“I guess we did a lot of things alike.”
“Still do,” Gary observed. “Two peas in a pod.”
There were times, David thought, when he sensed that Gary was just the tiniest bit jealous of the bond that David and Sarah had, the history that only they shared, the ability they had to read each other’s minds and instantly understand each other’s feelings. Gary was kind of a regular guy, a hale fellow well met-somebody who followed the Bears and the Bulls, who played in a weekly poker game and liked to barbecue bratwursts in the backyard. His father had owned the real-estate company, and Gary had just sort of fallen into it, but what used to be an easy living wasn’t so easy anymore. David knew that the family’s finances had been stretched… and that was before all the medical bills had started pouring in.
“Emme’s growing up so fast,” David said, looking out at the icy, empty streets. “I swear she’s grown a couple of inches taller in the last six months.”
“Yeah, she’s gonna outstrip her mother one day,” Gary said, “and maybe me, too. But this whole… situation has been taking a toll on her.”
“I’m sure it has.”
Gary exhaled, like he didn’t want to talk about it, though David knew he did. “She’s got a look in her eye,” he mused out loud, “especially when she’s watching her mother. Like she’s afraid of what’s going to happen next. Like she doesn’t want to let her out of her sight. I get the feeling that Emme thinks she’s supposed to protect her somehow, but she doesn’t know how.”
“I know how she feels.”
“So do I.” He lowered the window, spat out the gum, then stuck a fresh piece in his mouth. “And last night she had another nightmare, one of those doozies where she wakes up screaming.”
David hadn’t heard about the nightmares. “She gets nightmares?”
“Sometimes.”
“Have you thought about taking her to a therapist, somebody who specializes in dealing with kids?”
“I have,” Gary said, “and I will. But Christ almighty, I don’t know where the money is going to come from…”
“Let me help. Remember, I’ll be swimming in dough.” He was so sorry that he’d even mentioned his own precarious finances.
“Forget about it. That’s not why I said anything.”
“I know that. But she’s my niece, and I want to help.”
“I can handle it,” Gary said. “This market’s gotta bottom out soon. Stuff will start selling again.”
“That’s right, and then you can pay me back,” David said, though he knew he’d never accept a dime.
“Yeah, well, we’ll see,” Gary said, just to drop the subject. “If I need to, I’ll let you know.”
Pulling up at David’s apartment building-a dreary brownstone in Rogers Park-Gary said, “Home sweet home. Now find yourself another girl. Al Gore’s full of it, it’s going to be a cold winter and you’re going to need something to keep you warm.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” David said. “Thanks for the ride.”
Gary waved it off, but then, as David started to walk away, he called out, “Hold on,” and pulled something out of the pocket of his coat. It was a plastic bag, with something wrapped in foil inside. “Sarah wanted me to give you this.”
“What is it?” David said, though he could pretty much guess.
“A meat loaf sandwich. She says you’re too thin.”
David took the baggie.
“How come she never tells me I’m too thin?” Gary said, rolling up his window again.
David watched as the Lexus did a three-point turn to head back toward Evanston, then went into the foyer, got yesterday’s mail out of the creaky metal box, and trudged up the stairs. Apart from the low buzz from the fluorescent light fixture on the landing, the building was as quiet as his own little apartment would be.
But as he put his key in the lock, he was overwhelmed, and not for the first time, by the thought of the world without his sister in it. To him, it was as sad and terrifying a prospect as anything from Dante-but more so, as this one could prove to be all too real.
Chapter 4
Mrs. Van Owen-Kathryn to her close friends, of whom there were almost none-had hoped it wouldn’t come to this. She had hoped that no one else would ever have to be sent.
But her lawyer, Mr. Hudgins, had just informed her that Phillip Palliser was dead. His body had been found floating in the Loire, several miles downstream from a little French town called Cinq Tours.
“And what does the coroner say was the cause of death?” she asked, her eyes already straying to the huge windows that looked out over Lake Michigan from her penthouse apartment. “Drowning?”
“Probably,” Hudgins replied. “But there were considerable abrasions to the body and face. The injuries might have been postmortem, or they might have been caused by… a violent attack first. It’s unclear.”
Another one, Kathryn thought, caught in the spider’s web.
He lowered his gaze to the stack of folders and papers arrayed on her glass-topped coffee table. The afternoon light filled the spacious, expensively appointed room, and after he had waited a suitable amount of time, he said, “So what would you like to do?”
She touched a finger to a stray brunette hair, putting it back in place.
“Do you wish to go forward?” he asked.
Did she? What choice, really, did she have? “Yes.” It was all like moving another chess piece into play. “Of course I do.”
“Then it would be this young man at the Newberry,” Hudgins said, glancing at a paper. “This David Franco?”
“Yes.” She had always cultivated the next candidate before his predecessor had failed.
“And you think he has done a good job on the Dante volume?”
“A very good job.” She had been impressed with his credentials before she had seen him at the library, and she was even more impressed after hearing him speak.
“Then I’ll go ahead and make the arrangements for us to meet with him,” Hudgins said. “How soon would you like to do so?”
“Tomorrow.”
Even Hudgins seemed a bit surprised. “Tomorrow? Well, then, I will leave it to you to assemble the materials you wish to share with him.”
Kathryn nodded, almost imperceptibly, but she knew his eyes were riveted on her. Men’s eyes generally were, and it was something she had grown accustomed to over the years. Hers was a sensual face, with high cheekbones, arched brows, and full lips, unaided by collagen. But it was her eyes-a remarkable blue, tinged with violet-that made the most striking impression. One ardent admirer had even proclaimed her beauty to be “timeless,” and it had been all she could do not to laugh out loud.
“Now, in respect to your late husband’s estate,” he said, shifting gears and moving a separate folder to the top of the pile, “I’ve been in contact with his family.”
Randolph Van Owen had died a month earlier, but when it happened, one of his sisters had been on a world cruise she was loath to interrupt and the other was recovering from a face-lift.
“They have agreed to come to Chicago and hear the reading of the will this Friday.”
“That’s fine. The sooner, the better.”
“But they have asked if the service could be… less private? As one of Chicago’s most recognized families, the Van Owens were hoping for a more public expression of your late husband’s importance to the fabric of the city. In fact, they had suggested-”
“No,” she said. “Randolph would have wanted a very small, private ceremony, and nothing more.”
In actuality, she had no idea what he would have wanted, any more than she understood what he was doing racing his new Lamborghini through Lake Forest in the middle of the night. He’d hit a slight bump in the road. But
