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Chapter 19: An Idea Becomes a Plan

Nikola was anxious to get out of her apartment. Whoever sent that note, obviously had the address, and she was in no mood to wait for them to arrive. She called Eddie to ask if she could visit, and was pleased to hear that Eddie was available for the rest of the evening. Nikola picked up the note from the corner it had rolled to and straightened it out, then retrieved the envelope from where she had tossed it on the coffee table. She put both in a shoulder bag, grabbed her wallet and keys, and couldn't get out of the apartment fast enough.

When she got outside, the crisp fresh air was like a dose of calm reality. Although it was almost ten o'clock, the streets were still busy, as they frequently are in Soho at that time. The normalcy of the scene around her made her previous fears seem unjustified.

Nikola handed Eddie the note immediately upon entering her apartment. Eddie looked over both the note and its envelope carefully several times before saying anything.

"It looks childish. Almost like a prank or something."

"Do you really think so?"

"There're a couple of friends of mine that used to pull stunts like this on each other all the time."

"But the only people I know here are from the gallery and those I met at your party. Do you think one of them would pull such a prank?" Nikola wanted to believe the prank idea, but it didn't ring true.

"No, I can't really imagine it."

"So then it must be serious."

"Maybe someone just picked a name at random."

"What for?"

"I have no idea why, but people randomly inflict violence on one another all the time. Especially on women. Almost like 'Confined' was a premonition."

"Don't say that. I can't believe that. Besides, whoever wrote that note knows I'm a foreigner."

"It could be from Martha and Alan."

"The thought had occurred to me, but..."

"That makes a lot of sense. If they had heard about Marty's journal somehow..."

"I suppose it's possible..."

"Now that I think about it, it must be! And I think it indicates that we should be much more pro-active in this case." Eddie's face lit up with excitement as she leaned in towards Nikola.

"To me, the note seems to say the opposite."

"Oh, I know what it says, but we can't let ourselves be intimidated by it. This clearly indicates that there is a lot more to this than we think."

"The note may not even have anything to do with Martha and Alan. After all, it's postmarked Grove, and both Martha and Alan are definite Manhattanites." Nikola stared down at the threatening envelope's postmark.

"That's true. So what's in Grove?"

"I don't know. I've never heard of it."

"It's upstate somewhere. Several hours north of here."

"What's there?"

"I don't know. Resorts, I guess, there're a lot of vacation spots in that area," Eddie said, shrugging.

"Why would they send it from there?"

"I think we're making too big a deal about this postmark. Martha was probably just up there for the weekend or something, and mailed it from there. It's got to be related to Alan and Martha's schemes. If they were willing to kill Marty, who knows how far they'll go." 

"But why me? All I did was ask Alan a few unusual questions. I don't think there was even anything very incriminating about any of them." Nikola tried to recall everything she said to Alan during the brunch, but nothing stood out in her memory.

"What else could it be? Were you expecting anything like this?"

"Of course not."

"So it's obviously from Martha and Alan, or someone involved with them." Eddie paced in front of Nikola, in a thoughtful pose, pausing only to emphasize points in the discussion.

"I suppose."

"You don't sound convinced."

"I'm not. This doesn't sound like them. How could they even know that we're suspicious of them? We haven't really done anything. They would have to have heard it from one of us."

"Do you think there's a traitor in our group?"

"What group? You, me, Donna and Brian? I can't imagine any of us saying anything to anyone and there's no one else who even knows anything about it."

"George or Warren could have overheard something that day we read the journal in the bar."

"Were they there? I forgot. But even if they were, they weren't at our table, and that place is really loud. It's hard to hear what the person next to you is saying, let alone overhear another conversation." None of this was making any sense to Nikola. She wanted to believe what Eddie was saying, it was easier than the open questions, but it still didn't seem logical to her.

"That's true, but we had his journal entry open on the table. They could have read it over one of our shoulders."

"I guess it's possible, but it doesn't seem very likely."

"Well, obviously somebody knows about it, 'cuz you got this note. I think we have to escalate this before somebody else does it first." Eddie sat down, directly facing Nikola, to emphasize her point.

"There's something else, as well. I don't know if it's any big deal, in fact, I'm not even sure if it's real, but I frequently have the feeling that I'm being followed." 

"Really? Since when?"

"It's hard to say, but I definitely feel it lately. I've felt something like it before, but I wrote it off as the city. I'm not used to the kind of crowds you have here."

"Why would anybody follow you?" 

"It's probably just my imagination." 

"There's also this note, and that's definitely not your imagination. We've got to figure out what's going on. I've been thinking about it and I think we should search Martha's office."

"Are you crazy? You can't just go around searching people's offices!" Nikola felt as if everything was reeling out of control.

"Sure, why not? They do it on television all the time."

"This is not television, Eddie. You just can't do stuff like that."

"Relax, I know we can't play TV detectives, but realistically, it shouldn't be that hard to do."

"It won't be easy - and what if we get caught?"

"I'll be careful and I won't get caught."

"Don't even think about it." 

"I have been thinking about it, and I'm determined to do it, with or without your help. There's obviously something fishy going on here: the note proves it. Not to mention you think you're being followed. I have to do something, and this is an obvious next step. You went to talk to Alan, you've done your share and now it's my turn." Eddie was back up and pacing, her hands on her hips, as if lecturing a child.

"I can't let you do this... If you get caught, you could go to jail."

"You have no say in the matter - I'm doing this. I'm way too involved with this to stop now. You can help me or not help me, as you like, but either way, I'm searching her office."

"I really think that you should reconsider, but if you're determined, I will definitely help you."

"Good, I can use your help. Donna's much too nervous and whiny to be of any use in something like this."

"Have you thought about how you're going to accomplish this search?" Nikola knew things were out of control, but didn't feel she had any other choice than to help Eddie.

"Yes, I've been thinking about it ever since the other day, when I heard Martha tell Cynthia that she has a meeting next Tuesday morning - all morning. She's even taking the 'clients,' whoever they may be, out to lunch afterwards. She told Cynthia not to expect her back until after one. Other than that, I haven't planned it out in any detail, but I don't think it'll be that hard. We just have to distract Cynthia for a little while."

"There's a little more to it than that."

"Like what?"

"Doesn't Martha lock her office?"

"I didn't think of that, does she?" 

"I think so. In fact I'm positive, I remember seeing Cynthia unlock it when I was there to hang paintings. So she must have the keys. We'll have to get her to open it for us - I could ask for a copy of my price list or something. Martha was talking about having me revise it after that first sale. She hasn't said anything about it lately, but it will provide a good excuse to get into her office, either way."

"Good, so we'll get in when she opens it."

"It's more complicated than that. We can't exactly search the office in front of her, and she usually locks it when she's done getting whatever she needs from there. We'll have to either get in when it's open and hide inside, mess up the door while it's open, or search with her there and distract her." The more Nikola thought about it, the more impossible it seemed.

"I don't think that we could distract her for long enough to do a good search."

"I agree. Tampering with the lock is probably out too. She could probably feel it in the way the door closes when she goes to lock it, and if she sees it's been tampered with then we're caught."

"So what you're saying, is that I've got to hide in there while it's open."

"It seems to be our best bet, but that doesn't mean it won't be a challenge. There aren't a lot of places to hide, if any. It's a pretty small office. You should think about this very carefully before you attempt to do it." Nikola hoped that she might be talking some sense into Eddie.

"It is small, but I'm sure I can find a place to hide."

"If you're going to hide there, then we should probably go in separately. Otherwise she might miss you while you're in there, or, worse yet, not even lock the office until she sees both of us."

"That's easy enough. I'll just sneak into the gallery after I've seen you two head for the back. Then I'll come in behind you guys, and the moment she turns her back, presto, I'll be in there without either of you knowing it."

"That won't be easy."

"Maybe not, but it'll be very sneaky and very exciting. Now, while I'm doing all this sneaky searching, you're going to have to keep Cynthia distracted. One thing that I was thinking was that we could knock a few of the track lights off center, and then you could use that as an excuse to complain about how the paintings are lit." Eddie was excitedly pacing again, as if energized by the plan.

"We might not have to bother. I've noticed myself lately that some of the larger paintings are not very well lit on the bottom. I'm sure that I can distract her with that while you're searching, for a little while anyway. But we need to set a time limit for the search, because I have no way of letting you know if something goes wrong outside, or if she starts getting suspicious. I don't think you should stay in the office more than five minutes."

"Five minutes? But that's hardly any time at all."

"What are you going to do there for longer? You don't even know what you're looking for. Besides, I'm not so sure I could distract Cynthia for much more than that. She's not exactly a big talker, and we've never said more that hello and goodbye to each other until now. I don't want her to get suspicious." 

"Okay, okay, five minutes. So what else do we need?"

"I can't think of anything. You know this is totally insane."

"I know, but it'll be such fun. Besides, we can't just ignore Marty's last journal entry and I can't think of anything else to do. But enough about that, it's settled. How was your date last night?" Eddie sat down, relaxing her stance, as if to finalize their plans with the change of subject.

"I didn't think it would really be a date, but as it turns out it was. Actually, it was quite romantic." Nikola leaned back, remembering the day.

"Go on..."

"Well, it started with a few tourist spots downtown, and then, much to my surprise, he took me on a cruise around Manhattan." 

"Really? That sounds like fun."

"It was. We had dinner and did a lot of dancing on the boat. There was a band on board. Oh, it was beautiful, Eddie. We left just before sunset, so first I saw the buildings of the city reflecting the sunset, and then I saw them with all their lights on. I'm glad I had my camera there, but I'm sure the pictures will not come close to doing the scene justice." 

"Photos rarely do. So how was he?"

"Quite the gentleman, but very mysterious. He didn't really say anything about himself, and avoided all of my questions. But I feel as if I know him anyway. It's probably because he reminds me so much of Erik." 

"Your old lover?"

"He was the only person I ever lived with, probably the closest I ever got to a man. I hadn't thought of him much in a while. It's been a long time and can be painful to remember... But ever since I met Greg, I've been thinking about him an awful lot. And I miss him more than ever. The resemblance is striking..." Nikola's voice cracked as she tried to control the tears that were trying to form in her throat.

"I'm sorry Nikki, I didn't mean to upset you." 

"It's not your fault. I've been thinking about Erik all day, it wasn't anything you said." 

"So how do you feel about Greg?"

"It's hard to say. I can't look at him without thinking about Erik. I don't know if I really have a clear picture of who Greg is." 

"Maybe it's fate that he resembles Erik. Maybe it was meant to be between you guys." 

"That would be nice, wouldn't it? It doesn't seem very real though. It's almost as if he's not real. He doesn't give out any information about himself, except under duress. I feel as if I don't really know anything about him."

"Don't worry about it, Nikola. Some men are like that - they hate to talk about themselves. But that's much better than the ones who talk about nothing but themselves - that can really be torture. Do you have any plans to see him again?" 

"Nothing specific, but I have a feeling I'll hear from him again. I hope I do. I feel really bad, because when I got the note, I accused him of having something to do with it. I don't know what I was thinking. I always get too emotional over things. I hope he forgives me."

"I'm sure he will. It's understandable to freak out when you get a note like that. You were in a state of panic, and not responsible for your words. Besides, maybe it'll get him to talk more about himself."

"The one thing he did tell me was that he used to be an investigative reporter."

"Oh really? Most art reporters are artists by background. I wonder what got him into art."

"That's a good question. His personality almost seems better suited to what I've always pictured an investigative reporter's to be like. I can't imagine what motivated the switch."

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