The Senator’s Daughter (39 page)

Andre had turned off the lights behind them in the morning room. It was a little creepy in here with the rain running down the dark windows.

He pulled a bottle from a large metal wine rack with at least a hundred bottles and examined it. “This Merlot took three gold and two silver medals.”

“That's nice.” He extended it to her; Sylvia pretended to appreciate the label.

Andre set the wine on the counter, got down glasses, and made a business of finding a corkscrew. When he handed her a glass, she bypassed a swirling examination of the wine and took a swallow.

“It's very good, Andre.” She took a second drink and set the glass on the counter.

“You are going to make me feel bad if you do not drink my wine.”

Sylvia took another sip.

He raised his glass. “Come then,
cara.
A toast.” Something flickered behind his eyes.

She drank.

Though she liked a good wine, she was strung too tight to enjoy it. And, probably because she wanted to get out of there so badly, she felt a little strange.

Shoving the glass away, she said, “I need to use your restroom.”

Andre set his wine down a little hard; the liquid sloshed. “I will show you the way.”

He went ahead of her, turning on no lights, and she found herself unsteady in the semidarkness. Showing her into a marble half bath off the hall, Andre left.

A little light came in from the hall and she used it to slide her hands over the smooth wall. What kind of madhouse was this, no phones and now no light switches?

She strained to see her reflection in the mirror over the sink. Everything looked fuzzy, and her head was starting to spin. The wine must have been more potent than …

Of course it wasn't. Wine was wine.

A wave of dizziness roiled up; she grabbed the granite edge of the vanity.

She'd been drugged! Andre had slipped something into her wine.

Thinking of sticking her finger down her throat and trying to throw up, but knowing it was too late, she watched her reflection slip below the counter and out of sight.

L
aura Chatsworth sat at her dressing table in Sausalito and considered the evening ahead. Another command appearance for the Senator and his wife, and she was fed up with going on as usual. Though she had always shared Lawrence's ambition—it wasn't beyond the scope of her dreams to be the First Lady—these past weeks had taught her there were more important things than power.

Facing her reflection in an oval mirror framed with gilt roses that had belonged to her mother, Olympia Cabot, Laura wasn't happy with what she saw. Though her toilette was complete, her makeup and hair in place above her lace-trimmed silk slip, she looked like her mother.

The lines beside the eyes, the two creases starting at the corner of her mouth and turning down … she always had to be careful to turn her lips up at the corners whenever a camera was around.

Olympia had the keen gaze of a bird of prey, always on the lookout for a flaw she could point out. The way Sylvia had pounced on Laura about her haircut.

A chance glance in the mirror suddenly shocked her. There was the steely look she'd been the recipient of over the years from her own mother, flashing through when she thought of her daughter's cruelty.

She quickly forced her expression to soften. Yes, she'd been angry at the willful thoughtlessness, but maybe Sylvia had come by it honestly.

Though it wasn't easy to come to such a conclusion, she'd seen the proof in the mirror. Now she recalled the outrage on Sylvia's face when she had told her she wished she'd disappear. Lord, had Laura turned out like Olympia?

Guilt stabbed at her, as it had so many times in the past few weeks … along with the fear. No, since this afternoon's report that the Napa County sheriff had found Sylvia's wrecked Jaguar, it had been terror.

Lawrence came in from his dressing room, and she turned on him. “I don't care if the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and the entire cabinet are going to be at this dinner tonight. I'm not going.”

He paused with a gold cuff link partway through the sleeve of his white lawn evening shirt. “Now, Laura—”

“Don't ‘now, Laura' me. I've gone along the past month because we thought Sylvia might be hiding. But now they've found her car …” She broke off.

Lawrence put the cuff link, one she'd given him upon his election to the Senate, down on his antique shaving stand, a piece from her native Virginia. “I know you're worried, but—”

“You're going to say what can we do about it? We can stop smiling for the TV cameras and acting like life goes on.” Laura's voice rose. “If they find her … body… near the car…nothing will ever be the same.”

Lawrence came to her and folded her against his chest. Tears rolled down her cheeks.

“Your shirt …” She hated that it came out automatically. He had a dozen shirts like it in the closet. And whatever she decided about the dinner, he was likely going without her. He'd explain she was upset about the car being found and make her look like a weak woman.

“Forget the shirt.” His arms tightened.

Sobs shook her. How long it had been since they'd held each other like this?

Lawrence turned her face up to his. “I've always said you were a smart woman, and you've proved it. After today's news, we're going to stay in this evening. And select our venues more carefully until Sylvia is—”

The telephone on a marble stand rang. Laura and Lawrence both jumped.

When Sylvia had disappeared, the police had tapped the line and warned a ransom demand might be forthcoming. But as days melted into weeks without a call or note, Lawrence had insisted the wiretap be removed, citing the invasion of their privacy. And stating anyone who wanted to contact him would probably send a package to his local office.

Whenever a call came in, Laura rushed to answer, hoping to hear her daughter's voice.

The phone rang again.

Laura disentangled herself from her husband's embrace and hurried toward it.

“Maybe you'd better let me,” Lawrence warned.

She lifted the receiver. A glance at the caller ID showed no data. “Hello?” she asked carefully.

“Is this Sylvia's mother?” An accented male voice.

Sylvia's mother.
Not Lawrence's wife. If he were law enforcement, wouldn't he have identified himself right away?

“This is Mrs. Chatsworth.” Laura's heart started to race. “What about Sylvia?”

“About Sylvia, you tell your husband—”

“You can tell him yourself!” she shrilled. She didn't want to hear another word, for fear his next one would reveal something horrible about her daughter.

Moving toward her with swift steps, Lawrence bore a grim expression. “Who's on the phone?”

“I don't know … he mentioned Sylvia.”

Lawrence reached for the cordless unit. “This is Senator Chatsworth. Who the hell are you?”

Sylvia swam up from sleep … no not sleep.

Where was she? Where was Andre?

When she'd gone down, she'd expected to wake and find she'd been sexually assaulted. Wasn't that what “date-rape drugs” were about?

She lay on a big bed with a black comforter shot through with gold, still clothed in the black slacks and red sweater. Dark wood furniture dominated the shadows; a stained-glass lamp on the nightstand put out a dim glow. Heavy drapes were drawn over the single wall of windows, so she couldn't tell if it was still raining. An ornate antique wall clock chimed half-past ten.

Around five hours since she'd ingested only a few sips of wine. Her head still spun, but at least she was aware of her surroundings.

Now what?

She knew better than to think a bedside phone would put her in touch with the police. The phones and Andre's cell had probably been working all the time he was lying to her.

If she had been frightened before by his weird behavior, now she was paralyzed with terror. She hadn't been raped while unconscious, but it was certain Andre still intended to have her in bed. This was probably his room, though she would have expected it to be bigger and more ornate.

Her mind might be fuzzy, but how did he expect to get away with raping a senator's daughter?

But, wait … her thoughts cleared enough to crystallize. It would be that of a woman publicly known as a tramp against an upstanding citizen. He'd say the sex was consensual … it would all boil down to one of Sylvia's Chatsworth's usual flings. Andre would claim she got angry over something trivial and cried rape.

Even her parents might take his side.

If only she had gone with Lyle this morning. He hadn't treated her like a loose woman. Just the opposite, their lovemaking had been lyrical.

With each passing moment, her head continued to clear. There was no sound from beyond the closed bedroom door, though a seam of light showed beneath it.

Sylvia pushed to a sitting position. On her feet and she was still a little woozy.

Just in case, she looked for a telephone.

No 911 for her.

In the bathroom, she located the light switch and blinked at the harsh illumination. No marble walls here, more a standard tiled bath, though it had a whirlpool tub and a fancy beveled mirror. There was no window.

She splashed cold water on her face and applied a wet washrag to the pulse points at her neck and wrist. Her hair curled wildly, bed hair, but she didn't even want to touch the man-style brush on the granite counter.

Time to get out of here. Whether it was still raining or not, it would be dark and cold outside. She couldn't hope to locate a flashlight, but perhaps there might be a jacket in Andre's closet.

No such luck. There was an adequate supply of men's slacks and shirts, but not even a sweater. The dresser drawers yielded nothing suitable.

Sylvia stepped to the window and located the gold drapery cord. If she were lucky, there would be a set of French doors instead of a window. Locked, of course, but she could figure out something.

She had to.

Pulling the drawstring, she watched the black velvet begin to part like the curtains on a stage. Keeping her eye on the center, she was able to see a pair of matched doors.

With the drapes fully parted, she stepped to the glass and … Every thing went tilt; she looked out at a balcony, high above a carpet of twinkling stars. She might still have been drugged in the moment it took to recognize the lights of San Francisco.

Lyle pushed aside his plate, no crusts left from the pizza he and Cliff shared at Ice. As the rain had not abated, they sat indoors at a window table. The lights of the city made a blurred tangle from water streaking down the glass.

“I can't believe we couldn't get up to Villa Valetti,” he groused.

“You know Andre and Sylvia had to leave, what with the evacuation,” Cliff observed.

“Unless he didn't answer when the National Guard went door to door.”

“Andre probably has a place in the City.”

Lyle pulled out his cell and tried directory assistance. “Dead end.” His hand fisted, uselessly.

“I guess we could call the police and say you saw Sylvia with Andre this morning in Napa,” Cliff ventured. “That would get them looking for his vehicle and his place in town … if there is one.”

“It's worth a try.”

But once Cliff had placed a call to a friend who was an SFPD detective, Lyle didn't feel any better. It was almost eleven p.m., and his lack of sleep, along with driving back and forth from the Napa Valley, were taking their toll.

Not to mention losing his job, learning about the mercury scare, and having a knife in his chest whenever he thought of Sylvia. It all brought on an overload he couldn't process in his exhausted state.

He shoved back from the table. “I think I'll call it a night.”

Cliff didn't act like he heard him. “You know, we've been thinking Tony Valetti is dead. There's no evidence of that.”