Page 96 of Old Money

“No, dear.”

“Excuse me?” I lunge toward the counter. “Jesus, all that money you made with that bullshit book about her, and now you won’t lift a finger?”

Gordon’s dog startles awake. He lifts his head and gives an anxious little whine.

“Duncan.” Gordon signals him to lie back down, but the dog ignores the gesture, rising up and trotting to Gordon’s side.

“Let’s sit.”

Gordon nods toward the living room. I wait—I don’t need to do what he says.But I do need his clout.Silently, I follow.

He gestures to a set of lounge chairs beside the glass wall, settling into his with a heavy sigh.

“I’m guessing you haven’t read my bullshit book?” he begins, eyes slightly downcast. “Of course not, apologies. Well, as you know, I was a member back then. So I knew the Yateses. Only slightly—just enough to say, ‘I knew them.’ We knew the Dales a bit better. My wife, Vivian—my late wife—she played doubles with your aunt for a time. Vivian was the aristocrat.Shewas the reason we were invited to join the club, but truth is, she wasn’t much interested. I was the one who insisted. I was ambitious.”

Gordon rubs absently at a cramp in his left thigh.

“Ambitious, and half in the bag most of the time,” he adds. “I wanted to be a writer. Then your cousin died, and the stories were coming out. I saw a chance and grabbed it.”

“And?” I prompt, and his eyes flash hard at me.

“I understand your anger, Alice, but just give me a goddamn minute, all right?”

His voice is calm but brittle, and I rock back slightly in my chair.

“And,” Gordon continues, “I got it. I got the book deal. Then Whit Yates found out about it—I don’t know how, but I’d only just signed the contract when he showed up and gave me what for.”

“You mean—here? He came here himself?”

Gordon takes a deep breath, his eyes wide with memory.

“Hard to imagine it, I know.” He nods. “He was a sitting senator back then, recall. The idea of him making open threats—unheard of. He neverhadto. Everyone deferred to him regardless.”

Gordon looks up with a bitter half smile, touching his chest.

“Understand, it wasn’t valor on my part, crossing him. It was plain ego. That, and—well, I didn’t grow up here. You hear about men like that ruining lives, crushing people like flies, but you see, I didn’t realize the mighty myth wasreal. Not until it came banging on my door.”

Just the thought of it makes my mouth go dry.

“What did he say to you?” I ask quietly.

“He said enough—enough to make a believer out of me. I was scared shitless, but angry too. This was my big shot, but Yates had me by the throat. I was hellbent on writing the book, but I just couldn’t put pen to paper.”

He turns up his palms, and I wait for him to fill in the rest. He doesn’t.

“But you did,” I add. “Eventually.”

Gordon shakes his head.

“I didn’t. Each time I tried, I choked. I did that for a whole damn year before I went crawling to the publisher. They put me in a room with a ghost—a real writer. And I sat there and ran my mouth whilehewrote the book.” He sits back and points at me. “And you’re right. It is bullshit.”

I search his inert face.

“I don’t understand.”

Gordon holds my gaze and shakes his head.

“There’s nothing new in that book—not about the murder. Those details I got from the news, same as everyone. I didn’t add any revelations because I didn’t have any. I didn’t talk to anyone—not that anyone would’ve talk tomeby then, but I didn’t even try. And I didn’t see what happened, Alice.”