Ghost Flower by Michele Jaffe Page A

answers to the inevitable questions—where have you been, why did you leave, why are you back, what happened that night?
    “Don’t tell her too much about where you’ve been,” Bain had cautioned. “Just say that for a long time you didn’t remember anything, and when you did you felt guilty for being gone.”
    “I think dirty is better than guilty,” I’d suggested.
    Bridgette had looked at me, cocking her head like a curious bird, and then nodded. “You’re right. Dirty. Althea will understand that, but she won’t want to hear too many details.”
    “And let her start the conversation,” Bain plowed on. “Wait for her to ask.”
    I slid across the wide camel leather expanse of the backseat, and Althea got in after me. The door clicked solidly closed on us, and I got ready for my first private performance.
    “Well, that makes a change from a normal Friday night,” Althea said as her sedan pulled smoothly from the curb.
    “Yes, it does,” Arthur agreed.
    Althea said, “Gin or Fish?”
    I wasn’t sure if she was talking to Arthur or to me. She wasn’t looking at either of us. Was this a test? She was busy flipping downthe armrest in the backseat and extracting from it a deck of gold monogrammed playing cards. It had been specially outfitted with a teak top and two little leaves that flipped out to make a card table. She held the cards toward me and repeated, impatiently now, “Gin or Fish?” Her eyes met mine.
    “You want to play cards?”
    “We always played cards before. Why not now?”
    I considered for a moment, trying to mask the beating of my heart by tapping a fingernail against the teak table. Was it gin or Fish? Bain and Bridgette hadn’t said anything about playing cards. “Gin,” I said.
    Althea smiled, but I wasn’t sure if it was the right answer. “A penny a point,” she announced. “It’s not fun unless there is something on the line.”
    “I don’t play for money.”
    “Everyone always says that. It’s never true.” She pushed the cards toward me. “Cut.”
    As I watched her even up the cards, I realized her cold reception had done me a favor—any lingering concerns I had that what Bain, Bridgette, and I were doing might hurt her had completely vanished. Althea Silverton was invulnerable.
    She dealt with the quick competence of someone who did it regularly. We played in silence, broken only by the sound of cards being picked up and put down and once by her saying, “You’re playing well.”
    She was a shrewd player, but I wasn’t that far behind her, even with my attention divided between the game and watching where we were going. With the kind of life I’d been living, being able to gauge both people and their cards came in handy.
    I knew from Bain’s tutorials—the family real estate holdings were one of his favorite themes—that the Silverton compound wasbuilt on a massive property amassed over time by Aurora’s grand-father, Sargeant Silverton, and Althea. As Sargeant developed his real estate empire, they bought more and more of the parcels around them until they owned nearly an entire hilltop that backed onto Ventana Canyon. They’d built their house, which was officially Silverton House but was referred to simply as the House, and then houses for their children when they married. Immediately next door to the House was Silverton Manse, the house Bridgette and Bain lived in with their father, and beyond that was Weathervane, Aunt Claire and Uncle Thom’s house. When I’d asked why it was called Weathervane, Bain said I’d understand when I got there.
    Now as we wound up into the hills I saw a glass and steel building cantilevered out over the canyon like an eagle straining forward to take flight. Or, I realized, like a weathervane pointing due north.
    We drew up in front of a set of massive iron gates with interlocking S’s on them, and the car came to a stop waiting for them to open.
    Althea announced, “Gin,” laid down her cards, pointed her tinted