unmarked bottle of as-yet-unidentified liquid squirreled away with her sex stuff.”
“Ah, well then, that may be illegals. Come, bring the wine you’ve barely touched, and eat.”
“Shelby said Huffman was sexually aggressive, and I’m betting that hasn’t changed. Sexy underwear, no surprise. Vibrators, well, a girl’s gotta do. But if that’s a sex illegal, who’s it for? The desk clerks—we checked with all of them and none recognized Ariel Byrd. She hasn’t been to Huffman’s apartment.”
“Perhaps she had yet another lover.”
“Possible,” Eve conceded.
She discovered they had roast chicken with some sort of herb stuff, slices of potatoes in a light creamy sauce and more herb stuff, and asparagus.
It all smelled pretty damn good. After a bite of chicken she decided it tasted the same.
“What if she uses it herself? Men don’t get her revved, but she’s got this fiancé. He wants some touch, so she needs the substance to get revved to have sex with him.”
“Well, that would be a sad state of affairs—pun intended—wouldn’t it now? Then again, the financial payoff’s considerable.”
“How considerable?” She poked her fork in the air. “You got it already?”
“It wasn’t much of a challenge. As her father stands as trustee, and has disinherited his son, the daughter gets the whole pie.”
“How big’s the pie?”
“When she marries—and it does specify she marries a male, a Caucasian male, an American-born citizen, and one approved by the trustee—she receives one hundred million.”
Pleased, Eve stabbed some chicken. “That’s a pretty big pie.”
“Until the time she marries, as specified, she gets much smaller slices of said pie. If and when she conceives—and delivers a child—within that marriage, she gets another hundred million.”
Eve took a small sip of her wine. “It sounds like a really big bribe.”
“It’s precisely that. Right now, she receives a biannual income from the trust. It’s generous, but, at six million annually, paltry in comparison. And if she doesn’t marry by the age of thirty-five, the income is cut off.”
“So, she comes by her manipulative streak honestly. And if she deviates from white, male, American?”
“The trust closes down, the income stops.”
“He may be worse than she is,” Eve remarked. “I haven’t done a deep dive on him yet. That’s next. Speculate,” she invited. “Does Merit Caine know about these terms?”
“Unlikely.”
As she thought it through, Eve ate some more, took another sip of wine. “She’s taking big risks—seeking out at least one lover could cost her that pie. And I’m betting more. A sexually aggressive, self-absorbed woman? A bunch of vibrators isn’t going to do it for her. She needs admiration, excitement. She knew about the trust way back when she was a teenager and hooked up with Shelby. The risks are part of the excitement. But she’s going to pick lovers outside of her own social pool, her stomping grounds. Why be stupid?”
“So a West Village artist.”
“Yeah, away from the Upper East Side, outside her social strata. She wouldn’t want to run into an ex at the next gala. Lots to play with here,” she decided, and speared some asparagus.
And decided to table murder for a few minutes.
“How come that house was so dingy and neglected? It’s prime real estate—even I know that.”
“The owners relocated, with the in-laws, to New Mexico for the warmer, drier climate. Some health issues, and the owners’ daughter had moved there with her husband, and had children. They’d hoped to keep the property in the family, but their son didn’t want it, and lives—for several years now—in London.”
“So why not sell?”
“Sentiment. They thought to split time between New Mexico and New York, but it simply didn’t work. The health issues, the difficulty of the in-laws traveling. In any case, with one thing and another, several years passed, and they finally accepted they had to let it go.”
“So they finally put it on the market.”
“Actually, no. I know the son in London, and he contacted me. He hoped I’d take a look at it, and consider buying it, making the necessary fixes—as he’d come out to take a look a few months ago and realized how, well, sad it had become.”
“Mega sad,” Eve recalled. “What did he think you’d do with it?”
“Sell it or rent it out, which I would have done—the renting out part, as it’s too much of a jewel to sell. At least straight off. The only stipulation his parents had was that a family would live in it. He understood that couldn’t be legally binding, but he hoped I’d respect their wishes.”
“Now there will be.”
“And now there will be.”