Lana nodded.
“If anyone’s going on a date with a murderer, Ma, it might be you.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
The third day after chemo was always Lana’s worst. She felt a century older than she had a week ago, when she’d first ventured out for her investigation to meet up with Paul. She was exhausted. Her scalp itched all over. And she had mysterious aches. This morning she woke up with a dead left arm, as if a raccoon had slept on it. She couldn’t raise her hand above the shoulder without piercing pain. But she had meetings to attend, and a job is a job. Even if you aren’t getting paid.
Lana downed two aspirin and got dressed one-handed. The pale blue skirt suit hung loose on her frame, and she was starting to look more stick than figure. For the first time in her life, she was trying to gain weight. It wasn’t easy. Anything she forced down stuck in her throat like a mouse trying to burrow through a drinking straw. Today, she’d managed half a protein shake, a banana, and coffee before the mouse came sniffing. Her doctor had warned her off caffeine, but there were only so many concessions a woman could make. She slid into her slingback stilettos, the ones with the metal heels, stuffed her legal pad in her leather tote, and opened the garage.
Her gold Lexus rested quietly on the concrete. Lana hadn’t driven since the collapse. It took two months to convince Beth to clean out the garage so she could have it shipped north, then another two for Lana to get over her fear of having another fainting spell behind the wheel. It didn’t help that getting to Stanford Hospital required driving over a twisty mountain highway behind clattering trucks packed with boxes of lettuce and strawberries. Easier to rely on her daughter than risk ending up splattered jam salad.
But today was the day. She wasn’t going to overthink it. Lana strode up to the driver’s side door and felt the satisfying clunk of the latch disengaging, the door opening smoothly against her thumb. She felt the engine purr to life beneath her foot on the brake. After a flash of pain when her left arm gave out and she had to twist and pull the door closed with her right, she got moving. It was only after she crossed the bridge over the slough that she realized she’d been holding her breath.
The turnoff for the equestrian center where Lady Di trained was marked by a small, tasteful sign set into a wall of sculpted hedges. A security guard buzzed Lana through the gate and onto a private road lined with blocks of polished granite and gnarled Monterey cypress trees. The effect was something between a secure CIA facility and an ancient coastal forest. Lana parked and gave her name to a severe-looking woman with an earpiece by the front door of a stately, hulking building. Less than a minute later, a clean-shaven young man dressed entirely in white emerged from behind the heavy oak door.
“Mrs. Whitacre is still in session,” he said. His tone was half-apologetic, half-proud, as if Lady Di was to be admired for her dedication. “She called ahead and asked for you to come meet her at the arena. If you’ll follow me?”
The young man waved her into an electric golf cart and chauffeured her along a curving cobblestone pathway. There were women and horses everywhere. Young women in skintight pants leaping over fences. Older women in crisp jackets, turning dizzying circles around a ring. A group of eight-and nine-year-olds, their hair pouring like wheat from under their helmets, learning the proper way to mount. It was everything Lana had always imagined the Christian girls doing while she was stuck at Hebrew school.
The golf cart pulled up alongside a rectangular ring, in which a black horse with a plaited mane was prancing. It hopped sideways, then trotted in place, like a small child with a desperate need for the bathroom. Diana Whitacre sat astride the horse, wearing spotless ivory breeches, a black blazer, and tall black boots. As far as Lana could tell, the silvery whip Diana held in her white-gloved hand was just for show. The woman was controlling the horse with some kind of witchcraft.
After an impressive and confusing display of goose steps and pirouettes, Diana walked the horse in a slow promenade around the ring. When she reached the gate, she swung herself off the saddle and handed her helmet to a groom without looking at him.
“Lana!” she called out. Diana’s perfectly white skin was flushed, her blond hair pressed sweatily to her head. Lana gave her a smile and a curt wave, keeping a respectful distance from the heaving horse.
“I appreciate you coming to our little stable,” Diana said. She clipped a lead rope on her horse and started walking toward a large tent. The golf cart had disappeared, so Lana had no choice but to follow her. The tent was noisy and moist, with overhead fans drowning out all other sound. Lana realized the droplets hitting her jacket were coming from giant misters placed above each stall.