The Story of Son(21)

When she hung up, Claire looked around her office and imagined herself taking down her diplomas from Harvard and Yale. She wasn’t sure where she would go. Maybe upstate. Caldwell, for instance, was really nice. And it wasn’t like she needed to work. She had plenty of money, and if she got bored she could put her shingle out and do a little legal work for private individuals. She was good at wills and anyone with half a brain could close a residential real estate deal.

Martha knocked and stuck her head in again. “Miss Leeds’s funeral starts in a half hour, but it’s private. There’s a reception afterward at the estate, though, which you could make if you left now.”

Did she really feel like driving all the way up to Caldwell? For a dead client who, for some reason, she hated now?

God, she had no clue why she absolutely despised poor, elderly, nutty Miss Leeds.

Martha pushed her sleek silver glasses up on her nose. “Claire . . . you look like hell. Don’t go.”

Except she couldn’t not go. Even though her head throbbed to the beat of her heart and her stomach was rolling, there was no way she wasn’t making the drive. She had to get there.

“Call for my car. I’m going to Caldwell.”



Claire parked at the end of the Leedses’ estate driveway, capping off a line of some fifty cars that stretched all the way up to the mansion. She didn’t use the valets because she wasn’t going to stay long and there was no reason to wait for someone to bring the Mercedes around.

Plus she needed a little fresh air.

And, as it turned out, a bottle of aspirin. The moment she stepped out of the sedan and looked up at the big stone house, her head screamed with pain. Sagging against the Mercedes’s hard body, she took shallow breaths as dread washed through her.

Evil was in that house. There was evil in that house.

“Ma’am? You okay?”

It was one of the parking attendants. A young kid of about twenty or so, dressed in a white polo shirt that had MCCLANE’S PARKING on the breast in red thread.

“I’m fine.” She carefully leaned in for her Birkin then shut her door. When she turned to smile at the guy, he was looking at her funny, like she was about to faint and he was praying she didn’t on his watch.

“Ah, ma’am, I’m just getting this car right here.” He nodded to the Lexus in front of her. “Do you want a ride up to the house in it?”

“Thanks, but I’ll just walk up.”

“Okay . . . if you’re sure.”

She went up the drive, eyes fixated on the gray stone house. She was shaking by the time she stepped up to the front door and lifted the knocker. Light-headed, weak, she felt as though she had the flu again; with hot and cold waves assaulting her body and her head pounding.

The door was opened by Fletcher.

Claire stumbled back in the face of the old man, her panic going out of control for absolutely no good reason.

Except abruptly she was rescued.

Her lawyer instincts, the ones that made her so good at confronting opposing counsel, the ones that made her a killer negotiator, the ones that had kicked in time after time when she couldn’t afford to have her emotions show . . . her instincts clamped down on the out-of-the-blue panic and dread and calmed her instantly.

You never show weakness to your enemy. Ever.

Although why the hell an elderly butler would engender such a reaction, who the hell knew? Still, she was grateful because at least she didn’t feel like she was going to pass out anymore. Once fogged, now she was clear.

Claire smiled coolly and extended her hand, the sounds of the wake inside bubbling in her ears.

“I’m sorry for your loss. And I brought the will.” She patted her shoulder bag.

“Thank you, Miss Stroughton.” Fletcher looked down, his drooping eyes even lower than usual. “I shall miss her.”

“We can go over the will next week or do it after the wake. Whatever is best for you.”

He nodded. “Tonight would be best. Thank you for your thoughtfulness.”

“No problem.” Claire flashed him her teeth and gripped the straps on her bag tightly. As she walked into the foyer, the fact that she wanted to use some of Hermes’s best as a weapon against him was a shocker.

Claire joined the throng of people milling about between the dining room and the living room. She nodded to a number of folks, several of whom were CEOs of the companies the Leeds family had interests in and Claire’s firm represented. Out of the rest of the hundred or so men and women, she guessed at least half were senior staff from various philanthropies. No doubt anticipating a huge payday.

As she bumped shoulders and declined passed hors d’oeuvres and tried to figure out why she was in battle mode when there was nothing to fight against, her eyes kept going over to the grand staircase. There was something about it . . . something . . . behind it.

Working her way through the crowd, she went over to the foot of the great, rising spread of steps. Putting her hand on the ornate balustrade, a voice came into her head, one that overrode all the noise of talk and her headache and her urge to kill Fletcher.

Behind the stairs. Go behind the stairs. Find the elevator.

Without stopping to wonder how she knew what was back there, she slipped around to the flank of the staircase and found her way into a little alcove . . .

Where there was an elevator. An old-fashioned brass and glass one.