Spencer was sitting in the living room, and it was almost completely dark there, the only light coming from a single dim lamp. Spencer stood up as soon as Jillian walked into the room. She looked groggy and tousled by sleep.
“Feeling better?” he asked. She was wearing one of his old soft cotton shirts as pajamas and he reached out to her to do up the top two buttons.
“It’s your shirt… you don’t wear it anymore… not since Florida, anyway.”
“And why should I?” He place a dry little kiss on her cheek. “Why should I wear it when it looks so much better on you.”
Jillian didn’t answer but looked around the shadowy room. “Where’s Nan?”
“She went out.”
“It’s after midnight,” said Jillian. “And she doesn’t know the first thing about this city.”
“She’s young, Jilly. She’s meeting some friends to go clubbing. That’s what you do in New York.”
“I didn’t know she had any friends in New York,” said Jillian. “She never mentioned them to me.”
Spencer shrugged. “Well, apparently she has. People younger than us. Remember when we were young?”
“Were we?” Jillian asked, a trifle archly.
“Oh yes,” said Spencer. “I remember. We used to be up all night dancing on tabletops… I remember everything…” He got a sly look on his face. “And if you aren’t nice to me I’ll be forced to tell the twins what a wild woman their mother used to be. You know, back in the Middle Ages…”
Jillian did not laugh. Spencer looked into her eyes and found not a spark of amusement or pleasure or even affection there. He sighed heavily and shook his head.
“You were so close there for a while,” he said sadly. “But now you are so far away again.”
Jillian did not bend. “You ever think about what happened? About Alex? About what happened to Natalie? Does that ever cross your mind, Spencer?”
He shook his head slowly. “Jillian, please… Let’s not go through that again. I thought we had managed to put things behind us, as if it was all in the past now.”
“When you were out there, those two minutes, Spencer, when you almost died…”
Spencer groaned, “Why do you want to go back there, Jillian? We’re happy here now. We have each other, we have the twins. Nan is here. Why do you want to back to that. I know it’s hard sometimes, but can’t you try to be happy?”
He held her close. “Just stay here with me, okay, Jillian? Please stay here with me. That’s all I ask.”
Jillian’s voice was very, very soft. “It feels like a dream,” she said. “I’m not sure I’m not still asleep.”
“You’re awake,” said Spencer.
“Then I’ll try,” said Jillian.
“What?”
“I’ll try to be happy,” said Jillian.
Spencer nodded and smiled. “Good,” he said. “Now let’s go to bed, Jillian.” Spencer was gone by the time she woke the next morning. She showered and dressed and prepared to go out when she discovered her sister Nan passed out on the living room couch. She was wrapped in a blanket. She wondered if Spencer had given it to her or if she had wandered drunkenly around the apartment during the night looking for and finally finding a linen closet.
Jillian looked down at her sister for a moment and then changed her mind about going out. She decided to stay in and make some phone calls first…
16
The phone was answered on the second ring. “Nesbit Arms… What?”
“Room 323, please,” said Jillian.
“Wait a minute.”
There was a moment of silence, then the sound of the extension ringing.
“Yes?” She recognized Sherman Reese’s voice instantly.
“Mr. Reese, this is Jillian Armacost…” She paused a moment to gather her thoughts and her courage. “The autopsy on Natalie Streck, what did it say about the baby?”
Reese did not answer.
“Mr. Reese?” said Jillian. “Are you there? Mr. Reese? Please speak to me.”
Reese’s voice slightly louder than a whisper and he seemed to speak through clenched teeth. “Not on the phone, please, Mrs. Armacost. Not on the phone…”
But Jillian was insistent. “Please, you have to tell me. What did the autopsy report say about the baby.”
“Mrs. Armacost… It is not safe to—”
Jillian’s voice rose and she shouted at him as she interrupted. “Mr. Reese! What did the report say about the baby.”
Reese’s voice was very soft and quiet. “Babies, Mrs. Armacost. It was babies.”
“What?”
“Natalie Streck was pregnant with twins, Mrs. Armacost,” he said. “She was carrying twins.”
Jillian felt as if she had been hit in the stomach and it took her a couple of moments for her to digest what she had just heard. “What’s happening to me, Mr. Reese?”
“You are, too, aren’t you, Mrs. Armacost? You are pregnant with twins, too, aren’t you?” Instinctively she touched her belly and swallowed hard. “Natalie’s babies, Mr. Reese, please… what did the autopsy say about them? You have to tell me.”
Reese spoke quickly. “There’s something I have to show you, Mrs. Armacost. Something you need to see. Do you understand me, Mrs. Armacost?”
Jillian paused a long time. And when she started talking again she sounded like a second grade teacher, light and airy and full of roses and perfume. But she told a story that was hardly fit for the innocent ears of a class of second graders.
“Do you know the story of the princess whose beloved prince dies in battle?” she asked.
“Mrs. Armacost, I have something you need to see. Do you understand me?”
Jillian ignored him. “The enemy prince, after overrunning the castle, finds the princess and forces himself upon her. Months later the princess is with child. But whose? It’s either the child of her enemy, the man who killed her husband, the man who raped her. In which case, she will kill herself and the child. Or is it the child of her prince, the only thing she has left of her beloved, a part of him still alive in her, kept safe in side her. In which case… But how will she know until it is too late? How will she know until the child is born and she can see its eyes?”
The enigmatic message got through to Reese loud and clear. “Meet me right now,” he said urgently. “Somewhere public. Leave your apartment. Meet me now.”
“Where?”
“The subway…”
When Jillian emerged from her bedroom she saw that Nan was awake, sort of. She was sitting at the kitchen counter, still wearing the clothes she had slept in, drinking a cup of coffee and nursing a colossal hangover.
Jillian smiled. “Well, don’t you look the picture of health this morning.”
“Jilly, don’t be cruel,” Nan muttered. “They certainly like to party in this town.”
“Well yes, that’s the reputation…” She headed for the door. “I’ve got some errands to run. Why don’t you take it easy this morning and we’ll do something later.”
The suggestion was music to Nan’s ears. “I’ll take it easy this morning and we’ll do something later. I love it.”
“Bye,” said Jillian and left.
It was only half an hour later that Nan realized that she had been outsmarted by her sister. She was sure Jillian was going to meet that weirdo Reese. She wondered what she could do about it. She had to stop it because she was sure it was a bad idea…
It was Jillian’s first ride on the New York City subway system, a simple ride on the Number Six Lexington Avenue Local from the Upper East Side to the stop at Fifty-first Street. Following instructions Reese had whispered hurriedly to her on the phone, she rode in the front car of the train and got out of the station at the exit farthest downtown, the one that led out on to the corner of Fiftieth Street and Lexington Avenue.