Shadows At Sunset. Anne Stuart
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convince me with that diffidence crap,” she said.
“Convince you of what? I’m telling you the truth.”
“I’m not sure you’d know the truth if it bit you on the ass.”
“I guess you’ll just have to find out.” He stepped back from the Corvette, hiding his reluctance. “So, are you going to give me a tour of this place? And don’t tell me I can take a bus tour. I want an owner’s perspective. Or at least the temporary owner. Your father’s the one who’ll end up with this place when you finally give it up.”
“That’s not about to happen. You’re awfully conversant with the legal ownership of this place,” she added suspiciously.
“I’m head of legal services, remember? It’s my job to know.” Hell, he didn’t usually make slips like that one. He had to be careful with Jilly—she was a lot more observant than her brother. “Anyway, I like old Hollywood legends,” he said. “I also like old houses. I studied to be an architect before I switched to law.”
Her disbelief should have been scathing, but he wasn’t easily scathed. “I got my degree in architecture from Princeton,” she said, warning him.
“I know.” He smiled at her. “Want to cross-examine me about architectural detail? You seem convinced I’ve got something to hide. What you see is what you get.” He held his arms out.
“Not if I can help it,” she muttered. “I don’t suppose you’ll be willing to leave until I show you the place.”
“As always, you’re very astute. And I’m looking forward to meeting your sister.” He liked how casual it sounded.
“Why?”
“I’m curious. As your father’s lawyer I’ve dealt with everything, including your divorce, Dean’s traffic accidents, and Rachel-Ann’s various…issues.”
“You’ll have to stay curious. She’s not home tonight. Neither is Dean, for that matter.”
“So we’re here alone? Maybe I don’t mind not taking you out, after all.”
She looked completely unflustered. “Depends on how you define alone, and whether you believe in the ghosts. I never see them, but a lot of other people have. I wouldn’t want to irritate them if I were you. Ghosts are notoriously unstable.”
“Fortunately I’m not very irritating,” he said, deliberately setting himself up for her hoot of disbelief. “Tell me about the place. Give me your best tour guide impersonation, and then we’ll talk.”
She wanted to get rid of him, she made that perfectly clear, and he still wasn’t quite sure why. He’d been his charming, unsettling best with her, and most women were reluctantly fascinated by him. She was fascinated, as well, but more along the lines of someone caught in the gaze of a snake. Maybe she was more intuitive than she gave herself credit for, despite her inability to see ghosts.
Coltrane didn’t believe in ghosts. When he was younger he used to try to see his mother, floating over him like some sort of guardian angel. But his mother was no restless spirit—he would have known by now if she were. His mother was at peace, no matter how she’d died. He was the one with the restless spirit, seeking answers, seeking resolution.
“All right,” she said finally. “Follow me.”
It took an effort to keep his eyes off her sexy butt and on the overgrown path leading up to the main house. She was rattling off details in a monotone, and he let them filter into the back of his efficient memory, to dredge up later if and when he needed them. Built by the Greene brothers, site of Hollywood parties, witness to the infamous Hughes-de Lorillard suicide pact, home to a roaming band of dopers in the sixties and seventies. Nothing he hadn’t heard before, though she didn’t seem to realize her father had been part of that pack. He listened with half an ear for any inconsistencies as they turned the corner and reached the edge of the extensive terrace, the house looming over them in the shadows.
He stopped dead, her words no more than a meaningless hum in the back of his head, like an annoying insect.
The stone railing was crumbling. Weeds grew up beneath the flagstones, the stucco on the house was cracked and streaked with water marks. The slate roof was missing several tiles, and the furniture on the terrace was rusting, broken, derelict. The house looked like a grand duchess turned hooker, out on the streets, her finery faded and torn. A magic castle for a lost princess. But suddenly he knew with a certainty his mother wasn’t the only Coltrane who’d lived there, decades ago.
He realized Jilly had stopped talking, and he tore his gaze away from the house to find her staring at him, a curious expression on her face.
“Not what you were expecting?” she said. “There’s been barely enough money to keep it from falling to pieces entirely. I don’t know how much longer I can keep it together.”
“You don’t strike me as someone who admits defeat.” He was amazed at how calm his voice sounded.
“I’m a realist, Mr. Coltrane. Not a fool.”
“Just Coltrane.” And if she was a realist then he was an altar boy. She was as idealistic and starry-eyed as anyone he’d ever met, at least when it came to what she loved. Which was old houses in general, and this old house in particular. “Let’s go inside.”
He was half expecting her to refuse, but after a moment she nodded, leading the way in. It was just as well—he wasn’t about to leave without finally going through the place. Not since that cold wave of shock had washed over him when he first looked up at the house.
He’d lived here. No one had ever told him—as far as he’d known he’d spent the first thirteen years of his life in Indiana. He’d simply assumed that picture had been taken before he was born, before she’d met his father.
Wrong. He’d lived here, and he had no conscious memory of it. Just a weird, certain knowledge that this place had once, long, long ago, been his home.
The smell of the place was so damned familiar, another blow. He was glad Jilly’s back was to him—he wasn’t certain he could manage to keep his expression imperturbable. He knew the hallway, knew the long, curving staircase, and he followed her wordlessly as she cataloged the details of the house in a rapid, bored voice that slowly, reluctantly turned to warmth and fascination. She loved this house, he thought, loved it with a lover’s passion. She would be an easy woman to use—her heart was on her sleeve. She loved the house, her brother and her sister, and all he’d have to do would be to apply a little pressure on one of those three things to get her to do what he wanted.
They wandered through drawing rooms, dining rooms, salons and breakfast nooks. Whoever had built this place had spared no expense, and the thing rambled for what seemed like acres. It was sparsely furnished, the few shabby pieces looking like lost remnants of a once grander time. “Brenda de Lorillard hired a set designer to decorate this place,” Jilly was saying, “and unfortunately she picked someone who’d done a lot of work for Cecil B. DeMille. Some of it looks more like an opera set than a house.”
She was right—it was gloriously tawdry, from the Italianate wallpaper to the gilt-covered furniture. The huge kitchen was a monument to impracticability, with not even a dishwasher in sight. There seemed to be no air-conditioning in the house, but the place was comfortably cool, anyway. He wondered if that was because of the supposed ghosts.
“What about upstairs?” he said, when her chatter had finally wound down.
“Bedrooms,” she said.
“That’s logical. Is that where it happened?”
She looked startled. “Where what happened?”
“The murder-suicide? Or does this place hold other scandals, as well?” He knew the answer to that, but he wasn’t sure whether she did.
“The master bedroom. Trust me, there’s nothing to see. All the blood was cleaned up.”