Keepsake (8 page)

“That is enough, Isobelle,” Armand said.

“You’re mistaken if you think I won’t fight for what is rightfully mine.”

“Why don’t you just kill April Harrington,” Christian suggested with a sudden flash of emotion. “Then you’ll inherit, after
all.”

Isobelle glared at her brother, whose cold eyes glared right back at her.

Armand shook his head sadly.

Blackthorn and Clemente exchanged another glance.

Something rotten here, Blackthorn thought.

He cleared his throat. “Personally, I don’t give a damn who ends up running Power Perspectives. What I want to know—and intend
to find out—is who murdered Rina.”

“The brilliant detective at work?” Christian’s tone just missed being snide—a great talent of his—to be offensive in a manner
that no one could proclaim as offensive.

“Brilliance is rarely required in a murder case,” Blackthorn said. “We simply don’t get that many brilliant murderers.” And
we certainly won’t find one in this family, was the message that he hoped his words implied. “Dogged determination usually
works better than clever deductions. Killers leave tracks. Sometimes these tracks are difficult to find. Sometimes we go in
circles trying to
separate a false lead from a true one. But eventually we find the real tracks, and they lead us where we want to go.”

“Seems to me you were hired to prevent this from happening, not to clean up the mess afterwards,” Christian said.

“Yeah, and I blew it,” Blackthorn said levelly. “Now it’s a matter of professional pride to clear up that impression.”

He paused, looking at each of them in turn. As in any suspicious death, the closest relatives were the most obvious suspects.
The motivations that drive people to murder were often mundane, even trivial. Real and imagined slights, conscious and unconscious
cruelties. Despite the popularity of the murder mysteries that April Harrington sold so successfully in her shop, there often
were no grand, intelligent plans behind a real killing. For every sophisticated life insurance scam there were thousands of
pointless, profitless murders—lives ended and people consigned to the earth over passions that would have faded by morning
had they not been precipitously acted upon.

Rina’s death was different, of course. A contract had been made, a shooter had been hired. The means were sophisticated, and
the motive would have to have been sufficiently complex to justify all the trouble.

Most of the people with complex motives were right here in this room.

“It’s more than professional pride, though,” he said. “Rina helped a lot of people, including my wife during her illness.
And when I needed someone, she was there.” Blackthorn had to take a slow careful breath to hide his emotions from them. “I
owe her. And since there’s no longer any way to settle up with her directly, I’m making it my business to settle up with her
memory. I intend to see justice done. I’m going to unearth her murderer and put him—or her—away.”

For several seconds, nobody said anything. Then Armand leaned over and put one of his hands on Blackthorn’s arm. “Thank you
for your dedication. If there’s anything I can do to help you, you have only to ask. I will hope and pray that you succeed.”

Christian and Isobelle said nothing, although Isobelle looked agitated, as if she wanted to speak. Christian’s expression
was as cold and unreadable as carved marble.

Blackthorn exchanged a quick glance with Martin Clemente. His former colleague’s expression was grim. He probably knew as
well as Blackthorn did that at this point the tracks led exactly nowhere.

Isobelle de Sevigny slammed the door behind her as she entered her Chelsea apartment. She stomped through the huge living
room area of the converted factory to the master bedroom and sat down at the antique dressing table. She stared at her face
in the mirror. She was not beautiful, or at least, she had never considered herself to be so. Her features were a little too
sharp, especially her nose. She thought they looked sharper than ever now because she had not been eating properly since Rina’s
death.

Actually, she reminded herself, she hadn’t been eating properly for quite some time. Her weight was down. Charlie had been
fussing. He was quick to tell her that he liked some covering of flesh on her bones.

But Isobelle preferred herself thinner. When she exhibited herself, she wanted no one to see and smile over extra flesh, extra
fat.

She felt a surge in her belly as it occurred to her that she could exhibit herself tonight.

She glanced at the diamond watch on her wrist. Just after eleven. Things at the Chateau would be heating up.
It was Friday night, and straights were welcome. During the week the rooms and apparatus in the Chateau were reserved for
homosexuals—lesbians on Tuesday and Thursday and gays on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. But on the weekend, the heterosexual
players took over the place.

Isobelle hadn’t planned on checking out the scene this weekend, but she also hadn’t planned on April Harrington. Her anger
and frustration were unexpected; she had to work them out.

She picked up the phone and dialed Charlie’s number. “Are you alone?” she asked.

“Of course I’m alone,” he said, sounding surprised that she might think otherwise.

“I’m going to the Chateau. Would you like to come?”

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“I’m fine.”

“I can’t stop thinking about what happened today, Isobelle. I’m so sorry. I can’t believe it. I hope you’re going to challenge
that new will.”

“Look, I’m trying to get the whole unpleasant situation out of my head. Do you want to meet me tonight or not?”

“Okay. Sure. I’m concerned about you, that’s all.”

“Thanks,” she said, “but there’s no way you can fix this particular situation.”

“I can try. You know I want only the best for you, always.”

Her voice turned husky. “Yes, because you’re my slave, pet.”

Silence. Then he said, “Shall I meet you there?”

“Mmm. I’ll arrive by midnight.”

“I’ll be there,” Charlie murmured as she rang off.

She sat for a few moments staring at the phone. Charlie was loyal and loving, and she could relax when she was with him. But
being involved with somebody from work
was never smart. Perhaps it was time to start looking for someone to replace him.

She stripped off her clothes and, naked, poked around in the back of her closet until she found some of the things she needed.
She donned a black corset made of soft leather. It laced up in front, and barely covered her breasts. She stepped into a pair
of matching leather bikini panties that covered her crotch in front but was high cut on the sides and back. She added a short
leather skirt, black fishnet stockings with leather garters, and four-inch patent leather heels. No blouse. It would come
off, anyway… as would the skirt.

As would she.

Charlie was waiting for her inside when she arrived at the Chateau at a few minutes past midnight. He wore a black leather
vest over a dark turtleneck shirt. Tight leather pants encased his long legs. With his blond hair, gray eyes, and pleasant
features, he was a good-looking man. Isobelle could sense several women giving him the eye from various dark corners of the
club. If she did break up with him, he wouldn’t have any problem hooking up with someone new. Assuming he wanted to do so.
More and more lately, he had been declaring his love for her.

She walked over to him and arched her neck to receive his kiss.

“You look gorgeous, Mistress,” he said.

“Thank you, slave.”

“I’ve missed you. I’d really like to see you someplace other than here and in the office.”

“This is all I can handle right now.”

They moved into a large central area of the club where other couples wandered, most dressed in fetish costumes
with a heavy emphasis on leather and shiny black vinyl. Some were barely dressed at all.

At one end of the room was a shadowy group gathered around some dimly illuminated apparatus. There was the sound of a paddle
striking bare flesh, accompanied by cries that spoke far more eloquently of pleasure than of pain. This was indeed the case.
The whips were real, but they were made of soft leather, bluntly cut and unlikely to injure or mark even the most tender skin.

“Are you okay?” Charlie’s gray eyes studied her. “Are you worried about something?”

“I’m fine. Let’s play.”

He shrugged. He was only an average submissive, she thought. Giving up power was something that didn’t come naturally to him.

Perhaps she had been too indulgent with Charlie. The best dominants were control freaks. Type A personalities. They wanted—indeed
they needed—to control every detail of the scene. The power this gave them was the turn-on.

Isobelle liked having control, yes, but she was not interested in the fine level of detail that some dommes obsessed about.
No, for her it was more a matter of power. She loved the rush of having a man—or even better, several men—kneeling at her
feet.

Removing a pair of fur-lined leather cuffs from her toy-bag, she indicated to Charlie to hold out his hands. She felt the
familiar surge go through her as she buckled the cuffs around his wrists.

As she led Charlie toward the back room—toward the pillory and the whipping post—Isobelle closed her eyes against the image
of Rina, lying broken and silent on the convention center floor.

“Okay, we fucked up,” said Blackthorn to Carla Murphy.

He had his feet up on his desk in his suite of fancy offices on Seventh Avenue just a couple of blocks away from Central Park.
“There’s no way to undo it, but we’re going to have to engage in a little damage control. Hell. A lot of damage control.”

“You have a personal stake in this, I know,” Carla said.

“True. But right now I’m thinking more about the business than about my personal relationship to the de Sevigny family.” That
had better be true, he told himself. Besides Carla, he had three other people working for him. He was responsible for putting
food on their tables every night at suppertime. If he went under, so would they.

“It doesn’t look good, does it, a celebrity like Rina de Sevigny being assassinated right under our noses. This kind of thing
is not likely to bring new clients pounding on our doors.”

“Yeah,” Carla said morosely.

“We’ve already lost a couple possible contracts, and both the Saudi gentlemen Jonas is supposed to be baby-sitting in Washington
during next week’s oil trade negotiations have telephoned to ask for our assurances regarding their safety.”

“You reassured them, I hope?”

“I bowed and scraped, yeah. We’ve guarded them before and they’ve been happy. Jonas speaks Arabic and knows where to take
them to get them laid, so I don’t think they’ll cancel.” Jonas was a good man, and Blackthorn trusted him. He was young and
sometimes a little over-eager, but he was smart and good with foreign languages. Jonas was also Blackthorn’s computer expert.
He could electronically hack his way into any system.

“Even so, we could sure use a little positive public relations,” he went on. “Best way I can see to achieve that is to outrun
the police and the FBI and figure out who killed Rina ourselves.”

“Look,” said Carla. “I know you used to be an FBI agent. And that World Systems Security started out as a detective agency.
But it’s been a long time since we’ve been so much as peripherally involved in a murder investigation. And besides, it happened
in California, and this is New York.”

“I have friends,” Blackthorn said. “A few of them have already filled me in.” He dropped a folder on the desk between them.
“Here’s what we know so far. The killer was a professional shooter. He didn’t get close enough to Rina to transfer any physical
evidence to her body. He escaped with his weapon, a .22-caliber pistol. Anaheim PD interviewed lots of witnesses who claimed
to have seen the guy, but no two descriptions are the same. We know he was in the room with her, but so were over a hundred
other people. It was a nightmare for the crime scene folks, who got enough irrelevant hairs, fibers, fingerprints, and other
crap to fill an entire evidence room with little glass jars and paper bags. At the end of it, we got zip. This is one case
that won’t be solved by physical evidence.”

“And the gun hasn’t turned up, right?”

“No. He probably used it then broke it down, took the pieces up to LA, and dumped ‘em into the ocean. We won’t find it. In
these cases they either leave it on the scene—the untraceable ones of course—or they hide them. I suspect they go into the
same black hole with odd socks that vanish in the dryer.”

“You figure he picked up the piece in California?”

“Couldn’t fly in with it, that’s for sure.”

“On the other hand, maybe the doer is from California—they got hit men in LA.”

“You’re absolutely right. He could be from anywhere, that’s the trouble.”

“Maybe this case isn’t going to be solved at all.”

“Yeah, it will. Somebody wanted Rina de Sevigny dead. And when I find out why, I’ll know who. The long-lost daughter’s the
obvious suspect, of course. Especially now that she’s turned out to be Rina’s heiress.”

“That reminds me,” said Carla, “is it true that you were a beneficiary, too?”

“Yeah, she left me a painting. That was a surprise.”

“I didn’t know you knew her that well.”

“Jessie and I both knew her, during Jessie’s illness.”

“Jeez, Boss, next the cops’ll be investigating you.”

“Yeah, right.” Blackthorn brushed this aside. “Okay, I want to know everything there is to know about the Harrington woman—her
business, her sex life, her friends, her life with her mother, assuming they ever had a life together. I’ve ordered Jonas
to do one of his infamous computer
searches on her. I want to know which side of the bed she sleeps on, her astrological sign, her blood type, her grades in
high school, her first boyfriend, her last boyfriend, and what she had for lunch last Tuesday. Think you can handle that?”

“Think you’re obsessing a bit?” Carla said dryly. “So we fucked up. It happens.”