Deadly Illusions (5 page)

She was stunned. “He is married. Leigh Anne almost died. In fact, she is going home tomorrow. He would never leave her, especially not now.”

Hart stared at her, clearly not accepting her every word.

Francesca did not like it. She was being sincere. She wanted to marry Calder Hart, never mind that there would be no white picket fence, never mind his reputation and his ex-lovers. The only thing she could not get past was how much courage was involved in being with such a man.

“And if he did leave her? Then what?” he asked softly.

She felt chilled. “You already know my answer.”

“Do I?” He was grim.

Francesca felt real despair. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that she loved him, but she knew that everyone whose opinion she held dear would advise her against it. And even a woman of no previous experience knew better than to tell the
city's most notorious womanizer that she was in love. Besides, her emotions were so turbulent she wasn't sure it
was
love. “Hart, you do know.” She hurried to him and took his hands in hers. “I want to be with you. I think I have been clear.”

He just looked at her and she wished that she could read his mind, but at times like this, it was impossible to know what he might be thinking. And then he spoke. “I am your second choice, Francesca, and there are times when it is crystal clear.”

And in that moment, she had a terrible premonition that he would never forgive her for wanting Rick Bragg first, for once thinking him her true love. Uneasy, she stood on tiptoe and tried to kiss him. As she feathered his unmoving mouth with hers, she said, “Please believe me. Remember, there have never been any lies between us. I will never lie to you, Calder. Not ever. It is you I want.”

He made a disparaging sound, but his arms went around her, tightening. “You want me in bed, darling. And while I do not mind, we both know neither one of us would be here like this if Leigh Anne had stayed in Europe.”

Francesca stiffened. For once she was at a loss and could not think of a good reply.

 

H
IS GAZE WAS FIXED
on the candle shining in the apartment window across the dully lit street. A single passing carriage, too fine for the ward, could not distract his eyes. He did not blink, not even once, but simply stared and stared.

He waited for a glimpse of her, moving about her flat, and he shivered, but not from the cold. He was used to damp and cold far more bitter than this. No, he shivered from excitement.

He stared unblinking at the hint of shadows moving inside the flat. And suddenly he saw her. The trembling ceased.

He was sick of them all.

Every single one, all of them whores, just like
her.

Rage filled him—rage and need.
Bloodlust.

He had made a terrible mistake and he knew it, but soon, very soon, his knife would cut, and this time, it would not be a tragic mistake, oh no. This time, the faithless bitch would die.

He smiled and his fingers twitched and then he found the hilt of the knife and he gripped it with great care. And watching her, he slowly stroked the blade.

Wednesday, April 23, 1902 9:00 a.m.

H
E HAD COME
to hate the city's most renowned hospital. Now, instead of getting out of his roadster, Rick Bragg stared at the entrance of the pavilion in which his wife was being treated, gripping the Daimler's steering wheel so tightly his fingers ached, dread forming in his chest.

The hospital took up several city blocks, from Twenty-third to Twenty-eighth Streets, from the East River to Second Avenue. The many buildings that comprised it had been erected independently of one another, so that some of the pavilions were narrow and tall, others broad, whitewashed and squat. Just to his left, there was new construction under way for the tuberculosis clinic that would open early next year. A crane was lifting huge blocks of granite, the workers in their flannel shirts shouting encouragement to the operator.

He knew he was a coward. He had been sitting in his motorcar for twenty or thirty minutes, delaying the inevitable moment of alighting from the vehicle, of entering the accident ward, of walking down the sterile corridor, of crossing the threshold of the room that contained his wife.

It was not that he did not want to see her. It was that being with her took every ounce of his strength.

But she was alive, he reminded himself, fiercely relieved. Alive, conscious, with no apparent impairment to her brain. He
didn't care that her left leg was useless, that she would never walk again. Not when weeks ago it had seemed as if she might never wake up.

The guilt crushed him.

And for one moment, it was as if one of the granite blocks being carried to the new construction site had landed on him, making it impossible to breathe.

Decisively, Bragg got out of the Daimler. He laid his gloves and goggles on the front seat. Two passing male nurses nod ded at him. He tried to recall their names and failed.

His duster over his arm, he strode up the concrete path to the Accident Pavilion and pushed through the wood-and-glass door. Nurses, both male and female, and doctors stood around the reception desk. Someone saw him and waved him on through.

Her door was open. He paused, his heart beginning to race, and as he looked inside the sterile whitewashed room with several beds, all unoccupied except for hers, he saw that she was sitting up against her pillows, flipping through
Harper's Weekly.
His heart quickened impossibly. She wore one of her own peignoirs, lavender silk and cream lace, and even crippled, she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

She realized he was standing there, staring, and she looked up, slowly putting the magazine aside.

He somehow smiled. He was perspiring now. So many emotions ran riot that he had more trouble breathing, thinking. The most dominant feelings were vast relief and crushing guilt.

“Good morning,” he heard himself say.

She carefully returned his smile. “Good morning.” Leigh Anne was a petite woman, barely five feet tall, with the face of a china doll. Her perfect features—large green eyes, tiny nose and rosebud mouth—were accentuated by a delicate ivory complexion. Her hair was thick, silken, straight and black. No
man could enter a room where she was present and not look twice and then stare.

He noticed several new flower arrangements on the window-sill.

She followed his gaze. “Rourke came last night.”

“In the middle of the week?” His half brother was attending medical school in Philadelphia.

“Apparently he has applied for a transfer to the Bellevue Medical College and he has an interview this afternoon.”

Rick nodded, unable to focus on his half brother's plans. “How are you today?” he said, pulling up a chair and sitting by her side.

She never looked directly at him anymore, it seemed. Her gaze on Rourke's yellow hothouse roses, she said, “Fine.”

He wanted to reach over and take her tiny hands in his. And in spite of all the passion they had once shared, he did not dare touch her. He was afraid that she would reject him—as she should. “You must be so pleased to be going home today.”

She seemed to smile but she did not answer, her gaze now wandering to the magazine on the bed. Idly, she pulled it closer to her hip.

Ever since the accident, it had become like this, an utter failure of communication, utter awkwardness. He was sweating now. He wanted to pull her against his chest and stroke her hair and beg her for forgiveness, but of course he did not. At least, thank God, she was coming home. “I will come by at four or five, if that suits you,” he said.

She slowly looked up, her expression very hard to read.

“The girls are terribly excited,” he added, trying to smile. But he was a policeman, and before that a lawyer, and he knew when something was wrong.

“You didn't bring them this morning,” she said softly, clearly dismayed.

Katie and Dot were two orphans who were fostering with them, and whom he intended to adopt. He had brought them to
visit Leigh Anne every day. “You will see them this afternoon,” he said, smiling with an effort.

She turned her head away.

Alarm mingled with dread.

Then, not looking at him, she said, “I'm afraid it's far too soon for me to go home.”

He started. Then, in an uncharacteristic rush, “The doctors think it would be best. I've hired two nurses to attend you round the clock. The girls are expecting you.
I
am expecting you!” he heard himself cry.

Her jaw hardened visibly and she looked him in the eye and repeated, “I'm afraid it's too soon for me to go home, Rick.”

 

“A
RE YOU CERTAIN THAT
you don't want to go inside?” Francesca asked, teasing.

She stood with Joel on Mulberry Street just outside of police headquarters. Joel was slouched with his hands in the pockets of his trousers, which had holes at both knees. He had plopped a black felt cap on his head, and he scowled at the two front doors of the station house. Roundsmen in their blue wool uniforms and leather helmets were coming and going, a police wagon was parked not far from where they stood and Bragg's Daimler was being surreptitiously watched by another patrolman. All of this was in the midst of one of the city's worst slums.

Even now, a prostitute in a very revealing robe stood in the basement doorway across the street, taunting both the policemen and the male passersby. A drunk had just urinated on a tree, and several shabbily clad children were playing hooky from school. Francesca looked up at the bright blue, cloudless sky and she smiled, happily.

Hart's image filled her mind.

Even now, she could feel his hard demanding mouth on hers.

He was back, it wasn't a dream—she was engaged to the city's most notorious bachelor and she couldn't be happier.

Never mind his foolish jealousy of the night before. It would pass—it always did.

“I'm not going inside,” Joel said flatly. To emphasize his point, he spat on the sidewalk near his boot-clad feet.

He despised the police, having been apprehended, roughed up and incarcerated more times than he would ever admit. He also despised Rick Bragg, refusing to see past the fact that he was the police commissioner. Francesca stopped smiling and tried to be stern, no easy task when her heart was singing. Tonight she and Hart were dining at the Waldorf-Astoria, alone. She could hardly wait.

“Joel, spitting is ungentlemanly and it was uncalled for.”

He sighed. “Sorry. I'll wait over there,” he said, gesturing with his head in some other direction.

“I won't be long,” she said, smiling again. She patted the cap on his head and hurried up the granite steps and into the reception room.

As always, it was filled with civilians lodging one com plaint or another, newsmen looking for a scoop, recently apprehended thugs and rowdies waiting their turn to be formally charged and locked up, and the policemen and officers handling it all. Several staff were behind the long reception counter, including Sergeant O'Malley, and she waved at him. He nodded at her and called out, “He's upstairs. Door's open, I think.”

She had become a frequent visitor at police headquarters and needed no formal permission to come and go. No one seemed to have noticed, though, that she had not been present at the station in several weeks. Turning to hurry upstairs—she never used the elevator—she bumped into a man.

It was Arthur Kurland from the
Sun,
a snoop whom she thoroughly disliked. She should have expected this, as he was always at headquarters and just as often seeking her out. He smiled at her, steadying her. “I haven't seen you at the station house in a long time, Miss Cahill. What brings you here?” He seemed delighted to see her.

She did not even try to pretend that she didn't dislike him. After all, he was privy to far too many secrets. He had uncovered her brief romantic attachment to Bragg and Francesca sensed he was waiting to reveal the fact of their past liaison when it would be the most harmful foreveryone.

“Good morning.” She was brisk. “Surely you have heard by now that a woman was found murdered yesterday and that it might be the work of the so-called Slasher?” Trying to be imperious, she raised both pale eyebrows.

“Yes, I have. I take it you are on the case?”

“I am.”

He whipped out his notepad. “Any new leads?”

“I'm afraid it is far too soon to be speaking to the press.”

“Dear God, an arctic chill has just entered the room!” He laughed and tucked the pad and pen back into the breast pocket of his jacket, then adjusted the felt fedora he always wore. “You were only too eager to spill the beans last month when you were chasing after Tim Murphy and his gang.”

She scowled. “I had hoped that leaking information to the press might aid my investigation. This investigation is in the preliminary stages. I refuse to compromise it. Good day.” She shoved past him.

He quickly caught up. “Hmm, compromise. An interesting word. So, Miss Cahill, there are some things you will
not
compromise?”

Aghast, she faced him, feeling all the color drain from her face. She had been compromised more than once when alone with Rick Bragg and this man knew it. “That was unbearably rude. What do you want from me?”

“Does your fiancé know you are here and working with the man he hates more than anyone else?”

She stiffened. How did Kurland know that? “Calder doesn't hate Rick Bragg. Calder and Rick are half brothers. They are close.” And, as she lied so baldy, she felt her cheeks turn red.

He laughed. “If you say so! But isn't it difficult, spending the day with one man—and the evening with the other?”

She could barely respond, she was so livid. “You have the social grace of an ape, Mr. Kurland.” And she stalked away.

He followed. “It's why I'm such a good reporter. Sure you don't have a lead for me? Anything?”

She halted in her tracks and whirled and he crashed into her. They leaped apart. Panting, she said, “Are you attempting to blackmail me?”

“Moi?”
He was incredulous. “Never, Miss Cahill.”

“A wise decision.” She wondered if she dared tell Hart about how dangerous this man was becoming. But then she would have to reveal the extent of her prior relationship with Bragg to him. And that would be dangerous, indeed. “Good day.” Her tone was final and she hurried up the stairs.

He stood at the bottom landing and called up, “And to answer your previous question, Miss Cahill, I haven't decided what it is that I want from you.”

She glanced down and met his cool gaze and stumbled. As she righted herself, he tipped his hat in the most disrespectful manner and walked away. Filled with unease, she stared after him.

She knew she must warn Bragg. Quickly she turned and hurried up the hall to his office. His door was ajar but not open, solid wood on the bottom, the glass opaque on the top. She knocked and it swung wide.

His desk faced the door, a window that looked out over Mulberry Street behind him. She expected to find him up to his elbows in work—his desk was always stacked high with files—but instead, she found him sitting there, staring off into space, looking impossibly sad. She froze.

This was not the time, she realized, to burden him with Arthur Kurland. But what was wrong?

He started as he realized that she was present and jumped to his feet, smiling slightly, but Francesca knew him well enough
to know the expression was forced. He was preoccupied and disturbed. And she had not mistaken the sadness in his eyes.

“Good morning,” he said, coming forward. There was a fireplace on the other side of his desk with numerous photographs on the mantel, mostly of his vast family, although several were of him with President Roosevelt or with the mayor. But there had never been a picture there of Hart, his half brother, or of Leigh Anne, his wife. Now the first thing she saw was a huge portrait of Leigh Anne in an oval silver frame. It dominated the mantel and every other photograph placed there.

She quickly tore her gaze from the photograph, managing a smile. “Good morning. I hope I am not interrupting.”

And suddenly his facade vanished. His smile gone, he took her arm, guiding her to one of the two upholstered chairs in front of his desk. “You could never be an interruption,” he said.

She did not sit. “What's wrong, Rick?”

Instantly he turned away. “Nothing.”

She didn't move, staring at his back until he sat down be hind his desk, facing her once again. He lifted a file. “Heinreich is almost certain that the same knife was used on all three victims.”

She did not want to discuss the case now. Something was terribly amiss. “Has something happened? Are the girls all right?”

“The girls are fine. The Slasher is at work, Francesca, and now the question is who will his next target be, and will he strike again on Monday?” Bragg handed the file across the desk. “I am glad you are on this case,” he added. “We don't have much time.”