F Paul Wilson - Secret History 02 (12 page)

           
"Does this mean Kelly's going
to be written off as a crazy bimbo who threw herself through a hotel window?"

           
"No," he said slowly.
"Not by a long shot. That doesn't sit well with me."

           
Her spirits rose a tiny bit.

           
"Why not?"

           
"Kelly had to hit that window
with tremendous force to go through it the way she did. Jumpers just don't do
it that way. They open the window, step out on the ledge, and go. They don't do
what Kelly did. Besides, I used her purse keys and did a quick search of her
apartment the day after her death. I didn't find a suicide note or anything
like it."

           
Kara looked around. Maybe that
explained some of the uncharacteristic disarray she'd noticed during her own
search.

           
"So we're back to murder,"
she said.

           
"I don't know where we are,
Kara," Rob said. His voice was tired. "But I promise you: I'll keep
this case open as long as they let me."

           
"Thank you, Rob." She
believed him. "Can I call you again on this?"

           
"Call me any time. You know
that."

           
"Thanks."

           
Kara hung up and stared across the
room at the pile of papers she had pulled from one of the closets. She was
going to go through everything there until she found an answer.

           
Kelly a suicide? No way.

           
"Was that Aunt Ellen of the
phone?" Jill said.

           
Kara suddenly had an insane urge to
tell her the truth.
No, bug. That was
your father
.

           
"Just a policeman."

           
She looked at Jill. She so resembled
Rob. The idea of Jill and Rob being in the same city was almost unnerving. If
they ran into each other, there was no way he could miss the resemblance. And
then he would know that he had a daughter.

           
Rob was a good man. Seeing him again
had released an almost overwhelming attack of guilt. She never should have kept
her pregnancy a secret from him. She saw that now, but at the time it seemed
the only thing to do. Nothing was going to deter her from having the baby, and
nothing was going to convince her to raise the child in the city. And there was
no way Rob was going to leave the city willingly. She could have used the
pregnancy to coerce him into quitting the NYPD and moving to the suburbs, but
what kind of marriage, what kind of life would that have been? He would have
felt like a prisoner, or a hostage. He would have come to resent Kara, maybe
even resent his child. The result would have been intolerable for the three of
them.

           
So Kara had done the hardest thing
she had ever done in her life. She left the man she loved and returned home to
have her child and raise her by herself. The idea had shocked, offended, and
embarrassed her mother, and even Kelly had thought she was crazy, but they'd
all stood by her just the same. For awhile the farm had been a war zone… until
Jill was born. Jill brought them all together again.

           
It hadn't been easy raising a child
on her own, but Kara had managed. She'd done it away from the city where they
were safe, where she could instill in Jill the values she thought important.
She was proud of the result. Jill was her own little person and Kara loved her
more fiercely than she had ever believed she could love anything.

           
But did she need a father? That had
plagued Kara for the past ten years. Soon the vague questions Jill had asked
about the father she had never seen were going to become more pointed. Vague
answers would no longer suffice. What was Kara going to do then?

           
And Rob. Kara realized she still
cared very deeply for him. He had a right to know he had a daughter, just as
Jill had a right to know her father.

           
What had seemed so simple, so clear,
so cut and dried, so black and white ten years ago was now a mass of confusion.
A mess. One she would have to straighten out someday.

           
Someday
,
Kara thought. Someday she'd get them together, and pray that they'd both
forgive her.

           
"Aren't we going to Aunt
Ellen's now?" Jill said. She was getting whiny, which meant she was
hungry.

           
"After dinner."

           
"Where are we going to
eat?"

           
"Anyplace close where we don't
have to wait," Kara said as she stood inside Kelly's door and helped Jill
into her coat. On the way in they'd passed someplace called Pancho Villa a
couple of blocks down on
First Avenue
. "How's Mexican food sound?"

           
"What's that?"

           
"Tacos and stuff. We had tacos
once, remember?"

           
"I think so. Are you mad,
Mom?"

           
The question caught Kara by
surprise.

           
"No, Jill." She smiled for
her. "At least I don't think I am. Why?"

           
"You've got a mad face."

           
"Do I?"
Yes
, she thought,
I probably do
. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to. Actually, I'm not
mad. Just frustrated. And it's got nothing to do with you."

           
"What's frustrated?"

           
"Let me see. Imagine you're
paddling a canoe in a river and you want to get to a certain spot on shore but
the current keeps pulling you away. And no matter how hard you paddle, you
can't get to shore. As a matter of fact, the current keeps pulling you further
and further away. How would you feel?"

           
"I'd feel scared."

           
Kara laughed and hugged her
daughter. "I guess you would!"

           
And
maybe I'm scared, too.

           
Scared because she couldn't get a
handle on what had been happening in her twin's life. Kelly had become an
enigma. Kara had more questions about her now than before. Except for the
hidden clothing, everything Kara had found was so damned ordinary. She had
spent much of the afternoon going through Kelly's papers. Her sister, it
seemed, was a scrupulous record keeper. Kara had found a copy of her apartment
lease, the warranties and instruction manuals on all her appliances, and a
shoebox crammed with receipts for what looked like every single purchase she
had made last year. Kelly, it appeared, was preparing to do her taxes. But
nowhere was there a single receipt for the sexy clothes Kara had found.

           
She kept receipts for
toothpaste
, damn it! Why wasn't there
one for that new leather skirt under the dresser?

           
Why was the sleazy part of Kelly's
existence so rigidly walled off, so tightly compartmentalized from the rest of
her life? Who was she hiding it from?

           
Kara had always thought she knew her
twin. Now she wondered if she had known Kelly at all.

           
But there was someone who might at
least know something: the Dr. Gates on the label of Kelly's sleeping pills.
Kara had called the drug store on the label and the pharmacist had told her
that the prescription had come from a Dr. Lawrence Gates, a psychiatrist in
Chelsea
. Kara hadn't been that surprised at the
specialty. Maybe he was just what Kelly had needed. Getting to him was the
first thing on Kara's list of things to do tomorrow.

           
Tomorrow. She hated the idea of
staying overnight in the city, but couldn't see any alternative. Silly to waste
a couple of hours each way fighting the traffic in and out every day. For years
Aunt Ellen had been asking her to come and stay with her for a few nights. This
time Kara would take her up on it. No rush to finish up here. She could take
her time. Kelly's check book showed that her rent was paid up to the end of the
month.

           
"Come on," she told Jill.
"It's taco time."

           
As she led Jill out through the
front door of Kelly's apartment building into the chilly twilight, she almost
bumped into a man standing on the front steps.

           
"Very sorry," he said with
the start of a smile.

           
Kara was about to smile in return
and excuse herself when she noticed his eyes widening in shock and the color
bleaching from his cold-reddened cheeks.

           
"My God! It's you!" he
cried. "Dear sweet Jesus, it's you! You're alive!"

           
Startled, Kara clutched Jill against
her and pressed back against the building's front door which had closed and
latched behind her.

           
"What's he saying, Mom?"
Jill cried. Kara could hear the terror in her voice. "What's he
saying?"

           
Kara didn't answer. Her mind was
racing, trying to recall the various options she had been taught in her women's
self-defense courses. But she'd been poised and ready in those classes, and
standing on a padded gymnasium floor. This was on a set of stone steps with a
child clinging to her.

           
But the man didn't seem to be
threatening them. More confused and frightened than anything else. And he was
backing down the steps, away from them. Well dressed, like a fortyish yuppie,
but that didn't mean he couldn't be a nut case. Kara decided to hurry him on
his way.

           
"I don't know what your problem
is, buster," she said in her toughest voice, "but you'd better take
it somewhere else! And quick!"

           
At the bottom of the steps he
stopped and squinted up at her. He seemed to regain some of his composure.

           
"I… I'm terribly sorry,"
he said. His voice was quavering. "For a moment there I thought you were
someone else. But I see you're not. Your hair is straighter and…" His
voice trailed off. "You're just not her."

           
A thought struck Kara.

           
"You knew my sister?"

           
The man suddenly seemed very tense,
as if he were preparing to run away.