Night Whispers

by Judith McNaught

  “Yes, but we naturally assumed you meant you were bringing a female with you,” Edith Reynolds informed her. “I hope you do not intend to share a bedroom with him here.”

  Sloan had a swift, sudden urge to either laugh or leave, but since neither reaction fitted the personality Paul wanted her to assume, she tried to look completely oblivious to the old woman’s provoking attitude. “No, ma’am, I didn’t.”

  “Do not call me ma’am,” she snapped. “You may address me as Great-grandmother,” she decreed after a moment. She sounded like a monarch reluctantly granting an undeserved favor to a lowly peasant, and Sloan instantly decided never, ever, to address her in that way.

  Oblivious of Sloan’s mental mutiny, she turned her dagger gaze on Paul. “How old are you?”

  “Thirty-nine.”

  “In that case, you are old enough to understand that in my house, certain rules of decorum are followed, regardless of whether anyone is around to watch you. Do you take my meaning?”

  “I believe I do. Yes,” he added when she scowled.

  “You may address me as Mrs. Reynolds.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Reynolds,” he replied courteously, managing to sound exactly like a chastened prep-school student instead of an FBI agent capable of bringing disaster down on her entire family.

  Sloan’s father finally stepped in. “Paris,” he prompted his daughter, “I know you’ve been looking forward to this moment—”

  Paris Reynolds took her cue and stood up in one graceful, fluid motion, her gaze fixed politely on Sloan. “Yes, I have.” She said this in an exquisitely modulated but cautious voice and held out a perfectly manicured hand. “How do you do?” she asked.

  How do I do what? Sloan wondered irreverently (or a little desperately). The phrase Stepford Sister flitted through her mind. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you, too,” Sloan replied, shaking hands with the cultured stranger who was her sister.

  Edith Reynolds had already wearied of the social niceties. “I’m sure that Sloan and Mr. Richardson would like to freshen up and rest before dinner,” she said. “Paris will show you both to your rooms,” she informed Sloan. “We gather for dinner at seven. Do not be late. And do not wear pants.”

  Sloan had dreaded and expected a long and awkward interview with her father and sister as soon as she arrived, so she was surprised and a little relieved that she was being given a two-hour reprieve by the old dragon. Although, her instincts told her that if Edith Reynolds had known Sloan wanted a reprieve, she probably would have insisted on the interview.

  “Paris will make certain you’re comfortably settled in,” Carter Reynolds interjected with a warm, conciliatory smile at Sloan and then Paul. “We’ll see you both at dinner.”

  Sloan followed in Paris’s wake with Paul walking beside her, his hand touching her elbow in a polite, familiar way that fitted his assumed role as her boyfriend. She was so bemused by these peculiar people that she scarcely noticed the rooms they passed as they walked toward the foyer and climbed a long curving staircase with a wrought-iron railing and thick brass handrail. Thus far, the most “human” of the three was Carter Reynolds, whom she’d expected to be the most unlikable.

  At the top of the staircase, Paris turned left and continued walking until they were almost at the end of the hall. “This is your room, Mr. Richardson,” she intoned as she swung the door open on a spacious room decorated in jade green with massive Italian furniture. His suitcases were lying open on the bed. “If you need anything at all, just press the intercom button on the telephone,” she said, and finished off her impeccably courteous speech with an equally courteous smile before she started down the hall again.

  Paul had said people thought she was cold and aloof. She was worse than that—she was completely lifeless, Sloan decided with a twinge of disappointment that surprised her with its sharpness. Paris even moved as if the simple act of walking was actually a precisely orchestrated dance—her feet balanced on the high heels of her sandals, not too much hip movement, no swinging of the arms, shoulders back, head up.

  “I’ll see you at dinner, Sloan,” Paul called softly.

  Startled that she’d momentarily forgotten to play her part in the pretense, Sloan turned and said the first thing that came to mind. “Have a nice nap.”

  “You, too.”

  At the end of the hallway, Paris stopped at another door, opened it, and made the identical speech she’d made to Paul, complete with identical vocal inflections and matching perfunctory smile, but this time she hovered in the doorway as if waiting for something. She was probably expecting some sort of reaction to the accommodations, Sloan assumed as she glanced around at a spectacular suite decorated in shades of pale rose and cream-colored silks with delicate French furnishings glowing with gold leaf. Beneath her feet, the Oriental carpet was so thick it was like walking in sand. “This is—lovely,” she said lamely, turning to face her sister in the doorway.

  Paris made a graceful gesture toward a pair of French doors. “The balcony has a view of the ocean that’s particularly nice at sunrise.”

  “Thank you,” Sloan said, feeling increasingly awkward.

  “Nordstrom brought up your suitcases,” Paris observed with a regal nod in the direction of the canopied bed at the far end of the suite. “Shall I send someone up to help you unpack?”

  “No, thank you.” Sloan waited for her to leave, wanted her to leave, but she hovered there in the doorway, her hand on the doorknob. Sloan belatedly realized that the dictates of social etiquette that seemed to govern her sister’s thoughts, words, and actions must now require that Sloan take a turn at some sort of conversation. She said the only thing that came to mind. “Are you an artist?”

  Paris looked at her as if she’d spoken in a foreign dialect. “No. Why do you ask?”

  Sloan nodded at the large tablet in her hand. “I thought that was a sketch pad.”

  “Oh, I forgot I was carrying this. Yes, it is. But I’m not an artist.”

  Frustrated by her unhelpful reply, Sloan looked at the sleek brunette posed in the doorway like a Vogue model and suddenly wondered if Paris could possibly be shy, rather than aloof. Either way, carrying on a conversation with her was like trying to give yourself a backrub, but Sloan tried again. “If you’re not an artist, what do you use the sketchbook for?”

  Paris hesitated; then she walked forward and offered her sketchbook to Sloan like a queen holding out a scepter. “I’m designing my own line of women’s apparel.”

  Clothes! Sloan thought with an inner groan. Sara loved to talk about clothes; Kim loved to talk about clothes; Sloan didn’t have a fashion-conscious corpuscle in her entire body. Sloan accepted the sketchbook and followed Paris to the bed, where she sat down and opened the cover of the book.

  Even to Sloan’s inexpert eye, it was immediately obvious that Paris wasn’t designing clothes for the average woman. She was designing high-fashion, high-style cocktail dresses and formal gowns that Sloan knew instinctively would cost as much as a good, late-model used car. Trying desperately to think of something articulate and appropriate to say, Sloan turned the pages in silence until she came to a sheath dress and suddenly remembered how Sara had described her own red one. “Oh, I like this very much!” she burst out a little too enthusiastically, she thought. “It’s ‘flirty’ but not . . . um . . . ‘forward’!”

  Paris peered over at the sketchbook to see what had taken her fancy and then looked rather disappointed. “I think it’s a little common.”

  Sloan had no idea if that was intended as a deliberate insult to her taste in clothes, but she closed the book and opted for unvarnished honesty. “I’m really not a good judge,” she explained. “My mother and my friend Sara love clothes, but I’m always too busy to shop. When I do go shopping, I can never decide whether something new is really ‘right’ for me, so I end up buying the same styles I already have; then I wear them until they’re practically ready to fall apart so I don’t have to go shopping again.
Sara says the only way she can tell that I’ve bought something new is when it’s a different color.”

  Sloan was aware that something she said had actually captured Paris’s interest, but she didn’t realize what it was until she was finished and Paris asked, “Does she love clothes? Your mother, I mean?”

  Your mother. Our mother.

  The weird irony of the situation hit Sloan with sudden force, but any empathy she might have felt for Paris was offset by the fact that Paris could afford the clothes she loved, while “their” mother had to work in a dress shop and sell what she loved to others. “Yes,” Sloan said flatly. “She does.” She got up and walked around the bed to her suitcases, as if suddenly intent on unpacking.

  Sensing her dismissal, Paris stood up. “I’ll see you downstairs at seven,” she told Sloan in an equally flat voice.

  Feeling absurdly guilty for cutting the conversation off so abruptly, Sloan bent over and unzipped Sara’s large fold-over suitcase while she watched Paris leave the room and close the door behind her. Preoccupied with her thoughts, she opened the suitcase, removed a black cocktail dress on a hanger from it, and had turned to look for a closet before it finally hit her that something was wrong. . . .

  She hadn’t borrowed Sara’s big fold-over case because she hadn’t needed it.

  And she had never laid eyes on the black beaded cocktail dress with the short chiffon skirt that she was holding in her hand.

  She swung back to the bed and stared at the open suitcase. A long, periwinkle blue silk skirt was on the next hanger. Sloan didn’t recognize that either, or the matching top beneath it, or the red sundress . . .

  “Oh, Mom, no!” Sloan whispered fiercely as she sank down on the bed beside the suitcase. Without looking, she already knew that everything else in that suitcase was new, and she knew exactly how her mother had managed to pay for it. A white envelope was tucked beneath the straps of a new pair of yellow sandals, and she reached for the note while resolving to return every single item as soon as she got home. So long as she didn’t wear any of these things, the stores would be willing to return her mother’s money. Sloan was sure of that—until she read her mother’s note.

  “Darling—” her mother had written in her rounded, pretty script, “I know you’re going to be upset when you see these clothes, but I didn’t use my charge card, so you don’t have to worry about my making those awful interest payments that seem to get bigger and bigger no matter how many payments a person makes. I used the money I’ve been saving for my cruise, instead.”

  Sloan groaned, and reminded herself again that the clothes could be returned.

  You wanted me to have a dream vacation, but at this very minute you’re making the biggest dream I’ve ever had come true. After all these years, your father is finally going to get to know you, and I want you to look as beautiful on the outside as you are on the inside.

  This is the only dream I have left, darling. You’ve made all my other dreams come true, just by being you.

  Now, have a wonderful time in Palm Beach! Think only happy thoughts, be carefree, and wear the beautiful clothes I bought for you.

  I love you.

  Mom

  P.S. Just in case you’re tempted to wear only a few of your new things, I think you should notice that I cut the labels out, so nothing can be returned. Have fun!

  With a teary laugh, Sloan stared at the blurry words of the letter; then she looked at the top layer of clothes in the suitcase. She could not be “carefree” in Palm Beach, nor “think only happy thoughts,” but while she was spying on her father, she was definitely going to “wear the beautiful clothes.” With typical selfless generosity and an uncharacteristic streak of guile, her mother had left her no choice in that.

  She brushed the tears out of her eyes and carefully unpacked all the beautiful new things in that suitcase before she realized there was another large suitcase of Sara’s on the floor that she hadn’t packed herself.

  She wrestled it onto the bed, opened the locks, and lifted the top.

  The first thing she saw was Sara’s red sheath. The second thing was another white envelope. Inside the envelope was a short note from Sara.

  You’re always taking care of everyone else, but Mom and I wanted to take care of you this time. So don’t be upset when you realize my clothes are in this case. And don’t be upset when you realize your clothes aren’t in any of the others, either.

  Love, Sara

  P.S. We took pictures of all the outfits and put them in your makeup case. That way, you won’t have to think about which accessories go with which outfit.

  Irate, Sloan glared at the note. She could not believe they’d done this to her, and without betraying even a hint of their scheme!

  Her glare gave way to a helpless smile, and then to laughter.

  As soon as she finished unpacking, she opened the French doors and walked out onto her balcony. Her room was situated at the northeast end of the house, overlooking a deep lawn that ended in a sandy beach about three hundred yards from the house. Tall clipped privacy hedges marked the side boundaries of the estate and extended almost to the beach, concealing a high iron fence. Sloan couldn’t see it.

  Clumps of palm trees, crepe myrtles, and giant hibiscuses were scattered about the grounds, with tennis courts situated on the far left, near an olympic-size swimming pool and cabana. In the center of the lawn, a little flag fluttered from a short pole, marking the center of a putting green with short, dense grass that looked as if each blade had been clipped with manicure scissors.

  Amused by the incredible extravagances indulged in by the ultrarich, Sloan leaned over the balcony railing and looked to the right, along the house, wondering if Paul’s room also had a balcony and if he might be outside. She could see several iron railings like the one she was leaning over, but the balconies were all recessed into the structure of the house itself, so it was impossible to see if anyone else was outside.

  Disappointed that she couldn’t exchange even a wave with her coconspirator, she turned away. In addition to a pair of chaise lounges with thick cushions, her balcony also provided a round iron table and a pair of chairs, but it was so muggy she didn’t feel like staying outside.

  Wishing there were some way to find out if the FBI agent’s first impression of her family was anything like her own, Sloan went back inside and walked over to the bed. The house was the size of a hotel, and the telephone on the nightstand had six telephone lines and twelve other buttons that weren’t labeled. Even if she could figure out how to call his room on this phone, she realized they wouldn’t be able to talk freely for fear that someone somewhere in the house might pick up an extension and overhear them.

  Sloan considered going to his room, but she didn’t want to risk getting caught by some browbeaten servant who might be required to report any infractions of the rules to that domineering old woman who actually thought she deserved to be addressed as Great-grandmother by Sloan.

  Reluctantly, she postponed the idea of conferring with her coconspirator until later tonight when there was a suitable opportunity and location.

  Too keyed up to sleep, Sloan decided to read the mystery novel she’d started before Paul Richardson arrived in Bell Harbor and disrupted her entire life. She folded back the bedspread, propped some pillows against the headboard, and stretched out. Cognizant of Edith Reynolds’s sharp warning not to be late for dinner, she reached over and set the clock radio for six P.M., just in case she fell asleep. On the telephone, a light was illuminated now, indicating one of the six lines was in use, and Sloan wondered if the telephone was simply that, or if it was part of a system used to operate the house.

  In Bell Harbor, when prosperous new residents built a new mansion or restored an old one, they invariably installed modern multiline telephone systems. The telephones that went with some of these systems not only provided intercom service to all the rooms, they enabled the homeowner to control everything—from lighting and security systems to heating and coo
ling systems—with a telephone.

  As long as the homeowner remembered what codes to use, the telephones did their job, but when the homeowner made a mistake, the results could be chaotic, and the resultant tales of such incidents that circulated among Bell Harbor’s firefighters and police officers were frequently hilarious.

  With a stab of amused nostalgia, Sloan thought back to last month when Karen Althorp picked up her phone and inadvertently keyed in the number five for a fire emergency, when she meant to key in a six and turn on her Jacuzzi. When the fire department broke through a window and charged through the house into the backyard, they discovered the curvaceous divorcée cavorting naked in the hot tub with her gardener.

  Nude but indignant, she threatened to sue the hapless firefighters for damaging her property, and ordered them to leave.

  A week later, instead of keying in a six, she keyed in a nine, which sent out a silent police alarm. Jess Jessup had arrived first at the darkened house and he’d found Karen Althorp reclining by the pool, gazing up at the stars, stark naked.

  She was so startled when Jess announced his presence that she screamed, then invited the handsome police officer to take off his clothes and join her.

  Dr. and Mrs. Pembroke had installed a similar system in their new house, and it was responsible for their divorce. Dr. Pembroke later tried to sue the manufacturer for seven million dollars—the amount of the cash settlement he had to give Mrs. Pembroke in the divorce.

  With a mental shrug, she opened her novel. Death Stops Here was a spine-tingling best-seller, and within minutes she was thoroughly engrossed.

  • • •

  The sudden buzzing of the alarm made Sloan jump. Intent on finishing the chapter, she groped blindly for the clock radio and turned it off. A few minutes later, she reluctantly laid the book facedown on the nightstand and got up.

  15

  Paul knocked on her door a few minutes before seven o’clock, and Sloan called to him to come in. “I’m almost ready,” she told him, leaning around the corner of her dressing room. He was wearing a gray pinstripe suit, white shirt, and a red-and-gray patterned tie. Sloan thought he looked extremely nice, but she wasn’t certain it was appropriate to comment on his appearance in their circumstances. “Better leave the door open, so no one gets the wrong idea and squeals on us to Her Highness,” she warned.