Winner Take All (24 page)

“There’s been a change of heart. Definitely.”

“Then your apology is accepted. Give me three minutes to free up my afternoon and put on something more in taste to the occasion.”

“I’d rather you come downstairs.”

“Nonsense. Three minutes. Suite four two six.”

When Kirsten hung up the phone and started for the rear elevators, the detective rose from his chair, picked up his briefcase, and fell in behind her. Several other people crowded into the cage with them. The detective did not say a word.

The fourth-floor doors opened to reveal Erin’s manager with his angry gaze peering at her through electric blue spectacles. “I have had to cancel an interview with the
Daily Telegraph
!”

The detective slipped by her and started down the corridor away from them.

Reiner Klatz stepped into the elevator, still venting fumes. “Do you have any idea how long it took to set that up?” He wagged a finger at her as the doors closed. “You are bad for my business!”

She waited until the elevator doors closed to reply, “I hope so.”

The detective returned, treading with catlike grace. “Room?”

“Four two six.”

“To your right. Make sure she comes outside.”

She watched him disappear around the next corner, then started down the hall. The suite had one of the old-style brass doorbells she had to pull. An instant later the door opened to reveal Erin dressed in heels and a floor-length silk dressing gown of periwinkle blue. “You are just as beautiful in the morning as you are at night.” She pushed the door wide. “But those clothes are far too stern.”

Kirsten took a step away. “I’m not certain I want to do this.”

“But of course, darling. That’s what makes you so positively irresistible.” She used one hand to sweep back her hair. “Now come in and have a glass of champagne, then you can struggle as hard as you like.”

“No, really.” One step more and she was touching the opposite wall. She risked a single glance down the hall, was dismayed to find it utterly empty. “I shouldn’t.”

“Oh, this is absurd.” Erin checked the hall in both directions, then stepped out far enough to grab her arm. “You know precisely what it is you want.”

“If only.” Kirsten wrenched her arm free, reached into her shoulder bag, and stuffed the papers into Erin’s outstretched hand. “You have now been served.”

Erin stared down at the mass of pages. “What is this?”

“A court order. You are hereby ordered to appear in Wake County District Court and relinquish the child Celeste Steadman to Judge Rachel Sears.”

In the space of two frantic heartbeats, Erin Brandt aged a decade. “You tricked me.”

“Yes.”

A movement out of the corner of her eye whipped Erin about. Kirsten was amazed to find the detective standing in the middle of the hallway, the briefcase by his feet.

Erin’s head spun back, her hair a cinnamon wash over her face. “This is your bodyguard?”

“I don’t want any trouble.”

“Trouble?”
The laugh was as wild as the look in Erin’s eyes. She flashed an operatic gesture down the hall. “You think this muscle-bound beast can save you?”

“I am doing this for the child.”

“What an utterly provincial and wretched little sentiment!” She was shrieking now, the force of her voice striking Kirsten like claws. “
Nothing
can save you, do you hear what I’m saying?”

Without seeming to move at all, the detective was now between them. Erin struck at him with her fists. “
Get away from me!
”

She might as well have beat against a stone wall. The detective suggested calmly, “Perhaps we should be going, miss.”

“Yes.”

Erin reached for Kirsten, but was blocked by the detective. “That’s right! Run while you still can!”

Kirsten edged down the side wall, unwilling to turn her back on such wrath. “Run back to that stinking hole of a town! You think I can’t reach you there? You think you’re
safe?
”

Erin did not seek to move around the detective so much as to use him as a prop. She flayed at the air between them, then took the court order and shredded it. “You pitiful little creature, you’re
nothing
. You’ve spent your life running from anything that might even
resemble
pleasure! You’re a worm in human form, and you’re soon to be squashed. I’ll see to that
personally
!”

The detective kept his arms outstretched and gently nudged Erin back toward the door. She jerked her head toward the ceiling, spilled her hair back over her shoulders, then spun about and marched into her suite. The door slammed.

The detective hefted his briefcase and offered, “I’d say that went rather well, wouldn’t you?”

T
HE
S
CHWANENSPIEGEL
was a place out of time. Flanked by a trio of five-lane city thoroughfares in the heart of Düsseldorf rested an eighteenth-century marvel. Beyond the walking paths ringing the twin lakes and their thick veil of summertime trees, the city flew at its furious pace. German drivers drilled their Mercedes and Porsches and Audis toward the Kö, while to the south rose the mammoth Rhein Knee Bridge and the even more awesome satellite tower with its revolving restaurant atop the hundred-and-forty-meter-high needle. But here it was possible to turn one’s back on the rumbling traffic and the city’s pressures, and almost believe in the myth of historic tranquillity. The old Landtag, or state parliament, anchored the park’s far end, flanked by Venetian bridges and monitored by hundreds of swans. It was the perfect place for a diva to live. Even on the days when Reiner detested Erin Brandt the most, he could not fault her choice of residence.

Lining the lakes were twenty-one precise little houses, whose inhabitants liked to pretend they were utterly untouched by any contemporary offal. This one street was the single segment of all central Düsseldorf which had been completely unscathed by the British bombers. The houses were fabulously expensive. Erin’s house was one of only five that had never been chopped into apartments or office warrens. She probably had no idea how much it cost, or what it was worth today. Reiner knew because he had bought and paid for it. Erin Brandt had enormous difficulty paying for her own coffee. She took the act of bringing out her credit card as an affront. Just as Erin didn’t
drive, even though she owned a Mercedes SL 500 which Reiner was required to keep pristine. Erin Brandt felt she deserved a palace on the Schwanenspiegel. And whatever she wanted, she received. That was one of the unshakable axioms of Erin Brandt’s world.

Which made the current state of affairs all the more baffling.

Even before Reiner fitted his key in the antique oak front door with its carvings of vines and figs, even before he rang the bell, he heard. As he entered, the sound of an infant’s mewling filled the marble-tiled foyer. The baby’s whimperings were everywhere. The stabbing little sounds endangered what was already going to be a massively difficult day.

Reiner shut the door overloud and called out, “Erin?”

“In here, darling.”

He slid open the double doors and entered her parlor with its two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar antique Steinway. “Where is Goscha?”

Erin lifted her hand from stroking the young man’s neck and waved toward the floor overhead. Goscha was her Polish housekeeper, and had been with Erin for as long as Reiner had known her, which that morning seemed like several lifetimes and counting. “Why are you so late?”

“Your investigators were delayed with their reports.”

“Do they have something?”

Reiner merely waited.

Erin uncoiled from the Parisian fainting couch which occupied the central position beneath the front bay windows. She drew the young man up with a caress to his cheek. The lad was quite handsome in a raw and unfinished manner. He was also utterly bewitched by Erin. “You do understand, don’t you, darling. I’d love to spend the entire day in your delicious company, but all the pressures I face just now.”

She endured his lingering kisses of farewell. To Reiner’s trained eye, the young man was not long for this parlor. Reiner never bothered to even ask their names unless they lasted more than a week. Which, since Erin’s return from the dreaded Swampville, had happened with less and less frequency. Erin had always shown a voracious appetite toward virtually every pleasure. But since her return to Düsseldorf, her cravings had been alarming.

The situation in London was a perfect case in point.

“Well?”

Reiner seated himself on the polished piano bench. “She has decided to follow you.”

“Kirsten?” Erin swiveled around to face the bay windows. The lakes shimmered in uncommonly strong July sunshine. Even the swans looked smug this morning. “She is here?”

“She is on her way.” Reiner pointed out to where the city loomed beyond the lakes’ fringes. “Your minions reported that she has booked herself into that ghastly hotel by the Kö.”

As if to punctuate his news, the baby began squalling in earnest. He demanded, “What is the matter with that child?”

Erin responded as she normally did, which was to pretend the baby did not exist. “Does she know where I am?”

“One can only assume so.”

“What about my trip to New York? Does she know about that too?”

“Erin, you cannot possibly be serious about traveling to America. Not now. Not with all—”

“Answer my question!”

Her screech was so loud it momentarily silenced even the child. Then the baby began screaming back. Erin pounced up and marched to the doors, sliding them back so hard they hammered the side walls and accordioned back toward her. “
Goscha!
”

The Polish woman was not even Reiner’s age, yet appeared closer in years to his mother. In many respects she reminded Reiner of his wife, a silent specter who was far more comfortable with life’s back rooms. Goscha padded down the stairs, her silver-blond hair bundled into the tight knot she always wore, her limp sweater and housedress some color that always seemed scarcely able to pull itself from drabbest gray. Like her voice. “Madame?”

“That screaming must stop!”

“I fear she has a cold.”

“Then call the doctor! Take her to the hospital! Whip her until she understands! Do whatever you must! But
make her stop!
”

Goscha’s one unfailing habit was absolute obedience. Her means of avoiding life’s confrontations was to anticipate Erin’s every need and serve them in advance. It was rare even to hear her speak, much less speak
back
. But this morning, Reiner was drawn to his feet by the impossible happening. The woman showed such fury it drew her features back into a slit-eyed snarl. Even Erin was forced to retreat toward the study’s safety.

Goscha lashed out, “Celeste is a
baby
. A
beautiful
child.”

Erin drew the doors shut against Goscha’s glare. She then declared, “Something must be done.”

Reiner studied her face, and realized the impossible was happening. Erin Brandt was afraid. Which only strengthened his plea. “You can’t go to New York. You heard the attorney’s warning. There is every likelihood that you will be ordered to appear in the Raleigh court. If they learn that you are traveling to America, they can issue an arrest warrant.”

She did not even seem to hear. She stood frozen to the spot, seeing nothing.

Reiner found himself thinking back to their earliest days together. He had been managing a few other sopranos, good voices and fair actresses, but none of whom would ever make the world’s top ranks. That evening Erin had been singing a lesser role in
Turandot
in Vienna, where the oldest of his ladies had the lead. To have
any
role at Erin’s age at the Vienna house was a coup, and he went as much to see what the fuss was about as to attend his own star’s performance.

Before the performance he found himself listening to the conversation around him. Which was something he never did. But tonight every voice he heard was about Erin Brandt. They were not here to see a new production by perhaps the finest opera company in the world. They were here to see
her
.

Reiner Klatz found himself completely spellbound. Erin sang the role of Liù, a slave girl from another country, and should have merely polished the star’s luster. Erin’s voice was exactly what Reiner would have predicted—underdeveloped and somewhat thin, the standard weaknesses of every young soprano. Yet every time Erin entered the stage, the audience waited breathlessly for her next note. In the last act, the diva broke with stage instructions and marched angrily to the stage’s far corner. Still everyone’s eyes remained focused upon the real star. And when Liù died and Erin was carried offstage, the night dimmed somewhat and the performance turned pallid.

The next day Reiner made an appointment to meet this astonishing young woman. He was thrilled to discover that her allure in person was even stronger than upon the stage. She entranced him such that, when this too young singer with almost no record asked him to manage her career, Reiner Klatz had felt
honored
. Only his wife remained
untouched by Erin Brandt’s spell. His wife was not a person to have many opinions about anything, which was one of the reasons why she made such an excellent wardrobe mistress. She did exactly what was expected of her, and never revealed an opinion contrary to the artistic director’s. But she despised Erin Brandt. The worst argument Reiner could recall ever having with his wife had been over his decision to take Erin on.

Reiner now watched as Erin crossed to the small locked corner cabinet. This in itself was astonishing. The first time he had seen the cabinet had been the day he had arrived with her contract. She had been residing in a tiny walk-up flat on the outskirts of Cologne. Reiner had spotted a photograph within the cabinet and asked about the stolid, formal, utterly Germanic family staring coldly at the camera. Erin had responded with cold viciousness, ordering him never to ask about her past. Why she even kept this locked cabinet, he did not know. But it had followed her from that cramped apartment to Koblenz where she had her first standing contract, then Brussels, then Munich, and finally here. Always locked, never mentioned. Yet here she was, extracting a key from a mock Fabergé egg and opening the cabinet.