“Daddy and I will be there in a few hours,” she said. No sense trying to explain on the phone she was bringing Lyle with her.
Folding the cell, she passed it to her father.
With a little shock, she saw he was glaring at Lyle. What was the matter now? Was he going to pull that, “not with my daughter, you lowly lawyer” crap, too?
Lawrence Arthur Chatsworth III, not Daddy now, advanced on Lyle. “Andre Valetti said you’d been shacking up with Sylvia at the Lava Springs Inn.”
Lyle’s expression turned stony. “I wouldn’t call it shacking up, sir, when I—”
“You’re as much a damned fool as Tony and Andre. If you had told me where Sylvia was, she wouldn’t have been turned into the Valettis’ pawn. She could have been killed, either in the fire or when Andre kidnapped her. Why in hell didn’t you just take the money?”
“Money?” Sylvia heard the unsteadiness in her voice.
“I offered Lyle Thomas a half-million dollars to find you.”
Her heart started to slam. “You’ve been working for him?” She stared at Lyle, who looked sick.
“I told you he tried to hire me. I refused to take anything for searching for you.”
He could have decided to anytime. “You talked about trust. How we had to trust each other. My God—”
“Sylvia, wait. I didn’t call him, I never turned you in.”
Lyle reached for her. Her father fended him off. Several of the sheriff’s men stepped closer to the altercation.
His voice lowered, so she had trouble hearing. “I had decided I’d never take anything for finding you. Even after I lost my job and maybe everything I’ve worked for.”
He’d said his locating her was coincidence, and she’d fallen for the sincerity in his baby blues. “You told Kelly at the spa you wished you had some of my father’s money.”
“That was a joke!”
“Sylvia,” her father said. “It’s time to go.”
“I believed in you. I fell in love with you.” She’d trusted Lyle, with her heart, with her life. Now she didn’t know what to believe.
She turned away from him. “Get me out of here, Daddy, and take me home.”
Chapter 31
On the drive to Sausalito in the FBI sedan, Lawrence Chatsworth played the politician, chatting with the two agents. Sylvia stared out the window.
The gathering clouds now covered the sky; the ceiling would be low for a helicopter.
How could she have been so wrong about Lyle? A nice guy like him a mercenary?
The pain in her chest made it difficult to breathe. Her roiling stomach nearly doubled her over. The only thing that distracted her from time to time was when her father would pat her hand and give her a look of such sympathy she almost burst into tears.
Almost.
She wasn’t going to cry over Lyle Thomas. A Chatsworth would be proud, would hold her head high. This time, no one would ridicule her over losing a man. That kiss could live in infamy, but she would refuse to dignify it by speaking of it again.
Her public image was going to change, as her private one already had. No more late nights, no “work” at the North Beach gallery. She would throw herself into making the new battered women’s shelter her own. If Julio Castillo or any other reporter shoved a microphone in her face, they’d be treated to a solicitation for her cause.
As it happened, when the sedan wound down the steep hill off Highway 101 into the Sausalito Heights, at least three news vans were waiting. She would have liked to run the gauntlet and get into the house, but Daddy squeezed her arm. “Let me do the talking.”
She knew she looked a fright, with her hair tangled and her clothes wrinkled. Nonetheless, she lifted her chin and stepped out of the car ahead of him.
Flashes went off, though it was mid-afternoon. Reporters yammered, and there were the expected microphones.
Lawrence Chatsworth raised his arm, and the clamor quieted. “I guess you’re here because you’ve heard Sylvia has come back.”
“Senator, what about the rumor she was kidnapped by Andre Valetti?”
“And that both Valetti brothers are in custody?”
“What about—”
Sylvia felt Daddy’s arm around her shoulders. “My daughter has been through an ordeal, and we have no comment about that. I am told the Valettis have been arrested.”
“What are the charges?”
“No comment.”
“Could we just have a word from Sylvia?”
Her father started to demur. She stopped him.
Facing the reporters, she announced, “I want to say the Sylvia Chatsworth you chased around and printed lies and half truths about won’t be coming back to town. I will not be dancing till dawn. And I will not discuss where I have been or with whom.”
She moved toward the front door of the house she’d grown up in. Behind her, she heard the reporters grumbling at being shut off and Daddy’s footsteps on the drive.
When she reached the door, it was thrown open from within, and she was grabbed into the biggest hug she could remember from her mother.
“Mom!”
“Sylvia!”
Mom smelled the same as she had when Sylvia was little. No matter what type of perfume she wore, there was an essence underneath that came through, reminding Sylvia of when she’d been too young to believe her parents neglected her.
“Ah’m so sorry ah said you should disappear! You should know never to believe me when ah’m angry.”
“It would be better if none of us got angry and said things we shouldn’t,” her father said.
“Amen,” Sylvia agreed. All their problems weren’t going to be solved, but if she did her part, perhaps it would be a step along the road to reconciliation.
After flying back to Napa with Charlotte Longstreet and driving to San Francisco, Lyle caught Cliff in his office at the Justice Department near the end of the workday.
It took half an hour to fill his friend in on the events of the day, editing out the scene with Sylvia and the Senator.
They broke for fresh coffee. Cliff pulled out a machine and a private stock of fresh beans. “I got to thinking after you complained about the swill they call coffee here. Decided I don’t have to live like a refugee.”
“Now all you need is some better guest chairs,” Lyle carped. He slipped off his shoes and put his sore and aching feet on the other hard wooden seat. “What’s going to happen with David Dickerson?”
Cliff set his cup down. “As soon as I saw the news on the Internet about the Valettis’ arrests, I called in the information we dug up on him.”
“You can be my wingman anytime.”
“You’ll love this. An hour ago, at four o’clock, Dickerson was taken into custody for questioning. Right out of making an argument in court. The judge had to call an extended recess.”
“He’ll say he didn’t know about the mercury plot.”
“He can say it all day long. His trouble is going to be the death of Esther Quenton. This morning, I tracked down her personal assistant. She said that on the afternoon of Esther’s death, she was picked up by a driver named Luigi, taking her to meet Tony Valetti.”
Lyle sipped the passable brew. “So Luigi does the dirty work for both Valettis.”
“Guess where they were supposed to meet?”
Lyle took a stab at it. “A place where Tony planned a development called Emerald Cliff.”
“Nope. They were meeting where the San Andreas Fault goes out to sea. Ostensibly, because Tony had purchased the land there for a development, but decided instead to donate it to the Pacific Conservation Society.”
“I think we’re both right,” Lyle said. “What do you bet when I overheard Tony mention Emerald Cliff to the Senator, he was talking about the same tract? Of course, he never intended on donating it.”
“No way.”
Lyle leaned forward. “Let me guess some more. When Luigi arrived at the cliff with Esther, Tony wasn’t there yet. She d
ecided to get out of the car and take in the view. Got too close to the edge …”
“Bingo. Esther’s personal assistant said Luigi and Tony attended her memorial service, that Luigi was in tears over not having stayed close enough to keep her from falling.”
“You can certainly see how that wouldn’t set off any alarm bells in homicide. A prominent man like Tony prepared to make a huge charitable contribution. A woman known for her feisty and adventurous spirit wandering too close to the precipice.”
“And David Dickerson, her executor, saddened by her tragic demise but not at all suspicious, was the red ribbon on the package,” Cliff finished.
“Now all we need to know is who’s behind Capitol Investors. Now we know it’s not the Senator.”
“I don’t know that. What if his turning in his partners was an elaborate charade to get the heat off him?”
Though it would have been tempting to let his anger at the Senator rule, Lyle shook his head. “If Chatsworth was in on it, Tony would have said so. I believe Tony and Andre were using Sylvia as muscle on him.”
Cliff subsided in his chair. “You win.”
“I’m afraid nobody has won,” Lyle said.
He didn’t have the heart yet to tell Cliff how the deal with Sylvia had blown up.
Though it was only nine thirty, Sylvia closed the door of her decorator’s gem of a bedroom and leaned against it.
Her deep exhaustion could have been explained by the terrifying events of the day, but she believed if things had happened differently … if she were with Lyle … she would have bounced back by now.
Instead, she was worn down from spending the evening pretending. Neither she nor Daddy had mentioned Lyle, while they helped Mom prepare a recipe of crisp Southern fried chicken, mashed potatoes with creamy gravy, and fresh steamed broccoli. It was the kind of meal they used to make on special occasions, so it seemed fitting tonight they give the cook some time off.
Putting together the culinary delight, Sylvia alternated between feeling all right for a few minutes and attacks of anxiety when she thought of Lyle. When it came time to eat, she picked at her food.
A couple of times, Daddy gave her one of those sympathetic looks, and she feared he was about to mention Lyle. When he did not, she knew he was playing his waiting game.
There wasn’t anything to say. Was there?
Or there was everything. All the things she would not say.
How she felt as though she could never swallow another morsel of food. How a future without Lyle stretched before her as bleak and dry as a desert landscape. How she loved him and only him and would end her days without ever finding another man like him.
When Sylvia went to her bed and started to pull down the covers, her foot encountered a box partway under the mattress. She’d been in her suite earlier to shower and dress but hadn’t noticed it.
Now she bent and dragged it out—one of those under-the-bed storage containers, at least three feet long and two feet wide.
Kneeling beside it, Sylvia lifted the lid.
She gasped.
Going to the hall door, she shouted, “Mommy!”
Her mother arrived with a swift tapping of heels on the bedroom wing parquet. She looked pale; a sign having her daughter home hadn’t quite settled her down after Andre threatened to kill Sylvia.
“I’m sorry I yelled and scared you.” Sylvia drew her inside the room and pointed. “That wasn’t under there any of the other times I was here.”
“No.”
Sylvia went back to the box and lifted out a poster of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Beneath it was an envelope of concert tickets, and a packet of letters exchanged between her and a girl she’d met at camp when she was twelve. She’d lost track of her. “I was afraid you had thrown all this away.”
Her mother came to her and rested her hand on her shoulder. “Ah kept it in storage in my sewing room.” She kept the Southern style of embroidery alive in California. “Sometimes when ah thought about you and you weren’t here, ah would look through it.” She knelt and touched a wool scarf in the pattern of Sylvia’s private school uniform. “When you disappeared, ah brought it in here. It made me feel closer to you to have it in the room where you used to sleep.”
Sylvia had promised herself not to cry over Lyle. But she hadn’t made any such vow about her mother. Not when it came to finding out that, despite their all too common clashes, Mom really did care.
With the bad guys locked up, the case of Sylvia Chatsworth wrapped, and no income to answer the monthly cash calls, Lyle considered his options.
Lounging tensely on a chaise on his rooftop terrace, below the low clouds aglow with city lights, he calculated he had less than three months before this place would be in foreclosure. Therefore, he’d have to hit the bricks running, first thing Monday morning. He’d work on his résumé Sunday afternoon.
Tomorrow was Friday. Tough to believe he’d driven up to Lava Springs less than a week ago. Impossible to think he’d found Sylvia on Saturday, fallen hopelessly in love with her, and lost her so soon. From moment to moment, he alternated between white-hot rages and believing one of Luigi’s bullets had pierced his chest.
Cliff had asked about Sylvia. Lyle had equivocated by saying she was reuniting with her folks this evening.
What should he do tonight, tomorrow, the next day? Cliff had mentioned a Friday night foray to Ice. Neither of them was big on going out the evening before a workday.
Lyle didn’t have to work tomorrow.
Yet, he knew he would not go out this evening. He had no interest in seeing couples dancing, nuzzling, people in love, folks hooking up. There was only one woman he wanted … needed … loved.
She believed he had betrayed her.
If he hadn’t been certain there would be some kind of security at Chatsworth’s home, he would already be storming the place. Demanding—he was too proud to call it begging—that Sylvia let him plead his case.
Much as he wanted to take the ferry to Sausalito, he knew he would not.
Tonight, as Lyle had told Cliff, was the time for her reunion with family. No question; her relationship with Lawrence and Laura had been dysfunctional; it had broken down completely when she fled in the middle of the night and wrecked her car.
Boy, had Lyle been the big talker. Telling her to give things a chance, to call home and tell them she was safe. Even offered to trade tit for tat by saying he would see his father … take her to meet him.
Lyle stared at the Bay Bridge, the route east to the San Joaquin. South of Sacramento, out in the flats, was the land and the home where he’d been born and brought up.
He’d thrown a challenge at Sylvia. Maybe it was time he took it up himself.
Chapter 32
The old house didn’t look as dingy as it had early in the summer. James Thomas was on a ladder propped against a side wall, wielding a roller that spread fresh white paint over the faded wall.
Lyle got out of his car and surveyed the work, then walked around to where his father was moving with agility down to meet him.
“Pop.” Lyle’s hands were in his back pockets.
His father was wiping his hands on a rag. “Come and set a spell. I need a break, anyway.”
The two men went in the back screen door; it closed behind them with a familiar bang. No bottled water here, James filled two plain tumblers from the tap and handed one across. Draining his, he poured another.
Lyle sipped. He hadn’t been up a ladder in the sun. “Paint job’s looking good.”
“I suppose. Got to thinking maybe the place could hold its own against that new subdivision. Construction’s sound as a rock, and I replaced all the dry-rotted wood.”
No spit and polish needed inside, Lyle noted, as they went down the shotgun hall with clean pine boards underfoot. A glance in the living room showed magazines, “Field and Stream,” “Science News,” and “People,” on a TV tray beside a big recliner. Lyle had never thought to note his father’s taste in readi
ng material.
The front porch rocker made a much better fit than Cliff’s office chair. Lyle settled back and had more of the fresh cold well water. They said you couldn’t go home again, and he used to endure these taciturn visits. Today, he wanted to see if a different attitude mattered.
He waited for his father to ask how he’d been.
He turned to him. “How’ve you been doing, Pop?”
“Pretty fair. Get nerve spasms in my back from time to time.”
“Guess that painting doesn’t help.”
“Needs doing.”
At this point, Lyle would normally have suggested he hire a painter for Pop. Today, he didn’t have the liquid cash.
Lyle set his water glass down on the boards. “I lost my job the other day.”
“The hell?” Pop stopped rocking and turned his blue gaze on Lyle.
“Turns out the DA was involved in some crooked dealings. When I started investigating, he fired me.”
“They figure him out yet?”
“Actually, yes. He’s been taken in for questioning.”
“Then you get his replacement to give you your job back.”
Lyle started rocking, slowly. “I’m not sure that’s what I want.” He’d been thinking on the drive down about options. Cliff’s suggestion of the Justice Department … “Maybe I’ll look into private practice.”
“You’d hate it. Unless you want to do wills and divorces, I can’t see you defending criminals.”
“Not everyone who needs a lawyer is a criminal, Pop.” “You’ve been happy putting away the bad guys.” “I have. When there was enough evidence.” “That all that’s eating you? The job thing?” “Isn’t it enough?” Lyle looked at the fall landscaping in front of the entrance to the gated community. The mums reminded him of Lava Springs, where people would be going back to their homes. And Sylvia. He felt his forehead was set in creases, had been since yesterday. “I don’t think so.” Pop put a hand on the arm of Lyle’s rocker to still it. He gave him another piercing look. “You look like you did when you were ten years old. Like I did when I looked in the mirror then.”
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