Winner Take All

by T. Davis Bunn

  “It would take a cold and ruthless woman,” Marcus said slowly, “to become pregnant for the sake of her voice.”

  Evelyn was saved from responding by the sound of a key slipping into the electronic lock. Kedrick Lloyd let himself in, coughing lightly in the manner of one drained of all energy. Then he turned and saw them. The shock wrenched him from his exhaustion. “What is the meaning of this!”

  “Marcus and I were having a most delightful conversation. Shall I pour you a tea?”

  He took a single step toward them. “You permit the enemy into our ranks?”

  Evelyn held to her steady calm. “Are you absolutely certain this is how you would care to consume your remaining strength?”

  “I assure you, sir,” Marcus said. “I’m not Dale’s enemy. I’m doing everything I can—”

  “Spare me the lies and invectives!” He jabbed his finger at the door. “Get him out of here!”

  Evelyn raised her chin a fraction. “Just precisely whom are you ordering about?”

  The raised hand formed a trembling fist. Kedrick spun about and stalked to the bedroom. He slammed the door with a thunder louder than that outside the windows.

  Evelyn mused to the closed door, “He insists on continuing with his affairs and pretending that all is well. Do you know why we were in court yesterday? Because my husband insists on personally concluding the sale of several hotels down on the coast.” She shook her head. “What a vain and idiotic man.”

  “He’s probably just trying to see to your welfare.”

  A bitter humor stretched her features. “I doubt that very much, since he used my money to acquire them in the first place.”

  As she walked him to the door, Marcus said, “I still don’t understand why Erin took the child.”

  “I am certain you will uncover the truth, if it is there to be found. But one thing I can tell you with utter certitude. Erin Brandt’s reasons do not even approach love.” She offered him a cool hand and a carefully controlled smile. “I will bid you farewell. The doctors are arranging for Kedrick to receive further treatments from our New York oncologist. He is only scheduled to return in four months’ time. Which, given his present state, I very much doubt will occur.”

  CHAPTER

  ———

  22

  THE NICEST THING ABOUT the American Embassy was how summertime trees made it impossible to view the entire monstrosity at once. Three sides of Grosvenor Square were formed of symmetrical Georgian facades, which only made the embassy more conspicuous. The building was one gigantic blunder, from the cracked stairs and vault-like entrance doors to the eagle on the roof, which a postwar British contractor had pointed in the wrong direction. Kirsten helped an elderly couple wrestle open the bombproof door, gave her name to the Marine trapped at attention inside his glass coffin, and entered the vast marble lobby.

  She seated herself by a central pool that did not work. Dead presidents glared down from their high perches, clearly dissatisfied with her presence. She shut her eyes, weary from lack of sleep and the ceaseless torment. Her mind returned to the previous night with such vividness she was surrounded by Erin’s spicy perfume. Once again she stared at the candlelit reflection of her own lost and empty gaze. She felt convicted, a woman undone by her own hand. Either she returned to lies that she had already rejected as unsatisfactory, or do the unthinkable and trust Marcus. As footsteps approached across the marble tiles, she heard herself whisper the same words again. Help me.

  “Ms. Stansted?”

  “Yes.”

  “Adam Ross.” He offered her a hand as cold as the lobby. “Assistant political attaché. This way, please.”

  He waited until they were safely inside the elevator to continue, “The ambassador was woken up this morning by a call from Senator Jacobs himself. Jacobs said you needed a detective.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Jacobs also said we were to treat any further request as though it came from him personally. If you’ll excuse me for saying, that’s some impressive clout.”

  “Apparently I’ve become involved in a pet project of his.”

  “A staffer by the name of Brent Daniels also left a message for you.” He consulted his notes. “The lady in question has booked a flight back to Düsseldorf this afternoon.”

  “Excuse me?”

  The attaché repeated his message. “He indicated this left you with very little time to make a connection.”

  “Did he tell you how he got this information?”

  “I’ve told you all I know.”

  “Can you get a message back to him?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Could you ask him for a family court lawyer and another detective, this time in Germany? Would you also book me a flight to Düsseldorf and a hotel in the city center?”

  “No problem. This way, please.” The upstairs foyer was carpeted and painted a muted gray. At their entry a stocky man in a crumpled navy suit rose to his feet. “Kirsten Stansted, Chris Faber. Mr. Faber was formerly a detective-lieutenant with Scotland Yard.”

  “Ma’am.”

  “You can use the conference room at the end of the hall, if you like.”

  “That won’t be necessary.” She took a pair of steps away from the staffer. The detective followed, moving in close enough to catch her whisper. Swiftly Kirsten outlined what she required. The detective listened with the dead-eyed calm of one who had heard and seen it all many times before.

  When she was finished, he said, “I’ll meet you at the Savoy Hotel’s main entrance in two hours.”

  “Thank you.”

  The hovering staffer had his secretary walk the detective out, then asked Kirsten, “That’s it?”

  “I do have one further matter I could use some help with.”

  “Anything.”

  “I was wondering,” Kirsten said, “if you know of anyone in the embassy who is fanatical about opera.”

  He registered her request with a single slow blink. Then, “Actually, I do.”

  Fifteen minutes later the staffer ushered Kirsten into the basement cafeteria, and over to where a gray-haired couple were seated. “Kirsten Stansted, meet Elizabeth and Richard Powell. Elizabeth is one of our administrative aides. Richard is retired military, now working with embassy security.”

  The woman was both kindly and authoritative. “You have a question about opera?”

  “Made every premiere at Covent Garden last season,” her husband interjected. “Great season.”

  “Richard and Elizabeth love to test our patience after every performance.” The staffer smiled tightly. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”

  “Actually,” Kirsten said, “I’m interested in one particular singer.”

  “Have a seat, why don’t you.” The man was bulldog in appearance with a gravelly bark. “Take a coffee?”

  “No, thank you. I wanted to ask you about Erin Brandt.”

  Both their faces brightened. “A brilliant singer. One of the best.”

  Elizabeth asked, “How well do you know opera?”

  “Hardly at all.”

  “So why are you interested in Erin Brandt?”

  Kirsten replied delicately, “It pertains to research I’m doing for Senator Jacobs.”

  They looked at one another, then his wife said, “Zurich.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Excuse me?”

  The husband said, “Her first foray into the limelight was at the Zurich opera house. She was nineteen and a student under the great Adrienne Salzer.”

  “You have to understand,” his wife added, “that it is extremely rare for a young would-be soprano to be given a chance at a starring role. The opera powers assume that her voice would require further development. Sopranos of Erin’s age are rarely even permitted to audition at a major house. Which makes what we’re about to tell you all the more remarkable.”

  Kirsten asked, “You know Ms. Brandt well?”

  “Oh, we’ve never met. Well, Eli
zabeth bumped into her once in the Savoy elevator. But our introduction to Erin Brandt is part of operatic lore. Ms. Brandt was in the audience that night in Zurich, you see. Then what happens but the lead singer collapsed backstage.”

  “Bad cramps, so we heard,” his wife interjected. “La Traviata. Some say it’s Verdi’s finest opera. Violetta is a courtesan. She falls in love. And dies. It’s a classic Italian fable.”

  Her husband continued, “The director of the opera house was actually onstage, about to apologize and say there was no time to bring in a replacement, so the evening’s performance would be canceled. Then it happened. Erin Brandt walked up to the conductor with her teacher, who is known and respected throughout the entire operatic world.”

  His wife took up the story. “The conductor, Mrs. Salzer, and Erin Brandt went backstage and met with the director. He then returned in front of the curtain and said there was a student of the same voice coach who had prepared that night’s star for the role. Ms. Brandt had sat in on all the rehearsals and been walked through the opera by the house’s artistic director, as a favor to her teacher. The conductor had heard her sing, and was willing to use her for the night’s starring role.”

  “Naturally, none of us were very enthusiastic about the change,” her husband continued. “We had been treating this evening’s performance as the highlight of our Swiss vacation. It didn’t matter whether she could sing. It would be a student. One who had never been on the stage before, much less performed this particular role.”

  “They delayed the opening curtain a full forty-five minutes, which did nothing for the audience’s frame of mind.” His wife’s face was alight with the thrill of remembering. “When Erin Brandt came onstage, my goodness, it seemed as though a child was playing in her mother’s clothes. The seamstress had done her best, but the costume just swallowed her. She had to use both hands to lift the skirt every time she moved.”

  “Which only made it more amazing,” her husband added, sharing his wife’s thrill.

  “We could actually see the people in front of us squirm, like the entire audience wanted to draw farther back. We were ready to bolt, I don’t mind telling you.”

  “And then she began to sing.”

  “Magic,” the husband reminisced. “We were captivated from her very first note.”

  Kirsten asked, “She was good?”

  “Magnificent,” the man said. “Extraordinary. Utterly wondrous.”

  His wife continued, “The first act concludes with ‘Sempre libera,’ one of the most challenging arias in a soprano’s repertoire. At the end of the aria there is an E-flat above high C. The myth is that Verdi wrote it into the original score, then decided it was an impossible challenge and took it out.”

  “Not only does it arrive after a very taxing aria, but the singer then has two full hours left to sing,” the husband explained.

  “The audience was so spellbound by that point, I’m certain they would have forgiven her if she had tripped over that atrocious costume and fallen flat on her face.”

  “But she didn’t,” her husband recalled, smiling into the past.

  The wife drew closer to Kirsten. “She hit that note and held it forever. She held it so long we could see the conductor’s baton begin to tremble. The audience began to cry their bravos while she was still singing.”

  “The Swiss are never what you would call demonstrative,” her husband said, still smiling. “But that night they gave her a standing ovation. Right there, while she was still holding the note, they rose to their feet and cried out their applause. The man next to me was weeping.”

  “She drew them up like she had cast a spell,” the wife said. “I stood because I had to, the people in front of me were on their feet and I could not bear to lose sight of that beautiful, beautiful woman.”

  “Callas reborn into a fairy’s body,” the husband said. “That is what the Zurich papers declared the next day. The new Anna Moffo. The find of the century. We kept all the reviews.”

  “Callas never had her voice,” the wife sniffed.

  “They were referring to her stage presence,” he replied, with the patience of one who had covered that same ground many times before. “Erin Brandt is a consummate actress as well as a great singer.”

  “The night has taken on mythical proportions,” the wife said. “I know people who weren’t even on the continent who claim to have seen the performance.”

  Kirsten glanced at her watch and rose to her feet. “Thank you for your time.”

  CHAPTER

  ———

  23

  THE DETECTIVE was there waiting when Kirsten’s taxi pulled into the Savoy alcove. He did not approach, did not really even look her way. But she felt a need to check things out once more. She walked over and pointed to his briefcase. “Is that it?”

  His tone suggested he had fielded the question a thousand times before. “The trigger’s in the handle, miss. The coverage is excellent. Absolutely spot on. Used it several hundred times and never had reason to complain.”

  “All right.” She took the revolving doors into the lobby and walked straight to the room telephone poised on the front desk. When the operator came on, she said, “Ms. Brandt’s suite, please.”

  The phone clicked, rang once, then a man responded with “Yes, what is it?”

  Kirsten recognized the voice of the well-padded manager who wore his suit like a sausage skin. “This is Kirsten Stansted.”

  She knew the little man was tempted to hang up on her. But he ticked off the words “Stay there on the line.”

  As she waited for Erin, Kirsten checked her shoulder bag for the FedEx envelope that had arrived from Marcus that morning. She then surveyed her own inner space, finding satisfaction in this new determination. She had spent her entire life avoiding the hidden side of people. Pretending she could escape ever noticing it, so long as she held to counterfeit blindness. But it had gotten her nowhere she wanted to go. It was time, as they said, for a change.

  The dulcet voice declared, “Tell me I’m not dreaming, sister.”

  “This is Kirsten. I’m downstairs.”

  “Well, of course you are. I spent my entire night hoping this might happen.”

  “I’d really like to have a minute of your time.”

  “A minute? Darling, come up and let’s find us a few hours.” The low chuckle finally broke free. “I assume you’ve come to realize just how awful you were to me last night. And how wrong you were to leave.”

  “There’s been a change of heart. Definitely.”

  “Then your apology is accepted. Give me three minutes to free up my afternoon and put on something more in taste to the occasion.”

  “I’d rather you come downstairs.”

  “Nonsense. Three minutes. Suite four two six.”

  When Kirsten hung up the phone and started for the rear elevators, the detective rose from his chair, picked up his briefcase, and fell in behind her. Several other people crowded into the cage with them. The detective did not say a word.

  The fourth-floor doors opened to reveal Erin’s manager with his angry gaze peering at her through electric blue spectacles. “I have had to cancel an interview with the Daily Telegraph!”

  The detective slipped by her and started down the corridor away from them.

  Reiner Klatz stepped into the elevator, still venting fumes. “Do you have any idea how long it took to set that up?” He wagged a finger at her as the doors closed. “You are bad for my business!”

  She waited until the elevator doors closed to reply, “I hope so.”

  The detective returned, treading with catlike grace. “Room?”

  “Four two six.”

  “To your right. Make sure she comes outside.”

  She watched him disappear around the next corner, then started down the hall. The suite had one of the old-style brass doorbells she had to pull. An instant later the door opened to reveal Erin dressed in heels and a floor-length silk dressing gown of periwinkl
e blue. “You are just as beautiful in the morning as you are at night.” She pushed the door wide. “But those clothes are far too stern.”

  Kirsten took a step away. “I’m not certain I want to do this.”

  “But of course, darling. That’s what makes you so positively irresistible.” She used one hand to sweep back her hair. “Now come in and have a glass of champagne, then you can struggle as hard as you like.”

  “No, really.” One step more and she was touching the opposite wall. She risked a single glance down the hall, was dismayed to find it utterly empty. “I shouldn’t.”

  “Oh, this is absurd.” Erin checked the hall in both directions, then stepped out far enough to grab her arm. “You know precisely what it is you want.”

  “If only.” Kirsten wrenched her arm free, reached into her shoulder bag, and stuffed the papers into Erin’s outstretched hand. “You have now been served.”

  Erin stared down at the mass of pages. “What is this?”

  “A court order. You are hereby ordered to appear in Wake County District Court and relinquish the child Celeste Steadman to Judge Rachel Sears.”

  In the space of two frantic heartbeats, Erin Brandt aged a decade. “You tricked me.”

  “Yes.”

  A movement out of the corner of her eye whipped Erin about. Kirsten was amazed to find the detective standing in the middle of the hallway, the briefcase by his feet.

  Erin’s head spun back, her hair a cinnamon wash over her face. “This is your bodyguard?”

  “I don’t want any trouble.”

  “Trouble?” The laugh was as wild as the look in Erin’s eyes. She flashed an operatic gesture down the hall. “You think this muscle-bound beast can save you?”

  “I am doing this for the child.”

  “What an utterly provincial and wretched little sentiment!” She was shrieking now, the force of her voice striking Kirsten like claws. “Nothing can save you, do you hear what I’m saying?”