The Walker family fortune had been made in the shipbuilding business during World War I. During the Depression, they bought up shipping companies and diversified into the steel business. The fortune was doubled, tripled, quadrupled through World War II and subsequent global conflicts. In the ‘50s they had branched into commercial development and real estate.
Most of my father’s money he had made on his own as one of the country’s highest-priced, most sought-after defense attorneys to the rich and infamous. He himself had become a celebrity of sorts over the years by getting guilty wealthy people off the hook for their sins, and was worth more socially because of that than because of the age of his fortune. Old-money Palm Beachers were disdainful of how he came by his wealth-behind his back, of course. When they found themselves in a jam with the law, however, he was always a best and dearest friend.
He knew, of course. And he was both amused by it and resentful because of it. Resentment was my father’s forte. No one had ever carried a bigger chip on their shoulder than Edward Estes.
So imagine his glee when his rebellious daughter was seen on the arm of the most-eligible-bachelor son of the wealthiest old-money family in Palm Beach. His daughter, who was well-known for choosing wildly inappropriate boyfriends-polo players and rock musicians being my personal favorites. Outside of my riding accomplishments, falling in love with Bennett Walker was the first thing in my life I had ever done that pleased my father. It only stood to reason, I suppose, that it would be the thing that would ultimately destroy what relationship we had.
I left Star Polo in a daze and just started driving. I didn’t think, didn’t plan. I went on autopilot. It was a relief to be numb and empty. The bloody mess that had been the day sank into a dark corner of my mind as I drove. I didn’t hear anything. My surroundings seemed unreal and distant.
My conscious mind had overloaded. Escape seemed like a good idea at the time. But my subconscious had its own agenda, and after miles of blur and strip malls, I found myself driving over the Lake Worth bridge onto the Island. Palm Beach.
Palm Beach is a world of its own, a sixteen-mile-long sandbar studded with palm trees and mansions. The southern half of the island is so narrow, there is only one road leading north. As it widens, side streets branch off and wind around, the exorbitantly expensive half to the Lake Worth side and the obscenely expensive half to the ocean side. The landscaping is so lush it is difficult from the street to get more than a glimpse of many of the grand homes, much less their grand views.
My parents’ house was a pink Italianate villa behind tall iron gates. A cobblestone drive circled a fountain featuring a mermaid perched on a trio of sea horses, pouring water from an urn. More than once as a small child I had been hauled out of the fountain, naked as the day I was born, filled with the joy of freedom, God forbid.
I parked illegally across the street and just sat there. If I sat there another fourteen minutes, a squad car would come by and the uniform inside it would hassle me because I obviously didn’t belong here. The right corner of my mouth quirked upward in what passed for an ironic smile.
I hadn’t set foot in that house in nearly two decades. I hadn’t even driven past. It felt so strange to sit there across the street, looking in the gate. Absolutely nothing about the place had changed. I could have been looking back in time. I half-expected to see myself at ten, at fifteen, at twenty-one, coming out the tall black double doors.
At twenty-one I had come out those doors one day and never returned.
One of my parents was driving a black Bentley convertible these days. It sat parked under the portico. Probably my father. My mother had always abhorred the sun and swathed herself in silk and chiffon to hide every inch of her skin, until she looked like a mummy designed by Valentino. My father was always tan and fit, played golf and tennis, and piloted his own vintage cigarette boat in races on Lake Worth.
I wondered what he would do if he came out of the house, drove his Bentley out the gate, and saw me sitting there. Would he even recognize me? The last time he had seen me I had a long, wild mane of curly black hair. My expression had been furious, and to my horror there had been tears swelling in my eyes.
A year past, in a fit of rage, I had hacked my hair off boy-short and had kept it that way. My expression now was the unchanging, carefully neutral expression the plastic surgeons had given me after nearly two years of reconstructive surgery. And I was now physically incapable of crying.
Self-absorbed narcissist that he was, I doubted he would even see me as anything other than a loiterer. He would have his cell phone out and be speed-dialing the police as he went down the street.
My mother had come to see me in the hospital after my date with the asphalt under Billy Golam’s 4X4. Not because I had called her. Not because she was my mother and had been keeping tabs on me. She had come because her housekeeper had seen my name in the Palm Beach Post when the incident was in the news and had asked her if I was a relative.
Helen had come to see me, but she hadn’t known what to do or say when she got there. I gave her a point for trying to do the maternal thing, even though she had only a passing knowledge of the concept. I bore no resemblance to the daughter she remembered. Not physically or otherwise. I had been gone from her life almost as long as I had been in it.
She had been so uncomfortable that after fifteen minutes I pretended to fall asleep so she could leave.
I asked myself then why I had come here. Wasn’t it enough to have those old memories crack through the scars that covered them? Did I have to come here in person to make the pain sharper?
Apparently I thought so.
What strange irony that Irina’s death would somehow be intertwined with my past and that in wanting to help Irina I would have to face that past, something I had avoided doing my entire adult life.
I started the car and drove away. Drove home.
Chapter 9
The day was nearly over by the time I got back to the farm. The horses, unaware and unconcerned with how my day had gone, were hungry. Cars from the SO were parked all over the place, including the one Landry had been driving. They were up in Irina’s apartment doing the same thing I had done hours before them.
A deputy stopped me as I got to the barn.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. There’s an investigation in progress. You can’t go in.”
I looked straight in his face. “I can and I will. I own these horses,” I lied, “and they need to be fed. Do you want to be held responsible for the illness or death of any of these animals? Before you answer that, I should inform you that any one of them is worth more money than you’ll see in five years.”
He was officially intimidated. The young ones are so easy.
“No, ma’am. But could you please wait here while I go inform the detective in charge?”
I sighed, rolled my eyes, and walked past him. He didn’t stop me, but he did go into the lounge and, presumably, up the stairs to the apartment, where he would tell Landry about me. The man in charge.
As I went about feeding the horses their dinner, I tried to pretend the deputies and detectives and crime-scene investigators weren’t there. If they weren’t there, then I could pretend Irina wasn’t dead. If they weren’t there, I wouldn’t have to interact with Landry.
He didn’t come flying out of the lounge. That was a good sign. I went about my business, tending the individual needs of my charges. Witch hazel and alcohol on legs that tended to puff up overnight, carefully wrapped bandages-not too loose, not too tight. Lightweight sheets on all but Oliver, who thought it was hysterically funny to rip his expensive custom-made blankets to shreds. A few extra carrots for Arli, for his traumatic morning. A few extra carrots for Feliki, because she was the boss mare, and no one could get anything she didn’t get too or she would throw a tantrum in her stall.