Faithless in Death (In Death, #52)(36)

Lifting an eyebrow, Roarke sipped some coffee. “That sort of move?”

“That sort. When Shelby rejected the move, said she was seeing someone, Gwen pushed a little harder, said nobody has to know.”

“Faithful isn’t a word in her particular world.”

“Again, just how I see it. Shelby booted her, and Gwen went from sexy and needy to pissed off, tossed out a few insults, and left. One thing more,” Eve added. “She accused Shelby of talking about their summer fling—at that time—so Gwen’s parents found out. Shelby maintains she didn’t tell anyone.”

“Teenage romance often means other teenagers in the vicinity, doesn’t it? It’s unlikely it was a locked secret.”

“Why tell the parents? Maybe somebody pissed at one or both of the teenage romancers. The brother springs to mind first, as sibs can get really pissed off. It doesn’t actually matter,” Eve added with a shrug. “I just hate blank spaces.”

“I can’t tell you if, at not quite eighteen, Trace Huffman weaseled on his sister, but I can tell you from what I’ve dug into, his relationship with his parents wasn’t likely any stronger or closer at that time than it is now.”

“Maybe, maybe not. You don’t have to like the authority figure to rat somebody out. People do it with cops all the time.”

“They do, don’t they? I found out a bit more on him than your standard run. It happens I know a producer who often uses him in recording sessions.”

“I shouldn’t be surprised. Paint me a picture.”

“Talented, steady—though steadier now than he was a few years ago.”

“Illegals or booze?”

“A bit of both. Nothing that kept him from working, but enough to keep him from progressing, you could say. He wanted to play music, write songs, drifted his way west, where he landed some gigs in Vegas. He’s recently hooked up, personally and professionally, with another musician. The producer says she’s also talented and steady, and he hopes to produce some of their music before long.”

“So he’s getting what he wants.”

“What he doesn’t want is any connection to his family, which is why he goes as Trace D. Huff, and in fact has turned down gigs in New York. He told my friend they’re toxic, like a poison, and he didn’t want to risk them getting into his bloodstream. He took off the day of his eighteenth birthday, so he tells it, with his guitar, a duffel bag, and the money he’d squirreled away over the previous six months by pawning things he felt wouldn’t be noticed. His tennis racket, his dress wrist unit, and so on.”

“So he planned it out.”

“Yes, waiting until that day, as it made him legal, and because, he claims, that night his parents planned to initiate him into their cult. His term.”

“Natural Order.”

“He didn’t give it a name, according to my friend. He contacted his parents the next day, to let them know he was alive and well, then pawned his ’link so they couldn’t track him, stuck out his thumb, and kept riding it on the way west.”

Yes, Eve thought, Roarke painted a picture very well.

“He worried they’d come after him.”

“Apparently, so he kept moving for the first two or three years until he felt they’d decided disinheriting him was enough.”

“It jibes with what I’ve dug up on the father.”

She looked over at the board and Oliver Huffman’s photo.

Sternly handsome seemed to fit, she thought. Chiseled features, pale gold hair dashed with silver, upthrust chin, chilly blue eyes.

“The parents keep their connection to Natural Order as down low as possible, but you don’t have to dig too deep to find it. They practically helped start it up, along with Stanton Wilkey.”

“A charismatic lunatic.”

“I’ll agree on the lunatic. Crazy eyes.”

She pointed with her fork, then scooped up the last bite of her cake. “Some people might look and see, I don’t know, holy or empathic, but most every photo I studied today? I see crazy eyes.”

“Cop vision, and yours is very sharp.”

“Huffman senior went to hear Wilkey speak when Huffman was in college. He liked what he heard. Huffman had money, Wilkey had—we’ll go with charisma—and together they had a vision. A few years later, Natural Order. Huffman marries Paula Vandorn—also made of money. I guess you could term them silent partners. Or benefactors. Or let’s just go with cultists.”

“I would,” Roarke agreed. “By the time Trace Huffman was born, Natural Order was global, wealthy. Secretive, of course, as such things are, but always on the lookout for wealthy or influential … initiates.”

“And by then the Huffmans were well established, had started their clinic here in New York, and were members of East Coast society. With Natural Order having a dubious reputation, they don’t advertise their membership. Oliver Huffman’s rep, however, is one of intolerance.”

“You can see that on his face,” Roarke murmured.

“Yeah, you can, can’t you? He’s a strict hard-liner who’s been known to pass on certain patients who don’t meet his criteria. He’s brilliant, supposedly, at what he does, but he won’t treat the mixed race—which cuts out a hell of a lot of patients. That goes for gay and trans, for a female who lists an abortion in her medical records, and so on.