Once She Knew

by Sheila Connolly

  “Sounds like a plan, lady. You are the best. I’m assuming Jonathan will want to get in touch with Rick again, give him what we’ve learned, see if there’s anything new floating around out there. Not easy when you have to use pay phones. Is there a library or something nearby? Or maybe a cybercafé or something?”

  “You are so out of it, girl. Most people around here are into Wi-Fi. Wireless connections? You’ve heard about that?”

  “Of course I’ve heard of it,” Claire replied tartly. “Sophia has it. But I’ve never felt the need to park my butt on the lawn to commit my deathless prose to my laptop. Which I don’t have with me anyway.”

  Leah sighed histrionically. “Well, I guess I can see why you don’t want to use my computer. If you must be a dinosaur, the nearest library is the Epiphany branch, about ten blocks from here. I’m pretty sure they have public terminals—but you’d probably have to show ID to use them.” She rummaged through a pile of stuff on her dresser, and emerged with a key ring. “Here. These open the door up here, and the other one is for the lobby, and half the time that door is open anyway. If you have to go out. Not that I think anybody’s going to recognize you in your current getup. You know, I think the hair suits you. You look kind of edgy.”

  “Yeah, right.” Claire threw off the quilt and clambered out of bed. “Bathroom free?”

  “Yes, ma’am. You want crumpets or something?”

  “You do crumpets?”

  “Of course not. But I could scrounge up a bagel or something.”

  “Deal. I’m going to shower.”

  In the tiny cluttered bathroom, Claire stared at her reflection in the mirror over the sink. Here they were in New York, finally in the same city as Annabeth, and they had no plan whatsoever. They had by unspoken agreement maintained a willful ignorance, breaking down their task into manageable pieces: get to a bus station; get to a bigger bus station; get to New York. Well, they’d made it this far. All they needed to do now was find an opportunity to talk to Annabeth alone, without FBI watchdogs, and listen to her explain everything in crystal-clear terms. Then they would take her brilliantly simple explanation and present it to the FBI with bows on it, and Annabeth would vouch for Jonathan, and everyone would walk away, free and happy. Sure, no problem. Claire, you are an idiot, and your brain has turned to mush. Her reflection did not disagree.

  Showered, Claire found her way to the minuscule kitchen and perched on a stool, watching Leah bustle around. The water pounding on her head in the shower had cleared things up a little; or maybe she had decided to stick to the one-step-at-a-time approach. New Step One: Find Annabeth. Leah could do that. Therefore Claire would wait and see what Leah found out, which absolved Claire from doing anything at all for the moment. Step Two: she and Leah and Jonathan would work out when and how to get in touch with Annabeth. But that was for later. Right now Claire gratefully accepted the mug of coffee that Leah handed her and sipped, her mind blank.

  Until Jonathan lurched into the doorway of the kitchen. He would have continued into the kitchen, but there was no room for a third person, and Claire was not about to relinquish her stool. “Do I smell coffee?” he asked with pathetic eagerness.

  Leah filled another mug and handed it to him without comment.

  He took a long swallow and exhaled noisily. “Lady, I’m going to nominate you for a Nobel Prize when this is all over. You make amazing coffee.” He took another swallow. “So . . .” he began, then stopped. They all stared at each other. Claire wondered if the coffee had jumpstarted his brain, and now all the information he had acquired late last night had just kicked in. She waited to see what he was going to say.

  He looked at his watch. “I’ve got to talk to Rick. Now. Before he leaves for work.”

  “You might want to put some clothes on, if you don’t want to be noticed.”

  Jonathan looked down at himself: boxers and T-shirt. “Oh. Right. Sorry, ladies—I wasn’t thinking.” He backed out of the kitchen door, still clutching his coffee.

  Claire looked at Leah to see how she was handling the presence of a half-naked man in her kitchen. Leah smiled back at her with a wicked gleam in her eye.

  “You know, I think I’ll take back that ‘cute’ label.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  “Uh-uh. I just promoted him to ‘hunk.’”

  Claire stared, then shook her head. “You serious?”

  “Would I lie to you? You, old friend, have been hanging out on that all-girl campus for too long.”

  “It’s a women’s college, not a girls’ school, Leah.”

  “Sure, but the bottom line is, one gender. Hey, it’s my favorite gender, but maybe your, uh, aesthetic perception has gotten a little bit skewed.” Leah took another sip of her coffee. “What ever happened to that guy you were seeing—the one at Amherst?”

  “I still see him now and then. We’re busy, and I’ve been off campus for a while.”

  “Right. Obviously it’s a really hot relationship.”

  “Leah!”

  Leah put down her mug and looked at her watch. “Damn. I should have left ten minutes ago. Look, don’t mind me—it’s just too easy to yank your chain. Anyway, give me a couple of hours at work to see what I can find out, and then I’ll give you a call. Or, no—you shouldn’t answer the phone. Why don’t you call me at, say, eleven? I know!” Leah’s eyes gleamed with amusement. Clearly she relished the cloak-and-dagger aspect. “You can call me and give me a code word, and then I’ll know the coast is clear and I’ll call you back. Okay?”

  “I guess,” Claire said dubiously. “What’s the code?”

  “Let me think . . . How about ‘Mellon’?”

  “Why?” Claire’s mind was not processing information very well. She took another large swallow of coffee.

  “You are definitely not keeping up. The Elvish word for ‘friend,’ right?”

  “Oh. Right. Okay, I’ll call you and say I’m looking for somebody Mellon, and you blow me off, and I hang up, and you call me right back.”

  “You got it.” Leah fished around her countertop for a scrap of paper and a pencil, and wrote. “Here’s my direct number—that way you won’t have to go through the switchboard. Eleven. Mellon. Gotta run!”

  “Leah?”

  Leah stopped in her rush out the door. “Yeah?”

  “This is serious, you know. I mean, someone is dead and we don’t even know why. And we’re in trouble, no matter how you look at it. I just want you to know how much I appreciate this—I don’t know how I can ever thank you.”

  Leah took one last look at Claire, and then unexpectedly hugged her hard. “Don’t worry, sweets, we’ll figure this out. After all, you’ve got me on the job now, in addition to Mr. Wonderful in there. We’ll fix it!”

  And with a flurry of clothes and a jingle of keys, Leah swept out the door, leaving Claire sitting in the kitchen, unable to move. She realized that Jonathan had been in the bathroom for quite a while—to give them some privacy? Or was he just slow? Even as she formed the thought, the bathroom door opened and Jonathan emerged, fully clothed.

  “She gone?”

  Claire nodded. “Why, you think she’s going to snap your head off?”

  “I wouldn’t put it past her. You’re lucky—she looks like a good friend to have.”

  “Don’t I know it!” She watched as Jonathan brought his cup to the sink and rinsed it out. In some dim corner of her mind, Claire gave him points for that, but she couldn’t find the energy to make a snide comment. “Are you going to go look for a phone?”

  He turned toward her and leaned against the counter, drying his hands on a towel. “You should stay here—there’s no need for you to come along. If Rick thinks I need to find a computer, I’ll find a library. What did you and Leah cook up?”

  “She’s going to look at Annabeth’s schedule and see where we can connect—I’m going to call her at eleven. Listen, how the heck do we handle Annabeth? I can’t exactly talk to her. She doesn’t know me, and an
ything she’s heard in the past few days is not going to make her want to talk to me, and she may already have talked to the FBI. But you’re the main target, so it’s even riskier for you to try to see her, especially at the U.N. I assume they’ve got some pretty tight security.”

  Jonathan nodded in agreement. “I’ve been thinking about that. The best thing I can figure is, if you can get close to her, you can give her a note or something, and we can try to set up a meeting somewhere else—somewhere neutral, public. I’m going to need some time to talk with her, not just a passing ‘Hi, how are you?’” He stopped, and looked almost embarrassed. “That is, if you’re willing?”

  Claire couldn’t hide her surprise. “What? You mean you’re actually asking me, instead of shoving me into the middle of this against my will?”

  “Claire,” he began, then stopped himself, biting off a comment. “Yes, I’m asking. If it is possible, will you please talk to Annabeth and give her a note from me?”

  “Yes, Jonathan, I will be happy to convey a message—assuming that Leah can find a way to get us together. There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

  “Thank you.” He matched her formality. “I’ll go make that call. You want anything from the corner deli?”

  “Surprise me. Oh, by the way, the nearest library branch is called Epiphany. Catchy, huh?” Claire slipped off the stool and headed for the living room, where she turned on the television to check the news.

  The morning passed with glacial slowness. Dressed in a hodgepodge of thrift-store chic and items cadged from Leah’s eclectic wardrobe, Claire helped herself to the last of the coffee, threw all the bolts she could find on the door, and settled on the love seat. She roamed through the television channels, looking in vain for any updates on their own situation. There was nothing; the local news, when she could find it, was full of the upcoming U.N. conference. She was both disappointed and relieved. Nobody had any reason to suspect that they were in New York, which was good, but somehow she was hurt that her abduction at gunpoint had slipped so quickly from the public eye. It was humbling to find that she ranked somewhere below the sanitation workers’ union negotiations.

  Turning off the television, she poked around the apartment, trying to find something to read. She stumbled upon a cache of material about the conference, and as she read through it, she wondered why she hadn’t paid more attention to it. She could tell herself that international policy wasn’t really her field, but she wouldn’t let herself get away with that flimsy excuse. If she studied women in the modern world, then this was a significant gathering, and she should have been more attuned to it. She couldn’t even remember if she had dismissed it because she knew she would be off in the woods, in her self-imposed isolation. For shame, Claire. As an academic, and as an educated woman, you know you can’t ignore the political side of the problems that modern women face. You’ve been playing ostrich.

  Gradually she realized that Jonathan had been gone quite a while. She considered what that might mean. What were the possibilities? One, he had been spotted and picked up by the police or the FBI. If that happened, what would he say about her? They hadn’t talked about a backup plan. Were men in suits about to arrive and pound on the door? Two, he had simply done what he had originally planned, and disappeared to pursue his own ends. Maybe he thought that would be the best for her, but it still left her up a creek. Or, three, he and Rick had an awful lot to talk about. Claire wasn’t sure which alternative she liked: they all made her nervous, and the feeling grew the longer he stayed away. She picked up a book at random and tried to concentrate, but it was hard to ignore the tickle of panic. What if he didn’t come back? What was she supposed to do? He wouldn’t do that to her . . . would he? Did she know him well enough to believe that? How well did she really know him? Claire, it’s a little late to think about that.

  She nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard the door buzzer go off again. That’s right, he doesn’t have a key. Claire padded cautiously to the door and pushed the intercom button.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s me, let me up.”

  “You alone?”

  “Yes, I’m alone. Let me up.”

  Claire pushed the button to open the downstairs door and waited until Jonathan knocked on Leah’s door. She checked the peephole. Yes, it was Jonathan, and there was no one with him. Scratch theories one and two. She threw the bolts and let him in. “God, you were gone long enough! Did you talk with Rick?” She shut the door behind him and locked it again.

  He peeled off his coat and draped it over a chair by the door, then turned to face her. “How long was I gone?” He looked at his watch. “Wow, you’re right. Yes, I got through to Rick before he left for work, and he’s really spooked. Something is happening, and he’s pissed because he can’t figure out what it is. His pride is on the line here—he’s taking it really personally.”

  “Well, maybe that’s a good thing for us,” Claire said dubiously. “But what now? Did you tell him about the conference?”

  Jonathan threw himself down on the love seat Claire had vacated. “Of course, and he’s going to sift through his info to see if that fits. But I wish I knew more. It’s like chasing shadows. You know there’s something there, but it’s damned hard to see it. Even when you know what you’re looking for. Even if the First Lady is the target, who’s behind it?”

  “Jonathan . . . would it make a difference if all this”—Claire fumbled for a word—“shooting business at Annabeth’s hadn’t happened? I mean, if you’d been free to walk up or call up the right authorities, and tell them what you know, what you suspect? Didn’t you have some credibility, before you got cast as a killer and a kidnapper?”

  Jonathan rubbed his hands over his face. “I don’t know. Maybe. Or maybe they would have blown me off as a nut—one of the many. It wouldn’t be the first time. And I can’t say that I’d blame them. Or, hell, for all we know, the shooting is related to this, crazy as it sounds. But it’s just so frustrating! I mean, we’re this close, but I still can’t see it. And we’re running out of time. Speaking of which, when are you supposed to talk to Leah?”

  Claire looked at her watch. “Oops, now. Let’s hope she has a plan.”

  23

  Claire retrieved the phone from the kitchen and the scrap of paper with Leah’s number. She felt silly: was she supposed to disguise her voice? Should she put a handkerchief over the mouthpiece? Idiot, just call. She punched in the phone number. Leah picked up after two rings.

  “Leah Parker.” Leah’s greeting was crisp and businesslike.

  “Uh, hello, is this Paul Mellon’s office?” Claire tried to sound confused.

  “No, you must have the wrong number.” Leah hung up quickly.

  Claire sat on the stool, the phone still in her hand, and it rang several seconds later. She took a deep breath and hit the talk button. “Leah?”

  “Hi, Chloe, I’m glad I caught you. Are you doing anything tonight?”

  Claire was momentarily confused. “Chloe? Oh, I get it. Somebody might be listening. Uh, no, ma’am, my schedule is clear. If you’re really asking.”

  “Great. Listen, can you do me a big favor? There’s this party tonight, and the caterer’s a friend of mine, and he’s suddenly shorthanded ’cause one of his staff pulled out. Would you be willing to fill in?”

  “And I assume the lady in question will be at the party?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Okay, just give me the details. Oh, and am I really supposed to help the caterer?”

  “Yes, he’ll provide the outfit—you know, these guys want everyone to match. How’re you fixed for shoes?”

  “Well, I’ve got these neat combat boots.”

  “I don’t recommend that. Why don’t you look around and see if you can find something simple and black?”

  “Ooh, does that mean I get to dig through your closet?” Claire knew that her feet and Leah’s were nearly the same size.

  “That would be fine. Have you got a
pen? Here’s the address . . .”

  Claire jotted down the address Leah gave her. Upper East Side—nice neighborhood. Annabeth was running with an upscale crowd. “What time?”

  “Say, about five? Come to the service entrance, and I’ll introduce you to the caterer.”

  “So you’ll be there?” Claire’s spirits lifted perceptibly.

  “Yes. It’s an official event.”

  “Ah. Should I bring my friend?”

  “No, I don’t think so. There’ll be a lot of security, but I’ll vouch for you with the caterer.”

  “Got it. I’ll be there. And Leah? Thanks, for everything. Including the shoes.”

  “See you at five, then. Glad you can make it.” Leah rang off.

  Claire hung up the phone. In the living room, Jonathan stared expectantly at her. “So?”

  “There’s a party tonight, and Annabeth’s going to be there. Leah’s going to get me in dressed up as waitstaff for the caterer. I should be able to pass something to Annabeth, if you can figure out what.”

  “Okay.”

  One question had been nagging at Claire. “Jonathan, how well do you know Annabeth?”

  “I told you before, we go back a ways.”

  “What does that mean? You were, uh, involved at some point?”

  “No, we’re friends. We were never anything more, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “I just want to know why you’re so sure you can trust her. Why should she believe you, rather than whatever else she’s heard? What’s going to stop her from reading your note and calling the FBI ASAP?”

  “I don’t think she will. If it makes you feel better, I can tell her that I’m willing to turn myself in, as long as I can talk to her first. The FBI was at her house for a reason, and she’s got to have met with them by now. They were better equipped to find her than we were. If they were looking for me, I need to know that. If it’s something else . . . well, I need to know that too.”