Chapter 41
Whelan was on his hands and knees, ripping out a bed of faded annuals near the resort gatehouse, when he saw the news vans arriving.
Within an hour, they’d erected a small village, with pop-up tents, folding chairs, generators, and coolers.
Traci Eddings and an older man—her lawyer, he surmised—showed up at the scene within an hour, where they were met by two police cruisers from the sheriff’s office.
His curiosity got the better of him, so he went to the landscaping truck, pulled on a clean T-shirt, and casually joined the knot of reporters gathering around for what looked like an impromptu press conference.
Whelan marveled at Traci’s composure—even while she was discussing the loss of her niece, her voice stayed calm and steady. She was an impressive woman. He’d seen that already.
The night before, after he’d returned to his apartment, he’d gone online and done a deep dive on the background of the Saint’s president—and his new boss.
It seemed she’d met her future husband, Hoke, at nineteen, working as a lifeguard at the resort, the same summer, ironically, Hudson had drowned in the Saint’s pool.
He’d fetched the old police incident reports and been startled to realize that the teenaged Traci Davis who’d unsuccessfully attempted to save Hudson’s life back then was now the CEO of the Saint.
Hoke Eddings was ten years older, the scion of one of the wealthiest families on the Georgia coast, and Traci was a townie, from a working-class family. Unlike her husband, who had an Ivy League education and a newly minted MBA, she’d graduated from the local community college and married Hoke Eddings before the ink was dry on her diploma.
The Savannah and Jacksonville papers he found online were full of breathless accounts of the whirl of parties and soirees hosted on behalf of the happy couple’s nuptials, and a dozen years later, the headlines were about the multi-year, multi-million-dollar expansion of the Saint, rebuilding much of the hundred-year-old hotel complex originally built by Hoke’s grandfather, and turning it into an up-to-date five-star luxury resort.
Then, just as the project was nearing completion, came the plane crash that had left Traci Eddings a widow and the CEO of the resort. Whelan could find no mention of children in Hoke’s obituary. Maybe that explained why she was so close to her niece.
He watched now as she fielded questions, deferring to the sheriff, her expression neutral, until the shithead from Jacksonville asked if the dead girl had been raped.
Traci had recoiled as though she’d been slapped, leading the sheriff to step in and definitively quash the rumors.
When the press conference was over and the reporters had begun to pack up to leave, she’d spotted him at the back of the crowd and acknowledged him with a nod. Then, she said something to the older man and walked over to greet him, stopping to fetch a bottle of water from a tub near the makeshift stage.
She gave him the bottle and a weary smile. “I was hoping to catch you today, to thank you for bringing my car back this morning. It’s been quite a day.”
“I watched the press conference. You handled it like a pro.”
“Really? I felt numb, like I was watching someone else speaking.”
“It couldn’t have been easy for you,” Whelan said. “Especially after what that one jerk asked.”
He uncapped the bottle and took a long drink. “Guess I better get back to work. We’ve got, like, a hundred flats of begonias to get in the ground today.”
She looked over at the area where the rest of his crew had nearly finished.
“It’s looking really nice.”
“All the rain we’ve had helps,” he said. He gave her a mock salute with the water bottle and started to walk away.
“Hey, Whelan? I don’t know what time you get off, but I’ve got to run into town late this afternoon, and I could give you a ride, if you want.”
She noticed the startled expression on his face, and felt the same surprise. What possessed her to make such an offer?
Maybe it was the memory of how kind he’d seemed last night? A stranger who’d shown genuine concern during her wine-soaked, regrettable near-breakdown.
Was she really that needy?
No matter. She’d made the offer on an impulse and it was too late to back out now.
“Really?” Whelan asked. He pointed to his clay-caked boots, mud-stained Carhartts, and only slightly damp T-shirt. “You don’t want me riding in your nice car like this.”
“It’s fine,” she assured him. “I might get you to put those boots in the trunk, though. Why don’t you head up to the hotel around six.”
By the time she returned to her office her inbox was flooded with emails, and her phone kept dinging to notify her of incoming text messages. All the news outlets had already broken the news of Parrish’s cause of death online, and more reporters were calling with more questions. Maybe Andy Plankenhorn had been right. Maybe she really should have let the Saint’s PR agency put a more subtle spin on the story.
She ignored most of the text messages and worked her way through the emails, replying “no comment” to all the queries from reporters, and answered at least a couple dozen emails from longtime members who wanted to be reassured that the Saint was no longer considered a crime scene.
It was past five when her phone rang and the disembodied voice identified the caller as Ric Eddings.
She was tempted to let the call go to voice mail, but knew it would only infuriate her always infuriated brother-in-law even further.
As soon as she tapped Connect, she regretted that decision.
Ric’s voice was a low growl. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing? I turn on the TV a little while ago and there you are, crying alligator tears and talking about my daughter—my daughter, and how she died because she was drinking and doing drugs and getting raped. I swear to God, Traci, if I could get my hands around your throat right now…”
His words were slurred, which meant he was probably deep into the scotch bottle.
“Stop right there,” she said. “Someone leaked the coroner’s report to the press, Ric. The news was already out and half a dozen TV vans were camped right outside our entrance before noon. They were gonna report it with or without a statement from me.”
“So I’m supposed to thank you? For dragging my little girl’s name through the mud?”
Traci felt her head beginning to throb. Maybe it was because she’d skipped lunch, or maybe this was the same fight-or-flight reaction she had every time she had an unpleasant encounter with her brother-in-law. And lately, they were all unpleasant.
“You’re not supposed to threaten to do bodily harm to me,” she shot back. “Especially when I’m doing my best to save this company. And to find out who killed Parrish.”
“Shiiiit,” he drawled. “All that reward money is gonna do is draw out every crackpot and nutjob who’s looking for an easy payday.”
“Or, just maybe, it’ll motivate someone to tell us something that will help the cops solve this,” she said.
“And maybe a frog will sprout wings and fly. Do me a favor, will you, Traci? Keep your mouth shut about my kid.”
“I can’t do that. I can’t pretend her loss isn’t devastating. And by the way, have you told your dad what’s happened?”
“No. And I don’t plan to. He’s a sick old man. He’s dying. I don’t want him spending his last days on earth thinking about the horrible way his only grandchild died.”
No,she thought. You want him spending his last days rewriting his will to give yourself a jackpot after he’s gone.
“He’s not senile,” she pointed out. “He’s gonna want to know why Parrish hasn’t visited him. Unlike you, she went to see him every week.”
“It’s not your business to tell him. Stay out of it, Traci, or I swear to God, I’ll get a restraining order to keep you away from him. Hell, I may do it anyway. Because I can.”
Traci massaged her aching forehead with her fingertips. “You really are a miserable excuse for a human being, Ric. I still don’t understand how Parrish turned out as decent and kind as she did—with you as her father.”
“Maybe you should ask her so-called mother,” he said. “Yeah, I saw you and Heather leaving the service together yesterday, which you were deliberately not invited to, by the way.”
“I figured it was an oversight,” she said. She glanced at the clock. It was past five and she decided she’d had enough torment for one day.
“Bye, Ric. Lovely speaking to you as always, but I’ve got a hotel to save now.”
She allowed herself the distinct pleasure of disconnecting while he was still sputtering.