What I Did for Love by Tessa Dane Page B

and he was getting ready to go to sleep himself. He was over nine thousand miles away, and on the Equator, and I felt so lonely for him.
    “What are your plans for the day?” he asked.
    “I’m going to hit the museums, I think. I’m still enjoying the novelty of being on vacation from school, and Robin isn’t back yet, so I’ll do city exploring on my own.” I often did this, no surprises, and no mention of Rand.
    “What about your other friends?” he asked offhandedly, a pretended lightness.
    “I may call Dina to see if she’s back in Westchester. She went away with her parents right after school closed. She’s probably looking for down time too.” My voice was chatty, girl talk-y, avoiding seriousness. But my heart was still troubled over my brother. I sighed, quietly, and thought I heard him sigh too. We two children, each other’s beacon. “Oh, Bredon, I can’t wait for you to get home!”
    He laughed, relieved, interpreting my sigh as missing him, which it was, and more. “Sunday night, Sis, but I’ll be flying in late.”
    “However late, call me.”
    “Okay. But fair warning. The following Tuesday morning I go out again, this time for a week.”
    “More investors on this deal?” What was he doing, I wondered.
    “No, they’ll be site inspections, making sure all the offices and support staff are in place.” He was positive, reassuring. Buthe did not say he had the money commitments he needed.
    “Okay,” I said, keeping my voice light. “Sunday night.” I hung up and said a dozen fervent prayers for my brother, begging my parents to watch over him.
    Returning to the everyday, hungry, I checked in the refrigerator; butter and eggs were there along with the heavy cream I loved in my coffee. Happily, Marilisa had left some fresh rolls on the counter, so breakfast was an easy task. I ate and thought and planned, and when I finished, I turned on the “don’t come in” light, then engaged the special door locks, front and back entrances, that even Marilisa did not know about. Bredon had had these installed when no one was about on my floor, using skilled men who owed him favors. Bredon did not elaborate on who the men were, or what favors had been done. I knew not to ask.
    Safely locked away from the world, I went to the back of my bedroom closet, which held yet another room behind its back wall. What had been an “owner’s closet” to store things if the apartment was sublet, had been made to disappear. It just looked like a back wall now, but it was actually a pocket door, beautifully designed to be unnoticeable. Unhooking the latch, I rolled the wall to one side. There was a clothes pole at the front of the closet, a low set of drawers against one side, and boxes of shoes on the floor.
    I moved aside the clothes, each outfit in its own plastic bag, and stepped over the boxes into the tiny dressing room that held a diminutive vanity table and cushioned stool. The walls held shelves with different wigs in their round shiny black boxes, and rectangular clear plastic boxes with various hats and caps. All of the clothing was from department and chain stores, ordered on line and sent to our postal drop. Bredon had a matching room hidden in his penthouse. Before he moved from his old apartment where he had also had a closet like this, he had it removed, opening up the area to make it look like a part of thedeep walk-in closet, no traces of the secret storage remaining. The new tenants would never know.
    We lived in a kind of paranoia, a lifestyle more like spies than normal siblings after the air crash. We did all we could to hide from the ghoulish curiosity of reporters, from brash, intrusive people we did not know, who saw themselves as well-meaning, who proffered sympathy and banalities and sometimes “religious” consolations that drove us crazy. After the bombing a torrent of newspaper reporters had clustered at the survivors’ houses. For days there were programs streamed and on