“The doctor thinks I might have three months, maybe six, maybe less. I think three months is more like it. I want to find three young women.” Chapman looked surprised. It was an odd request from an old man, unless they were his daughters. “They were the daughters of close friends of mine, my closest friends. Their parents died thirty years ago, and two of them were adopted shortly after, the third one was left with her aunt and uncle. They were respectively one, five, and nine years old when I lost track of them, and I have no idea where they are now. I know who adopted the two younger girls, and I know the oldest one wound up in Jacksonville, Florida, and then came to New York twenty-two years ago, but that's all I know. I've included all the information I have in this file, including clippings about their parents. Their father was a very well-known Broadway actor.”

“Did the parents die simultaneously in an accident?” It was only curiosity on his part. Thus far, it was an intriguing story.

“No.” Arthur took a painful breath and continued. “He killed their mother, no one ever really knew why, except that they had an argument and he seems to have gone crazy. I defended him in 1958.” Arthur's face went a little grayer as Chapman watched him, surprised that he had taken a criminal case. There had to be more to the story than he was telling. “He was convicted and committed suicide in his cell the night of his conviction. I tried to place the girls in a home together.” He seemed close to breaking down as John Chapman watched him, sorry for him, it was obviously painful for him to remember, and worse still to discuss it with this stranger. Any attorney would have felt responsible … but not responsible enough to go looking for the children thirty years later. Or was it that he felt guilty? “But no one wanted to take all three. I had to place them in separate homes, and leave the older girl with the aunt and uncle.” He didn't tell him that he had considered taking them himself, but didn't do it because his then wife wouldn't let him. “There was also a recent clipping about a young woman at CBA,” he went on, “by the same name as the oldest girl. I think there's a possibility it might be she, but it could be just a coincidence. I included the clipping and you ought to check it out.” Chapman nodded. And Arthur remembered finding the article in the Times only weeks before, and praying it was the right Hilary Walker. His hand had trembled as he held the column he'd clipped out and stared at the picture. She didn't look like anyone he knew, but that didn't necessarily mean anything. Newspaper photos often didn't. “That's it, Chapman. I want to find those three young women.” Young to him perhaps, but certainly full-grown, Chapman thought to himself. He did a quick calculation and realized they were thirty-nine, thirty-five, and thirty-one years old. It wasn't going to be easy to find them. And Arthur confirmed that. “The adoptive parents of the two younger girls moved away years ago, and I have no idea where they went … I just hope you can find them.”

“So do I.” Chapman took the file in his hands, and looked somber as he questioned Arthur. “And when I do?”

“First, I want you to locate them, and then come back to me and tell me that you've found them. Then I want you to explain to them who they are, who I am, that I am an old family friend, and that I want to reunite them with their sisters. I'd like to do it in my home in Connecticut, if that's possible. I'm afraid I can't travel anymore … they'll have to come here.”

“And if they refuse?” It was possible. Anything was possible. He had seen everything in the seventeen years he'd been in the business.

“You can't let them.”

“They may not even remember having sisters, two of them anyway, and it may be a tremendous shock and disruption to them.” He wondered if there was a sizable inheritance being attached to it, but he didn't want to press Arthur on the subject.

“I owe it to them to bring them together again. It was my fault that they were separated … that I was never able to find a home for all of them. I want to know that they're all right, that they don't need anything … I owe that much to their parents.”

John was tempted to tell him that it was a little late, but he didn't want to be disrespectful. At thirty-nine and thirty-five and thirty-one, it couldn't matter very much to them anymore why they had been taken from their sisters, if they even remembered having any in the first place. But it was not his place to question the wisdom of arthur Patterson's final wishes. Arthur was sitting watching him with quiet desperation.

“Will you do it?” It was a barely audible whisper.

“I'll try.”

“Will you do it yourself?”

“Most of it, if that's possible. I want to read the file first, before I make a definite commitment. I may have operatives already in the field in areas we're interested in who could do the job better and more quickly than I could.” Arthur nodded, that much made sense to him. “I'll get to the file as quickly as possible, and I'll call you with an appraisal of the situation.”

Arthur was painfully honest with him. “There's not much there, Chapman. Not much more than I told you.”

“That's all right. Something may jump out at me.” He discreetly looked at the clock he could see over Arthur's left shoulder. It was almost one-fifteen, and he hated to keep Sasha waiting. “I'll call you in the next day or two.” He stood up and Arthur followed suit unsteadily.

“I'm deeply grateful to you, Chapman.”

“That's all right, Mr. Patterson. I hope you won't be disappointed.” Arthur nodded thoughtfully, barely able to consider that. Chapman had to find them. “I should warn you as well, this could be an expensive project.” Arthur looked up at him then with a wintry smile. “I've got nothing else to spend it on now, do I?”

Chapman smiled at him. It was a difficult question to answer, and he walked him quietly to the outer office, shook his hand, thanked him for coming, and then hurried back to his office to lock the slim file in the safe, and head out the door at a dead run. Sasha was going to kill him.





Chapter 15




John Chapman flew out of his office building on Fifty-seventh Street, and raced the two long blocks west, glancing at his watch, and catching his reflection in shop windows. Tiffany … I. Miller … Henri Bendel … it seemed to take hours to get there and he knew how she hated him to be late, but he couldn't hurry Arthur Patterson out of his office after all. The man was ancient and he was dying, and Chapman was intrigued by the case. But he also knew Sasha wouldn't understand that.

She was twenty-eight years old, sinew from head to foot, and every ounce of her was disciplined to perfection. She wore her blond hair pulled back so tight that it looked as though it were painted on her head, her green eyes had a Slavic til, and she wore her lips in a constant pout, which had seduced him from the first time he'd seen her. They had met at a friend's house, a ballet buff, who raved about how talented she was, and how extraordinary she'd been as a little girl. And now she was even more so as a big one. The daughter of Russian émigrés, she had studied for years at the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, and then gone on to Juilliard as a young girl, where she'd been a star already in her early teens. At twenty she had been invited to join the American Ballet Theatre. And at twenty-eight, she was not a prima, but she was a fine dancer with a solid career to be proud of. She indulged in the jealousies of her troupe, and it irked her not to be one of the prima ballerinas, but in truth she was too small to be more than one of the corps of dancers. She had the consolation of being very good, and she told John that every chance she got, when she wasn't complaining about her feet or the fact that he was late coming to meet her. But even though she wasn't easy to get along with, for months, John Chapman had found her enchanting … her discipline, her intense routine, her talent coupled with her tiny face, her feet that seemed to move on butterfly wings when she danced, the huge green eyes … there was something very special about her.

“You're half an hour late.” She glared at him halfway through a cup of borscht, when he breathlessly reached her table at the Russian Tea Room. The atmosphere was precisely as it had been for the past fifty years, and they both loved blini and caviar. Besides, it was close to where she rehearsed, and they met there half a dozen times a week, for lunch or after rehearsals, or even after performances, late at night, for a quick bite before they went home to his apartment. She lived with four other dancers, and it was impossible to talk, let alone make love in the West Side walk-up that was always filthy and drafty. But her green eyes were looking up at him in reproach as he apologized and sat down. “I was thinking of leaving.” She looked like an angry child and he realized, as he always did, how much he loved her.

“I'm glad you didn't.” He gently touched her hand, and smiled at the familiar waiter. He was an old Russian who chatted with Sasha in her maternal tongue. She had been born in Paris, but still spoke Russian with her parents.

“I was hungry.” Her eyes bore into his mercilessly. “That's the only reason why I waited.”

“I'm sorry. I had an important case. The head of a major law firm needed some help, I couldn't shove him out the door.” He smiled placatingly at her, wondering how long it would take him to get back in her good graces. Usually, not long, her anger was hard and quick to burst into flame, but generally it abated fairly quickly. “I'm sorry, darling.” He touched her hand again, and she looked only slightly mollified by his contrition.

“I had a very difficult morning.” She looked petulant, and more beautiful than ever.

“Something wrong?” He knew how she worried about her feet and her legs and her arms … it was not easy being a dancer. A pulled muscle, a torn ligament, and her life could be changed forever.

“They were trying to introduce a new choreographer, and he's impossible. He makes Balanchine look lazy by comparison. This man is mad. You cannot dance the way he asks you.”

“You can.” Chapman smiled proudly at her. He thought her a remarkable dancer. And this time, she smiled at him. He was almost forgiven.

“I'm trying. But I think he's trying to kill us.” She sighed and finished her borscht. She didn't want to eat too much before rehearsal that afternoon, but she was still hungry. He had just ordered blini, and she was tempted but that was too heavy for her when she was dancing. “Maybe I'll have a salad.” She told the waiter in Russian and he nodded and disappeared as she told John about her woes of the morning. She asked him nothing about his case. She never did. All she ever thought of was dancing.

“Are you rehearsing tonight?” he asked with eyes full of understanding. He was a kind man, and he didn't mind their life revolving around her work. He was used to that. His ex-wife had been a writer, and he had sat patiently for seven years while she churned out mysteries that had eventually become major best sellers. He had respected her as a woman and a friend, but it hadn't been much of a marriage. Everything had come second to her work, even her husband. She had been a difficult woman. The whole world had to come to a shrieking halt when she started a book, and she expected John to protect her from any possible interruption. And he had done a fair job of it, until the loneliness of his life with her overwhelmed him. Her only friends were her characters, every plot she wrote became real to her, and she wouldn't even speak to him while she was working. She worked from eight in the morning until midnight, every day, and then went to bed, mute with exhaustion. In the morning, she'd start again, but she didn't talk to him over coffee because she was already thinking about the book. It had been lonely being married to Eloise. She wrote under the name of Eloise Wharton. And when she wasn't working on a book, she was either in a major depression because she wasn't working, or she was on tour in thirty cities in forty-five days, pushing her latest epic. He figured out before he asked her for a divorce that they spoke to each other on the average something like thirty hours a year, which was something less than what he needed for a happy marriage. They loved each other, but she loved her work more. And he wasn't even sure how much she understood when he left her. She had been deep in a book, and there had been only the vaguest of answers as he said goodbye and closed the front door behind him. It was a relief, oddly enough, he discovered that it was less lonely being alone than being with her. He could play the stereo, sing when he liked, have friends over who made as much noise as they wanted. He went out with other women. Life was fine. And the only thing he regretted was that they had never had any children. He and Eloise had been divorced for five years, and he was only now starting to think about getting remarried. In fact, he had been thinking about it a great deal lately.