Prodigal Son (Orphan X #6) - Gregg Andrew Hurwitz Page 0,55
concrete blocks serving as stepping-stones zigzagging across still water. The dogs bounced from one to the next with practiced agility. Shaved hindquarters, scrawny legs, a poofy mane rimming beady features and sharp snouts.
“Barry’s obsessed with animals,” Veronica called over her shoulder, “but I have to say, these dogs look like they were put together by committee.”
They threaded through a kitchen and then down several wide steps to a sunken living room, complete with a fully stocked bar and a flat-screen television the size of a billboard. A stainless-steel bucket held a tilted magnum of Perrier-Jouët, the belle epoque bottle wrapped with painted flowers. Beside it a glass pitcher of fresh-squeezed orange juice.
Veronica filled another flute and then flopped down on an endless curved couch that formed a parenthesis across the savanna-tan carpet. He took a seat opposite her at the edge of a silver-gray chaise longue.
She gestured with her glass. “You’ll have to forgive the nouveau riche mishmash of … can we call it ‘styles’? Barry’s a movie producer. He’s on location now. It’s just me and his staff and these awful little dogs.”
At the mention the dogs sat and gazed up at her needily, panting.
A majordomo floated into sight in the vast doorway, wearing a black button-up with an Asian collar. His shiny bald head reflected the muted light of the kitchen. “Girls, come now,” he said, in some kind of a Slavic accent. He patted the thigh of his dark linen pants, and the dogs padded out after him, the trio vanishing.
For a moment Evan wondered if the man had been an illusion.
Veronica tucked her legs beneath her, folding them to one side, and ran a fingertip absentmindedly around the rim of the champagne flute. “I assume by now you’ve done some digging on me.”
Evan had indeed spent a few hours in the Vault prying into Veronica LeGrande. What she’d told him had checked out, and he’d unearthed a bit more. An only child, she’d grown up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Veronica’s father, the grandiosely named Bernard LeGrande, had been a structural-steel fabrication magnate. Her homemaker mother, Maryelizabeth, had spent years in and out of psychiatric hospitals for crippling phobia disorders before early-onset dementia had taken her out in her late forties.
Veronica had lived a privileged life, spending her high-school years at Linden Hall—the oldest all-girls boarding school in the country, established a full three decades before the nation’s birth. Three years of college at Vassar before dropping out and then patchwork records showing a gypsy lifestyle. Her father’s profligate spending had drained much of the family money before his death. Veronica had run through the rest rather quickly, it seemed, leaving her to rely on the kindness of strangers. Lots of passport activity, no mortgages, decent credit rating.
No children on record.
“Not really,” Evan said.
“I have a long history with not much to show for it.” She knocked back the rest of her drink and stretched her arms overhead. Firm neckline, smooth skin, youthful hazel eyes.
“Are you really sixty-two?” he asked.
She smirked. “Parts of me.” She brushed a lock of chestnut hair from her eyes. “Were you really trained to kill people?”
“I was.”
“I didn’t call you to do that.”
“You called me to help Andre.”
“Andre? I thought it was Andrew.” She rose to refill her glass. “I want you to help him. Not do whatever horrible things you’ve done in your past.”
He hadn’t considered wanting her approval, and yet her words twisted something inside him, something with jagged edges. “People are trying to kill him.”
“I’m not sure I believe that. He just needs a hand to get himself out of trouble. Got tangled up in the wrong situation. Maybe he owes some money. Needs some legal counsel.”
“You don’t understand anything about me,” Evan said. “What I do, what I don’t do.”
She kept her back turned, her hands resting at the bar, but he could see her shoulder blades tense. She paused a moment. Poured champagne without the OJ this time and downed it. When she turned around, she’d collected herself.
She replenished her glass once more, glided across the thick carpet, and set herself down on the cushions again a bit more heavily.
“How do you know Andre?” Evan asked.
Her eyes stayed low, on the rim of the flute. Hint of lilac in the air, the faintest trace of her perfume.
“Veronica. This is where you give me some answers.”
He could see a flutter to the side of her throat, her heartbeat making itself known. She looked into her glass as if the