Murder in the Mansion (2 page)

“Yes,
I always was,” Meg stopped eating. She put her fork down on her plate. “I was
wondering if you thought the time might be right to begin the next generation?”

“What?”
Dylan looked up at her sharply. “A baby?”

“Yes,
well,” Meg took a deep breath. She pushed her long blonde hair uneasily behind
her ear. “We've been married for three years now and in this house for fifteen
months. Financially, we're managing.”

“Business
is slow.”

“Yes,
I know.”

“And
you only just got promoted. I mean, you've only been at your new job for six
months.”

“Money
has always been tight, Dylan,” Meg told him. “I expect it always will be. And
with my family so far away and you not having any, well, we don't have the same
support other families have.”

Dylan
grimaced. “No. I guess that's true.”

“I
would like to have children soon.”

“Why?”

“Because
I want us to be young parents,” Meg explained. “My parents were in their early
twenties when they had me. We're already thirty.”

“My
parents were young too,” Dylan said stiffly.

“It
allowed them to enjoy my sister and I,” Meg went on. “And we were close in age.
It gave us things in common.”

Dylan
didn't know what to say. He cleared his throat. “That's not always the case.”

“It
was for me, and honey, I hate to rub it in, but you're an only child.”

Dylan
stared at her. The lie hung in the air between them. He took another gulp of
beer. “Yeah, so?”

“So
you didn't have the same experiences growing up as I did.”

“Well,
that's for sure.”

“It's
not your fault that your parents didn't have more children, or that they died
young. I think having a baby is something we should think about. Something to
talk more about,” Meg reached out to squeeze his hand. “So I'm opening the
discussion.”

Dylan
stared down at their joined hands and knew for what seemed like the millionth
time that he could never tell her the truth. “Can I take some time to think
about it?” he asked her.

“Of
course,” she smiled beautifully at him, her brilliant blue eyes shining.
Standing, she began to gather the dishes to take inside.

“I
shouldn't feel guilty,” he muttered. “Fuck.”

Drinking
his beer, he watched the sun go down, and was reminded once more of the
magnitude of his regrets.

****

Troy,
William and Vivien's second son, accepted the glass of champagne that was offered
to him and let his gaze roam the room. The hotel party was expensive and
elegant. It was the style that Troy had grown up with. It was the style he had
become accustomed to.

The
gold and white color scheme suited the ballroom, with its high ceilings and
dark wood floors, he thought. The blush flowers were a nice touch and he'd have
to mention it to his wife, Phoebe, later. Her vision for the new hotel, as head
of the interior design team, had been perfect. But then, he'd never known her
to be wrong about anything. Her taste was flawless. She was beautiful,
intelligent, and graceful.

And
she'd chosen him.

They'd
recently celebrated their second wedding anniversary with a relaxing trip to
Hawaii and had come home to launch the new hotel in Los Angeles. Phoebe's
parents owned Carlton Hotels, a business begun by her great grandfather, and
passed down generation to generation.

As
Phoebe was an only child, Troy didn't doubt that it would one day come to them.

He
had worked hard for the Carlton family, harder than he had for anyone else in
his life. After leaving his family in Toronto five years before, he had spent
time in New York, waiting tables and gaining experience in the restaurant
business.

He
had stayed in New York for two years. Long enough to get a taste for what he
wanted. He had served rich men their meals, flirted with their wives, and taken
the tips they left behind. He bartended for a while, making considerably more
money, and discovering his strengths and weakness in the service industry.
Finally he scored a job working in a hotel around the wealthy people he wanted
to surround himself with. That job proved to be his big break: Phoebe happened
to be visiting Carlton Hotels in New York and after a whirlwind romance, she
took him back with her to San Francisco.

It
had taken considerable time and effort to persuade her father that he was good
enough for his daughter. Long hours and grunt work had helped him up the first
rungs of a very high and slippery ladder. Phoebe hadn't cared and had pushed
her father to see Troy for himself.

 He
hadn't wanted to tell them who he was: a Halingsford, with rich, high society
parents, but they had found out anyway. He was well connected. Or he had been,
Troy thought bitterly even now. Would have been. Should have been, if his
father had given him even half of what his parents had given him. His mother
came from old money. Bankers, Troy recalled.

And
his father the lawyer, Troy thought snidely, believed he'd made his own career.
He'd accepted the inheritance from his grandparents. He accepted unlimited help
from his own parents. And what had he given his son? Nothing. Only criticism
and expectations that Troy had never been able to get beyond.

They
had manipulated all of their children, pitting them against one another, and
picking favorites. That was when they'd bothered to pay attention at all, Troy
thought. So he'd left. He'd told them what he thought of them and left. And
five years later he'd never so much as bothered to call. Oh he'd thought about
it. He'd wanted to call when Phoebe's father promoted him. He wanted to call
when he'd got married. He'd wanted to call just to say, “you old bastard, I did
it. I made it on my own. Without you. I live in an LA condo and I have a
beautiful wife, who I actually appreciate. Something you never did.”

But
he didn't. He didn't call and say any of those things.

Phoebe's
father had taken him on, had given him a chance. Phoebe's father had been more
of a father to him than his own had ever been.

And
so it wasn't worth the time or effort to pick up the phone and call home. That
would make them too important.

He
didn't think of them often, the parents who had disappointed him, who had
alienated him and the rest of their children. Under his resentment of them was
a grudging acceptance of his upbringing: if they had have raised him
differently, if they had have been good parents, he might not have the life he
had now. Their selfishness had driven him to his own success.

He
shook his head. They weren't worth his time or thoughts. He wouldn't think of
them, any of them, now. Not here. He wouldn't allow them to spoil his evening.

He
looked around suddenly for his wife. A few minutes of casual conversation would
improve his mood, but she was speaking intently with a respected client across
the room and he didn't dare interrupt her.

Lost
in his own thoughts he selected another glass of champagne from a passing tray
and drank deeply. He didn't need his parents any longer, he reminded himself.
More importantly, he didn't want them.

With
a toast to his independence, he turned his attention back to the party. And
back to himself.

****

The
house was too quiet and it was making Marianne edgy. Normally she appreciated
solitude, even thrived on it, but today she felt too restless to enjoy it.

Her
son, Daniel, was spending two weeks with his paternal grandparents and had left
the night before. Marianne didn't mind him going. Nick's parents were good
people and had always treated her warmly. They hadn’t judged her for becoming
pregnant with their grandchild after only knowing Nick for a few months. They
hadn't pushed her to marry him the way she knew her own parents, William and
Vivien, would have. And when their relationship had ended nearly before it
began, they had been supportive, only wanting to see their grandson, and caring
genuinely for her own well-being.

They
were wonderful people.

She
wanted her son to know them. She wanted him to spend time with them and make
memories with them. She had left her own family five years before on bad terms.
A year after that she'd given birth to Daniel.

She
had never even called her mother to tell her.

Now,
she stood in her small house, a cottage really, and listened to the quiet. The
house was charming and it was hers. After growing up as she had, in a huge,
expensive house, it was laughable that she would be so proud of such a small
space. But she was. It suited her, she thought, and she had worked hard, on
multiple levels, to be able to have it.

She
had spoken to Daniel on the phone that morning and he had sounded happy and
excited. At four years old he was too young to understand why he always went to
visit his grandparents for the same weeks in June. Marianne knew that it was
best for him to go. More than that, she knew how it would have looked to Nick
if she had refused.

 Now
that he was gone and the house was empty she wished desperately for him to be
back. He would have given her some distraction. He would have given her someone
to talk to.

The
twilight seemed to press against her windows, to intrude on her. The tiny
cottage suddenly felt too big for one person.

It
was stupid, she told herself. Getting worked up this way, giving into old
memories was what always got her into trouble. Her hands trembled once as she
filled the bright red kettle with water for tea. While it heated on the stove
she went to her kitchen table, sat, and simply put her head in her hands.

Nick
always worried that she would have another breakdown. And when that time of year
came, the month of June when her life had fallen apart five years before, he
wanted Daniel out of the house. He wanted Daniel far away from her.

She
wasn't a bad mother, Marianne thought defensively. She had given up the alcohol
and drugs before he'd been born. But for someone who had battled addiction, for
someone who had struggled as hard as she had with depression, it wasn't
something that merely went away. Every day was another day of coping. The
entire process was dealt with one day at a time.

She'd
left home at twenty, already struggling with her own demons. She had turned to
drugs and alcohol after that, living on friends' couches, sleeping in
stairwells, until she'd met Nick. Nick had been the first person who had
sincerely wanted to help her and in a way he had.

He
had given her the best thing in her life: her son.

That
had been the intervention she needed and she had tried hard not to look back.
She was a good mother to Daniel, she knew she was. She worked from home as an
artist and sold her work throughout Vancouver and on the internet. She and Nick
spoke daily on the phone and had no problems maintaining joint custody.

But
Nick still didn't trust her during those weeks in June.

Marianne
poured the steaming water into her mug and tried not to be angry. She wanted to
see his side, she really did.

With
a sigh she took her tea to the back door and pushed it open to breathe in the
night. Barefoot she stepped onto her stone patio and wandered to the lawn chair
she had arranged beside a small table. Lighting a cigarette she sat back. She
tried to relax.

At
twenty she tried to kill herself, Marianne reflected. The overdose had drawn
unwanted attention and had landed her in the mental ward of a hospital. She'd
taken antidepressants and spoken to psychiatrists. They determined she was in
shock and guilt stricken. Marianne could have told them that herself.

She
could remember only bits and pieces of the aftermath of her sister's death. She
remembered her anxiety while they searched for Dani, who was missing for two
days. She remembered, vividly, especially because of her recurring nightmares,
finding Dani's body between the bushes and trees.

She
and Dani had been identical twins, and so it had always seemed to her that her
sister's murder had been a sort of death for her as well. In therapy they had
called that guilt, but Marianne didn't remember enough to know if it was. She
only relived it in fragments now. She didn't remember planning to kill herself,
either, only that she had woken up in the emergency room alive and confused.

Every
June it all resurfaced. This year, though, was worse. Her nightmares had been
more intense, more disturbing, than usual. She hadn't been sleeping well. She
was edgy and irritable. This was the first year she had hoped to be well enough
that Daniel could stay with her. Her sister had been dead for five years and
she had expected to be less emotional, more controlled, so that Nick wouldn't
take him away from her. But it hadn't happened. This year was worse than ever.

She
stubbed out her cigarette and reached for her tea. If Daniel were here he would
have distracted her. He would have required her attention. But he wasn't,
Marianne thought, and that meant she could do whatever she wanted. She didn't
have to worry about falling apart. She didn't have to answer his questions. She
could honor this five year anniversary however she wanted with no one to answer
to but herself.

She
got abruptly to her feet, her tea forgotten, and walked briskly toward the
house before she could change her mind.

****

Nadia
sat on her parents' bed, as she had so many times before, and watched her
mother. This was both ritual and routine. As a child Nadia had watched
curiously, awed by the tubes and bottles that lined her mother's vanity,
intrigued by the glittering jewels that were casually selected and worn. As she
got older, it became a time of bonding and conversation. Vivien would tell her
daughter stories of her own childhood. She described events that otherwise were
never spoken of. Nadia, the youngest child, and the only one that still lived
at home and still spoke to her parents, would sit on the bed as always and
listen.