Night Whispers
Page 9
Pleased that the women were together, he stood up and headed for the third floor, where forty years ago, his grandfather’s architect had decided the family’s suites should be located. Ignoring the elevator, he walked up a broad staircase with an ornate black wrought-iron railing; then he turned to the right, down a paneled hall where portraits of his ancestors brooded back at him from their heavy, richly carved frames.
“I’m glad the two of you are together,” he said when Paris answered his knock and let him in. The room made him feel claustrophobic with its maroon brocade draperies perpetually drawn over the windows to block out the light and the cloying scent of lavender hanging in the air. Trying not to let it depress him, he looped his arm over Paris’s shoulder and smiled at his grandmother, who was seated in a baroque chair beside the fireplace. With her white hair in a chignon and her frail body garbed in a gray dress with a high collar held together by a large filigree and ruby broach, Edith Reynolds looked like a well-to-do Whistler’s Mother, except her spine was more rigid.
“What is it, Carter?” she demanded in her imperious voice. “Do be quick, will you. Paris was reading to me, and we’re in a very good part of the story.”
“I have exciting news for you both,” he said, waiting politely for Paris to be seated.
“Sloan just called me,” he told them. “She’s had a change of heart. She’s decided to join us in Palm Beach and stay with us for two weeks.”
His grandmother relaxed back in her chair, and Paris shot out of hers, their expressions as opposite as their physical reactions to the news.
“You’ve done well,” his grandmother told him with a regal inclination of her head and a slight thinning of her lips that was the closest she ever came to a smile.
His chestnut-haired daughter stared at him like a tense thoroughbred about to bolt over the gate. “You—you can’t just walk in here and spring this on me at the last minute! I thought she wasn’t coming. This isn’t fair. I shouldn’t have to deal with this. I don’t want to go to Palm Beach!”
“Paris, don’t be ridiculous. Of course you’re going to Palm Beach.” He turned toward the door, his last words spoken politely but with the quiet force of an edict. “And while we’re there,” he added, turning to face her, “I will expect you to spend as much time as possible with Noah. You can’t expect to marry a man when you avoid him at every possible opportunity.”
“I haven’t been avoiding him; he’s been in Europe!”
“He’ll be in Palm Beach. You can make up for lost time while you’re there.”
• • •
Courtney Maitland perched on the arm of a leather chair in front of her brother’s desk, watching him load files into two briefcases. “You just got back from Europe and you’re already leaving again,” she complained. “You spend more time away than you spend here at home.”
Noah spared a glance for his fifteen-year-old half-sister, who was wearing a tight, shiny, black spandex skirt that barely covered her upper thighs and a hot pink tank top that barely covered her breasts. She looked like a pretty, sulky, overindulged teenager with an appalling taste for lewd clothes, all of which was true of her in his opinion. “Where the hell do you shop, anyway?” he demanded.
“I happen to be dressed in the height of fashion—my fashion,” she informed him.
“You look like a hooker.”
Courtney ignored that. “So how long are you going to be gone this time?”
“Six weeks.”
“Business or pleasure?”
“A little of both.”
“That’s the way you described that trip to Paraguay when you took me with you,” she said with an eloquent shudder. “It rained all the time, and your ‘business’ friends carried machine guns.”
“No they didn’t. Their bodyguards had machine guns.”
“Your business friends had guns, too. Handguns. I saw them.”
“You were hallucinating.”
“Okay, you’re right, and I’m wrong. It was Peru where your ‘business’ associates had handguns poking out of their jackets, not Paraguay.”
“Now I remember why I stopped taking you on business trips with me. You’re a pain in the ass.”
“I’m observant.” A paper slid off his desk, onto the floor, and Courtney swept it up and handed it to him.
“The result’s the same either way,” he said as he took the paper, glanced at it, and added it to the items in his briefcase. “However, as it happens, I’m going to Palm Beach this trip, not Paraguay or Peru. Palm Beach—you remember—we have a house there? We go there every year when you’re on winter break. Your father is there now. And you and I will be there tomorrow.”
“I’m not going this year. Dad will spend all his time on the golf course. You’ll spend all your time behind closed doors either in a bunch of meetings or telephone conferences, and when you aren’t doing that, you’ll be aboard the Apparition—having meetings and phone conferences.”
“You make me sound duller than dirt.”
“You are dull—” He glanced up at her, and the almost imperceptible change in his expression made Courtney hastily correct herself. “I mean you lead a dull life. All work, no play.”
“A vivid contrast to your own life. No wonder you can’t see the merit in mine.”
“What lucky lady is going to be the fleeting object of your sexual attention while you’re in Palm Beach?”
“You are begging for a spanking.”
“I’m too old to spank. Besides, you aren’t my father or my mother.”
“That reaffirms my faith in God.”
She decided to change the subject. “I saw Paris at Saks Fifth Avenue yesterday. They’re leaving for Palm Beach, too. You know, Noah, if you aren’t careful, you’re going to wake up one morning married to Paris.”
He tossed a gold fountain pen and pencil into one of the briefcases and snapped it shut; then he spun the combination lock. “That would be the shortest marriage on record.”
“Don’t you like Paris?”
“Yes.”
“Then why not marry her?”
“For starters, she’s way too young for me.”
“You’re right. You’re forty and that’s over the hill.”
“Are you trying to be obnoxious?”
“I don’t have to try; it comes naturally. If Paris were over the hill, like you, would you marry her then?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Mind your own damned business.”
“You are my business,” she said sweetly. “You’re the closest thing to a sibling I have.”
It was a deliberate effort to soften and manipulate him, and Noah knew it. It was also somewhat effective, so he said nothing and decided to save his breath for the battle he was bound to have with her over going to Palm Beach. Her father was thinking of staying down there permanently and enrolling Courtney in school there, but Noah had no intention of getting involved in that war.
“Don’t you want to get married to anyone?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’ve been there, done that, and didn’t like it.”
“Jordanna turned you against marriage completely, didn’t she? Paris thinks Jordanna turned you off on all women.”
He glanced up from the files he was sorting through, a frown of impatience gathering on his forehead. “She thinks what?”
“Paris doesn’t know about the women you take with you on the yacht, or the ones who sneak out of your hotel rooms that I see on those rare occasions when you take me somewhere with you. She thinks you’re wounded and noble and celibate.”
“Fine. Let her go on thinking that.”
“Too late. Sorry. I told her all about them. The whole terrible, lurid truth.”
Noah had been scribbling a note for his assistant, and he didn’t stop writing or lose his concentration. “I’m taking you with me to Palm Beach.”
“No way! You can’t.”
“I won’t.”
“Fine. I’ll take you just the way you are, and you can live in that disgusting outfit you’re wearing. You decide.”
“You’re bluffing.”
“I don’t bluff. You should know that better than most people, after all these years of confrontations.”
“I hate you, Noah.”
“I don’t give a damn. Now, get packed and meet me downstairs in the morning.”
She slid off the arm of the chair, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. The tears were futile. He was impervious.
12
Preoccupied with her impending departure for Palm Beach, Sloan didn’t notice Jess’s patrol car behind her until she was a mile from home and he flipped on his light bar. Startled by the flashing lights behind her, she glanced in her rearview mirror and saw him give her a thumbs-up. “Have a good vacation—” he called over his loudspeaker.
Sara’s car was parked behind Kimberly’s when Sloan pulled into her driveway, and Paul Richardson was there, too, rearranging luggage in the trunk of a bright blue coupe he’d probably rented for their trip. Sloan hadn’t seen him in the two weeks since she’d agreed to go to Palm Beach, but he’d spent an extra few hours with her on Presidents’ Day so he could have lunch with Sloan and her mother. He’d had a much easier time convincing Kimberly at lunch that he was romantically interested in Sloan than he was having now, trying to get the luggage into the car, Sloan noted. He finally gave up, pulled one of his suitcases out of the trunk, and opened the car door instead. “Do you need help?” she offered as he tried to shove his bulky suitcase behind the driver’s seat and onto the car’s backseat.
“No, I need a U-Haul,” he said with a wry smile.
“I’ll be ready to go in five minutes,” Sloan promised. Since she’d packed only two medium-size suitcases that she’d borrowed from Sara, she assumed that either the car’s trunk was very small or Agent Richardson’s luggage was very large, but in any case, she didn’t want to discuss suitcases or their contents. As soon as her mother and Sara had realized Sloan was going to Palm Beach, they’d started talking about clothing, and they’d kept right at it until Sloan couldn’t bear another word on the subject.
She’d never liked to spend money on clothes, and unlike her mother and her best friend, Sloan did not regard this trip as a reason to change her spending habits or her “image.” Of course, they didn’t realize she was going to Palm Beach to spy on her father, so they both had big dreams for the trip, and to Sloan’s frustrated amusement, their dreams seemed to hinge on what Sloan would be wearing when the right moment presented itself. “Carter will be dazzled,” Kimberly happily predicted the day Sloan told her of her impending trip, “when he sees you in that black beaded cocktail dress in Faylene’s window. I’m going to buy it for you.”
Sara’s hopes for Sloan were of a different kind: “I can see you now at the Palm Beach Polo Club,” Sara said dreamily, “wearing my red linen sheath when ‘Mr. Perfect’ walks in . . . handsome, rich, exciting . . .”
“Stop it, both of you,” Sloan had interrupted firmly. “Mom, don’t you dare spend one dollar on anything for me. If you do, I’ll return whatever it is without wearing it. Sara, I appreciate your offer, but I refuse to play dress-up to impress Carter Reynolds.”
“Okay, but what about impressing ‘Mr. Perfect’?”
“He sounded perfect for you, not me,” Sloan pointed out with an affectionate smile. “Besides, I’m taking Paul with me, remember?”
“Yes, but you’re not engaged to him, so there’s no harm in keeping your options open, and my red sheath is just perfect. It’s ‘flirty’ but not ‘forward’—”
“Please, don’t start—” Sloan pleaded, covering her ears in her desperation to stop Sara from launching into one of her enthusiastic fashion narratives. “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll agree to keep my options open if you’ll leave the subject of clothing closed.” She stood up to illustrate her determination to permanently end discussion of the topic and announced she was going to bed.
But the discussion didn’t end there; it raged on day after day, hour after hour, in her presence and in her absence. In fact, Kimberly and Sara had been so persistent that as Sloan finally hugged them both good-bye, she half expected Sara to produce yet another garment bag filled with more of her own clothes for Sloan to consider. Instead, they both instructed her to have a good time and waited in the doorway to see her off.
Kimberly watched Paul Richardson walk around the car and politely open the passenger door for Sloan. “She’s going to look gorgeous in that black beaded cocktail dress,” Kim predicted happily. “She has a beautiful new wardrobe to begin a beautiful new life, a life with her father in it, and Paul Richardson in it—”
“And my red linen dress in it—” Sara added with a nervous giggle.
The car began to move away from the curb, and both women waved a cheery good-bye, their expressions innocent. “Paul was very sweet about keeping the other two suitcases out of sight,” Kimberly said.
“Yes, he was,” Sara agreed, but her smile wavered with uncertainty. “I’d feel a lot better if this romance of theirs didn’t seem so sudden. I mean, I wish Sloan knew him better.”
“I don’t,” Kimberly announced cheerfully to an astonished Sara. “She’s always been much too serious about life and much too cautious about men. To tell you the truth, I’ve wished for years that she’d be more . . . more . . . impulsive!”
Tipping her head toward the departing car, Sara grinned at the woman she loved more than her own mother. “I think you’ve gotten your wish, Mom.”
13
They’d been on the road for nearly two hours, and Paul stole a worried glance at his silent passenger. She was sitting very still and straight, her features carefully composed, but with each passing mile, he could almost feel her dread increasing, her tension mounting, and he felt a pang of remorse for what she was being compelled to do.
In order to avoid giving her any information that might somehow cause her to back out of the trip, he’d spoken to her only once on the telephone since Presidents’ Day. During that call, she’d tried to ask him several questions about her father and sister, but he’d insisted she save all that for the drive to Palm Beach. He was ready now to answer her questions, anxious to ease the way for her and reinforce her resolve, but she seemed unable to speak or even meet his eyes when he spoke.
He tried to come up with something encouraging that might come out of this for her. If she were an ordinary young woman who was about to meet her father and sister for the first time, she’d certainly have some hope of future closeness to fortify her for what lay ahead. But Sloan wasn’t going to them for sentimental reasons; she was swallowing her pride, acting out of duty, and she was going there to spy on them.
There was scant possibility of any remotely happy ending for her, so Paul invented one, partly to soothe his conscience and partly to lift her spirits. In his fairy-tale scenario, Carter Reynolds turned out to be innocent of any criminal activity, he developed a strong paternal attachment to Sloan, and the two of them ended up caring about each other.
Ignoring the astronomical odds against all that, Paul said, “Sloan, it may not seem like it to you now, but this trip could have a very positive outcome for your entire family.” She stopped staring out the windshield and stared at him instead. Since it was the only encouragement she seemed able to give him, Paul forged ahead. “Right now, your father is merely a suspect who we’re investigating. You’re helping us to get closer to him and to the facts, and once we’ve done that, we may discover he’s completely innocent of any criminal wrongdoing.”
“What do you think the chances are of that?”
Paul hesitated. He didn’t want to insult her intelligence or repay her trust by completely misleading her. “Slim,” he said honestl
y. “But it is a possibility. Now, let’s consider the situation on a more personal level: There’s no doubt he’s been a sorry excuse for a father, but he clearly has some regrets, or he wouldn’t have contacted you. None of us really knows everything that happened to bring an end to your parents’ marriage, but based on what you’ve told me, his mother was the instigator of the divorce proceedings and the custody arrangement. She’s the one who came to Florida to bring him back to San Francisco after his father’s stroke, correct?”
“Yes, but he went along with her plan.”
“True, but he was only in his twenties at the time. He may have gone along with her out of weakness, or immaturity, or cowardice, or because she convinced him it was his sacred familial duty, who knows? Those are mostly character flaws, but they aren’t necessarily unforgivable or permanent. All we really know for certain is that she died three months ago, and almost immediately afterward, your father is asking you for a reconciliation.”
Sloan realized Paul was truly trying to be helpful, but he was also making her feel uneasy and uncertain when she was already strangling on other emotions she could scarcely contain. She wanted to ask him to stop, but some innate sense of justice or maybe simple curiosity prompted her to pursue his reasoning one step further. “What about my sister? What possible justification could she have for never trying to contact my mother?”
Paul glanced sideways at her. “Maybe she wonders why her own mother never tried to contact her.”
“Under the terms of the agreement they forced my mother to sign, she was not allowed to contact my sister.”
“Maybe Paris doesn’t know that.”
Sloan stared hard at him, trying to suppress the first, silly flare of hope she’d felt in decades about a possible family reunion. “You said you had an informant in the household in San Francisco. Do you know any of this for a fact?”
“No. Paris was never of much interest to us. All I know about her is that some people think she’s aloof and cold, while others think she’s quiet, refined, and elegant. Everyone agrees she’s beautiful. She’s a nationally ranked tennis player, a five-handicap golfer, and a master at bridge. When she plays in tournaments, she’s usually teamed up with your father, who is also a nationally ranked tennis player, an excellent bridge player, and a scratch golfer.”