F. Paul Wilson: The Tomb

He picked out an orange Wuppet and headed for home.

7

Lunch was a can of Lite beer and a cylinder of Country Style Pringles in the cool of his apartment. He knew he should be up on the roof doing his daily exercises, but he also knew what the temperature would be like up there.

Later , he promised himself. Jack loathed his exercise routine and embraced any excuse to postpone it. He never missed a day, but never passed up an opportunity to put it off.

While nursing a second Lite, he went to the closet next to the bathroom to stash his two new acquisitions. It was a cedar closet, the air within heavy with the odor of the wood. He pulled a piece of molding loose from the base of a side wall, then slipped free one of the cedar planks above it. Behind the plank lay the bathroom water pipes, each wrapped in insulation. And taped to the insulation like ornaments on a Christmas tree were dozens of rare coins. Jack found empty spots for the latest.

He tapped the board and molding back into place, then stepped back to survey the work. A good hidey hole. More accessible than a safe deposit box. Better than a wall safe. With burglars using metal detectors these days, they could find a safe in minutes and either crack it or carry it off. But a metal detector here would only confirm that there were pipes behind the bathroom wall.

The only thing Jack had to worry about was fire.

He realized a psychiatrist would have a field day with him, labeling him a paranoid of one sort or another. But Jack had worked out a better explanation: When you lived in a city with one of the highest robbery rates in the world and you worked in a field that tended to get people violently angry with you, and you had no FDIC to protect your savings, extreme caution as a daily routine was not a symptom of mental illness; it was necessary for survival.

He was polishing off the second beer when the phone rang. Gia again? He listened to the Pinocchio Enterprises intro, then heard his father's voice begin to leave a message. He picked up and cut in.

"Hi, Dad."

"Don't you ever turn that thing off, Jack?"

"The answerphone? I just got in. What's up?"

"Just wanted to remind you about Sunday."

Sunday? What the hell was—"You mean about the tennis match? How could I forget?"

"Wouldn't be the first time."

Jack winced. "I told you, Dad. I got tied up with something and couldn't get away."

"Well, I hope it won't happen again." Dad's tone said he couldn't imagine what could be so important in the appliance repair business that could tie up a man for a whole day. "I've got us down for the father-and-son match."

"I'll be there bright and early Sunday morning."

"Good. See you then."

''Looking forward to it."

What a lie, he thought as he hung up. He dreaded seeing his father, even for something so simple as a father-and-son tennis match. Yet he kept on accepting invitations to go back to New Jersey and bask in parental disapproval. It wasn't masochism that kept him coming back, it was duty. And love —a love that had lain unexpressed for years. After all, it wasn't Dad's fault that he thought of his son as a lazy do-nothing who had squandered an education and was in the process of squandering a life. Dad didn't know what his son really did.

Jack reset the answerphone and changed into a pair of lightweight tan slacks. He wouldn't feel right wearing Levis on Sutton Square.

He decided to walk. He took Columbus Avenue down to the circle. People were lined up outside the Coliseum there waiting to get into a hot rod show. He walked along Central Park South past the St. Moritz and under the ornate iron awning over the Plaza's parkside entrance, amusing himself by counting Arabs and watching the rich tourists stroll in and out of the status hotels. He continued due east along Fifty-ninth toward the stratospheric rent district.

He was working up a sweat but barely noticed. The prospect of seeing Gia again made him almost giddy.

Images, pieces of the past, flashed through his brain as he walked. Gia's big smile, her eyes, the way her whole face crinkled up when she laughed, the sound of her voice, the feel of her skin… all denied him for the past two months.

He remembered his first feelings for her… so different. With almost all the other women in his life the most significant part of the relationship for both parties had been in bed. It was different with Gia. He wanted to know her. He had only thought about the others when there was nothing better to think about. Gia, on the other hand, had a nasty habit of popping into his thoughts at the most inopportune times. He had wanted to cook with her, eat with her, play tennis with her, see movies with her, listen to music with her. Be with her. He had found himself wanting to get in his car and drive past her apartment house just to make sure it was still there. He hated to talk on the phone but found himself calling her at the slightest excuse. He was hooked and he loved it.

For nearly a year it had been a treat to wake up every morning knowing he was probably going to see her at some time during the day. So good…

Other images crept unbidden to the front. Her face when she found out the truth about him, the hurt, and something worse—fear. The knowledge that Gia could even for an instant think that he would ever harm her, or even allow harm to come to her, was the deepest hurt of all. Nothing he had said or tried to say had worked to change her mind.

Now he had another chance. He wasn't going to blow it.

8

"He's late, isn't he, Mom?"

Gia DiLauro kept both hands on her daughter's shoulders as they stood at the window in the front parlor and watched the street. Vicky was fairly trembling with excitement.

"Not quite. Almost, but not quite."

"I hope he doesn't forget."

"He won't. I'm sure he won't." Although I wish he would .

Two months since she had walked out on Jack. She was adjusting. Sometimes she could go through a whole day without thinking about him. She had picked up where she had left off. There was even someone new creeping into her life.

Why couldn't the past ever stay out of sight where it belonged? Take her ex-husband, for instance. After their divorce she had wanted to cut all ties with the Westphalen family, even going so far as to change her name back to the one she had been born with. But Richard's aunts had made that impossible. They adored Vicky and used every imaginable pretext to lure Gia and her daughter over to Sutton Square. Gia had resisted at first, but their genuine affection for Vicky, their insistent pleas, and the fact that they had no illusions about their nephew—"a bounder and a cad!" as Nellie was wont to describe him after her third glass of sherry—finally changed her mind. Number Eight Sutton Square had become a second home of sorts. The aunts had even gone so far as to have a swing set and a wooden playhouse installed in the tiny backyard just for Vicky.

So when Nellie had called in a panic after Grace had been discovered missing on Tuesday morning, Gia had come right over. And had been here ever since.

Grace Westphalen. Such a sweet old lady. Gia couldn't imagine anyone wanting to harm her, and no ransom demand had been made. So where was she? Gia was frightened and mystified by the disappearance and she ached for Nellie, whom she knew was suffering terribly behind her stoical front. It had only been out of love for Nellie and her deep concern for Grace that she had agreed to call Jack this morning. Not that Jack would be much help. From what she had learned of him, she could safely say that this was not his sort of job. But Nellie was desperate and it was the least Gia could do to ease her mind.

Gia told herself she was standing here at the window to keep Vicky company—the poor child had been watching for an hour already—yet there was an undeniable sense of anticipation rising inside her. It wasn't love. It couldn't be love.