She hung up the phone. Minutes later she was standing in front of a small, red brick building. A modest construction compared to the mostly outlandish structures in the exhibit. Its facade was Georgian, Early American, with white painted trim and neatly detailed wrought iron handrails. It was a relic from another time, and the kind of place—reminiscent of the early colonial settlements.
No sooner had she stuffed the map back into her pocket then she saw the boy again. He looked as if he had aged during the chase: his breath was shallow, and his hair was askew.
He looked startled to find her there. “You again,” he said.
Now was her chance. Cordelia had instructed her, before she had expired in this cycle, that if she ever found Lawrence, or anyone whom she thought would be able to lead her to him, that Schuyler must say the following words.
She said them now, clearly, and in the most confident voice she could muster.
“Adiuvo Amicus Specialis. Nihilum cello. Meus victus est tui manus.” I come to you for aid as a secret, special friend. I have nothing to hide. My life is in your hands.
He looked into her eyes with an icy stare that could only belong to Schuyler’s kind, and her words faded into silence.
“Dormio,” he ordered, and with a wave of his hand, she felt the darkness come upon her as she fainted.
New York Herald
Archives
MARCH 15, 1871
ENGAGEMENT BROKEN
————— Lord Burlington and Maggie Stanford
Will Not Marry.
Maggie Stanford Still Missing.
* * *
THE ENGAGEMENT OF MAGGIE Stanford, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Tiberius and Dorothea Stanford of Newport, and Alfred, Lord Burlington of London and Devonshire, has been broken. The wedding was to have taken place to-day.
Maggie Stanford mysteriously disappeared on the night of the Patrician Ball six months prior. Superintendent Campbell has continued to investigate. The Stanford family suspects foul play, although no ransom note or sign of kidnapping has yet been discovered. A substantial reward has been offered for any information concerning Maggie Stanford’s whereabouts.
—————
SEVEN
It was a jewel box of a room, high up on the highest floor of one of the tallest skyscrapers in midtown Manhattan, a building made of glass and chrome, and as Mimi looked out over the magnificent New York skyline, she caught her reflection in the plate glass window and smiled. She was wearing a dress. But not just any dress. This was a couture confection of thousands of chiffon rosettes hand-stitched together to create an ethereal, cloudlike elegance. The strapless bodice hugged her tiny twenty-two–inch waist, and her lustrous gold locks spilled over her creamy shoulders and toned lower back. It was a six-figure dress, a one-of-a-kind showstopper that only John Galliano could create. And it was hers, at least for one night. She was in the celebrity dressing department at Christian Dior. An exclusive showroom that was by invitation only. All around the racks that surrounded Mimi were dresses flown straight from the Paris runways—samples that only models and model-thin socialites could ever dream of wearing.
Here was the Dior that Nicole Kidman wore to the Oscars, there was the gown Charlize Theron wore to the Golden Globes.
“Stunning,” the Dior publicist pronounced with a quick nod of her head. “Absolutely, this is the one.”
Mimi took a flute of champagne from the silver tray proffered by a white-gloved servant. “Perhaps,” she acknowledged, knowing that with the dress’s fifty foot–long train, she would cause a commotion when she entered the party.
Then Bliss appeared in the doorway.
Mimi had invited her friend to join her, thinking it would be fun to have an audience watch her try on dresses. Mimi liked nothing more than to have a fawning friend envy her good looks and social privileges. She hadn’t expected the publicist at Christian Dior to fall over herself and encourage Bliss to borrow a dress as well. But ever since Bliss had been signed by the Farnsworth Modeling Agency, and her face and figure had been emblazoned all over town in the “Stitched for Civilization” jeans advertising campaign that she had starred in with Schuyler Van Alen, the little Texas rose had become a bona fide New York celebrity—a fact Mimi had yet to forgive. Bliss had even been chosen as Vogue’s “Girl of the Moment,” and there were Web sites devoted to her every move. Mimi had to face the awful truth: her friend was famous.
“You guys—what do you think of this?” Bliss asked.
Mimi and the publicist turned. Mimi’s smile faded. The publicist ran over to Bliss Lwelleyn’s side.