Betrayals

Twenty-Five

Mai had spent the day in a state of nervous anticipation and by early evening was ready to execute her plan. She wandered out to the pool where Maureen, back early from the gallery she ran, was arranging a monstrous vase of flowers and humming to herself. She was a handsome, amiable woman, maybe twenty years younger than Wesley Sloan, though it was hard to tell. She had a college-aged son from a previous marriage and said she considered Mai more of a friend than a stepgranddaughter.

“I don’t feel very well,” Mai announced.

“What’s wrong? Do you have a fever-”

“Just a stomachache. I’d like to stay in my room, if it’s okay. You won’t mind if I skip dinner? I really don’t think I could eat anything.”

“Of course I don’t mind, sweetie. Do you want some aspirin?”

“I’ll be okay, thanks. I think I just need to rest.”

“Well, you let me know if you need anything.”

Promising her she would, Mai had to force herself not to skip back inside. Her dad and grandfather might blame Maureen for not seeing through her ruse, but most likely, Mai knew, they’d be too busy killing her to bother.

But as her dad said, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do and take the consequences.

Going to Boston was something she had to do. It was more important right now than being a nice, obedient teenager. She was afraid for her father, angry at being left out of what he was doing…and sure-so sure-that the white-haired man, her dad’s reaction to him and his sudden trip to Boston all had something to do with her. She was going to find her father and make him tell her what was going on. Make him be fair. She had rights, too. And she wasn’t a chicken. She’d explain to him that it was worse not knowing, worse wondering and being scared, worse thinking maybe she’d caused her mother’s death in Saigon and his breakup with Rebecca Blackburn in 1975.

She could take whatever it was he hadn’t told her.

Instead of going up to her room, Mai slipped out the front door.

George was being dispatched in the limousine to pick up a Parisian couple at the airport who were spending the week as the Sloans’ houseguests in Tiberon. He was out at the pool, getting instructions from Maureen.

Mai slipped into the back of the cavernous limousine and curled up on the floor, hiding underneath a tartan wool throw. It was hot and stuffy, but she’d survive. George wasn’t expecting a passenger. He’d never notice her.

She was right.

He climbed into the car, and in another minute Mai felt the limousine cruising out of the hills of Marin County, over the Golden Gate Bridge and through San Francisco to the airport.