Valentine (22 page)

Elaine glanced at the diamond-studded Cartier watch she always wore, a gift from her daughter. Nine o’clock, she thought. New York. Who on earth . . .?

“Very well, Jenny,” she said at last. The little maid trotted dutifully over to get the extension from the cabinet in the sideboard near the table, plugged it in, and placed it next to her mistress. With a nod from Elaine, she vanished back into the house.

Elaine regarded the telephone for several seconds. Then, with a sigh, she raised the receiver to her ear.

“Hello,” she said.

She listened to the hearty male voice on the other end of the line. Then, when his words came through to her, assaulting her consciousness, she involuntarily opened her tightly clenched hand, sending the receiver crashing to the sundeck with a loud thud.

The deep blue water of the wind-whipped Pacific gradually appeared before her eyes. She looked out at the water, and at the white gulls dancing against it, searching for their own breakfast. Then, as her other senses once again became active, she heard the muffled voice of the man on the telephone.

“Hello? Hello?”

With a long, ragged sigh, Elaine reached down and
picked up the receiver. Then she took another deep, painful breath and began to speak.

Jill came out of her building at twelve-thirty, gasping at the sudden assault of freezing air. Her first, instinctive act was a quick search of the street in both directions. Neighbors coming and going, warmly bundled small children playing with a ball, tradespeople: okay. She tightened the wool scarf around her neck, buttoned the top button of her heavy wool coat, and set off in the direction of Fifth Avenue.

She had reached the comer of Sixth Avenue and Tenth Street, glancing surreptitiously around and behind her several times, before she remembered about Gwen. She’d called the unlisted number from home yesterday, but all she’d gotten was a beep that indicated a message machine. She’d left her brief message—“Hi, folks, it’s Jill. I’m thinking about taking you up on your offer. I’ll call you tomorrow morning, so somebody stay near the phone. ‘Bye.”—and hung up.

Gwen and Mike Feldman were writer friends, introduced to her at a Mystery Writers of America reception three years ago by Mary Daley, their mutual agent. She’d read the clever mystery novels they wrote together under the name G. M. Feldman, and they turned out to be fans of hers as well. She was immediately attracted to their normality and their
mutual sense of amusement at the world. Gwen was a small, friendly Earth Mother-type who had begun to despair of ever finding Mr. Right. Then her three married younger sisters had talked her into going on a Caribbean singles cruise. There she had met the big, bearded fellow writer, whose buddies had put
him
up to the trip. Now they were thinking about having children. This possibility had necessitated fresh income to supplement their modestly successful mysteries, so a few months ago they had bought a defunct summer camp on the eastern tip of Long Island and converted it into a writers’ colony. This week was their first in business, and they had asked Jill to come. She had begged off at first, but now she had changed her mind.

Looking down at the watch on her gloved hand, she realized that morning was technically over. She’d better call immediately. If she waited until she got home, she might miss them again. . . .

She walked over to the open-air phone booth on the opposite comer. Placing her bag on the little shelf below the phone, she spent several moments fishing for her wallet. I have entirely too much stuff in here, she thought, smiling at the wadded tissues and bank receipts and other odds and ends that kept coming to hand. She finally located the wallet and extracted her Calling Card. Locating her little address book
took a further thirty seconds. She found the number and placed the call.

It was answered on the second ring, and the first thing she heard was the familiar, friendly voice saying, “This better be Jill.”

“Hello, Gwen.”

“Oh, thank God! I’ve got to go into the village for supplies, but I didn’t want to miss you. What’s up?”

“Well, I’m glad you waited. I know there’s only the one phone there. Listen, do you and Mike have room for one more, or are you all booked up?”

Gwen Feldman’s laugh reverberated down the line, answering Jill’s question. “Honey, so far we only have two guests here. Barbara Benson is working on her new romance thing, and Jeff Monk is doing his new horror thing. Some grand opening, huh? We’re expecting two more in the next few days, but that still leaves eight guest cabins empty. You can have your pick.”

“Great. I’d love to see the place.”

“Oh, Mike and the local handyman—wait till you meet
him
: he’s about a thousand years old!—they’ve been hammering and moving furniture and so forth, and I’ve been busy with brooms and bed linens. Don’t ever go into the guest house business, Jill. You’ll go nuts. So, when were you thinking of coming out?”

Jill thought a moment. “Sometime in the next few days, I guess.”

“Fine. You can come today, if you want. We’re all ready. There’s a typewriter and legal pads in every cabin, but you can bring your own stuff if you want. Mike put those things for computers in every cabin, you know, those electric things. . . .”

“Surge protectors. I have a laptop: I guess I’ll bring that.”

“Great! How’s your new one coming? You’re not stuck, are you? I mean, we’ve braced ourselves to have the place full of people with writer’s block—”

“No, nothing like that. I just want to—to get out of town for a while.”

“Sure, Jill. Will Nate be with you?”

“Uh, no, he won’t. He’s getting ready for a show. His opening is in two weeks. I’m on my own. As a matter of fact—” She paused, wondering how to phrase her next request.

“What, Jill? Is something wrong? You two aren’t—”

“Oh, no. But I—I just want to get away for a while. I’m not telling anyone where I’m going. Not anyone.”

There was a pause. When Gwen spoke again, her voice was low and serious. “Jill, something is wrong, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Jill said, thinking, There’s nothing for it but to tell the truth. “Yes, something is wrong. I—I’ll tell
you all about it when I get there. Now, what I need from you are directions.”

“That’s easy. Just take the train to Cutchogue. I’ll pick you up at the station.”

“No, I’m renting a car, and I don’t know that part of Long Island.”

“Okay,” Gwen said. “It’s pretty simple, really. . . .”

Jill fished an old bank receipt and a pen from her purse. As she was uncapping the pen, there was a loud thud nearby. A car pulling out of the nearest parking space had bumped into a passing taxi. The two drivers got out of their cars and started a loud argument, only half of which was in English. She pressed the receiver to her ear, repeating all of Gwen’s words to be sure she got them right.

“Expressway to Riverhead . . . Twenty-five to Cutchogue . . . then northeast on main road to Peconic . . . Peconic Writing Colony. Okay, got it.”

“Come on out anytime, Jill. We’ll be waiting for you.”

“Great. And remember,
nobody
knows where I’m going, okay?”

“Gotcha.”

They exchanged good-byes and Jill hung up. She put the pen and the hastily scrawled directions in her purse and glanced at her watch. Five minutes to one. She grabbed the bag and turned to leave the booth, nearly colliding with the back of a large man
who stood just behind her, apparently waiting for the phone.

“Sorry,” she murmured, already hurrying away down Tenth Street. She didn’t want to be late for Dr. Philbin.

“S’okay,” the voice behind her said.

Jacob Kessler came out of his ten o’clock meeting and went back down the dull, industrial gray corridor to his office. More a cubicle than an office, he thought, removing his navy blue blazer and loosening the tie that was biting into his throat. He rubbed the painful area just below his Adam’s apple and dropped wearily into his padded leather executive chair. Eleven o’clock, he mused. It’s only eleven o’clock in the morning: why am I always so tired?

Then, as he did every morning for the past two years, he remembered.

Oh, he thought. Yeah . . .

He buzzed the secretary he shared with three other minor partners in the firm and asked her for coffee. When she brought it in and placed it by his elbow a few moments later, he smiled rather distractedly and thanked her. Then he picked up the four little sheets of telephone messages that had accumulated on his blotter while he’d been down the hall holding the hand of a nervous client who was involved in a messy corporate takeover. Not even
his
client, he
thought with mild disgust: he’d acted on behalf of a tardy senior partner, Wiseman. Idiot. Probably in some hotel room downtown with a hooker, nursing last night’s hangover.

Oh, hell, he told himself. Just get on with it. With these messages. With the next appointment. With your life.

It’s Friday, he thought, turning his head to stare out at the beautiful vista on the other side of the glass wall beside his desk. TGIF. You have a date tonight.

Another date. Another infrequent attempt to get out and meet people, meaning women. Set up by a well-meaning friend. This one’s name was Janice something. Very pretty, he’d been assured. Very nice. A divorcée who taught aerobics at the well-meaning friend’s gym. Dinner and a movie tonight. The new Woody Allen comedy.

He looked out at the sun-washed city and up at the imposing, snow-capped mountains that ringed it. Woody Allen would inevitably remind him of New York, which was good. Lovely as it was, he didn’t much care for Boulder. Especially now.

She had loved Boulder. She had loved everything about Colorado. She had particularly loved skiing.

Wincing at the sharp stab of pain the memory brought him, Jacob lowered his gaze once more to the telephone messages. Boring client . . . nice client . . . dumb client . . . New York. Who the hell was
calling from New York? He looked at the name: it meant nothing to him. Underneath it, in the secretary’s neat hand, was the phrase, “It’s about your wife.”

He stared down at the four words, slowing pushing the other messages off to the side of the desk.

Then he reached for the phone.

Jill waited several moments before trying the bell again. Nothing. She knocked on the heavy oak door, softly at first and then with greater volume. No answer. The blinds in both basement windows were closed.

She stared at the door for a moment, then checked her watch. One o’clock. One o’clock Friday: isn’t that what the doctor had said on the phone? Yes, no mistake. So, where was she . . .?

She climbed the steps to street level, then ascended the stairway to the front door of the house itself. Two buzzers, the lower one marked
PHILBIN.
She rang, waited, and rang again. Then she knocked. Nothing. The upper buzzer read
CASTAING.
The tenant on the third floor. She rang that buzzer, waited, and rang it again. Nothing there, either.

An emergency, she thought. After all, she
is
a doctor, and they always have emergencies. Even clinical psychologists—
especially
clinical psychologists. But it wasn’t like the woman to simply rush off without so
much as leaving a note on the door, or—more likely—calling her patients and canceling. Perhaps she did call, Jill mused. I didn’t check my machine this morning. There’s probably a message waiting for me at home.

Shaking her head more in wonder than exasperation, Jill went down the steps and headed for home. I’ll call her later, she thought as she went. Reschedule. . . .

When she arrived back at her apartment, she went immediately to the machine in her office. Three messages. The first was from Nate, asking what she wanted to do tonight and telling her to call him at his place. The second was Tara, calling from the studio where she was taping
Tomorrow’s Children
. With much breathless giggling, Tara was informing her that Doug Baron had called and asked for another date, and that she’d call later with all the glorious details.

Jill smiled as she listened to her friend, but her smile faded when she heard the next message.

“Jill, it’s Barney Fleck. Call me at my office the minute you hear this. I have—I have some more information for you. ‘Bye.”

It occurred to her briefly, as she picked up the receiver and dialed Barney’s number, that none of the messages had been from Dr. Philbin. Oh, well, she told herself, I’ll try calling her office again later
this afternoon. I’m sure there’s some logical explanation for the whole thing. . . .

What happened to Jillian Talbot in the following twenty-four hours made her completely forget about Dr. Philbin and the missed appointment.

Elaine Williams and Jacob Kessler had never met, had never so much as heard of each other, and yet they were now doing the exact same thing. She stood at the rail of her sundeck overlooking the Pacific, and he at the picture window of his office in Boulder, Colorado. Both of them were gazing out at majestic views, not seeing them. They were both thinking about the telephone calls they’d received earlier today, and both were remembering the pain they had recently suffered. Alone and silent, they wept.

Barney had more notes with him, this time in his own illegible handwriting. He sat across from her in her living room, just as he had yesterday. She leaned back against the cushions on the couch, listening.