Valentine, page 16
Then, controlling the rage that threatened to overtake him, he took a deep breath, leaned farther down, and kissed her on the lips.
“You’re going to die now, Belinda,” he whispered softly, caressingly, like a lover. “Happy Valentine’s Day!”
It happened so fast that Belinda’s panicked mind barely had time to register the fact that these were her final moments on earth. He was shouting, and then he kissed her, and then he was whispering. Then, in a flash, she was being lifted up in his amazingly powerful arms. And all the while, the beautiful voice continued to sing “My Funny Valentine.”
My funny valentine . . .
Victor Dimorta.
Oh, God! Victor Dimorta!
There was one last second of lucidity, of sanity, as she stared up into his smiling face, so unlike Victor Dimorta’s face.
“My husband,” she whispered as he carried her over to the edge.
He continued to smile.
“Tough luck, bitch,” he said, and then he released her.
And his face was gone, his arms were gone, and she was moving, or something, and she could hear a great whistling of wind rushing past her, and she was freezing, freezing, and she was—
Falling! Oh, my God, I’m falling! But it can’t be, I can’t be falling I can’t be falling oh please God don’t let me fall I have to be okay I have to live I have to live I have to go to Puerto Rico with my—
He watched as her body smashed into a ledge some fifty feet below him. Then she bounced off and out into the air before plunging down. She fell and fell, landing at last in a snowdrift far below him and tumbling down the rest of the way into the little ravine beside the mountain. After that, she disappeared into the trees.
And that was the end of Belinda Rosenberg Kessler.
He smiled as he looked down, thinking:
Two.
Then he moved. In seconds, he smoothed down all telltale tracks in the snow, reattached his skis, and followed her trail up several yards. He came down, veering toward the cliff, stopping just short of the edge. He nearly fell over himself, but the danger produced a pleasant thrill. Then he took off the skis, tiptoed back to the trail—being sure to cover these last tracks—put on the skis again, and made it down the slope in no time flat. He and Toni waited at the bottom for Belinda to join them.
Fifteen minutes later, when she had not made an appearance, Toni ran to find the pro. He took off on the lift, then radioed down that there appeared to have been an accident. A group was quickly dispatched around the side of the mountain.
It took them nearly an hour to find her.
He spent the rest of that afternoon comforting Toni as she sobbed, and he remained inconspicuously in the background when the police and the paramedics and the dazed husband arrived. When the reporters showed up, he and Toni made brief statements. His greatest challenge that day was to keep a straight face, to look appropriately horrified and saddened when all he could feel was a tremendous sense of elation. Finally, Toni took Jacob Kessler by the arm and led him away. As they left, she called to Len over her shoulder that she was going to drive Jake home, and that she’d call him later at his hotel. He nodded and waved.
Then he went back to his hotel, packed, and headed for the airport.
Jill
8
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6
Jill was feeling better today. Nate had brought her home in a cab from his place late last night, and he had stayed over. He’d left her sleeping early this morning. The note on the bathroom mirror informed her that the framer was arriving at his studio early, and he would call her later. The slight dizziness she’d felt on rising had dissipated in the shower, and now she was ready for what she must do. In fact, she realized as she went into the kitchen to put on the water for tea, she was looking forward to it.
Elaine Williams stood up from the bed and made her way over to the bureau on the other side of her spacious bedroom. Accompanied by the sounds of the surf below and her own beating heart, she picked up the silver-framed photograph of her husband, Walter, and her daughter, Sharon, and kissed both images.
That done, she dropped her gauzy nightgown to the floor and proceeded into her marble-lined, gold-fixtured bathroom. She reached into the shower and turned on the hot water. Every day began with a shower: the prescription pills that were now her only means of sleeping left her groggy and disoriented, and there was another reason as well. Hydrotherapy, she thought, as she did every day of her life. Comfort: a temporary balm.
She was just stepping into the scalding shower when the low, discreet knock came at her bedroom door. Jenny, the new maid, came cautiously into the bedroom.
“Good morning, madam,” she whispered to the older woman who stood naked in the bathroom doorway. “Are you ready for breakfast?”
“Yes, thank you, Jenny,” Elaine replied, turning her attention back to the shower.
Fifteen minutes later, dressed now in the blue caftan her late husband had so loved, she was seated at the glass-topped, wrought-iron table on the redwood sundeck of her immense Pacific Palisades home. She rang the tiny silver bell and waited patiently for the shy little maid to bring her usual coffee and toast. No more hearty breakfasts for her: the very act of eating was now a chore.
Jenny was placing the silver coffee service and toast rack before her when the phone rang in the living room. She poured a cup and waited as the maid went to answer. Moments later, the girl arrived once again beside her chair.
“A call for you, madam,” Jenny whispered. “From New York.”
Elaine glanced at the diamond-studded Cartier watch she always wore, a gift from her daughter. Nine o’clock, she thought. New York. Who on earth . . .?
“Very well, Jenny,” she said at last. The little maid trotted dutifully over to get the extension from the cabinet in the sideboard near the table, plugged it in, and placed it next to her mistress. With a nod from Elaine, she vanished back into the house.
Elaine regarded the telephone for several seconds. Then, with a sigh, she raised the receiver to her ear.
“Hello,” she said.
She listened to the hearty male voice on the other end of the line. Then, when his words came through to her, assaulting her consciousness, she involuntarily opened her tightly clenched hand, sending the receiver crashing to the sundeck with a loud thud.
The deep blue water of the wind-whipped Pacific gradually appeared before her eyes. She looked out at the water, and at the white gulls dancing against it, searching for their own breakfast. Then, as her other senses once again became active, she heard the muffled voice of the man on the telephone.
“Hello? Hello?”
With a long, ragged sigh, Elaine reached down and picked up the receiver. Then she took another deep, painful breath and began to speak.
Jill came out of her building at twelve-thirty, gasping at the sudden assault of freezing air. Her first, instinctive act was a quick search of the street in both directions. Neighbors coming and going, warmly bundled small children playing with a ball, tradespeople: okay. She tightened the wool scarf around her neck, buttoned the top button of her heavy wool coat, and set off in the direction of Fifth Avenue.
She had reached the comer of Sixth Avenue and Tenth Street, glancing surreptitiously around and behind her several times, before she remembered about Gwen. She’d called the unlisted number from home yesterday, but all she’d gotten was a beep that indicated a message machine. She’d left her brief message—“Hi, folks, it’s Jill. I’m thinking about taking you up on your offer. I’ll call you tomorrow morning, so somebody stay near the phone. ‘Bye.”—and hung up.
Gwen and Mike Feldman were writer friends, introduced to her at a Mystery Writers of America reception three years ago by Mary Daley, their mutual agent. She’d read the clever mystery novels they wrote together under the name G. M. Feldman, and they turned out to be fans of hers as well. She was immediately attracted to their normality and their mutual sense of amusement at the world. Gwen was a small, friendly Earth Mother-type who had begun to despair of ever finding Mr. Right. Then her three married younger sisters had talked her into going on a Caribbean singles cruise. There she had met the big, bearded fellow writer, whose buddies had put him up to the trip. Now they were thinking about having children. This possibility had necessitated fresh income to supplement their modestly successful mysteries, so a few months ago they had bought a defunct summer camp on the eastern tip of Long Island and converted it into a writers’ colony. This week was their first in business, and they had asked Jill to come. She had begged off at first, but now she had changed her mind.
Looking down at the watch on her gloved hand, she realized that morning was technically over. She’d better call immediately. If she waited until she got home, she might miss them again. . . .
She walked over to the open-air phone booth on the opposite comer. Placing her bag on the little shelf below the phone, she spent several moments fishing for her wallet. I have entirely too much stuff in here, she thought, smiling at the wadded tissues and bank receipts and other odds and ends that kept coming to hand. She finally located the wallet and extracted her Calling Card. Locating her little address book took a further thirty seconds. She found the number and placed the call.
It was answered on the second ring, and the first thing she heard was the familiar, friendly voice saying, “This better be Jill.”
“Hello, Gwen.”
“Oh, thank God! I’ve got to go into the village for supplies, but I didn’t want to miss you. What’s up?”
“Well, I’m glad you waited. I know there’s only the one phone there. Listen, do you and Mike have room for one more, or are you all booked up?”
Gwen Feldman’s laugh reverberated down the line, answering Jill’s question. “Honey, so far we only have two guests here. Barbara Benson is working on her new romance thing, and Jeff Monk is doing his new horror thing. Some grand opening, huh? We’re expecting two more in the next few days, but that still leaves eight guest cabins empty. You can have your pick.”
“Great. I’d love to see the place.”
“Oh, Mike and the local handyman—wait till you meet him: he’s about a thousand years old!—they’ve been hammering and moving furniture and so forth, and I’ve been busy with brooms and bed linens. Don’t ever go into the guest house business, Jill. You’ll go nuts. So, when were you thinking of coming out?”
Jill thought a moment. “Sometime in the next few days, I guess.”
“Fine. You can come today, if you want. We’re all ready. There’s a typewriter and legal pads in every cabin, but you can bring your own stuff if you want. Mike put those things for computers in every cabin, you know, those electric things. . . .”
“Surge protectors. I have a laptop: I guess I’ll bring that.”
“Great! How’s your new one coming? You’re not stuck, are you? I mean, we’ve braced ourselves to have the place full of people with writer’s block—”
“No, nothing like that. I just want to—to get out of town for a while.”
“Sure, Jill. Will Nate be with you?”
“Uh, no, he won’t. He’s getting ready for a show. His opening is in two weeks. I’m on my own. As a matter of fact—” She paused, wondering how to phrase her next request.
“What, Jill? Is something wrong? You two aren’t—”
“Oh, no. But I—I just want to get away for a while. I’m not telling anyone where I’m going. Not anyone.”
There was a pause. When Gwen spoke again, her voice was low and serious. “Jill, something is wrong, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Jill said, thinking, There’s nothing for it but to tell the truth. “Yes, something is wrong. I—I’ll tell you all about it when I get there. Now, what I need from you are directions.”
“That’s easy. Just take the train to Cutchogue. I’ll pick you up at the station.”
“No, I’m renting a car, and I don’t know that part of Long Island.”
“Okay,” Gwen said. “It’s pretty simple, really. . . .”
Jill fished an old bank receipt and a pen from her purse. As she was uncapping the pen, there was a loud thud nearby. A car pulling out of the nearest parking space had bumped into a passing taxi. The two drivers got out of their cars and started a loud argument, only half of which was in English. She pressed the receiver to her ear, repeating all of Gwen’s words to be sure she got them right.
“Expressway to Riverhead . . . Twenty-five to Cutchogue . . . then northeast on main road to Peconic . . . Peconic Writing Colony. Okay, got it.”
“Come on out anytime, Jill. We’ll be waiting for you.”
“Great. And remember, nobody knows where I’m going, okay?”
“Gotcha.”
They exchanged good-byes and Jill hung up. She put the pen and the hastily scrawled directions in her purse and glanced at her watch. Five minutes to one. She grabbed the bag and turned to leave the booth, nearly colliding with the back of a large man who stood just behind her, apparently waiting for the phone.
“Sorry,” she murmured, already hurrying away down Tenth Street. She didn’t want to be late for Dr. Philbin.
“S’okay,” the voice behind her said.
Jacob Kessler came out of his ten o’clock meeting and went back down the dull, industrial gray corridor to his office. More a cubicle than an office, he thought, removing his navy blue blazer and loosening the tie that was biting into his throat. He rubbed the painful area just below his Adam’s apple and dropped wearily into his padded leather executive chair. Eleven o’clock, he mused. It’s only eleven o’clock in the morning: why am I always so tired?
Then, as he did every morning for the past two years, he remembered.
Oh, he thought. Yeah . . .
He buzzed the secretary he shared with three other minor partners in the firm and asked her for coffee. When she brought it in and placed it by his elbow a few moments later, he smiled rather distractedly and thanked her. Then he picked up the four little sheets of telephone messages that had accumulated on his blotter while he’d been down the hall holding the hand of a nervous client who was involved in a messy corporate takeover. Not even his client, he thought with mild disgust: he’d acted on behalf of a tardy senior partner, Wiseman. Idiot. Probably in some hotel room downtown with a hooker, nursing last night’s hangover.
Oh, hell, he told himself. Just get on with it. With these messages. With the next appointment. With your life.
It’s Friday, he thought, turning his head to stare out at the beautiful vista on the other side of the glass wall beside his desk. TGIF. You have a date tonight.
Another date. Another infrequent attempt to get out and meet people, meaning women. Set up by a well-meaning friend. This one’s name was Janice something. Very pretty, he’d been assured. Very nice. A divorcée who taught aerobics at the well-meaning friend’s gym. Dinner and a movie tonight. The new Woody Allen comedy.
He looked out at the sun-washed city and up at the imposing, snow-capped mountains that ringed it. Woody Allen would inevitably remind him of New York, which was good. Lovely as it was, he didn’t much care for Boulder. Especially now.
She had loved Boulder. She had loved everything about Colorado. She had particularly loved skiing.
Wincing at the sharp stab of pain the memory brought him, Jacob lowered his gaze once more to the telephone messages. Boring client . . . nice client . . . dumb client . . . New York. Who the hell was calling from New York? He looked at the name: it meant nothing to him. Underneath it, in the secretary’s neat hand, was the phrase, “It’s about your wife.”
He stared down at the four words, slowing pushing the other messages off to the side of the desk.
Then he reached for the phone.
Jill waited several moments before trying the bell again. Nothing. She knocked on the heavy oak door, softly at first and then with greater volume. No answer. The blinds in both basement windows were closed.
She stared at the door for a moment, then checked her watch. One o’clock. One o’clock Friday: isn’t that what the doctor had said on the phone? Yes, no mistake. So, where was she . . .?
She climbed the steps to street level, then ascended the stairway to the front door of the house itself. Two buzzers, the lower one marked PHILBIN. She rang, waited, and rang again. Then she knocked. Nothing. The upper buzzer read CASTAING. The tenant on the third floor. She rang that buzzer, waited, and rang it again. Nothing there, either.
An emergency, she thought. After all, she is a doctor, and they always have emergencies. Even clinical psychologists—especially clinical psychologists. But it wasn’t like the woman to simply rush off without so much as leaving a note on the door, or—more likely—calling her patients and canceling. Perhaps she did call, Jill mused. I didn’t check my machine this morning. There’s probably a message waiting for me at home.
Shaking her head more in wonder than exasperation, Jill went down the steps and headed for home. I’ll call her later, she thought as she went. Reschedule. . . .
When she arrived back at her apartment, she went immediately to the machine in her office. Three messages. The first was from Nate, asking what she wanted to do tonight and telling her to call him at his place. The second was Tara, calling from the studio where she was taping Tomorrow’s Children. With much breathless giggling, Tara was informing her that Doug Baron had called and asked for another date, and that she’d call later with all the glorious details.
Jill smiled as she listened to her friend, but her smile faded when she heard the next message.
“Jill, it’s Barney Fleck. Call me at my office the minute you hear this. I have—I have some more information for you. ‘Bye.”
It occurred to her briefly, as she picked up the receiver and dialed Barney’s number, that none of the messages had been from Dr. Philbin. Oh, well, she told herself, I’ll try calling her office again later this afternoon. I’m sure there’s some logical explanation for the whole thing. . . .
