who hadn’t protected Bryn in favour of cozying up to them. Dan had convinced her that knowledge was power; the more she knew about her troubled stepdaughter, the more she would be able to help her.
The dining room into which we walked would have warmed Ebenezer’s frozen heart. The hotel was celebrating a true Victorian Christmas: dripping candles, real holly, mistletoe balls, fat geese, turkeys, glazed hams, silver tureens of potatoes, turnips, Brussels sprouts, and, for dessert, trifle and flaming plum pudding. Dickens might not have been able to lull me to sleep, but his iconic feast still had the power to set the Ghosts of Christmases Past rattling.
Tracy and Claudia were waiting at our table. A tiny red teddy bear holding an envelope lengthwise between his paws was on the table at the empty place between them. Both women had taken pains to look festive. Tracy was wearing the sequined white shirt she had worn to the rehearsal dinner, but she’d added an armful of silver bangles and a pair of earrings that looked like links of frozen silver teardrops. Claudia was wearing a tailored jacket and slacks in metallic emerald green; her hair was smoothed into a chic chignon, and for the first time since I’d met her, there was mascara on her pale lashes and a flume of shadow on her lids. When they saw us, they rose expectantly.
“You both look beautiful,” I said. “I love what you’ve done with your eyes, Claudia.”
“Thanks,” she said. “I’m glad my mother didn’t hear you say that.”
“She doesn’t approve of makeup?” I said.
“Au contraire,” Claudia said. “From the time I was three years old, Caroline put mascara on me. She said I was so fair that I looked like a lashless chick. She found it painful to look at me.”
Her comment sucked the wind out of my conversational sails, but other people’s sorrows didn’t register with Bryn. “We’ve had a real family Christmas,” she said happily. “Church and stockings and tobogganing and then a really cool holiday party. This is the happiest Christmas I’ve ever had.”
“You had some lovely holidays with us,” Claudia said. “Remember when I took you to that matinee of Peter Pan and you liked it so much we went again that night.”
“I don’t remember,” Bryn said.
“How can you not remember?” Tracy said. “I gave you that dress Annie wore when she played Wendy.” Tracy smiled at her memories. “She was just sixteen, but the audience absolutely ate her up. I can still remember how the applause would roll over her every night when she stepped forward during curtain call.”
“You went to see your sister every night?” Jill asked.
“I was in the company,” Tracy said. “One of the Lost Boys. How’s that for typecasting?” She sipped her espresso. “One night, Annie and I decided to switch roles – just for fun. By the end of the first act, we both knew the audience hated me, so we switched back.”
“I always thought changing places with a twin could be a lot of fun,” I said. “Did you two do it often?”
Claudia cut Tracy off before she could answer. “Almost never,” she said. “Now, let’s see if we can find a waiter. It’s time for some Christmas cheer.”
The waiter appeared and immediately fell under Bryn’s spell. We had to repeat our orders three times, and even then, Taylor, who had ordered her Shirley Temple with great precision, ended up with an umbrella-less rye and Coke. When the drinks were finally straightened out, Claudia raised her glass. “To better times,” she said. “Speaking of… Joanne, we have to thank you for recommending Lauren Ayala. She’s one sharp lawyer, not to mention a generous one. Not many lawyers would see a client on Christmas Day.”
“Choosing a lawyer on the basis of how she does sun salutations obviously has something to recommend it,” I said.
Claudia laughed. “Whatever criterion you used was obviously spot on, because Tracy and I are finally getting out of here tomorrow.”
“And Lauren says that’s all right?”
“She says Tracy’s empty prescription bottle is worrying but hardly conclusive, especially since Tracy and I were together during the period when the police say Evan was murdered.”
“I didn’t know that,” Jill said.
“Well, now you do,” Claudia said matter-of-factly.
“That’s right,” Jill said thoughtfully. “Now I do.”
The pause that followed was awkward. Luckily, Taylor, as she frequently does, leapt into the breach. “Do you think we could go to the buffet now? I’m starving.”
Angus shot her a glance. “How could you be starving? Three hours ago you ate an entire lobster, a mound of potato salad, and two helpings of croquembouche?”
Taylor shook her head in wonder. “Beats me,” she said. “I just know that that turkey smells really good.”
“If I were a well-bred host, I’d insist we wait for Felix,” Jill said. She glanced at her watch. “But he’s twenty minutes late, and Jo and I skipped lunch. Let’s eat.”
By the time we had made our way through the buffet line twice, it was clear the evening was not working out as Jill had hoped. Her plan to elicit information about Bryn’s past had been torpedoed by a choir in full Victorian dress who sang lustily and at great length, and Felix was still a no-show.
When he finally did appear, he looked as if he had stumbled into the wrong party. Felix took pride in his appearance, but as he walked into the glittering dining room, he was wearing his ski jacket and he was tieless and unshaven. He was also agitated. He went straight to Jill. “I checked the phone messages at our office,” he said.
“On Christmas Day? Now that’s devotion.” Jill indicated his empty place at the table. “Sit down and tell me what’s going on.”
The moment Felix sat down, Bryn’s waiter was at his side. Felix ordered a double-vodka and swivelled his chair to face Jill. For all the attention he directed our way, the rest of us might as well have been cardboard cut- outs. “There were a number of calls for Evan,” he said. “Urgent calls.”
Jill tensed. “Personal or professional?”
“Professional,” Felix said. “ NBC is picking up the series. Evan signed an agreement with them. The telephone calls that came after his death were nominally condolences, but everybody wanted to talk to the widow. It’s clear they’re hot for this, Jill. They want to use the material Evan sent them.”
“There is no material,” Jill said. “All we gave them was a proposal. How can they be hot for a program that doesn’t exist?”
“Because,” Felix said tightly, “the program does exist. Apparently Evan gave them a fully edited first show for ‘The Unblinking Eye.’ The network people are over the moon about it.”
Jill picked up on the implications immediately. “Evan submitted something he’d already shot,” she said.
“It will be about me,” Bryn said in a voice dead with resignation.
“I won’t let them use it, baby,” Jill said.
“You may have to if Evan signed a contract,” Felix said.
“Did he?” Jill asked.
“I don’t know. I didn’t pick up our messages till late yesterday afternoon. By then everyone was gone for the holiday. The only person I could get in touch with was Larissa.”
“Our office manager,” Jill explained. “So was she able to help?”
Felix shook his head. “Not really. She told me that everything connected with Evan’s current projects had been carted off. I said I presumed the Toronto police were acting on orders from the department out here. Larissa said that was a sensible assumption.”
The slightest hint of a smile touched Jill’s lips. “Good old Larissa,” she said.
Felix’s head shot up. “What?”
“Nothing,” Jill said. “So there’s no way to know what Evan sent to the network until the holiday’s over?”
“Which could be tomorrow, and could be after the weekend,” Felix said, and I was surprised at how fretful he sounded. His lean, boyish face was suited to whimsy, but that night the creases around his mouth had deepened, and he seemed grave and preoccupied. His response seemed excessive for a problem that, by my reckoning, concerned him only tangentially. When his cellphone rang, he started, and despite furious glances from the diners at the next table, he picked up. As soon as heard his caller’s voice, he leapt up. “I’ll talk to you outside,” he said. “There are people around.”
Without explanation, he left the dining room. Jill raised an eyebrow, and I followed him. Felix had stopped
