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“Amends to whom?”
“To Billy. To my own children. I don’t know, Luce, I can’t explain it. It just feels right to do something. To at least look into it.”
Lucy shook her head. She knew Alexia well enough to realize that nothing she said was going to change her mind at this point.
“What does that mean, ‘look into it’?” she asked. “If the police couldn’t find anything, what makes you think you’ll be able to, sitting at a computer on Martha’s Vineyard?”
Alexia smiled. “I don’t. That’s why I’m going to New York.”
“New York? When?”
“Soon. Tomorrow, if I can get a flight.”
Lucy cleared away the coffee. “Okay, it’s official. You’ve lost your mind. You’re supposed to be relaxing, switching off, regaining your strength, remember? Not running around the city on some ludicrous wild-goose chase, all for the sake of a girl you never even met. A girl whose father, by the way, was probably trying to ruin you.”
“I don’t believe Billy meant me any harm,” Alexia said. “And I’ve regained my strength. I need to do something, Lucy. I need a purpose. You do understand, don’t you?”
“I guess. Just be careful, Alexia. There are doors that, once opened, can’t easily be closed again. Start digging around in this girl’s life and who knows what you might find.”
Tommy Lyon sat at the American Bar in London’s Savoy Hotel, checking out the businesswomen and sleek yummy mummies as they wandered in. Most wore wedding rings, although the curvaceous brunette at the corner table had a promisingly bare left ring finger, despite sporting a plethora of diamonds everywhere else.
Late thirties? No, early forties with good, subtle Botox. Divorced. Rich. Probably a tigress in the sack.
Tommy prided himself on being a good judge of women, the same way that a betting man might pride himself on a good knowledge of horseflesh. Michael had been the master, of course. Michael De Vere could smell a woman’s likes and dislikes, her desires and weaknesses, from a thousand paces. Tommy Lyon had never quite matched his friend as a ladies’ man. Despite being tall, blond, and athletic, with a strong jaw and soulful brown eyes, every bit as handsome as Michael, somehow Tommy had always ended up playing second fiddle. He lacked the De Vere dazzle, that ineffable charisma that used to draw women to Michael like dust into a vacuum cleaner.
Tommy Lyon missed Michael De Vere dreadfully. But it was nice occasionally to be the guy that got the girl. The brunette caught Tommy’s eye and smiled. He smiled back, and was about to send a glass of champagne over to her table, when a showstopping girl walked into the bar. She was wearing jeans, sneakers, and a pale green T-shirt from the Gap, and had no makeup covering her lightly freckled face. In a bar full of overdone, stiletto-wearing cougars, she stood out like a fresh orchid amid a sea of cheap plastic flowers. Miraculously, the goddess seemed to be walking toward him.
“Tommy?”
“Summer?”
Tommy had never met Michael’s girlfriend. She’d been away in America for most of their relationship, and when she was around, Michael had kept her under wraps. Now Tommy understood why. Michael always managed to land gorgeous girls, but this one was exceptionally attractive. Every man in the room was gazing at her, and glaring at Tommy. Suddenly he felt a rush of pride that it was he she’d come to meet.
“Thanks for seeing me.” Summer kissed him on both cheeks, European-style. “I know you must be crazy busy.”
“Not at all. It’s a pleasure.” Tommy patted the bar stool next to him. “What can I get you? Wine? Champagne?”
“Thanks, but I’m fine. It’s a bit early for me.”
“Nonsense. If Michael were here you’d be drinking. Come on. How about a nice glass of Cristal?”
Summer wrinkled her nose. Cristal? Really. Michael would never have trotted out a cheesy line like that. Not wanting to be rude, she said, “I’ll take a beer. Budweiser, if they have it, in a bottle.”
Tommy bought the beer, and they decamped to a quieter table, passing the disappointed brunette on their way. Watching Summer put the beer bottle to her lips, Tommy registered a familiar stirring of desire. He tried to remind himself that this was Michael’s girlfriend. On the other hand, Michael was never going to wake up, a fact that Tommy Lyon had long ago come to terms with, even if Summer Meyer had not.
He made polite conversation. “So, you’re at Vanity Fair now?”
“Not exactly. I’m freelance, but I’m working on a piece for them.”
“What’s it about?”
“Wealthy young Russians in London. The excesses of their lifestyle, that sort of thing.”
Tommy warned, “Mind where you tread. Russian oligarchs don’t tend to take kindly to exposés, of any sort. I’m sure you’ve read the stories of Western journalists in Moscow being found with a bullet to the back of the head.”
“My piece is hardly Woodward and Bernstein stuff,” said Summer. “It’s more which shoes is Dasha Zhukova wearing this week? Boring and vacuous. Not that I’m complaining. It’s a job and it means I can stay in London, close to Michael.”
Tommy tried not to be distracted by the rise and fall of her breasts beneath the fitted cotton T-shirt. “You still go to the hospice every day?”
