The Senator’s Daughter (46 page)

How could she have been so wrong about Lyle? A nice guy like him a mercenary?

The pain in her chest made it difficult to breathe. Her roiling stomach nearly doubled her over. The only thing that distracted her from time to time was when her father would pat her hand and give her a look of such sympathy she almost burst into tears.

Almost.

She wasn't going to cry over Lyle Thomas. A Chatsworth would be proud, would hold her head high. This time, no one would ridicule her over losing a man. That kiss could live in infamy, but she would refuse to dignify it by speaking of it again.

Her public image was going to change, as her private one already had. No more late nights, no “work” at the North Beach gallery. She would throw herself into making the new battered women's shelter her own. If Julio Castillo or any other reporter shoved a microphone in her face, they'd be treated to a solicitation for her cause.

As it happened, when the sedan wound down the steep hill off Highway 101 into the Sausalito Heights, at least three news vans were waiting. She would have liked to run the gauntlet and get into the house, but Daddy squeezed her arm. “Let me do the talking.”

She knew she looked a fright, with her hair tangled and her clothes wrinkled. Nonetheless, she lifted her chin and stepped out of the car ahead of him.

Flashes went off, though it was mid-afternoon. Reporters yammered, and there were the expected microphones.

Lawrence Chatsworth raised his arm, and the clamor quieted. “I guess you're here because you've heard Sylvia has come back.”

“Senator, what about the rumor she was kidnapped by Andre Valetti?”

“And that both Valetti brothers are in custody?”

“What about—”

Sylvia felt Daddy's arm around her shoulders. “My daughter has been through an ordeal, and we have no comment about that. I am told the Valettis have been arrested.”

“What are the charges?”

“No comment.”

“Could we just have a word from Sylvia?”

Her father started to demur. She stopped him.

Facing the reporters, she announced, “I want to say the Sylvia Chatsworth you chased around and printed lies and half truths about won't be coming back to town. I will not be dancing till dawn. And I will not discuss where I have been or with whom.”

She moved toward the front door of the house she'd grown up in. Behind her, she heard the reporters grumbling at being shut off and Daddy's footsteps on the drive.

When she reached the door, it was thrown open from within, and she was grabbed into the biggest hug she could remember from her mother.

“Mom!”

“Sylvia!”

Mom smelled the same as she had when Sylvia was little. No matter what type of perfume she wore, there was an essence underneath that came through, reminding Sylvia of when she'd been too young to believe her parents neglected her.

“Ah'm so sorry ah said you should disappear! You should know never to believe me when ah'm angry.”

“It would be better if none of us got angry and said things we shouldn't,” her father said.

“Amen,” Sylvia agreed. All their problems weren't going to be solved, but if she did her part, perhaps it would be a step along the road to reconciliation.

After flying back to Napa with Charlotte Longstreet and driving to San Francisco, Lyle caught Cliff in his office at the Justice Department near the end of the workday.

It took half an hour to fill his friend in on the events of the day, editing out the scene with Sylvia and the Senator.

They broke for fresh coffee. Cliff pulled out a machine and a private stock of fresh beans. “I got to thinking after you complained about the swill they call coffee here. Decided I don't have to live like a refugee.”

“Now all you need is some better guest chairs,” Lyle carped. He slipped off his shoes and put his sore and aching feet on the other hard wooden seat. “What's going to happen with David Dickerson?”

Cliff set his cup down. “As soon as I saw the news on the Internet about the Valettis' arrests, I called in the information we dug up on him.”

“You can be my wingman anytime.”

“You'll love this. An hour ago, at four o'clock, Dickerson was taken into custody for questioning. Right out of making an argument in court. The judge had to call an extended recess.”

“He'll say he didn't know about the mercury plot.”

“He can say it all day long. His trouble is going to be the death of Esther Quenton. This morning, I tracked down her personal assistant. She said that on the afternoon of Esther's death, she was picked up by a driver named Luigi, taking her to meet Tony Valetti.”

Lyle sipped the passable brew. “So Luigi does the dirty work for both Valettis.”

“Guess where they were supposed to meet?”

Lyle took a stab at it. “A place where Tony planned a development called Emerald Cliff.”

“Nope. They were meeting where the San Andreas Fault goes out to sea. Ostensibly, because Tony had purchased the land there for a development, but decided instead to donate it to the Pacific Conservation Society.”

“I think we're both right,” Lyle said. “What do you bet when I overheard Tony mention Emerald Cliff to the Senator, he was talking about the same tract? Of course, he never intended on donating it.”

“No way.”

Lyle leaned forward. “Let me guess some more. When Luigi arrived at the cliff with Esther, Tony wasn't there yet. She decided to get out of the car and take in the view. Got too close to the edge …”

“Bingo. Esther's personal assistant said Luigi and Tony attended her memorial service, that Luigi was in tears over not having stayed close enough to keep her from falling.”

“You can certainly see how that wouldn't set off any alarm bells in homicide. A prominent man like Tony prepared to make a huge charitable contribution. A woman known for her feisty and adventurous spirit wandering too close to the precipice.”

“And David Dickerson, her executor, saddened by her tragic demise but not at all suspicious, was the red ribbon on the package,” Cliff finished.

“Now all we need to know is who's behind Capitol Investors. Now we know it's not the Senator.”

“
I
don't know that. What if his turning in his partners was an elaborate charade to get the heat off him?”

Though it would have been tempting to let his anger at the Senator rule, Lyle shook his head. “If Chatsworth was in on it, Tony would have said so. I believe Tony and Andre were using Sylvia as muscle on him.”

Cliff subsided in his chair. “You win.”

“I'm afraid nobody has won,” Lyle said.

He didn't have the heart yet to tell Cliff how the deal with Sylvia had blown up.

Though it was only nine thirty, Sylvia closed the door of her decorator's gem of a bedroom and leaned against it.

Her deep exhaustion could have been explained by the terrifying events of the day, but she believed if things had happened differently … if she were with Lyle … she would have bounced back by now.

Instead, she was worn down from spending the evening pretending. Neither she nor Daddy had mentioned Lyle, while they helped Mom prepare a recipe of crisp Southern fried chicken, mashed potatoes with creamy gravy, and fresh steamed broccoli. It was the kind of meal they used to make on special occasions, so it seemed fitting tonight they give the cook some time off.

Putting together the culinary delight, Sylvia alternated between feeling all right for a few minutes and attacks of anxiety when she thought of Lyle. When it came time to eat, she picked at her food.

A couple of times, Daddy gave her one of those sympathetic looks, and she feared he was about to mention Lyle. When he did not, she knew he was playing his waiting game.

There wasn't anything to say. Was there?

Or there was everything. All the things she would not say.

How she felt as though she could never swallow another morsel of food. How a future without Lyle stretched before her as bleak and dry as a desert landscape. How she loved him and only him and would end her days without ever finding another man like him.

When Sylvia went to her bed and started to pull down the covers, her foot encountered a box partway under the mattress. She'd been in her suite earlier to shower and dress but hadn't noticed it.

Now she bent and dragged it out—one of those under-the-bed storage containers, at least three feet long and two feet wide.

Kneeling beside it, Sylvia lifted the lid.

She gasped.

Going to the hall door, she shouted, “Mommy!”

Her mother arrived with a swift tapping of heels on the bedroom wing parquet. She looked pale; a sign having her daughter home hadn't quite settled her down after Andre threatened to kill Sylvia.

“I'm sorry I yelled and scared you.” Sylvia drew her inside the room and pointed. “That wasn't under there any of the other times I was here.”

“No.”

Sylvia went back to the box and lifted out a poster of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Beneath it was an envelope of concert tickets, and a packet of letters exchanged between her and a girl she'd met at camp when she was twelve. She'd lost track of her. “I was afraid you had thrown all this away.”

Her mother came to her and rested her hand on her shoulder. “Ah kept it in storage in my sewing room.” She kept the Southern style of embroidery alive in California. “Sometimes when ah thought about you and you weren't here, ah would look through it.” She knelt and touched a wool scarf in the pattern of Sylvia's private school uniform. “When you disappeared, ah brought it in here. It made me feel closer to you to have it in the room where you used to sleep.”

Sylvia had promised herself not to cry over Lyle. But she hadn't made any such vow about her mother. Not when it came to finding out that, despite their all too common clashes, Mom really did care.

With the bad guys locked up, the case of Sylvia Chatsworth wrapped, and no income to answer the monthly cash calls, Lyle considered his options.

Lounging tensely on a chaise on his rooftop terrace, below the low clouds aglow with city lights, he calculated he had less than three months before this place would be in foreclosure. Therefore, he'd have to hit the bricks running, first thing Monday morning. He'd work on his résumé Sunday afternoon.

Tomorrow was Friday. Tough to believe he'd driven up to Lava Springs less than a week ago. Impossible to think he'd found Sylvia on Saturday, fallen hopelessly in love with her, and lost her so soon. From moment to moment, he alternated between white-hot rages and believing one of Luigi's bullets had pierced his chest.

Cliff had asked about Sylvia. Lyle had equivocated by saying she was reuniting with her folks this evening.

What should he do tonight, tomorrow, the next day? Cliff had mentioned a Friday night foray to Ice. Neither of them was big on going out the evening before a workday.

Lyle didn't have to work tomorrow.

Yet, he knew he would not go out this evening. He had no interest in seeing couples dancing, nuzzling, people in love, folks hooking up. There was only one woman he wanted … needed … loved.