Keepsake (30 page)

Ah, Rina,
she thought.
I was never as good at this as you.

Had she done the right thing? It was so impossible to know. Rina was gone, and she had to move on. She could be a good senator,
she was certain. She had so many wonderful ideas and plans, and there was so much to be done…

You must take control of your own life.

That was all she had tried to do. But now they were looking for Rina’s manuscript. And if they found it…

She found the letter atop a neat pile of newspapers on
the marble-topped table in the foyer of her home. Because it was marked “confidential” her secretary had left it unopened.
It had come in a regular business envelope. Her name and address were neatly printed in ink. There was no return address,
but the letter had been postmarked in New York City.

The envelope contained a single sheet of 8 ½ by 11 typing paper.
“It’s not over yet,”
were the words that were neatly printed in what looked like the same handwriting as was on the envelope.
“Others know what you are trying to hide. Soon everybody will know.”

That was all.

But it was enough.

Calmly, Daisy folded the letter and slipped it back into its envelope. She walked across the foyer to the ornate mirror that
hung over a large Chinese porcelain vase (chosen on the recommendation of Christian) in which were blooming a riot of summer
flowers. She examined her reflection in the mirror, something she had had difficulty doing for years.

There was no one else there, she assured herself. Nothing lurking around the edges, nothing hiding behind her image, no one
whispering her name. All there was was Daisy, cool and collected, in control.

Gerald Morrow checked into the Plaza Hotel without incident. He was pleased to see that the client had reserved him a suite.
Old-World-style–elegant. The sort of place he’d have killed to get into back in the days when he was a young punk lifting
cars from the streets of Brooklyn. He smiled. The sort of place he killed to get into now, he thought, smiling.

Morrow—not his real name, of course, and not the name he’d used on the register downstairs, either, but he’d been thinking
of himself as Gerald Morrow for this job, since it was the name he’d used last month in Anaheim—went over to the tall window
with the heavy brocade curtains and gazed out over the city of New York. There it was, all those noisy thoroughfares, those
graceful buildings, those patches of parkland, and all those people spread out below him. Busy little bees, all hurrying about
their daily activities. Self important. Believing that they and their petty little concerns mattered.

Fools.

He raised his arm and sighted along it to his outstretched index finger. “Pow,” he whispered, imitating the recoil of a gun.
A skyscraper exploded. “Zap,” he said, and a city transit bus burst into flame. “Bang,” he said once more as people everywhere
fell to their bellies, writhing and moaning in terror.

“I’ve got the power.” He listened to himself and added, “Maybe I’m a little crazy, but what the fuck.”

Morrow turned away from the window and seated himself on the sofa at one end of the elegant room. He laid his briefcase on
the mahogany coffee table and opened it. Removing a slim manila envelope, he opened it and slid out the photograph, which
he propped up against a slender vase that contained a single rose.

The client had hired him for another job. He’d been pleased, apparently, with the outcome of the last one.

Another woman. Some shooters didn’t like doing women, but Morrow specialized in women. Unfortunately, there was little demand
in this profession for his special talents regarding females, so, like everybody else, he accepted routine contracts on men.
But when someone wanted a woman taken out of circulation, they knew who to call. No one did it as thoroughly—or as lovingly—as
Gerald Morrow aka Too Many Other Aliases to Name.

This one was going to be a special challenge, though. The client didn’t want the usual clean shooting, fast getaway. “It’s
got to look like an accident,” he’d been told. “Even the police have got to believe it’s an accident. We can’t risk anything
that looks like a professional hit.”

It cost a lot more to set up an “accident.” But this was the best kind of murder. No detailed investigation, no trouble with
the police. Morrow had arranged several “accidents” and a number of “suicides” as well. He liked
them. They were more personal, somehow. They often involved more personal contact with the target, which might be good or
bad, depending upon the individual.

He was looking forward to having personal contact with this target.

She was beautiful. But the photograph didn’t do her justice. It didn’t reveal how lustrous her auburn hair was, nor did it
show the lively sparkle in her eyes. Those features he remembered, having already seen her once in person.

The eyes were important. He always noticed their eyes. He found it particularly intriguing to watch their eyes as the bullets
shattered their bodies. There was the essential mystery of life, death, and eternity—there in that split second when the eyes
changed from expressive to empty, living to dead.

If he could understand the eyes, he would understand the soul. More and more he had faith in the soul, and in the afterlife.
Something vital vanished at the moment of death—vanished and went… somewhere.

Deep down in his lower consciousness, Morrow knew a spurt of fear. If there was an afterlife, what would it hold for him?
Briefly, he remembered images of fire and torment retained from the rantings of a crazy parish priest. He’d been a good Catholic
boy. He’d believed in heaven and hell.

Now he believed religion was for fools. If there was anything afterwards it was much more complex and much more exciting than
fires for the evil and harps for the good. And hell was bound to be ever so much more exciting than heaven. If there was a
hell, he looked forward to it. He yearned to be eternally consumed.

He focused on the photograph. April Harrington—his angel. They would visit hell together. She would be there,
of course, despite the look of purity and innocence. All women were bound for hell. Like Eve, their mother, they were filthy
with sin.

He smiled. “Go directly to Hell, Ms. Harrington. Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200. Wait for me there. One of these days,
I’ll get bored and join you. Save me a seat in the Eternal Sauna. Tie me to the same stake with you in the flames.”

Leaning back, he admired the juxtaposition of the single red rose and the 6-by-9 photograph. Hmm. He reached for the phone
and dialed the concierge. He asked for the number of a reputable florist.

Not entirely wise, he reminded himself a few minutes later as he placed his order.

He smiled at the Target’s lovely face.

But worth the risk.

“You have another admirer?” Blackthorn asked, lightly fingering the soft petals of the opening rose. It graced the center
of the coffee table in her living room, its loveliness accented by a delicate silver bud vase.

April blinked at him. “You didn’t send it?”

“No.” He was surprised to feel a twinge of jealousy.

“It came without a card. I assumed it was from you.”

Damn, thought Rob. He wished it had been.

They had come to the end of another week, and made no further progress. Both he and the authorities had questioned Kate de
Sevigny. The FBI techs had gone over Rina’s computer with the most sophisticated of high-tech gear, trying to recover the
files that Kate had insisted she’d seen. But either Rina—or somebody else—had been very careful. The files had not been recovered.

And the floppy backup diskette, if indeed it existed, had not been found.

Meanwhile, he’d been unable to develop anything on Kate’s father. His ex-wife’s accident had never been treated as a possible
homicide, and without some kind of physical evidence there was no reason to reopen the case. Besides, Christian, it turned
out, claimed to have an alibi for that night. Some woman named Augusta whom he’d met at the courthouse where the custody case
had been decided. Marty and his people were checking it out, but they weren’t enthusiastic about this particular line of thinking.

“It’s almost as far-fetched as the JFK conspiracy theory,” Marty had said.

The case was cold.

Blackthorn was beginning to wonder if it would ever be cleared.

“Supper’s ready,” April called from the kitchen. She had invited him over for dinner. He’d told himself he ought to refuse
the invitation and distance himself from his involvement in one of the principals in a murder case. But his rational and sensible
thoughts on the subject kept getting undermined by flashbacks to the pleasures of his first night in her arms.

She’d resisted him in so many ways—his impression of her right from the first time they’d met had been of his own pursuit
and her resistance. The fact that he hadn’t been pursuing her romantically at that point didn’t make any difference. From
the moment he’d tackled her in Anaheim to the chase through Central Park, to the moment at Isobelle’s party when she’d come
willingly into the shelter of his arms, he’d been after her. And when she’d finally surrendered, there had been a wholeheartedness
about it that had taken his breath away.

Yet, at the same time, on some level at least, it had alarmed him. His feelings for her were too strong. He liked her, first
of all—liked her spirit, her energy, her warmth. He liked the fact that she’d overcome an emotionally wrenching past and had
made a success of her life professionally, and he admired the way she was so determined to confront and resolve her various
emotional demons.

And, in addition to the liking, he felt a powerful desire for her. Her joyful sensuality had completely bewitched him. It
had been so long since he’d known anyone like her. Jessie, much though he’d loved her, had never been passionate and uninhibited
about sex.

Still, he had to keep reminding himself that she was a woman who’d been abandoned by the most important figure in her life.
Later, she had been betrayed and attacked by the lover she had turned to for affection, barely escaping with her life, and
then by a system of justice that had seen her as the archetypal bad girl—villainess, not victim. On some level, he knew she’d
been haunted by these events.

He did not want to cause her further pain.

He did not want to be the next person in her life who got close to her and then walked out of her life.

He certainly shouldn’t be here tonight, knowing that each night they spent together would get them in deeper. He wouldn’t
be here, except… except…

For the past few days he’d begun to feel free, for the first time, of his obsession with Jessie. It was scary to see the glimmerings
of freedom, and even scarier to realize that it felt good. But these were emotions that he simply couldn’t resist exploring.

He wandered into the small kitchen. She was tossing the ingredients of a salad—he could see various kinds of
baby lettuce, scallions, cucumber, goat cheese, tomatoes. She was broiling swordfish shish kebabs with mushrooms, onions,
and fresh basil. “Smells wonderful,” he said, lifting her hair and kissing the back of her neck.

“Mmmm. Stop that or I won’t get the salad finished.”

He slipped his arms around her from behind and toyed with her breasts through the silky summer blouse she was wearing. “We
could skip dinner,” he suggested as she arched backwards against him, making a soft sound in her throat.

“Oh, no,” she said, tossing a grin over her shoulder. “I don’t cook very often, but when I do I expect my efforts to be savored!”

“Okay, we’ll savor the feast first—” his hands slipped down over her belly and brushed across her thighs “—then turn our attention
to a different hunger.”

She turned in his arms so they were chest to chest, thigh to thigh. “Are you hungry for me?” she murmured.

“Ravenous,” he said.

She laughed joyfully. “Let’s eat later,” she said.

“Justin, I need your help,” Isobelle said to the leather-crafter who ran the Bleecker Street specialty shop Scenic Pleasures.

Justin took her hand and kissed it. “For you, lady, anything.

“I’ve got to talk to you.” She glanced around at the customers—only two at the moment, a gay couple who were examining leather
and chain harnesses. The shop sold a wide selection of leather garments, including skirts and trousers, corsets, vests, bras
and bikinis. They also sold D&S toys—whips, paddles, collars, and various kinds of restraints. “Can we go downstairs?”

He nodded and left the shop in the hands of his assistant, a petite red-haired woman whom she vaguely remembered seeing at
a party with her female lover.

The shop opened onto the four-story townhouse that Justin had owned in the Village for over twenty years.
“Downstairs is the dungeon,” he reminded her as they went into the residential part of the house.

Isobelle nodded. “I know.”

He looked at her closely for a moment, but said nothing. Together they descended to a dimly lit basement that had been reappointed
as a D&S dungeon. Isobelle had been to several scene parties there. It contained the usual wall-mounted shackles, a set of
wooden stocks, a paddling bench, a bondage swing, and various rings hanging from the ceiling.

There was a worn sofa against one wall where people could sit to cuddle or rest. She went to it and sat down, held out a hand
to Justin, who joined her.

He was about medium height—not much taller than she was—and stocky. His hair was salt and pepper, as was his mustache. He
had large dark eyes that were very seductive. Isobelle had no doubt that much of his power with women came from simply gazing
silently at them with those expressive eyes.

“What’s the matter?” he asked her.

Isobelle bit her lip and considered her answer. She and Justin had never been lovers, since they were both exclusively tops,
but they’d supported each other through various heartaches and relationship bust-ups. She’d known him for several years, and
they liked and respected each other.