Chapter 7 7

The Mullen estate in Long Island was less a house and more a mausoleum for the living.

The dining room was silent except for the clinking of silver against china. Twelve people sat at the long table. Aunts, uncles, cousins. They all looked at her like she was a bacteria culture in a petri dish.

"So," Aunt Beatrice sniffed. "You're the Bailey girl. The one who... had the episode."

"I'm feeling much better, thank you," she said, cutting her steak.

At the head of the table sat Grandmother Mullen. She was ninety, confined to a wheelchair, and looked like she ate nails for breakfast. Her eyes were milky with cataracts, but she saw everything.

She hadn't spoken a word to her.

She winced as she reached for her water glass. Her hand trembled. She rubbed her left knee.

She watched her. The way she favored the leg. The swelling around the joint visible even through the thick stocking.

She stood up.

"Edythe," Cedric warned, his voice low. "Sit down."

She ignored him. She walked to the head of the table. The room went deathly silent.

She knelt beside the wheelchair. She didn't kiss her hand. She picked up a napkin, dipped it into a glass of hot water from the tea service, and then grabbed a salt shaker.

"What are you doing?" Beatrice shrieked. "Don't touch her!"

She ignored her and spoke softly to the old woman. "It's humid tonight. The barometric pressure is dropping. The inflammation flares up. It hurts, doesn't it?"

Grandmother Mullen looked down at her. "Like the devil."

"May I?"

She nodded, slightly.

She wrapped the hot, damp napkin around her knee, creating a makeshift compress. She then gently massaged the area around the joint, using broad, firm strokes that looked more like a folk remedy than a medical procedure. It was a simple technique to increase circulation, something any attentive grandchild might do.

After two minutes, the old woman let out a long breath. Her shoulders dropped.

"Better?" she asked.

"Much," she rasped. She looked at Cedric. "She has good hands. Observant."

She pulled a ring off her finger. It was a square-cut emerald the size of a postage stamp.

"Take it," she said.

The table gasped. Beatrice looked like she was going to choke on her asparagus.

"Grandmother," Cedric said, "That's the matriarch's ring."

"She's your wife, isn't she?" The old woman shoved the ring into her hand. "Don't lose it."

She took the ring. She didn't put it on. She slipped it into her clutch.

"Thank you," she said.

She walked back to her seat. She felt Cedric's eyes burning a hole in the side of her head.

Later, in the garden, Cedric lit a cigarette. The smoke curled into the night air.

"You know remedies," he said. It wasn't a question.

"I spent a year in a sanatorium," she lied smoothly. "You pick things up. The nurses there had all sorts of old tricks."

He studied her. He didn't believe her. But he couldn't prove otherwise.

She checked her watch. 11:30 PM.

"I'm going out," she said.

"Out? It's midnight."

"I have a friend in the city. I need to blow off some steam. Unless I'm a prisoner?"

"Where?"

"The Sterling Club."

Cedric paused. He laughed. A short, dark sound. "The gay bar in Chelsea?"

"Is it?" she feigned innocence. "My friend likes the music."

He relaxed. He thought she was going to dance with drag queens. He didn't know the Sterling Club was the front for the biggest information broker on the East Coast.

"Take the car," he said. "Don't be late."

She got into the back of the Maybach.

"Sterling Club," she told the driver.

As they pulled away, she saw Cedric watching from the terrace. He thought he had bought a pet. He had no idea he had let a wolf into the house.