Final Cost (The Winter Trilogy #3)

6. Tamsyn

6

Tamsyn

I can’t stay here.

The idea keeps me awake all night and powers me through getting dressed and throwing my hair into another ponytail early the next morning. It pokes me between the shoulder blades and taunts me when I stand at my sunny window and hide behind my curtains watching Lucien set out for his morning jog, his face hard and set as he pounds toward the dock.

You must get out of here, Tamsyn. Ackerley is not for you.

The voice is right. I know it is. This renewed exposure to Lucien is dangerous to me. Of course it is. It’s like a daily hit of asbestos or drink of lead contaminated water. Worse, it’s like a snort of cocaine when I know I’m addicted. Everything about this scenario is bad for me, and if I need any further proof, it’s right here in the body that doesn’t even feel like mine anymore. My stomach is knotted up. My skin is too tight. Unwanted thoughts buzz around my head like hornets in a shaken jar.

I need a recap since I’m having trouble remembering the events of the recent past. Something to knock some sense back into me. So here goes:

Lucien treated me like a moldering pile of garbage smelling up his dining room the other day when he dumped me. The wound is still fresh and oozing inside my chest. Yet last night, when he hit me with those smoldering eyes and acted kinda sorta sorry about the whole thing, I lapsed into a sudden catastrophic case of amnesia. Now here I am trying to figure out what he’s thinking. What he really wanted to say to me and would have confessed if I’d given him the chance. I’m wondering if I should open the door— just a tiny little crack — toward forgiving him. Or at least letting him fuck me once or twice more for old time’s sake.

And all of this is happening while his newly dead wife lies on a slab in the coroner’s office refrigerator and suspicion hangs over his head. Lucien Winter may be a murderer for all I know. But when I’m with him — when I’m mesmerized by his magnetism — I can’t make myself care about any of that.

How sick does that make me?

I step away from the curtain, hungry for the sight of Lucien’s departing back and disgusted with myself. I knew I shouldn’t come here, but I wanted to see him and let myself be talked into it. Well, now I’ve seen him. Now it’s time for me to make a new plan. And I thought of it during the dark hours of the night when my overheated body refused to let me sleep. I’m going to call the head of my department at the hospital and ask if I can start my job a few weeks early. My contract says September 1 but fuck that. If I start early, I’ll have the money to pay to rent a room or an Air B & B until my apartment is ready. I won’t have to inconvenience Mrs. Hooper or go to Florida with her and Penny.

I can use my credit card to pay for things as needed. Although my spending limit has training wheels on it and the cost of living in the city is crazy expensive. Still, doing things this way will keep me independent of both Lucien and Mrs. Hooper. I call that a win.

And now that Lucien’s out of the house for at least an hour, I can safely head downstairs and grab some breakfast without threat of him lurking near the coffee and twinkling those magnetic eyes at me. Another win.

I leave my room and head for the staircase, but the murmur of excited female voices behind me catches my attention. I glance over my shoulder and discover that the bedroom door almost at the far end of the hall is open. I frown, trying to remember if Lucien ever showed me that bedroom. I don’t think he did. And whatever’s happening in there is absolutely none of my business. But I’m just nosy enough and bored enough to head in that direction anyway.

I make it to the threshold and dart out of the way just in time to avoid getting bowled over by one of the housekeeping staff hurrying by with a stack of dresses draped over her arm.

“Sorry, Ms. Scott,” she calls, continuing her trajectory downstairs.

“It’s okay,” I say.

“Good morning, Tamsyn,” calls Lucien’s housekeeper, Maddie, from the depths of the room. “How did you sleep?”

“Fine,” I say, my jaw dropping as I realize where I am and what I’m looking at. It’s a massive bedroom, as grand as the master bedroom where Lucien sleeps, with high ceilings, floor to ceiling windows framed by heavy satin drapes and a balcony overlooking the glittering bay outside. The walls are a stunning pale gray. I take a closer look. Is that silk wallpaper? Yeah. I think it is. Paisley. Exquisite. Elegant.

But the room is bare. No bed. No wardrobe, chairs or anything needed for day-to-day life. Just several long folding banquet tables set up along with racks and racks of clothes. I’m talking about the kind of racks you’d see in a major department store or the garment district. Some of the clothes are zipped into pale gray garment bags (of course Ravenna’s custom garment bags would match her bedroom decor!), all of which are embroidered with a bold and intertwined RW, as though anyone could possibly have any doubt about whose wardrobe this is. Other racks feature dresses that are arranged by rainbow color, with the reds to my left all the way over to the violets on my far right. There are stacks of giant designer boxes on the banquet tables, most of them labeled by designer. All the greats are represented here. Chanel. Dior. Schiaparelli. Dolce & Gabbana. And the biggest box of all? An open Vera Wang monstrosity overflowing with white tissue paper and gleaming folds of the richest white satin imaginable.

Ravenna’s wedding dress. I stare at it feeling sick, my heartbeat a dull thump in my throat.

“I didn’t expect to be doing all this today,” says Maddie as she grabs a couple of dresses from the rack in front of her and drapes them over her arm. She looks harried but crisp and resigned. “But Lucien wants it taken care of, and I can’t say I blame him.”

I peel my attention away from the wedding dress with difficulty and find myself immediately dazzled by a purple beaded evening gown that glitters in the morning sun. I want to touch it to see how heavy it is but don’t dare. I don’t know why I don’t, but I don’t. Even so, I can only imagine how beautiful Ravenna looked in that dress with her pale skin and dark hair.

And the shoes! Row after row of killer heels lined up around the perimeter of the room, most of them red-soled. Not a pair of flats in the bunch. And no athletic shoes. Chuck Taylor would not be welcome in this crowd. I glance down at today’s pale blue pair on my feet feeling as tacky and poor as I’ve ever felt in my life.

“What are you…” I trail off, needing a moment to clear my throat and pray that my burning cheeks cool down a little. “What are you doing?”

Maddie uses her free hand to push a strand of hair out of her flushed face. “We discovered more of Ravenna’s clothes in the attic the other day when Lucien asked us to grab some of her things for her to wear when she left the hospital. I don’t know how all this got missed. But it’s a good thing it did because Ravenna needs something to wear for her funeral. After that, Lucien wants one of the discrete consignment stores to come in and catalog all this and sell it. I doubt anyone can come before next week. Lucien won’t love that.”

“Why not?” I say, constitutionally unable to quash my curiosity about him.

Maddie hesitates. “He doesn’t like reminders hanging around. Of his old life. You know.”

“Right.”

“Anyway, I’ll see what I can do to get someone out here ASAP. Then he’ll donate the proceeds from the sale.”

“To what?”

“No idea,” she says, shrugging. “He has a lot of charities that he supports. And his foundation, of course.”

“Well, he’ll get a lot of proceeds from this,” I say, scanning the room again. I can’t begin to imagine the cost of everything here. Hundreds of thousands easily, I’m guessing, if not millions.

“Truer words were never spoken,” she says, heading for the door. “Did you need something? I didn’t even ask.”

“No.” I waved a hand. “I’m fine. I’m about to go down for breakfast.”

“Sounds good, she says, hurrying off. “Let me know if you need anything from me.”

I battle the uncomfortable feeling that what I really need is a few minutes alone with Ravenna’s stuff as I watch Maddie disappear down the hallway. Then I head straight for the wedding dress like the furtive jewel thief, glancing over my shoulder to make sure no one’s coming. I reach out, hesitate, then decide, fuck it . What am I so worried about? That Ravenna won’t like me rifling through her things? That I’m unworthy of touching such finery? That her possessions are somehow infused with her lingering negative energy and will contaminate me? Ridiculous. Besides. Ravenna had no problem sneaking into the guest cottage and rummaging through my things, did she? She even stole my perfume and used it to try to seduce Lucien.

Turnabout is fair play.

I unfold the dress’ bodice just enough to get an appreciation for the heaviness of the silk. The fineness of the weave. The tiny perfect stitching. The lining, in Ravenna’s signature pale gray.

Oh, and there’s a label:

Designed for Ravenna Balfour Winter on her Wedding Day

It’s the most beautiful garment I’ve ever seen. And it makes me feel sick, although whether it’s from envy or revulsion is anyone’s guess. Funny how I have both this endless fascination with Ravenna that pulls me in and a simmering dread of what she’ll do next that warns me away.

She’s dead, I remind myself. Dead .

I carefully replace the dress and its tissue paper before I accidentally leave a smudge on something, my pulse thumping away in my throat. Then I turn to the nearest rack. These seem to be everyday clothes—wool trousers, silk dresses in jewel tones and some blazers. I run my hand over the stunning fabrics, imagining her in them.

Oh, and there’s something else, I notice. Many of the items have a dated Polaroid of Ravenna wearing the item attached to the hangar by a gray silk ribbon. And the event where she wore it written on the bottom in a bold and slashing handwriting. Ravenna’s handwriting. I assume this is a practice she established to ensure she never committed the unforgivable fashion faux pas of wearing the same outfit around the same people more than once.

So there’s Ravenna posing in the Chanel jacket, pouting at the camera before some women’s luncheon in the city. There she is in a red tweed dress, a hand on her cocked hip and a Prada bag over her arm with Daniel on her left. That was for some charity luncheon here at Ackerley. And there— oh, God — there she is in a beaded black ball gown, her arm slung around Lucien in his tux. They’re at some glittering high society function that’s a million worlds away from my childhood in Brooklyn or the frat parties I went to in college. They look young and happy. The picture is a tiny little dagger to my heart. Another one. Worse, it’s another reminder that I don’t belong here in this rarefied world. I have no business feeling jealous about the wife of a man who rejected me so brutally. And I guess there’s something else Ravenna and I have in common: when it was all said and done, Lucien didn’t want either one of us. What a fucking kick in the gut.

That’s when I register an elusive new detail. The faint smell of an expensive perfume seems to be everywhere and nowhere. I pick up the sleeve of the latest garment and give it a furtive sniff. It’s intoxicating. Nothing that I would ever wear, but unmistakably compelling. The kind of thing you want to follow to its source.

I recognize it immediately as the sophisticated oriental scent I encountered in the hallway last night. Which is evidently, I realize with a dash of horror, Ravenna’s perfume.

Get out of here, Tamsyn. Ackerley isn’t for you. You’ve got to protect yourself ? —

“The Voice of the Snake,” comes a new male voice from the doorway, startling me out of my skin. Daniel’s voice rather than Lucien’s, thank God.

I hastily drop the sleeve, embarrassed to be caught in all my nosy glory. “What?”

“The name of Ravenna’s signature perfume. Voice of the Snake. I remember when she discovered it a few years ago. At Harrod’s on some trip to London, if I’m not mistaken. She danced down the hallway spritzing it on everything. Let’s just say Maddie was not thrilled.”

So there it is. A perfectly reasonable explanation for me smelling it last night. I probably got a whiff of it from the curtains. Not Ravenna’s ghostly presence drifting along overhead. And how appropriate that someone with Ravenna’s bright green eyes and venomous disposition would be attracted to something with snake in the title. Still, “I don’t remember it from when I met her.”

Daniel shrugs. “She didn’t have access to it. Lucien got rid of most of her personal items when she died the first time. Beautiful clothes, aren’t they?”

“They are,” I say, now recovered from my ridiculous case of the willies. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

His gaze drifts out of focus, a faint smile hovering around his lips. “He used to take her to Paris and Milan for the fashion shows. She’d order her clothes for the season. She always wanted to look her best for him. And he never spared any expense for her.”

A sour taste creeps into the back of my mouth at this reminder of the perfect couple and their great love. At least in the beginning. Poor Lucien. He went from ordering the finest European couture for Ravenna to grabbing some Chuck Taylor sneakers for me. It’s all I can do to hold back my hollow laugh. At least I was a cheap date. “I can imagine.”

He frowns down at the floor, shaking his head. “I still remember the day Lucien brought her home to meet the family. How happy they were. How happy everyone was for them. I can’t figure out how it’s come to this .”

“Right. Me either.” I gesture toward the hallway, eager to get out of here. Between the scent of her perfume, the sight of these exquisite clothes and the stories of ye good olde times, I’ve had enough of Ravenna for the day. And it’s not even noon yet. “I’m going to grab some breakfast.”

Daniel snaps out of his memories, glances over his shoulder, then comes inside just as I’m walking toward the door.

“I just wanted to, ah…” he says, dropping his voice. Frowning, he runs a hand over the back of his neck, his blue eyes looking focused now and much more turbulent than usual.

Oh, God. What now? “Are you okay, Daniel? What is it?”

He shakes his head, fighting against words that don’t seem to want to come. “This is none of my business,” he finally says. “And it’s not my place.”

My dread level ratchets higher. “Okay…?”

“I just…Why are you back, Tamsyn?”

I hesitate, as thrown by the topic as I am by his sudden banked urgency. “Lucien thinks it’s a good idea for now. Why? What is it?”

“I’m concerned about your safety.” He makes a helpless gesture. “My loyalty is to Lucien, but I’m concerned. I’m not sure this is the place for you right now.”

My heart turns to stone. It’s one thing to entertain dark thoughts about Lucien in private and shameful corners of my own mind. Something entirely worse to be confronted with them by one of Lucien’s lifelong friends. “Oh, my God. You think he killed Ravenna.”

“I didn’t say that. But I was there when the police questioned him. And it didn’t sound good.”

“So you do think he did it.”

“I’m trying not to, Tamsyn,” he says, his voice gruff. “My father worked for their father. I grew up with Lucien and Roman. Hell, Lucien used to give me his old clothes because I needed help landing dates in high school. That’s the kind of guy he is. You think I want to have doubts about him?”

He looks and sounds as anguished as I’ve been feeling, but the damage has been done. And I’m surprised to discover that I’m angry about it. The doubts were already there in our individual thoughts. Now, by mentioning them aloud, he’s caused them to multiply exponentially. I’m not ready for that. I don’t think Lucien would murder anyone. Ever. I’m ready to swear it. But the other day I was also ready to swear that Lucien loved me as much as I loved him and look at how wrong I was about that . Lucien’s act of cruel betrayal toward me has cracked open every ounce of trust I ever had for him and turned it into dust.

“You’re supposed to be his good friend, Daniel,” I snap, part of me wondering why I’m so determined to defend a man who has been terrible to me. “You don’t know him at all if you think he’s capable of murder.”

“That’s my point, Tamsyn,” he says, his kindly tone and pained expression making everything worse. “I’m no longer sure how well I know him.”