Clare had knocked the coffee cup off the table accidentally. She had not thrown it. Honestly. Which was not to say that throwing something wasn’t what she wanted to do every time she talked with her mother.
“Your father is upset.”
It was her mother’s customary salutation—except when she was calling to confirm the command performances scheduled for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. In that case it shifted to a conditional. Your father would be so upset... Both grammatical moods were frankly nonsense. Clare’s father had long ago retreated into his study and the definitive dictionary of British saints that was his life’s work, gladly leaving the management of the uncomfortable problems of both his family and his flock in the expert hands of his wife.
“Is something wrong?” Clare asked. Which she knew was about the response most calculated to irritate her mother that she could have come up with. Unfortunately, she really wanted to know the answer.
“What do you think?” her mother sighed. “Honestly, Clare. What do you hope to accomplish with all this? A memoir? Please tell me you’re not writing a memoir. You know I loathe memoirs.”
Well, actually, Clare did know her mother hated memoirs. But her mother’s statement had been strictly hortatory. Not to mention, ominously clairvoyant. Clare eyed the phone, fighting down her rising conviction that, just as her mother had ferreted out the Warden’s drinking problem, or the choirmaster’s unfortunate taste for under-aged boys, she had found out about the scene with Father Gregory and Trey Carey. But how? Was Clare seriously going to believe that Father Gregory had called her mother to report that she had acted out in class? Or the even more worrisome possibility that Clare was poised to relapse into Catharism?
“I’m sorry. Can you just slow down a little?” Clare said, heading for the kitchen to find some paper towels to mop up the spilled coffee, which she had not meant to throw. Really. “I still don’t understand what you’re talking about.”
Or maybe Clare simply didn’t want to understand. Whatever the case, her mother’s answer hit her like a body blow.
“Your records, of course. You know that as well as I do.”
And there it was—impossible as it had to be. “I don’t suppose you’re talking about my CDs?” Clare sighed.
“Honestly, Clare. I thought you would have outgrown sarcasm by now.”
“I have.” It had been more a last ditch hope. A case of denial, if you must. A frantic prayer that this whole thing couldn’t be starting again.
But, if it was, at least one thing was going to be different. This time, at least, Clare was going to be in charge of the conversation. “Mother, would you please tell me exactly what’s going on?”
Her mother drew an even deeper breath, martyring herself once again to her daughter’s petulance. “Someone has applied to have your records unsealed. Your juvenile records. As I’m sure you must be well aware. Because for the life of me, I can’t see why anyone else would want to do that but you. Not only that, but, if I understand the law correctly, no one else could have done it but you.”
Taking charge was harder than she thought—even if she hadn’t been fighting down a lifetime’s conditioning. Clare had to keep her voice from shaking, as she said, “Be reasonable. Why do you think I’d want to do something like that?”
“That is what I called to ask you. Honestly, Clare, what on earth possessed you? What can you possibly hope to accomplish by this? Getting back at your father?”
Why would she do that? Clare liked her father, if only in the same, vague disinterested way he seemed to care about her. Now if it had been an issue of getting back at her mother...
“All I can tell you is, it wasn’t me. But I promise you, I’ll look into it. Okay?” she snapped, switching off her cell phone before she could listen to her mother’s spluttered answer. And the hell with the land line that immediately began to ring in protest. And would continue to ring, incessantly, until a worn-out Clare picked up the phone and submitted to her mother’s angry bullet points on what she needed to do next. Well, not this time. Things might be spinning out of control, but she could at least control that.
The only question was how? She needed to get out of her apartment, to do something—anything—other than succumbing to the guilty impulse to pick up the ringing phone. But where could she go? Back to All Saints to confess her sins to Father Gregory?
To her surprise, the possibility wasn’t as unpalatable as she might have imagined. Advice—spiritual or otherwise—in her family, had been more a matter of a curriculum than conversations. Her spiritual path had been guided by a graded series of readers designed to occupy her quietly during her father’s sermons; sex education had been managed by a similar series of books with bracing titles such as Wonderfully Made. The one time Clare had ventured to ask her father what a mastectomy was and why it made her next door neighbor cry like that, he had launched an anxious disquisition on St. Gwen the Triple-Breasted being so gifted in order to nurse her sons, the saints Wethnoc, Iacob, and Winwaloe, and the constant danger of confusing her with other Saint Gwens, such as Saint Gwen the Fair-Bearded. It seemed impossible to think of a priest in any other terms—especially in terms of them being a source of Ward Cleaver-worthy wisdom. But that was what they were supposed to do, wasn’t it? That was why you called them ‘Father,’ right?
She considered the possibility as she packed her book bag. It seemed as impossible a fairy tale as St Gwen’s (the Triple-Breasted, not the Fair-Bearded) walking back across the English Channel to Brittany when she had been kidnapped by Anglo-Saxon pirates. And yet how was Clare ever to find out if she didn’t at least try?
She was still trying to answer that question as she took her usual detour through the park on her way to the train station. Fort Tryon Park was an elegant old aerie, whose steep cliffs overlooked the serene beauty of the Hudson River, a surprisingly suitable setting for the main reason Clare had chosen to live in this neighborhood: the Cloisters, a medieval warren of chapels and walled gardens, that gazed serenely, if unexpectedly, down on the tenements of Washington Heights and Inwood. But today Clare barely noticed the park’s spectacular vistas. She was so preoccupied that she barely even noticed when a shadow reared in front of her, blocking her way.
“Excuse me,” she murmured automatically, but as she tried to move past, he stepped in front of her, followed by several other shadows that emerged from nowhere to surround her.
“We’ve been looking for you,” one of them said.
Blinking rudely back to reality, Clare stared in bewilderment at the gang of teenagers who had suddenly surrounded her, their hoodies pulled low to hide their faces. Did she know them? She wasn’t sure. They were types, not people. Baggy pants, backwards baseball caps, sneers and too many gold chains. Coincidence then? Or Lazaritos? Both possibilities seemed—like so much else today—impossible and a logical inevitability. How could she tell? Was one of them Rafael? She didn’t know. Right now, she couldn’t even summon a mental picture of the kid.
“Look, if you want my wallet, I’ll give it to you. No problem. There’s some cash.”
The first kid smiled. “We’ll take the wallet. After we talk.”
God in heaven. This couldn’t really be happening. Not on top of everything else. She wondered what would happen is she told them the truth: that she’d already had her fill of lousy conversations today.
“Talk about what? Look, I don’t know what you think I know, but—”
Her voice trailed off as one kid flashed a knife, and Clare sighed, once again wishing she’d studied judo or karate or had even taken a single, stinking women’s self-defense course. But no, she’d been obsessed with fencing. And archery. And had been at long last able to inveigle her father into allowing one weekend’s intensive on jousting. How useful was that? She could all but hear her mother crowing, without a horse or even a lance to hand?
“Look, whatever you think the problem is, this is not going to make matters any better.”
Although how could matters get worse than being mugged over a miracle? The thought would be absurd, even on a thirteenth century pilgrimage along the Camino de Santiago.
The kid’s mouth twisted, as he flicked the knife from hand to hand. “The Church is our territory. We want you out of there.”
“That’s fine. You don’t have to threaten me.”
And truth be told, she’d be happy never to go back there. She could find another article topic. Frankly, the Lazarites had always bored her silly. She was damned if she was going to let them bore her to death—literally.
The kid smiled. It was not a very nice smile. “You right. We don’t,” he said. “We just do that part for fun.”
He flipped the knife again and took a step closer
And Clare didn’t think. Didn’t reach for her quiver and nock an arrow like Maid Marian. Didn’t assume an en garde or think about fleches or parries or even couching her lance. She hoisted her bag, heavy with several books and her computer, and swung it at the nearest kid’s face.
“Better be careful. I’ve heard librarians get tetchy when you get blood on their books.”
The words whirled, along with Clare’s vision, as a lanky figure in a shabby topcoat materialized out of nowhere, a fiddle case slung over one shoulder. Reaching out a hand to steady her almost absently, Sean turned on the kids. “You guys are slow learners, aren’t you? You really want a second round with me?”
“Get out of here,” one kid snapped. “This got nothing to do with you.” “Well, actually it does. Believe it or not, I’ve been asked to look out for you.”
“For us? By who?”
Whom, Clare thought, fear making her grammatical.
“By someone who apparently cares. But even he could get pretty tired of how dumb you’re being.”
Sean’s voice was lapsing into the same singsong as last time, but this time the kid was ready for it.
“Fuck, no. I’m not listening to you, man. Not going to let you hypnotize me again.”
“It’s not me doing it,” Sean said. “But I could tell you who is. If I thought you had the brains to listen.”
“I ain’t listening to a fucking thing you have to say.”
Sean shook his head. “Predictable,” he said. “In fact, downright inevitable. So, I’ll do my best to keep things simple. You may be a bunch of assholes, but you’re a bunch of assholes that won the lottery, if you’re not too stupid to lose your chance. Fate—or maybe something else—has just handed you one giant Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card. Not that I particularly like that fact, especially when you’re holding a knife on a friend of mine. But it’s your great good luck that I like Trey Carey even less than I like you. So here’s some free advice. Find the priest. Trust him. And whatever you do, don’t trust a damned thing Trey Carey tells you.”
And, pushing aside the knife as casually as if he were waving off a waiter, he took Clare’s arm and said, “Let’s get out of here.”
He started up the path to the museum, moving unhurriedly, seemingly not even noticing when the kids shouted angrily and sneakers squeaked after them.
“They have knives,” Clare said.
“Then we’d better not let them get close enough to use them.”
She glanced over at the museum’s heavy, wooden doors. “We could head inside.”
“If we do, they’ll follow us, and find themselves arrested,” Sean said. “Which is exactly what Trey wants.”
“Then what?”
“This way,” Sean said, as he led Clare toward the chained-off cobblestone drive that led toward the employee’s entrance. His pace never varied, as he went up the cobbled drive, toward a utility path that led around the outside of the walled gardens, skittered down a steep embankment, disturbing a feral cat in the process, then turned to help her hop down onto the path that led past a great lawn overlooking the cliffs that dropped down to the Hudson itself. As you’d expect on a balmy day in May, the grass was crowded with sunbathers and tourists, school groups eating lunches, and a man performing yoga bare-chested, while a mastiff and a miniature schnauzer humped merrily on the grass beside him. It went without saying that the schnauzer was the male.
When they reached the far end of the lawn, Sean paused and turned back, just as the first of the kids raced around the corner, blood in his eye. But Sean barely seemed to care. Instead he focused on a passing woman who was chattering on a cell phone, apparently uninterested in either the baby she pushed in a carriage that looked like it had been designed by NASA or the tiny Yorkie tip-tapping along beside her on a retractable leash.
The bare-chested man swung up into a headstand.
At the same moment, the Yorkie caught sight of the schnauzer and mastiff, and lunged to invite a threesome. The woman dropped her cell phone and reached for her baby.
“Let’s go,” Sean said, just as a thump, a grunt, and an angry curse rang out.
Moments later, a dog growled and a child began to wail.
“Hey!” a woman shouted. “You can’t shove a child like that!”
“Shit!” a kid yelled. “Get that fucking wolf away from me!”
“Someone call the police.”
Clare cast Sean a covert look, but he never varied his long, loping stride.
“Might as well keep moving,” he said. “Just in case.”
He said nothing more. Simply strode across the traffic circle at the end of the park, heading unerringly for the shelter of yet another one of the weirdly medieval monuments that popped out of nowhere in this neighborhood. Only when they were safely hidden behind the tall, stone walls, did she find herself able to speak. “So which is it?” she asked. “Do you just see things coming or can you actually cause them to happen?”
“Whichever answer is more likely to make you come along quietly,” he said with a quick grin.
“Come along where?”
“Not sure yet,” he said. “I suppose back to your apartment, but it doesn’t feel quite right.”
“What does that mean?”
“That it’s not a Magic 8 ball,” he said. His face grew distant. “At the very least, you need to make sure you’re not just leading that bunch straight there. Although the point may be moot. It seems like someone has already told them where to find you.”
“Seriously?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” he said.
When it was clear he intended to say nothing more, Clare asked, “At the risk of being pushy, are you going to tell me what’s going on here?”
He turned to look at her, his eyes sad, apologetic. “I screwed something up. Badly. I was hoping that wasn’t true, but there’s no question about it now.”
“Screwed what up?”
“Oh, come on. We’re not quibbling about our relationship here. I’m just looking for an answer.”
A startled grin flashed across his face, but he sobered immediately. “Look,” he said, “you know I would never invade your privacy, unless it was absolutely necessary ...”
Her privacy? Necessary?
“What the hell does that mean?” She shut her eyes as she realized there was only one possible answer to that question. God. Hadn’t everyone been trying to warn her? Sean saw things. No, Michael did. Michael saw things and Michael liked to look. Hadn’t everyone told her? Just as everyone had also told her that Michael Grinnell liked to play with his food.
“You bastard!” she said, her voice low with fury. “You’re the one who had my records unsealed? Why? Because I found yours? Are you giving me a taste of my own medicine? Payback?”
He went pale. “Do you really think I would do a thing like that?”
“Your reputation does precede you.”
“So it does.” Sean sounded so hurt that Clare wished she could have the hasty words back. Then his face set. “If you thought about my reputation for even one minute, you’d see how genuinely stupid that accusation is,” he said without any emotion at all. “If I wanted to know more about you than I already did, I didn’t need to unseal any records. I can just go ahead and look. If you don’t believe me, want me to demonstrate?”
He reached toward her. And suddenly Clare was as afraid of him as the kids in the park had been. “Go to hell,” she choked, snatching away her hand. “Go to hell and just leave me alone.”
“Clare, I’m sorry. You know I would never—”
Christ. Clare didn’t know what she knew any more, beyond the fact that she had been about to trust a man everyone had warned her was a psychopath. She didn’t have to be her mother to see how stupid that was.
“Please, wait! It’s not safe.”
His voice rang after her as she plunged out through the shrine’s heavy iron gate, heading blindly back home, back to the damned telephone that she knew was still ringing, back to the dressing down she knew she didn’t deserve. Anything to get away from him.
Her eyes brimmed with a teenager’s tears at the unfairness of it all, clouding her eyes as well as her judgment, so that when she finally reached her apartment, she didn’t even notice the delivery man with the long, old-fashioned box of roses standing in the lobby, until a hand closed over her arm, and Sean said very quietly, “Please stop now.”
“Why should I?”
Sean nodded toward the delivery man. “Him.”
Her eyes widened in disbelief as she took in the florist’s box. “Peace offering?” she snorted. “That’s pretty prescient even by your standards.”
“They’re not from me,” he said. “And I’m willing to wager they’re not roses.”
Something in his voice made her glance at him sharply. “What then?” “I’m guessing he’s a process server, and there’s a subpoena inside that box.” “You’re guessing? Or you know?”
He shrugged and glanced at box as if it might explode. “Apologies for being direct, but we’re a little short on time, and I’m very short on diplomacy under the best of circumstances. So instead of worrying about exactly how I got to my conclusions, can you just allow me to lay out the situation for you? It stands to reason that Trey Carey would subpoena you.”
“Why? What have I done?”
“You don’t have to have done anything. You can just be subpoenaed to provide a witness statement or even evidence. But once you’re giving a formal statement, it opens you up to obstruction of justice charges if you lie. Or even just contradict yourself. And those kind of threats are a prosecutor’s weapon of choice.”
And Clare had only to think of the Victim’s Advocate and her relentless grilling to know Sean was telling the truth. How many times had Clare changed her story then? Stumbled over a detail? And that was with someone who insisted she was on Clare’s side, not someone who’d already warned her she didn’t want him as an enemy.
“Still, there’s some good news,” Sean said. “A subpoena has to be served personally. So if you can just manage to stay out of this guy’s way for a couple of days...”
“How can I do that? He’s at my house.”
“That’s why I think we need to get out of here. Go someplace where no one would think to look for you.”
He spoke with the casual aplomb of a man for whom this was an everyday occurrence. But what kind of man would that be? What could possibly lead a man to spend his entire life on the run?
The delivery man rang a bell; it might have been hers. Sean cocked his head. “Come with me or deal with Trey,” he said, as neutrally as if he were describing a chess opening. “It’s your choice.”
And he just took off walking toward the train station without a backward glance. She hesitated, glaring after him. What an impossible man! But the memory of Trey’s quick prosecutorial questions were worse. “So where are we heading?” she sighed, as she hurried after him.
“I was thinking the Waldorf.” The words floated back over his shoulder, stopping her in her tracks.
“You really are insane, aren’t you?”
“Not in the least. We’ll hole up for tonight, maybe until the weekend— however long it takes for Father Gregory to talk some sense into those kids. Live off room service. Play video games. I can teach you to fiddle, if you’d like. The worst anyone can assume is that it’s a passionate tryst. Which may mean people will wonder about your taste in men afterwards, but at least you won’t be facing obstruction of justice charges.”
And just like anything about Sean, it made complete sense and no sense at all.
“Sounds like a great plan,” she sighed. “Except for one small fact: I have approximately forty dollars in my wallet, and as a professor, my credit card is going to be woefully inadequate for a vacation at the Waldorf. I’m guessing you have less. So how exactly are you planning to for our little idyll? Are you going to set up shop on a street corner and fiddle for the rest?”
He turned back to her, and she was startled to see he was smiling for real—eyes twinkling, full lips curved to reveal a row of white teeth, the tiniest dimple in his cheek. The whole shebang. Her heart did a little somersault despite herself.
“Oh, there’re a lot easier ways of getting money than that,” he said.