The Key to Midnight

self-assured, self-contained, determined, no-nonsense businessman - but he was also aware of an aspect of himself that had never before been visible to him. Within the cool and analytical detective was an insecure, lonely, desperately seeking, hungry creature driven by emotional need. Regarding this heretofore hidden aspect of himself, he understood that the power to see deeper into himself came from his desire for Joanna, from his need to share a life with her.
        For the first time in his experience, Alex was overwhelmed by a desire that couldn't be satisfied solely through hard work and the application of his intellect. He was filled with a longing for something more abstract and spiritual than the drive for success, money, and status that had always motivated him. Joanna. He wanted Joanna. He wanted to touch her. He wanted to hold her, make love to her, be as close to her as one human being could ever get to another. But he required far more than mere physical intimacy. He sought from her a number of things that he couldn't entirely understand: a kind of peace that he could not describe; satisfactions he had never known; feelings for which he had no words. After a lifetime shaped by his unwavering denial of love's existence, he wanted love from Joanna Rand.
        Old convictions and reliable psychic crutches were not easily cast aside. He couldn't yet accept the reality of love, but a part of him desperately wanted to believe.
        The prospect of belief, however, scared the hell out of him.

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    26
        
        Joanna wanted the dinner to be perfect. She needed to prove to herself, as much as to Alex, that she was coping again, that life was going on, that the event of the past night was an aberration.
        She served at the low table in her Japanese-style dining room, using royal-blue placemats, several shades of gray dinnerware, and dark red napkins. Six fresh white carnations were spread in a fan on one end of the table.
        The food was hearty but not heavy. Igaguri: thorny shrimp balls filled with sweet chestnuts. Sumashi wan: clear soup with soybean curd and shrimp. Tatsuta age: sliced beef garnished with red peppers and radish. Yuan zuke: grilled fish in a soy-and-sake marinade. Umani: chicken and vegetables simmered in a richly seasoned broth. And of course they also had steamed rice - a staple of the Japanese menu - and they accompanied everything with cups of hot tea.
        The dinner was a success, and Joanna felt better than she had in months. In a curious way, the suicide attempt was beneficial. Having sunk to the depths of ultimate despair, having reached even a brief moment during which she'd had no reason to go on living, she could now face anything that might come. Even by acting half heartedly on her death wish, she seemed to have been purged of it. For the first time, she felt that she would be able to overcome the periodic paranoia and the strange claustrophobia that had destroyed so many opportunities for happiness in the past.
        Immediately after they had eaten, Joanna had a chance to test her newfound strength. She and Alex moved into the living room, sat together on the sofa, and began to look through the Chelgrin file, which filled the large suitcase -and which, according to Alex, held the true story of the first two decades of her life. There were thick stacks of field investigators' reports in the gray-and-green folders of the Bonner-Hunter Security Corporation. Alex's company, scores of transcriptions of interviews with potential witnesses as well as with friends and relatives of Lisa Chelgrin, plus copies of the Jamaican police records and other official documents. The sight of all that evidence had a negative effect on Joanna, and for the first time all day, she felt threatened. The familiar strains of paranoia were a distant, ominous music in her mind - but growing louder.
        More than anything else in the suitcase, the photographs disturbed her. Here was Lisa Chelgrin in blue jeans and a T-shirt, standing in front of a Cadillac convertible, smiling and waving at the camera. Here was Lisa Chelgrin in a bikini, posed at the foot of an enormous palm tree. Several close-ups, in all of which she was smiling. A do/en photos in all. All were snapshots except for the professional portrait taken for the high-school yearbook when she had been a senior. The settings in which Lisa posed and the people with whom she was photographed meant nothing