I search through deeds, first in New York, then in Monterey County in California, and that’s when I find it. The clue I needed to find Sylvie.
Her husband switched the property into Sylvie’s name a little over a year ago. I check the dates—the transaction occurred just prior to his death. Is that where she is? Holed away on the coast? Maybe she needed a change and decided to start over in California.
Or maybe she ran away and hoped I would pick up on the few legal bread crumbs left behind.
I shut my laptop and lean back in my desk chair, thrusting my hands through my hair as a deep exhale leaves me. The temptation to follow after her is strong, even though there’s no guarantee she’s even there.
My senses are telling me she’s in California. At that house. Hidden away so no one can find her.
I could take our private jet to Big Sur. There’s an airport in Monterey and I could rent a car. If she’s not there, I could detour to San Francisco and handle some business I have there. Or Los Angeles. Hell, I could visit both cities and get some work done.
Donato Enterprises has business partners on the West Coast. It wouldn’t be a totally wasted trip.
Though I know deep down, I shouldn’t go. It’s what she wants, and I’m tired of always giving Sylvie exactly what she desires. She’s a spoiled brat, and I’ve indulged her every whim ever since I first met her.
Despite it all, next thing I know, I’m on the phone, booking the plane for first thing tomorrow.
ELEVEN
SYLVIE
I am my own person.I am my own person.
I chant the mantra on repeat in my head, reminding myself that I am someone other than my family. I am not just Augustus Lancaster’s daughter or Whit’s sister or Sylvia’s namesake.
Since I’ve been here, all alone on the other side of the country, it’s been easier to believe. The more distance there is between my mother and me, the better I feel.
Though that’s the hardest pill to swallow—being named after the woman who wants me dead. Of course, I was named after her. My mother is the biggest narcissist I know—and I know plenty. Family lore tells the tale of her first word being, ‘Me’.
No surprises there.
My father thinks he picked her, but she told me the truth. I may have been young, but I hung on every word she spilled when she would drink too much and make her drunken confessions. His parents controlled the narrative, just like mine tried to. Sylvia Whittaker wasn’t about to let her chance go at sinking her claws into the son of one of the richest families in the world. Once she married my father and gave him the prodigal firstborn son, she’d done her job. I was the girl she wished for. The child she was desperate to have.
The daughter she could name after herself in the hopes I’d grow up just like her.
When I was a little girl, she dressed me like her. Everyone said I resembled her when I was little, and I suppose I do.
But I have a hint of Lancaster in me too. The eyes. The blonde hair. I’m not all Sylvia.
Thank God.
I’m sure she hates that fact.
I am my own person. I am my own person.
That I have to remind myself of this is surely pathetic, but whatever it takes, right? I already feel better, being out here. In my own house—the house that belongs to me and no one else. I’m all by myself for the first time in my life, and I’m savoring it. Yes, the woods are scary and there are way too many noises among the trees, especially at night. Little forest creatures always watching as I walk past. Roland, the groundskeeper Earl hired after he bought the property, says if I’m going to live here year-round, I need a dog. Maybe two. There are already at least three cats on the property. They’re not overly affectionate and they leave bloody little carcasses everywhere. Scattered feathers and a bird’s head. Guts from the inside of some rodent. It’s gross. Cats are ruthless. Sneaky. Cunning.
Like a Lancaster.
I do think Roland is right though. I need a pet—a dog. Something to watch over me.
The urge to flee New York City came to me in the middle of the night, a day after I met with my lawyer. I woke up from a dream where Earl was still alive, and he offered the house to me as a token of peace.
For all that I put you through, he told me.
A ten-million-dollar private hideaway is more than enough payment for what that man put me through, which wasn’t much, considering he died fairly quickly after we were married. That I still feel responsible is a fact I don’t like to dwell on for too long. I may be my own person, but I’m not a good one.
I have dark thoughts. If I could murder my mother, I would. But I don’t have the guts.