Blood Always Tells, Hilary Davidson [good book club books .txt] 📗

“Did Dominique ever tell you why Gary could never get divorced?” She took a small bite of her cupcake.

“I remember excuses, not an explanation.”

“There was a complicated legal situation. Gary signed some kind of crazy agreement with Trinity’s father. Gary got money out of the deal, but the family basically had him trapped like a rat. He couldn’t divorce Trinity, and he couldn’t talk to anyone about the agreement he’d signed. There was some kind of huge legal penalty for that.” She gave him a sad little smile. “Of course, he talked about it to Dominique.”

“And Dominique told you.”

“Right. And Dominique was going to get him to talk about it again over the weekend, only this time, it was going to be on tape. A man named Zachary Amberson was going to pay her a lot of money for it.”

The name rang a bell in Desmond’s head. “Who’s he?”

“He’s a lawyer who was best friends with Trinity’s father. The father didn’t trust his kids not to run wild with the family money, so he left things in trust and Amberson administers all that.” Sabrina looked down at the crowd. “I think Trinity was desperate to divorce Gary. She really hated him. The problem was, she had to get married again within thirty days.”

“Do you know who Trinity was planning to marry?”

Sabrina shook her head. “No idea. I said to Dominique, maybe it would be Zachary Amberson himself, since that would give him total control over the family fortune, but Dominique said he’s already married. Apparently, he has a thing for Las Vegas showgirls. He gets a new one every eight to ten years. Dominique says the current one has breasts as large as a human head.” She smiled, but its wattage dimmed quickly. “Said, I mean. Not says.”

“I’ve been doing that a lot.”

“There’s something I have to tell you. Don’t hate me,” Sabrina said, “but I gave Dominique some muscle relaxant that was prescribed for me. I was having lupus-related jaw problems and… oh, it doesn’t matter why. I know it sounds horrible, but I wanted her to be able to get back at Gary for what he did to her. She was going to mix the relaxant into a drink for him. It wasn’t enough to knock him out or anything, but it would make him relaxed enough to say awful things about his wife and the agreement he signed.”

“What did Gary do to make my sister hate him so much?”

Sabrina looked worried. “I don’t think I can tell you this part. Dominique would kill me.”

“It’s not going to hurt her now.”

“She never would’ve sold Gary out, not in a million years,” Sabrina said. “But Gary cheated on her.”

“A creep who cheated on his wife stepped out on his girlfriend?” Desmond shook his head. “I hate to say it, but what’s the surprise?”

“You don’t understand. It broke her heart. Dominique really, really loved him. He convinced her his marriage wasn’t real, and I don’t think he was lying about that.” She took another small bite. “But then she found out he was sleeping with some blond cheerleader.”

“A cheerleader?”

“That’s just what Dominique called her. She showed me the photos. In some of them, the woman looked like a high-priced call girl, but in others, was wasn’t wearing much makeup and she seemed really young.”

Desmond was trying to wrap his mind around the story. “How did she find out about the cheerleader?”

“Someone mailed her photos. Anonymously, of course. She showed them to me. They were pretty bad.”

“Someone anonymously sent photos to Dominique? What were they, nude shots?”

Sabrina’s hand fluttered to her mouth. Her face had flushed red. “I didn’t mean it like that! No one was naked in the shots I saw. It was just that Gary and this girl were in Central Park with their arms wrapped around each other, for example. There were a bunch of photos from Gary’s condo, after Dominique moved out. That made her angrier than anything.” She stared at Desmond. “Dominique didn’t tell you any of it?”

“She knew I didn’t like her dating a married man, so she avoided talking about her relationship with Gary most of the time.”

“I wouldn’t normally be a fan of that, either, but Gary wasn’t really married. I mean, he never had sex with his wife. His wife never wanted to get married. It’s not because she was in love with anyone else, or because she’s gay. She’s just asexual. She’s never had a boyfriend—or a girlfriend—in her life.”

“But she’s, what, thirty-five years old? No one can survive like that.”

Sabrina gave him a bemused look. “Do you know who Edward Gorey was?”

“It doesn’t ring a bell.”

“He was a genius illustrator. You have to read The Gashlycrumb Tinies. It’s the best thing ever.” She gave him a guilty smile. “Anyway, Gorey was supposed to be asexual. So was Sir Isaac Newton.”

“Seriously?”

“What’s Google for, if not to look up things like that?” She took her last bite of cupcake and chewed thoughtfully. “I’m—I mean, I was—probably a bad influence on Dominique. I Google everything. You have to read about Trinity’s family. Her father made up their last name, you know. He was married four times, and after he divorced Trinity’s mother, she never saw her again. And all three of Trinity’s brothers are dead.”

That caught Desmond’s interest. “Do you know anything about how they died?”

“Byron Lytton-Jones died of a drug overdose. Shelley died in a car accident. Keats died somewhere in South America.”

“Those were really their names?”

“They were all named for English Romantic poets,” Sabrina said. “Trinity was named for Trinity College at Oxford. The father was an obsessive Anglophile. I can’t explain it any better than that.”

“Her brothers didn’t leave behind any kids, I take it.”

“No. Actually, I think Keats died just after he got married. That was part of the reason Trinity’s father was obsessed with getting her married off. His sons died without leaving heirs. The father told Gary that Trinity was his last hope. He thought he