find in that respect. She confounded the police and helped cover our plan for Drayson. Without ever knowing she was doing it,” he added with a short, brittle laugh.
“Because everyone believed the murders were connected to Drayson,” I said.
He nodded, then turned to Alistair. “When you founded the Bellerophon Club … when you designed strategy for your friends at the district attorney’s office … when you plucked those criminals from jail cells who best served your research goals … You have always been expert at manipulating other people’s desires to accomplish your own ends. No?”
Alistair’s face blanched. “No matter what you think, I’m not—”
Paul interrupted Alistair. “I know all about you. Let’s leave it at that, Professor.”
Alistair slumped back into his chair as though the lifeblood was drained from him.
The sheet of paper he had held fell to the floor—and on it, I recognized a familiar image, albeit now written in an unfamiliar hand.
A musical cipher.
I picked it up as Paul Hlad slipped through the door.
* * *
Isabella was waiting for me in the hallway when I left.
“You spoke with Alistair?” she asked.
I nodded.
“Who was that man who just left? I remember him from the anarchist meeting.”
I only shook my head. “He’s not important.”
She eyed me suspiciously for a moment but then seemed to understand. It wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have tonight.
“Come walk with me.” Her tone brooked no disagreement.
She disappeared into her own apartment for a moment, reappearing wearing her coat and with Oban leashed. His golden tail cut a wide swath, moving the entire back portion of his body to and fro.
This night, we walked the city streets. She seemed to understand that I found comfort in the bright lights and bustling activity of Broadway—the Boulevard. A few grocers and pharmacy shops remained open, even though the evening was growing dark.
“Did Alistair tell you what you needed to know?” A curious expression crossed her face.
“He did.” I didn’t elaborate.
Dry leaves crunched under our feet, and in the moonlit sky, the trees stretched craggy limbs high into the bleak November night.
“I’ve often thought that sometimes those with the greatest gifts are cursed with the most serious flaws.” Her expression was unreadable as she added, “I saw something of that even with Teddy: those qualities that made him an intrepid explorer and archeologist also made him a less than ideal husband. Much as I loved him.”
“I suppose most people disappoint, given half a chance,” I said. Like my own father, who meant well—except when he held a pair of aces in one hand and a roll of coins in the other.
“Even you, Simon?”
I deflected the question. “So do you want to know what Alistair said?”
“I don’t.” A sober look crossed her face, and her eyes filled with an intense sadness. “Sometimes it’s better not knowing.”
We walked in silence until we reached the intersection of Eighty-second and Broadway. Then Isabella stopped. “What do you think, Simon? Should we turn back or keep going?”
Ahead of us, the night stretched long and dark—for this uptown section of the Boulevard lacked the restaurants, shops, and street lamps that illuminated the streets below. Given the city’s insatiable appetite for expansion, that would come. But tonight, all was quiet and the path ahead beckoned.
I took Oban’s leash from Isabella. “Let’s walk a few blocks more.”
She settled her arm comfortably into mine and—if only for the span of that walk—I was content. People would disappoint. The lies and half-truths, the betrayals and double-dealings, that I had witnessed were simply part of life.
But perhaps not always.
Perhaps not tonight.
ALSO BY STEFANIE PINTOFF
A Curtain Falls
In the Shadow of Gotham
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
SECRET OF THE WHITE ROSE. Copyright © 2011 by Stefanie Pintoff. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.minotaurbooks.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Pintoff, Stefanie.
Secret of the white rose / Stefanie Pintoff—1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-312-58397-2
1. Police—New York (State)—Fiction. 2. Judges—Crimes against—Fiction. 3. Upper West Side (New York, N.Y.)—Fiction. 4. Terrorists—New York (State)—New York—Fiction. 5. New York (State)—History—20th century—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3616.I58S43 2011
813'.6—dc22 2011001291
First Edition: May 2011
eISBN 978-1-4299-6977-2
First Minotaur Books eBook Edition: May 2011
Secret of the White Rose Page 29
