Keepsake (24 page)

The large-screen video in the conference room came alive with an early morning panorama of the Brooklyn Bridge (shot at huge
expense from a helicopter) and the sound of Power Perspectives’ energizing theme music. The camera angle narrowed as the shot
closed on a figure standing in the middle of the bridge’s span, her arms stretched out as if to embrace the entire city of
New York. The woman was smiling, her long auburn hair was blowing in the wind.

“The world at your feet?” the woman said, her lilting voice blending in nicely with the upbeat music. “Anything is possible
when you focus on what you want and go for it!”

The shot then angled toward the city and zoomed in slowly on several landmarks—the World Trade Center towers and Wall Street,
Rockefeller Center, Fifth Avenue, Park Avenue, the United Nations building, and the Plaza Hotel.

All the while the woman’s voice-over was saying, “At our Power Perspectives Lifechange seminars, we teach you to find that
magical quality within yourselves that will make your dreams come true. The future is what you make of it. Your life is yours
to shape. The power is within you—all you need to do is unlock it. Power Perspectives will give you the key!”

The video then segued into a familiar series of affirmations from celebrities, beginning with Daisy Tulane, newly declared
candidate for the Senate from the state of Texas, who proceeded to tell the camera everything that Power Perspectives had
done for her.

Charlie Ripley pressed the remote control to stop the tape. “We’ve all heard Ms. Tulane’s spiel before. Let’s have some comments
on the intro. It’s rough, essentially unedited, but you ought to get the idea.”

“Wow—id was great!” Delores said, raising the shades and giving April a big grin. “Ya look jist like a movie star.”

April grinned. It had been a curious rush of excitement and embarrassment to see herself on screen. This was the sort of thing
she associated with Rina—this high-profile video advertising. Making a spectacle of herself on television had never been one
of her dreams, but… it had been fun!

The speed with which the video had been produced also amazed her. This was Thursday, the end of her second week at Power Perspectives.
Charlie had set up the shoot and dragged her out to the site early in the morning on Tuesday. Two days later he had something
that he called “rough” but that looked, to April, amazingly professional.

“I liked it too,” said Charlie. “I was concerned about not having Rina to do the shoot, but I think we can call April an unqualified
success.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” said Isobelle, rising from her chair in the back of the conference room. “In my opinion, she
lacks the charisma that was so palpable with Rina. She was better than I expected—I’ll give her that—but let’s not get carried
away.”

“Hey, I agree with Isobelle,” April spoke up quickly to say. “Not only is this something I have no experience with, but I
don’t believe in it, either. Rina did.”

“What don’t you believe in?” Isobelle asked.

“Power Perspectives. The whole thing. Seizing your power and changing your life. I’m not convinced it works.” She shrugged.
“Filming it on the Brooklyn Bridge was very appropriate.”

“For someone who doesn’t believe in what she’s saying, you did it fairly convincingly,” Isobelle said.

“Next you’ll be saying you liked my performance.”

“I didn’t like it. But that video had to be filmed before the end of this week so it will have to do.”

It was grudging progress, April thought, but progress nevertheless. Maybe Isobelle would eventually come to accept her, after
all.

“Well, I liked it very much,” said Charlie. “I think we should go ahead and print it. Get it out there as quickly as possible.
There’s been too much negative publicity. We don’t want any of our clients or our potential clients to begin to worry about
the future of Power Perspectives now that its founder is gone.”

“I agree,” Armand said from the doorway. They all turned around, surprised. April hadn’t realized he was in the building,
much less in the conference room. “Congratulations, my dear,” he said to April. He was shaking his head as if he didn’t quite
believe it. “Even more than I’d
expected, you are proving to be a worthy successor to my dear wife.”

Isobelle rose abruptly and left the room.

“Are you angry?” Charlie asked.

“No, as a matter of fact I’m not,” said Isobelle.

“It’s business. Nothing to do with us personally. She did a good job on the video. She comes across as very sympathetic. Different
from Rina, but convincing nevertheless. It wouldn’t have been fair not to give credit where credit is due.”

“Credit is due to the director and the cameramen,” Isobelle said coldly. “We both know that April went kicking and screaming
to the shoot. Let’s not exaggerate her talent, okay?”

“Look, I don’t want you to think—”

“Oh, please, Charlie. Stop coddling me. This is the goddamn reason why nobody in their right mind beds down with a co-worker.
In the long run, it just doesn’t work out.”

“What do you mean, it doesn’t work out? It’s working out fine. Please don’t start imagining trouble where none exists.”

She rolled her eyes at the ceiling. She was going to have to find a way out of this relationship. The pressure from him was
subtle, but she could feel it constantly. He wanted more than she wanted, and it was beginning to affect both their performances
at work.

Even the sex wasn’t as good as it had been. There was something missing. She didn’t get the pleasure from him that she had
found in the beginning—he wanted too much—too much stimulation, too much humiliation, too much pleasure. At the end of a lovemaking
session, she
felt exhausted, and not in a pleasant way. She felt as if he were slowly sucking her dry.

He claimed to be dedicated to her, and she knew he was. Yet it was always his fantasies they were acting out, his needs that
were being catered to and met. Sometimes she wondered whether he ever saw her as a real person, with needs of her own.

He stroked the back of her neck. She wanted to shake him off. She resented his proprietary manner of touching her whenever
they were alone. “I love you, my lady,” he murmured.

Good form required that she respond, “I love you, too,” but she didn’t feel it at the moment. So she didn’t say it, despite
the expectant expression on his face.

“I know you’ve been under an unusual strain these past few weeks,” he said slowly. “I’m worried about you. I want you to know
that I’ll do anything I can to help you reduce that stress.”

“Thanks,” she said. Lighten up, she ordered herself. He’s a nice guy. Most men wouldn’t bother to be so solicitous.

So why did it annoy her?

Get your act together, woman!

Charlie was sweet, thoughtful, and considerate. She was lucky to have him. Compared to some of her former lovers, he was a
prince.

All too well, she remembered how lonely and miserable she’d been before he’d come into her life. So why couldn’t she just
relax? Stop feeling so damn restless? She’d chased too many men out of her life. This was one she’d better make some attempt
to hang on to.

She looked up at him and forced a smile. “Are you doing anything after work today?”

“Nothing that I wouldn’t gladly give up on your account.”

“Good. Come at eight, then. I’ll try to be home early. Perhaps I’ll even cook dinner.”

He smiled and agreed.

Charlie Ripley rejected one after another of the gemmed necklaces that the clerk in Tiffany’s presented for his perusal during
his lunch hour. They were elegant, but he wanted something special.

Saturday was Isobelle’s birthday and he wanted to surprise her. He would have preferred to present her with an engagement
ring, but he knew she wasn’t ready for that yet. Isobelle was independent; it was one of the many things that had drawn him
to her. It was going to take patience and care to overcome her need for autonomy.

Sometimes he wished he understood a little better what was going on in that mind of hers. Not that she wasn’t a frank and
open woman. But even so, there was a part of her that remained elusive. All too often she would get that distant look in her
eyes and he would feel her slipping away from him, going into a landscape where he could not follow.

It had been happening more and more lately. And this morning, after the screening of the videotape, she had been positively
nasty. He hadn’t thought that she would take offense over his compliments to April. In the past, Isobelle had always been
fair, even if people weren’t fair to her.

He knew that Isobelle wasn’t anywhere near as hard and brittle and sure of herself as she sometimes made out to be. He’d seen
her vulnerabilities. He had heard her cry. He had listened to her talking, haltingly, about her inner
most feelings, her most precious dreams. Oh, yes, she was dominant during sex, and he liked it that way, but afterwards when
they were lying quietly in each other’s arms, she turned to him for protection and reassurance. He took pride in being able
to provide her with both.

But lately, it seemed, they weren’t enough.

It was April, he thought. Her presence at Power Perspectives was very disruptive.

“Here’s something in an old-fashioned setting,” the clerk said, opening another box. “If you want something ornate, this might
have appeal.”

“It’s lovely,” he said, excited by the flash of red. Rubies. Yes. The deep crimson fire would suit Isobelle very well.

It was expensive, but nothing was too good for the woman he loved.

April selected a black cocktail dress to wear to the mysterious party. It had a halter-type front and the back was bare from
the waist to the shoulders. She pulled on a pair of black Swiss dot pantyhose with the lacy black underwear that Blackthorn
had seen in her drawer. She finished the outfit off with two-inch black heels.

She decided to leave her hair long and loose for a change. It fell nearly to the middle of her back. Jonathan, the man to
whom she had been married for a few brief years, had always loved her hair. Every time she’d threatened to cut it, he’d pleaded
with her not to. She’d almost cut it after the divorce, in defiance, but something had prevented her from doing so, and now
she was glad. With the cocktail dress, her thick auburn tresses looked especially rich and full.

“Whew—a good hair day,” she said aloud, grinning at her reflection in the mirror.

Blackthorn arrived as promised at eight. He was more
casually dressed in a dark sports shirt and trousers, but when she asked if she was too formal, he grinned and answered, “You
look terrific. I’m impressed.” Reaching out, he touched a lock of her hair. She went still as he ran it through his fingers.
“I didn’t realize it was so long. You usually pin it up in that prim knot. You should leave it loose more often.”

Men, she had noticed, just loved to give advice!

“I was hoping you’d have solved the murder by now,” she said jauntily as they stepped into a cab.

He groaned. “You and me both.”

“It’s gospel in police departments—well maybe only in fictional police departments—that if the killer isn’t found within the
first three days, the chances drop considerably that the case will ever be cleared.”

“We won’t find the killer. He’s a professional. But I hope we’ll discover who hired him. The motive will probably turn out
to be as simple and as venal as motives for murder usually are. Sex, money, revenge, or fear. Those are the only reasons folks
kill each other.”

“I don’t think my mother cared very much about sex, despite her many lovers. Money was a different story. Money gave her security.
I think she needed that. I’ve often wondered whether she loved Armand, or just married him because he was rich and could take
care of her for the rest of her life.”

“He took care of her all right.”

April shot him a look. His lips were pursed tightly together. “Don’t you like Armand?”

He shrugged. “No reason not to, I guess.”

“I think he’s charming.” Indeed, Armand had taken her out to lunch the day before, after the showing of the new video. They
had spent a pleasant hour together, and April was amazed at how easy it was becoming to overlook the
fact that this was the man who had separated her from her mother.

Blackthorn shook his head slightly. “Clearly he has that effect on women. Always has, I’ll bet.”

“Do you think he could have killed his wife?”

“Could he have done it—sure. But did he? Hard to figure why. We’ve searched high and low for any evidence of either of them
being involved in an extramarital affair. All we have is that Rina spent many of her nights in the apartment. There are doormen
there, as you know, and we’ve questioned them. No reports of a lover. Same in his building. No strange women dropping by to
visit.

“No, the worst we’ve heard about him so far is that he’s a control freak. As long as he has everybody and everything under
his thumb, he’s, as you say, charming. When things go a little wrong for him, though, he apparently shows a different side.
We’ve come across a number of people who have had bad experiences with what they describe as his hot temper. But Rina was
murdered in cold blood, not hot.”

“Sounds as if your investigation has been very thorough so far,” she said. She was glad to hear that she hadn’t been the only
person into whose past he had probed.

“Thorough, yes. Successful, no,” he said morosely.

Isobelle lived in the Chelsea section of the city, in the West Twenties, an area that looked rather dark and foreboding as
the taxi approached what appeared to be several old sprawling warehouses. “Do people actually live in those?” April asked.

“Some very rich and clever people live here. They bought up the warehouses cheap and converted them into loft-type apartments.
Some of them are incredibly spacious.
Their value has gone through the roof now, even though it’s not exactly the Upper East Side.”

The taxi dropped them off at one of the more uninviting-looking buildings. But there was an impressive security system inside,
complete with cameras and a rather sleepy looking doorman.