Alafair Burke - Long Gone

The click on the other end of the line was like a punch in the throat.

I t was Alice’s second trip to the Upper East Side, and the weekend wasn’t even over. This time her mother answered the door herself, greeting her with a big hug and a kiss on the cheek.

“Hey, Mom. I thought you were in Bedford.”

“Well, I was, but Arthur has a table tonight at some fund-raiser for one civil right or another. I thought it would be a good excuse to put on a fancy gown and eat dessert.”

“Dad’s going with you?” She had called in advance to make sure he had returned from yesterday’s location-scouting trip to Miami.

“I’m afraid not. He’s packing a bag now to head out to Los Angeles. I told Arthur I’d be representing the family tonight. Don’t tell anyone, but I’ve already had a little martini to get me started. Would you like one?”

“No, thanks.” Based on her mother’s tolerance and extraordinary chipperness, Alice suspected she’d had more than one warm-up drink. She’d always found it strange that her mother continued an open affair with alcohol despite her husband’s decision twenty-five years earlier to go dry, but there was no shortage of things she did not understand about her parents’ marriage.

“How are things at the gallery?” Her mother looked at her watch. “Shouldn’t you be there?”

“It’s taken care of for now.”

She felt guilty for not telling her what was happening, but Alice’s mother had spent her entire life sending out signals that she did not want to be troubled by disturbing news. Maybe in a different marriage, with different hardships, she would have developed into a more complex woman. Certainly the promising actress who had won an Academy Award for her depiction of a promiscuous young widow had shown early signs of emotional depth. But at some point in her life, Rose Sampson Humphrey had accepted a permanent role as happy Hollywood wife, standing quietly and supportively by her talented husband and perfect children, always grateful for the family’s good fortune.

Even when Ben was turning into a full-out junkie, she’d allow herself to be convinced that he was plagued by migraines, anxiety disorders, chronic fatigue, any explanation for his weight loss, erratic behavior, and sickly pallor. Rose Sampson was not, as she liked to say, in the stress business.

“All right. It’s nice to know I’ve got one child I don’t need to worry about for the time being.”

“Ben?”

“He didn’t show up for your opening last week. He told me he’d come up to the country for the weekend, but-well, he’s probably busy. Have you seen him?”

“I was at his apartment last night.” She’d been trying him all morning, but her calls were still going directly to voice mail.

“Did he seem okay? Everything’s all right?”

“I only saw him for a few minutes, but, yeah-he was-he was Ben.” Go ahead, Mom. Ask the follow-up question. Push me for more information. Because you know. You know, Mom. You know he’s still got a problem, the way you know you smell like vodka and have glassy eyes at eleven in the morning.

“Well, that’s good to hear. To what do I owe this pleasure, by the way?”

“I need to talk to Dad about something.”

“That’s even nicer to hear. Maybe the two of you will be back to normal soon.” Her chipper smile fell when Alice didn’t respond. “Don’t be so hard on your father, Alice. There are very few people in this world who have the power to hurt that man, and you’re one of them. I haven’t been a perfect wife, if that makes a difference.”

She didn’t want to hear her mother make excuses for his affairs. She didn’t care about his sins as a father or a husband anymore. She just needed answers.

“Mom, you don’t know anything about Dad somehow backing the gallery, do you?”

Her lips formed a small O. “Sweetie, I know your father gave you a hard time about wanting to do things on your own, but really-I think you’re letting your imagination get the better of you.”

“Did you have a chance to ask him about the ITH Corporation?”

She was here to ask her father about the company directly, but it wouldn’t hurt to know what he might have said to her mother.

Her mother snapped her fingers and pointed at her. “That’s right . You asked about that. I did not have a chance to ask your father about it. You know how hard he is to reach when he’s on the road. But I did have some extra time on my hands up in that empty house in Bedford waiting for your brother to show up, so I did some digging in your father’s old files.”

She made her way to the coat closet near the front door and pulled out a canvas tote bag. “I found this.”

Alice removed a file folder from the bag and flipped through its pages. She was no lawyer, but she could tell the document was an agreement between ITH Corporation and someone named Julie Kinley. ITH agreed to place all of its existing assets into a trust for the benefit of Julie Kinley. In exchange, Kinley agreed to release all potential legal claims against ITH and its agents, officers, and employees, both in their official and personal capacities. Alice wasn’t entirely clear about that part, but she assumed it was a settlement agreement of some kind. The final paragraph of the document was a clause requiring confidentiality from both Kinley and ITH about the agreement.

“Is that what you were looking for?”

“I think so. Thanks. Do you know what ITH was for?”

“Your father has created a few different corporations over the years, hon. You know, for the film funding and what not. What’s this all about?”

“Nothing, Mom. I’ll talk to him about it. Have fun at your event tonight.”

By the time Alice was halfway up the stairs, her mother was already at the bar cart, pouring herself another martini.

“Your mother went through my study? I don’t know how many times I’ve asked her-”

“You were in Miami, and I needed to know about this company.”

He shook his head with confusion. “You’re telling me that this gallery was started under the name ITH?”

How many times would she need to go over this? “It was incorporated in 1985, and Arthur Cronin filed the paperwork with the state. Now it turns out you had this settlement agreement in your office. I assume that means you’re behind ITH. I need to know whether you were also behind the gallery.”

Most of the time when Alice looked at her parents, she saw them as they had always appeared to her-beautiful, strong, a little exotic. But every once in a while, she saw them through a neutral observer’s eyes-not as they once were, but as they currently existed. A little thinner. A little paler. Their noses and ears a bit larger. Older. Her father was seventy-eight years old, and right now his face showed every day of it.

“This doesn’t make any sense.”

“I’ve been trying to tell you that. But I can’t dig myself out of this unless you tell me everything. ITH is your company, isn’t it?”

“It was a d-b-a I formed to film In the Heavens .”

She knew that d-b-a stood for doing-business-as. It was a moniker used for small businesses that were not technically formed as corporations. “You didn’t incorporate?”

“I had no idea what I was doing back then. I was a kid with a script, some friends, and a fantasy. The next thing you know, your mother and I are both winning Academy Awards. I kept the money associated with In the Heavens in an account I had opened under the d-b-a.”

“But then you incorporated in 1985? That was fifteen years later.”

“Sixteen, actually.”

“And now someone has used that company name to open the Highline Gallery.”