The Magic Circle by Katherine Neville (13 inch ebook reader .TXT) 📗

that I hugged him when he came within range, and we three went into the house together.

“I only got one steak,” I told Olivier at the landing where our two stairways diverged. “I thought you were planning to grab fast food at the office.”

“Tish, tish.” He waved his hand in dismissal. “I’ve been exhausted since our breakfast this morning; I couldn’t eat a bite. I’ll turn in for the night, if you and the argonaut don’t mind dining without me. Maybe a healthy sleep will work a miracle.”

From below we heard my phone ringing. Olivier raised an eyebrow. It was rare for me to get so many calls.

“I hope my phone isn’t forming bad habits,” I said. “I may have to join the twentieth century and get one of those evil answering machines.”

Olivier and I parted ways; I raced downstairs and grabbed it on the sixth ring.

“Ariel Behn?” said a woman with a strident voice and an affected mid-Atlantic accent. “This is Helena Voorheer-LeBlanc, of the Washington Post.” Holy cow, that was some moniker. But I’d never liked newspaper dames: too pushy by far.

“Ms. Behn,” she went on without awaiting a reply, “I do hope you don’t mind my intrusion during this time of grief, but I’ve tried to reach you on several occasions at work, and your family did give me this private number. They assured me you wouldn’t mind speaking with me for a few moments. Is now a good time?”

“As good as any,” I agreed with a sigh.

I was getting a headache, no doubt fueled by the number of times I’d had to jump-start my heart this afternoon. My steak was getting warm, my house was getting cold, and I had a piece of yellow paper stuffed up my sleeve that was hotter than nobelium, with a half-life a good deal longer than my own if I didn’t do something about it, and soon. Interview with the Washington Post? What the hey, why not?

“What would you like to know, Miss—um, LeBlanc,” I asked politely, pulling out the yellow sheet Jason had retrieved and looking at it as I spoke. Yup, this was it: Zip code, San Francisco. The square that was checked read: “parcel too large for box.”

I sat on the leather sofa and stripped off my coat. Then I stuffed the paper in my back pants pocket and started to make a fire in the fireplace where I usually cooked my dinner. Jason jumped up on the mantel and tried to lick me in the face, so I boxed his ears a little. And I wondered, for just one fleeting moment, whose body was lying in pieces in that coffin under the deep dark earth. Or had they just buried a piece of lead or a rock instead of Sam?

“Your late cousin must have been a very brave man” was Ms. V-LeBlanc’s segue into our conversation.

“Look, ma’am, I don’t really feel up to chatting too much about my late cousin just now,” I told her, tossing logs on last night’s cold ashes. “Why this sudden interest in me and my family? I’m afraid no one has made that very clear to me.”

“Ms. Behn—Ariel—may I call you Ariel? As you must realize, for three generations your family has produced individuals renowned for their talents and …” Greed, I longed to suggest, but she found a more diplomatic term. “… world socioeconomic and cultural influence. And yet, no one has ever accomplished an in-depth study of a family whose contributions—”

“The Washington Post wants to do an in-depth study of my family?” I cut in. What a joke. “You mean, like a series in the Sunday supplement?”

“Ha, ha,” she tinkled. Then, recalling my “time of grief,” she settled down. “No, of course not. Ms. Behn, shall I come to the point directly?”

I wished to Christ she would—we both knew what she was digging for—but I simply said yes.

“It’s the manuscripts, of course, that we are interested in. An exclusive to publish them is what the paper would like. We’re prepared to pay a large sum, of course. But we don’t want to get into a bidding war.”

A bidding war?

“Exactly what manuscripts are you referring to?” I said naively. Let her work for it.

Touching the inflammatory yellow ticket in my pants with my fingertips, I closed my eyes; then I lit the kindling, thinking all the while how life might be simplified if I accidentally dropped it into the flames. But Ms. Helena Post’s next words snapped me back to reality.

“Why, the letters and journals of Zoe Behn,” she was saying. “I thought your family had spoken with you—”

“Zoe Behn?!!” I said, nearly choking on the name. This was worse than my darkest imaginings. “What does Zoe have to do with any of this?”

“It seems impossible you don’t know exactly what you are heir to, Ms. Behn.” Helena’s formerly forceful voice was nearly mellow with amazement.

“Why don’t you fill me in?” I suggested.

She had my complete attention now. There’d been plenty written about my horrid aunt Zoe—my father’s estranged half sister and the true black sheep of the family. Most of it Zoe had written herself. But this was the first I’d heard of any letters or journals. Besides, what could Zoe have to say that was worse than what she’d already told in worldwide print?

“I was at the press conference in San Francisco, Ms. Behn.” Helena took a deep breath. “We were told that as sole heir to your late cousin Samuel Behn, you are entitled also to the estates to which he had fallen heir—including those of your grandmother, the famous opera singer Pandora Behn, and your uncle, the mining magnate Earnest Behn. When questioned by the press at this recent conference, both your father and Mr. Abrahams, the estate executor, said it was their understanding this estate might have included not only Pandora Behn’s correspondence with world figures and her private writings but also those of her stepdaughter Zoe, the noted …” Tart? The word hovered on