A LADY NAMED ROSE
Chapter Thirty-Eight
December, 1915
The water was cold, oh so cold.
"Run, Rose, RUN!" Jack urged,
reaching for her hand, dragging her through the rising flood.
They navigated their way around dining
tables set for a breakfast that would never be served. A delicate piece of
china floated in Rose’s path.
SMASH! The plate shattered only inches
from her hand. Rose let out a scream that echoed horribly, as if they were in a
cavern. There was a second gunshot, then a third. Each bullet missed its
target, but barely.
Rose screamed again, and shielded herself
from the onslaught. When she removed her arms, Jack, the ship, the water, all
had disappeared.
She was in a deserted alleyway behind a
row of warehouses. There was nary a light on in any of the buildings.
"Hello?" she called out uncertainly. Then, softer, "Jack?"
"There you are, sweetpea." Cal’s
voice was so close to her ear she could feel his breath. The next sound was a
click, the hammer of a pistol being cocked at the nape of her neck. She froze.
Cal used his free hand to caress her arm
possessively. "It’s time to come home, Rose."
*****
A man was following her.
Over the years Rose had gradually learned to
place a certain amount of trust in the people she met, and to stop looking over
her shoulder everywhere she traveled. But the constant paranoia still lurked
beneath the surface of her psyche, and then there were those blood-chilling
nightmares that always seemed to attack just when it seemed her life was
settling into a normal routine. Like the one she’d had the previous night.
That was how she came to realize she was
being followed. Or, more appropriately, stalked.
The Scotts’ annual Christmas gala was mere
days away and Victoria had dispatched Rose to New York with a list of
last-minute gifts and holiday items the family "simply couldn’t do
without." Rose was certain they could and felt a bit put-upon at the
request. This would have been Bridie’s job had she not been expecting her
second child in two months. Arnolde and Randolph were too busy, which left
Rose. Between grueling final examinations at school and party planning she’d
had little time left to spend with Sebastian.
And she most likely wouldn’t see much of him
during her vacation, either. Staying in New York was out of the question, as
she had managed to fall out of favor with the Quinns and Angelica within the
past year. She would be stuck in Tarrytown entertaining the Scott children.
"Joy, joy, joy," she muttered to
herself, stopping to rest in front of a frightfully garish display in a
department store window.
As she lowered her shopping bags to the
sidewalk, she sensed the presence behind her. His reflection in the plate glass
window revealed a man of average height and build, with nondescript features,
wearing a threadbare coat and hat. She wouldn’t have given him a second glance
had she not seen him before. Several times, in fact.
He’d been in FAO Schwartz examining a train
set most recently; she’d also spotted him in the craft shop where she’d gone to
buy an angel for the children’s tree. (Skipper broke the old one the previous
year.) And she was fairly certain he was the same man who’d bumped into her as
she disembarked from her train in Grand Central Terminal, and then glared at
her as if it were her fault.
But she’d seen him before today as well. She
just couldn’t place him. Before she could recall the time and place, he was
gone.
He had vanished into the crowd in the blink
of an eye. He knew she’d seen him. Her instincts were right.
A light snowfall had begun. It was probably
time she hightailed it back to Tarrytown. She bent to lift the heavy bags and
started on her way, keeping her head lowered. Only a few more blocks, and she’d
be in the comfort zone of the train station.
A sudden gust of wind snatched the scarf from
her head and Rose watched helplessly as it glided away from her. Out of nowhere
a hand snatched it from the air and returned it to her.
It was him.
Rose mustered up a polite smile, all the
while backing away. "Thank you so much."
He tilted his hat to her in a gentlemanly
fashion, revealing that he was nearly bald. It appeared from the leer on his
face that he was making a mockery of her. "My pleasure, Miz Dawson."
Rose’s smile faded. Her heart rate tripled,
and without a word she turned to run.
The stranger who knew her name effortlessly
grabbed her arm, causing her to drop her packages. Part of her wanted to
abandon them and flee for the safety of Grand Central. But she feared a drunken
tirade over the lost purchases from Victoria—who was less and less capable of
handling her liquor these days—and besides, she was certain this man could
easily catch up to her.
So Rose concealed her terror and knelt to
retrieve the boxes that had spilled onto the ground, opening one to make sure
that the fragile glass angel was intact. A kindly gentleman offered his
assistance, but her stalker declined on her behalf, and began to help her
himself.
"You’d best be on your way," Rose
hissed through clenched teeth. "I’ll call the police."
He ignored her threat. "I was told you
had one heck of a temper. But I had no idea you were this stunning. Your photos
don’t do you justice."
What insolence! Rose temporarily forgot her
fear and stood, clutching her shopping bags protectively to her sides.
"Continue to harass me and you’ll know the full extent of my temper."
With that she marched off, certain that she’d
rid herself of this nuisance. But he’d known her name. How much else did he
know about her?
She was about to find out. "I’ve spent
months searching for you," she heard him call after her. "Don’t think
you can hide from me, Rose DeWitt Bukater. I know all your hiding places."
Rose felt the earth sway beneath her, and
leaned against a signpost to keep from fainting. So they’d tracked her down
after all this time. Deep down she’d always known they would find her one day.
*****
"So what do you want?" she asked
bluntly.
The man, who identified himself as a private
investigator by the name of Thomas Franklin, had convinced Rose to accompany
him to a neighborhood restaurant for a cup of coffee. Upon determining that it
was well-lighted and bustling with customers, she chose a table with an easy
escape route to the door.
Franklin chuckled. "You’re everything
Mr. Hockley said you’d be." She visibly winced at the name, and he
continued digging at her, seeming to enjoy her displeasure. "He said you
were intelligent, and very stubborn. And you have to be, managing to survive on
your own in such a large city, and conceal your whereabouts for so long."
He raised his coffee cup in a mock salute.
Rose couldn’t conceal her distaste.
"Just get to the point, Mr. Franklin. I don’t have all afternoon."
He leaned forward, and there was no mistaking
the threat in his tone. "You’ll make time, Miz Dawson, or whatever your
name is. You’ll make time if you don’t want Caledon Hockley to get wind of
where you are."
In reality Franklin was convinced Hockley
would have found the girl without his help eventually or died trying. He said
as much on the day way back in June when he’d first retained Franklin’s
services, after approaching no fewer than five other investigators, who all
declined. One had already commenced a search for the elusive Rose right after
the Titanic sinking, and his inquiries had turned up nothing. The other
detectives probably knew immediately it was a wild goose chase, but more than
likely none of them were as starved for business as Franklin, whose one-man
operation was about to be shut down due to nonpayment of rent.
He set a deadline of six months, and told his
client that if he didn’t locate his former fiancée in that amount of time, he
would have to abandon the search. At first he came up empty, but then he
remembered the name of the boy Hockley mentioned: Dawson. And sure enough, a
survivor list taken aboard the Carpathia contained a Rose Dawson among the
third class passengers.
For months Franklin canvassed every rooming
house, hotel, grocer, eatery and tavern in Manhattan, showing Rose’s photograph
in hopes she’d decided to remain in New York. Then he’d started on the
hospitals, and just before his six-month deadline there was a breakthrough. A
young nurse in a Lower East Side emergency ward recognized the woman in the
picture as a friend of one of the other nurses who used to visit quite
frequently. For a little cash, Franklin was able to learn Meg’s address, but
when he approached her she told him in no uncertain terms to bug off.
So it was back to the hospital, where he
discovered that Rose had been seen in the company of Meg’s cousin, a police
officer. An acquaintance in Teddy Quinn’s precinct told Franklin that Quinn had
been despondent over his breakup with Rose, whose studies at Vassar College
kept her too busy to settle down. Franklin took a train to the campus and
embarked on a dormitory-wide hunt. He never saw Rose, but...
"I had a rather interesting conversation
with one Angelica Geisel," he concluded for Rose with a smug grin. It
dawned on her then that that was where she saw him, leaving her dormitory in a
rush a few days earlier as she returned from an exam. He probably couldn’t wait
to report his findings to Cal.
"Miz Geisel tells me you’ve managed to
fool one of the wealthiest families in Westchester County into paying your way
through school," Franklin commented between sips of coffee. "If
they’ve taken such a liking to you perhaps you can persuade them to make you a
small loan—say, in the area of five thousand dollars?"
"And what would I get for the
money?" Rose asked coldly.
"My silence. I never revealed your true
identity to a soul, nor did I inform Mr. Hockley of my considerable progress.
But I must give him something in one week, or drop the pursuit."
"I’ll see what I can do," Rose
said, and stood, gathering her bags with trembling hands.
"By the way, Miz Dawson, I’d feel
negligent if I didn’t warn you that your ex-roommate has it in for you. Why’d
you have to go and steal her man? And break poor Teddy Quinn’s heart? You
already had someone to keep you warm at night."
His expression changed to one of mock
sympathy. "But then again, Jack’s name wasn’t on that survivor list, was
it?"
In one swift move, Rose overturned his coffee
into his lap. Franklin squealed and jumped to his feet as she spat, "It’s
too bad you weren’t aboard the Titanic, you slimy little weasel."
And she stormed out of the restaurant.