Keepsake (21 page)

“It was too much for a sixteen-year-old to contemplate. I lost my nerve entirely, and I fled the superintendent’s apartment,
leaving behind the few possessions I owned, seeking the safety and anonymity of the streets.

“For three weeks I wandered from one ramshackle
shelter to another, earning a few coins by begging on street corners. I was in a constant state of terror—torn between nightmares
about Miquel, my mother, Armand, and the police. I didn’t understand what had happened, or more importantly why; and I didn’t
know if Miquel was alive or dead. The thought that I might have killed him was horrifying, but even worse was the thought
that he might still be stalking me.

“Finally one night, hungry, exhausted, and emotionally wrung out, I sought refuge with a kindly priest whose mission was to
help the ‘flower children.’ I told him my story, he comforted me, and together we contacted the police.

“That was when I learned that Miquel had died in the hospital. It wasn’t directly because of the stab wound, but because of
an infection that had set in afterwards, but apparently that doesn’t matter to the courts. I’d caused the wound and therefore
I was responsible.

“Also, before dying he’d given a false statement to the authorities insisting that he’d done nothing criminal, and that I’d
stabbed him in a jealous rage because he’d expressed an interest in my roommate.

“Meanwhile, the bruises on my throat that would have helped to establish my side of the story had, by this time, vanished.
So the police arrested me for second degree murder.”

April folded her arms tightly around her middle and shivered.

“You need a break?” Blackthorn said. “I can see this is hard for you to talk about.”

She looked at him. Although he had not said anything particularly comforting, the expression in his blue eyes was sympathetic,
and she could feel the emotion coming off him in waves.

She sighed. “I’m okay, I think. After all, I guess this is what I’m supposed to be doing—confronting my past. It’s why I approached
my mother at the ABA, and it’s why I decided to accept her job. It’s just—?” Her voice trailed off. She looked at Rob Blackthorn.
“Have you ever killed anyone?”

“Yes,” he said.

“It doesn’t go away. Even when it’s self-defense. It never goes away.”

“No,” he agreed. “It’s not supposed to. If it did—that would be an indication that something was seriously wrong.”

She nodded. “I’ve never understood what happened. It came out in the trial that Miquel was an illegal alien. No one knew exactly
where he’d come from. They did trace him back to his village in Mexico, but apparently he’d left there six years before, and
nobody knew where he’d been or what he’d been doing in the meantime. I suppose he must have been some sort of wandering sociopath.
Did he kill anyone before his attack on me? If so he got away with it because he’d never been arrested.”

“He may have been a serial killer,” Blackthorn said. “We know now that they sometimes move from state to state, making it
a lot harder for police to put the evidence together.”

“Running from the crime scene was the worst mistake I could have made. It would have been easier to convince the judge if
they’d had the physical evidence of the bruises on my throat. And, as it turned out, I’d run away for nothing. During the
entire process of being arrested and tried, I kept expecting my mother to show up. But she never did, even though she and
Armand were back in New York by that time, for at least part of every year.”

“No wonder you were angry with her,” Blackthorn said.

April nodded. “After it was over and I was free, I came to my senses about a lot of things. I understood and accepted that
Rina had truly abandoned me and that I would probably never see her again. Which was fine with me. I no longer
wanted
to see her again. I also realized that the life I’d been leading was pointless and wasteful. It was a turning point for me.
I guess you could say that I grew up.”

Blackthorn made an affirmative sound.

“Father Jacobs—the priest I’d turned myself in to—arranged for shelter for me in a community center for troubled teenagers.
I got a part-time job in a donut shop and I went back and finished high school. When I got out, I found a clerical job and
went to college in the evening. It took six years, but I got my degree.”

Blackthorn nodded, and she realized that he probably already knew this, thanks to the miracles of modern data processing.

“I put the past behind me. All of it—my mother, the nuns, the counterculture, Miquel. It seemed a good way to live. Forgetting
the past was the only way to make the present tolerable and the future worth looking forward to.”

“Some of us live entirely too much in the past.”

She shot him a curious look. He knew all about her now, she thought. But she knew nothing about him.

“Why’d you change your mind about that?” he asked.

She shrugged. “I made a lot of progress over the years. But at some point I got stuck. I realized I wasn’t happy. I was married—I
suppose you know that too?”

He nodded. “To the guy who gave you your current last name.”

“Jonathan Harrington, yes. He was a good man. But it didn’t last. I could never—I don’t know—I couldn’t completely
relax. I expected him to leave me. Finally, I left him.”

“If you initiated the split, he couldn’t?”

She nodded. “Something like that, I guess. It was the same with other relationships. Finally it became evident that I probably
wouldn’t ever allow myself to be happy until I understood why my mother had abandoned me.”

“So you decided to confront her.”

“And when I confronted her, she died.” Unexpectedly, her voice broke. Once again, Blackthorn reached out a hand. She took
it and felt the warm pressure of his fingers. It felt good, very good. He was gentle, and there was something amazingly comforting
about him.

“That’s one helluva story, April.”

“Do you believe me?”

He shrugged. His thumb drew lazy circles on the back of her hand.

“I’ve told you the truth.”

“Why didn’t you tell it to me sooner?”

“I was acquitted. I didn’t know whether they kept records on people who turn out not to be guilty of a crime. And if they
did, well it was juvenile court, and I was hoping that whatever paperwork they had on me was sealed. I didn’t want to play
back those memories. I didn’t think I’d have to.”

He did not reply.

“I’ll admit I’ve been afraid somebody would find out, though,” she said. She paused. “I don’t suppose there’s any point in
my asking you to keep what you’ve learned confidential?”

“Depends on the incentive,” he said slowly, as she watched a smile take shape on his lips.

Her body received his message even before her mind could analyze it. She shook her head, surprised. Yet he
was still holding her hand, and the contact was creating a pleasant little buzz.

He was coming on, and amazingly, she felt receptive.

“I don’t believe this.” She kept her tone light. “I tell you a bitter story about sexual violence and you respond with sexual
innuendo?”

“Men are scum,” he observed.

In spite of herself, she laughed. He was sitting very close to her, but there was no longer any sense of threat emanating
from him, except of the sensual variety.

She liked him, she thought suddenly.

She definitely liked the warmth and sensuality in his palm…

“At the will reading, I was surprised to hear that Rina left something to you, in memory of your late wife. When did she die?”
she asked.

He seemed surprised at her change of subject. For a moment she thought he wasn’t going to answer. Then he nodded once and
said, “Nearly two years ago. She had cancer.”

“I’m sorry,” April said gently.

“So am I,” he said with more fervor than she had ever heard in his voice.

“It must be very hard,” she said tentatively. “I mean, there are so many ways that relationships end, but death— being widowed
at a relatively young age—that’s unusual.”

He nodded. “It’s not like divorce. And you’re right, there aren’t too many people who understand. Even the widowed persons
support groups are usually made up of older people, people who’ve spent a whole lifetime together…” His voice turned off and
he appeared slightly embarrassed.

“A good friend of mine lost her husband in a car accident
a couple of years ago,” April said. “Maggie, actually, the romance bookseller who was with me at the convention in Anaheim.
It’s been a tough adjustment for her. She has two young children whom she has to raise entirely on her own.”

“Jessie and I didn’t have children. I’ve often regretted that. But you’re right. It would have been hard for me to manage
if we had had children. It’s been hard enough to take care of myself during the past few months.” He looked into space for
several seconds, then turned back to her. She saw the way the muscles moved in his jaw and felt a strong desire to stroke
his body and smooth away some of that pain.

“You seem to have lured me neatly off the subject,” he said in a much colder tone.

Retrenchment time. Men, she’d found, could only handle a limited amount of vulnerability.

“The question is,” he went on, “how much, if anything, of what you’ve told me tonight is relevant to the current investigation?”

“Do you honestly believe it has anything to do with what happened to Rina?”

“No,” he said after a moment. “I guess not.”

“Well then, my suggestion is that you let it go.”

“And let you off the hook.”

“Yes.”

He seemed to have moved closer to her. Certainly his face was closer. His blue eyes glittered just above hers, and she realized
that if he brought his face down but a few inches, he could touch her lips with his.

“But sexual harassment,” he said slowly, “is not to enter into these discussions at any point.”

“No,” she whispered.

“May I ask you something?” he said.

“Go ahead.”

“Did your experience with Miquel—who got what was coming to him, in my opinion—sour you on men?”

“Yes,” she said. “For a long while it did. But not for always.” She paused. “And has your wife’s illness and death soured
you on women?”

“Yes. I haven’t looked at a woman since Jessie died.”

She swallowed. “You’re looking at me.”

He moved closer still. “Not as a woman. I’m looking at you as a suspect.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I advise you to believe me,” he said even as he slid his hand into her hair and anchored her head. “I have no interest in
you as a woman. And I wouldn’t dream of sexually harassing you.”

“Then why—”

“Open your mouth.”

“I—

“Good,” he said and kissed her.

The kiss lasted a long time, and Blackthorn was thrilled to feel April’s initial resistance fade as he increased the pressure
on her soft, warm lips. The feel of her tongue moving tentatively in response to his ignited a fire deep in the pit of his
belly, and he gathered her close in his arms and caressed her neck and shoulders until he heard a soft moan coming from the
back of her throat.

God, it felt good. He drank her in. She tasted and smelled delicious. To touch her was to realize the depth of his hunger.
And hers. He could tell from the way her defenses uncurled and fell away that she was a woman for whom passion and sensuality
were very, very important.

Blackthorn allowed one hand to slip around in front. Body to body was the only reality that existed. It had been so long.
Too long.

She was wearing a silk blouse inside her suit jacket. It buttoned up the front. If he could just get those buttons
undone so he could get at her. Her breasts, he knew instinctively, were lovely…

It was she who broke the embrace as soon as he touched her breasts through her blouse, pulling away from him unexpectedly,
leaving him high and dry. She sat with her knees raised and her arms folded across them in a gesture that was nervously self-protective.
Under his stroking hands, her auburn hair was tumbling haphazardly over her shoulders.

“April?”

She didn’t look at him.

“Don’t phase out on me,” he said, trying to make it light, but having difficulty controlling his breathing. “I didn’t intend
that to happen.”

She still didn’t say anything. But she got to her feet, and started to pace back and forth under the oak tree.

“Okay, okay, I admit it, I did intend it to happen,” he said. “In fact, I’ve had a thing for you from the first time I saw
you and have been fantasizing about getting my hands on you all week. So there. Stop that pacing. You’re making me nervous.”

She stopped in front of him and propped her hands on her hips. She looked belligerent. Her lips were pouty (well-kissed, he
thought smugly) and her eyes were flashing fire at him. Amazon woman, he thought, and had a swift image of how she would look
dressed in a black leather corset and fondling a whip at a club like the Dungeon. Or—better still—on her knees before him
clad in a nineteenth-century ball gown with one of those low-cut bodices that was just begging to be ripped.

“I wish I’d never gotten involved with any of you,” April said.

“Any of—”

“Anyone associated with the de Sevigny family!”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s just that I feel, I feel—” she hesitated “—I feel as if I’m being seduced on all sorts of levels here. You’re all so
masculine, so smooth. You’re each charismatic in your own way, and you’re used to walking all over people.”

“Wait a moment here. Don’t include me in the de Sevigny family. I’m just the hired help.”

“Dammit, there’s something going on. I can feel it. It’s beginning to give me the willies. There’s something—” again she hesitated
“—something evil going on.”

“Murder is evil, I agree.”

“People aren’t what they seem. Somebody is playing a complicated game of cat and mouse, but I can’t seem to figure out who.
I can’t trust my own impressions of people. And it seems as if it’s been going on for years. I trusted my mother and she abandoned
me. I trusted Miquel and he tried to murder me. The people I like are not necessarily trustworthy, and as for the people I
don’t like—” Her voice trailed off.