Her fear had merged with desire, feeding one another, confusing her. For a second, seeing the pain in his eyes, she had been tempted to say “yes” if only to stop that pain. Instead, pulling on a quickly dwindling resource of strength, she had told him to let go of her arm and stop making a spectacle. She threatened to hail an officer, knowing full well that the police might not intervene on her behalf. Despite her protests, her blood had warmed at his nearness. His breath caressed her cheek, stirring emotions, not all of them unpleasant. She had inhaled sharply as his lips touched skin, then trailed along her jawbone toward her lips, making her remember other sweeter occasions. Making her throb in places she did not want to remember. Then thankfully he pulled back, giving her respite, but even that small touch had left her quivering. She heard the desperation in his voice when he spoke.
“Can’t you see what your absence is doing to me? I’ll go crazy if you don’t come away with me now! Rachel, we can leave the States, go to Italy, France! We can live in Paris just as I said before. I can…I can get work there…somewhere. I’ll do anything! I’ll load boats, haul boxes! All we’d need is just a small apartment, maybe near the Seine. You’d like that. We wouldn’t need much…just each other. We could be happy together. Why can’t you see that?”
She silently shook her head, her mind torn. Always, it seemed her heart and flesh were ready to betray her. All she had to do was reach up, place her lips on his, welcome his embrace. Instead, she jerked her arm away and fled into the crowd, praying he wouldn’t follow. He hadn’t.
Now at the corner of Eighteenth Street, the feeling pursued her like a phantom. Sometimes she wondered if she would ever be free of him—or if she could at least free her heart. She had several errands to run, not the least of which was to purchase a few reams of paper at Macy’s. Classes had reconvened in September and, as always, the school had limited supplies to parcel out among the students. Whenever they ran short, she felt it her duty to put forth the money to make up the lack. Once she had the reams in hand, she could take one of the new elevated trains running along Sixth Avenue and make her way home.
With her focus on what she needed to do, other thoughts tried to push their way past her defenses. Part of her even now remembered the route to the apartment where they had met weeks ago, although it seemed a lifetime. It would be so easy to ride the blocks to 26th Street, and navigate all of the perils of the Tenderloin just to be in his arms again. To feel alive again.
But she could not. Somewhere she must find the strength not to go back. Again.
Maybe if she left the city for a bit…. Maybe, she could even visit Sarah and see little Angela, her precious goddaughter. As she walked, the thought became more than a mere prick, and began to grow and take hold as she crossed the street with the throng of afternoon shoppers and businessmen. That’s what she would do. She needed to talk with Sarah face to face. Maybe the physical proximity to her friend would give her the strength she needed to get through nights when her body called out to him. Sarah, her friend, her touchstone, who had not judged her when she first confessed her sins in her letters, would know how to overcome this insanity. And with distance, maybe she could finally exorcise him from her soul.
The thought revived her a bit, and she walked toward the eleven buildings that housed Macy’s on their ground levels. The red star on the entrance banner beckoned a flurry of shoppers to try wares, including clothes, jewelry, toiletries, plants, toys, dolls, and other miscellany. Just a few years ago, the Strauss brothers had opened their china store, and folks now flocked to admire the extensive display of tableware and glassware. Whenever she had the time, she would stop to look at the offerings, mentally adding to the list of items she could purchase with her next paycheck. Lawrence liked the best, especially when they had friends over for the occasional small dinner. She spotted a handsome plate and bowl set with gold-plated roses lining the edges. Gold-plated cutlery finished the ensemble. Maybe next time she would get the set. But today she had no time for dawdling. She was eager to quit the shopping district as soon as possible and recover to the safety of her home.
She had just neared the stationery area when she felt an overwhelming desire to turn. And there he stood near the entrance of the store, his top hat askew, his coat unbuttoned, desperately looking around…searching for her. She quickly turned her back, hastened her steps toward a large display sign, indicating a ten percent sale on writing implements. Behind the large placard, strategically placed next to a Greek revival column, she stood, almost sure she would lose her lunch. She could not take this any longer.
She had to impress upon him that she would never change her mind. She had to make him see reason because neither of them could go on like this. She just needed time to talk with him, to make him understand all they had to lose. A letter was not enough to make him see this. He needed to hear her say it as many times as it would take for the message finally to get through to him. Still, she would have to give Lawrence a plausible reason for her tardiness. He was becoming suspicious of late. And she had told him her shopping outing would be no more than an hour.
She debated facing Lawrence’s mounting suspicions, weighing them against Joseph’s increasing obsession. And realized she was left with only one choice.
With a nervous breath, she stepped from behind the sign. At that moment, he looked up and saw her.
He did not exactly run, but his pace quickened, probably due to his fear that she would escape him again. But she held to her place, resisting the need to flee. Soon, he was standing in front of her, his face hard with barely contained fury. She felt faint.
“Come with me,” he demanded without even the ceremony of a hello. They were past that now. Once lovers, now combatants. He took her arm, turned her around, maneuvering her to the door. Heads swiveled, expressions of disapproval following them in their wake. A white man and Negro woman were a sight under any circumstance. Probably they thought she was being escorted out because of larceny or some other perceived crime.
She had to move quickly to keep step with him. Then finally they were outside.
“My carriage is around the corner.”
“Where are we going then?” Although she already knew. And the thought made her knees nearly give way.
“To the apartment.”
She tried to pull her arm away, but he only tightened his grip. “Joseph, I will not compromise myself again. I’ll only talk with you, nothing more. There are things that need to be said. And you will hear me, finally.” She was glad that her voice did not shake because inside she was trembling.
His eyes wavered for a second. “All right, Rachel, we will talk. But you will hear me, also.”
She detected the smell of whisky about him as well as something else. Her apprehension grew with the thought that liquor might induce other feelings in him. But she swallowed her caution, determining that the risk was worth it. This would end. It had to.
When they reached the brougham, she stepped in and Joseph got in beside her, his hand still clutching her arm.
And with a slight nod from the driver, they took off.
Chapter 27
C armen Carvelli vigorously rubbed the rosary beads in quick succession, reciting her morning litany with each one. Her eyes looked heavenward as she broke off and whispered, “Please God, give me the strength to do what must be done.”
Sunlight filtered through the gauze of the blue bedroom curtains, casting a bluish-green haze on the walls. The scent of last night’s rose incense lingered slightly.
She’d looked at the cards last night, and what she’d seen had chilled her. Three successive turns; each time the death card figured prominently. All three times, they seem to point to David.
Since meeting Rhea, she nearly had the full story. Or at least a major part of it. She just didn’t know who the entire cast was. And she didn’t know how this was going to play out, here and now.
Someone was going to die. Either David. Or someone close to David.
The cards said so.
It had taken some convincing to get Rhea to give over custody of one of the letters. But she had convinced the girl to meet her at the library again, convinced her with a mother’s sincerity that she would take care of the cherished item, which would be returned promptly. Still, the girl’s eyes had looked at her suspiciously, even as she handed over the letter during their arranged meeting at the library. Carmen practically had to tug the papers from the girl’s hand.
Then she called Jennifer over for tea. She hadn’t told the psychic what she planned.
Instead, when Jennifer sat down at the kitchen table, the letter was already there to be pushed aside as the cup was placed on the table. Jennifer’s hand had slightly touched one of the sheets, and Carmen held her breath.
The look that froze on the woman’s face morphed from shock to horror. She had drawn back her hand as though it had been singed by fire. Then she looked at Carmen with wounded dignity.
“Was this a test?” Jennifer accused.
Carmen didn’t answer the question, but simply asked, “What did you see?”
At first, the young woman sat there quietly defiant, resentful about being tricked. But the images in her head needed exorcising. To do that, she would have to pick up the pages again, which she did.
“Read it,” Carmen encouraged. Jennifer read over the words, words more suited to a time past, but whose sentiments reverberated to anyone who had loved someone she shouldn’t. And had tried to get away.
With the prolonged contact, Jennifer’s hand visibly shook.
“There’s violence here,” she started, and couldn’t seem to finish her sentence. “And death. A horrible death. It’s—it’s…” she stalled, took a deep breath, her emotions causing her to strain with the effort. “The woman who wrote this…this woman died at someone’s hand. She was horribly murdered.” Her strength petered out. She looked physically exhausted, as though the exertion had crossed from visual to physical empathy. As though she felt the pain the dead woman must have felt.
Carmen felt sad and frightened. Her suspicions were falling into place, settling into jigsawed grooves that were merging into a tableau of pain and violence, two words she never wanted to associate with her son.
“I see the man holding the knife,” Jennifer continued. “His face is familiar, but I don’t…” Recognition morphed into a newer horror. “I’ve seen his face before. It’s the same face that lay over your son’s picture that day, the face I described to you.”
The face that Carmen had seen when she looked at David and saw someone else sitting there. Someone with a handsome face—and an angry soul.
Later, she’d turned to the cards in a desperate act, hoping they would refute everything that the fates seemed to be declaring. David had killed before. He would either die, maybe in some karmic retribution, or he would repeat the actions of a past life. A life that was pulling forward in time, obscuring the present with its hatred, venom, whatever it was that this man had felt for the woman who wrote the letter.
Rachel.
She needed to find the woman who had died. And who must now have been reborn. The woman whose present soul was a siren’s call to the soul of the man she once loved. The man who had killed her. The man who was now her son.
Once she found this woman, she would do whatever was necessary to make sure that past deeds remained unrealized. Even if it meant that she would have to go to the extreme to save her son’s soul.
Tears fell onto the beads. She rubbed them harder until the blood infused her fingers.
Chapter 28
T yne held up the dress, turned it one way, then another, examining the lucent sequins that accentuated the luster of the black silk. Nice, classy, but a little too suggestive for the party. Its length would show more than an appreciative view of thigh. She didn’t want him to get any ideas that this was more than just a get-together between two friends, a celebration for the magazine, or specifically, a launch party hyping the success of Elan’s first issue. She might be opening up a can of worms, but she refused to go stag again. She’d had too many of those evenings back at the dull but mandatory Clarion parties where the founder was dutifully lauded and sycophants preened for an opportunity to be noticed. Since her brother was off on another one of his photo shoots, this time in the Ivory Coast, steadily collecting a photologue of the changing African topography, he wasn’t available as her fallback date. So in the end, she’d called Lem, which was, in fact, a return call. He’d phoned earlier in the week to say hello and left a message. The timing seemed karmic, so she’d called and invited him to the gala. He had readily said yes, and for a second, she’d hesitated at the fervor of his answer.
Looking through the closet, a green shimmer caught her eye. She reached for it and pulled out the half-hidden dress, one of her former favorites almost forgotten since it started tightening around the midriff a couple of years ago. But in the last weeks, she’d dropped some pounds, not consciously but due more to a consistent neglect to eat. She remembered the excitement she’d felt when she first found the dress in a small boutique near Oak Street, and the immense pleasure she’d also felt when it had slid smoothly over her skin, clinging nicely to her curves.
The pleasure was just as sweet this time around. The silk felt like warm water as it flowed effortlessly down her body, falling against her in just the right places. Its satin caught the diminishing sunrays filtering through the window, contouring the dress in shadows and light, so that some patches of green seemed darker. The asymmetrical bias hemline touched just above her right knee and slanted down her left knee in soft pleats. The V-plunge didn’t expose too much, but gave a suggestive view of cleavage. It looked tasteful but not demure.
She was putting on her small gold hoops when the doorbell rang. He had arrived. She took a deep breath then walked out of the bedroom, unconsciously circumventing the pile of boxes she had never unpacked that rested against the wall in the hallway. When she opened the door, she was greeted with a luminous smile that made his smooth dark skin glow. Handsome and fit in an elegant tux, he temporarily made her rue her “friends only” stipulation. She wondered what it might feel like to rest her head against his chest and be bathed in his scent, which this night was a hint of something earthy. She missed being held, and the thought immediately brought on a remembered impression of hands pressing into her flesh. Strong, supple fingers with neatly buffed nails that had softly traced along her pliant skin, pale flesh reddened with desire that meshed against her own…. She mentally shook the thought away, determined to pay attention to the man standing in front of her.
“You look gorgeous,” Lem said, his eyes moving briefly along her curves before settling on her face again. Tyne suspected that he was fighting to keep his expression neutral, to not let her see how much this evening meant to him. She fought to keep her tone impassive but cheerful as she thanked him. She wanted everything smooth this evening, no snags or entanglements. No expectations. This was part duty, free food and drinks, and hopefully some fun, which she had been missing these last weeks.
There was one snag that she couldn’t avoid though. David would be there. She knew it, felt it in her bones. She had mentally scripted the few words she would say to him if he cornered her. But she was hoping that wouldn’t happen, that beyond a nod of greeting, she wouldn’t have to speak to him at all. She had the strategy mapped out. Dance floor; she would only dance with Lem. Sherry would be another buffer; David wasn’t likely to make a scene in front of his friend. Still, she knew she should explain why she had pulled away, why she hadn’t returned his calls in almost a month.
Yet, she would never, could never have called out another’s name, as he had that night they were in bed.
“Are you ready?” Lem asked.
“Just let me get my coat.”
September had come on with strong gusts and temperatures dipping into the low 50s and high 40s. She wrapped herself in her beige cashmere coat, preparing to deal with the brunt of the cool
evening.
But she wasn’t sure she was prepared for the tempest that might await her.
Sherry checked over the salmon mousse baguettes and cold canapé assortment the caterer had just set up on one of the tables. On another table sat hot tureens of sliced turkey and sliced beef immersed in gravies. Another table hosted miniature chicken drumsticks slightly basted with lemon garlic butter. Yet another held chilled bottles of Cristal, while a fifth featured cases holding complimentary silver pens with the name Elan embossed on them. These she would pass out to the guests at the end of the evening.
Guests were already trickling into the very popular Terrace Room, one of several private event rooms housed in the Ritz Carlton. Sherry had pulled some strings (and tugged at some unwilling arms) to get this place. Insulated from the chillier Chicago clime, the room offered an illusionary tropical setting with an indoor rock garden surrounding a small, trickling pond. Overhead, the skylight broadcast a cloudless evening sky, with the last amber and golden hues merging into a slate gray which would darken into a rich ebony within a half hour. Already a full moon was taking center stage.
She was expecting nearly two hundred guests tonight, friends and acquaintances lured by the promise of good food and music and a lot of conviviality. She was no stranger to gala events, having grown up in a family where her parents celebrated everything they considered pivotal to their success.
Her invitation to the celebrations stopped after she introduced her then-girlfriend, Gina, to her parents. Her mother had choked out an explanation during one of her awkward visits to the apartment. “It’s just too much on us right now, what with the downturn in the market. You understand, don’t you honey?” Her mother had come as close to perspiring as Sherry had ever seen her. Embarrassed and hurt, Sherry had merely nodded her expected understanding. Later that same year, the hurt was amplified when her parents somehow managed to find funds to purchase a new yacht in which they sailed around the Caribbean.
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