Echoes of Titanic (14 page)

“I don't appreciate being made a fool,” he whispered in return.

“I'm glad you know how that feels, then,” Adele countered. When the waiter walked away, she turned to her uncle, asking, “Were the interest rates sufficient enough for an investment, or does the lower potential for return from the purchase of bonds have you leaning toward stocks instead?”

From Tad's startled expression, it was clear Adele had made her point. To make matters worse, for some reason Rowan seemed quite reluctant to answer her question and quickly changed the subject. An air of discomfort hovered over the rest of their meal, so Jocelyn was thankful when they were done and her father urged them to return to their room to finish packing.

“It's time to check out of the hotel and get on over to
Titanic,
” he said jubilantly as he paid the bill.

While Tad headed to the hotel's lobby to wait for them, Rowan walked to his room on the first floor and the girls started up the staircase to theirs on the third, Jocelyn apologizing to Adele as they went.

“I am so sorry, cousin. It seems I've made a mess of everything.”

“Don't worry about it,” Adele said, surprising Jocelyn with her reply. “I'm glad you did it. Our Mr. Myers deserved exactly what he got in there.”

Then she marched on ahead, her anger showing in the heavy stomp of each step.

K
elsey was dumbfounded. There in the cab next to her sat the woman who was supposed to be far away in Vermont by now. Instead, here she was, acting as if sitting in the back seat of someone else's taxi was the most natural thing in the world.

“What are you doing here?” was all Kelsey could manage to utter.

“If you want to know the truth, I took a gamble and I'm happy to say it paid off.”

Kelsey sputtered, trying to respond. She knew she must have looked and sounded like an idiot at the moment, but she could barely form a coherent thought, much less get that thought into words. She was about to tell the woman to get out when Rhonda spoke to the driver and informed him that he could go. The cab pulled into the traffic and began the long drive uptown.

“See,” Rhonda continued, “I wanted to talk to you, but I was afraid if I called first you would hang up on me, and if I went up and knocked on your door or something, you might even call the police.”

“You better believe it.”

She nodded. “So finally I decided I was just going to wait out in front of your apartment building this morning till you came out and ask you if you wanted to grab some breakfast or something. But then when I got here, I realized a bunch of reporters were already waiting for you. I was afraid they would recognize me—by my hair, you know—and start asking me a bunch of questions, so I knew I couldn't wait there with them. That's when I
took a gamble. I figured you would use the back exit out of your apartment building today. I've been waiting for almost an hour and a half. I was about to give up and go away when I saw a cab pull in at the curb and just sit there. I got in but told him to wait, that we were a party of two. I had a feeling you'd be down any minute. And I was right! You were, and now here we are.”

Her little speech finished, Rhonda let out a contented sigh and settled back against the seat, clasping her hands together over the giant purse she was cradling in her lap. Then she turned and looked over at Kelsey expectantly.

So many emotions were roiling around inside that she didn't even know which one to latch onto. Fear? Anger? Defensiveness? At least this woman didn't come across as unstable—not in comparison to her brother Rupert, anyway.

First things first
, she told herself, trying to calm down and think more clearly. “Why aren't you in Vermont like you're supposed to be?”

Rhonda smiled, looking chagrined. “Well, not to put too fine a line on it, but technically
I
wasn't the one sent away yesterday. Rupert was. I had no intention of leaving.”

“But the limo—”

“Aw, that limo zigzagged around town for a long time first, I guess to make sure nobody was following us. Before they started heading north out of the city, I asked the driver to drop me off at my hotel.”

“So what you're saying,” Kelsey said slowly, “is that you're still here in Manhattan but Rupert is up in Vermont as promised?”

“Exactly. I'm gonna go up there and join him tomorrow. I already got a rental car reserved and everything. But I just couldn't go yesterday. I just couldn't.”

“Because you needed to speak with me first?”

“No, because I saw a Broadway show last night and it was so good that I'm going back to see it again tonight. Plus, our room at the Wilton Plaza is nonrefundable.”

Kelsey didn't know whether to laugh or groan. Taking a deep breath, she looked out the window to gauge their progress.

“Did you say the Wilton Plaza?” Kelsey asked, an idea coming to her. “We'll be going right past there in a little while. We'll drop you off as we do.”

She should have posed it as a question rather than a statement, but she'd
meant her comment to sound just rude enough for the woman to get the point.

To her surprise, however, Rhonda's face lit up. “Why, thank you! That would be real nice. Save me some walking.”

Leaning forward, Kelsey told the driver he needed to make a stop at the Wilton Plaza on their way.

“Okay, lady,” he said, putting on his blinker. “but that's going to take us up Eighth. Heavy traffic this time of day.”

“No, stay on Tenth till you get to Forty-Fourth and then cut over.”

“Fine.”

Settling back in her seat, Kelsey looked over at Rhonda and asked what it was she wanted to talk about.

“Mostly, I just wanted to apologize for my brother's behavior yesterday. That was a real nice ceremony y'all were having and a good speech you were giving. If I had known he was going to disrupt everything like that, I never would have let him go in the auditorium in the first place.”

“Let's start there. Why
was
he at the ceremony? You're both from Florida, right? What are you doing in New York? And how did you even know about the award?”

“The letter,” Rhonda replied. “Rupert got a letter a couple of weeks ago inviting him to come.”

Kelsey stared at her. How was that possible? Who would have knowingly invited these people?

“A letter?” she managed. “From whom?”

Rhonda blinked her long, thick lashes—probably extensions. “We don't know. They didn't sign their name.”

Kelsey swallowed hard. “Do you still have that letter? I'd like to see it.”

“Actually, I might just have it in here.” Rhonda opened her purse, which was almost a tote bag, it was so large—a black, faux-leather sack that seemed to be filled with a jumble of cosmetics, pieces of loose paper, and miscellany.

“See, Rupert's the one who brought it, but I got so tired of seeing him read and reread the thing over and over during the flight that I took it away from him. I believe I shoved it in here…”

As she talked, Rhonda rifled through the bag, reaching into its depths and hauling out handfuls of flotsam and jetsam that she piled onto the seat next to her.

“Wait!” Rhonda pulled out a crumpled envelope, held it up, and squinted
at it. “Yep, here it is.” She extracted the letter, smoothed it on her knee, and handed it to Kelsey. “Now let's see if I can fit all this stuff back in here.”

While Rhonda reloaded her cargo, Kelsey studied the letter. Printed on plain white paper, it read:

As Rhonda had said, there was no signature at the bottom. But whoever wrote it clearly believed that Adele Brennan Tate, a legendary icon of investing, also was a lying impostor.

“May I see that, please?” Kelsey asked, reaching for the rumpled envelope.

“Sure.” Rhonda handed it over and finished loading the last of her things back into her bag.

There was no return address printed on the envelope, but Kelsey studied the postmark, which had been stamped
New York, NY
, on the top,
Mar 17 2012
in the middle, and
10006
at the bottom. It looked like any other letter mailed from Manhattan. The only significant bit of information that the postmark offered was the zip code, which was the same zip code as Brennan & Tate. In any other city in the country, that might not be so significant, but given that there were eight or nine different zip codes in Manhattan's financial district alone, that really narrowed things down. If this letter hadn't been mailed from their office, at the very least it had been sent from somewhere within a five- or ten-block radius of it.

“May I keep this?”

Rhonda frowned. “I'm sorry. I would say yes, but it's not mine to give.”

Kelsey reluctantly tucked the letter inside the envelope and handed it over, though what she really wanted to do was drive to the nearest police station and have them dust both the letter and envelope for finger prints.

“Just do me a favor and don't throw that out,” she said earnestly.

Rhonda assured her that she wouldn't, but the sight of her shoving it back into that disaster of a handbag wasn't exactly comforting.

“So has anyone from Brennan & Tate contacted you or Rupert in any way other than via this letter?”

“Recently? No.” Rhonda was shaking her head when she paused, eyebrows raised. “Wait. There was a message from somebody on my machine at home yesterday.”

“At home?”

“In Florida. They called my house yesterday morning, but we were already on our way here and didn't get it in time. In fact, I didn't even check my messages until just before I went to bed last night. By then, it was too late to do any good anyway.”

“Who was it?” Kelsey asked.

“She didn't leave her name, but it sounded to me like the one who handled things with us the last time.”

Kelsey blinked. “The
last
time?”

“Yeah, when Rupert got himself all worked up and tried to say he wasn't bound by Daddy's agreement. I thought he was wrong, but I let him go ahead
and give it a shot. You never know. I mean, if his theory's right and Adele really was lying, then he and I got a lot of money coming to us. No offense.”

Kelsey was too startled and confused to speak. So many questions pounded in her brain that she couldn't even figure out which one to ask first.

“Anyway,” Rhonda continued, pulling a cell phone from her coat pocket, “I don't think I deleted it. You want me to play it for you?”

“The message from yesterday? Yes, please.”

Rhonda dialed into her voice mail and handed Kelsey the phone. “Just press one and then it'll start.”

Kelsey did as instructed, put the phone to her ear, and listened:

The call ended with the caller leaving her cell phone number, but Kelsey already knew the number the voice was going to say before she said it.

Overcome with a wave of nausea, she handed Rhonda back her phone.

Gloria.