Blue Willow (19 page)

She looked relieved but frightened. Artemas gripped her shoulder reassuringly. His word had power because he never broke it. Not to his brothers and sisters, not to the
senator, not to business associates, not to Glenda. The guiding voice he listened to still had a sweet southern drawl. It had never deserted him.

Lily stepped from a fat yellow cab, paid the driver, then stood on the sidewalk, looking at the building in front of her. It was not what she’d expected. She’d pictured all of New York as a postcard scene from Manhattan, with sleek, modern skyscrapers making canyons along wide streets filled with people. Instead, she found herself on a narrow street lined with blocky, aging warehouse buildings of dingy brick and rusty steel. Their parking lots jutted out to the sides behind tall security fences. A cold March wind whipped down the street, carrying bits of trash. The rumble of heavy construction equipment came from gaps where buildings were being demolished. Large signs in front of the sites indicated that some kind of expensive redevelopment was under way.

Her pulse was thready as she returned her scrutiny to the looming old edifice fronted by a small brown lawn and severely clipped boxwoods. The bottom level was as welcoming as a bunker, with no windows and only a huge, simple set of glass doors set in the middle of a brick stoop. The upper level contained enormous windows, but rows of pale blinds covered them. Only the cars that filled the small parking lot and the glimpse of light inside the front doors gave a clue of human occupation. A small sign on the lawn said
COLEBROOK INTERNATIONAL
in stern white letters on a black background.

It wasn’t grand in the way she’d expected, but it was no less formidable. She had a sense of its purpose and practicality, of mysterious labyrinths behind the solid brick walls, where large sums of money and important deals were negotiated. Where she’d find Artemas.

Her head throbbed with tense anticipation. So much was confusing and painful these days; she felt lost. Glancing down wearily, she unbuttoned her bulky, quilted jacket and smoothed the wrinkles in the white sweater and long gray skirt she’d donned in the rest rooms of the Port
Authority bus terminal. The wind bit through the pale hose on her legs. Her feet looked too large in their flat black shoes. They looked rooted to the pavement, afraid to move.

But she could only move forward. Hitching her tote bag and the long strap of a black purse over her shoulder, she advanced on the wide glass doors.

Inside was a small, pleasant lobby with philodendrons sprawling out of tall white ceramic planters in each corner. On one side, heavy tan couches and overstuffed chairs were arranged around a gleaming black coffee table. On the other was the small half-moon of a receptionist’s booth, a forbidding obstacle staffed by a uniformed security guard with a spiky crown of short dreadlocks and a grandmotherly little woman in a business suit. They marshaled their position near a wall dominated by double doors painted an unfriendly steel gray. Her destination.

Lily eyed the doors, then the people, as she approached the booth.

“Can I help you?” the woman asked.

“I’m here to see Mr. Colebrook. Artemas Colebrook.”

“Do you have an appointment?”

“No. I’ll just wait until he has a free minute. I’m a friend of his. Lily MacKenzie. From Georgia.” She straightened her back rigidly as they scrutinized her with skeptical expressions. “You’re the one who’s been calling, aren’t you?” the receptionist asked.

“Yeah.”

“Then you’ve come a long way for nothing. You’ll have to leave a message. He’ll receive it when he comes in. He’s not here today.”

“Will he be here tomorrow?”

“You’ll have to leave a message,” the guard interjected.

Lily glanced toward the seating area. “I’m not trying to be a problem, but I have to see Artemas. So I believe I’ll wait for him.” Her knees were shaking, but she walked calmly to a couch and sat down. Casting another look at the slack-jawed stares of the duo watching her, she added,
“Don’t worry. When he sees me, everything’ll be all right. If not today, then tomorrow. I’m patient.”

The guard shifted, frowning. He and the receptionist traded an ominous look. “I’d better call Mr. Tamberlaine,” the receptionist said briskly.

A few minutes later a large man in a crisp suit walked through the double doors. The suit was black. He was black. She thought of Othello, and was almost unnerved. He glided toward her with elegant grace, his regal face composed politely. Fronds of gray hair highlighted his temples. He was the most distinguished-looking and forbidding person she’d ever seen. She stood, determined to face whatever harassment anyone offered, even his. He halted in front of her and introduced himself. He gave a slight nod—a hint of a bow. “Ms. MacKenzie, I grant you points for persistence and ingenuity.”

“All right, so I got on a bus and came to New York. If that effort’s so impressive, then please get me in to see Mr. Colebrook. I don’t believe he knows I’ve been trying to reach him. He couldn’t know. He wouldn’t ignore me if he did.”

“I can’t speak for Mr. Colebrook. If you’ll tell me
why
you want to see him, I’ll pass the information along. Perhaps he doesn’t realize your message is urgent.”

Her shoulders sagged. She hadn’t come all this way to be stopped by pride now. He gestured toward the couch. They sat, she facing him, frowning over her shoulder at the pair at the desk, who were pretending to be busy. She turned her back to them and spoke to Mr. Tamberlaine in a hushed voice, trying to compress nearly 140 years of MacKenzie and Colebrook history into a concise story, telling him that she and Artemas had written to each other since she was six years old, that he’d always promised to help her if she needed him, and why she needed that help now.

About halfway through her speech his patient expression had begun to stiffen. By the time she finished, it had become an unreadable mask. “So you’ve come to ask for money,” he said.

“I came to ask for a
loan
. But even if Artemas—if Mr. Colebrook—can’t give me one, I’d like to see him.” Her throat tightened, and tears stung her eyes. She willed them back. “He’s the only one who understands. I can ask him for advice.”

“Frankly, I find your story dubious. You say he hasn’t seen you since you were a child. Yet you expect him to solve your problems for you.”

Lily gritted her teeth. “I expect him to be my friend, because he always has been.”

“The letters you mentioned—do you have any of them with you?”

“No.”

“Do you have
any
proof that your story is true?”

“No.”

“Then I suggest you come back when you have some.”

“I don’t have the money to go home and come back. Or to stay in New York a couple of days while I wait for my aunt to send the letters.”

“I’m sorry then.” He stood. “Go home, photocopy one of the letters Mr. Colebrook allegedly wrote to you, and mail it to me with a letter explaining your request for money. I’ll make certain he receives it.”

Lily clenched her hands in her lap and stared up at him. “All right. Thank you.”

“Would you like to have the receptionist call a cab for you?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

He said good-bye and left the lobby the way he’d arrived. She stood by the front doors, watching for the taxi. When it came, she got into the backseat and sat silently, lost in thought. The driver glanced back at her. “Where ya going?”

“Take me to the nearest hardware store.”

He shot her a puzzled frown but put the car in gear. As they moved up the street, Lily stared fixedly out the window.

•     •     •

“Hello again,” she said calmly the next morning, when Tamberlaine ran into the lobby after the receptionist’s frantic phone call. He halted, staring at her. Lily tilted her head back and held his stunned gaze without blinking. The guard and the receptionist stood nearby, their faces angry and shocked.

Seated, cross-legged, on the carpeted floor by the building’s front doors, Lily set aside the coat she held in her lap, then latched one hand in the chain that was padlocked around her waist and shifted a little so Mr. Tamberlaine could see that the other end of the chain was looped and padlocked through one of the doors’ metal handles.

“She walked in, said, ‘Good morning,’ and did it before I knew what was happening,” the receptionist moaned.

The composed and unflappable-looking Tamberlaine scowled at her so fiercely that she thought he might explode. She wound a clumsy hand around the tote bag beside her and pulled it to her chest, like a shield. “I want to see Artemas.”

“Go outside and don’t let employees or visitors try to enter the building through these doors,” Tamberlaine told the guard. “Send them around back. And don’t say why.”

The guard bolted past her, swinging the other door open and disappearing outside. The blast of chilled air felt icy on Lily’s flushed face. But she never took her gaze from the tall, dignified Tamberlaine. He turned toward the receptionist, whose hands seemed perpetually lodged at her throat in astonishment. “Call a locksmith.”

She ran to her desk and snatched a phone book from a drawer. Tamberlaine pivoted to glare down at Lily again. Her stomach twisted. This wasn’t going as she’d hoped. She’d thought once they saw her determination, they’d call Artemas. Instead, it looked as if they’d keep him and everyone else from knowing she was here again, and get rid of her immediately.

But she said evenly, “I spent the night moving from one diner to another and buying sandwiches so nobody’d chase me off. I was pestered by men who asked how much
I charged—you know what I mean—and somebody even tried to sell me cocaine. After all that, nothing you can say or do can shake me.”

“Oh?” Tamberlaine pulled a chair in front of her, sat down, and casually crossed one leg over the other. “If you don’t get on a bus today and return to Georgia, I’ll have you arrested for trespassing.”

The threat hit her like a slap. “Arrested?”

“Think about that—being taken to a police station, fingerprinted, questioned, searched, locked in a cell with strangers. Think about being humiliated in court and having to pay a fine. Can you afford to pay a fine?”

Hope was falling away, leaving her exhausted and uncertain. As he studied her face, he frowned. “I don’t want to do that to you, but I assure you, I will. I can’t have you wasting Mr. Colebrook’s time.”

“I wouldn’t be wasting it.”

“Oh? What if I told you he’s received your message and asked me to handle it? That he doesn’t want to see you?”

Yesterday she would have rejected that idea. Today, seeing that her persistence meant nothing to the people Artemas trusted, that he had put a shield around himself that excluded her, made her wonder if she’d been a fool. “Did he say why he doesn’t want anything to do with me?” she asked finally.

Tamberlaine pursed his lips and scrutinized her shrewdly “You said you’d already written to him about your dilemma, and he didn’t answer you. Why would he want to see you now?”

“I thought my letters got lost. Or that he was out of town and hadn’t read them yet.”

The slow, negative shaking of Mr. Tamberlaine’s regal head sent aftershocks through her. Lily trembled with anger and a sense of betrayal. “He
promised.
” The words made a desperate hiss between her teeth. “He promised he’d help if I ever needed him.”

A flicker of dismay showed in Tamberlaine’s eyes. “Did he write that in a letter recently?”

“Not in so many words, but—”

“No written agreement, you’re saying? No discussion of personal commitment, no promise to give you money for any reason?”

She choked. This man thought she was some kind of con artist. “No, it wasn’t like that. We just always encouraged each other, like friends—”

“This was a very odd correspondence you had. I can’t picture Mr. Colebrook writing to a child that way.”

“He was just a kid himself when it started!”

Tamberlaine shifted forward, piercing her with an assessing look. “When
what
started? Exactly what are you alleging?”

“
Nothing.
” She felt sick. “You think I’m saying this is about sex? What do you think he was—a pervert?”

“Hardly. I just wanted to be clear on your allegations.”

“I don’t
have
allegations! I have—I
had
—trust in him. I always thought, I
knew
—” She was fumbling, coming apart. She took a deep breath and crashed to a stop. “I was wrong.”

“Yes, obviously Perhaps you don’t fully realize that Mr. Colebrook is a grown man, a very important man, and not the sentimental boy you claimed to have known. To be frank, he’s also very deeply involved with a young woman here in New York, who’s likely to become his wife.”

Lily stared at him in silent despair. Was that why Artemas had stopped writing to her? He didn’t want some woman to know he had a female friend?

“Go home,” Mr. Tamberlaine said, not unkindly. “If Mr. Colebrook wants to get in touch with you again, I’m sure he will.”

She pulled a key from the pocket of her coat and opened the padlock at the chain around her waist. Unwinding it, she rose wearily to her feet. “I’ll go.”

“Not alone, you won’t. I’m going to make certain you don’t come back.” She watched in humiliation as he opened the door and called to the guard. He looked back at her sternly. “I’m sending him with you to the bus station. He’ll make certain you leave.”

“No. Hell no.”

“You don’t have any choice. Either do this my way, or I’ll call the police.”

When she saw that she had no choice, she straightened proudly, chewing the inside of her mouth and saying nothing. The guard brought a car from the parking lot. Tamberlaine grasped her by one arm and gently but firmly pushed her ahead of him out the front doors. Shame flooded her, but she decided that jerking her arm away from him would only make matters worse.

He guided her into the cars front seat, while the guard held the door. “I’m sorry you were so misguided,” Tamberlaine said. “If it means anything to you, I admire your courage.”