The Senator’s Daughter (42 page)

At her declaration, Lyle pulse pounded. He had a moment of “deer in the headlights,” until he realized he in no way felt there was a hole in his heart. Rather his chest swelled, full to bursting with …

Joy, it was joy.

Sylvia watched him from across the water, hope evident in her shining eyes and the way she held herself as though waiting for his reply before breathing. He'd decided he loved her, acknowledged to Cliff that he had chosen a woman. Or rather that she had chosen him with a kiss.

But, unlike some men he knew, who bandied the word about freely, Lyle could only tell her if he was ready to accept commitment without reservation. To take the plunge, knowing it might end in heartbreak.

He grabbed Sylvia's wet hands. “I told you the night of the fire that I'd fallen for you.”

The little line between her brows said she'd hoped for better. Well, he was just getting warmed up.

A knock came at the suite door. Both Lyle and Sylvia jumped.

“Who…?” Her quaver suggested Andre had recovered and tracked them.

For a pulse-pounding second, Lyle feared the same. Then he had a vision of a bacon cheeseburger. “Dinner.”

He started to get out of the tub, but bent to kiss Sylvia. Their lips lingered. “Make a note this conversation is merely tabled.”

“Aye, aye, counselor.”

With a thick towel, Lyle scrubbed himself, then got a robe and wrapped in it. Halfway across the bedroom, he glanced at Andre's Smith and Wesson .38 caliber on the closet shelf.

Another knock.

The gun went to the door in his robe pocket.

“Room service.” The voice was female, so much for night fears. He'd ordered food. It had come.

Nonetheless, he checked the peephole and noted the cart before he loosened the security chain. While he added a tip to the bill, the mouthwatering aroma of burgers and French fries made his stomach growl.

With the plates transferred to the low coffee table, Lyle saw the server out. On his way back in, he lifted a lid and took a fry.

From the bath, he heard the gurgling of water going down the drain. He smiled, heading that way in hopes of getting there while Sylvia was still sleekly wet and naked.

Sylvia, wearing the other robe, stepped out. A towel wrapped her head, turban-style. Though it had only been moments since he'd seen her, his heart gave a glad little leap.

Brandishing the French fry, he grinned. “Eat first?”

Her roguish smile said she knew what he meant.

Lyle bit off half the fry and put the other to her lips. When she took it between her teeth, his focus moved from a rumbling tummy south.

When they both had swallowed the morsels, he stepped closer. Sliding his hands beneath her voluminous sleeves, he kissed her neck. “What I said about the night of the fire …”

“Do you suppose,” she mused, “we'll ever stop calling it the ‘night of the fire'?”

“Perhaps,” Lyle put his lips close to her ear, “we should call it the night we fell in love.” Beneath his fingertips, goose bumps rose on her arms. “Am I going to have to put you back in the tub?”

“No, Lyle,” she said thickly. “Just hold me.”

“I will,” he promised. How he did love her. Despite his belief the emotion would pass him by.

He tipped her chin. “Before I do, I want to be sure you understand …” Like a vow, he spoke from his heart. “You said you love me. I love you, too, Sylvia.”

Her eyes looked misty.

“If this suite had a window that opened, I'd shout it to the City.” His voice rose. “Hear me, everybody, I love Sylvia Chatsworth!”

“Julio Castillo would love to air that.” Sylvia trailed a fingernail down his chest to where his robe lapels met.

He slipped the sash of her kimono; she was damp and jasmine-fragrant. Her hands tugged at his belt. His robe parted.

“Lord, woman.” Lyle glanced down. “Look what you do to me.”

Sylvia took a step and pressed her naked heat to him. He fumbled her towel turban off. Black hair tumbled over her shoulders, giving off a delicious floral aroma.

Before he could tell her that, despite his legendary appetite, dinner had slipped to second place, Sylvia raised her glowing face to his. “I don't think we are going to eat first.”

Half an hour later, Sylvia still couldn't believe making love with Lyle had been better than the night of … the night they fell in love. She had feared the first time might be best, fraught with the excitement of the unknown. Instead, more comfortable with each other's bodies and rhythms, they both had been more ardent than before.

Now, lounging side by side in their robes on the carpet, they attacked the food. He'd ordered her a burger with mustard, onions, pickles, lettuce, and tomato, just the way she liked it.

Lyle watched her take a big bite. “I've noticed, and enjoyed, that you don't eat rabbit food like a lot of women.”

Sylvia considered some she knew. “You mean the ones who eat salads in front of guys and ice cream when they get home?”

Lyle polished off his bacon double cheeseburger. “I'm glad you're a real person.”

Sylvia cocked her head. “You mean instead of ‘the Senator's daughter' of TV fame.”

He dipped a fry in ketchup. “I prefer the gal who makes beds at the Lava Springs Inn.”

Sylvia sobered. “I'm afraid she's gone, along with the inn … and the party girl I used to be.” She sipped from a can of cola. “Now I have to figure out who I really am.”

Lyle put the fry on his plate. “Funny you should say that, because I'm in the same boat. When I answered the DA's summons, he fired me.”

“Oh, Lyle …” She was silent for a moment. It wasn't time to wonder what he was going to do. But it wasn't too soon to ask, “Why would he fire you?”

Lyle leaned back against the couch and stretched out his bare feet. “He said it was for falsely representing myself as being on official business when I questioned Andre. Turns out he invested with Tony Valetti and Andre in the land deal up near the springs.”

“Didn't you say some woman might have been killed because she wouldn't sell?”

“I did. David Dickerson was her executor.”

For the next half hour, Sylvia sat cross-legged on the floor while Lyle explained in detail how a circle of prominent men was all connected to northern Napa real estate. Most chilling was the note he ended on; her father was the most likely candidate to be the kingpin in a scheme to buy up land and change the zoning requirements for development. Yet, Lyle admitted, he had trouble thinking a deal like that would be big enough for the Senator to risk so much.

She didn't want to believe it, either. She wanted her father to be the person of integrity she'd always thought he was, but if men like Andre and Tony Valetti and the district attorney were dirty …

“Of course,” Lyle said, “with the evacuation, their plan has been nipped in the bud.”

Sylvia considered. “Maybe not.”

“You heard what I said about the National Guard. Nobody gets in there, not even to build mini-mansions.”

“Bear with me. A while back Mom wanted to buy a country place in the Napa Valley. Father said they should wait until prices went down.”

“How is that relevant?”

“At the time I thought he just meant there would be a housing bust, but …” Sylvia straightened. “Do you remember what Andre said? How he'd give anything to see land prices rolled back for just a month.”

“Yes.”

“Wouldn't you say this is the month?”

Lyle's blue eyes darkened. “You mean because of the mercury scare?”

She pushed to her feet. “You said it yourself. What if that's all it is?”

“You mean if a buyer offered someone in the evacuated zone a price well below previous market value …”

“My God. Andre offered to buy Buck's land yesterday morning. He didn't mention a price.”

“Buck told Cliff and me.” Lyle got up; they faced each other. “But, how? Buck said this was a natural phenomenon.”

“His talk about the old mines and the spring water may have planted the seed,” Sylvia said. “Think of ways to rig it at the bottling plant, doctoring of the sample analysis spreadsheets. Or a mercury residue placed in the bottles before they give them to their chemist. But that's a long shot, since this has basically destroyed Palisades Pure's business.”

“They'd have to be in on it, along with Andre and the rest.”

“And that's possible. Fiamma is a good Italian name.”

Lyle scratched his chin. “But even if we bought that, government agencies were all over the springs within hours, the U.S. Geological Survey was checking the water quality at the springs' source.” He paced. “For this to work, there would really have to be mercury in the Lava River.”

Sylvia digested that. “Then there must be.”

“How could they contaminate the spring flow?”

It made sense. So much that she almost capitulated.

“I don't know, but—” She snapped her fingers. “You know that apparatus in Andre's lab, the one he didn't want to talk about? I saw one just like it in Frank Fiamma's lab at Palisades Pure. I asked about it and, despite Andre's attempts to distract me, Frank explained you fill a bottle with a chemical solution and an osmotic membrane time-releases the liquid. It only takes a few parts per billion to show up in the spring flow, so if they used a concentrated solution …”

Lyle stopped in mid-pace. “We've got to be hallucinating.”

“The only way to find out is to see if the black box is in the springs.”

S
ylvia looked out through the rail of the Golden Gate Bridge while Lyle drove his Mercedes across the long span. The morning had dawned clear, the air rain-washed and crisp. With the top down, it was hard to believe they weren't on their way for a relaxing day in the country.

Except her clothes were still a little damp from last night's soaking. She hoped the sun would dry them soon.

They passed Vista Point, where tourists viewed the bridge and the skyline across the Bay, and went through a tunnel. A road sign indicated the next exit was for the heights above Sausalito where her folks lived.

Lyle cut his eyes sideways at her. She looked straight ahead.

“It must be tough,” he commented.

“I feel especially bad about Mom. After you and I talked last night, I don't know what to believe about Daddy. Is he the most crooked politician around? Has he snowed me and Mom all these years with his straight-arrow image … or …” She made a little choking sound.

After a period of silence, while they motored through Mill Valley, he spoke. “I guess I've been thinking about what you said about Pop. About what matters and how being angry hurts me and not him.”

“That's what I had decided when I asked Andre to take me home. My town house is just where I hang my hat, Mom and Dad's place is … home. At least it was.”

“I notice you've quit calling them Mother and Father.”

Because she was afraid, the same way she had been in the closet when she was six. Wanting to love them, wanting them to love her, doubting them. In a minute, she'd be crying.

If … Daddy was guilty of such a conspiracy, how could she be the one to unmask him?

He'd be voted out of the Senate and brought up on charges. If Laura thought her daughter had disgraced her …

Good Lord, what if Mom knew everything?

“For what it's worth, I pray Cliff and I are wrong.”

“We'll find out soon enough,” Sylvia said bitterly.

“If they let us into the contaminated zone.”

Autumn leaves swirled behind Lyle's car. Traveling Highway 29 north, they passed through Rutherford and Saint Helena, with their grand nineteenth-century wineries, and headed for Calistoga.

At the sight of corn shocks and pumpkins decorating front lawns of the houses in the charming towns, Sylvia remembered Daddy taking her out for Halloween trick or treat whenever he was in town; it had been a long time since she thought of that.