Page 68 of Pro Bono

Rose said, “Is her brush with Daniel long enough ago to make her lonely for male companionship again? Is she healthy? How old? What if she were to die, for instance? Would that mean the whole question of inheritance goes back to a clean slate, or are there a half dozen contingent heirs?”

May said, “Even if none of those avenues is a winner, I wonder if after she has the money in her possession, will she get careless with it? Lots of people who won some lottery a year ago are broke.”

Rose said, “We could use Peter as front man. The strong, silent type who lives smack in the middle of nature. He’s probably better bait at fifty-five than he was at twenty-five.”

Peter said, “I’m not interested in telling lies to one of our brother’s discarded women.”

“Exactly,” May said. “There’s nobody a discarded woman will be drawn to like a handsome man who’s not interested in talking to her.”

“Forget it,” Peter said. “I’m perfectly content where I am.”

May said, “Let’s stop wasting our time arguing about what the plan is until we know what the situation really is. We should sit down tomorrow morning in front of laptops and phones and find out everything about this woman—her finances, real estate, cars, living relatives, and anything else that comes up. Maybe, as Peter says, there’s no way. If so, we will have wasted one day in his pleasant forest retreat together. We’ll go home and sleep better than if we just let it go.”

“Sounds good,” Rose said. “I’ll take that drink now, Peter.”

“Me first,” May said. “I need it for my headache.”

In the morning, Warren heard the familiar ring somewhere in the distance and felt his new smart watch vibrating. He looked at it.Who the—he was already on his feet and picking up the phone when he saw the number and tapped it with his finger. “Hi, Mom.”

He heard her voice. “Hi, Charlie. Oh, I just noticed the time. It’s three hours earlier there, but seven is not that early. Of course, with the number of times you woke me up when I was in Hawaii, it could be justice.”

“Well, I am awake now.” He went into the bathroom, closed the door, and said, “How are you? Is everything all right?”

“Sort of. I’m in Maine walking on the beach. I’ve got a room in a big old hotel full of ghosts, and I’m feeling like one of them. The water isfrigid, the wind feels like it wants to pull the hair out of my head, and I’m getting ready to pack my bags. I got a call last night from Glen and Vivian Nostrand. You remember them?”

“Your tenants at the house.”

“Well, they got word from their agents that the television show they’ve been working on the last few years is going to be canceled. They both miss England, so they began putting out feelers with friends at home in London, thinking maybe someone might be involved in a new project, and if not that, at least they’d put the word out that they were going to be free soon. It turns out they were ‘at liberty’ for about the first ten seconds of their first call. So they’re moving out of the house at the end of the month when the show wraps and then they’ll get on a plane.”

“Do you want me to get a broker to advertise the house?”

“No, actually. I’m thinking about taking the house off the rental market and moving back in for a while. I’d rather spend next winter in LA than any of the other places I’ve been lately.”

“It’s not going to be claustrophobic?”

“You know, that’s an odd thing. Since you managed to track down the late Mack Stone, a lot of those feelings have kind of faded. It’s like old business has been settled. When Glen and Vivian made me think about the place last night, I realized that I was thinking about it as the place where your father and I, and then the three of us, lived, not the place where I got hurt and humiliated and robbed. The good old memories were still there, but the bad ones weren’t anymore. Besides, since you and Vesper are there, I might get to see you once in a while.”

“I think that’s a good idea. You said something about packing. Have you made a reservation?”

“Yes. I’ll be flying into LAX on Thursday at three twenty. American Airlines.”

“I’ll be there.”

“That’s very nice of you. I’ll call you when I get there. Bye.”

He looked at the phone and thought about his mother. He had just heard good news. She had spent the years since he’d gone to law school moving from one part of the country to another, like a person trying out each of the spots that other people said were the best. It was as though she thought happiness lived in a particular place, and she needed to find it. Now she was coming back to Los Angeles, returning to what he considered to be the real world. He should be thinking of this as a breakthrough, but maybe it was just another phase of the illusion. He stepped out of the bathroom back into the bedroom.

“Who was that?” Vesper was lying on the bed with her arm propping her head up.

“My mother. She says the tenants in the house here are going back to England, and she’s coming on Thursday, apparently to go to the house and take a fresh look at it. She’s thinking about moving in herself.”

“You don’t seem taken with the idea,” she said. “She’s great—friendly, cheerful, loving, and never bothers you, that I’ve seen.”

“All true,” he said. “But this feels a little bit off. She’s refused to live in that place for at least ten years. I can’t help thinking there could be something else.”

“Do you think she’s sick or something?”

“I don’t know if this is anything, and if it is, then it would probably be my own tendency to see a silver lining and just think it arrived ahead of the cloud.”

---