Naked in Death - J. D. Robb [47]
“You wouldn’t know if she had a particular lover—someone she was more personally involved with? One who might have been jealous?”
“No. I can tell you I don’t believe she did. Sharon had . . .” Elizabeth took a steadying breath. “A disdain for men. An attraction to them, yes, but an underlying disdain. She knew she could attract them. From a very early age, she knew. And she found them foolish.”
“Professional companions are rigidly screened. A dislike—or disdain, as you put it—is a usual reason for denial of licensing.”
“She was also clever. There was nothing in her life she wanted she didn’t find a way to have. Except happiness. She was not a happy woman,” Elizabeth went on, and swallowed the lump that always seemed to hover in her throat. “I spoiled her, it’s true. I have no one to blame but myself for it. I wanted more children.” She pressed a hand to her mouth until she thought her lips had stopped trembling. “I was philosophically opposed to having more, and my husband was very clear in his position. But that didn’t stop the emotion of wanting children to love. I loved Sharon, too much. The senator will tell you I smothered her, babied her, indulged her. And he would be right.”
“I would say that mothering was your privilege, not his.”
This brought a ghost of a smile to Elizabeth’s eyes. “So were the mistakes, and I made them. Richard, too, though he loved her no less than I. When Sharon moved to New York, we fought with her over it. Richard pleaded with her. I threatened her. And I pushed her away, lieutenant. She told me I didn’t understand her—never had, never would—and that I saw only what I wanted to see, unless it was in court; but what went on in my own home was invisible.”
“What did she mean?”
“That I was a better lawyer than a mother, I suppose. After she left, I was hurt, angry. I pulled back, quite certain she would come to me. She didn’t, of course.”
She stopped speaking for a moment, hoarding her regrets. “Richard went to see her once or twice, but that didn’t work, and only upset him. We let it alone, let her alone. Until recently, when I felt we had to make a new attempt.”
“Why recently?”
“The years pass,” Elizabeth murmured. “I’d hoped she would be growing tired of the lifestyle, perhaps have begun to regret the rift with family. I went to see her myself about a year ago. But she only became angry, defensive, then insulting when I tried to persuade her to come home. Richard, though he’d resigned himself, offered to go up and talk to her. But she refused to see him. Even Catherine tried,” she murmured and rubbed absently at a pain between her eyes. “She went to see Sharon only a few weeks ago.”
“Congresswoman DeBlass went to New York to see Sharon?”
“Not specifically. Catherine was there for a fund-raiser and made a point to see and try to speak with Sharon.” Elizabeth pressed her lips together. “I asked her to. You see, when I tried to open communications again, Sharon wasn’t interested. I’d lost her,” Elizabeth said quietly, “and moved too late to get her back. I didn’t know how to get her back. I’d hoped that Catherine could help, being family, but not Sharon’s mother.”
She looked over at Eve again. “You’re thinking that I should have gone again myself. It was my place to go.”
“Ms. Barrister—”
But Elizabeth shook her head. “You’re right, of course. But she refused to confide in me. I thought I should respect her privacy, as I always had. I was never one of those mothers who peeked into her daughter’s diary.”
“Diary?” Eve’s antenna vibrated. “Did she keep one?”
“She always kept a diary, even as a child. She changed the password in it regularly.”
“And as an adult?”
“Yes. She’d refer to it now and again—joke about the secrets she had and the people she knew who would be appalled at what she’d written about them.”
There’d been no personal diary in the inventory,