Клэр Донелли - Hiss And Tell

“The young people,” Cale pointed out. Sunny recognized the sandy-haired girl, in a much more sensible bathing suit, before Cale nodded toward her. “That’s Cillie over by the springboard. Carson’s the blond guy beside her.”

Carson de Kruk was tall and slim, throwing his head back to laugh at something Cillie was saying. With her fair coloring and more refined features, Priscilla didn’t look much like her uncle Caleb; maybe, like Carson de Kruk, she took after her mother’s side. Or maybe she represented another genetic string. It had to be more than twenty years since Priscilla’s father had died in that accident while campaigning. Sunny only had blurry memories of a guy with Kennedyesque hair on political posters. She couldn’t remember Mrs. Lem Kingsbury at all, except that the woman had suffered a breakdown and later died.

Cale waved, and Priscilla waved back. “Put on a suit and join us, Uncle Cale!” she called.

“No way,” he replied. “The last thing your party needs is an old fogey hanging around.”

He drove past the pool, shaking his head reminiscently. “Used to have a lot of fun there, back in the day.”

Soon enough, they arrived back at the little parking area. “Your inconvenient fella should be long gone by now,” Cale said.

He was right. As they came back up to the makeshift stage, the area was empty except for a few Kingsbury security staffers who gave Sunny surprised looks as Cale escorted her past them. “The troopers take their job really seriously,” he said, as they reached the roadblock. “No cars allowed to stop. I hope they didn’t scare off your ride.”

“I’ll be fine,” Sunny replied. “I’m a local, from down in Kittery Harbor.”

“Well, then, good luck, neighbor.” Cale smiled. “It was nice to meet you, Sunny.”

Sunny smiled back. “Thank you for being so gallant—and gracious.”

She waved good-bye and passed the troopers . . . then saw Will Price, fuming, in a Kittery Harbor patrol car.

4

Sunny walked overto the open driver’s-side window. “I hope Ken Howell didn’t ask you to come up here and get me,” she said.

But as it turned out, Will hadn’t even known Sunny was still around, nor did he now think to ask why she’d been there so late after the press conference. “I just had another wonderful meeting with the head of security around here, Lee Trehearne,” he vented. “Some security. I got to hear all his complaints about what a traffic jam the news trucks caused, and how we’ll need more officers to handle crowd control on the day of the big event.”

Will shook his head in frustration, but he did agree to give her a lift back to Kittery Harbor, where Sunny dropped off the camera with Ken Howell, who immediately had one of his interns working to download the photos. “That I can trust them to do,” he muttered to Sunny. “They still have a lot to learn before I can let them actually take the pictures.”

“All I’ve got are shots from the press statement,” she said apologetically. “When Caleb Kingsbury took me around the compound, it was on the condition that I didn’t take any pictures.”

Ken shrugged philosophically. “Not surprising. That’s pretty much what always happens. The only pictures that come out of there nowadays are official photos. Even the stuff on Facebook looks professionally staged and vetted. Anything else to report?”

“I got a lot of old family stories—interesting, but I don’t think there’s any way to tie them in with the statement by the wedding planner. Oh, and one piece of hard news, if you can really call it that: Carson de Kruk is already in the compound. Cale pointed him and the bride-to-be out to me as we passed by a pool party.”

“Cale, eh?” Ken cocked his head. “How was Mister Kingsbury?”

“Very nice,” Sunny replied. “But whether it was politician nice or pickup-artist nice, I couldn’t tell.” She grinned. “Or maybe he had nothing better to do, and helping me out of an embarrassing situation appealed to him. I spotted someone in the crowd, my former editor.” She paused for a second. “We were an item, once. Seeing him sort of threw me off.”

Trust Ken to be all business at such a revelation. “You don’t usually see an editor out in the field, unless it’s for a small operation like mine,” he said. “Why do you think a New York paper like the Standard would send him all the way up here?”

“I don’t know, and I’m sorry, Ken, but I don’t want to find out,” Sunny told him. “If I talk to anyone who’s still on the paper, it’s sure to get back to Randall, and I’m in no mood to deal with him.”

Outwardly, Ken accepted that, but Sunny could sense the wheels turning in his head. “I wonder where he’s staying,” the editor said.

“Well, I can assure you he didn’t get a bed and breakfast reservation through the MAX site,” Sunny replied. “In the old days, especially for an editor, the Standard would have sprung for the best hotel or motel nearby. But working on a tighter budget, I don’t know how that affects the old expense account.” She headed for the door but then stopped and glanced over her shoulder. “And let me repeat, I don’t care.”

Sunny returned to the MAX office to find everything going smoothly. No smoke was pouring from the back of the computer, Nancy sat at the keyboard posting information to one of the databases. “Ollie tried to hang around until you came back, but he got a call from the rehab center. I heard Elsa’s voice on the line, so he didn’t put up a fight.” Nancy leaned forward eagerly. “So how’d it go? Give me all the details, I’m living vicariously through you.”

“The press conference wasn’t very exciting,” Sunny told her. “They had the wedding planner telling the newspeople how to behave. Not exactly riveting stuff—especially since any reporter worth his or her salt would happily break any of those rules for a good story. But,” she added as Nancy’s face fell, “Caleb Kingsbury did take me on a personal tour of the compound.”

Nancy obviously recognized the name—and judging by her expression, she hadn’t heard good things about its owner. “Isn’t he kind of a skeevy guy?”

Sunny had to laugh. “That’s something you learn in the journalism business, Nancy. It’s the skeevy guys who usually give you the best stories.”

Nancy looked unconvinced. “Did you see anyone else?”

“I saw Priscilla Kingsbury and Carson de Kruk, but at a distance,” Sunny said.

Nancy leaned forward, all eagerness again. “What did they look like? Is Carson as good-looking in person as he seems in the papers?” Nancy asked. “He doesn’t look at all like his dad.”

“No, Carson was lucky enough to get his mother’s genes,” Sunny agreed, though she wasn’t sure which one of Augustus de Kruk’s ex-wives was Carson’s mother. His father had gone through a string of spouses, mostly blond, all beautiful. Which had certainly helped to balance out the genetic books, since Augustus himself looked like a bald eagle suffering from some kind of digestive upset.

“So . . . what are they like?”

“You mean, are the rich really different, the way people say?” Sunny shrugged. “I’ve met a couple of rich people, and they certainly have concerns and a view of the world I can scarcely guess about. The house there was probably bigger than this whole block, and I’ve never had servants jumping to take care of me.”

“Neither have I,” Nancy sighed.

“On the other hand, the pool partly looked like a pool party. Nobody seemed to be wearing a solid gold bathing suit. I bet there were expensive designers involved, but I couldn’t really tell that from a distance. It was just people drinking and dancing. So I’d say not all that different, really.”