Blue Bloods (6 page)

She had meant to ask Jack what he’d meant by his note, but she hadn’t been able to catch him after class. Jack Force, who had never even paid attention to her before? First he knows her name, now he’s writing her notes? Why would he tell her Aggie Carondolet was murdered? It had to be some kind of joke. He was playing with her, scaring her, most likely. She shook her head in irritation. It didn’t make sense. And even if Jack Force had some overheated Law and Order-type insight into the case, why was he sharing it with her? They barely knew each other.

At100th street , she dinged the yellow tape and stepped lightly out the automatic doors to the still-sunny after noon. She walked up one block toward the steps carved into the landscaped terraces that separated the traffic and led directly to her front door.

Riverside Drivewas a scenic Parisian-style boulevard on the westernmost side of upper Manhattan : a grand serpen tine route dotted with stately Italian Renaissance mansions and majestic Art Deco apartment buildings. It was here that the Van Alens had decamped in the turn of the last century from their lowerFifth Avenue abode. Once the most power ful and influential family in New York City, the Van Alens had founded many of the city’s universities and cultural institutions, but their wealth and prestige had been in decline for decades. One of their last remaining holdings was the imposing French-style palace on the corner of leafy 101st andRiverside Drive that Schuyler called home. Made of beautiful gray stone, it had a wrought-iron door and gar goyles standing guard at the balcony level.

But unlike the sparkling refurbished townhouses that sur rounded it, the house badly needed a new roof; tiles, and a coat of paint.

Schuyler rang the doorbell.

“I know, I’m sorry, Hattie, I forgot my keys again,” she apologized to their housekeeper, who had been with the fam ily ever since Schuyler could remember.

The white-haired Polish woman in an old-fashioned maid’s uniform only grunted.

Schuyler followed her through the creaking double door and tiptoed across the great hall, which was dark and musty with Persian rugs (so old and rare, but covered in a layer of dust). There was never any light in the room because, even though the house had several large bay windows that over looked theHudson River , heavy velvet curtains always cov ered the views. Traces of the family’s former largesse were in evidence, from the original Heppelwhite chairs to the massive Chippendale tables, but the house was too hot in the summer and too drafty in the winter, without the benefit of central air. Unlike the Llewellyn’s penthouse, where everything was either a pricey reproduction or an antique bought at Christie’s, every piece of furniture in the Van Alen home was original and handed down from earlier generations.

Most of the home’s seven bedrooms were locked and unused, and draped fabric covered most of the heirloom pieces. Schuyler always thought it was a little like living in a creaky old museum.

Her bedroom was on the second floor— a small room she’d rebelliously painted a bright Mountain Dew yellow, to contrast the dark tapestries and stuffiness of the rest of the house.

She whistled for Beauty, and a friendly, gorgeous blood hound ran to her side. “Good girl, good girl,” she said, kneel ing down and hugging the happy creature, letting it lick her face. No matter how bad a day she’d had, Beauty always made it better. The beautiful animal had followed her home from school one day last year. The dog was a purebred, with a glossy dark coat that matched Schuyler’s blue-black hair. Schuyler had been sure her owners would come looking for her, and she had put up “Found Pet” signs in the neighbor hood. But no one came to claim Beauty, and after a while, Schuyler stopped trying to find her rightful owner.

The two of them loped up the stairs. Schuyler walked inside her room and shut the door behind her dog.

“Home so soon?”

Schuyler nearly jumped out of her coat. Beauty barked, then wagged her tail, galloping joyfully toward the intruder. Schuyler turned to find her grandmother sitting on the bed with a stern expression. Cordelia Van Alen was a small, birdlike woman—it was easy to see where Schuyler got her delicate frame and her deep-set eyes, although Cordelia usually dismissed remarks about family resemblance. Cordelia’s eyes were blue and bright, and they stared intensely at her granddaughter.

” Cordelia, I didn’t see you,” Schuyler explained.

Schuyler’s grandmother had forbidden her to call her Grandmother, or Grandma, or as she heard some children call them, Nana. It would be nice to have a Nana, a warm and chubby maternal figure, whose very name spelled love and homemade chocolate chip cookies. But instead, all Schuyler had was Cordelia . A still-beautiful, elegant woman, who looked to be in her eighties or nineties, Schuyler never knew which. Some days, Cordelia looked young enough to be in her fifties (or forties even, if Schuyler was being honest with her self ). Cordelia sat ramrod straight, dressed in a black cashmere cardigan and flowing jersey pants, her legs crossed delicately at the ankles. On her feet were black Chanel ballet slippers.

All throughout Schuyler’s childhood, Cordelia had been a presence. Not a parental, or even an affectionate one, but a presence nonetheless. It was Cordelia who had changed Schuyler’s birth certificate so that her last name was her mother’s and not her father’s. It was Cordelia who had enrolled her at the Duchesne School . Cordelia who signed her permission slips, monitored her report cards, and provided her with a paltry allowance.

“School let out early,” Schuyler said. “Aggie Carondolet died.”

“I know.” Cordelia’s face changed. A flash of emotion flickered across the stern features—fear, anxiety, concern, even?

“Are you all right?”

Schuyler nodded. She barely even knew Aggie. Sure, they’d been going to the same school for more than a decade, but it didn’t mean they were friends.

“I’ve got homework to do.” Schuyler said, as she unbut toned her coat and shook off her sweater, peeling each layer of clothing until she stood in front of her grandmother in a thin white tanktop and black leggings.

Schuyler was half afraid of her grandmother, but had grown to love her even though Cordelia never showed any inclination of reciprocating the sentiment. The most palpa ble emotion Schuyler could detect was a grudging tolerance. Her grandmother tolerated her. She didn’t approve of her, but she tolerated her.

“Your marks are getting worse,” Cordelia noted, mean ing Schuyler’s forearms.

Schuyler nodded. Streaks of pale blue lines blossomed in an intricate pattern, visible under the skin’s surface, on the underside of her forearms all the way to her wrist. The prominent blue veins had appeared a week shy of her fif teenth birthday. They didn’t hurt, but they did itch. It was as if all of a sudden she was growing out of her skin—or into it—somehow.

“They look the same to me,” Schuyler replied.

“Don’t forget about your appointment with Dr. Pat.”

Schuyler nodded.

Beauty made herself at home on Schuyler’s duvet, look ing out the window toward the river twinkling behind the trees.

Cordeliabegan to pat Beauty’s smooth fur. “I had a dog like this once,” she said. “When I was about your age. Your mother did, too.” Cordelia smiled wistfully.

Her grandmother rarely talked about Schuyler’s mother, who, technically, wasn’t dead she’d slipped into a coma when Schuyler was hardly a year old, and had been trapped in that state ever since. The doctors all agreed she registered normal brain activity, and that she could wake up at any moment. But she never had. Schuyler visited her mother every Sunday at the Columbia Presbyterian Hospital to read to her from the Sunday Times.

Schuyler didn’t have many memories of her mother— apart from a sad, beautiful woman who sang lullabies to her in the crib. Maybe she just remembered that her mother looked sad because that’s how she looked now, when she was asleep—there was a melancholy cast to her features. A lovely, sorrowful-looking woman with folded hands, her plat inum hair fanned against the pillow.

She wanted to ask her grandmother more questions about her mother and her bloodhound—but the faraway look had left Cordelia’s face, and Schuyler knew she wouldn’t get any more tidbits about her mother that night.

“Dinner at six,” her grandmother said, leaving the room.

“Yes, Cordelia ,” Schuyler mumbled.

She closed her eyes and lay on the bed, leaning against Beauty. The sun began to set through the blinds. Her grand mother was such an enigma. Schuyler wished, not for the first time, that she were a normal girl, with a normal family. She felt very lonely all of a sudden. She wondered if she should have told Oliver about Jack’s note. She’d never kept something like that from him before. But she was worried he’d just call her silly for falling for some stupid joke.

Then her phone beeped. Oliver’s number flashed on the text message, almost as if he knew how she was feeling right then.

MISS U BABE.

Schuyler smiled. She might not have parents. But at least she had one true friend.

NINE

Aggie Carondolet’s funeral had all the trappings of an exclusive society event. The Carondolets were a high-profile New York family, and Aggie’s untimely death had been fodder for the tabloids. PREP SCHOOL GIRL DEAD IN DOWNTOWN CLUB. Her parents had shuddered, but there was nothing they could do about it. The city was obsessed with the beautiful, rich, and tragic. (The more beautiful, rich, and trag ic, the bigger the headline.) That morning, a phalanx of pho tographers stood guard at the school’s gates, waiting to get a shot of the grieving mother (a dignified Sloane Carondolet , 1985’s deb of the year) and the stricken best friend, none other than lissome It-girl-about-town Mimi Force.

Once Mimi saw the photographers, she was glad she’d splurged on the Dior Homme suit by Hedi Slimane . It had been a bitch getting it tailored overnight, but what Mimi wanted, Mimi always got. The suit was of black satin, with sharp, severe lines. She wore nothing underneath but an onyx choker. She would look fabulous in tomorrow’s papers—the soupçon of tragedy making her an even more glamorous figure.

Seating inside the Duchesne chapel was arranged according to rank, just like a fashion show Of course, Mimi was given a front-row perch. She was seated between her father and her brother, the three of them making a good-looking trio. Her mother, stuck in a three-month plastic surgery safari in South Africa (facelifts disguised as vacations) couldn’t return in time, so Gina DuPont, a beautiful art dealer and close friend of her father’s, had accompanied him to the funeral.

Mimi knew Gina was actually one of her father’s mis tresses, but the knowledge didn’t bother her. Growing up, she’d been shocked by the constancy of her parents’ extra marital affairs, but when she was old enough, she’d accepted the relationships for what they were—necessary to the Caerimonia Osculor . No one could be all things to one person. Marriage was for keeping the family fortune within the family, for making a good match, akin to a sound business deal. She’d been made to understand there were some things that could only be satisfied outside of a marriage, some things that even a loyal spouse couldn’t provide.

She noticed Senator Llewellyn and his family entering through a side door. Bliss’s stepmother strutted in wearing a floor-length black mink over a black dress; the senator was wearing a double-breasted black suit; Bliss was wearing a black cashmere sweater and slim black Gucci cigarette pants. Then Mimi noticed something odd. Bliss’s little sister was dressed head to toe in white.

Who wears white to a funeral? But as Mimi looked around, she noticed almost half of the assembled guests in the chapel were wearing white—and all of them were sitting across the aisle.

Sitting in the very front pew, leading the white-clad mourners was a small, wizened woman Mimi had never seen before. She noticed Oliver Hazard-Perry and his parents walk toward the front and bow to the white-garbed crone before finding seats in the far back.

The mayor and his entourage arrived, followed by the gov ernor, his wife, and children. To the man, they were all in the appropriate black formal dress and sat themselves behind her father’s pew. Mimi felt oddly relieved. Everyone on their side of the room was wearing the proper black or charcoal garments.

Mimi was glad for the closed coffin. She didn’t want to see that frozen scream again, not in this lifetime. Anyway, it was all a big mistake. She was certain the Wardens would find some perfectly reasonable explanation for all this, some part of the cycle that explained the loss of all that blood. Because Aggie just couldn’t be dead. As her father said, Aggie probably wasn’t even in that coffin.

The service began, and the assembled rose from their seats and sang “Nearer, My God, to Thee.”

Mimi looked up from her hymnal and noticed Bliss leaving her seat. She raised an eyebrow.

After the chaplain said the proper words, Aggie’s sister made a brief eulogy. Several other students spoke, including her brother, Jack, who made a moving speech, and just as quickly, the service was over. Mimi fol lowed her family as they left their pew.

The diminutive, white-haired matron who was sitting across from them walked over and tapped her father lightly on the arm. She had the bluest eyes Mimi had ever seen and was wearing an impeccable ivory Chanel suit and ropes of pearls around her wrinkled neck.

Charles Force startled visibly. Mimi had never seen her father that way. He was a composed, regal man, with a mane of silver hair and a rigid military bearing. The lines on his face were grooved with the consequences of power. It was said that Charles Force was the real authority that ran New York . The power behind the powerful.

” Cordelia,” her father said to the old bat, with a bow of the head. “It is good to see you again.”

“It has been too long.” She had the clipped, nasal tones of a true Yankee.

He didn’t respond. “A terrible loss,” he said finally.

“Extremely unfortunate,” the old lady agreed. “Although it could have been prevented.”

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” Charles replied, looking genuinely perplexed.