Children of Dynasty (19 page)

“I’m sorry.” Walker’s tone said he wasn’t. “I’ve got no choice but to call your business loans with First California.”

Mariah went hot all over. Two hundred million dollars, all but a few tied up in properties under construction.

“For God’s sake,” she said, “we haven’t even completed our investigation of the accident.”

“You know the bank has a perfect right to call your notes.” Walker’s eyes narrowed. “Your payments were late, and that allows me to foreclose.”

She wanted to storm at Arnold, to ask how he had permitted this. All companies borrowed money as their lifeline, but his department had tightened their rope into a noose.

“You know we don’t have that kind of money lying around.” Her hands started to shake, and she folded them together in her lap. Thank God that Dad wasn’t here.

Arnold continued to talk too fast. Walker simply stared at him.

At last, Mariah turned and waited until the banker met her direct look. “Do we have any room here?”

He shook his head. His porcine eyes made her understand why John had wanted someone else to handle their account. It also reminded her with sharp clarity of seeing him cozying up to Davis Campbell at his mansion last month.

“Effective date?” she asked.

“June sixth. Cash.”

“It’s May twenty-eight. That’s next Friday,” Arnold blurted.

“The sixth is the monthly payment date on your schedule. Good as any, I expect.”

Mariah felt a dizzying sensation. She stayed upright by pinching the soft skin between her thumb and forefinger and telling the black sparks in her vision to go away.

“Shouldn’t we have ninety days or something?” She hoped her voice sounded normal.

“Old Bill Bryan and your dad were great friends. Their loan agreements were dirt simple, either party could back out any time. Guess John shouldn’t have trusted Bill would always be around.”

Mariah rose to indicate the meeting was at an end and let Arnold see Walker out. Left alone, she looked at her father’s empty chair. Such a short time ago he’d had been on top of the world, watching Grant Plaza soar toward completion.

Arnold came back with Tom Barrett. The big man looked as rumpled as Mariah felt. “I heard,” he said gravely. She waited for him to tell her what to do, but he sank into a chair with a sigh and offered nothing.

“This isn’t my fault.” Arnold’s hands moved restlessly. “We were changing our accounts payable software. Your father did those deals with Bill Bryan, you heard …”

“I should fire you right now,” Mariah said.

He reddened. “How dare you sweep in here and start running the place? I’ve been with John for the past seven years and where were you?”

“Arnold,” Tom warned.

Though the tirade subsided, Arnold continued to glare at her.

“As for you, Mariah,” Tom went on, “you may be John’s next in line, but this isn’t the time to go throwing your weight around. If there’s any way out for Grant, we need a man who understands our finances inside and out. God knows, I haven’t been much help lately.”

Without her father, with Tom a beaten shadow of his former self, and the loans due in a matter of days, the future of Grant Development settled onto her slender shoulders.

Driving south from downtown, Mariah tried to think how she’d break the news to her father. Though both Tom and Arnold had offered to come with her, she’d insisted on going alone. John didn’t need to see any displays of disunity in his senior staff.

What could they do? Try another bank, but with all the negative publicity, it would be an uphill battle. The most obvious solution, and the one she hated most, was to try and sell off properties prior to their completion. Her hands clenched the wheel as she realized Grant Plaza might have to be one of them.

Arriving too soon in Stonestown, she parked in front of her father’s house. Inside, she found him in his recliner, dressed in casual flannel pants and a T-shirt. His legs, encased in elastic stockings, were elevated.

“Where’s Mrs. Schertz?” she asked, surmising from the air of stillness in the house that he was alone.

“I sent her to the grocery store.” Something sharp in his tone tipped her.

She met his eyes. “Who called you?”

“Arnold.”

“That weasel.”

Her father looked reproachful. “The man is as distraught as can be. He said you refused to let him come with you.”

“I didn’t want you upset.”

“You can’t protect me from everything. I’m just as disturbed about the threat to the company no matter who brings the news.” He patted the hassock beside his chair. “Your attitude toward Arnold is a great disappointment to me.”

Mariah ignored the summons to sit. “Can’t you see he despises me precisely because I’m your daughter? I’ll bet he thinks without me he’d be your heir apparent.”

John studied her with steady eyes. “He would. Tom and I aren’t getting any younger, and you’re not ready to run things alone.”

She couldn’t argue with that. Now that Thaddeus Walker had pulled the foundation from under Grant Development, she longed for her father to be whole and well, to take the burden from her.

“Rely on Arnold, daughter. He does care for me, even if you can’t see it.” He nodded toward an expensive carved soapstone chessboard that had appeared in the house a few years ago. “He brought that back for me from Alaska. We play together every Wednesday evening … it’s time we started again.”

It was no use arguing that she’d seen Arnold’s kind before, people who sucked up to get ahead.

“About the loans …” she said.

John nodded. She would have expected more emotion, but he sat expressionless. Then she recalled his doctor saying the beta blocker drugs used to slow his heart rate kept a person calm.

Trying to keep her own head, she finally took a seat. “Before I came home, I talked to Ed Snowden and had him give a legal opinion on the borrowing agreement. At first, I thought it was impossible for First California to do this, but Ed says it’s going to happen unless we do something drastic. Sell some properties.”

Her father stirred to life. “Davis Campbell would love that.”

He was right. Despite Arnold’s accusing her of seeing bogeymen under the bed, she wondered if Davis had influenced the banker’s decision by dangling some bait, like sending DCI business to First California.

“Dad,” she said. “I saw Davis and Walker together at his party. They looked mighty cozy.”

Despite the drugs, her father swore a vicious oath. “I’ll have to come back to work.”

“No,” she argued. “Your sternum won’t be healed for another three weeks, and you can’t drive or lift over ten pounds until then. Let me take care of things.” It was the least she could do to make up for her role in putting him in the hospital.

He scratched at his scar, his angry expression dissipating. With his ability to read her, he said, “It’s time for you to stop blaming yourself.”

How she wished she could shed the weight of guilt. “Every time I think of it, I want to go back in time and undo that phone call. Telling you I was with Rory right after we buried Charley was unforgivable.”

John reached toward her with a pale hand. Blue veins showed through his skin as though he were a much older man. “Love makes everything forgivable.” He smiled gently. “There is no way you gave me a heart attack by letting me know you were with Rory. I’m just glad you figured him out before you got hurt again.”

She looked away, hoping to hide how the mention of Rory slashed at her. Her eyes sought a tapestry over the sofa. An elderly bearded man in traditional robes stood on an arched wooden bridge with a young woman. Behind them, the uniquely serrate mountains of Japan strove for the silken sky. When she was a child, she and her father had liked to walk in the Japanese Garden at Golden Gate Park, and she’d imagined the picture was a magic glimpse of them when she grew up.

“Look at me.” John put a hand over his chest and breathed a little fast.

She lowered her eyes from the threads, reminded of the complex web woven by deceit. She still wanted Rory and had to hide it.

“Just as I’ve never been able to care for anybody but your mother, you’ve never moved on in all these years. I’ve watched and hoped you’d find someone else, not make work your life the way I have.”

His words underscored how the threat to Grant Development cut to the core of everything she stood for.

The telephone rang. Perhaps Mrs. Schertz was calling on her cell to ask what brand of mustard John preferred. On the other hand, it might be Tom with something from the office. Mariah moved to answer it.

“Hello, it’s Lyle Thomas,” said the assistant D.A. she’d talked with at the Marriott, a blond Norseman tamed into a business suit. “I tried your office.”

“I came home to see Dad.”

“I was sorry to hear about his health problems,” Lyle said sincerely. “Please give him my best wishes.”

“I’ll do that.” She reminded herself that as big a gossip as Lyle was, she must be careful not to let him know about the loans.

“You remember I said I’d introduce you to some people?” He sounded hearty even on the phone. “Well, there’s a house party at Wilson McMillan’s place in Pacific Grove this coming weekend.”

Mariah knew of McMillan well. An attractive offer, but she couldn’t see leaving Dad alone overnight. “I’m sorry, Lyle, but …”

“No ‘buts.’” He chuckled. “If you’re worried about sleeping arrangements, this is strictly platonic.”

“I believe you,” she said, “but with my father’s illness, I won’t be able to go.”

As soon as she got off the phone, John asked. “Was that Lyle Thomas of the D.A.’s office?”

“That’s right.”

“You said no to what?”

“He asked me to Wilson McMillan’s house party.”

With a gesture toward a pile of mail on the table beside him, John said, “I was invited.” He rummaged, found an envelope and tossed it to her. “That’s his house.”

Pulling out the creamy paper embossed with a Moorish-style castle, she felt a twinge of regret. It looked like the kind of place where a Cinderella story might come true.

“I was going to suggest you go,” he said. “Mrs. Schertz can stay over in the guest room.”

He might say he’d forgiven her for Rory, but guilt urged her to take care of him. “No, Dad.”

Listen to me,” he said. “You have to build your power base in this town. My day is ending.”

Mariah wanted to put a finger to his lips and shush him, but she listened.

“With this loan crisis, you’ve got to find prospects we can sell property to.” He sounded as though he’d bitten into a sour fruit. “The last thing I want is a fire sale to Davis Campbell.”

“My, God.” If Davis had put Thaddeus Walker up to calling Grant Development’s notes, he might be waiting in the wings, his goal to take the entire company.

Suddenly, it was no longer good enough not to know what had gone wrong between the two men. “You and Davis have been rivals for as long as I can remember, but it seems to go a lot deeper than that.”

John looked through the windows at his beloved garden he could no longer tend. Though he clearly didn’t want to talk about it, she couldn’t let this go. “Dad, please. Tell me why you despise each other.”

“Who said
I
despise him?” His face twisted with what looked like pain.

“Are you all right?” A clutch of fear went through her as she hoped she’d not pushed too hard.

“Fine,” he said. “That is, my heart’s okay. I’m just thinking how different things would be,” he reached to stroke the embossed castle on the invitation, “if I hadn’t gone to McMillan’s house twenty-seven years ago.”

I
t misted rain all afternoon, but the sun came out when John drove his Ford Fairlane past the big dunes at Fort Ord. He looked out at the wild, foaming surf and wished his friend Davis Campbell weren’t on the far side of the ocean hunting with his father in Africa. John could use him along this weekend at Wilson McMillan’s.

Oh, John had plenty of confidence in his ability to get a job done; no doubt in time he’d be a most successful builder. It was just that his new partner Davis was better at talk. There was bound to be a lot of social banter along with golf on the world-renowned Pebble Beach or Spyglass Hill courses. John’s duffing would be less noticeable if he shared clubs with Davis, who was an excellent player.

The worst of it was that until Davis got back and made the break with his father’s company, John couldn’t announce that they were going into partnership. Davis had wanted to wait until the hunting trip was over, for he expected Gates Campbell to take it poorly.

After driving the oceanfront route through Monterey and Pacific Grove, John guided his Fairlane over a hill and caught sight of Wilson McMillan’s castle. Near the beginning of the 17-Mile Drive, it was set above an emerald fairway overlooking the broad curve of Spanish Bay. Offshore, the surf crashed and careened in a dozen directions off the last rocky outpost before thousands of miles of open water.

Seeing the imposing setting and the thick-walled limestone fortress made John even more apprehensive. Lots of men would bring their wives, and today he wished he had one. Someone sweet and lovely who’d charm everyone into thinking he was a clever fellow to have won her. At thirty, he had yet to meet a woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.