Douglas Preston - The Book of the Dead

D’Agosta fell silent. Hayward took the time for a long breath and another effort at control.

“This,” she said quietly, “is a story straight out of a romance novel. This isn’t the way things happen in real life.”

“What happened with us wasn’t all that different.”

“What happened with us was a mistake I’m trying to forget.”

“Listen, please, Laura-”

“Call me Laura again and I’ll have you escorted out of the building.”

D’Agosta winced. “There’s something else you ought to know. Have you heard of the forensic profiling firm of Effective Engineering Solutions, down on Little West 12th Street, run by an Eli Glinn? I’ve been spending most of my time down there recently, moonlighting.”

“Never heard of it. And I know all the legitimate forensic profilers.”

“Well, they’re more of an engineering firm, and they’re pretty secretive, but they recently did a forensic profile of Diogenes. It backs up everything I’ve told you about him.”

“A forensic profile? At whose request?”

“Agent Pendergast’s.”

“That inspires confidence,” she said sarcastically.

“The profile indicated that Diogenes isn’t through.”

“Isn’t through?”

“All of what he’s done so far-the killings, the kidnapping, the diamond theft-has been leading up to something else. Something bigger, maybe much bigger.”

“Such as?”

“We don’t know.”

Hayward picked up some files and squared them on the desk with a crack. “That’s quite a story.”

D’Agosta began to get angry. “It’s not a story. Look, this is Vinnie you’re talking to, Laura. It’s me.”

“That’s it.” Hayward pressed an intercom button. “Fred? Please come to my office and escort Lieutenant D’Agosta off the premises.”

“Don’t do this, Laura…”

She turned to him, finally losing it. “Yes, I will do it. You lied to me. Played me for a fool. I was willing to offer you anything. Everything. And you-”

“And I am so very sorry. God, if only I could turn back the clock, do things differently. I tried my best, tried to balance my loyalty to Pendergast with my… loyalty to you. I know I screwed up a wonderful thing-and I believe that what we had is worth saving. I want your forgiveness.”

The door was opened by a police sergeant. “Lieutenant?” he said.

D’Agosta rose, turned, and exited without even a look back. The sergeant shut the door, leaving Hayward behind her heaped-up desk, silent and trembling, looking at the mess but seeing nothing, nothing at all.

A dark, chill night had fallen over the restless streets of Upper Manhattan, but even on the brightest noon no sunlight ever penetrated the library of 891 Riverside Drive. Metal shutters were closed and fastened over mullioned windows, and drapes of rich brocade hid the shutters in their turn. The room was lit only by fire: the glow of candelabra, the flicker of embers dying on the wide grate.

Constance sat in a wing chair of burnished leather. She was very erect, as if at attention, or perhaps poised for flight. She was looking tensely at the other occupant of the room: Diogenes Pendergast, who sat on the couch across from her, a book of Russian poetry in his hands. He spoke softly, his voice as liquid as honey, the warm cadence of the Deep South strangely appropriate to the flow of the Russian. “,” he finished, then laid the book down and looked over at Constance. “‘Heart’s memory of sun grows fainter, sallow is the grass.’” He laughed quietly. “Akhmatova. No one else ever wrote about sorrow with the kind of astringent elegance she did.”

There was a short silence.

“I don’t read Russian,” Constance replied at last.

“A beautiful, poetic language, Constance. It’s a shame, because I sense hearing Akhmatova speak of her sorrow in her own tongue would help you bear your own.”

She frowned. “I bear no sorrow.”

Diogenes raised his eyebrows and laid the book aside. “Please, child,” he said quietly. “This is Diogenes. With others, you may put up a brave front. But with me, there’s no reason to hide anything. I know you. We are so very alike.”

“Alike?” Constance laughed bitterly. “You’re a criminal. And me-you know nothing about me.”

“I know a great deal, Constance,” he said, voice still quiet. “You are unique. Like me. We are alone. I know you’ve been blessed and cursed with a strange and terrible burden. How many would wish for such a gift as you were given by my great-uncle Antoine-and yet how few could understand just what it would be like. Not liberation, not at all. So many, many years of childhood… and yet, to be deprived of being a child…”

He looked at her, the fire illuminating his strange, bicolored eyes. “I have told you. I, too, was denied a childhood-thanks to my brother and his obsessive hatred of me.”

Immediately, a protest rose to Constance’s lips. But this time she suppressed it. She could feel the white mouse shifting in her pocket, contentedly curling himself up for a nap. Unconsciously she moved a hand over the pocket, stroking it with slender fingers.

“But I’ve already spoken to you about those years. About my treatment at his hands.” A glass of pastis sat at his right hand-he had helped himself from the sideboard earlier-and now he took a slow, thoughtful sip.

“Has my brother communicated with you?” he asked.

“How can he? You know where he is: you put him there.”

“Others in similar situations find ways to get word to those they care about.”

“Perhaps he doesn’t want to cause me further discomfort.” Her voice fell as she spoke. Her eyes dropped to her fingers, still absently stroking the sleeping mouse, then rose again to look at Diogenes’s calm, handsome face.

“As I was saying,” he went on after a pause, “there is much else we share.”

Constance said nothing, stroking the mouse.

“And much that I can teach you.”

Once again, she summoned a tart retort; once again, it remained unvoiced. “What could you possibly teach me?” she replied instead.

Diogenes broke into a gentle smile. “Your life-not to put too fine a term to it-is dull. Even stultifying. You’re trapped in this dark house, a prisoner. Why? Aren’t you a living woman? Shouldn’t you be allowed to make your own decisions, to come and go as you please? Yet you’ve been forced to live in the past. And now, you live for others who only take care of you through guilt or shame. Wren, Proctor-that busybody policeman D’Agosta. They’re your jailers. They don’t love you.”

“Aloysius does.”

A sad smile creased Diogenes’s face. “You think my brother is capable of love? Tell me: has he ever told you he loved you?”

“He doesn’t have to.”

“What evidence do you have that he loves you?”

Constance wanted to answer, but she felt herself coloring in confusion. Diogenes waved a hand as if to imply his point was made.

“And yet you don’t have to live this way. There’s a huge, exciting world out there. I could show you how to turn your amazing erudition, your formidable talents, toward fulfilling, toward pleasing, yourself.”

Hearing this, Constance felt her heart accelerate despite her best intentions. The hand stroking the mouse paused.

“You must live not only for the mind, but for the senses. You have a body as well as a spirit. Don’t let that odious Wren jail you with his daily babysitting. Don’t crush yourself any longer. Live. Travel. Love. Speak the languages you’ve learned. Experience the world directly, and not through the musty pages of a book. Live in color, not black and white.”

Constance listened intently, feeling her confusion mount. The fact was, she felt she knew so little of the world-nothing, in fact. Her entire life had been a prelude… to what?