For he, too, had been with Victor at the Café de la Paix two weeks earlier, on the day that photograph was taken. He had joined Victor and the others for a glass of Absolut. Dane remembered glancing up just as a dark-helmeted stranger on a motorbike had roared up to the curb, snapped a photograph of all of them, and disappeared into the swirling traffic of Place de L’Opera.
This was no longer about Victor. Now, he had to protect himself.
There had been no trace of the biker when he raced out to the boulevard. But he knew where the photo had been sent. Irony of ironies. Someone at Justice has a photograph of Sofia Orsini’s killer—and they don’t even know it.
The laughter, when it came, was startling and hollow. It was simply a matter of execution.
He shifted the heavy backpack and disappeared into the shadows.
Light. Darkness.
CHAPTER FOUR
BOSTON. EVENING, JULY 2
“There you are!”
Luze Jacobs stopped and caught her breath. Deep purple light filled the front room of The Piano Cat, silhouetting a sleeping Maggie against the luminous bow window. Maggie’s hair, fanned in disarray across the sofa cushion, flamed with black fire. Starred lashes fluttered against ivory skin, dark hollows sculpted the high cheeks. The fitted t-shirt and nylon running shorts emphasized a body as slender as a sapling. Not for the first time, Luze was struck by the intense, fragile beauty of her friend.
The two women had met years before in a seminar on medieval music. Maggie was supporting herself and her preschooler by teaching and pursuing her doctorate in music at night. Luze, a transplanted New Yorker, simply “had to have music in her life.” Their professor had called them “the bow and the cello.” Smoothing a hand over her soft, pear-shaped hip, Luze smiled at the memory.
Yes, we’re exact opposites, physically, thought Luze. Maggie slight, darkly beautiful, and understated, while she was, well—Rubenesque. Luze smiled to herself, comfortable with her eccentric, gypsy look of bright swinging dresses, bangle bracelets, and the heavy gold hoops in her ears.
“Hey, Bow,” said Luze, giving Maggie’s shoulder a gentle shake. “Sleeping on the job again?”
Maggie stirred and opened eyes that seemed enormous in her pale, drawn face. It hurt Luze to see the new wariness in them. Maggie O’Shea was like two different women since Johnny’s death. She’d always been strong, Luze thought, but now there was a new vulnerability about her. The public Maggie worked tirelessly in the music shop, visited her family, exercised, attended board meetings. But when she was alone, she withdrew to endure her pain in some silent inner world.
“Hi, Cello. How was your day?”
Ever protective, Luze shaped her mouth into a bright smile. “I sold the Ravel collection this afternoon. And the symphony office called. They want us to order the sheet music for Chopin’s Double Thirds Etude in G-Sharp.”
“That piece is impossible!”
“You managed it.” Luze looked down at Maggie’s Reeboks, forgotten on the floor. “So how was your run? Not that you need the exercise.” Her smile faded when she saw the empty wine glass on the coffee table. One of the bad days. She raised one black eyebrow and waited.
“You’ve got that look,” said Maggie into the silence.
Luze’s face softened as she sat down next to her friend. “It’s almost the Fourth. You’ll be watching fireworks with that beautiful family of yours in two days.”
“I might stay here,” Maggie ventured.
The bracelets jangled on Luze’s wrists as she reached for her friend’s arm. “You can’t disappoint Brian, Maggie. Look at you, so pale and bony. You need sun, girlfriend! Calories. A good night’s sleep. Better yet, a cute young lifeguard?”
“I’m going to be a grandmother!”
“You’re barely forty-eight, Maggs.”
“Luze, I miss Bones like crazy,” said Maggie, using her son’s special nickname. “But I saw them last month. And Brian has his own life now, his own family to look after. You know how giving he is. It would be too easy for me to…let him fill my emptiness.”
“Okay, it’s Jewish mother time,” said Luze firmly. “You won’t see friends, you’ve lost weight, you’ve canceled your concerts. You won’t even cry, dammit!” Luze’s eyes moved to the Steinway. “You haven’t touched that piano once since the night of the accident. And you were born to play, Maggie. You have an amazing gift.”
“Responsibility goes with that gift,” said Maggie. “I’m numb. I can’t make beautiful music for people anymore.”
“Music is life affirming!” cried Luze. “You need it. It’s just not fair to—”
“It’s Johnny’s dying that’s not fair! I get slammed by memories everywhere I look. I open a closet and see bare hangers… Who knew there were so many ways to miss someone?”
“Grieving is never what we imagine or expect it to be.”
“I didn’t just lose my husband too soon. He drowned! Alone, far away, in a godforsaken place I never heard of. Because of me! Oh God, I close my eyes and see the black water pulling him away from me. Two people drowned that night,” she whispered. “I’m as lost as he is…”
“It won’t always be this way, Maggie.”
“At least the pain means Johnny was alive. Luze, you’re going to think I’m crazy, but sometimes I see Johnny. I talk to him. And he answers. Going on means losing Johnny.”
Luze put her arms around her friend. “You’re going to get through this,” she murmured. “You’re going to be okay.”
“I don’t feel strong enough,” said Maggie against her friend’s shoulder.
“Are you kidding?” said Luze. “It takes a woman with great strength to raise a child all alone. You started this music shop, you’ve soloed with the Vienna Philharmonic. In Austria!”
Luze moved closer, looked directly into her friend’s eyes. “You’re going to be someone stronger, Maggie. The secret is to start caring about something again. Some one again.”
“Sometimes,” said Maggie quietly, “I pretend he’s just upstairs asleep, or reading…”
“It’s okay, honey,” comforted Luze. “You’re still in love with your husband.”
“Very much.” Maggie shook her head. “I don’t know how to be a damned widow.”
“What would Johnny want you to do?”
“Find my way back to life.” She made a face. “I hate it when you’re right.”
“Okay, then, so how about some pizza tonight?”
Maggie turned to her friend with a faint smile. “Right now I’d settle for just being able to sleep at night with the lights off.”
Luze waited a heartbeat. “So…other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was your day?”
“You’re good,” Maggie murmured.
The two women sat together quietly, arms linked, watching twilight cloak Beacon Hill beyond the bow window.
* * *
“…the nightclub bombed in Amsterdam last night was popular with Americans,” said the voice on the radio, “and is just the latest in a series of anti-US attacks in Europe. Back in Washington, the Senate Intelligence Chair has accused the Director of the CIA of spying on Senate investigations into CIA abuses…”
“Washington.” Luze bolted upright. “The envelope! A man from Washington came by just before closing, asking for you. Tall guy, easy smile. Gorgeous.”
Maggie shook her head in confusion. “What envelope, Luze?”
Luze gestured toward a thin 8 x 10 manila envelope on the desk. “That one. Said he needs to talk with you about the contents tomorrow morning.” She was searching her pockets. “He gave me his card. Damn—it’s here somewhere.”
“I don’t need any more drama in my life.” But Maggie felt the small spark of interest leap in her chest.
Luze held up a business card in triumph, then squinted at the small print. “Where are my glasses when I need them?”
“On your forehead.”
“Oh.” Luze dropped the glasses to her nose. “His name is
Simon Sugarman. Who is he?”
“He’s the agent from Justice who investigated Sofia’s death. I haven’t seen him in months, not since he returned from France. I badgered him for information for weeks. Nothing. And then Johnny died and, well—everything just stopped.” She grasped her friend’s hand. “Maybe he finally has news about Tommy?”
Her husband’s voice whispered in her head. It’s not over.
Luze put a hand on her arm. “What is it, honey? What’s wrong?”
“It’s just one tragedy after another. Sofia, Tommy, Johnny. Hearing from Simon Sugarman brings it all back. My best friend murdered less than a year ago. My godson vanishing into thin air. God only knows if he’s even alive! Then Johnny, gone just a month later…”
“You’ve got a bad case of survivor’s guilt tonight, Maggs. But trust me, Jewish women own guilt. It’s like carrying around a huge bag of bricks.” She stood, moved to the desk, and held out the envelope. “So, one brick at a time. Maybe it’s good news.”
Maggie reached for Sugarman’s envelope.
Let it be good news.
The cat leaped from the piano and followed them from the room. It was just beginning to rain.
CHAPTER FIVE
BOSTON. EVENING, JULY 2
My name is Sofia. But everyone calls me Fee.
Maggie stood at the tall window in her upstairs front room, listening to the rush of wind in the trees, surrounded by memories of her friend. I miss you, Fee.
Simon Sugarman’s still-unopened envelope was gripped in her hand. Despite Luze’s protests, she’d kissed her friend goodnight, nudged her firmly out the door, set the locks, and climbed the back stairs to her small apartment.
She needed time alone to think, to remember. And, to be honest, to prepare for whatever was in that envelope. Sofia’s death last September had been such a shock, such a terrible loss. Had Sugarman found Fee’s murderer? Her son?
Needing courage against the ghosts of the night, she switched on a lamp to dispel the shadows and clicked on the radio. Yo Yo Ma’s Bach Cello Suite No. 1. Perfect.
She gazed down through night-blue glass at shining cobblestones and gas lamps blurred by rain. She’d met Sofia Orsini on just such a wild night, more than thirty years earlier. She closed her eyes and listened to the rain drum against the panes as the memories washed over her.
* * *
Rain hurled and beat against the hood of her coat as she ran across the shining cobblestones of Harvard Square. The rain was cold, stinging her face, blinding her. Where was that coffeehouse? Just as Maggie rounded the corner onto Brattle Street, she’d heard a woman’s sharp scream. In a pool of blurred light from a streetlamp, like a film noir, a woman fought off two dark figures.
“Hey!” shouted Maggie, running toward the trio without thought.
The two young men suddenly rushed at her, shoving her against a parked car as they dashed past and disappeared around the corner. Maggie swung around, searching for the woman. There, on her knees in the shadows. She was hiding something in a dark backpack as Maggie ran toward her. The woman stood and shouted, “Follow me!” Then, head down, she dashed through the driving rain toward the lights of the coffeehouse.
Headlamps stabbed the black fog, too close.
“Watch out!” Maggie lunged into the street, colliding hard with the cloaked figure. They crashed together to the cobblestones as the car rushed past with a long echoing blare of its horn.
“Bloody hell!”
“Whoa, damn!”
Both women struggled to sit up, looked at each other through the curtain of rain—and burst into laughter.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes, yes, and you?” The stranger quickly checked the contents of her backpack, breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank God you saw the car.”
Maggie was the first to stand, and held out her hand. “C’mon, I’m soaked and I’m freezing.”
Strong wet fingers grasped hard. “I owe you. Twice.” They entered the smoky warmth together. Only one table free, in the far corner. A lone student was winding his way toward it. They locked eyes once more.
“Last one there buys the coffee.”
Whipping past the surprised student, they claimed the wooden chairs. Maggie blinked rain from her lashes and looked across the table into dark eyes framed by black hair as wild and untamed as her own. “I hate storms.”
The striking young woman across from her waved a hand to the waiter behind the coffee bar, held up two fingers, and called in a low voice, “Davio! Due caffe, grazie! And a bowl of acqua, per favore.” Shifting her backpack, she searched for her purse, lit a slender cigarette, and raised it to ruby lips. A silver bracelet flashed in the light. Gazing at Maggie through a stream of gauzy smoke, she said, “I love the rain.”
Maggie pulled her jacket closer to her body, shivering. “Boston in November? You can have it. Pitch black at three o’clock…God, I’m cold! What on earth was going on out there?”
“Those two kids, they were hurting her, I couldn’t let it happen.”
“Her?” Maggie looked around. “Hurting whom?”
The bulge in the leather backpack moved, shifted. The young woman smiled and lifted the flap. A soft brown muzzle appeared and sniffed the smoky air.
“A puppy!” gasped Maggie, reaching out to touch the smooth silky head of the chocolate Lab. “Oh, she’s a lucky one, aren’t you, girl? What will you do with her now?”
“Aren’t we responsible for the lives we rescue?”
For a heartbeat the woman’s words hung in the air, electric with prophecy. Then she said, “I’ll keep her, of course. And name her after you.”
Two steaming mugs of coffee appeared on the table. “Hi, Fee, didn’t know you had a sister.”
“Grazie, Davio.” The woman arched an eyebrow at Maggie as she handed a ten-dollar bill to the smitten waiter. “Sisters?” She studied Maggie’s face. “Yes…except for your green eyes and appalling lack of makeup, I almost feel that I’m looking in the mirror. I think we were fated to meet tonight.” She set the puppy down by the water dish and raised her cup to Maggie. “To the woman who rescued me.”
“You’re just lucky you weren’t drowning. I’m scared to death of deep water. I’d have run the other way!”
“Somehow I doubt that.” The woman smiled, cocked her head. “So you don’t like storms or being cold or deep water. What do you like?”
Maggie shrugged, cupped the warm mug gratefully and drank. “Ah, hot caffeine, for one thing. Salvation! You are a goddess. Now I promise to name my first daughter after you. Fee, is it?”
Fee held out her hand. “Sofia Chambers. Everyone calls me Fee.”
“Sofia is a beautiful name. I’m Maggie Stewart.”
Sofia Chambers held the soft squirming puppy up to the light. “Ah, little one, you’re not to be a Maggie after all, it seems. So you will be…Magnus! Yes, Magnus suits you.”
“Hello, Magnus,” said Maggie. “And if I have a son instead of daughter,” she added, “then he will have to be…a Phinneas? No, a Sophocles!”
“You’re sounding dangerously like a Harvard girl, Maggie Stewart.”
“Hardly. I’m studying music at the conservatory across town.”
“You play—”
“Not well enough.” Maggie moved her fingers in the air. “The piano is my life. And most certainly will be my death as well,” she muttered darkly. “You?”
“Don’t know a sharp from a flat. I’m studying Public Policy.”
“Government.” Maggie shook her head.
“I’m crazy, I know. But I’m a diplomat’s brat. I love politics. Can’t wait to get to DC.”
Maggie raised her own cup in salute. “Then here’s to the future—what?—Senator from Massachusetts? Ambassador to the Court of King James?”
“Why think small, darling?”
“Ah, then someday when you’re Madame President, I’ll come and play for you and Magnus at the White House.”
“Now I’
m interested. And you’ll bring little Sofia or Sophocles with you.”
And they’d sat and talked for two hours, while Magnus slept contentedly at their feet, and outside in Harvard Square the night rain beat against the window panes.
* * *
Maggie blinked at the rain. A friendship born in a storm, so many years ago. She’d never played at the White House, nor had a daughter named Sofia. But her son’s name was Brian Zachary Sophocles Stewart. And Fee…well, Sofia Chambers had made it to Washington, eventually won her promotion to the US Embassy in Rome, and then surprised everyone by running off with an expat art collector. Her young son, Thomas, was Maggie’s godson.
And now Fee was dead.
We are responsible for the lives we rescue...
The call had come on an early September night. She remembered that moment so clearly. She’d been standing on the porch of the Vineyard cottage, wrapped in a heavy shawl, watching stars shimmer on Menemsha Pond while Johnny worked on a story in the back room. The air was cold against her face and smelled of fall grasses and wood smoke. In the distance she could hear the call of the wild geese. And then the ringing of the phone.
“Madame O’Shea? Magdalena O’Shea?” A woman’s voice, soft, accented. Unfamiliar.
“Yes.”
“I have—” Static. Then the deep chime of bells.
“Sorry, I can’t hear you. The chimes—”
“I have called to warn you, Madame.” Louder. “I am sorry, but your friend Sofia Orsini is dead. Her son is missing, you must find him—”
“What? Oh, God. No, no, you’re mistaken. It can’t be true! Who is this?”
“I cannot say more.” Just those words, and the connection was lost.
She never found out who had placed the call.
Maggie had been on the first morning plane to Washington. Fee had told her about a good friend at the Justice Department, and Maggie was waiting for Agent Simon Sugarman outside his office door by nine a.m., demanding answers.
The Lost Concerto Page 3