The Secret Keeper, page 1
Copyright © 2017 by Z. L. Arkadie Books
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
ISBN: 978-1-942857-18-1
Created with Vellum
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
New York City, 1953
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Present Day
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
September 21, 1953
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Present Day
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Two Weeks Before Edna’s Disappearance
Chapter 17
Present Day
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
One
Rome, Italy
The man looked up from the papers splayed across his desk. He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed the inside corners. When he opened his eyes again, the dome of Saint Peter’s Basilica caught his attention in the oil painting hanging on the wall across from his desk. The colors appeared more vibrant, which probably had something to do with it being the last day he would be able to look up from his desk and admire the masterpiece he’d paid a lot of money for. Early the next morning, special movers were arriving to carefully pack the artwork and ship it to his new apartment in Geneva, Switzerland.
Today was his last day as ambassador to the ancient country of Italy. Up until the current year, he had survived one and a half administration changes. But as one door had closed, another had opened. Starting the first of next month, he would begin his tenure as a senior official for the United Nations with the title of Under-Secretary-General. Even though his day had been long and arduous, the man smiled. The UN job was the one he had worked his tail off to get. It was the one that made him feel as though he had finally arrived.
The man rubbed his temples. He had a headache the size of the city itself, and although he’d just consumed his third cup of coffee within the last hour, he felt as though he could sleep from that moment until the next morning. But there was no time for that. The workday had already come to an end, and he had wasted most of his hours at the farewell party, where he’d had three too many glasses of fine wine. He was going to miss the Italian wine.
The man yawned as he gathered the papers on his desk into a neat pile. The stack was a gift from him to his successor. His final monthly report was so detailed and precise that it was sure to win the new guy a pat on the back from his boss.
“There,” the man said, feeling satisfied.
He looked around his soon-to-be-vacated office. All of his framed pictures, plaques, and special awards had been packed and shipped to his flat in the city. His personal books on diplomacy and effective government had been boxed and transported too. His pens, paper clips, notebooks, binders, and all the other essentials that would take a bit of legwork to collect once he was settled in his office in Geneva would be the last to go.
He reached down for the empty box that sat at his feet. His head spun, so he quickly sat upright. Instead of slowing, the spinning accelerated. Alarmed, the man sat very still and started counting the number of glasses of wine he’d drunk earlier. He squeezed his eyes shut. Suddenly he found himself gasping for air.
He grabbed his throat, trying to breathe.
Is this actually happening?
I should call for help.
But the man’s surroundings were out of focus, and he was no longer sure if he was conscious or had passed out. But he knew to reach a hand in the general direction of the telephone on his desk. It was late. Maria, his secretary, had already gone home.
I need help was his final thought before he clutched his throat, gasping for his last breath. Then the world faded away.
Two
Halo Sterling-Boyd
Halo sat on the edge of the sofa, rubbing her face in frustration. What she’d just read had given her a slight headache. A time existed when she would’ve run away from the shit her cousin Chance and his new girlfriend Rosalie had dumped in her lap. She wouldn’t have wanted anything to do with the Sterling family mess, and boy, was it a pile of piping fresh dung.
She took another steadying breath—for the third time. Finally, Halo looked up from the letter sitting on her lap and set her conflicted expression on Chance. “Then she is alive?”
He shook his head slightly. “We don’t know, not in light of the evidence that was presented in court yesterday.”
Halo rubbed her face again. “Right,” she said with a sigh. The situation was too much to deal with at the moment. She had been in rehab from the first of January until the first of April then lived in a recovery house for two weeks after that. When she returned to her townhouse in New Haven, Connecticut, it became clear that she couldn’t live in that town any longer. She had lost her job at Reed Corporation as a principal chemist months before she started rehab. The fact that she had been unemployed for so long was one of many secrets she’d kept until the moment she had chosen to share it with her recovery group.
Lies…
She had so many of them. For so many years, Halo had hidden beneath the polished exterior of being the smartest and most attractive person in the room. She was the daughter of Penelope Sterling, a brilliant businesswoman, and Roger Boyd, one of the greatest basketball players in history, plus she’d once been a highly sought-after fashion model.
Rehab had been liberating. Halo had been able to strip away all the layers of deception, which made it seem as if she had lived up to what had been expected of her. The truth was she had been miserable and lost, and she’d had no idea which steps to take next. She sure as hell wasn’t going back to the fashion industry. That cesspool of fakeness and high-mindedness was not for her. The Reed Corporation would never take her back. They’d fired her for missing consecutive days of work without notice. Not only that, but during her final days at the company, she couldn’t concentrate on her tasks, so she messed up a lot of projects, setting her team back and costing the company money. She was far too embarrassed to show her face around there. No, she would never even seek to go back.
Halo and Chance locked eyes. She studied his expression. She had seen it a million times before. It felt as though he was waiting for her to give him something she would refuse to provide, yet it didn’t preclude him from seeking it. But she wondered if he would have sought her support if he had known her whole truth.
She sighed briskly. “Is everyone in this family a goddamn sociopath?” She scrubbed her face again.
“No. Not everyone,” Chance said.
She threw up her hands. “But what do you want from me?”
“You’re smart, Halo. We need your brain. If you were with us in January, we would’ve figured out shit a lot faster than we did. You knew about TS-35, and you knew of Erik Visser.”
She looked away from Chance and stared at the bookcase across the room. They were in the carriage house. It was true that she had known what TS-35 was before he’d explained it to her. But more importantly, she could’ve identified Erik Visser when they had first encountered him pretending to be someone named Dr. Wesley Meade. The guilt had been eating her up inside. If she had been there to identify Erik Visser, then perhaps Chance’s father would’ve never had the opportunity to shoot him in the back.
While in college, Halo had traveled to Denmark for a chemists’ conference. Erik had led a small seminar on organic toxins. Although there were twenty-five other people in the room, he looked at her the most when he spoke. Erik Visser was a good-looking guy but also a class-A douchebag. His ego was so big that it smothered anyone within a five-foot radius. Plus, whenever someone asked him a question, he would make her feel stupid for not knowing the answer. “You don’t know?” he would ask before replying. It didn’t take long for Halo to figure out that he was a world-class dick and a fraud. She could’ve taught the seminar herself. And she was sure she insulted him when she left fifteen minutes before his talk was supposed to end. She heard him pause as she walked out.
Later that night, she was at the bar, talking genomes with six other students from different parts of the world. Erik sent the waitress over to ask if she would like a drink on him. Halo downed the rest of her gin and tonic, said “no, thank you,” excused herself for the evening, and went straight to her room. That was the last time she had seen Erik Visser, although she’d recently heard he was nowhere to be found. It was as if he had dropped off the face of the earth. So when Chance told her how Erik had become a poisoning, murderous assassin, she wasn’t surprised.
Halo faced Chance again, who appeared as though he was caught in a state of suspense. Her anxious gaze shifted to Rosalie, who smiled at her encouragingly. She smiled back. She liked Rosalie a lot. Chance had found himself a smart, beautiful, and—for once—sane girlfriend. She was loyal too. Doug, Chance’s late father, had tried to have her killed—twice—and came close to succeeding in both cases. Yet there she was, sitting in a chair next to him, looking as if it would take one hell of a crowbar to pry her away from his side.
Halo sat back on the sofa. “So detectives found a jawbone in the field off Millsap Highway that matched Grandmother’s dental records?” She had decided to stick around for as long as she could.
Chance relaxed his posture and crossed his legs. “Yes.”
“That’s very strong physical evidence,” Rosalie said.
Halo twisted her mouth thoughtfully. “Do you think it really belongs to her?”
Chance shrugged. “You read the letter, so I don’t know.”
Halo thought about the tough old bird her grandmother was and how far she would go to outsmart the opposition. “It’s not beneath Grandmother to have her jawbone surgically removed and replaced with a more appealing one and then have the old one tossed in a field for someone as stupid as Baylor to find.” Thinking about her uncle, Halo abruptly scooted to the edge of her seat. “But really, though? How is Baylor getting away with all this? He’s like a toothless pit bull, the king with no clothes. He’s not even half as smart or shrewd as he likes others to believe he is.”
Rosalie frowned at Halo as though she were astounded by her assessment of Baylor. Of course Rosalie had bought into Baylor’s tough act. Out of the Sterling brothers, the one who was the fiercest in a fight and had no moral barometer was Doug, and he was already dead. Halo always thought it was amazing that Chance hadn’t grown up to be a psychomaniac or an incurable sadomasochist because his father was both.
“Here’s something else,” Chance said. “He submitted evidence proving that he’s the only legitimate offspring of Grandmother and Grandfather.”
Halo gasped. “What?”
“That’s not everything,” Rosalie said. “His shiny new legal team has presented some sort of proof that after five years of marriage between Edna and Conrad, all the assets of Campbell Holdings were turned over to Sterling Family Enterprises, which means the contract Edna asked Chance and I to sign has no assets behind it.”
Halo grunted thoughtfully. “Do you think these contracts have been fabricated?”
“We don’t know,” Rosalie said.
“None of this even matters if Grandmother is still alive, though. You have the letter, so…”
“We found the letter two and half weeks ago and didn’t think anything of it.” Rosalie shrugged. “We figured Edna had decided to let go of all the bickering and infighting with her sons and live a more tranquil life.”
Halo blurted a laugh. “Believe me, Edna Louise Sterling never had any intentions of resigning as head honcho of SFE, and she thrived on the fight.”
Rosalie shook her head. “You see, I can’t believe that. I think Edna wanted to discover a world outside of the one she’d been confined to for so long. A bad marriage to a man she didn’t love, battling her sons day in and day out to maintain control of the company—it was a lot. Edna wanted out.”
Halo wanted to burst out laughing. Bravo, Grandmother. Edna Sterling had gotten Rosalie to buy into her bullshit. Instead of arguing the contrary to Rosalie, she smashed her lips together and didn’t move them an inch until the desire to enlighten Chance’s naïve girlfriend had passed.
“Listen…” Halo scooted to the edge of the sofa. She leaned toward them, pinning her arms against her thighs. She wanted the couple to hear her, understand her, and to get it. “Grandmother loved you, Chance, and you too, Rosalie, but not enough to give up what she”—she raised a hand cautiously—“and I’m using Grandmother’s words, not mine—what she fucking sold her life to the devil for.”
Rosalie opened and closed her mouth then pinched her back against the chair. She had a dazed look on her face. It was as though she were warring with herself about how to respond. Then she looked at Chance with puppy-dog eyes.
“So what about Baylor’s claim that he’s Grandmother and Grandfather’s only child? Do you believe it?”
“Not one bit,” Chance said.
“But it’s such a strange claim for Baylor to make, don’t you think?” Halo asked.
Chance sat up straighter. “What do you mean?”
“It’s a very creative strategy, and I can’t picture Baylor conjuring that one up on his own.”
“So what are you saying?”
“I think somehow, somewhere, a little birdie has whispered something in his ear.”
Chance jerked his neck and frowned as though he thought everything Halo had just said sounded ridiculous. “You think it’s true?”
“I don’t know, but I certainly don’t think we can assume that it isn’t.”
“She’s right.” Rosalie shook her finger pointedly. “Baylor may know something the others don’t.”
The cell phone on the cocktail table rang, and Chance snatched it up. “Hello?”
Halo and Rosalie raised their eyebrows at each other.
Chance quickly turned to Rosalie. “Security Chief, how are you?” He paused. “Yes”—pause—“Charles Wentworth, yes”—pause—“He’s dead? How?”
Rosalie’s mouth fell open.
Halo barely recalled the name Chance had just spoken. When he had given her the download on what had occurred before his father shot him in the back, he’d mentioned their grandfather’s illegitimate children. Halo had only been half lucid at the time since she was only nine days sober and her therapist had just snatched the scabs off a number of old wounds.
“Right, sure, we’ll meet you there.” He paused. “No, three of us—Rosalie, my cousin Halo, and me.” Chance flexed his eyes twice at Halo. “Yes, H-a-l-o Sterling-Boyd is her full name. Add her to the list.”
Halo took a deep, settling breath. She couldn’t turn tail and run now. It was time to pull her weight and contribute to the fight.
New York City, 1953
Three
Edna Campbell breathed in deeply then released the air slowly. That didn’t help. She was still anxious. Even though the night was subtly warm, she felt a stinging chill all over her body.
“I don’t think it’s as bad as you make it out to be, Edie,” her friend Lana McCord said.
Edna tilted her head back to gaze up at the moon, which lingered high in the sky above the lights of the amusement park. The moon was beautiful tonight, perfectly round and pale yellow. A flash of envy passed through her lithe body. She sighed, wondering how unhappy a person had to be in order to feel jealous of the moon.
“Oh, it’s bad,” Edna said.
Lana rubbed her back consolingly as they walked past the fun house. “Hey, do you want another cotton candy? It’s on me.”
Edna turned to face her friend’s cheerful smile. She wanted to sniff bitterly and remind Lana that they weren’t ten anymore. “Cotton candy isn’t going to change my destiny, doll.”
“A date isn’t a marriage proposal. I think you’re overreacting.”
Edna glared at her friend for a moment then softened her eyes. It was hard to look at Lana’s angelic face and stay annoyed with her. She sure hoped Lana was right. But Edna never exaggerated her circumstances nor underestimated them. The time had come to pay the piper and do what was expected of her. Nothing could change that, not even being the first female valedictorian of her graduating class.
“Look.” Lana pointed at a booth next to the Genie-In-A-Box. “It’s a real fortune-teller.”
Edna read the sign next to a doorway that was covered by a number of sheer curtains.
Natasha the Great Knows Your Future. Come Inside and See. Only 25¢.
* * *
“Maybe she can ease your fears,” Lana said.
Edna rolled her eyes. “Sure. Natasha the Great will tell me exactly what I need to hear as long as I pay her a quarter.”
Lana belted out a laugh. “That’s exactly why we need to go in there.” Lana gently took Edna by the shoulders. “You’ve been a drag all night, doll. You’ve been gone all summer and through the winter. Now I’ve got my friend back, and you’ve been bringing me down since we got here.” Lana shook her hands in frustration. “This is an amusement park, Edna. We’re supposed to be amused.”
