I'll Walk Alone Read online

  It was here in this room that she could sometimes not think about Matthew for hours and thus force the heavy unsettled pain of losing him to retreat into her subconscious. She knew that wouldn’t be the case today.

  The rest of the suite consisted of a back office barely large enough to hold a computer desk, files, a table for her inevitable coffeepot, and a small refrigerator. The clothes closet was opposite the lavatory. Josh Green, her assistant, had observed with ironic accuracy that the dimensions of closet and lavatory were exactly the same.

  She had resisted Josh’s suggestions that they lease the suite next door when it became available. She wanted to keep her overhead to a minimum. That way she would be able to hire yet another private detective agency that specialized in finding lost children to look for Matthew. She had gone through what was left of the money that she had received from her parents’ modest life insurance in the first year that Matthew had been missing, spending it wildly on private investigators and psychic quacks, none of whom had turned up a shred of evidence that might lead to finding him.

  She hung up her coat. The fur trimming on the collar was one more reminder that she was going to meet Ted tonight for dinner. Why does he bother? she asked herself impatiently. He blames me for letting Tiffany Shields take Matthew out to the park. But he loved Matthew passionately and no amount of blame that he could throw at her could possibly match the blame and guilt she carried herself.

  To get it out of the way, she opened the celebrity magazines and scanned them quickly. As she had suspected, one of them was carrying the picture of Matthew that had been released to the media when he vanished. The caption read, “Is Matthew Carpenter still alive and celebrating his fifth birthday?”

  The article ended with the quote Ted had made the day Matthew disappeared, a caution to parents about leaving their children with a young babysitter. Zan ripped out the page, crumpled it, and threw both magazines in the wastebasket. Then wondering why she had subjected herself to looking for this kind of article, she hurried to the big desk and settled in a chair.

  For the hundredth time in the past few weeks she unrolled the drawings she was going to submit to Kevin Wilson, architect and part owner of the thirty-four-story apartment building that overlooked the new walkway bordering the Hudson River on the lower west side. If she did get the job of furnishing three model apartments, it would not only be a major breakthrough for her, it would be her first successful toe-to-toe with Bartley Longe.

  It still was incomprehensible to her that the employer who had so valued her while she was his assistant had so utterly turned on her. When she first began to work for him nine years ago, right after she graduated from FIT, the Fashion Institute of Technology, she had eagerly embraced the demanding schedule and put up with his volatile temper because she knew she was learning a lot from him. Divorced, then in his early forties, Bartley was very much a man about town. He had always been extremely difficult, but it was when he turned his attention to her and she made it clear that she was not interested in an involvement that he had begun to make her life miserable with his biting sarcasm and endless criticism.

  I kept putting off going to see Mom and Dad who were living in Rome, Zan thought. Bartley would get furious if I said I needed a couple of weeks off. I delayed that trip for six months. Then when I finally told him I was going, whether he liked it or not, it was too late.

  She had been in the airport in Rome when the car her father was driving to meet her had crashed into a tree, killing him and her mother instantly. An autopsy showed that her father had suffered a heart attack at the wheel.

  Don’t think about them today, she warned herself. Concentrate on the model rooms. Bartley will be submitting his plans. I know the way he thinks. I’ll beat him at his own game.

  Bartley would have undoubtedly created designs for both a traditional and an ultramodern décor and one that combined elements of both. She made herself concentrate to see if there were any better way she could find to improve the sketches and color samples she would be offering.

  As though it mattered. As though anything mattered except Matthew.

  She heard a key turn in the door. Josh was there. Her assistant was also a graduate of FIT. Twenty-five years old, smart, looking more like a college kid than a gifted interior designer, Josh had become something of a younger brother to her. It almost helped that he had not been with her when Matthew disappeared. Somehow she and Josh just clicked.

  But today the expression on his face made Zan realize that the concern she was seeing was different. Josh began without a greeting, “Zan, I stayed here last night catching up on the monthly statements. I didn’t want to call you because you said you were going to take a sleeping pill. But, Zan, why did you buy a one-way ticket to Buenos Aires for next Wednesday?”

  6

  The little boy heard the sound of a car coming down the driveway even before Glory heard it. In an instant, he slid off the chair at the breakfast table and ran down the hall into the big closet where he knew he must stay “like a little mouse” until Glory came back for him.

  He didn’t mind. Glory had told him it was a game to keep him safe. There was a light on the floor of the closet, and a rubber raft just big enough for him to lie down and go to sleep on if he was tired. It had pillows and a blanket. When he was there, Glory told him, he could pretend he was a pirate and sailing on the ocean. Or, he could read one of his books. There were lots of books in the closet. The one thing he must never do, however, was to make a single sound. He always knew when Glory was going to go out and leave him alone because she would make him go to the bathroom even if he didn’t have to go, then she would leave a bottle in the closet for him to pee in. And she would leave a sandwich and cookies and water, and a Pepsi.

  It had been that way in the other houses, too. Glory always made a place for him to hide, then put some of his toys and trucks and puzzles and books and crayons and pencils in it. Glory told him that even though he never played with other children he was going to be smarter than all of them. “You read better than most seven-year-olds, Matty,” she told him. “You’re really smart. And it’s because of me that you’re so smart. You’re really lucky.”

  In the beginning, the boy didn’t feel lucky at all. He would dream of being wrapped up in a warm, fuzzy robe with Mommy. After a while he couldn’t exactly remember her face, but he still remembered how he felt when she hugged him. Then he would start to cry. But after a while the dream stopped coming. Then Glory bought soap and he washed his hands just before he went to bed, and the dream came back because the way the soap made his hands smell was the way Mommy smelled. He remembered her name again and even the feeling of being wrapped with her inside her robe. In the morning he took the soap back to his room and put it under his pillow. When Glory kept asking him why he did it, he told her, and she said it was okay.

  Once he wanted to play a game and hide from Glory, but he didn’t do that anymore. Glory raced up and down the stairs calling his name. She was really mad when she finally looked behind the couch and found him. She shook her fist in his face and said not to ever, ever, ever do that again. Her expression was so angry that he was really scared.

  The only time he saw other people was when they were driving in the car, and that was always at night. They didn’t stay long in any place and wherever they stayed, there weren’t other houses around them. Sometimes Glory would take him out in the back of the house and play a game with him and take his picture. But then they would move to another house, and Glory would make a new secret room for him again.

  Sometimes he would wake up after Glory had locked him in his room at night and hear her talking to someone. He wondered who it was. He could never hear the other voice. He knew it couldn’t be Mommy because if she was in the house, she would definitely come upstairs to see him. Whenever he was sure someone was in the house, he would hold the soap in his hand and pretend it was Mommy.

  This time the door of the closet opened almost right away. Glory
was laughing. “The owner of this place sent over the guy from the security system to make sure it works. Isn’t that a riot, Matty?”

  7

  After Josh told Zan about the airline charge to her credit card, he suggested they check all the other cards in her purse.

  Bergdorf Goodman had new purchases of expensive clothing charged to her account, clothing that was in her size, but that she knew nothing about.

  “On this day of all days,” Josh muttered as he notified the store to cancel the card. Then he’d added, “Zan, do you think you can handle this appointment alone? Maybe I should go with you?”

  Zan promised she would be okay, and promptly at eleven o’clock she was standing at the door of the office of Kevin Wilson, the architect of the stunning new apartment building overlooking the Hudson River. The door was partially open. She could see that the office was a makeshift space on the main floor of the new building, the kind an architect would keep for convenience to observe the progress of an ongoing project.

  Wilson’s back was to her, his head bent over the papers on the table behind the desk. Were they Bartley Longe’s drawings? Zan wondered. She knew his appointment had been earlier than hers. She knocked on the door and Wilson, without turning around, called out for her to come in.

  Before she reached his desk, Wilson swiveled around in the chair, stood, and pushed his glasses up on his head. Zan realized that he was younger than she expected, certainly not more than midthirties. With his tall, lanky frame, he looked more like a basketball player than an award-winning architect. His firm jaw and keen blue eyes were the most prominent features in his ruggedly handsome face.

  He extended his hand. “Alexandra Moreland, glad to meet you and thank you for accepting our invitation to submit design plans for our model apartments.”

  Zan tried to smile as she took his hand. In the almost two years since Matthew disappeared, she had usually managed to compartmentalize herself, to force Matthew from her mind when she was in a business situation. But today the combination of Matthew’s birthday and the shock of knowing that someone was piling up bills on her credit card and charge accounts was suddenly breaking down the wall of reserve she had built so carefully.

  She knew her hand was ice cold and was glad that Kevin Wilson didn’t seem to notice it, but she could not trust herself to speak. First she had to let the lump that was crowding her throat begin to dissolve, otherwise she knew that silent tears would begin to run down her face. She could only hope that Wilson would mistake her silence for shyness.

  Apparently he did. “Why don’t we take a look and see what you’ve come up with?” he suggested, gently.

  Zan swallowed hard, then managed to speak in an even tone. “If you don’t mind, let’s go up to the apartments and I can explain to you how I’ve chosen to put things together.”

  “Sure,” he said. In a long stride, Wilson was around the desk and had taken the heavy leather folder from her. They walked down the corridor to the second bank of elevators. The lobby was in the final stages of construction, with overhead wires dangling and narrow strips of carpet scattered on the dusty floors.

  Wilson kept up a running conversation, surely, Zan felt, to help her get over what he must have thought was her nervousness. “This is going to be one of the most energy-efficient buildings in New York,” he said. “We’ve got solar energy and we’ve maximized the window sizes throughout to give all the apartments the constant feeling of sun and light. I grew up in an apartment house where my bedroom faced the brick wall of the building next door. Day and night it was so dark I could hardly see my hand in front of my face. In fact I put a sign on the door when I was ten years old, ‘The Cave.’ My mother made me take it down before my father came home. She said it would make him feel bad that we didn’t have a better place to live.”

  And I grew up living all over the world, Zan thought. So many people think that’s wonderful. Mother and Dad loved the diplomatic life, but I wanted permanence. I wanted neighbors who would still be there in twenty years. I wanted to live in a house that was ours. I didn’t want to have to go to boarding school when I was thirteen. I wanted to be with them, and even sometimes resented them for being on the move so much.

  They were stepping into the elevator. Wilson pushed a button on the panel and the elevator door closed. Zan searched for something to say. “I guess you may have heard that since your secretary phoned and invited me to submit design plans for the model apartments, I’ve been in and out of here any number of times.”

  “I heard that.”

  “I wanted to see the rooms at different times of day, so that I could get a feel for them, and of how it would be for different kinds of people to walk in and say, ‘I’m home.’ “

  They started in the one-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bath apartment. “My guess is that the people looking at this one fall into two categories,” Zan began. “The apartments are expensive enough so that you’re not getting any kids just out of college, unless Daddy is paying the bills. I think you’ll probably have a lot of young professionals looking at this model. And unless it’s a romance situation, most of them won’t want roommates.”

  Wilson smiled. “And the other category?”

  “Older people who want a pied-à-terre, and even if they could afford it don’t want a guest room because they don’t want overnight guests.”

  It was getting easier for her. She was on safe territory. “This is what I’ve come up with.” There was a long counter separating the kitchen from the dining area. “Why don’t I lay out my sketches and swatches here?” she suggested as she took the portfolio from him.

  She was with Kevin Wilson for nearly two hours as she explained her alternate approaches for each of the three model apartments. When they were back in his office, he laid her plans on the table behind his desk and said, “You’ve put an awful lot of work into this, Zan.”

  After the first time he had called her Alexandra, she had said, “Let’s keep it simple. Everybody calls me Zan, I guess because when I was starting to talk, Alexandra was too big a mouthful for me.”

  “I want to get the job,” she said. “I’m excited about the layouts I showed you and it was worth the time and effort to give them my best shot. I know you invited Bartley Longe to submit his plans, and of course he’s a superb designer. It’s that simple. The competition is stiff and you may not like anything that either of us has planned.”

  “You’re a lot more charitable about him than he is about you,” Wilson observed dryly.

  Zan was sorry to hear the note of bitterness in her throat when she answered, “I’m afraid there’s no love lost between Bartley and me, but on the other hand I’m sure you’re not treating this assignment as a popularity contest.” And I know I’ll come in at least a third cheaper than Bartley, she thought, as she left Wilson at the imposing entrance to the skyscraper. That will be my ace in the hole. I won’t make much money if I get this job, but the recognition will be worth it.

  In the cab going back to the office, she realized that the tears she had been able to hold back were streaming down her cheeks now. She grabbed her sunglasses out of her shoulder bag and put them on. When the cab stopped on East Fifty-eighth Street, as usual she gave a generous tip because she believed that anyone who had to make a living driving every day in New York traffic deserved one.

  The cabbie, an elderly black man with a Jamaican accent, thanked her warmly, then added, “Miss, I couldn’t help notice you were crying. You’re feeling real bad today. But maybe tomorrow everything will look a lot brighter. You’ll see.”

  If only that were true, Zan thought, as she whispered, “Thank you,” gave a final dab to her eyes, and stepped out of the cab. But everything won’t look brighter tomorrow.

  And maybe it never will.

  8

  Fr. Aiden O’Brien had spent a sleepless night worrying about the young woman who, under the seal of the confessional, had told him that she was taking part in an ongoing crime and would be unable to preven
t a murder. He could only hope that the very fact that her conscience had driven her to begin to unburden herself to him would also force her to prevent the grave sin of allowing another human being’s life to be taken.

  He prayed for the woman at morning Mass, then with a heavy heart went about his duties. He especially enjoyed helping with the meals or the clothing distribution that the church had been carrying on for the needy for eighty years. Lately the number of people they fed and clothed had been rising. Fr. Aiden assisted at the breakfast shift, watching with satisfaction as hungry people’s faces brightened when they began to eat cereal and scrambled eggs and sip steaming hot coffee.

  Then, in the midafternoon, Fr. Aiden’s own spirits were cheered considerably when he received a call from his old friend Alvirah Meehan, inviting him to dinner that evening. “I’ve got the five o’clock Mass in the upper church,” he told Alvirah, “but I’ll be there about 6:30.”

  It was something to look forward to, even though he knew that nothing could remove the burden the young woman had laid on his shoulders.

  At 6:25 he got out of the uptown bus and crossed Central Park South to the building where Alvirah and Willy Meehan had lived ever since the forty-million-dollar lottery windfall. The doorman got on the speaker to announce him, and when the elevator stopped at the sixteenth floor, Alvirah was waiting to greet him. The delicious aroma of roasting chicken floated into the hall and Fr. Aiden gratefully followed Alvirah to its source. Willy was waiting to take his coat and prepare his favorite drink, bourbon on the rocks.

  They had not been sitting too long before Fr. Aiden realized that Alvirah was not her usual cheery self. There was a concerned look in her expression and he got the feeling she was trying to bring something up. Finally he decided to put it on the table. “Alvirah, you’re worried about something. Anything I can do to help?”