Tess Gerritsen - The Keepsake

The car moved toward her-a patrol car with blue rack lights. She froze, unsure whether to duck into the shadows or to brazenly maintain her role of stranded passenger.

It was too late to run now; the police cruiser was already turning into the mini-mart parking lot. The window rolled down, and a young patrolman peered out.

“Hello, miss. Do you have someone coming to get you?”

She cleared her throat. “I was about to call a cab.”

“That phone’s out of order.”

“I just noticed.”

“Been out of order for six months. These phone companies hardly bother fixing them now that everyone’s got a cell.”

“I have one, too. I’ll just use it.”

He eyed her for a moment, no doubt wondering why someone who had a cell phone would fuss with a pay phone.

“I needed to use the directory,” she explained and opened the phone book that was hanging in the booth.

“Okay, I’ll just sit here till the cab arrives,” he said.

As they waited together, he explained that the previous month there’d been an unpleasant incident involving a young lady in this same parking lot. “She got off the elevenPM bus from Binghamton, just like you,” he said. Since then, he’d made it a point to drive by just to make sure no other young ladies were accosted. Protect and serve, that was his job, and if she knew about the terrible things that sometimes happened, even in a little village like Waverly, population forty-six hundred, she’d never again be caught standing alone at a dark mini-mart.

When the taxi finally arrived, Officer Friendly had been bending her ear for so long she was afraid he might follow her home, just to continue the conversation. But his cruiser headed in the opposite direction and she sank back with a sigh and considered her next moves. The first order of business was a good night’s sleep, in a home where she felt safe. A home where she need not hide who she really was. She’d juggled truth and fiction for so long that she sometimes forgot which details of her life were real and which were fabrications. A few too many drinks, a moment of carelessness, and she might let slip the truth, which could send the whole house of cards tumbling down. In her college dormitory of partying students, she had remained the sober one, adept at meaningless chitchat that revealed absolutely nothing about herself.

I’m tired of this life, she thought. Tired of having to consider the consequences of every word before I say it. Tonight, at last, I can be myself.

The taxi pulled to a stop in front of a large farmhouse and the driver said, “Here we are, miss. Want me to carry those bags to the door?”

“No, I can handle them.” She paid him and started up the walkway, wheeling her suitcases toward the front steps. There she paused, as though searching for her keys, until the taxi drove away. The instant it vanished from sight, she turned and headed back to the road.

A five-minute walk brought her to a long gravel driveway that cut through thick woods. The moon had risen, and she could see the path just well enough not to stumble. The sound of the suitcase wheels plowing through the gravel seemed alarmingly loud. In the woods crickets had fallen silent, aware that a trespasser had entered their kingdom.

She climbed the steps to the dark house. A few knocks on the door, a few rings of the bell, told her what she’d already suspected. No one was home.

Not a problem.

She found the key where it was always hidden, wedged under the stack of firewood on the porch, and let herself in. Flipping on the light, she found the living room exactly as she remembered it since she’d last visited two years ago. The same clutter filled every available shelf and niche, the same photos framed in Mexican tin shadow boxes hung on the walls. She saw sunburned faces grinning from beneath broad-brimmed hats, a man leaning on a shovel in front of a crumbling wall, a redheaded woman squinting up from the trench where she knelt with trowel in hand. Most of the faces in those photos she did not recognize; they belonged to another woman’s memories, another woman’s lifetime.

She left her suitcases in the living room and went into the kitchen. There the same clutter reigned, blackened pots and pans hanging from ceiling racks, the windowsills a depository of everything from sea glass to bits of broken pottery. She filled a teakettle and put it on the stove. As she waited for it to boil, she stood in front of the refrigerator, studying all the snapshots taped to the door. In the midst of that jumbled collage was one face she did recognize. It was her own, taken when she was about three years old, seated in the lap of a raven-haired woman. She reached up and gently stroked the woman’s face, remembering the smoothness of that cheek, the scent of her hair. The kettle whistled, but Josephine remained transfixed by the photo, by those hypnotic dark eyes gazing back at her.

The whistle of the kettle abruptly cut off, and a voice said, “It’s been years since anyone’s asked me about her, you know.”

Josephine whirled around to face the lanky middle-aged woman who’d just shut off the burner. “Gemma,” she murmured. “You’re home after all.”

Smiling, the woman strode forward to give her a powerful hug. Gemma Hamerton was built more like a boy than a woman, lean but muscular, her silvery hair cropped in a practical bob. Her arms were ridged with ugly burn scars, but she brazenly showed them off to the world in a sleeveless blouse.

“I recognized your old suitcases in the living room.” Gemma stepped back to give Josephine a thorough perusal. “My God, every year you look more and more like her.” She shook her head and laughed. “That’s some formidable DNA you’ve inherited, kid.”

“I tried to call you. I didn’t want to leave a message on your answering machine.”

“I’ve been traveling all day.” Gemma reached into her purse and pulled out a newspaper clipping from the International Herald Tribune. “I saw that article before I left Lima. Does this have anything to do with why you’re here?”

Josephine looked at the headline:CT SCAN OF MUMMY STUNS AUTHORITIES. “So you know about Madam X.”

“News gets around, even in Peru. The world’s become a small place, Josie.”

“Maybe too small,” Josephine said softly. “It leaves me no place left to hide.”

“After all these years? I’m not sure you need to anymore.”

“Someone’s found me, Gemma. I’m scared.”

Gemma stared at her. Slowly she sat down across from Josephine. “Tell me what happened.”

Josephine pointed to the clipping from the Herald Tribune. “It all started with her. With Madam X.”

“Go on.”

At first the words came haltingly; it had been a long time since Josephine had spoken freely, and she was accustomed to catching herself, to weighing the dangers of every revelation. But with Gemma, all secrets were safe, and as she spoke, she found the words spilling faster in a torrent that could no longer be held back. Three cups of tea later, she finally fell silent and slumped back in her chair, exhausted. And relieved, although her situation had scarcely changed. The only difference was that now she no longer felt alone.

The story left Gemma stunned and staring. “A body turns up in your car? And you left out that little detail about the notes you got in the mail? You didn’t tell the police?”

“How could I? If they knew about the notes, they’d find out everything else.”

“Maybe it’s time, Josie,” said Gemma quietly. “Time to stop hiding and just tell the truth.”

“I can’t do that to my mother. I can’t pull her into this. I’m just glad she isn’t here.”

“She’d want to be here. You’re the one she’s always tried to protect.”