Deception (6 page)

Olivia’s heart began pumping hard. A hundred thousand dollars was indeed a lot of money. With a little restraint, she could make it last well into the spring.

Her throat went dry. What was she thinking? She couldn’t do what he was asking. Rigging bids was illegal. What if she got caught?

On the table, the envelope seemed to grow thicker. Why would she get caught? All she had to do was get into her father’s office when he wasn’t there, look at the bids and call Mulligan. Who would know?

“Olivia?”

“I’ll have to think about it.” She wished she hadn’t answered so quickly. It was never a good idea to let others see how desperate you were, even if they sensed it.

“Good enough.” Mulligan drained his glass. “Meanwhile, you keep the money.”

“I can’t-”

“Sure you can. It ain’t healthy owing money to a casino.” He gave her a heavy wink. “You never know who they might be connected to.”

Was that a casual remark? Or a veiled threat?

Trying to keep her hand steady, Olivia took the envelope and slid it into her purse.

“Call me in the morning.” Mulligan gave her a knowing smile, as if he already knew what her answer would be.

Rising, she gave him a curt nod and walked out of the lounge, feeling the contractor’s gaze cut into her back.

Outside the casino, Olivia, feeling richer than she had in months, handed the valet attendant a five-dollar bill and slid behind the wheel of her black lexus.

Before driving away, she glanced at her reflection in the rearview mirror, and noticed her bloodshot eyes. She’d look like hell in the morning. She always did after a losing spell.

Well, at least now things were looking up. For one thing, her debt to the casino was paid in full. Next time she saw Charles, he would be bending over backward to please her. That was the name of the game in this town. Treated like royalty one day, like a pauper the next.

Her gambling habit had begun innocently enough. A year ago, on a boring Sunday afternoon, a friend had taken her to Atlantic City and taught her how to play roulette. In the first hour, Olivia had won six hundred dollars.

The win had been better than hundred-year-old brandy, better than sex. Money in hand, she had walked to one of the hotel’s numerous gift shops and spent her winnings on a pair of Charles Jourdan shoes.

At first, Olivia had told herself that gambling was amusing, an entertaining pastime she could indulge in when nothing else seemed to excite her.

But after a couple of months, the occasional weekend escapades became more frequent, the stakes increasingly higher, the need to gamble stronger.

She wasn’t sure when the habit had turned into a full-blown obsession. Suddenly, she had found herself in debt to everyone she knew-her mother, her friends, even an old lover or two. Last month, in desperation, she had refinanced her Sutton Place apartment and used the equity to repay some of her debts. Except for her five shares of B&A, which were useless to her at the moment since they couldn’t be sold, and her salary, she was dead broke.

Worried the habit would destroy her financially, she had tried to get help, but the therapy class she had joined was a joke. A dozen misfits sat in a circle, listened to one another’s sob stories and tried to figure out why they were so damn screwed up.

Olivia had lasted two sessions, and all she had learned for her three hundred dollars was that she had zero self-esteem, didn’t trust people and had a deep seated fear of intimacy.

Pressing on the accelerator, she merged smoothly onto the Garden State Parkway. Fear of intimacy, my ass. Was it her fault that she’d never found the right man? That every jerk she met turned out to be either married or unemployed or on coke?

She chuckled bitterly. Could she pick them or what? One loser after another. The story of her life—her private life, anyway.

As the glittering lights of Atlantic City disappeared behind her, she turned the radio to her favorite rhythm-and-blues station and let the soothing music wipe away the tension.

Sometimes the best way to deal with problems was to ignore them.

Jill returned from her mother’s house with even more unanswered questions than she’d had earlier today. Too tired to work on the Church Hill designs, she sank into bed only to realize she was too keyed up to sleep. Hands clasped behind her head, she lay in the dark, trying to piece together a puzzle that was getting more complicated by the minute.

Reflecting on a conversation she’d had with her father back in October, his explanation of why B&A had lost the aquarium commission hadn’t made much sense.

“Jenner wanted a local architect,” he had told her. “Someone who could deal with unexpected problems immediately.”

He had lied. And the big question was why?

A nagging thought, one she had been rejecting all night, wormed its way into her mind again.

Another woman.

Jill shook her head, instantly denying the ugly accusation. Her father was incapable of infidelity. He’d adored his wife, had adored her for thirty-six years.

And yet the thought remained, troublesome, persistent, like a headache that wouldn’t go away.

Jill was still trying to sort through her tangled thoughts when dawn finally crept over the city, long hours later.

Five

“Mom, what a pleasant surprise!”

Smiling, Jill rose from behind her cluttered desk and walked across the spacious, well-appointed office to meet her mother. Amanda had made a valiant effort to pull herself together since her husband’s death, but grief had taken its toll on her beautiful face. Her brown eyes, usually so bright and expressive, had dulled, and an unhealthy pallor clung to her otherwise flawless skin.

Yet there were some encouraging signs, Jill noted as her mother slipped out of her mink coat and draped it over a chair. Her short auburn hair had been recently styled and she had traded her mourning black for pale gray slacks and a white silk blouse.

“Henry said you wanted to see me.” Amanda smiled, something she hadn’t done in over a week. “So, here I am.”

“Mom, you didn’t have to do that. I was planning to stop by the house over my lunch hour.”

“I know.” Amanda laid her gloves on top of her coat. “But I thought it was time I started taking your advice and got out of the house a little. The fresh air will do me good, and so will getting out of Henry’s way.” She rested her gaze on Jill’s desk, piled high with drawings. “Oh, dear, I’ve caught you at a bad time, haven’t I?”

“Don’t worry about it.” Jill took her mother’s hand. “I need a break anyway.”

She led Amanda to an attractive grouping of blue upholstered chairs in front of the large plate-glass window. Below, the views of Central Park and the Woolman ice rink were unobstructed, and as pretty as a Currier and Ives scene.

“Would you like anything? Tea? My secretary should have something halfway decent tucked inside her drawer.”

“Nothing at the moment” Folding her hands on her lap, Amanda gave her daughter a long, scrutinizing look. “Did you want to see me about anything in particular?”

Jill brushed an imaginary speck of lint from her impeccable brown skirt and hesitated. Her mother had made no secret that she didn’t share Jill’s suspicions regarding Simon’s death.

“It’s a ridiculous notion,” Amanda had told her in no uncertain terms. “Give it up, Jill, and let your father rest in peace.”

She wouldn’t be happy to find out that her advice had been ignored.

Jill cleared her throat. “Do you remember that trip Daddy took on October 3?”

Irritation flickered in Amanda’s eyes. “Jill, what is this? Are you playing detective again? I thought you were finished with that nonsense.

Jill decided to ignore the comment “Do you remember that trip?” she repeated.

“Of course I remember it.” Amanda’s voice was laced with impatience. “Your father went to Miami.”

“Is that what he told you?”

“It’s where he went, Jill. You know that as well as I do.”

Jill reached into her pocket, pulled out the airline receipt and handed it to her mother. “Take a look at this

With an annoyed sigh, Amanda took the ticket and studied it for a moment. When she looked up, her face was a shade paler but her voice was steady. “Where did you find this?”

“Mr. Wang returned it. It was in one of the suits Henry brought to the cleaners after Daddy died.”

Amanda’s gaze went back to the ticket. Her hands tightened. “Washington, D.C.?”

“That’s right. He never went to Miami.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes, I do. I called Carl Jenner last night. He told me Daddy called him on the evening of October 2 and canceled their meeting. Daddy said an emergency had come up and he wouldn’t be able to make it.”

“That’s ridiculous. What emergency?”

“I was hoping you could tell me.”

“I’m afraid I can’t.” Amanda’s hand went to her throat and began to massage it gently. “I’m sure it was just a business trip. He may even have mentioned it to me now that I think about it, but you know how forgetful I am about those things.” There was an edge of tension in her voice.

Jill stiffened. Her mother was lying.

That realization left her speechless. Her parents had always been the foundation for everything Jill believed in’ family, love, and above all, trust. That her mother was now lying to her, and in a sense betraying that trust, was both shocking and unsettling.

“Daddy never mentioned knowing anyone in Washington or the vicinity?” she asked at last. “An old friend perhaps? An army buddy?”

“No.” Amanda shook her head firmly. “Never.”

“Yet he went there. And he kept the trip a secret from all of us. Even Cecilia.”

“You told Cecilia about this?”

“Mom, she was his private secretary, possibly the only person he could have told about his change in plans.”

“Did he?”

“No. She was as bewildered as we are.”

Amanda shot Jill a penetrating look. “Jill, where are you going with this?”

“I’m going after the truth. I want to know what happened to my father.”

“We already know what happened.” Amanda took out a lacy white handkerchief from her purse and pressed it delicately to one eye, then the other. “Nothing is going to change that.”

Jill felt a quick wash of guilt. No matter what her mother was hiding, this kind of questioning so soon after Simon’s death was cruel and unnecessary. Whatever mystery existed behind her father’s Washington trip would have to be solved some other way. “I’m sorry, Mom. Please don’t cry.”

After one more quick dab at her eyes, Amanda tucked the handkerchief back into her purse. “Then promise me you’ll-”

Jill’s gaze abruptly shot toward the door.

“What’s the matter?” Amanda asked, following her gaze

“The door.” Jill’s shoulders tensed. She rose and walked quickly across the room. “Didn’t you close it when you came in?”

“Of course I did.”

But the door wasn’t closed now. It was ajar.

A feeling of unease fluttered in Jill’s stomach. Someone had been outside, listening to their conversation.

By the time Jill had reached the door and yanked it open, whoever had been standing outside was gone.

Cathie, Jill’s secretary, had momentarily stepped away from her desk and hadn’t seen anyone on her way back.

Now, as Jill sat in the cab that was taking her home after another long day spent working on the Church Hill project, she couldn’t shake the doubts she’d had all day. Someone had been eavesdropping. But if so, who? A nosy secretary? A lost messenger? Or someone with a darker motive?

At the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Ninth Street, her cab stopped abruptly, the jolt interrupting her thoughts. The avenue was a sea of flashing red and blue lights as police and emergency vehicles blocked traffic in both directions. In the distance, the shrill whine of a siren was growing louder.

The driver turned in his seat. “Street clogged, miss,” he said in a thick Oriental accent. “Sorry.”

“That’s all right.” Jill was already pulling a handful of bills from her purse. “I’ll get out right here.”

“You sure?” He sounded concerned. “Village no place to be late at night.” He glanced at the cracked dashboard clock, which read midnight, and looked back at her, shaking his head.

“I’ll be fine.” She handed him his money, tipping him generously. “I hope you won’t be stuck here too long.” Making her way through the maze of traffic, she lifted her coat collar around her face and started walking briskly away from the bright lights. An arctic wind had pushed the temperature down to the low teens, which accounted for the nearly deserted streets. As she approached Washington Square, she saw two young men in black leaning against a tree, smoking. It wasn’t until she passed them and smelled the sweet, cloying odor that she realized they were smoking a joint.

Their boldness didn’t shock her, or even surprise her. While Greenwich Village was a quirky blend of artists and young professionals during the daylight hours, at night it turned into a haven for over-the-hill hookers, skinheads and other unsavory characters. Fortunately, tonight’s frigid weather had kept most of them at bay.

Ten minutes later she reached MacDougal Street. A lively thoroughfare during the day, the narrow, empty street lay deep in shadows, the storefront windows dark and heavily barred. Two of the three streetlights on her block were still out, which was annoying but hardly surprising. With city funds shrinking more each year, it sometimes took weeks and dozens of irate complaints for the city to change a single lightbulb.

Feeling suddenly uneasy, Jill quickened her step while rummaging through her purse far her keys. Maybe she should have listened to the cabbie’s advice and waited.

She almost sighed with relief when her apartment building came into view.

She was about to unlock the street door when she sensed, rather than heard, a presence behind her.

Her skin prickled with fear. She spun around just in time to see a dark figure leap at her from behind a tall potted evergreen.

Instinct took hold and Jill broke into a run, dropping her purse in the process. She didn’t stop to pick it up. If it was her money the man was after, he was welcome to it.