Crime & Counterpoint (27 page)

Part VI

A Chromatic Love Affair

“I have an FBI escort now.”

Abigail’s weathered but soft hand combed over a silken blanket of mahogany as the organically attached head lay on her lap. “Is that so? Have you met him? Or her?”

“No. I haven’t. I don’t think I’m supposed to know who they are.” Shelley blinked slowly, tired and yet hesitant to return to the solitude of her apartment after her hours at the club. A certain discordant phrase from Caprice No. 4 played on a loop in her mind – her mother’s magnum opus. It filled her dreams and waking hours. And in bizarre juxtaposition to the severe intervallic runs, she’d turn or simply rouse from deep slumber and there’d be that train coming right towards her. It was only when she played that the sickening feelings of certain death dissipated and she felt at all safe.

Abigail brushed the back of her fingers over Shelley’s tawny cheek. The girl’s voice had that listless quality which reminded Abigail of Zach as a child whenever he’d received a particularly bad beating. It was the pitch of bewilderment – like you didn’t quite know what to make of anything anymore. Abigail moved her hand to stroke Shelley’s limp arm. “I still can’t believe you’ve been walking to and fro.”

“It’s been fine so far.”

Abigail arched a brow. “It’s twenty blocks, dear. Now’s hardly the time to prove your mettle.” After a pregnant pause, she queried, “And I suppose there’s no sense in asking Carter to chauffeur you about?”

Shelley sighed tunelessly. “He’s got so much on his plate. I’d feel guilty.” Her notes diminished to a pianissimo. “I’ve barely seen him inside of two weeks.”

Abigail lifted her hand as the dispirited girl righted herself and swiped up her strappy sandals. “If I were you, I’d quit.”

Shelley shook her head, grimacing as if pained. “It’s strange. I dread going, but once I’m there, playing, I can’t imagine being anywhere else.” She stepped towards the door, light as a feather. “I think that’s what Carter doesn’t understand.”

“It’s the music you love. Surely he can understand that.”

Shelley gave a weighty sigh. “Maybe.” She stared at the doorknob for much too long until finally, she came to herself, said goodnight with a hollow smile, and took her leave, a wisp floating out to sea.

Ready to collapse into her bed, Shelley went straight to her room, removed the clips from her hair, and dropped her shoes unceremoniously near a pile of sheet music.

Thinking of a certain melody she’d played earlier, she began to unzip her evening gown. Bur then, her phone rang. Unnecessarily nervous, she peeked around the doorframe of her room and flitted across the wooden floors, her bare, tired feet keenly feeling the cold.

It was so dark out. The city’s bug eyes, thousands of them, stared at her. And for the first time since moving here, she wished she was more than two floors above ground-level. Anyone could have looked up and seen straight through the glass wall.

She grabbed her new smartphone from the counter where she’d left it with her keys. “Hello?”

But there was no response. Nothing but a kind of faint clicking.

Or was that the door?

Shelley’s eyes amplified with ready fear. “Ashleigh?” she called. But Ashleigh wasn’t even supposed to be here. NYU had already let out for the semester. She was safe and sound at home in Plandome Manor, probably had plans with Erik tonight. He’d already broken up with Ms. Victoria Secret.

Lowering the phone, Shelley checked the brightly-lit screen flashing the words ‘Call Ended’. But the clicking continued. From the door.

Then, somehow, despite her effervescing panic, she remembered the gun Zach had left for her. Neglecting her phone, she ran into her bedroom and yanked open the side table drawer. There was the 9mm. Body shaking, her hands were nevertheless steady as she picked it up and turned off the lamp.

Darkness. Her skin prickled, heart thumping painfully.

Gasping for breath, she remained crouched in the corner formed by her side table and bed, praying for strength.

She gripped the subcompact weapon with both hands, reminding herself how to use it. Everything Zach had taught her. But terror mounted with every pulse, and her throat closed. Sweat began to glisten on her brow.

Then, it happened. The front door swung open with confidence. Footsteps followed, silently.

And then, the bedroom door opened. One black shoe then another stepped onto her wooden floor. And a hand flicked the light switch.

Her finger closed in on the trigger just as the man’s face appeared, light from the hall shining behind his head and obscuring his features. Fear incited her to shoot, but she couldn’t. 

“Shelley?!”

Her breath left her in a rush.
Carter.

For a moment, he couldn’t say anything. There was his fiancée and there was a gun. Neither bothered him separately. “What are you doing with that?” he asked in a tight voice.

“I’m sorry,” she blubbered, gun still pointed at him. “I was scared. I thought you were – oh Carter!” She dissolved into rasping sobs.

Her reaction doused any words of censure. Finally, his feet found their intended purpose and hurried over to her. He knelt by her where she had compressed herself into a ball. Gently, he took the gun from her rigid hands, set it on the stand, and gathered her to himself. Her arms went around his neck, and she held onto him tightly, legs drawn up as they sat on the floor.

“I came by the club. But you were already gone,” he said. “It’s pretty cold out tonight.”

Her response was to press closer as if she didn’t want to face the world.

He tried again. “Where’d you get the gun, babe?”

“Zach. I told him I didn’t want it, but he wouldn’t listen.”

Her voice was so quiet, he didn’t have the heart to question her further. But internally, he stiffened at the reveal that Zach had been in here. “You really shouldn’t have it. I’ll take it back to him.”

“Thank you,” she whispered.

He kissed her hair and breathed her in. His hand felt the vertebrae of her spine – her dress wasn’t even zipped up yet. His blood warmed. “Sorry for not calling, but I thought I’d drop by to ask if you wanted to set a date.”

She stiffened, and he thought ‘great, she’s changed her mind again’, but to his complete surprise, she said, “The sooner the better. I don’t want any fuss. And I don’t care if the governor can make it or not. I only want family and our close friends. That’s it.” She lifted her head and looked at him heartrendingly. “Okay?”

Moved by her distress, he gave his complete assent and then cupped the back of her head, kissing her lips. She pressed close to him, needing his comfort, and he was more than happy to comply. However, the sight of her with a gun never left his mind’s eye.

And the memory of Zach showing her how to fire the weapon flooded her thoughts. But stronger than her feelings for both men, was her desire to please her father. And she would marry Carter. If that was what daddy wanted.

Over the next week, Shelley made and kept several appointments, all at her mother’s insistence, with the florist, Macy’s Bridal, and department stores. By herself. Carter and his fellow associates at the DA’s office were too busy dealing with the complicated prosecutions of Rybar Cervenka, the Brother’s Circle constituents, and their Wall Street associates. Fortunately, all except Kazanov would be neatly scored away by the time the wedding rolled around in one week from Saturday.

Just after Christmas.

Tonight, a rather frigid but windless Friday, she didn’t have to play after the dinner hours of six to nine because there was a guest artist. Although she would have liked to have stayed and just listened, she had an appointment at LaFavreau’s bakery north of Columbus Circle. Her mother had managed to get a slot with the premium cake maker after Shelley reluctantly yielded her full schedule at the club.

Shelley’s pocket of her black leather jacket vibrated as she trudged down the crowded sidewalk glowing with Christmas lights. “Hello?” she answered, her whole being tensing in anticipation of more wedding dictates.

“Shelley, dear,” Carol trilled. “You
are
on your way to LaFavreau’s, I hope.”

She sighed inaudibly. “Yes, Mom. I’m walking past the Lincoln Center right now.” She glanced over at the golden plaza and bubbling fountain burning magically in the night, practically dusted with shattered dreams.

Rupturing her wistful admiration, someone shoved her going in the opposite direction, and she bumped into another man who scowled at her for the intrusion. She grimaced apologetically. “Sorry.”

The guy didn’t seem to accept her apology as he moved on.

“I know I sent you on a thousand errands, but when one decides to have a shotgun wedding for absolutely no reason, one must suffer the consequences.”

Shelley’s eyelashes fluttered in annoyance. “Yes, Mother.”

“By the way, you sound strange. I can barely hear you.”

“It’s my new cell phone,” Shelley said. “It’s been giving me all kinds of weird problems lately. Is that any better?”

“Yes, I can hear you just fine. Why did you need a new cell phone? Oh never mind. Now, about the centerpieces…”

Her mother’s wedding talk continued in her left ear unheeded. Shelley gave the occasional ‘yes’ and ‘uh huh’ and ‘I will’ – just enough so that Carolina Mitchel wouldn’t know her daughter’s thoughts had wandered to a brooding man in a broken leather jacket with searing blue eyes. So distracted was she that even the annoying intermittent clicking on the line faded into the backdrop.

She walked beneath scaffolding where construction was on-going and looked to the right at her reflection in the scuffed plate glass of the not-yet-complete stores. Her image wavered like rippling water.

“…And I think you should call Melissa and tell her to just select her own dress since you refuse to have bridesmaids.”

Shelley sighed. “If I get bridesmaids, Carter will have to select groomsmen, and he has more friends than I do. He’s bound to offend someone, and I thought–”

She gasped as the very man of her dreams appeared in the glass for a moment. Startled, she turned around, searching the crowd of pedestrians, the ones flooding the crosswalk right now, and the anticipation beating in her breast died to bitter disappointment.

He wasn’t there.

Reluctantly, she continued her despondent pace. It was a good thing Carter was too busy; she didn’t really want to see him until she absolutely had to say ‘I do’.

“Shelley, are you listening?”

“Uh, yeah, Mom. Sorry.”

“Anyway like I was saying, your father and I are thrilled that you have finally made a sensible decision. I know you will make Carter a wonderful wife. And if I do say so myself, he’s getting a rather good deal.” Carol laughed lyrically at her own joke.

Shelley didn’t participate. Privately, she knew she was the one who should be thanking God on her knees that Carter had stuck with her so long – braved the trenches of her “I need to figure out my life” canvass. But there was a small niggling question she couldn’t silence: why
had
he been so okay with it?

The bakery was just up ahead, and she welcomed the legitimate excuse to get off the phone. “Hey, I’m here, could we talk later?”

“Sure, dear. Oh, hold on, your father wants to say hello.” Carol giggled as Henri did something obviously inappropriate.

Shelley gripped the phone tighter and refrained from cringing. She loved that her parents were still
in
love, but it was extremely gross from a purely offspring perspective.

But her father’s deep, comforting lilt came on, dissipating her irritation. “Sweetheart?”

“Hi, Daddy,” she said, her tone instantly softer, warmer, compliant.

“Are you being careful?”

The question made her look over her shoulder as she tucked her hair behind her ear. “Um, I think so.”

“Good. Make sure you go straight back to the apartment when you’re done. Is Carter coming over?” he asked in an altered tone.

She felt herself blush as she walked under a street light. “No. He’s out of town. He’s been swamped with Cervenka’s upcoming trial, I think.”

“He is? Didn’t he tell you that I arranged for an out-of-court settlement?”

Cold air snaked around her bare calves. “You did?”

“Yes, I spoke with the FBI, and they’ve accepted my proposal of deportation since he’s aided them in apprehending members of the Brother’s Circle.”

“So does that mean I don’t have to appear in court?”

“Your subpoena has been withdrawn. I’m really surprised Carter didn’t tell you.” Now, her father sounded irritated but then his voice warmed again, and he said, “I hope you know that I’m proud of you.”

She stopped walking as her hopes levied. “You are?”

“Yes. Of course. For sticking it out like you have. I’m… impressed. I didn’t know my little girl had so much backbone.”

She smiled at his compliment, but inside, disappointment dampened her spirits. Her father was only proud of her with regards to not curling into a ball and sticking her head in the sand at the first sign of trouble. Hardly an accomplishment.

“Well, sweetheart, I’ll let you go. We’ll be back in New York on Sunday. Be safe for me. I love you.”

It nearly jumped off her tongue to ask if he’d spoken to Zach, but instead, she merely replied, “I love you too, Daddy.” Sighing, she pocketed her phone and trudged to the bakery door, entering on a gust of cold wind.