“Vultures.”

Lizzie had to agree. The news crews had set up camp around the main entrance to the estate days ago, their trucks and equipment crowding River Road and nearly eclipsing the great stone pillars of the Bradford estate.

Harpies. All of them. Just waiting to take pictures through car windows that they would curate to fit their headlines, regardless of the actual context around the snapshot: If Lane looked down to adjust the air control on the car’s console, that head tilt and expression could be paired with Bradfords Lose Everything!; a hand raised to scratch a nose would suddenly represent Lane Baldwine Cracking Under Pressure!; the twitch of a mouth and shift of a gaze sideways would be used to punctuate Unrepentant in Bankruptcy!

To think there had been a time when she had trusted the press. Hah. There was nothing like being on the inside of a scandal to learn just exactly how much of the news cycle was engineered to get viewers, clicks, and comments. As opposed to report the facts.

Walter Cronkite turned in for Ryan Seacrest.

The trouble was, the Bradford fall from grace was clickbait, big-time. People just loved to see the rich tumble from their lofty heights.

It was better than any success story.

SEVEN

Cave Dale Cemetery was the only place in Charlemont that a Bradford would ever be buried—and even then, they were not put into the ground like commoners but rather locked in a marble temple that, as Lane’s grandfather had always said, was only a vestal virgin and an animal sacrifice away from securing the fortunes of Rome.

As Lane drove down the outside of the cemetery’s wrought-iron, Addams Family fencing, he looked through the bars to the countless grave markers, religious statuary, and family crypts that hodgepodge’d around the rolling grass, specimen trees, and pools. How the hell was he going to find where his ancestors were kept? Once you were inside all those acres, in that maze of winding lanes, everything looked the same.

But first, an immediate problem.

As he rounded the corner to the entrance, there were reporters . . . everywhere. With cameras. And news crews.

Damn it, he should have known—

“Are those . . . more news trucks?” Lizzie said as she sat forward in her seat.

Sure as bourbon burned the gut, there was yet another encampment of paparazzi around the great stone-and-iron pillars of the cemetery—and with the Phantom Drophead being about as inconspicuous as a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day float in May, there was a flurry of activity at its approach, cameras flashing even though at eleven a.m. there was plenty of light.

Great. So he had two choices. Pump the brakes and give them a fishbowl into the car.

Or he could just plow through the bastards.

Not really much to deliberate, was there.

“Duck your heads,” Lane barked as he hit the gas.

The Rolls-Royce surged forward and he wrenched the wheel, piloting that heavy bank-vault front grille with its Spirit of Ecstasy on a path directly into the throng that was blocking the way in.

“You’re going to hurt someone!” Lizzie yelled as she braced herself.

“Mow them down!” his sister called out from the back.

Meanwhile, the men and women with the cameras just kept snapping away, ignoring the whole E=mc2 thing.

Gripping the steering wheel, he hollered, “Get the fuck back!”

As security guards came rushing out of the guardhouse, he did indeed strike someone, the guy with the Nikon bouncing off the hood, while somebody else kicked at the bumper and all kinds of people cursed and threatened to sue.

Lane just kept barreling through, until the Rolls was on the cemetery’s property.

In the rearview, he checked to see if anyone was bleeding or down on the pavement—or if the security guards were coming after him with guns drawn or something: Nope, although it was going to be a long while before Lane forgot the sight of one of those paparazzi smiling even though he was in the choke hold of one of the guards.

Clearly, the harpy had gotten what he’d been after.

As another of the guards started waving and coming after the car, Lane slowed to a stop but kept his window up.

“We’ll hold ’em in place, Mr. Bradford,” the man said through the glass. “Y’all just keep on going down to the left. Follow the signs for Fairlawn Lane. You’re right there, ’bout halfway down. We gotchu ready at your place.”

“Thank you.” Lane cursed under his breath. “And I’m sorry about all those reporters.”

“Y’all don’t worry now, just go on, though. We can’t calm them down until you’re out of sight.”

“How should I leave when we’re through?”

“Follow any of the lanes down the hill. It will hook into the back road and take you to where the rear entrance is by the outbuildings.”

“Great, thank you.”

“Y’all take care, now,” the man said with a little bow.

Lane drove on quite a distance before he was confident they were out of telephoto lens reach. “Okay,” he said. “The coast is clear now.”

The women uncurled themselves, and as he took Lizzie’s hand again, he checked on Gin and Amelia in the rearview.

The girl’s eyes were shining with excitement. “Oh, my God, that was so cool! That, like, happens to Kardashians.”

Lane shook his head. “I’m not sure that’s a standard anyone should want to be measured by.”

“No, I’m serious, I’ve seen it on TV.”

“I thought Hotchkiss taught you important stuff.” Lane frowned as they came up to an intersection. “Like calculus, history—”

He hit the brakes and tried to remember. Left or right? Down the hill? Or over to—was it Fairlawn?

A tinny little horn meep-meep’d behind them. And as God was his witness, Lane was so ready to flip the glove box open, grab the nine that was in there, and start shooting—

“Samuel T.?” he said as he did a double take in the rearview.

Hitting the window button, he stuck his head out and was so glad to see the other guy in that vintage Jag. “That really you?”

Like there could be another classic maroon sports car in this graveyard with a model-worthy Southern gentleman farmer/ attorney behind the wheel?

“You lost there, boy?” Samuel T. drawled as he lifted his Ray-Bans. “Need an escort?”

“I do indeed. Lead on, wayward son.”

As Samuel T. lowered those dark lenses back into place and headed forward, Gin muttered, “Who invited him?”

Lane shrugged and followed the leader, sticking close to the convertible. “I mentioned it yesterday.”

“Next time, perhaps discretion would be appropriate.”

“He is my lawyer,” Lane said with a smile.

Gin calling for discretion? Huh, he thought. Maybe this all was some kind of a bizarre dream, and he would wake up with the company still okay, Edward out of jail, Miss Aurora back in her kitchen, and Easterly staffed up and ready for a Memorial Day party to beat all others.

He’d keep his happiness with Lizzie, of course.

And . . . yes, he’d still have his father in the trunk.

In ashes.

As Gin sat in the backseat of the Phantom, she couldn’t decide whether to shut down or start throwing the f-bomb around like it was confetti.

In the end, she went with the former for two reasons: One, screaming and yelling required more energy than she had, and besides, that former act of hers was getting old; and two, she was concerned about what would come out of her mouth. And not as in the cussing.

There were things Amelia did not know. Things Samuel T. did not know. And Gin could not guarantee that her current bad temper would not make revelations that were best left behind a figurative iron curtain.

What the hell was he here for, anyway.

And while she was at the bitching, she found it sublimely annoying that Samuel T. knew where the Bradford crypt was. Then again, the man never forgot anything that was said or shown to him. He was like a goddamn elephant.

Which was also incredibly irritating.

Many turns and straightaways later, Samuel T. led them to their destination like a bloodhound after a scent, and Lane pulled the Rolls-Royce over to the side behind the Jag. As her brother put them in park, all around doors were opened, but Gin stayed where she was.