Silk and Stone (59 page)

Alexandra didn’t wait for him to answer. She wanted to drive her point home with smooth confidence. “Your people have questioned me about my son before. I’ll tell you what I’ve told them. He’s doing a good, solid job as a state senator—he’s outspoken and aggressive, so yes, he makes enemies. Any good legislator does that. His opponents envy him—I mean, after all, he’s a Vanderveer, and that name carries a lot of respect in this state.”

“Alexandra, I didn’t—”

“I know what they say about him—the lurid stories they pass around about his ear. People are rarely eager to believe the truth when lies are so much more interesting. But the truth is simply that ten years ago he was assaulted in a dark parking lot by two garden-variety thugs looking for a wallet to steal. When Tim refused to cooperate, there was a fight. They ran, and the police were never able to locate them. His poor ear is an honorably won urban battle scar as far I’m concerned. He keeps his hair long enough to cover the tip. No one even notices it.”

“Alexandra, please, I’m not interested in—”

“And as for his failed marriage a few years ago, well, it was a well-intentioned mistake. His wife was a smart young woman from a good family, but she simply didn’t
realize how much she’d have to put her own ambitions on hold in order to further Tim’s.” Alexandra sighed. “You can’t have two chiefs in a political tribe.” Taking a deep breath, Alexandra added quickly, “Tim was heartbroken, but he learned from the experience. He’ll remarry. In the meantime, yes, he
is
cutting a wide swath through the female population, but there’s nothing notorious about
that
. To be bluntly honest with you, Herb, the media won’t catch my son with his pants down.”

Herb coughed awkwardly. Alexandra congratulated herself. Just the right touch of earthy honesty tended to assuage his type. “Almost home,” she announced cheerfully, pointing toward a tiny airstrip nestled in a mountain plateau. The metal rooftops of several small hangars glinted in the sunshine, and a small private plane ascended from the runway as they watched. “Have I ever mentioned that there was no airport of
any
size between here and Asheville until Orrin and I organized a business coalition to build one? You’ll meet some of our VIPs at dinner tonight. They fly in from all over the southeast to spend summers in their homes here. We have quite a social season. Now—any more questions, or have I put your mind at ease about my rambunctious son?”

The man’s uncomfortable silence set her nerves on edge. He fiddled with the crease in his tailored slacks. “Alexandra, I didn’t come here to ask you about Tim. I came to ask you about your nieces.”

She jerked the control, and the Piper bounced on a wind current. “My nieces? Isn’t that delving unnecessarily far from the trunk of the family tree?”

“Not these days, I’m afraid.” He hesitated. “It’s my understanding that your nieces left your home while the younger one was still underage. And that you were her legal guardian. You haven’t seen either of your nieces in ten years. I also understand that the older girl married your nephew, and that her husband is serving time in prison on a manslaughter conviction.”

“Good Lord,
Herb
, you make it sound as if I’ve got a hidden batch of incestuous hillbillies. My eldest niece
was infatuated with my first husband’s nephew. They weren’t
blood
cousins.”

“Of course, I know that. But—”

“Despite everything I could do to dissuade her, she married him. He was a rough character—part Indian, I suppose that gave him an exotic appeal my niece couldn’t resist. I knew it was a mistake, I
knew
the family was unstable, but what could I do about it? Samantha was eighteen; I couldn’t stop her. I pleaded with her; I offered her every alternative. But she married this boy and took her younger sister with her. I had a choice between allowing the girl to live with her new in-laws or locking her up like an unmanageable animal.”

“But how did circumstances end up—”

“There was a fire. My niece’s in-laws were killed. Her husband lost what little common sense he had and immediately became involved with some low-life drug peddler. He killed the man. Orrin and I were, of course, determined to take my nieces under wing again, but they disappeared. We hired detectives, with no luck. Losing contact with them has been one of the great sorrows of my life.”

Alexandra hoped the explanation was enough. The truth wouldn’t do—the truth was that she’d let Samantha and Charlotte slip away, let them hide, distanced herself from them, so questions about the past would be forgotten.

But those questions were creeping into her life, now.

“Your niece divorced her husband?”

“She’s had no contact with him over the years, thank God. I learned that much. He’s still in prison. I can’t imagine that she’s waited for him all these years. She was so young. They’d been married less than a year when he was sentenced.”

Alexandra’s stomach was in knots, her palms sweating on the plane’s controls. It was unthinkable that Jake and Sam could resurface together and pose any threat to her neatly manicured family history. “Herb,” she said as casually as she could, “are you telling me the party might have second thoughts about Orrin because of some old family notoriety concerning my nieces?”

“I’m saying only that we’re a tad paranoid about even the smallest possibility of character assasination. We’re looking for
saints
, Alexandra. That’s what it takes these days to keep the political wolves at bay and the party’s extremists happy.”

“Tell me what you want. Give me your best-case scenario.”

“A warm reunion with your nieces. The loving aunt welcoming back her only sister’s children, who’ve put their youthful rebellion behind them and now see the light. And no convict nephew-in-law. People can sympathize with your niece’s impetuous marriage—and with her divorcing her husband after he killed a man.”

“If that’s what you want, that’s what you’ll get. I’ve got two years before the ninety-six convention. I promise you, I’ll get it done. Excuse me, I’ve got a plane to land.”

Alexandra was glad to end the conversation. She had no idea how she’d locate Samantha and Charlotte, but felt confident she’d think of something. And as for Jake—she had dealt with him before successfully, and if any threat still existed, she’d deal with him again. She brought the Piper in for a smooth landing, gliding to a stop near the limousine she’d ordered.

Barbara, elegant and helpful as always, her dark face marred by worried eyes, hurried over and greeted them. “My longtime personal assistant,” Alexandra said to Herb with watchful aplomb. She might have disreputable nieces, but, by God, she had a politically correct secretary.

As the chauffeur took Herb and his luggage to the car, Alexandra drew Barbara aside. “What’s wrong? Tell me quick, before that nosy little
troll
wonders what we’re whispering about.”

Barbara looked morose and fearful. “Jake Raincrow was released from prison today.”

“Why? How?”

“Time credited for good behavior, or something like that.”

“Oh, my God,” Alexandra said under her breath. “Well, it’s for the best. Gives me more time—”

“Mrs. Lomax, I hate to tell you the rest.”

Alexandra stared at her. “What?”

“Samantha is back too.”

Alexandra’s hands rose to her throat. “And?”

“They’re together at the Cove.”

Chapter
            Twenty-Six
 

“A
re you stalking me? Is this how lawyers get their jollies
?”

Charlotte’s voice rang out with tired exasperation as Ben closed the door of a customized Jeep and ambled into her patch of yard, stepping lazily through neat, manicured rows of brightly blooming azaleas. She bit her tongue immediately and looked around angrily, as if the class police might march out of the forest and haul her away. There was probably a rule against yelling like a street whore from the doorway of a pricey condominum. People in this resort development on the outskirts of Pandora yelled only when the golf pro was late for their lessons.

He scowled at her. “I set my hook. Now I’m letting you play out the line.”

He fit in with the surroundings far better than she, with his khakis and golf shirts, though he wore a dingy
fishing cap with a lure pinned to the crown. He was, in fact, disastrously appealing. She glared at him from her doorway, wearing tight white leggings and an oversize T-shirt with the Cordon Bleu emblem on it. “Does your family know your hobby is fishing for heathen women?”

He halted on the cobblestone before her entrance and studied her with half-shut eyes, his head tilted back, the cap’s brim pulled low. “At this point in my nearly middle-aged bachelorhood,” he drawled in his dignified way, “the Dreyfus dynasty would be ecstatic if I reeled in anything short of a Palestinian terrorist.”

“Wait a second. I’ll get out my flattery meter and decide whether that registers as a compliment. What are you doing here?”

“I know all, I see all,” he intoned. “Sam said you’d come here this morning to sublet a furnished condo. I realized immediately that you were setting up a base of operations from which to spew wisdom. That decision requires my attention. Hah! Thought you’d slip away from me, did you?”

She gritted her teeth. “Look, you jackass, I don’t need your permission to stay around here.”

“Oh, I’m glad you’re staying. It’s one of my fondest nightmares come true. I simply want to know what’s draining through that sievelike mind of yours. What you’re up to.”

“Taking a little vacation. Sam didn’t want me to stay at the Cove—she’s trying her damnedest to have private time with Jake. And God knows I didn’t want to stay there. Not with Jake camped out in a
tent
at the old housesite. I thought nothing could go worse than it already has, but seeing him turn his back on my sister—again—is more than I can take.”

“I don’t like it either,” Ben admitted. “But at least they’re within shouting distance of each other.”

“That’s too close.” Charlotte’s stomach twisted. She was being bitchier to Ben than usual, because she was upset. “He
hit
her when she followed him the other day, Ben. I don’t care what she told us—she’s got a black eye!”

Ben gaped at her. “Oh, for the love of—he’d never hit her. You think your sister would lie about something like that?”

“I think she’s so desperate to pretend he still loves her that she’d lie down and let him walk on her if he asked.”

“He does love her.” Ben stared at her pensively. “Take it from a man who recognizes repressed emotions. But he’s got to have time to work out whatever it is that happened between them. I don’t know everything he’s thinking. But I’ve watched him suffer for ten years, and I don’t doubt that he’s where he needs to be, and where he wants to be.”

“
Alone,
” Charlotte retorted. “Alone in a tent on the spot where Sarah and Hugh and Ellie died. It’s the most morbid—Ben, he wants to wallow in the past. And he wants Sam to wallow with him. He’s punishing her. It’s like he wants to break her heart because he’d gotten hurt for defending her honor. As if Sam asked him to go toss our mom’s shitty boyfriend off a balcony.”

Ben was snaking his head before she finished, his mouth open in a grimace of disgust. “You just don’t get it, do you? It doesn’t matter what you believe about his motives. All that matters is that Sam is hanging on to their future by all ten glorious fingernails. You could do so much more to help her if you’d stop fighting the situation. You’re the most vividly passionate person I know. Full of energy. Creative. Fiercely loyal.” He frowned and looked away, as if verging on a compliment disturbed him. It certainly disturbed Charlotte. She felt too vulnerable when he talked this way. “Put your talents to good use, blondie,” he added gruffly. “Don’t spit in your sister’s stew.”

So much for compliments
. Charlotte squinted at him, then waved a hand at the handsomely furnished living room behind her. “I set up a refuge for her. A place she can come to whenever she feels lonely. Which is most of the time.
I’m on her side. I’m a realist
. All you’ve ever done is encourage her to believe in something that doesn’t exist anymore.”

“I doubt shell seek consolation and advice from a sister whose experience with affairs of the heart wouldn’t fill a demitasse.”

“I’ve had plenty of experience.”

“Oh, yes? Sam confided to me once that your conquests favor middle-aged
sous-chefs
who are harmless enough to bully.”

“I like men who are mature enough to be—”

“Harmless,” he repeated. “Grateful. As pliable as an egg custard.”

Charlotte turned and reached for the door to pull it closed in his face. “I’m
so
glad you took the time from your busy schedule to drop by and lecture me—again.”

“Just fishing,” he said smoothly.

“I hope you wade into a pool of piranhas.” She had the door half shut when a golf cart rumbled up to the cobblestone sidewalk and the resort manager, dressed in tennis whites, waved at Ben. “I’ve got your keys, Mr. Dreyfus. Sorry to keep you waiting.”

Keys
? Ben took them from the woman with a small, gentlemanly nod. He held them up like a fine trout he’d hooked, and smiled at Charlotte. “Hello, piranha,” he said drolly. “I’m taking a little vacation too. I’ve leased the condo next door.”