"Can I show you the playhouse?"
"Sure. "
"Neat! And Ms. Jelliroll wants to meet you. I told her all about you."
"Great. I want to meet her, too. But first—" he pointed to the breast pocket of his shirt—“see what's in there."
Vicky reached in and pulled out an orange ball of fur. "A Rascal!" she screeched. "Oh, neat!"
She kissed him and ran toward the back.
"Who or what is Ms. Jelliroll?" he asked Gia as he rose to his feet.
"A new doll," Gia said as brusquely as she could manage. "Jack, I...I want you to stay away from her."
Gia saw his eyes then and knew that she’d cut him deeply. But his mouth smiled.
"I haven't molested a child all week."
"That's not what I mean—"
"I'm a bad influence, right?"
"We've been through this before and I don't want to get going on it again. Vicky was very attached to you. She's just getting used to not having you around anymore, and now you come back and I don't want her to think things are going back to the way they were."
"I'm not the one who walked out."
"Doesn't matter. The result was the same. She was hurt."
"So was I."
"Jack,” she sighed, feeling very tired, "this is a pointless conversation.”
"Not to me. Gia, I'm crazy about that kid. There was a time when I had hopes of being her father."
The sound of her own laugh was harsh and bitter in her ears. "Her real father hasn't been heard from in a year and you wouldn't be much of an improvement. Vicky needs a real person for a father. Someone who lives in the real world. Someone with a last name—do you even remember your last name? The one you were christened with? Jack, you...you don't exist."
He reached out and touched her arm. She felt her skin tingle.
"As real as you."
"You know what I mean!" Gia said, pulling away. The words poured out of her. "What kind of a father could you be to anybody? And what kind of a husband?"
She was being hard on him, she knew, but he deserved it.
Jack's face tightened. "Very well, Ms. DiLauro. Shall we get down to business? After all, I didn't invite myself over."
"Neither did I. It was Nellie's idea. I was just the messenger. 'Get that friend of yours, that Jack fellow, to help.' I tried to tell her you were no longer a friend but she insisted. She remembered that you worked with Mr. Burkes."
"That's when we met."
"And the long string of deceptions began. Mr. Burkes called you a 'consultant', a 'troubleshooter.' "
Jack made a sour face. "But you came up with a better job description, didn't you: 'thug.' "
It jolted Gia to hear the pain in Jack's voice as he said the word. Yes, she’d called him that the last time she’d seen him. She’d hurt him then and had been glad of it. But she wasn't glad now to know he was still bleeding from it.
She turned away. "Nellie is waiting."
11
With a mixture of pain and frustration roiling through him, Jack followed Gia down the hallway. For months he’d nurtured a faint hope that someday soon he would make her understand. As of now he knew with leaden certainty that it would never happen. She’d been a warm, passionate woman who’d loved him, and unwittingly he’d turned her to ice.
He studied the walnut paneling, the portraits on the walls, anything to keep from watching her as she walked ahead of him. Then they were through a pair of sliding doors and into the library. The dark paneling continued in from the hall, encircling lots of dark furniture, overstuffed velvet chairs with antimacassars on the arms, Persian rugs on the floor, impressionist paintings on the walls, a Sony Trinitron in the corner.
He’d met Gia in this room.
Aunt Nellie sat lost in a recliner by the cold fireplace. A chubby, white-haired woman in her late sixties in a long dark dress adorned with a small diamond brooch and a short string of pearls. A woman used to wealth and comfortable with it. At first glance she appeared depressed and shrunken, as if she were in mourning, or preparing for it. But as they entered she pumped herself up and arranged her face into a pleasant expression, putting on a smile that wiped away a good many of her years.
"Mr. Jeffers," she said, rising. Her accent was thickly British. Not Hugh Grant British; more like a reedy Alfred Hitchcock. "So good of you to come."
"Good to see you again, Mrs. Paton. But just call me Jack. "
"Only if you call me Nellie. Would you care for some tea?"
"Iced, if you don't mind."
"Not at all." She rang a little bell on the end table next to her and a uniformed maid appeared. "Three iced teas, Eunice."
The maid nodded and left. An uncomfortable silence followed in which Nellie seemed to be lost in thought.
"How can I help you, Nellie?"
"What?" She looked startled. "Oh, I'm terribly sorry. I was just thinking about my sister, Grace. As I'm sure Gia told you, she's been gone for three days now...disappeared between Monday night and Tuesday"—she pronounced it Chewsday—“morning. The police have come and gone and find no evidence of foul play, and there's been no demand for ransom. She is merely listed as a missing person, but I'm quite certain something has happened to her. I shan't rest until I find her.”
Jack's heart went out to her, and he wanted to help, but...
"I don't do missing-persons work as a rule."
"Yes, Gia did say something about this not being in your line"—Jack glanced at Gia but she avoided his gaze—“but I'm at my wits' end. The police are no help. I'm sure that if we were back home we'd have more cooperation from Scotland Yard than we've had from the New York Police. They simply aren't taking Grace's disappearance seriously. I knew you and Gia were close and remembered Eddie Burkes mentioning that your assistance had proven invaluable at the Mission. Never would tell me what he needed you for, but he certainly seemed enthusiastic."
Jack was seriously considering placing a call to "Eddie"—hard as it was to imagine someone calling the UK Mission's security chief "Eddie"—and telling him to button his lip. Jack always appreciated referrals, and it was nice to know he’d made such an impression on the man, but Burkes was getting just a little bit too free with his name.
"I'm flattered by your confidence, but—"
"Whatever your usual fee is, I dare say I'll gladly pay it. "
"It's a question of expertise rather than money. I just don't think I'm the right man for the job."
"You're a detective, aren't you?"
"Sort of." That was a lie. He wasn't any sort of detective; he was a repairman. He could feel Gia staring at him. "The problem is, I'm not licensed as a detective, so I can't have any contact with the police. They mustn't know I'm involved in any way. They wouldn't approve."
Nellie's face brightened. "Then you'll help?"
The hope in her expression pushed the words to his lips.
"I'll do what I can. And as far as payment goes, let's make it contingent on success. If I don't get anywhere, there'll be no fee."
"But your time is surely worth something, dear fellow!"
"I agree, but looking for Vicky's Aunt Grace is a special case."
Nellie nodded. "Then you may consider yourself hired on your terms."
Jack forced a smile. He didn't expect much success in finding Grace, but he'd give it his best shot. If nothing else, the job would keep him in contact with Gia. He wasn't quitting yet.
The iced tea arrived and Jack sipped it appreciatively. Not a Lipton or Nestea mix, but freshly brewed from an English blend.
"Tell me about your sister," he said when the maid had left.
Nellie leaned back and spoke in a low voice, rambling now and again, but keeping fairly close to hard facts. A picture slowly emerged. Unlike Nellie, the missing Grace Westphalen had never married. After Nellie's husband was killed by an IRA bomb in London, the two sisters, each with one third of the Westphalen fortune, moved to the States. Except for brief trips back home, both had lived on Manhattan's East Side ever since. And both were still loyal to the Queen. Never in all those years had the thought of becoming US citizens ever crossed their minds. They very naturally fell in with the small British community in Manhattan consisting mostly of well-heeled expatriates and people connected with the British Consulate and the United Kingdom's Mission to the United Nations—"a colony within the Colonies," as they liked to call themselves—and enjoyed an active social life. They rarely saw Americans. It was almost like living in London.