The Secret Keeping (17 page)

When had she ever complained of being too sore to have sex? When had she ever lain limp in her arms, a dead fish in bed? When had she ever been unable to orgasm? When had she ever been anything but thrilled to see her?

“I can assure you there is no one.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Ms. Chambers, I’ve been tailing your blond now for months and I’ve never seen her with anyone. She goes to work, goes home, now and then eats out. Even the theater–alone, I’m telling you. She’s a real bore if you ask me. Works all the time.”

“Don’t you believe it. How about her patients? Could it be a patient?”

“What, in her office? I’d have to bug it. She doesn’t seem the type anyway.” The detective eyed Sharon curiously. “Classy broad, you know?”

She nodded. Probably not in the office. But where then?

“I have to tell ya’ I’ve never seen anyone cleaner. Usually, you know, it’s right out there. Not too secret.

Not as secret as people think, that is. A couple days and bang, you got ’em. Shoot some photos. Run to the bank.” He fell silent while he pondered the super-model’s motives. “Or whatever,” he finally added with a blank expression.

“Where does she eat?”

“Different places, but usually down the street from her offices. A place called Frank’s.”

“Usually? How usual?”

“Well, she hasn’t been in awhile but it used to be Fridays and Saturdays. Dinner or lunch thing. Alone.”

“Why did she stop going?”

He laughed. “What am I supposed to do, go up and ask her?”

Sharon was flustered. He had nothing. He was a jerk. “You’re telling me that Dr. Kristenson has no life?

You’re saying that she works, eats and sleeps? That’s it?”

“Alone,” he emphasized.

“Well, that’s just bullshit,” Sharon blurted. “You keep your eye on her. There’s something going on and I know it. You keep watching. You’ll see.” She rose from the chair and glared at the man behind his desk. The shabby digs he called an office. The cheap suit. She despised the operation, but she was certain that her blond had strayed. She threw him a wad of cash and headed for the door. “Call me when you find out. I want to know everything about him.” She hesitated at the door. “Or her,” she added with a snarl. “It could just as likely be a her.”

The detective whistled under his breath as she slammed the door. “You’re probably her only dirt,” he said, once he was sure his client was out of earshot. He took out the file photo of a smiling Helaine Kristenson and propped it up against a coffee mug. She was easy on the eye at least, if boring. Respectable.

He didn’t expect to find a thing. Actually, he privately hoped he wouldn’t. He didn’t like Sharon Chambers.

She was much prettier in pictures. A little too lean and mean in person. And there was a predatory look in her eyes he didn’t care for. He wondered about the blond as he looked over his notes and poured over the slim contents of her file. It struck him as odd, the super-model’s exploits on the front page news and yet her obsession over the private doings, if you could even call them that, of her upstanding lover.

Upstanding broad. Had he missed something? He truly doubted it. How could something be going on if you’re always alone? He had gone into Frank’s for a look-see and saw nothing amiss. The good doctor reading a book with her dinner, close by to work. A gal’s gotta eat for Pete’s sake. Only ever spoke with the waiter, a man about sixty with a wedding ring. Oh really, c’mon! Maybe she’s having a platonic affair with the waiter! What kind of trouble could that get her in?

Trouble. That’s what everyone who came into his office was making. What kind of trouble could this woman get into? How’d she get involved with the likes of Sharon Chambers anyway? That’s a good question.

He had not been able to figure her out. A bookworm? A prude? He leaned forward to study her photo. Was there something in the eyes? He rarely saw them, the woman always hiding her face in a book. He brought the photograph to his face. Is it in the eyes? Is that’s why she hides her face, less trouble that way? He made a mental note to take a closer look at Dr. Kristenson next time. Maybe even sit nearby.

Jealous Sharon Chambers. He grinned, squeezing her wad of money in his hands. Must be a good reason for it. We’ll see, maybe it wouldn’t be so dull after all, hunting the smiling blond in Frank’s Place, just to see if she really does stray, hunting her like a dog for Sharon Chambers who was so sure she had or would. He took the photo from the file and threw the rest into a drawer.

Dr. Helaine Kristenson, if you’re so hot to trot, it ain’t gonna do you any good to hide your face now.

You’re already in trouble. He stashed the money in his coat, took one last look at the smiling photo and tucked it into his breast pocket. Yeah, you’re probably up to something. Don’t let me catch you at it, though, or that Chambers dame’ll eat you alive.

_____

“Sharon Eddlebaum, Dr. Kristenson.”

Helaine turned abruptly from the window. “Here?” she asked.

“No, on the phone. That’s twice today. You didn’t call her back?”

“Tell her I’m with a client.”

Jenny started for the door.

“Jen?”

“Yes?”

“How does she sound?”

“Irritated, I’d say.” She took in Helaine’s worried expression. “Is there anything I can do, Dr.

Kristenson?”

Helaine glanced toward the window. Lydia stood up in the clouds across the way, staring this time at the sky instead of the favored waterfront. She paced slowly, vexed it would seem. Helaine had an idea as to why.

She hid behind the blinds and watched her on yet another hopeless Friday.

I was a machine once, she was thinking. Absolutely humming. A creature like that one I could have had three, four, five times in a night and never be tired. Now I stand here sore and old. A rusty machine driven into the ground. Out of fuel. No steam. She saw the woman adjusting her hose. You beautiful thing. I wouldn’t know what to do with you if I had a book showing me how.

“Dr. Kristenson?”

Helaine stepped back from the window, her hand over her heart. That was the truth of it. She was breaking down.

“Thank you, Jen, but I don’t think so. It’s nothing you should be bothered with.” She sat at the desk wearily, Jenny still standing at the door with her puzzled face.

“You’d be surprised what I can get accomplished,” Jenny offered again.

Helaine smiled. “Just tell her I’m too tied up right now.”

_____

She woke the next morning on her consultation couch, the white silk pantsuit an ocean of wrinkles. It was a clear day and she rose up and looked around her in dismay. The sun streamed into the office and she knew it was late morning. No Saturday appointments, she remembered that much.

In the waiting room mirror she got a good look at herself. She could see just who she was now, the pale imitation of what she used to be. She was a mere pelt thrown on a floor for someone to walk on, stretched across a bed, something luxurious for them to lay against. A floor length. She fixed her hair, wiped off yesterday’s lipstick. A pelt like the one she had purchased seven years ago with the once and to be Sharon Chambers wrapped inside it, soliciting her from the catwalk with bedroom eyes, the girl in the fur, nude beneath it, asking her to dinner and leaving her with the bill. Wasn’t that just like Sharon, leaving her hanging all the time until now when she knew it was over she couldn’t keep her hands off? Wouldn’t give her a moment’s peace.

She hated the woman in the mirror. What had she done with that coat? She had put it in a closet, another secret keeping, because she was afraid to wear it in public. Didn’t want to be spit on. She laughed an awful laugh. It had been perverse from the start. These past few months worse than anything. Afraid to be seen in public, to be spit on. She had allowed herself to be converted into a toy in order to preserve her reputation.

Now she was being mauled to death by a shark! That’s certainly what she felt like, a plaything for a dangerous animal. She would be ruined either way.

Sharon had been called back to LA. She was to leave this afternoon with her entourage of lawyers. Plea bargain if they could. Otherwise she was destined the status of a sex offender with all the limitations that came with such an undesirable title.

Another awful laugh. She was a sex offender as far as Helaine was concerned. How she came to be that way even Dr. Kristenson didn’t know for sure. A lack of self discipline perhaps. A spoiled lifestyle.

She was supposed to meet her before she left, but she had no plans to be her sendoff. She wanted to see Lydia instead. Just to look. She was in no condition to do more than that.

_____

Helaine Kristenson and Sharon Chambers were rarely seen in public together, if at all. They sat quietly in a cab headed for the airport on Saturday afternoon. Helaine’s lunch at Frank’s had been interrupted. She hadn’t expected Sharon to go there and wasn’t even sure how she knew about the place. She silently reviewed the devastation.

Lydia had gone pale at the sight of Sharon. Obviously she hadn’t contemplated that possibility, the possibility of a Sharon. That would most likely be the end of it, Helaine realized grimly. The finality of it was like a weight on her chest. In her mind she played out alternative interpretations, but they all ended with the same reasonable conclusion. It was pretty clear who Sharon Chambers was to her. Sharon had played it to the hilt for the onlookers and Helaine knew by Lydia’s mortified expression that she understood what she was seeing.

Strangers, who cares, but Lydia? Helaine had to keep herself from screaming. It was a nightmare come true. What a miserable ending.

“Do you have any idea what kind of stress I’m under?” Sharon complained.

“I was working late. I fell asleep on the couch in my office. It happens sometimes, Sharon.” She stared out the window.

“Why haven’t you returned any of my calls?”

Why? “My work is backing up on me. Anyway…you know how I feel.”

“I know how you feel and it doesn’t matter to me.”

Helaine shot a look at the cabby. He didn’t seem interested in their conversation.

“I can find you anywhere, Helaine. What are you up to?”

Helaine sighed. “Working, that’s all. Where are your bags?”

“I’ve sent them ahead. Along with the attorneys.”

“Can you drop me off at my place?” Helaine asked.

“No, ride with me there. Talk to me.”

Talk? She couldn’t think of a thing to say. She felt Sharon’s eyes on her, on her face, her body. It was an unpleasant cruise. “When is your flight?” Small talk.

“Two.”

Helaine glanced at her watch. A quarter past one. “I’m not going in with you.”

Sharon laughed. “The esteemed Doctor Kristenson.” She slid her hand between Helaine’s legs.

“Slumming?”

“Sharon…it was your idea to hide…this is not appropriate.”

“No?” She pulled her hand back and grinned. “Was it ever?”

“I don’t know.”

They fell silent again. Helaine watched the cab pass her street. She threw her head back and closed her eyes.

“I don’t know what to expect this time,” Sharon said, out of the blue. “My lawyers are going to try to bargain community service. First time offense. We’re hopeful. Lots of celebrities get off that way.” She waited for a response but the blond just sat with her eyes shut. “I’ve…you know I’ve got a place out there.

Did you hear about that?”

Helaine nodded.

“But I don’t know what to expect.”

Silence. Sharon sighed. “And I’m pregnant again.”

Pregnant again. Helaine had nothing to say about any of it. Lydia had seen her with this woman. It was probably true that she wouldn’t know her if she fell over her, but that was hardly the point. She had seen her with a lover, a beautiful young woman. It was over. She knew it.

“I’ll never let you go,” Sharon stated as if reading her mind. “Never.”

Helaine sat up and folded her hands. “Am I suppose to be flattered by that?”

“I don’t care if you are or aren’t. I want you to know, that’s all.”

“You want–what do want from me, Sharon Chambers. The Sharon Chambers? Don’t you get enough jollies without me?”

“I certainly try. How do you get your jollies without me?”

Helaine let out an impatient breath. I long after strangers.

“All of this is about my career. I’ve told you that before.”

“All of this?” Helaine faced her now. “This is good for business, Sharon? All of this? I’ll tell you what all of this is about. It’s about my blood, which you have acquired an appetite for.”

Sharon leaned into her face and kissed her hard on the mouth. Helaine pushed her away and wiped her lips off with the back of her hand. She saw the cabby’s eyes in the mirror and looked away without speaking.

“Appetite…I like that,” Sharon said.

Helaine ignored her.

“You are fuckin’ gorgeous, doctor.”

“There are other gorgeous women in the world, as you know.”

“None like you.”

“You know, I’m…I’m not your…you really need to grow up. That’s your biggest problem. You’re not twenty-three anymore, I’m not thirty-three. We’re–”

“Who is it, Helaine? Who do you want to fuck so bad?”

Helaine glanced at the cabby again, saw only the back of his head.

“Hmm? Who’s after you? I’m not stupid you know.”

Helaine wanted to stop the cab. “Nobody’s after me,” she replied weakly.

“You’re lying. I know it. I wonder if they’d feel the same about you if they knew about me.”

There was no reply.

“Hmm? Would they think you were so fucking sweet then?” She saw the blond tremble. Was it rage or was she going to cry? “I’ll squash you both. I swear it, Dr. Kristenson.”

Helaine banged at the glass divider. “Let me out,” she ordered the cabby and he pulled over to the curb.

Sharon watched silently as Helaine handed the fare through the slot. “I’ll walk,” was all the blond said as she slammed the taxi door.

Sharon checked the time. “The airport. I can’t miss my plane.”

_____

It was the sudden heat that had tipped him off to the potential of the day. The waiter had felt trouble blowing in the air all morning and had braced himself for it. The arrival of Dr. Kristenson after a long and notable absence, Lydia diligently waiting for her outside on the street patio. He was sure it would have something to do with them. He hesitated and stood poised inside the doorway, alerted by the sound of squealing tires and honking horns, and waited to see what trouble would look like.