F Paul Wilson - Secret History 02 (6 page)

           
Kara and Kelly, identical in
appearance, but so opposite in attitude. Kelly, the free spirit, open to
everything, she took to Manhattan like she'd been made for it, as if all her
life she'd been waiting to be set free in The City That Never Sleeps. Kara, the
thinker, the muller, did fine until her run-in with the necklace snatcher in
Central Park
. After that she began to see danger lurking
in every corner. She started calling Rob's police career a death wish. Their
last months became an endless argument, one long tug of war with a fraying
rope. She wanted him to quit, go back to school, get a degree of some sort, and
move out to the suburbs—Jersey, Connecticut, Upstate, anyplace but here.

           
He couldn't go. Rob the rookie loved
the job, the excitement, the challenge, and loved the city. It was
his
city. He'd grown up here. He
couldn't see what was so frightening about it.

           
Finally there was nowhere to go but
apart. The immovable object stayed in
New York
. The irresistible force moved back to rural
Lancaster
County
,
Pennsylvania
, saying she didn't want to be a widow at
twenty-five.

           
Somewhere a dark god might be
laughing at the irony of it all, but Rob found himself unable to squeeze out
even a tiny drop of satisfaction.

           
Even now, after all these years, he
found he still cared.

           
What a jerk he could be where she
was concerned.

           
"I'll drive you to the
station," he said.

           
Rob drove her crosstown at a
leisurely pace on Thirty-fourth, staying in lane instead of doing his customary
bob and weave through the traffic. All around him on the street the cabs were
playing their usual game of chicken with each other, while on the sidewalks the
three-card monte players were set up and waiting for their daily quota of
lunch-hour suckers. Rob badly wanted a cigarette.

           
"What are you doing with
yourself these days?" he said to break the silence as they crawled past
Macy's.

           
"Writing."

           
"Really? Novels?"

           
"Non-fiction. I do reviews,
articles, criticism, that sort of thing."

           
"Would I have seen any of
it?"

           
He couldn't remember seeing the Kara
Wade byline anywhere.

           
"Not unless you're a regular
reader of some of the feminist publications."

           
"Feminist? You write
feminist
stuff? I thought you said you
wrote non-fiction?"

           
"Ooookaaaay," she said
with a small, rueful smile. "I should have seen that one coming."

           
"So you're still into that
stuff, though?"

           
"It's not something you're
'into' and 'out of,' Rob" she said, and he realized by her tone this was
one serious subject for her. "If you really believe in something, you stay
with it."

           
"Like being a cop?" he
said.

           
There was something different in the
way she looked at him, something new in her eyes.

           
"Yes. I guess so. I've never
looked at being a cop as something a person could believe in, but I guess you
can. But anyway, writing's what I do. I went to Franklin and Marshall when I
got back home, went mostly at night, got a degree in Woman's Studies—"

           
Rob bit back a remark.
Woman's Studies! Christ
!

           
"—and began writing."

           
"You can make a living writing
feminist articles?"

           
"No way. But the articles gave
me enough credibility to land a contract for a book. And that's what I've been
working on lately. In the meantime, I do clerical work at the local hospital—it's
decent pay with an excellent benefits package, and it's mentally unchallenging
enough to allow me to compose what I'll write when I get home at night. I still
live on the farm. Jill and I get by just fine."

           
He had a feeling she was holding
something back but didn't press. This wasn't the time or the place.

           
"And your mother…?"

           
Rob remembered that Kara's father
had died a few years before she came to
New York
; he had met Mrs. Wade once. A big, jovial
woman who didn't look at all like her twins.

           
"Mom got remarried shortly
after Jill was born. She and Bert live in
Florida
now. I'm in the process of buying the farm
from her. I'm paying her off a little at a time. Mom and Bert are flying up
this afternoon for the…"

           
She didn't finish the sentence.
Suddenly her eyes were filling with tears. Rob didn't know what to do. He
wanted to wrap his arms around her and hold her, but at the moment he was
driving a car. Penn Station was dead ahead. He swung around its south side, then
turned into a restricted area under its belly. He pulled the car into the curb
and turned toward her. He stroked her shoulder, wondering what to say.

           
"I'm sorry," she said.
"I'm not made for this kind of thing."

           
"Who is? Nobody's made for
losing a sister. A twin, no less."

           
"I wish I could be stronger. I
should be stronger."

           
"You're pretty damn
strong," Rob told her. "It took a lot of guts to come in here and go
to the morgue alone to see her. A
hell
of a lot of guts."

           
Suddenly her head was up and she was
staring at him. Her face was blotchy, and streaked with tears, but her eyes
were fierce, her teeth were clenched.

           
"Find those bastards,
Rob!"

           
"I will, Kara." He had
never seen her like this. "Take it easy, take it easy."

           
"And when you find them, I want
you to call me. Because I want to see them. I want to see what kind of scum did
that to my sister!"

           
"As soon as
I
know,
you'll
know. And we'll get them. Kelly's case won't get dropped.
I've got a personal stake in this, too, you know. I promise we'll get
them."

           
"Okay," she said.
"That's good enough for me. Can I have your number so I can call?"

           
As he fished out a card for her, Rob
didn't attempt to explain that finding the two men who'd been in the room with
Kelly was a long way from convicting them of tossing her out the window,
especially since the Forensics boys were saying there was no sign of a
struggle. They were pushing to call it a suicide, and Kara would not want to
hear that.

           
He said, "If I can get away,
I'd like to come to the funeral."

           
"No! I mean, that might not be
such a good idea. I'd feel better if I knew you were here working on her
case."

           
Rob had figured she'd say something
like that. Kara seemed intent on keeping him at arm's length. So what else was
new?

           
"I'll walk you to the Amtrak
platform."

           
"That's okay. I can make
it." She started to get out of the car, then stopped. "And thank you,
Rob. When they unzipped the bag at the morgue, you turned away. I appreciate
that."

           
He was baffled.

           
"Why?"

           
"It gave me an inch more of
privacy than I would have had otherwise. That was very considerate. I'm glad to
see that you haven't become like everyone else in this city."

           
And then she closed the door and
walked away toward the station doors.

           
Considerate,
hell
! he thought. He hadn't been able to look at Kelly again because she
looked so much like Kara. And he hadn't been able to bring himself to watch
Kara view her sister's battered corpse, couldn't watch her pain, her naked
grief. So he'd turned away. That was all.

           
He lit a cigarette and watched the
station doors for a while after she had gone inside. Kara had changed. She'd
always been a strong person, with lots of drive and intensity, but the
intervening years seemed to have brought everything into sharp focus for her.
There was fire in her voice, and a steely determination in her eyes. Although
legally she'd been an adult when they'd had their affair, she'd still been a
girl inside. She was a woman now, inside and out.

           
And somehow he knew it would not be another
ten years before he saw her again. He found himself looking forward to that.

 
 

           
Punished
me again.

           
Still
recovering from it. At least he didn't find the letters. Doesn't know about my
scribblings. Be furious if he did. They tell too much about him, about our
whole mad relationship. He'd punish me again, worse than ever.

           
But
I can't stop writing. Only this bit of pencil and these scraps of paper allow
me to retain the most tenuous grip on the last remnant of my sanity. My only
link to reality, whatever that means. My reality—one continuous nightmare
interspersed with all too brief periods of wakefulness. Have to keep a record
of these awake times, to reassure myself they exist. That I exist! They are
worth any punishment.