Too Near the Edge (31 page)

“Yes, Jack told me. Maybe I should feel
something, but I don’t. Donald was a brilliant man, but he had
turned into a monster.”

“Have you told anyone that he killed
Adam?”

“No. I only told them about the Mexico
research project where he’s buying babies. I figured the rest is up
to Sharon. She has Nathan to think about. It’s not like it makes
any difference whether the truth comes out about how Adam died, now
that Donald is dead. And they’d only have our word as proof
anyway.”

“Exactly. Losing Donald is going to be hard
enough for Nathan as it is. And he’s going to have another
disappointment as well. Erik Vaughn turns out to be a fraud,
scamming people with those herb-growing kits. I’ll fill you in on
the details later, but the gist of it is that he’s left town and
there won’t be any money for the herb growers.”

Jack and Maria showed up then, and I could
see Elisa had wilted a bit, so I left, gave Sharon a call, and went
over to spend a little time with her. When I got there, she was
working on Adam’s computer, which was still on the dining room
table where we had set it up the other night. Joel had taken Nathan
tubing in Boulder Creek.

“I haven’t found anything about Dad’s
research project yet, but Adam does have a whole computer folder of
financial stuff relating to his business,” she said. “I’m trying to
figure out who owes him money.”

I hated to give her more bad news, but I knew
I couldn’t hold off any longer telling her about Erik. I began
hesitantly. “Um…I saw Erik yesterday…well actually it was early
this morning…about 4:00 a.m.

He was on my porch when I got home from the
hospital.”

“Waiting on your porch at 4:00 a.m.?
Why?”

“He had some things to say to me. It’s kind
of a long story—which I’ll tell you later. But the main thing is,
Erik told me that Adam had invested a lot of money in his business.
So that’s why Adam’s company was in debt when he died.”

“That’s a relief. Now Erik can pay back the
money, and we’ll be fine.” She stopped and thought for a minute.
“But that doesn’t make any sense. Why didn’t Erik tell me about
Adam’s investment? He knew I was worried about where the money
went.”

“Exactly, Sharon. Here’s the thing. Erik
isn’t who he seems to be, and any money invested with him isn’t
likely to be returned.” I went on to tell her the whole story
including Pablo’s investigation, my trip to Minneapolis, all I had
learned from Harry, my confrontations with Erik, and his
announcement that he would shut down his businesses and leave town.
“So I’m afraid he won’t be paying back Adam’s investment or making
good on Nathan’s herb plants. You can try to get your money back by
reporting him to consumer fraud or something, but from what Harry
said, pretty much no one ever catches Erik—Horace—or whatever he
decides to call himself the next place he goes.”

Sharon wept on my shoulder. I felt mean for
telling her all of this after what she’d been through in the last
few days, but I’d been holding it back from her too long already.
My trip to Minneapolis had been Wednesday, and it was already
Sunday by then.

She grabbed a tissue, blew her nose and wiped
her eyes. “I can’t believe I felt so close to him, that I let
Nathan get close to him, that we went camping with him.”

“From what Harry told me, and from what I’ve
seen from Erik lately, I’d say he’s an excellent actor, has an
amazing ability to charm and seduce others. Basically a sociopathic
personality. But his ‘dark side’ is hard to spot. We’re not
alone—so many people have been taken in. He’s wonderful at making
promises and coming across as a great guy but rarely makes good on
anything. Maybe some of the time he even intended to do what he
said he would do, but mostly he just told people what they wanted
to hear so he could get what he wanted. He usually got what he set
out to get, and when he didn’t, he moved on.”

“You’re right, but I still feel stupid not
seeing him for what he was. Do you think he killed Jenny?”

“Maybe. But there’s no way we’ll ever know.
For her sake, to avenge her death, I wish we could pin it on him.
But I can’t see how we could do it.”

“That’s so sad. But you’re right. Okay, let’s
see if we can find anything on the computer about Adam investing in
Erik’s scams.”

Using the computer’s search feature, we
entered “Vaughn’s Holistic Healing.” It didn’t take long to find
the documents. Adam had invested about $80,000 over the past year,
for which he had a one-third interest in the business. We tried
going to Erik’s website several times, but each time we got only
the white page with the message:
The page cannot be found. The
page you are looking for might have been removed, had its name
changed, or is temporarily unavailable
. So it looked like
taking down the website was one promise Erik had actually kept.

“Great! I own a third of a non-existent
business,” Sharon said. “I sure wish I’d known about this before
Erik left town. Maybe that’s why he never got around to doing what
he said he would do to boot up this computer. Hmmm….I wonder
whether he was actually the one who stole it.”

“But why would he give it to Narmada? In fact
why would he give it back at all?”

“Good point. I wonder if she stole it herself
and just said it was someone she knew?”

“Wouldn’t stealing be bad karma for her?” I
asked. “You know what? Not telling us who took it is bad karma too.
I’m going to call her right now and give her the chance to redeem
herself.”

“Good luck with that,” Sharon said.

I took out my cell, which had Narmada’s
number in memory from the times she’d called me. I expected to get
voice mail, so when she actually answered, I wasn’t prepared.

“Natalie…um, I mean Narmada, it’s Cleo. But
you probably know that from your caller ID, and anyway you’re
psychic.” Good grief, could I be any more clumsy? All at once I
realized I owed her big time for showing up at Waycroft’s lab when
she did. “I want to thank you for the demonstration. It truly saved
my life—and Sharon’s and Elisa’s too—and we’re all very grateful. I
don’t know what we would have done if you and your friends hadn’t
shown up when you did.”

“Cleo, I told you I was meant to organize
this demonstration, and now we know why. I felt it there when you
were in danger. The soul bond we have is very strong.”

“Soul bond?” I had no idea what she meant,
but I was curious.

“Yes, I feel we’re sharing a vibration, that
we have a cosmic connection. I’m sure we’ve shared experiences in
other times and dimensions. Now we need to transform our negative
relationship patterns. Everything needs to be completely clear
between us. So I’m going to tell you the whole truth. It was me. I
took Adam’s computer. I had to do it to see what toxic stuff he had
on there about me. The negative energy he spread about me had to be
removed. But it didn’t work. I couldn’t log on. So I knew it wasn’t
meant to be. And I could feel it dragging me down, just having it
in my space.”

“So that’s why you gave it to me? To get it
out of your space?”

“Yes. I knew I had to get it back to Sharon,
but I couldn’t deal with her. She would have called the police and
created negativity. I knew you’d get it back to her.”

“So why tell me now?”

“I told you.” She sounded slightly
exasperated, as if explaining to a backward child. “We have a soul
bond. Our connection must be kept clear.”

“Oh, right. I understand.” Not really, but I
didn’t want to go any further with the soul bond thing. “Anyway,
Sharon has the computer back, and she’s able to log on, so no harm
done, I guess.”

“Exactly!” Narmada said with enthusiasm.
“Here’s how I see it. I helped you and Sharon and your friend out
at Waycroft’s lab. Now you and Sharon can help me out by dropping
the issue of the computer. I didn’t hurt anyone and you have the
computer back.”

Given all that had happened in the past few
days, the stolen computer was a minor blip. And Narmada was right.
We owed her big time. So I agreed with her and said I’d talk to
Sharon about it.

Sharon had been listening and was eager for
the details. When I told her what Narmada had said, she laughed.
“Sounds like her karma’s pretty shot after all this. No need for me
to try to get her in more trouble. And her timing for that
demonstration was terrific. So let’s forget about the computer
theft.”

It was good to see her smiling again. It felt
like a good opportunity to bring up the issue of what she wanted to
say about her dad and Adam. So I jumped in.

“I agree.” I said. “And now that we’ve tied
up that loose end, there’s something else we should think about.
Elisa and I talked about your dad, and we both agreed it should be
up to you to decide what we tell people about him and Adam. Now
that your dad is dead, there may be more harm than good to be done
by revealing he admitted he pushed Adam. The police might not
believe us. We don’t have any proof. But mostly I’m worried about
Nathan. He’s already lost Adam, and now his grandfather and Erik. I
don’t want to make it worse for him. So we haven’t said anything
about it and we won’t unless you want us to.”

Sharon sat silently for a minute, gazing off
into space. Then she turned to face me. “Thanks, Cleo. I think
you’re right. It’s hard enough for me to accept that my father
killed my husband. Why burden Nathan with that? It’s not as though
it will change anything if we tell people.”

“Right. I think as long as that Mexico
experiment is closed down, we’ve done enough.”

At that point Joel and Nathan came through
the front door dripping wet from their tubing adventure. “Mom, it
was so cool. We went over these big rocks, kind of like a
waterfall, and I only turned over once. And that time I got back up
really easy.”

“He learns fast,” Joel said, rubbing Nathan’s
shoulders with a towel. “Next week we’re going to try from farther
up the creek where there are more rapids. You should come.”

“Thanks Joel,” Sharon said.

As I noticed the warm look that passed
between them, I thought the resilience of human beings is our
saving grace. Like the creek, life has its rocky spots and
sometimes we turn over. But usually we’re up again and back for
more challenges in no time.

Monday morning I drove over to Shady Terrace.
I hadn’t been there for a week, more time than I usually let go by
between visits. In the main lobby area, most of the office doors
were closed. It was quiet on the Alzheimer’s unit, too. The staff I
saw were working quietly, the residents were calm.

I found Gramma in her room looking at a book
of paintings by Henri Matisse. She turned the pages quickly until
she came to a picture of a fishbowl on a pink porch table, with
plants and flowers in the background. Four bright orange goldfish
swam in the small water-filled bowl.

“Whose fish?” she asked, looking up at
me.

“I don’t know, Gramma. Matisse painted those
fish a long time ago.”

“Where do they live?”

“In France, I guess. That’s where Matisse
lived.” Not that she’d make any sense of that, but sometimes I
can’t come up with good answers to her questions.

“Who feeds them?”

“Whoever lives there with them.”

“I don’t like fish.” She looked slightly
annoyed.

“That’s okay, Gramma, you don’t have to like
them.” I reached toward the book to turn the page, but she pulled
it away from me.

“James will take care of it later,” she
said.

I sat on her bed and watched her turn the
pages, stopping at one or another for a longer look. She didn’t say
anything more about the pictures. I wondered whether she had any
thoughts at all about the art she looked at. Probably not, but it
helped me to think she might.

After about half an hour, I went out to the
nurses’ station. Tanya was there charting. Surprisingly, she looked
up and smiled at me.

“Martha’s doing much better,” she said.
“She’s been sleeping better at night and not wandering as
much.”

“Is she still on the Ambien?” I asked.

“No. Dr. Dubose—the new Medical Director—took
her off the Ambien. Didn’t anyone call you?”

“I haven’t been around much. But I don’t
recall any voice mail messages from Shady Terrace.”

“I’ll make sure Dr. Dubose calls you. You’ll
like him. He wants us to deal more directly with behaviors, without
so many meds. We’ve been trying herbal tea with Martha in the
evening like you suggested, and it does soothe her. And we’ve been
keeping her more active during the days, so she’ll sleep better at
night.”

Amazing! Just when I least expected it, good
news hit me in the face! I thanked Tanya for the information, gave
Gramma a joyful kiss, and headed back to my office. It wasn’t easy
to focus on clients, but I had to do it. All my Nancy Drewing had
begun to affect my livelihood.

I wondered what would become of Waycroft’s
complaint against me, now that he was dead. I couldn’t see how it
could go forward without a living complainant, so I called the
Department of Regulatory Agencies to find out. Like any
bureaucracy, they were unwilling to make a definite commitment, but
I had the distinct impression I wouldn’t need to be worrying about
it anymore. I called Bruce, my funder, to give him the good
news.

I’d been worrying all day about getting
together with Pablo that evening to talk. I didn’t want to have an
ugly argument, but I wasn’t ready to admit I’d made foolish
mistakes, either. I knew I had taken risks, but how else would we
have gotten to the bottom of this messy situation? And, Tyler had
been insistent that I “ride the wave.” But of course I couldn’t
talk to Pablo about Tyler.

I decided I would at least try to stack the
odds a bit in my favor by choosing a location that would set a
festive, possibly romantic mood. So I called Pablo and made a
couple of suggestions. We agreed to meet for dinner at Terrace
Maya, a funky Mexican restaurant on North Broadway. It’s fairly
convenient for Pablo coming from Longmont, and it has a huge
outdoor covered patio, where we’d likely be able to talk without
being overheard.