Ella’s phone chimes. She examines the caller ID, hesitates like she’s considering ignoring the call. “It’s my mother,” she tells Chris. “She never calls, so I’d better take this.” She puts the phone to her ear.
Chris watches as her face tightens with concern.
“Right now?”
An ambulance, siren blaring, barrels by. Ella puts a finger in her ear, anxious to hear whatever her mother’s saying. Her tone becomes more panicked. “What’s going on? Is something— Yes. I’m in the city.” She listens. “Okay, I’ll meet him at the apartment.” She clicks off.
“Everything okay?”
“I’m not sure. I’ve never heard my mom sound so frantic. She needs me to come home. She’s having a car pick me up at our apartment.”
* * *
Ella and Chris arrive at her mother’s estate in Summit at nine-thirty. Chris stares at the grounds, taken aback for a moment. Amid the grandeur, there’s a fleet of law-enforcement vehicles. A loud rattle of generators powering portable floodlights fills the night air.
Ella lowers the limo’s privacy barrier. “What the hell’s going on, Charles?” she asks the driver.
“You should talk to your mother,” the driver says.
Ella looks at Chris. She appears rattled, disoriented. Chris decides he should take charge of the situation, which is crazy because he remains rattled and disoriented, himself, not to mention concussed.
“Let’s go see what’s going on,” he says.
They walk up the steps to the porticoed entrance and are stopped at the front doors by an agent wearing a blue windbreaker.
“I’m sorry, Miss, but I’m not permitted to let anyone—”
“The hell you aren’t,” says an older woman from behind the agent, Ella’s mother, Chris presumes.
Behind her are two men in expensive suits—lawyers, Chris is certain. The gray-haired attorney puts a hand on Ella’s mother’s shoulder but she shrugs it off.
The lawyer addresses the agent. “The warrant is for the exterior only.” He says it with the calm confidence of the powerful. A lawyer of some stature, though Chris doesn’t recognize him. “There’s no reason to bar my client’s daughter from the house. They can stay on the main level, out of the way, like Ms. Monroe.”
Chris realizes that the agents are executing a search warrant. What the hell? He peers out over the estate grounds. The lights are clustered in a section that’s fronted by what looks like lattices for a rose garden.
The young agent makes a call, then motions for Ella to go inside.
“Who’re you?” the agent asks Chris.
Ella says, “He’s my lawyer.”
The agent relents and waves Chris along with her.
Inside the mansion, Ella’s mother, a distinguished and commanding figure, gives Chris a dismissive once-over, then turns to her lawyers. “I need a moment with my daughter.” Without waiting for assent, she pushes through the imposing door to what looks like a library. Ella follows her in and the door bangs shut.
Chris turns to the two lawyers. “What’s all this? A search warrant? What are they looking for?”
In a hushed tone, the older lawyer says, “They’re looking for trouble.” He hands Chris a sheaf of papers. The warrant and supporting affidavit. “And I’m afraid they just may find it.”
CHAPTER 65
ELLA
“What the hell’s going on, Mom?”
“Sit,” Phyllis says, motioning to the leather chair. The library is softly lit, but tonight it has the eerie feel of an old Hitchcock movie.
Ella lacks the energy to fight. She collapses into her father’s favorite chair.
Phyllis walks over to the bar and pours them both a drink. She seems to be searching for the words, which by itself worries Ella. It’s not like Phyllis to be at a loss for words. Her wealth has given her the confidence, no, the sense of entitlement, to say whatever comes to mind, without filter.
“They’re digging up the garden,” she says.
“Dad’s garden? What in the world…？”
Phyllis sits, takes a deep breath. “New Year’s Eve. I should’ve been there for you.”
Ella’s confused. This isn’t the time for belated apologies. Federal agents have raided the grounds.
“After what happened with your brother,” Phyllis continues, “I shut down. But your father, he got angry.”
Ella never saw him that way. Yes, Dad was different after what happened to Shane. More assertive with her mother, more independent from her. It seemed he’d finally gotten out from under Phyllis’s heavy thumb. But Ella never saw him as angry. Sad, yes. A man who cried in the dark in this very chair. And in the garden.