He’d fetched the old police incident reports and been startled to realize that the teenaged Traci Davis who’d unsuccessfullyattempted to save Hudson’s life back then was now the CEO of the Saint.
Hoke Eddings was ten years older, the scion of one of the wealthiest families on the Georgia coast, and Traci was a townie, from a working-class family. Unlike her husband, who had an Ivy League education and a newly minted MBA, she’d graduated from the local community college and married Hoke Eddings before the ink was dry on her diploma.
The Savannah and Jacksonville papers he found online were full of breathless accounts of the whirl of parties and soirees hosted on behalf of the happy couple’s nuptials, and a dozen years later, the headlines were about the multi-year, multi-million-dollar expansion of the Saint, rebuilding much of the hundred-year-old hotel complex originally built by Hoke’s grandfather, and turning it into an up-to-date five-star luxury resort.
Then, just as the project was nearing completion, came the plane crash that had left Traci Eddings a widow and the CEO of the resort. Whelan could find no mention of children in Hoke’s obituary. Maybe that explained why she was so close to her niece.
He watched now as she fielded questions, deferring to the sheriff, her expression neutral, until the shithead from Jacksonville asked if the dead girl had been raped.
Traci had recoiled as though she’d been slapped, leading the sheriff to step in and definitively quash the rumors.
When the press conference was over and the reporters had begun to pack up to leave, she’d spotted him at the back of the crowd and acknowledged him with a nod. Then, she said something to the older man and walked over to greet him, stopping to fetch a bottle of water from a tub near the makeshift stage.
She gave him the bottle and a weary smile. “I was hoping to catch you today, to thank you for bringing my car back this morning. It’s been quite a day.”
“I watched the press conference. You handled it like a pro.”
“Really? I felt numb, like I was watching someone else speaking.”
“It couldn’t have been easy for you,” Whelan said. “Especially after what that one jerk asked.”
He uncapped the bottle and took a long drink. “Guess I better get back to work. We’ve got, like, a hundred flats of begonias to get in the ground today.”
She looked over at the area where the rest of his crew had nearly finished.
“It’s looking really nice.”
“All the rain we’ve had helps,” he said. He gave her a mock salute with the water bottle and started to walk away.
“Hey, Whelan? I don’t know what time you get off, but I’ve got to run into town late this afternoon, and I could give you a ride, if you want.”
She noticed the startled expression on his face, and felt the same surprise. What possessed her to make such an offer?
Maybe it was the memory of how kind he’d seemed last night? A stranger who’d shown genuine concern during her wine-soaked, regrettable near-breakdown.
Was she really that needy?
No matter. She’d made the offer on an impulse and it was too late to back out now.
“Really?” Whelan asked. He pointed to his clay-caked boots, mud-stained Carhartts, and only slightly damp T-shirt. “You don’t want me riding in your nice car like this.”
“It’s fine,” she assured him. “I might get you to put those boots in the trunk, though. Why don’t you head up to the hotel around six.”
By the time she returned to her office her inbox was flooded with emails, and her phone kept dinging to notify her of incoming text messages. All the news outlets had already broken the news of Parrish’s cause of death online, and more reporters were calling withmore questions. Maybe Andy Plankenhorn had been right. Maybe she really should have let the Saint’s PR agency put a more subtle spin on the story.
She ignored most of the text messages and worked her way through the emails, replying “no comment” to all the queries from reporters, and answered at least a couple dozen emails from longtime members who wanted to be reassured that the Saint was no longer considered a crime scene.
It was past five when her phone rang and the disembodied voice identified the caller as Ric Eddings.
She was tempted to let the call go to voice mail, but knew it would only infuriate her always infuriated brother-in-law even further.
As soon as she tapped Connect, she regretted that decision.
Ric’s voice was a low growl. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing? I turn on the TV a little while ago and there you are, crying alligator tears and talking about my daughter—my daughter,and how she died because she was drinking and doing drugs and getting raped. I swear to God, Traci, if I could get my hands around your throat right now…”
His words were slurred, which meant he was probably deep into the scotch bottle.
“Stop right there,” she said. “Someone leaked the coroner’s report to the press, Ric. The news was already out and half a dozen TV vans were camped right outside our entrance before noon. They were gonna report it with or without a statement from me.”
