Revenant Rising (57 page)
With his eye squinted up close to that opening, he can see a portion of the bed and the bench at the foot of it; backed off an inch or two, the view expands to take in most of the bed and some of the floor in front of the bench. But for what good reason? What’s that going to prove? He retreats across the rafters to the platform and out of the attic space.
Watchful for any splinters he may have missed earlier, he goes down the back stairs to the main floor. At the door out to the garage he hesitates, unready to leave without making a meaningful find—the kind you holler about. Made less cautious by disappointment, he returns to the kitchen and in full sight of any who might happen to look in through the porch windows, pokes through cupboards and drawers in search of luck as much as anything else. When this starts feeling like jackassed-fool behavior, he pulls up a stool to the center counter to let his thoughts run free.
If this was the bar at that Silent Woman place, a shot and a beer would go good right now, maybe help some with the letdown. But there’s no letdown of purpose. Nothing’s changed there. That hasn’t weakened one scrap, and if it ever does, all he has to do is remember when the lawyerwoman mocked Audrey on the TV—made her out to be derelict and deficient in so many words—and he’ll feel purpose rush into him like icy water filling up the
Edmund Fitzgerald.
He leaves the house by the same door he came in, walking straight and proud the way he would if he’d just finished doing lawful business. If anyone’s around to notice, they’re not showing themselves or raising an alarm—same as when he arrived and same as last night when he kept vigil and no one appeared interested, not even the crazy old woman who took him for a Cuban yard worker.
Two hours and change after receiving the stunning update from Amanda Hobbs, Nate reverts to the practice that kept him awake on the red-eye and is undermining productivity now. No matter how hard he tries, he can’t avoid running each new thought through a wringer of plausibility and second-guessing any thought older than this morning. Was it his father who once counseled that introspection is for losers and chronic wrongdoers, neither of which is apt to indulge in it? And who was it that said attention to mundane matters could take your mind off the more pressing ones? If that worked, he wouldn’t be in this mode because he’s accomplished nothing that wasn’t mundane since figuratively chaining himself to the desk in his home study.
The call received from shrewd little Amanda falls outside that classification, however, for coming sooner than expected. When he left her company, he felt sure she was weighing his offer against another and wouldn’t get back to him any sooner than necessary. Now he’s closer to believing she had to deal with a logistical problem and that he’s without any real competition.
He hasn’t yet decided if Laurel Chandler slighted him by relaying her dinner confirmation through her assistant. Whether she did or didn’t wouldn’t be an issue if he were not plagued by this hellacious compulsion to question every little thing, draw comparisons, cite precedents, and analyze previous behaviors ad nauseam. It’s a fucking wonder he was able to plan a dinner menu and order the ingredients in under an hour and it’s a damned good thing he’s not cooking dinner himself because god knows that might require a complete review of current culinary practices.
The fax machine suddenly chirps to life. He ignores it at first, then remembers he specified that the Chandler report be sent to his home number. Gut feeling says this is it when the printout spills onto the floor and accordions back and forth on itself. Upon proving his hunch right, he sees deliverance in the sheer length of the fax; there’s enough here to keep his mind occupied for a good chunk of the time remaining until his only appointment of the day.
He gathers up the fax and personal mail accumulated during his absence and descends to the lower level and the fully equipped gym. He’ll knock off a couple birds with one stone by reading the background report on his dinner guest while working loose a few airline-induced kinks on the treadmill. After changing into shorts, T-shirt, and athletic footwear in the dressing area adjacent the gym, he takes a cursory look at the mail, scans return addresses for any standouts, and hesitates over an envelope originating with the Icon people—the American Institute of Performing and Creative Artists. This he slits open with a thumbnail. A quick looks at the contents verifies that it qualifies for special handling and eventual shredding. He sets it aside for return to the study and leaves the rest of the mail for another time.
With all due deliberation he activates the treadmill and unfolds the fax over the display panel, intending it to play out as he goes. He steps onto the treadmill and eases into a brisk walking pace before he begins reading. The initial fifteen minutes benefit only his legs and lungs because nothing new is revealed by the document. He could be reading from the CV handed around when Laurel Chandler was introduced to the Colin Elliot contingent or from pages of the public records sourced by the compiler of the report. The next few minutes are spent fast-forwarding through the fax for anything resembling details of her private life, and it would first appear that she didn’t have one.
He increases the speed of the treadmill and skims over an excruciatingly thorough review of her formative years. Too bad about the tragic death of the mother, the subsequent death of the grandmother, the father’s failing health, and the need for a conservator, but he has zero interest in how she overcame a difficult upbringing. Or how she acquired a first-class education and achieved an enviable record as an assistant district attorney. All admirable feats to be sure, but meaningless toward establishing that she was ever more to David Sebastian than his one-time ward.
No mention is made of those whispered allegations that had her in a romantic relationship with Sebastian, and very little mention is made of documented romantic entanglements. Just three, by actual count, the most recent with and an up-and-comer attached to the State Attorney General’s office in Albany. He pauses over the name Ryan Walker, but it rings no bells other than to suggest that this was probably the guy the overzealous investigator was hoping to catch in the act when the investigator himself was caught in the act.
He breaks a sweat over details of her financial circumstances that are not as interesting as the minutiae about how frugally she’s continued to live since becoming an heiress. According to this report, she still resides in the family home—one in a state of genteel decay and inconvenient to her Manhattan workplace—and has bought only one big-ticket item—a less-than-extravagant Range Rover automobile—since coming into a trust fund said to exceed seventeen million dollars and assuming substantial interest in a prominent and thriving New York law firm of a value that can only be guessed at, then gasped at.
If he were vetting her on someone else’s behalf, this would be her most salient feature, the one he would promote most aggressively. That she did not take the money and run amok, as do most newly minted millionaires, would qualify her as exceptional, even it her looks and accomplishments didn’t.
For some inexplicable reason, he feels heartened by this discovery and at the same time regretful that the finding cannot be shared with anyone else. He jumps off the treadmill, abandons the fax to fall where it may, and hurries to the stairs with a better sense of purpose than he’s had in days.
At five of seven, dressed in bespoke business clothes, Nate is in the building lobby ready to receive the exceptional Ms. Chandler. At exactly seven, Laurel Chandler alights from a cab, flashing a glimpse of sensational leg. For a second he faults himself for not being at curbside to pay the cab fare, but rejects that notion after the fact as being insulting and having potential for casting her as one of his physical friends. The doorman sees her into the lobby, where they exchange stiff but cordial greetings. On the ride up to his triplex they observe polite silence and typical stare-straight-ahead elevator etiquette.
At the designated floor they step out into a spacious foyer where he takes her coat after approving the fabric and cut—ribbed black faille fashioned with a funnel neck, high-belted waistline, and single-button closure reminiscent of the austere designs executed by Givenchy for Audrey Hepburn during the sixties. He also notices that the coat is brand new, as evidenced by a hangtag still attached to a side belt loop. If he didn’t know she could afford dozens of coats of this quality, he’d think the tag was deliberately left attached to facilitate a budget-sparing return to the store the next morning. He discreetly removes the tag when he hangs the coat in the foyer closet.
Her mauve shantung theatre suit is either very new or very old for lacking the wide lapels and broad padded shoulders that have characterized most women’s wear in the eighties and caused so many wearers to masquerade as unwitting extras from the
Dallas
and
Dynasty
TV dramas. Her accessories are difficult to date as well because Chanel has manufactured the trademark quilted leather bag and elegant two-tone slingback shoes for as long as he’s been aware of such things.
He ushers her into the room he hesitates to call the grand salon even though it is. She goes straight to the windows, as do most first-time visitors. However, the hour and time of year preclude full appreciation of the splendid view.
“This used to be Colin’s triplex. I bought it when he was influenced to move to the West Side . . . This was before his marriage,” Nate feels compelled to add. “And although every square inch has been remodeled or redecorated, he’s so far avoided coming here. I suppose vestiges of the past remain that he doesn’t want to confront.”
“Wouldn’t that be
revenants
he’s trying to avoid?” she says. “And isn’t he also trying to avoid the sense he’s under someone else’s authority?”
She’s right on both counts, something he could afford to admit if she expected a reply. But she’s already moved on, attracted first to the interior landscape and then to the tray of drinks and hors d’oeuvres Mathilde is leaving on the Biedermeier center table.
“Oh, you weren’t kidding, were you?” Laurel recognizes the caviar as his fulfilled promise and zeros in on the table where she helps herself to buckwheat blini, a generous spoonful of Ossetra, and a large dollop of crème fraîche. After wolfing that down, she takes two more fully loaded blini, but only eyes the tubular glasses of vodka half-submerged in a silver bowl of crushed ice.
For ranking her a heavyweight, he inadvertently endowed her with the attributes of a coarser contender, one who would toss back a shooter of eighty-proof vodka as a matter of course, taste and preference not entering in. Without comment, he brings a double old-fashioned glass and a bottle of Evian from a nearby bar cabinet and encourages her to scavenge ice from the vodka chiller.
That awkwardness out of the way, and a dilute vodka on the rocks in hand, she resumes her survey of the room. She cocks her head at a Rothko, then a Rauschenberg, frowns at a David Hockney and a lesser Vlaminck, scrutinizes the signature on a new Basquiat before returning to the refreshments table and shooting a quizzical gaze at him.
“You’ve heard about the Klimts and you’re wondering where they are, right?”
She nods, her mouth again full of caviar, crème, and blini.
“They’re in the next room, in what used to be the library. I’ve had a table set in there for our dinner. We can go in now if you wish.”
She wishes, but her backward glance indicates she might not be finished with the vodka and caviar, so when they move on, he brings the tray. She puts it to good use right away, causing him to wonder if she’s fortifying herself for what’s to come or if she hasn’t eaten in a week. Not that it matters, because she’s clearly relishing the food and drink and making no attempt to conceal how blown away she is by the paintings. Her rousing reaction to the Klimts could make him rethink selling them one day.
She accepts another dilute vodka and directs her attention to the few remaining library shelves. They discuss antique volumes and rare first editions as both monetary and intellectual investments until dinner is announced.