Until You (8 page)

"Sit down, please." Hoyt gestured to a group of chairs clustered around a marble-topped coffee table. "Can I get you anything?"

"Nothing, thank you." Conor sat and Hoyt settled across from him. "Mr. Winthrop, I was wondering if we could discuss your daughter."

"Stepdaughter," Hoyt said with a little smile.

"Yes, of course, sir. Your stepdaughter. Would you describe your relationship with her as close?"

Hoyt sighed. "It was, when I first married her mother. Miranda was, what, six or seven, I guess." He smiled. "A beautiful little girl, Mr. O'Neil, and the sweetest child imaginable. Eva and I had our concerns, you know, that it might be difficult for her to adapt to having a stepfather—her own father had died when she was only a baby—but she took to the new arrangement like a fish to water. Why, it was only weeks before she asked if she might call me Daddy."

"And you said...?"

"I said it would be fine. I'd waited a bit longer than most men to marry, you see. The thought of having an instant family was most appealing."

Conor nodded. "So, you and Miranda got along well."

"Yes." Hoyt's aristocratic forehead wrinkled. "We did, until Miranda changed."

"Changed, sir?"

Hoyt rose to his feet and paced to the wall of glass that looked out over the Hudson River.

"At first, we thought it was simply prepubescent nonsense. You know the sort of thing. Temper tantrums, disobedience... we were sure she'd grow out of it."

Conor rose, too, and walked towards Winthrop. Far out on the river, toy boats chugged their way upstream.

"But she didn't?"

"If anything, her behavior got worse. She began to lie, to cheat at school. Well, they wouldn't put up with that, of course, so we took her out and placed her elsewhere. Not that it did any good. She was asked to leave that school and the one after that. And the next, if I remember correctly." He looked at Conor and shook his head sadly. "To be honest, I've lost count of how many places she was in and out of before she finally went to Miss Cooper's."

"You agreed with your wife's decision to put her into a school as strict as that?"

"Certainly. It was what she needed."

"And?"

"And, as my wife has already told you, Miranda disgraced herself completely at Miss Cooper's, enticing her roommate's distinguished cousin into an escapade only she could have devised."

"You hold your stepdaughter responsible, then?"

"I wish I could say otherwise, but I know Miranda."

"How do you mean that, sir? Did she have a history of promiscuity?"

Hoyt swung around and looked at Conor. "Promiscuity, and of orchestrating things to suit herself. She wanted freedom from Miss Cooper's and from parental control."

"And she thought eloping with a man almost old enough to be her father would provide that freedom?"

"That's my assumption. It was not a practical decision but then, practicality was not Miranda's strong suit."

Conor nodded. "You didn't accompany your wife to Paris, to confront the girl?"

"No." Hoyt sighed deeply. "I regret it, to this day. I wonder if things might have gone any differently if I'd been there to give Eva support."

"You don't agree with how she handled things, then?"

"Offering Count de Lasserre money for an annulment, you mean?"

"Buying it from him, yes."

Hoyt went to his desk and sat down. "I suppose she did the only thing that seemed appropriate."

"Then, what did you mean when you said things might have gone differently if you'd been with your wife?"

Hoyt reached out and picked up a double silver picture frame that stood on his desk. Eva Winthrop smiled out from one side; Miranda looked out from the other. With a little start of recognition, Conor realized it was a photo that must have been used as the basis for the painting in the Winthrop foyer. There were the same wide, shadowed eyes, the same tremulously curving mouth.

"I mean," Hoyt said, looking at the picture, "that if I'd been along, perhaps things might not have ended so badly between Eva and Miranda." He shook his head as he put the picture down. "It's damn near broken my wife's heart, you know, this long estrangement."

Conor thought of the coldness in Eva Winthrop's eyes and voice when she'd spoken of her daughter, the way she'd snapped at him for having seemed surprised that she'd left a seventeen-year-old girl to her own devices on the streets of Paris.

"I'm sure it has," he said smoothly.

"Then again, Eva always had much more influence over Miranda than I. If she couldn't convince her to return home, no one could have."

"Aside from the issue of estrangement, how did you view your wife's decision to let the girl remain in Paris on her own?"

"I agreed with it."

"Despite the fact that Miranda was a minor?"

Hoyt laughed. "A minor? Miranda was an accomplished liar. A cheat. She'd managed to seduce a man old enough, worldly enough, one would think, to have resisted her. No, Mr. O'Neil. My stepdaughter was a minor only in the eyes of the law."

"You think she was capable of handling herself in a strange city, then?"

Hoyt Winthrop's eyes narrowed. "I know she was," he said coolly. "Furthermore, I don't care for your implication."

"I'm not implying anything, Mr. Winthrop."

"I think you are. I think you're suggesting my wife erred in finally admitting the girl was beyond our help. And I resent it."

Conor smiled tightly. "I can't help what you feel, Mr. Winthrop. I'm only trying to get at the facts."

"What facts? Your assignment, as I understand it, is to determine who sent Mrs. Winthrop that note."

"And that's exactly what I'm trying to do."

Hoyt blink. "You mean, you think Miranda...?"

"Maybe."

"But why? What reason would she have for doing such a thing?"

"I'm not sure." Conor reached across the desk, picked up the double silver frame and looked at it. "Maybe just for kicks. Then again, considering the circle she apparently moves in, one of her pals might have sent that note." He looked up and smiled. "You can never tell what passes for humor with some people."

"For...?" Hoyt's mouth tightened. "I see what you mean, Mr. O'Neil. But I can't imagine—well, I mean, I suppose I can, but still..."

"That painting of your stepdaughter. Was it done from this photo?"

"It was."

"Who took the photo, do you know?"

"I did." Hoyt smiled as Conor looked at him in surprise. "I did the painting, as well."

"You, Mr. Winthrop?"

"Painting has been my hobby for years. I did the picture as a gift for my wife just a month or so before Miranda ran off."

Conor nodded. Why should the news seem so unexpected? The portrait had been well done but he'd known right away that it lacked true skill. He glanced down at the photo.

"I take it Miranda wasn't happy to pose for you," he said.

Hoyt laughed. "An understatement, if ever I heard one, but what tells you that?"

"Well, the look on her face. That sad smile."

"Sad?" Hoyt frowned and took the picture frame out of Conor's hands and put it back on the desk. "Seems to me she was in one of her rare good moods the day I took this. In fact, she looks quite happy to me, Mr. O'Neil—but then, if you'd ever met my stepdaughter, she'd probably confuse you, too. Miranda wasn't one to give away how she was feeling," he said, shoving back his chair and rising to his feet. "And now, if you'll forgive me, I've a meeting in a few minutes."

"Of course." Conor put out his hand. "Thank you for your time."

"Thank
you
for handling this matter so promptly and with such discretion." Winthrop clapped Conor lightly on the back and strolled with him to the door. "It's just pitiful that Miranda would stoop to sending upsetting notes to her mother."

"That's if she's the person who sent it."

"Well, of course, but now that you've suggested it, it makes perfect sense. It's just the sort of childishly sly thing she'd do. But I must admit, I'm relieved." He paused, his hand on the doorknob. "At least it means we can forget about the note, can't we?"

"I'm almost certain you can, sir."

"Almost," Hoyt said, and smiled. "What will it take to convince you?"

* * *

A couple of hours later, Conor slammed the door of his rental car and looked up at the rambling stone buildings of Miss Cooper's School for Young Ladies.

This was what it would take, he thought as he followed a sign towards the administrative offices, a visit to the school Miranda Beckman had attended, though he wasn't quite certain what he expected to find here. Closure of some sort, enough to satisfy Harry Thurston and himself that the note was nothing but a tasteless joke.

The headmistress's office was on the first floor. It was a cold place, smelling of chalk dust, mice, and, Conor thought, childish despair.

Agnes Foster was a stereotypical old-maid schoolteacher if ever he had seen one. She shook his hand, seated him in a chair almost as angular as herself, listened politely as he flashed her his most charming smile and explained that he was trying to get some information about a former student named Miranda Beckman. The name made her thin lips compress into an even thinner line but she smiled frostily and assured him that it was her policy never to discuss students, past or present, with anyone.

So much for charm, Conor thought. He turned off the smile, replaced it with what he thought of as a Washington face, and dug into his pocket for the leather case with the gold-plated shield and the picture ID that bore the initials of a government agency that had never existed.

"Perhaps I should have said that I'm here on official business."

It worked like a charm, as it always did with people like Agnes Foster. She looked at the shield, the official-looking seal and his photo and turned into a cooperative citizen.

"Of course," she said. She came out from behind her desk, carefully shut her office door, and pulled open the bottom drawer of a battered metal file cabinet. "Beckman," she muttered, as she leafed through the contents, "Beckman... Yes, here is the girl's record." She tossed a file folder on the desk in front of Conor and sat down opposite him again. "Not that I've forgotten anything in that file, sir. One does not forget the Mirandas of this world."

"Was she a problem student, Miss Foster?"

The headmistress smiled pityingly. "All our girls," she said, making it sound like
gels,
"are behaviorally challenged, Mr. O'Neil."

He nodded and concentrated on keeping his expression neutral.

"Do you recall in what particular way Miranda was, ah, behaviorally challenged?"

Miss Foster pursed her lips. "It would be simpler to tell you in what ways she was not." She reached across her desk, opened the file, and pulled out the top page. "By the time she came to us, she had been expelled from three other boarding schools for everything from being intoxicated to inappropriate sexual behavior."

"Inappropriate sexual... Could you be more specific, Miss Foster?"

Agnes Foster fixed him with a cold eye. "I see no reason to, Mr. O'Neil. I think the term speaks for itself."

It probably did. And it didn't really matter if the phrase meant Miranda had been caught behind a dorm with a local lad or if she'd been found in bed with the entire football team from a neighboring boys' school. He didn't need the information.

Not officially.

Conor frowned and shifted in the uncomfortable chair.

"I understand she ran away from here," he said. "Is that right?"

"Indeed. It was a terrible scandal, for us and for her poor mother."

"Who did she run off with, Miss Foster? Do you recall?"

"Distinctly. Count Edouard de Lasserre, the cousin of Miranda's roommate, Amalie." The headmistress's nostrils flared delicately. "To think that members of such a fine old French family should have been compromised by that girl... oh, it still makes my hackles rise!"

"It was Miranda's doing, then?"

"Of course it was! Amalie was beside herself, and her parents were furious. They removed her from our school at once and she returned to France. As for the Count—I must say, I felt pity for him."

"You don't hold him responsible for what happened?"

"I do not. Miranda was a corrupting influence, even at her tender age. She lured him into the situation. I am sorry, Mr. O'Neil, but I must be blunt. The Count de Lasserre should have been wiser but he had every man's appetites and weaknesses and Miranda played upon them."

Conor looked up from the file. Agnes Foster's wrinkled cheeks were flushed. She wasn't sorry, she was simply delivering the gospel she lived by. He thought of telling her that men who let their gonads lead them around were no longer considered helpless creatures—but then he thought of the portrait of Miranda, and his embarrassing reaction to it, and changed his mind. Besides, arguing with this old battleaxe would get him nowhere.