Filfthy (46 page)

“Your home is lovely,” I say. “The grounds, the gardens. Impeccable. You’re very fortunate to spend your time recovering in such a beautiful place.”

“This place is a prison fortress in disguise. No one under the age of seventy should have to live here.” She huffs, taking a sharper tone with me. “No internet. Spotty cellphone service on the best of days. I’m completely cut off from the outside world.”

I clear my throat, looking away.

“I’m sorry.” She turns my way. “This medication I’m taking makes me irritable and scrambles my thoughts. I can’t keep a single train of thought going before it derails. I swear, my mood is all over the place, and this isn’t me at all.”

Her voice is pillow-soft now, and her face is winced.

“And these headaches. God, they’re awful. It’s why I keep the house so dark.” Her voice softens to an apologetic whisper.

I waste no time in rising, pulling the centuries-old tapestry closed. “Better?”

“Thank you.” Her dramatically beautiful features are reduced to shadows in the dark, but it does very little to mask her beauty. “I apologize if I’ve been curt with you, Derek. You’re the first person I’ve spoken to in over forty-five days who doesn’t have their paycheck personally signed by Veronica.”

“Is that so?”

She nods, elegantly lifting one leg across the other and resting her hand atop her knee. Her gaze is fixed on a gilded clock resting on a marble mantle. The face of the clock glows white in the dim room. I have to venture to guess that the minutes drip a little slower in these parts, and that alone is enough to make any normal person a little insane, all else aside.

“I used to have a life,” Serena says. Her lips arch into a tepid smile as she stares at her still hands. “A beautiful, exhilarating, fulfilling life. I had friends. And a fiancé. And a charity organization. People who depended on me. A purpose. I had a good life, Derek. And then I lost it. I lost every last part of it, and I don’t know how that happened. Then they said I was crazy, and now you’re here, and all I know is nothing makes sense anymore.”

“Why don’t you tell me what happened? Your version of everything. Start at the beginning.”

She glances at me from the corner of her eyes, lips pursed as she shakes her head.

“With all due respect, I’d rather not,” she says. “I relive those moments every single day. Besides, everything you need to know should be in the court order. I behaved recklessly a couple of months ago, and it was completely out of character for me. My stepmother’s psychiatrist thinks I’m unstable enough to harm myself.
And
to damage the future of my estate. So Justice Harcourt ordered that I’m not fit to manage my finances at this time, and now here we are.”

“I’m not interested in what
they
think.” My statement captures her attention, and her body shifts in line with mine. “I want to know
your
version of everything. I’m in your corner, Serena. Everything you tell me stays between us. I can’t do my job properly unless I have all the facts.”

Serena is quiet, and I sense contemplation in her bright blues. “All you have to do is manage my estate, counselor. You don’t need facts. You need a budget.”

Before I can offer my rebuttal, she yawns, rises, and pulls her robe tight around her.

“I’m sorry, Derek. I’m exhausted.” Serena forces a polite smile. “I assume you were only wanting to introduce yourself today? Perhaps you can come by another time, and we can have a more in-depth conversation about my finances. In the meantime, let Eudora or Thomas know what you need, and I’ll be sure they pass it along to your office.”

Eudora glides out from around the corner where she’d been lurking and hooks Serena by the elbow to guide her away.

“Come, Ms. Randall. Let’s get you back to bed
where you belong
.” Eudora whispers but speaks loud enough that I hear her.

A heaviness settles in the pit of my stomach as I watch them leave.

“Serena,” I call out.

She stops, turning toward me. “Yes?”

“I’ll be back tomorrow. Will you be home?”

“Tomorrow’s a Saturday. You work on Saturdays?” Her left brow arches.

“Not generally.”

“I don’t want you billing my trust for frivolous weekend hours.” She stands straight.

“This is on the house,” I say.

Her nose scrunches. “I don’t understand.”

“I’m making you a priority,” I say, glancing at Eudora. “My number one priority.”

Eudora tugs Serena’s arm, and they move a step further.

“I want to make sure you have everything you could possibly need as soon as possible,” I add before she gets too far away.

My gaze moves between her curious stare and Eudora’s disapproving snarl.

“I’ll be back tomorrow morning. Ten o’clock,” I say.

Our eyes lock in the dark, and I swear I see her lips twitch into a flicker of a half-smile. Or maybe I’m imagining it.

“I’ll be expecting you.”

S
erena

“
H
e was
nice to look at, wasn’t he?” I settle into my four-poster bed as Eudora fluffs the pillows behind me. It’s not like I need her to. I’m not helpless. But she likes taking care of me. She always insists. “I mean, he has arrogant
lawyer
written all over him and I think he’s allergic to smiling, but he was nice enough.”

Eudora’s face is pinched. She’s keeping her opinion from me.

“Come on,” I say, pulling the covers into my lap. I love to tease her because she can be incredibly uptight. “Be honest.”

“There’s no denying he’s a handsome man. But if I’m being honest, I didn’t think too highly of him.” Her words are rushed and her eyes won’t meet mine. She points to the lamp on my bedside table, and I nod. Clicking it off, she glances around the rest of the room.

“Any particular reason?” I bait her.

Eudora stops fussing and flitting about, rests her palms along her sides, and exhales from thin, red lips. Her gray eyes find mine in the darkness, and her round face tilts to the side.

“I’m just protective of you. That’s all.” She clucks her tongue. “Some tall, dark, and handsome lawyer in a fancy suit waltzes in here, and you’re lonely and heartbroken and well-to-do, and to me, that just creates a recipe for the unspeakable. You’re not like other girls, Serena. I’ve been telling you that your entire life. You can’t be too careful. You have to guard yourself against men like him.”

Men like him
.

We both know she’s referring to my ex-fiancé. I don’t know Mr. Rosewood yet, but I know enough to assure her he’s nothing like Keir Montgomery.

“You’re sweet to worry like that.” I sink back into the carefully arranged feather pillows behind me. Eudora has been with our family since I was eight, the year my mother passed. “But I was only appreciating his looks, not sizing him up as a potential husband.”

At times, Eudora’s been the closest thing I’ve had to a mother. And that’s why it pains me to look into her eyes and refuse to offer her an ounce of my trust. Veronica has her on speed dial, and I’m absolutely positive Eudora keeps a record of my daily goings-on and reports back. She’s nothing more than an extra set of eyes and ears—a dutiful minion with a paycheck.

But I can’t blame her. She needs this job, and Veronica pays her generously.

My father is approaching his late eighties and losing his mind one marble at a time. The day he married Veronica three years ago, she took over managing his staff and gave them all generous pay raises and additional holidays and vacation allowances.

They’ve been eating from the palm of her hand like baby birds ever since.

Eudora’s only doing what she’s told. But it’s truly unfortunate, because until Veronica came around, I loved Eudora like family.

She
was
my family.

“Do you think I was too hard on him? God, he’s probably thinking all kinds of colorful thoughts about me now.” I chuckle, amused.

“You give everyone a hard time the first time you meet them.” Eudora shrugs. “It’s what you do, Serena. You test them. See how much you can get away with. You’ve been doing it since you were a little girl. Believe me. I speak from experience.”

Eudora runs her hand along my forehead, as if my supposed condition is physical and not psychological.

“Goodnight.” I pull the covers up to my neck.

She chuckles, amused. “It’s only four o’clock, dear.”

“Goodnight
for now
.”

“I’ll wake you around seven. You’re due for your medication then.”

I close my eyes and pretend to sleep until I hear the click of the door. A quick run of my hand beneath my pillow, and I find the tablets from earlier. I meant to flush them, but when Eudora came bursting in here to tell me my new attorney was here to see me, I never got the chance.

I’d completely spaced on my meeting with Mr. Rosewood, but to be fair, it wasn’t intentional. These meds sometimes make me forgetful.

Eudora insisted on sending him away, but I wouldn’t allow it. Someone from “the outside” is a godsend these days.

Waiting another minute to be safe, I sweep the pills into my hand before tiptoeing to the en-suite and depositing them in the pristine toilet. A quick flush and they’re gone forever, lost in the antique bowels of this ancient mansion.

Skipping the last dose made me feel slightly more coherent, like my wits are coming back piece by piece. And I want my wits. I
need
my wits. I can’t stay holed up behind these stone walls like some criminal any longer.

I have to get out of here. I have to get my financial freedom back. My independence. My good name. And I’ll do whatever it takes.

D
erek

“
D
on’t stay too late
.” My legal secretary, Gladys, lingers in my doorway, her heavy purse weighing down her hunched shoulder. “Want me to pick you up some dinner and bring it back?”

She checks her watch, and I check mine.

Seven o’clock on a Friday night.

If it were my weekend with Haven, I’d have been long gone by now, rolling around on the living room floor with my favorite four-year-old, playing Barbies or her favorite Doc McStuffins matching game while we wait for our half-cheese, half-supreme pizza to arrive. It’s our Friday night tradition.

Well, every other Friday night.

I
live
for my weekends with Haven.

It’s probably why I work so much. Holing up at the law firm and burying myself in my career makes me forget about the sound of silence waiting for me at home most nights of the week.

“I’m just finishing up here.” I give her a tight-lipped nod, and she swipes her hand at me.

“Haven’t heard that one a million times.” She jingles her car keys and shuffles down the tiled hall. The clunk of the front door and clink of the lock echo through the empty building a moment later.

Serena Randall’s court order rests before me, along with the rest of her file. I’ve been poring over the details since I got back from Belcourt Manor this afternoon.

Upon first glance, she seems fine. A little fatigued. A little snippy. But that’s understandable. Most cases involving a conservator are a bit more extreme than hers. Generally, people who are mentally or physically incapacitated need conservators, not starchy heiresses with a flair for dramatic eyebrow arches and blunt honesty.

I rub my tired eyes and let the papers fall to my desk before pulling my laptop closer. Armed with nothing but time and Google, I intend on digging deep and piecing this entire thing together. I have a feeling getting information from her will be like pulling teeth. That’s nothing that can’t be remedied with some good, old-fashioned cyber stalking.

I start with a search on her stepmother, Veronica Kensington-Randall, and then it hits me. I
have
heard of her before. She was on some legal drama in the nineties. My father was obsessed with that show. He used to record it on VHS and watch the episodes over and over, quoting the characters every chance he got.

She was beautiful in her prime. Long, shapely legs. A California tan. Glossy, bleach-blonde locks. A beauty pageant smile.

According to Wikipedia, she’s been married four times, thrice divorced. Looks like she likes them old and ailing.

I click on “images” and pull up a slew of recent ones. It appears these days she’s combatting fifty with fillers and Spanx. Looks as though, until recently, she was rarely seen without her loving husband, Harold Randall, who is easily old enough to be her father.

Classic.

This is not uncommon, especially along the old-moneyed, blue-blooded coast of New England.

Older man takes a younger trophy wife. Children feel threatened. Wife wants to ensure her stake in the family estate. Legal drama ensues.

I smirk.

This’ll be easy.

As soon as Serena’s feeling one hundred percent, we’ll just have to prove she’s of sound mind, and then I’ll personally see to it that her stake in the family estate is still intact, all of her financials will be back in her control, and I’ll be on my way. Estate law is a little hobby of mine anyway. Nothing pleases me more than seeing to it that greedy, selfish assholes do
not
persevere.

Money—or the fear of having none—can do horrible things to good people. I’ve witnessed it firsthand on many occasions.

My phone dings from my pocket, and I slip it out to read a text from one of my sisters.

DEMI: Hey, come over tonight and hang out with us. Royal wants to beat you in Battleship. He says you owe him a game.

ME: Yeah, from fifteen years ago. Tell him to let it go. It’s in the past.

DEMI: He says you’re just afraid to lose.

ME: I never lose.

DEMI: He wants to know if you’re forfeiting.

ME: Never. Give me an hour.

I set my phone aside and click through the overabundance of Veronica images flooding my screen. They’re all the same—her body angled, her hand on one bony hip, and her red lips drawn into a sly smile.

When I’ve had my fill, I close out of that tab and do a Google search on Serena, only I’m not prepared for the headlines that fill my screen.

“
J
esus
, Serena.” I muffle my words with the palm of my hand, raking my five o’clock shadow. I right click everything, opening up at least a dozen tabs, and prepare to inhale it all.

According to these articles, approximately ten weeks ago, Serena walked in on her fiancé in bed with not one but two other women. Friends of hers, no less. Later that week, she took a handful of pills and chased them down with a bottle of red and had her driver drop her off at JFK. While there, she requested a first-class ticket on the next flight to London’s Heathrow airport but was denied due to lack of identification. And her obvious inebriation.

Airport security was called, and Serena proceeded to physically resist them. She yelled profanities, caused a scene, and ripped out her hair extensions. Shortly thereafter, she was taken and placed in an involuntary psychiatric hold after threatening to harm herself, and her stepmother apparently rushed to be by her side.

A mental health evaluation was ordered and Serena was committed for eight days. Two days after being released, she drove her car off a century-old bridge in a small town north of the Belcourt estate. Apparently, the water beneath the bridge wasn’t deep enough to sweep her away, but the impact was enough to cause her to hit her head on the steering wheel and fall unconscious.

A local farmer passing by found her and saved her.

After a weeklong stay in an undisclosed, private psychiatric facility in upstate New York, she was released and sent to live at the family’s Belcourt residence, where she proceeded to make a slew of expensive purchases. Italian luxury cars. Diamonds. Couture. Offers to purchase real estate sight-unseen. She spent over eleven million dollars over the course of four days.

Her stepmother requested an emergency conservatorship, requesting to be Serena’s conservator and being denied due to unspecified allegations given on behalf of Serena by her attorney at the time.

The judge approved a conservator of her estate, someone to manage Serena’s trust fund and the allocation of funds for the maintenance and upkeep of Belcourt Manor during her tenure. Rosewood and Rosewood, LLP was referred by a judge who attended law school with my father, and the Randalls agreed.

I close the lid to my laptop and flip through the stack of papers on my desk, searching for her mental health evaluation. The doctor’s notes mention her suicidal ideation and refer to her “manic and reckless” behavior, but there’s no mention of a bipolar diagnosis. There’s a note referring to acute anxiety and the possibility of short-term, situational depression, but it clearly states Serena has no history of mental health diagnoses. It also looks like the doctor prescribed some run-of-the-mill antidepressants, prescription sleep aids, and benzos as needed.

No wonder she’s feeling out of her element these days.

My phone dings from my pocket once more, and I find another text from Demi.

DEMI: Are you coming or what? It’s been over an hour.

I pull in a long breath and exhale, checking the time. Shit. She’s right. It’s been over an hour, and I’ve been so immersed in these Serena articles I didn’t realize it.

I text her back, telling her I’m on my way and click off the banker’s lamp behind my laptop.

A minute later, I’m driving east of town, where my sister and her boyfriend live while he finishes law school. Twenty minutes later, I pull into the drive.

Demi greets me at the door before I have a chance to ring the bell, her arms wrapping around my shoulders as she pulls me inside.

“You act like you haven’t seen me in ages.” I step out of my shoes once I’m inside.

“It just makes me really, really happy when we’re all hanging out again. It’s just like old times.” She does a happy skip, and I follow her to the living room where my childhood best friend has two plastic Battleship boards set up and ready to go.

“What’s up with you lately?” Demi plops down on the sofa and tucks a leg beneath her. “Any exciting trials I should know about?”

I simper. “If there were any ongoing cases, I wouldn’t be able to tell you anything, but nowadays, everything is settled out of court. Less expense that way. There’s not a huge demand for trial lawyers in Rixton County, believe it or not.”

Once upon a time, our father was a county prosecutor, but the grueling hours stole him away from his family, so over the years, he established Rosewood, LLP, and I joined on after law school. Now we do a little bit of everything, but his reputation from his days in the courtroom has solidified his reputation as one of the most sought-after trial lawyers in the state. I tend to get the cases that trickle down, the ones he can’t be bothered with. And I accept them with a smile on my face, because that’s how you deal with Robert Rosewood. You get what you get, and you don’t complain until you’ve earned the privilege.

It’s how Serena’s file landed in my lap.

“So what do you do to pass the time?” Demi asks.

“I take on some side projects. Estate law. Family law. Nothing terribly exciting.” I take a seat across from Royal.

“Ready to get your ass kicked?” Royal pushes my half of the Battleship game across the coffee table.

“I can
promise
you that won’t be happening tonight.” I take a seat on the floor across from him.

Demi hops up, running to the kitchen, and returns with two Heinekens and her
Us Weekly
.

“You still read those things?” I tease.

She deposits our bottles on the table and curls up on the sofa again, flipping to the middle of her magazine because God forbid she starts from the beginning of something for once in her life.

“Only God can judge me.” She hides her face behind the splayed cover, and a photo in the corner catches my eye.

“Hey, let me see that,” I say.

Demi lowers the glossy rag and arches an eyebrow. “
This
?”

“Yeah.” I swipe it from her hand and examine the headline.

“Do you know her?” I point to the picture on the cover of a tearful Serena, quite possibly the saddest-looking woman I’ve ever seen.

“Do I know her? Um, no.” Demi razzes. “Do I know about her? Yeah. Who doesn’t?”

“I don’t,” Royal says. “Never heard of her.”

“What do you know about her?” I ask.

Demi sets the magazine aside and repositions herself, leaning in and grinning like we’re about to talk shop. By day, she teaches kindergarteners. By night, she’s a celebrity gossip aficionado. Nothing wrong with wide-ranging interests, I suppose.

“Well,” she begins. “She’s this beautiful heiress. I think her dad owns some big steel corporation? Or maybe it’s a tire manufacturer? I don’t know. Something industrial. Multi-multi-multi-millionaire. She’s an only child, and her mom died when she was little. Anyway, she was engaged to Keir Montgomery, as in the youngest son of the President of the United States. It was this whirlwind romance. Happened super fast. The gossip bloggers went nuts. The paparazzi ate it up. They were adorable together. Picture perfect. She’d never been so in love, and everyone thought she was going to be the one to change his womanizing ways. He softened for her, you know? Everyone thought she was going to be the one to make him settle down and change his ways. And in that same vein, he changed her too. She was notorious for never dating or settling down. And she was completely smitten with him. Head over heels. But then she caught him in bed with two of her best friends. I’m talking her best friends from childhood. That’s got to hurt, you know? At first, she handled it as best she could, but then, people started gossiping and writing about her and making the whole situation worse than it already was. She was publicly humiliated and she didn’t even do anything wrong. All she did was give her heart to the wrong guy.”

Demi places her hand across her heart, and I feel a twinge of sympathetic tightness in my chest. The articles online sensationalized everything, but Demi’s rendition humanizes it.

“Anyway, all she wanted to do was get out of town for a bit. Let the media frenzy cool down. Give people time to move on to the next hot story. But then I guess she showed up to the airport all intoxicated and forgot her wallet and they wouldn’t let her on the plane, and it all went downhill from there.” Her shoulders slump and her eyes scrunch. “But it doesn’t make sense.”

“What doesn’t make sense?”

“Serena Randall was never like that. She was never dramatic. She was the epitome of class. She was never one to cause a scene. I mean, she was trying to get away from all that. Why would she make things worse for herself?” Demi’s face is as twisted as a question mark.

“People make bad decisions all the time. Temporary lapse in judgement,” I say. “Maybe she was hurt and desperate.”

“I don’t know.” My sister slumps back and pulls her magazine into her lap, chewing on the inner corner of her lip. “It just doesn’t add up to me. But what do I know?”

Royal clears his throat. “Anyway. C4.”

“Miss,” I say. “A1.”

“Hit.” Royal groans, and I grin. Seven years later, and he still puts his ships in the corner spots. Some things never change.

I play the game, calling out an abundance of hits with some misses peppered in, but my mind is elsewhere.

By the time I’ve sunk three of Royal’s ships, I’m mostly going through the motions, my head busy assembling this Serena Randall puzzle.