Until You (7 page)

"Thank you," he said, "a drink would be perfect."

She let out an audible breath. "What would you like?"

Conor hesitated. If he couldn't get ale, he'd settle for Irish whiskey, straight up. But Irish whiskey, no matter how fine the label, was hardly what Eva Winthrop would be pouring for herself.

"Whatever you're having."

She nodded, dumped ice into two glasses, then poured a generous amount of vodka into each. She handed him a glass, drank down half of her own, and looked at him.

"Miranda lives in Paris," she said. "She's a model, sought after by all the
couturiers
and by the top fashion magazines."

"You must be very proud of her," Conor said politely.

The ice cubes in Eva's glass clinked together as she raised the glass to her lips.

"Any mother is pleased by her child's success."

"Of course," he said, even more politely, but what he thought was that Eva might just as easily been talking about the daughter of an acquaintance. "When was the last time you spoke with your daughter, Mrs. Winthrop?"

"I fail to see the relevancy of—" Eva took a deep breath. "On her birthday, I think."

"And that was...?"

"Last March."

Conor struggled to keep his surprise from showing. He wasn't particularly proud of his own record for keeping in touch with his old man but ten months without so much as a phone call seemed a bit excessive.

"We are not close, Miranda and I," Eva said stiffly.

The understatement of the year, Conor thought. He smiled politely.

"And when did you last see her?"

"Eight years ago this past April."

"I see," he said, struggling to keep his face a mask.

"You don't see, but that's quite all right. It would be difficult to explain—and I've no intention of doing so." She turned and looked him squarely in the eye. "My relationship with my daughter is a private matter."

"Nothing is a private matter," Conor said bluntly, "not when your husband is a presidential appointee."

Eva looked at him for a long moment. Then she turned away, picked up the bottle of Absolut and refilled her glass.

"You're right, of course. And if I'm honest, I suppose I must admit that the note might very well be connected to my daughter."

"Connected? In what way? Perhaps you'd better tell me what you know, Mrs. Winthrop."

Eva hesitated. Then she sighed, sat down in a silk-covered armchair and motioned Conor into the matching chair opposite hers.

"Yes, I might as well. You can find out easily enough." She put down her glass, crossed her legs and folded her hands on her knees. The action brought her forward in the chair so that she seemed to be leaning towards him. "This isn't easy for me, Mr. O'Neil."

"I'm sure it isn't," Conor said in a soothing tone.

"Eight years ago, Miranda was in her junior year at a boarding school in Connecticut. Miss Cooper's. Perhaps you've heard of it?"

"I went to high school in Manhattan," he said with a smile meant to put Eva at ease, "and not a trendy part, either. "I'm afraid we didn't play any football games at Miss Cooper's."

She smiled. "No, I suppose not. Well, Miss Cooper's was—is—a fine school. Very Old World, if you know what I mean. There were curfews, you had to study so many hours an evening, you were restricted to your room after nine. The girls were expected to live by certain standards."

Rules, Conor thought, not standards. But he'd grown up under rules himself and he'd have bet his last dollar that the rules laid down by Detective-Sergeant John O'Neil, NYPD, had been a hell of a lot tougher than the ones at a high-priced girls' school.

Eva seemed to be waiting for him to say something so he smiled a little, nodded his head, and made a non-committal sound.

"Miranda didn't care for the place," she said.

"Too strict?" he asked politely.

"So she claimed." Eva's mouth thinned. "But I was at my wits' end. She'd already been expelled from other schools for various infractions."

Drugs? Booze? Boys? He waited, saying nothing.

"Broken curfews. A disrespectful attitude. Marijuana. And finally, some unpleasantness about a boy in her room when the rules clearly said—"

"So you sent her to Miss Cooper's as punishment?"

"I sent her there so she could learn to curb her excesses." Eva shot to her feet, marched to the bar and refilled her drink. "And a lot of good it did me."

"But did it do your daughter any good?" Conor heard himself ask. He frowned as Eva spun towards him. "I mean, did she change?"

Eva smiled bitterly. "Indeed she did, Mr. O'Neil. She gave up the small stuff and went for the brass ring. A month after she turned seventeen, she seduced her roommate's cousin, the Count Edouard de Lasserre. He was thirty-two years old, a sophisticated man of the world, but he was no match for Miranda. She ran off with him to Paris."

Conor rose to his feet as Eva walked past him and flung open the door. He put down his untouched drink and followed her into the foyer, to the portrait on the wall.

The painting couldn't have changed. It had to be his perception of it that had undergone a subtle shift. Yes, Miranda was smiling but he was certain now that her smile was tinged with sadness.

"She was sixteen when that painting was done," Eva said, her voice trembling with righteous indignation. "Spoiled, self-centered... just look at her face and you can see what she was like."

Conor looked. Was Eva right? Was that sadness he saw in the curve of Miranda's lips, or was it smug satisfaction?

"Of course," Eva said, "I flew to Paris the moment I found out what had happened but I was too late. Miranda had talked Edouard de Lasserre into marrying her. Well, of course, I knew she was far too young to marry anyone, let alone a man so many years her senior. I agonized over how I'd get her out of his clutches." Eva smiled tightly. "I needn't have worried. By the time I caught up to them, de Lasserre had come to his senses. He was more than eager to grant Miranda a divorce. For the right price, naturally."

"How much did it cost you?"

Eva's breathing grew ragged. "Everything," she whispered.

He turned and looked at her. Her eyes were wet with tears; her face was pale.

"His price was exorbitant, hundreds of thousands of dollars, but what mother would do less for her child?" Eva clasped her hands to her bosom. "And do you think Miranda thanked me? No, she did not! She turned on me in a rage, furious that I'd interfered."

Conor looked at the portrait again. "Did she love him that much?"

"Love him? Miranda?" Eva gave a brittle laugh. "She never cared for anyone but herself. She hadn't seduced the man or married him for love. She just wanted to be free of me and my attempts to turn her into a responsible young woman. That was why she'd run off with him, because she knew she could twist him around her finger and live a life she preferred."

A wild life, Conor thought, a life on the edge, and for reasons he didn't pretend to understand or want to dwell on, his gut twisted. But when he spoke, his voice gave nothing away.

"It must have been a difficult time for you," he said.

Eva laughed bitterly. "It was hell."

"So, your daughter convinced Edouard de Lasserre to change his mind?"

"To keep her and give up half a million dollars, you mean? Not a chance. The Count was pleased with our arrangement. But Miranda—Miranda told me she never wanted to see me again."

"I don't understand. I thought you said she was a minor."

"She was." Eva turned, walked back into the library and headed straight for the bar. Conor gave the painting one last glance, then followed after her. "But she was no longer a child. That was what she told me in the taxi en route to the airport. I told her I was taking her home, that we'd work things out together. But Miranda said she was a woman now, not a little girl, and that she liked Paris and was going to stay there."

"A seventeen-year-old girl? And you let her?"

Eva spun towards him. The vodka in her newly freshened drink sloshed over the top of the glass.

"You're damn right I let her! She called me the most terrible names, said the most cruel things..." Tears glittered on her lashes. "You cannot know what it's like to have a child you've loved and nurtured turn on you! What could I do? Fly her back in chains? Lock her in her room when we got home?" Her chin rose. "I had already given more of myself to my daughter than she deserved. It was time for me to think of my husband. Of Hoyt. 'You want to stay in Paris?' I said, 'very well. Stay! I'll send you money each month and when you've had enough, let me know and I'll send you a ticket home.' "

"You've supported her, then, all these years?"

"Yes, of course. Well, until she became a successful model."

"She never wanted to come home?"

Eva shook her head. "Never," she said, her voice breaking. "I should have known that Miranda would never have enough of the kind of life she leads."

"And your husband knows all of this, Mrs. Winthrop?"

"Certainly. There are no secrets between Hoyt and me. He knows. And he agrees that I did the right thing."

Conor thrust his hands into the pockets of his trousers. "You told the FBI none of this," he said softly.

"No." She smiled thinly. "They didn't ask, and I didn't volunteer it. What mother would be proud of such failure? Besides, I didn't see that it was important but now, I suppose..."

"Now, you think your daughter's somehow involved in this."

Eva's eyes flashed. "She moves in decadent circles. I'm sure she knows people who'd think nothing of trying to embarrass me."

"You could have saved us all a lot of trouble if you'd told me this last night, Mrs. Winthrop."

"And I tell you again, what mother would be proud of talking about such awful failure?" Eva pulled a lace handkerchief from her pocket and dabbed at her eyes. It crossed Conor's mind that he'd never seen a woman take out a lace handkerchief except in an old movie. "Why, Miranda wouldn't even talk to me on the phone until just a year or two ago... " She began to weep, very quietly. "I'm sorry, Mr. O'Neil, but I'm afraid I'm going to ask you to leave."

"Of course." Conor took out his wallet, pulled a card from it, reached past her and put it down on the bar. "If you think of anything more to tell me, Mrs. Winthrop, please give me a call."

He shut the library door after him, walked to the chair where he'd left his coat and scooped it up. The FBI investigation hadn't turned up the story of Miranda's elopement but he wasn't surprised. The incident was years old; Eva had moved quickly to hush it up and she'd succeeded. Besides, the investigation had centered on Hoyt Winthrop, not on his stepdaughter.

What did surprise him was the performance he'd just witnessed. And he was almost certain that was exactly what it had been. But why? Was there more to the story than Eva claimed?

Was she putting on an act in hopes of keeping him from digging any further?

He turned around slowly and stared at the portrait. The Mona Lisa was supposed to have the most mysterious smile in the world.

Then again, the odds were damn good that whoever had come to that conclusion had never laid eyes on this painting of Miranda Beckman.

Chapter 3

Eva had told him the truth...

About her husband knowing the details of Miranda's elopement, anyway. Conor's unannounced visit to Hoyt Winthrop's Wall Street firm the following day confirmed it.

The building that housed Winthrop, Winthrop and Winthrop was one of lower Manhattan's tallest and most impressive. Hoyt's company filled the top three floors; his private office took one enormous corner of the upper two. Thanks to its size and to two walls made almost entirely of glass, walking into it was like walking into an aerie.

Hoyt rose from behind a massive mahogany desk to greet him.

"Mr. O'Neil," he said, rounding the desk with his hand outstretched, "it's good to see you again."

"Thank you," Conor said politely.