Dear Daughter (41 page)

“I could go find her for you,” I said.

“No, I’ll be fine here. You go back to the party—no need to keep an old man company. I hear Cora’s about to bring out the pie.”

“Well,” I said, “I do love pie.” But I didn’t move.

He leaned back in the chair and crossed his legs. He scratched his eyebrow, dislodging a flake of skin from the white wiry hairs. It fell to the lapel of his jacket. He looked at it with distaste before flicking it off. I watched it float to the ground.

“Was there something else you needed?” he asked.

There were so many ways to answer this: Valium. A better bra. A crystal ball. Over the past week my uncertainty had expanded to fill the infinite space I had given it. I didn’t know if I was doing the right thing, if I had the right man—if I was the right woman. What if Janie wasn’t even in there anymore?

But, then again, this might be my only chance to find out.

I steadied my breath. “You wouldn’t be interested in a game, would you?”

“Some other time, my dear.”

“I think I have something that might convince you.” I held up a finger. “Would you excuse me for just one minute?”

“I—”

“Great. Back in a jiff.”

I slipped behind the screen and pulled off the mobcap and wig.

“Miss Parker—”

I unbuttoned my dress, unhooked my corset, stepped out of my petticoats. Pulled off the glasses and popped out the color contacts.

“Just a second,” I sang.

I peeled off my stockings and tugged up the little black dress Rue had lent me. I stepped into shoes that actually fit. I put my fist to my forehead and recited all the words I knew that had anything to do with benevolent divinities.

Showtime
.

I stepped out from behind the screen.

“Miss Parker. I hate to have to put it like this, but I am tired, and this is my house, and I would really just like—” Stanton finally looked over. He clutched the arm of his chair. “Mother of God.”

My hand fluttered to my head. “Is it the hair? I know it’s a little Princess Di, but it was the best we could do with these bangs.”

I walked over to the cloudy mirror that hung on the wall between the balcony doors and fluffed my newly ashy-blond waves. “Clairol,” I said. “Who knew?” I heaved my purse up onto the credenza and dumped out a pile of cosmetics. I picked up a thin, angled brush and a pot of gel liner. I pulled my left eyelid taut and began to trace a thick black line. Then I winged it out at the corners, because that’s what Rue told me the kids were doing. Let me tell you, it’s not an easy look to do when your hands would rather be shaking.

I paused, checking behind me in the mirror. Stanton was still frozen in place. “You know,” I said, “they say that the eyes are the windows to the soul—I’ve always thought that’s why I’m so fond of false lashes.” I finished the left eye and moved to the right. “In case you were wondering? I prefer Shu Uemura, but Urban Decay totally works in a pinch.”

I layered on mascara until my eyelids had to strain to stay open.

I checked the mirror again. Stanton had risen to his feet. I reminded myself to breathe.

I twisted the mascara shut and set it on the credenza. I looked at the makeup I had left. Once I did one of those little mini-interview things for a women’s magazine where they ask you about, like, what’s in your purse and stuff, and one of the questions was, “If you were stranded on a desert island, which one beauty product would you want with you?” Of course I
should
have said sunscreen, but my answer was, “Dior Addict in Diorissime.” They hadn’t had it at the drugstore I’d sent Kelley to, of course, but I still had the old tube I’d brought with me to prison. So what if it was a little gummy?

I pressed it into my lips and took one last look in the mirror.

Was this how a killer smiled?

Time to find out. I turned around.

Stanton was ten feet in front of me, a gun in his hands.

•   •   •

My knees gave out.

I didn’t do it. Oh god, I didn’t do it.

My face was in my hands, and one or both of them or maybe all of me was trembling, like the filament of a lightbulb just after it’s burned out. I ground my back teeth together to keep my face from doing something even less dignified. Mostly because I didn’t want to fuck up my makeup.

Eventually I managed to look up at Stanton and his neat little pistol. “I have to admit, I was hoping you’d pick the Winchester.”

“For old times’ sake?”

“No, because before you got here I took out its shells.”

He inclined his head in a way I might have interpreted as admiration if I weren’t so attuned to bullshit.

“It’s astonishing, really, how much you resemble my grandmother,” he said.

“Is that how you found us?”

He rolled a shoulder apologetically. “The price of fame.”

I tried to keep my eyes from darting over to the door, but Stanton read the intention nevertheless. He walked over, locked it, and pocketed the key.

I swallowed back a mouthful of bile. This had seemed a lot less stupid when I’d thought Leo would be on the other side of that door.
I grabbed at the credenza and pulled myself up.

“Hands where I can see them.”

I huffed and set them on my hips, trying for bravado. “What do you think I’m going to do, kill you with lip gloss?”

“I prefer not to test the limits of your resourcefulness. Away from the credenza, please.”

“If you’re so worried, you should’ve just shot me in the back in the first place.”

“Just what kind of man do you think I am? I can’t shoot you in the back—then it wouldn’t look like self-defense.”

I waved my empty hands in the air. “Defense against what?”

“You think Janie Jenkins really needs a weapon to be considered a threat? Reasonable grounds are a given, my dear.”

He cocked the gun. I spun on my heel, flung the curtains to the side, and threw open the French doors.

“Don’t tell me you’re going to jump,” Stanton said.

“Not like you think—” I leaped out.

An explosion of light and sound, of flash flares and exhortations. A phalanx of reporters charged toward the balcony; five satellites perked up toward the sky. I braced myself against the balcony rail.

“Janie, where have you—”

“Janie, what have you—”

“Janie, who have you—”

“Hello, boys. Miss me?” I looked over my shoulder at Stanton. “I thought it might be a good idea to bring some witnesses. There are
some
benefits to a bad reputation.”

He took a step back; I watched him closely. I had to walk a fine line—I didn’t want to scare him off. I just had to keep him from killing me long enough to find out what happened. Needing to know
who
wasn’t enough anymore. I needed to know why. And I knew just how to get Stanton to tell me: I’d attack his pride.

“She was supposed to go after Mitch, you know. That was the original plan. I wonder—did she decide you were the easier mark?”

His expression hardened. “Do you honestly believe I didn’t know exactly what she was doing? Who do you think made sure the bank wouldn’t give them another loan?”

“That’s a long way to go to get laid,” I said. “But then—she was just
so
beautiful, wasn’t she? Did you ever pretend, when she was with you? That she actually wanted to be there? Or did you get off on the reality?”

Stanton’s hand tightened on the gun.

The crowd below was growing louder. I gave a pageant-queen wave and blew them a kiss.

“Tell me this,” I said. “If you knew exactly what she was doing, how’d she manage to get pregnant?”

“I’ll admit, I underestimated her commitment—and her ingenuity.”

“I don’t know, those sound like pretty good traits in a wife.”

“I’m not a Fuller. I don’t give my name to trash just because it happens to be within arm’s reach—your mother knew that as well as I. She didn’t come to me with a proposal; she came to me with a demand.”

“Blackmail,” I said.

“Of the simplest kind. I would pay her—and she would destroy the . . . incriminating evidence.”

“Janie, what are you wearing?”

“It’s off-the-rack!” I yelled. “Let’s never speak of it again.”

Stanton was looking at me like I was that flake of loose skin. “Would it have been so bad?” I asked. “If people knew?”

“Fucking her was one thing. Letting her win was another.”

“You couldn’t have just paid her off?”

“But I did,” he said, easily. “I was rather generous, really. I gave her—oh—about two hundred dollars, if I remember correctly. I told her she could either use the money to take care of it herself, or she could keep the money, and I’d take care of it for her.”

“What do you know, I’m not the only one whose memory sucks.” I strode back through the door and over to the credenza, ignoring the way the barrel of the gun tracked me. I dug the money I’d found in Tessa’s closet out of my purse and tossed it at Stanton’s feet. “It was a
hundred
dollars,” I said. “And she didn’t touch a cent of it.”

If the gun wavered, I couldn’t tell. He swept the money to the side with his foot.

“Janie, come back!”
Light flooded in through the windows behind me. They must be setting up for live shots.

“So was that it?” I asked. “You killed her because you’re a sore fucking loser? You held a grudge for eighteen years?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. It was a crime of practicality. A cost-benefit analysis.”

“What was the benefit?”

“Apart from the look on her face? The gold, of course.”

“The
what
?” I shook myself. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. Does Eli know?”

“It’s not on his land, just Tessa’s. Eli’s no luckier than his great-grandfather. A few years after Eli left town I found an old field journal of my grandfather’s. He’d known where the gold was all along—he was just waiting the Kantys out. He neglected to take into account the resilience of roaches.”

“That’s when you started looking for Tessa.”

He nodded. “She did a good job disappearing, I’ll give her that. I would never have thought to look in such rarefied circles. But I was patient.”

My hand reached out and grabbed the doorframe. “And then you saw my pictures.”

“Even I go to the grocery store.”

I looked at the gun in his hands. It was unnervingly steady. I glanced at the door. It was unnervingly silent.

“Janie, say something!”

“Why didn’t you just buy it from her? She didn’t need that land—she had more money than even I could ever spend.”

“She wouldn’t sell to me any more than you would.” He paused. “You wouldn’t, would you?”

“Fuck you.”

He inclined his head in acknowledgment. “Fair enough. By the time I found her, Tessa was immune to extortion. When I threatened to expose her, she just laughed and said—I’ll always remember this—‘You can get away with anything if you wear great clothes, throw great parties, and—’”

“Give money to kids with cleft palates. Yeah, that was one of my favorites. I probably should’ve taken it more seriously.” I wiped my forehead with the back of my hand. “But how would killing her help—oh,
shit
. You didn’t have any ties to Tessa. But you had ties to me.”

He smiled. “Yes, Jane: It really is all about you. Does it feel as good as you’d hoped?”

“You killed her to get to me.”

“Well, yes. If you’d died at the same time, the land would have gone to whomever else she’d named in her will. I think it was that last husband of hers? But you were still a minor so you didn’t have a will yet, did you? Just a long-lost father—who was going to be utterly devastated when he tracked you down only
after
your own tragic death.”

“How were you going to do it?”

“I was thinking an overdose.” His smile faded. “But then you just had to go and get yourself arrested, didn’t you?”

The piece I hadn’t even realized was missing fell into place.

JANE
.

My mother’s last act had been a fuck you, all right. It just hadn’t been directed at me.

“You couldn’t get to me in prison,” I said. “That’s why she set me up. So you couldn’t get to me.”

Outside, tires crunched over gravel. The smooth, round tones of on-air locution drifted up into the room. This time I didn’t bother to try to hide my glance at the hall door.
Wasn’t anyone coming?

“I should go outside right now and tell them everything,” I said.

“You
could
,” he said. “But who would believe you?”

“Leo would. And Kelley and Rue and Renee.”

“None of those people would speak against me. Not in my town. This place would crumble without me.”

I shook my head. “But it isn’t your town—not anymore. It’s Cora’s.”

His face twisted. “Enough.” He lifted the gun—

“So how about that local sports team?”

He pulled up. “What?”

“We could also talk about the weather,” I said.

“What are you—?”

“Stupid shit people said on the Internet?”

“This is ridiculous,” he said. He aimed.

And then finally—
finally
—the doorknob rattled.

“Oh thank God,” I said. “I really suck at small talk.”

“Jane! Are you in there?”

“It’s Stanton!” I yelled. “It’s not Mitch, it’s Stanton!”

The door thudded with the impact of a foot.

“It’s over, Stanton. Kill me now and you’re just making it worse for yourself.”

Stanton curled his lip, tilted his head. “But can you really kill something that should never have been born?”

He pulled the trigger.

I shouldn’t have been able to hear it. Not over the crack of the gunshot or the pounding at the door. Not over the frantic chorus of inquiries from outside. But still it was there, louder, somehow, than anything else in the room: the slow gurgle of blood from a wound. I looked at my left shoulder.

“Shit,” I breathed. “Red is so not my color.”

Movement, out of the corner of my eye. Stanton lifted the gun to take another shot, and adrenaline coursed through me, numbing my arm, lighting up my legs.