The Treasure Box (15 page)

“You're certain?”

“As certain as I can be without seeing a doctor. That's why I've been so sick in the mornings, Derrick. And so moody and depressed.” Cathleen approached him and put her arms around his waist. “We're going to have a baby, darling. A new life, created from our love. Doesn't this change everything?”

For a moment he stared at her impassively, neither moving nor speaking. Then he took one step back and slapped her across the face, twice. The second blow split open her lip and drew blood, and she fell to the floor, shaking and sobbing.

“You're worse than a fool,” he said in a menacing whisper.

“You're a bloody imbecile! And you'll not blackmail me into this imaginary life you've dreamed up for the two of us.” He wedged the toe of his boot against her throat and applied enough pressure that she began to choke.

“Derrick, please! You're hurting me.”

“I'll hurt you a good deal worse if you don't do exactly as I say.”

Cathleen closed her eyes and tried to breathe. “What—what do you want me to do?”

He glared down at her. “Angelo's expecting us for dinner. Do not embarrass me; do you understand? Make up some excuse for going away—your poor ailing mother back in England, who is dying and desperate to see her only daughter, perhaps. You can say you're leaving tomorrow for an indeterminate amount of time.

Agreed?”

She nodded as best she could under the constraint of his boot.

“Fine.” He removed his foot and stood over her with his hands on his hips. “Get up and get dressed. You can wear your new dress—the one
I
paid for. And cover up that cut. I do not want to see you again after tonight.”

“But where will I go?”

“I have no opinion on that, my
dear
. To the nunnery, to the whorehouse, back to Merrie Olde England. It's entirely up to you.”

Vita watched the screen fade to black. Her shoulders knotted painfully, and her whole body was rigid with tension. In spite of herself, she whispered into the gathering darkness: “Poor Cathleen.”

Poor Cathleen, indeed. Vita herself had wished misery upon the two of them, and she knew the girl was simply reaping the fruits of her own betrayal. She deserved whatever she got, but still Vita couldn't help but feel a little sorry for her. She could tell that Cathleen loved Derrick—at least to the degree that she was capable of loving—and hopelessly craved his love in return. And although Vita knew from experience that unrequited love could in the long run be a gift rather than a tragedy, a one-sided romance always left a wounded heart in its wake.

For Cathleen, the price would be much higher.

It was always possible, of course, that she might learn some lesson from the pain. Some remorse, perhaps, for what she had done to Rachel. A modicum of contrition, a resolution to change her ways in the future. Repentance, as religious folks called it.

Exhausted and ravenous, Vita got up from her desk and went into the kitchen. But halfway through her leftover spaghetti, she realized she had left the light on in her office and hadn't turned off the computer for the night. She finished her dinner and went back to the sunroom, intending to shut everything down and then read or watch television for an hour or so—something that would help her relax. After a week of long nights and interrupted sleep, she really needed to go to bed early.

Just as Vita reached for the power button, however, the screen flickered back to life.

Cathleen stood in the bedroom twirling in front of the mirror to admire the graceful flow of her new dress, silken and sinuous, a vibrant shade of ruby red. Her traveling bag lay open on the bed, half-filled with the meager selection of clothes and personal items she had brought with her on the crossing.

It was a real bobby dazzler, this dress, with its daring neckline and swirling hem that came just below the knee. The color set off her blonde curls magnificently. All the men at dinner had gaped at her, speechless—all except Angelo, who had immediately taken Derrick to task. “Your
signora,
she is
bellissima,
” he said, wagging a finger in Derrick's face. “You marry at once,
capisca?
Have many
bambini
. Else I think you crazy in the head for letting her get away.”

Then Angelo had kissed Cathleen on both hands and both cheeks, rambling about how beautiful she was, how elegant and luscious she looked in the divine red dress. And Derrick had smiled and nodded as if he had every intention of dragging her to the altar as soon as was humanly possible.

With a sigh Cathleen slipped the dress off and held it at arm's length. In another month it wouldn't fit anymore, but she might as well keep it. Derrick couldn't return it, and she simply could not bear the thought of him giving it to any other woman.

She folded it carefully and laid it in the bag along with the other garments that were already too snug around the middle.

Then she turned back to the mirror and smoothed her chemise over her rounded stomach and thickening waist. How could she not have known? She simply hadn't paid attention. And now she was about to be out on her own, without a husband, without work, without a place to live. And with a baby on the way.

Tears stung her eyelids. Derrick was right—she
had
been a fool. A fool to trust him, to believe his lies. A fool like thousands of other gullible women who somehow managed to convince themselves it couldn't possibly happen to them. Never mind that he had betrayed someone else. Never mind that he had left a broad swath of broken hearts and empty pocketbooks in his wake. Never mind that he sometimes struck her—after all, he only did it occasionally, and only when he was drunk or angry.

Never mind all the evidence to the contrary: this time it would be different.

Fighting back tears, Cathleen moved the bag to Derrick's side of the bed and sank down onto the coverlet. What on earth was she going to do? How would she manage?

A wave of shame rolled over her, and for the first time in months Cathleen thought longingly of England—of Mam and little Colin and yes, even of Rachel. Of the quiet village where she had grown up, the fountain splashing in the center of the green, of the rushing, laughing river that provided a sweet and peaceful background music to their life in the little cottage at the edge of the woods. She had hated that life, had left it behind without a second thought. And now she wanted it back.

She got up, went to the closet, and pulled down Rachel's Treasure Box from the overhead shelf. Cradling it in her arms, she ran her fingers over the painted blue surface of the box, tracing the outline of the east coast of America, then dragging her finger across the Atlantic to the tiny island that was her home.

Could she return? Did she have the strength, the courage, to face everyone—especially her sister—and ask to be forgiven?

From the restaurant below, she could still hear the sounds of music and laughter as Derrick celebrated his promotion with Angelo and his business partners. No doubt the illicit wine was flowing like a river, along with assorted other bootlegged libations. Prohibition might be the law of the land, but it had never seemed to affect Angelo and his
amici
much.

And finally Cathleen knew why. Tonight at dinner, Angelo announced that Derrick was, indeed, about to be promoted— from a courier to a runner. From the snatches of conversation around the table—half in English and half in Italian—she had put together a picture of what that meant. A courier shuttled messages back and forth about plans for the smuggling of illegal liquor. A runner made the deliveries. It was a position of importance, of responsibility, Angelo had said, a steppingstone to a future that held the promise of great riches. Tomorrow morning Derrick would be taken to meet the Don.

But by then Cathleen would be on a train to New York. To Hudson Pier. To a ship that would take her home. If she could come up with the fare, that is.

She nested the Treasure Box carefully into the corner of her bag, then returned to the closet and looked up at the shelf that held Derrick's second-best boots. It wasn't really stealing, she reasoned. Derrick owed her. And it was for a good cause. Passage back to England. The possibility of redemption and reconciliation. She dragged the boots down and reached inside. Her fingers closed around . . . nothing.

The money was gone.

Cathleen left the bedroom and wandered into the front parlor. Outside the double windows, she could look down into the street and see the traffic going by. Chicago never slept, it seemed—the noise and bustle and commotion never ended. What kind of paradise was this, where you never saw the stars, never heard a nightingale singing, never felt the soft loam of forest moss under your feet? Only gaslights and blaring horns and unforgiving pavement.

As she watched, three shiny black automobiles pulled up and stopped in front of the awning over the door of Benedetti's restaurant. A dozen men piled out—musicians for the party, no doubt, dressed in dark suits and carrying their instruments in cases.

Cathleen turned away from the window just as the noise began—a deafening clatter, like the backfiring of a hundred automobiles. Like a thousand sledgehammers breaking up the cobblestones. Like an endless string of firecrackers igniting to celebrate Independence Day.

Behind her, the windows exploded. Shards of glass and wood flew everywhere, and something hard and hot pierced into her flesh. She put a hand to the wound and felt the warm ooze of blood seeping through her fingers.

She dropped to the floor. Down below, in the
ristorante
, she could hear screaming and yelling and more fireworks. Then silence, followed by the screech of tires and the distant wail of sirens.

And everything went black.

15
MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN

A
full hour after the monitor had gone dark, the smoke continued to hover in a shapeless cloud over Vita Kirk's soul. In her mind she still saw shattering glass and flying splinters and blood spattering against the walls. Her ears rattled with the gunfire, the screams, the squeal of tires, the wail of a policeman's siren come too late. She even tasted the acrid sting of gunpowder on the back of her tongue and smelled the lingering odor of violence, of death.

In a stupor of astonishment, Vita shut down the computer, took a sweater from the hall tree in the entryway, and went out into the backyard.

It wasn't a yard, really, but an enclosed garden, with walls made of the same rough limestone as the blocks that formed the foundation of the little Victorian house. Three stone walls encased the perimeter of the yard and butted up against the back of the house. A single gate opened to a walkway that meanderedaround to the front but Vita kept it padlocked except when Eddy the yardman came to mow the grass.

In the far corner, near the alley, a large weeping willow draped its graceful branches over the top of the wall, and bright purple and yellow irises bloomed against the mossy stones. Along one side, fragrant white lilies of the valley crowded into a bank of bleeding hearts. In the blue-gray dimness of the garden, Vita could not see their color, but she knew.

Red
. Red like Cathleen's dancing dress. Red like the wine and blood that had mingled on the white linen tablecloths in Benedetti's restaurant.

Pushing the image from her mind, Vita settled herself in the swing, drew the sweater closer around her shoulders, and looked up into the night sky. A sliver of moon hung tangled in the upper branches of the willow, and here and there a star winked back at her. The only constellation visible from this angle was sturdy, muscular Orion, his silver sword hanging from his belt.

A fragment of a verse—or perhaps a poem, something— whispered inside Vita's head:
Those who live by the sword die by the sword.
She had seen
The Untouchables
. She knew what gangsters did. The hit was on Angelo and his associates. Cathleen was just a bystander caught in the cross fire.

Vita's mind conjured up images of the carnage in the upstairs flat. Downstairs, in the restaurant, it would have been worse. Mentally she tallied up the victims: Angelo Benedetti, who turned out to be no angel at all. Perhaps a dozen or more of Benedetti's
famiglia
—like Angelo, probably guilty of countless notorious crimes. They probably deserved to die by the sword, but at the moment Vita felt disinclined to render such a judgment. And what of Cathleen and Derrick? They, too, were guilty—of greed and deception, of theft and betrayal. Guilty of wanting too much and loving too little. But was death a just punishment for such offenses, when all of humanity labored under the same faults and frailties?

And one more. One unnamed, unformed Innocent, who had yet to experience firsthand any of life's joys or temptations. One who would now never have the chance to wrestle with the unanswerable questions of creation or delight in its simple pleasures. What had he or she done to merit a violent end to a life which had never begun? Where was the justice in that?

But just or not, the sentence had been served. They were dead. All dead.

Not so long ago Vita had thought, with the smallest twinge of self-righteousness, that given what she had done to Rachel, Cathleen Woodlea deserved whatever she got. Now Vita knew it wasn't true. No one deserved this. Not Cathleen, not Angelo and his mob buddies, not even the thoroughly despicable Derrick Knight.

Death was no answer. It solved nothing, only removed the last faint hope for the restoration of the soul.

Poor Cathleen. She had gotten what she wanted, and discovered in the end how quickly the sweet fulfillment of the heart's desires can curdle into sour disappointment. How often in life, Vita wondered, did a burden come wrapped up to look like a blessing? How often did the real blessing lie in
not
getting what you wished for?

Vita turned the idea over and over in her mind. When she was younger, what she had wanted was Gordon. A handsome husband, children, a circle of friends, a normal life. She wanted what Mary Kate had.