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“What’s there?”
“Hopefully, Bobby Slade.”
“Virginia’s husband?” Jason began to feel a little ray of hope. “You found him?”
“I think so, and a word of advice to you. You’d better get down on your knees and pray he’s got A negative blood running through his veins. Would help cast a big shadow over her story. Oh, and there’s one more thing you might like to know. Earlier tonight, our Ms. Nash was picked up at the Orion Hotel in a stretch limo.”
“By whom?”
Sweeny hesitated a beat and Jason had the sickening feeling that he was being strung along. “Well, that’s the kicker,” Oswald Sweeny finally drawled. “Seems as if your good friend Anthony Polidori took her out to dinner.”
“Listen,” Nelson said, tossing his jacket over the back of a chair. “I’m telling you she’s a wild card. There’s just no knowing what she’s going to do next. She’s said she’ll go to the press, do whatever it takes to get what she wants and I believe her. She wasn’t just jacking me around.”
Zach stood near the fireplace, resting his hip on the Italian marble, feeling uncomfortable in the formal living room—the room he’d never been allowed to walk through as a child. Decorated in white, with touches of black and gold, it was a cold room and he would’ve preferred to be anywhere else in the world, rather than cornered here at the old family home with his brothers and sister.
Now, his eyes narrowed on Nelson. The youngest Danvers brother was known to exaggerate and for that reason he’d probably make a good politician.
Nelson had been pacing the length of the living room, nervously eyeing Zach ever since his middle brother had shown up.
“What do you think we should do?” Zach asked, unable to read his younger brother. Zach had never understood him, not even when Nelson was just a kid.
“Shit, I don’t know what we should do! That’s why I’m here.”
“You’ll make a helluva mayor, Nelson,” Zach remarked before lifting his bottle of Coors to his lips.
“Governor,” Nelson clarified.
Trisha flicked a lighter to the end of her cigarette. “So what would you do, Zach?”
“Leave her alone. Let her play out her hand.”
Through a cloud of smoke, Trisha laughed. “Just because you don’t give a rat’s ass, doesn’t mean the rest of us don’t.”
“You’ve got a better idea?”
“Hire a hit man.” Trisha crossed her legs and settled back into the plump white pillows of the couch.
“Don’t even say it!” Nelson bit out.
“Christ, don’t you know when I’m joking?” Trisha rolled her eyes, but Zach noticed something darken her gaze, something she quickly disguised.
Nelson faced his sister. “No one knows when you’re joking, Trisha. Not even you.”
“Clever, Nelson. Clever.”
Nelson shoved both hands through his hair. “We’d all better be careful. She’s already received a couple of threatening letters and some damned package that she wouldn’t say too much about.”
“How nice,” Trisha purred but Zach felt every muscle in his body grow instantly taut.
“What do you mean?”
As Nelson related his conversation with Adria, Zach’s insides grew cold. Someone was threatening Adria? But who? Only the people in this room, his mother, and the Polidori family knew she was in town. No, that wasn’t right; there were all the people who worked for the family, servants who could have overheard phone calls, and then there was the private investigator and anyone else Jason had put on the payroll.
Trisha, her expression unreadable, crushed her cigarette in a crystal ashtray. “Have any of you thought about the fact that Adria could just be who she claims she is? Maybe she is London and if she is, we’re all up shit creek without our proverbial paddle.”
“London’s dead,” Jason said, cutting off further speculation.
“How do you know? How do any of us know?” Trisha asked.
