Children of Dynasty (37 page)

On the drive to Grant Development, Mariah plotted one last move to make before the company was in checkmate. It was a long shot, as John had indicated, but she wanted to see if a business broker might be able to auction the company or its major assets online. She thought she could find the appropriate appraisals and descriptions in the company files and email them in time.

Once she was in her father’s office, she went online and found the name of Eli Roggen in New York. She dialed his number, her stomach queasy.

Broker Roggen acted interested until she told him the loans were due in less than two business days. “Well, now, Miss Grant,” he clipped out in his Manhattan accent. “This is a bit unusual. Why do you need to have the company auctioned on such short notice?”

She explained about the software problem and the late loans, using the terms Arnold had used to defend himself. “The bank is planning to foreclose and we haven’t been able to raise the loan amount selling properties piecemeal.”

“Still, it seems highly unusual that First California would be in such a hurry.”

Mariah let the silence lengthen, following her father’s rule of not saying too much. She heard a faint clicking and guessed Roggen was using his computer mouse to work while they talked.

“Say,” he said with the air of a cat pouncing on a mouse. “This the same Grant Development that had a fatality accident? May fifth?” He continued to read, she presumed from a story on the Internet. “The deceased, Andrew Green and Charley …”

Mariah’s nails dug into her palm. “That’s the one. The accident investigation is still pending.”

“Sorry,” Roggen said, “but I can’t take this on, especially with there being no consensus between Grant and,” he paused, evidently still reading, “the hoist company, Field. We still don’t know who was at fault.”

Mariah bit her tongue to keep from airing her suspicions about it not being an accident. There was no use. This man had said “no” and there were others to call.

“Before you ask,” Roggen sounded eager to get her off the line, “I can’t think of anyone else who’d want to get involved.”

In an even tone, Mariah thanked him for his time and put down the phone. She imagined putting her head down on the desk and crying, but of course, she didn’t. She sat dry-eyed and faced the calendar page turned to Thursday, June 5.

All her life, Grant Development had been her inspiration, the way some people loved art, music or another person. Each day when she was a schoolgirl and John got home from work, she’d ask about his day. Rather than answer in generalities, he had regaled her with details of the progress of a model home, a new branch of the public library, or the student union at a local college. Each night she had lain in bed dreaming of the day she would grow up and run the company.

Today, it felt like a dead weight.

Someone knocked on John’s office door, and Mariah tried to compose her face into placid lines. After a moment, she called, “Come in.”

April Perry entered, wearing her muted gray suit as though already mourning the company’s demise. She carried a CD case, which she tapped with a fingernail. “Zaragoza has been located in El Salvador. Apparently, his green card expired and he left the United States the day of the accident. When the hoist fell, he might have been afraid he’d be blamed; probably bolted for the border, figuring he’d get deported anyway.”

Mariah’s eyes narrowed. “Or, he didn’t want to answer any tough questions. Like, who wanted Grant Development to go down?”

“There’s no telling if anything like that happened.” April brought the CD to John’s desk and gave it a little push toward Mariah. “You asked about Davis Campbell being involved, but the PI turned up nothing connecting him with Zaragoza.”

For Rory’s sake, Mariah hoped the PI was right. She wasn’t convinced. “Have him track down Zaragoza and talk to him. Put on some pressure and he may finger Davis.”

April hesitated. “I’ll do it, but it will take us past Friday.”

“I don’t care. After the way Davis treated Dad yesterday, I won’t be satisfied until I know how far he was willing to go to bring Grant down.”

April nodded, empathy in her eyes. “I suppose there’s nothing to do now but wait for the foreclosure tomorrow.”

“Don’t say that.” Mariah got to her feet. “We can’t just sit and watch it all go. I’ve got to think of some way out.”

“I don’t see how.” April looked bleak. “The mood downstairs …” She referred to the floors below the executive offices where more than a hundred Grant employees had their offices. “The best word for it is ‘grim.’ Nobody believes they’ll have a job come Monday.” She started to leave and then turned back. “I know I was tough on you about Rory Campbell, but I didn’t have any idea your father approved.”

Mariah shrugged. “That’s all moot. Yesterday, Rory showed where his loyalties lie.”

The older woman nodded. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry we won’t be able to work together any more.”

“I’m sorry too, April.”

Alone, Mariah sank back into her father’s chair. She wished she’d had the chance to rightfully take her place there, but Grant Development was being delivered to First California, and, no doubt, ultimately to Davis Campbell.

She clutched the leather armrests and held back tears once more. The years ahead without her dreams looked like a wasteland. Find a job somewhere, enough to pay the bills and take care of her and Dad. If his health continued to improve, he might be able to do some consulting, unless Davis tried to blackball her and her father the way he had his son. With a sigh, she realized she had to expect he would.

She got up and turned her steps toward the coffee bar. Four doors down, she started to walk past Arnold Benton’s office, but on impulse she stopped and opened the door.

A carved stone chess set remained on the side credenza, the pieces matching those he had given her father. A game was in progress, but only a few moves had been made, too soon to establish an advantage.

Though her father had trouble with Arnold being Davis’s spy, Mariah had to assume that her joining the company had been the catalyst for his betrayal, much the same as her return to the city had set Davis on the road to revenge.

With a sigh, she went back into the hall. The next closed door was Tom Barrett’s, who must have called in sick again. In a few days, it wouldn’t matter.

The coffee bar was empty and she was glad she didn’t have to see anyone. A half pot of stale coffee sat on the burner, and instead of waiting to brew fresh, she poured and heated a cup in the microwave. How terrible that it had come to hiding out at Grant, but she couldn’t face another employee who depended on her to save the company.

Before she made her escape, Amy, the very young woman who served as secretary to both Arnold and Tom, came in. “Mornin’, Miz Grant,” she said without her usual chipper attitude.

Recalling that Amy had liked Arnold, Mariah returned her greeting neutrally and turned to leave.

“Mr. Benton,” said Amy, “did he say where he was going to work?”

Mariah decided not to reveal how sudden Arnold’s departure had been. “No, he didn’t. Did Tom call in this morning?”

Amy fingered her bottle blond hair. “He’s here, Miz.” Her dire delivery suggested another officer might be about to abandon the deck.

Mariah went back down the hall and rapped on Tom’s door. If she managed to salvage the company, she was going to need him more than ever. If they sank, she counted on him to the end.

“Tom?” She twisted the knob and opened the door.

Her father’s old friend and partner, the man who’d been like an uncle to her, stood at his desk putting a framed photo of his wife Wendy into a cardboard box. At the sight of her, his big shoulders slumped and he shook his shaggy head.

Mariah went inside the office and shut the door.

There were no words. He might have been packing some items he wanted to take home, but that wasn’t the way it worked. She crossed the carpet and put her hand on the arm that had lifted her high, given her hugs, and tucked her in when she slept over at his and Wendy’s house. “Don’t. Dad and I need you.”

Tom trembled beneath her touch and she let him pull away. He busied himself putting another photo in the box, this one of Charley and Mariah playing when they were about eight. In the picture, she was wielding a garden hose. The vividness of pale limbed, tousled-haired Charley jumping beneath the spray made her expect to see the image move. A far away echo of children’s high-pitched giggles was almost audible.

“When were you going to tell me?” Mariah tried to keep her voice steady.

“I wasn’t.” Tom’s normally bright blue eyes looked dull.

“You were going to call Dad?”

“I’m afraid not.”

A creeping cold took hold of her. “Tom, I need for you to tell me what’s going on.”

He dropped the pretense of packing. “I was going to slip out at lunch. I’ve written a note.” From the desk, he picked up a white number 10 envelope with
John
scribbled on it.

She took it and turned it in her hands.

“Go ahead and read it,” Tom said. “I owe you that.” He came out from behind the desk he no longer claimed and lowered his body into a guest chair.

Mariah took the one opposite. Her heart beat hard as she slit the envelope and removed the paper.

Dear John,

The message began in Tom’s familiar scrawl. She’d seen his handwriting on everything from her sixth year birthday card to the proud letter he had written for her college graduation. Lately, she’d seen his scribbled notes on the conference room white board.

There are no words for me to tell you how sorry I am, for making fatal mistakes that have spelled the end for Grant Development. Now that Arnold has gone, I can no longer hide behind my sheep’s clothing among the flock. I should have spoken up during the meeting, but I was a coward.

The prickling premonition that something had gone terribly wrong chilled Mariah as her eyes flicked to the next line.

Arnold was not Davis Campbell’s man.

Mariah closed her eyes. She could still see the slanting ink stark against white paper.

The root of my downfall was my gambling problem. In the old days, I’d play the horses, or phone my bookie and bet on ball games. When it got to where I was spending our retirement money, Wendy laid down the law. Quit, or lose her.

Mariah raised her eyes from the page and took in the misery of a man who looked utterly broken.

I quit.

Until the Internet made gambling as easy as the press of a mouse. I’d sit behind my desk and feel the computer calling me, whispering that there was margin left on my credit cards. At first, I won big, but then, as it inevitably does, it turned against me.

I tried to borrow against our family IRAs at First California without Wendy’s authorization, and Thaddeus Walker caught me out. He suggested I go to Davis Campbell and, God help me, I asked him to square my debts in exchange for certain information. I knew it was a pact with the dark side, but I didn’t see any way out. I was forced to choose between the certain loss of my wife’s trust and the chance that you and Mariah would learn of my betrayal.

She should be red with rage, yet all she felt was emptiness. “Was it you who dropped the CDs on the floor in my office?”

He nodded. “Campbell asked for information on the accident investigation. I figured the PI’s report on the missing welder would be a sensational tidbit, but nothing that would compromise the company.”

He could have inadvertently been helping Davis cover his tracks.

Tom rubbed his face with both hands, then ran them up and tousled his hair as though unaware of what he was doing. “Arnold surprised me in your office on a Sunday. I let the CD’s fall and asked him about a financial on Bayview Townhomes, as if that’s what I’d been looking for. We walked out together.”

“Arnold didn’t do anything wrong,” she realized aloud.

Tom shook his head. “He would have walked through fire for your dad.”

The chess games, the hospital visits … “Oh, God.”

“Don’t beat yourself up,” Tom said. “You had no way to know I was the traitor.” His bitter tone brought her attention back to the letter.

Tell Mariah I am sorry to leave her to fight the battles that lie ahead, but I can no longer face either the mirror, or the sweet sight of Wendy’s trusting face, knowing that I betrayed you, the people I loved most in the world.

Gooseflesh prickled her scalp, and she looked at Tom. “This is a suicide note.”

He stared at a spot on the carpet.

Flinging the paper to the floor, she leaped up and knelt before him. Picking up his heavy, lifeless arms, she dragged them around her neck. “No,” she cried, “Dad needs you. I need you. With Charley gone, Wendy couldn’t take another loss.”

How close she’d been to not even coming to the office today. Thinking that she might yet be in bed feeling sorry for herself … “Please, Tom. Whenever you think there’s no place to turn, and that nothing can get worse, there’s always hope.” She tried to believe it was true for her and her dad as well.

Slowly, beneath her embrace, she felt Tom come back. First, he inhaled a ragged sob, then another. She held him as tightly as she could, wetting his shirtfront with her tears. “Please, please, stay with all of us,” she begged.