“That’s not true.”

  “Wake up, woman. Paul despises you. What he found out yesterday only added fuel to his fire.”

  She carried her drink to a chair and sat down. She knew Kenny might be right, but she’d never permitted herself to dwell on it. She’d been too busy with her career to worry about Paul and his childhood resentments. In a way, she supposed he was just another casualty in the mess she’d made of her life. Not that she’d done it all by herself. The great Wayne Buckridge bore as much responsibility for the mess as she did.

  Hearing a knock at the door, she said, “Will you get that? Arthur probably forgot his key again.”

  “I’m not the butler.”

  “Oh, forgive me. I wouldn’t want you to put an inadvertent crease in your suit by doing some physical labor.” He was such a prima donna. “I’ll get it myself.”

  “No,” he said, rising from the couch. “I have to leave anyway. I’ve got to drive Emily to the airport.”

  She cocked her head. “The airport? Why?”

  “She’s going home.”

  “But we’re all supposed to fly to St. Louis on Sunday.”

  “She changed her mind.”

  “Without telling me?” When he opened die door, Constance saw Nathan standing outside.

  “Another Buckridge in name only. Come on in, bro. Join the party.”

  Constance drained the last of the vodka from her glass, then stood. She felt unreasonably happy to see him, even though she feared he’d come to give her more bad news. Perhaps he was leaving, too. Her greatest fear was that everyone would leave her in the end. She breathed in deeply to calm herself.

  “I’d like to talk to my mother alone,” Nathan said coldly, standing just inside the door.

  “No problem.” Kenny smiled. “I was just on my way out.” Looking back at Constance, he said, “I’ll be in touch the minute I hear anything.”

  “Good.” She paused, then added, “When are you and Emily leaving?”

  He checked his watch. “In about an hour.”

  “Tell her I want to talk to her first.”

  “I’ll give her the message. I can’t promise anything.”

  As the door closed, Nathan asked, “Is Arthur here?”

  “He’s down in the lobby.”

  He nodded. Walking around for a few seconds as if he was searching for a place to sit but couldn’t find a surface that suited him, he finally lowered himself into the chair next to his mother.

  “I’m so glad to see you,” she said, trying to steady her voice as she resumed her own seat. “I was hoping you’d come with us to the bookstore in St. Cloud.”

  “I couldn’t. I, ah … had some business to take care of. Actually, I’ve got something to tell you. It’s important.”

  “What is it?”

  He cleared his throat. “I’m buying New Fonteney. As of this afternoon, I’m giving you notice that I intend to quit my job as the national manager of the B.C. A. restaurants.”

  Her eyes widened. “But, Nathan? I don’t understand.”

  “I’m going to live at the old monastery, Mom. I’m moving back to Minnesota for good. I’ve put down a substantial down payment, and I plan to get a bank loan for the rest. I intend to turn the place into a restaurant or a cooking school. I haven’t decided which, but I’ve got plenty of money in the bank to live on until I do. Whatever I decide, with my credentials, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “Is this because of Sophie?”

  “Partly. I signed the purchase agreement yesterday and I was hoping to give her the good news last night. But when that interview dropped on us out of the blue, I couldn’t.” He scratched the side of his beard, then looked away. “I hope I can convince her to leave her husband and marry me someday, but whether she does or not, I’m putting down roots here. I’ve had enough traveling to last me the rest of my life.”

  “But I thought you liked to travel.”

  “Traveling’s okay, I guess, but I’ve been running away from my life, Mom, or, more specifically, from my lack of a life. This may be my last chance to create something of my own.”

  Constance gripped her hands together in her lap. “But a bank loan. You don’t need to do that. You can borrow the money from me.”

  “No.” His voice was sharp. “This has to be something I do on my own. If it fails, I’m the only one to blame. I’m sick of working with other people, letting them call the shots, make the decisions I should be making.”

  “You mean Kenny?”

  “Kenny. Paul. You. New Fonteney is going to be mine. I love it out there. It’s the paradise I thought I’d never find.”

  Constance suddenly felt frightened. “Are you leaving me because of what that awful woman said in that interview?”

  “Mom, listen to me. I made the decision to buy the monastery before any of that came up. And I’m not leaving you. I’m just changing jobs.”

  They both knew it wasn’t that simple. “Then you believe what I said this morning? It was all a lie, you know. I would never sleep with my brother! And Wayne, his heart gave out. There was nothing I could do.”

  His gaze dropped to the carpet. “You’d better prepare yourself for the worst, Mom. If you can’t stop Marie Damontraville’s book, you’re going to have to figure out how to handle it in the media. You can deny it, of course, but there’s still going to be fallout. How bad it will be is anyone’s guess.”

  “I’ll sue!”

  “If you do, other information could come out. Do you understand what I’m saying?” He fixed her with his intense brown eyes. “You have to be careful. Maybe Damontraville found out about Pepper Buckridge, or maybe she didn’t. Until we have all the facts, we have to play it cool.”

  Constance felt a thump of alarm in her chest. “God,” she whispered, “do you realize what it could mean if the police find out? There’s no statute of limitations on murder.”

  Nathan squeezed her hand reassuringly. ‘Trust me. I’ve still got a few cards up my sleeve.”

  “But if she finds out, how can we stop her? Kenny’s got men out all over the city trying to locate her. And even if we do find her, what if we can’t scare her off or buy her off?”

  “I’ll take care of it,” said Nathan. “I’ve always protected you and I won’t stop now. I plan to be away from die hotel tonight, but I don’t want you to worry. I’ve got something I need to do.”

  “What?”

  “Just cross your fingers and wish me luck.”

  “Nathan, if anything ever happened to you —”

  “Nothing’s going to happen to me. But do me a favor. Tell the rest of the family that I’m calling a meeting for seven tomorrow night. By then I should have a solution to this whole mess. I want everyone to come out to New Fonteney.”

  “Why not meet here? It would be much easier.”

  “No. It has to be New Fonteney. My turf.”

  “Can’t you give me some idea of what this is about?”

  He rose from his chair. “Tomorrow, Mom. Think good thoughts, okay? With any luck, this will be over soon.”

  27

  “What a story,” said Sophie, tossing the last of the interviews on the dining room table. She’d been reading for almost forty-five minutes, trying hard to distinguish fact from opinion. “But I still don’t get it Marie Damontraville just gave these to you?”

  Bram was sitting across from her, nursing his after-dinner iced tea. “She needed someone she could talk to. An unbiased ear.”

  “So she picks you? Someone who’s almost a total stranger?”

  “What can I say? I’ve got a face women trust.”

  Sophie did a double take. “That’s not exactly the way I’d describe your effect on women. The night I saw you together I got the distinct impression that Ms. Damontraville was giving you the eye.”

  “The evil eye?”

  “No, dear. She was flirting. And,” she said, pausing for effect, “she looked distinctly predatory. Like a hawk zooming in on a mouse.”

  “How flattering.”

  “Just an observation.”

  He shrugged indifferently.”We merely bumped into each other one night She realized she’d been on my radio show a few years back. We got to talking. She was really shaken up after she got that threatening note pushed under her door. Then Kenneth Merlin shows up to bribe her off the story. She was alone in town, Soph. I got drawn into the whole mess simply because I’m a good listener. And that’s the truth. I will say that when she finally came clean and told me she was working on a biography of Constance Buckridge, she caught my interest immediately. I mean, if it turns out this ex-boyfriend of yours comes from a long line of serial killers or psychopaths, I wanted to know about it.”

  “Please,” Sophie muttered, leaning back in her chair. She wondered if she’d made a mistake by starting out the evening with the announcement that, on May 7, George Gildemeister had received a fax from someone at the Buckridge Culinary Academy instructing him to make his review — his second critique of the Belmont — even more vitriolic than it already was.

  When Bram heard the news, he was appalled.

  Sophie added that one could easily infer from the situation that George had sent a draft to Constance or one of her inner circle in order to obtain approval. Why? Very simple. Money had been offered in exchange for a scathing review. Sophie and Bram both agreed that it was disgusting. They also agreed that there was no reason why it shouldn’t have worked — unless, as Sophie pointed out, George suddenly came down with an attack of guilty conscience.

  After reading all the interviews, Sophie was itching to know what had gone on in that family all those years ago and what impact it had on the present.

  “It’s not impossible that Nathan’s behind it all,” said Bram, using his deep, authoritative radio voice.

  “Is that your opinion or Walter Cronkite’s?”

  He folded his arms over his chest. “Nathan could have been the one who murdered Gildemeister.” Nodding toward the interviews, he added, “He also could have poisoned Pepper Buckridge. After all, he took the antifreeze from the garage. We have an eyewitness to attest to that.”

  “Bram, he was only nine years old.”

  “So?”

  “Behavior like that would make him a total sociopath.”

  “And precocious, too. Look, somebody in that family planted a bomb in Sean Rafferty’s car, and it wasn’t Nathan’s dear old mama. I doubt Constance knows all that much about internal combustion engines. And now I find out that Nathan was in Gildemeister’s apartment the night he died — and that he might be part of a plot to sink the Belmont so that the Buckridges can add a new gourmet bistro to the growing list of academy-run restaurants. Maybe he’s behind everything, Sophie. He’s certainly in a pivotal position.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t accept it.”

  “Why not? Because you’re still in love with him?”

  Now he’d gone too far. “Don’t turn this into something it isn’t, Bom. I’m not in love with Nathan. It’s just… I know him better than you do. He’s a good man. A gentle man. He could never murder anyone.”

  “Most people who commit murder don’t have two horns and a tail. They look just like you and me. And they do what they do, not because they’re evil or sick, but because their backs are to the wall and they see no other way out.”

  She knew he had a point. That’s when she recalled what Nathan had said to her on Wednesday night. He’d warned her not to get too close to him because she might get burned. She’d taken it as a veiled comment on the sexually charged nature of their relationship. But after what she had found out today, she wondered if he hadn’t been talking about something else. Perhaps he’d been referring once again to his “frustrated system.” In light of what she now knew, the comment took on an ominous portent. What if he had jettisoned his conscience, his sense of right and wrong? “Look, Bram, Nathan came clean about being at George’s apartment that night. He even told me why he was there.”

  “Which could all be a lie. If he’d murdered the man, he’s hardly going to tell you the truth, especially if he’s trying to wheedle his way back into your life.”

  “That’s not going to happen and he knows it.”

  “For all I know, Sophie, he already has.”

  She closed her eyes. This was a nightmare. Bram couldn’t know what had happened, yet he sensed something was different. But it wasn’t different. She’d slept with Nathan, but it would never happen again. “Please, sweetheart, just drop it. You’re making way too much of something that was over a long time ago.”

  After a couple of tense seconds, his expression softened. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to upset you. It’s just… when I think of you spending time with that jerk, I get a little crazy. I never thought of myself as the jealous type, but I guess maybe lam.”

  She reached across the table and took his hand. “I love you. You’ve got nothing to be jealous of. Nathan and I are just friends, and not even that. We hardly know each other anymore. But there’s still a connection. I can’t explain it. And he’s in trouble. I can’t just turn my back on the man.”

  “My wife. Father confessor, psychologist, and social worker all rolled into one.”

  She smiled, glad that he’d let her off the hook — for now. “Help me think this through, okay?”

  “Should I make us a pitcher of martinis first?”

  “Do you think it would help our thought processes?”

  “No, but it might put me in a better mood.”

  She patted his hand. “Why don’t we save it for a reward? We’ll enjoy it so much more when we’re done.”

  “If you say so, dear.”

  “Don’t grit your teeth, darling. It’ll wear them out. And don’t be angry.”

  “I’m not angry. I’m thirsty.”

  Still sputtering at each other, they adjourned to the living room. Bram sat down on the couch and patted the spot next to him. Once Sophie was seated, they put their feet up on the footstool and Bram entwined his arm around hers.

  “There, now we’re at least more comfortable.”

  “Don’t drift off on me, buster. We’ve got some heavy analyzing to do. Okay, we have two different threads we need to follow. One present tense, one past.”

  “Let’s take the past first.” He sat up a little. “Marie Damontraville has uncovered some intriguing facts about Constance Buckridge and her family, starting with Arthur Jadek’s sudden disappearance in the late Fifties and his equally sudden reappearance in 1973. Also, we have a brief sexual liaison between sister and brother and the accusation that both Constance and Arthur sat by and let Wayne Buckridge die when they had it in their power to get him the medicine that might have forestalled his death.”

  “Well put.”

  “By the way, if the D. A. thinks that last part could be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, it might qualify as ‘depraved indifference.’ They could both be indicted for murder.”

  Sophie had no idea. “But it can’t be proved.”

  “Not yet, but give Marie some time. Now, as harmful as these interviews would be if they made it into a book or a magazine article, you’re right. It’s still Constance’s word against Laurie Lippert’s as to whether the worst of the accusations are true. You mentioned to me earlier that Constance has already made a plausible case for why this ex-employee might lie. Since there were no other witnesses — at least none that we know of — Constance and Arthur have deniability on their side. My point is, I think it’s possible that Marie hasn’t unearthed the worst of Constance’s secrets yet. If that’s the case, she’s not safe as long as she’s working on that wretched book.”

  “You’re referring to Pepper Buckridge’s death?”

  “Exactly. To keep a potential poisoning under wraps, Constance, or someone in her family, resorted to murder. Whether or not Nathan is responsible for Raffety’s death, I’ll bet he knows who is, and that makes him legally culpable, no matter how much you want to deny it.”

  Sophie tipped her head back and closed her eyes. “This is such a disaster,” she said, a hollow feeling growing in the pit of her stomach. Pulling herself together she added, “I won’t defend him, but I don’t think we should convict him without knowing all the facts.”

  Bram conceded the point with a shrug.

  “Okay, now it’s my turn,” said Sophie. “I’ll continue on with the present.”

  “Gildemeister’s death.”

  “I want to run through all the new information I’ve gathered.”

  “I’d be happier if I was sipping a martini.”

  “I’d be happier if we were sitting on a beach in Bermuda, but we’re not. Now Harry was arrested for George’s murder because he admits he was in George’s apartment that night, and he had a motive. He’d also threatened George in a note he hand-delivered to the paper, as well as in various other letters discovered at his house. But Harry swears that when he left George’s apartment that night, George was still alive. He further suggests that George was waiting for someone else to arrive, which meant he more or less shooed Harry out.”

  “And we know that other person was Nathan,” said Bram, “because a woman across the hall saw him. Did you ever tell Nathan about her?”

  “Actually, I did. But Nathan swears that when he got to George’s apartment, the door was open and George was already dead.”

  “How convenient.”

  She held up her hand for quiet. “Ada Pearson, George’s neighbor, said that Harry got there about six-thirty. She heard an argument a little while later. Then she went to the kitchen to eat her dinner. During dessert, she heard more arguing. Then it was quiet for about half an hour, so she looked outside to see what was going on just as Nathan left the apartment. If Nathan had arrived after Harry left — say, seven-fifteen or seven-thirty — and another argument ensued during Ada’s dessert, let’s say Nathan did murder him. If so, why did he stick around for another half hour? I saw him leave at eight.”

  “Maybe he was looking for something,” said Bram. “That fax you found?”