22

THE PHOTO

The next day dawns bright and clear—what Jordan would call ideal conditions for scientific experimentation; what Riker would consider a blight on all attempts at secretive reconnaissance.

“Every goddamn person in the city comes out at the first sign of sunshine,” is his most common complaint on days like these. “Don’t they know I’m trying to monitor the deliveryman’s movements?”

I’m not trying to monitor anyone’s movements today—or ever again, apparently—so the world is free to come and go as it pleases. Instead, I find myself elbows deep in a pile of dirt, cursing so loud that even squirrel-hating Harold across the street starts to look worried.

“So that’s where you hide your money. I’ve been wondering.”

A shadow crosses my path, literally and figuratively. I look up, the sun beaming in my eyes, and indulge in one last curse for good measure. There are several people I have no wish to see today, and Tara Lewis is at the top of the list.

“You’ll have to keep wondering, then,” I say, unable to keep the pique out of my voice. “It’s not here. Who would keep millions of dollars under a rhododendron?”

Tara tilts her head. “Is that a rhododendron?”

“Of course it’s a rhododendron.” I rock back on my heels and stab my spade in the dirt. It’s only my second choice for the sharp metal tip, but there are witnesses around. “You’re being contrary on purpose.”

“No, I dated a florist once. I’m pretty sure that’s an azalea.”

“You mean you conned a florist once. I think I know my own garden better than you do.”

“That’s what she said.”

I try not to laugh. I don’t want to laugh. It’s not a good joke, and the last thing I want to do is encourage Tara to stick around. But an hour of hunching in one place and the realization that I couldn’t tell the difference between a rhododendron and an azalea if the fate of the world hung in the balance is enough to tip me over the edge.

“Help me up,” I grumble and take a small amount of satisfaction from slipping my dirt-covered hand into hers. “It’s the least you can do after all the problems you’ve caused.”

She ignores me, staring at her dirty palm in confusion. “Are you really gardening?”

“You can’t tell?” I glance over the small patch of land where I’ve spent the better part of my morning, scraping dirt and pulling weeds, and realize I can’t tell either. Stupid gardening. Why is this even a thing people do? “Damn. I was trying to be normal.”

She laughs outright. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Normal. Ordinary. The kind of person who takes delight in making green things poke up out of the earth.”

“Why?”

That’s a good question, but I don’t have a good answer. Because this is my life now feels as pathetic as it sounds, and because the alternative is to steal someone else’s identity and practice being normal that way has a decidedly disturbing ring to it.

“It’s something I’m trying out,” I say.

“And?”

I sigh. “I’d rather sit inside an empty box for fifteen hours with only a single air hole poked in the side.”

Her sympathetic wince shows how much she understands my feelings. There is no such thing as normal for women like us. At least Tara has the good sense not to try.

“What are you doing all the way in Rye anyway?” I ask sullenly. “I don’t remember inviting you.”

She gestures at the sidewalk behind her, where a flashy suitcase with a rose-gold shell rests. “If you’re going to keep spending time with your grandmother, I figured you’d need to supplement your wardrobe with more than one skirt. I brought supplies.”

“Oh.” I’m taken aback by the straightforward—and generous—answer. “That was nice of you.”

“Yeah, well. I guess I’m not the monster you always make me out to be. Can I come in?”

I give in with a shrug and head for the door. I could use the company now that I’ve confirmed my inefficacy at gardening, along with everything else. Nothing would have been solved if I discovered a green thumb and a passion for horticulture, but at least it would have been something. Penelope Blue: motherless, jobless, and friendless, but quite handy with a hoe.

“There are some casual dresses in there and some slacks that might fit if you have them hemmed.” Tara drags the suitcase into the house behind me, thumping it on each step. We don’t get any farther than the living room, though, as I’m disinclined to be hospitable.

“Good to know.”

“I also have a few formal gowns you might need for things like gala events, but you should stop by and try them on first, see which ones you like.”

Gala events sounds awfully suspect, considering how I spent my day yesterday, but as much as I’d like to shut this woman down and escort her out of my life, curiosity gets the better of me.

It always does, the cheeky bastard.

“That would be great, thanks. I have a thing next week that I’ll need a gown for, so you have good timing.”

“The Black and White Ball?” Tara picks the dirt out of her nails with feigned interest. “Yes, I remember reading about that. You’ll hate it, but the guests are guaranteed to arrive dripping in diamonds. If I were the Peep-Toe Prowler, I wouldn’t miss it.”

“If you were the Peep-Toe Prowler,” I reply as calmly as I can, “missing it would be the only thing keeping you out of federal prison.”

She wants to take the bait, I’m sure of it. I recognize the glittering look in her eyes as she tries to figure out how much I know.

I hold her gaze steady. All of it, Tara. I know it all. And I know my friends sent you here to confirm it.

“I guess it’s a good thing I’m not the Prowler, then,” she says.

“I guess so.”

This could go on for hours, but Tara clears her throat and forces us to continue playing nice. “Does that mean you’re not going to the ball?”

Oh, I’m going. I don’t see what other choice I have. The old Penelope would have rested easy after she warned her friends away, but the new Penelope isn’t so sure. I need to be there to make sure they don’t try to sneak in behind my back. I made a promise to Grant, and I intend to keep it.

“I have to,” I reply. “I already said I’d be there. People are counting on me.”

“You mean people like Jane Bartlett?”

By now, Tara should no longer be able to shock me. Ever since she sashayed back into my life in her stupid peep-toe shoes, she’s been at least two steps ahead of me and unafraid to show it. No matter what I seem to accomplish in this world, she’s always been a shinier, more put-together version of myself.

Still. Just once, it would be nice to have something untainted by her hand—to have something for my very own.

“You know her?” I ask.

“I know of her,” Tara replies and sighs when I don’t reply right away. “She owns one of the biggest cosmetics lines in the world, Pen. In fact, I’m wearing her lipstick right now. Of course I’m aware of your family’s connection to hers. I always have been.”

For most of my life, I’ve assumed that my father is the omniscient one in the family, manipulating the people around him like pawns on a chessboard. It’s the way he shows his power, his status, and as much as I wish he would stop playing every now and then to simply be my dad, I understand his nature well enough to accept reality. To love my dad is to be bested by him, every time.

I’m starting to wonder, though, if Tara isn’t his master.

Love her or hate her, the reality is that she knows people. She knows their relationships. She knows who they care about and who they’re related to and how she can use that to her own advantage. This stuff with Christopher Leon is a prime example. Is he really a secret double agent she’s working with on the side? Does he somehow tie into her plans with my friends to infiltrate the Conrad Museum under the guise of the Peep-Toe Prowler? Is it all a smokescreen to cover some other, deeper truth?

To be honest, I have no freaking clue anymore. But she knows enough about the strained professional relationship between Grant and Christopher, the strained relationship between me and my friends, that it doesn’t matter. She dropped a single name in my ear and shifted the entire course of an FBI investigation. She dropped a single name in my ear and derailed my entire life.

That’s power, right there.

I draw a deep breath and square to face her. “You knew I might meet her at my grandmother’s?”

She nods.

“You knew she was my mom’s best friend?”

She nods again.

“And this whole time, you never told me? You never thought I might want to know about her?”

“I wasn’t aware you were interested in her…or, as long as we’re on the subject, her in you.” She watches me for a suspended second, but I’m not sure what reaction she expects.

“Why wouldn’t she be interested in me?” I ask, my hackles up. “Maybe she likes me. Maybe she thinks I’m nice. Maybe she loved my mom so much, she’s even willing to put up with me for a chance to feel close to her again.”

“Don’t get angry. I was just asking. It seemed awfully sudden, that’s all.”

“You weren’t just asking.” I try to lose the juvenile, peevish note to my voice, but it’s hard. “You never just ask. There’s a double meaning to everything you say.”

I expect Tara to retaliate with a taunt or a sneer, mocking me for my excess of emotion, but she doesn’t. Instead, she turns to me, her mouth drawn tight—actual lines of age showing around the curve of her lips—and asks, “Have I ever told you about my mom?”

“Um. No?” I step back and nudge my calves against the couch, startled by the sudden topic change. To be perfectly honest, it never occurred to me before that Tara had a mother. I’d always assumed she sprang into the world fully formed.

“She was a beautiful woman, probably the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. The most beautiful anyone has ever seen.” This, coming from the lips of the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, is a tad surreal. “Watching her get dressed in the morning was a spiritual awakening. The way she moved in a slip, like she knew the whole world was watching—I can tell you this much, you’ve never met anyone so magnificent.”

“Why are you telling me this?” I ask. “So I can be jealous of your great relationship with your mother?”

Tara’s eyes snap dangerously. “She was magnificent around everyone except me. To this day, I couldn’t tell you why she kept me or why she had me in the first place. I knew what I was to her before I could even walk. Her burden, her shame, the one thing she owned that didn’t make her look good.”

“That sounds familiar.”

Tara ignores me. “I hated her. I’ve met a lot of terrible people in my lifetime, but I’ve never hated anyone as much as I did her.”

“So does that.”

The look she gives me is her most maternal to date, and I promptly clamp my lips shut. Perhaps this is more of a listening moment than a back-talking one.

“I know you think I’m this horrible, evil stepmother, Pen—and that’s on me. I messed up, and there’s nothing I can do to make up for my past mistakes. But you have to understand the situation I was coming from. My mom…” She opens her mouth as if waiting for truth and sentiment to pour out, but when nothing but a heavy sigh comes, she shakes her head and tries again. “She could barely muster up enough enthusiasm to feed me, let alone care about me. And don’t give me that shocked look. I don’t mean I starved. It was more like our life was a stasis between men. When she had a man—which was most of the time—she was this gorgeous, enchanting creature who would cover me with fake kisses and send me to bed while her lover admired the picture it made. Those times were fine. Lonely, but fine. But when she didn’t have someone…”

I wait, unmoving, but all Tara does is shrug.

“Let’s say I learned to take care of myself pretty early on.”

Those stupid feelings of guilt and sympathy return, and I wish I could pluck them from my stomach and shove them under the couch cushions. I’m not supposed to feel sorry for her. She’s using my father, my friends, and my husband to line her own pockets, consequences to the people I love be damned.

But the words still form before I can stop them. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I learned a lot about how to handle men from that woman. More than most girls learn their entire lives.” With a lick of her lips and a toss of her long platinum hair, I know I’m witnessing one of those tips firsthand. “When I married your dad, I didn’t know how mothers were supposed to act—and it didn’t occur to me that you might want one in the first place. I was so glad to finally be rid of mine that I assumed everyone else felt the same way.”

“I never expected you to be my mother.”

“And I never planned on being it. Not then, and definitely not now.” She reaches into her purse and extracts a scrap of folded paper, which she extends in my direction. “It’s not much, but your father used to carry it around in his wallet. I, uh—well, I was only nineteen at the time. Don’t hate me too much for asking him to get rid of it.”

The scrap of paper turns out to be a photograph, heavily creased from being folded all these years. It’s also grainy and in the faded yellow typical of late eighties photography. The woman in it is yellow, too, her hair the same color as the exposure, her details difficult to make out.

But her details don’t interest me. I don’t care where she is or what she’s holding in her hand, don’t need to know what the print on her shirt says. All that matters is the smile on her face, as recognizable to me as my own.

Because it is my own.

“I think she’s about six months pregnant with you in that photo. See? It’s hard to tell from the way she’s standing, but you’re there all the same.”

Me and my mom. Together. I open my mouth and close it again. “My dad carried this around with him?” I ask.

“Everywhere he went. It was the only thing I remember us fighting about. Well, except you, of course. I told him I wasn’t willing to compete with a perfect dead woman he all but erected a diamond pedestal for, and that if he didn’t get rid of the picture, he could get rid of me instead.” She casts me an anxious look. “Remember the part about me being nineteen?”

“You were a very old nineteen.”

“I was a very experienced nineteen. It’s not the same thing.” She pauses. “My plan was to burn the picture and remove all traces of her for good, but you and I had a huge fight right before I was going to do it. I decided to keep the photo around in case I needed leverage.”

I’d done a decent job of keeping the swell of emotion inside my throat from erupting, but at that, it starts to leak. “Leverage?” I echo. “You were going to use the only picture that exists of my mom and me together as leverage?”

“Yes. But I didn’t, and now I’m giving it to you instead—along with a piece of advice.” Her voice drops. “Don’t forget who your real friends are, Pen.”

It’s more threat than advice, and I treat it as such. “What are you talking about?”

“I’ve been spending a lot of time with Riker lately, and he’s much more vulnerable than you realize. You have this great new life now—with your husband and your grandmother and Jane Bartlett—and that’s fine, but all he has is a void where you used to be. Don’t punish him for not knowing how to fill it.”

In other words, don’t turn him in to the FBI. Don’t ban him from the Conrad Museum. Let him try for the Starbrite Necklace as payment for abandoning him when he needed me most.

I can’t believe it. After all this, they still want my permission to go through with the museum heist.

Except I can believe it, and I glance down at the picture in my hand with a laugh. It’s a bizarre reaction, I know, but this is a bizarre situation. It was generous of Tara to give me this piece of my mother, and I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to repay her—but if this isn’t emotional leverage, I don’t know what else is. She basically walked in here, admitted she kept this picture as a means to play me, and then played me so hard, I almost didn’t see it.

I laugh louder.

Tara looks at me with a carefully arched brow. “I’m sorry. Did I miss something?”

“No, and I’m beginning to think you never do.” I swear, if I didn’t dislike this woman so much, I’d adore her. “Thank you for the picture, Tara, and for the clothes, but I think you should go now.”

She doesn’t argue as she heads for the door. “You are some kind of messed up, Pen, you know that?”

“What can I say? I learned from the best.”

“And you’ll keep in mind what I said? Especially about Jane Bartlett? In our line of work, it’s never a good idea to trust someone you barely know.”

I don’t answer as I close the door behind her. In our line of work, I’m coming to learn that it’s the people I know best who pose the real problem.