Betrayals

Twenty

A little before noon, Jared entered the unprepossessing building on Congress Street where Rebecca’s studio was located. There was no building directory. He asked a scrawny, ink-covered man in a printing office for directions. “Fourth floor” was all he said, and that ungraciously. Not bothering to thank him, Jared took the creaking elevator and entertained himself by considering ways the building could be renovated, if the owner had the funds and the imagination for such a task. Even a few gallons of paint would do wonders.

The studio’s entrance looked like something out of a Humphrey Bogart movie with its windowed door, black Gothic lettering and never-used brass mail slot. Jared peered through the milky, patterned glass, but he couldn’t see much. There didn’t seem to be any lights on inside. He knocked.

No answer. He wasn’t surprised. Walking alone through the Public Garden and the streets of Back Bay had started him rehashing his conversations with Thomas and Rebecca Blackburn, trying to put pieces together. He had already known Thomas hadn’t told him everything, but he hadn’t expected the same from Rebecca. Not because she was any more forthcoming than her grandfather: being a Blackburn, she was naturally tight-lipped and outspoken, each when it suited her. The problem was, Jared hadn’t anticipated her knowing anything he didn’t already know. A stupid mistake on his part.

He fished out the set of keys he’d swiped from Rebecca’s spartan room on West Cedar Street. He had guessed that she might be off on a mission of her own, but he was determined to check out her studio for anything that could lead him to the honest, complete answers neither she nor her grandfather would give him. Maybe he’d find something, maybe not. At least he was taking some kind of action and not just sitting around twiddling his thumbs or drinking Athena’s overpowering coffee.

The third key he tried worked.

The studio was pure Rebecca Blackburn. Everything about the large, airy rooms suggested the woman who worked here was intense, exacting, high-energy and, more often than she should be, irreverent.

Nothing suggested she was anywhere near as rich as she was.

Jared flipped on the overhead lights. On a less gloomy day, there would be adequate sunlight from the huge paned industrial windows that looked out onto the street. It wasn’t much of a view. Rebecca could have afforded the best views of the Boston skyline, the Rockies, the Alps, Central Park… San Francisco Bay. Whatever she wanted. But therein lay the contradictions that made Rebecca Blackburn not only a captivating, exciting woman, but also so hard to figure. Part of her wanted to have money and surround herself with the good things money could buy, to take pride in what her creative talents, business acumen and entrepreneurial drive had earned her. Jared could see that side of her in her choice of original prints for her walls, in her state-of-the-art equipment, in her quality pens and pencils and markers and all the other tools of her trade. In one corner, she had on display her many design awards and mementos of the game that had made her rich: the game board she’d made at eighteen for Sunday nights with Sofi and her grandfather, the original handcrafted game pieces, framed copies of the first Junk Mind poster.

He started with a cursory search of her flat files and reference library, not sure what he expected to find. He was momentarily distracted when he came across photographs of her five brothers, some with wives and children, and it bothered him that he couldn’t tell who was who. He remembered the Blackburn boys as toddlers and little kids, but he didn’t know them as men. Next to their pictures was a photo of Jenny and Stephen Blackburn on their wedding day. Jared, just four, had been the ring-bearer.

The elevator creaked down the hall. Jared wasn’t worried about getting caught; he’d shut the door on his way in. But then he heard footsteps, saw R.J.’s silhouette in the translucent glass and knew there wasn’t much way around it-he was going to scare the shit out of her.

Of course, he should have remembered with whom he was dealing.

Rebecca kicked open the door and said, “I should have you arrested, Sloan.”

So much for scaring her. He eased down onto the stool at her light table and took note of the color in her cheeks, the load of papers in her arms, the way his heart started thumping when he saw her.

“How’d you know it was me?” he asked.

“Art.”

“The printer?”

“He said some good-looking guy was asking for R. J. Blackburn. The good-looking I wouldn’t know about, but you and Sofi’re the only ones who still call me R.J. You pick my lock?”

He waved her keys at her. She snatched them out of his fingers. He said, “Your bedroom looks like an eight-year-old lives there-except for the Victoria ’s Secret underwear.”

Spots of color appeared on her cheeks. “Nice of you to notice.”

“How could I not?”

“You could have stayed out of my things,” she snapped back, dropping her load of stuff onto her drawing table. “What were you looking for?”

He shrugged. R.J. had never been one for hypocrisy, and for that reason alone he’d never considered that she’d deliberately omit critical details-skirt the truth, in other words, if not out-and-out lie. Her last words to him at the hospital in Manila -and he’d always believed them-had been “Go on your way, Jared. I have nothing else to say to you.”

Like hell, sweetheart.

He said, “I was looking for what you know about our guy from Saigon that you haven’t told me.”

She turned cool, a sure sign he had her. “Like what?”

“There, you see? That’s not a direct lie, but it’s not the truth, either. You know what. You talked to him.”

“I told you that already. He was here yesterday-”

“And you said-and I quote-‘I recognized him straight off as the Frenchman who shot you in Saigon.’”

She clamped her mouth shut.

Jared was losing patience. “You want to tell me how you knew he was French?”

“From his accent,” she said, neatening up her stack of photocopied papers. “He said something that night after he shot you.”

“What did he say?”

“I don’t remember exactly.”

“There you go again. You don’t remember exactly. But I’ll bet you remember generally what he said. Rebecca, I have a right to know!”

She inhaled deeply, controlling herself. “You’re a fine one,” she said, “to be talking about someone’s rights.”

He sprang to his feet and raked both hands through his hair in frustration and guilt, but couldn’t think of a thing to say. Rebecca was on firm ground there, and she knew it.

“You’ve stayed out of Boston for fourteen years,” she said, “but as soon as you spotted the Frenchman outside your house, you flew here and went straight to my grandfather. Why?”

“You’ll have to talk to him about that, not me.” Jared studied her a moment, and he had to admit that she was as maddeningly captivating as she’d been at nineteen. His curse to notice, he supposed. “Believe it or not, R.J., I didn’t punch that guy on the motorcycle just so I could mess up your life. Thank your grandfather for me.” He sighed; obviously he wasn’t going to get anywhere with either Blackburn. And what right did he have to involve them in his problems? “I won’t be staying on West Cedar Street tonight.”

He felt her eyes on him as he headed for the door, and he wondered what words he’d put in her mouth if he could. Stay…I’ll tell you everything, Jared…I’ve thought about you a lot over the years…

Definitely time to back out of her life.

“Have you seen Grandfather yet today?” she asked.

Jared pulled open the door. “He came down a few minutes after you left and said we ought to head to San Francisco.”

Rebecca’s smile surprised him. “He didn’t recommend Budapest to you?”

In spite of himself, Jared grinned. “No-I think he must have decided San Francisco ’s more romantic.”

And he left before he started saying things he had no business saying and forgetting how mad he was at Thomas Blackburn and his rich, beautiful and totally unfathomable granddaughter.

Rebecca resisted the temptation to follow Jared only because she had work to do. Not design work; she’d already given up any illusions of drumming up clients today. A couple of hours at the Boston Public Library had netted her a biography of Empress Elisabeth that mentioned the Jupiter Stones, a couple of articles on the Côte d’ Azur robberies in 1959 that Rebecca photocopied and stuck in a file folder and stacks of information on her grandfather and his downfall. She checked out what she could and copied what she couldn’t and carted it all back to her studio to go through in privacy.

A 1963 article from Time was on top of her pile. There were pictures of Thomas Blackburn as a Harvard professor in 1938; in Saigon in 1961 with his Vietnamese friend, the popular mandarin scholar Quang Tai; in Boston in 1963 at the funeral of his only child. This last picture also showed Stephen Blackburn’s penniless young widow surrounded by their six children at his graveside. They all looked exhausted and still in the grip of grief and shock. It was a photograph Rebecca had never seen until that morning. As far as she knew, her mother had never bothered with any of the news pieces probing the tragedy. She’d certainly never mentioned them.

Steeling herself, Rebecca began to read.

The Winston & Reed Building on the Boston waterfront was one of the best of Wesley Sloan’s timeless designs. Jared was impressed. He had never seen the finished building, but found that models and photographs didn’t do it justice. His father was a hell of an architect, but that didn’t make Jared itch to join his firm and design skyscrapers himself. He was content working out of his one-man studio behind his house on Russian Hill.

Still smarting from his encounter with Rebecca, he entered the luxurious lobby and took the elevator to the thirty-ninth floor. He had no idea what he’d say to his cousin Quentin. The child that could have been yours is a great kid and I’m not going to let anything happen to her.

At least it was a start.

Being a Sloan, he got past the receptionist with no trouble and almost got past Willa Johnson, Quentin’s secretary. But her boss had just gotten in, he wasn’t having the best of days, and Jared couldn’t just walk in, cousin or not, without her checking first.

She checked. Quentin, it seemed, had no desire to see his cousin Jared.

“I’m sorry,” Willa said, as if that ended the matter.

It didn’t. Jared commented that he was sorry, too, and marched past her to Quentin’s office. He could hear her calling security, but that didn’t trouble him. Without hesitating, he pushed open the heavy walnut door.

“Call off the dogs, cousin.”

Quentin looked so pathetic Jared almost took pity on him. Then Mai’s face came to him. He could see her stubborn pout when he’d said goodbye to her in Tiberon, and he could hear her saying “Oh, Daddy” in that way she had, as if he was the biggest idiot who’d ever lived.

And Tam’s face came to him. So trusting and innocent even as it crumpled in pain and horror when the first of the assassin’s bullets struck her. And Rebecca’s face, pale with shock, defeat, betrayal.

Jared had no pity for Quentin Reed.

“Jared-” Quentin’s voice cracked under the strain of seeing his cousin for the first time since Tam’s death. In his business suit and huge, elegant office with its stunning harbor view, he looked out of place, like a little boy dressing up in his father’s clothes and playing boss. He cleared his throat and pushed back his executive’s leather chair. He didn’t get up. “Jared, it’s good to see you, but I can’t visit right now. I wish you hadn’t barged in here like this.”

Jared moved in closer, noting how awful his cousin looked. “What’s got you so scared? It can’t just be seeing me again. Has a certain white-haired man with a scar running from one end of his face to the other been to see you, as well? Come on, Quentin. Call off security and let’s talk.”

“None of this concerns you.”

“He was at my house and that concerns me.”

Quentin jumped to his feet, but didn’t seem to know what to do with himself once he was standing. He shoved his hands in his pants pockets, then pulled them out. He looked out his bank of windows, then swung back around to face Jared, as if he thought his cousin might decide to shoot him in the back.

“Talk to me, Quentin,” Jared said, holding back his anger and frustration.

Quentin drew himself up straight. “I have nothing to say to you. You were the one who walked out on your family. If you think you can just strut back in here and call the shots-well, you’re wrong.”

Jared shook his head in disbelief. “You know, for years I felt a little sorry for you. You lost a father who had faith in you and were stuck with a mother who didn’t-”

“My mother has faith in me.”

“Think what you want to think. I’m just telling you what I thought. I quit feeling sorry for you when we were in Saigon together and you used Tam.”

“I loved her!”

“Right-sure, you loved her. Then why didn’t you marry her?”

“Because of you, Jared,” Quentin said, as if that should have been obvious. He sounded pained and so sorrowful, Jared briefly wondered if he might be wrong, but he’d learned a long time ago that Quentin believed what he wanted to believe. He went on in that same pathetic tone, “You were the father of her baby. I would have come back for her, but Tam didn’t want me. She wanted you. How could I have married her when she didn’t love me?”

The arrival of two beefy security guards spared Jared having to answer. They called him sir and were very polite about it, but they didn’t take his word for it that he was leaving. With a nod from their chickenshit boss, they took him to the elevator, stuffed him inside and joined him for the ride down to the lobby. Then they escorted him outside and mentioned they’d be keeping an eye out should he decide to bother Mr. Reed again.

Jared glanced back as he crossed the plaza in front of Winston & Reed, where tulips were closed up in the gloom and pedestrians weren’t lingering today, and he saw the two beefs posted at the door.

He gave them a mock salute.

And then got out of there, fast.

Quentin fled into his private bathroom, splashed cold water on his face and shook unscented cornstarch powder into his armpits and down his back, hoping it would absorb the sweat pouring off him. First Jean-Paul Girard, now Jared. Jesus, next thing Tam’s ghost would walk into his office and point her finger at him and demand to know why he’d killed her.

You can’t think like that!

“Oh, Tam,” he sobbed, sinking his face into his hotel-weight hand towel. “Tam, Tam…whatever happened to us?”

Forcing himself at least to feign calm, he dried his face and returned to his office, informing Willa he didn’t want to be disturbed. If she didn’t feel capable of monitoring his calls and visitors, she should commence finding a replacement at once. Ever the professional, Willa didn’t bore him with excuses.

Then he dialed his mother’s Mt. Vernon Street number and held his breath until she answered. Even her hello sounded strong and ever-capable. Quentin felt tears spring to his eyes. Why did he always have to be the one to fall apart?

“Mother, it’s me,” he said, and he could hear how small and inconsequential he sounded. “I wanted to tell you…I thought you should know Jared’s back in town.”

Annette didn’t miss a beat. “How wonderful,” she said with heavy sarcasm. “So’s your blackmailer from Saigon.”

Quentin’s heart pounded; he was sure he’d faint. He couldn’t speak.

“Charming individual, isn’t he?” his mother went on. “Has he been to see you?”

“Mother-”

“Quentin, please, don’t try my patience. We both know what you did in Saigon. You were a fool and we’ve had to suffer for your mistakes. But that’s in the past. What I care about is now. We must be sensible and think about how we can resolve this situation to our advantage.”

Ever since he’d been a little boy, Annette had always been able to see through him. No wonder she despised him.

“He’s been to see you?” she repeated.

“Yes.” Why lie?

“I assumed he would, sooner or later. And Jared?”

Quentin licked his lips, but his tongue was dry. He wished he hadn’t called, wished he had the fortitude to tell his mother to go to hell and hang up. Instead he said, “He’s afraid for Mai, I think.”

“What a fool. Well, he’s not our problem.”

“Gerard-he said he wants a collection of sapphires you have.”

Annette sighed. “Yes, I know.”

“What are they?”

“It doesn’t matter. I don’t have them-”

“He insists you do.”

“He can insist whatever he likes, but he’s wrong. And at this point, Quentin, I’m afraid even if I did have them they wouldn’t be enough.”

She suddenly sounded very tired, and Quentin hated himself for taking pleasure in even this limited sign of weakness. He didn’t mind strong women. Jane was strong. Tam had been, as well, in a different way. Why did his mother’s strength bother him so much?

Finally, Annette said, “The sapphires aren’t really what Jean-Paul Gerard’s after.”

“Then what is?”

She answered, almost to herself, “I am.”