That Touch of Ink (13 page)

TWENTY

My knees, the good one and the bad one, went weak, and I reached behind me for something to sit on. My hand connected with a small stool on wheels and I dropped into it.

“The brakes stopped working?”

She wiped the tears from her eyes. “I don’t know how else to describe it. I wasn’t going fast. I saw the red light well before I got to the intersection, even from behind the truck. I stepped on the brakes and nothing happened. I stepped again and again, and the last thing I saw was the back of the truck coming at me.” She started crying again. “I don’t remember getting here. I don’t remember being operated on. I don’t remember anything.”

I pressed the call button on her nightstand and a nurse showed up and pushed me out of the way. “Please go back to the waiting room.”

I stumbled out of the room and back to the men. I was too stunned to speak, afraid that whatever came out of my mouth wouldn’t make sense. Ned rushed past me to the doctor, who led him into Connie’s room.

“I want to go home. Take me home, Brad. Please.”

“What happened in there?” he asked.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You have to talk about it, Madison. I don’t know what’s going on, but you can’t shut down. First you’re gone when I wake up, then you’re two hours late to a party, and now your friend is in the hospital and you’re acting like it’s you, not her. You have to tell me what’s going on.”

“Just get me out of here now. We’ll talk when we get to my apartment.”

I clutched Rocky to my chest on the ride home, staring out the window at the trees whizzing by. Brad parked in the back in my space, expertly backing into it in one attempt. The three of us walked to the door.

I slowly ascended the stairs and entered my apartment. I looked at the yellow walls, the daisy curtains, the newly exposed hardwood floors and back at Brad. We were always talking about how well he knew me. It was time for me to find out a little more about him.

“Sit down, Brad, we need to talk.”

“Maddy—”

“I’ll get us a drink.” I went to the kitchen and fixed a small pitcher of martinis. I carried it, along with two glasses, to the living room. Brad sat on the sofa and Rocky was in front of him, growling.

“Rocky, go to your bed,” I commanded. He looked at me, and I repeated myself. He dropped his head and tail and padded into the bedroom. I handed Brad a glass and lowered myself into a chair opposite the sofa. Brad poured the drinks and handed me one. I stared at the olive, speared by a plastic red sword, resting in the bottom of the glass, like it was a crystal ball that would give me answers. I knew the answers would have to come from Brad instead.

“This thing between us, you being here, back in my life, it’s overwhelming.”

I don’t know how I expected him to react. I hadn’t said that the brakes of my car were tampered with or that it could just as easily have been me driving, but judging by the way his face went white, he got the picture. I was glad. I didn’t want to spell it out.

“Baby, it doesn’t have to feel that way. I keep trying to tell you that I’m here for you, like I wish I had been all along.”

“I hear you, and I want to believe you, but everything started happening when you sent me that five thousand dollar bill. I have questions. I need answers.”

“Ask me anything, Mads.”

I looked at his face. He was the picture of openness, of honesty. He leaned forward, watching me. Inviting me to confront the questions I’d been wrestling with since I found out the truth about his lie.

“Tell me about the night you recorded the message to me.”

Brad leaned forward and held his head in his hands. His fingers buried deep in his hair. When he looked up, I noticed dark circles under his eyes. I didn’t know how I’d missed them earlier.

“A couple of men came to Pierot’s studio one night. They bought a pair of Eames lounge chairs. The originals. Remember them? They were beautiful. Rosewood, mint condition. Mr. Pierot was out of the country—Paris, I think—and he left me in charge. You were out with some friends so I stayed late remerchandising the store, rotating the inventory. I’d always wanted to change things up, but Mr. Pierot had very specific ideas. Why that night, I don’t know. I had free time and extra energy. I knew if business picked up he’d be okay with whatever I did, so I took a chance.”

“Which friends?”

“A couple of women from the decorator’s guild. You left early that day. I’ll never forget that. We spent the morning on the four poster bed in the back room, but that day you said you couldn’t stay with me. You had plans—I think
Lover Come Back
was playing at a theater in New York and a bunch of you took the train.”

“I remember that day too.” I thought back for a brief moment to those unwanted memories of my time in Pennsylvania. There had been spontaneity to my life then. A movie plays in a different state, and I rally some friends and hop a train to go see it in on the big screen.

“These two men came in to the store and looked around. They saw the Eames chairs I was bringing up front and made an offer. Cash. Fifteen grand.”

“You didn’t think it was strange that they gave you cash?”

“It happened every now and then. Remember how Mr. Pierot said cash customers were some of the most loyal? When someone walks in with that amount of cash they have a reason for not using a credit card. It wasn’t the most common thing, but I thought maybe these were some of his regular clients. I didn’t want to screw up the sale while he was out of town.”

“When did you realize something was wrong?”

“We finished the transaction, and I locked the money in the safe. The banks weren’t open for a couple of days. I figured it would be fine. Only, it wasn’t. When I went to deposit the money, I found out it was counterfeit. I’d given away fifteen thousand dollars of merchandise because I was too stupid to look closely at the phony bills.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“What was I going to say? That I’d made a fifteen thousand dollar mistake because I was bent on impressing Mr. Pierot? No. I had an address for the men, where they wanted the chairs and ottomans to be delivered. I didn’t know what I was getting into, so I took Mr. Pierot’s pistol, the one he kept in the case in the office, and went to see them.”

“Brad, that’s crazy.”

“Madison, I created a problem. I wanted to solve it. Anyway, when I knocked on the door, two guys asked me inside. They’d been expecting me.”

“Do you know who they were?”

“Philip Shayne and Grant Bonneville.”

I sucked in my breath but hoped Brad didn’t notice.

“What happened?”

“The money was a test. They wanted to see if I could tell the money was fake and how I’d react. They wrote me a cashier’s check for the furniture and made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

He went silent. I waited a couple of seconds for him to continue. Rocky carried his stuffed panther into the living room and dropped it by my feet. I reached down for the stuffed animal and tossed it into the hallway.

“That’s not good enough, Brad.”

He looked up at me. “They said if I helped them with their operation, they’d let me live. I started working for them the next week.”

I leaned back in my chair. Rocky ran back to me with the Beanie Baby in his mouth. I pulled it from him and tossed it again. He ran after it, and I turned back to face Brad.

“That was in summer. That was six months before we went skiing in the Poconos.”

He nodded.

“You were trying to get out, weren’t you? You lied to me to keep me out of it.”

He nodded again.

“How do you know it’s over?” I asked suddenly. He looked confused. “You act like you’re sure it’s over. How can you be? How can I be—how can you be—sure?”

He stood up from the sofa and came over to my chair, kneeling on the floor in front of me.

“Come on, Mads, don’t you remember that first night together in the back of Pierot’s? You fell asleep in my arms. When you woke up, we opened that bottle of Perrier Jouet Mr. Pierot was saving for a special occasion. It was three thirty in the morning, and you walked to the window wrapped only in a sheet.”

I turned my face away from him. I wouldn’t let him pull at my heartstrings.

“You looked luminous, with your skin glowing like alabaster. You held a radiance that I wanted so desperately to believe I had something to do with. That’s the night you told me you had a price: five thousand dollars. You said you couldn’t argue with a denomination with your name on it.”

Brad’s hands were on my knee, and his voice was pleading. He wanted me to acknowledge that I remembered that night, but I couldn’t.

From the moment he lied to me and let me ski away from him, down the black diamond slope at the Poconos ski resort, snap my knee the first time and end up in the first of a string of hospital rooms, I had done my best to block out all evidence that Brad Turlington existed. I’d done such a good job that his return had stunned me into emotional amnesia. It was time to rely on that shock, to keep me calm, keep me strong.

“Brad, you say it’s over, but it’s not. Grant Bonneville is here in Dallas. He’s going by a different name, but it’s him. He came to my studio and posed as a client.”

“What about Philip Shayne?”

“He was found dead a few nights ago.”

“That means Bonneville found a new partner.”

“Brad, if you’re involved in something illegal you need to go to the police. I’ll give them the bill. You tell them what you know. They’ll find these guys.”

I stood up and reached for my phone. “I have friends on the force. They’ll help you.”

He chuckled. “Your friends aren’t my friends, Maddy.”

“They can be.”

“I don’t think so. Your cop friend tried to scare me away. Said something about not playing games with you, even though nothing could be further from my mind.”

I got angry. Tex hadn’t said anything about warning Brad.

“I can’t believe Lt. Allen said that to you. When did this conversation take place?”

“Her name wasn’t Allen, it was Nast. Officer Nast.”

I froze. Nasty had been the one to warn Brad about me? I hadn’t expected that of her. It didn’t sit well, but I didn’t want Brad to know that.

My body tensed up and immediately I fought to relax so he wouldn’t notice.

Days ago, I thought the five thousand dollar bill was at the center of everything. Now I didn’t know what I thought, except that the five thousand dollar bill had been in the rent drop off box in my apartment building, where I’d put it the day it arrived. It was about a week past the date that rent was due. That box was probably overflowing, and someone might start to get curious about the Night Company and whether or not they were taking care of business. I had to do something about that envelope. Slowly, I stepped away from Brad.

“It’s been a long day. Why don’t you take a shower first? We can talk about this in the morning.”

As soon as I heard the shower running, I left the apartment and headed to the rent drop off box. I stopped two feet shy of the lobby.

The drop off box was unlocked and the checks—and the original five thousand dollar bill—were missing.

TWENTY-ONE

Mrs. Young was next to the rent drop off box on her cell phone. “One of my neighbors said I should call you about it. Are you sure the landlord won’t mind?” she said.

She tossed a grocery store circular into the recycling bin and said, “Yes, I can hold.” Her hand hovered over the receiver and she mouthed “Does the Night Company usually leave the box unlocked?” She nodded at the wall.

“Not usually.” I reached up and flipped the brass lid shut.

“You don’t think something happened, do you?”

“Like what?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe the mysterious Night Company met with some foul play.” Her eyes grew wide, and she smiled. “I have a bit of a dark side. Read too many mysteries, I imagine. Probably just a mistake.”

“Probably.” I hesitated a moment, flipping through the keys on my key ring. “Are you talking to Hudson?” I asked.

“I’m holding for Hudson,” she said to me. “Yes? I’m still here,” she said into the phone.

“May I talk to him?”

“Now it’s your turn to hold on,” she said into the phone and held it toward me.

“Hudson, it’s Madison.”

“Hey, lady,” he said.

“Hi,” I said. My hands were shaking, and I could hear the waver in my voice.

“You okay?” he asked.

I forced a smile at Mrs. Young, “I’m—it’s been a long night.” I turned my back on my new tenant and looked out the front door. There were no signs of life on the street. “Hudson, I’m the one who told Mrs. Young to call you. I don’t think the Night Company will mind, do you?”

“I think it’ll be fine.” The low, singsong gravelly sound of his voice sent a tremor down my spine. “Listen, Madison, I need to talk to you. Can you come by tomorrow? In the afternoon?”

“I’ll try.”

“Good. See you then.” he said.

“See you tomorrow, Hudson,” I said and handed the phone back to Mrs. Young. I said good night and was halfway down the hallway when she called out to me.

“Have you ever met anyone from the Night Company?”

I turned back around. “When I first moved in, yes. We did a walk through. Didn’t you?”

She shook her head.

“Then I guess my referral did some good.” I smiled.

“You really don’t think it’s odd that Hudson has keys to the apartments?”

“No, I don’t.”

“I guess I’m not so used to trusting people. I’m in a new city, in a new building, and I find out a stranger has the key.” She scratched the back of her hand. “But you seem to trust him, and he’s obviously sweet on you.”

“Mrs. Young!”

“Two years with that man coming to your apartment and neither one of you has made a move?”

“That’s just the way Hudson is.” I turned away from her and continued down the hallway.

“Does he know how you feel about him?” Mrs. Young asked, trailing me through the hallway.

I stopped again and turned around. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Suit yourself. But if he doesn’t know, let’s hope you do a better job tomorrow than you did tonight, or I’ll never get my range hood.”

She continued past me to her apartment but stopped by her front door and fussed with her keys. 

“Good night, Mrs. Young,” I said, and hurried back to the apartment.

The shower was still running when I came back. I went to the bedroom and saw a camouflage duffle bag that had tipped over and partially spilled onto the carpet. I recognized it as Brad’s. I bent down to set it upright, bumping into the dresser in the process. I reached down to the pile of clothes on the floor and used my hand to corral the spilled wardrobe back into the bag. My hand connected with something solid.

I readjusted my position to take the stress off my knee, and patted my hands over the pile of clothes. My hand landed on a cube-like object wrapped in a white Philadelphia Phillies T-shirt. I grabbed the hem of the T-shirt and peeked inside the folded cotton. It was the wooden box that Brad’s Rolex Watch had come in.

I pulled the box from the T-shirt and ran my fingertips over the highly polished wood grain. I flipped the box upside down and read the inscription.
Only time will tell. Love, Madison
. The words, originally intended as a sweet message that hinted at our future, carried a very different message now. I flipped the box back over and started to rewrap it in the T-shirt, but it wasn’t properly closed. I flipped the lid up and stared inside. It wasn’t empty, but it didn’t hold a watch.

Inside was a small, black pistol.