Kaleidoscope (35 page)

He said good-bye to Alexandra and she hung up and walked slowly into her bathroom, unable to believe that Henri so easily thought the worst of her, and wondering what the summer would be like now. But she got a taste of it that night. He spoke to her in tones of ice, and until the next morning when she and the girls left, he treated her like a pariah.

“You will do no entertaining until I arrive, is that clear? You are to stay
in
the villa, and I will call you.” He treated her like a convict who had attempted to escape and her own fury was building slowly as they said good-bye the next morning.

“May I go to the beach, or should I stay in my room wearing a ball and chain?”

“I'm sorry you feel our marriage such a burden, Alexandra. I never realized it caused you such anguish.” He had an answer to everything and for the first time she hated him as they drove away. The chauffeur and two maids were accompanying them on the trip, and they were putting the Citroën and the Peugeot station wagon on the overnight train to the Riviera.

“Why was Papa in such a bad mood?” Axelle inquired as they drove through the traffic to the station. “Was he mad at you?”

“Just a little bit.” She smoothed the coppery curls as
Hilary had done for her so long ago, and she smiled now at the distant memory of her sister. She was excited now at the prospect of seeing them again. She just hoped that Chapman would find them soon, and that she would be able to get away to see them. But Axelle didn't give her the time to ponder it as they drove through Paris.

“Papa didn't look a ‘little bit’ mad to me. He looked
very
mad. Did you do something terrible, Maman?” Alexandra smiled and took Axelle's hand in her own. It was going to be nice to get to the Riviera, and perhaps nice too to have a few weeks breather from her husband.

“I only did something a little bit foolish.”

“Like when you bought the hat he hated with all the feathers and the veil?” Axelle had loved it, and Henri had made Alexandra send it back the same day.

“Something like that.”

“Did you buy another hat?”

“Hmm … yes … uh … sort of …”

“Was it pretty?”

“Oh yes.” Alexandra smiled at her youngest child, “Very.”

Axelle smiled up at her with obvious pleasure as they reached the station.

Chapter 23

The material they had dug up on Hilary in John's absence was excellent and he was immensely pleased. They had found her enrollment in night school, her job at the employment agency, and from there they had followed her to CBA. It was perfect. They had everything they needed, and as Chapman looked through the file, he realized that they had been right the first time. It
was
the right Hilary Walker he'd spoken to when he called her at CBA, and it was equally obvious she didn't want to be found. So be it, he would wait until he found Megan, and then confront her himself. For the moment, he would let her think she had lost him.

But as he thought of her, he felt that same odd tug in his heart he felt every time he read her file. He wanted to tell her that everything was all right, that people still cared about her, that she could stop running. It was terrible to think about her angry and alone, and then he realized that there might be a lot more to her current life than he knew. He ordered his assistant to begin a full-scale investigation of Hilary Walker at CBA Network. She could be married,
divorced, have six children of her own. The broken little girl he had been following from Boston to Jacksonville to New York might well be leading a happy life now. And for the most part, he hoped so. And yet, he knew that he would not feel at peace about her until he met her. It was crazy, but he was obsessed by the women in his case, their lives, and their good and bad fortunes. So much so that he called his ex-wife, and asked her to lunch, and tried to press her into explaining to him again how she felt about her characters when she was writing.

“Do you ever fall in love with them, Ellie?” He looked at her in confusion, as they sat next to the fountain at the Four Seasons. It was where all the city's publishing notables ate lunch and he knew it was her favorite place, even though he still preferred the sensual, artsy chaos of the Russian Tea Room. But Eloise was a different girl. She was tall and cool and controlled, she had masterminded a successful career and done it brilliantly, and she seemed better suited to the cool marble and discreet fountains of the Four Seasons.

“Fall in love with them? What do you mean? Are you thinking of writing a book?” She looked amused and he shook his head.

“No, I'm just working on this crazy investigation. It goes back about thirty years, and the people are so damn real to me, I can't think straight anymore. I dream about them at night … I think about them in the daytime … little girls who are practically middle-aged women now tear at my heart and I want to help them.”

“It sounds more like food poisoning than love.” She grinned, and then she reached out and patted his hand
sympathetically. She still liked him. They had lunch with each other a couple of times a year, and he had even introduced her to Sasha, but Eloise had told him bluntly on the phone the next day that she thought he could do a lot better. “You got it bad, kid. Sounds like you ought to write a book about it.”

“No one would believe the story. And besides, I can't. That's not my bag. You know that. It's just that it's driving me crazy. How can people on paper become real?”

“Somehow they do.”

“Do they finally go away?”

“Yes, when you resolve it.” She said reassuringly, eating her salad. “When I finish a book, the characters finally disappear. For good. But before that, they drive me crazy, it's like being haunted.”

“That's it!” He waved his fork at her. “That's it exactly!” He was being haunted by Hilary, and when he wasn't being tormented by Hilary, he was thinking of Alexandra. He had called her as soon as he was sure that it was Hilary at the network, and she had been jubilant. Now she was waiting for news of Megan, and John had been putting pressure on all his operatives to speed it up, because Patterson seemed to be fading. “What do I do to get rid of this thing? It's driving me crazy.”

“Finish it. Wind up the case, do whatever you have to do, and then it'll go away. That's how it works for me. Is it a tough case?” Unlike Sasha, she was always interested, but then she was always looking for new stories.

“Very. But we're two-thirds there. I just have to find one more piece of the puzzle and we've got it. It's kind
of an exotic tale, I'll tell you about it when the case is closed.”

“I could use a good story. I'm starting a new one next week. I rented a place on Long Island for the summer.” It was amazing. The woman worked like a fiend, but it was obvious that she loved it. And then she grinned at her ex-husband. Their relationship was more like brother and sister now that they were no longer married. “How's your ballerina?” She said it without venom. She wished him well. She hadn't been crazy about the girl when she met her, but she knew he was.

But he shrugged as he answered. “So-so. People involved in ballet seem to live in their own world. She doesn't have a great grasp on reality, mine anyway.”

“Worse than writers?” Eloise smiled.

“Much worse. At least you didn't complain about your feet night and day, and worry about every muscle in your body. Just breathing is a threat to them, they might do something to themselves that could keep them from dancing.”

“Sounds exhausting.” She finished her salad, took a sip of wine, and smiled at him. He was one of the nicest people she knew, and sometimes she was sorry they hadn't stayed married. She wondered if she should have tried harder but she was also smart enough to know it wasn't in her. And it wouldn't have been right for them. She needed to be alone with her work, and she had always felt he should be married and have children. “Somehow I don't see her as the final answer for you.”

“Neither do I. But it's taken me a while to see that. There aren't a hell of a lot of people out there who intrigue me. Most of them aren't too bright, or they're
not nice, or they really don't give a damn about anyone but themselves.” Without meaning to, he realized he had just described Sasha. She had been wearing thin on him ever since he'd gotten back from Paris. “What about you? Prince Charming heading toward you on the horizon?”

She shrugged with an easy smile, and waved at a publisher she knew. “I don't have time for much of that stuff. Nothing much has changed as far as that goes. It's hard to have a career and a real life.”

“But it
can
be done,” he always pointed out to her, “if you want to.”

“Maybe I don't” She was always honest with him. “Maybe I don't want more than I've got. My typewriter and my old nightgowns.”

“El, that's terrible. It's a hell of a waste.”

“No, it's not. I never really wanted all that other stuff. I would have hated having kids.”

“Why?” It seemed so wrong to him. People were meant to have children. He had wanted one for the past twenty years. It just hadn't worked out for him to have one.

“They're too demanding. Too distracting. I'd have to give too much of myself. That's why I was such a lousy wife to you. I wanted to save it all for my books. I guess that's crazy, but it makes me happy.” And he knew it did. They were both better off the way things were now. And then suddenly he laughed.

“You were always too damn honest. I was just going to tell you I met a great woman in this case.” Eloise raised an eyebrow with interest. “She just happens to be married to a French baron, and not exactly available.”

“She sounds a lot better than your ballerina.”

“She is. But she's totally wrapped up in her proper life. It's a damn shame too … she's lovely.”

“You'll find the right one, one of these days. Just stay away from the artsy ones. They make lousy wives. Take it from me. I know!” She smiled ruefully, and leaned over to kiss his cheek as they left the table.

“Don't be so hard on yourself. We were both young.”

“And you were terrific.” She stopped to say hello to her editor-in-chief, and they walked out into the sunshine together. Then John wished her luck on her new book, hailed a cab for her, and walked back to his office on East Fifty-seventh.

And there was a windfall waiting for him when he got back to the office. One of his assistants had found the Abramses in San Francisco.

“Are you serious?” He was jubilant. They had tried everything and turned up nothing. But they had finally given up looking for David, and in doing so had found Rebecca. It turned out that they had left Los Angeles in the early sixties and gone to the deep South to march with Martin Luther King and participate in sit-ins and voter registration campaigns. They had provided free legal service to blacks in Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi, and had eventually set up a full-scale legal aid office in Biloxi. And eventually from there they had gone to Atlanta. It was only in 1981 that they had finally gone back to California, but David had retired after extensive surgery, and Rebecca had joined an exclusively female practice in San Francisco, to defend women involved in feminist causes. For all their lives, they had been the classic liberals.

John's assistant had explained nothing to them. John had left strict orders that once Megan was
located he would make contact. He had his secretary make an appointment with Rebecca Abrams, and he was set to fly out the following afternoon, which was perfect. Sasha was still on tour, and there was something he had wanted to do for days. It was something he hadn't done himself in years, but he knew now that he had to do it. It was part of what he had tried to explain to Eloise at lunch … part of being haunted.

He left the office just before four o'clock and took a cab to the network. He flashed a security badge and a police pass downstairs, both of which had been hard-earned and almost impossible to come by, and the network security were satisfied and instantly let him into the inner sanctum.

He took the elevator upstairs, and waited inconspicuously in the reception area. He picked up a phone there and dialed her extension, and her secretary told him she was in a meeting.

“In her office, or upstairs?” He sounded like someone who knew and the secretary was quick to give him the information.

“She's here. She's with Mr. Baker.”

“Any idea what time she'll be through?”

“She said she's leaving at five-thirty.”

“Thanks.” Chapman hung up the house phone and the secretary had no idea who had phoned, but she assumed that it was someone who knew Hilary, obviously someone higher up at the network.

She came out at exactly five-fifteen, and John recognized her at once, even without the receptionist's good night as she sped past. “Good night, Miss Walker.” Hilary turned to glance at her sharply and then nodded, she didn't seem to notice anyone else in the waiting area, or John as he followed her to the bank of
elevators and stepped into one beside her. He almost felt weak at the sight of her, he could see every strand of the shining black hair twisted into a knot, the graceful hands, the long neck, he could even smell the crisp scent of her perfume. She walked with a sure step, a long stride, and when he bumped into her once, she looked up at him with green eyes that pierced straight to his soul, eyes that said don't touch me, don't even come near me. She got on a bus on Madison Avenue, instead of fighting for a cab, and she got out at Seventy-ninth Street. She walked two blocks farther north, and then he realized she was going to a doctor's appointment. He waited patiently outside, and then followed her again when she took a cab and went to Elaine's where she met another woman. He sat in a booth close to theirs, and was intrigued by what might be said. The other woman was a well-known anchor from the network, and she looked upset. She started to cry once, and Hilary looked unmoved. She watched her, unhappy, but not sympathetic. And then finally John remembered as the two women shook hands outside the restaurant, that the woman who was the anchor had been fired when he was in Paris. It had created an enormous stir, and she was either pleading with Hilary for her job, or telling her side of the story. Her firing had supposedly come from higher up, but maybe she thought if she could gain Hilary's ear, she might get back in. But it was obvious from the unhappy look on Hilary's face as she walked slowly downtown alone, that she couldn't help her. She stopped to glance in shop windows once or twice, and walked with a purposeful stride, yet a feminine sway to her hips, which kept him riveted as he watched her. She turned on Seventy-second Street finally and
walked all the way to the river, to an old brownstone set near a tiny park. It was a pretty place, yet everything he sensed about her told him she was lonely. She had a solitary air, and a kind of hardness and determination about her that suggested walls she had built long before and never taken down since. As he had when he read her file, he felt intensely sorry for her, and he felt sad as he walked the few blocks back to his own apartment. She lived so nearby, yet she seemed to exist in a universe of her own, a universe filled with work and little else, and yet it was not fair for him to make that judgment. Maybe she was happy after all, maybe she had a boyfriend she was deeply in love with, but everything about her present and her past suggested a solitary person with no one to love and no one who loved her. And when he walked into his apartment and turned on the light, he had an overwhelming urge to call her, to hold out a hand, to become her friend, to tell her that Alexandra still cared … all was not lost … yet … or maybe she wouldn't care. As he had explained to Eloise at lunch, he felt as though he were being haunted.