“No, ma’am,” Dempsey repeated, looking more miserable by the word. “I’m sorry, but no one gets in here. Not God, not any of his angels. Sorry, ma’am, really I am, but those are my orders. Taylor would have my guts pulled out and stuffed up my nose if I let anyone in.”
Barry raised an eyebrow at that.
Before Sydney could blast him, Barry called out, “We’ll keep an eye on her, lad.” He smiled at Sydney and pushed open the door. “Good lad,” he added to the officer as he passed him. Taylor said nothing until they were inside.
Lindsay was asleep, the bruised, swelled side of her face up. She looked like she’d been in a war, which she had been.
He immediately lowered his voice to a whisper, asking Sydney, “The judge is gone?”
“Yes, I waited until I actually saw him onto the plane. I even waited until the plane took off.” Sydney looked toward her half-sister. “God, she looks like bloody hell. She’ll be all right this time?”
“Yes. She tells me she wants combat pay.”
“I’m here to cut a deal.” She looked toward Sergeant Kinsley. “I don’t want him around. This is just between us, Taylor. Once you hear what I’ve got to say, I don’t think you’ll want Lindsay involved.”
“Okay, I’ll bite. What kind of deal?” Before she answered, she looked pointedly at Barry. Taylor said, “Can you wait outside for a bit, Barry? This really shouldn’t take long.”
“No, it shouldn’t,” Sydney said.
She said nothing more until the door closed.
She moved away from him, a good twelve feet away, he saw. “Well?”
“It’s about my father. I imagine you’ve been wondering why he hates her so much. Well, I’m here to tell you why.”
Taylor made certain Lindsay was asleep, then said, “All right, but keep your voice down.”
“Mind you, I didn’t know any of this until after Grandmother’s death, after the reading of the will, after Lindsay had already left to come back to New York.
“Grayson Delmartin, Grandmother’s lawyer, came back to the mansion after he’d dropped Lindsay off at the airport. My father started in on him immediately, telling him he was going to sue, yelling that Lindsay would never get away with it, and he’d tell every newspaper in the state, he didn’t care, and the world be damned. The Foxe name would go down the tubes, no doubt about that. He was going to tell, he was going to make a press announcement the following morning, and he was going to get all the money.
“I didn’t know what he was talking about. Neither did Holly.”
“Dammit, Sydney, get to the point.”
“He said that Lindsay wasn’t his daughter. He said that he’d found out the truth some eleven years ago and told his mother. She already knew, he said. She knew, and she wasn’t displeased. She told him to keep his mouth shut, that she wouldn’t tolerate him telling anyone about it. He agreed, oh yes, he said he’d keep quiet, but only if she promised to leave him all the Foxe money.”
“The judge isn’t her father—” Taylor shook his head. “That’s crazy. I’ve seen both of them. She’s got his eyes—they’re identical—that dark blue, mysterious, so deep it’s scary. And the shape, completely the same. Identical. Is the man blind? Or are we talking about a long-lost twin brother?”
“He screamed at Delmartin that his first cousin, Robert, was Lindsay’s father and he could prove it.”
“Cousin?” Taylor said blankly. “Lindsay never said anything about a cousin who looks like her, she’s never said a word about other relatives.”
“She never met him, never even knew he existed, as far as I know. Why should she? Her mother, the poor bitch, wouldn’t tell her, you can bank on that. This cousin was evidently there only a short time and then he was gone, and he never came back. He’s dead. He died in the late eighties, in a skiing accident in the Alps. Mind you, this all came from my father while he was screaming at Delmartin.”
“Weren’t there any photos of this Robert character? Didn’t your grandmother ever say a word?”
“Not a photo, not a clue.”
“What the hell kind of family is this? Oh, I forgot, you’re a big part of it. Go on, Sydney, finish this. I’ve already got an inkling about your punch line.”
“My price goes up every time you’re a shit, Taylor. This Robert was the son of my grandmother’s younger brother, and evidently the spitting image of him. The eyes, I found out, are hereditary. Of course, I never went sorting through any of my grandmother’s things either before or after she died. I remember wondering why Father couldn’t stand Lindsay. Of course, I never paid her any attention at all, although I remember thinking that something had changed, but I can’t be sure of the time because I was always in and out, usually out of the state. He started cutting her down whenever she came anywhere near him. Of course, he’s always adored me—a large part of that was because of my mother. I look like her, he says. He loved my mother more than anything in this world. So, through her, he gave me all his love, all his attention.”
“And you followed in his footsteps and became a real bitch to your half-sister.”
Sydney shrugged. “She was a pain, always in the way, and besides, she’s barely related to me.”
“All right, Sydney. I’ll bite. You’ve dropped one shoe. Where’s the other? How are you planning on keeping your father from screaming the truth to the media?”
Sydney smiled then. “I phoned Mr. Delmartin before coming back here to the hospital and told him what father had said and threatened. He laughed, said that Grandmother had foreseen his threats and had taken steps to see that he’d be disappointed—her word.”
“What are the steps?”
“I don’t know.”
Taylor said, “Probably some kind of legal adoption, I’d imagine, done between Lindsay’s mother and grandmother.”
“That sounds like the old lady,” Sydney said. “The miserable old biddy and—”
“Get on with it, Sydney.”
“All right. For five million dollars I’ll keep quiet about this; Lindsay will never find out the truth.” He raised his eyebrow and she said, “All right, let me spell it out, lover boy, for five million she won’t find out that her dear mother was a slut and she’s a bastard.”
Taylor laughed. “What makes you think her ex-father won’t be here yelling the truth at her just for revenge?”
“He can and will bargain with you himself, don’t doubt it. Once he calms down and realizes the potential of what he now knows, he’ll be right back here, ready to cut a deal.”
Taylor didn’t say anything for a very long time. Sydney, an excellent lawyer, knew not to move, not to fidget.
“All right,” he said.
“Just like that? You’ll come through with the five million just like that?”
“Oh, no, not a bloody dime.”
“Don’t you realize what this would do to your precious wife? Your precious very, very rich wife?”
“She’ll never know, at least from you. As to her father, he’s something of a wild card. I’ll just have to deal with him when and if he shows up.”
“You’ll deal with me!”
“No.”
“All right, let’s just wake up Lindsay and tell her!”
Taylor grabbed her arm as she tried to push by him. “Keep your voice down, Sydney. You won’t wake her up. You’ll listen to what I have to say to you. You see, I want to cut a deal with you.”
“You don’t have anything,” she said, but she was wary now, he saw it in her eyes.
“Your wonderful mother,” he said very quietly. “The woman your father adored, the woman who died, and all the women who came after her were just dull copies of this perfect woman. You’re just like her and that’s why your father treats you so well, why he worships you.”