Dangerous Alliance Read online

  Braden blinks in surprise. “You remembered my favorite animal?”

  “Don’t be silly, Braden!” Jessica says, clearly elated by the assumption. “As if I could ever forget how much you love elephants! Uncle Lander thought it was an ostrich, if you can believe that. Everyone knows an elephant is much better than any ol’ bird. But then I suppose I’m biased because elephants are my favorite animal too!”

  “Since when?” Braden asks suspiciously.

  Lander clears his throat, interrupting the moment before Jessica has a chance to screw it up. “Shall we go now? We wouldn’t want to miss him.”

  Mercedes’s and Braden’s enthusiasm is unbridled as Jessica laughs and fetches her purse. “Oh, Bell, we’ll be right back. Go ahead and take a look at the new seating chart. It’s on my desk.”

  “Right away, Mrs. Gable.”

  “Yes, we’ll be right back, Bell,” Lander adds. “This really won’t take more than fifteen minutes at the most.”

  As the door closes I pull out the USB stick and stare down at it in awe. Lander and I are on exactly the same page. More than that, we’re on the same line of the same page! I pull on the latex gloves from my purse and then dash to the bedroom and drag out the stepladder from under the bed and up to Travis’s closet door. I pull the magnet out of my pocket and then, pulling out the cigar tube, put in the flash drive and keys before carefully replacing it. Then in no time at all I’m carrying the stepladder through the penthouse and into the laundry room and putting the magnet back into the drawer.

  And boom. Just like that, we’re done.

  It almost feels like the accomplishment deserves a little victory dance. But there isn’t time. I run to Jessica’s office and gather myself together so that when they all come back a few minutes later I’m seated at the desk, completely composed and looking over the new seating chart for the Highkin dinner.

  And a little over ten minutes later, they’re back.

  “Look!” Mercedes says as she runs into the office, holding up what is clearly a lion. “Isn’t it the best?”

  “It’s the king of the jungle,” I say as I admire it. “And he’s all yours.” I look above her head to Lander, who is now leaning against the doorframe looking like a modern-day James Dean. “Every girl needs a lion of her own,” I say, softer this time.

  Lander just smiles.

  chapter twelve

  * * *

  The balloon animals buy Jessica a few minutes of love from her children. She suggests Lander and I go off to get a late lunch, clearly hoping to finally spend some time alone with them. Initially I try to convince her to let us stay because I know what will happen to Lorella’s job if Travis comes home and finds out that Jessica is the adult who has been left in charge of the kids. But Jessica is insistent and for once both Braden and Mercedes really do seem to want to spend time with their mother. So I send up a little apology to Lorella and let Lander lead me out. We don’t say a word to each other until our feet hit the sidewalk, and even then we wait until we’re half a city block away before breaking out into celebratory grins.

  “Your timing was perfect!” I squeal. “I just had a copy of those keys made today so I was able to sneak everything back! There’s no evidence we were ever even searching for anything!”

  “Yes,” Lander says, taking my hand. “It worked out well.”

  “Did you know that I would get the keys made?”

  “I did.”

  “How?” I demand. “How did you know?”

  He stops, making the New Yorkers and tourists flow around us like we’re rocks in a stream. He lifts my hand and brings it to his lips for a kiss. “I know you, Adoncia.”

  “And I know you.” My smile reaches all the way down to my heart. “You called in that balloon guy, didn’t you?”

  “I called Travis and he told me he was going to be out for the second half of the day. You already told me you were going over there. The idea just sort of came to me. And as it turns out, if you pay them enough, those kid party places will accommodate extremely last-minute requests.”

  “How much is enough?”

  “More than most people’s monthly salaries.”

  I laugh and shake my head. “Must be nice, getting everybody to do what you want when you want it.”

  “I’m not sure getting someone to make balloon animals at the last minute is a testament to my influence.”

  “I don’t know about that. Those balloon artists are tough. They have highly inflated egos.”

  “Well, look at you, all carefree and making puns,” Lander chuckles.

  “I did,” I say, pulling his hand, urging him forward. “I did make a pun. Come on, let’s go back to your place. I’ll come up with a few more while you work on the encryption.”

  “I’m afraid the encryption proved a little too difficult for me. But I have someone who is much more tech savvy than I am working on it now. I suspect he’ll be able to crack the code in a few days.”

  “Oh.” I slow my pace a little as I think this over. “You trust this . . . someone?”

  “I trust his greed.” He checks his watch. “He’s being paid for both his skills and his discretion. Have you ever been in here?”

  I stop and look at the store Lander has stopped in front of. Two stories of glass walls divided by one sign that spreads from one side of the establishment to the other: Callow’s Rare Books.

  “I’ve heard of it.” And read about it and fantasized about it and dreamed about it. Callow’s is a place where you can find the first edition of everything and anything ever written, from Dan Brown to Shakespeare. When I learned that there was a place right here in New York that had so many amazing books, so many signed by the author, it was like being told that God had moved Heaven to Manhattan, right on Columbus and Eighty-Seventh.

  “Want to go in?”

  The question is ridiculous in every way. He says it so casually, as if walking into this place doesn’t take audacity of the highest order. Worming my way into Jessica and Travis’s world, messing with the heads of gangsters, turning Lander’s world upside down, these are the things I’m suited for. But to be in a room with those books?

  I feel like I’m not good enough. Like I’m not clean enough.

  “Come on,” Lander says, apparently oblivious to my apprehensions. He takes my arm and pulls me through the door.

  The place is designed to look like a cross between an old library and a fine antiques dealership. A few books are displayed, face out on the shelves, under careful lighting: a signed copy of This Side of Paradise, by F. Scott Fitzgerald; a first-edition collection of Emily Dickinson’s poems; there, on the opposite wall, is a signed first-edition copy of The Color Purple; and behind glass is a first edition of Robinson Crusoe.

  A woman walks out from one of the rooms toward the back of the store. Her hair is pure silver and worn in a stylishly short cut. The lines around her eyes look as if they were purposely drawn to make her look both wise and kind. Something about the way she carries herself and the way she so clearly belongs here tells me that she works here. I take a deep breath, waiting for her to ask me to leave, to tell me I don’t belong.

  “Mr. Gable, how are you!” she says warmly, her attention fully on Lander. “We haven’t seen you in a while.”

  “I’ve been a little busy these days,” he says amiably. “This is my friend . . .” He hesitates as he tries to decide which name to use.

  “Adoncia,” I say, extending my hand. “Adoncia Jiménez.”

  I don’t even remember the last time I spoke my full name, my real full name aloud. I’ve lived by so many aliases you’d think I worked for the CIA. But I can’t bring myself to lie while in a church such as this.

  “Pleased to meet you, Adoncia. I’m Garda. I usually help Lander when he’s in the market for a rare book.”

  “You’re the only one who helps me when I’m in the market for a rare book,” Lander corrects. “This is Adoncia’s first time here. I was hoping you had something that
might wow her.”

  “Well, we always have something,” she says. “We just acquired De la France et des États-Unis and it’s inscribed by Thomas Jefferson—”

  “I think something less political might be of more interest.”

  “Of course.” Garda smiles. “How about Alexander Pope’s eighteenth-century first-edition translations of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey? Or perhaps you’d like to see a signed first edition of Robert Frost’s work?”

  “You have a signed copy of Frost?” I whisper.

  “We do.” She leads me over to a table and asks me to wait. In less than a minute she’s back with a white hardcover. “New Hampshire,” I say, reading the title. “The first collection of poems that Frost won a Pulitzer for.”

  “Very good!” Garda says, clearly impressed. But I can barely acknowledge the compliment. I’m too entranced with what’s in my hands. There’s a picture of a landscape on the cover, inked entirely in green. I touch it lightly and then slowly, reverently open it . . . and there it is. An inscription; no, more than an inscription, a handwritten poem by Robert Frost.

  “He signed it for his friend,” Garda explains. “That’s not the complete poem; he added more stanzas once he decided to publish it.”

  I keep staring at the words, and when I feel Lander’s hand on my shoulder, I cover it with my own. It’s a moment of reverence.

  I’m so glad I’m sharing it with him.

  We spend another twenty minutes there, going over book after book, each more spectacular than the last. They have everything from Webster’s first dictionary to signed first editions of Mark Twain to signed first editions of George R. R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series.

  But it’s not until Garda puts down a copy of a nineteenth-century collection of short stories titled Fairy Tales Told for Children that I find myself literally unable to breathe.

  “This . . .” I say, barely daring to touch the cover. “It’s a first edition?”

  “It is,” Garda says, opening it up to the title page. “The first English translation of his stories. Unfortunately it isn’t autographed. Hans Christian Andersen wasn’t big on that.”

  “Having authors sign their work was only beginning to become popular during his time,” I note quietly, my eyes still glued to the book.

  “That’s true!” Garda says, clearly surprised by my knowledge. “Of course, if there is a signed copy, we can probably find it,” she says as she looks up at Lander. “We can hunt down almost anything for the right collector.”

  I touch the page, feeling the delicate roughness of the aging paper. “The critics didn’t like this,” I whisper. “Not at first. They preferred his novels but . . . he had to write these stories. They must have called to him somehow, all those stories from his youth that he reimagined and made his own.”

  “Very good!” Garda says, clasping her hands in front of her. “Not many know that!”

  I turn the page again. “The Princess and the Pea,” “The Little Mermaid,” “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” My mother read all these stories to me, and when she was gone I read them to myself. I never outgrew them. I was fascinated by their dark romance. The bloody brutality mixed with gentility and grace. The torturous sensitivity of a princess, the mermaid who gave up her voice and agreed to endure the pain of walking on knives just so she could be near the man she loved, the emperor who was arrogant and foolish enough to allow himself to be humiliated in front of those he would have worship him . . . it was irresistible. And now, here those stories are. In a book that was published when the author was still alive, still writing, creating magic.

  “How much is it selling for?” Lander asks.

  I look up at Lander, shocked by the question. Surely something like this can’t be priced.

  “One hundred eighteen thousand,” Garda says smoothly. “It’s extraordinarily rare. I’ve never seen a first edition of any of his works in truly good condition before.”

  “It’s too cheap,” I say as I turn the page again.

  Garda looks down at me, a little taken aback, and then she breaks out laughing. “I couldn’t agree more.”

  I linger over the book as long as possible, trying to touch every page, but eventually I realize that no amount of time will ever be enough.

  I love this place.

  I love that he’s brought me here.

  I love that he knows me.

  When we leave I can’t help but notice that New York looks a little prettier, the sound of the city seems muted, and I feel relaxed in a way that I haven’t felt in . . . well, ever. I’m holding on to Lander’s hand, I’ve touched books that I never even thought I’d get to see. I feel safe.

  And I don’t feel angry.

  “I was impressed by how much you knew about each author and work,” Lander says. “I can tell Garda was too. You’re actually a bit of a literary scholar.”

  “No,” I say, shaking my head, looking up at a billboard I haven’t noticed before. “I’m a reader. It’s different . . . it’s better.”

  “You might be right.” He gives my hand a squeeze. “I like seeing you like this. And I like that you can see those books for what they are. They’re holy in a way.”

  “Not just in a way,” I correct him as he comes to a stop. “Those are objects of worship. I mean, we saw a handwritten poem by Robert Frost. A poem he hadn’t even published yet! And then there was . . . Lander? Lander, are you listening?”

  But his eyes aren’t on me. He’s looking across the street. “That’s interesting,” he says under his breath. Pedestrians are walking by us, a man with a cigarette passes us, weaving a noxious smell into an otherwise pleasant breeze. For reasons I can’t explain I’m hit by a subtle chill.

  “What the hell are you staring at?” I ask as my eyes scan the street. And then I stop.

  The world stops.

  Standing outside of a restaurant are Travis, Edmund, and HGVB employee Sean White.

  Former police detective Sean White. The man who arrested my mother.

  Flashes of images explode like fireworks in my head. My mother on her knees while White stands over her, belittling her. My mother asking for help as he blames her, insults her . . . And then there’s the sound. The sound of my mother screaming as he leads her away.

  She screamed my name.

  “Adoncia,” Lander says slowly. “I think I’m going to try to catch up with my father. It’ll be useful.” He reaches into his pocket, pulls his house keys from his key chain, and hands them to me. “I’m going to call the front desk of my building and tell them you have permission to go up. I’ll meet you there in a few hours, all right?”

  He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know what effect this man has on me. He thinks that just because I can take on Travis and Jessica and Micah and yes, even Edmund, he thinks that means I can handle seeing White across the street and just go about my day. White, at least three hundred feet away and completely unaware of my presence.

  But the thing is, Travis and Edmund may have been responsible for my mother’s arrest, but White is the one who handcuffed her while she cried. White is the man who physically dragged her out of my life.

  White is the man who made my mother scream.

  “Adoncia?”

  “Yes,” I say, forcing myself to smile. “I’ll meet you at your place.”

  “Do you need cab fare?”

  “I got it,” I assure him. “You go after your father. Let’s see what you can find out.”

  Lander nods and stealthily moves down the street, several paces behind his father and Travis, following them, waiting for the right moment to accidentally bump into them.

  But White doesn’t follow them. He’s walking in the other direction.

  It’s the direction I’ll be going as well.

  chapter thirteen

  * * *

  White doesn’t go far. He finds a little bar that is advertising a Saturday happy hour. I wait a few minutes before following him in.

  The place is dark, w
ith cheesy diamond-patterned flooring. The bar is made of a decent dark wood and the tables look cheap but well cared for. It’s a dive bar for the financially secure.

  And sitting on a dark red bar stool is Sean White. The mustache he used to have is currently just a stubble. His hairline has receded since last I’ve seen him too, and there are heavy wrinkles lining his formidable brow. In his hand is a phone, not a gun.

  But his physique is just as athletic and intimidating. And his lips, those haven’t changed. They’re the same thin, cruel lips I remember sneering at me when I was a kid.

  And now he’s here, twenty feet away, drinking a beer, chatting with the bartender like he doesn’t have a care in the world.

  I walk up to the bar, take a seat next to him. The bartender gives me a polite smile as White looks me over. For the first time I notice the two empty shot glasses by White’s beer. Must have been a hard day.

  “What can I get you?” the bartender asks.

  “I’ll have a Guinness,” I start to say, but I stumble over the words and have to repeat myself.

  White isn’t staring right at me, but I can tell that he’s paying attention. It’s terrifying. Of all the people wrapped up in my mother’s downfall, Sean is the most likely to recognize me. I was there, by my mother’s side when he questioned her. He was the one who called over an officer to take me away to child services. Days later he met with me again, presumably to question me. But his questions were brief and lacked specificity. His main purpose seemed to be to explain. He explained why he knew my mother was guilty. He laid out “facts” and incriminating clues for me in a way that I could understand them.

  I was ten.

  There was no reason that I can think of for him to do that . . . unless he was trying to keep me from speaking up in my mother’s defense. But again, I was a little girl with no father. A ten-year-old girl whose only family member had just been arrested. No one would have listened to me even if I had found my voice.

  Perhaps White did it purely for the sake of sadism.

  I glance up at a television mounted in a dusty corner as the Mets strike out in the final inning. I pound my fist on the bar as the hitter’s shoulders slump with defeat.