Chapter Twenty-Seven #2
“You can see why the police might be interested in hearing about the extenuating circumstances of tonight, though. If I were to be asked, I mean.”
Cora narrowed her eyes. “Is that supposed to be a threat, Daisy?” she asked slowly.
Daisy swallowed nervously. “I’m just saying that depending on who is telling the story, neither of us looks very good in this situation. So … maybe we could help each other.”
Cora closed her eyes.
One messy alliance ends, she thought, and another one presents itself.
“What did you have in mind?” Cora asked.
“I swear I didn’t know that Liam was going to hurt Truman.
I would never hurt him. I need you to believe me,” Daisy said in anguish.
Her tears welled up again. And somewhere deep within her, Cora did believe her.
Daisy had been angry, but hurting Truman didn’t help her at all.
And beneath that, Cora could recognize a feeling she herself knew well.
It was betrayal.
“Was Liam part of the mob, then?” Cora asked. “Did they send him to kill Truman?”
“If he was, he never said it outright,” Daisy said.
“We talked about the politics of it all, of course. To be honest, I thought I felt more passionately about it than him. Sometimes I thought he was just feigning interest because I cared so much about it.” She gave a short, humorless laugh.
“But he had a phone call from someone this afternoon and then he started acting different. I thought we were both just nervous about the plan.” Bright spots of anger appeared on her cheeks. “He never told me it had changed.”
“So what do you want to do?” Cora asked.
“You’re the only one who knows we were seeing each other.
Liam cares for me, I know he does. He knows I was in the dark about the shooting.
In order to protect me, he didn’t tell me about it.
But I need you to keep your mouth closed.
And if you stay quiet about my end, I’ll be quiet about you and Mr. Conner. ”
Cora weighed her options. “I’m willing to keep my mouth closed about you and Liam, and your original plan,” she said slowly. “But I’m going to need help from you with a little something else in return.”
Daisy shot her a wary look. “Is it anything illegal?” she asked.
“No,” Cora said.
“Does it involve the mob at all?”
“No,” Cora said.
Daisy sighed, burying her face in her hands. “Fine.”
“All right. Then your secrets are safe with me,” Cora said.
Daisy walked over to Cora’s bed and sank down beside her. Then she wrapped her arms around Cora, and with a kiss on the temple, she whispered “Thank you.”
Over breakfast, Byrd sat in front of his portrait.
He could just glimpse it through the violet petals of the orchids, reflecting in the window glass.
He poured himself a cup of coffee and stirred in a rich swirl of cream.
The morning was chilly and the braziers were smoking with embers of orange peel.
A fire was lit in the grate. He looked up at the portrait he had commissioned from Celeste Lourd. The painted strokes of his own face.
If he had died at the hand of his own butler last night, who would inherit what he had built? He had no children. No obvious heirs.
He took a sip of coffee. He had never wanted to be a father. Mabel had tried to pressure him into it, but he had been resolute. His deepest fear was that he would turn out to be like his own. So he had decided to plant seeds of his permanence and his name in other ways.
He stretched out his hand, which sometimes ached in the mornings.
He had succeeded everywhere his father had not.
He wasn’t a drunk or an abuser. He had even bailed his father out when his father needed money.
He had done it gleefully. It was the final turn of the knife.
Franklin Byrd had come to him groveling.
And Truman had paid for him to live in a home in Illinois with a nurse.
Truman didn’t spare any expense. It was like pouring ashes on his head.
And every month, he had Macready send the house a bouquet of roses.
Just like his mother. So his father would have to smell them.
At one point, he had considered shedding his father’s name like skin. But it had also been his mother’s name, and Elias’s. So he embraced it instead. Made it something new, entirely associated with himself.
His greatest revenge. And hadn’t he soared.
“I wanted to thank you for your assistance last night,” Truman said. Everett Conner sat in front of him, showered and freshly shaved. Everett took a long sip of coffee, and one of the maids served him a Danish and a fresh glass of orange juice.
Just before he had invited Everett Conner for a private breakfast, Truman had studied the bullet hole in the wall meant for him. It shook him more than he would show.
“I’m grateful for your service. And embarrassed that with a house full of security, one of my guests had to be the one to stop an attempted assassination.”
Everett raised his hands in an effort to deflect the compliment.
“I appreciate the police chief’s discretion,” Truman continued. “And yours.”
Truman did not want this getting out. That he had almost been assassinated by his own staff within his own home. He controlled the news. And this one would stay so buried, he would go to his grave with it.
He had been plagued with nightmares about a pine box throughout the night—just like the one he’d seen his brother buried in, a coffin Elias had made with his own hands.
And all Truman could think was that he had spent his whole life doing great and terrible things, only to end up in exactly the same place.
Dallas Winston knocked and entered the room.
“Excuse me, sir,” he said, drawing Truman aside, “but I thought you should know that Mr. Boyle departed the Hill early this morning. Said it was a family emergency. We spoke with him before he left, but he did not appear to be aware of the incident last night.”
It was suspicious. Someone attempted a hit on his life, and Albert left unexpectedly that same night. Thanks to his drug-running, Albert had plenty of connections with the mob.
But that was ridiculous. What could his old friend Albert possibly hope to gain from his death?
Truman felt a crawling up his back. He’d always been able to trust his instincts in the past. But he’d been looking in the wrong direction this time.
He studied his head of security. Or perhaps he had been pointed in the wrong direction.
After all, Dallas had tried to cast suspicion on Everett Conner, while the real threat was close enough to slit his throat.
The creeping feeling intensified. And where had his head of security been when Truman had needed him the most?
Perhaps he couldn’t trust anyone.
He felt the train in his pocket now, where he had slipped it like a talisman. A weight to keep him in reality.
Was this the cost of wealth, of making a name for oneself? Barely missing a bullet to the head, and an unsettledness that left him feeling itchy and vulnerable—was that his punishment for the things he had done to get there?
According to the police chief, the young butler hadn’t talked. But it was looking like the mob had infiltrated the Hill after all.
The train fell from Truman’s grasp with a new, even darker thought.
Or perhaps it was Mabel, instead. Coming to cut free of him and take her share of the wealth, no matter the cost.
Jack studied Truman from across the table in the morning light. He stared briefly at the portrait above Truman’s head. It looked nothing like the tired, shaken man who was sitting in front of him. Jack’s gut tightened.
He had been too wired to sleep last night.
Every time he’d closed his eyes, he’d seen the secret passageway slide open, the barrel of the gun glinting in the light.
He took a shower, careful to shield his bandaged arm, and scrubbed his skin until it felt raw.
He knew he’d screwed things up with Cora, and he didn’t want to admit to himself how that almost felt worse than being shot.
He had ended up pacing his room in his robe and telephoning Virgil at three in the morning.
It was growing increasingly dangerous to have any contact with them, especially after the stunt they’d pulled last night. But he had to know.
The mobster who answered at the Muddy Dahlia patched him through to Virgil.
“’Ello?” a husky voice had answered. Jack could picture him sitting up in bed, wearing too much cologne. He had a mouth that puckered like a smallmouth bass around a gold filling in his front left tooth.
“Virgil,” Jack said. “It’s Conner.”
“Conner, listen—” Virgil said, instantly sounding awake.
“What the hell was that?” Jack hissed.
“I know, I know—”
“You are compromising my mission here. Security is going to be so high now. Dammit, Virgil—you couldn’t wait two more days?”
“Listen,” Virgil said. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t my call.”
“You’ve put me in a bad way here. I’m about to walk.”
“Now, now,” Virgil said, his voice turned soothing. “The stakes just went up for everyone. What if we increased your take for bringing the good stuff home?”
Jack paused, considering. “You want me to stay, you’ve got to give me a little more up front. And what I want is information.”
“I’m listening,” Virgil said.
“Who sold those pieces from the Bastion theft?”
Virgil snorted. “I’m not giving that up yet.”
“Then at least tell me where they ended up. You can give me that, can’t you?”
Jack could hear the distinct sound of wet tobacco being gummed in the cleft of Virgil’s cheek.
“They were all sold but one,” Virgil finally said, and Jack held back a deep exhale. “The fifth never entered the market.”
“So the thief might still have it.”
“Yeah, we never saw it. The thieves kept it, or burned it, or buried it before we got it.”
Jack had a tingling sensation.
“Which one was it?” he asked.
“The Rembrandt.”
Jack whispered, “The one about Lazarus?”
“Yeah,” Virgil had said. “I think that’s the one.”
Now Jack stared across the expanse at Truman, his injured arm lightly aching. He had foregone the painkillers the doctor had given him, because he needed to stay sharp and alert. After the events of last night, he knew that Truman had come to trust him more.
But he was beginning to trust Truman even less.