Riptide (13 page)

The day would come, looking back, when she would wish she had taken his advice.

“Tyler needs a sober mother,” Matt continued. “That’s the most important thing.”

He hit pay dirt with that statement, and Christina ducked her head so he wouldn’t see her tears. More than life itself, she wanted to stay sober for the sake of her son. “Thanks,” she whispered, not even trusting her voice.

She was grateful when the intercom buzzed on the security panel in the foyer.

One of the screens showed an aging Jeep Wrangler idling outside the front gate.

“That’s Jake,” Matt Wallace said. “My ride.”

Christina buzzed the car in. She did not want to be alone. “Jake can come in. I can make him some tea.”

“Thanks,” Matt replied with a check of his watch. “He’s got to get to his job in less than an hour. He can drop me at Waldbaum’s on his way.”

She was about to offer to drop him back at Waldbaum’s or say anything she could think of to keep him from leaving her alone to face the mess she was in.

Without warning, Matt leaned down and grabbed her in a bear hug.

And in that one moment, in the crush of those arms that had always been so safe and warm, it all came tumbling back. A summer full of happy, carefree times. Nights spent dancing on the beach under the light of a moon that in her memory was always full, or just lying in the dunes, trading secrets and dreams for the future. It was the first and only time in Christina’s life she had experienced real joy.

One night in particular stood out. They had swum far out past the breakers on Sand Bar Beach, floating on their backs in the warm sea, beneath a sky brimming over with stars, and Christina felt her heart tumble inside her chest with a supernatural certainty that Matt
Wallace would be the great love of her life. Somehow, she just knew.

It all came back now, right down to the smell of the brine mixed with the warm spice of the cologne he wore, and the scent of honeysuckle in bloom, drifting across the waves on a gentle June breeze.

Maybe it was just wishful thinking, but Christina felt a tremor in Matt’s arms as though he didn’t want to let go, either.

“Wow.” Matt straightened up and held her at arm’s length. “You could use a few good meals, girl.”

Jason had insisted she stay thin, a size 0. Embarrassed, Christina wrinkled her nose.

Matt grinned. “Sorry, I forgot. Never talk about weight with a beautiful woman.”

It was a glimpse of the old Matt, whose mother used to say he could sell coals in Newcastle. But he always told it the way it was. The Matt Wallace she remembered would probably ask her out for a steak dinner right about now.

Christina smiled expectantly.

No invite came.

Instead, Matt shifted gears. “You have Lois’s number, don’t you?”

Christina nodded, ducking her head so her disappointment wouldn’t show. The old lady from the meeting had scrawled her number inside the AA directory she had thrust into Christina’s hands.

“Good. Hang in there, Christina.”

And with that, Matt Wallace was gone.

The house felt empty. It
was
empty. Not just empty as though nobody was home, but empty as though nobody had ever lived there and never would. As though the
walls had never echoed with music and laughter from the parties they gave. She remembered so many sunny days here, a clambake on the beach for Tyler’s tenth birthday. They had hired a magician, and there were pony rides out front. A big pool party the following year, with kids screaming and splashing. A water-balloon fight that went on and on.

When had it changed? Sending Tyler off to sleepaway camp that year had been the turning point. She had stopped being Mommy, Christina reflected. There was no longer any need to slow her drinking down because there was no reason to get up early the next morning, nobody to serve breakfast to. And, she cringed when she thought of this, no reason to hold back at those parties. They went on all night, deep into the hours toward dawn.

And the next day there was no one to face but herself. Jason always left early to play golf or tennis or meet friends for breakfast or go back into the city. By tacit agreement, they never discussed what had gone on the night before.

He had handled the change better than she had, Christina reflected. Jason still had the strength and resilience of a young man, able to bounce back the next day from any kind of hangover.

While she, Christina, came to slowly only after many hours, struggling her way to consciousness through a dull haze of pain. She was wretched, sad to look at, and she knew it. “You disgust me,” Jason had finally told her.

She had moved into the spare bedroom soon after.

Looking through the French doors now to where wind was moving little ripples across the surface of the pool,
which today was the color of wet slate, she thought how ironic it was that Jason was the one whose drinking had finally killed him.

Not hers.

She looked through the open windows at the dun-colored surface of the swimming pool, whipping around in the afternoon breeze, and shuddered.

Jason, in the end, was the one whose fast-lane lifestyle had finally overtaken him.

Not Christina’s.

A dove cooed, over and over, the sound working its way deep into Christina’s heart, making her wish she could find her way back to a fork in the road long ago and do things over.

But she could not.

Doves, she knew, often nested on the ground. She’d leave a note telling the landscapers to search for nests and remove them.

Tyler would be home soon, bringing the house back to life.

She would spend the hours until his return making the place feel like home again. She started by listening to phone messages.

There were a few condolence calls from friends she and Jason saw perhaps once every year or two. But not many. In fact, she hadn’t heard from Jason’s relatives.

Most, she thought sourly, had probably called her sister-in-law, Pamela.

There was a call laced with static and the sound of rushing air.

She wondered for one wild instant whether it was Jason calling from beyond the grave.

But it was her father-in-law calling from on board the Air France jet. The only words Christina could make out were “Jason” and “reception,” before he hung up. The whooshing noise continued for a few seconds more, followed by a series of clicks.

And, finally, there was a call from the Medical Examiner’s Office in Hauppauge. Jason’s autopsy was complete, and they were waiting for instructions concerning Jason’s remains.

The ME’s next words chilled Christina to the bone.

“Please don’t be concerned, Mrs. Cardiff. I’ve explained to your in-laws that you are the next of kin, and I will not release your husband’s remains to anyone but you.”

The call ended with a click.

Christina sat, stunned.

Next of kin. The term was foreign. She’d had no need of that phrase during her entire life.

Until now.

Because her in-laws had been calling the Suffolk County Medical Examiner’s Office without her knowledge to try to have Jason’s body released to them.

The drumming started up inside Christina’s ears again, accompanied by a burning heat that grew steadily hotter until she practically smelled smoke.

The Cardiffs were trying to take control of Jason’s funeral the same way they had taken control of her wedding and Tyler’s baptism, the same way they had attempted to control everything in her life.

Because in their eyes she would always be the poor girl from Hamtramck who had married up, hitting it big-time the day she met their son and married her way into the fabled Family Cardiff.

She thought of the pile of Post-its Pamela had left with step-by-step instructions for planning a glorious sendoff worthy of a Cardiff.

And yet they had gone behind her back to do it themselves.

This meant war.

Christina felt a tingle of victory. The State of New York, at least, recognized a fact the Cardiffs refused to accept about her even after nearly sixteen years of marriage.

She was their son’s next of kin.

Christina reached for the South Fork Yellow Pages, scanning the Amagansett listings till she found the number for the only church she’d been near in years.

A receptionist answered on the second ring. “Good afternoon. First Presbyterian Church. How may I help you?”

“My husband…” Christina’s voice trailed off. Words failed her. She forced herself to try again. “My husband, um, has died.” There, she’d said it.

The person on the other end of the phone made some sort of reply that did not involve falling to pieces.

Thank God.

“And I need to plan a memorial service as soon as possible,” Christina continued. “Something small and simple.”

T
hey left Biz Brooks’s place, and Frank placed a call to Jason Cardiff’s lawyer on the private cell phone number Pamela Cardiff Lofting had given him earlier today.

Gil Stanton picked up on the first ring.

It was, Frank thought, one of the good things about lawyers. The only thing.

Stanton, it turned out, was just down the road a piece, finishing up a round of golf at the Dunes. They agreed to meet in the clubhouse bar in half an hour’s time.

Stanton was easy to spot. Tall and wiry with silver hair, a golfer’s tan, and the patrician face of a man who, well into the middle of his life, knew he was at the top of his game.

“Gil Stanton,” he said, rising as they introduced themselves.

His handshake was firm, in control. All part of the package when you shelled out a thousand dollars an hour for a Park Avenue law firm.

He motioned for them to sit, ordering a round of Perriers when they declined his offer of cold beer.

Stanton followed Jackson’s gaze to the eighteenth hole, where the last of the day’s foursomes were play
ing through. “Challenging game out there today. Lotta wind. Tough on a player like me,” he said with a pleasant smile.

McManus was pretty sure it was false modesty. “Thank you for meeting with us on short notice.”

“No problem. Terrible thing.” Stanton looked down at the table’s surface of smooth polished wood. “How’s Jason’s wife?”

“Christina Cardiff?” Working her way through the contents of that mammoth wine cellar would be McManus’s best guess. “She’s holding up.”

“And Tyler, the son?”

“Holding up.”

Jackson scraped his feet noisily and looked up from his pad, which was open and ready for business.

Like McManus, Jackson did not care much for lawyers.

“Tell us about your relationship with Jason Cardiff,” McManus said, before Stanton got a chance to ask another question of his own.

“My firm has represented the Cardiff family in various business dealings over the years. I took Jason Cardiff on as a client, oh, about fifteen years ago.”

About the time Jason could have begun tapping into his trust fund to pay those stratospheric hourly fees, McManus figured. “And how would you characterize the nature of your dealings with him? Were they of a business nature?”

“Yes, they were,” Stanton replied.

“And he paid his bills on time?”

“Yup.” Stanton shrugged. “He was a good client.”

“How did things go night before last, when you met him here for dinner?”

Stanton hesitated.

McManus cut to the chase. “You were one of the last people to see him alive. How did he seem?”

“He seemed okay. It was a quick dinner. I had to leave early, in fact.”

The ME’s report stated Cardiff’s blood alcohol level was 0.18 percent. Sloppy drunk. Plus traces of cocaine and the Ecstasy. “Did he drink a lot, any more than usual?”

“No. Just a glass of wine or two.”

McManus believed him. Stanton didn’t look like a drinker.

The attorney continued. “But Jason didn’t leave when I did. We said good-bye at the table. He headed for the bar.” Stanton glanced in that direction. “Arthur’s been here every night since I became a member.”

The man working the bar, like every bartender worth his salt, looked like a walking billboard for “What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas.”

At least there was no such thing as bartender-client privilege. McManus gulped his Perrier. “Did Jason Cardiff discuss anything out of the ordinary?”

Stanton was quiet.

“Any problems? Anything he hadn’t mentioned before?”

Stanton sipped his Perrier and gave the glass a little shake so the ice shifted. He set the glass down. “Jason came to me a while ago with something I couldn’t help him with. I referred him to outside counsel.”

“You got a name?”

Stanton’s reply changed up the game. “Maurice Gold.”

Detectives Jackson and McManus exchanged a Things-Just-Got-Interesting look.

Maurice Gold’s number came preprogrammed in the BlackBerry of every trophy wife from Palm Beach to Beverly Hills, and every suburb in between. Gold had made a name for himself by going to the mat for a roster of clients who had included the founder of America’s premier cosmetics company, whose wife had discovered his penchant for teenage boys, the heiress to a media empire who claimed her husband forced her to engage in oral sex with the family Shih Tzu, and—it was rumored—drew up the prenup for a now-deceased member of a certain royal family.

Maurice Gold didn’t just sling mud. He supplied the dirt.

Gil Stanton drained his Perrier and set the glass down. “That’s all I have.”

It was plenty.

Christina was in Tyler’s room when the phone rang.

She had decided that tonight they would order in pizza, Tyler’s favorite, and had gone upstairs to make sure his room was ready for his return.

She hoped, more than anything, he would notice she wasn’t drinking.

She wanted to be, for once, the mother he deserved.

Señora Rosa and Marisol had left the room spotless, with fresh linens and pajamas lying out and ready to wear on top of the bedspread.

Christina hadn’t been in this room all summer. She looked at the bookshelf, lined with trophies for swimming and soccer and Little League and (her favorite) best chess player in third grade.

In a place of honor on the top shelf was Humpy, an oversized camel that had gone everywhere with Tyler
once upon a time. The special thing about the plush toy was its hump, which actually was a secret compartment in the back that opened and closed with a hidden piece of Velcro.

Once upon a time, Humpy had been fat with special things that mattered to a little boy.

These days, Humpy was threadbare thin, missing an eye with its matching fringed eyelash. The toy sat winking down at her like an aging veteran from a forgotten war.

Christina reached for Humpy and squeezed him tight in search of a whiff of Tyler. Not the way he smelled now, on the edge of manhood in ninth grade, but the way he’d smelled when he was her little boy, warm like baking bread and sweet like the yard on a summer’s day.

The phone rang, shrill inside the empty house.

Still clutching the threadbare camel, Christina hurried to the guest bedroom to answer.

“Hi, Mom.”

The sound of Tyler’s voice raised a storm surge of love inside her. “Hi, sweetie. You landed.” The connection was too good to be coming from her in-laws’ car. She glanced at caller ID. It was a 212 area code. Bullshit. Hackles rose on the back of Christina’s neck.

“I’m with Granddad and Grandmère.”

Grandmère. An affectation Christina had never liked. Her own grandmother had been Nana. Good enough, she supposed, for a woman who had lived out her final days struggling to raise the granddaughter whose parents had walked out on her.

“We’re at the house in town.”

“Oh.” Christina frowned. “House in town” was
shorthand for the Gilded Age home on Fifth Avenue, built at the same time the Astors and Commodore Vanderbilt were building theirs. “How was the flight?” She was stalling. Why wasn’t Tyler in the car right now headed for the Hamptons?

“Okay, I guess. Are you coming in with Aunt Pamela and Uncle Richard?”

Tyler’s voice was tight with nerves. Christina’s heart ached for him. But she had been married to the Cardiffs long enough to detect a setup when she saw one. “I might,” she said, taking care to keep her voice steady.

Her son cut her off, trying to help. “You can ride with them if you don’t feel good enough to drive.”

The bastards. They were using him for their dirty work. “Yeah, I could. Um, may I speak with your granddad?”

“Okay.” Tyler’s voice shrank.

As though he already knew she wasn’t going to come. Meaning he assumed she was “tired.” Code, in his world, for too drunk to leave the house.

“Ty, hold on a sec.” Christina struggled to keep her voice neutral for his sake. She clutched Humpy the camel tight to her chest.

There was silence.

“Ty?”

“I’m still here, Mom.”

She wanted to tell him she hadn’t had a drink in ten days, and that from now on things would be different. They would make a new life now. How do you tell that to a kid? “Ty, I love you.” Her voice broke. “More than anybody in the whole, wide world. I’m going to see you really soon, okay?” The rest of the words came out in a
squeak. Like when she was drinking. She was kneading Humpy so tight now he was squashed almost flat.

“Yeah, Mom. I love you, too.” He sounded like Bambi, lost in the woods.

“Stay strong, Tyler. Your father would want that.” It sounded awful, like a cliché from a crummy movie. But it was the best she could come up with. “I’ll see you soon.”

“Yeah, Mom. Bye.”

She had let him down. Like she always did. What was left of her heart cranked through a grinder and spilled out the other end in pulpy little slivers.

Her father-in-law got on. “Christina,” he said in his usual controlled tone. “How are you bearing up?”

“What the fuck are you doing with my son?” she wanted to yell. “Fine,” she said. Nobody messed with Jason Colbert Cardiff III.

“I’m glad to hear that.”

He was oozing sincerity.

“Um, are you driving out here tonight, or should I come in and get Tyler?” Simple enough. But every instinct Christina had told her something bad was about to happen. Her heart began to hammer in her chest.

“There’s been a change in plans, Christina.”

She frowned. “Oh?”

“Pamela and Richard are driving in with their children…”

Her father-in-law was still speaking, but Christina couldn’t concentrate. She was hung up on the “change in plans.” What the fuck was he talking about?

“I can well imagine you’re not up for the drive,” he was saying on the other end of the phone.

“Um, excuse me?” Christina gripped the phone in one hand, Humpy in the other.

He continued on smoothly. “Tyler is where he needs to be, where we all need to be, safe and together with family.”

“What do you mean? What do you mean?” Christina’s voice climbed into the shrill zone, not a good tactic with her father-in-law. She didn’t care. “I want to be with my son.”

“He’s here with us now.” A yawning silence opened around those words.

Christina’s heart pounded harder. What the fuck did he think he was doing? But she knew the answer to that. “I want to see my son,” she repeated, allowing an edge to come through.

“We’re staying in town, Christina, because there has been a change.” Her father-in-law allowed a note of weariness to creep into his voice. “I have decided it’s best we all stay together now at our family home.”

Which had stood, stalwart and stern, its gargoyles glaring down their noses at the people of midtown Manhattan for the last hundred years. Like the Cardiffs themselves.

“We need to be a family now, not just for Jason’s sake,” his voice rose a notch to drown out Christina’s protest, “but for Tyler.”

“Aren’t you coming out here for the funeral?” Christina’s voice climbed toward hysteria.

“As I told you, there has been a change.” His response was slow and measured, wrapped in a voice like tempered steel.

Jason had once told her he and his sister had never been yelled at when they did something wrong. They
had to write essays for their father on behavior that was more befitting of a Cardiff.

“Planning is under way for a memorial,” he continued, “to take place next week at Towne Church where, as you know, all Cardiff family memorials are held.”

She noticed the words he chose to distance himself from taking responsibility for his actions. “You can’t do that,” she sputtered. “Jason’s memorial is tomorrow, out here in Amagansett.”

He went on as though he hadn’t heard. “I did want to check the spelling of your grandmother’s name for the obituary. It will run in the
Times
on Sunday, with details for visitation at Campbell’s on Madison Avenue.”

Christina’s panic turned to just plain rage. She didn’t want the
New York Times
printing their version of Christina’s life with Jason. She thought of Nana, who had taken her in and raised her, working extra shifts at a bakery until she was too sick to leave the house. Christina rushed home every day after school, afraid of what she’d find. Feeding Nana soup and praying for a miracle.

But no miracle came.

On her wedding day, with no male relative on hand to give her away, her father-in-law offered a toast in honor of Christina’s proud Midwestern heritage.

He butchered Nana’s name, which was long and Polish, and everyone laughed.

“You can’t do this!” Christina screamed into the phone.

“Christina, our family is grieving. We knew him far longer than you did,” her father-in-law replied. “We need closure, and we need to do it our way.”

“You can’t do this!” Her voice came out in gritty, hysterical spurts. “I want to see my son. Tonight.”

Mr. Cardiff allowed his voice to soften. “How are you feeling, Christina?”

She knew what he was getting at. “How dare you?”

But he cut her off. “I’ve spoken to my daughter. Several times today, in fact, and she’s quite upset.”

This was too much. “Your daughter is always upset,” Christina spat.

His voice dropped a notch, sending shivers down her spine. “We all know this is a difficult time for you.”

“I’m fine.” She was on the defensive, and she knew it.

“Use this time, Christina.” His voice was still fakey soothing. “Sit back, let the dust settle, and work some things out. You can rest assured that Tyler is right where he needs to be.”

With them. It was too much. “I want my son back!” Christina pounded the bedside table with her fist.

Her father-in-law’s voice dropped lower, menacing. “Use this time to get your affairs in order.”

It was not a random choice of words. The muscles in Christina’s neck contracted in shame. He should know the way his own son carried on. Christina was about to tell him, but his next words stopped her.

“And keep them out of the tabloids. Such as today’s
New York Post.
”