“What’s he up to these days?” Zeke asked.

“Lives in a crummy apartment in Tucson. Word is his daughter’s hired him to write a biography of Ulysses, probably just charity by another name. Anyway, he doesn’t have a phone, but I contacted a friend out that way, and she did some checking. Seems our man left town this afternoon.”

Zeke kicked off his shoes. His pretty lace curtains billowed in the cool breeze, and his room filled with the fresh smells of early morning. “Find out where he’s headed?”

“East. Booked a flight to Albany.”

“Hell.”

“Say the word,” his partner and friend told him in a low voice, “and I’ll be there.”

“I know. Thanks. I’ve got another favor, though, if you have time.”

“I’m listening.”

Zeke shut his eyes, which burned with fatigue and too many questions, too many memories. He could see Dani cutting her kite free. What had she been thinking about? Did she know her father was en route to Saratoga-or already there?

“Check out what Quint Skinner’s into these days.”

There was a silence on the California end of the line.

“He’s in Saratoga,” Zeke said.

Sam breathed out. “Fun times.”

“Lots of work to do, Sam.”

“Yeah. I’ll be in touch.”

After he hung up, Zeke went into the cozy bathroom, where he was reminded the claw-foot tub didn’t have a showerhead. He tore open a package of bath salts and took a sniff. He wasn’t picky, so long as he didn’t come out smelling like a lingerie shop.

Instead, he thought, remembering her beside him in his car, he’d come out smelling like the woman who owned the Pembroke.

Lowering himself into the cute little tub, the scalding water swirling around him, he considered that there were probably worse fates.

Nine

Breakfast at the track was an August Saratoga tradition that Zeke might have found quaint if he’d been more awake. For a modest amount of money, one could enjoy a champagne breakfast in the clubhouse and watch expensive thoroughbreds work out on the picturesque track, said to be the most beautiful in the country. Up and at it before he was ready to be up and at it, Zeke had walked down from the Pembroke. He’d avoided the front desk, lest Dani had spoken to her staff about having given him the boot.

Sara Chandler Stone was on the upper level, at a white-covered table overlooking the track. The atmosphere was relaxed and cordial, with a touch of elegance that was part of the upstate resort’s appeal. Zeke was underdressed as usual. Most everyone seemed finished with their breakfast.

“Am I late?” Zeke asked, sitting across from Sara.

“It’s no problem.” She was as poised and still as a mannequin, her porcelain face hidden under the wide brim of her straw hat. She wore an attractive, feminine dress, silky and expensive, an easy way to remind people who was a Chandler here and who wasn’t. “I try to come to breakfast at the track once a season. My family has benefited a great deal from our connection with Saratoga racing. I enjoy giving something back.”

“It’s a dirty job,” Zeke said, “but somebody’s got to do it.”

Her smile didn’t falter. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”

He smiled back. “Touché, Mrs. Stone.”

“Would you care for a glass of champagne?”

She already had a glass, and she didn’t appear to have drunk anything else or eaten anything at all. Zeke shook his head and flagged a waiter, who promptly filled his coffee cup and took his order for eggs.

Sara stared down at onlookers gathered along the white fence to watch the horses warm up on the track. “Will you be at the Chandler Stakes this afternoon?”

“Probably.”

“It’s a large field of horses this year. The weather’s beautiful. It’ll be a grand day.” Her smile was gone now, her porcelain skin without color. “Father’s looking forward to today.”

“Well, it’s the hundredth running of the Chandler.”

“And if it’s as thrilling as everyone seems to think it will be, it could help put the seventy-fifth out of his mind.” She sipped her champagne; it couldn’t have been her first glass, Zeke thought. “None of us attended. We were all out looking for Lilli.”

Zeke willed away his fatigue, the old, dead dreams that had haunted him through his few hours of sleep. “It must have been horrible. I’m sorry, Sara.”

She waved a hand. “Oh, it was a long time ago. Wounds heal.”

“Not all wounds. Not knowing what happened to your sister has to be hard.”

“Yes.” Her voice had dropped to a near whisper. “To be honest, Zeke, I’ve come to hate the entire Chandler Stakes weekend. I only keep up with the traditions because of Father and Roger. If it were up to me, I doubt I’d ever come back to Saratoga. But Roger loves racing season, and it seems to be a solace for Father.” She swallowed more champagne, her eyes turned back down to the track. “When I’m here, all I can do is think of Lilli.”

Downing his coffee, Zeke hoped Sara hadn’t asked to see him just to cry on his sleeve. That occasionally happened in his business. He hated to be hard-hearted, but he had to maintain objectivity. Professionalism. Strict neutrality. But this, he reminded himself, wasn’t business.

His breakfast arrived, and Sara motioned for the waiter-it was a slight, delicate gesture-to bring her more champagne. Then she turned back to Zeke, and he saw the fear slip into her eyes as she asked in a quiet, slightly hoarse voice, “Why are you here?”

“I’m on vacation.”

Her reaction-her sudden, sweet, angry smile-caught him off guard. “You’re a closemouthed son of a bitch, Zeke Cutler, just like your brother was.”

“Even worse.”

The anger and sweetness vanished, and so did her smile. She tilted her head back so that the shadows moved onto her face and he no longer could see her eyes under the brim of her hat. “Did he hate me?”

“No.”

“But he wanted to,” she said.

Zeke didn’t answer. It wasn’t his place-now, no one’s-to speak for his brother.

“I’m sorry.” But she didn’t sound sorry, only wrapped in self-pity. “It can’t be easy for you to talk about him. Zeke, I know this is probably hard for you to believe, but I really did care about your brother. Joe and I together…” She licked her lips. “It never would have worked. You must know that.”

Maybe he did. But he wasn’t sure Joe had. He’d been eighteen and still believed love could conquer anything, even the differences between Sara Chandler and himself.

She worked at a sapphire ring on her left hand, hesitant, way out of her rich woman’s league. “You’re staying at the Pembroke?”

“Yes.”

“What do you think of our Danielle?”

“That she’d hate to be called your or anyone else’s Danielle.”

Sara smiled, smug and cool. “Oh, yes, you’re right about that. This August is especially difficult, I think, for all of us. We’re all in the limelight even more than usual-with the Chandler centennial. Danielle’s little projects, the twenty-fifth anniversary of Lilli’s having left.” She caught herself, biting down on her lower lip; Zeke lost her eyes again under the brim of her hat. “I almost always say she left. It’s just a habit with me. Not knowing what happened to her is a terrible burden-I’m not sure anyone really understands. I like to think my sister made a deliberate choice about her life. I used to think it would be easier if she’d died rather than abandoned all of us, but now…” She lifted her shoulders and tucked a stray strand of hair somewhere up under her hat. Her nails were pale pink, short, perfectly manicured. “It seems to me just up and leaving would have been an act of tremendous courage for a woman like her.”

“How so?” Zeke asked as he sat forward, wanting to get Sara’s perspective on her older sister’s state of mind before she disappeared. It was so easy to discount Sara as having much perspective on anything. But even if she was wrong about Lilli, hearing what she had to say could be instructive. Twenty-five years ago, she seemed to have nothing in common with her older sister. Now Sara had become everything people had always thought Lilli had always been.