Chapter Ten
CHAPTER
Ten
With Cora out of New York and also actively avoiding us, our usual method of interrogation—taking a car somewhere nearby and asking questions—was not going to work. So we had to improvise. Namely, by taking a plane somewhere far away and asking questions.
“Nicholas is going to kill me,” I said almost a week after interrogating Isaiah at the art gallery, lounging back in my seat and waving away the flight attendant with her crystal glass of sparkling water. “Hopefully we take off before he storms the airport.”
The family pilot was like an uncle to me, except that I knew most of my uncles’ last names.
The family pilot had always just been Captain Ted.
Captain Ted wasn’t supposed to take the plane out without the authorization of the head of the company, who was technically my father (though in reality the temporary winner of the constantly shifting battle between my mom and Nicholas), but who could say no to the family’s darling daughter when she came to you with a pout on her lips and big, sad puppy-dog eyes?
Captain Ted, that’s who. The whole puppy-dog-eyes-and-pouting thing had worked a lot better when I was younger. It had taken a forged note from Nicholas and a whole lot of fervent praying that Nicholas wouldn’t show up before takeoff.
“I still can’t believe that this is just… how you travel.” I was lounging, but Gabe was not; he was perched on the edge of the cushy leather seat, like he was afraid it might swallow him up if he leaned back.
“I mean, not always,” I said. “I’ve flown commercial before.”
“In first class.”
“Obviously,” I said. “I heard that back in coach they don’t even have beds.”
“The horror,” Gabe said. I was glad he understood.
“Pom, we’re ready to go.” Captain Ted appeared out of nowhere, his blue pilot’s hat sitting crookedly atop his thick blond hair. “ETA in four hours and fifteen minutes.”
“Sounds good,” I told him. The jet engines roared up outside the window.
I sat back and sipped my iced tea as we took off.
Bye, Nicholas. Hopefully he wouldn’t need the jet for a business meeting while I was gone.
I could only imagine the lecture I’d get if the company lost out on some deal because I had the jet.
Though, really, wasn’t what I was doing way more important?
My work had life-or-death stakes. His work did not.
Once we were cruising thousands of feet in the air, I let out an exhale of my own. Nicholas couldn’t stop me now. I turned back to Gabe. “It’s been so long since I’ve been to a private island. I love them. You’ll see.”
Oh yeah. Did I not mention that? We were en route to a private island.
Kevin Miller’s private island, to be exact.
It was a big part of his shtick: I grew up poor and now I have a private island!
(I wasn’t paraphrasing—that was the title of one of his books, exclamation point and all.) It was his fiftieth birthday and he was throwing a huge bash.
The Jean-Pierres might be steering clear of scandal-plagued New York for a while, but we’d heard through the grapevine that they’d be down in the Caribbean for the party.
“A private island,” Gabe repeated. “I never thought I’d be going to a private island.
” He’d been a little quiet so far on the ride.
I thought he’d want to go over our plans for talking to Cora, or maybe do some more research than our googling last night (which hadn’t turned up much; someone had scrubbed as much of the Internet as they could of any connection between Cora Jean-Pierre and the Sterlings—which was ironic, considering that, even though she was much older, she was the only sister to be a full-blooded Sterling), but so far he’d spent most of the flight looking out the window.
Poor guy. He must have been nervous for his first time.
“A private island is just like a regular island, but better,” I assured him.
“More privacy. No dealing with the public on the beach. Usually not as well equipped as a resort is—if you’re looking for specialty massages or face masks with any chemicals that need to be overseen by a doctor you’re out of luck, so there are trade-offs.
” I wondered how the food would be. Last time I was there the desserts had been pretty basic, simple treats like chocolate mousse and cupcakes.
Private chefs so often had a blind spot around desserts.
Kevin would probably love if I popped down to the kitchen to consult on their pastries.
Gabe’s face didn’t move. “Private stretches of beach sound nice. Kevin must have a stretch somewhere on the west that’s beautiful during sunset, right?”
“Oh yeah,” I said, relieved he seemed to be coming around.
“I’ve been there before, the last time a few years ago, when he wanted to talk to my family about branding one of his properties with the Afton name.
He positioned his residence on the west side of the island so that whole stretch of beach is easily walkable and glorious in the evening.
” He nodded, his expression still grimly resolute.
“We’ll definitely get away one evening for a sunset walk. ”
He nodded. “Good.”
I stared at him for an extra second, wondering why he was being so weird, but my phone buzzed.
I grabbed for it immediately. It could be Bibi, who I’d finally reached out to in order to see what was going on with the building Conrad had promised me, though it probably wouldn’t be Vienna, who was still avoiding—
It was Vienna? Pom, I’m sorry I’ve been MIA the last few days. I’ve been dealing with a lot but I know you have been too. Can I come over? We need to talk.
I bit my lower lip. Gabe peered over my shoulder as I said, “I guess it’s not too late to turn the plane around.”
“You think so?” he said, and why was his voice so strangled? “We’re already in the air. Once Nicholas finds out you took the plane, no chance you’re getting it again for a while.”
I sighed, settling back into my seat. “I guess you’re right.” I typed back, Babe we’re in the air Will be back next week. I’d wanted to stay longer, but Gabe had work. The compromises I made for this relationship. Can I call you?
I can’t discuss this over the phone, she wrote back. It was just a relief at this point to have words pop up after the typing bubbles. Text me as soon as your wheels hit NYC earth.
Will do.
The flight flew by (pun not intended, but it pleased me).
One of the flight attendants had brought some hydrating face masks, so I did one of those, then rested my eyes for a bit before reviewing the month’s statements for the bakery.
Gabe worked on lesson plans or grading or something.
I had nothing to do for the nonprofit, which was weird, but then I realized it was because Lina wasn’t here to give me papers and numbers and stuff. I’d need to find a new assistant ASAP.
Kevin Miller had cleared space for a long runway on his island to prevent himself and his guests from having to do the annoying move of having to land somewhere else and take a ferry over.
It did kind of take away from the ambiance of the private island, I thought as we disembarked.
When my family got a private island—assuming we didn’t already have one; lawyers were still sorting through all my grandma’s byzantine holdings—the maximum airstrip I’d want was one for small planes.
I told Gabe all this as we taxied to the resort. He looked faintly green, which was quite an accomplishment for someone who was brown. “I didn’t realize you got airsick,” I said.
“What?”
Just then the resort came into view. It wasn’t technically a resort, I supposed—it wasn’t like it was open to the public.
But Kevin liked to call it a resort because it was as big and luxurious as one, although only for guests he invited: beautiful rooms with en suite bathrooms overlooking the sea; a private spa in the basement; multiple pools and a kitchen and bar that turned out food and drinks as good as any restaurant.
(Aside from the desserts. The tropical ambiance was making thoughts of coconut conchas and pineapple upside-down cakes dance through my head.) “All my mother wanted was to vacation on the beach, but she spent so much of her adulthood working nonstop to provide for me,” Kevin had said.
“She died before she ever got to go on a plane. That’s why I named the island for her. ”
Ann-Marie Island. The name made me think, with a pang, of Andrea, my childhood nanny and Gabe’s mom. Had she ever gotten to take her kids on vacation? Or had all of her time away from home been about taking care of little Aftons?
Mental note: take Andrea on the best vacation of her life. Surely one of my friends could lend us their private island for a weekend.
Kevin greeted us himself in what was part lobby and part living room. “Pom, so happy you could come,” he said. Instead of kissing both cheeks, as I leaned in to do, he reached out to give me a firm handshake.
“So are we,” I gushed. “Happy birthday! You remember Gabe, my boyfriend.”
Kevin turned to Gabe with a polite smile. “Of course I remember Gabe. One of my fellow regular people in this rarefied world. It’s nice to have a comrade around who wasn’t born into all of this.”
“Right.” Gabe shifted, looking uncomfortable even though I’d specifically given him some of the most comfortable clothes ever to exist: soft, supple leather sandals with loose white shorts and a pink silk Hawaiian shirt. “I was thinking maybe later—”
“Anytime.” Kevin slapped him on the back, making Gabe stumble a full step forward.
He nearly hit me, which would’ve been unfortunate, as I was wearing way less comfortable (and way less stable) cork heels.
“Anyway, let me find someone to bring your things up to your room. You’ll be in the Diane Suite, one of my favorites.
I think that’s where you stayed last time, Pom. ”
“Great. Thanks.”
Kevin glanced around, saw nobody, then began to frown. I was surprised that, as someone who loved to talk about how normal and regular he was, he didn’t offer to do it himself. Gabe did it for him. “Don’t worry, we got it.”
By that, of course he meant that he got it.
This ultrasmooth gemstoned manicure was not made for carrying my own bags.
By the time he’d lugged all of our luggage—okay, by the time he’d slung his one small bag over his shoulder and then lugged all of my luggage—up two sprawling flights of stairs and into the Diane Suite, he was breathing heavily, beads of sweat sparkling on his broad forehead.
The king-size bed was soft and plush, covered with a peach-colored feather blanket and a seafoam-and-periwinkle quilt that might have looked homemade but that I recognized from Gilda Traynor’s 2021 collection.
Various depictions of the sea, from stormy to pastoral, hung on the walls, and the sliding glass door on the far side of the room that led out onto a private balcony showed off the real sea, which sparkled merrily beneath the sunlight.
It was warm enough here that I’d have to go in for a dip later.
We were here to investigate a murder, of course, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t enjoy ourselves too.
I turned away from the view as Gabe said, “Wow.” For a moment I thought he, too, was admiring the view—of me from the back—until I realized he was looking at something sitting atop the room’s desk.
A book. A Bible? The Afton had phased out leaving Bibles in every room—they kept getting stolen, which was ironic.
But no. Or maybe it was a Bible, just of a different sort: Kevin’s famous first memoir, the one that had catapulted him to the late-night shows and TED Talk stage.
A version of our host from ten years ago, one with fewer silver hairs and somehow looser skin on his jaw, grinned up at us, arms folded across his chest. I snorted. “He really thinks a lot of himself.”
Gabe stared at the photo for another moment. “You know, at the gala, he cornered me for an interrogation.”
“Interrogations are a lot more fun when you’re the one giving them,” I said. “What was he interrogating you about?”
“He wanted to know about where I’d grown up, that kind of thing. He’d heard that my mom had worked for your family and wanted to know if it was true, then wanted to know if I’d be working for the family business.”
I’d never thought about it before, mostly because there was no way anybody would accept him working for the family business unless he changed his last name to Afton, which, actually, why not?
Feminism and all that. Men could change their names too.
I certainly wasn’t changing mine. “Do you have any desire to work for the family business?”
“Not really,” Gabe said. “I don’t know anything about hotels, except that I don’t usually like them. They always smell weird.”
“You could be the Afton’s chief officer in charge of smells.”
“Thanks, but I think I’ll pass,” he said dryly. “When I told him that, he lost all interest in me and made an excuse to get away.”
“Probably it wasn’t an excuse,” I said.
“It was 100 percent an excuse,” Gabe replied. “He said he wanted to grab one of the gazpacho shooters. Who feels that strongly about cold soup?”
I shrugged. “Well, we’re not here for him. We’re here for Cora.”
Gabe took a deep breath, shaking out his shoulders as if he was nervous. “Right. Of course. That’s what we’re here for.”
Something about his tone struck me as weirder than the smell of some random hotel. “Is everything okay?”
“Of course,” he said, but his voice was just a little bit too loud, his eyes just a little bit too jumpy. He’d never been this nervous before an interrogation before.
“We don’t have to go down right away,” I said.
“We could hang out up here for a little while. Take a relaxing bath.” I knew from experience that the tub was great—not only did it overlook the sea, but it had about a thousand jets and was lined with at least ten different bottles of bubble bath scents, from lavender to bacon (which I was almost intrigued enough to try).
He shook his head, already moving toward the door. “Let’s go down. Don’t worry about me.”
I hadn’t worried about him. Not until this moment. Which was really selfish of him to make me do right now, honestly!!! We had a murder to solve and multiple reputations to save. How was I supposed to do those things when my stomach was twisted into a full-on knot?