I would just go inside and wait for him, I decided. But even as I thought it, I knew that I wouldn’t simply wait. I wouldn’t lie on the plump couches in the den and watch TV, the way I used to in high school, nor would I sit on the sunporch off the kitchen. Instead I would go into his study. The place my father kept all the documents and bits of information that made up his life. Maybe I’d find something there about my siblings.
I drove down the street and pulled my car into the lot of a small park, where I used to make out with high-school boyfriends. Tucking my keys into my pocket, I walked back down the darkening street to his house. Once there, I reached under the shutter to the right of the front door and felt around the windowsill for the spare key. My fingers brushed over the stone of the sill that felt sandy to the touch. Where was it? Maybe he didn’t keep a spare key outside anymore. I pushed my arm back farther, my cardigan sweater catching on a shrub, and finally I felt the cold metal of the key.
I glanced around guiltily as I put the key in the lock, but there was no one around. The houses were set far apart, not the kind of place where neighbors looked out for each other. The door swung open, and I breathed in the clean, woodsy scent the house always had. As I shoved the key back onto the sill, a tinny beep, beep, beep came from inside the house, making me flinch.
The alarm. Shit. I’d forgotten about it.
I stepped inside and quickly crossed the marble foyer to the alarm panel, praying that he hadn’t changed the code. I pressed the numbers that corresponded to my birthday—1013—but the alarm kept up its insistent beeping. Probably only thirty more seconds until it went off. What could he have changed it to? I entered 0102 for my father’s birthday. The alarm continued its warning beep. Was it getting louder? Think, think, think! Caroline’s birthday? What was it? I put in 0418. At least that’s the date I remembered, but the damn thing kept beeping. I knew I had precious few seconds left. What was Dan’s birthday? It was in June, but I couldn’t remember the date. What about Annie? Would he have used her birthday? Did he even know he was a grandfather?
Any second a piercing scream would bring cops running to the house. Think. He always used dates of some sort. At least he had in the past. And then I thought of a date that had been looming in my mind, one that was fast approaching. May 20, the day of my mother’s death. I punched in 0520, and the alarm went silent.
The house was eerily quiet, except for the thump of blood pumping through my body. A deep blue-black had settled over the rooms now that the sun was gone from the windows. A few breaths restored my heartbeat. I cut through the formal living room that we never used, down the long marble hallway to the right, and into my father’s study.
The far wall, made all of glass, overlooked the English garden in the backyard. The two side walls held floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, lined with an array of books—legal and commercial fiction, leather-bound first editions and paperbacks. My father’s decorator had suggested that he keep his paperbacks and the more “user-friendly” books somewhere else in the house, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He loved all of them, he said. All the different volumes mixed and mingled. His books were the one part of his life that my father didn’t keep meticulously organized.
I went to his desk, the place I used to sit when he traveled for work and some babysitter spent the night with me. I would climb up in that red leather chair, careful not to send it flying on the wheels, and I would touch the things he always used—the leather cup with the embossed logo of the University of Chicago Law School, the iron hammerhead from his father that he used as a paperweight, the heavy silver letter opener. These things were all still there. I picked up the hammerhead that was sitting atop a stack of faxes, turning it over in my hand, seeing the words painted on the bottom in red—For Billy. As always, I marveled that my father had ever been called Billy.
I flipped through the faxes and business letters. I vaguely read the trial notes on his desk, the half-written client letters printed out with his pencil-marked corrections. It struck me how few personal documents my father had here. I opened the large file drawer and found his household bills, scrupulously reviewed and filed alphabetically and by date, but there was little else. No postcards from friends, of which he had few, no magazine clippings or journals.
I went through his Rolodex and his address book, but there were no numbers for Dan or Caroline that I could see. Nothing that mentioned Portland or Albuquerque or New Orleans. I pawed through the rest of his drawers distractedly, wondering if he was about to come home any minute, dreading the talk I planned on having with him. One of the bottom drawers was difficult to view, since I’d turned on only the small desk lamp. I moved the lamp over to see in the drawer more clearly. Nothing exciting, just stacks of legal pads and some other office supplies.
I sat up, glanced around the desk once more, feeling achy and tired from too much driving, too much thinking, and the adrenaline rush of the alarm scare. I was about to move the lamp back, when I noticed a scrap of paper about one inch long and three inches wide. It must have been under the lamp. I lifted the scrap and read the number printed there in black ink. It was a phone number, one which began “504.” New Orleans. I’d had a trial expert there last year, and I’d dialed his number often enough to remember the area code. There was no name on the paper, but I knew my dad had written it. I recognized the way he put the little slash through the seven, the flat top he gave his threes.
I started to feel hot, my scalp itchy. A scribbled number on a scrap of paper might have been an everyday occurrence for many people, but it was completely unlike my father. He always carried around a small notebook in his jacket pocket, and every desk he owned had its own address book. And he wasn’t the type to meet women at bars, especially ones who lived in New Orleans. Or was he? What did I really know about him anymore?
I lifted the phone and dialed the number. It took an eternity before it began ringing. Agitated, I stood from the desk and paced with the cordless phone. The ringing continued, unanswered. I jiggled my leg. I blew my bangs away from my forehead. Finally, I sighed and sat back in my father’s chair. After nine or ten rings, I hung up and tried again, just in case I’d dialed incorrectly. Same thing. A distant, ringing phone with no answer, no machine.
I felt deflated, tiredness overtaking me. I copied the number on a Post-it and carefully tucked the scrap of paper back under the lamp. I stood from the chair, surveying the room in case I’d missed something. Then I heard the rumble of the garage door. My father was home.
My first reaction was to hide. I switched the lamp off and ducked under the desk, tucking myself into a ball and pulling the chair in to conceal myself.
I held my breath, safe for the moment. But then a rush of panic swooped in. He would notice that the alarm had been turned off! I almost crawled out, but then it dawned on me that he might simply wonder whether he’d forgotten to arm it. I heard him entering through the kitchen and walking the rooms. I heard him flipping light switches.
Just get up, I told myself. Talk to him, like you promised Matt you would. But I reminded myself that what I’d actually promised Matt was that I would find something, and now I had. This odd scrap of paper with a New Orleans phone number. The words of my niece whispered themselves in my ear—He went to Orleans.
I didn’t know if this phone number had any connection to Dan, but I did know that my father had already lied to me. I couldn’t believe anything he said anymore. So what would be the point now of asking him? He would lie again, and then if the person who was at that New Orleans number had anything to do with my mother—or my brother or sister—he would tell them to run. I might never find out if it was Dan at that number. I would never find out if the piece of paper meant anything at all.
My father’s footsteps approached the study. I prayed it was too late for him to work. But then the overhead lights blazed on. I imagined the meticulous way he stood there, letting his eyes roam over the room for anything amiss. I tried to envision the hammerhead. Had I put it back s
quarely in the center of those faxes? And the University of Chicago cup—had I moved it back to the right place?
The front of the desk, where I was crouched, faced the far wall, so he couldn’t see me. If he decided to make a call, though, or take some notes, it would be over. The blood began to pound in my ears as I waited, listening to him. This was so bizarre, but I didn’t trust him anymore.
Suddenly, he shut off the lights and moved down the hallway. A moment later, I heard his light footsteps on the stairs up to his bedroom.
If I ran out now, the alarm would go off again the minute I opened the door. And if I disarmed it, he would hear those tones, too. Either way, he would know someone had been in the house. Despite everything, I hated to think of his jolt of fear when he heard the alarm, but I wasn’t prepared to face him, not now when I had a small piece of information that might get me somewhere. I waited until he was surely in his bedroom, then I slowly pushed out the chair. In the dark, I tiptoed out of the study, past the living room and into the marble foyer again. The tapping of my shoes sounded inordinately loud. I waited for a moment, straining my ears toward the upstairs, and I heard the sound of running water.
I put my hand on the front door, saying a silent I’m sorry. I opened the door then and ran down the street, the persistent warning bleat of the alarm following me.
20
“I’m here to see Madeline Kennedy,” I said to the doorman.
“Name, please.”
“Hailey Sutter.” I smoothed my hair, trying to look composed, trying not to sound out of breath, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being chased.
I had called Maddy from the car, and once again, she didn’t answer her cell or her home phone. I was desperate to talk to someone. I actually called Ty at Long Beach Inn, but got only a night receptionist, and finally I’d come to Maddy’s apartment on Eighty-sixth and Lexington, hoping that she would come home sometime tonight.
The doorman dialed the house phone. He listened for a few moments. “Ms. Kennedy,” he said. “There’s a visitor here for you. Ms. Sutter.” A pause. “I’ll send her right up.”
Maddy opened the door in her pajamas. Her dark curly hair was wet, her cheeks flushed, and she had an unmistakable glow. “Hey!” she said.
I stepped into her apartment. “Did you just have sex?”
She winked. “He just left.”
“Well,” I said. “At least one of us is having fun these days.”
“Oh, yes, I’m having fun.” She gave me a hug. “But I’m sorry I haven’t been around much.”
“New relationship. I understand.”
“I’m glad you came over, because I have those sandals I bought you at Saks. But what are you doing here on a Sunday night?”
The main area of Maddy’s apartment was shaped like a long, rectangular box. The kitchen, which was at the far end, was inexplicably bigger than the minuscule living room, and yet the kitchen was cold and impersonal with its black-and-white tiles and white paint layered a thousand times over. Maddy’s bedroom, on the other hand, was the coziest room in the place, the one where we always hung out. She led me in there now, and I curled up on the overstuffed chair she had in the corner. She stood at the mirror over her bureau, combing gel into her long curls. In the center of the room, her ivory sheets were twisted and shoved aside.
“I think I’m going crazy over this stuff with my mom,” I told her. “I don’t know if I’m paranoid or smart or just a complete freak.”
“I vote for freak,” she said, smiling in the mirror.
“Thanks. Do you have any wine?”
“Sorry. Grant and I finished the last bottle.” She grinned again, and I was happy to see her so content. “Now, tell me what happened,” she said.
“Oh, God, Maddy, I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. This whole thing is making me insane. I’m not even sure that there’s anything to find out, but I’m running around like a nutcase. I even broke into my dad’s place today.”
“What?” She spun around from the mirror. “What happened?”
I told her about New Mexico and about Annie. I told her how my niece seemed to be clinging to my mind. And I told her about the police records, my visit to Crestwood Home, and finally my covert trip to my dad’s house and the New Orleans phone number I found there.
“Wow, hon,” Maddy said. “You’ve got to take a step back. I mean, I was all for New Mexico and everything, but sneaking into your dad’s, and running out without talking to him? What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking that he knows something!” My voice got loud. “He definitely knows something and not only won’t he tell me, he’ll hide it.” I dropped my forehead onto my hands. “God, I’ve got a headache.”
“I’ll get you some aspirin.” Maddy went around the corner into her bathroom. “Have you called that New Orleans number again?” she called out.
“Not yet.” I rubbed my head some more, and then reached out and began playing absently with the stuff on Maddy’s nightstand—her big silver watch, her tiny diamond earrings—things obviously taken off before she and the new boyfriend had twisted up the sheets.
“Well, keep calling the number and all,” she said, “but you’ve got to concentrate on work, too. You’ve got partnership elections coming up.”
“I know.” I picked up one of Maddy’s rings, spinning it around my index finger, thinking about my niece, about how she said her dad was in Orleans.
As Maddy came back into the room with my aspirin and a glass of water, I went to put the ring back on the nightstand, but for the first time, I really looked at it. It wasn’t one of Maddy’s after all. It was a man’s ring. I raised it closer, and I felt that pounding of blood in my ears again.
The ring was gold and oval, with the shape of a black diamond on its face.
“Hailey,” I heard Maddy say, but I couldn’t look at her. I kept staring at the ring, and I saw it in my memory, resting on my mother’s blue shoulder, while she stood at the door. The hand gripped her shoulder tighter, the man who wore it murmured something to her. My mother swayed, pitched sideways. The man caught her, the back of his dark hair bending over her.
“What’s up?” Maddy said.
“Where did you get this?’
“It’s Grant’s.”
“What? Are you sure?” I turned it around and around in my hand.
“Of course. He took a shower before he left, and he forgot it. Why? What’s wrong?”
“Maddy, this is the ring,” I said, ignoring the water and aspirin she was still holding.
“What ring?”
“That ring I saw on my mom’s shoulder. Remember, I told you?” I was talking fast. “That night before she died, she had on the blue suit. She was talking to a man at the door, and he had a ring on just like this.”
Maddy sighed and put the glass down on her nightstand. “Girl, you are getting way too into this.”
“No, I’m serious. It was exactly like this.”
“Well, so what?” She took the ring out of my hand. “This ring could be any man’s. It’s not that complicated.”
“But that’s exactly like the ring I saw. This could be the same one.”
She sighed again. “Seriously, you’ve got to take a step back. I mean, c’mon, you’re getting paranoid.”
“Maybe.” I had only been a kid, after all and I’d been yards away from my mom. I took the ring from Maddy’s hand and held it close to my face. The gold back, the black diamond design—it was exactly how I remembered. In the center, there were four little etches, facing out, details I couldn’t have seen that night because of the distance.
“I think this could be it,” I said again. “Where did Grant get it?”
“Honey, please. You’ve got to take some time off.”
“I can’t.”
“You have to.” She reached over and squeezed my hand. “Hailey…”
I groaned. “I guess I am going crazy.”
“Just a little.” She took the
ring and sat on her bed. “Listen, I think I know what this is about. I haven’t been around as much since I’ve been dating Grant, and I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s not that. I want you to be happy, I want you to spend time with Grant. I’d like to meet him for once.”
Maddy laughed. “That’s fair. Look, I’ll find out when he’ll be back in town. The three of us will go out, we’ll give him his ring, and you can see for yourself. You can get to know him. How does that sound?”
She flipped her wet hair over her shoulder, her face full of hope. She was probably right about me being paranoid. And I owed her—she’d always been there for me.
I nodded, and tried not to look at the ring as Maddy set it back on her nightstand.
On Monday morning, Lev Werner, the head of the partnership-election committee, stuck his shiny bald head in my office just as I was about to dial that New Orleans phone number again. I’d tried it at least five times that morning. Still no answer. I had even called one of my investigators and told him to find out who’s number it was, the address it was associated with, anything.
“Hailey,” Lev said, “got a second?” There was no mistaking his businesslike tone, making it clear that even if I didn’t have a second, I had better make one.
“Of course.” I put the phone back in the cradle and scooted around my desk, clearing the files from one of my visitor’s chairs. “Have a seat.”
Look Closely Page 20