The Collector
Page 43

“I bet you do. Your car just pulled up. You must’ve already been heading down when they called up to tell you.”
“Good timing.”
“Go on and get in. We’ll get this loaded up for you.”
She felt a little odd when she spotted the limo. Not a flashy one, but still, long, dark and shiny.
“Thanks for everything, Ethan.”
“Don’t mention it. You come back and see us.”
“I’ll do that.”
She slid inside, looked at Julie, at Luke, as the driver shut the door behind her.
“This is weird. I’m sorry, Luke, you knew him, but it’s weird.”
“I barely knew him. But . . .”
“We know Ash.” Lila laid her purse on the bench seat beside her. “At least it’s a nice day. I always think rain when I think of funerals.”
“I bet you have an umbrella in your bag.”
Lila shrugged at Julie. “Just in case.”
“If you’re ever on a desert island, in a war zone or an avalanche, you want Lila and her bag. If you sever a limb she’s probably got something in there to reattach it. She once repaired my toaster with a screwdriver the length of my pinky and a pair of tweezers.”
“No duct tape?”
“It’s in here,” Lila assured him. “A mini roll. So maybe you can give me—us—an overview of the playing field? Who’ll be there?”
“They’ll all be there.”
“The entire spreadsheet?”
“You can count on all or most.” Luke shifted, as if not quite at home in the dark suit and tie. “They come together for important events. Funerals, weddings, graduations, serious illness, childbirth. I wouldn’t call the compound the demilitarized zone, but it’s as close as they get to one.”
“Is war common?”
“It happens. Something like this? Some small, petty battles maybe, but no major conflict. At a wedding, anything goes. The last one I went to, the mother of the bride and the father of the bride’s current lady got into a hair-pulling, face-scratching, clothes-ripping free-for-all that ended with them duking it out in a koi pond.”
Luke stretched out his legs. “We have the video.”
“Won’t this be fun?” Lila scooted forward, flipped open the lid on the built-in cooler, rooted around. “Anybody want a ginger ale?”
Ash sat under the pergola shaded by thick twists of wisteria. He needed to go back inside, deal with everything and everyone, but for now, for a few minutes, he just wanted some air, some quiet.
For all its size, the house felt close and crowded and too full of noise.
From where he sat he could see the trim lines of the guesthouse with its colorful cottage garden. Oliver’s mother had yet to come out, instead closing herself in with her sister-in-law, her daughter and what his father called—not unkindly—her gaggle of women.
Just as well, he thought, and there was time enough for her to cling to those women and their comfort before the funeral.
He’d done his best to create her vision of that memorial. Only white flowers—and it seemed like acres of them. Dozens of white chairs arranged in rows on the long sweep of the north lawn, a white lectern for speakers. The photos she’d selected of Oliver framed in white. The string quartet (Christ!) instructed to dress in white as all the mourners had been instructed to wear black.
Only the piper would be allowed color.
He felt, and thankfully his father agreed, a mother should be given anything she wanted in the planning of a child’s funeral.
Though he’d hoped for small and private, the event would host over three hundred. Most of the family and a few friends had arrived the day before, and were currently scattered all over the ten-bedroom house, the guesthouse, the pool house, the grounds.
They needed to talk, to ask questions he couldn’t answer, to eat, to sleep, to laugh, to cry. They sucked up every drop of air.
After more than thirty-six hours of it, Ash could think of nothing he wanted more than his own studio, his own space. Still, he smiled when his half sister Giselle, the raven-haired beauty, stepped under the shading vines.
She sat beside him, tipped her head onto his shoulder. “I decided to take a walk before I drop-kicked Katrina off the Juliet balcony into the swimming pool. I’m not sure I could kick quite that far so a walk seemed smarter. And I found you.”
“Better idea. What did she do?”
“Cry. Cry, cry, cry. She and Oliver barely spoke, and when they did it was to insult each other.”
“Maybe that’s why she’s crying. Lost her insult buddy.”
“I guess they did enjoy getting on each other’s nerves.”
“Hard on you.” He put an arm around her.
“I loved him. He was a f**k-up, but I loved him. So did you.”
“I’m pretty sure I used those exact words to describe him to someone. He loved you, especially.”
Giselle turned her face, pressed it to Ash’s shoulder for a moment. “Damn him. I’m so mad at him for being dead.”
“I know. Me, too. Have you seen his mother?”
“I went over this morning. I talked to Olympia a little. She’s leaning hard on Angie, and someone gave her a Valium. She’ll get through it. So will we. I’m going to miss him, so much. He always made me laugh, always listened to me bitch, then made me laugh. And I liked Sage.”
“You met her?”
“Hell, I introduced them.” Giselle pulled Ash’s pocket square out of his breast pocket, used it to dab at her eyes. “I met her last year in Paris, and we hit it off reasonably well. We had lunch when we were both back in New York. Well, I had lunch. She had a leaf and a berry. Half a berry.”
Expertly, she refolded the pocket square, damp side in, tucked it back in the breast pocket. “She invited me to some party, and I decided to take Oliver—I thought they’d enjoy each other. They did.
“I wish I hadn’t taken him.” Giselle turned her face into Ash’s shoulder again. “I know it’s stupid, you don’t have to tell me, but I wish I hadn’t taken him. Would they both be alive if I hadn’t introduced them?”
Gently, he brushed his lips over her hair. “You said I didn’t have to tell you that’s stupid, but I’m compelled to.”
“He was into something bad, Ash. He had to be. Someone killed him, so he had to be into something bad.”