“Well, I know that’s how you like things, but I’m not in the mood for it, Juan. Lisbeth Perkins has been beaten, strangled, and half-drowned.”
“What?” he asked with what sounded like genuine shock. “Lisbeth? When did this happen? How did this happen?”
“Last night. She did night check, then someone grabbed her.”
“Oh, my God.”
“I’m trying to decide if I should be upset about that or if I should just shrug it off,” I said sarcastically. “Especially seeing as she isn’t dead, she just wishes she was. What do you think?”
“I think you are trying to make a point I’ve already taken.”
That gave me pause.
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, soul-searching.”
“It’s good to know you have one.”
“I suppose I deserved that,” he said.
“I suppose you did.”
He heaved a sigh and tried to regroup. “Please, Elena. Meet me. Or I can come to you. Whatever you prefer.”
I preferred not to have him come to my home, where my only witness was passed out cold in the bedroom. I had no reason to trust him. Even money said someone in that clique had attacked- or paid someone else to attack-Lisbeth. There was no doubt in my mind they had put their heads together the night before, after finding out about my past life with the sheriff’s office. Brody knew I had been pumping Lisbeth for information. So did Barbaro.
Instead of trying to take me out of the equation, they did the easier thing and turned on Lisbeth. Easier to turn off the faucet than to make the bucket disappear.
“What’s it about?”
“Bennett.”
I said nothing.
“Meet me downstairs at Players. I want to speak with you before I go to the detectives. Please, Elena, give me that chance.”
He was going to turn on Bennett. I couldn’t have been more shocked… then hopeful, then suspicious.
“A soul with a conscience,” I said. “Seems too good to be true.”
“Meet me, please,” he said.
“I’ll be there in twenty,” I said, and closed the phone.
Chapter 47
A couple of TV news vans had taken up residence in the main parking lot at Players. Python-size tangles of cord had been snaked from the vans up to the prime exterior-shot spots, where blinding white lights and screens stood on spider legs, ready for the on-camera talent to step in front of them.
Irina’s murder was Big News again, with the rumors about the Alibi Club and its members. This was the last public place Irina had been seen Saturday night, a natural choice for a backdrop. As I watched, a blond woman with a very serious expression stepped into one of the setups to do her thing.
The tall gangly kid was working the valet stand. His hair was sticking up. He looked overwhelmed, which I imagined happened all the time, considering the slow-turning wheels of his brain.
“Where’s your pal Jeff?” I asked.
“I dunno,” he said, breathing a little fast. “He’s late. I know that. And it’s real busy.”
He hustled off to open the doors of a cream-colored Bentley. I went inside the club, took the stairs down, and told the maitre d‘ I was there to meet Mr. Barbaro.
We were just far enough into the dining room that I couldn’t gracefully back out when I saw the real focus of the media attention: Bennett Walker and my father having dinner. A publicity stunt that had my father’s fine hallmark all over it. He wanted the public to see Bennett-handsome, well-dressed, well-behaved- having a serious discussion with his handsome, well-dressed, well-respected attorney. Only my father could have bullied club management into allowing cameras into the dining room.
My feet stopped moving forward and I couldn’t seem to help but look right at them.
My father was holding court and had yet to notice me. His hair bad gone entirely gray and his face was a little drawn, but otherwise he looked exactly the same to me: arrogant, intelligent, and in his element in front of cameras.
The mix of emotions that bombarded me in that moment were diverse and upsetting. Just as I had with Bennett, I wanted not to feel anything when I saw my father for the first time in all these years. But of course that couldn’t happen. The emotional memories of the first twenty-one years of my life rose up like a tidal wave inside me.
Anger, rebellion, guilt, that devastating sense of inadequacy I had always felt when he looked at me with that cold, disapproving stare. The stare that met my eyes now as he sat at a table with the rapist and probable murderer who had shattered my world twenty years past.
“Elena,” he said, with that same subtle hint of condescension as ways, as if he were a king deigning to speak to a commoner. The backs of my eyes burned, and I was furious with myself for. But I had only that split second to think about it, because the couple of still cameras and video cameras there to make my father id Bennett Walker the news at eleven swung toward me with the realization of who I was.
I was trapped. I could leave and look like a coward or stay and face them both. There really wasn’t a choice at all, considering the options.
I reached somewhere very deep inside me to hold my composure.
He wasn’t ten feet away. I took a step, and another, toward him.
“Edward,” I said, echoing his tone of voice exactly.
I saw the almost imperceptible tension in his jaw. I had stopped calling him Father when I was twelve, a defiance he hated. I wouldn’t be subservient to him. He had punished me time and again for my disrespect. I had never wavered. The only currency that meant anything to me had been the horses, and I knew he would never take them away from me, because it would reflect badly on him and make him look like the tyrant he was.
I glanced at Bennett, then back at Edward.
“Just like old times,” I said. “Bennett destroying a woman’s life, you defending his actions, and me on the side of right.”
He was furious with me, but he would never show it in public. He rose, as any gentleman would. Bennett stayed seated and pouted.
“Be careful, Elena,” my father said very quietly.
“Be careful?” I said so everyone could hear. “Of what? Are you threatening me?”
“You wouldn’t want to say anything slanderous,” he said, in that same quiet voice he might use to speak to a small child.
I laughed and smiled the sardonic half smile. “It’s only slander if it isn’t true.”
Shutters and motor drives went mad.
He shook his head sadly. “It’s a shame you became so bitter.”
The benevolent monarch. My ass.
“How can you be disappointed?” I asked calmly. “I’m exactly what you made me.”
He sighed the sigh of the long-suffering parent. “You shouldn’t upset yourself, Elena. It isn’t good for you.”
Implying that I wasn’t psychologically stable.
“Well, Father,” I said, with such venom he would never want to hear the word again, “just when I think you can’t possibly disappoint me more than you already have, you manage to find a way. Congratulations.”
I turned my back to him and walked away.
“I’ll give your regards to your mother,” he said. “If you want me to.”
