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“Quite sure. Roxie already asked me about this, so I’ve given it some thought. She said you mentioned this ‘secret’ to her too. But I’m afraid neither of us has the faintest idea what you mean. Michael was fine before the party. Nothing was troubling him.”
“But he told me—”
“Summer.” Teddy interrupted her. “You’re building quite a conspiracy theory here. Mysterious secrets, frayed brake cables. Can’t you see it’s all smoke and mirrors?”
A heavy silence fell across the table.
“If I really believed someone had harmed my son deliberately, don’t you think I’d be calling the police right now? Don’t you think I’d want to know the truth as much as you do?”
Summer nodded.
Cupping a hand under her chin, Teddy lifted her face so her eyes met his and said, gently but firmly, “It. Was. An. Accident. Now . . .” He smiled broadly, breaking the tension like a snapped twig. “Let’s order some pudding, shall we? The Eton mess here has to be tasted to be believed.”
In her room at the Orange a few hours later, Summer threw her few paltry overnight things into a bag.
Why does nobody believe me?
Why does nobody take me seriously?
Tears of frustration welled in her eyes. She remembered what her boss at the New York Post had said to her when he turned down a story on gang intimidation Summer had been working on for months.
“Don’t bring me conjecture, Miss Meyer. Bring me the facts. This is a newspaper. We don’t print fairy tales.”
Was her theory about Michael a fairy tale? Had his crash really just been an accident, like Teddy De Vere and the rest of the world seemed to think?
Rubbing her eyes, she felt dizzy with exhaustion.
I need about a year of sleep.
Back in the Mayfair office of his hedge fund, Kingsmere Capital, Teddy De Vere closed the door, took off his suit jacket, and sank into his plush leather Herman Miller task chair. Closing his eyes, he took a deep, calming breath.
One mustn’t panic.
It wouldn’t do to panic. Terribly un-English.
He picked up the phone.
“Yes, it’s me. Look, I’m sorry to call when you’re resting. But I think we need to talk.”
Sergei Milescu was frightened.
He’d been sure Sir Edward Manning would get him what he needed—enough dirt on Alexia De Vere to force her out of office, so that his paymaster could replace her with a more suitable, amenable candidate as home secretary. But having squeezed the old queen like a lemon for over a year, Edward’s drips of information were running out. So was Sergei’s paymaster’s patience.
“I paid in advance, in good faith.”
He wore a Savile Row suit and spoke in the measured, educated tones of a businessman. But he was not a businessman. He was a merciless killer. Brought up on the streets of Tbilisi with nothing but his wits to recommend him, he had lied and threatened and robbed and deceived and bludgeoned his way to the top of the heap in the new Russia. Now he owned oil wells and diamond mines and chemical plants and nuclear power stations. The JPMorgans and Goldman Sachses of this world all courted him. In London, he mixed in the highest society, dated aristocratic girls, and gave lots of money to charity and to “helpful” political parties. The Tories had been very helpful, until that jumped-up bitch Alexia De Vere had had the temerity to question his business dealings, closing tax and other legal loopholes that he and his fellow London-based oligarchs relied on. The home secretary had crossed him, a grave mistake. Beneath the veneer of sophistication, he remained a ruthless savage.
Sergei Milescu had witnessed his savagery firsthand. A Ukrainian prostitute who’d shortchanged him had had her eyes gouged out. Rumor was he’d let her off lightly because she was a woman.
Sergei felt the sweat soak through his shirt.
“I’ll return the money.”
“I have no interest in the money. I want what I paid for.”
“You’ll get it.”
“When?”
