THREE
WEST POINT, NEW YORK
From behind the wheel of the rental car, Vitoria Benloise was impatient. So long, all this travel. So long to come to this northern state in America. Such an inefficiency to transfer her physicality from where she had been to where she needed to be.
At least the transition was over.
Up ahead, her destination appeared as an island rising up from the vast midst of the sea, the great house sitting upon its rise, a showy declaration of wealth that due to its age was “venerable” as opposed to “ostentatious.”
Her brother Ricardo would have had his manse no other way. Having come from little, he had sought validation through a persistent illusion of false aristocracy and old money. No new house for him. No flashy cars. No Eurotrash ostentation.
Which she believed was what the Americans called it.
Even in his legitimate business, the one that had been but a shell for his true revenue streams, he’d had to have an art gallery. Not a construction business, no, no. Not garbage removal or cement mixing. It had to be the art.
Contemporary sculpture and painting, from what she understood, and she could guess why the exception to his preference for the aged. It was so much easier to launder money with the sale of modern offerings, as their value was more subjective than that of Old Masters and Impressionists, which had more provable prices.
The drive into Ricardo’s property was a left-hand turn off this road by the big river, and she traveled up the gradual, plowed lane, taking note of the snow-covered lawn, the short stone wall holding back the tree line, the looming grand house. The mansion was larger than it appeared from down below, and as she closed in and parked by its front entry’s walkway, she felt the modernist sculptures around the manse sit in judgment and disapproval of her.
It was her brother in her head. Her family, in her conscience. Her traditions, in her soul.
This was quite unseemly of her, after all. This whole thing. An unmarried woman out in the world, seeking vengeance.
Yes, it was true, the Benloise family had never been well off. Not until Ricardo had come along, at any rate. But that did not mean that there were not rules. Standards. Expectations. All of which were for the women, of course. The men were allowed to be who they were, do what they wished, carry on as they would.
Not so for a sister, a daughter.
But at least their parents were dead, and she did not care what anyone else in her family thought. More to the point, this was her chance.
She had waited all of her life for this. Thirty-five miserable years of fighting for her right to get an education, to not take a husband, to be what she wanted to be, not what others decreed for her.
She turned off the engine and got out. Cold, so very cold. She was going to hate being here, the loss of her native Colombia’s warmth and humidity a thing to mourn.
Looking around, she noted that the snow had been shoveled up to the grand and glossy door, and also around to the back, all the way to the detached garage-like structure. One might be tempted to see such as a sign her brother remained alive, but she knew better.
She had not heard from him in nearly a year—and clearly, this property was held in a trust whereby its upkeep was managed as if its owner were still alive.
Money, however, was running short, and that was why she had come. For the first few months after Ricardo and Eduardo had not been in touch, she had wondered, worried, gotten concerned about her brothers. But as more and more time passed, and disgruntled suppliers had come to her with their inquiries about the business, she started to develop a plan.
If Ricardo could run a drug trade back and forth across the ocean, why could not she? And then the reality of expenses had come home to roost. Her brother had expected her to look after his various real estate holdings in South America, given that she had failed at her true calling of becoming a wife and a mother—and all that upkeep was costly. The accounts were dwindling.
No, both of her brothers were dead, and she had to do what was necessary to survive—no matter the risks.
Taking a key out of her Chanel bag, she approached the ornate, old door and slid the slender, notched length into its home. A turn, a tumble, and she was…
An alarm began to sound the moment the seal was breached, and she left the portal wide as she followed the noise through rooms that were dark and stuffy, navigating by virtue of the exterior lights. She found the security panel in the professional-grade kitchen, by a hardy door that she guessed opened to the outside.
The code she entered was going to work.
And it did.
Their mother’s birth date, month, day, and year. Eight numbers, unknown to anybody but the three siblings. That strict, hard-driving, fervently Catholic woman had had no patience for sentiment, but Ricardo had brought her a flower on the same day each year, and uncharacteristically, she had never thrown it out.
That this was the code to his mansion was a clear tie to his hardscrabble youth. A measure of how far he had come. A defiance against the disapproval they had all grown up under.
Childhood had been a struggle, a test of endurance, for the three siblings. Then again, their mother had had to raise them all on her own, without the benefit of a husband, a steady job, a roof over their heads. Not a lot of room for extravagances or indulgence in that reality—and then there had been all the rosaries, Hail Mary’s, and confessions.
But that was over now.
With the alarm silent, Vitoria’s return to the front entrance was more leisurely, and she took time to measure and add up the value of the antique chairs and Persian rugs, the ornate tables and the paintings of the ancestors of others. It was impossible not to draw comparisons with how Ricardo had always seen her. As with this art and these antiques, her role in his life had been to stick where she was put, without question or objection. Her virtue was part of his illusion, a saintly sister to add another layer of curtain to hide the truth of his origin.
Her footfalls slowed and she stopped before a bronze statue that had to be a Degas. There was only one artist who could have composed and completed such a winsome, light-though-it-was-heavy object of beauty.
Perhaps Ricardo had thought of it as the daughter he had never had, Vitoria mused. Certainly a far better bet than a living breathing offspring.
Onward, onward, to the open front door.
For a moment, she just stood there—and it was then that she realized she was waiting for a butler to appear and take her bags from the boot of the rental.
As much as she derided Ricardo for his airs, she, too, had succumbed to the habits of luxury. It was, indeed, far better to be of means than not.
She was going to need people. She could not do this alone.
Fortunately, money talked, did it not.
Planting her hands on her hips, she regarded the undisturbed snow cover of the vast, descending lawn. It was as if Ricardo had permanently disallowed all manner of deer and rodent from marring the pristine winter landscape. She would not have put it past him. Image had been so important.
With a lift of her chin, she regarded the sky, measuring the bright, full moon.
“I will avenge you, brothers,” she said to the heavens. “I will find out who killed you and take care of things as you would have wished.”
Her smile was slow and did not last.
In fact, Ricardo would not have wished this at all. He would have hated this whole thing. But that was his problem, not hers—and given that he was dead, he had no more problems, did he.
Yes, she would find out exactly what had happened to her siblings, and when she was done addressing the wrongs, she was going to step into Ricardo’s handmade shoes.
Her future was bright as the moonlight. She was finally free.