Pieces of You

by Campisi, Mary

“I am your friend, you know that. Maybe you could help her.” Her gold hoop earrings glistened as she leaned forward. Light, dark, dark, light. Black, white, right, wrong. “Do a little investigation. Please. See if Danielle’s husband is still alive.”

  He didn’t want to get involved. Arianna was right, it was too messy. “I can’t help her. I don’t do that kind of work.”

  “Please?”

  He should say no and forget the mystery woman with the long black braid and full red lips. But there was Arianna to think about. “Maybe I can refer her to somebody, let me think about it.”

  She looked down at her hands. “You could do it. You know you could, if you wanted to.”

  The challenge hung between them. She was right. He could help if he wanted to.

  “Please, Quinn. Would you help her?”

  He opened his mouth to speak and was free falling to fifteen again. “He’ll probably never find her anyway, even if he is still alive. People disappear all the time. One day, they’re washing dishes at the kitchen sink, and the next, boom, they’re gone. Nobody ever hears from them again.”

  ***

  “I’m worried about him, Michael.”

  “You’re always worried about him, Annie. And he’s always worried about you. Sometimes I’m glad I’m an only child.”

  “I’m serious.” She searched for the right word to describe her brother’s lifestyle. “Quinn’s just coasting. And avoiding.”

  “Avoiding what?”

  “Life.” She rolled over and planted a kiss on her fiancé’s forearm. “Can’t you see it? The cars, the trips, the house, the women, especially the women.”

  “They look pretty good to me, especially the last one, the blonde. Remember, the one with the big—”

  She poked his shoulder, yanking the sheet closer to her naked body. “They’re all big-chested. It’s a prerequisite, didn’t you know? If they don’t have it naturally, he’ll order them up a double injection of silicone.”

  “He seems happy enough, Annie.”

  “How can he be happy? He buys everything, I think sometimes, even friendships.”

  Michael traced the small birthmark on her shoulder. “There are worse tragedies than being loaded.”

  “Not if it numbs you to the real world. I worry about him all the time; this trip to New Zealand, that one to Italy. A Porsche, an Audi. When does it stop?”

  “Why does it have to stop? It’s the way he wants it.”

  “If that were true, there’d be nothing to him but a hollow shell, but Quinn’s full of love.”

  “Tell that to his women.”

  “Don’t you see, they’re always the wrong ones? He does it on purpose. Surely, you know that, Michael. You’re a man, you have to see it. He chooses women he could never want long term, that way there’s no risk of falling for one of them. He settles for the foo-foo, airheads with the beautiful bodies and no backbones because he knows he’ll tire of them.” She buried her hands in her hair and groaned. “He drives me crazy. I’m going to have to watch out for him the rest of my life.”

  “He probably says the same thing about you.”

  “He probably does, but he’s wrong.” She leaned over and kissed him on the mouth, the tip of her tongue dipping inside.

  “Baby, stop. I’ve got to be at the hospital in half an hour.”

  “So, that gives us ten minutes.”

  He smiled and slid his hand under the sheets. “Then we better stop talking.”

  Twenty-five minutes later, Annie watched Michael pull on his scrubs and sneakers. His scent, his words, his touch, filled their tiny apartment on Sycamore Street. He’d come to her two years ago as the leaves turned heavy and brilliant with color. He was in a Pediatric rotation at Hanehman where she was a caseworker for a battered three year old girl. Annie had held the child in her arms, waiting for the doctor and when he arrived, it was Michael.

  He planned to continue research after he finished his residency; stem cell or Alzheimer’s. Next spring, they’d marry and buy a Brownstone with three or four bedrooms, enough to contain the four dark-haired children they planned to have. Michael was an only child whose parents belonged to a retirement community in Fort Lauderdale. He wanted a large family with tradition; turkey with stuffing and homemade pumpkin pie, stockings hung on the fireplace side by side, Easter egg hunts and hand-crafted birthday cards.

  Annie wanted those traditions too, but she never told him she had no experience with any of it, that it had all evaporated eighteen years ago. Most of the pain remained in Corville, buried in a house now occupied by a young couple with two children. But some of that pain still lived inside her, lived inside Quinn too, layered too deep to be unearthed or even understood.

  Chapter 3

  After his conversation with Arianna, a morbid curiosity strapped itself to Quinn’s subconscious and refused to let go. Life had been too routine lately; the work, the women, the play. But this tidbit set his senses on the hunt. He visited The Silver Strand three times in four days under the guise of checking on Annie’s bracelet, but Arianna was no fool. She watched him with a sly smile as he sidled toward the studio and peeked through the glass window for a sign of the mystery woman.

  He didn’t ask about her until the third visit. Maybe the husband was on her trail or maybe the police were. San Diego was only a phone call or a mouse click from Philadelphia. A good private eye should be able to track someone down unless the person was cunning enough to change the circles she moved in and strike out on a completely different path. Then it would be much harder, impossible almost. Desire and desperation fostered brilliant deceit. A person had to really hate something; their husband, children, life, to disappear with such calculated efficiency.

  Then again, maybe the husband was dead and now the police were hunting her down for murder. He was through guessing. He’d decided to make a few phone calls to the West coast and see what he could find out.

  “Annie’s bracelet should be ready tomorrow afternoon,” Arianna said, attaching a small white tag to a pair of onyx earrings. “I would have had it ready sooner, but I had to wait for the jade.”

  “I didn’t come about the bracelet.”

  “Oh?”

  “Cut the innocent routine before I change my mind.”

  Her pale face lit up. “You’ll really help her?”

  Her complete faith in his ability to exact a positive outcome unsettled him. “I’ll talk to her, that’s as much as I can promise.”

  She wasn’t listening. Minutes later, he found himself in the basement of her shop sitting on a purple futon. The area intrigued him with its nomadic décor of floor length tapestries covering cinder block and separating various sections of the basement. Oranges, yellows, brilliant purples and pinks splashed the walls. A group of boxes lined five high in one corner alongside a toolbox and bright red air compressor. Was this where Danielle lived? Was there a bed behind one of the tapestries or was the futon her bed?

  He was about to move to the chair opposite the futon when she appeared from behind one of the tapestries. She looked taller than he remembered, her face thin and pale beneath a tumble of black hair. Ghostly looking. Her eyes pulled him in and under with their pale blueness.

  “Quinn.” She spoke his name with cautious uncertainty.

  He tried to ignore the soft throatiness of her voice as it tickled his senses and put him on red alert. Now was not the time to let testosterone kick in. He had to concentrate. Had she told Arianna the truth or was it a grand lie? And why was she so pale? Sleeplessness or part of an act, exacerbated with or without makeup? He couldn’t tell. Even the choice of black threw him. Was it her preferred color or an effort to portray an image? If so, what image?

  “Quinn Burnes.” He crossed his arms over his chest and slouched against the futon. Maybe he was acting like a jerk but he detested liars and his gut told him this woman was lying.

  She inclined her head and slipped into the wicker rocker opposite him, folding her hands in her lap. D
emure. Certainly not the portrait of a murderer, and maybe that’s exactly what she wanted him to think. “Arianna says you might be able to help me.”

  “I said I’d listen. No guarantees.”

  “Thank you.”

  So timid. Was she playing him? “Tell me what happened.” He paused. “Everything.”

  Her knuckles turned white against the blackness of her pants as she clasped and unclasped her hands. “It happened about three weeks ago.” She fixed her gaze on a spot near his left shoe. “I was in the process of a divorce. It was very difficult. My husband didn’t want it, but . . . I had no choice really, the divorce I mean.” Her voice drifted to the past. “I tried but . . . well, it didn’t work. Four years, almost five. He followed me everywhere, threatened me. Finally, I had to call the police. They ordered him to stay away, but he knew they wouldn’t enforce it. He was always there, just beyond the limit. He told me I belonged to him and he’d kill me before he gave me up. That’s when I got the gun.” Her voice dipped so low Quinn had to lean forward to hear. “One night, I woke up and someone was in my bedroom. I don’t remember much, just a figure coming toward me.” A tear slipped down her cheek, caught under her chin. “The gun was under my pillow. I pulled it out and fired. I didn’t know it was him, I swear I didn’t know.”

  “Did he have a gun?”

  Her eyes filled with more tears when she looked at him through a pale blue bottomless ocean of pain and shook her head no.

  “You left him there with a hole blown in his gut.”

  “I had no choice.”

  “Everybody’s got a choice.”

  “You don’t understand.” She swiped her hands across her face. “He would have killed me.”

  “So you killed him instead?”

  The blue eyes turned bluer, rimmed with tears. Her hands fell to her sides, white, fragile, palms up. “I don’t know,” she whispered.

  Women were so much better on the stand than men. They evoked such sympathy, especially if there were tears involved. He’d used this to his advantage with his own clients, even coached them on the timed tearful recall and the proper inflection that could sway a jury. Right now he was the jury, all twelve rolled into one, sitting opposite a beautiful, distraught woman who was not only crying but inflecting and beseeching. She could give him lessons. Only one question remained; did she shoot her husband by accident or with intent? He didn’t know. Yet. “You want me to find out if your husband’s still alive.”

  She sniffed and gave a grateful nod.

  “So, you can divorce him? Clear your conscience? Go back to San Diego without a police warrant on your head?”

  “Because I have to know.” A shred of anger sparked her words.

  “And you’ve told me everything?”

  “Yes.”

  “Except the part about how he beat you up, right? You neglected that, because then you’d have probable cause.”

  This time when she spoke there was real anger in her words. “It was an accident. I can’t kill spiders let alone people.”

  “You’d be surprised what you can do when you have to.”

  She looked away, then back, her hands clasped in her lap again. “I thought you were going to help me,” she said in a pinched voice.

  “I was,” Quinn said, rubbing his jaw. “I still might. Just answer one question first. Think carefully, your life could depend on it.” He waited long enough to see the worry lines crease her forehead, before he asked, “What’s your real name?”

  She hesitated, the briefest of moments and then let the name fall from her lips. It was such a light whisper, less than a whisper really, that she must have taken his non-response for not having heard and repeated it, once again, in a voice that clanged against his brain one hundred decibels greater than the first.

  “Eve.”

  Chapter 4

  “I’m never going to take it off,” Annie whispered into Quinn’s chest when he gave her the bracelet. “Oh, Quinn, I’m sorry.”

  The last glimpses of afternoon sun dipped past his office window. “I didn’t get this for you to make you cry.” He stroked her dark hair, remembering how he used to braid it when she was young. He remembered the tears, too. There’d been too many of them. “Don’t, Annie.”

  She pulled away and searched his face. “You didn’t have to get me anything. You’re my brother. I love you and it’s not right for me to judge you.” She swiped at her cheeks and sniffed. “If you want to make money for people who are basically ripping off the system, I guess that’s your business. It’s just that, you are brilliant, Quinn, so truly brilliant and you’re settling—”

  “Don’t.”

  She raised her hands. “I’m sorry. You’re right.”

  “Sold any more paintings?” He had to get her on a safer subject and talk of painting always did it.

  “As a matter of fact, I have.” Her smile lifted his heart. She was strong and beautiful and yet, underneath the worldly sophistication there were still days when he spotted shreds of the fragile child crying for her brother to make sense of a world turned upside down.

  “. . . it’s the ocean one. Remember? I painted it last year in North Carolina.”

  “I do,” he said, forcing himself from the past.

  “It’s one of my favorites, though, truthfully, it would have been magnificent in oil.” She sighed. “But, I’ve tried and I just don’t have the gift for it, not like you and,” she paused, “well not like you.”

  She’d meant to say, not like you and Mom. Annie knew he didn’t like to talk about their mother but she’d allowed Evie Burnes to filter through her daily routine, on canvas and in the necklace she refused to take off. Whether his sister spoke her name or not, the woman was always there, breathing just below the surface. Once or twice, he’d thought about telling Annie the truth behind their mother’s disappearance but what good would that do?

  “I wish I knew who was buying my paintings,” Annie said. “I’ve asked Ian but he always tells me it’s this or that conglomeration which makes absolutely no sense because he won’t give specifics. I mean, where are these paintings? A conglomeration as he calls it could be anywhere, even outside the country, though I doubt that’s the case, but still. Wouldn’t you be curious?”

  Quinn rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. “Why does it matter who buys it as long as the check clears?”

  “Are you serious? Can you imagine what it would be like to walk into an office or a home, or think of this, a restaurant, and see something you’ve created hanging there for the world to see?”

  “Do I not have your paintings all over my office?” He pointed to one on each wall. “And at Sylvia’s desk? I even convinced the landlord to hang one in the women’s restroom.”

  “That’s not what I mean.” She flopped into a chair beside him. “You’re my brother. You’re supposed to love my work.”

  “Oh, I get it. I don’t count.”

  “No, of course you count, it’s just . . .”

  She shrugged and he reached for her hand. “I do know. Seeing your painting at the Stuffed Flounder would validate you, while seeing it here makes it seem more like a brotherly obligation than an artistic coup.”

  She offered a timid smile. “Right.”

  “Someone’s buying them, Annie.”

  “I know. Do you think you could bully Ian into giving you details? He’s such a grump to me.”

  “That’s because he was half in love with you before Michael showed up.”

  “Stop. You think everyone’s in love with me.”

  “I do, and it’s my job as your big brother to protect you.”

  “Funny, I was thinking it was my job to protect you.”

  “Me?”

  “You,” she said, suddenly serious. “There are a lot of money hungry women out there looking for a catch like you.”

  “Trust me, there’s no need to worry.” A vision of black hair and red lips flashed through his mind but he pushed it aside.

 
“That’s what Michael thought and now look at him.”

  “Well, if somebody like you came along, I might change my mind.”

  “I know.” She pounced on this as though she’d been setting the bait all along and was ready to reel him in. “But you have to have the opportunity and you can’t, not with women like Victoria and Mandy hanging on your arm.”

  “What’s wrong with Victoria and Mandy?” Actually, what was wrong with them? So, they weren’t the kind you pictured in a family portrait holding a baby? He wasn’t interested in that.

  “Come on, Quinn. Don’t you ever want to engage in a semi-meaningful relationship?”

  “That’s why I have you.”

  She ignored him. “Who’s not related?”

  “Actually, I don’t think so.”

  “You don’t know what you’re missing.”

  She said this with such abject misery that for a split second he wanted to promise her he’d think about what she’d said, maybe even try calling one of the names she’d given him the last several months. Anything to make his sister happy. But in the end, he couldn’t, so he shrugged and said, “No, I guess I don’t.”

  ***

  Quinn paged through the report Butch Cooker had sent him last night. A good investigator could turn up dirt in twenty-four hours and Danielle aka Eve had quite a bit of dirt stuck to her name. For one, she’d conveniently neglected to mention she was married to one of the wealthiest residents in San Diego, who just so happened to be a lawyer. A prosecutor no less. Great. If that weren’t enough to make Quinn suspicious of Danielle’s story, the estranged husband’s name dated back to the early 1900’s and his father, Alexander Maldonando Sr., was a United States Senator.

  But the lies behind Danielle’s story hit Quinn on page two of the report. He’d read this section so many times he could recite it. Alexander Maldonando Jr. was indeed dead, but he’d been shot in the head, not the gut. The woman had lied. A tiny part of him wished she’d been telling the truth. Just this once, maybe he’d wanted to believe a woman other than Annie and Arianna could be trusted.