The Senator’s Daughter Read online

  “I didn’t tell Larry until recently. I was afraid he would be upset.”

  Lyle would have been livid, but he noted the support this husband was giving his wife.

  Beneath Chatsworth’s steadying hand, Laura raised her head to Lyle. “You see, on her way out, just before Sylvia slammed the door, she said, ‘Be careful what you wish for.’”

  Chapter 7

  as October followed September and grape clusters grew heavy on the vines, Sylvia found her new existence surreal. Instead of the faintly orange night sky devoid of stars, she could view the pale band of the Milky Way, Orion, and actually count all seven of the sister stars in the small constellation of the Pleiades.

  Used to the City’s eclectic aromas of salt air, restaurant grease traps, and exhaust, she exulted in the sweet water smell of the Lava River, the scent of ripe sweet grapes, and the pungency of redwood forest.

  Her skin, which had known the most expensive creams and unguents, became accustomed to dishwater and Mary’s almond-scented Jergens lotion.

  No longer did she go to the gym, where she and her girlfriends had donned Lycra tights and bras and sweated while they grape-vined left and right. Now she wore jeans made in Madagascar and a polyester jacket to walk among real grapevines and savor the deep and meditative stillness beneath the redwoods.

  However, as days slipped past, it was hard not to feel queasy about her parents. Did they care about her disappearing? It had seemed so right when her mother said they hoped she’d stop disgracing the family and disappear …

  She found when it bothered her most, the only cure was a brisk walk on the dirt roads through the vineyards. No running yet in deference to her healing leg wound. Afterward, she’d have a relaxing soak in Lava Springs. Open to the public by day, when the pools “closed” at sundown, it was time for the locals.

  Behind a wrought-iron gate that creaked when she opened it, steam swirled up from the springs. The Lava River sourced from the base of a travertine cliff into a rock-lined sluice and ran through a small park with a footbridge, past the rear of the Lava Springs Inn.

  This evening, with a crisp autumn bite in the air, Sylvia had the place to herself.

  Going to the main pool, she placed her flashlight on the rock edging. Then shed her clothes down to a slim black tank suit from Wal-Mart and slipped into the hot water. With no roof above or smooth cement bottom, she rested her head on the stone rim. And watched Venus and Mars brighten in opposing quadrants of twilit sky, digging her bare feet into black lava sand on the pool’s floor.

  Could anything be more different from her prior existence? None of the resorts she’d frequented, with their clubs set up for dancing till dawn and their turquoise pools spotlighted by night, had offered such serenity.

  However, her peace was precarious at best.

  When she closed her eyes, a jerky black-and-white newsreel of images played on the backs of her eyelids; she saw herself throwing clothes into her suitcase, losing control of the Jag, dragging herself through the chill dawn, and collapsing in the inn lobby.

  Sylvia opened her eyes. Illumination faded from the sky, and the stars joined the planets. Against the natural backdrop, Lyle’s face came into focus.

  No surprise, there. His image haunted her at odd times, while she was exercising her new talent at making beds, kneading dough for homemade cinnamon rolls, or reading yet another classic novel.

  With the water swirling around her, Sylvia permitted herself to savor the memory of Lyle’s arms around her, the way his heat had seeped through their clothes on the rainy sidewalk … if only he were in the pool with her.

  He’d be blond everywhere, golden fur on his broad chest, with a whorl below his navel and an arrow pointing the way to …

  But there was more to it than the physical. From what she knew of him, she thought he’d be patient, savoring each caress as though lovemaking was an art.

  Lava Springs was hot, but Sylvia’s spreading heat came from inside.

  If Lyle had taken her up on the bath at her place, if she’d opened her bedroom door.

  If, if, if.

  In fantasy, he surfaced at the far side of the pool. Rivulets of water ran down his shoulders and chest, the rest of him hidden beneath the swirling waters.

  Healing waters, if their reputation were to be trusted.

  She needed healing; perhaps Lyle did, as well. If she knew him better, she might dare to tell him her stories, how in their good times Mom and Dad taught her to fly kites on the beach, how she wasn’t the airhead the media portrayed, how being a celebrity stank.

  And she wanted to hear about him … her mother said he was trash, but Sylvia would go to her grave without believing that.

  Beaten back on all fronts from finding Sylvia, on the first Thursday evening in October Lyle phoned Cliff Ames and suggested they meet for pizza at Ice. As the weather was exceptional, clear with a crisp fall touch, they sat on the outdoor roof deck and surveyed the sunset.

  When their brews arrived, Cliff raised his in a toast. “To you, buddy. You look like hell.”

  “Thanks a heap.”

  “Any news on la Chatsworth?” Cliff sipped.

  “Not a damned thing. I alternate between feeling sick because the stats say she’s been dead for weeks and hoping she’s hiding out.” His gut clenched at saying out loud what had been playing in his head.

  “You told me her folks think she’s running.”

  Lyle made a fist and connected with the tabletop. “If she is all right, I could wring her neck for putting me through this.”

  Cliff steadied the rocking table. “I knew you had a case for her.”

  “I’ve got no case, in the court sense, and I don’t want one. I hope she’s sunning on the beach in Baja.”

  Silence fell between the two men. In the gathering darkness, the first lights appeared on the Bay Bridge, red navigation beacons atop the towers. Then a string of lights appeared defining the suspension cables. Finally, streetlights illuminated the roadway.

  The pizza arrived, and they served themselves.

  “On another subject,” Cliff said, “I’ve got something for you. That is, if you’re still sniffing around the Tony Valetti thing.”

  “What’ve you got?”

  “I ran into Julio Castillo in line at Little Joe’s on Broadway.” No matter who you were, you waited in line, watching the cooks in the open kitchen tossing pasta in skillets over an open flame.

  Cliff went on, “I asked how his investigative reporting was going on Tony. You know, was Tony cheating on his wife, hiding out down in Baja with a babe, sailing the French Riviera—”

  “Will…you…get…to…the…point?”

  “Castillo said if I had any information about this or any story, he’d trade information off the record.”

  Lyle snorted.

  “Don’t be so sure.” The voice came from behind Lyle’s left shoulder. He recognized it from both late-night TV and his disastrous debut costarring “The Senator’s Daughter.”

  “Speak of the devil.” Lyle turned to find Julio Castillo, hands spread to show he carried no microphone. The cameraman wasn’t behind him.

  The newsman made a show of letting Lyle see inside the cuffs of his crimson dress shirt worn with a sharp black suit. “No tricks, nothing up my sleeve.”

  “Sure.” Lyle turned back and raised his brew for a long swallow. It wasn’t as cold or as effervescent as before.

  “Say, man.” Castillo snagged one of the vacant chairs and sat across. “Give me a chance.”

  “A chance to twist my words? To embarrass me again like you did when I was with Sylvia Chatsworth?”

  Castillo spread his hands. “Sorry, man. I wasn’t sure how it lay between you two.”

  Lyle chunked his glass down, setting the table to rocking again. He rose, leaned across, and watched his hand gather the reporter’s jacket lapels. “You came over here for a reason. Get to it.”

  He felt Cliff’s hand on his arm and let Castillo go. The
man had a knack for making him crazy.

  Castillo made a show of straightening his clothing. “When I talked with Cliff, he thought you might like a chance to visit with me about a fellow who vanished.”

  Lyle inclined his head for him to proceed and gestured to a nearby waiter to get the reporter whatever he wanted and put it on his tab.

  After ordering soda with lime, Castillo settled in. “Ever since Tony Valetti came to town and made a splash on the developers’ scene, I’ve figured he must have a sugar daddy, a mentor, whatever you like to call it. So I poke around and find out he’s played golf no less than five times with Senator Lawrence Arthur Chatsworth the Third at the Marin Club.”

  “So?” Lyle didn’t say he’d been invited to play with Tony.

  “One of the biggest deals to go down lately has been the purchase of a big tract in the northern Napa Valley. The books say Tony Valetti bought land adjoining his brother’s vineyards from the estate of Esther Quenton …”

  Lyle waved an impatient hand. “I know all that.”

  “While you’re digging, I’d look out for brother, Andre, being in on it. And maybe, just maybe, there’s some ‘blind trust’ money from a certain gentleman who spends a portion of his year in our nation’s capital.”

  Lyle’s brows lifted. Chatsworth saying Tony was somehow out of his depth flashed on his memory screen. That wouldn’t seem to indicate a partnership. In fact, the Senator had walked away when Tony spoke of something going on “up north.” And what had that been about Chatsworth being unable to assist in a zoning matter?

  Castillo caught his expression. “Am I warm, my friend?”

  As he’d tried earlier with Cliff, Lyle shrugged. “You may have filmed me with the Senator’s daughter, but I’ve yet to become his confidant. Or yours.”

  “So you have nothing for me, amigo?”

  Lyle gave him a direct look. “I’m afraid not… amigo.”

  “Then what’s your take on where Sylvia is? I figure with the clinch I caught for the show, you must know …”

  “You’re the expert. Where do you think she is?”

  “I don’t know.” Castillo’s expression turned sad. “I’ve been tough on her; when she disappeared it made me think. I go to mass, I send up a prayer.”

  “Right,” said Lyle.

  Castillo pushed back his chair. “You don’t have to believe me, but I say, por favor nos Padre, some sunnavabitch hasn’t raped that beautiful girl and left her for dead.”

  For dead…for dead…

  The words echoed in Lyle’s brain long after he lay down in his oversized king bed.

  Raped and left…

  Was that Sylvia’s fate?

  Had it been his mother’s fate?

  Lyle felt the sting of tears, but, as he’d he told himself since he was ten, he was too big a boy to cry. He lay on his back, one hand spread over his lean stomach, and called on the part of him that was strong—the Lyle who walled off things he didn’t want to think about.

  When he slept, his iron control frayed …

  Ten-year-old Lyle stood in an onion field. His back ached from bending to tug at the thick green stalks, to expose the round white reward sheathed in papery layers. His hands were one big callus; that was how he was distinguished in school as a field-worker versus a town boy.

  There weren’t many kids like him, Caucasian, yet working like the illegal aliens who put in eighteen-hour days during high season.

  Lyle threw back the covers, pulled on a black silk robe, and padded to the roof deck door.

  Here was his home, protected by building security. He had all the comforts, a waterfront view, and as he stepped outside, he inhaled the salt air. Breathing rapidly, he told himself he didn’t have to run those traps anymore.

  But here came an image of his father, pulling up onions alongside him, the blue eyes Lyle had inherited incongruous in the face tanned the color of aged leather. The man had always stayed ahead of Lyle, experience outdistancing youthful stamina. It was in the fields, where talk wasn’t necessary, that he had always felt closest to James Thomas.

  With a bittersweet ache, Lyle recalled the last time he’d seen him. He’d driven out to the valley and parked his silver Mercedes 450SL in front of the weathered clapboard house. All of a thousand square feet, it was clean and neat inside—something Lyle had never attributed to Pop until Maddie had gone—and smelled of Murphy’s Oil soap used on the scarred pine floors. He and his father had sat on the front porch that used to face a panorama of open fields and distant foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Now, they saw the ornate entrance to a gated community with landscaped fountains and a golf course designed by Jack Nicklaus.

  “You ought to sell this place to the developers and move to something more comfortable,” Lyle had observed.

  “You mean new and citified.” James stretched his long frame in the rocker Maddie had nursed Lyle in when he was a baby. “I’ll leave that claptrap to you.”

  Lyle rocked a little faster. He would like his father to be proud of what he’d accomplished, but the older man refused to even come in to San Francisco and see his loft.

  “It does me good to see those rich folks drive by and wish my side of the road was Phase II.”

  “Look,” Lyle said. “There’s no use you living like this and having me sell the place for a lot of money when you …”

  “When I die, it’ll be here. Where folks know to find me.”

  Lyle stopped the motion of his chair. Unspoken between them lay the fact that his father was still waiting for Maddie to come back.

  Well, wasn’t Lyle?

  Didn’t he still hope each time a phone rang? Only this week, there was someone else’s voice he longed to hear, the ache sharper because it had not been dulled by the years.

  What if Sylvia called and said she was back … if she had gone away on her own, then she deserved his anger, not his understanding. That was the instinctive reaction, and when he believed the theory, he was enraged, just as he had been with Maddie Thomas.

  Chapter 8

  Friday morning Lyle rose early. Much as he detested Julio Castillo, last night’s encounter had given him an idea. If he wanted to know what had happened to Tony Valetti, an obvious first step would be to ask his brother, Andre, some questions.

  Warming to the idea while he showered and dressed, Lyle decided to do it today.

  He began by finding the business phone number of Villa Valetti and dialing. Using one of Cliff’s investigator tricks, he affected a quasi-Brit accent for the woman who answered and posed as a visiting vintner from South Africa who wanted to meet Andre. Within moments, he learned Andre both lived and officed at the winery north of Calistoga.

  Not knowing how long he might stay in the Napa Valley, Lyle packed a duffel; jeans, T-shirts, something to play golf in should the occasion arise, swim trunks, and his toilet kit. And noticed, tucked in beside his travel toothbrush, dental floss, and antiperspirant, a pack of condoms.

  Maybe what he needed was to get his ashes hauled. It had been five months since his fling with the blonde, a paralegal who worked on the second floor of the courthouse. If he got serious about hooking up this weekend, a singleton might make out at one of the nice resorts in the Napa Valley.

  Leaving the protection in his kit, Lyle met his eyes in the mirror over the bathroom sink.

  Truth to tell, the only woman he wanted to run into in the wine country, or anywhere else, was Sylvia Chatsworth.

  He didn’t know how to feel about that.

  In the space of any given hour, he vacillated between fearing for her, and wishing she had simply reached her limit. If he’d gone through the kind of wringer Sylvia had, and she no doubt included him along with the bitchy women and the media, wouldn’t he have packed his bags and headed for the hills?

  Perhaps.

  On the other hand, look at the wringer everyone who cared about her was being put through.

  With a map off the Internet on the passenger seat of his Mercedes, L
yle drove up the winding road north out of Calistoga. It was coming up on three thirty; he’d been delayed by a red herring.

  Just as he was about to leave his loft, he’d fielded a call from Cliff with a lead. Last night after Lyle had left Ice, Cliff had run into Corinne Walker. She said to tell Lyle she’d seen Sylvia the other day.

  After treating the banker’s hawk-faced daughter to an expensive lunch in exchange for information, Lyle had gone from trying to get her to focus on Sylvia to realizing she was playing games—specifically the game of pursuing Lyle Thomas.

  With most of the day wasted, he pressed on toward Villa Valetti. He might have phoned for an appointment, but had decided to try to catch Andre without giving him a chance to prepare.

  Now, where was the turn for the winery? There might not be a sign; he’d learned this morning that Valetti only gave tours and tastings by appointment.

  Lyle pulled off at a wide spot on the shoulder with no guardrail and a view of the valley floor far below. Lulled by the afternoon sun and the soft air, he flipped the latches to release the convertible top and pushed the button to power it down. Then he snapped the tonneau in place to cover it.

  He should have driven top-down all the way from the City.

  God, but this was beautiful country. It had been a few years since he’d done the wine tour, and then he’d been learning how to hold his own in a conversation about varietals and vintage. More camouflage for his past.

  Today, he focused on real estate, imagining how a developer might like to scatter mini-mansions all over these foothills. Somewhere up here was not only Villa Valetti but also the land Tony had purchased.

  As Lyle was bending to pick up his map from the seat, he happened to glance across the way and saw a side road, marked by a sign for a country inn. Before, he’d been too busy concentrating on avoiding the drop-off.

  Back on track, he fired up the engine and pulled across the highway, noting as he did that someone else must have developed respect for the knife-edge; a pair of tire tracks arced from the opposite side of the road directly toward the shoulder.