The Last Commandment

by Scott Shepherd

  John gave Grant a mischievous grin. “Where she took to you instead.”

  “Not in the slightest. We hardly spoke at all that night,” said Rachel’s father. “I was headed back to London to join the Yard and she mentioned during dinner that she had secured employment in a Chelsea bookshop.”

  “And you told her to give you a call?” suggested John.

  “My brother ask out a girl he’d just met?” Everett laughed again. “It was actually our mother who suggested to Allison that she should ring up Austin if she found herself with nothing to do,” said Everett.

  “You could’ve knocked me off a chair when she phoned out of the blue a month later and asked if I wanted to meet for a drink after work,” recalled Grant.

  John nodded. “And the rest as they say was—”

  “—my brother’s gain, but not quite such a loss for me,” Everett finished. “I ended up with the most wonderful sister-in-law imaginable.”

  Everett took a sip of wine, then continued.

  “She never would have lasted a year with the likes of me and then none of us would have had her in our lives all those years.” He turned to look at Rachel. “Or the blessing she gave us a shortly after they were married, who I think we’d all agree is the reason we’re all gathered together tonight.”

  Grant and John said they would drink to that. Rachel turned toward her father and felt her eyes begin to brim.

  “You’re going to make me cry,” she told them.

  The words were barely out of her mouth when she realized it was too late. The tears were streaming down her face, but she was smiling as well, realizing it was the happiest she’d been in—well, at least three Christmases.

  There was a whirring noise coming from down the hall as Everett ushered his three guests out of the dining room. Her uncle motioned for Rachel to enter the library first and she opened the door to find a sight for sore eyes awaiting her.

  “Saint Electronick!” she cried out.

  The automaton looked shiny and bright, his red suit glistening with newly affixed sparkles and a fluffier white beard; it bowed back and forth in front of Everett’s Christmas tree and wood-burning fireplace.

  Grant stared in disbelief at the mechanical four-foot gyrating Father Christmas. “I was wondering where he had gotten to.”

  “I removed it from your basement a few months back and thought the old guy could use a going over. I asked Mrs. Bishop to plug it in before she left. I must say it gave her quite the fright when we did a test run earlier.”

  “I didn’t sleep for a week the first time I saw it,” recalled Rachel.

  Everett moved over and gently patted it on the head.

  Saint Electronick blinked and uttered a boisterous “Bah Humbug!”

  Grant stared at it. “He never did that before.”

  “I made a few modifications.”

  “Isn’t that your voice?” asked John.

  Everett bowed in unison with the holiday robot. “Guilty as charged.” He patted it on the head again and it let loose a holiday epithet not fit for children.

  “Everett . . .” Grant began to scold.

  “Hold on to your reindeer, brother,” Everett said. “We still have Saint Electronick Classico. You just flip a switch here.”

  Everett indicated a toggle on the back of the automaton’s neck and flipped it. Soon their old friend was back to his familiar “Happy Christmas” and “Ho-ho-ho”s. They soon put him on pause and dug in to the Macallan that John had brought.

  Even Rachel, who rarely drank a scotch, had to admit the eighteen-year-old digestif was one of the smoothest things she had ever tasted. She could tell that John was particularly pleased that she enjoyed it.

  After that, it was time for the exchange of presents. Though Everett had not mentioned gifts, no one had shown up on Christmas Eve empty-handed.

  Rachel had swung by Harrods and braved the holiday rush to get colorful socks and ties for both her father and uncle, something she told John was an old tradition when she was young and insisted on giving them presents. They were just what they had wanted and told her so. Then she handed a small package to John.

  “No ties or socks for the detective?” mused Everett.

  “I haven’t known him long enough to get a fashion sense,” said Rachel.

  “Not much fashion here, and some might say not that much sense,” John responded as he opened the gift.

  It was a 45 record single.

  “Palisades Park?” asked Grant, reading the title over John’s shoulder.

  “Private joke,” Rachel said softly.

  The look in John’s eyes made her heart swell. “I love it.” He gave Rachel a warm peck on the cheek, then produced a tiny package of his own for her.

  She opened it and emitted a tiny gasp.

  Inside the box were two pearl-white earrings with a beautiful impression of the London Eye Ferris wheel etched in black on them.

  “They’re simply beautiful.”

  “Great minds think alike.”

  Rachel returned John’s gentle kiss and was grateful that both her father and uncle had the good sense not to interrupt “The Gift of the Magi” moment.

  Grant, who always told Rachel and her mother that he was the “world’s worst gift giver,” didn’t disappoint when he handed Amazon gift certificates to both John and his brother. “I had no idea what to get either of you, so I figured you’d manage to find something you want yourselves.”

  But he subsequently damaged that self-anointed reputation when he surprised Rachel with a gorgeous pink-and-brown cashmere Burberry scarf.

  “It’s absolutely lovely, Daddy,” she said. Genuinely touched that her father had actually taken the time to step into a store and pick something out specifically for her, Rachel give him a big hug.

  “My turn now,” said her uncle. Everett crossed over to pick up three presents lying beneath the tree. He handed the first to John. “Detective . . .”

  John began to protest. “After dinner and such a wonderful evening . . .”

  “Indulge me,” encouraged Everett. He nodded at his niece and brother. “They have had to for years.”

  John opened the gift to reveal a DVD and hardcover book. Both were the same title—Gone with the Wind.

  “The quintessential American book and film for the quintessential American detective,” Everett explained.

  “Wow. I don’t think I’ve seen this since I was a kid,” said John.

  “It’s definitely worth watching again. And reading, if you never have.”

  “I haven’t,” the detective admitted.

  “Something for the plane ride home.”

  “I will take you up on that,” John told him. “It’ll mean we’ll have run down Prior Silver and I can finally relax.”

  Everett handed identical wrapped gifts to his niece and brother.

  Grant motioned for Rachel to go first.

  It was a beautiful silver-leaf picture frame holding a black-and-white photograph—taken on a beach featuring a much younger Everett, Allison, and an infant Rachel. They were burying a sleeping Grant up to his neck in the sand. Whatever he was dreaming about, there was a smile on his face.

  “I’ve never seen this,” said Rachel. “I certainly don’t remember it.”

  Her father laughed. “I do. You were maybe three or four years old. We’d all gone down to Brighton for the day and I woke up from a lovely nap to find myself sputtering sand.” He tapped Rachel’s giggling face staring up from beneath the glass. “You thought it was the funniest thing you’d ever seen.”

  “It’s the only picture I can find of the four of us,” explained Everett. “Usually you, me, or Allison were taking a picture of the others with the baby.”

  Rachel ran her fingers lovingly over the picture frame. “It’s totally perfect—especially since everyone looks so happy.”

  “We were,” recalled Grant.

  “Then hopefully you’ll like yours,” said Everett, indicating his unopened g
ift.

  The commander tore off bright Christmas wrapping to reveal a similar frame.

  This black-and-white picture was of two young boys—clearly her father and uncle. They were maybe five and seven years old. Both were bundled up in ski clothes and old-style parkas; sheaths of ice glistened behind them.

  “Top of the world,” muttered Grant.

  “You remember,” said Everett.

  “I’m surprised you do.”

  “It’s one of my earliest memories.”

  John looked at the decades-old photograph. “Explanations, please?”

  “Top of the world. It’s what we called the peak of the Matterhorn,” Grant told him.

  “Our first Christmas away from England,” added Everett.

  “Dad hauled us up as far as you could go in those days and had us pose in front of the glacier,” remembered Grant.

  “You can go a whole lot higher now. They’ve got a cable car track that heads up into the mountain; there’s an incredible ice palace carved inside the glacier up there.”

  Grant nodded at the picture. “I think our folks sent this out as a New Year’s card right after it was taken.”

  “Dad loved it so much that when he finally came into a little money, he bought a small cottage in Zermatt down below,” Everett further explained. “He ended up leaving it to the two of us, but I can never get Austin to go there.”

  “I have this thing about heights,” Grant told John.

  “Yet I keep telling him the cottage is firmly entrenched on terra firma.”

  “You still have to get up there,” Grant lamented.

  Rachel couldn’t be certain, but she thought his eyes were misting over.

  “But this means a lot; thank you very much,” Grant said softly. “And who knows, maybe I’ll get over there sooner than later.”

  “I’m headed there next week. Now that Rachel’s back for a bit, it would be lovely to see in the new year together and celebrate your newfound freedom.”

  “Maybe it’s something we can talk about,” said Rachel. She turned to her father, who seemed to be lost in thought.

  He paused before answering. “I think we’ll have to wait and see.”

  The night went eerily silent.

  And Rachel realized that all of them were wondering the same thing.

  Was there an eighth victim already out there waiting for them in London somewhere? And for that matter—might there soon be a ninth or tenth?

  26

  It was Christmas morning.

  If someone had told John Frankel a week ago that he would be spending the holiday in a posh London hotel tracking down a serial killer while falling head over heels in love, he would have arrested that person for public intoxication.

  But as he wiped the sleep from his eyes and saw Rachel sitting on a plush sofa gazing out the window, he realized it was a cursed but blessed truth.

  He thought about the previous night.

  Dinner at Everett’s had been joyous and festive, but the evening had taken a somber turn when talk turned to Grant’s upcoming retirement. Suddenly the pall of the investigation hung over them and Frankel could feel it when he accompanied the Grants to midnight mass at Saint John-at-Hampstead, Everett’s local parish.

  Frankel spent more time casting sidelong glances at Rachel than listening to the sermon given by an elderly pastor who looked like he had been interred in the nave decades ago. Frankel could see Rachel was having a difficult time.

  He knew this homecoming had been bittersweet for Rachel and her father, and that their relationship had been practically nonexistent since the death of her mother. Sitting in Saint John’s on this holy night without Allison must have been so painful, and all Frankel could to do was occasionally take her hand. The tightening of her grip each time pulled at his heartstrings.

  That night, upon returning to Covent Garden, the sex had been passionate but also filled with a desperation on Rachel’s part that made Frankel only want to protect her even further from the harsh reality they were in.

  Now, Frankel quietly climbed out of bed and threw on a robe. He crossed to the window and Rachel shifted slightly, clearly aware of his presence.

  “Merry Christmas,” he said softly.

  Rachel turned. “Merry Christmas,” she replied in an even softer voice.

  He could tell that she had been crying. “Hey. You all right?”

  Frankel wanted to kick himself. Of course she isn’t all right. Some detective.

  “It’s—you know—the holidays,” she answered.

  He sat beside her and saw she was holding the silver picture frame Everett had given her with the picture of the once happy family at Brighton ages ago.

  It confirmed his suspicions; this trip back to London must have been tiptoeing through an emotional minefield for Rachel.

  “Maybe coming back home wasn’t such a great idea,” he suggested.

  She shook her head but managed a smile. “It’s actually been so much better than I thought. Dinner last night, the Ferris wheel, being here with you . . .”

  She motioned out the window. “We even got ourselves a white Christmas.”

  Frankel followed her gaze. The streets of Covent Garden were blanketed in white, courtesy of a heavy snowfall in the middle of the night. The city looked dazzling, but in his eyes it didn’t hold a candle to Rachel.

  “Still, I know it must be hard being here this time of year—any time of year for that matter—without . . .” He broke off and nodded toward the photograph.

  “That’s for sure.”

  He reached over and took her hand. “Maybe you’ll just tell me it’s none of my business, but I know there’s this thing between you and your father that’s gone on since your mom died. But I also see the way that he looks at you, the way he talks about you, and I know whatever it is, it’s tearing him to pieces. And with him retiring, something I’m damn sure he’s not ready for, I think he’d be lost without you in his life.”

  “I think those are the most words I’ve ever heard anyone say without taking a breath.”

  “Rachel . . .”

  “I’m not avoiding the subject, John. I want him in my life more than anything.” She shook her head. “And I don’t want you minding your business. I’ve barely known you a week but for some reason I want you to know everything. Warts and all.”

  “But . . .”

  “But I’m afraid if I tell you everything, you might end up running for the hills and never look back.”

  “First of all, London is pretty flat and I’d collapse before I even got to a hill. And secondly, I can’t imagine anything you might have done that would make me even consider it.”

  “It’s not something I did.” She shook her head again. “It’s something I should have done.”

  “Just tell me, Rachel.”

  “John . . .”

  “You said it yourself. You want me to know everything, right?”

  She gently nodded. “I do—but . . .”

  “Just like I want you to know everything about me.” He held up her hand and clutched it with his other one. “For this to succeed, it needs to work both ways. And I want this to work—more than anything in my entire life.”

  The tears fell again down her cheek. Frankel gently wiped them away.

  “Me too,” she whispered.

  “Then get that burden off your chest and load it on me. Whatever it is—please just tell me.”

  He watched Rachel take the deepest of breaths.

  And then listened as she told him.

  Rachel had been reeling for the entire flight across the Atlantic.

  She was still trying to come to grips with the phone call she’d had with her parents the night before.

  Cancer.

  The six-letter word worse than any expletive known to man.

  Her mother had always been the picture of health, so the thought of her incurring that dreaded disease was unthinkable to Rachel. And made it so much worse when she was informed th
at it was a particularly aggressive form of lung cancer.

  Rachel had insisted on coming straight home from New York and naturally her mother had tried to talk her out of it. “It’s not necessary for you turn your life upside down, darling. You have work to do and you’ll come over for the holidays in a few weeks.”

  Rachel reminded her mother that she was a freelance journalist, emphasis on the word free, and there was no place that she would rather be right now. Especially with her father having run up to Scotland on a case he could have let Sergeant Hawley handle, but her mother had refused to allow any upheaval in their lives.

  “I will certainly still be alive and kicking when you get back on the weekend,” her mother had told her father while they were all on the phone.

  After thirty years of marriage, Grant knew better than to start an argument he could never win. It also helped that Rachel said she would be there by the time he’d returned from Glasgow. She had caught the first flight out of JFK the next morning and landed shortly after dusk.

  The moment she arrived at the Maida Vale house, Rachel knew something was distinctly wrong.

  The front door was unlatched. If there was one rule her father insisted upon, having seen more atrocities than he cared to recall over the years due to people’s carelessness, it was that both doors of the house, front and back, were to remain locked at all times.

  The next thing she noticed was the living room in total disarray—a small end table by the couch was leaning awkwardly against the sofa, and there were shards of broken glass on the fireplace hearth. Rachel soon found the culprit—the remnants of a shattered unicorn (she had made it in fifth form) tossed in a nearby small trash bin.

  “Mom?” she called out. There was no answer.

  Then she heard raking sobs coming from further down the hall.

  Rachel moved down the corridor, calling out again. There was no direct response, but she heard a quick intake of breath come from her father’s study. She moved through the door to find her mother rising from the desk where she’d been sitting behind a laptop. Allison was wearing a robe and looked completely disheveled, her normally finely coiffed hair all astray, and she was using the robe’s sleeve to dry her eyes.