expression the plastic surgeons had given me after nearly two years of reconstructive surgery. And I was now physically incapable of crying.
Self-absorbed narcissist that he was, I doubted he would even see me as anything other than a loiterer. He would have his cell phone out and be speed-dialing the police as he went down the street.
My mother had come to see me in the hospital after my date with the asphalt under Billy Golam’s 4×4. Not because I had called her. Not because she was my mother and had been keeping tabs on me. She had come because her housekeeper had seen my name in the
Palm Beach Post
when the incident was in the news and had asked her if I was a relative.
Helen had come to see me, but she hadn’t known what to do or say when she got there. I gave her a point for trying to do the maternal thing, even though she had only a passing knowledge of the concept. I bore no resemblance to the daughter she remembered. Not physically or otherwise. I had been gone from her life almost as long as I had been in it.
She had been so uncomfortable that after fifteen minutes I pretended to fall asleep so she could leave.
I asked myself then why I had come here. Wasn’t it enough to have those old memories crack through the scars that covered them? Did I have to come here in person to make the pain sharper?
Apparently I thought so.
What strange irony that Irina’s death would somehow be intertwined with my past and that in wanting to help Irina I would have to face that past, something I had avoided doing my entire adult life.
I started the car and drove away. Drove home.
chapter 9
THE DAY was nearly over by the time I got back to the farm. The horses, unaware and unconcerned with how my day had gone, were hungry. Cars from the SO were parked all over the place, including the one Landry had been driving. They were up in Irina’s apartment doing the same thing I had done hours before them.
A deputy stopped me as I got to the barn.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. There’s an investigation in progress. You can’t go in.”
I looked straight in his face. “I can and I will. I own these horses,” I lied, “and they need to be fed. Do you want to be held responsible for the illness or death of any of these animals? Before you answer that, I should inform you that any one of them is worth more money than you’ll see in five years.”
He was officially intimidated. The young ones are so easy.
“No, ma’am. But could you please wait here while I go inform the detective in charge?”
I sighed, rolled my eyes, and walked past him. He didn’t stop me, but he did go into the lounge and, presumably, up the stairs to the apartment, where he would tell Landry about me. The man in charge.
As I went about feeding the horses their dinner, I tried to pretend the deputies and detectives and crime-scene investigators weren’t there. If they weren’t there, then I could pretend Irina wasn’t dead. If they weren’t there, I wouldn’t have to interact with Landry.
He didn’t come flying out of the lounge. That was a good sign. I went about my business, tending the individual needs of my charges. Witch hazel and alcohol on legs that tended to puff up overnight, carefully wrapped bandages—not too loose, not too tight. Lightweight sheets on all but Oliver, who thought it was hysterically funny to rip his expensive custom-made blankets to shreds. A few extra carrots for Arli, for his traumatic morning. A few extra carrots for Feliki, because she was the boss mare, and no one could get anything she didn’t get too or she would throw a tantrum in her stall.
I went last into the stall of the new princess of the barn: Coco Chanel. Coco was amazingly beautiful, dark chocolate brown with a splash of white on her hind legs and a perfect blaze down her face. Ears pricked at attention, she looked at me with huge liquid eyes filled with happiness that I was coming in to visit.
I spoke to her in a quiet voice,
Self-absorbed narcissist that he was, I doubted he would even see me as anything other than a loiterer. He would have his cell phone out and be speed-dialing the police as he went down the street.
My mother had come to see me in the hospital after my date with the asphalt under Billy Golam’s 4×4. Not because I had called her. Not because she was my mother and had been keeping tabs on me. She had come because her housekeeper had seen my name in the
Palm Beach Post
when the incident was in the news and had asked her if I was a relative.
Helen had come to see me, but she hadn’t known what to do or say when she got there. I gave her a point for trying to do the maternal thing, even though she had only a passing knowledge of the concept. I bore no resemblance to the daughter she remembered. Not physically or otherwise. I had been gone from her life almost as long as I had been in it.
She had been so uncomfortable that after fifteen minutes I pretended to fall asleep so she could leave.
I asked myself then why I had come here. Wasn’t it enough to have those old memories crack through the scars that covered them? Did I have to come here in person to make the pain sharper?
Apparently I thought so.
What strange irony that Irina’s death would somehow be intertwined with my past and that in wanting to help Irina I would have to face that past, something I had avoided doing my entire adult life.
I started the car and drove away. Drove home.
chapter 9
THE DAY was nearly over by the time I got back to the farm. The horses, unaware and unconcerned with how my day had gone, were hungry. Cars from the SO were parked all over the place, including the one Landry had been driving. They were up in Irina’s apartment doing the same thing I had done hours before them.
A deputy stopped me as I got to the barn.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. There’s an investigation in progress. You can’t go in.”
I looked straight in his face. “I can and I will. I own these horses,” I lied, “and they need to be fed. Do you want to be held responsible for the illness or death of any of these animals? Before you answer that, I should inform you that any one of them is worth more money than you’ll see in five years.”
He was officially intimidated. The young ones are so easy.
“No, ma’am. But could you please wait here while I go inform the detective in charge?”
I sighed, rolled my eyes, and walked past him. He didn’t stop me, but he did go into the lounge and, presumably, up the stairs to the apartment, where he would tell Landry about me. The man in charge.
As I went about feeding the horses their dinner, I tried to pretend the deputies and detectives and crime-scene investigators weren’t there. If they weren’t there, then I could pretend Irina wasn’t dead. If they weren’t there, I wouldn’t have to interact with Landry.
He didn’t come flying out of the lounge. That was a good sign. I went about my business, tending the individual needs of my charges. Witch hazel and alcohol on legs that tended to puff up overnight, carefully wrapped bandages—not too loose, not too tight. Lightweight sheets on all but Oliver, who thought it was hysterically funny to rip his expensive custom-made blankets to shreds. A few extra carrots for Arli, for his traumatic morning. A few extra carrots for Feliki, because she was the boss mare, and no one could get anything she didn’t get too or she would throw a tantrum in her stall.
I went last into the stall of the new princess of the barn: Coco Chanel. Coco was amazingly beautiful, dark chocolate brown with a splash of white on her hind legs and a perfect blaze down her face. Ears pricked at attention, she looked at me with huge liquid eyes filled with happiness that I was coming in to visit.
I spoke to her in a quiet voice,
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