A Fortune to Die For (White Oak - Mafia Series Book 1) (3 page)

As a reward for her diligence, her oatmeal boiled over.

While cursing her inability to cook, the doorbell rang. She screamed and dropped the pan of oatmeal onto the floor where it splattered onto her legs. Desperately wiping the scalding oatmeal from her legs, Megan limped through her not-so-safe room to the mudroom and turned on the video monitor.

Upon seeing the way too gorgeous Detective Williams, she opened the door and let him in.

“Are you sick?” He reached over and felt her forehead.

Why would he even ask such a thing?
A glance in the hall mirror provided the answer. She’d yet to brush her hair, which had evidently spent the night teasing itself. “I just got up. Let me find a brush so I don’t give you nightmares.”

Instead of staying in the not-so-safe room, he followed her to the kitchen. “Whoa!”

“Cooking disaster…someone knocked on my door, and the pot jumped out of my hand.” Leaving him in the kitchen, she went to her bathroom and softly cursed at the frightening creature staring back at her.

Dark circles hung beneath her eyes. Her nose was red and blotchy, and her cheeks were flushed. But the masterpiece of disaster was her hair. Honest to God, if she had taken a comb and deliberately teased it into a matted rat’s nest, the results couldn’t be more of a horror than it was now.

Upon washing her face and applying her skin medicine to calm her Rosacea flare up, she attempted to hide the bags and redness with ancient makeup bought long ago when she had a job. Finally, she focused on her rat’s nest.

A knock on the door caused her to scream, resulting in the detective bursting in a second later with his gun drawn.

She dropped her brush and held up her hands. “It’s just me in here.”

With a quick check behind the shower curtain, he re-holstered his gun. “Why’d you scream?”

She grimaced. “I didn’t sleep well last night, and everything is making me jumpy today.”

He nodded as if her answer was perfectly reasonable. “Can you come out so I can talk to you for a moment?”

She smiled at his reluctance to have a conversation with a screaming woman in her bathroom. Where would they sit? On the toilet and rim of the bathtub? Seriously, even the not-so-safe room sounded better.

She picked up her brush and led him back to the soon-to-be-featured-in-a-lawsuit room. On the way, they skirted around the brown mess splattered all over the kitchen floor. “I’ll clean the mess up once you’re gone.”

“Have you ever considered hiring a cook?”

Sitting down in her recliner, gathering her legs up beneath her, the injustice of his question hit home. “I’m not really a bad cook.”

His right eyebrow rose in challenge, but he remained quiet as he sat on the couch and sobered. “I spoke to the FBI this morning, and while they agree the letters warrant action, they lack the manpower to assign anyone at this time.”

“Figured as much.” Wanting to hide her arms’ desire to tremble in fear over their most reasonable reply, she hugged her chest. Nothing was different. Death threats had been arriving for years. Nothing had changed.

Yet, it had. Detective Williams had ripped away her nonchalant attitude toward the letters and had proven her safe room was a farce. Well, technically she’d proven the lack of steel, but he was the one who raised the possibility.

“Miss Clarke—”

“Megan. If we are going to discuss my possible demise, I’d rather you call me Megan.”

A faint smile came to his firm lips. “Megan, while the FBI cannot provide the manpower needed to discover who is sending you these threats, they did suggest some things you can do to increase your safety.”

“Hire better builders of my safe room?”

He sighed heavily. “They suggested you get a new identity and move someplace else.”

A new identity! What a great idea. Escape the curse of her money and start her life over without resentful people everywhere she turned. “Maybe I’ll go to Iowa and buy two-hundred thousand acres of white oaks…live like a hermit.” The idea sounded like heaven. Walking in trees all days, all by herself. No one asking her for money, writing her messages from God…

Then reality crashed in. “Let’s say I file to have my name changed. Are name changes really kept secret, or will I go through bureaucratic hell for nothing?”

“Actually, this much the FBI is willing to commit to. They will assist you in obtaining a new identity and moving all your monetary assets to it.”

“Really?” Then a cloud of hard-earned suspicion settled in. What if Detective Williams was playing his own racket? Tricking her into moving all her assets to a new identity not belonging to her?

“And how will they do this?”

He tilted his head at her question. Perhaps she hadn’t kept the sarcasm out of her voice.

“Honestly,” he said, “I’ve no idea what goes into the whole process. All I know is upon review of the letters I sent them, they agree you are at serious risk and offered this solution, which evidently only uses back-office staff to complete.”

Megan snorted softly and shook her head. No one ever appreciated the efforts of the underlings. They could have work up to their eyeballs, and their boss would cheerfully toss them more.

“I’m having trouble reading you, Megan. Do you not understand you are in danger?”

“Given my inability to sleep last night, I would say you did manage to convince me I’m in imminent danger. I’ve just become so jaded I don’t trust anyone…although it hasn’t really helped.” She stared at the hole in the “where’s the steel?” wall. “I would really like a new identity of someone who did not win the lottery. Perversely, I would like to keep the money I won to pay myself back for all the hell I’ve gone through…and to buy some land.”

He smiled and relaxed. “I think that’s a great idea. I did verify all your money can be safely transferred to your new identity. I didn’t know how much you still had, so I threw a ballpark of three-hundred million, and he said they could manage it.”

Megan glared at him in outrage. “You do realize I won the stupid lottery four years ago.”

“Well, less won’t be a problem.”

She cleared her throat, intending to lecture him women could be kick-ass investors.

He did his cute head tilt again. “I
understated
the amount?”

She nodded.

“Substantially?”

With reluctance, she nodded. Matters always turned south when someone learned how much she was worth.

He pulled out his pad and wrote a name and phone number, then tore the sheet out and handed it to her. “This is the agent I talked to. You can verify with him how much of your money he can move.”

Her face burned. He’d clearly grasped she didn’t want to tell him her net worth. It was bad enough when people believed she had almost half a billion. But in four years, she had managed to turn it into nearly a billion dollars.

“Detective Williams—”

“Steve,” he corrected her. “Or I have to stop calling you Megan.”

The fact he now wanted to be on first name basis bothered her, but since she had asked him to call her Megan, she could hardly refuse the same courtesy in return.

“Steve, I really appreciate the time and effort you’ve spent on my problem. You could have come in, opened the package, and left thinking me a complete dolt. But instead, you dug deeper and found serious threats to my existence…and now a solution. I’m really grateful.” But no way in hell was she going to date him.

“But…”

“But nothing. I’m really grateful.”

He laughed softly and stared at his feet a few moments before meeting her eyes. “I could have sworn there was a ‘but’ coming. You’re a hard read. But no matter, I am very happy to improve your chances of survival. Although, I still believe you need to hire a cook when you get to Iowa.”

A sense of dread overcame Meg as she stared at a tiny, white Toyota basking in her rental slot on this fine sunny Iowa day. Where the hell was the Subaru she’d requested?

God, what if changing her name wasn’t enough? What if the Lottery Curse still clung to her?

No! I’m not under a curse. This is just one of those annoying things travelers endure all the time.

She threw her suitcase in the trunk and slammed it shut. After placing her nothing-can-destroy-me computer case on the passenger floorboard, she stormed to the driver’s side and got in. Her knees slammed into the underside of the steering wheel.

God! Had the last driver been a midget?

Upon pushing the seat a foot back, she pondered the car’s knobs, sticks, and buttons in bewilderment. Why couldn’t they have given her a Subaru as she’d asked? This tiny car was a different species.

It was also an automatic. Her request had been for a standard since that’s what she drove. Now her left foot would be slamming on the brakes every time the car felt ready to shift. Closing her eyes, the words of her former shrink spoke in her head.
Think of something pleasant and soothing.

Detective Williams came to mind. While her feelings for him weren’t exactly “soothing”, they were pleasant. Over the last weeks, as the FBI had assisted her by phone in moving one billion, mostly in investments, to her new name, he’d stopped by on a daily basis. One of her investment brokers refused to move her assets as directed. Instead, they insisted she would have to sell all her stocks and send cash to the new brokerage firm. Since the market was presently at a low, this would potentially cost her over four-hundred thousand in losses.

Fortunately, Steve helped her put the matter in perspective. “Would you pay four-hundred thousand to get rid of all the negatives accompanying your half a billion? That’s what…one percent of your winnings?”

Her mouth gaped for the longest time. Was he nuts? Four hundred thousand dollars was a big deal. Then her brain did the math.

“What the hell am I going on about?” Filled with gratitude for bringing her to her senses, she rose and kissed him on his freshly shaven cheek. “Thank you for questioning my priorities. And it’s actually point-oh-four percent so my objection was ridiculously absurd. When I was a single-digit millionaire, it was significant money, but now it’s pocket change.”

She called the broker and told him to liquidate and transfer the money.

When she got off the phone, warm fuzzy vibes radiated from her door. Detective Williams…Steve was smiling at her with what looked to be great admiration.

“What?”

“You really are some sort of financial genius, aren’t you?”

She rolled her eyes. “Clearly not.”

“Clearly you are. Most lottery winners are bankrupt within ten years. You, on the other hand, have become a billionaire in four.”

She shrugged, rather proud of herself. It was her only success in an otherwise miserable life. “Okay, I’m good with money, but fixing my life—not so much.”

“I think this new identity will do wonders for you, assuming you don’t try to remain here where everyone knows who you are. If you do, any relief will be temporary.”

“Actually, I’m planning to move to Iowa and buy two hundred thousand acres of land.”

“Excellent. Just try to make the purchase without getting your picture in the paper…and cut your hair, maybe part it on the side.”

“Good idea.” She then scowled. “Agent Thomas at the FBI suggested I color my hair and put on weight, but I don’t want to be dying my hair for the rest of my life, and I like being healthy.”

“Your hair is a gorgeous color, and such a silky texture…it’d be a crime to ruin it with dyes.”

She never said her hair was gorgeous or silky, but she wasn’t going to correct him. It had been awhile since anyone had complimented her.

A dark cloud of mistrust moved in as she recalled the compliments fell like rain when she was being seduced for her money. Maybe in her new life she could trust men again, but not now, and not with Steve.

“I’ve wasted too much time here. I need to get back to work. Did you need anything else?”

Her snappish tone had the desired effect. He left, and he never stopped by again, not even to wish her good luck when she left New Jersey forever.

A part of her regretted being such a bitch, but another part of her recalled all the fortune hunters she’d fallen for. With each guy, she’d start out believing he was different. Unlike the ones before, he truly loved her. The prenup proved her wrong every time.

Still, her conscience struggled with her last words to Steve because action-wise, he’d been nothing but nice to her. Nor had he ever come on to her. He’d been concerned yet professional up to the day she’d kissed him on his cheek.

God! He probably thought she liked him, which she had until he complimented her hair.

“I’m a fucking basket case,” she muttered. So far her shrinks couldn’t help her resolve her distrust issues. Still, she owed Steve Williams an apology for being a bitch
and
stealing his last name. What if he knew she’d claimed his last name as well? Talk about sending mixed signals.

First thing, she was going to have to find a new shrink. Otherwise, her new life was doomed from the start.

Starting the midget car, she cranked the A/C to level five and followed the directions out of the Des Moines Airport. Glancing at her watch, she frowned at the time. 11:30. She was supposed to be at Helen’s at noon. But then, her flight should have landed at 9:00, only it decided 10:30 was more convenient for its tired old wings. And somehow she’d managed to waste another hour in this parking lot.

No way would she make it on time. Hopefully, the woman wasn’t a time freak.

On the map, the journey to Helen’s house looked easy. Reality proved different. Especially since her GPS had somehow gone missing after the contents of her purse were dumped into a plastic bin while she was escorted to the side for what proved to be both an impersonal yet intimate pat down.

But this was not necessarily caused by her Lottery Curse. Air travel had its own well-documented list of curses.

Driving long straight roads through flat farmlands proved far more stressful than Megan would have thought. With no GPS, she had to slow and read each and every tiny crossroad name. For some reason, Iowa didn’t seem to differentiate between minor country roads and the road she needed. Maybe, to them, they all went somewhere equally important. After all, Iowa was just one giant grid of square roads.

Being from New Jersey where grids were the anomaly and winding roads interacted with other roads at all sorts of strange angles, she found the grid system to be confusing in its sameness. Every corner looked identical. Roads didn’t wander and fork. Signs didn’t designate the importance of the road.

When she eventually needed to travel diagonally against the grid, to her surprise, the directions put her on a road heading northeast. After a bit of confusion in Cedar Rapids, she latched onto Highway 151 and stayed the course as it meandered its way up to the northeast section of Iowa. She wondered how it had gotten so wiggly in the land of grid. Did this road exist before the squares arrived? Had wagon trails connected towns that had long ago disappeared?

Truth was she knew nothing about Iowa or its people, other than they all seemed to like to farm. But she now understood why Helen was so determined to save her forest. The last thing this state needed was more farms.

When she got closer to St. Donatus, the sameness of the land began to change. While there were still a lot of fields, trees had appeared, bordering the multitude of creeks that fed into larger creeks going into the Mississippi River. Water was significant enough to firmly break the grid complex. Here, roads went where they could go.

And they often went upward, for here, inexplicably, the flat land gave way to a massive line of hills.

Now this felt more like home…

And then she got lost.

For the last four years, she’d avoided going into stores for anything because someone would recognize her and tell her their sob story, begging for help. While she had no trouble throwing away letters, dealing with a living, breathing human was a whole ’nother story.

But today with her short, sassy haircut, sunglasses, and a new identity, she pulled into Bob’s Sundry gas station to ask for directions. It was a sad looking place in want of company. The broken, hole-pitted asphalt parking lot was empty except for two old vehicles parked, or abandoned, on the side of the white concrete building.

The two pumps in front of the store were so old Meg suspected they were antiques now and non-functional. When she entered the store, a jingling bell announced her arrival. The Sundry shop had a variety of items. It was like a mini Wal-Mart without the greeters, the floor space, the well-lit aisles, and cleanliness. Bob seemed to have one of everything imaginable stuffed precariously on his overcrowded shelves.

“Can you tell me where Camper Road is?”

At first Bob seemed confused by her request. So she repeated herself, talking slower this time. “Camper Road.” She read off Helen’s instructions to her house. “Helen gave me these directions.”

He shook his head. “Don’t rightly know a Helen Kemper.”

“No, Helen’s last name is Campbell…with a C.”

“Helen Campbell? Oh lord, I know her. She lives a way up the river. What do you want to see Helen about?”

Seriously? He expected her to answer his impertinent question? “She invited me to stop by if I ever came to Iowa.”

“Helen?” He shook his head. “That pig won’t fly here.”

Did he just call her a liar? “Sorry. Say again,” she challenged.

“Helen hasn’t had a visitor in twenty years.”

“Maybe they’ve all gotten lost trying to follow her directions.”

“Helen gave you those directions? Let me see.”

With reluctance, she handed over the handwritten paper. He leaned beneath his counter and retrieved a metal file box like one might have for recipes. He thumbed through the index cards and pulled one out. He laid it down beside her letter. “It sure looks like Helen’s handwriting.”

“Can you tell me how to get there?”

He sighed and shook his head. “You’ll just get lost again.” He faced the back of the shop and yelled for someone named Andy. A moment later, a fresh-faced teenager bounded through the store like an overgrown puppy.

“You got Helen’s groceries packed up?”

“Almost.”

“Well, when you do, this lady’s going to follow you. Don’t you dare let her get lost, or she might never find her way back. She’s not from around here.”

The skinny young man with dark, straight hair falling about his head in a bowl cut eyed her up and down, then laughed. “Where you from, ma’am?”

She almost said New Jersey, but changed it to Pennsylvania. For some reason, her choice of states cheered the boy further. “Where? I got relatives in Pennsylvania.”

Crap! “Pittsburgh.”

His smile fell. “They don’t live there. I don’t suppose you know anyone named Bourer?”

Actually her mother’s maiden name was Bourer, but she shook her head. This kid might be a distant relative, but given all her relatives hated her now, she didn’t need another. That rock was better left untouched.

“Well, I’ll finish with the order. If you need gas, you better buy it now. No gas where we’ll be going. He glanced outside and frowned at her car. “Hope your car will make it.” Evidently deciding there was nothing he could do about her crappy car, he shrugged and hurried to the back.

Once he left, Bob spoke softly. “Being from the north, I expect you’ll want to tip Andy when you arrive safely at Helen’s.”

This man had zero sense of boundaries. However, given she required the guidance of his employee, she nodded.

“Go on out and wait in your car. I’ll let him know now. Then he’ll be certain not to forget about you following him.”

“Thank you,” she said, and for once actually meant it. While Bob was a nosy fellow, he seemed intent on getting her to Helen’s. “I’ve got a half tank of gas. Do I really need to fill up?”

He scratched his chin and gave it some thought. “You can get there and back on a half tank. Still, you’ll be going it alone on your way back, and if you get lost…”

“I’ll go fill up the car,” she said. While she intended to pay close attention on the way up so she didn’t get lost on her way back, this was no time for her intentions to get in the way of safety precautions.

She almost changed her mind when she realized Bob charged a dollar more a gallon than the Indian-run Casino, Grocery, and Gas Station had a hundred miles back. The thought of her wandering on foot in the dark made her decide not to be penny wise and pound foolish.

As she pumped her gas, a thought cheered her up.
Steve would be so proud of me for filling up, never mind the cost… or he would if I hadn’t been such an ass.

When the handle clicked off, she hung the pump and went inside to pay. “Sorry, I forgot to give it my credit card. Can I pay in here?”

Bob laughed at her. “I don’t pump enough gas to warrant buying the new credit card pumps.”