Fairytale (7 page)

“I’m not a thief,” she whispered, though she
knew in her heart that wasn’t quite true.

A little anger sparked in his pale gray eyes,
but he banked it immediately. He kept his voice level and chilling.
“You think just because Mel made the switches, you’re innocent? You
think those people you and he stole from would agree with you? Do
you, Brigit?”

She closed her eyes, sought the peace she
could find if she concentrated hard enough. It didn’t work, though.
Right now, nothing could soothe her.

“I didn’t mean for it to go as far as it
did,” she whispered. And she was explaining it more to the violets
than to Zaslow.

“You only wanted to do it once. The Matisse.
I know, Brigit. Mel told me everything.”

She jerked her gaze up to Zaslow’s big chest.
No higher. His eyes made her go cold inside. And that close-cropped
salt and pepper hair reminded her of porcupine quills. “Mel’s the
one who told you how to find me?” She couldn’t believe it was true.
Crook or not, Mel was a friend. The only one from her past she
still kept in contact with.

“Before I was done with him, he was begging
to tell me what I wanted to know.” Zaslow rubbed the knuckles of
one hand with the palm of the other.

A sick feeling welled in Brigit’s stomach.
Mel! Yes, he’d been a criminal, and yes he’d convinced her to help
him with the scheme, and ended up leading her by the hand down a
path that was barren of morality. But she’d always had a choice. It
had been her decision, not Mel’s. And when she’d had enough, Mel
hadn’t even argued with her. She’d written to him, called him once
or twice. But she hadn’t seen him in almost five years, not since
she and Raze had left the city and come to this place she’d known
was a haven from her first glimpse of it. Her salvation. Her new
life. She’d thought she’d left the past behind.

She saw the cruelty in Zaslow’s eyes, and
shivered. “What did you do to him? Did you hurt him? Is Mel all
right?”

Zaslow only shrugged and turned away from
her. He slowly paced the length of the shop, his fingers idly
stroking fragile leaves. Bending now and then to sniff at a
blossom. “You didn’t expect it to be so lucrative, did you, Brigit?
But how could you know, at the tender age of nineteen? Hmm? You
didn’t have a clue how much money an original Matisse would bring
on the black market. And the owner not even realizing it was
stolen—man, that was the beauty of it. That was the beauty. Best
scam I was ever into.”

“But I didn’t—”

“You made enough that first time to get you
and the old man some decent clothes, get you cleaned up, so you
didn’t look like bums when you took him to see the doc. Made enough
to get old Razor Face into a good hospital, and pay for all those
tests. But bills have a way of reproducing, don’t they Brigit?” He
came back to the counter and stood there, searching her face as if
looking for an answer. When she didn’t give one, he went on. “Yeah,
they do. Just like goddamn rabbits. I know how it is. And then
there were the treatments, and the specialists and the medicine.
And hell, Raze had to have a place to come home to when they let
him out, didn’t he? He had to have a bed, and some heat, and
regular meals, right? Hey, I’m not saying you got greedy. You did
what you had to do to survive.” He absently fingered the geranium
that thrived in its basket on the counter. Lifting one snowy white
blossom to inspect it, he nodded once, and snapped it from its stem
without so much as blinking.

His figure blurred, and Brigit had to close
her eyes because of the red-hot stinging in them.

“I’m sorry, Sister Mary Agnes,” she
whispered.

“So you did a few more.” Zaslow kept talking,
ignoring her pain. He popped the little cluster of blossoms into a
buttonhole on his lapel, fussing with it until it hung just the way
he wanted. “So what? It’s not like you went out and killed someone
or robbed a bank, now is it? The owners never knew the difference.
No one got hurt. It isn’t as if you wanted a free ride, after all.
You just made enough money off your little forgery enterprise to
run away to this yuppie college town. Enough to buy this pretty
little flower shop, here. Made yourself into a respectable lady,
didn’t you Brigit? Member of the small business association and
everything. You go to community meetings and talk to troubled kids.
Donate money to the homeless. Volunteer at the soup kitchen on
weekends. What is all that, your penance or something?”

She lifted her fingers to her temples,
rubbing brutal circles there, lowering her chin to her chest. “Will
you please just leave me alone? Please?”

His hand was suddenly clasping her chin,
thumb and forefinger digging into her cheeks, forcing her head up.
He leaned over the counter so his face was close to hers. “You’re
no better than I am, Brigit, so drop the act. You’re a thief. And
you’re gonna do this for me. I promise you that.”

“No.” She tried to pull away from him.

He released her abruptly, and she stumbled
backward, knocked her head against the shelf behind her. A coleus
plummeted from the shelf, exploding on impact at her feet. Purple
and green leaves, broken stems, black soil, and bits of pottery
covered the floor and dusted her feet. Fragile roots lay
exposed.

“I got enough dirt on you to put you in
prison for thirty years.” He wasn’t yelling. Just speaking very
calmly as he straightened, adjusted, and gave his cuffs a
gentlemanly tug.

“If you turned me in, you’d go to prison,
too, Zaslow.”

“Wrong little lady. I’ve
been
to
prison. That last painting you forged for me...the buyer turned out
to be an undercover cop. I did my time, and I did it with my mouth
shut. They tried everything to get me to tell them the name of my
forger, but I wouldn’t do it.”

Brigit shook all over and remained where she
was, back to the wall literally as well as figuratively. “Not out
of loyalty,” she whispered. “You only kept my name out of it so you
could use me again.”

“Why doesn’t matter. You owe me, Brigit
Malone.”

“I can’t—”

“Then I’ll turn you in. And what do you think
will happen to the old man then? Huh, Brigit? What do you think
Raze will do? You think he can get by on the streets now like he
used to? Hell, he can barely feed himself.”

“Don’t do this.”

“It’s done. You get close to Reid. You get
inside his house, get a look at the painting, and then you make a
nice replica for me. Since Mel’s...unavailable, you make the switch
for me. Bring me the original. You do everything I say, exactly as
I say. Otherwise, I see to it the cops find out everything I
know.”

She thought of Adam Reid, though she tried to
blot his image from her mind. She thought of the pain in his eyes.
Passion and pain, all entwined together in eyes that glistened like
gemstones. He’d frightened her and drawn her all at once. She’d
never looked into anyone’s eyes and felt the things she’d felt in
his. She’d glimpsed goodness. Yes, she’d been sure it was there.
But buried beneath so much bitter pain and anger that it might
never surface again. There was danger in Adam Reid’s eyes. Dark,
threatening danger.

It would have been easier to give in, easier
to save herself from Zaslow’s threats, if Adam Reid had been a
stranger. But he wasn’t. He was the man she’d been making love to
in her dreams her whole life. He was the man she’d always thought
would one day need her like no one else ever had...or ever
would.

Squaring her shoulders, she met Zaslow’s
evil, contaminated gaze. “I tried,” she breathed, though she was
sure he wouldn’t give in. “I went there today, just like you told
me to, and he wouldn’t even let me in his class. How am I supposed
to get into his house if I can’t get into his classroom?”

Zaslow shrugged. “That’s your problem, not
mine.”

Brigit’s throat felt like sandpaper. He
wasn’t going to back down. “Why does it have to be
that
painting?” It was a desperate attempt to divert him. “Why not pick
another one, any one you want? A Rembrandt. A Picasso. Anything
else. Why do you want an unknown painting by an anonymous artist
anyway?”

“Because that’s what my...my
client
...is paying me a hundred grand to get. Look, this guy
hired me to steal
that
painting. He didn’t say how, he only
said do it. Making a substitute is my idea. Best way to handle the
job. This way, Reid never even knows he’s been ripped off, my
client gets what he wants, and I get paid. Look, Brigit, this is
not the kind of guy to settle for substitutions. Now I’m done
talking to you. You gonna do this or am I gonna bring you down
hard?”

She sought for excuses, and clung to the one
that was the most genuine. “I can’t do it without a print, Zaslow.
If you don’t believe me, ask Mel. He always got me a print to work
from. I need something in front of me as I work.”

“There are no prints of this piece,” he
growled. “Don’t you think I checked?”

“Then how do you expect me to—”

“Like I said, you get
close
to him.”
His filthy eyes traveled to her toes and back again, and she felt
dirtied by their touch. “Shouldn’t be a problem for you, Brigit.
You’re a hot little number. Hell, I’m tempted to try you
myself.”

Her stomach churned, and she thought she’d
vomit.

“Reid is healthy, male, and straight, honey.
So why don’t you just make him an offer he can’t refuse?”

She shook her head, banking her revulsion.
She wouldn’t do it. Not in a hundred years. She couldn’t even think
of it, seeing Adam Reid’s tortured blue eyes in her mind again.
Yes, she’d forged paintings before, but she’d never had to look her
victims in the eye. She’d never had to see their pain and know
she’d be adding to it. She’d never had to get close to them, much
less do what Zaslow was suggesting, only to betray them. Like
slipping a blade between the ribs of a friend.

“Or, you can use this.” He pulled a folded
newspaper from inside his jacket, and shoved it in her face. The
classifieds. With an ad circled in red.

“Boarder wanted. Estate on Cayuga Lake.
Reasonable rates.” There was more, but she didn’t bother. She threw
the paper down and stared up at Zaslow. He could send her to prison
maybe, or at least ruin her business, destroy the entire life she’d
built here by shouting her secrets from the rooftops.

But even if he did, Raze would be all right.
She’d set aside money in his name. No one could touch that. Not
even if she was caught. And it would be enough to see him
through.

So let Zaslow do his worst. She met his gray
eyes, not flinching from their cold emptiness this time. She wasn’t
a lonely, frightened little girl anymore.

Very calmly she said, “I can’t. I
won’t.”

He leaned across the counter, his vile breath
fanning her face. And the menace in his eyes sent ice-cold terror
right to the pit of her stomach. “We’ll just see about that, won’t
we, Brigit?”

Then he turned and strode away. The chimes
jangled as he slammed out of the shop. Brigit didn’t relax until
he’d walked so far she could no longer see his retreating form
through the windows. And then she sagged to the floor behind the
counter, and just sat amid the spilled, dark soil feeling stunned,
drained.

The soothing smells of Akasha wafted slowly
into her psyche, like a balm to her soul. The wind chimes she’d
hung all over the place tinkled magically. And she knew, no matter
what consequences she might face, that she had done the right
thing.

The house wasn’t theirs. Not yet. They were
still renting, while they waited for the loan to be approved. With
her sterling reputation, thriving business, and healthy financial
state, Brigit had been looking forward to a quick approval.

But it wouldn’t happen now, would it?

No, Brigit realized as her bare feet sank
into the grass at the edge of the driveway. Her shoes dangled from
the two fingers of her left hand. No, the loan wouldn’t be
approved, not if Zaslow was as good as his threats. Not if he
exposed her as a thief. A forger. A criminal.

She bit her lip as the wind stirred the dead
leaves at her feet, and carried their scent up to twirl it around
her face. The porch swing swayed, emitting a lonely creak. It was a
small porch, little white railing all the way around. She’d always
wanted a porch swing. And a neat white house with black shutters.
It was the kind of place she’d dreamed about when she’d been a
lonely little girl at St. Mary’s. The kind of place she’d imagined
she might live in one day, when she had a real family. The family
she’d fantasized about had never come to adopt her. But she had the
house now. And she had Raze. He was her family.

She liked to think that if her sister were
real, she’d have found a place like this, and a dreamworld family
to go along with it.
If
she were real. Seemed less likely
all the time, though.

Brigit had tried once, a few years ago, to
check into the records in Albany, to find out for sure if she’d had
a twin. But she’d been told the records were sealed and that was
that. She would probably never know.

There were window boxes on the front of her
little house. She’d grown riots of pansies in them every summer
since she and Raze had moved in here.

She tried to swallow and couldn’t, so she
settled on blinking her eyes dry and mounting the steps. The screen
door squeaked when she opened it, banged closed again when she let
it go. The stairs right in front of her led up to the bedrooms. The
living room lay on her left, the dining room on her right. Raze
wasn’t in either of them.

“Raze? Are you here?”

No answer. She dropped the shoes to the
floor, frowning, and walked the full circle, through the living
room, into the kitchen that took up the entire rear third of the
house, around into the dining room and back to the front door.
Growing more worried by the second, she called out again. Raze was
getting old. The thought of him hurt...or sick...turned her stomach
to a vat of bubbling corrosives. She headed upstairs.