by Linda Barlow
Kate shook her head, her eyes wide. “People are always threatening to thrash me but nobody ever does. I didn’t mean that about Daddy. He yells but he never hits. First he yells and then he makes me go to the therapist.”
“How do you like your therapist?”
“He sucks.”
April Harrington nodded as if hearing that a therapist sucked was routine. Kate decided she liked her. “I sorta did hear about you,” she admitted. “If you’re the one who claims to be Gran’s daughter. They didn’t tell me your name. But the whole family’s talking about you, that’s for sure.”
“I can imagine.”
“What I heard was, you murdered Gran,” Kate said. “Like you didn’t actually shoot her, but you hired the guy who did.”
“Yes, I’ve heard that one, too.” She smiled and pushed one long lock of hair behind her left ear. “I run a mystery bookstore so people seem to think that makes me an expert on murder.”
“What’s a mystery bookstore?” said Kate. “You mean it’s all full of mystery novels?”
April Harrington nodded.
“I love mystery novels,” Kate said.
“Me, too, but a book’s a book. This is real. There are people who really think I’m a murderer.” She shook her head. “It’s horrible.”
“Why would you kill your own mother?” Kate asked.
The pretty woman shook her head. She looked away, focusing on something across the room. Shit, thought Kate. She knew that look. It was the never-mind-I’ve-already-said-too-much look. She hated that look.
“I don’t mean you did,” said Kate. “I was just wondering why anybody would.”
“Well, I suppose one reason might be that when I was your age, she never had time for me. I hated her for that. Just like you say you hate your father. More, probably.”
Kate nodded, wondering if she’d hated her mother enough to want revenge after all these years. Enough to kill. She couldn’t imagine hating anybody that much.
“Also, I’ve inherited her business,” April Harrington went on. “I didn’t want it; it’s not even something I’ve ever been interested in—this New Agey self-help sort of stuff—but it’s apparently worth millions and any time an inheritance is worth millions, you have a motive for murder.”
“Only if you know you’re going to get the millions,” said Kate. “Did you know?”
April smiled and shook her head. “You’re a smart kid,” she said. “No, I didn’t know. I’d had no contact with her—or with anybody who knew her or her business affairs—for many years. But so far I haven’t managed to convince the police of that. I think your grandfather believes me, but so far he’s the only one.”
Kate studied her face. There was something about her… she didn’t know exactly what it was, but it was a strong feeling. She liked her. It was probably a stupid way to feel. It was the murderers you liked that were the truly dangerous ones. They were the ones who slipped under your defenses and slit your throat when you least expected it. It was dangerous to like somebody before you even knew them.
“I believe you,” she heard herself say.
April Harrington smiled and gave her a warm, tight hug.
It was late before April left the apartment that had been used by her mother. Kate had shown her around, telling her anecdotes about Rina’s life, and her own, as they moved from room to room. April had learned that Kate loved to write, and dreamed of being a novelist. And that she also loved drawing and painting, and that one of her favorite things to do on a rainy day was hang out in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and study—“really get into the pictures, you know?”
Somewhere in the course of all this April had realized that she was beginning to care about the twelve-year-old girl who reminded her very much of herself at the same age.
Kate, like April, was an only child. She had lost one of her parents, and she clearly had a conflict-ridden relationship with the parent who was left. She was bright and imaginative and poised on the brink of life. So full of potential that could so easily be squandered.
Rina had apparently tried to give to Kate what she had failed to give to her own daughter.
Now she was gone, failing, as usual, to be there when she was needed.
But this girl, April decided, was not going to be abandoned. Nothing horrible was going to happen to her.
Maybe it wasn’t the best reason in the world for making a complete change in her life.
Maybe it wasn’t even the real reason.
But something had changed in her even before Rina’s death… something that had enabled her to journey to Anaheim in the first place, to enter that seminar room, and to stand up and confront her mother.
Her life was nothing to be proud of so far, anyway. Yes, she had a small, successful business. She had friends. But she had no decent relationships with members of the opposite sex, and she remained haunted by a past that she couldn’t change and that she must come to terms with.
No more waffling. Time to act.
In the morning she would call Armand de Sevigny and inform him that she intended to accept the position of head of Power Perspectives.
Part Two
Chapter Nine
The Madison Avenue office of Power Perspectives was modern, bright, and thoroughly upbeat, despite the tragic death of its founder.
On the morning that April arrived there for the first time, she was greeted with an enthusiasm from the staff that she couldn’t believe was sincere. She was a stranger. They must have heard the rumors that she had been a suspect in Rina’s death. She had expected to be met with hostility and suspicion.
Instead, everyone from Charles Ripley to all the clerical workers gave her a warm welcome. There were smiles, handshakes, even hugs.
Ripley, she quickly realized, was the orchestrator of her welcome. He had been her mother’s right-hand man. He was a handsome young man of about thirty with a winsome smile.
He accompanied her into the large, sunny office that had been Rina’s and was to be hers now. “We want you to feel entirely at home,” he said. “Please feel free to order anything you’d like for this office in order to make it your own. You can toss out all the furniture, replace it with something new if that would suit you. I can give you the names of several decorators.”
“That won’t be necessary,” April said, looking around her in amazement and pleasure. The office was fresh and simple, with softly muted pinks and greens accenting the basic ivory of the walls and curtains. “The room is lovely the way it is.”
“Rina did all her own decorating,” Ripley said. “She had a marvelous visual sense.”
April thought of her mother decorating their cottage with tacky photos of Hollywood stars clipped from movie magazines.
“She was an extraordinary woman in every respect,” he added.
This, she noted, was what everybody seemed to think. Rina was talented. Rina was charismatic. Rina was generous. Rina was the Most Wonderful Woman in the World.
“You must miss her very much,” said April.
“Yes. I do.”
Am I the only one, she wondered, who knows Rina was a fraud?
“You’ll want to get acclimated as quickly as possible, I’m sure,” Ripley said. “I’ve left some of the company’s material here for you.” He pointed to a colored brochure that sat prominently displayed on the desk. Power Perspectives—the Key to Inner Strength and Outward Success, it read.
“And of course, there’s this.” Ripley touched the button of a small tape recorder that was on April’s desk. Upbeat music flooded the room. It blasted out for several energizing seconds, then dropped to a softer register.
“We all have a limitless source of power within us,” said Rina’s voice on the videotape. “Deep inside we are all creative, dynamic, electric individuals. The trick is learning to tap into our own power. To channel it outward until it lights us up with an irresistible inner glow!”
It sounded familiar. April remembered that Rina had said som
ething very similar during her presentation at the American Booksellers Association convention just before she’d been shot.
“In order to improve your relationships, you must take control of your own power. You must acknowledge your own unique strengths. And most of all, you must change your negative beliefs about yourself.”
The same spiel. It was upon these platitudes that the Foundation had been built. Pep-talking had made Rina and her associates rich, admired, and respected.
April reached over and pressed the off switch. You must take control of your own power. She looked up at Charles Ripley and smiled. “Thank you, Charles,” she said. “This is all a little new to me, and I appreciate your help.”
“Please call me Charlie. Everyone does.”
“Okay. Now if you could leave me alone here for a few minutes. There’s so much for me to get accustomed to.”
“Okay, take your time,” he said genially, and left.
April studied her surroundings—the comfortable yet utilitarian furniture, the abstract art on the walls, the luxurious pale-green carpet. Quite a difference from the cramped storeroom in the rear of her bookstore where books were stacked to the ceiling. She had squeezed an old roll-top desk into one corner, using it to do her accounts…
She sighed. There was no going back. She had taken this opportunity to turn the Poison Pen Bookshop over, temporarily at least, to Brian. He’d been so enthusiastic about it that she’d had to laugh.
The intercom on her desk buzzed. “Call for you, Ms. Harrington,” someone said.
She picked up the receiver from the console. “So,” said a familiar male voice. “I see that you are indeed benefiting from your mother’s death.”
Blackthorn.
“I decided to accept the position, yes,” April said slowly.
“How sad for the Boston mystery novel business. It doesn’t matter to you, apparently, that Isobelle has worked hard for this, that she wants it, that it’s vitally important to her?”
“Perhaps it seems unfair,” she said carefully. “But my mother—” she put the faintest of stress on the words “—must have had some reason why she left the controlling interest in Power Perspectives to me. Besides, I was asked to take the position by Armand de Sevigny himself.” She paused then added, “By the way, Mr. Blackthorn, you failed to mention to me that you were more than just a professional associate of the de Sevigny family. It certainly makes your hostility a little clearer to me.”
“I wouldn’t exactly characterize myself as close to the family—” he paused “—any more than you would.”
“You were apparently close to Rina. You were named in her will. In fact, for all I know, you’re angry because Power Perspectives wasn’t left to you.”
Silence on the line. Then Blackthorn chuckled and said, “I’m trying to picture it. Me, running an inspirational self-help organization for troubled folks all over the world. Hell, I have trouble enough getting myself through the day without advising others on how to do it.” His tone grew more serious as he added, “No, Ms. Harrington, I’m not interested in what happens to Rina’s company. But I am interested in seeing her murderer brought to justice.”
“I hope you succeed,” she said tightly.
“I intend to.” He paused, then added, “And I warn you, Ms. Harrington. I’m going to be there, watching you, dogging your steps. I am far from satisfied with your account of your role in this entire thing. There is something about you that just doesn’t add up, and I intend to find out what it is.”
April slammed down the phone.
From deep inside her, dark memories erupted. Washington, D.C., the summer of 1969. She’d been a homeless runaway… sixteen years old…
I shouldn’t be here, she thought.
This is madness.
They’ll find out.
April spent the rest of her first day at Power Perspectives familiarizing herself with the staff, the office environment, and the Foundation’s general operating procedures. Both Charlie Ripley and Delores Delgrecco, who had been Rina’s secretary, went out of their way to be helpful and informative. Delores was an attractive, if tough-looking young woman with a thick Noo Yawk accent who managed to make it clear from the moment they met that she’d taken no shit from Rina and would take no shit from April either.
“I’m good ad my job, so whad’dya wand from me?” she’d said when they were introduced. Somehow she managed to sound cocky but not obnoxious. “Just ask and y’ill geddid, no sweat, no problem.”
“Thanks,” April had said.
“Hey, doncha even mention nid.”
April listened to tapes and viewed videos. She attended a brainstorming session on the next two-week Power Perspectives Advanced Seminar that was now being put together for next February. A convention hotel on Maui had already been secured, but it was unclear whether the block of rooms that had been contracted for would be sufficient. Business was booming, and there was a new book and video due out in the fall that might propel reservations for the seminars over the top.
“It’s sad and ironic,” said Charlie during the meeting, “but the publicity that surrounded Rina’s mysterious death has brought us even more into the public eye. We’re going to have to take it into consideration as we plan next year’s events.”
It was incredible what people would pay for advice and methods on getting their lives in order, April thought. A phenomenal number of people needed to know how to develop their potential for wealth, success, and happiness. And for this they were willing to pay handsomely.
“We’ll teach you the secret of taking control of your own power,” April muttered. “Pull out your checkbooks and sign on the dotted line.”
In the middle of the afternoon she received a call from Marjory “Daisy” Tulane, the former lieutenant governor of Texas, who was running for the Senate. April had met her briefly at the funeral and been struck by the woman’s great personal warmth and charm. Daisy had participated in the most famous of Rina’s thirty-minute infomercials, speaking passionately about the way Power Perspectives had changed her life and urging viewers to give the program a try.
“Just wanted to tell you that me and a lot of other folks got faith in you, honey,” the candidate told April. “Your mama was a smart woman. I reckon she knew what she was doing when she named you in her will.”
“I’m not so sure about that, Mrs. Tulane,” April said dryly.
“You call me Daisy, honey, and you be sure. Your mama never did anything without thinking it through. She taught me a lot. I wouldn’t be where I am today without Rina. She was the best friend I ever had, and I loved her.”
April wasn’t sure how to respond to that.
“You ever need anything from me, you don’t hesitate, okay?” Daisy continued. “Rina would have watched over my kids if I’d been the first one to be called to the Lord, so I’m gonna be your guardian angel, April, hon, y’hear me talkin’?”
“I hear you,” April said with a smile.
“Next time I’m in the Big Apple we’ll hook up for some good gossip and some hard shopping. I can’t do this campaigning shit all the time. I need a little retail therapy.”
April laughed. “Sounds like fun.”
“Some flunky’s poking me in the ribs with the latest polls or something. Gotta go, honey. Seize your power, and give ‘em hell!”
Absently, April doodled on a pad of paper on her desk. “Senator Daisy Tulane,” she wrote. “Seize your power. Give ‘em hell.”
She rose and went to the window, which provided a panoramic vista of the city. She leaned her forehead against the cool glass. She had a sudden sense of not knowing who she was or what she was doing here. As if she couldn’t quite get a grip on her true feelings, her true self.
She was here, in Rina de Sevigny’s place of business, trying to begin doing Rina’s job.
She was being assisted by Rina’s employees, and acknowledged, with various degrees of like and dislike, by Rina’s family and friends.
&n
bsp; And she was living in the co-op apartment that had belonged to Rina. As Armand had pointed out, finding an apartment in New York was no easy matter, and besides, since the apartment was owned by Power Perspectives, it was technically hers anyway. She had moved in the day before.
Her mother was dead, but her influence was more powerful than it had been in years.
April realized that she felt a little like the second Mrs. de Winter, confronted at every turn by the esteemed memory of the paragon, Rebecca.
Isobelle waited until the end of the day to make her appearance.
She had herself announced just before five. She made a dramatic entrance, dressed in a short gray suit that somehow managed to look slinky despite its conservative cut. The blouse under the suit jacket was scarlet. Her heels were just a little too high and her black hair was scattered in wild disarray on her shoulders.
I might have dressed that way myself a few years ago, April thought. I’d have done it because I was scared, and was trying to hide that by being outrageous.
Isobelle was several years younger than she, April realized. Not much more than thirty. She couldn’t have been much more than a baby when her father had married Rina. Her stepmother had been the only mother she’d known.
No wonder she was screwed up.
“I just want you to know that I have no intention of pretending to be happy about your decision to come and work here,” Isobelle said without preamble. “I’m a very direct person. I don’t believe in the usual office politics and hypocrisies. So I’m putting you on notice that I’m going to fight you all the way.”
April nodded. “Fine.”
Isobelle’s eyelids flickered. “I don’t believe you deserve to be sitting in that chair. If I can take it away from you, I’ll do it.”
“Since you claim to be a direct person, I assume that means you will use direct means, not underhanded ones?”
“I’ll use whatever means come to hand,” Isobelle said. “Why?” Her voice took on a mocking tone. “What are you afraid of?”
“Lots of things,” April said. “Rejection, for example. Failure.” She kept her voice level as she continued, “Like everybody else in the world, I would like very much to be liked and respected by the people I work with. Obviously that will be difficult here. Rina was well loved. I am an unknown quantity.”