Ghost Flower (19 page)

Mrs. March entered then, wheeling a trolley that contained a covered china soup tureen with woodland nymphs frolicking on it, and a covered silver platter. She lifted the lids off of both and revealed tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches.

“Is this some kind of a joke, Mother?” Bridger asked.

“You want fancy food, spend your own money and eat at your own house,” Althea snapped at him, reaching for a sandwich.

The rest of dinner was silent against a soundtrack of spoons
clinking against china bowls and knives and forks being carefully picked up and set down and throats being cleared. Finally Althea wiped her mouth with her napkin, dropped it on the table, and pushed her chair back. “Dismissed,” she said, and everyone scattered as quickly as they could. It had seemed endless but had only lasted twenty-two minutes.

As we were leaving, Bain offered to drive me to the séance, since Bridgette was riding with her boyfriend, Stuart. Everyone who had been present the night of the party was going to be there, except Xandra Michaels, who turned out to be Bain’s ex-girlfriend. She was at school in London, and even the force of Coralee Gold couldn’t bend time to get her there tonight.

“Why doesn’t Bridgette like Coralee?” I asked Bain. His driving style was pretty much the opposite of Bridgette’s. He drove like a senior citizen who could see—staying inside the lines and obeying all the signs.

“Because they’re too much alike,” he said. “At least that’s what I think.” I was again struck by how he did that, said something astute and then backpedaled from it, as though he only had part-time use of a backbone. It suddenly made me wonder how much of this plan was his idea—and how much of it was Bridgette’s.

I absentmindedly registered that there seemed to be a lot of traffic traveling away from Sunset Canyon Estates, a development that, according to Bain, had only forty-five premium luxury residences, of which ten were occupied. “They don’t seem alike to me,” I said.

“Not on the surface, but below it. They both like secrets, they both like to be in charge, and they’re both good at it. There was one time—”

I didn’t get to hear what happened one time because we rounded a bend then, right into stopped traffic. The road had been narrowed
to a single lane by a row of cars and news vans parked along the slope of the hill. Ahead of us was a wooden police barricade with an officer standing in front of it. If Bridgette had been driving, either the officer or I would have ended up as a hood ornament, but Bain had no trouble slowing to a gentle stop. The officer walked around to Bain’s side of the car and tapped on the window. When Bain opened it, the man gave a big smile. “Silverton. Thought that was my grandma driving.” He and Bain did one of those handclasp-fist-bump-patty-cake kind of handshakes before his eyes came to me. “You must be the long lost cousin. Welcome back.”

“What’s going on?” Bain asked.

“What did you expect? Everyone wants to see the returning heiress. Got all the news networks, plus the amatuer paparazzi. Your little gig tonight got a lot of attention. We’ve been holding back crowds the last two hours. Residents and guests only from here, but that’s not stopping the lookie loos from parking below and taking the scenic way in.” He nodded his head toward the side of the road, where a steady stream of shadows was making its way up.

We passed through the barricade. As Bain’s headlights swiveled around curves, the figures of people walking along the shoulder of the road seemed to pop out of the darkness like monster cutouts on a carnival horror ride. “Why would anyone hike up here for this?”

“Aurora’s return is big news.” Bain was concentrating on driving, taking the curves slowly. “Rich girl who’s been missing for three years and just wanders back into town? It would be a good story on its own, but add the Silverton name and it’s a great story.”

“Why? Why do these people care about the Silvertons?”

“Because they want to be us,” Bain said matter-of-factly.

As we pulled up to the address, I saw another cluster of people being held back by more uniformed officers. Bain’s car edged
slowly forward. Someone pointed at me and said, “It’s her!” and suddenly there were cameras lighting up like a fireworks display outside our car.

My stomach contracted as though I’d been punched, and I covered my face with my hand.

“Stop it,” Bain’s voice lashed out at me. “Aurora would be loving this. Smile and wave to your fans.
Now
.”

His tone was brutal, but when I looked at him, he was grinning—a grin I could tell he’d practiced for the cameras. I copied him, waving and smiling, and as we went by, I saw that one of the officers on crowd-control duty was N. Martinez. I caught his eye and gave him an Aurora wave-and-smile, which made his frown deepen.

A different officer directed Bain to a quiet spot behind the house, then explained that Coralee had requested all guests walk around back up the front, where the news cameras had been set up.

“Of course,” Bain told the cop affably. He draped his arm over my shoulder and pushed me forward. “This is what we’re here for. I don’t know how else we’re going to sell these houses.”

“You agreed to this as an advertising stunt?” I asked as he pulled me toward the front of the house. “Bridgette said this would be bad press.”

“Bridgette doesn’t understand. Press you don’t pay for is never bad,” Bain said, gesturing with the hand that was over my shoulder. “For the development or for Dad, free press is great press. The more ink we get, the better our bottom line looks.”

The reporters surged forward like a porcupine with microphones for spines as Bain and I came into view. Acting like he hadn’t expected them to be there, he said, “No questions,” hid my face against his chest, and pulled me through the crowds as though we were fleeing shrapnel.

“I thought you wanted to talk to the press,” I said when we were inside and he’d closed the door behind us.

He laughed. “Be
seen
by them, not talk to them. Never let them think you want to talk to them. That way they make up their own stories, and we have complete deniability.” Then he shed his jacket, looked around like he owned the place—which, I guess, he did—and said, “How about a séance? I am feeling ghoul tonight.”

Every woman in the room giggled.

I rolled my eyes. “How long did you work on that?”

“Modified it from a Dixie cup.” He winked, moving on to check out the female members of the catering staff Coralee had brought in. It took Bain two minutes to survey the selection, pick out the hottest girl, ask her name, and tell her that if she took care of him all night he could promise she’d be well-rewarded.

“Her name is Scarlet but she goes by Scar,” I overheard him telling Bridgette’s boyfriend, Stuart. “How hot is that?”

“Searing,” Stuart said. I felt Stuart looking at me, so I smiled and he shot me a little nod-smile back. He and Bain both gave off the “he knows how handsome he is” vibe, but otherwise they were nearly opposites.

While Bain seemed like he could have stepped off the cover of next month’s
Men’s Journal
, Stuart’s looks were more classic. With his curling light brown hair, olive skin, wide-spaced tawny eyes and a mouth just firm enough to avoid being pretty, Stuart looked like something a Greek sculptor would have swooned over. He had a lazy, laid-back way of looking at people from beneath partially closed lids. I bet a lot of girls found it sexy, but to me it was strangely repellant. He was listening to Bain, but his eyes were surveying the room. He wore a vague smile on his face as though he were amused at something that no one else knew.

We were in the main room of what Bain had told me to call the “Model
Property
,” because it sounded more upmarket than “Model
Home
.” This particular one was sleek and modern, which meant the living area was a large open space with stark white and grey surfaces and a wall of glass that opened onto a pool area. There had only been nine people, counting Liza and Aurora, at the party that night three years ago. But with the bartenders and the caterers, there were easily two dozen people there tonight, and the space still felt nearly empty. One person working all day might have been able to get it clean.

I turned and looked out the plate glass window. The house was nestled in the middle of a series of hills. As the darkness set in, the hills assumed deep blue outlines against the purple sky. Bright white stars began to appear, first a handful of dots, then more. The properties that were inhabited had discrete outdoor lighting, so the blanket of stars seemed to go on forever, and the darkness turned the window into a mirror.

I looked past the reflection of myself—in my new grey leopard print cardigan, cuffed skinny jeans, and silver wedges—to the people behind me. It was like gazing at a group portrait come to life. Coralee was on one side conferring with Huck and Grant, Jordan was talking to Scar, and Bridgette had perched herself on the arm of the chair Stuart was occupying next to Bain. But it was the details of the scene that I found fascinating. Bain trying to catch Coralee’s eye. Jordan deliberately avoiding Stuart’s. Bridgette jumping when Stuart’s arm brushed the leg of her jeans. She looked even more on edge than usual.

I tried to imagine what the party had been like for Liza and Aurora. Earlier that afternoon I’d decided to clear out all of Aurora’s clothes to make places for the new things I’d just gotten, and I’d discovered a false bottom in her sock drawer. Lifting it out, I found
a romance novel with all the sex scenes marked and a picture of Liza and Aurora.

I could figure out why Aurora had hidden the book but was less sure why she was hiding the picture. It showed the two girls somewhere that looked like a mall, each wearing Santa hats and a necklace. The pendants on the necklaces, which they were holding out for the camera, were two halves of the same heart. Aurora’s half had the letter B stamped on it, and Liza’s half had FF.
Best Friends Forever
. Two of the fingers Liza was using to hold the pendant were wrapped together in surgical tape, as though they were broken.

Aurora’s smile at the camera was carefree and happier than she’d looked in the yearbook photo Bridgette had shown me. Liza was smiling too, but instead of looking at the camera, she was looking at Ro. There was something in her eyes I hadn’t seen before, something I couldn’t quite describe that reminded me of how I’d seen parents look at their children, part satisfied, part protective.

With a shudder, I realized it was exactly the way the girl I’d seen in the mirror at the mall had looked at me.

But there had been no girl at the mall
, I reminded myself. There couldn’t have been. And even if there
had
been, it couldn’t have been Liza. Because Liza was dead.

My gaze moved back to the people reflected in the window and caught Bridgette’s eye. She frowned and made a little spiral gesture with one finger, as if telling me to circulate. I realized with a start that I hadn’t been acting like Aurora at all. I turned, looking for the easiest person to launch myself on, when Coralee broke away from her crew and moved to the center of the room. She clapped her hands for quiet and a hush fell.

“Roscoe Kim’s plane from L.A. got delayed, so he can’t make it,” she said. There was a hint of blame in her voice, as though she thought
he’d done it just to inconvenience her. “We’re going to go ahead and get started anyway. Madam Cruz has been meditating all afternoon, and she is ready to welcome the spirits. Unlike other mediums, she does not mind doubters, but she does ask that you don’t give voice to your doubts until the session is over. Is that acceptable?”

Everyone nodded. A tiny knot of fear began to tighten in my stomach. Not for the first time, I wondered what I’d gotten myself into.

“Great. We’ve got two cameras set up in the corner to record whatever happens. But just act natural, you know, don’t perform or anything. I’ve got waivers for you to sign on the way out. This is going to be the most rocking séance ever. We’ve set it all up in the music room, so if everyone could go in there—”

She pointed to a passage off the side of the main room, and, suddenly subdued, the group stood and started to file in.

“Aren’t you coming?” I asked her.

She shook her head. “I wasn’t there that night, and we don’t want to do anything that might disrupt the spirits. But don’t worry, I’ll watch the whole thing on monitors out here.”

The music room was essentially a soundproof glass box cantilevered over the edge of a hill. Seven stools had been set up in a circle on the hardwood floor, centered around a large stone board with the letters of the alphabet on it—like a large, stone Ouija board. There were candles placed around the edge, and they flickered as we shuffled in. Coralee closed the door that communicated with the rest of the house behind us, and the noise of the caterers vanished.

No one spoke. The only sound was the spluttering of the candles and a quiet, almost inaudible chanting coming from Madam Cruz. She was sitting on a straight-backed chair on one side of the circle of stools, wearing a bright red dress with red ribbons braided into
her hair. Her eyes were closed, and her eyelids were caked with black kohl. She rocked back and forth, making strange, low humming noises.

There was something about the atmosphere of the room that made everyone somber, and we all took seats without speaking.

As if that were a cue, Madam Cruz began rocking faster, and her eyelids lifted slightly, showing a glimpse of the whites beneath them. She made a wheezing noise, and her tongue moved around her mouth like she was soundlessly speaking ten languages at once. Her breathing got labored, coming in gasps until she was panting like an animal. She bared her teeth, and a growling noise came from her throat. The lids of her eyes sprang open, and her pupils had disappeared, her eyes rolled hideously back into her head to show only the whites. She leered around at us that way and, in a voice somewhere between a bellow and a growl, said, “Silverton, you goddamn bastard.”

“Jay,” Bain whispered. He’d gone completely white. Bridgette, next to him, rolled her eyes.