by J. R. Ward
The bartender who had been stationed out there had left his post, and she went over and lifted the bar's linen skirting. Underneath, empty crates for the stemware and boxes for the bourbon and wine were lined up neatly, and she dragged a couple of them out.
It was right when she was about to get packing, literally, when she noticed the person sitting still and quiet right by one of the windows, their focus into the house, not at the view.
"Gary?"
As she spoke, the head groundskeeper jumped up so fast, the metal chair he'd been in squeaked across the flagstone.
"Oh, jeez, I'm sorry." She laughed. "I think everyone's on edge today."
Gary was in a fresh pair of overalls and his workboots had been hosed off, no dirt or debris on them. His old beat-up Momma's Mustard, Pickles & BBQ baseball cap was in his hand, and he quickly shoved it back on his head.
"You don't have to leave," she said as she began transferring rocks glasses into a crate upside down.
"I wasn't gonna come. Just when I seen . . ."
"No cars, right. When you saw no one was coming."
"Rich people got a weird sense of priority."
"Amen to that."
"Well, back to work. Lest you be needin' anything?"
"No, I'm just giving myself something to do. And if you help me, I might finish faster."
"So it's like that, huh."
"Yes, I'm sorry."
He grunted and went off the far lip of the terrace, taking the path that led down around the base of the stone bulwark that kept the mansion's house lot from falling off its lofty perch.
Later, much later, Lizzie would wonder why she felt compelled to step out from behind the bar and walk across to where the man had been sitting and staring so intently. But for some reason, the urge was undeniable. Then again, Gary was rarely still, and he'd been looking curiously deflated.
Leaning into the old glass . . . she saw Lane's mother perched, as beautiful as a queen, on that silk sofa.
THIRTY
Lane got to his feet and walked forward to his brother Maxwell. He wanted to hug the guy, but he had no idea what kind of reception he was going to get.
Max's pale gray eyes narrowed. "Hey, brother."
Still taller and broader than he or Edward, but now even more so. And there was a beard covering the lower half of that face. Jeans were so well washed they hung like a breeze, and the jacket had been made of leather at some point, but most of the hide had been worn off. The hand that extended was callused and the fingernails had dirt or oil underneath them. A tattoo emerged from the cuff on the back of the wrist.
The formal gesture of greeting was a throwback, Lane supposed, to the way they had grown up.
"Welcome back," Lane heard himself say as they shook.
His eyes couldn't stop roaming as he tried to divine from physical clues where his brother had been and what he had been doing these past few years. Car mechanic? Garbageman? Road crew? Something involving physical labor for sure, given how big he was.
The physical contact between their palms lasted only a moment and then Max stepped back and looked to their mother.
She was smiling in that vacant way of hers, her eyes softly focused. "And who might you be?"
Even though she'd just seemed to recognize the man?
"Ah, it's Maxwell, Mother," Lane said before he could stop himself. "This is Maxwell."
As he put his hand on that heavy shoulder, like he was a QVC host highlighting a toaster for sale, Little V.E. blinked a couple of times. "But of course. However are you, Maxwell? Are you here for long?"
Now, she didn't seem to recognize that Maxwell was her son--and not only because he had gone lumber-sexual with the facial hair, but because even the name didn't seem to register as significant.
Max seemed to take a deep breath. And then he went over. "I am well. Thank you."
"Perhaps a shower for you, yes? And a shave. We dress for dinner here at Easterly. Are you a close friend of Edward's then?"
"Ah, yes," he said remotely. "I am."
"That's a good boy."
As Max looked back like he was searching for a life raft, Lane cleared his throat and nodded to the archway. "Let me show you to your room."
Even though the guy no doubt hadn't forgotten where it was.
Lane nodded to the nurse who was hovering in the corner to take over, and then he drew Max into the foyer. "Surprise, surprise, brother."
"I read about it in the newspaper."
"I didn't think we announced the visitation in the CCJ."
"No, the death."
"Ah."
And then there was only silence. Max was looking around, and Lane gave him a second to soak it all in, thinking back to when he himself had returned here after two years. Nothing had changed at Easterly, and maybe that was part of what was so disarming when you returned after an exile: The memories were too sharp because the stage sets had remained unaltered. And, too, except for Edward, the actors were also exactly as you had left them.
"So are you staying?" Lane asked.
"I don't know." Max glanced over at the stairwell. Then nodded to the ratty duffel bag he'd obviously just dropped by the open door. "If I do, it won't be here."
"I can get you a hotel."
"Is it true we're going bankrupt?"
"We're out of money. The bankruptcy depends on what happens next."
"So he jumped off a bridge?"
"Maybe. There are some extenuating circumstances."
"Oh."
Now Max was once again staring into the parlor, at their mother who was smiling pleasantly up at her nurse as the woman delivered her a seltzer water.
"Is she dying, too?" Max asked.
"Might as well be."
"And, ah, when does the event start?"
"I'm closing it down." Lane smoothed his tie. "A reversal of fortune is a social disease with no inoculation. Nobody came."
"Pity--"
"Where the hell have you been, Max?" Lane interjected. "We tried to find you."
Max's eyes swung around, and he seemed to notice Lane for the first time. "You know, you look older."
"No, shit, Max. It's been three years."
"You look a decade older."
"Maybe it's because I'm finally growing up. Meanwhile, clearly your goal of turning into a hedge is proceeding apace."
At that moment, a car pulled up to the front of the mansion, and at first, Lane was too busy thinking of throat punching his brother for disappearing to notice who it was. But as an elegant African-American man got out, Lane had to smile a little.
"Well, well, well, timing is everything."
Max squinted into the fading sunlight. Instant recollection had his eyes peeling wide, and he actually stepped back as if from a physical blow.
There was nowhere to run, though.
The Reverend Nyce had seen the man who had broken his daughter's heart into a thousand pieces. And the preacher might have been a godly man, but even Lane, as a disinterested third party, wanted to get out of the way as the guy focused on the degenerate drifter who had come home to roost.
"I'll leave you two to catch up," Lane murmured as he headed back for the parlor.
*
As Edward arrived at the visitation, he didn't go in the front door. No, he took Shelby's truck up the back way and parked behind the kitchen wing just as he had the day before. Getting out, he tucked his T-shirt into his khakis, smoothed his hair and was glad he'd bothered to shave. But his bad ankle made him feel like he had an iron ball tethered to his leg, and his heart was beating funny. The good news, though, was that the two draws off a gin bottle before he'd left the Red & Black had evened out his DTs nicely, and although he had a hip flask full of the stuff, he hadn't needed to hit it yet.
His heart slowed into a more productive rhythm as he approached Easterly's rear kitchen door, and as the screen creaked when he opened the thing, he caught a whiff of the telltale sweet/bready/spicy smell that took him right ba
ck to childhood. Inside, Miss Aurora was sitting at the counter, her heels wedged into the bottom rung of a stool, her apron pulled up to her thighs. She looked old and tired, and he hated her disease with a passion at that moment.
Glancing away so he didn't get emotional, he saw stacks upon stacks of one-use aluminum pans with fitted tops, the packed-up food evidently ready to be taken to St. Vincent de Paul to feed the homeless and sheltered.
"A lot of no-shows?" he said, going over and taking a peak under one of the lids.
His stomach growled at the scent of her lamb empanadas.
"Is that the way you say hello," she snapped. "Where are your manners, boy."
"I'm sorry." He turned and bowed to her. "How are you?"
When she just grunted, he straightened and looked at her properly. Yes, he thought, she knew why he'd come.
Then again, he might not have been her favorite--Lane held that spot in the woman's heart--but she had always been one of the few people to read him like a book.
"You want tea?" she said. "It's over there."
He limped across to the glass pitcher she pointed at. It was the same one he'd used as a child, the square-bottomed, thin-necked one with the yellow-and-orange flower pattern from the seventies that was getting worn off.
"You leave this glass out special for me?" he said as he poured himself some.
"I don't want you involved in my business."
"Too late."
He added ice from the plain bucket next to her pitcher using the plastic tongs. Taking a test sip, he closed his eyes.
"Still tastes the same."
"Why wouldn't it?"
He hobbled over and took the stool next to her. "Where are all your waiters?"
"Your brother told 'em to go home, and he was right to."
Edward frowned and looked to the flap doors. "So truly, no one came."
"Nope."
He had to laugh. "I hope there is a heaven and my father sees this. Or that there's a telescope in hell."
"I don't have the energy to tell you to not speak ill of the dead."
"So how much longer do you have?" he said without any preamble. "And I won't tell Lane, I promise."
Miss Aurora's eyes narrowed on him. To the point where he could feel his butt twitch. "You watch yourself, Edward. I still got my spoon, and I may have the cancer, but you are not as fast as you used to be, either."
"True enough. Now answer the question, and know if you lie to me, I'll find out."
Miss Aurora splayed her strong hands out over the counter. The dark skin was still beautiful and smooth, the clipped nails and lack of rings a constant because of her job.
In the silence that followed, he knew she was trying out a scenario where she did lie to him. He also knew, ultimately, she wasn't going to fudge it. She was going to want someone to prepare Lane, and she was going to assume the truth: that for all of Edward's withdrawal from the family, there were at least two things that he would not pull out of.
"I stopped the treatment," she said eventually. "Too many side effects, and it wasn't working anyway. And that's why I mean it when I say you shouldn't get involved in this."
"Time. How much time?"
"Does it matter?"
So it was that little, he thought. "No, I guess it doesn't, actually."
"I'm not afraid, you know. My Savior will carry me in the palm of his hand."
"Are you sure? Even now?"
Miss Aurora nodded and brought a hand up to her short weave of tight curls. "Especially now. I am ready for what is coming for me. I am prepared."
Edward slowly shook his head back and forth--and then figured if she could be honest, so could he. In a voice that didn't sound like his own, he heard himself say, "I really don't want to get sucked into this family again. It nearly killed me once."
"You're free."
"By a baptism of torture in that jungle." He cursed. "But as you know . . . I can't bear to see my brother in pain. You and I suffer from a similar weakness when it comes to Lane, just for different reasons."
"No, it's the same reason. Love is love. It is that simple."
It was a while before he could look at her. "My life is ruined, you know. Everything that I'd planned . . . it's all gone."
"You will create a new path. And as for this?" She indicated all around herself. "Don't save what doesn't need saving."
"Lane will not recover from your loss."
"He is stronger than you know, and he has his Lizzie."
"The love of a good woman." Edward took another drink of the tea. "Did that sound as bitter as I think it did?"
"You don't have to be no hero anymore, Edward. Let this take its proper course, and trust that the outcome is pre-determined and as it should be. But I do expect you to take care of your brother. In that, you shall not fail me."
"I thought you said I don't have to be a hero."
"Don't sass me. You know the difference."
"Well, I will say that your faith has never failed to astound me."
"And your self-determination has worked out so well?"
Edward toasted her. "Touche."
"How did you find out?" Miss Aurora asked after a moment. "How did you know?"
"I have my ways, ma'am. I may be down, as they say, but I'm not out." He frowned and looked around. "Wait a minute, where did that old clock go? The one that used to be on the icebox you had before this place was renovated?"
"The one that clicked?"
"Remember that sound?" They both laughed. "I hated it."
"Me, too. But I'm getting it fixed right now. It broke a while ago, and I miss it. It's funny how you can be lost without something you despise."
He nursed his iced tea until it was gone. "That is not the case with my father."
Miss Aurora smoothed the edges of her apron. "I don't think there are many that miss him. Things happen for a reason."
Edward got up and took his empty glass over to the sink. Putting it down, he looked out the window. The garages were across the way, and then to the left, extending out from the house, the business center was a wing bigger than most good-sized mansions.
"Edward, you let this go. What will be, will be."
Probably good advice, but that wasn't in his nature. Or at least, it had never been before.
And it looked like some parts of his old self weren't dead yet.
THIRTY-ONE
As Sutton's limousine came up to Easterly's main gates and stopped, she frowned and leaned forward to address her driver. "I guess we go right up?"
"Yes, ma'am, I think so. The way is open."
Usually, for large affairs such as William Baldwine's visitation, the Bradfords ran a system of buses up and down the hill with invitees leaving their cars off to be valet'd on the flats. But there were no uniformed parkers. No boxy, twelve-seater vehicles on the ascend or descend. Nobody else pulling in.
But at least the press was nowhere to be found. Undoubtedly, those vultures had been camping out from the moment the story had broken. Clearly, though, they had been shooed away in deference to a property owner's right to use their own grass as a parking lot.
"I can't believe no one is here," she murmured.
Oh, wait, Samuel Theodore Lodge was behind her in his convertible.
She put her window down and leaned out. "Samuel T.?"
He waved. "Why, Miss Smythe. How do you do?"
Samuel T. was a fashion plate as always, a straw boater with a blue-and-maroon band on his head, aviators shading his eyes, the seersucker suit and bow tie making it look like he was going to the track or had already been.
"All the better for seeing you," she replied. "Where is everyone? Is this the right time?"
"As far as I know."
They stared at each other for a moment, asking and answering questions for themselves about the front-page story.
Then Samuel T. said, "Lead the way and I'll follow."
Sutton eased back into her Mercedes and nodded. "Let's go up."
The limousine started forward, and Sutton rubbed her palms together. They were a little sweaty, and she gave in to the impulse to take a compact out of her purse and check her lipstick. Her hair.
Stop it, she told herself.
As they came around the turn at the top, Easterly was revealed in all its majesty. Funny, even though she had just been to the estate for the Bradfords' Derby Brunch, she was still impressed. No wonder they put the great white house on their bourbon bottles. It looked like the King of America, if there had been one, lived there.
"Would you like me to wait?" the driver asked.
"That would be lovely. Thank you--no, don't get out. I'll open my own door."
As Don squirmed behind the wheel, she did the duty herself and smiled at Samuel T. and his vintage Jaguar. "Nice car you've got there, Solicitor."
Samuel T. cut his engine and pulled his emergency brake. "I'm rather fond of her. Most consistent woman I've had in my life short of my dearest mother."
"Well, you better put the top up." She nodded to the thickening cloud cover overhead. "Storms are coming."
"I thought they were kidding."
Sutton shook her head. "I don't think so."
The man got out and secured the car's little fabric cover with a couple of tugs and then a clip on each side of the windshield. Then he put the windows up and came around to her, dropping a kiss on her cheek.
"By the way," he intoned, "you look very well, Madam President--or shall I say CEO. Congratulations on the promotion."
"Thank you. I'm getting up to speed." She linked her arm through his as he offered her his elbow. "And you? How's business?"
"Thriving. There are always people getting into trouble in this town, which is the good news and the bad news."
Approaching the mansion's open door, she wondered if Edward would be inside. Surely he wouldn't miss his own father's visitation?
Not that she was here to see him.
"Reverend Nyce," she said as she entered. "How are you--Max! Is that you?"
The two men were standing close together, and Max broke away from what seemed to be a tense conversation with obvious relief. "Sutton, it's good to see you."
Boy, had he changed. That beard was a thing. And were those tattoos showing underneath his battered jacket?
Then again, he'd always been the wild one.
Samuel T. stepped up and did his greeting, hands being shaken, pleasantries exchanged . . . and then the reverend looked back at Max.
"I think you and I are clear on this, aren't we?" The Reverend Nyce paused for effect. And then he smiled at her. "And you and I have a meeting later next week."