Lisa Unger - Die For You

There’s a universe in a moment, in a single frame. Not in every frame. Just the perfect one, where light and shadow mingle, when an expression tells a story-beginning, middle, and end-when a reflection offers meaning. The “now” frozen, everything that came before and after rendered meaningless.

Linda Book stood in the far corner of the gallery and watched them looking at her photographs-pointing, smiling, frowning, nodding “ahh.” Her show, called Assignations , was drawing a lot of attention, more attention than her last few. She liked to think that her art had reached a new level, but probably not. Mimicking candid shots that might have been taken by a private eye, she’d captured lovers around the city-exchanging glances, embraces, passionate kisses. Some were candid. Some staged. She wouldn’t say which was which. Some critics called it shameless, in view of her family’s recent scandals. Others called it magnificent, sensational. Art Forum wrote, “Linda Book’s most captivating show in years-maybe ever.”

It was a week after the opening and the gallery was still packed-on a Tuesday, no less. No one recognized the photographer. Her publicity photo was far too old, airbrushed even then. She looked like a windblown goddess in her photo, untouched by grief or childbirth or disappointment, or infidelity of any kind. Only her husband, who drifted, eavesdropping on conversations, offered her a secret, knowing smile. He was the only one who knew her, here or anywhere.

To see them, the way they made love in the mornings after the kids went to school, the way they held hands again in the cab on the way here, the way he smiled at her now, one might believe that she was still that young girl untouched by life’s trials, after all.

Through the large picture window, she saw Isabel and Jack walking up the sidewalk slowly. Her sister looked so small, still leaning on Jack a bit as she walked. Her injuries-internal and external-would take much more time to heal. But heal they would. She’d see to it.

She moved away from the wall and met her husband in the center of the room. They left together to walk with Jack and Isabel back to the loft-it was still theirs for now-for dinner, and to watch something on television that none of them was quite sure they wanted to watch.

The kids were staying with Margie and Fred, so that Linda and Eric could have some couple time, something they had been sorely lacking. Now that there was a wireless hub, sixty-four-inch flat screen and a Wii in the Riverdale home, Emily and Trevor no longer considered a visit with their grandparents a hardship. There was a minimum of grousing. Therefore, Linda had only a minimum of guilt. Even when Emily called to complain that Margie was making fish and wouldn’t let them order pizza instead, Linda only smiled and told her daughter that fish was good for her and she’d have to bare up.

“You don’t want to see the show again?” Linda teased her sister, embracing her gingerly, afraid to cause her pain. Izzy gave a weak laugh; she’d been to the show several times, had seen it even before it opened. She waited for a smart comment in return, but her sister didn’t say anything. In Linda’s arms, Isabel felt fragile. Linda was still waiting for the haunted look to disappear from her face. She felt as if she hadn’t seen her sister even really smile in months. Not that she could be blamed.

BACK AT THE loft, Erik ordered Chinese and then turned on the television. Izzy hadn’t said much on the walk home and Linda was starting to worry that they were making a mistake.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Linda asked.

“I happen to think it’s a terrible idea,” said Jack. “It’s not as if we’re going to learn anything we don’t already know. This is the psychological equivalent to scab picking.”

Erik nodded his agreement. “He’s right.”

“I want to see it,” Izzy said, lowering herself on the couch. “I need to.”

No one else offered any arguments. Anyway, it was too late. The newsmagazine show had already begun.

A bestselling writer and her software designer husband are living the ultimate urban dream. With a beautiful home in Manhattan, skyrocketing careers, and an extravagant lifestyle, they seemed to want for little. Except that when it came to Isabel Connelly and the man everyone knew as Marcus Raine, nothing was as it seemed .

“We were called to the scene of a triple homicide in the West Village at the offices of Razor Technologies,” said a well-coiffed Detective Grady Crowe. He was sharply dressed and looking very much the role of the celebrity cop. “We found the bodies of Rick Marino, Eileen Charlton, and Ronald Falco, the office trashed, every file and computer removed, and Isabel Connelly unconscious in her husband’s office. We knew we were looking at something big. We didn’t realize at the time that it was international in its scope and that it reached back to the unsolved case of a missing man from years earlier.”

The hour wound on, detailing the disappearance and assumed murder of Marcus Raine after the betrayal of his girlfriend, Camilla Novak, how Kristof Ragan was able to steal the other man’s money and identity, then use Izzy’s Social Security number to establish an EIN for his new business. Some time was devoted to Kristof Ragan’s childhood in an orphanage, how he nearly made good by winning a scholarship to an American university.

He was smart, charming, hardworking, could have made a legitimate success out of himself. What made him choose murder, identity theft, fraud? lamented the reporter in a voice-over, where they showed b-roll of the modern-day orphanage, where children sat at computers, played soccer, read books at round tables. They called in an expert psychologist to offer an explanation.

“It wouldn’t be hard to understand the despair a child like Kristof Ragan felt, abandoned to an orphanage, possibly mistreated under communist rule,” said the very proper-looking gentleman with round glasses and a red bow tie. “It might cause long-reaching damage, a self-hatred, a desire to be someone else. Someone like Kristof Ragan was most likely a sociopath, operating without a conscience, using people like Camilla Novak and Isabel Connelly to further his own agenda.”

Linda looked at Izzy Her sister’s face registered no expression at all. But Linda was pleased to see her leaning into Jack. He had his arm around her shoulder.

“We’re just friends, same as ever,” Isabel had insisted just the other day. But Linda could see clearly that it was much more than that. “I’m not ready for anything else,” she’d said.

“Not yet,” said Linda.

“Not yet,” her sister conceded.

But when Camilla Novak decided she no longer wanted to be a pawn in Kristof Ragan’s game, she turned to the FBI, who launched a month-long investigation with Camilla Novak’s help. But the day before a raid was scheduled on Raines office and home, another kind of raid took place .

The footage switched to the woman Izzy knew as S being led away in handcuffs from a Queens building by Detective Grady Crowe.

“By pouring over banking and cell phone records, we saw that multiple calls were made to a cell phone registered to a Sara Benes,” said Detective Breslow to the camera, looking much more polished and a bit older than she did in real life.

A former Czech intelligence officer, Benes allied herself with organized crime to run Services Unlimited, an escort service that was actually a prostitution ring. Apparently long associated with the two Ragan brothers-since childhood-and a longtime lover of Kristof Ragan, Benes was there when Ragan needed to pull up the lines on his life, assembling a team of thugs to trash Ragan’s office and home, removing any and all evidence that might have allowed for prosecution. Benes faces charges of murder, conspiracy, and obstruction of justice. But she won’t face her charges in the U.S. In the country illegally, she’ll be deported to the Czech Republic .