Double Cross (21 page)
“He could have, but I looked them up on the Internet anyway.”
“What did you find out?”
“They were high fliers until late last year.”
I let my foot fall from the drawer and leaned forward. “What happened then?”
“They went into bankruptcy. The shareholders were wiped out.”
I leaned my head back on my chair and closed my eyes. “So, he knew that you and Simon had a son, and it looks like he had a three-million-dollar investment wiped out.” I opened my eyes and leaned forward with my elbows on the desk. “Mother, how well do you really know your husband?”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE
THE NEXT EVENING KACEY was to meet with the board of trustees of Simon Mason World Ministries to discuss what to do to wind up the ministries’ affairs. Now that Elise and Simon were both gone, the top management of the organization had been wiped out. Even though Kacey had known most of the board members since she was in middle school, she was understandably nervous about attending an actual board meeting. Most of the people on the board were nearly three times her age.
I was sitting in front of the television in the family room when she came in the front door. She took off her tweed jacket and tossed it on the breakfast bar. She had dark circles of sweat under the arms of her light blue blouse.
I stood. “How did it go?”
She plopped onto the couch and kicked off her shoes. “Generally awful. I feel like a used dishrag. How do I look?”
“Not so great. Did you stop somewhere for a swim?” I nodded toward her armpits.
She raised an arm and looked. “Good gosh! I’m glad I kept my jacket on.”
“No one would ever know.”
“Not unless I smell, too.”
I laughed. “Did the sweating begin with your meeting tonight, or your literature final?”
“The final was easy. This is boardroom sweat.”
“They weren’t mean to you, were they? After all, you’re just a college kid.”
“No. In fact, they were very nice. Too nice.”
“What do you mean?”
She got up. “First, I’m starving. Do we have anything for dinner?”
“Didn’t they even feed you?”
“They had a buffet. I was so nervous I couldn’t eat a thing.”
“I made a bunch of those mini pizza bagels. They’re in a bag in the refrigerator. I’ll throw some in the microwave for you.”
“Thanks, but I’ll get them.” She walked around the breakfast bar that separated the kitchen from the family room and opened the refrigerator door.
I watched as she pulled the bag of mini-bagels out of the refrigerator and raked them with her hand from the bag onto a plate. Some of them got caught in the corner of the bag. She shook it, but they still didn’t come out. Her face reddened. She grabbed the bag and tore it, dumping several bagels onto the floor.
“Well, at least you got it open,” I said.
She pursed her lips and bent over to pick up the food.
“Okay, so I can see you’re stressed. What happened? I figured they were going to give you a plaque or something.”
“You’re not going to believe what they asked me!” She tossed several bagels from the floor into the garbage disposal.
I walked over to the breakfast bar and sat on a stool, facing into the kitchen. “What?”
She stuck the plate of bagels into the microwave and punched a few buttons. The microwave hummed. She turned toward me. “They want me to take over Dad’s ministry.”
I leaned back on the stool. “You mean they want you to wind up the business affairs?”
She shook her head. “No, they want me to take over. They want me to become a preacher. You know, sort of the next generation of the Mason dynasty.”
My face must have registered my surprise, because she said, “Yeah, that was my reaction, exactly.”
“But you don’t have any experience preaching.”
“They said there are people who can coach me. They would bring in a senior pastor for a while to help me transition into it. Everyone kept talking about my press conference after the kidnapping. Name recognition—that’s what they kept bringing up.”
They had a point. She had captivated a worldwide television audience during that press conference. “I can’t say that I blame them. You were pretty spectacular.”
“Knock it off, Taylor.”
“No, really. You know you were great. Everyone said so.”
“There’s a difference between answering a few questions outside a hospital and standing on a stage in front of fifteen thousand people.”
“Yes, there is, but you could handle it. And, as they said, you’ve already got the name recognition. That’s eighty percent of the deal. The more I think about this, the more I think it’s not a bad idea. It’s been done before, you know. How about that guy down in Houston? He took over for his dad, and he hadn’t ever preached before. Now he’s huge.”
“I don’t want to be a preacher.”
“Then don’t. They can’t make you.”
She turned on the faucet and washed her hands. Then she picked up a dish towel and dried them. “I know. But if I don’t do it, I’ll feel guilty.”
“Why would you feel guilty?”
“It’s a chance to do something big, something for God. Something like Dad did. And God is just dropping it in my lap. It’s like I’m looking God in the eye and saying no.”
“How do you know God is dropping this in your lap? Just because it’s the board of directors’ plan doesn’t mean it’s God’s plan.” I was really out of my element at this point. As my recent behavior could attest, no one knew less about God’s plans than I did; but she needed support, and it was the first thing that popped into my mind.
The microwave beeped. Kacey turned away from me, opened the door, and took out the plate of bagels. When she turned back to me, she stood for a moment, holding the plate of bagels in front of her with both hands. Then she did something that was long overdue considering all that she had been through. She began to cry. Unlike when she was with me in the hospital, this time she wasn’t crying for someone else. She was crying for herself.
I hurried around the breakfast bar and put my arm around her shoulder. “It’s okay, Kace. You don’t have to do what they want you to do. It’s your decision, not theirs.”
She put the plate down on the island and wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “It’s not about that.” A black streak of mascara ran like a gash from one eye down her cheek. She pressed a palm against the side of her head. In a voice that was higher, more childlike than I had ever heard from her, she said, “Why did this happen to us? Dad and I never did anything to anybody.”
I pulled her toward me and hugged her.
“I miss him so much,” she said. “I just want him to come back. What am I going to do?”
With her head on my shoulder, I wiped my eyes with my good hand. “It just happened, Kace. You didn’t do anything. It just happened.” I should have had something better to say; something a real sister would have said; something that mattered. But I didn’t, so I just held her.
After a few seconds she pulled back. “We both know why it happened, and Dad knew it, too. If it hadn’t been for me, he would still be alive.” She put her head back on my shoulder. I could feel her shaking.
I ran my hand through her hair. “You didn’t kidnap anyone, and you didn’t present your father with an impossible choice. They did that. They were evil men.”
“Then why are they still alive while he’s dead? Why do they still have families, and you and I are alone? Why do they get to win?”
I stroked her head. “I don’t know, baby, I don’t know.” I didn’t even bother trying to keep myself from crying. She was right. We were alone, and it wasn’t our fault.
We needed to cry. We had earned the right. We stood there with our shoulders heaving, and I was glad—glad that she was able to cry, that she was finally letting it out.
I remembered how Simon had asked me to take care of her, and I remembered why he had died. And I realized that it all worked together. At that moment, as Kacey and I held onto each other in the middle of the kitchen, I knew that I loved her so much I would do anything, even die, to protect her.
Though I had not spent much time thanking God in my life, I silently thanked him—thanked him for putting me there in that room with Kacey. He had given me something I’d never experienced, something both Simon and Dad had.
He had given me something worth dying for.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
WITH AS MUCH TIME as I’d spent with Simon and Kacey during the previous nine months, it was sometimes difficult for me to remember that I owned and operated a full-time security business that had clients other than Simon Mason World Ministries. In fact, I had lost a few of those clients through lack of attention. I’d already decided that one of my resolutions for the coming year would be to get back to business and mend some fences with my client base. The afternoon after my visit to Mom’s house, I got a head start on that resolution by meeting a client for lunch at Chili’s.
He was one of my favorites—a guy with a quick sense of humor, lots of money, and little real need for the level of security services he asked my company to provide. In some ways I think he just liked the idea of being important enough to require security. He’d always been a drinker, and he played to a caricature. We hadn’t been in our seats for two minutes before his gelatinous cheeks were so flushed they practically glowed as he motioned urgently for a waitress. Before long he was scratching his round nose between sips of his vodka martini. “These Dallas allergies are killing me. Vodka seems to help.”
I laughed. “I’ve never heard that one. Whatever happened to Benadryl?” I stared longingly at his martini, but when the waitress asked if I was going to have one, too, I waved her off.
He nodded at my splinted finger. “Does it still hurt?”
“It comes and goes. I’m fine.”
“You’re a tough one, Taylor. I like that.”
“Believe me, I’m not so tough.”
“Well, I have been wondering why you haven’t stopped any bullets for me. I was one of your first clients, wasn’t I? Don’t I rate?”
I smiled. “Hank, the security we provide for you is so good that no one would dare try to take a shot at you.”
He lifted his glass. “Well said.” He downed the martini and motioned to the waitress for another. “What about your side? That’s where you got shot, isn’t it?”
I touched the spot just above my hip. “It’s funny, but that part’s been no big deal. Every once in a while it burns a little, but that’s about it. It’s practically healed.”
He looked up at the waitress, who set his fresh drink down beside him. “Thank you kindly, darlin’.” He winked at her.
She pretended not to notice and wiped some water off the edge of the table with a cloth that she pulled from her back pocket. “Do you want to hear the specials?”
“Do you know them all by heart? You must be a smart one.” He gave her a wobbly smile that exposed the whitest teeth money could buy. Hank was a good guy, and completely harmless, but at this point it was obvious he was completely creeping the waitress out.
“I think we know what we want,” I said. The waitress gave me a grateful look.
After we ordered, I folded my arms on the table. “I haven’t talked to you for a while. I just wanted to check in and make sure we’re giving you good service.”
He rubbed a thick finger along the side of his nose. “Everything’s fine, just fine. I wouldn’t mind seeing a little bit more of you, though. Your people are good, but they’re not Taylor Pasbury.”
I’d always had a hunch that Hank had a crush on me, despite being at least twice my age and having been married for nearly forty years. I had never encouraged it, but it certainly didn’t hurt when it came to ensuring client loyalty. “I’ll tell you what. You’ve got that awards dinner coming up in January. How about if I handle that one for you myself?”
He took a gulp of his martini. “That would be great.”
I pointed to the half-empty martini glass. “I’ll do the driving, too.”
He chuckled. “You know me too well.”
As I sat there dreading the prospect of spending an entire evening with a sauced Hank, I heard my phone vibrating in my purse. I pulled it out and checked the number. Katie Parst.
“Hank, would you mind if I take this one? It’s a reporter from the
Morning News.”
Morning News.”
“Ah, your public. I understand. It must be tough being America’s pin-up security girl.”
I gave him a mock scowl as I got up. “I’ll be right back.” I hit the button on the phone and walked toward the front of the restaurant. “Katie? What do you know?”
“I saw the list, and I owe you an apology. Simon isn’t on it.”
I sighed. “I told you.”
“I know, I know. I didn’t have a single good reason to think that he was. Reporters aren’t supposed to act stupid like that.”
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