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“I think you should come with us,” her mother said, shoving a pile of papers to one side of the breakfast counter and setting down a tall glass of orange juice. “You’ve been isolating too much.”
“I haven’t been isolating,” she said calmly, taking the orange juice that she didn’t want, knowing an argument would be futile. “I’m just…on vacation. If I’m in the way I can always—”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” It was hard to annoy her easygoing mother, but Chloe was the one most likely to manage. “There’s always room for you here, as well as the entire family. Why do you think we built the guest house? In fact, you know I wish you’d stay in the main house. I’d feel more comfortable knowing you were under the same roof.”
Chloe drank her orange juice, saying nothing. She knew that was one of the things that worried her family the most, her unnatural quiet, but there was nothing she could do about it. Idle chatter was totally beyond her at that point, even if it meant reassuring her mother.
“I know this conference is going to be a total bore for anyone not in the medical profession, but your brothers and sister will be there, as well as their families. It’s being held in a charming resort on the coast, and I know you’d have a lovely time….”
“Not yet,” she said, her voice so quiet her mother had to lean forward to hear her. “You go on and have fun. I’ll be fine here. You haven’t gone anywhere since I came back, and I know how you like to travel. Trust me, it’s perfectly safe. No one’s going to bother me, and I’ll just enjoy a few days’ solitude.”
“You’ve been enjoying too much solitude.” She turned to her husband who’d just entered the kitchen. “James, talk her into coming with us!”
James shook his head. “Leave the girl alone, Claire. She’ll be fine. She’s just tired of having us hanging around all the time. A few days of quiet will be the best thing for her. Right, Chloe?”
Chloe managed to rouse her voice for that one. “Absolutely. There’s nothing to worry about.”
Claire Underwood looked between her husband and youngest child, equally frustrated. “I can’t fight the both of you,” she said. “Just make sure you have the security system on, you understand?”
“We never use the security system,” Chloe protested.
“We paid a huge amount of money for it, we might as well use it,” her father said, the traitor. “That sounds like a good compromise. Promise to leave the security system on and I’ll make sure your mother comes with me.”
Chloe had never considered that her mother might refuse to go at the end. The very notion of a weekend of mother-daughter bonding gave her cold chills. Not that she didn’t love her mother, but Claire’s attempts at bonding were notoriously inept. “I’ll use the security system,” she said. “I’ll even go buy a gun and a pack of guard dogs if you think it’s necessary.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Chloe.” Her mother had given up at this point. “Besides, I think your father has an old twenty-two somewhere up in the attic.”
“Great. I’ll go make sure I know where to find the weapons when the Mongol hordes attack.”
“Very funny,” her mother muttered. “I know the two of you think I worry too much….”
“And we love you for it,” James said. “But in the meantime we’ve got to go. You’ve got a paper to deliver and I’ve got grandchildren to see.” He glanced over at Chloe, sitting on the stool with both hands clasped around the glass of orange juice. “Speaking of which, I wouldn’t mind some more eventually. No hurry, of course, but you might just keep it in mind. I hear Kevin McInerny’s back from New York, setting up a law firm in Black Mountain. You used to date him, didn’t you? Nice young man.”
“Yes, he was nice,” Chloe said. She couldn’t even remember him.
“Maybe I’ll invite him out to dinner when we get back,” her mother said. “You wouldn’t mind that, would you, Chloe?”
She’d rather have her toes eaten by lizards. “That would be fine.”
Her mother swallowed it whole, and by that time her father had reappeared with the luggage. “Have a good time,” Chloe said brightly. “I’ll be fine.”
Her mother gave her a quick hug, pulling back to search her face one more time. She didn’t like what she saw there, Chloe thought, but there was nothing she could do about it.
“Be careful,” her mother said.
Ten minutes later they were gone, blissful silence filling the huge old house. She dutifully set the security system, once she knew they were off the grounds, and then forgot about it. There was an odd chill in the air. The soft ripe scent of spring had been temporarily halted. She should have paid attention to the Weather Channel, but scenes of snowstorms in more northerly climates tended to make her shake, so she usually avoided it completely. The sky was overcast, threatening, and the wind had picked up, laced with an edge of ice. A cold front must be coming through, she thought, trying to still her instinctive nervousness. It wouldn’t affect her traveling family—they were well ahead of whatever storm was blowing in. And it wouldn’t affect her—she had no intention of going anywhere. Instead she was planning on pampering herself while they were gone—taking long, leisurely soaks in the Jacuzzi, watching old musicals on the television. She used to have a fondness for martial arts movies, but since she’d returned from Paris she found she had a low tolerance for artificial violence. But Judy Garland and Gene Kelly calmed her into believing in a happy place where people woke up singing and dancing. For the next few days, she was going to live
in that place, no matter what the weather outside.
It was growing dark by the time she emerged from the hot tub, and she wrapped herself in a thick terry robe and wandered down into the kitchen. The security panel was blinking, the green lights telling her all was safe and secure, and she realized for the first time in months she was hungry. Probably because her mother wasn’t there nagging her to eat. She opened the massive refrigerator that was always kept overstocked, found herself some leftover apple pie. She pulled it out, closing the door behind her, only to look directly into Bastien Toussaint’s dark, merciless eyes.
22
She dropped the pie. It was in a Pyrex dish that shattered at her bare feet, but she didn’t move, looking up at him in shock.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Chloe,” he said, his voice that familiar, mesmerizing sound. “Surely you didn’t think I’d died?”
It took her a moment to find her voice. “I wondered,” she said. He looked different. Thinner, his face lined from pain or something else, and his hair was even longer, though streaked with sunlight that matched his tanned skin. Odd, because she never would have thought of him in the sunlight—only in darkness and shadows.
