Immortal Muse (29 page)

She took a deep breath, glancing up and down the street. People moved past her on the sidewalk on their way to errands or appointments; taxicabs, cars, and small trucks moved slowly down the one-way street toward the skyscraper canyons of mid-town. The city breathed all around her: loud, odoriferous, and relentlessly, defiantly alive. Somewhere out there, a small darkness lurked—a darkness that was attached to her, that was her responsibility.

“Fuck,” Camille sighed, the obscenity tasting harsh in her mouth. She turned and trudged back up the steps. She hesitated there for a moment with her hand on the doorknob.

She turned it and pushed the door open. “Found it,” she said to Beth. “Is the coffee ready yet?”

 * * * 

“
Thanks for taking the time to chat with me, Ms. Kenny.”

Gina Palento looked to be in her late thirties. A wedding ring glistened on her left hand, and her navy pantsuit was pressed, new, and fashionable. Her glossy, dark hair was clipped very short, the kind of cut with which one could step out of the shower, towel dry, and not worry about having to fuss with the hair. She wore minimal makeup; just a touch of eye shadow and foundation. She certainly didn't have the stereotypical rumpled and tired look that Walters had possessed. Her eyes were an icy and startling blue that verged on gray, set deep in a thin face with sharp cheekbones. She also had a green soul-heart; Camille could feel it, the radiance shining around her, though Camille didn't dare to touch it. She wondered what sparked that creativity in the woman.

“So . . .” Palento said, “just what had you hired Bob—Mr. Walters— to do for you?” Her voice was a gravely alto, and she cocked her head slightly with the question. She'd set a small recorder between the now-neatly stacked papers on Walters' desk; Camille could see an LED blinking on the device.

“He was trying to track down someone for me. A stalker. All I had to give him were a couple of photographs. No name. I . . . I know I hadn't given him much to go on.” Camille looked at Walters' desk. She wanted nothing more than to dig into the papers there and see if she could find some clue to what Walters had found—what had caused him to be killed. But she doubted that Palento would let her look, and she didn't want the detective prying into her life. She shrugged. “I was going to tell him today to stop looking, that it was a waste of his time and my money.”

Palento nodded. “Then you don't think your investigation had anything to do with his death?”

Camille shook her head. “I don't possibly see how.”

“Uh-huh.” Palento was nodding her head. Her finger hovered over the button of the recorder, then withdrew. “Stalkers can be violent. Was yours? Did he ever threaten you or hurt you?”

“Not really,” Camille told the woman. The lie was bitter ash on her tongue. “He was just some guy I kept noticing following me. I didn't talk to him or confront him.”

Another nod. “And you never reported this to the police?”

“I didn't think anyone would pay attention. After all, I didn't know who this was and hadn't had any contact with him. I figured you had more important things to worry about.”

“So you were willing pay Bob a nice little fee to find out? Let Bob follow you and hopefully come across this character?”

“I thought if he could get me a name and maybe more information, then I could go to the police. But maybe the guy gave up on me, or maybe he saw Mr. Walters, or maybe I was just wrong.” She thought she lied well; she had long practice at it. Palento was nodding again. This time, her finger did press the button and the LED flicked off.

“Well, thanks for talking to me, Ms. Kenny. If I have further questions, I'll be in touch. In the meantime, here's my card. You see that guy following you again, call me, okay? I hate jerks like that.” Camille took the card from her, rubbing the cheap stock between her fingers. “You can tell Beth to come in now. I'm ready to talk to her.”

Palento pocketed her recorder in her suit jacket. She picked up one of the numerous manila folders on Walters' desk and opened it. Her gaze flicked up to Camille as she rose from the chair across the desk, then back to the folder. It was obvious the detective was dismissing her.

“Beth,” Camille persisted, “mentioned that you think it might be one of the Black Fire murders.”

Palento stared at her. “It's possible,” she said. An eyebrow lifted.

“Well, I hope you find him. The guy who did this to Mr. Walters and those others.”

“We will,” Palento said. “Thanks again, Ms. Kenny.”

Camille nodded, and left the office.

 * * * 

She said nothing to David, mostly because she wasn't certain how to explain it or to tell him just how frightened she was—how frightened she was for both of them. He'd insist that they go to the police about her “stalker,” and that would be a disaster: it would expose the fact that she'd never filed any report in the first place, as she'd told David she had; worse, it would arouse Palento's suspicions and she'd end up with her own false identity exposed.

In her older lives, having to change identities hadn't mattered as much, but in recent decades, that was becoming increasingly difficult, and it wasn't something she was willing to undertake lightly.

Camille consulted her Tarot, and laid out a reading so dismally bleak that she gathered up the cards before even attempting an interpretation. The second layout was nearly as foreboding; she put the cards away, shivering at the implications.

So she said nothing, and tried to make it appear that her mood hadn't changed, that she wasn't constantly looking over her shoulder whenever they were out together, that she wasn't scanning the street outside David's apartment to see if she recognized a figure watching in the darkness, that she wasn't afraid to return again to her own apartment because—if Nicolas had been in contact with Helen—he now knew the name she was using and probably her address; that she made sure she kept the Ladysmith with her.

From the scrolls she'd acquired in her current collection, she prepared the ingredients for the few spells she'd managed to master, and made certain they were cemented in her mind. She went to the sword on her dresser, went over and pulled the katana partially from the black, lacquered
saya
, looking at the glossy, oiled steel. She sighed and put the weapon back on the stand.

When David mentioned that Jacob Prudhomme had invited them to his annual birthday party a few days later, she agreed to accompany him, though without great enthusiasm. Still, after days of hearing nothing from Palento nor glimpsing Nicolas, her initial panic had calmed somewhat. “What are his parties like?” she asked him. “What should I wear?”

He grinned at her. “Anything you like. Jacob will have everyone there: from rich customers in formal dress to desperate artists wearing ripped jeans and grimy T-shirts. He likes to have what he calls ‘a shocking mixture.' Says the result is more like actual art, then. The stranger and more outrageous you can dress, the happier he'll be. Pick out whatever you think makes you look good, or whatever you're comfortable in. It honestly doesn't matter.”

“You
do
know that's absolutely no help to me, don't you?” she told him. “In fact, that just makes it worse.”

He laughed. “Then wear nothing at all. He'd
love
that. Jacob'd probably claim you were a living sculpture. A vision of the Muse.”

She scoffed nasally. “Yeah. That's
so
not going to happen,” she said.

“He'll be disappointed.”

“Him, or you?”

“Both of us.”

“Then you'll both need to get used to disappointment.” She managed a smile, then another thought struck her. “Helen won't be there, will she?”

David shook his head. “No. I seriously doubt it. Jacob knows that we've broken up, and I'm his client. I don't think he'd invite her.”

That eased her mind. In the end, she decided on the classic little black dress and heels, with the sardonyx pendant dangling openly over the neckline. Into her small clutch purse, frowning as she did so, she placed a few vials and managed to cram in the Ladysmith as well. “What's the matter?” David asked, as she kept glancing out the rear window of their cab, trying to determine if the black Mercedes two cars back was following them.

“I keep thinking I've forgotten something,” she told him. “Sorry.”

Jacob Prudhomme had rented the penthouse suite in the Hotel on Rivington for the party. David flashed their invitation card to the security guard at the elevator, and they rode up in silence with two other couples, one in formal attire, the other dressed in what Camille assumed was an attempt at
haute couture:
matching silver jackets in metallic threads, bright red capri pants, she in purple stiletto heels and he in scuffed Chuck Taylors, both with spiked and product-laden hair, both of them wearing too much eye makeup for Camille's taste. She could see both couples trying to gauge her and David, trying to determine if one of them was someone whose name they should know, but saying nothing as the elevator made its long climb to the 20th floor.

David had told her that the penthouse suite was a triplex, taking up the top two floors of the hotel as well as a roof deck. The party was already well underway when they arrived, the bottom floor of the penthouse swirling with people, while wait staff in dress whites circulated among them. “David!” Jacob, his paunch well disguised in an expensive, fitted tuxedo, came forward out of the crowd as they stepped off the elevator (causing the two couples who arrived with them to narrow their eyes speculatively). He clasped David's hands. “So glad you've finally arrived. I have a dozen people here who are anxious to meet you. I have a temporary display with a few of your pictures up on the next floor, and they just
love
the shots. Charm them, and I think someone just might buy the entire set.”

He patted David on the cheek and glanced at Camille, smiling. “In fact, introduce them to the subject of your photos, and I'm
sure
they will. Camille, my dear, you look fetching tonight. Is that sardonyx? It's a lovely piece; you must let me look at it more closely later—the style's very old. In the meantime, you two enjoy yourselves. If nothing else, it's a fabulous view.” With that, he was off to greet someone else.

It
was
a fabulous view, Camille had to admit. Floor-to-ceiling windows on all sides revealed a glittering view of the nighttime Manhattan skyline, though few in the crowd were gazing at it. A glass-encased stair led up to the next level, from which they could hear the sound of a salsa band and people dancing. Everywhere, people had clustered in small groups, wineglasses in hand. Occasional loud chuckles or high laughter punctuated the general white noise.

Not surprisingly, Camille could sense several people with green soul-hearts in the throng: artists, musicians, intellectuals—their presence lent a faint glow in her mind. She opened herself to them and took in a long breath. She could nearly drown in the creative energy here, and it made her feel half-drunk already.

Camille snagged a glass of Merlot from a passing waiter. “Is that the mayor over there?” she asked David, tipping her glass in the direction of one of the groups.

“Yep,” David answered. “Along with Senator Evans. There's at least a dozen other faces you should recognize scattered around: politicians, actors, society people, the whole gamut.”

“Jacob runs in high circles.”

“He says everyone has walls that need art, and the richer they are, the bigger their walls.”

Camille laughed. “A wise man,” she said. “Should we go up and see your exhibit on the second floor? I want to know just how embarrassed I should be.”

“Didn't I tell you that you should have come naked? Then they
would
recognize you.”

She bumped him with her hip and drifted through the crowd toward the stairs.

The salsa band was loud and exuberant, and the insistent beat made her sway helplessly in time as she and David walked between the portable walls of the exhibit. Jacob's tastes were wide and varied. There were paintings: oils, acrylics, and watercolors, both realistic and abstract; lithographs, etchings, ink and pencil drawings; a few small sculptures on stands—and, pinned in the light of small Fresnels, David's photographs of her in black and white.

Her face stared back at her. Her body filled the frames, sensuous and languid, light painting the curves and valleys. “You certainly do have a lovely body,” a woman commented from behind them, and Camille and David turned to see Helen. Camille found herself protectively clutching her purse with its vials of carefully mixed chemicals and gun, the delight she'd felt at being here at the party vanishing in that instant.

The smile on Helen's face appeared to have been applied with her lipstick, and she was looking more at David than Camille. “You always had a great eye for models.” Then, with a moue of disgust, she waved her hand. “I'm sorry,” she said to both of them. “I told myself I wasn't going to be catty or mean, and . . .” Her gaze went to Camille, and for the first time, Camille felt sympathy for the woman. “I'm truly sorry, Camille. You didn't deserve that.”

“You don't need to apologize,” Camille told her.
Is he with her? Is he here?
She ached to cast a Finding spell, but couldn't, not with both of them watching. “I understand. Let's forget it and start over.”

Helen gave her a small smile. “I'd like that.”

“Helen,” David said. He didn't move to hug or embrace her. “Good to see you. I didn't expect Jacob to invite you, actually.”

“Actually, he didn't,” Helen said. “You were always his star, not me. I'm here because Timothy's bought some pieces from Jacob.”

Timothy.
The name was a blow that nearly staggered Camille.
Him . . .
She could feel her face going pale, and sweat beading at her hairline.
Not here. I'm not ready for him here.