* * *
Ten minutes after the interview ended, a shaking Ashley Wakefield staggered into Caroline’s cluttered, very functional office. “I think I’m going to throw up.”
Caroline glanced up from her work. “That bad?”
“I must be out of my mind.”
With a heavy sigh, Caroline laid down her pen. “You told that reporter everything, didn’t you?”
Ashley nodded grimly. “Just about.”
“Oh, Ash.”
“Not about the jewels...I didn’t—well, she never even asked. If she had, I don’t know. I’d probably have gone ahead and told her.”
But Pat Oberlin hadn’t questioned her about the tiara and choker. In addition to the hefty annual payments, the trust specified that Ashley and David were to be given access to a safe-deposit box at Piccard Cie. Two days after their twenty-fifth birthday, they’d flown to Geneva, found the bank on Georges-Favon Boulevard and presented themselves to their bank officer. He’d opened the box. In a private, secured room, they’d examined the contents: the tiara and choker, a diamond-and-emerald bracelet, a ring of one giant emerald surrounded by diamonds and an emerald necklace, each large perfect stone set in gold.
It had been an astounding day. And, in their shock, Ashley and David had agreed to leave the jewels in the vault. They were just too much for them to handle. They were more tangible than money. Someone had put them into the safe-deposit box, touched them the way they were now touching them. Had they been handled by human hands months ago? Years? Decades? They didn’t even have a clue as to when the trust had been set up.
But looking at the jewels, feeling the coolness of the genuine stones, they had concluded that, despite all his protestations of ignorance, their uncle had to know more than he was admitting. Barky had insisted he knew nothing whatever about Liechtenstein trusts, certainly nothing about theirs, and that they should look to their own lives for clues, not his. But that seemed impossible. There was no one—no one!—who could or would leave them such an enormous amount of money in their circle of friends and acquaintances.
Barky had to be protecting someone, they’d decided on that warm day in Switzerland. Himself, their parents, a friend. Them. They had no idea. And obviously Barky didn’t want them to get any ideas, and neither did the person who had set up the trust.
And so for four years, they had left well enough alone.
Caroline sighed. “Feel better?”
“Actually—” Ashley paced across the cluttered office of her tireless partner in business. “Actually, I think I do. Maybe it’s better this way.”
“How? Yesterday you wouldn’t tell a soul about your money. Today you’ve told the whole world. Don’t you believe in easing into this kind of thing?”
Ashley stopped shaking and stood up straight, shoulders back. “I did ease into it. It’s been four years, Caroline. I’ve been working up to today. And anyway, it’s not all that interesting a story. Maybe we’ve been making too much of this anonymous trust thing and it really is no big deal. Maybe Pat Oberlin and Sybil Morgenstern will put their heads together and decide no one will give a hot damn how Ashley Wakefield got her money.”
“Bull,” Caroline said.
“Probably You will stick this story in the back pages with the hair tonics and sexy underwear. If not—” Ashley paused. “Well, I’ll just cross that bridge when I come to it.”
Caroline grunted dubiously. “If there is one. You might just find your ass bumping down the rapids, with nothing to grab on to.”
4
On a bright, clear, gorgeous Friday morning, more than two weeks after her interview with You, Ashley walked up Charles Street and through the Common, joining scores of other Bostonians who had decided it was too nice a day to drive. There weren’t that many pleasant days left. The weather had begun to cool noticeably, and even in Boston, the brightest colors of autumn were sparkling in the trees. Vibrant reds, iridescent oranges.
It was a difficult day to nurse a bad mood, and Ashley noticed the bounce in her step. She had bought a half dozen apricot-filled croissants for her and her Touchstone staff. Work had been proceeding with all too much haste and efficiency of late; they needed to relax a bit, make up an extra pot of coffee, consume some extra calories. It would be invigorating and perhaps forestall premature burnout.
“Life as you know it,” Ashley mumbled to herself, “is beginning to return to normal.”
She had finally immersed herself, once again, in her routines. Today she would work on her column for the winter issue of Currents, to be devoted entirely to new trends in marine archaeological research and exploration; meet a client for lunch; lead a staff meeting; perform all the other varied duties the president of a small company was required, by default, to perform.
Wasn’t life good? she asked herself as she grinned up at the gold dome atop the Massachusetts State House.
She wasn’t thinking anymore about mysterious jewels or sleazy photographers or unnamed benefactors. It was time to be serious. Time to get down to work and forget about questions she would never get answered.
Tonight, after work, she was having her hair done and then going to dinner and the theater with a man who was very good-looking and successful, but also dull and traditional and sometimes annoying. But it was preferable to staying home and staring at a diamond-and-pearl tiara and choker, wondering who had crafted them, owned them and put them in the vaults of Piccard Cie of Geneva, Switzerland.
And preferable, she thought, to wondering just how uninteresting Sybil Morgenstern had decided Ashley Wakefield was after hearing the report from Pat Oberlin. Ashley wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or insulted that she hadn’t been in either of the next two issues of You magazine.
But she was in the third.
She was passing the Park Street station on the Common, and there she was, stacked twelve deep at the newsstand. She was smiling. Her eyes were ridiculously blue, her teeth impossibly white. She had the glittering tiara on her head, the choker around her neck.
In big bold letters were the words “ASHLEY WAKEFIELD, MYSTERY HEIRESS AND DOLPHIN RESCUER.”
They’d put her on the cover.
* * *
MacGregor Stevens peered through the open door of Jeremy Carruthers’s eggshell-colored office and noted his younger colleague’s look of profound relaxation. Thirty-six, green-eyed and a good-looking devil, Jeremy had his feet up on his desk, his ankles crossed, and was reading a magazine. Mac expected nothing less. It was a warm, sunny Friday morning in San Diego, not yet eight o’clock. Jeremy rarely got going before eleven.
“Busy day today?” Mac asked.
“What? Oh.” Jeremy grinned as he glanced up from his magazine. Mac got a glimpse of the cover: it was that rag, You. “Morning, Mac. No, today shouldn’t be too busy. Just an early meeting with a client.”
Not something Jeremy would plan for himself, Mac realized, but occasionally such compromises were unavoidable. Despite his casual attitude toward life and work, Jeremy was, in Mac’s opinion, a fine attorney. His father, Allan Carruthers, was prone to think otherwise, but that was a father’s prerogative— and God only knew Allan, good friend that he was, was a hard man to please. Mac had known him for thirty years. Together, he and Allan had founded Carruthers and Stevens, and today it was a prominent Southern California law firm. They made an interesting team—diligent, solid. Allan was a native Californian, educated on the G.I. Bill, a compulsive worker. Mac came from Philadelphia money. He had attended Choate and Yale, but the sun and opportunities of the West Coast had lured him to San Diego...and the possibility, the slim hope, that there he would be able to forget.
At fifty-seven, he was straight backed and gray eyed, a tall man, his hair gone completely gray. He retained much of the formality and reserve of his Main Line upbringing, though he hadn’t been back home in years. If his family wanted to see him, they had to travel to San Diego.
“You look engrossed,” he said with a wry smile. “Anything
interesting?”
Jeremy grinned. “Beautiful and crazy mystery heiress.”
“Sounds like your type.”
“Not a chance, Mac. The lady’s completely nuts. I couldn’t keep up with her.”
“All the better. She wouldn’t bore you.”
It was Mac’s opinion, shared by the other cofounder of Carruthers and Stevens, that Jeremy had set his sights on a woman who simply didn’t exist. He’d been married, once, to one of the La Jolla heiresses he often fancied, usually with disastrous results. The marriage had ended five years ago. Susie had remarried and now had two toddlers, whom she was suffocating with attention and affection the same way she had Jeremy. There was no not pleasing the woman, and that had been a problem. At the very least, Jeremy needed a woman who’d go head-to-head with him.
“Here,” Jeremy said, shoving the magazine across his desk. “Have a look.”
Putting on his reading glasses, Mac walked over and examined the cover photo. “Very pretty, I must say.”
Jeremy laughed. “Hell of an understatement, Mac. Do you think anyone has eyes that blue?”
“They can work miracles with photography these days,” Mac agreed. “She rescues dolphins?”
“And flies her own plane. Quite the hot shit, apparently.”
“What makes her a mystery heiress?”
“She and her brother were named beneficiaries of a Liechtenstein trust.”
“My, my.” Intrigued, Mac flipped open to the brief article and photographs splashed across three inside pages.
“I like the one in Newport myself,” Jeremy said.
Mac’s eyebrows arched. “I can see why.”
Ashley Wakefield was dripping wet and staring straight into the camera with that dazzling smile. Her batik top was slightly askew, revealing the edge of her light tan. The effect was far more enticing, far sexier, than if she had been standing there naked—at least in Mac’s opinion. He wasn’t sure about Jeremy. But there was something about the way she held herself—perhaps it was in the devil-may-care look in those bright eyes—that suggested to Mac that the young woman would be very annoyed indeed if she knew she were being scrutinized like a Playboy centerfold.
The other photographs suggested the unpredictability of the woman and the wildly eclectic life-style she seemed to have. She was regal in the Berkshires. Competent and businesslike at her Boston offices. Free spirited in Manhattan, with all her bags and boxes. Muddy and drenched and exhausted on Cape Cod, rescuing dolphins and inspecting her plane.
And very beautiful and strangely haunted at the gala opening at the New England Oceanographic Institute.
Mac could understand why Jeremy had been so engrossed in what was ordinarily a very shallow and uninteresting little magazine. “Dolphin rescuer and mystery heiress,” the headline said. Ashley Wakefield was clearly much more complicated than that
Then, in the lower corner of the third page, he saw the picture of the farmer. He was sitting on a red tractor in front of a sheep pen. The caption read, “Ashley credits her uncle, a farmer in Amherst, Massachusetts, with instilling in her a commitment to hard work.”
Mac felt the blood pouring out of his face. His hands shook violently. He gasped for air, but managed to let the magazine fall back onto the desk.
Jeremy was on his feet. “Mac?”
“My God.” The words came out in a choked whisper. He ran one hand through his hair and looked around the office, for what he didn’t know. An escape? No. There wasn’t one. There never had been. The face of the farmer was etched in his mind for all time. “I can’t...”
“The trust, you mean?” Jeremy sounded worried. “Come on, Mac, you’ve been a lawyer for thirty years. You know as well as I do people do some strange things with their money. Mac...Mac, do you know this woman?”
Mac shook his head, grabbing his hair, fighting to regain his composure. Don’t say anything! It was none of Jeremy’s affair—not a part of Mac’s life in San Diego, or the past thirty years.
“You want me to call someone?”
“No...no. I’m all right.” He attempted a smile but knew it fell short. Jeremy didn’t look encouraged. “I’m sorry. I must...not be feeling well. I suppose I’m seeing things.”
“You sure? Anything I can do?”
“No. Thank you.”
Leaving Jeremy looking concerned and unsatisfied with his explanation, Mac stumbled back to his office. For a long time he stood staring out his window, remembering. He saw the faces he’d banished from his thoughts years and years ago. He heard the old cries and felt the anguish and the desperation and the pain. And the hatred. And the horror.
There were questions he should have asked then. Answers he should have demanded. And hadn’t.
He had his secretary cancel all his appointments for the day and left the office early. He drove to a drugstore and bought his own copy of You magazine, his first ever. And he sat in his car and studied the man in the Red Sox cap. Bartholomew Wakefield. A farmer. A man committed to frugality and hard work.
A murderer, Mac thought. A torturer and a traitor and a man Mac would hate for as long as he lived. Thirty years ago, he had left well enough alone. He’d thought it best for all concerned.
But now, he thought, everything had changed.
* * *
Ashley had bought all twelve copies of You at the Park Street station newsstand and had resisted the impulse to buy up every available copy in metropolitan Boston. She had locked herself in her office, checked all twelve copies out of some insane hope that maybe they wouldn’t all be the same.
She felt awful. She didn’t like having her picture on the cover of a national magazine. Was that actually her? In one picture she had half a boob showing. In another she looked as if she'd just been sick to her stomach. In another as if she ate nails for breakfast.
But the picture of Barky was too much. That made her feel like a snake in the grass.
She picked up the phone and dialed Sybil Morgenstern’s New York number herself.
Sybil was obnoxiously ebullient. “Ashley, how are you?”
“Furious. Fit to be tied.”
“Oh?”
“I know there isn’t a thing I can do about it now, but you can tell your sleazy reporter to send me back my picture of Barky.”
“Barky? Ashley, what are you talking about?”
“My uncle. Your Pat Oberlin swiped the picture you printed of him out of my office—without my permission. I want it back.”
“Oh, how awful. I had no idea.”
Not for a second did Ashley believe that. “Just send me the picture.”
“Of course.”
“And, Sybil, no more interviews.”
* * *
Lillian Parker laid her copy of You on the parson’s table in her surprisingly small office high above the Avenue of the Americas. Her people subscribed to all the magazines and tabloids, including You. Lillian had nearly gagged when she’d seen this week’s cover.
Ashley Wakefield. Smiling and beautiful. And wearing the tiara and the choker.
Good God, was there ever going to be an end to this? Her head aching, Lillian walked over to her window and looked down at the street, crowded as always. Her window was covered with a film of fine ubiquitous soot that filtered the sunlight. Life was like that, she thought. After a half century of mistakes, you just hope the sun’ll be bright enough once in a while and your life not so crudded up with misery that a few rays of sunlight and joy can still get through.
She wondered at her mood. She was Lillian Parker, for God’s sake. The legend. The trailblazer. The daughter of the unforgettable anchorman Addison Parker and the utilities heiress Margaret Parker.
She was rich and successful and fulfilled in countless different ways. She had no right to be miserable.
She thought of the young brats coming along today. Some of them accused her of having succeeded because she was rich and beautiful—what did they know about beauty?—and had “connections” because of h
er father, and because of her mother’s wealth.
But then, too, some of the young ones said Lillian Parker had given up too much. As if they knew. They pointed out she had never married, never borne children. They could have it all. What the hell was the matter with her? Why couldn’t she have had it all, too?
But they knew nothing, not about her. About her sacrifices. About her joys. They all thought they knew. But they didn’t. No one did, she thought.
She sighed, suddenly tired. Maybe it wasn’t what they knew, but what they feared. Maybe they were just plain scared they were going to hit their fifties with everything and nothing. She felt sorry for them. She wished she could impart some words of wisdom—or at least of comfort. But they’d have to find their own way, decide for themselves what was worth sacrificing and what wasn’t, and learn to understand that there were always regrets.
Turning back to her desk, she saw again the incredible smile and blue eyes of Ashley Wakefield. And the glittering jewels.
I should have guessed this would happen, she thought.
In block letters, she printed “J. Land Crockett” on a label, and then a post office box in Southwest Harbor, Maine. She clipped one of her crisp business cards to the magazine and put them into a large manila envelope. She sealed it and added plenty of stamps. With a red pen, she printed “first class mail” diagonally across the lower corners.
Then she took the elevator downstairs and put the package into a mailbox on the street. Few knew she had access to J. Land Crockett. She wanted to keep it that way.
* * *
Bartholomew Wakefield pushed his grocery cart up to the express register at the supermarket on busy Route 9 between Amherst and Northampton. He had sugar, cinnamon, allspice, self-sealing canning jar lids. The apples were ready. He would pick them over the weekend and make applesauce, maybe some apple butter. It used to be that Ashley and David took care of the apples. But that had changed. Sometimes Ashley came out to the farm and helped with the canning and freezing, but only when she felt like it. It was a hobby now, not a duty. And David was busy, too, with his own house, his own land. When he was at the farm, he concentrated on the things that had to be done. Apple butter they could do without. But there was only so much one old man could do alone.
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