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It doesn’t matter. Not with Ariel gone.
Tears filled her eyes, and over the soft hum of the air conditioner, she heard the sounds of distant sirens as the walls of the house closed in on her.
Didi was obviously expecting a call.
From whom?
Someone with whom she’d been in cahoots?
The “daddy” who had been given a girl dressed up as a boy?
Or someone else?
Remmi wondered if she’d ever know. She barely breathed, listening for the sound of the house phone, but the house remained still, aside from the soft whoosh of air through hidden ducts and her own shallow breathing.
Too many secrets, she thought, as she closed her eyes and knew that sleep tonight would be impossible. We all have too many secrets.
* * *
Oliver Hedges Junior—or OH2, as he preferred—stood at the windows of his penthouse and surveyed the panorama that was Las Vegas, the lights of the city stretching out to the desert. God, he loved this town. Especially tonight. He smiled and caught his watery reflection in the glass: tall, broad-shouldered, and trim, his hair cut neatly, his beard just visible, a crisp shirt, top buttons open beneath a dark Armani jacket with matching slacks, a drink swirling in his hands.
The picture of health and success.
Everything was coming together for him.
He hoisted his drink to the ghostly image, ice cubes dancing in the short glass. “Here’s to you and playing everyone to a T.” Then he took a long swallow of the aged scotch.
Perfect harmony, that’s what it was, just like the music playing from the hidden speakers tucked into the ceiling panels of the ten glassed-in rooms of his condominium in the sky. Well, make that near-perfect harmony. There was that one little hiccup.
He took another drink, letting the taste linger a bit on his tongue as he heard the sound of a baby crying. His child. Though not a male child, as he’d been told, but a little girl. Hmmm. That complicated things a bit, presented a new challenge, but he would just have to adjust. Just as he’d accepted many little bumps in the road of life, including the one that hadn’t bothered him as a young man but had created a problem later: the simple fact that he was sterile and had been told by several doctors that he would never father his own biological child. A blow. But one he’d finally accepted, and he had found a solution to the problem as his younger brother was very, very virile, as it turned out, and he could almost too easily father a child.
Some things in life just weren’t right. He hesitated to use the word “fair,” as he’d never been one to complain about his lot in life. Still . . .
He frowned, caught the change in his diluted reflection, squared his shoulders, and told himself everything would work out.
It always did.
Again, it wasn’t as if he hadn’t made major adjustments in the past. Wasn’t that the reason his father was spending the rest of his days at Fair Haven, a nursing facility that took care of the very wealthy? Poor Dad. Spending what remained of his life practically bedridden, needing help from a bevy of nurses and aides for all of his personal needs. Once a titan of industry, now, in his sixties no less, reduced to a mere shell of what he was. All because of an unfortunate skiing accident at Heavenly Valley.
“Too bad,” OH2 said, swallowing a smile before finishing his scotch and feeling the slight buzz that came after two drinks. Shifting his gaze to the darkness surrounding the edges of the city, he saw the flash of lights—blue and red, faint, but still visible as the emergency responders, cops and firemen and EMTs, surveyed the damage caused by the incinerated car in the desert.
Good luck, he thought sarcastically. Try piecing this one together.
Again, the tiny child let out a whimper, and he glanced to the door of the bedroom, where, he assumed, she was being attended to. For a second, he considered walking inside the bedroom with its makeshift crib, one of those pop-up portable things, and decided against it. Instead, he made his way back to the bar, dipped his empty glass in the bucket of small ice cubes, then poured himself two, or possibly three, more fingers of scotch. Just enough to enhance the euphoric feeling that came with a job well done.
But the other child. The boy, if Didi Storm’s story was to be believed, would be an issue. He smiled at that, the double entendre, because, unfortunately, his brother’s children would be the only heirs to the estate, and despite the prevailing politically correct ideals of this country, a boy would be preferred.
Of course, his own son would have been better.
But because he was adaptable, his brother’s son, or maybe even daughter, would just have to do. Caught young enough, that progeny could be molded.
He took a taste of scotch—cool, as the ice had begun to melt, but warming as it slid down his throat. Sipping steadily, he began plotting his next move. Didi, the greedy slut, was a problem. A major threat. As long as she was alive, knowing what she did, she’d be hanging around, like a wasp that was just out of reach but that you knew, should you turn your back, would sting you. Repeatedly.
Not if he could help it.
* * *
Seated at the tiny kitchen table, Didi stared at the money—tens, twenties, and some fifties strewn on the scarred maple tabletop, some in uneven piles, all stacks unstrapped and counted. All two hundred and fifty thousand dollars—yeah, if you were an idiot. Upon close inspection, she’d learned that only about 10 percent of the bills were leg
