A ruling passion : a novel (72 page)

Valerie gazed pensively at her wine glass. "Thank you," she said quietly. "What kind of projects are they thinking about?"

"More than we'll have time for." Nick felt himself relax. Probably she wanted a truce as much as he; if so, they'd share it, as they had

shared so much in Florence. They would carefully avoid the subject of Scutigera—she would have to resolve that one with Les—and talk instead about the other work she could do as part of E8cN: something else they shared. He felt a sudden surge of happiness. It might be all right after all.

"Which ones?" she asked again, and he realized he had lapsed into thought.

He began to talk about the ideas the "Blow-Up" staff, the producer and Les fed into a thick file each week for the research department to evaluate. Through dinner and a bottle of wine they discussed them: politicians, entertainers, contractors, corporate executives, political fund-raisers, art collectors, officers of multinational companies, arms dealers and publishers, all of whom, it appeared, might have more to them than their public image indicated.

"I'd like to do a few of those," Valerie said as the steward refilled their coffee cups. "And I have another that I'm especially interested in. I'd like to do a program on Lily Grace."

"Lily," Nick repeated thoughtfully. "Could we find something to say about her that every producer in America isn't saying about tv evange-Usts?"

"I think she may be different. She fascinates me because she doesn't seem to fit into any category. I don't really know anything about her, but I don't believe she'd knowingly be part of a deception, or anything criminal. There's something more to LUy, and I'd like to find out what it is."

"Have you ever met her?"

"A couple of times. She's extraordinarily young and sincere and... pure. It could be that we'd learn something about television ministries through her that we haven't learned through the others because everyone's been concentrating on corruption."

"But what would be the story?" Nick waited for her to become defensive, as she had before, when he challenged her on Scutigera.

"I don't know," said Valerie, and this time there was no defensive-ness; only a rueful laugh. "I'm just learning to think about a whole story, not just a terrific idea for one. But I was at Graceville a while ago, and it's very big business. In fact, it doesn't seem to have any limits, as long as people keep sending in money, huge amounts of it, obviously. I'd like to know more about it, especially how the money is used, and I can't imagine that Lily is anything like the Bakkers; it ought to be a different story."

'Tou said you didn't diink she'd knowingly be a part of what's been going on. Do you think she's being used?"

Valerie thought about it. "I don't know. She seems very much her own person. But if she is..."

"It would be Sybille who's doing it," he said when she hesitated. "In which case, Sybille would be involved in Graceville."

"She says she's not."

"I know. There's often a chasm between the truth and what Sybille says. If she's part of Graceville, then this could be a story that goes far beyond religion. Sybille never cared much about the condition of people's souls."

"But Lily does."

"Probably. Are you sure you really want to do this story .> You'd get no cooperation from Sybille; she'd think you were the enemy."

"Only if she's using Graceville for her own purposes, and I have no evidence of that, or any reason to think she is. I'm far more interested in Lily; it seems to me she's almost a symbol of what television is, or maybe the best that it could be." She smiled. "I don't know what to think of her, not yet. But I do think it could make a terrific program."

"And what if it turned out that Lily would suffer because of it?"

Valerie shook her head. "You're making assumptions. I told you, I don't think she's corrupt."

"That doesn't answer my question."

Valerie hesitated. "If I had enough to think it was an important program, I'd go ahead with it."

"And if you found Sybille was corrupt? Using Graceville, as you put it, for her own purposes?"

She looked at him steadily. "If it was important, I'd go ahead with it. Not to hurt Sybille—that would be a disgraceful thing to do—but because I'd be doing something important. Anyway, I think Sybille's real interest is in Lily; I think she likes having someone dependent on her who's young and impressionable." She hesitated again. "I don't know where this story would lead, Nick, but I'd like to follow it. It fits in with every headline these days, and Lily is incredible; I'm not the only one who's fascinated by her; everyone is, who meets her."

"It sounds all right to me. We'll talk to Les about it." Nick took her hand, easily, naturally, feeling at ease from the companionship of their talk, forgetting that he had decided to tread warily until their stormy drive from Siena receded to the past. For a moment Valerie's hand was unresponsive, then her fingers twined with his, and he felt a surge of

buoyancy. There was still too much tension between them, too much readiness to leap to battle stations over relatively minor disputes, and he didn't know how they would resolve that, or even if they could, but for now the air was clear. And if they could find a way to share the important things of their lives...

"Something else," he said. "If Les approves, and you do a full-scale study of Lily Grace, and Graceville, I'd like to work on it with you."

&kd

Chapter 25

I M M he grand opening of the Hotel Grace was sched-

^"^^ ^^d for July, and workers were scrambling to fin-

^k ^m ish it when Sophie and Valerie visited Graceville

^^^^r for the second time. The shops along Main Street

were almost finished; their glass fronts reflected

the summer sun and gave glimpses of the workers inside, painting and

installing shelves and carpeting and computerized cash registers. The

streets were lined with antique lampposts and old-fashioned hitching

posts; landscapers were laying squares of grass and planting flowers

and shrubs; workers were installing street signs. Some distance away,

rows of town houses were in various stages of construction; one row

was almost complete.

"Marrach Construction," Sophie read on the first trailer they passed. "I wonder who owns it." She looked down Main Street, at other trailers with the same name. "It's a goldmine, building a whole town. Mr. Marrach, whoever he is, really lucked out."

Valerie wrote the name in her notebook; then they walked on, down Main Street and into the hotel. The workers paid no attention to them as they wandered through the lobby, into the dining room

and then up a stairway to the mezzanine, where meeting rooms and offices were being painted. "What is it I'm supposed to be looking for?" Sophie asked.

"I don't know." Valerie contemplated the workers, and the view beyond the windows of groves of trees, and green, somnolent fields. Everything looked peacefiil and ordinary, and she felt a little foolish for imagining scullduggery. "I just thought I ought to see it again before we start digging into how it works."

They turned to walk back the way they had come. "I thought I heard Nick say he wanted to work on this one," Sophie said.

"I suppose he will, if he can find the time."

Sophie shook her head. "I give up. For a whole week, ever since you got back, I've been hoping for a tale of pasta and passion, and all I get is a travelogue of churches and museums and the palaces of Siena."

Valerie glanced at her. "Why did you think there would be any more?"

"Because you've been working up to it for months. All those intimate moments in the corridors, leaning toward each other like trees about to topple over... The intelligent staff of E8cN tends to notice things like that."

Valerie gave a small laugh. "We didn't look like trees about to topple over."

"How about two people having trouble staying apart? Anyway, when you flew off to Italy, we thought good things were about to happen."

"Good things did," Valerie said, her voice low. "We had a wonderful time. We had one perfect day and night."

"And then?"

They reached Valerie's car and she was silent until she pulled onto the main road. "We don't see things the same way. We quarrel about something, and then we laugh and feel wonderful about each other, and then we're snapping at each other again. We were together forty-eight hours and it was like a roller coaster. Half the time I didn't like him at all and the other half I thought I might be in love with him. I never knew how I'd be feeling from one minute to the next."

"Why, do you think? Nick's a terrific guy; I used to have fantasies about him. If we'd gotten together, I would have worked pretty hard to ignore anything I didn't like."

"Oh, you don't know what you would have done," Valerie said a litde crossly. She drove at a sedate pace, slowing for more impatient

drivers to pass. "It was as if we were trying to score points, to prove to each other that our way is the right way, and it always has been. I knew Nick a long time ago, in college, and we didn't see things the same way then either, and ifs as if we're still stuck there, having the same arguments we had then. I wish we could wipe out our memories and just think about now. Though I'm not sure anything would be very different. We're both so stubborn..."

"Stubborn, but never bored."

Valerie smiled. "A litde boredom might be a relief right now."

"You don't mean that, not for a minute. Boredom kills everything: friendships, marriages, jobs, vacations, hobbies... even wars: when the generals get bored they sign treaties. If you and Nick strike sparks, you ought to give thanks. God, I could use some sparks with Joe; we're so predictable you'd think we were married. I can't imagine why you're fussing; you're not bored and you keep making an impression on each odier."

"Are those the only alternatives?" Valerie asked with another smile.

"I don't know, but what if they are and you have to choose one? How could you not choose sparks? Can you imagine never giving a damn, one way or the other, and if one of you left, the other one would hardly notice any change in the way you live?"

Valerie thought of Carlton. When he died, her life changed because her money was gone, not because he was no longer there. It had been one of the discoveries that saddened her the most: that she could not miss him; she could only feel sorrow for an untimely death.

She nodded, more to herself than to Sophie. "I'll have to think about that."

Sophie's thoughts had already moved on. 'Tou two are gorgeous together, you know that? You're both beautiful and you move together like you're dancing. Things have to be awfully good between two people when they look like that; it's your inner selves speaking. If you ignore that, you risk ruining your life."

Valerie laughed. "You're a true romantic, Sophie. It sounds so simple there's probably a hook somewhere, but I'll give it some thought. Lef s talk about Graceville, and Lily. Can we use any of the research you've done on the Bakkers and others?"

"I don't know yet. It all comes down to money, and either they play games with money at Graceville or they don't. I'd start at the beginning, with the land for the church and the town—who bought it, how much did they pay, where'd the money come from—and I'd dig into

Lily's background and how she's living now, and die same for die board members of die Hour of Grace Foundation. I got their names yesterday, from one of my foundation listings."

They talked about the newspapers, magazines and television tapes they would use to get information on the members of the board, and whichever of its dealings had been public. Not many had to be; Valerie was always amazed at how much could legally be secret in what she had thought was an open society.

When they returned to the EScN building, they went to the research department and Valerie pulled a chair to Sophie's desk. They were there for the next two days, Sophie searching board members' backgrounds while Valerie made telephone calls to realtors in the Culpeper area and the county clerk's office to see if the sale of the land had been recorded.

"Well, now, how about this," said Sophie at last. They were eating sandwiches at her desk, and she was skimming a newspaper story on her computer screen. "Floyd Bassington, president of the board of the Hour of Grace. He was a minister in Chicago—big church, big congregation—until some guy named Olaf Massy found him in bed with Massy's wife, Evaline. She sang in the choir. No, better than that: she was choir director. Olaf went on a crusade to expose the saindy minister and found out that Bassington not only slipped in and out of a lot of beds—did I say he was married, with lots of kids.>—he'd also been embezzling over the years, a litde here, a litde there; he had about two hundred thousand bucks in his bank account. How's that for a resume for Lily's president?"

"Was he in jail?" Valerie asked.

Sophie read further, and shook her head. "Paid back the money, resigned from the church. His wife divorced him. He moved to Virginia, and found grace."