Revenge (David Shelley #1) - James Patterson Page 0,4
and carried into the crematorium.
There were just a handful of other mourners present, all of whom looked somber and shivered with cold: aunts, uncles, and sundry scattered family, by the looks of it.
From what Shelley could recall, the Drakes weren’t an especially close or affectionate clan. Guy Drake considered Susie and Emma his true family and everyone else as just relations. Guy’s attitude to his “relations” had changed when huge wealth entered the equation. Always the way. With money comes resentment, distrust, and entitlement. A whole bunch of shit you never considered when you bought your lottery ticket.
Guy and Susie stood slightly apart from the other mourners, drawn pale features accentuated by their funeral attire. Susie, tall and slim, as swan-like as ever, caught sight of Shelley, took a moment to recognize him, and then offered a weak smile in thanks.
Guy had put on weight over the intervening years. His jaw clenched and Shelley saw that his habit of moving his mouth as though chewing seemed to have become more pronounced over time—or perhaps it was just the stress of grief. He gave Shelley a short nod of recognition and gratitude, but it was a formal gesture, and something about the way his eyes slid away struck Shelley as odd, given how friendly they’d once been.
Shelley became aware of two new arrivals, a pair of bodyguards who wore suits in keeping with the occasion. They stood erect with their hands clasped in front of them, jackets cut so as not to reveal whether or not they wore shoulder holsters, which Shelley had a feeling they would be.
What’s more, he knew one of them—the older of the two, who had graying hair and a short salt-and-pepper beard and wore large, studious-looking spectacles. His name was Lloyd Bennett and, like Shelley, he was ex–special forces—a Para, in Bennett’s case. Like Shelley he’d sought new opportunities in security after being put out to pasture. Unlike Shelley, he’d joined the Circuit.
The two men acknowledged one another with nods, and Shelley wondered why he felt uncomfortable. Was it something as simple as professional jealousy? After all, there was a time when he was the one the Drakes called upon for close protection.
Or was it something else? Like why, when your daughter has just taken her own life, do you feel the need to employ security? Ex–special forces security at that.
The man next to Bennett was taller and younger, with close-cropped hair. He gazed over at Shelley but made no attempt to greet him, just stared, and for a moment their eyes locked, the guy trying to stare him out. Have it your way, thought Shelley, breaking the stare. I’m not playing.
A short while later, attendees filed into the crematorium. On their seats was an order of service, “A celebration of the life of Emma Jane Drake,” bearing a recent photograph of her. The small news piece Lucy saw on Mail Online had been little more than a headline, “MILLIONAIRE’S DAUGHTER FOUND DEAD IN HOSTEL,” and a couple of paragraphs of text. This girl he had known as a child had grown up to be a beautiful young woman. She’d had her mother’s fine features, her father’s determined eyes, an innate intelligence that was all her own.
Neither Drake nor Susie was in any state to give a eulogy, so the service was conducted entirely by a celebrant. Mourners chuckled and nodded in recognition at her descriptions of Emma as a bright, curious little girl, in love with life, ponies, and Destiny’s Child, in that order, as besotted with Mommy and Daddy as they were with her. No doubt about it, she’d enjoyed her only-child status, but rarely letting it tip over into spoiled-child territory.
Shelley had been curious to hear what she’d done next, and by all accounts she’d continued to show promise at her all-girl public school. Head girl, no less, she’d discovered a passion for theater. So much so that when she’d moved on, it was to York University and a BA in Theater: Writing, Directing, and Performance.
She’d never completed the course. And here the mourners’ chuckles died in their throats and the fond reminiscences ceased as the celebrant tactfully skirted the details of her last years, saying only that, like many of us, Emma had her demons, and that despite the love and support of her parents, Guy and Susie, who had reached out to her many times over the years, those demons had eventually claimed her.