Public Secrets

poured a drink, but not for his nerves. For his pleasure. “Think, for christ’s sake. If she had remembered something, anything, would she have calmly ridden off to buy a hamburger?”
“I don’t think—”
“That’s your problem, and has been from the beginning. She didn’t remember then, she doesn’t remember now. Perhaps this impulsive little trip of hers was a last-ditch effort to bring it all back, or more likely, it was just a sentimental journey. There’s no need to do Emma any harm, any harm at all.”

“And if she does remember?”
“It’s unlikely. Listen to me now, and listen carefully. The first time was an accident, a tragic and unforeseen accident. One that you committed.”
“It was your idea, the whole thing was your idea.”
“Exactly, since of the two of us I’m the only one who’s capable of an original thought. But it was an accident. I have no intention of committing premeditated murder.” he thought of a session musician who’d wanted pizza, but didn’t remember his name. “unless it’s unavoidable. Understood?”
“You’re a cold sonofabitch.”
“Yes.” he smiled. “I’d advise you to remember that.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

I T WAS SNOWING in London, wet, thick flakes that slid down collars and melted cold on the skin. It was pretty, postcard snow, unless one was fighting the clogged traffic along King’s Road.
Emma preferred to walk. She imagined Sweeney was annoyed with her choice, but she couldn’t worry about him now. She had the address on a slip of paper in the pocket of her thick, quilted coat. But she didn’t need that for a reminder. She’d memorized it.
It was odd to be in Chelsea, as an adult, free to walk where she chose. She didn’t remember it. Indeed, she felt a tourist in London, and Chelsea, the grand stage for punks and Sloane Rangers, was as foreign to her as a Venetian canal.
The streets were dotted with boutiques and antique shops where last-minute shoppers hurried in their fashionable coats and boots to search out that perfect gift among the horde of offerings. Young girls laughing, their pearls and sweatshirts tucked under their jackets. Young boys trying to look tough and bored and worldly.
Despite the snow, there had been a flower seller in Sloane Square. Even in December spring could be bought for a reasonable price. She’d been tempted by the color and the scent, but had walked on without digging in her purse for pounds and shillings. How odd it would have been to have walked up to the door, and offered a bouquet to her mother.

Her mother. She could neither deny nor accept Jane Palmer as her mother. Even the name seemed distant to her—like something she had read in a book. But the face lingered, the face that came in odd, sporadic flashes in dreams, the face that flushed dark with annoyance before a slap or a shove was administered. The face from articles in People and the Enquirer and the Post .
A face from the past, Emma thought. And what did the past have to do with today?
Then why had she come? The question drummed in her head as she walked along the narrow, well-kept street. To resolve something that should have been resolved years before.
Emma wondered if Jane thought it a fine joke to have moved into the posh and prosperous area where Oscar Wilde, Whistler, and Turner had lived. Writers and artists had always flocked to Chelsea. And musicians, Emma mused. Mick Jagger had a home here. Or he’d had one. It hardly mattered to Emma whether he and the Stones were still in residence. There was only one person she’d come to see.
Perhaps it was the contrasts that appealed to Jane. Chelsea was punk, and domestic. It was relaxed and frenetic. And it cost the earth to live in one of the stylish homes. Or perhaps Jane’s reason had something to do with the fact that Bev had established herself in the same district.
That too hardly mattered.
She stopped, clenching and unclenching her hand on the strap of her bag while the snow drifted and clung to her hair and shoulders. The house was a long way from the tiny walk-up flat where she had lived with Jane. It pretended to be old, but the fussy copy of a Victorian row house missed the mark by inches. Someone had decided to add cupolas and tall, narrow windows. It might have been charming, in its way, but curtains were drawn tight and the walk had yet to be shoveled or swept. No one had bothered to hang a wreath or a string of lights.
It made her think wistfully of the Kesselring home.