Authors: Nancy Martin
“At the moment, yes. She’ll be looking forward to seeing you, I’m sure.”
Quentin winced at the news. He probably hated reporting to his mother, who tended to ask uncomfortable questions that probed more deeply than a proctologist. Gruffly, he said, “I’ll be in touch with Dodo as soon as possible. But I’m sure you understand I’m very busy right now.”
“Of course. I expect I’ll be meeting with you in a few days.”
“What for?”
“Julius and I were cotrustees of your mother’s estate. Standard safeguarding practices. Mrs. Hyde will probably choose you to represent Julius’s part from now on. You or,” he said gently, “one of your siblings, I suppose. Whomever she selects, I look forward to working together.”
The situation had clearly occurred to Quentin already, but his closed face indicated that he wasn’t prepared to discuss control of his mother’s vast estate just yet. Not until he’d figured out a plan to his own advantage.
Quentin turned to Monica. “You shouldn’t be subjected to unwanted attention, Monica. I’ll take you home.”
“I don’t have a home at the moment.”
“Find another hotel, damn it.” Quentin’s temper erupted once more. “You shouldn’t be out in public. What will people think? We can’t have your face in the papers all over again.” He glared at the collage of newspaper photographs on the wall, and his bulldog jaw tightened—perhaps at the thought of all that money draining away.
Monica said, “I could wear a veil, I suppose. It might look very Jackie Kennedy. Or maybe I should stay with you for a little while, Quen? That way, you could keep an eye on my activities.”
“What activities?”
She waved a graceful hand at her publicized good deeds. “My museum work.”
“That kind of work,” Quentin said, turning purple, “is going to stop immediately. We can’t have you—well, we’ll discuss it when we’re alone.”
“So I’ll be moving in with you?” The honey thick.
“No, no!” Flustered, Quentin said, “With my wife in Mexico, I can hardly have my brother’s widow staying in the same house.”
“She won’t be coming home for the funeral?”
Unless Quentin’s wife spontaneously enjoyed a miracle cure for her various prescription drug addictions, Henry knew there was no chance she’d be home before hell froze over.
Henry watched and wondered. There was some kind of dynamic going on between the big ox and Monica. Quentin was the opposite of his brother Julius—not a womanizer or a lavish spender, or even a man who enjoyed many pleasures, so it was hardly a flirtation. Businesslike—that was Quentin. Devoid of subtle people skills. Probably lousy at intimacy. No wonder his wife turned to pills.
But Monica was looking like a startled doe—ready to dash into the forest if Quentin flashed his big antlers at her.
What was going on? Quentin ought to be furious with her. She’d lit a match to a considerable part of his inheritance. But there was something else in the air.
Abruptly, Henry found himself wondering if Quentin was capable of murdering his own brother.
Monica’s deerlike body language hinted she was thinking precisely the same thing. And yet her eyes sparkled with interest. Confound it, was she actually attracted to Quentin?
To ease tensions, Henry said, “Monica, why don’t you move into Hilltop? While Mrs. Hyde stays at the nursing home, you’d have all the privacy you could ever want. The staff is engaged part-time at the moment, but it only takes a phone call to gear up for you. I could drive you there myself, if you like.”
Quentin’s glare was suspicious as he tried to decide if Henry might be outmaneuvering him or whether having Monica out of the public eye was preferable.
Monica said, “Oh, Henry, you’re so sweet.”
“Nonsense.” He patted her hand. “Mrs. Hyde will want you to be comfortable.”
Quentin’s complexion turned an even more dangerous shade.
Monica gently bit her lower lip, then said, “But the police told me not to leave town.”
“I’m sure they meant you aren’t supposed to abscond to South America. I can make a phone call on your behalf. Let them know how to reach you.”
“It’s not a bad idea,” Quentin said at last, apparently concluding it would be best if Monica were to disappear from the public eye. He checked his watch. “I’d take you myself, but I’m meeting my daughter Arden.”
“Arden’s come home?” Henry couldn’t stop himself from asking the question, and immediately regretted his slip.
Quentin zeroed in on Henry. “Yes, she’s back from Italy or Budapest or wherever the hell she’s been wasting her time.”
“It will be good to have Arden around,” Monica said. “She’ll be a comfort to her grandmother.”
Obviously, the last thing on Quentin’s mind was his mother’s comfort. He whipped out his cell phone. “Let me make sure her flight’s on time. Maybe I can rearrange my schedule and take you to Hilltop.”
While Quentin made a call, Henry got back to business. With Monica’s BlackBerry in hand, he ran his finger down the long line of local and distant dealers who might have done business with Julius Hyde before his demise. He paused when he came upon a female name.
Leaning toward Monica, he asked softly, “Who’s this?”
Monica’s reading glasses had the Chanel interlocking Cs on the frames. She peered at the list in Henry’s hand. “Oh, that’s some woman Julius hired to haul a few things away last spring when we renovated a garage. It was just junk.”
“Her listing says ‘architectural salvage.’ What does that mean, exactly?” Henry’s radar had begun to hum.
“I don’t remember. Maybe she was the one Julius played pool with. Quite the tomboy.” Monica took off her glasses and looked into his eyes. “But listen, Henry, Julius was being positively nefarious once he decided he needed more income. He picked the least scrupulous associates. If you’re serious about tracking down things Julius might have sold, you should look for someone who’s one step from being a thief.”
Good advice. But first he’d see Monica safely ensconced at Hilltop, just a stone’s throw from his own apartment.
6
Arden Hyde took a US Airways flight to Pittsburgh, where the terminal was as empty as a bowling alley. She stopped in a bathroom to wash her face and check her bag. The Ambien and Xanax had worn off, leaving her feeling low. She contemplated her choices for revival. Half a caffeine pill? Just the thing.
She caught a taxi and sat in the back feeling her energy coming back. Great! The weather was fantastic! Autumn in Pennsylvania—what could be nicer? It made her think of a line from Proust, but she couldn’t quite summon it up. And the view coming out of the tunnel and bursting across the bridge into Pittsburgh—breathtaking!
Arden heard herself chattering at the driver and realized maybe she needed to come down a notch, so she swallowed half an Ativan and sat back, confident she had sufficiently medicated herself to avoid too much reality but maintain the appearance of sentience. She’d put off her father’s offer to pick her up at the airport, and he’d suggested they meet at the Hyde house. The cab arrived at the burned-out mansion in the late afternoon. Her first glimpse of the old house was quite a shock. All that remained was an ugly hulk. Manderley after Mrs. Danvers.
In the driveway, Arden found her way blocked by police tape and a gum-chewing security guard. And Quentin Hyde.
Daddy climbed out of his long black Mercedes, holding his cell phone to his ear. He was shouting at someone about a merger. The other half of the Ativan called to Arden from her bag.
The security guard asked Arden to respect the crime-scene tape, so she stopped at the edge of the driveway, put on her sunglasses, and waited for Daddy to finish his shouting. The security guard left her alone and watched the passing traffic, sharpening his attention when a car slowed down so the passengers could gawk. She was back in Pittsburgh, all right, where even security guards took their work seriously.
As he bellowed into the phone, her father looked like he was holding off a heart attack by force of will. Since she’d last been home, he’d grown a little beard—carefully trimmed to give him the firm jawline that had long ago been lost to too many steak dinners at Morton’s. He wore a too-tight camel-colored sport coat over a black sweater, and dark trousers that had been chosen, Arden was sure, to look slimming. His efforts were rather endearing.
Whoever was on the other end of his phone call was getting royally reamed, though.
Arden tuned him out. With her hands shoved into her pockets, she turned and stood looking at the remains of the once magnificent house. What she saw made her incredibly sad. She had no cherished childhood memories of the mansion—years of boarding school prevented that—but the idea that so many things of value had been destroyed gave her a surge of sorrow. And nausea.
Or maybe it was that last vodka on the airplane.
Quentin pocketed his phone. “Idiots.”
“Hello, Daddy.”
“You should go to law school,” he said without greeting. “I need to get the new headquarters built. You could run the project while I focus on the merger.”
The career path he outlined might have sounded wonderful fifteen minutes ago, before the Ativan. Now it was too dreary to think about. She kissed him on the cheek anyway and patted his chest with more fondness than she expected to feel. “It’s nice to see you, Daddy.”
He grabbed her shoulders—half hug, half something more demanding. “Why won’t you work for Hyde Communications?”
She looked up into his fierce face and couldn’t help smiling. “Because I’m no good at business.”
“Nonsense. You’re young! What, twenty-two? Twenty-three?”
“I’ll be twenty-five in the spring.”
“Plenty of time to finish your education. You have more intelligence than all your brothers put together.”
“I have no ambition.”
“You would, once you got your teeth into things. It’s glorious, Arden. It’s truly glorious.”
She loved seeing the fire in his blue eyes. She couldn’t bring herself to say how little she thought of cold-blooded business. Not when her passion lay in the power of the arts. “Slaying all those corporate dragons? Daddy, I’d be a total failure.”
He let her go, perhaps seeing her distaste for commerce. “I won’t give up, you know.”
“That’s rather nice to hear,” she replied.
He fondled her hair. “Why are you so skinny? Don’t you eat anything?”
“I want to fit in my clothes. You like?”
He seemed baffled by her wardrobe, which maybe looked a little worse for the plane ride. “Sure.”
She sighed. “Tell me what’s going on with the police. Have they decided how poor Uncle Julius died?”
“There was nothing poor about him.” Quentin’s face flushed all over again. “He was murdered. Shot and killed by a coward.” He glared at the blackened house as if his keen vision might spot an important clue that the police had missed. “They tell me it was some homeless fellow who did it, but they don’t say it with much conviction. The pathetic bastard doesn’t look as if he could organize his own breakfast, let alone a killing. It’s damn frustrating not to have answers.”
Arden found herself saying, “What must he have thought when it happened? Was Uncle Julius frightened? I hate to think he was frightened, Daddy.”
Quentin gritted his teeth. Maybe to hold back grief. “He wasn’t.”
“No?”
But her father didn’t argue his opinion. Funny how he could flatly deny a fact if he didn’t like hearing it. Perhaps that was the quality that had made him most successful in life.
Briskly, he changed the subject. “I want to know what things are missing from the house. The insurance bastards don’t want to pay for anything because that damn Monica set fire to everything. Maybe we’ll have to prove she was temporarily insane, but we’ll plan a strategy for that soon enough. I want to know if anything was removed from the house before the fire. A list is our first step. There used to be a weird painting in the upstairs hall. Remember? All squares and squiggles. Ugly as sin. Surely it was valuable. But I noticed it disappeared last May.”
“I think it was a Braque print, that’s all, Daddy. A tourist thing. Monica probably gave it away when she redecorated the bedrooms. It was hardly worth getting upset about.”
“She had no right to give anything away! The house and contents belong to Dodo. But Monica’s been throwing family assets at any museum that will shovel it up. All to curry favor with people Julius alienated when he had his midlife crisis. What a waste.”
“Maybe some things are better off where they are now.”
“What do you mean?”
“Important art belongs in a museum where it’s safe and everyone can be uplifted by it.”
“Are you crazy? She had no right! And worse yet, I saw her with that sneaky lawyer of your grandmother’s.”
“Henry?” His name startled Arden more than the involuntary way it popped out of her mouth.
“That snake, Paxton,” Quentin confirmed. “He’s been up to something, too, since the fire. Julius mentioned they were at odds over Dodo’s trust, but I never got the full story. We’ll have to sort it out. But first we should know exactly what was lost in the fire. You can help with that?”
The thought of seeing Henry Paxton again gave Arden a pang. He was an unfortunate chapter perhaps best forgotten. How had they left things? If she could think straight, she might remember. “I could try,” she said faintly.
“Good. I have some paperwork in my office. Some lists and notes. It’s all Greek to me. You can take a look.”
“Can it wait?” Arden felt herself crumbling inside. “I—I can’t think, Daddy, while I’m looking like this.”
“Like what?”
“This.” She pulled at her hair, tugged at her clothing. “I’m a mess. I need to drop in at the salon and see if I can’t get a haircut, maybe a facial.”
“You look fine.”
“I need to relax, too. I’ve got jet lag or something.” Now that she’d made the decision to cut and run, she said with more conviction, “Really, I’ll be much more useful if I could just have a couple of hours to pull myself together.”
Quentin looked impatient for an instant, but he mustered some kindness. Maybe they disagreed about a lot of things, but he’d always had a soft spot for Arden. “All right, I’ll drop you wherever you want to go.” He took her elbow rather gently. “Come on. Get into the car.”