“Then we’ll have to help her. We’ll have to give her back some of the strength she’s given us over the years.”
Jordan straightened and turned to face Katia. “Come to the island with us,” he said with quiet urgency. “We’ll be leaving in the morning. Come with us.”
Katia swallowed, struggling to find the right words. “I don’t know, Jordan. I’d think you’d all want to be alone.”
“But you’re family.”
“Not really.”
“Yes!” he said with a sudden fire, then as quickly lowered his voice. “You’ve been away too much recently, but it doesn’t have to be.” He paused. “What did you tell them at work?”
“That I wanted to be at the funeral. They’d all read the papers.”
“How long do you have off?”
“I have meetings set for tomorrow afternoon.”
“Change them,” he urged. “You’re in a position to do it, and they couldn’t possibly find fault, given the cause.”
Katia pulled a sarcastic face. “They’d find fault.”
“Then screw them! They need you far more than you need them.”
“Not true.”
“We need you.” He sucked in a breath, and his tone grew soft and beseeching. “I need you. Come to Maine, Katia. Please?”
Held captive by the pleading in his eyes, she knew she had no choice. Long ago she had fallen under Jordan Whyte’s spell; neither time nor the distance she had purposely put between them over the past few years had diminished its grasp. If it had been Em, or Anne, or one of the others asking, she would have been able to put up more of a fight. But where Jordan was concerned she was completely unarmed. If he needed her she would go.
With a tiny smile and a swelling heart, she nodded.
Chapter 3
Katia spent the early hours of the next morning procrastinating. It wasn’t that she was afraid to call New York, but she wasn’t looking forward to the inevitable argument. So she tidied the cottage, though it needed little tidying, and packed her things, though she had precious little to pack. She showered leisurely, washed and dried her hair, then pulled on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt that had been among the few of her clothes still remaining in Dover.
Shortly before nine, with a sense of resignation, she picked up the phone. Roger Boland, her creative supervisor, was at his desk, well into his day as she had known he would be. Of the management people at the ad agency, she was closest to Roger. If anyone would be sympathetic to her cause, she knew it would be he.
But he wasn’t. “Hell, Katia, you have to get back here! We were supposed to review the storyboards for that beer commercial today.”
“I know, but—”
“You have to pick out the bedroom set you want for the mattress ad, and Accounting is expecting a progress report on the perfume commercial.”
“I know, but—”
“There’s a mile-high stack of portfolios sitting on your desk. You’ve got to pick the illustrator you want for—”
“The diamond ad. Roger, I know. But this is important. It’s not as though I’m taking a vacation.”
“You went to the funeral. What more do they want?”
Katia clutched the phone tighter. “It’s what I want that matters, and I want to stay with them for a few days. The storyboards are on my desk; you can look at them yourself. Accounting can wait a little while longer for that progress report. Donna can pick out the bedroom set; she was planning to go with me anyway, and she knows what I want. And the illustrators’ portfolios will still be there when I get back. Monday morning, Roger. I’ll be in the office Monday morning.”
“Did you know he was selling coke?”
“Excuse me?”
“Mark Whyte. He was selling coke.”
“That’s trash. I don’t believe it for a minute.”
“And Deborah Warren was pregnant.”
“That I did know. How did you?”
“It was in the autopsy report.”
Katia began to burn. “And how did you find out about the autopsy report?” To her knowledge, the police hadn’t been expecting the results until late the previous night.
“It was in the paper. Rumor has it that it wasn’t his kid.”
“Of course it was!”
“There’s no proof.”
“Either way. So shouldn’t we give the woman the benefit of the doubt? She’s gone now, dead … What paper was this, anyway?”
There was a pause, then a slightly sheepish, “The Post.”
Katia snorted. “And you thought you were reading Gospel? Come on Roger. Since when do you read the Post?”
“Since I made it my business seventeen years ago. I have to see who’s advertising what and how.”
“Then look at the pictures, not the words.”
“Speaking of pictures, you should see the one on the front page of Mark Whyte hugging a spike-haired singer while his wife looks on in the background.”
“Mark worked with spike-haired singers, which doesn’t mean that he was having affairs with them in front of his wife.”
“His father did. Why shouldn’t he?”
“Jack never had an affair with a spike-haired singer.”
“You know what I mean,” was Roger’s answering growl.
She sighed wearily. “I really don’t want to talk about this.”
“But don’t you see what you’re getting into? Those families are rats’ nests.”
“‘Those families’ are my family. And they’re my friends.”
“Some friends. Did you know that Jack Whyte just made a killing buying up stock for a hostile takeover, then selling it at a huge margin when the company found a white knight?”
“There’s nothing illegal in that.”
Roger ignored her point. “And Gil Warren spends more taxpayers’ money per constituent on mailings than any other representative. Did you know that?”
“Gil takes full advantage of the congressional francing privilege.”
“He takes advantage of it, all right—to help his own reelection campaign.”
“Look, we may not agree with what he does, but it’s within the law.”
“It may be, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t stink. And Jordan Whyte isn’t any better. He bought an apartment building on Central Park South and converted it into condominiums, in the process forcing out many of the middle income families who’d lived there for years.”
Katia may not have seen Jordan often of late, but unable to help herself, she had kept up with his activities. “He offered them generous deals if they wanted to buy in.”
“But they couldn’t afford even that!” Roger declared. “And while we’re on the subject of pressure tactics, do you know what the guy did last week? When one of his biggest cable advertisers—they make fruit juice in those little cartons—threatened to pull out, claiming that the music was increasingly obscene, Jordan had his VJs invite write-ins about the product. The mail room was inundated with positive letters. The advertiser suddenly decided the music wasn’t so obscene.”
Katia grinned. “Very clever of Jordan.”
“Come on. He’s an arrogant son of a bitch who wants his own way all the time.”
“So do we. We just can’t get it as often as he does. Face it, Roger, he’s magic.”
“Black magic,” Roger answered.
“You’re jealous.”
“You bet I am. They get you there when I want you here. We’re up to our ears in clients—”
“Are you complaining?”
“About clients, no. About you taking off, yes. I mean, you should see my desk.” He paused, and Katia could just see him waving his hand over what could well be declared a disaster area. “I’ve got files and reports and mock-ups and sketches, and now you tell me that half of them will have to sit here awhile longer.”
Katia was totally without sympathy. “Organization, Roger. That’s the key. I’ve told you so before.”
“Organization is incom
patible with creativity.”
“Mmm. Boland’s Law number four-thirty-seven. I can’t criticize it, because it works for you, but it doesn’t work for me. So,” she took a deep breath, “you’ll find everything organized on my desk. Help yourself to the storyboards and whatever else you need today and tomorrow, and I’ll be back in on Monday to take care of the rest.”
“There’ll be that much more to take care of by then,” he warned sourly.
“One day at a time. That’s Morell’s Law number one.”
Roger had worked with Katia long enough to know when she had her mind set. She was agreeable and generally flexible, but when she dug in her heels, as her tone of voice suggested now, there was no moving her. “You’re a stubborn bitch.”
“I know.”
“Should I tell it to the boss when he wanders in here looking for you?”
“Be my guest.”
Roger sighed. “Monday? No ifs, ands or buts?”
“Monday. See you then, Roger.”
* * *
Six cars filled with Whytes and Warrens made their way to Portland, Maine, later that morning. Katia had left earlier with her mother and the McNees, and while they went to the market to stock up on food, she headed for the nearest specialty shops to supplement the meager contents of her suitcase. The few clothes she had brought with her from New York were far too dressy for the island. So she treated herself to appropriate casual wear, rationalizing the purchases with the knowledge that the few times she had shopped in the city this season had been devoted largely to buying clothes for work.
Skilled at making the most of each minute, she dashed from store to store. Her trained eye quickly spotted items in colors and styles that complimented her—a pale pink shorts outfit, one in mint green, a pair of white jeans, an oversized, hand-painted teal blue and white sweatshirt, a fuschia maillot. Any guilt she felt was not in the size of the bill she ran up, but in the gaiety of the colors she chose.
There was more to life than death, wasn’t there?
At the appointed time she returned to the market. No less than three bag boys helped load groceries into the trunk and back seat of the car. From the market it was a mercifully short drive to the pier, where a yacht was waiting to take the family entourage to the island.
The other cars arrived shortly after they did. Suitcases were transferred to the boat and the cars were parked and locked in a private lot nearby. One by one, the various family members who were making the trip boarded the boat. Nicholas Whyte had decided to remain in Boston with his wife and children, as had Laura Warren’s husband and the oldest of their boys. The rest of the Whytes and Warrens were present, along with Carl Greene, Gil’s press secretary, who would man the phones at the island.
Sun dappled the deck, as cheerful as the travelers were grim. Though the senior Whytes and Warrens took refuge in the salon below, the others remained sprawled in the lounge chairs they had collapsed onto after boarding. Even the children were subdued in their play.
Katia was at the brass rail on the foredeck, watching the hypnotic motion of the sleek craft slicing through the water when Jordan joined her. He closed his hand over hers and stared ahead where, twenty-five miles to sea, the island waited.
“You called New York?” he asked quietly.
“Uh-huh.”
“Everything’s okay?”
She paused, then nodded.
“They’ve seen the papers.” Sensitive to the faint twitch of her fingers, he shot her a dry, sidelong glance. “The phones started ringing first thing this morning. Not that the Boston papers were much better. They’re jumping on anything they can get.”
“How can they do what they do?” she asked in despair.
“It’s news, so they say.”
“But the autopsy report … you’d think that the police department could have waited until … until this morning, at least, to release it. Wasn’t there anything either Jack or Gil could have done?”
“They considered it. They stood around late last night shouting threats at the walls, but what’s the point? There would have been splashy headlines about a court order having been sought, and that would have really sparked speculation, which would have been more condemning than the report itself.”
“Which said?”
Jordans face was set in grim lines. “That sometime around one in the morning they both died from single bullets fired at point blank range. That Deborah was pregnant. That they’d each had a drink or two that evening.”
His voice hadn’t settled. She waited, watching his pained profile, then said softly, “A drink or two wouldn’t have hurt. Both of them knew how to hold their liquor. What about drugs?”
“Nothing, thank God.”
“Did Mark use them?”
“He snorted coke sometimes, but it looks like he wasn’t high at the time of the shootings.”
“Did he deal?”
Jordan’s gaze shot to her. “Where did you hear that?”
“I … Roger mentioned it when I called in this morning. I told him he was crazy.”
“Where did he hear it?”
“He didn’t say. I’m sure it was just rumor.”
Jordan faced the sea again, but his profile was rife with tension. He didn’t speak, simply gnawed on the inside of his cheek.
“Was it, Jordan? Was it just rumor?”
“I’d like to think so.”
“But you’re not sure.”
There was a pause, then a nearly inaudible, “No.”
Closing her eyes, Katia threw back her head and let the brisk breeze wash over her, as though it could dispel her mental torment. “I keep trying to figure out how Mark could have pulled that trigger himself, but I can’t. He was—”
“A coward.”
She shrugged in agreement. “When we were kids he was always the one to get everyone else into trouble. He’d propose something wild—”
“Like riding bareback through the streets of Dover at midnight?”
“Mmm.” A sad smile touched her lips. She had been eight at the time, but she clearly remembered how Emily had crept into the cottage to awaken her and Kenny, how Peter had argued that she shouldn’t have been brought along, even as Jordan defiantly boosted her onto the horse’s back. “Mark stayed behind. He was tucked safely in bed by the time the police rounded us up and brought us home.”
“That was Mark. All talk, no action.”
“Did he change so much? I mean, to go ahead and actually pull that trigger.…”
“I don’t think he did it either,” was Jordan’s taut reply. “But the alternative is almost as bad.” He took in a breath, then grew abruptly silent, seeming to want to say something but deciding against it. “He needed money. There was a particular film he wanted to produce and direct. It was an artsy thing, a long shot, the kind of picture that might develop a small cult following, if that. He couldn’t get financial backing on his own, so he approached several of us, but we’d been burned once too often by his wild ideas.” He bit his lip and released it slowly. “There’s money in drugs. It may be filthy, but it’s still green.”
“It also attracts enemies.”
“Deadly ones. If someone went to the effort of committing a double murder, he must have had a powerful motive. And it wasn’t any amateur who stole onto that boat without leaving the slightest trace as a calling card. Whoever it was knew what he was doing.”
“Have the police found anything yet?”
“Nothing that they’re telling us.” He seemed nervous, then angry. “It may be that there really is nothing yet, or that they get their kicks out of being secretive.”
“It’s their tiny bid for power. Do you know who’s in charge of the investigation?”
“A guy named Cavanaugh.”
“Is he good?”
“They say he is. I guess we’ll have to wait and see, you know?”
He gave her a helpless half smile, drew a gentle circle on her back with the flat of his hand, then left her alon
e at the rail once more.
* * *
The island lay due east of Portland in the Gulf of Maine. When time was of the essence, the families shuttled out or back by helicopter. On this day it wasn’t time that was of the essence, but seclusion, which was accomplished the moment the yacht cleared the harbor and entered open sea.
The wind was moderate and the waves accommodating, reducing what might have been upwards of a three hour cruise to little over two. Katia watched the island materialize from the sea with the same sense of homecoming she always felt seeing it. In the course of her twenty-nine years she had come to associate the island with relaxation and security, and even the more somber circumstances of this particular visit couldn’t negate that conditioning. A sense of warmth stole over her when the Cape-style house came into view. Smiling, she took what she felt had to be the deepest, freshest breath she had taken in days.
She wasn’t the only one who felt suddenly lightened. Of the four from the salon who had joined the others on deck, Natalie looked relieved, and Lenore was standing under her own power. Jack and Gil were discussing the president’s tax proposal with a semblance of their characteristic animation.
The two men had bought the island more than thirty years before. Four-hundred acres of forested land rising steadily to an apex of majestic pines, it had come with an old, two-story Victorian cottage that had eventually been razed and replaced by the house now dominating the island’s face. A low, sprawling structure, its cedar shingles had aged to blend perfectly with the woods, such that if a person wasn’t looking for it it could be easily missed. Only when a person drew close did the house’s powerful presence make itself known. So like Gil and Jack, Katia mused.
There was a Whyte wing and a Warren wing, plus a third for the help. Over the years it had been frequently renovated, yielding a home that was modern right down to the large saltwater swimming pool off the back patio.
To one side, nearly hidden by the trees, stood the grounds keeper’s small cottage and on the beach, adjacent to the dock, was a boat house. Miles of narrow paths wound through the island, tentacles that inevitably led back home.
All hands chipped in to carry suitcases and supplies to the house. When Katia had done her share she went to her room to unpack, then quickly changed into the bathing suit she had bought that morning, grabbed a towel and made a beeline for the pool.
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