“Not anymore,” Nadine muttered.
However, Irina was not a woman to bend to anything as weak as commiseration. Not when there was an error to be corrected. “You didn’t mention the controversy.”
Nadine stopped backing away. “Controversy?” There had been a cryptic comment under the obit before it had been expunged from the site, but Nadine hadn’t given it much thought. The comments section was so often a garbage fire. “That note aboutThirty Pieces of Silverwas true?”
Irina gave a surprisingly insouciant shrug with her narrow shoulder, like a French actress before swinging her kitten-heeled leg over a Vespa driven by a man named Alessandro. “Someone believes it is. It seems like something to look into.”
With that, Irina picked up the phone and held it to her ear without dialing or speaking, an indication the conversation was over.
Frustrated, Nadine stomped back up the stairs to her own desk, cursing herself for thinking she’d be allowed sanctuary anywhere in this office. Did Irina go home at night depressed if she hadn’t ruined someone’s day? Did she have a little dartboard with people’s faces on it to choose her victims, and why was it always Nadine?
Back at her desk, she tapped dully at her keyboard as her colleagues began to leave for the evening. Words appeared and disappeared, leaving ghostly reflections on the screen. Written and rewritten, combined and recombined.
Irina was right. That comment was intriguing, and the old Nadine would have been curious enough to look into it. She used to be keen and eager to get to the bottom of things that piqued her interest. She used to beinterested.
It was bad enough that she prematurely ran Dot Voline’s obituary. But if Irina was right and it was inaccurate? That was unforgivable, as was Nadine’s own lack of initiative. Was she losing her drive? She couldn’t let that happen.
She gave up typing and grabbed the hearse, spinning the toy’s wheels thoughtfully with her finger. Raj, who had been moved to her obit role, hadn’t cared when she asked to take it, too busy looking askance at a memento mori from some long-gone Heraldian’s trip along the Nile.
“Are these necessary?” he’d asked, picking up the mummy-shaped vase.
“Not at all. Feel free to tell Irina you dumped them because you have no respect for theHerald’s history,” Nadine said casually, rearrangingthe figurines to bring the coffin pencil holder front and center. An animated corpse handed over a pen when the lid lifted.
“Irina?” He’d grimaced. “They can stay.”
Nadine spun the wheels again. She had a lot to do. So why was she putting down the Hot Wheels hearse and typing “dot voline controversy” into her search engine?
Because she was curious, and she welcomed the feeling. After all, knowing things made her feel safe, as if knowledge was a protectant against life’s ups and downs, an emotional pepper spray. She would redeem herself by finding out what she’d missed in that obit.
She clicked on a photo of Dot Voline wearing a zebra-striped caftan and so many necklaces they formed a scarf. Nadine studied it carefully. Voline’s hair was carrot red, and huge square glasses covered her eyes. She looked like she would be a nightmare on an airplane and a delight on a cruise.
It took an hour for Nadine to decide that either Irina was wrong—doubtful—or there was more to this Voline scandal than met the eye. The physical evidence for a controversy was sadly lacking. There was only one reference in a profile to “whispers about the inspiration for her breakout book, Thirty Pieces of Silver, which might have reached Canada’s upper power echelons.” That was vague enough to mean nothing.
Out came her fidget hearse again, with the soothingclickety-clickof its little wheels. She could ask her old politics editor, Frank, who was walking around the deserted office checking the empty desks to see what people were working on. Rumor said he could read upside down. Usually his expression was jovial. Unobserved, his eyes were cold and his mouth thin. No, it wouldn’t be wise to remind people of her error with the obit.
Luckily, there was one person outside theHeraldwho knew the truth.
Tomorrow, she’d pay a visit to Dot Voline.
Four
Wes drank in the sight from his car. The house facing him was a testament to what happened when someone with questionable yet extravagant taste could afford precisely the home they wanted. According to her inopportune obituary, Dot Voline had married a childless industrialist twenty years her senior, a patron of the arts and a fervent supporter of his wife’s literary career until his death a decade later. Cattier profiles added that Allan Portson’s fortune had dwarfed Voline’s ample royalty money.
The grandiose wedding cake of a house was small compared to the properties on either side, but what it lacked in size, it made up for in visual impact. If Versailles had vomited up a bijou mansion that a Versace would consider excessive, it was Dot Voline’s home. Gleaming gold-painted gates were topped with panes of stained glass lilies. They blocked him from seeing much apart from a fountain sitting in the center of the circular driveway where Botticelli’sVenusspewed water out of her mouth. The entire place hurt his eyes, and he could tell Voline was a decorative lamp person rather than a functional overhead light person.
Climbing out of the car, Wes reviewed his plan of attack. He’d decided against calling for an interview since Voline was famously averse to granting them. He hadn’t wanted to blow his chance to talk by putting her on alert by contacting her publisher.
That left the old-fashioned way—knocking on the door or, in this case, the gate. He pressed his face against the bars to confirm the swans floating in the fountain were fake and to note a very real hot-pink Bentley gleaming in the driveway.
“Wes? Wes Chen?”
A woman’s sharp voice cut through the sound-dampening layers of old leafy trees and thick grassy lawn. Wes instantly knew who it was. Steeling himself, he turned around to greet his foe.
“Hello, Nadine.”
***
This was unbelievable. Nadine couldn’t speak. Wait, yes, she could. “What the hell are you doing here?” she asked.
