Seven Books for Seven Lovers

by Molly Harper, Stephanie Haefner, Liora Blake, Gabra Zackman, Andrea Laurence, Colette Auclair

  But first he had to find her.

  ‡‡‡

  PIERRE SAT IN THE sunken living room of his Paris apartment, G by his side, still in her fishnets. The Italian was in his New York office on speakerphone, and was in a foul mood. He was always in a foul temper when in New York, as he had to lay low there, pretending to be a humble businessman, and he hated it. Pierre hated it, too, because he always bore the brunt of the Italian’s icy moods. He was happy G was there to ease the burden.

  “I don’t like it,” came the voice from the speaker, the rage barely contained beneath it. “Do you mean to tell me we are now unsure of young Palmer’s motives? Why did we not see this coming?”

  “We’re not positive,” G said. “We just wonder if he is telling the truth, or if he is following a bit too closely in his father’s footsteps. It seems fishy.”

  “You’re damn right it does,” the Italian said grittily. “Pierre, what the fuck have you been doing? Other than scratching your balls, hoping to get laid? Tell me, why do I keep you around?”

  “Monsieur Bruni, sir,” Pierre breathed, “it’s all under control. We just want to keep you informed—”

  “Vaffanculo!” the Italian shouted. “I KNOW WHEN I’VE BEEN COMPROMISED!”

  “Calm down, cugino,” said G. “We’ll figure it out. We are going to send people to follow him when he gets to New York.”

  “And the girl?”

  “We think we might like to . . . question her a bit. She may mean quite a bit more than we realize.”

  “This is the whore I’m seeing on the front of the Post?”

  “Yes, cugino.”

  “But if she’s just a whore, we don’t care, right?”

  “Except if she means something to Monsieur Palmer,” Pierre said quickly.

  The room was silent for a moment, except for the sound of the Italian’s heavy breathing. Then he spoke. “All right. You have two days. Then we kill them both. And Pierre?”

  “Yes, monsieur?”

  “This is your last chance.” With that, he hung up on them, and the sound resounded throughout the room.

  Pierre held his face in his hands, and G let out a slow breath. “So now what?” he asked in despair.

  “Allow me to take care of it,” she said, standing up. “Ms. Carter may be the key we have been looking for.”

  “Thank you,” he said weakly.

  “Pierre,” she said, lifting his face up. “Get it together.” Then she slapped him, hard. “That was for the inconvenience. I’ll let myself out.”

  Pierre was left with his jaw hanging open, wondering hopelessly how he had gotten himself in this deep. “Fucking Italians,” he said with a moan, and went to pour himself a drink.

  ‡‡‡

  SUSANNAH HAD JUST finished telling her mother the full story, eating ten peanut butter brownies in the process. She had concealed the details about FTP; it was the professional thing to do, since she’d signed a nondisclosure agreement. She did, however, tell her mother that she was not a secretary, but an undercover operative, that her cover had been blown and her reputation smeared, that she certainly was not a whore, or a call girl, and that, yes, a man had been involved. At this, Janice let out a low sigh.

  “Well, of course a man is involved. There’s really no other reason for a girl to waste so much good mascara.”

  “Oh, Mom, he played me for a fool,” Susannah moaned.

  “Well, sweetheart, it sounds like you played him right back.”

  There was silence for a moment, the sound of the wind through the trees, the fading sunlight creating long shadows on the front lawn. Then Susannah spoke. “I just—I felt something with him I’ve never felt with anyone else, and it . . .” Her voice broke off.

  “What, sweetheart?”

  “Well, it made me believe that true love was possible.”

  Janice sighed again and looked her daughter in the eye. “Honey, anything is possible, truly. But love? Love is tricky. It’s so rare to find the right thing, and if you think, I mean, if you truly believe this may be right, well . . .”

  “Well what, Mom?”

  “Well, then you need to go get him, sweetheart. Get him or forget him. That’s what I always say.” She went on. “And if you can’t forget him, then you need to see if there’s anything else worth looking at.”

  “But, Mom,” Susannah cautioned, “he blew my cover.”

  “Well, you don’t know that for sure, not yet. Not in the way you think. I think it’s always important to look at both sides of things.”

  “Both sides of what? What could be worse than blowing someone’s cover? Or at the very least calling someone a whore? I mean, it’s my livelihood. It’s my whole life. And to top it off, he called me a joke!”

  “Well, you’re no joke, sweetheart, everyone knows that. You can’t actually harm someone unless they are what you say, and honey, you are as real as they get. I just think there’s more to the story than we know. And—” She was interrupted by Susannah’s cell phone playing a jazz riff. “What on earth is that?”

  “Sorry, Mom, it’s AJ, probably calling to see how I am. Let me run upstairs and get this, okay?”

  “Sure, send her my love,” Janice said as Susannah made her way up the stairs to her room. She watched her daughter with a wistful expression, wishing she could help her and knowing that all she could do was listen and bake. She smiled as she thought of Susannah’s father, knowing how proud he would be of his little girl, and went to make another batch of brownies.

  ‡‡‡

  SUSANNAH WALKED UP the long carpeted staircase to her childhood room. It had remained unchanged from high school and still bore the markings of a different era. There was a four-poster twin bed with a patchwork quilt, and flowered wallpaper on the walls. The flowers were abstract, and Susannah had always imagined faces hiding in the paint splatters, faces she’d come to know as old friends. The room had an orange shag carpet she had spent her childhood upon and large windows decorated with flowing curtains that had made her feel like a princess. Shelves lined the walls, and upon them were old awards for horseback riding and soccer as well as childhood trinkets: an old Rubik’s cube, a sculpted horse, her many and varied failed attempts at jewelry making. There was a pencil drawing of Susannah as a teen framed next to the shelves, and below it the phrase “Someone Prove Me Wrong.” It was her catchphrase in high school, and AJ, who had an excellent hand, had drawn the print. Susannah’s stuffed animal collection, relegated to a corner of the room, still made her smile, and she grabbed a particularly large giraffe named Gus as she sat down on the twin bed to answer the phone. “Fingers?”

  “Legs, honey, have I got some news for you,” she said, and began to tell Susannah what she had discovered. Susannah listened, rapt, as AJ told her all she had learned about Chas in the past few hours. She ended with, “Here’s the point, honey—he’s been hunting his father’s killer all these years. That’s what this is all about. I don’t know to what extent he can be exonerated of these crimes, because he was instrumental in certain ones, but most of them were faked. It’s almost as if he was trying to cover the fact that he wasn’t really involved. Amazing, right? He made it look like he was a part of something he wasn’t. Understand?”

  “Not really,” Susannah said, “but I get the drift.”

  “So you see,” AJ said triumphantly, “he’s been honest with you, for the most part, all along. It’s really like a cover within a cover within a cover. He’s living life like one of those Russian dolls, where each layer is another lie. But at the center? Him hunting his father’s killer. Who is one of these guys he’s been palling around with in France for sure.”

  Susannah blew out a long breath. “So what do I do with any of this?”

  “Well, I’m not sure. I just wonder about something. The main thing missing here is who did it, right? Who killed his father, who’s the head of the operation, who’s he really after? I mean, we know he said something about an Italian, but that hardly narrow
s it down. How do we find that out?”

  “Search me. I can’t do much of anything with a blown cover.”

  “Well, it ain’t been blown yet. Meaning, yes, your pretty face is on the front of the paper with the word ‘whore’ all over it, but who cares? It actually doesn’t break your cover, it kinda adds to it. Frankly, I’m jealous. And it ain’t over till the fat lady sings.”

  “Meaning?” Susannah asked.

  “Look, sweetheart, I’m only seeing a bunch of trashy local rags calling you a sex machine. We know these guys know who you really are, so you can’t be anywhere near ’em till we take ’em down. Past that, I think it’s time to figure out how you can still do what you love and be with who you love. And patch together whatever’s gone wrong. Right?”

  “Now, the L-word seems a little premature, Fingers—”

  “Hang on a sec.” Susannah could hear AJ typing furiously at a keyboard, and a few moments went by in silence. “What do you think his father meant when he said all that stuff about the weather? The bride and the weather? The bride and the wind? What the fuck did he say?”

  Suddenly, Susannah sat up like a lightning bolt. “Oh SHIT! Holy shit, Fingers, you hit it right on! His father was making a reference to a print that’s hanging in Chas’s office, a Kokoschka painting called Bride of the Wind. He wanted Chas to figure it out. But why? Why on earth would he do that?”

  “You tell me, sweetcheeks.”

  “Wait a minute—what about this?” she asked, her voice rising in excitement. “Something must be hidden in the office!”

  “Oh, yes, yes, yes!” AJ said. “When you get excited about a case it just warms the cockles of my cold, cold heart. How soon can you get to New York?”

  “What?”

  “Do you want to find some way of doing the work you love, honey, or not? Do you want to patch your reputation back together, or not? Do you want your man back, or not? Don’t you think there’s actually a possibility that this could be The One, and don’t you think you deserve the chance to find out? Get on a plane, train, or automobile, get to New York, get the fucking hidden treasure, and save the day. It’s what you want, right?”

  “Right, but, I can’t just break into Chas’s town house. And what if he’s home?”

  “Oh, sweetie pie, you really don’t know me at all, do you?” AJ cackled.

  “Your meaning, Oh mysterious one?”

  “Chas just got on a plane to New York. You have an entire evening until he gets home. I have the codes to all his security systems, and interior surveillance of his home, car, and cell. You just put me in your ear, and I’ll get you in.”

  There was a pause. Then Susannah smiled. “Oh, Fingers, I do love you. And I never want to know how you know all that. Gimme half an hour, and I’ll be on headset.”

  “I’ll be waiting with bated breath, Sugar Britches,” she said. Then she disconnected the call.

  Susannah sat on her bed for a minute, trying to catch her breath. Looking skyward she said, “Dad? Do you think I should go back to New York and try to figure this out? I’m confused. If you have any thoughts, I need a sign. Scratch that. I need a really big sign.”

  She waited for a moment. Then she muttered, “Well, of course. I’m being ridiculous. I have to learn to make my own decisions.”

  And with that, she grabbed AJ’s drawing off the wall, took it out of the frame, and tucked it in her pocket. “ ‘Someone Prove Me Wrong’ indeed,” she said with a smile.

  ‡‡‡

  SUSANNAH’S HEART WAS BEATING a mile a minute as she ran down the stairs and directly into her mother, who had been listening, it seemed, from below. “Sorry, Mom! Gotta run. I’ve got important business to take care of, and—”

  “Yes, Susie, I heard. Anything I can do to help?”

  “No, Mom. I’ve just got to hightail it back to New York—I’ve got to get on the next flight out,” she said breathlessly.

  “Can I drive you to the airport?” Janice asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know. It’s no big deal, really, just—”

  “Sweetheart,” Janice said with a wan smile, “did you really think your father was a salesman? And that he traveled for business last minute to sell life insurance? Really? I thought you were smarter than that.”

  Susannah’s eyes widened. “Wait, Mom, you mean—”

  “I mean that I’ve been dealing with this my whole life, it seems. Secrecy is in your blood, and justice pumps it through your veins. I know the quickest route to any airport, train station, rental hub, or private helicopter service you can name.” She smiled wider. “And my car is faster than yours. Come on, sweetheart. Grab a few brownies for the road. You’re gonna need ’em.”

  10

  SUSANNAH ARRIVED AT Chas’s town house a little before ten p.m. She was wearing all black and had a backpack and an earpiece, nothing more. She was in a hip-hugging pair of spandex pants, a skintight tank she’d gotten at a Tribute to Metallica concert, and new boots that were all shiny patent leather and silver buckles. She felt exciting and sexy like Catwoman or a Bond girl—but she also still felt like a bit of a clown.

  She didn’t have any of FTP’s fancy in-ear surveillance on hand since she’d been fired, so she was forced to use her Bluetooth headset. The minute she got out of the cab she dialed AJ, who picked up on the first ring.

  “Well, I dig the Catwoman getup,” she said upon answering.

  “First of all, I love that you can see me, and secondly, it was all I could think of last minute.”

  “Are those boots new? HOT.”

  “I got them on Zappos,” Susannah said proudly.

  “Well, Sugar Britches, you know how I love to talk shoes, but we’ve got a job to do.” Susannah heard keys clicking, and the faint sound of jazz. “Okay, so you’re actually going to go to the alley, it’s to your right when you’re facing the town house, two stoops down . . . there you go. Now that you’re at the entrance, turn left. Excellent.”

  Susannah found herself in a New York City alley, which looked, for the most part, like every scene she’d ever seen on SVU where someone winds up dead. “Seriously, Fingers? This is pretty—”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. Don’t worry. No one’s around. Now walk down about halfway, and there should be a door to your left. Down the stairs, past the graffiti that says ‘Nark Loves Potato,’ past the trash. Black door, no markings, old padlock.”

  “Right, got it. The one that looks like it has dead bodies hanging behind it?”

  “That’s the one. You got your gun?”

  “Always. It’s the smartest thing I can think of to keep between my legs.”

  AJ let out a laugh that sounded like a foghorn. “Right on, sister. Well, grab it, and shoot the lock off.”

  “What? Isn’t that going to—”

  “Honestly, honey, just shut up and trust me.”

  “Well, all right, but it doesn’t seem like the best idea.” Susannah took aim at the lock, shot it off, and the door popped open. There was a cacophonous alarm that sounded. “Fuck, AJ!”

  “I know, sweetie, I know. But we have thirty whole seconds. Look to your right. There’s a clock in the shape of a rooster. Behind it, there’s an alarm keypad. Type in these numbers: 55378008.”

  Susannah did so, and the alarm immediately stopped. “See? I told you to trust me,” AJ said. “By the way, do you know what those numbers are?”

  “No,” Susannah said, “should I?”

  “It was something we all did as kids. If you type that series of numbers on a calculator and turn it upside down, it spells ‘BOOBLESS.’ We all thought it was riotously funny . . . .” She trailed off. “Didn’t you do that?”

  “No,” Susannah said. “That’s ridiculous. I mean, really?”

  “My guess is that it was his favorite password when he was a kid. There are different codes on different doors, and this entrance hasn’t been functional for years, though he probably still changes the code with some regularity. Anyway, make your way upstairs. It’s
time to find this Bride of the Wind and hear what she has to tell us.”

  “Roger that,” Susannah said, and made her way to the nearest staircase. She was in what appeared to be servants’ quarters, or at least they must have been at one time, and she had to take a serpentine route to find her way back to the main entrance and up the two marble staircases to the office. She entered Chas’s inner sanctum, and it was just as she remembered it: there was the globe, the scotch, the dark wood. And yes, on the opposite side of the room, the credenza with the painting above it. “Bingo!” Susannah said. “I’m gonna search the room and report back.”

  “Whoa whoa whoa, sweetie pie,” said AJ, sounding excited. “First things first. Check behind the painting. Any safe? Or on the back of the painting itself?”

  Susannah lifted the print off the wall and put it facedown. There was nothing behind it. Grabbing a Swiss Army knife from her bag engraved with the word “Legs” she sliced the back of the frame open, hoping for a discovery of some kind, but it, too, revealed nothing.

  “Right,” said AJ. “Step two. Credenza. Describe it to me. Sadly, there’s no surveillance in this room. And you know how pissed off that makes me.”

  “Okay, well, there’s a series of drawers.”

  “Great. Open all of them and look inside.”

  Susannah opened each drawer in turn. When that yielded nothing, AJ said, “I need you to look for anything around the credenza that’s out of the ordinary.”

  “I already have. But there’re a few other things here. Hang on a sec.” Susannah searched through the items, most of which were liquor related, and found a handful of things that belonged in a junk drawer. “Nope. Nothin’ doin’.”