Keepsake Read Free Page B

And kept it, too. So far. In all the months since he’d buried Jessie he’d managed to avoid cracking
     open that top. Today, though
    The name
Rina de Sevigny
assaulted him. That’s who he was supposed to be concentrating on. Focus on Rina. That oughtta cure you, sucker, he thought.
    Come on, then, Jessie, haunt me. That’s what you’ve been doing anyway for all this time. I’m no good without you, sober or
     drunk.
    He reached for the bottle of Scotch. The phone by the king-sized bed interrupted him before he could break the seal. Blackthorn
     smiled and shook his head. The samething had happened once or twice before. Maybe she
was
still around. Not his demon, but his guardian angel.
    He walked over and picked up the receiver. “Yeah?”
    “Blackthorn,” said a sharp female voice that he recognized instantly—Carla Murphy, who worked for him at World Systems Security.
     “I’m calling from the convention center in Anaheim.”
    “Hey, Carla. What’s up?”
    “I think you’d better get on over here.”
    “Why? I’m not due on the scene until the glitzy party this evening.”
    “Well, it turns out the client is not happy about that arrangement,” Carla said. “Actually it’s her husband who’d like to
     have you here. Says he’d feel safer that way.”
    “Yeah, right,” Blackthorn said. He didn’t much like Armand de Sevigny.
    “Listen, I sympathize,” said Carla. “The whole case is a waste of our time, in my opinion. She’s not even a particularly famous
     author, as far as I can tell.”
    “Actually, she
is
pretty famous,” said Blackthorn. “A little more so in Europe than here, perhaps, but she’s had a large following here, too,
     ever since the release of that TV video piece that runs on cable of odd hours of the night with all the senators, astronauts,
     and movie stars lauding Power Perspectives, her personal transformation program.”
    “Yeah, so who wants to kill her? Somebody whose personality didn’t get transformed? Jeez. I could be at a Mafia stakeout and
     here I am stuck at a goddamn booksellers’ convention.”
    Blackthorn grinned. Then he sighed, eyeing the whiskey again. At his direction, Carla had done most of the work for this case
     so far. She’d been the one to analyzeRina’s needs and lay out a plan to protect her. This had been fine with Blackthorn. Perfect.
    “So why do you think somebody wants to kill you?” he’d asked Rina when she’d insisted, in her imperious way, that he take
     the case.
    “Perhaps because I know too many secrets about too many people,” Rina had said, which had reminded Blackthorn that she knew
     a few of his own secrets, as well.
    “Blackthorn?” Carla said. “You still there?”
    “Yeah, I’m here. You want to run it by me again? What exactly is the problem this morning?”
    “It’s not just the husband who’s complaining,” Carla said. “Rina’s friend Daisy Tulane is concerned as well.”
    “The feminist who would be senator.”
    “Exactly. Apparently Rina helped Ms. Tulane get her head together a couple of years ago and now Daisy’s turned protective.
     She insists they contracted with us for four bodyguards and we’ve only given her three.”
    “The contract says, ‘multiple bodyguards’ and ‘sufficient protection,’ for chrissake. Two would have been more than sufficient.”
    “Well, not really. It’s a tricky situation, Blackthorn. Rina insists on meeting her ‘friends,’ as she calls them— the strangers
     who have bought her books and tapes and tried out her empowerment program. She’s signing autographs as I speak, in this cavernous
     hall with hundreds of people crowded about.”
    “We didn’t authorize that. How does she expect us to protect her if she won’t follow orders?”
    “How do I know? All I can tell you is there’s a lot about this situation that’s making me crazy. This place is impossible
     to secure. It’s huge, for one thing, and there are people milling all over, with