The paramedics rolled the gurney closer to the front door, where Alicia positioned herself at the ready. She took a deep breath.
“Count of three,” Niebaum said. “One, two, three ...” and Alicia pulled open the front door, letting in a blast of cold, rainy air and triggering a commotion among the reporters, TV crews, and just plain curious pushing against the sawhorses and crime tape. Camera lights flared, reporters and photographers jostled, Alicia stepped aside, and the paramedics rolled past, one on each side of the gurney, Penrose strutting like a peacock just behind.
Alicia followed. The distance down the driveway to the waiting ambulance wasn’t far, maybe thirty feet, but it was sloped and rain-slick. Wet wind lashed at her face and neck and quickly dampened her jeans, turtleneck, and jacket. The reporters were in full frenzy now, each struggling for a better position, shouting at one another to “Move!” and “Get left!” and “Hey, you! Down with that camera!”
The gurney had nearly reached the ambulance’s open rear doors when someone shouted, “Watch it—you’re in my shot!” Suddenly the mass of humanity surged forward like a rogue wave, sawhorses shoved aside like toy wagons.
The crowd pitched toward the ambulance, one pulsing uncontrollable mass, and Alicia watched with horror as one of the cameramen lost his balance and was shoved forcefully into the paramedics. The gurney, its makeshift tarpaulin tent whipped by the wind and the violent motion, rocked on its wheels while the paramedics struggled frantically to keep it righted. Alicia herself was stampeded by the mob and shoved back closer to the house, nearly to the front door.
Then it happened, another surge of jostling crews and reporters, and this time the paramedics couldn’t hold on to the gurney. Alicia’s hands rose to her mouth—No!—as it pitched violently to one side. Daniel Gaines’ stiff, cadaver-white, half-naked corpse toppled onto the pavement and skidded a few feet until it came to rest. With, for one and all to see, a primitive homemade arrow piercing his blood-soaked chest.
Chapter 3
God, her head pounded. Joan stared out the closed French doors of her ocean-view suite at the Lodge at Pebble Beach. It was an exclusive hotel, but still it was highly inconvenient to have to move out of her own home. Of course, after what had happened, she could hardly stay there.
Everything was so depressing. She sighed heavily, feeling very put-upon. Even by the weather. Beyond the French doors, Stillwater Cove was as steely gray as the late afternoon sky. Further across the water was Carmel Point, where somewhere in the mist her home stood cordoned off by crime tape. Far away she could hear sea lions bark, and close to her suite on the eighteenth green of the golf links a group of golfers bravoed each other every time one of them sank a putt.
Pound. Pound. The surf and her head. She dropped her chin and massaged her temples, round and round, increasing the pressure. No one understood how her headaches were worse than everyone else’s. They were migraines, even if Dr. Finch couldn’t diagnose them.
What a mess Daniel had left! Just twenty-four hours he’d been dead, and already her life was in chaos. She abandoned the windows to pace the pink-and-gray rectangle of Aubusson carpet next to the baby grand. Not only was the press hounding her, but Daniel’s campaign aides, particularly that bitch Molly Bracewell, were circling constantly, wanting to know this, wanting to know that. That asinine D.A. Kip Penrose kept calling her cell phone, six times just that day, to “keep her abreast” of developments.
The only consolation was that she had a plan. Change creates opportunity, her father always said, and for once she agreed with him. This was her chance, if she played it right.
The suite’s buzzer sounded, a jackhammer on her brain. It had to be Henry Gossett, her father’s attorney, whom she’d phoned the instant she got out of bed. Before letting him in, she paused at the foyer mirror. She plucked a speck of lint from her black wool trousers, teamed on this supposed day of mourning with a black cashmere turtleneck, and plumped her short blond hair. As often happened, she found herself slightly irritated with her reflection. She was so damn petite and pixieish, even in black it was a struggle not to look like Tinkerbell.
Finally she pulled open the suite’s door. “Hello, Henry.”
The attorney regarded her solemnly from the corridor. “Hello, Joan.”
It was back in the seventies, when her father was serving his second term as mayor of San Francisco, that he had retained Henry Gossett as his personal counsel. Joan thought Gossett looked the same now as he had when she was five years old. Whatever the day, whatever the weather, he wore a suit and bow tie, with old-man’s wire spectacles and, weirdest of all, a felt fedora. Henry Gossett was unbelievably staid and boring but he had one hugely redeeming characteristic: he would be loyal to the Hudsons to the end.
He entered the suite and set his fedora on the narrow foyer table below the mirror. “I am so very sorry, Joan.” His expression was dour, though she couldn’t remember ever seeing it otherwise. “This is an enormous tragedy.”
“It’s been unbelievably awful,” she told him.
He nodded and spread his hands. “Whatever I can do...”
Joan nodded, then led Gossett into the suite. She knew full well that though he made all the right noises, Henry Gossett deeply disapproved of her late husband. Sizzle but no steak, she’d once overheard him say of Daniel in a rare, champagne-induced lapse. She might have been insulted, but by that point she agreed with the assessment.
She took a seat on the pale gray silk sofa in the main room and Gossett chose a matching wing chair. “Henry,” she said, “I asked you here today because I have a few questions about my father’s living trust. Now that I’ll be trustee.”
Gossett frowned and shifted, his gaze sliding away from her face. He looked damned uncomfortable. Joan suspected that like most people he expected a new widow to be so undone she couldn’t think past her own grief. Well, that didn’t describe this new widow.
He cleared his throat. “Joan, there is something you should know. Now that Daniel has passed away, your mother is the new trustee.”
“What?” She could not have heard right. “My mother?”
“That is correct.”
“But it should be me!” She was flabbergasted. “Why isn’t it me?”
Gossett’s frown deepened. “You know I’m not in a position to answer that question, Joan.”
“Then who the hell is?” She rose to her feet and made her way to the French doors to stare out of them again, though nothing in the vista had changed. Stillwater Cove was as gray and choppy as ever. Maybe choppier. Angrier.
Unbelievable! She couldn’t stop shaking her head. Again she’d been passed over, and again by her own father. She’d been livid when he’d picked Daniel over her as trustee in the first place, though it was all part and parcel of his blind eye where Daniel was concerned. But to heap insult over injury by passing over her again …
And what did her mother know about managing money? Nothing. When had she ever gone to business school? Never. Joan was stunned. She’d assumed that after Daniel was gone it would be her in control for a change. But apparently not.
Would she always be underestimated? First by her father, then by her husband. Sometimes she felt as if people even thought more highly of her mother than they did of her. But what had Libby Storrow Hudson ever accomplished?
She turned from the view to face Henry Gossett. “What is the value of the trust’s assets today?”
He hesitated. “I’m afraid I can’t say, Joan. I don’t have an exact figure.”
“You mean you can’t say because I’m not the trustee or you can’t say because you don’t know?”
He put on his patient voice, which irritated her further. “As a major beneficiary, Joan, you’re certainly entitled to that information. I simply don’t have an exact figure.”
“It doesn’t have to be exact. Ballpark.”
Again he hesitated. “I truly can’t say,” he repeated. “The value fluctuates.”
“Do
n’t be such a lawyer, Henry!” she snapped. “What is it, give or take?”
He stared into the middle distance, as if calculating from rows of numbers. Then, finally, “Thirty million dollars.”
She frowned. That was considerably less than she’d expected. “What about my father’s stake in Headwaters?”
“Daniel purchased your father’s stake, Joan.” He spoke slowly, as if she wouldn’t understand otherwise. “You and your mother received notification of that earlier this month.”
She was impatient. “Yes, I am aware of that. But I thought the stake would revert back to the trust now that Daniel is dead.”
“No, that transaction is complete. It won’t revert back. It—”
“Then where is that stake now?”
“It’s part of Daniel’s estate. So—”
“Ah.” She turned away from Gossett, her mind working. That was fine, then. She knew Daniel had a simple will, one that left everything to her. If he ever had plans to change it, he never got around to acting on them. She knew that for a fact.
She returned to the sofa and sat down. “I’ll want to see the trust assets listed on a spreadsheet, Henry. I’d like you to come back the day after Christmas with it.”
Gossett hesitated. “Joan, Dodie and I were planning to spend Christmas with our daughter in Boston. We have a new grandchild.”
She was astounded. How could Gossett possibly be so self-absorbed as to consider taking a trip now, when she was in such a crisis? “Well,” she said tightly, “I’m sure you’ll find a way to do the right thing.” Then she rose and walked to the foyer. This highly unsatisfactory meeting was over.
Gossett rose and followed her, returning his fedora to the top of his head. “Again, Joan, I am so very sorry.”
“Yes. Good-bye,” and she opened the door to let him out.
These damn men! She rested her forehead against the door after Gossett left and shut her eyes. A pain, surprisingly raw after all this time, shot through her. Again her father had passed her over, underestimated her, thought her capable of so little. How ironic that the one time she earned his approval was when she married Daniel. That turned out to be the biggest mistake of her life.
She needed a drink. She headed for the suite’s wet bar. And what was this about the trust being worth only thirty million dollars? The only comforting possibility was that Gossett was being conservative in his estimate. That would be just like him.
She poured herself a scotch, then sipped at the crystal tumbler, its contents warm down her throat. The ache in her temples worsened, throbbing like dull blades against her skull. She decided to pop a few aspirin as well, resisting the impulse to take the Xanax Dr. Finch had prescribed her. She should be careful with those. Minutes later, listless, she wandered into the bedroom and switched on the TV.
She watched for a long time, propped up against the pillows, getting drowsy from the combination of aspirin and alcohol. Aimlessly she channel-surfed, until suddenly a familiar face appeared on the screen. She started, then stared at the flickering image. Tall, curly dark hair, broad shoulders, features that might have been stolen from a Greek god.
Milo. Milo Pappas. In Carmel.
Her heart pounded. The remote slipped from her hand onto the floor, where the plush carpet dulled the sound of its fall.
Milo. She narrowed her eyes, assessing how he’d changed in the years since they’d been together. Physically, very little. But professionally, quite a bit. She knew he’d risen through the ranks at WBS, even become a household name. Funny. Back when they’d dated, she thought he wouldn’t amount to much. But apparently he’d become quite the network-news star.
She smiled, overcome by a surge of affection. Milo had always been so nice to her. He had always appreciated her. Unlike some people.
Mesmerized, she smiled at his image on the screen. And now Milo Pappas was back in Carmel. Imagine that.
*
Alicia raised eyes from her dog-eared copy of the California Penal Code, a navy volume with the size and heft of a big-city phone book, and considered the wisdom of making a third pot of coffee. The red numbers on her digital clock read 2:36 PM, and already she was terrifyingly close to caffeine-wired. She’d been in her office since dawn, after allowing herself four hours of sleep. The fact that it was a Sunday, and three days before Christmas, was irrelevant. She didn’t want anything to happen in the Gaines case that she didn’t know about. And the best way to make sure of that, in these early days when the situation was highly fluid, was to remain at Case Central, otherwise known as the D.A.’s office.
Penrose hadn’t assigned the case to her yet. She wasn’t surprised, but it worried her. After the chaos of Daniel Gaines’s corpse pitching off the gurney in full view of the media, with the footage then being broadcast nonstop around the globe, she hadn’t been able to get a word in edgewise with him. Nor had he shown up yet in the office. On a normal weekend Kip would never appear at work, but in these circumstances she expected that even he would put himself out.
Nothing could move slowly in this case: it was too high-profile. Everyone in the state, in the country, was watching. The pressure to name a suspect grew more intense by the hour; the speculation in the media more fevered. Everything else got shoved aside. The autopsy was already done. They could get a match on the fingerprints at any time. Soon, very soon, they might have enough to issue an arrest warrant. And once they did, Penrose would be forced to name a prosecutor.
She shivered, out of both fear and anticipation. In the last twelve hours she’d grown even more desperate for Penrose to assign her the case. Most prosecutors went through their entire careers without even getting near a case like this one. She couldn’t let it slip away. She would stay till midnight if she had to, and beyond. She would sleep here. She would eat here. She would make Penrose give her the case, and she would win it.
Her phone rang and she almost jumped out of her chair. She grabbed the receiver before the second ring. “Maldonado.”
“Hola,” said a man’s voice.
She let out a sigh. “Hi, Jorge.”
He laughed. “Think you can sound a little more enthusiastic?”
She raised her eyes to the ceiling. “Sorry. It’s just—”
“I know, I know, you’re working.” He paused and his voice softened. “Es que me haces falta.”
She sighed. Not only did he miss her; he told her so. The damn thing was that most women would die to have Jorge Ramon in love with them. Her mother thought she was certifiable. Maybe she was. What Jorge had going for him, especially compared to what passed for an eligible bachelor in Salinas, was unbelievable.
He was Mexican. He was Catholic. He was thirty-nine and never married. He owned his own home. He didn’t have any kids. He didn’t have an ex-wife. He didn’t do drugs or screw around. He didn’t have a temper. He’d never been arrested. Not only did he accept her work, he even claimed to admire it. He was cute, or at least cute-ish. And to top it all off, he was a doctor. With, as her mother constantly reminded her, su propria consulta privada.
It was yet another way Alicia baffled Modesta Maldonado and the dozens of other Maldonados she called family. Well, join the club. She baffled herself.
“I miss you, too, Jorge,” she lied.
“We never got to decorate the tree yesterday.”
“No, we didn’t.” Her tree, he meant, because he’d decorated his own a good two weeks back, being wildly efficient in every way. She’d worked that night, and winced remembering how she’d lied to him then, too. Oh, yes, she remembered saying, she would have loved stringing popcorn and drinking egg nog and listening to Frank Sinatra Christmas albums. That did sound fun, actually. She just dreamed of doing it with a man other than Jorge Ramon.
“Any new developments?” he asked.
“Nothing yet. But I’m expecting something soon...” she added hastily, to head off the very suggestion that next tripped off Jorge’s lips.
“How about dinner? Especially since we
missed last night.”
She made herself sound regretful. “I can’t, Jorge. I just can’t. I have to stick around. Something could come down at any—”
“Okay, I understand. I just miss you.”
“I miss you, too.” Oops, she did it again.
“Te amo.”
“ ‘Bye.” Softly, very softly, she replaced the receiver, as if to lessen the hurt of not responding in kind.
She had the same guilty feeling she often did about Jorge, the same worry that she was screwing him indirectly, like a sin of omission. A venial sin, she told herself, not the kind that’ll land you in hell for all eternity. But she gave herself leeway, as she always did. She didn’t know she wasn’t going to end up with Jorge. It would only be bad if she knew, because then she’d be leading him on, giving him false hope.
The raw truth was that Jorge served a cynical purpose in her romantic life. He allowed her to be dating someone truly worthy, someone other people, even she sometimes, thought was a keeper, while still secretly keeping her options open. She had a companion whenever she wanted one. She had someone to watch videos with on Saturday night. She had a bedmate. More than anything else she had an answer for those pesky questions about her love life. “How’s Jorge?” someone would ask. “Oh, he’s great,” she’d say, and she’d smile, like she was the most satisfied woman in the world and Jorge Ramon was a bedroom stallion and everything was on course for the diamond solitaire, the picket fence, and the Baby Bjorn carryall.
The truest, innermost secret was her sneaking suspicion that if she did say yes to Jorge, she’d lose part of her soul, some essential bit that made her Alicia. It would fly away, never to be found again, and its loss would leave her dried out and disappointed.
Did all this make her terrible? she wondered. Or did it just make her like a man?
Alicia rubbed her eyes, deeply tired. She would make more coffee, she decided. And she’d forage in Joyce Ching’s desk for a chocolate bar. Maybe the double dose of caffeine would keep her going till dinner. Joyce was the best kind of fellow D.A., since she always had food and never locked her desk. A very handy habit for Alicia, since the second-floor snack bar was open only on weekdays and its concession machines were invariably empty by this late in the weekend. Unfortunately, Joyce’s desk was on the exact opposite end of the office.
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