“Small world,” said Holly.
“Beacon Hill is indeed a small world.” Catherine stood and went to the windows. “Such a darling puppy! I’ve always loved dogs. I think a pet will do wonders for Olivia.” Catherine glanced at her watch. “Goodness, look at the time! Shall I order us some lunch?”
After gorging on Chinese food, Holly was alone on the terrace learning about her new phone when a call came in on the old one.
“You’re a hard person to get hold of,” Dan Vogel said.
“What do you mean?”
“I called last night and
this morning but got voicemail every time.
“Oh. I was up in Portsmouth, busy with…stuff.”
“Big doings up in Portsmouth this weekend. Too bad about the South End girl. I was hoping we’d get all the kidnap victims back alive.”
“Yes.” Holly sighed.
If he only knew…
“So what’s on your mind, Dan?”
“Actually, I want to take you on a gondola ride.”
“Me? Why?”
“Long story that boils down to this: I bought raffle tickets from my kid sister and I won. Wait—I’ll read the write-up.” There was a pause while Holly heard Dan fiddling with papers. “Okay. It says, ‘Catered picnic at the Esplanade, followed by romantic, sunset Venetian gondola cruise on the Charles. Indulge in the Boston and Cambridge skyline, sipping champagne as your gondolier gently rows his craft and you’re serenaded by one of our musicians.”
“Sounds intriguing,” Holly said, “but again, why me?”
“Well, I could take my sister, but that’d be too weird. If I took a friend, I’d spend the next six months at work listening to people urging me to come out, except I’m not gay, so they’d get really mad when I didn’t.”
Holly smiled. “Surely, you know other women.”
“I do, but they’re all BPD. Office romance is against regulations. So….”
“So you’re stuck with me.”
“I know I’m going about this all wrong. I should have asked in a better way, been more polite. Just consider it a favor,” Dan said. “I’ve never tried the gondolas, always wanted to. Be fun, I think, and you’ll get a great view of the big city. The picnic is from some fine dining place, and I do owe you a dinner, and—”
“All right, all right! I’m sold. When?”
“Tonight,” he muttered.
“
Tonight?!
”
“Like I said, I tried calling you yesterday. I didn’t know before then. My sister had the tickets in her backpack for a week. Completely spaced them until I asked about the raffle. Kids!” Dan huffed. “Oh, and I almost forgot another reason: I met your Israeli friend, Zarah, Ariel Kelly’s aunt. She’s essentially doing her own investigation. Turned up a lead on a guy who bought gelato—”
“Knit cap!” Holly said. So much happened since Friday, she’d nearly forgotten the man skulking around Beacon Hill. “What did Zarah learn?”
“Tell you tonight. I’ll pick you up at 4:30 so we’ll have time for the picnic. Cruise starts at 5:30 since sunset’s around 6:00.”
“You’re on,” Holly agreed. “And Dan—thanks.”
“My pleasure. See you soon.”
Day 9—Sunday afternoon
“Karina…” Stealth growled. He glared at the phone in his hand, and then hurled it toward a basement wall. As it smashed, he felt a sense of relief.
Hey! Brandon cried. I had a game saved on that phone!
“Get over it.” Stealth focused on his computer keyboard. Dust. There was dust between the keys. He pulled a can of compressed air and the mini-vac from his desk drawer. “Bitch,” he muttered.
Is that any way to talk about your sister? Brandon asked, his mock-frown turning to a grin.
“
Our
sister,” Stealth corrected. Spraying air into the crevices, he caught the rising dust motes with the vacuum. “You’re not supposed to be here. This is Stealth’s lab. Private. No one else allowed.”
Brandon pouted. Karina isn’t my sister. Not anymore. She doesn’t care about me.
“It’s been eleven years since you died,” Stealth reminded his twin. “She’s moved on.”
You haven’t, Brandon countered, and the Momster hasn’t. She’s glad I’m still around.
Stealth nodded. The Momster knew it was Brandon who took care of her.
You should go see her once in a while, Brandon said, the Momster, I mean. She’s bored.
“Oh, yeah? She sure found a way to entertain herself while we were in Portsmouth.” Stealth slapped down the cleaning tools. “Made Karina come over and sit with her until just before we got home. She had to feed and wash the Momster. Tore us a new one for that.”
‘Bout time your dear sister put in some time around here. Did you tell her the van was being fixed?
“Of course,” Stealth snarled. “Made things worse.” His voice rose to falsetto, imitating Karina. ‘Honestly, Brent! You have no sense of responsibility. What made you take the van out of town? What if Mom had an emergency? She wouldn’t fit in an ordinary ambulance. If you want to visit Dad up in Maine, take the train.’”
Brandon laughed. Think the conductor would make us buy an extra ticket for the girl’s body?
“Not funny!” Stealth snapped.
It is! What would we do at the station? Hike to our family’s abandoned shack in Portsmouth with a bodybag slung over one shoulder?
“Get out!” Stealth screamed. “Get out of the lab. You’re disgusting.”
Brandon crossed his arms. Not yet. The Momster told me Karina wants you to keep your lab unlocked, and she wants the elevator repaired so it’ll reach the fifth floor. People looking to buy our house need to see it all.
Stealth leaned on his fist. “If Karina would wait a while, give us time to finish the project, everything would be fine. We’d have money to buy her off. There just isn’t enough time.”
Want to know why Karina’s in such big-ass hurry to sell this house?
“Yes!”
Promise you’ll take us out to buy a new phone today, and I’ll tell you.
Stealth chewed his lip while he looked up phone stores on his computer. “Nearest one is on Newbury. That’s…that’s…”
About a hundred thousand parking meters away—and you’ll count them all. You’re such a dork.
“
You
should talk. You can’t pass by anyone with a school emblem. Have to stand there gawking, don’t you?”
That’s different. I’m thinking about our Stealthie collection, how to make it better.
“Like hell you are.” Stealth snorted. “You just like looking at the girls.”
And you don’t. Your loss.
“Go away,” Stealth said without real hope his twin would leave. When Brandon had an idea, there was no stopping him. “You never let up. You keep pushing and pushing until—”
I get what I want. Brandon smiled. Karina’s the same. She wants a new place to live. Got her eye on a brownstone right by the school. The Momster said she’d buy it for Karina but her money’s tied up in this place.
“How do you know all this?”
I listen when they talk on the phone. I learn things.
“Does the Momster want to leave here?” Stealth hadn’t considered her wishes.
Brandon shrugged. Karina tells her she’ll die if she keeps getting fatter, but the Momster doesn’t want to stop eating. At a rehab place, they’d make her diet. I think she’d rather stay.
“How much money does Karina want? If we get it for her, maybe she’ll leave us alone.”
Three, four million.
Stealth shrugged. “Easier to raise than the twelve mil this house costs.”
We could sell our Stealthie collection.
“No!” Stealth shook his head. “The girl’s not worth much, and the boy stays. I need him.”
Sure, you do. He’s just so special….
“Shut up. There has to be another way.”
You know the answer—more Stealthies. Brandon paused. We should talk to Karina to see if she’ll deal. When we visit her, let me take over. You’re hopeless with words.
“She’ll know it isn’t Stealth.”
Okay. I’ll just give you prompts. Let’s see her before we get the phone. I want one with a cool case—a skeleton or a lightning bolt or a superhero or…
The walk to Karina’s condo on Commonwealth took longer than Stealth expected. He didn’t count parking meters; he counted posters. Nearly every building had one, and it worried him that some of the 8 ½” x 11” sheets were in upper-floor windows, easy to miss. Parked cars and ones passing by had posters taped against side or back windows, too. Stealth found himself stopping every few minutes to make sure he got the count right.
For once, Brandon didn’t rag on him to move faster. Brandon was interested in the posters, particularly when a girl with a Sidley emblem on her shirt stood handing them out at an entrance to the Common.
Take one, Brandon said, but Stealth stepped back. The girl might touch him. Don’t be a wuss, Brandon jeered, so Stealth reached a gloved hand carefully toward the paper, snatching it out of the girl’s grasp. On the path at a safe distance from everyone, Stealth studied the paper. It showed a back view of a man’s shoulders and head, his right arm extended. Wearing a leather jacket and helmet, the figure could have been anyone, but there was no mistaking the two faces set in circles just beyond the reaching hand. Kyle and Ariel, their names under their images, looked happy—happier than Stealth had ever seen them look.
The poster’s headline read:
Be a Hero! Find them! Bring them back!
Below the headline were details of a concert to raise reward money for “information leading to our friends’ safe return.” The band Tripl Thret would play. A sticker read: In Memoriam. Natalie Porcini. Next came a somber picture, dates, and a prayer.
Stealth pulled his cap farther down his forehead.
They found her?
Yesterday. It’s all over the news.
Never watch TV. You know that.
With a sinking sensation in his stomach, Stealth walked on, wondering if the banners stretched across subway entrances counted as posters until he heard Brandon say in a thin voice, Stealth?
He stopped.
I want to be a hero like that guy on the poster—leather jacket, motorcycle. Cool. People would remember me. I wouldn’t be just a kid who died. Maybe that’s what I need before I go.
You’re not going anywhere,
Stealth said firmly.
If Karina sells the house and there’s no place where I ever lived, no place with a memory of me, I’ll fade away, disappear. I want to do something important before I go.
Won’t happen. Stop talking crazy.
Stealth was so agitated he nearly missed a poster, nearly forgot where he was going, but he collected himself enough to locate Karina’s address on a massive, stone building. Going up wide marble stairs, he passed under an iron awning to reach the front doors. The lobby had a call box.
He found a button next to the name Tinsley. Stealth hesitated before pressing it. Lots of people touched these things, but he had on his gloves. It was all right. He pushed the button.
Karina’s voice answered, “Yes?”
Stealth so rarely used the other name it took a moment to say, “It’s Brent.”
“Brent? Oh my god! What’s happened?”
“Nothing. Just visiting.”
“Really?” There was a long pause. “Well, come on up. Eighth floor.”
When he stepped off the elevator, he saw his sister in a nearby doorway. “Brent! This is such a surprise. Is everything all right?” Karina reached up to hug him. When he shrank away, she said, “Sorry. I forgot. Come in. You’ve never been here before, have you?”
He followed her into a room with a table and chairs. “It’s not much,” Karina said. “This is the entry and dining room. Kitchen, living room, two bedrooms and bath—that’s it.”
Stealth nodded. He didn’t care about her condo.
Karina did. She headed for the living room, rambling about moldings and French doors and access to a shared rooftop garden. She sat on a damask couch. Stealth perched on a stiff chair across from her.
“This place can’t hold a candle to our house, can it?” Karina said, wrinkling her nose. “Do you remember how the house was before the tragedy, when we had parties all the time, when the best people flocked to our home? It was
the
social center.”
Stealth squinted, his thoughts returning to drawing and dining rooms filled with bodies, the whole second floor a writhing snake stuffed with fresh kill. The belly of the snake was the library. Guests crammed in there, eyeing the carved woodwork, the fireplace, the wall of windows. “Just like Versailles,” he heard again and again, each speaker thinking his idea was original. Then Stealth would feel a touch on his back—his mother or father prodding him to greet someone. He’d stammer meaningless sounds, his eyes searching for Brandon to rescue him. Brandon would step in and say something witty. Guests laughed and then passed on to the butlery bar. Finally free, the twins escaped to their secret place on the fifth floor where Brandon mimicked guests until the glutted party snake was gone.
“Well, you were young, so you probably don’t remember like I do,” Karina went on. “I had tons of friends, and we had parties of our own—on the roof! You don’t know about those,” she said slyly, “but they were fabulous. I’d plan a slumber party for the girls, and then we’d let the boys know when it was. We girls would sneak out to the roof to…well, party. The boys challenged each other to climb our house and join us.” Karina sighed. “I miss those times. I had social position.”
As Karina droned on about parties, Stealth’s mind mulled over equations. He jolted to attention when Karina said, “I know why you’re here, and I’m glad we can talk about this face to face. I was too harsh on the phone, but really, what’s going on at the house… It’s just….” She wagged her head slowly, side to side. “I don’t know how you cope, even with a nurse’s aide during the week.
“Selling the house
must
be done, Brent. After Brandon died, and Mom and Dad started fighting about pulling you out of Sidley…after Dad left, everything went to hell. It’s gotten worse over the years. Mom’s a terrible mess. You’re alone too much. I…I need a fresh start when my divorce is final.”
Karina leaned forward. “I’ve found a great penthouse right by school. You should see it. I’ll have a place to be proud of, to entertain friends in style. And, well, I’m seeing someone pretty seriously. I might marry again. He doesn’t have enough for a home in the Back Bay.”