“Yes, I will. Thank you for calling me. It’s quite decent of you.”
“I don’t need your sarcasm, Lindsay. It doesn’t become you any more than your absurd height does. I spoke to Sydney yesterday. She’ll be flying back from Italy.”
Of course he’d called Sydney immediately. But not her, not Lindsay. Her mother was dead. Her grandmother, the timeless old lady, was dead. Gates Foxe, a San Francisco fixture, seemingly immortal, always on the move, always active. And her mother. Drunk? No, she couldn’t accept that, she couldn’t. She hadn’t gone to San Francisco at Christmas. She’d been delighted when Kennedy had closed down with the snowstorm. She’d made no attempt to get another, later flight. She didn’t get to see either of them. And now they were dead.
“When you arrive, just take a taxi to the mansion. I suppose you’ll have to stay here.”
“Yes,” she said, and gently hung up the phone.
She raised her eyes. Taylor was looking at her intently. She said, “That was my father. My grandmother and my mother are dead. They were killed in a car accident yesterday. I’d best call the airline now for a reservation out tomorrow morning. The funeral is on Friday.”
Taylor watched her dial information and ask for United reservations. She was calm, far too calm. But he waited, listened to her voice as she spoke to the reservations person.
When she hung up, she said, “Oh, dear, I’ve got to call Demos. I won’t be able to make that photo session tomorrow. It’s sportswear, in January. Isn’t that odd? I don’t remember—was I doing something on Friday? Taylor, do you know?”
He walked to her and very gently drew her into his arms. She was stiff and withdrawn. He didn’t know what to do so he just held her and stroked his hands up and down her back.
“Why don’t you go take a nice hot shower. I’ll call Demos for you.”
“Thank you, Taylor.” She pulled away from him and walked out of the huge, half-empty living room, down the long corridor to the master bedroom.
He called Demos.
“You going to San Francisco with her?”
“I don’t know. She hasn’t asked me to.”
“Maybe it’s best you don’t,” Demos said after a goodly silence. “I understand her father is a real jerk, her stepmother is a bigger jerk, and there’s her half-sister, Sydney, who’s—well, that’s neither here nor there. Oh, God, it’s not fair, is it? Take care of her, Taylor.”
“Yes, Demos, I will.”
He walked into the bathroom. She was lying in a full tub of hot water, her head back against the rich pale pink marble, her hair wet and thick against her shoulders, covering her breasts.
“You all right, sweetheart?”
She was naked but she didn’t care. She opened her eyes and turned her face to look at him. He was sitting on the toilet seat, the look of worry on his face real and honest. It touched her deeply.
“I’m all right. It’s such a shock. My mother—I haven’t really been close to her since I was sixteen and she and my father sent me away to boarding school in Connecticut. My father said she was drunk and responsible for the accident. But my grandmother. It’s hard, really hard to believe she’s gone. She was always there, always.”
Still, there were no tears in her. Only a vague worry.
“Do you want me to come with you?”
She shook her head. “No, no, I don’t want you to meet my—It doesn’t matter. I’ll be coming back Friday night. I won’t stay there, in the mansion, any longer than I have to. I’ve always hated it there.”
The mansion? There was so much he wanted to know, so very much, and she’d been getting closer to him, closer by the day. They’d had a wonderful argument just the day before, and had ended up in each other’s arms, laughing and even kissing a little bit. And now this.
“Call me when you arrive.”
“All right.”
That night he held her close as he did every night. She was very quiet and his impression was that it wasn’t pain holding her silent; it was shock and disbelief, a numbness that invaded the brain so that one could deal with the enormity of the loss. Quite normal, he supposed. Two violent deaths at the same time. He wished she wanted him with her. But he wouldn’t push. Not now.
She took a taxi to Kennedy.
At least he knew when she was due back. He’d pick her up when she returned. Maybe by then she’d need him, really need him.
San Francisco was sunny, sixty degrees, paradise on earth. Lindsay breathed in deeply as she walked from the baggage claim outside to where the taxis were lined up.
Thirty minutes later the taxi pulled up in front of the mansion. The man whistled. “Quite some digs. You live here, lady?”
“Oh, no. I’m just an occasional visitor.”
“It must be great to be the folk who do live here. Can you imagine all the bucks?”
“No, not really.”
She didn’t want to press the bell. She didn’t want to see Holly, her stepmother, or her father. She still felt nothing save that vague stillness that seemed to be coming from inside her. It was only two o’clock in the afternoon. Odd, back home in New York it would be dark now. What would Taylor be doing? Would he be home?
Home. It sounded wonderful.
She rang the bell.
Holly answered the door. A fat Holly, with a double chin, a pasty complexion, and bloodshot eyes. From crying? Lindsay doubted it. She recognized the signs from her mother. The bloodshot eyes were probably from drinking too much for too long too often.
“Well,” said Holly, stepping back. “You’re here. Come in, Lindsay.”
She was wearing a loose flowing top over very tight knit pants and sneakers. She looked like a forty-year-old woman trying to look like she was twenty-two and thirty pounds lighter.
“Hello, Holly. I hope you’re doing all right.”
Holly smiled. “It’s your family, not mine. I will miss the old lady, though, odd as that might sound.”
“It doesn’t sound odd at all.”
“You didn’t have to live here day in and day out as her daughter-in-law, taking orders, not being able to do what I wanted to do, always having to beg, to plead, to get anything I wanted. Your father was her own personal puppy. God, you’re lucky you lived three thousand miles away.”
“You don’t have to stay, Holly. All this was your decision.”
She gave Lindsay a malignant look, then shrugged as she walked into the main drawing room. The heavy brocade drapes were pulled closed. The room was chill and damp.
“Jesus,” Holly said, and went on a rampage, jerking open every curtain in the vast room. “That miserable housekeeper, I’m going to fire her ass on Monday. Yes, on Monday I’ll be the boss here and anyone who doesn’t like it can just get the hell out. And that includes your precious Mrs. Dreyfus. All the old bag can do is snivel and talk about how Mrs. Gates would have done this or that. Jesus.”
Lindsay set her single bag down in the hall, then walked to the vast Carrara marble fireplace. “I’ll light a fire, all right?”
“Yeah, sure. It feels like bloody death in here.”
Lindsay’s hands jerked.
“I need a drink.” Lindsay watched Holly walk to the drink tray and pull the stopper out of a Waterford decanter. It was Glenlivet and Holly poured herself a double shot, neat.
“Drinking more, Holly? Really, dear, you should try to control yourself. People will be coming by to offer their sympathy. The last impression you want to give is that the new lady of the house is a lush.”
Sydney was wearing a slender black wool dress with three-inch black heels. Her stockings were black with seams up the backs of her legs. Her hair was pulled back from her face and held with gold combs. Her makeup was restrained, perfect. She looked pale and fragile and utterly beautiful.
Lindsay said from where she remained in front of the fireplace, “Hello, Sydney. When did you get in?”