Perfect Little Ladies Part 27

"Don't worry. I'll bring our own."

Click.

Speed dial again.

"h.e.l.lo. You've reached Elinor Harding Young-"

Click.

CJ moved to the window, clutching her cell phone. She sat in the plush chair overlooking the garden, but she didn't enjoy the view. Her eyes were focused straight on the panties, and her heart was pounding like the ba.s.s in the band that still wafted up from the party.

There was only one person CJ wanted to call. One person who could be levelheaded, and it wasn't Mac.

She speed dialed again. She held her breath, hoping he'd answer, hoping he'd welcome her call.

"Cooper?"

"CJ?" His voice was the same, in spite of the years. She closed her eyes and started to cry.

"CJ? Are you all right? What's happened?"

"Cooper," she repeated, because it was nice to hear herself say his name. Then she said she was fine and he said he was, too, and she launched into the tale about Elinor and the blackmail and their attempts to locate the culprit and the panties now perched on the bed. She did not mention Remy in deference to E. But CJ was as comfortable speaking to her ex as if they'd talked yesterday, as if she'd never left SoHo or him.

"Can you hold on a minute?" he asked once she'd stopped for a breath. "I need to take this in the other room."

Oh G.o.d, she realized with a thud to her heart, he isn't alone. Of course he isn't alone! Why on earth would he have been without a woman all this time, just because she'd been without a man except for Ray Williams, and he didn't count?

Her bruised ego was about to hang up when he clicked on again.

"Sorry," he said. "I needed to let the dog in before she woke up the neighbors."

A dog. Not a woman. Still, CJ felt foolish. "Cooper, I'm sorry. It was bold of me to think I could call you on a Sat.u.r.day night and not interrupt your evening. I'm sorry. I'll call back another time."

"Stop it," he said abruptly. "I'm not glad there's a problem, but I am glad you called."

"So I'm not interrupting?"

"If you're asking me if I'm with a woman, the answer is no. The only woman in my life right now is Molly."

Molly?

"My golden retriever."

She smiled.

"CJ," he continued, "you need to call the police. You need to call the police, then call me back if you want."

"I can't," she said. "I can't call the police."

Cooper laughed. "Because it's Elinor?"

"No. Because it's the vice president." Then she told him the rest. "After this is over," she said when she was done, "I'm going back to Paris. I'm going to stop protecting my sister and finally start my life over."

"Ah," he said. "Act two. Maybe this time you can rewrite a few scenes."

She did not ask what he meant.

"You need to divorce me, Malcolm."

Elinor and Mac sat in the back of the black Lincoln Town Car that Mac only used on special occasions. He'd always said it embarra.s.sed him to be chauffeured around, as if he thought he was too important to tackle the Beltway himself.

He sighed. "What going on, Elinor?"

She gazed out the window at the indestructible stone buildings, the historic streetlamps, the sleek limousines that snaked through the grid streets, their dark, tinted windows harboring power within. Elinor had once found Washington exciting. She'd never expected to have to pay for her crimes. Perhaps that was a by-product of Father's example, or maybe she'd simply lived too long in this city.

Beside her, Malcolm breathed. A small hollow grew in her stomach, the same one that had grown the night her mother told her she'd found Malcolm and CJ in the greenhouse. Together. Making hasty, c.u.mbersome love. While CJ was heavy with Jonas. Their baby, not hers, not Elinor's, no matter how hard she had tried to believe it, no matter how hard she'd tried to convince the world, because it was what Father had told her to do.

She'd tried to tell Father about the scene in the greenhouse, but he'd said she was overreacting, that they both knew her mother was inclined toward the dramatic.

As with other things-such as the incident with the gardener-they'd never mentioned it again.

Still, it didn't seem fair that now, after all these years, Elinor would turn out the villain.

She teared up, and it wasn't an act.

"I've had an affair." Elinor spoke softly, so the driver wouldn't hear through the privacy window, though Mac had once told her that Jimmy was nearly deaf, that, at seventy-six, he needed the job to supplement his Social Security.

Mac didn't answer. He stared straight ahead at the Plexiglas that separated the worlds of employer, employee.

"I'll leave Washington quietly," she continued. "I'll go back to Mount Kasteel. Sell the estate. I'm sure I can move into the cottage with Jonas until I figure out what to do." She stopped herself from adding, "CJ can move in with you, and you both can live happily ever after."

He didn't reply.

Outside, the nation's capital continued to slide past, with its altars to presidents, its homages to the people, its secrets tucked in every corner.

"Congressman Perry knows," she said. "I don't know how he found out."

The seconds, the minutes, gnawed at her pride. She dabbed her tears; he did not seem to notice.

"Malcolm," she said, "I'm being blackmailed. The phone call you received was from the blackmailer. I wasn't in Philadelphia. I was in Grand Cayman. I've kept an account there for years. I started it with my share from Father's estate. I added to it whenever you gave me money for parties or decorating. When we remodeled the town house, I told you the cost was twice what it was. I put the other half in my account. I've let the money grow. I needed to know I'd have money to start over on my own." She stopped for a moment, then added, "I've always been afraid you would leave me, Malcolm."

If Mac was listening, he didn't acknowledge her. It was irritating, painful, humiliating. It reminded her of eighth-grade geography cla.s.s, when she'd copied the answers off Alice's test paper and Mr. Laufer had guessed.

"I'm not going to give either of you an F," he'd announced to the entire cla.s.s, "because I'm sure this must be a coincidence. I know that neither of you-certainly not Elinor-would cheat in my cla.s.sroom." No, certainly not the daughter of the headmaster.

She had been too mortified to admit that instead of studying she'd been helping her mother plan the spring faculty luncheon because it would win praises from Father and did not interest CJ. She'd been too mortified to admit that cheating had seemed preferable to receiving an unacceptable grade.

"Malcolm," Elinor said now because it did not seem the right time to degrade herself further by saying she knew he loved CJ more than he loved her, "the blackmailer found out I've been seeing Joe Remillard."

Mac turned his face in slow motion toward her, as if the planet had stopped revolving and he was quietly catching up. He looked at her briefly, then averted his eyes. "Jesus, Elinor."

That's when she got p.i.s.sed. She wanted to lash out, call him a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, tell him he had no right to judge her after the things he and CJ had done. She wanted to remind him that he was the one who'd chosen to sleep in another bedroom, not her. She wanted to shout to the driver to pull over, then bolt from the car, slam the door behind her, and disappear into the night.

Then Malcolm asked, "Do the children know?"

She fell silent, the eighth grader swallowing guilt. She looked back out the window and wished she had never seen Washington or Remy or even Malcolm, for that matter, wished she had never loved Malcolm, wished she did not love him still.

"There's a train out of Penn Station at three. We'll pull into Washington around seven. If we wait for a flight, we won't get there until later."

"Three in the morning?" Poppy asked, and Manny nodded. "But what about your kids?"

"I've been gone two nights already and they're fine. They know what I'd do if they aren't. I'll tell them I have to escort a prisoner."

"Oh," Poppy said, "right. I almost forgot about that."

It was worse now that they hadn't found any evidence against Duane, that the only clue they'd turned up was when Poppy found some of the words in Vanity Fair exactly as they'd been pasted onto the note. But the words in her copies of the magazine were intact, uncut, not used for blackmail. And Duane was still nowhere around.

The three of them-Poppy, Manny, and Yolanda-had stayed at Poppy's house all night and all day perusing every nook and cranny in search of anything that might link Duane to Elinor and the blackmail. But they hadn't found anything. Not even love letters from ladies that Poppy had feared.

By late afternoon, they'd fallen asleep like Belita, and hadn't woken up until the telephone had rung.

Now Poppy tossed a few things into an overnight bag. Bleary-eyed, the three of them and Belita headed for the Metro bound for New York City, then Washington and whatever awaited.

"I can get into Dulles at eight-fifteen in the morning," Alice said to Neal as she scooped her makeup from the vanity and deposited it in her bag. "I'm so sorry to do this, but Elinor needs me."

"I could say I need you, too, but we've already established that." He had told her the truth, that he'd canceled the dinner with the Tang folks because it would have been too boring without her, that he would have missed the way they talked to each other after those kinds of nights, the way they dissected the people and the power plays and the entrees.

He'd said he missed her.

She'd said she missed him, too. Or maybe it was the them that she missed.

She stopped what she was doing now, went back to the bed, leaned down, and kissed him. "You're the best, you know that."

He began to unb.u.t.ton her shirt. He reached inside, inciting a hot flash between her thighs.

"Neal," she nearly whined and pulled away. "I've got to go."

"Okay," he said. "I'll see you at home."

"After you're finished with the five women?"

He laughed. "There was not even one, O wife of mine."

"You smelled like Bijon."

"I didn't say one didn't try."

Alice laughed, because she deserved that. She brushed off the hot flash. "We are so silly, aren't we? Two people our age acting like jealous kids?"

He narrowed his eyes. "I love you, Alice Bartlett."

She blew him a kiss, reb.u.t.toned her shirt, and said, "Tell Kiley Kate that Grandma's sorry, but I'll see her soon."

"Our granddaughter will be too busy at Sea World."

Alice smiled, zipped up her bag, and reminded herself for the hundredth time since last night that she was glad she was alive, and glad she was his, and he was hers. As she went out the door, she checked her cell phone: there were no messages from Bud. He was a gentleman, as she had suspected.

Forty-six.

Elinor couldn't believe she had slept. She woke up after nine, surprised she was still alive, surprised nothing apparently had happened since she'd taken two sleeping pills and had tried to make the whole night go away.

It hadn't, of course, as the ache in her stomach reminded her now.

She got out of bed and looked around the master bedroom. She supposed Mac was down the hall, asleep in the guest room. How long had it been since they'd slept together? Since he'd started checking the Pacific Rim pharmaceutical markets into the wee hours. Since he'd claimed he had not wanted to disturb her.

Not that it mattered any longer.

They'd had no more conversation after Jimmy dropped them off at their front door. Once inside, Elinor merely said, "I'll leave in the morning." Malcolm didn't answer, so she went upstairs to bed, numbed by his silence, weighted by her shame.

If she had dreamed, she didn't remember, which no doubt was a good thing.

On her way to the bathroom now she picked up her cell phone and turned it on. Might as well see if the blackmailer had tried to reach her during the night.

The light flashed.

She had three new messages.

CJ.

CJ.

CJ.

The last one sounded frantic.

"Call me as soon as you hear this, E. It's important. I'm in trouble, big time."

Manny warned everyone not to touch anything in CJ's room. Yolanda reminded him this was about panties, not murder. Still, Alice and Poppy and Yolanda sat in the chairs and avoided the bed and the lavender lace. Manny stood by the window, holding Belita. CJ waited by the door for Elinor.

They remained in place like a sculptor's tableau until she finally showed up.