He had a long way to go though and it wouldn’t be easy. Once Kaneisha got the information to Tracy and a decision was made, hopefully in his favor, he had a whole new project that required their professional assistance. But that was the future. That was best case scenario.
For now, it was Connecticut and Cara and watching the red dot moving on his tablet with the knowledge that somewhere someone was watching his dot at well.
CHAPTER NINE
Fairfield County, Connecticut
Thursday, October 8, 2014
7 p.m. – 38 hours to trigger
The jet they had taken from Marathon had borne no commercial logo. First class simply wasn’t in the cards for the senior Charbaneaux and the private jet had little in common with the noisy smuggler’s plane she had caught a ride with the last time she had flown with Choo-Choo.
Choo-Choo, of course, looked perfectly at home both in the camel colored leather club chairs of the jet and the black leather seats of the Town Car. He didn’t look happy, but he looked at ease, like an actor slipping back into a familiar role.
Beside Choo-Choo, Mr. Charbaneaux relaxed, watching the countryside pass without comment. Dani didn’t know where they had landed but it sure wasn’t La Guardia. A private airstrip had appeared in a clearing of ancient oak trees, somewhere in the middle of a sea of rolling farmland and white fences.
Dani wished Choo-Choo would say something. She watched his face, hoping to catch his eye and will him to speak, to reassure her of the wisdom of her decision to accompany him or at least his pleasure at her presence but she got nothing. She got a mask.
She donned a mask of her own as they pulled up to a sprawling brick home at the end of a driveway so long Dani thought they had turned onto another country road. There were fewer houses out here and the ones she could see hid far from the road behind hedges and wide rolling yards.
Dani knew a lot about different levels of wealth, not because she had ever experienced any of them herself but from her days at Rasmund. Her job had been to get inside the minds of the subjects they investigated, to understand what they valued, what they feared, and how they measured their place in the world. There were different kinds of wealth, she had learned, and they came with distinct signals.
All of the signals here pointed to old money, upper echelon, the hard-core New York social register kind of money. Dani had known it when she’d met Choo-Choo. She had caught glimpses of it when she’d spirited him away from his sister’s party on Martha’s Vineyard. But here, in the thick of it, she understood the depth and breadth of it.
She saw it in the casual comfort of the home. No servants greeted them. No stuffy butlers or cringing maids. There were servants and they moved as silently and as surely as ninjas throughout the grounds. Members of the household spoke to them easily and with the confidence that they would be obeyed without complication.
Despite the scope of the house and its long hallways and massive staircases, it had a coziness, or the closest thing that could pass for cozy in a building that could easily house a hundred people.
Choo-Choo led her through the great hall (she assumed it was called a great hall. Big fucking cave space probably didn’t sit well among the family). Mr. Charbaneaux had peeled off somewhere when she wasn’t looking.
“Sinclair? Is that you?” A woman so small as to be nearly transparent swept in from the room to the left, seeming to materialize out of the loud floral wallpaper. There weren’t many people in the world small enough that Dani remarked on their size, but this woman made the cut.
“Hi Mom.”
She paused, head cocked and beaming a smile. “You came home.”
“Of course I did. I want to pay my respects to Uncle Mondy.”
“Aren’t you a lovely boy.” She closed in fast, gripping Choo-Choo’s arms in her thin, veiny hands. Up close, Dani realized that Mrs. Charbaneaux was actually taller than she was, maybe five two, but so diminutive in build she seemed smaller. Dani didn’t think she had ever seen an adult with shoulders so narrow or wrists so thin.
“Ma, this is my friend Dani. Dani, my mother, Jack.”
“Jacqueline Charbaneaux, my dear,” Jack held out her hand to her, her smile wide and toothy. “But please, call me Jack. Everyone does.”
“Okay, thank you. I will.” Dani shook the tiny hand; certain she would never attempt to address this tiny powerhouse as anything other than Mrs. Charbaneaux. From the cold glint in the other woman’s eyes, Dani doubted any attempts would truly be welcomed.
Jack examined her son critically, from head to toe with no attempt to hide it.
“You look awful, Sinclair. I wish you would brush your hair.”
“We just got off the plane, Ma.” He hefted his rucksack. “Haven’t even had a chance to unpack a comb.”
“Like you would pack a comb.” She poked him playfully, but the game didn’t reach her eyes. Her examination of Dani didn’t go much more subtly but she refrained from comment.
“Well, go put your bags down and come out to the game room. We’re having drinks. The porch is open since it is so unseasonably warm.”
And just like that they were dismissed. Jack whirled off past them to a room across the hall, that one painted in dark greens. She called out orders to someone within the room, something about pressing linens, as Choo-Choo headed back into the house.
“We’ll take the north stairs,” he said, loping up a wide staircase covered in a magnificent plum runner so soft Dani wanted to lie down on it to feel the deep pile that drew each step, but her friend’s long legs made her have to run to keep up.
They cleared a landing decorated with a hundred photographs in matching black frames of smiling children all bearing a resemblance to Choo-Choo. She knew he had to be in there somewhere, but he didn’t give her a chance to dig.
“There’ll be time for that later,” he yelled, turning to the right at the top of the stairs. “Trust me, if it’s family photos you want, you’ll find no shortage at Clover Hall.”
“What’s Clover Hall?” Dani asked, catching up to him in the middle of the long hallway, lined on both sides with heavy oak doors.
“This is Clover Hall. It’s the name of the house.”
“Of course it is,” she said. “Doesn’t everyone name their houses?”
He laughed, throwing open a door on the left and waving her in. “Maybe we should name the shack at Jinky’s. Sea Grape Shanty?”
“Mosquito Manor?”
“Sunburn Saloon?”
She laughed, following him into a bedroom that was easily larger than any apartment she had ever rented. It couldn’t really even be called a room, more of a suite. The space near the door had a seating area with wingback chairs, a low carved table. Behind that, pocket doors opened onto a bedroom bathed in western light. The dark floors shone around a maroon woolen rug that surrounded a queen-sized bed in an oak frame that looked like it came over on the Mayflower.
Choo-Choo dropped his bag beside one of the chairs and flopped down into it, waving at Dani to do the same.
“I don’t suppose you share this space with a dozen or so of your closest relatives?”
“Nah,” he kicked his flip-flops off in different directions. “If you must know, this is one of the small bedrooms since, you know, I was often ‘away’” He gave that last word air quotes and dropped his head back against the seat.
Dani sat quietly, trying not to gawk. Choo-Choo spoke without opening his eyes.
“You can poke around if you want. Touch everything. Weigh it all with those Rasmund trained eyes of yours. Get the urge out of your system before we go downstairs. We don’t want anyone to think you’re aspiring.”
“Aspiring?” Dani gave in to the urge to heft a bronze dog statue that turned out to be even heavier than it looked.
“You know,” he said with a sigh, “measuring yourself in the rooms, imagining how well you would fit in.”
“You don’t honestly thin
k—“
“Of course not.” He laughed and looked at her. “If I’ve ever known anyone who did not want a spot at Clover Hall, it’s you. It’s one of the many, many reasons I feel about you the way I do.” She smiled at that. “However, my family will bring their own baggage to weigh on you. I can just imagine what Jack is telling everyone about you.”
“Why don’t you try?” She put the dog down. “Try to imagine what she is saying and let me know so I can prepare myself.”
“We’re not staying long enough to worry about it.”
“Humor me.”
“Okay.” He pulled himself up in the chair and considered her. “She’s saying that she’s met my young friend and that you’re absolutely charming. ‘Fit as a fiddle’ she’ll say or something like that.”
“Sounds scathing.”
“It is. Trust me. She’ll comment on your stunning attire,” he waved over her red canvas shorts and blue striped T-shirt, the cleanest and most presentable clothes she could find on short notice.
“She’ll say you’re sporty and easy going.”
Dani examined the built-in shelves holding old textbooks and more figurines of dogs. “So she’ll describe me as charming, fit, and sporty. How will that translate to your family? You know, in human words.”
“That you look poor. Badly bred. That you don’t know any better, so there’s no point in bothering to get to know you.” He held up his hands at Dani’s black stare. “Don’t shoot the messenger. I’m just telling you.”
“Brought home a lot of girls like me over the years?”
“Nope. But I know what they’re saying about me and I can extrapolate the rest.”
She toed the strap of her duffel bag. “Then I guess there’s no point in trying to gussy up. Get up and take my sporty ass downstairs and get me a low brow drink.”
“Excellent idea.”
The crowd milling about the game room and porch (which felt like miles away from where they had started) was more diverse than Dani had imagined. All of the silky heads in attendance were not glowing with Choo-Choo’s Nordic blond hair, although almost everyone in attendance was white.
Dani moved through a flurry of names as people greeted Choo-Choo in a spectrum of ways. Some hugged, some back slapped, some smiled brightly and kept their distances. Landon and Freddie and Kick and Little Za and Oma and Diedre and Zaft and Olivia and on and on, the names poured in. Brothers, sisters, cousins, in-laws – Dani couldn’t keep any of it straight. Some were staying at the family house, which they referred to as The Big House. Several were shuttling back and forth to ‘the island’ which Dani assumed meant Martha’s Vineyard although she saw several Nantucket sweatshirts. Another contingent planned on converging in the city which perked up Choo-Choo.
“We’ll stay there,” he told a woman who looked like a slightly more robust version of his mother. Aunt Katherine, Dani thought she remembered her name in a wash of introductions. Aunt Katherine pooh-poohed his suggestion, heightening the similarity.
“Now Sinclair, please,” she said, holding onto his arm as if expecting him to sail away into the clouds, “I’ve just made my girls promise not to stay in the city the whole time but to come out here and be part of the family activities. You know Olivia. She’ll take the first chance she gets to disappear from the fray. She’s so fond of you.” She released her grip and patted his cheek. “Won’t you please keep her company and make sure she doesn’t slip away?”
If Choo-Choo’s mother had spoken ill of Dani to the ever-growing group hitting the bourbon like it was the secret to life itself, they made no signs of it. Everyone smiled at her, widely. So widely. So many teeth.
After a while Dani figured out that they weren’t treating her like an outsider. Their interest felt more like pure curiosity. As the family kept arriving and the introductions became harder to hear over the noisy crowd, Dani began to feel like a slightly dangerous wild animal someone had foolishly attempted to tame, as if Choo-Choo had brought home with him a young raccoon rather than a coworker. Even the children stopped short of interacting with her, watching her with wide eyed expectation.
She mostly kept her mouth shut, except when she drank her gin (which she heard someone wondering about. Apparently, there were seasons for gin and October wasn’t it. It didn’t matter to Dani. As far as she was concerned, it was always gin season.) She tasted the little bites of fancy appetizers that kept appearing on tables all around them, although she never saw anyone bring them in. Artichokes and fragrant lamb chops and savory little meat pies in sweet dough that she very dearly wanted to keep to herself.
She probably could have. She probably could have picked up the tray of savory tarts, curled up in one of the oversized chairs by the fireplace that was burning despite the warm air and opened patio doors, and gorged herself. They would have seen her, they would have watched her, and she would bet nobody would say a thing.
Because what they were really watching was Choo-Choo. She was a sideshow, a detail, a bit of color filling in the blanks of her friend’s absence and ongoing legend.
From all around the patio, through windows and French doors, eyes followed Choo-Choo with an anticipatory feel. Dani didn’t know what they expected him to do – shoot up right there on the flagstones, freak out, or start a fight – but her friend did none of those things. He had to feel the attention. She supposed he had gotten used to it, being who and how he was, but still Dani couldn’t help but feel paranoid.
An uptick in the general hubbub rose from within the house. Sounds and people and genteel commotion poured out onto the patio. Dani could only assume someone more important, perhaps more discussed than Choo-Choo had arrived.
But no, the attention didn’t divert from her friend. If anything, it intensified. Conversations grew muffled. It felt to Dani the way an auditorium felt when the lights flickered, and the audience knew the show was about to begin.
The crowd at the French doors parted to make way for the tall blonde with the square jaw. There was no mistaking the similarity between her and Choo-Choo. That she was his sister didn’t surprise Dani at all.
That she was Elizabeth Meeks shocked the hell out of her.
How had she forgotten that this was Choo-Choo’s sister?
Since Rasmund, Dani had made a point of avoiding the news. She didn’t trust anything she saw there and had learned the hard way that the faces shown on the news were rarely the real faces of power. Plus, Jinky’s didn’t exactly draw the C-Span crowd. But even with her self-imposed media isolation, Dani recognized the junior senator from Connecticut.
She kissed children and hugged cousins. She accepted a seltzer water that appeared in the hands of a caterer who disappeared as quickly as he had arrived. Elizabeth Meeks waved to a group of men arguing near an outdoor pizza oven and stooped to examine a drawing one of the many nieces shoved her way. She seemed in no hurry to make her way across the patio. She seemed to no have no direction in mind.
But Dani wasn’t fooled.
She saw the way Choo-Choo stiffened slightly, turning so his arriving sister would remain in his peripheral vision. She caught the flickering glances of the people around him, the way they checked in with each other to be sure everyone knew that something was about to go down.
This is what they were waiting for.
They didn’t have to wait long.
Senator Meeks smiled and hugged and laughed her way across the flagstones, dragging a small coterie in her wake, until she came up to the outer circle around Choo-Choo.
“Sin?” She looked and sounded much younger than she did on the news. She bit her lip and her eyes looked shinier than they had a moment ago.
Choo-Choo turned to face her straight on, his face an unreadable mask.
“Hey, Teddy.”
She grinned. “You came.”
“Of course, I did.”
Choo-Choo moved into his sister’s open arms, letting her pull him in for a tight hug.
&
nbsp; All around them, young and old, eyes glistened with emotions. Maybe she was just being cynical – or more likely afraid – but Dani wasn’t certain what those emotions were exactly. Some seemed genuinely touched, but the glee and anticipation that preceded the reunion added a tinge of insincerity.
Dani kept these and all her thoughts to herself, not that anyone seemed particularly interested in dragging them out of her. She snagged another one of those amazing meat pies to keep her mouth busy and happy, floating on the periphery of Choo-Choo’s aura.
Elizabeth/Teddy, pulled back from the embrace and held Choo-Choo’s face in her hands.
“You look fantastic,” she said through tears. “You look so happy. Are you happy?”
“I am,” he whispered. “I really am.”
“I’m so glad.” She kissed his forehead and Choo-Choo squeezed his eyes shut. Teddy whispered into his hairline. “Thank you for coming home.”
She pulled away with a theatrical flourish, raising her arms, in one hand she held the glass of seltzer, in the other, she held Choo-Choo’s hand.
“To family!”
“To family!” came the cry. Dani had fortunately chosen that moment to shove the last of the meat pie into mouth and was thus spared having to fake her way through the toast.
But if Teddy noticed it, she didn’t let it keep her from turning toward Dani with that photo-ready smile.
“You must be Dani.”
That took her by surprise. So far everyone had met her with wonderment and confusion, as if they had not only not heard of her but had never encountered anything quite like her. But here was the guest of honor – the living one, at least – greeting her by name.
Dani wiped the sticky traces of sauce from her fingers on the side of her shorts and hurried to swallow the too-large mouthful.
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