Keepsake (12 page)

Were the police examining this possibility? Armand had mentioned during their dinner that he had spent several hours answering
questions from the authorities this morning. Was he a suspect?

They were all suspects.

Particularly in a case like this one, where large sums of money were at stake, everyone close to the deceased was bound to
be considered a suspect.

She began to explore.

Kate woke up suddenly. The room was dark, and for a moment she had no idea where she was. Everything seemed alien and strange.

She reached for her favorite stuffed dog to cuddle but her hands came up empty. She pushed herself up, confused. She could
see that she was in a bedroom and that the furniture was looming all around her as if it had a life of its own.

Then she remembered. Gran’s house. She’d run away— again. Another fight with Daddy. Seemed like all she did these days was
get into arguments with Daddy.

So here she was at Gran’s, just like a million times before, except Gran was dead, and—

If she’s dead, how come there are noises coming from her bedroom?

Her heart started slogging as Kate realized that it must have been the noises that had awakened her so suddenly. Someone was
in the apartment. They were moving around in there.

The killer, she thought. He’d come here to go through Gran’s stuff. Maybe he wasn’t a hired professional. Maybe he was someone
she’d known, someone who
could be linked to him. Maybe he was searching for crucial evidence that needed to be destroyed.

If so, he’d search this room as well.

And if he was searching, there would be no place to hide.

Kate crept from the bed, straightening the comforter as well as she could in the dark. She did not dare turn on a light.

She peered around. Not the closet—he’d look in there for sure. Behind the curtains? No, they were too thin; she’d show. Sneaking
out of the apartment somehow was probably the wisest course, but what if he came out into the hall just as she entered it?

She padded over to the door, which she had left open halfway, and touched it. Her fingers were slick with sweat. To her surprise,
she saw that the lights down the hall in the living room were on. Whoever the killer was, he wasn’t being very discreet.

What if it was somebody from the family? Wasn’t that what the cops always said on TV—that most murderers were known to their
victims? Jeez, maybe one of her own relatives was a coldblooded killer. Maybe Daddy had done it.

Great, she thought. It was one thing to hate your father because you were confused and unhappy and full of what the adults
loftily called hormones, but it was something else to wonder if he might actually be a murderer. Daddy and Gran were always
arguing about something. Well, as always, Daddy didn’t have much to say that wasn’t sarcastic and cold. Gran had done most
of the arguing. It had been one of the things Kate had always liked about Gran— she actually talked. You might not always
agree with everything she had to say, but at least you knew what she felt about everything. With Daddy it was harder to tell.

A door closed and Kate heard the sounds of footsteps coming toward her. Too late to escape! There was nothing to do but hide
behind the door and hope for a chance to slip out while the killer was right here in the room…

She pressed herself flat against the wall, trying to fight an illogical desire to step forward and give herself up to whatever
fate awaited her. It would be less humiliating than to be caught cowering here. I wish I were braver, she thought. If I were
the heroine of a novel, I’d be doing something clever instead of hiding behind the door!

The door to her bedroom swung inward, sheltering her behind it. Heels clicked on the hardwood floor. High heels, she realized.
The killer was a woman!

She must have touched the switch because the room was flooded by light from the fixture overhead. And then she did what they
never did on TV—she turned around and closed the door.

The woman gasped and Kate yelped as she propelled herself away from the wall like a swimmer pushing off from the end of the
pool. She lowered her head and butted the woman smack in the middle of her body, knocking her backwards. Kate ended up sprawled
on top of her, scrambling to get back up and run away.

But before she could do so, the woman grabbed her.

“Let me go!” Kate screamed, and started digging in with her claws. She must have bitten them down, though, because they didn’t
seem to be doing any good at all. This lady was strong. Kate was astonished at the power of her grip as she rolled her over,
stuck her knee into Kate’s crotch, and jammed her down on her back just like one of those bullies in a gang or something.

Looking up from where she was pinned to the floor, Kate blinked in disbelief. Her captor was soft-looking and
pretty. She had auburn hair, and it was that thick blunt texture that Kate had always longed for. Blue eyes. Fat lips like
the models in those putrid lipstick ads. She was wearing this frilly lace blouse and a short skirt and jewelry and stockings.
She didn’t look like a coldblooded killer.

“You’re just a kid,” the woman said.

“Fuck you,” said Kate.

“A foul-mouthed kid,” the woman amended. “Who are you?”

“I belong here,” Kate cried. “Who are you?”

The woman considered. Kate thought she could detect some curiosity in those soft blue eyes. “Are you a member of the family?”

“This is my grandmother’s place so I guess I’ve got every right to be here.” Kate seized on a possibility: “I suppose you’re
here to try to sell it or something. Like, before she’s even cold in her grave.”

“Your grandmother?”

There was a pause while the woman looked her over. She seemed doubtful now, and Kate took advantage of the moment by beginning
to squirm again. The woman tightened her grip. Not a real estate agent, then, thought Kate. Real estate agents were wimps.

Coldly, the woman said, “Rina de Sevigny has no grandchildren.”

“Uh, stepgrandmother, actually,” Kate amended. “We weren’t actually related.”

The weird look in those blue eyes cleared. “In that case, you must be Christian de Sevigny’s daughter? I’d heard that he had
one. But—” she paused “—you weren’t at the funeral, were you?”

Deep inside her, something clenched as all the tension Kate had been suffering threatened to give way and burst out of her.
“I wanted to be there,” she said in a shaky
voice. “More than anything. But he wouldn’t let me go. He’s like, ‘It’ll be better if you don’t go.’ And I’m, like, ‘But I
want to go.’ And he doesn’t care because he’s, like, ‘You’ll have to trust me because I’m your father and I know more about
these things than you do.’ Which is total bullshit. He doesn’t know anything. He doesn’t know me.”

Kate couldn’t believe she was actually spouting this garbage, and to some stranger, as well, some stranger who was sitting
on her, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself.

“He tells me he went to his mother’s funeral when he was a kid and that it was horrible and he got scared because they made
him kiss her dead body or something and that he’d never gotten over it. But I don’t see what that has to do with anything.
I’m not him. I had a right to go to my own grandmother’s funeral! He’s an asshole. I hate him.”

Somewhere in the course of this narrative, the woman had taken most of her weight off Kate. She realized she could sit up
if she wanted to. She wasn’t sure if she did want to. She was so tired, and she felt like she was going to cry any second.
That would be so humiliating!

But the strange woman’s eyes were kind now, and her face alert and sympathetic, and Kate couldn’t seem to stem the tide of
words that were flowing out of her. “We always fight,” she went on. “We had a fight tonight and I ran away. I always used
to come here if things got too bad and Gran used to listen to me. She was good that way. She didn’t treat me like a stupid
kid. He always treats me like some kind of retard or something. He’s, like, ‘You can’t do that because you’re too young,’
and I’m like, ‘Stop treating me like a child,’ and he’s like, ‘As long as you’re under eighteen and under my roof you’ll do
as I say,’ and I’m like, ‘Fuck you, Daddy, I hate you’ only I don’t say that out loud because he’d probably beat me or something
and then I’d get mad and call the cops and have him arrested for child abuse.”

“Whew,” the woman said. She was kneeling on the floor beside Kate. She was holding both of Kate’s hands in hers. “This may
sound crazy,” she said, “but I understand exactly how you feel.”

“I don’t even know why I’m telling you this,” Kate said miserably. “I don’t even know who you are or what you’re doing in
my grandmother’s apartment in the middle of the night.”

“I’m here because I was having dinner with your grandfather this evening and he gave me the key. My name is April Harrington.”

This didn’t help much.

“Hasn’t anybody told you about me?” April Harrington asked.

“Nobody ever tells me anything.”

“Me neither,” the woman said with a sigh. She rolled over and got up slowly from the floor. She was graceful in the way that
Kate hated. Once again she was tempted to bolt, but once again her curiosity was too strong.

“Rina de Sevigny was my mother. She sent me to boarding school when I was about your age so she could marry Armand. They went
to live in Paris. I stayed in this country, in Connecticut, in a school run by nuns. I hated it. Used to run away all the
time. When they found me, they’d thrash me. That ever, happen to you?”

Kate shook her head, her eyes wide. “People are always threatening to thrash me but nobody ever does. I didn’t mean that about
Daddy. He yells but he never hits. First he yells and then he makes me go to the therapist.”

“How do you like your therapist?”

“He sucks.”

April Harrington nodded as if hearing that a therapist sucked was routine. Kate decided she liked her. “I sorta did hear about
you,” she admitted. “If you’re the one who
claims to be Gran’s daughter. They didn’t tell me your name. But the whole family’s talking about you, that’s for sure.”

“I can imagine.”

“What I heard was, you murdered Gran,” Kate said. “Like you didn’t actually shoot her, but you hired the guy who did.”

“Yes, I’ve heard that one, too.” She smiled and pushed one long lock of hair behind her left ear. “I run a mystery bookstore
so people seem to think that makes me an expert on murder.”

“What’s a mystery bookstore?” said Kate. “You mean it’s all full of mystery novels?”

April Harrington nodded.

“I love mystery novels,” Kate said.

“Me, too, but a book’s a book. This is real. There are people who really think I’m a murderer.” She shook her head. “It’s
horrible.”

“Why would you kill your own mother?” Kate asked.

The pretty woman shook her head. She looked away, focusing on something across the room. Shit, thought Kate. She knew that
look. It was the never-mind-I’ve-already-said-too-much look. She hated that look.

“I don’t mean you did,” said Kate. “I was just wondering why anybody would.”

“Well, I suppose one reason might be that when I was your age, she never had time for me. I hated her for that. Just like
you say you hate your father. More, probably.”

Kate nodded, wondering if she’d hated her mother enough to want revenge after all these years. Enough to kill. She couldn’t
imagine hating anybody that much.

“Also, I’ve inherited her business,” April Harrington went on. “I didn’t want it; it’s not even something I’ve ever been interested
in—this New Agey self-help sort of
stuff—but it’s apparently worth millions and any time an inheritance is worth millions, you have a motive for murder.”

“Only if you know you’re going to get the millions,” said Kate. “Did you know?”

April smiled and shook her head. “You’re a smart kid,” she said. “No, I didn’t know. I’d had no contact with her—or with anybody
who knew her or her business affairs—for many years. But so far I haven’t managed to convince the police of that. I think
your grandfather believes me, but so far he’s the only one.”

Kate studied her face. There was something about her… she didn’t know exactly what it was, but it was a strong feeling. She
liked her. It was probably a stupid way to feel. It was the murderers you liked that were the truly dangerous ones. They were
the ones who slipped under your defenses and slit your throat when you least expected it. It was dangerous to like somebody
before you even knew them.

“I believe you,” she heard herself say.

April Harrington smiled and gave her a warm, tight hug.

It was late before April left the apartment that had been used by her mother. Kate had shown her around, telling her anecdotes
about Rina’s life, and her own, as they moved from room to room. April had learned that Kate loved to write, and dreamed of
being a novelist. And that she also loved drawing and painting, and that one of her favorite things to do on a rainy day was
hang out in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and study—“really get into the pictures, you know?”

Somewhere in the course of all this April had realized
that she was beginning to care about the twelve-year-old girl who reminded her very much of herself at the same age.

Kate, like April, was an only child. She had lost one of her parents, and she clearly had a conflict-ridden relationship with
the parent who was left. She was bright and imaginative and poised on the brink of life. So full of potential that could so
easily be squandered.

Rina had apparently tried to give to Kate what she had failed to give to her own daughter.

Now she was gone, failing, as usual, to be there when she was needed.

But this girl, April decided, was not going to be abandoned. Nothing horrible was going to happen to her.

Maybe it wasn’t the best reason in the world for making a complete change in her life.

Maybe it wasn’t even the real reason.

But something had changed in her even before Rina’s death… something that had enabled her to journey to Anaheim in the first
place, to enter that seminar room, and to stand up and confront her mother.