Feather Bound Read online

  “Her name is Shannon Dalhousie and apparently she’s a domestic terrorist. Or an activist. One of those.”

  I took the phone out of her hands and inspected the picture again, scrolling down. “Oh, there’s a statement from her: ‘I know a lot of people in this country don’t want to face reality, but the truth is forced labor is a real problem in this country. People turn a blind eye while companies in Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, New York and so many others smuggle in so called “guest workers” to till the fields that make our bread. They use that term because it’s so much easier than calling them what they are: swans – swans promised a better life and then forced to work for no pay without any social securities. How can the leaders of the world meet in their ivory towers to discuss the world’s economy without addressing the vast social, economic and political inequalities that keep money in the hands of the few, while–?’”

  “Damn, we get it. You’re a defender of truth and justice and whatnot. Shit.” Ade rolled her eyes and slipped her phone into her purse. “You know, what I don’t really get about this whole Hedley thing is, if he really did steal his wife’s feathers, why didn’t she just say something? Like call the police or something? At the very least Shannon Dalhousie wouldn’t have had to flash her tits in front of a congregation of mourning millionaires. At least not so early in the morning.”

  “I don’t think Hedley’s wife could have told anyone even if she wanted to…”

  And that was the part that always freaked me out the most about feather-stealing. They say that once a swan’s feathers are stolen, so is his or her free will. After that, a swan’ll have no choice but to stay silent. If Shannon was right and the rumors were true… then Ralph Hedley really was a monster.

  Dad never really talked about him much when we were growing up, even though for a short period of time I was friends with his son, Hyde. Well, “friends” may have been a strong term for it. The two of us had met at a Hedley Publications benefit my dad and the other accountants had been invited to. After that, Hyde just sort of followed me around, crossing the Brooklyn Bridge for “play dates” he’d scheduled on his own. The boy was definitely a little needy. But I came to like him anyway. I’d always wondered what Ralph had thought about Hyde and me hanging out, or if he even cared. Maybe he was just too busy enslaving his wife to notice what their adopted son was up to.

  Ericka approached, phone in hand, her heels clicking on the tiled floor. “Charles finally sent a car to pick us up.” Charles, aka Beanpole, aka Ericka’s rich husband. Her face looked wiry and old, the way it always did when she was flustered.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked. “Something happen?”

  Ericka blinked. “What? Oh, no. Nothing.”

  Ade and I exchanged a glance. Fight. Beanpole wasn’t exactly Prince Charming. Case in point: you’d think having a wealthy brother-in-law would mean that we, at the very least, would be able to afford a new sink faucet.

  “Ericka, we’ve been over this: handouts will just make your father even more lazy than he already is.” That was what he’d said the last time I saw him – more than a full year ago. Did I mention he lives in Manhattan?

  “Well, Charles is a bit busy right now. Now that Ralph Hedley is dead, there are a lot of legal matters that the company’s lawyers have to sort out – like who’ll head the company, where his assets will go, and so on and so forth. It’s a lot of work, so he’s a bit...” She fell silent. As usual. “Anyway, I’ll take François. Thank you.”

  “Yeah, no problem.”

  Ericka lifted her baby out of my arms and, after a little while, we left the church, walking down the stone steps together. A sleek black car waited for us on the other side of the graveyard with a black-hatted driver standing to attention by the door. I tried not to think of the bones beneath my heels as we zigzagged past the headstones. We stayed well away from Hedley’s grave, just in case there were still photogs milling about, except, from what I could see, they’d pretty much cleared out.

  The only one left at Hedley’s gravesite was a guy – just one random guy.

  No, he had been at the funeral too. I realized it once I got a better look. He was the guy on the bench. In his black vest, short-sleeved shirt and gray beanie, he stood directly in front of Hedley’s grave. The stone angel towered over him, silent tears carved into its face.

  The driver opened the door for us. In front of me, Ade shot a bemused glance my way. Fancy cars and drivers with hats. Since Charles controlled all of his money, we really didn’t get opportunities like this, despite being Ericka’s little sisters. I put my hand on the door.

  “Oh damn!” My hand flew to my right arm instead. Bare. “Where’s my jacket?”

  Ade peered at me from inside the car. “Didn’t you take it with you?”

  “Maybe you left it in the church,” Ericka said, lifting her baby higher in her arms.

  “Shit. I’ll go look.” I slipped passed her. “Don’t go anywhere without me!”

  “Hurry up, Dee!”

  Well yeah, that was the plan. I took a shortcut; a straighter path that took me past Hedley’s grave. I wouldn’t have looked twice at the stone angel, or at the young man keeping silent vigil in front of it, at any of it – but suddenly, I heard a muted, dull sound, like water on soil.

  Hold up.

  Oh God.

  It wasn’t water.

  The guy in front of Hedley’s grave kept his back turned, but that didn’t stop me from noting the steady stream of liquid pouring onto the ground.

  From between his legs.

  “Oh for Christ’s sake! What is wrong with you people?” Because really, what the hell? Feathered flashers, paparazzi and now public urination? “What, is this Desecrate a Grave Day?”

  He turned, just a little. The first thing I noticed was his smile – tilted at a sly angle, not quite a smirk, but decidedly crooked. He was amused. At me. As if I were the freakshow here.

  Then he turned all the way around. That’s when I saw the open beer bottle in his hand – and his still zipped pants. Oh. “Whoops.”

  I could tell he was holding back a snort. “Yep.”

  “I uh… may have over-reacted a bit.”

  “You think?” His smile lingered. “So I take it you’ve never heard of pouring a little alcohol on a grave to pay your respects?” He cocked his head to the side and waited for my answer.

  Why would I? “Nope,” I said instead.

  “Really? People do it all over the world.” He shook the half-empty bottle in his hands. “In the Gold Coast, the Akan peoples spill it on the graves of their friends to help them transition into the spiritual world.”

  “Huh.” Nutcase.

  He looked about Ade’s age, or barely a day over twenty, at the very most. Hard to believe Ralph Hedley qualified as a “friend” to someone of this guy’s age. And a peculiar guy at that. Well, this situation was already way too weird. Besides that jacket had cost fifty bucks.

  “OK,” I said, eyes narrowed. “Well, bye.”

  “Hey, wait.”

  I didn’t even bother pretending I wasn’t exasperated. “What?”

  “You want to try it?”

  “Huh?”

  He held out the bottle, eyes sparkling with mischief. My face scrunched. “Sorry, I’m busy.”

  “Suit yourself.” Just as he began turning from me, he stopped suddenly. It was as if some startling epiphany had just seized him by the neck. He started staring at me. Furrowed eyebrows, bright brown eyes under an unruly fringe of dark hair. Weirdly intense. Or maybe just weird.

  “What did you say your name was?” His voice was nearly a breath when he asked me. He searched my eyes.

  I frowned. “I didn’t.” And I wasn’t going to. “Like I said, I’m busy so–”

  But I could only take about three steps before he grabbed my wrist. It was like a fire alarm went off in my head. The fight or flight in me started gathering up air for a scream as I shook. Strangest thing was, he looked earnest
. Eager, but earnest. But then they always did before the stabbing started.

  “W-wait,” he said, but I didn’t let him finish.

  “Let me go!” I finally screamed and, after yanking my hand away, I punched him with it. It was a weak punch, but he stumbled back against the gravestone, shocked as he hit the ground. I half-expected he’d come at me again, but he just sat there. His cheeks were flushed, but not in anger. There was no bloodlust in his eyes, no hacksaw crazy. Just a timid sort of shame.

  Shame. Maybe that was why I wasn’t running yet.

  “Sorry,” he whispered, lying against the gravestone. “I really didn’t mean to scare you. I just… “ He glanced up at me again, fast and fleeting, before gathering himself and focusing instead on the fresh grave dirt beneath him. He patted it twice and stood, slowly. A solemn mask grayed his face, aging him suddenly. “See you around, Old Man,” he told the headstone.

  Old Man?

  With one graceful movement, he swept past me, taking a modest swig of whatever was left in his bottle. Ericka’s driver started to make liberal use of the car horn, but I could only stare – at the young man and his bottle of booze.

  “Oh, and Deanna? You are Deanna, right?”

  The young man stopped before he’d gotten too far. My heart had almost given out when he’d said my name, because it was right at that moment I’d finally realized who he was. Except it was impossible.

  No way. That can’t…

  He smiled at me. “See you at the reception,” he said, and walked off.

  I crumpled Mom’s bracelet beneath my fingers. “Hyde?”

  3

  INHERITANCE

  Hyde Hedley.

  “Not Hedley,” he would always say, back when we were kids. He’d had another name before being adopted by the Hedley family at age six. Thompson, maybe. Johnson? The fanfare that came with the Hedley name made it hard to remember. But he always corrected me as if he were afraid that he’d forget himself one day.

  The Hedleys, see, were as philanthropic as the next billionaire couple. With all of Manhattan’s elite busy donating infinitesimally small fractions of their endless wealth in order to distract everyone from the fact that they lived three streets away from starving families, how exactly could one stand out amidst all the white noise? Especially a mogul whose struggling fashion magazine was, at the time, desperate to secure a major advertising deal with a family-oriented department store chain?

  And Ralph Hedley, at the end of the day, was a businessman.

  “He’s a chess piece, the poor boy,” I heard Mom tell Dad one day, after Hyde’s first visit to our Brooklyn flat – where we used to live. “Come on, honey, you know it’s true. As horrific as it sounds, I wouldn’t put it past Ralph. You know how he is. Don’t know why you keep defending him.”

  Chess piece. It didn’t occur to me what Mom had meant until after Hedley died. I mean, it’d be pretty tough to win the good will of a family-oriented store while your marriage was failing and your childless wife was trying to kill herself, which is what the rumor mills had been churning out back then. Why give cash to poor, socio-economically disadvantaged kids when you can just adopt one from an East Brooklyn orphanage? The latter had more headline potential.

  Hedley spent quite a lot of time boasting about his son to the press – incredibly intelligent for his age, fast-adapting, motivated, athletic, bright future ahead of him at the company, etcetera, etcetera. And not once during the two years I knew Hyde did I see the two of them smiling together, except for when they were having their pictures taken.

  He was a good kid, though, Hyde. He’d have a driver take him across the bridge to Brooklyn every weekend to play with me and Ade. He came to my birthday parties with extravagant gifts that I’d eventually have to send back because either I didn’t know what they were, or they wouldn’t fit through my front door. He was mischievous and brash, but tender and sweet all at once. He was my friend.

  Then he died.

  “So, you think that your childhood boyfriend arose from the dead and will at any second crash his father’s funeral reception?” Adrianna had a way with words.

  I glared at her while she lifted her glass of non-alcoholic wine off the table and sipped it calmly. She preferred the real deal, but figured fake IDs were tacky at a funeral.

  “As usual, your tact astounds,” I said before scanning the reception. It’d been an hour already. Drunken socialites, mingling, mingling, busboys serving those little sandwiches, and yet more mingling. But no Hyde. He hadn’t shown up yet.

  Because he won’t, because he’s dead. Dead and buried and fully decayed. It was impossible for Hyde Hedley to be breathing when Ralph Hedley himself had confirmed him dead to the press all those years ago. They buried his body in the very cemetery I’d just left. It was ridiculous. The guy was clearly a jackass trying to stir shit. Asshole.

  And yet he knew my name.

  “But no, seriously, Dee.” Ade shifted in her seat so her judge-y glare could get a better angle. “You honestly think that the guy you met at the cemetery is someone who’s been dead for years? And you’re thinking this while being fully sober?”

  “I know. It sounds stupid.” I’d been trying to convince myself of that for the past hour.

  “No, it sounds like old wounds tearing open.” She tapped my chest with a finger. “Hyde Hedley.” She laughed. “You liked that kid a lot. I know. We all knew. You were all ‘ooh’ in love or whatever.”

  My face flushed. “What? Ew, no!”

  “Yep. Totally imprinted on him.” Ade snorted. “That one Christmas break I caught you planning your wedding. You had lists.”

  I slumped in my seat. “I recall no lists.”

  “Look, just drop it, Dee. It’s only natural that you’d think about him at his dad’s funeral, but your zombie boyfriend fantasies just aren’t healthy. It’s been years. You need to let shit go.”

  She was right.

  “Wanna play ‘Spot the Celeb’?” Ade smoothed her long hair over her shoulders and flicked her head past me. “Look. It’s totally that judge on Sew or Die!”

  “Holy crap, really?”

  “Yep. Two o’clock. See her?”

  I had to stand to see over the sea of heads, but I found her: a woman with a white-blonde bob and some pretty insane earrings on top of that. Seriously. They dangled from her ears like thin streaks of pure gold. They probably were.

  “Beatrice-Rey Hoffen? Hoffer? Hoffer-Rey?” I shook my head.

  Neither of us were that into fashion really, but watching designers spiral into major depressive episodes on an almost periodical basis while being given increasingly ludicrous challenges day after day made for fun Thursday nights. Beatrice Hoffer-Rey was on Sew or Die because she was the editor in chief of Bella Magazine: published, of course, by Hedley Publications.

  And, you know, I was the daughter of a guy who packaged drinks at a warehouse, so obviously I didn’t feel out of place here in the slightest.

  “Hey, Dee, remember that one episode when she pushed Vogue’s creative director into a fountain because of some perceived slight?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I loved that episode. Oh!” She’d yelped because of the young man who’d snuck up behind her and slid his hand up her shoulder. A sharply dressed young man. One of plenty in the vicinity, of course, but this one had a name I actually remembered. Why wouldn’t I? His stepmom had pushed Vogue’s creative director into a fountain on reality TV.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Anton?” Ade strategically let a girly little flutter into her voice. She always said that some guys just needed the ego boost.

  Anton Rey. Beatrice Hoffer-Rey’s stepson. Ade had pointed him out to me as soon as we’d arrived at the reception. I only recognized his perfectly styled blonde coif because it somehow always ended up tangled in some model’s willowy fingers if his countless Page Six appearances were any indication. And yet, while I could barely muster the courage to step within fifty feet of him, t
he moment we’d signed the guest book Ade had just walked up to him. Fifteen minutes of charm later…

  “So, you’re coming Saturday, right?”

  There was this oily, slick to his smile that immediately put me off, but Ade returned it with a coy shrug. “Oh, right. Your birthday. I’d love to. But like I said, I’ll have to see if I’m free.”

  He straightened up, folding his arms over his Lacrosse-chiselled chest. Probably Lacrosse. He certainly looked preppy enough to play Lacrosse. “That’s cute. See you then.”

  Ade laughed. “You’re not even a little curious, are you? As to whether or not I’ll actually show?”

  His eyes brimmed with the arrogance of an asshole rich boy who could mail order hookers from Budapest if he wanted to get laid. “Anton Rey just invited you to a party. Trust me. You’re free.”

  My mouth stayed open even after he’d left. “Did he just refer to himself in the third person?”

  “Would seem so.” Ade shook her head with an amused little grin.

  “Utterly amazing. So, are you–” I stopped. “Are you actually gonna go?”

  “You kidding? Hell, yeah.”

  “Really?” I sat back in my chair, just staring at her. “You do know this is going to be a party filled to the brim with rich kids, right? Like, wealthy, wealthy kids.”

  “Exactly,” she said. “Partying in Manhattan with dead-eyed socialites? When’s the next time I’ll get the chance? It’ll be like a Greek Odyssey. Plus it’s a Saturday – there’s never anything good on TV.”

  Half an hour of canoodling in the corner with a guy whose mother told Hollywood celebrities what to wear. Half an hour was all it took for gorgeous Adrianna Davis to be invited to a party that would undoubtedly be filled with everyone under twenty-five who mattered in Manhattan’s social scene. And the best part was I didn’t need to see the lazy tilt of her head to know that it all literally meant nothing to her.

  There was never anything good on TV Saturdays. It was that simple.

  “It really is good to be the sister who doesn’t give a shit,” I muttered under my breath.