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I closed my eyes and inhaled, holding it for a count of six. I exhaled slowly and opened my eyes. “Then it’s unanimous. The Board of Directors is going to die.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
When we had finished our discussion, I went to my room to throw a few things in a bag. At some point we were going to have to leave New Orleans and I figured it was easier to pack when I had the chance. I was stuffing clothes into a small duffel when Helen slipped into my room, closing the door behind her.
“That’s a criminal way to treat silk,” she said, pulling a blouse out of the duffel. She laid it on the bed facedown, smoothing it neatly before making a couple of quick motions with her hands that created a small, tidy parcel.
“It looks like Barbie’s Glamour Parachute,” I told her.
She tucked it into the duffel. “It should come out fine, but if there are creases, just hang it in the bathroom when you shower. The wrinkles will drop right out.”
“Gee, if only that worked for my face,” I said, tossing a pair of jeans into the duffel on top of the blouse. I wadded up a T-shirtuntil I saw her expression. She put out her hand for the T-shirt and refolded it, smoothing the fabric slowly. “I’ve been thinking, Billie. About Minka. I don’t think she should come.”
“You didn’t like her on day one and you still haven’t warmed up to her,” I began.
“It isn’t that, Billie. You were right to trust her. She’s a remarkable girl. But sheisa girl.”
“She’s the same age we were when we signed up for the Museum,” I said, snatching back the T-shirt and shoving it into the duffel.
“And my mother was having babies at twenty. What’s your point?” she said mildly. “Times change. She should have a chance to see the world. And not the way we did.”
I moved to pick up a stack of underwear, but she put out her hand to take mine. “Billie.” I stopped moving.
“She’s seen more of the world than you can possibly imagine,” I said.
“I know. We’ve had a few interesting chats,” she said, her hand still on top of mine. “I know where you found her and how you got her out of Ukraine. You didn’t have to do that.”
“Yes, I did,” I said simply.
Helen smiled. “Contrary to what you think, I like her. Very much. And I don’t want to see her end up like us.”
“What are you saying, Helen? That we somehow missed out? That we wasted our lives and we’re nothing but washed-up cautionary tales?”
“No,” she replied. “But aren’t there things you wish you’d done differently? Things you wish you’d made time for? People you wish you hadn’t let go?”
I snatched my hand out from under hers. “Minka is part of the team and she’s coming to England. End of story.” I clamped my mouth shut before I said anything I’d regret—probably about her freezing up in Jackson Square and losing her nerve.
I started shoving the rest of my clothes into the duffel, cramming a pair of boots on top of a shirtwaist dress I didn’t even remember owning. Helen watched me for a minute, then got up.
“I’ll leave you to it, then,” she said quietly as she shut the door behind her.
She hadn’t said his name, but I knew exactly who she was thinking of, and when I crawled into bed without undressing that night and waited for hours to crash into sleep, it was because I was thinking of him.Taverner.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
NOVEMBER 1981
Billie has a theory that every life has a soundtrack. Some people are big band people or smooth jazz. Others are pure Baroque opera theatricality. Her soundtrack is not that glamorous. “Delta Dawn” was on the jukebox when her mother left her—age twelve, sitting in a strip mall pizza joint—and never came back.
And “If You Could Read My Mind” is being played by a soft-rock combo in a hotel bar in Chicago when she is passing time, waiting to meet up with her partner for the first job after a debacle in Zanzibar. Vance Gilchrist, her mission leader for the assignment, has been unstinting in his report and she realizes she will be watched to see if she makes a habit of going off piste. This is a chance to redeem herself and she means to make the most of it.
She sits at the bar, nursing a glass of tepid Chablis while the singer invokes ghosts and wishing wells, and feelingfaintly sick to her stomach with anticipation as she goes over the coded exchange they are supposed to use to establish contact.
“Is anyone sitting here?”
She glances up and falls—at least that’s how it feels. It is a second, maybe two, before she answers. But two seconds is a long time when your life cracks open.
He isn’t handsome, not like the polished-up pretty boys Natalie favors. This one needs a second look, but that look is a killer. He has maybe five inches on her, and an easy, loose-limbed way of holding himself that only comes with the bone-deep confidence of knowing there is nothing on earth you’re afraid of. He wears a washed-out Henley and faded jeans with a battered leather jacket and a pair of Frye boots that have seen a dozen years of hard wear. A narrow silver bracelet circles one wrist and a knotted cotton braid wraps around the other. He has the sort of light brown hair that goes gold with too much sun, just unruly and wavy enough to bury your fists in when you’re kissing hard. His beard and mustache are about two days past needing a trim if you mind about that sort of thing. Billie doesn’t.
