by J. R. Ward
And as Richard prattled on about something, all that registered was Gin's long dark hair falling on her flowered silk blouse, and the Hermes scarf around her neck, and the perfect arrangement of her elegant body on the Chippendale chair. The overall effect was as if she had been posed by a great artist. Then again, say what one would about the woman's morals, she always looked classy. It was the bone structure. The Bradford superiority. The beauty.
"--invitation soon," Richard said. "We expect you to attend."
Samuel T. glanced at the broomstick sitting across from her. "Oh, for your wedding? Or are we talking about her father's funeral? I get the two confused."
"Our nuptials."
"Well, I'm so honored to be on a list that no doubt will be as exclusive as Wikipedia."
"You don't have to come," Gin said quietly. "I know you're quite busy."
He looked at that diamond ring on her finger and thought, yes, she had done well for herself. He certainly wouldn't have been able to afford a gem of that size, and he was hardly a pauper. Pford's money was on Bradford levels, though.
So yes, it was a helluva lifeboat she had chosen to jump into. It would have been safer for her to try to swim with the sharks.
"I wouldn't miss it for the world," Samuel T. murmured. "And I'm sure that daughter of yours is thrilled to finally get a father."
As Gin blanched, he refused to feel bad. Like so much of Gin's life, "that daughter," Amelia, was a mistake, the result of one of her random hook-ups after she'd gone off to college, a living, breathing bad decision that, as far as he understood, she had failed to parent and barely acknowledged.
Why couldn't he have just hated her? Samuel T. wondered. God knew there was reason enough.
Hatred had never been the problem, however.
"You know," Samuel T. drawled, "I envy you two so much. Marriage is such a beautiful thing."
"How is Lane's divorce going?" Richard said. "That's why you're here, isn't it."
"Among other things. You know, one in three marriages end in divorce. But that won't be you two. True love is so wonderful to see live and in person. You are beacons to us all."
Richard's brow lifted. "I didn't think you were the settling kind."
"I'm not at the moment. But my dream girl is out there. I just know it."
That was not a lie. Unfortunately, she was marrying this asshole having breakfast with her--and the term that better fit Gin's role in Samuel T.'s life was "nightmare." But he'd meant his RSVP. He would be there when she walked down the aisle with this fool just to remind himself of the reality of their relationship.
As the sound of a powerful car engine percolated through the old-fashioned, single-paned windows, Samuel T. nodded to the happy couple. "My client's arrived. I can tell the purr of a Porsche anywhere. It's like the sound of a woman's orgasm--something you never forget."
Turning away, he paused at the archway. "Something for you to work toward with her, Richard. Good luck with that, and call me if you need any instruction. I gave her her first one."
*
Lane pulled up to Easterly in his 911 and parked next to his attorney's classic maroon Jaguar.
"What a view," he said as he got out.
Lizzie looked up from the ivy bed she was on her knees in front of. Wiping her brow with her forearm, she smiled. "I just started about five minutes ago. Things will look even better in an hour."
He walked onto the cropped grass. Off in the distance, he heard the hum of a lawn mower, the chatter of electronic clippers, a low whir from a leaf blower.
"I wasn't talking about the horticulture." Bending down, he kissed her on the mouth. "Where is--"
"Guten Morgen."
Lane straightened and hid his grimace. "Greta. How are you?"
As Lizzie's partner came around the magnolia tree, he braced himself for the German woman's presence. With her short blond hair, her tortoiseshell glasses, and her no-nonsense attitude, Greta von Schlieber was capable of great feats of gardening--and deep, abiding grudges.
As a string of German came back at him, he was pretty sure she was wishing him a good day in such a way that a piano ended up falling on him.
"I'm going to meet with Samuel T.," he said to Lizzie.
"Good luck." Lizzie kissed him again. "I'm here if you need me."
"I need you--"
Greta's snort was part quarter horse, part mother hen . . . part bazooka pointed at his head, and he took the sound as his cue to leave. As much as this was his family's house, he wasn't about to mess with the German--and he couldn't say that he hadn't earned her disregard.
But it was also time to start setting the record straight.
"It's about the divorce," he muttered to Greta. "My divorce. From Chantal."
Icy blue eyes shot daggers at him. "About time. And you talk vis me ink is dry, ja?"
"Greta." Lizzie cursed. "He's--"
"You got it." Lane pointed a finger in the other woman's face. "You just watch."
Heading for Easterly's front entrance, he counted himself lucky he didn't get a trowel in the back of his skull. But he'd meant what he'd said. He was taking care of this bad baggage of his.
As the grand door opened, he was prepared to steam by the butler. "I've got a meeting--"
But Samuel T., not the dreaded Mr. Harris, had done the honors.
His lawyer smiled like the Tom Ford model he could have been. "Timeliness is next to godliness."
"Which explains why I'm always late."
"Personally, it's the only religion I've got."
The two clapped hands and went in for a shoulder slap. "I need a drink, Sam."
"This is why I love representing friends. Particularly ones with liquor businesses."
Lane led the way into the parlor. "Friends? We're almost family."
"No, she's marrying someone else." As he looked back, Samuel T. waved the words away. "Not what I meant."
Bullcrap, Lane thought. But he left his sister Gin's torturous relationship with Samuel T. well enough alone. The pair were Scarlett and Rhett, just take away the mustache and add a couple of cell phones. And hell, with the way the finances were going, maybe Gin would even end up making a dress out of the ball gown drapes in this room. They were pale yellow, a color she liked.
Picking up a bottle of Family Reserve, Lane poured two bourbons into a pair of Waterford rocks glasses and shared one half of the load. Both of them drank the liquor on a single swallow, so the refill was quick.
And Lane took the bottle with him as he collapsed onto a silk-covered sofa. "So what have we got, Samuel T. How bad is it going to get--how much is this going to cost me."
His lawyer sat across from him, on the other side of the marble fireplace. Over the mantel, the second Elijah Bradford, the ancestor who had built Easterly as a way to prove the family's net worth, seemed to glare down at them.
"Have you listened to the radio yet this morning?" Samuel T. asked.
"No."
"It's out." Samuel T. held up his palm. "Your father's suicide. Not Chantal being pregnant. I heard it on the NPR affiliate on the way here. I'm sorry--and I have to imagine that it's going to be in all the papers tomorrow. The Internet has got to be rife with it already."
Lane rubbed his eyes. "Goddamn it. Was it Chantal who leaked the news?"
"I don't know. The sources quoted were 'anonymous.' I'll talk to Deputy Ramsey and see what I can find out."
"It wasn't one of Mitch's boys, I'll tell you that. He'd kill them."
"Agreed. And I don't think it was your ex. If it was Chantal, why'd she keep the pregnancy out of it? If she'd wanted to really screw us, she'd have led with that news flash--although based on her choice of lawyer, it is clear she does not intend to go quietly into any good night."
"Who'd she hire?"
"Rachel Prather."
"Who's that?"
"Think Gloria Allred meets the Hulk--although the latter is not a comment on physical appearance, more what happens if you piss her off. She
's out of Atlanta and she called me last night at ten o'clock. I was in my jammies. The woman I was with was not."
Lane could only imagine. "They're not wasting any time with the ask, I see. How much do they want?"
Samuel T. held up his glass. "You know, this actually is the best bourbon I've ever had. So full bodied, and--"
"How much."
Samuel T.'s eyes shot across the low-slung coffee table. "Half. Of everything in your name. Which is about eighty million dollars."
"Is she insane?"
"Yes, but to paraphrase, Chantal has information you don't want getting out in the press." When Lane didn't fill in the silence, Samuel T. pointed out the obvious, "That pregnancy is a problem in this regard--even if, in other situations, I could have used it to reduce alimony."
"Her blessed event is just one issue."
"Is that why your father killed himself?" Samuel T. asked softly.
"I don't know." Lane shrugged, thinking he should be making a damn list. "Regardless, I'm not writing that kind of check to her, Samuel. It's not going to happen."
"Look, my advice to you, especially given . . . her circumstances and your father's passing?" Samuel T. seemed to savor some more of the bourbon. "I think you should pay the money--and I can't believe I'm saying that. I was prepared to fight her for everything but the engagement ring. Your family's reputation needs to be considered, though. And yes, I know it's a hit on your bottom line, but with the way bourbon is selling right now, in three years, maybe less, you'll be whole. This is not the time to take a principled stance, for so many reasons--especially not if you've moved on with your gardener."
"She's a horticulturist," Lane gritted out.
Samuel T. held up a palm. "My apologies. As for Chantal, I'll draft an ironclad, nondisclosure agreement, force her to disavow the parentage and ensure no contact for her or the child with anyone under this roof--"
"Even if Chantal signed something like that, I'm still not writing that check."
"Lane. Don't be an ass. This woman has the kind of lawyer who will rake you and this family through the press like you won't believe. And your mother doesn't know about the pregnancy, does she?" When Lane shook his head, Samuel dropped his voice. "Then let's keep things that way, shall we."
Lane pictured the woman who had borne him, lying in state in that satin bed of hers upstairs. It was tempting to believe that he could keep her insulated from all parts of this, but the nurses who tended her round the clock were all out in the world, reading newspapers, listening to the radio, on their smartphones.
But there was a greater problem, wasn't there.
It seemed ironic to be pouring Family Reserve into his glass as he said, "We don't have the money."
"I know there is a spendthrift clause in your trust. My father put it there. But that kicks in only if you get sued by a third party. At your direction, however, your trust company can set up a payment plan. Buying her silence is likely to be cheaper than the fallout. You have a very picky board of old boys who believe mistresses should be neither seen nor heard and suicide is a criminal weakness--"
"We have larger problems, Samuel T., than that pregnancy. Why do you think Gin is marrying Richard."
"Because she needs a man she can control."
"It's because she needs the money."
Under other circumstances, it would have been amusing to watch light dawn on Marblehead, the comprehension bringing a pall over his old friend's face.
"What are you . . . ? I'm sorry, what?"
"My father jumped for a lot of reasons, and some of them are financial. There's a shitload of money missing from the household accounts, and I fear the Bradford Bourbon Company is running out of cash as well. I, literally, don't have the money to pay Chantal, now or over time."
Samuel T. swirled his bourbon around, then finished it. "You'll have to excuse me, but . . . my brain is having trouble processing that. What about your mother's stock portfolio? What about--"
"We're sixty-eight million in the hole right now. Personally. And I think it's the tip of the iceberg."
Samuel T. blinked. Then he held out his empty glass. "I beg of you, may I have some more?"
Lane refilled the guy and then helped himself again. "I've got a buddy of mine here from New York trying to figure it out. Jeff Stern, you remember him from U.Va."
"Good guy. Couldn't hold his liquor like a Southerner, but other than that, he was okay."
"He's upstairs weeding through the company financials, trying to figure out how bad it all is. It would be a mistake for us to assume that my father hasn't misappropriated almost everything. After all, about a year ago, he had my mother declared incompetent and took over her trusts--God only knows whether there's anything left anywhere."
Samuel T. shook his head for a while. "Do you want me to be sympathetic or tell you what I'm honestly thinking?"
"Honest. Always be honest."
"It's too bad your father wasn't murdered."
"I beg your pardon? Although not that I'm arguing with you--and I wish I'd been the one to do it."
"Under most policies, suicide won't let you collect, but if someone killed him? As long as none of the beneficiaries did it, the money would be yours."
Lane laughed. He couldn't help it. "You know, this is not the first time I've thought fondly of homicide when it came to that man--"
From out front, a horrible scream cut through the morning like a gunshot.
"What the hell is that?" Samuel T. barked as they both jumped to their feet.
NINE
"--Scheisse! Meine Gute, ein Finger! Ein Finger--"
As Lane bolted out of the house with Samuel T. tight on his heels, bourbon splashed from his rocks glass, and he ended up tossing the stuff into the bushes as he leaped off the stone steps. Over on the right, Lizzie was crouched above a hole that had been dug in the ivy bed, one hand planted in the earth, the other shoving her partner back as Greta continued yelling and pointing in German.
"What's wrong?" Lane said as he came running.
"It's a . . ." Lizzie took off her floppy hat and looked up at him. "Lane . . . we have a problem here."
"What is--"
"It's a finger." Lizzie nodded to the raw patch in the ivy. "I think that's a finger."
Lane shook his head, as if maybe that would help what she'd said make sense. And then both his knees cracked as he got down on his haunches. Leaning in for a closer look into the shallow hole--
Holy . . . shit. It was a finger. A human finger.
The skin was marked with dirt, but you could see that the digit was still intact all the way around--and the thing was fat, like it had swollen up since it had been cut off or . . . torn off, or whatever. The nail was even across the top and the same flat white as the flesh, and the base, where it had been severed from its hand, was a clean slice, the meat inside gray, the pale circular dot on the bottom the bone.
But none of that was what really interested him.
The heavy gold ring that was on it was the issue.
"That's my father's signet ring," he said in a flat tone.
"Oh . . . shit," Samuel T. whispered. "Ask and ye shall receive."
Lane patted his pocket and took out his phone, but then didn't dial anything.
Instead, he looked up, up, up . . . and saw his mother's bedroom window directly above where the finger had been buried in the dirt. As Lizzie's hand went to his shoulder and squeezed, Lane glanced at her.
Keeping his eyes locked with hers, he addressed his lawyer with the obvious. "We need to call the police, right?"
As Gin and Richard Pford came out into the sunshine, Samuel T. put his palm up. "You two, back in the house."
Gin glared at the man. "What's going on?"
Lane nodded. He didn't care if his sister saw, but this was not anything Pford needed exposure to. He was not to be trusted. "Richard, please take her back inside."
"Lane?" When Gin went to step down, at least her fiance caught her arm. "Lane, what
is it?"
"I'll be right in and I'll explain things." Which would be a stretch--because he had no clue what the hell was going on. "Richard, please."
Pford started to pull her back inside, but Gin broke free and ran across the lawn in her high heels. As she came up and looked in the hole, an expression of horror made ugliness out of her beauty.
"What is that," she demanded.
Samuel T. steadied Gin and spoke to her in a quiet voice. Then, as he began leading her back toward the house, he looked over his shoulder. "Do you call or shall I?"
"I will."
As Lane fired up his iPhone with Deputy Ramsey's well-dialed number, he absently noticed that his hands weren't shaking. Guess he was becoming an old pro with nasty surprises, bad news, and the police coming to his family's home.
Oh, hey, Officers, long time no see. And to make you feel more welcome, we've got designated parking for you right here in the front of the house.
One ring. Two rings--
"I was about to call you," the deputy said by way of greeting. "They're going to release your father's body for cremation tomorrow--"
"No, they're not."
"Excuse me?"
Lane focused on that pale slice of flesh that was all smudged with fine Kentucky topsoil. "We found something buried. Right under my mother's window. You and your boys in the homicide department are going to want to come back here."
"What are we talking about."
"It's a piece of my father. As far as I can tell."
There was a heartbeat's worth of pause. "Don't touch anything. I'm on my way. Have you called Metro Police yet?"
"No."
"Call them--"
"So the report is logged."
"--so the report is logged."
Lane laughed in a hard burst. "I know the procedure by now."
As they both hung up, Lane let himself ease back onto the grass so that he, Lizzie, and Greta were all sitting in a semi-circle around the hole in true campfire fashion. No s'mores. But there could be a ghost story coming, he thought.
A moment later, from the mansion's open front door, sounds of an argument boiled out into the pretty morning, Gin's voice the loudest, Samuel T.'s right behind hers in terms of volume.
Too bad he wasn't murdered.
Samuel T.'s hypothetical echoed around Lane's head as he wished he hadn't emptied his glass into the boxwood hedges by the front door.
This could be a game changer, he thought to himself. Whether it was good news . . . or bad, remained to be seen.