Part II

Chapter 24

Barrett huddled over a cigarette on the terrace while the wind beat against his back and the waves crashed against the rocks below. It was ridiculously early to open up the summer house. Yesterday there’d been snow squalls, and today it was only in the forties. The house was big and old and drafty, a delight in the mild Maine summers, but in April the chill was still embedded deep into the walls and floor and furnishings, and even with the furnace running nonstop, it hadn’t shaken loose yet. The handyman and housekeeper who usually looked after the place were in Florida for the winter—Barrett needed to take a closer look at how much he was paying them—so he’d had to hire a crew from a temp agency, and they were proving to be wholly inadequate. He hadn’t had a decent cup of coffee in three days.

But this first week of April was the only slot that all the children had agreed upon, and this house was the only place they were willing to convene. The house in Rye had too many bad memories, they claimed, despite the fact that they’d spent no more than a handful of weekends there since he bought the place. It was because it was Melanie’s house, he knew that, and he also knew it was no coincidence that the week the children chose for this get-together was the same week Melanie would be at Canyon Ranch.

And after all that, they’d yet to spend more than a passing moment in each other’s company. Trey—Tripp—and Chloe had each brought an unannounced date, and when they weren’t holed up in their respective bedrooms, they were tooling around the coast in the jaunty little roadsters he’d leased for them. Courtney was in seclusion in her own room, nursing a broken heart and imposing strict instructions to leave her alone and deliver her meals on trays. While Christian, at twenty-four the baby of the bunch, was everywhere in the house and nowhere, wrapped up in a cocoon of marijuana smoke with a pair of headphones soldered to his ears.

As for Barrett himself, he’d spent most of the last three days on the phone in his study or outside smoking one frantic cigarette after another. Ever since he got that call from Culligan, ever since he learned that Lambert was stonewalling them, he’d been in full-scale crisis mode. Until that moment, she’d been nothing but a convenient scapegoat, and one he actually felt bad about. But now, now she was nothing but a threat. A bigger threat than tariffs, a bigger threat than taxes. Bigger even than Mark Ivins. She was the biggest threat this company had ever faced.

He’d spent the last three days making the arrangements. A stack of cash delivered to Culligan to pay her bail; another stack for Lambert to persuade her to get on the plane; an emergency passport in her name; a ticket to KL; and finally Tony Low waiting at the other end.