Dear Daughter (40 page)

Leo cleared his throat. “This might sound a little bit crazy—”

Renee laughed. “In this crowd?”

“—but Walt said that the DNA under your mother’s fingernails was a partial match, right?”

“Thanks for the reminder,” I said.

“But you know what that means, don’t you?”

Renee made a face. “Just spit it out, Columbo.”

“It means,” Leo said, “that the DNA might have been from a member of your immediate family.”

At this, even Renee had to sit down. “You won’t hear me say this often,” she said, “but Leo—you might’ve just had an idea that isn’t totally stupid.”

I wrapped my arms around my legs and tried to squeeze back the hope that was bubbling up inside me.

“Is there any way we can know for sure it was him?” Kelley asked.

Leo rubbed his forehead. “I don’t know. But if he did kill Tessa, he had to have known about Jane. He could be looking for her now, for all we know. And with all the press coverage—he has to know that she’s coming here.”

“Do you think she’s in any danger?” Kelley asked.

“Possibly,” Leo said.

“Have they tracked me all the way here yet?” I asked.

“It’s just a matter of time,” he said.

I rested my head on my knees. “But he doesn’t think anyone knows about
him
,” I said slowly. “He doesn’t think
I
know about him.”

“What are you thinking?” Leo asked.

“Hold on, I’m working through a whole ‘all men are Greeks’ thing.”

I closed my eyes.

If Mitch killed my mother, he knows Janie Jenkins is his daughter.

If Mitch knows Janie Jenkins is his daughter, does that mean he killed my mother?

If Mitch killed my mother, will he try to kill Janie Jenkins, too?

And then, for the second time in my life, everything I’d learned crystallized into a perfect, glittering plan.

I turned to Rue. “Remember that girl you mentioned who’s just ‘magic with hair’? I think it’s time we give her a call.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

In the late autumn gloaming, framed by a forest that melted into fog, the Percy mansion loomed large and imposing, its lights less a beacon than a declaration: We can afford obscenely high electric bills. I hiked up my petticoats and picked my way across the cobblestone drive. Kelley and Renee were close behind me, Rue and Leo behind them. None of us said a word.

We handed our coats to a liveried footman (who I was pretty sure was a guy I’d seen at the Coyote Hole) and climbed the stairs to the ballroom. I stepped through the door . . . and was confronted with a sea of ill-fitting pantaloons and overflowing bodices. Everyone in Ardelle was there—as well as at least a few dozen others, if I counted correctly. In one corner, a quartet of surprisingly passable adolescent musicians played Mozart relatively inoffensively. An athletic young couple with beautiful hair gamboled past. The girl looked like she knew her way around a deep-conditioning treatment.

I plucked sourly at my skirts. Puce: the final indignity.

“Don’t look at me,” Kelley said. “You’re the one who waited until the last minute to pick out a dress.”

I pointed an accusing finger at Renee, who was wearing a white petticoat gown with a red ribbon around the waist. “That’s not even from the right time period,” I said. “Or state.”

“Fiddle-dee-fucking-dee,” Renee said, but I’d already pushed past her to survey the crowd.

“Is everyone here?” I asked.

Kelley nodded. “We’re probably the last to arrive. No one wants to miss the hors d’oeuvres.”

I located the pieces on the board. Peter was by the bar, attempting to extract information from Billy. Cora and Stanton were laughing at something together up on the dais. Mitch was dancing with a cool blonde who was too old to be anything other than his wife.

“Where’s Eli?” I asked.

Kelley pointed to a small seating area by the balcony doors. “He’s over there.” She leaned forward, squinting. “Who’s he talking to?”

I followed the direction of her gaze. “Oh,” I said, wishing I had my old hair back so I could flick it back over my shoulders in a breezy I-don’t-give-a-shit sort of manner. “That’s no one—just my lawyer.”

“Are you planning on needing one?”

I didn’t answer.

Rue nosed between us, a garment bag slung over her arm. “I’m going to go hang this up while I still can,” she said. “As soon as my mom sees me I’m gonna get roped into doing something dumb.”

Renee tugged at Kelley’s elbow. “And we should go see Cora about the raffle.”

Kelley hesitated, but Leo waved her forward.

“Go ahead,” he said. “We’ll be fine.”

“You’ll let us know if anything changes?” Kelley asked.

“Of course,” I said.

The three of them fanned out, twisting and squeezing their voluminous skirts through the crowd. Leo and I eased back to the periphery of the room.

“There are only three doors to the ballroom,” he said in a low voice. “The girls will each be watching one; I’ll be watching Mitch. But if I lose him—promise me you won’t confront him on your own.”

“Don’t lose him, and I won’t have to.”

“Deal.”

Cora waved from across the room. I smiled brightly and raised my hand.

“Don’t lay it on too thick,” Leo said.

“She’s a hundred feet away. I’m playing to the rafters.”

We came to a column not far from the balcony doors and settled into its shadow.

“So he’s your lawyer, huh?”

I looked over at Noah. He was dressed in jeans and a poorly ironed blazer. His hair was bronzed by the candlelight.

“
A
lawyer,” I said. “I fired him.”

Leo gave me a sidelong glance. “Didn’t look that way last night.”

“Stop fishing,” I said.

Noah’s head came up at the sound of Leo’s laughter. He frowned at us.

“Do you think he’s going to be a problem?” Leo asked.

“Yeah,” I said, rubbing absently at my sternum. “I do.”

•   •   •

I tapped Eli on the shoulder. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I was wondering if I could talk to your friend here.”

Eli glanced at Noah. “You two know each other?” he asked.

“Not really,” I said.

It might have been Eli I was looking at, but it was Noah I was watching. I’m sure he thought his face was expressionless and smooth, but I’d picked apart the pieces of all the things he said and did for so long that I could fit them back together without even thinking about it, a career assassin assembling her sniper rifle. And I wasn’t so out of practice I couldn’t still score a hit.

“Can it wait?” Eli asked. “Because actually I was hoping I could talk to you.”

I shook my head. “Let’s just enjoy the party for now, shall we?”

“Tomorrow, then?”

“Take a hint, Eli.”

His eyes darted between the two of us. Then he ducked his chin and walked away.

Noah was watching me warily. “Am I supposed to ask you to dance?”

“No, because that would be really fucking weird. Let’s walk instead.”

Noah’s smile was too thin for my tastes—I was no longer acclimated to his altitude. “Where to?” he asked.

“
N’importe où
.”

I tucked my arm into his, and we walked together around the perimeter of the room. His sleeve grazed my bare arm. A week ago it would have been all I could think about. Now I hardly noticed.

“I didn’t call the press,” he said.

“It doesn’t matter that you didn’t; it matters that you threatened to.”

“Your inability to forgive has always been your most ironic character trait.” He hugged my arm closer to soothe the sting of his words. “So what comes next?”

“I’m staying here. For the moment.”

“And then?”

“We sort of have to wait and see.”

He turned sharply. “What are you planning?”

“Nothing smart—as usual.”

“Why are the smartest people I’ve ever known also the stupidest?”

“Is that an apology?”

“More like an acquittal.”

I pulled up so I could watch the dancers as they passed. Were I anyone else I would have been delighted by the costumes. I saw a poodle skirt, a flapper dress, something that Eleanor of Aquitaine would have worn—was that a
wimple
? And no matter what the costume, everyone in the room seemed to be brimming over with joy. Everyone else, that is.

I looked at Noah, at the dear, sad slope of his cheek.

“So what are you dressed as?” I asked.

“I haven’t decided,” he said. “But I was leaning toward repentant lawyer.”

“It doesn’t work if it’s just a costume, Noah.”

He pulled me around to face him. My skirts ballooned out, wrapping around his legs.

“What happens now?” he asked.

“Now,” I said, “you do me one more favor.”

“Anything.”

I laughed. “You never did stop to think what you were getting into with me.” I let my hand go to his jaw, the sort of sentimental gesture that wasn’t at all like me but that suddenly seemed not just appropriate but necessary, if only to give him the illusion that what I’d done was reparable. “But this one’s easy: All you have to do is leave.”

He didn’t look particularly surprised. “Does this have something to do with whatever it is you’re planning?”

“Yes,” I said. “But I’d be asking you to go anyway. I don’t want you to get into any more trouble because of me.”

“You wouldn’t listen when I asked you to leave. So why should I?”

“I’m not doing this for you, I’m doing it for me. I can’t have you getting in the way. I can’t worry about you worrying about me.”

He tipped up my chin and looked into my eyes. “We’re just not made for the outside world, are we?”

“No.” I slipped my arms around his waist, pulled him close, and whispered in his ear: “But next time I go to jail, you’ll be the first person I call.”

Then I let go.

•   •   •

“And now, if I could have your attention please, it is at last time to pick the winners of this year’s Ardelle Women’s Historical Society raffle!”

I watched from a safe distance as Cora spun the raffle drum with a flourish, to polite applause.

“Our third-place prize, dinner for two at the Coyote Hole, generously donated by Tanner Boyce, goes to—Kelley, if you would?”

Kelley handed Cora a name from the drum.

“Charlie Rodriguez!”

A lanky dude in skinny jeans and a tuxedo shirt hopped up onstage as the smokers on the balcony shouted their approval. Renee winked at me from her position near the rear door just a few feet away.

“Our second-place prize, two free nights at the Prospect Inn, breakfast included, donated by Rue, Eli, and myself, goes to . . . Rufus Blanchard!”

One of the footmen briefly abandoned his station and ran over to Cora.

I looked to my right. By the side door, Rue was shaking off her skirts.

“And now, our grand prize, a bottle of twenty-one-year-old Lagavulin,
very
generously donated by our host for this evening, goes to—drum roll please!”

Leo’s eyes met mine. I nodded. Kelley handed Cora the card.

“Jane . . . Jenkins?”

A hush fell over the room.

Cora laughed nervously. “Well, I’m sure it’s not
that
Jane Jenkins.”

Everywhere heads turned, waiting to see who would approach the stage. I paid close attention to the crowd, but apart from Peter—whose face was lit with hope, poor guy—no one looked particularly angry or anxious. Merely curious. Mitch hadn’t even moved from his chair.

“Jane?” Cora said. “Jane Jenkins? Are you here?”

Nothing but whispers. I tried to tell myself this didn’t mean anything.

Cora, finally, rediscovered her smile. “Well, everyone needs to go the ladies’ room sometime, I suppose.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

As soon as the music restarted and conversation resumed, I slipped out the side exit—Rue gave me an unconvincingly optimistic thumbs-up—and made my way upstairs to the billiard room. Rue had already done as I’d asked: The lights were dimmed and the curtains were closed; the fire was banked. The garment bag was behind the ornamental screen. I made one important additional adjustment to the décor and settled in to wait.

If Mitch was looking for me, eventually he’d have to come here.

I thought of his reaction back in the ballroom—or, rather, his lack thereof. God, what if I was wrong?

Please, please come find me. I don’t want to play this game anymore.

I paced across the room a few times before heading to the billiard table. I pulled a ball from a corner pocket and rolled it between the palms of my hands as I examined the four portraits on the wall in front of me. They progressed in chronological order from left to right. I gazed at the oldest—the town founder, I supposed. You’d think someone who was such a stickler for propriety would have done a better job grooming his ear hair. My gaze dropped to the brass nameplate: John Tesmond Percy.

My breath caught in my throat. I walked down the length of the wall, my fingers leaping from nameplate to nameplate.

John Tesmond Percy

John Gibson Percy

John Stanton Percy

John Mitchell Percy

Behind me, the door opened.

Stanton’s head appeared around the door. “Oh, Miss Parker.” He pulled out a handkerchief and blotted his forehead. “I’m sorry to disturb you, I was just looking for someone.”

I glanced over his shoulder. He was alone. “No need to apologize,” I said carefully. “Who are you looking for? Maybe I can help.”

“I don’t know if you were in the ballroom for the raffle drawing, but we’re still trying to track down the grand-prize winner.” He gave a rueful twist of his lips. “I was hoping I might convince her to share.”

“There was a girl in here just a few minutes ago, could that have been her? Skinny, blond—
very
pretty.”

His lips pressed together before they remembered to smile. “That sounds about right. Did she say where she was going?”

“She’s going to be right back,” I said. I held up the billiard ball. “She challenged me to a game.”

“Well, thank you, dear.” He lowered himself into one of the chairs next to the fire. “I think I’ll just wait here, then.”