Dark Rhapsody Page 6

  “I am lonely, also,” he told her honestly. “Since my father died last year, I no longer have any family left. Other than you.”

  “Loss changes you,” she said quietly. “In so many unexpected ways. My husband and parents are no longer in my life. My son and his family are in San Diego, visiting his wife’s parents. My closest friends, and my godson, are in Boston and France. I miss them all. But we go on. I’ve found closure for Johnny’s death—at least as much as is possible. Music is my anchor now.”

  “We all need an anchor, don’t we? Mine is a place, now. I inherited the family estate from my father. Ocean House, in East Hampton, right on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean—do you remember it? Rolling dunes, tall sea grasses, endless sand, pine forests, wildflowers climbing shingled walls. The cry of the gulls, and always, the roar of the waves and that ghostly veil of fog. All very isolated and quite beautiful.”

  Her eyes were on the city lights. “I remember the fog,” she said slowly. “And running on an endless beach, with the sound of the waves crashing all around me. My mother loved the ocean …” She closed her eyes for a moment against the memories, then tilted her head at him. “But I thought you were entrenched in Washington these days, Zander. US Court of Appeals, right?”

  He shrugged. “Yes, I spend most of my time now in DC. And I admit, I like the rarified air of being ‘inside the bubble.’ I bought a condo on Pennsylvania Avenue. All glass and steel, with the Capitol building framed in my window. Quite the power view, but—even judges need some time off, Maggie. We need open spaces, the sea.”

  She flashed a smile at him. “Hence, East Hampton.”

  He returned her smile. “Hence. But Father spent his last year in assisted living, and the house has been closed up for a long time. It’s huge, furniture covered in sheets, the grounds completely over-grown like Sleeping Beauty’s castle. It needs …”

  “If you say ‘a woman’s touch,’ Zander, I’m leaving.”

  His laugh was deep and easy. “It needs restoration, family, laughter, music! I want to reopen the house, bring it back to its former glory. The contractors already are hard at work. Would you consider helping me?”

  “Helping you do what, exactly?”

  “A benefit.”

  “Good Lord, Zander, I’m a pianist. A soloist. Not a fund-raiser.”

  “Of course not. This would be a night of beautiful music. You, an orchestra, a gorgeous winter’s night. The Yale Orchestra’s fiftieth anniversary is coming up—they’ve asked me to organize a special alumni celebration. You know how much your parents loved Yale. You could play in their honor …” He saw her face change. “In your mother’s honor, then.”

  Her gaze sharpened. “Same old Zander. Playing the parent card. And, of course, it wouldn’t hurt your short-list portfolio …”

  “Oh, come on, Maggie. Surely you haven’t lost your sense of humor? It would be a good thing.”

  “It’s a lovely idea,” she relented. “But I don’t know how much time I have. You’ve heard I’m working on the Rachmaninoff? Learning a great piece of music is grueling. It takes months of practice, so many hours every day that your fingers spasm …”

  He gazed down at her, memory lighting his face. “Your mother always made it seem as if the music just flowed like moonlight from her fingers. My father was very fond of her, he loved to hear her play. We all used to have such wonderful Gatsby-like parties at Ocean House in the old days. Martinis in the garden, lanterns lining the great lawn down to the dunes. She and your father would play for our guests in the grand salon …”

  He hesitated, caught up in memories. “Speaking of your father, how are you really? The announcement of his death was such a shock to all of us. I had no idea he was ill. Had Finn been in touch with you?”

  Something in her eyes. “No. Why would he? He knew how I felt, knew that I—” She stiffened and stopped speaking, her gaze locked on something beyond his shoulder.

  “Maggie? What is it?” He turned to follow her gaze.

  A long moment of silence. Then her eyes found his, wary and unsettled. “Sorry. I thought I saw someone—a man—over by the bar. His reflection, actually, in the mirror over the bar. He was tall, fair. Very still, dressed all in black. Just … watching us.”

  Karas spun around once more. Saw no one.

  “Gone, now. Another guest, perhaps. Or a trick of the light?”

  She shook her head, glanced at her watch. “Almost seven. I really do need to get home and practice. But your idea for a benefit is intriguing, Zander. I’ll think about it.”

  “Perhaps you would at least consider coming to East Hampton. Have dinner with your old godfather, see the house again, the grounds. I have a small stable, a conservatory, a beautiful, heated forty-foot pool. You could—”

  She paled. “No swimming.”

  He touched her cheek with a gentle finger. “Still don’t like the water?”

  She squared her shoulders. “I’ll think about what you said, and call you,” she told him. “Thanks for the drink. And the invitation to Ocean House.” She shook her head at him as she moved toward the elevators. He watched as she glanced once more toward the high, mirrored bar.

  With his eyes on the closing elevator doors, Karas nodded. She doesn’t remember, he assured himself. And yet … something is off. I’ll have to watch her, find a way to keep her close. Well, he thought, there are worse things than spending time with a beautiful woman.

  Much worse. He turned to stare toward the mirrored wall.

  Had someone been watching them?

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE UPPER WEST SIDE, NYC

  SUNDAY NIGHT

  STILL UNABLE TO shake the feeling that she was being watched, Maggie locked the double bolts of the apartment door behind her. Kicking off her heels with a relieved sigh, she went down the hallway to the kitchen, found a bottled water, then wandered into the living room. The brownstone on West 65th belonged to a musician friend who was on tour with the National Symphony and had agreed to rent the space to her for several weeks.

  It was after eight p.m. She clicked on a tall crystal lamp, and soft light flooded the room. Her friend had good taste. It was a large, beautiful space, open, contemporary, and sophisticated. Gas fireplace, a wall of glowing cherry bookcases, and a baby grand piano set in the bay window. White linen love seats faced each other across a round glass coffee table topped by stacked books and an eighteen-inch-high sculpture of a conductor, his arms thrown wide.

  Her eyes locked on the sculpture, and an image of her father flashed into her brain. Finn, his long hair wild and his open tuxedo jacket flapping, his right arm thrusting the baton high into the air, eyes closed in rapture as he conducted the crashing chords of Beethoven.

  A brilliant, egotistical, and charismatic conductor, her father had led the New York Symphony for a tumultuous decade. And then one night, in the middle of a passionate performance of Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony, he had simply stopped, walked off the stage, and disappeared from her life.

  God. She blinked and turned away. Her father was the last person she wanted to think about tonight. But the too-brief, shocking obituary published six months earlier in Europe was scorched into her mind.

  The International Times

  Classical Conductor Finn Stewart dies at 72

  Orchestral Conductor Finn Stewart, the American Maestro who blazed an electric path for classical music for decades, is reported to have died Tuesday at a hospital in Vienna, Austria, after a long illness. Maestro Stewart, a dominant figure in the international music world, made history in the early eighties when, midway through conducting Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major with the New York Symphony, he flung his baton to the floorboards, strode off the stage, and vanished forever into the night. Because he disappeared just weeks after his wife, pianist Lily Stewart, drowned in the ocean off New York's Manhattan Beach, the Mystery of the Maestro has fascinated classical music lovers for years.

  The terrible words spu
n in her head, making Maggie physically ill, and she breathed deeply. She hadn’t known her father was sick, had always thought she would see him again. But all of a sudden, all the answers to her questions had died with him. Damn, damn, why hadn’t she searched for him sooner?

  Restless, Maggie slipped a CD into the player. Not Beethoven tonight, she thought with a shudder. The opening chords of Tchaikovsky’s beautiful Piano Concerto No. 1, played by her favorite pianist, Vladimir Horowitz, tumbled into the room. Tchaikovsky always gave her solace.

  Wandering to the high windows, she gazed out at slender tree branches and arched lighted windows across the narrow street. Lincoln Center was just two blocks down to the right. You couldn’t ask for a better location.

  Except maybe a cabin in the Blue Ridge mountains? Her fingers trailed soundlessly across the piano keys. Where was Michael? Why hadn’t he called?

  Call him.

  No. I can’t.

  Oh, good God. You are a confident, forty-eight-year-old grandmother. There is no “should” anymore. Call him or don’t call him, just get on with it.

  But … the truth was, she was afraid. There had to be a reason why he hadn’t called her. What would she do if Michael Beckett suddenly disappeared from her life? Dangerous thoughts.

  I could not bear any more loss.

  Tucking her legs up under her, Maggie stared down at her cell phone, willing it to ring. Michael would want to know about the meeting with Zander, his unexpected suggestion that they work together.

  Face it, Zander’s idea for hosting a music benefit at Ocean House intrigued her.

  She stared into the fire, listening to Horowitz’s gorgeous melodic chords. Just call Michael. She dialed his cell and waited. Four rings, then his low voice, the professional voice, sounding too distant in her ear. “You’ve reached Mike Beckett. Leave a message.”

  “It’s me. Where are you?” She hesitated. “Call me.”

  She dropped the cell to the coffee table. Something was wrong. She could feel it.

  Imagination.

  Maggie leaned back against the soft cushions, welcoming the solace. Beyond the tall brownstone windows, streetlamps glowed orange, autumn leaves skittered and blew against the purpled glass.

  Safe. No more roses, no reason to be afraid …

  Her cell phone trilled with Mozart’s Elvira Madigan theme, and she reached for it quickly but did not recognize the number. Be Michael …

  “Magdalena O’Shea.”

  A man’s low voice sounded in her ear. Not Michael. “Mrs. O, it’s Jimmy Cosantino, from the theater. I’m calling about those roses. I found something on the security tapes I think you should see.”

  “First thing tomorrow?”

  “I’m not sure this can wait, Mrs. O.”

  She glanced at her watch. Just after eight thirty. “Would you like me to come to your office now? Or you’re welcome to stop by here, I’m not far away. Sixty-fifth Street.”

  A murmur, as if he was speaking with someone else. Then, “Sure, I’ll swing by on my way home. Shouldn’t take long.”

  She gave him the address and disconnected. What had he found? For a moment, she pictured the rehearsal room, shimmering blood red with the light of some four hundred roses. Who does that?

  Long day, and not over yet. Just time to take off this too-tight gown and get into jeans and a sweatshirt before Jimmy arrived. She stood and headed down the hall to the bedroom.

  Clicking on the lamp, the first thing she saw was the deep crimson rose glowing on the cream pillow.

  “Good God!” She pressed back against the wall, her heart hammering hard against her ribs. Someone had been in the bedroom! Fear sharp in her stomach, she searched the shadows. Taking a deep, shuddering breath, she forced herself to check the bathroom. The closet. Under the bed.

  She was alone.

  But the intimacy of the single rose on her pillow was even more terrifying than the hundreds of roses left in her rehearsal room. Reaching for the rose, she saw the note, white vellum beneath the petals. Shakespeare’s words spun in front of her eyes.

  “Women are as roses, whose fair flower, being once displayed, doth fall that very hour.”

  Dane.

  * * *

  The last brilliant notes of the concerto echoed, and then silence filled the room. Maggie sat stiffly on the sofa, eyes on the front door’s double locks, holding her cell phone like a weapon in her hand. A sharp six-inch kitchen knife glinted on the coffee table, inches from her hand.

  After nine. Where was Jimmy?

  Be honest, she told herself. It wasn’t the stage manager who spun in her thoughts. It was the colonel. She needed to tell him about the roses. About Dane.

  She clicked on her phone.

  The doorbell chimed. She glanced at her watch: nine fifteen.

  Pop. Pop. Pop.

  She gasped, knowing that sound, and ran to the door.

  The sound of a motorcycle, speeding away. She checked the door’s peephole, saw no one. Slipping off the chain, she undid the double lock and cracked the door with caution.

  The night air was cool, scented with smoke, car exhaust, sharp autumn leaves, pumpkins, and … something coppery.

  She looked down, and froze.

  Jimmy Cosantino was sprawled across the steps, his face and chest covered in bright blood. The backpack on the ground next to him was open and empty.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  MCLEAN, VIRGINIA

  SUNDAY NIGHT

  THE MEDIC’S RADIO crackled.

  “Yeah, the guy just lurched up and ran off into the woods. Something about a dog. We’ll keep searching until … well, I’ll be damned.”

  The dark form of a man emerged from the trees, staggering, carrying a large Golden Retriever across his shoulders.

  The medic ran toward them, helped them both to the earth. “Jesus, buddy, are you okay? I’ve never seen anything like this.”

  The man eased the dog to the ground, ran a gentle hand over his fur from head to tail. “Check him over, will you? Is he hurt? Easy, boy, easy. This guy’s a friend. There you go.”

  “I’m an EMT, buddy, not a vet, but I’ll do my best to take care of him.” The medic bent to the dog, examined him carefully. “No injuries I can see. Looks okay.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yeah.” The medic shook his head, still stunned by the image of the injured man walking out of the darkness carrying the huge dog. “But you both should be checked out.” He signaled the ambulance driver. “Let’s get you both to the hospital.”

  The man blinked, focused, clamped a strong hand on the medic’s arm.

  “No hospital. No one can know I’ve survived.”

  The EMT stared him down. “I’m not letting you out of my sight until I get you and your dog inside my van and check your vitals, buddy. Then, we’ll talk.”

  “And then you’re going to call a guy in McLean. Here’s the number.”

  * * *

  “Sorry to be so late, Chief.”

  “What the hell happened to you, Beckett?”

  “Car trouble.”

  “Funny. You ought to be at the damned hospital, not here practicing your stand-up comedy routine. Barely standing, I might add.”

  Beckett lowered himself gingerly into a chair. “Nothing a little bourbon won’t fix.”

  In the wood-paneled home-office of the Deputy Attorney General, Beckett held the chief’s eyes. Behind the desk, the round seal of the US Department of Justice glowed in the lamplight.

  The chief reached into a deep desk draw and removed a half-full bottle of whiskey and set it on the desk. “Good idea. Helluva day.”

  Beckett glanced over at the Golden, now curled on the floor by the fireplace and watching him with a wary expression. “We’re a couple of tough old dogs, right, fella? Just sliding down the razor blade of life.”

  The dog continued to stare at him, not amused.

  “Okay, so maybe the day didn’t end exactly the way we planned it.” Beck
ett smiled grimly, gripped the leather chair’s arms, and forced himself to ignore the pain as he leaned forward.

  “Someone tried to make me toast, Chief. Literally.” He tried to laugh, but it hurt too much. “But I’m not as bad as I look. The ER doc said the dog and I were good, free to go. So, why did you want to see me?”

  The chief set three glasses next to the whiskey. “Your pal Sugarman asked me to call you. He should be here any minute. I know you’re retired, Beckett, so this has to be under the radar. Something new is in the wind. There may be some action on a ‘person of interest.’ Your person of interest.”

  Beckett stiffened. “Dane?”

  A tall figure blocked the doorway. “The one and only, pal,” said Simon Sugarman, entering the room. An ex-Marine who described himself as “big, black, and bad,” Sugar had been friends with Beckett since their days together in Iraq.

  “Chief,” Sugar acknowledged the man behind the desk with a touch of fingertips to his forehead. “Hey, Shiloh, how you doin’?” He bent to touch the Golden’s head, but the Golden shied away. “That bad, huh?”

  Sugarman turned to Beckett with a raised eyebrow and held out his hand. “Long time no see. How’s La Maggie?”

  Beckett sat up straight, heedless of the shooting pain in his side, and grasped Sugarman’s hand. “Maggie’s in New York, preparing for a concert.” He pictured the haunted eyes. “Still healing. What’s going on with Dane, Sugar? What do you know?”

  “We got word from one of our agents in Italy. They seem to think our old friend might be on the move again. Five, six weeks ago a guy with Dane’s description was spotted leaving a fishing boat in a village harbor by the Tyrrhenian Sea. Near Livorno. Tall, pale hair, mirrored glasses. Hat. Gloves.”

  “Mirrored glasses … and gloves.” Beckett flashed on a moment months earlier in France when he had seriously burned Dane’s hand with his butane lighter during a brutal confrontation.

  “Yeah,” said Sugarman. “And not long after that, there was a suspicious death in an isolated Tuscan village.”

  “Tuscany is only a few kilometers from Livorno. Who died?”