Chapter 7—Simon
I DISCOVER TATE MEADE is sleeping with his wife’s identical twin because a seventy-two-year-old man wants to show me photographs of a golf course. There should be a better mechanism for life-altering information.
Walter Grayson corners me after lunch Wednesday at the Bellweather Club, where I’ve spent the previous two hours discussing a commercial acquisition with three men who use the phrase strategic opportunity whenever they want something cheaper than it’s worth.
The meeting is finished, my car is waiting, and I have another call in forty minutes.
Walter has an iPad, which means I’m not leaving.
“You haven’t seen the renovation.” He opens a photo album before I can answer. “We redid the entire north course.”
“I heard.” I glance toward the exit, but Walter has already swiped to an aerial photograph. “I’m sure it’s beautiful.”
“It was a drainage nightmare.” He enlarges a section of the image with two fingers. “You need to see the seventh green.”
That doesn’t improve the sales pitch. Thirty seconds later, I’m looking at six photographs of underground drainage pipes while Walter explains something about runoff. I make an effort. “Remarkable.”
“You aren’t looking.”
“I’m looking at a pipe.”
“The grading, Simon.” Walter enlarges another photograph, apparently convinced scale is the problem.
“Of course.” I study the same dirt from closer range while considering whether abandoning my coat would be an acceptable price for escape.
Someone laughs behind me. The sound catches my attention because for one irrational second, I think it’s Christa.
I turn toward the terrace doors.
She’s twenty feet away in a cream dress, talking to Tate.
Except she isn’t Christa.
I know that before I finish turning.
The same face and blue eyes fooled me at Caldwell because I didn’t know two women shared them.
They don’t fool me now. I’ve watched Christa work through a problem with her lower lip caught briefly between her teeth.
I know the little tilt of her head when she’s listening and the smile she gets immediately before she says something designed to give me trouble.
She stood in my library yesterday laughing because I’d obeyed her order not to rearrange the screws, then accused me of looking smug about it.
The woman beside Tate isn’t her.
Charla laughs again, louder than the conversation requires, while keeping one hand on Tate’s arm. She turns slightly as an older couple joins them, making sure everyone in the group has her attention and her best angle.
I know which sister I’m looking at.
Why is she with her sister’s husband?
Walter taps the screen. “This is where they had to redirect the runoff.”
I drag my attention back to another photograph of dirt. “Impressive.”
“You still aren’t looking.”
“I’ve become distracted by landscaping.”
Walter follows my attention toward the terrace. “Ah. The Meades.”
The plural catches me. “You know them?”
“Everybody knows the Meades.”
“I meant the woman.”
“Christa?” Walter glances toward Charla before returning to his photographs. “Tate’s wife.”
I look at him. Walter has just identified the wrong sister. “You’re sure?”
His eyebrows rise. “I’ve known Bernard for forty years. I know his daughter-in-law.”
Apparently not.
Walter starts to return to his golf course before something occurs to him. “Bernard hasn’t stopped talking about that baby since they told the family.”
I forget the iPad. “What baby?”
“Christa’s pregnant.” Walter lowers his voice and gives me the conspiratorial look of a man who is about to tell me something I’m not supposed to know.
“Still early. First trimester. They’re keeping it inside the family for now, so don’t repeat that.
” He leans a little closer. “Some newfangled blood test says it’s a boy. ”
I stare at him. Christa isn’t pregnant.
Yesterday, she spent three hours in my library, drank two cups of coffee, and told me enough about Monday’s divorce filing to make it clear Tate’s reaction had unsettled her.
She didn’t give me the private details, and I didn’t ask.
I know only that he was served, he wanted her to withdraw the petition, and his sudden desire to save their marriage arrived too late.
A pregnancy would have come up somewhere between those facts and her detailed explanation of why I was holding a brass mount incorrectly.
I look toward Charla again. Tate has moved closer to her. His hand rests low across her abdomen, and she covers it with hers.
The gesture is intimate enough that Walter’s voice fades into the background. At Caldwell, Tate showed less affection to his actual wife.
Charla looks across the room. She sees me, and her smile slips. The lapse lasts barely a second, but I’ve watched Charla perform through enough charity dinners and private parties to recognize when she loses control of the performance.
Tate follows her attention and sees me. His expression barely changes, but Charla’s does.
She obviously realizes I can tell them apart.
Walter continues beside me. “The trust situation has been hanging over Bernard for years. This should finally settle things.”
I turn back to him. “What trust situation?”
That question pleases him far more than the drainage did. Walter tucks the iPad against his side. “Old family structure. Outdated as hell, but Bernard’s grandfather set it up. The next male Meade heir changes the voting arrangement. That little boy is the answer to their prayers.”
I know enough about the Meade holdings to understand the significance. Tate already has more money than most people could spend badly in several lifetimes. Control is another matter.
“They know it’s a boy?”
“The test is pretty accurate from what I heard. Bernard’s over the moon.” Walter glances toward Tate. “After all those granddaughters, you can’t blame him.”
I can, but correcting Walter Grayson’s views on inheritance or males being more valuable than female grandchildren isn’t currently my largest problem.
Tate’s hand is still on Charla.
“Do you need to speak to them?” Walter asks.
“I think I do.”
His disappointment is obvious as he lowers the iPad. “I’ll send you the renovation photographs.”
“Please don’t.”
Walter laughs, assuming I’m joking, and takes his pipes with him.
I cross the room.
Charla watches me approach. Tate doesn’t move his hand until I’m close enough that keeping it there would require an explanation, and even then he only shifts it to the small of her back.
“Simon.” Tate offers his other hand. “Didn’t know you were here.”
I shake it because we’re in public and I’m not sixteen. “Business lunch.”
Charla’s smile has recovered by the time she looks at me. “Hi, Simon.”
“Charla.” The name does exactly what I hoped it would.
The older woman beside them blinks at Charla, then turns a puzzled look on Tate. Her husband frowns as if he’s trying to remember whether somebody introduced the woman incorrectly.
Tate doesn’t look confused.
He glares at me, only for a second, but it’s enough.
Charla laughs as though I’ve made a harmless mistake. “Wrong sister.”
The older woman’s confusion eases.
Charla tips her head and gives me a playful look. “Charla claims to be the prettier one, so don’t tell her I said she’s right.”
She even winks. It could be charming if I didn’t know she was talking about herself.
Tate’s glare stays on me another second before he smooths his expression. That’s what confirms it.
Walter wasn’t confused because the sisters resemble each other. The couple beside Tate didn’t simply forget which twin they were speaking to.
Tate knows this is Charla but expects everyone else to believe she’s Christa.
I don’t correct her. Exposing them now would end the conversation before I know why they’re doing it. Tate would get Charla out of the room, and whatever they’re hiding would leave with them.
I know they’re lying. I want to know how much and why.
I let my expression shift into mild embarrassment. “My mistake.”
Charla’s smile brightens with relief. “Don’t worry. It happens all the time.”
The older woman laughs. “Identical twins must get tired of that.”
“You learn to answer to almost anything,” Charla says easily.
Like Cholera. My lips twitch, and she mistakes my private thought for buying the charade. Charla relaxes.
Tate’s hand remains at her back.
I keep watching.
The older woman gives Charla a sympathetic smile. “I was telling Tate the first trimester was miserable for Celeste. She was sick for five months with her second.”
Charla touches her abdomen. “I’ve been lucky so far.”
Tate looks at me.
Interesting.
I smile politely. “Congratulations.”
Charla knows exactly what I’m doing.
Her own smile stiffens. “Thank you.”
“I heard it’s a boy.”
That surprises Tate.
Walter has already given me more information than Tate expected me to have, and I watch him adjust.
The older woman saves him. “Bernard has told everyone.”
Her husband grimaces. “Everyone he’s allowed to tell.”
“And several people he isn’t,” she adds with a chuckle.
Tate laughs as though this is all charming family excitement. “Dad’s been waiting a long time.”
“For a grandson?” I ask.
“For continuity.” Tate’s answer comes smoothly. “You know how these family structures get.”
I do. I also know people tend to become less careful when they think you understand their priorities. “The trust?” I ask.
His attention sharpens. “Walter?”
I shrug. “He enjoys explaining things.”
“Unfortunately,” the older man mutters. “Old gossip.”
Tate relaxes a fraction. “It’s mostly administrative. My great-grandfather had very specific ideas about succession.”
The older woman pats Charla’s arm. “This little one solves quite a few headaches.”
Charla smiles at her, and Tate smiles too. They need the pregnancy attached to Christa. If Tate’s grandfather was old-fashioned enough to tie it to a male heir, it surely has to be with a woman to whom he’s married to be valid.
Charla is participating in the lie without hesitation, and Tate is supporting every part of it. They’re accepting congratulations for a pregnancy everyone believes belongs to Tate and his wife.