The Senator’s Daughter (13 page)

For dead…for dead…

The words echoed in Lyle's brain long after he lay down in his oversized king bed.

Raped and left…

Was that Sylvia's fate?

Had it been his mother's fate?

Lyle felt the sting of tears, but, as he'd he told himself since he was ten, he was too big a boy to cry. He lay on his back, one hand spread over his lean stomach, and called on the part of him that was strong—the Lyle who walled off things he didn't want to think about.

When he slept, his iron control frayed …

Ten-year-old Lyle stood in an onion field. His back ached from bending to tug at the thick green stalks, to expose the round white reward sheathed in papery layers. His hands were one big callus; that was how he was distinguished in school as a field-worker versus a town boy.

There weren't many kids like him, Caucasian, yet working like the illegal aliens who put in eighteen-hour days during high season.

Lyle threw back the covers, pulled on a black silk robe, and padded to the roof deck door.

Here was his home, protected by building security. He had all the comforts, a waterfront view, and as he stepped outside, he inhaled the salt air. Breathing rapidly, he told himself he didn't have to run those traps anymore.

But here came an image of his father, pulling up onions alongside him, the blue eyes Lyle had inherited incongruous in the face tanned the color of aged leather. The man had always stayed ahead of Lyle, experience outdistancing youthful stamina. It was in the fields, where talk wasn't necessary, that he had always felt closest to James Thomas.

With a bittersweet ache, Lyle recalled the last time he'd seen him. He'd driven out to the valley and parked his silver Mercedes 450SL in front of the weathered clapboard house. All of a thousand square feet, it was clean and neat inside—something Lyle had never attributed to Pop until Maddie had gone—and smelled of Murphy's Oil soap used on the scarred pine floors. He and his father had sat on the front porch that used to face a panorama of open fields and distant foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Now, they saw the ornate entrance to a gated community with landscaped fountains and a golf course designed by Jack Nicklaus.

“You ought to sell this place to the developers and move to something more comfortable,” Lyle had observed.

“You mean new and citified.” James stretched his long frame in the rocker Maddie had nursed Lyle in when he was a baby. “I'll leave that claptrap to you.”

Lyle rocked a little faster. He would like his father to be proud of what he'd accomplished, but the older man refused to even come in to San Francisco and see his loft.

“It does me good to see those rich folks drive by and wish my side of the road was Phase II.”

“Look,” Lyle said. “There's no use you living like this and having me sell the place for a lot of money when you …”

“When I die, it'll be here. Where folks know to find me.”

Lyle stopped the motion of his chair. Unspoken between them lay the fact that his father was still waiting for Maddie to come back.

Well, wasn't Lyle?

Didn't he still hope each time a phone rang? Only this week, there was someone else's voice he longed to hear, the ache sharper because it had not been dulled by the years.

What if Sylvia called and said she was back … if she had gone away on her own, then she deserved his anger, not his understanding. That was the instinctive reaction, and when he believed the theory, he was enraged, just as he had been with Maddie Thomas.

F
riday morning Lyle rose early. Much as he detested Julio Castillo, last night's encounter had given him an idea. If he wanted to know what had happened to Tony Valetti, an obvious first step would be to ask his brother, Andre, some questions.

Warming to the idea while he showered and dressed, Lyle decided to do it today.

He began by finding the business phone number of Villa Valetti and dialing. Using one of Cliff's investigator tricks, he affected a quasi-Brit accent for the woman who answered and posed as a visiting vintner from South Africa who wanted to meet Andre. Within moments, he learned Andre both lived and officed at the winery north of Calistoga.

Not knowing how long he might stay in the Napa Valley, Lyle packed a duffel; jeans, T-shirts, something to play golf in should the occasion arise, swim trunks, and his toilet kit. And noticed, tucked in beside his travel toothbrush, dental floss, and antiperspirant, a pack of condoms.

Maybe what he needed was to get his ashes hauled. It had been five months since his fling with the blonde, a paralegal who worked on the second floor of the courthouse. If he got serious about hooking up this weekend, a singleton might make out at one of the nice resorts in the Napa Valley.

Leaving the protection in his kit, Lyle met his eyes in the mirror over the bathroom sink.

Truth to tell, the only woman he wanted to run into in the wine country, or anywhere else, was Sylvia Chatsworth.

He didn't know how to feel about that.

In the space of any given hour, he vacillated between fearing for her, and wishing she had simply reached her limit. If he'd gone through the kind of wringer Sylvia had, and she no doubt included him along with the bitchy women and the media, wouldn't he have packed his bags and headed for the hills?

Perhaps.

On the other hand, look at the wringer everyone who cared about her was being put through.

With a map off the Internet on the passenger seat of his Mercedes, Lyle drove up the winding road north out of Calistoga. It was coming up on three thirty; he'd been delayed by a red herring.

Just as he was about to leave his loft, he'd fielded a call from Cliff with a lead. Last night after Lyle had left Ice, Cliff had run into Corinne Walker. She said to tell Lyle she'd seen Sylvia the other day.

After treating the banker's hawk-faced daughter to an expensive lunch in exchange for information, Lyle had gone from trying to get her to focus on Sylvia to realizing she was playing games—specifically the game of pursuing Lyle Thomas.

With most of the day wasted, he pressed on toward Villa Valetti. He might have phoned for an appointment, but had decided to try to catch Andre without giving him a chance to prepare.

Now, where was the turn for the winery? There might not be a sign; he'd learned this morning that Valetti only gave tours and tastings by appointment.

Lyle pulled off at a wide spot on the shoulder with no guardrail and a view of the valley floor far below. Lulled by the afternoon sun and the soft air, he flipped the latches to release the convertible top and pushed the button to power it down. Then he snapped the tonneau in place to cover it.

He should have driven top-down all the way from the City.

God, but this was beautiful country. It had been a few years since he'd done the wine tour, and then he'd been learning how to hold his own in a conversation about varietals and vintage. More camouflage for his past.

Today, he focused on real estate, imagining how a developer might like to scatter mini-mansions all over these foothills. Somewhere up here was not only Villa Valetti but also the land Tony had purchased.

As Lyle was bending to pick up his map from the seat, he happened to glance across the way and saw a side road, marked by a sign for a country inn. Before, he'd been too busy concentrating on avoiding the drop-off.

Back on track, he fired up the engine and pulled across the highway, noting as he did that someone else must have developed respect for the knife-edge; a pair of tire tracks arced from the opposite side of the road directly toward the shoulder.

Come to think, it was hard to imagine whoever did it stopped in time.

Villa Valetti crowned the top of a steep-sided hill. Though the winery had a Web site, the photos did not do justice to the three-hundred-and-sixty-degree panoramas.

Lyle enjoyed the view of the Palisades, an amphitheater of lava cliffs dominating the southeast skyline. To the northwest, green mountain meadows crowned Mount Saint Helena. It was hard to believe it was a volcano, yet hot springs and geysers like the tourist trap known as Old Faithful dotted the northern Napa Valley … and old mines, where cinnabar, a mercury ore, had been extracted from the hills. He'd read about the Silverado Mine, closed by 1880, where Robert Louis Stevenson later honeymooned in one of the mine's abandoned bunkhouses.

Looking ahead at the central four-story tower with its round windows, surrounded by wooden scrollwork, Lyle admired the mix of Italian, Swiss, and German architecture. A broad lawn stretched away to a man-made pond with ducks and geese. Compared to the farm Lyle grew up on, with its 1920s one-story bungalow and wooden outbuildings faded to gray, Andre and Tony had won the genetic lottery.

Pulling up in front of the guardhouse in the drive, Lyle greeted the uniformed man. Like Andre and Tony Valetti, he looked very Italian. “Good afternoon.”

“Tours are by appointment only,” reported the sentry.

Lyle brought up his best grin and a business card. “I'm with the San Francisco District Attorney's office. Please let Mr. Valetti know I'm here.”

Thirty seconds later, Lyle was making a U-turn under the guard's watchful eye and heading back the way he came. It seemed Mr. Valetti was in the City.

But tomorrow was Saturday, and the way the rejection had been framed suggested Andre might be home for the weekend.

Should Lyle go back to San Francisco? To his loft where he had no Friday night outlet for energy except heading to his health club and trying to tire himself out?

At loose ends, he guided his Mercedes down Valetti's drive lined with Italian cypress. Through gaps between the trees, he caught glimpses of hills contoured with rows of vines.

Back on the road, he wound down steeply to the little river he'd crossed before and caught sight of another sign, reminding him the Lava Springs Inn offered bed and breakfast.

Lyle took the turn and drew into the graveled drive. Though it was not on the scale of Villa Valetti, the inn bore a Victorian quaintness. Maples on the lawn were turning from green to gold, and above and behind the building was wild country where the redwoods began.

Decision made, Lyle levered out of his vehicle. Fall mums in ochre and burnt orange lined the path to the front door. A plaque bragged of a National Historic Landmark status. The polished brass doorknob turned easily in his hand.

Afternoon sun poured through high windows into the lobby. Lace curtains stirred softly at the open windows, illuminating dust motes in the deserted room. Drawn by the pleasant rushing of water, he crossed to the French double doors and went out onto the high rear porch where climbing roses had been cultivated. A lively river tumbled over lava rocks, on its way down to the Napa Valley to be made into wine.

Going back into the inn, Lyle's footsteps sounded loud to him on the hardwood floor. “Anybody here?” A faint echo came back from the high ceiling of the stairwell.

Behind a mahogany counter topped with a green glass lamp rested the hotel register, a burgundy leather book in keeping with the Victorian motif. A youthful sixty-something woman came from downstairs carrying a colander filled with fresh lima beans. “May I help you?” Her smile welcomed.

“I'd like a room, please.”

With a glance over his shoulder, “Just you, then?”

“Just me.” He felt his cheeks warm; her attitude suggested he'd fit in better at one of the resorts than in this romantic getaway. “That okay?” Lyle kept his voice low, recognizing she'd been a bit threatened by a big man without the softening company of a woman.

“It's fine.” No taller than five feet two, she placed the desk between them and set the beans down. “I'm Mary Kline. My husband, Buck and I own this place.”

“It's quite beautiful.”

Ten minutes later, checked into a room that should have morning sun on the corner, he stepped out to explore the premises. Other guests were arriving two by two, laughing and chattering, and he wondered, as had his hostess, what he was doing here.