“You’re wrong…I won’t get caught,” she contended. “These people are pros. They can project a talking, moving image of me and then make it vanish. I’ll be in a completely different room. To make things easier, I know that house like the back of my hand…every exit, every hiding place.”
Evincing a typical lawyerly skepticism, Sterling objected that, once they were aware of what was going on, the special effects people might demand a hefty price for their silence.
“Wrong again,” she said, in a tone that told him his attempt to dissuade her would be a futile one. “They’re decent, honest human beings. I’d stake my life on it. Besides, they don’t know me as Kate Fortune. They’ll just think I’m connected in some way with the medium…who, incidentally, is about to achieve her greatest career success ever, thanks to my help!”
Putting their heads together, Lindsay and Jess arranged a sleepover for Annie at the Todds’ house, with Frank Todd acting as the children’s baby-sitter while the séance was held. On the night in question, as their mothers headed for the Fortune mansion in Jess’s MG and Frank did up the supper dishes with Carter’s help, the two girls were playing quietly with Chelsea’s doll collection.
“Know what?” Annie asked Chelsea as they set out the latter’s collection of doll dishes for a tea party.
Chelsea shook her head.
“Mummy and Dr. Steve have been kissing. They don’t know I saw them.”
Chelsea thought over the revelation for a moment. “Do you think they’ll get married?” she asked.
Annie confessed she had no idea. But she said, “I wish they would. He makes her happy. And I like him very much.”
In response, Chelsea told her friend about her cousin Michael’s wedding, during which she’d acted as one of several flower girls. “Maybe if they get married you’ll get to be a flower girl, too,” she speculated.
Her thoughts less concerned with pageantry than with the eventual outcome of such a merger, Annie wondered aloud whether Stephen and her mother would want to live in England or remain in Minnesota once her treatment was over.
“You’ll stay here,” Chelsea answered decisively. “That way, we can be best friends forever, and keep on playing together.”
Arriving at the Fortune mansion a half hour early, Jess and Lindsay handed their purses and coats to the housekeeper. “C’mon,” Lindsay suggested as they stood at loose ends in the spacious entry hall. “We’ve got a few minutes to spare. I’ll take you on a tour.”
Curious, but more ambivalent than she’d expected to be, about her dashing American grandfather, Jess found the likeness of him that hung in his former billiard room to be the most intriguing of the lot. Dressed for breaking horses or herding cattle on the ranch she knew the family still owned in Clear Springs, Wyoming, he stood brazen and seemingly half-amused at the thought of having his portrait painted.
Depicted in jeans and a faded denim shirt, he’d called attention to his less-than-youthful waist with an oversize turquoise-and-silver Indian belt buckle, as if to say that, despite his fifty-odd years and the moderate dissipation with which he’d indulged himself, he was still firmly convinced of his own attractiveness.
Several news accounts Jess had read about the Monica Malone murder case had suggested that the aging movie star might have gotten her first hint that Jake Fortune wasn’t Ben’s son during an affair she had with Ben when they were both in their heyday. Supposedly their liaison had been an open secret among the movers and shakers of Minneapolis.
It seems my grandmother wasn’t his only affair, Jess thought. He must have had dozens of them. As a woman who’d been wronged in the same way Kate Fortune had, without being cherished to the same extent, she felt something less than liking for the genial but arrogant man who gazed back at her from the canvas. Yet she couldn’t deny her fascination with him, or stop herself searching for some evidence of a family resemblance.
They’d just finished their tour, which had included the library and family room, when Rebecca arrived with Gabe Devereax in tow. Clearly at odds with the ultra-masculine, dark-haired detective, she whispered that she’d been unable to discourage him from coming, despite her best efforts. Stephen, who had also been invited to attend, joined them a few minutes later. Putting his arms around Jess, he scanned the mansion’s interior with undisguised curiosity as they waited for Rebecca’s medium to arrive.
The woman—plump, graying, with affected mannerisms and a clear preference for unmatched shades of purple when it came to her wardrobe—was deposited by her driver on the mansion’s front steps on schedule. She looks like somebody’s eccentric, somewhat affected great-aunt, Jess thought as Rebecca introduced her to everyone. But she’s not the least bit exotic, unless you count her Russian accent.
After a quick consultation with Madame Ivanova to learn her pleasure, Rebecca announced that they’d hold the séance in the formal dining room. She sent the housekeeper, Mrs. Laughlin, in search of candles as they arranged themselves around the table.
They turned off the electric lights in the room, per the medium’s instructions, once the candles Mrs. Laughlin had fetched in a pair of heavy sterling candelabra had been lit with kitchen matches. With the drapes drawn and reflected candle flame puddling and dancing in its vermeil-framed mirrors and its polished wood surfaces, the big, ornate room took on an eerie, expectant look. Sighing in the huge oaks that surrounded the house, an unusually strong breeze off the lake caused creaks and sighs that added immeasurably to the spooky atmosphere.
Madame Ivanova glanced about her with satisfaction. “Have you provided something touched or owned by the deceased?” she asked Rebecca expectantly.
Her auburn hair and patrician features, so similar to those of Kate in a portrait Jess had seen of the Fortune matriarch in the mansion’s living room as to be positively striking, Rebecca handed over a gold-and-diamond wristwatch Ben had given her mother a year before his death.
Holding it in her palm for a moment and then pressing it to her forehead so as to absorb unseen vibrations from it, the medium placed the watch on the table in front of her. “Are there any specific questions you wish to ask?” she said.
Again it was Rebecca who responded. “My sister and I long to hear our mother’s voice. We’re hoping she can suggest some means of helping our brother Jake get through his current difficulty.”
The woman nodded. “Very good. Please to join hands, close your eyes and concentrate as we try to evoke Kate Fortune’s presence,” she requested, reaching out to Lindsay and Rebecca, who were seated closest to her.
Despite his obvious skepticism, Gabe Devereax grudgingly went through the motions. However, when several minutes of highly dramatized concentration and repeated requests by the medium that Kate honor them with her presence had yielded no results, he began to squirm in his chair. Finally, he couldn’t take it any more. “What do you say we give up, folks?” he demanded audibly. “And admit this séance stuff is a hoax?”
Rebecca was angrily shushing him when a wavering light appeared, coalescing into a luminous approximation of Kate’s form. Concealed upstairs in a seldom-used bedroom with her theatrical accomplices, Kate could hear their gasps over the temporary audio system they’d installed, hiding the miniature microphones and speakers in an antique china cabinet.
“I’m here for you, children,” she intoned on cue in her unmistakable, smoky voice, swaying slightly in a high-necked evening gown she was certain her daughters would recognize.
Downstairs, in the mansion’s formal dining room, everyone was agog. When the medium fainted, sagging in her chair at the head of the table, none of the participants noticed, believing she was in a trance. Only Gabe seemed able to overcome his startled fascination sufficiently to express disbelief. “I don’t know how she does this,” he burst out in frustration. “But I know one thing. It’s a hoax!”
Furious, Rebecca dug her nails into his arm. “Be quiet!” she whispered harshly. “Or, so help me God, I’ll wring your neck!”
The hologram of Kate wavered and strengthened. “Yes, it is. What do you want of me?” she asked, realizing for the first time how poignant seeing a lifelike image of her must be for the daughters she loved.
This time, Rebecca answered. “Jake’s in such trouble,” she said. “What can we do for him?”
Kate nodded wisely. “I know of his problem,” she assured them. “My advice…don’t forget the woman who looked like Lindsay.”
Dimming again until it had faded completely, her image didn’t reappear. Released from the vise of Rebecca’s grip, Gabe switched on the lights, causing everyone to blink, and rushed into the adjoining service pantry to look for evidence of chicanery. To his disgust, he didn’t find any. He returned to the dining room at Rebecca’s cry of distress, in time to see Stephen bending over Madame Ivanova, who was moaning as she regained consciousness.
“I’m going to search the house,” he announced to no one in particular.
“Search all you want,” Rebecca snapped, “provided you help Stephen get Madame Ivanova to her car first.”
Meanwhile, Lindsay was sobbing in Jess’s arms. “It was Mom…I know it was,” the brown-haired pediatrician wept against her friend’s shoulder. “I’d know her voice…and that dress…anyplace. Why, oh, why, did she have to die and leave us?”
Eleven
As Stephen and Gabe helped Irina Ivanova to her car and Jess tried to comfort her friends, Kate and her accomplices quickly packed up their equipment and made a clandestine getaway in the rowboat they’d moored near the Fortune dock, in a thicket of willows.
Kate sat quietly on one of the plank seats in the full-length evening gown she’d worn to parties with Ben in the early eighties, as Patrick O’Malley and Jeff Sder-quist, the two technicians from the St. Paul Magic Laser Theater who’d helped her pull off her spirit-world appearance, dipped their oars into the water. The laughter gone from her face, she brooded over what she’d accomplished. She’d gotten across her message about Lindsay’s fake twin, at least. And had a scapegrace giggle or two about blowing away the phony medium.
In the process, she’d hurt her beloved daughters. You ought to listen to Sterling more, she reproached herself. Self-knowledge argued that it wasn’t likely to happen to any great extent.
Back onshore, Gabe had bidden good riddance to the medium. The lights of the Fortune mansion winked on one by one, like those of a cathedral being lit for a midnight service, as he stormed from room to room, looking for evidence that Kate’s appearance had been a hoax. Except for a few wires that appeared to have been stuffed hastily into a closet and didn’t seem to have any specific purpose, he came up empty-handed.
Thoroughly bent out of shape, he returned downstairs, remaining just long enough to tell Rebecca what a fake the whole performance had been. “Why don’t you try hanging out in the real world for a change?” he advised her sarcastically.
Aware that her companions were sizing up their relationship, she gave him a disparaging look. “Why don’t you leave before you wear out your welcome?”
“Don’t worry, I’m out of here!”
Meanwhile, Lindsay’s preparations for Chelsea’s party were complete. Since Minnesota was enjoying unusually mild fall weather as the end of September approached, she decided to hold it outdoors. The clowns she’d hired could cavort on the lawn to their hearts’ content without bumping into the host of school friends, neighbors and relatives on both sides of the Fortune-Todd family she’d invited to share the occasion with them.
That year, Chelsea’s birthday would fall on a Saturday. As if to bless the eight-year-old for agreeing to help her friend, despite the personal discomfort it might entail, the day proved mild and sunny—ideal for all the treats that were in store. Lake Travis shimmered in the background, an effective foil for the deeper shades of crimson and gold the cooler nights had caused to highlight the green canopy of leaves that rustled overhead as the clowns blew up balloons and linked the trees with crepe-paper streamers. Nearby, a magician and his assistant set up for their show. The caterers Lindsay had hired unloaded birthday cake, ice cream and fruit punch for the children, together with champagne and hors d’oeuvres for the adults.
A steady stream of guests began arriving as 1:00 p.m. approached. Having volunteered to help look after the younger set while Stephen helped Frank tend bar for the adults, Jess was in the thick of things, wiping noses, bandaging a not-so-skinned knee and helping settle disputes. Busy as she was, she had ample opportunity to meet quite a few Fortune relatives to whom she hadn’t previously been introduced.
A tender, almost wistful expression on her pretty rich-girl face, Kristina Fortune came up to Jess and followed the children’s excited play with her eyes for a moment. “That’s Annie, isn’t it?” she asked. “The one in the pale blue party dress and matching sweater, with the cropped halo of fuzzy pale blond hair?”
Jess nodded. “The hairstyle’s courtesy of her recent chemotherapy. In a few days, even the fuzz will start falling out. They have to give her another course of it, you see, plus radiation, before they can do the transplant.”
Kristina stared. “I’m so sorry,” she said after a moment. “People get awfully sick from radiation and chemotherapy, don’t they? A little kid like that…it must be tough.”
Kristina had just headed for the house, murmuring something vague about powdering her nose, when Lindsay introduced Jess to Kristina’s half brother, Grant McClure. “Like Kristina, Grant’s here for Nate’s and Barbara’s silver wedding anniversary, which was yesterday,” Lindsay said. “So you don’t get confused, he’s Barbara’s son from her first marriage. He spends most of his time on his ranch in Wyoming, so we hardly ever get to see him.”
Deeply tanned, with stunning blue eyes that looked as if they were used to gazing at wider horizons, the tall rancher grinned. “Hi, Jessica,” he said. “I saw you talking to my sister, Kristina, a minute ago. Typically, she’s wandered off again. I’ve been hanging around, waiting to take her to the airport.”
Jess wasn’t terribly surprised to catch a hint of indulgence in his tone. Kristina’s family really did dote on her, it seemed. “I think she headed up to the house, to use the powder room,” she supplied.
His grin broadened. “That’ll take a while. You know, Jessica…I was very happy to hear Chelsea will be able to provide a match for your daughter. I’d have been tested myself if I’d thought it would do any good. Of course, since I’m not really a relative…”
As they chatted, a separate but linked chapter in the Fortune drama was unfolding on the small, somewhat overgrown lakefront estate that abutted the Todds’ property on the opposite side from Stephen’s. Empty for months, the house had long been home to a friend and client of Sterling’s who was currently residing in Europe. Learning that the owner had given him a key in case of emergency, Kate had demanded he loan it to her.
“Haven’t you been in enough trouble lately, appropriating the séance for your own ends and causing the medium to pass out, without fomenting a ruckus at the birthday party, too?” Sterling had protested, adding, when she stared, “You’re damn right Gabe told me about her fainting spell!”
Determined to win his cooperation at all costs, she’d played on his sympathies. “It’s to be held outdoors, and my whole family will be there,” she’d wheedled. “And I do miss them so. I promise on my word of honor, old dear…I’ll remain concealed, content myself with whatever I can see through a pair of binoculars. Or a telescope.” She’d gotten her way, of course. Driving her over in his Lincoln, Sterling had unlocked the front door for her himself, promising to return in an hour. As Jess ended her conversation with Grant McClure to supervise a game and Lindsay stood exclaiming over her nephew Michael’s baby, Kate was sea
ted at one of the large, old-fashioned house’s half-shuttered windows, observing to her heart’s content. The telescope she trained on her relatives had come with the territory. Sterling’s client had owned it for years, to watch the year-round parade of boaters and swimmers, skaters and ice fishermen.
Loving her large, extended family as she did, she found it a deeply pleasurable, if somewhat lonely, pursuit to spy on the host of new in-laws a bumper crop of romances had produced, and note the growth of the youngest family members. But it was her own children—Jake, Nate, Lindsay and Rebecca—whom she missed the most. I hate being separated from them, she acknowledged. Though I try my best to keep up with what’s going on in their lives, I’m falling so short it’s criminal.
Attempting to put a rein on her emotions, she reviewed her reasons for going underground. They were still valid. The necessity for keeping up this masquerade had damn well better end soon, she thought. Yet she knew that, if it didn’t, she was tough enough to let events take their course for a while longer, before making her reappearance.
Predictably, when Sterling showed up to collect the key and drive her home, she wasn’t ready to go. Granting her a little more time, he took a seat opposite hers. As she turned the telescope this way and that, focusing on different family members, they discussed the progress that had been made by her children and grandchildren as a result of keepsakes or property she’d left them in her will.
“You were right…my absence has let them take full credit for the changes they’ve made in their lives,” she admitted, stroking him a little in exchange for the favor he’d done her. “Too often, in the past, they looked to me for guidance. Of course, Lindsay’s always fine. Rebecca, too, though I wish she had a man in her life. After twenty-five years, Nate’s still happy with Barbara. Or would be, if it weren’t for his constant clashes with Jake.”
Mystery Heiress Page 18