Chapter One
“Once upon a time”—Cosima Frank swept the rain from her curls with a sigh—“lawyers knew how to manage an estate with a bit of flourish.”
She pressed her trench coat into Duncan’s outstretched hands and shook out her umbrella, spattering rain onto the marble floor.
“Is that so?” Ever the gentleman, he carefully hung up her coat for her in the alcove off the foyer.
“Haven’t you seen the movies? They’re supposed to gather the mourners together for a reading of the will where dark secrets come to light. Perhaps an elegant young woman faints. That sort of thing.”
“Your meeting with the attorneys didn’t go how you expected?” Duncan offered her his fond, paternal smile, which Cosima made an effort to return. All the small muscles of her face that made it possible to smile had grown stiff with disuse.
“At one point, I wasn’t sure if the gentleman from the titlecompany was describing the Venice Beach lot Mother bought in the seventies or if he was casting a spell,” she said. “Although I did learn that her various waterfront investments have appreciated nicely. No one can say Phoebe wasn’t savvy with her money.”
Duncan glanced toward the center of the foyer, where a three-story-tall pink marble fountain of an elephant, complete with gold saddle, dominated the space. “At times,” he said diplomatically.
Duncan was always diplomatic.
She followed him to her mother’s study, where they had been meeting in the afternoons. The routine had settled on the pair of them in the quiet of the massive Beverly Hills estate that Cosima’s mother had liked to call “the Castle.” Without its queen, there wasn’t the bustle of staff making rooms ready for guests anymore. There weren’t caterers, or a bartender coming to the back entrance to set up in one of the lounges for a gathering. There weren’t deliveries of flowers or dresses. No architects or moneymen or agents or managers or glittering, famous, beautiful people here, admiring a new painting or antique.
It turned out the Castle was only the Castle because of Phoebe. Without her, it was a collection of empty rooms.
The smallest one was this study, where Cosima and Duncan could still smell a thin vapor of her perfume and survey the chaos piled on her desk, feeling as though she would walk in at any moment to kiss Duncan on the neck.
They settled into their chairs, a wingback by the tiled fireplace for Duncan and an Eames that could take all of Cosima’s long legs without making her back sore.
“Were there many photographers at the gate?” He reached down and pulled two seltzers from a concealed fridge in the study’s breakfront.
“Fewer. The rain’s so bad today.”
The weather for the funeral had been obediently sunny, seventy degrees, and clear as crystal—Los Angeles obeying Phoebe’s whims, as usual. But it had been raining ever since, for three weeks straight. The drumming of the rain became a constant in the background while Cosima sat to be interviewed about her mother, the Queen of Hollywood, and how nothing in the world would be the same without her.
The tears of the world would end, she assumed, whenever the rain did. On the first sunny day, the planet would start to spin again, and with it Phoebe’s legacy, which Cosima had inherited so she could preserve it forever.
She was the Castle’s princess, after all.
Duncan placed his seltzer bottle on the edge of the overflowing desk, centering it on a silver coaster. He pulled out his phone and a pair of tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses that made a distinguished contrast to his salt-and-pepper hair and beard. When he leaned back, his shirt settled into a drape worthy of Robert Redford. “Are you ready?”
Cosima took a deep breath through her nose. She counted to four before exhaling over a slow eight counts to settle her tight stomach. She’d had a number of doctor’s visits and tests attempting to get to the bottom of her sharp stomach pain, only to have a kind physician suggest that she consider developing a mindfulness practice and try deep breathing. It didn’t work—her stomach still managed to twist itself into a pinching knot—but she figured the extra dose of oxygen would assist with the next set of tasks at hand. “What do we have today?”
Duncan tapped his phone. “I’m sending you a file with terms from the public library for their display of Phoebe’s papers.”
Cosima retrieved her tablet from her bag and swiped it awake. “Got it.”
“I already had the attorneys review them, and I accepted their edits. You just need to sign.”
Nodding, Cosima dragged the papers into her project organizer. “Next?”
“There’s an issue with the release of the budget for the endowed theater chair at UCLA. When I talked to the foundation CFO, she said what’s needed is a phone call to the bank, but you’re the only one authorized to talk to them.”
“Right.” Cosima made a note, adding it to the list for her assistant to schedule an appointment. She took another slow breath.
Duncan leaned back in his chair and fiddled with his heavy gold wristwatch. Her belly cramped again, this time because he was stalling, and she knew why.
“You’ve seen the stock reports,” he said.
This wasn’t a question. In her Burbank office, a high-definition wall-mounted monitor displayed the vagaries of the global market in real time. She had a phone and a tablet and a laptop, all of them connected to the internet. In addition, Cosima received a crisp butter-yellow cardstock folder every morning with her breakfast. It, too, contained a market update, among other briefings essential to the operations of Phoebe Frank Studios, better known as PFS. It was the same folder her mother used to review while eating her own breakfast.
“Power vacuums make the market nervous.” Her voice sounded far away.
