The Dark Room(54)

“After that time I found the picture?” she said. “I went back and found these.”

She held his wrist with her left hand and put a set of police handcuffs in his palm. She folded his fingers over them. This close, he could smell the perfume at the base of her throat. He thought of the black roses that grew on the northern edge of Golden Gate Park, the flowers rising up from thick tangles of thorns. He took a step back from her and held up the handcuffs so Fischer could see them.

“You’ve had these for ten years?”

“Nine, ten.”

“You’ve used them, handled them?”

She looked around her apartment, the art on the walls, the sculptures on the coffee table and in the windowsills. Finally her eyes settled on the bed.

“What do you think?”

He thought they’d probably seen plenty of use. Which meant Castelli’s fingerprints, if they’d ever been there at all, would have been wiped away years ago.

“How do you know they were his?”

“They were in his study. Hidden.”

“Where?”

“In a cigar box, behind his copy of Thucydides.”

“You went in there—ten years old, we’re talking—because you wanted to read Greek history. You pulled the book down, found a cigar box, and opened it. That’s your story.”

“No.”

“Then what?”

“I went in to toss the room and see what I could find. He was in D.C., not coming back for a month at least. I figured there had to be something interesting in there.”

“Why didn’t you give these to me yesterday?”

“Why didn’t you go swimming with me?” Alexa said. “Because you didn’t trust me. You thought I was trying to trap you.”

“We’re just asking questions,” Fischer said. “But we need answers we can believe. This is important.”

“I know it’s important.” She sat on the end of the bed. Then she fell over onto her side and tucked her knees up close to her chest. “Why would someone want to kill my dad?”

“You knew about the girl in the picture,” Fischer said. “Did anybody else?”

Alexa nodded. She was crying now, tears running across face and darkening the white sheet.

“Who?”

“I don’t know,” Alexa said. “But he thought so. I know he thought so. There was always something wrong. He was on edge—afraid.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’d be at dinner somewhere. And he’d see a woman who looked like her. He’d watch her pass, and then get really quiet and stop eating. In the car, on the way home, he’d drive in circles and keep checking behind us. But there’d never be anyone there.”

“Did he ever get out his gun?” Cain asked.

“What gun?”

“You never saw him with a gun?”

She shook her head. She pushed off the footboard and swam to the top of the bed, legs kicking. She took a pillow into her arms and another between her knees, clamping onto them.

“Where’s my mom?” she said. “I want my mom.”

“She hasn’t called?” Fischer asked.

“I want my mom!”

“Alexa.”

He could see where this would go if she threw a fit. She’d probably start by ripping her tissue-paper nightgown apart at the seams. Then, with his luck, she’d shatter a mirror and grab for the shards.

Of course, every time he made a bet on this family, he picked the wrong number.

“Alexa.”

“Mr. Cain,” she answered, her voice a glassy calm.

“I want you to take a couple breaths,” he said, but whatever storm he’d thought she’d entered had already dissipated.

Alexa lay still, her face half buried in a pillow.

“I’ve been breathing the whole time,” she said.

“Still,” he said. “Go ahead. Shut your eyes, if you want.”

“I want you to go away, Mr. Cain.”

“I will, if you tell me one thing.”

He didn’t want to waste his important questions here. He didn’t like to ask those until he was holding enough information. Right now, he had nothing, and if he started asking the wrong questions, Alexa would see right through them. He thought of a question that wouldn’t hurt to ask. It would sound like a throwaway, but it wasn’t.

“Did you love your father? Even knowing about the photo and the handcuffs?”

Alexa sat up. The strap of her nightgown had fallen off her shoulder. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand, and then her cheek glistened.

“Did I love him?”

“That’s all I want to know.”

“When I was thirteen, he took me to London. Just the two of us. You probably already know he lived there when he was a kid. He showed me their house. The Official Residence, he called it. He took me shopping. I was thirteen, and I thought shopping in London was so glamorous. He bought me a gold bracelet.”

“You still have it?”

“Of course I have it.”

“Can I see it?”

“If I show it to you, will you leave?”

“We’ll go.”

She got up and went behind the dressing screen. She knelt again and opened another drawer. When she came out, she was wearing the bracelet. It glittered from her wrist, a golden honeycomb. Her father had taken her to the Imogene Bass shop, on Victoria Street. He’d bought her the exact bracelet the girl had worn in the photos. Alexa sat at the foot of her bed and wrapped her right hand around her wrist, so that her fingers covered the bracelet. She held it close to her chest. She hadn’t answered his question. Maybe this gesture was as close as she could come.