The Stars Shine Bright (30 page)

I gritted my teeth. Yes, something bothered me—his incessant tactic of repeating my last word. But I kept my eyes on the dog. Madame's tail swished drowsily. Her small black face lay on my mother's arm, gazing up at the still-lovely neck of Nadine Shaw Harmon. Whenever my mother looked down, the wagging accelerated.

I turned to Freud, fastening the official smile to my face. “I'm just glad she's improving.”

“Improving, yes. And enjoying your fiancé. Perhaps he could come again.”

DeMott sat with his back to the mirror. I could see the solid shoulders, the hair on his forearms where he'd rolled up his shirtsleeves, as though work needed to be done. He was telling her a story, some elaborate tale with gestures. I watched the lean tensile muscles in his arms, the honest strength of a good man. When she smiled at him, it felt like a punch to my gut.

“DeMott leaves tomorrow,” I said.

“Tomorrow? Rather a quick visit, considering you're engaged.”

“His family needs him. But Madame will be staying. She could come back.”

“The dog. Perhaps. But notice how your mother is listening to him.”

Her jasper eyes already seemed clearer, more focused, and a light pink color was brushing her cheeks. From where we stood, DeMott's voice was just a soft rumble. But it sent tingles down my back, reminding me of all those times I laid my head on his chest, listening to the low thunder of his voice, the beat of his heart steady as a clock.

I didn't dare look at Freud. “Can the dog stay?”

“Stay—here? Absolutely not. But perhaps it can come for another visit.”

“She.”

“She?”

“Madame is not an it,” I said.

He turned to the glass, watching them again. And I was grateful. The war inside my heart felt close to spilling out, a mess of raging emotions that would bloody this sterile hallway and provide Freud with years of material. I hadn't seen my mother in months, but it was even longer since I'd seen her smile like this. She stopped looking at me that way long ago. Because of my lies. Because deep inside she knew what I was telling her didn't make sense.

A good daughter would now be happy to see the joy on her face. But self-pity was a wicked little snake and it came slithering forward on the realization that DeMott had cruised in here so easily. And Felicia, half-bored Felicia, picking at her hangnails. And here I was hidden on the other side of a fake mirror with a fake identity and a little doctor who faked his concern.

“Are you sure nothing's bothering you, Raleigh?”

“I'm just glad to see her.”

Not a complete lie. I was glad. And some
thing
didn't bother me; many things bothered me. DeMott's visit was already bubbling over with our simmering conflicts and resentments, and yet here was my beloved, my fiancé, visiting an asylum—
asking
to come—and talking to my drugged-up mother behind security doors and safety glass, chatting away as if nothing was wrong. DeMott Fielding. He knew chivalry. Profound thoughtfulness. Respect for my mother, even amid these horrid circumstances. He was wonderful, heroic, and I couldn't figure out why that made me feel so sad.

“Raleigh?”

Sad. That's what I felt. Not just the self-pity. It was the realization: maybe, just maybe, I loved DeMott for the way he dealt with my crazy mother.

“Raleigh?”

But that wasn't love. Not romantic love. Not the love DeMott felt for me.

“Raleigh, their time is almost up.”

I nodded, vaguely.

“We need to leave before she sees you,” he said.

Gratitude and sadness. That's what I felt. And it made me wonder.

What about love?

Chapter Thirty-Two

S
unday at dawn, the Ghost was the only car in the Point Defiance parking lot. The air smelled of cedar and cloistered dew.

I looked at Madame. “Stay close.”

We ran over the woodland trails, our steps almost silent on the soft forest floor. Overhead a canopy of evergreen boughs blocked the gray light, making the world feel secluded and beautiful. Madame ran beside me, pulling hard for the first miles. When we reached a rose garden, the trail was carpeted with blush-colored petals. Every step perfumed the air, and the fragrance lured something from my mind. Twain's words about forgiveness—it was the flower shedding its fragrance on the heel that crushes it.

When we reached the beach, I couldn't tell if I was panting or crying. Madame splashed into the cold water, tail high and happy, but I turned away, walking toward a sandstone cliff. The brown and taupe layers rose above the water, as evenly spaced as pages in a book. Kneeling in the rocky soil, I listened to the water lapping at the shore and smelled the briny chloral odor of the kelp that high tide left behind. I closed my eyes. Last night, after leaving Western State, DeMott and I ate dinner with Eleanor. The two of them charmed each other. Of course. Eleanor with Southern words purloined from the playwright, and DeMott entertaining her with tales of Weyanoke. For the most part I remained quiet because my mind kept flashing with images of my mother. The once-proud and ladylike Nadine Shaw Harmon looked like any other mental patient. Lost, lonely. Loaded with pharmaceuticals. And Felicia Kunkel, watching over her. All through dinner I resisted the urge to pick up the phone and call Aunt Charlotte. Surely she was behind Felicia's new job. When we took the cruise to Alaska, Aunt Charlotte had hired her to house-sit her place on Capitol Hill. But I couldn't call, not while undercover. And when dinner ended, DeMott and I sat on Eleanor's porch, talking for a while. We studiously avoided the topic of my mother. And DeMott's internal clock was three hours ahead. I left at nine, heading straight for bed.

But I barely slept. All my dreams circled the asylum. Freud showed up calling me a liar, liar, liar. My mother appeared dressed in a clown costume. She stood next to DeMott who wore a tux and tapped his watch and told me we were late. Every time I woke up, I couldn't breathe.

Now I pressed my knees into the coarse sand and asked for help.

No. That wasn't right. I begged. I begged for wisdom from the same God who created my mother in all her perfect imperfection. Who placed DeMott in my life. Who promised that if I asked in His name, it would be done. I asked for the answer: If I wasn't the fiancée DeMott deserved, did that mean I wouldn't be the wife he needed? Or would things settle down with time, when I moved back to Virginia, went to live at Weyanoke, and . . . something wet touched my hand. I opened my eyes. Madame pushed her nose beneath my clasped fingers. Her fur was soaked with salt water. And she was happy. Ready to run again.

“All right,” I said. “Let's go.”

We finished five miles and I drove back to Thea's Landing, smuggling her warm body into the building under my windbreaker. Something about the condo's sleek atmosphere and modern attitude told me dogs weren't welcomed. And right now I didn't have time to renegotiate a lease that would end when Raleigh David disappeared, in about a week. Upstairs, I fed the dog, then showered and dressed myself in the nice clothes that didn't belong to me. Just before leaving, I took a pillow off my bed and carried it into the living room, placing it inside Madame's dog crate.

“Please,” I said.

She looked at me as if I'd offered a final meal before the electric chair.

“Just for today. I promise to come home as soon as possible.”

She tiptoed into the box, her head hanging low between her shoulders. When I locked the wire door, I felt like a complete creep.

Eleanor demanded we eat breakfast with her, right after she gave DeMott a tour of the Hot Tin barn. It was just past 9:00 a.m. when I found them touring the stables like old friends. She had paired fire-engine red ballet slippers with a midnight blue pantsuit—rhinestones on the pockets—while DeMott was dressed for the Kentucky Derby. Chinos, another white oxford, the blue seersucker jacket, and a deep blue tie that graciously matched Eleanor's outfit. She kept both hands wrapped around his arm.

I was coming up from behind, about to call out, when I saw DeMott stop at Stella Luna's stable. Eleanor, sensing something, let go of his arm. He moved toward the horse, and Stella responded by craning her neck to the side, as if reading him the way children and animals and prophets search people for signs of dishonesty. Slowly he lifted his hand, and after a moment the horse pressed her face into his palm. She closed her eyes, and my stomach tingled. DeMott's many gifts included a gentle touch. That cultured strength. Somebody once tried to apply the cliché to him—about still waters running deep—but that wasn't it. DeMott was deep water capable of holding perfectly still.

Until my cell phone erupted. That awful version of “Camptown Races” doo-dahed through the barn. All three of them turned to look at me. DeMott, Eleanor, Stella. But only DeMott's eyes were full of pain.

“Sorry,” I said, rummaging through the bag.
Please, God, don't let this be Jack
.
Please.
“Hello?”

“You ordered roasted pork on a ciabatta roll?”

Lucia Lutini.

I felt relieved and almost laughed. But DeMott's hand was slipping from the horse, and Eleanor rushed to his side, once more wrapping her ringed fingers around his arm. I gave a signal, indicating the call would just take a moment, but Eleanor was already lifting her chin, delivering choice words to his wounded Southern sensibility.

“Hang on a second,” I told Lucia, walking out from under the barn eaves.

The horses were coming back from training runs and had been hooked to the hot walkers. They circled the sawdust with prancing strides, long legs sashaying like supermodels. I headed toward the big tractors sitting idle beside the maintenance hut.

“Go ahead.”

“Mr. Cooper got himself kicked out of Saratoga.”

“What for?”

“
What
was never proven, but the
accusation
was sufficient. You may have noticed, the racetracks don't believe in innocence beyond a shadow of a doubt. They operate on the presumption of guilt.”

“Without search warrants.”

“Correct. Suspicion alone is probable cause. And in the case of Mr. Cooper, he was suspected of throwing his races.”

“Wouldn't that destroy a trainer's career?”

“A trainer, perhaps. But Bill Cooper was a jockey.”

I lifted my hand, pretending to shield the sun from my eyes. I tried to imagine Cooper as a jockey. He was short. Probably five-two without those cowboy boots. His torso had been colonized by middle age, but now that expression in his cold eyes made more sense. Cooper was a high-performance athlete, ruthlessly competitive. He wanted to win at any cost. Maybe even death. “How'd he throw races?”

“He was suspected of pulling back on the reins.” Lucia, the profiler, offered a quick biography. Cooper was a working-class kid who got a job as a pony rider at Saratoga, the prestigious track in upstate New York. Hardworking, strong, and competitive, Cooper rose up the ranks to become a jockey. “He made his first mount at sixteen. By seventeen he was making good money. But by nineteen he apparently switched to losing. Care to guess why?”

The simplest answer was always money. But after watching Cooper deal with Eleanor, my instincts told me there was another element. Our records showed Cooper was divorced, chronically late with child support, and upside down on his mortgage. But that wasn't what scratched at my mind. It was his simmering servitude. The resentment that seemed to radiate from his tight neck.

“Money,” I said. “But money he's forced to make.”

“Very good. He began losing because he owed somebody. I'll give you a hint. They are men who reside in various Manhattan boroughs and whose last names contain far too many vowels.”

“The Mob?”

“Correct. Organized crime.”

I turned, looking down the median between the barns. Grooms removing the thoroughbreds from the hot walkers and adding others. Ashley was among them, leading KichaKoo to an empty station. The horse nodded its brown head up and down as though agreeing with something the girl said. But Ashley wasn't speaking. She looked bedraggled; the blond hair looked flat as a melted yellow crayon.