The Medusa Amulet Read online

  “You’ll scratch them,” Sarah said.

  “Only the finest Old Navy fabric,” David said.

  “I gave you handkerchiefs for your birthday. What did you do with them?”

  David couldn’t answer that one. Presumably, they were somewhere in his dresser, under the pajamas he never wore, or the old track jerseys he had retired. But he liked having Sarah ask, probably as much as she liked nagging.

  When Sarah finally told Emme it was time for bed, David helped her up off the sofa. Sarah had always been tall and slender, like her brother, but it was like raising a wraith now. She hugged David with frail arms. “We never asked about your work,” she said. “Weren’t you giving a lecture soon?”

  “Yep, and it went fine.”

  “Oh, I wish I could have come,” she said.

  “Next time,” he said, though the very thought of having family there made him more nervous than ever.

  “What was it about?”

  “We got a new copy of Dante, very old and very beautiful. I talked about that.” He never went into much detail about his work; he knew that Sarah was proud of his accomplishments, and that was enough. While he had always been the dreamer, the scholar, she had been the practical one. She hadn’t had much choice.

  “I’ll drive you back,” Gary said, stretching his arms above his head and rising from his armchair. “You’ll freeze to death waiting for the El.”

  “I’ll be okay,” David said, though he suspected Gary wanted the chance to talk in private; he often used these car trips to confide in David about what was really happening with Sarah.

  They got into his Lexus SUV, with all the trimmings, and even though David knew the car was politically incorrect-a flashy gas guzzler-he had to admit the ride was great and the heated seat was mighty comfortable. Gary had once explained that he needed to lease a new one every year or two because he shuttled clients around in it, and a real-estate broker who looked like he was down on his luck soon would be.

  “You ever going to spring for another car?” Gary joshed as they headed south on Sheridan Road. It was a running joke that David had no wheels.

  “Maybe,” David said. “Especially since it looks like I might get a promotion.”

  “Really? To what?”

  “Director of Acquisitions.” David seldom liked to discuss such things until they were in the bag, but he knew that Gary would mention it to Sarah, and maybe it would give her a little pleasure. And after the warm reception for the lecture, he felt that Dr. Armbruster, who had hinted about it already, might come across at last.

  “So you’ll be swimming in dough!” Gary said.

  “Yeah, right. Just as soon as I pay off my loans. And my rent, by the way, just went up.”

  “I guess it helped to have that girlfriend of yours split it with you,” Gary said, fumbling to remove a packet of Dentyne from the console between the seats. “You want one?”

  “No thanks,” David said. He knew that what Gary really wanted was a cigarette, but he had given up smoking the day Sarah had been diagnosed. Now he tried to make do with gum and Nicorette. “Linda was usually broke, anyway.”

  “But not anymore?”

  It was a sore spot for David, but he knew Gary meant no harm by asking. “No, not anymore. She’s going out with a hedge-fund guy.”

  Gary whistled and nodded. “I know your sister never liked her all that much.” He flipped on the windshield wipers to clear some snow. “But if you don’t mind my saying so, she was superhot.”

  “Thanks for reminding me.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  They drove in companionable silence for a few miles, listening to a jazz CD Gary put on. As they passed the Calvary cemetery, David said, “When we were kids, Sarah always used to hold her breath when we passed a cemetery.”

  “That’s funny. She says you’re the one who used to do that.”

  “I guess we did a lot of things alike.”

  “Still do,” Gary observed. “Two peas in a pod.”

  There were times, David thought, when he sensed that Gary was just the tiniest bit jealous of the bond that David and Sarah had, the history that only they shared, the ability they had to read each other’s minds and instantly understand each other’s feelings. Gary was kind of a regular guy, a hale fellow well met-somebody who followed the Bears and the Bulls, who played in a weekly poker game and liked to barbecue bratwursts in the backyard. His father had owned the real-estate company, and Gary had just sort of fallen into it, but what used to be an easy living wasn’t so easy anymore. David knew that the family’s finances had been stretched… and that was before all the medical bills had started pouring in.

  “Emme’s growing up so fast,” David said, looking out at the icy, empty streets. “I swear she’s grown a couple of inches taller in the last six months.”

  “Yeah, she’s gonna outstrip her mother one day,” Gary said, “and maybe me, too. But this whole… situation has been taking a toll on her.”

  “I’m sure it has.”

  Gary exhaled, like he didn’t want to talk about it, though David knew he did. “She’s got a look in her eye,” he mused out loud, “especially when she’s watching her mother. Like she’s afraid of what’s going to happen next. Like she doesn’t want to let her out of her sight. I get the feeling that Emme thinks she’s supposed to protect her somehow, but she doesn’t know how.”

  “I know how she feels.”

  “So do I.” He lowered the window, spat out the gum, then stuck a fresh piece in his mouth. “And last night she had another nightmare, one of those doozies where she wakes up screaming.”

  David hadn’t heard about the nightmares. “She gets nightmares?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Have you thought about taking her to a therapist, somebody who specializes in dealing with kids?”

  “I have,” Gary said, “and I will. But Christ almighty, I don’t know where the money is going to come from…”

  “Let me help. Remember, I’ll be swimming in dough.” He was so sorry that he’d even mentioned his own precarious finances.

  “Forget about it. That’s not why I said anything.”

  “I know that. But she’s my niece, and I want to help.”

  “I can handle it,” Gary said. “This market’s gotta bottom out soon. Stuff will start selling again.”

  “That’s right, and then you can pay me back,” David said, though he knew he’d never accept a dime.

  “Yeah, well, we’ll see,” Gary said, just to drop the subject. “If I need to, I’ll let you know.”

  Pulling up at David’s apartment building-a dreary brownstone in Rogers Park-Gary said, “Home sweet home. Now find yourself another girl. Al Gore’s full of it, it’s going to be a cold winter and you’re going to need something to keep you warm.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” David said. “Thanks for the ride.”

  Gary waved it off, but then, as David started to walk away, he called out, “Hold on,” and pulled something out of the pocket of his coat. It was a plastic bag, with something wrapped in foil inside. “Sarah wanted me to give you this.”

  “What is it?” David said, though he could pretty much guess.

  “A meat loaf sandwich. She says you’re too thin.”

  David took the baggie.

  “How come she never tells me I’m too thin?” Gary said, rolling up his window again.

  David watched as the Lexus did a three-point turn to head back toward Evanston, then went into the foyer, got yesterday’s mail out of the creaky metal box, and trudged up the stairs. Apart from the low buzz from the fluorescent light fixture on the landing, the building was as quiet as his own little apartment would be.

  But as he put his key in the lock, he was overwhelmed, and not for the first time, by the thought of the world without his sister in it. To him, it was as sad and terrifying a prospect as anything from Dante-but more so, as this one could prove to be all too real.

  Chapter
4

  Mrs. Van Owen-Kathryn to her close friends, of whom there were almost none-had hoped it wouldn’t come to this. She had hoped that no one else would ever have to be sent.

  But her lawyer, Mr. Hudgins, had just informed her that Phillip Palliser was dead. His body had been found floating in the Loire, several miles downstream from a little French town called Cinq Tours.

  “And what does the coroner say was the cause of death?” she asked, her eyes already straying to the huge windows that looked out over Lake Michigan from her penthouse apartment. “Drowning?”

  “Probably,” Hudgins replied. “But there were considerable abrasions to the body and face. The injuries might have been postmortem, or they might have been caused by… a violent attack first. It’s unclear.”

  Another one, Kathryn thought, caught in the spider’s web.

  He lowered his gaze to the stack of folders and papers arrayed on her glass-topped coffee table. The afternoon light filled the spacious, expensively appointed room, and after he had waited a suitable amount of time, he said, “So what would you like to do?”

  She touched a finger to a stray brunette hair, putting it back in place.

  “Do you wish to go forward?” he asked.

  Did she? What choice, really, did she have? “Yes.” It was all like moving another chess piece into play. “Of course I do.”

  “Then it would be this young man at the Newberry,” Hudgins said, glancing at a paper. “This David Franco?”

  “Yes.” She had always cultivated the next candidate before his predecessor had failed.

  “And you think he has done a good job on the Dante volume?”

  “A very good job.” She had been impressed with his credentials before she had seen him at the library, and she was even more impressed after hearing him speak.

  “Then I’ll go ahead and make the arrangements for us to meet with him,” Hudgins said. “How soon would you like to do so?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  Even Hudgins seemed a bit surprised. “Tomorrow? Well, then, I will leave it to you to assemble the materials you wish to share with him.”

  Kathryn nodded, almost imperceptibly, but she knew his eyes were riveted on her. Men’s eyes generally were, and it was something she had grown accustomed to over the years. Hers was a sensual face, with high cheekbones, arched brows, and full lips, unaided by collagen. But it was her eyes-a remarkable blue, tinged with violet-that made the most striking impression. One ardent admirer had even proclaimed her beauty to be “timeless,” and it had been all she could do not to laugh out loud.

  “Now, in respect to your late husband’s estate,” he said, shifting gears and moving a separate folder to the top of the pile, “I’ve been in contact with his family.”

  Randolph Van Owen had died a month earlier, but when it happened, one of his sisters had been on a world cruise she was loath to interrupt and the other was recovering from a face-lift.

  “They have agreed to come to Chicago and hear the reading of the will this Friday.”

  “That’s fine. The sooner, the better.”

  “But they have asked if the service could be… less private? As one of Chicago’s most recognized families, the Van Owens were hoping for a more public expression of your late husband’s importance to the fabric of the city. In fact, they had suggested-”

  “No,” she said. “Randolph would have wanted a very small, private ceremony, and nothing more.”

  In actuality, she had no idea what he would have wanted, any more than she understood what he was doing racing his new Lamborghini through Lake Forest in the middle of the night. He’d hit a slight bump in the road. But at the speed he was traveling, the car had become airborne and wrapped itself around a stone gatepost. It wasn’t that she didn’t love Randolph-love was barely in her vocabulary-but theirs had been a marriage of… what? For him, she had been the ultimate trophy, a woman whose beauty made men stop in their tracks, and for her, he had been just another refuge. He had provided her with a new identity, in a new place, and a new time. She needed these anchors now and again in order to feel connected to the rhythms and the texture of ordinary life.

  And now that that connection was broken-yet again-she was searching for a way out, once and for all. A way out of everything. For most people, it would be easy. But for her, it was a challenge so immense she could take no chances with the outcome. No chances at all.

  After Hudgins had cleared up a few other matters, he gathered his papers, and she escorted him to the door. Then, leaving the plates and glasses for Cyril to clean up, she dimmed the lights and mounted a corkscrew staircase to a portion of the apartment accessible only to someone with the silver key she wore around her neck. Once inside, she flicked on the wall sconces, and it was as if she had entered another world. Even Randolph had not been allowed in her private sanctum.

  Unlike the rest of the apartment, which was flooded with natural light, this was like entering a catacombs, thirty-five stories in the air. The floors were made of dark tile, and the walls were decorated with oil paintings of religious scenes. An ivory crucifix hung at the end of the short hall, with one room on either side. On the left, a tiny chapel had been erected, with a stained-glass window-artificially backlit-depicting Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. There was a simple pew set before the altar, on which rested as many as two dozen small urns-some of them ornately carved of marble or porphyry, others cast in silver or steel. The low hum of an air-filtration system was the only sound.

  On the right, a slightly larger room was lined with mahogany bookshelves packed with everything from old books in cracked threadbare bindings to memorabilia from around the globe. Egyptian candlesticks, bronze inkwells, carved totems, an ivory saltcellar. There was little furniture-just one armchair, an end table, and a torchere, which she turned to its highest wattage. Atop the table, there was a bundle of papers, as yellow and crackly as parchment, tied with a frayed string. Kathryn sat down in the chair and took the stack into her lap. She carefully undid the string, which nearly disintegrated, and lifted the top sheet of paper; even now, so many years after it had escaped being burned, it gave off an ashy odor.

  But the black scrawl was still entirely legible. La Chiave Alla Vita Eterna. The Key to Life Eternal.

  Scanning the pages, hastily scribbled in Italian with a sharp quill, she could imagine their creator at his desk, head down, brow furrowed. She could envision him filling one page, then tossing it aside and, without so much as a pause, starting on another. Each paper was crammed with words and sometimes drawings, all a testament to the ferment and the fecundity of his thoughts.

  But when she came to one page in particular, she stopped.

  Its center was dominated by a fierce scowling visage, its hair a mass of writhing snakes. Written beside it, in a florid hand, were the words La Medusa. She stared at the creature’s grim face and traced the lines with the end of one nail. She had to remain strong, she told herself. At least a little longer. She had to have hope, however tenuous. If she, of all people, did not know that anything was possible, who did?

  Closing her eyes and turning out the lamp, she sat in the perfect darkness, hearing only the hum of the air-filtration unit… and allowing her thoughts to transport her backwards into an age-old dream, of another place-the city of Florence-and another time, centuries ago, when the Medici ruled… and a woman then known as Caterina had been the most sought-after artist’s model in all of Europe.

  It was an indulgence she rarely permitted herself. But after the bad news about Palliser, she needed it. And the pictures were quick to come…

  … the woman is lying on a straw pallet, in a moonlit studio. It is a hot summer night, and she is waiting to be sure that her lover has fallen asleep.

  He is snoring soundly, one arm slung across her naked shoulders. With infinite care, she lifts his arm, well muscled from years of hard work, and lays it to one side.

  How relieved she is when the artisan does not stir.

  But i
n putting one foot out onto the floor, she very nearly knocks over one of the silver goblets that had held their wine. The workshop is filled with silver and gold, and a casket of precious jewels, some of which, she knows, have come all the way from the Pope’s coffers in Rome.

  Cellini is making a scepter for the Holy Father, and the diamonds and rubies are reserved for its handle.

  But much as she might have been inclined to steal some of it from any other studio, Caterina does not even consider doing that here. For one thing, she would never betray her lover, and for another, there are three apprentices asleep downstairs, along with a mangy mastiff.

  No, it isn’t larceny that motivates her. It is simple, but irresistible, curiosity.

  Caterina prides herself on knowing all there is to know about men. In ten years of plying her trade, she has seen and learned plenty. But that was only by keeping her eyes open and her wits about her at all times.

  Earlier that day, she had been due to model for a medallion Cellini was casting, but she had arrived only at dusk. She knew that coming so late would make him angry, but she rather liked that. She liked making the great artist stew, liked knowing that without her he was unable to proceed with his work; he had once told her so-in front of all his apprentices-and she occasionally liked to wield the power that it gave her.

  Still, he had his own ways of showing his displeasure.

  As soon as she had come through the door, he had ordered her to strip off her clothes, without so much as a word of greeting; then, when he was posing her, his hands had been rough. But she didn’t say a word. She would not give him the satisfaction of complaining-or a reason to withhold the six scudi he would owe her at the end of the session.

  When the light was utterly gone, and even the candles were not enough to work by, he had tossed his tools down on one of the worktables and rubbed the back of his hand across both sides of his thick moustache.

  That, she knew, meant he was satisfied with what he’d done, for the moment. She dropped her pose-oh, how her limbs ached-and stepped down from the pedestal, then went to fetch her clothes.