Dad’s funeral was kind of fun. He was an engaging old reprobate. I guess my years in Kenya have made me mellow.
I visited Sallie’s grave. She’s been gone so long. Virginia never meant for her to die, but she took my princess with her.
Wish you were here. J
P.S. You used to like adventure. Come home to Kenya with me.
Sent: June 3, 4:03 P.M.
Subject: The Castle
Placid on the surface, nasty things bubbling beneath. I may need to stay for a couple of weeks. I guess the old man must have lost his grip to let things get to this state.
I’d take a tangle with a rogue elephant anytime. Instead, there’s Diane and her leeches; Evelyn, who can’t see and may be blind in other ways as well; Margo, who’d like my head on a platter; Shannon, who’s flattering the hell out of me; and Jimmy, who wants to break my neck. Maybe a little competition will make him realize what a neat girl Shannon is. She and I have had a swell time together. She’s made me feel like a kid again. However, she’s starting to be too interested in me. I’m going to have to tell her she’s great and I want to be good friends. But there’s no good way to say you don’t love someone. She’s still young enough to believe in love at first sight. She’s a gorgeous, sweet girl, but I’m old enough to be her father.
The only thing that keeps me sane is knowing I’ll get back to Kenya. Come with me, Kay. I promise you a good time. Lake Nakuru in moonlight. Flamingos massed in a tapestry of pink against blue-green water. Every time I see them, I know God has a sense of humor. Nobody wants brackish water, but it’s the slimy algae that draws the flamingos. I’ll take you out to see a leopard munch on a carcass he’s pulled up into a tree and gazelles more graceful than ballerinas. Bougainvillea. Flamboyant trees. Rocky hills. Open grasslands. Yellow-barked fever trees. And you and me, far, far from cities and crowds. I know you loved Bob and I’ll never forget Helen, but we’re fated, Kay. You and me finally together. You’ve got to write the book.
Sent: June 5, 5 A.M.
Subject: Shock of my life…
Someone slipped a photograph underneath my bedroom door last night. I have to find out what it means. If it turns out to be true…God, the lost years.
I’ll find out.
What will I do? I’d like to smash heads. And this, on top of all the rest. When they say you can’t go home again, maybe they mean you damn well better not. But I’m here and I intend to set everything straight. I’ll see if Paul Fisher can help.
J
“What do the e-mails mean?”
Kay didn’t look toward the sound of my voice. After all, if she was talking to herself, what would be the need? She stared at her list.
7. In the space of three weeks, Jack learned something that meant he had to die. His acquaintances in Adelaide were limited to those living at The Castle and a handful of other people.
A. Evelyn, his older sister. She never married and has always lived at The Castle. Evelyn is legally blind. Perhaps because of her poor eyesight, she tries to dominate every gathering, every situation. I sense that she resented Jack’s years in Africa and her role as caregiver to their father.
B. Diane Hume, his brother’s widow. In her late forties, Diane is nervous, anxious, and easily upset. James lacked his sister’s strong personality and his brother’s daring nature. Shy and reclusive, he taught biology at Goddard College and spent most of his time painting birds. His hero was George Sutton, the University of Oklahoma naturalist famous for his bird paintings.
C. Jimmy Hume. He reminds me of Jack when he was young. Jimmy finished high school a year early and attends OU. He’s a geology major and will likely go to work for Hume Oil when he graduates. He rock-climbs, surfs, spelunks, and never met a dare he wouldn’t take. He visited Jack several times in Africa. He’s crazy about Shannon Taylor.
D. Shannon Taylor. The daughter of The Castle housekeeper, Margo Taylor, Shannon will be a freshman at Oklahoma State this fall. She helps out at The Castle in the summer. Evelyn’s companion is the wife of a Goddard professor and they usually spend the summer in France. While the companion is gone, Shannon drives Evelyn. Shannon and Jimmy have been dating on and off since middle school, but when Jack arrived at The Castle, Shannon was dazzled by him.
A smile transformed Kay’s face. Despite the traces of tears, she looked rueful and amused and understanding, a woman with a long view and a generous heart. “I could have told Shannon.” In the margin of her notepad, she sketched a heart with an arrow. Across the heart, she wrote: Women. She tagged the arrow: Jack. Kay leaned back in the chair still smiling. “He couldn’t help it. The man was magic.”
Kay pulled a laptop toward her, flipped up the lid. In only a moment, a striking picture filled the screen. The background was mesmerizing, falls tumbling behind him in a feathery spray of white, but despite the magnificence of thundering water, the man in the foreground dominated the photograph, thick silver hair, broad forehead, strong nose, high cheekbones, chiseled chin, full, sensuous lips. He was in safari garb, topee hat, khaki shirt and shorts, boots. A patch covered his right eye. An angry red scar curled down one cheek. Whether it was his expression of barely leashed intensity or the way he stood, or something more, the image radiated vigor and recklessness and the make-me-any-bid challenge of a gambler. Beneath the vitality, there was also an underlying gravity, suggesting he had been tested in many arenas and was sadder and wiser for his experiences.
I’m not sure I would have recognized him. After his wife and daughter’s death, Jack had left Adelaide as a very young man with coal black hair and smooth features. He’d returned as an older man whose scarred face and confident bearing reflected adventures in a dangerous environment.
“While he’s asking me to leave my world behind and move to Africa, he’s breaking a college girl’s heart. Like he wrote, there’s no good way to say thanks, but no thanks.” Kay’s smile fled. She picked up her pen, added to the note on Shannon.
8. Was Shannon distraught enough over Jack to have wanted him dead?
E. Margo Taylor. The housekeeper’s face looks hard as granite at any mention of Jack. Was she angered by her daughter’s pursuit of him? Or did she think he was taking advantage of Shannon?
F. Laverne and Ronald Phillips. Laverne claims to be clairvoyant. Diane consulted her several years ago in Dallas. Laverne insists she is in contact with James Hume. Diane begged her to come to Adelaide and live at The Castle. Every Wednesday night, they hold a séance. It’s all nonsense, of course, but Diane believes every word. Neither Laverne nor Ronald is likable. Laverne tries to be a grande dame, but she’s all theater and no substance. Ronald is like a fancy lapdog, always deferring to her, talking about her “gift.”
“Oooh.” I knew I sounded appalled. “Heaven doesn’t approve.”
Kay’s expression was a mixture of disdain and perplexity. “What is with my subconscious? Séances may be stupid, but I doubt they rank as immoral. I had no idea I was such a prig.”
Prig! I reached out and gave her arm a sharp pinch.
“Ouch.” Kay looked at her arm. “Maybe I need a nightcap.” She popped from the chair, walked to a wet bar. As she filled a tumbler with ice, I put another glass next to hers. With scarcely a pause, she scooped more ice. “Sure. The more the merrier. Me and my little helper.” A line of single-serving bottles included Scotch, bourbon, and gin. She poured Scotch and added club soda.
I opened a little gin bottle.
She watched as a bottle of tonic water was lifted and poured. “I loathe gin and tonic.”
“I don’t,” I answered sweetly. I carried the drink across the room.