Betrayals

Thirty-Three

Rebecca couldn’t stop moving. Her grandfather had twice insisted she sit down because she was driving him crazy, but he himself had trouble standing still. They were in the parlor, trying to figure out where Mai Sloan could have gone. Jared had called from the airport with the news her plane had landed safely and she was on the loose somewhere in Boston. Was she headed to Winston & Reed? Quentin’s condominium on Boylston Street? The Winston house on Mt. Vernon? West Cedar? Even Rebecca’s studio was a possibility.

Rebecca notified security at the Winston & Reed building and called the watchman at her building on Congress Street, describing Mai as best she could. She left her grandfather’s number with both.

Jared was on his way to Quentin’s condominium on the Public Garden.

There was no answer at Annette Reed’s house.

“I can’t stand this,” Rebecca said. “I’m going over to Mt. Vernon and have a look. Will you be okay here? You look exhausted.”

Her grandfather gave her a pointed look. “I should say I got more sleep last night than you did.”

She felt her face redden, but she really had no idea if he knew about her and Jared or was just making a good guess. “I’m not eighty,” she told him.

“Neither am I.”

“Grandfather-”

“Ah,” he said, peeking through the front window, “my cab’s here.”

“Your cab? Where are you going?”

He ignored her question. “Find Mai and sit on her until Jared gets back. I’ve something I need to do.”

“What?”

“I’m not used to having anyone worry about me anymore. Don’t you start.”

He headed into the entry, Rebecca on his heels. He paid no attention to her. Looking grimly determined, he got his old umbrella out of the coat closet.

“What aren’t you telling me?” Rebecca asked him.

He sighed. “Isn’t being cracked in the head by Jean-Paul Gerard enough to convince you there are dangers involved here?”

“You know Gerard isn’t going to kill me. He just wants me out of the way-maybe for my own protection, who knows? The same with Mai. He’s not going to hurt her. He had his chance in Saigon and saved her life instead.”

Thomas added a rain hat that looked as if it had seen a few too many tropical storms. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Acting on impulse, Rebecca grabbed his arm, even as she stifled a surge of panic. “Grandfather, please.”

A kind of pain crossed his face. “Rebecca, please.” He pried her fingers loose and held them tightly against his chest, reminding her of the powerful man he’d been in his younger years. “I know your brain is in overdrive as you try to put all these pieces together, but understand this-I will not have you hurt. This is my affair-my responsibility. It’s something I should have dealt with thirty years ago.”

“I was involved then. I was the one who found the Jupiter Stones in the first place.”

“You were four years old.”

“Mai wasn’t a day old when that assassin tried to kill her, so age has damned little to do with it. If you’re involved, you’re involved. Let me help you-”

“Move aside, Rebecca,” he said, not ungently, “before you discover how much strength your old grandfather has left.”

She relented, and he let go of her hand. “Wherever you’re going-do you need the Jupiter Stones?”

“At this point I doubt they’ll make any difference.”

Rebecca’s eyes narrowed. “You know something, don’t you?”

Out on West Cedar, the cab’s horn honked impatiently.

“My dear, I have a doctorate in Asian history.” He smiled mischievously, his eyes suddenly dancing. “I know a great deal.”

His smile and teasing only accentuated how much Rebecca didn’t want anything to happen to him-how much she couldn’t bear to lose him. Don’t go away from me, she thought. Please, Grandfather, not yet.

Biting her lip, she followed him out to the front steps. It was drizzling and chilly, and she thought of Mai wandering alone in the dank city.

“But do you know,” Rebecca said to her grandfather, “that Annette Reed and not Jean-Paul Gerard was Le Chat?”

She’d intended her statement to rock her grandfather to his very core-to make him stop and tell her what was going on, what the phone call earlier had been about, why he’d called a cab, where he was headed-but he merely frowned up at her from the bottom of the steps.

He said, “That kind of idle speculation will land you in court for slander.”

She crossed her arms under her breasts and leaned against the doorjamb. “Not if it’s true.”

“Do you have any proof?”

“No-”

“Then it’d come to a choice between the word of a Blackburn and the word of a Winston. Two hundred years ago a Blackburn would have won. But today?” He tucked his old umbrella under one arm. “Ponder that while I’m off.”

Rebecca had no intention of pondering anything. “It makes sense, you know. Annette had the Jupiter Stones in her possession in 1959. If Jean-Paul Gerard was going to spend the next three decades trying to get them back, why’d he give them to her in the first place?”

“I’m not listening-”

“Why do they mean so much to him? You were at Baroness Majlath’s funeral. Any guesses?”

He refused to answer. His back to her, he walked out to the street.

Rebecca just talked louder. “Jean-Paul hasn’t just been after the stones for the past thirty years. He wants revenge, too. If he was Le Chat, Annette only did what he might have expected her to do, so vengeance wouldn’t really be a factor. But if she framed him and wrecked his life for something he didn’t even do, he’d carry that grudge for a long time.”

Thomas swung around abruptly, his face red, and pointed the end of his closed umbrella at her. “That’s enough, Rebecca. I suggest you learn to practice a little discretion.”

The cab driver had rolled down his window. “Lady, buster-you want to talk or you want to get moving?”

“Do you mind if I go about my business?” Thomas asked his granddaughter quietly.

“You don’t need my permission. So go ahead. Do what you have to do.”

He gave her a mock bow. “Thank you.”

“But Grandfather-am I right?”

If he heard her, he pretended not to, and Rebecca kicked the open door in frustration, adding another scuff and crack for the neighbors to complain about. But as she went back inside, she turned in time to see her grandfather blow her a kiss. She blew him one back, fighting sudden tears. He was an old snob and a man of secrets and riddles, and she loved him with all her heart.

“Where to?” the cab driver asked.

“Marblehead Neck. I’ll give you more specific directions when we get there.”

“You know it’s going to cost you-”

“Yes,” Thomas interrupted wearily, “I know.”

He settled back against the ragged seat and prayed he was doing the right thing. Acceding to Annette’s wishes, abandoning the search for Mai Sloan, not telling Rebecca where he was headed.

Aah, he thought, choices.

“You okay back there?” the driver asked.

Thomas nodded, exhausted. Rebecca had been right about that. He supposed he must look terrible. When a person reached the rather advanced age of seventy-nine, people tended to think he or she was going to expire any moment, without warning. Thomas wouldn’t mind going that way-but not today, thank you. Not before he’d had a chance to finish things with Annette.

Until this week he hadn’t really known she’d been behind Tam’s death. He had always had that glimmer of doubt that Quentin, secure in his new high-level job at Winston & Reed and ever-afraid of his mother, might actually have put out the word that he didn’t want his ex-lover coming into the country. But knowing Annette as he did, Thomas realized she was the more likely suspect.

Either way, Mai Sloan would have been in serious danger if Jared had stayed in Boston and pushed for answers. He had chosen to take her to San Francisco. Legally, she was his daughter. Thomas supported that decision. He continued to believe it had been the right one.

But Quentin…

Thomas, as much as anyone, knew how persuasive and charming and awe-inspiring Annette could be.

I should have whisked Quentin from her years ago and raised him myself-or tried to undermine her influence and get him to see his own strengths, get him to defy her.

He hadn’t, of course. And Quentin had proved incapable of doing anything but worshiping his mother and believing every nasty thing she said about him, her own son.

“Oh, Annette,” Thomas said to himself, so tired he could scarcely breathe, “whatever happened to you?”

The driver eyed him worriedly in the rearview mirror. Thomas smiled back, and they drove on.